Sigmund the Sea Monster

It seems that lately there's been a lot of threads about the various Sid and Marty Krofft series, so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and start a thread about my favorite Krofft series: "Sigmund and the Sea Monster". The basis is pretty simple: Two groovy 70's teenagers (one of whom was played by Johnny Whitaker of Family Affair) befriend a sea monster named Sigmund (played by dwarf actor Billy Barty).

What I loved about the show was that it was Sid and Marty's only series to be primarily geared towards only young children. Obviously there's nothing wrong with stirring in some adult humor, but it's still refreshing to have what's in essence a children's show have children as the core audience. Also, it was the Krofft's most 'non-gimmicky' series: minimum visual effects and muted color palates. You would never watch it and think "Oh, this is by the same people who created Pufnstuf"; it's much more a product of the time period than the people who made it. So, who else loves Sigmund?

As a big Sid & Marty Krofft fan, I can say that I agree, this was one of their better shows.

In addition to the reasons you mentioned, one of the things that makes this show of theirs stand out is the fact that unlike most of their other shows, this one actually takes place in the real world, for the most part... Pufnstuf, Bugaloos, Land of the Lost, etc, all take place in fantasy settings and fictional locales, but this one on the other hand takes place in the human world, but it does also switch back and forth between the Stuart household, and Ooze family cave (which is a fantasy location, though it too is technically set in the real world). As far as "adult humor" goes, it should be noted that Big Daddy and Sweet Mama were lifted from Archie and Edith Bunker.

It was also their first show to last for more than one season: since their budget problems had improved by then, the Kroffts were able to produce a second season for Sigmund, though I have never gotten to see it yet, as there have been no official DVD releases on the second season yet, and there don't seem to be any episodes on YouTube or other sites, though the main and end titles from that season have been posted, and as it turns out, Rip Taylor is a regular of that season as a Sea Genie. Also, apparently Fran Ryan (the second Mrs. Ziffel from Green Acres) replaces Mary Wickes as the housekeeper, and she's apparently a former lady drill sergeant.

That brings to mind something that's been tickling my brain a little lately... does anyone besides me think Sid & Marty Krofft were slightly "anti-parent"? With the exception of Rick Marshall, there's really no parents in any of their shows... from Pufnstuf, Jimmy only mentions his father once in the movie (he had a job transfer from England, which is why he was living in America); from The Lost Saucer, the boy Jerry was being watched by his annoying babysitter Alice; and just where in the world were Johnny and Scott's parents gone for so long that they needed two different housekeepers?

One other thing that was great about Sigmund was better use of the laugh track, they didn't just have the standard laughs that you heard on every other comedy series back in the 60s and 70s, but they also used some "Oooh"s whenever trouble was starting to happen... afterwards, all the other Krofft shows really abused the laugh track by using the big reactions (outbursts, guffaws, belly laughs) almost exclusively, even when something wasn't THAT funny (but then again, it was common practice to do that for Saturday Morning shows, figuring kids wouldn't pay as much attention to the fact that the same laughs are being used over and over again).

So yeah, this was certainly one of their better shows. After Land of the Lost, their shows just kept getting weaker and weaker, with cheesier plots and premises, and rather poor acting as well (anyone ever seen their Supershow? It's almost painful to watch the acting is so bad). From what I understand, a Sigmund movie (along with a new Pufnstuf movie) is supposed to be in the works right now, I think, IIRC, with DreamWorks, and Conrad Vernon directing... I hope Sid & Marty were sincere when they said they learned their lesson from that TERRIBLE LOTL movie with Will Ferrell.

I don't know if they're still doing that or it's in the conceptual stage. If it's a fully animated movie, I don't think they've even listed it yet... they have 6 more movies from now till 2014 (not counting the just released Madagascar 3). Still, I think it's safe to say it won't be LOTL style. I'd see it drawing similarities between the Casper movie from 1995 (from my basic understanding of the series), but not that one.

LOTL was basically made entirely out of the sarcastic ironic humor that worked for The Brady Bunch film and sort of but not quite for Scooby-Doo (relatively speaking, of course. I hate Brady bunch with a passion and refuse to see even a movie making fun of them). It could have been a hit with college age kids if the film was made 10 years earlier when people gave a crap about 1970's nostalgia, AND when that humor was relevant. But poorly written films that have to subside on Will Ferrel running around like an idiot for humor (rather than smartly written pieces where Will Ferrel gets to make a command performance, like The Good Guys, Megamind, and that one where his life is being narrated which name escapes me at the moment) just don't work and make the bulk of his work suffer for it.

I'd hope that Dreamworks would stay away from making sarcastic, ironic jokes about how "goofy" the show was, and actually find a way to do a service to, and even improve on concepts of the source material. Unless no one learned a lesson from LOTL being an epic failure. Which they probably won't.

I think the Brady Bunch movies both did an excellent job with their satire of a retro show and how society relates to it now. Ironically the first film also ended up being quite the time capsule for '90s culture as well, lol.

