Individual and Community

stolen from http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com who stole it from THe CHicago Times or some such …

Hollywood is often described as a dream factory, but really it’s just as often a salvage yard. Anxious studio executives would rather bet their $100m budgets on nostalgia instead of new ideas, which is why, against all odds, Sid and Marty Krofft are back in business.

The Krofft brothers, both now in their 70s, have a showbiz story that dates to the final days of vaudeville. But for children of the Nixon years, their name is the brand behind some of the strangest TV programming of the era, shows such as H.R. Pufnstuf, Lidsville, Land of the Lost and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.

Those low-budget shows had actors in rubber costumes, fluorescent puppets and psychedelic sets that were hopelessly dated by the 1980s, and, by the end of that decade, the same could be said of the Kroffts. Today, though, thanks to the Hollywood appetite for all things kitschy and high-concept, the Kroffts are poised for the biggest payday of their career — unless, of course, they strangle each other first. “Things did get lean, but we never gave up,” said Sid, 78, the smiling, soft-spoken dreamer of the two.

His brother, sitting next to him at their Los Angeles office, rolled his eyes. “We? I wouldn’t let you give up,” snapped Marty, still the dealmaker at 71. “I wouldn’t let us sell the rights to our old shows. That is why we are where we are today.”
Read the rest of this entry »