Kroffts still pulling the strings

LOS ANGELES -- Hollywood is often described as a dream factory, but it's just as often a salvage yard. Anxious studio executives would rather bet their $100 million 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."

And where they are isn't a bad place to be. Universal Pictures has just finished principal photography on a $100 million adaptation of "Land of the Lost," the mid-1970s Krofft show about a family stranded in a jungle teeming with dinosaurs and hissing reptile-men called Sleestaks. The remake is a comedy starring Will Ferrell, and Universal has circled it as its big popcorn movie for summer 2009. The Kroffts -- who spoke about the franchise at the Comic-Con gathering in San Diego in front of 6,000-plus fans -- will get a percentage of the profits and make a mint from licensing deals.

The Kroffts, however, are bickering all the way to the bank, which is no surprise.

"To hear Marty talk, I've never worked a single day," said Sid, who at age 15 joined the Ringling Brothers circus as a puppeteer and proved so adept that he would go on to become an opening act for the Andrews Sisters, Judy Garland and Cyd Charisse. Marty had joined the act by the late 1950s, and from then on the two puppeteers were locked in a contest to prove who was really pulling the strings. Sid was the creative force, but Marty was the one who made sure the act actually made it to the stage.

"Oh, I've earned my pay, believe me," Marty said. "It's not easy for two brothers to work together."

In 1961, they premiered an adults-only puppet show, "Les Poupees de Paris," at a dinner club in Los Angeles called the Gilded Rafters. Mae West, Richard Nixon and Liberace were in the audience on opening night. Johnny Carson caught a performance and deadpanned that it was the only performance he had ever seen by "naughty pine."

The Kroffts began renting out their puppet and production savvy. They designed stage productions for fairs and amusement parks, took corporate work from Ford and Coca-Cola and did some work for Walt Disney as well. Marty had crossed paths with the entertainment icon in 1959; he was at the Polo Lounge having drinks with Cyd Charisse when Disney stopped by to chat and gave him a bit of advice.

As Marty remembers it: "He told me, 'The one thing to remember is don't ever sell anything you create and always put your name above the title, whatever you do. They'll fight you off from doing it, but stick to it.' " Plenty of people approached the Kroffts about buying their library, usually at fire-sale prices. They said no to every offer, even one from Michael Jackson.

The movie adaptation of "Land of the Lost" looks like the last great hurrah for the Kroffts, but if you listen to the relentless pitch of Marty, the windfall is just the beginning.

The brothers say they have a former writer for "The Simpsons" working on a script for "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters." A movie could be a sort of meld of "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" and "Splash," the Kroffts hope.

Most of all, the brothers would love to make a feature film out of "H.R. Pufnstuf," the show Sid describes as "our first baby." After watching Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," Marty knows who he wants to see wearing the witch's crooked nose. "How great would Johnny Depp be as Witchiepoo?''