Scooby Doo had its moments but couldn't find the right balance between satire and silly kiddie movie plot.

The Adams Family films are one of very few examples of a franchise improving on the source material and really creating a rich, vibrant universe.

My biased for Bradys aside. I really don't see the appeal. I'm a Get Smart man... and I liked that movie as well, though Steve Carell seems to be the only one aware of the concept of the original series, being a Don Adams fan.

Scooby-Doo tried too hard to be a satire, and basically cracked jokes we were already cracking. Shaggy being a stoner, Velma's androgyny, Scrappy sucking at life... I agree... the balance was thrown off. Plus, they clearly based Fred and Daphne off their A Pup Named Scooby-Doo counterparts, rather than their more competant teenage selves. And that's no coincidence. The writers referenced Pup several times in the 2 movies. The second one did much better, actually referencing the old show in specifics instead of just goofing on the characters. Though I do like how the movie Shaggy is the official voice of Shaggy now. Scott Menville's was too whiny.

Well I can't entirely blame them for that. Fred and Daphne were both pretty bland in the original cartoon, lol.

From what I've read, after the end of the first season, there was a fire at the studio where the show was taped. Nobody was hurt, but a lot of the sets and costumes were destroyed, so they had to start everything from scratch again, resulting in the changes for the next season.

The fire happened after they were already in production, the changes were already made. Sheldon and his nephew were added for goofyness I guess, and I think with the housekeeper/nanny, they wanted more of a challenge to keep the secret. Zelda just wasn't paying that much attention to what was going on I guess...

I have the complete series on DVD (fan-made, bought it from a convention in NY many years ago), one thing I never could understand is why they changed the Sigmund costume as much as they did. It just did not have the same great kooky look of the original. All these years later, looking back, I wonder if they were trying to make Sigmund appear as getting "older" as the others stars were getting older as well?

I just found this interview with John(ny) Whitaker and Marty Krofft on YouTube, they do touch up on Sigmund, but they mostly talk about child actors and children's entertainment in general.



It's interesting whenever they mention how much Charles Nelson-Reilly hated doing Lidsville, considering he did another trippy Saturday Morning show in the 70s, Uncle Croc's Block.

Someone (besides me) on this sight knows quite a bit about it. There are some spotty uploads of short live action footage online.

And here is some info on one of the recurring animated shorts from the show, M-U-S-H, which also has some short clips...

http://www.mash4077tv.com/articles/mush/

The thing that bugs me about M*U*S*H* is that I've found the other 2 cartoon segments of Uncle Croc, Fraidy Cat and Wacky and Packy, on those generic, cheap DVD's. But M*u*S*H* is always suspiciously absent.

Actually, if you can find a Mill Creek released 500 cartoons compilations, one of the sets has Fraidy Cat cartoons. I'm not sure if it shares the same set as the one that has Hoppity Hooper on it. I have to get that one when I can.

I'm not sure, but I don't believe M-U-S-H lasted the entire run of the show, I think it was later replaced or dropped when they reformatted the show from like an hour or 90 minutes an episode to a half-hour.

From what I understood, the fire happened at the Samuel Goldwyn Studios (which also burned down the set of the New Zoo Revue, another 70's kiddie show).
One of the firefighters who showed up was Steve McQueen, who was in costume as the fire chief shooting The Towering Inferno over at 20th Century Fox. Steve's comment on the goings-on, "My wife's not gonna believe this!"

Can I just say that I really love the LOTL movie? It's the first movie where Will Ferrell finds the right balance between lovable jerk and Anchorman-type jerk. Plus, anything Danny McBride touches is magical.

Ten minutes was all I could handle of that movie, afterwards, I had to turn it off, it was that painful to watch... and yes, I actually blame Will Ferrell for it.

It's amazing though, this is like the third or fourth movie I've heard about where the people behind it were originally wanting Jim Carrey, but he was unavailable to do it, so they got Will Ferrell instead... seriously, I know both Elf and Bewitched were two other movies where they wanted Carrey but got Ferrell instead, and I'm pretty sure there's a couple of others, there must be some kind of curse out there or something.

Speaking of LOTL, there hasn't been much talk in this thread about the rebooted LOTL series from the 90's that used to be on Nickelodeon. I used to watch it all the time; I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

I've never been able to catch a whole lot of the Kroffts' later-period shows, let alone any of the 90s version of LOTL, so I really don't know much about it... was a continuation from the 70s series, or did it include an entirely new cast of characters altogether? I do seem to recall reading this one of the rare occasions where the Kroffts actually outsourced their puppets/animatronics/costumes/etc rather than build them all in-house (I believe the Chiodo Bros. were responsible for the creatures in the 90s version),

It was basically a re-hash of the 70's series and only retained the Marshalls and Chaka (who was re-named Stink). The only new character was a young female dinosaur about the same age and height as Holly; she was named after Will and Holly's mother.