Marty Krofft, the younger of the two brothers who formed the creative team of Sid and Marty Krofft, died Saturday at the age of 86 — a day of the week with whose morning his work will always be synonymous.
Although the Kroffts’ great decade was the 1970s, Marty kept working his whole life, going to the office, floating new projects and bringing some to fruition because, he liked to say, retirement would kill him. “We got some plans that are great that we can’t share today,” he said a couple of years back during one of his “Mondays With Marty Krofft” YouTube videos (a sort of sequel to his brother’s Instagram Live show, “Sundays With Sid”). “I’m 120 years old and I’m still getting shows on the air — so don’t mess with me.”
Fortunately, there has always been an appetite, if not always for new Krofft content, then for the old content, re-released or reimagined, and for the Kroffts themselves, who left a permanent mark on a generation of young Americans with shows such as “H.R. Pufnstuf,” “Lidsville” and “The Bugaloos”: high-concept puppets-and-people shows set in fanciful lands among remarkable creatures — a dragon mayor, anthropomorphic hats, a British pop band whose members were insects, sort of.
One or both of the brothers were regular presences at the San Diego Comic-Con and other such conventions around the country; last year saw the first, and perhaps not the last, dedicated Krofft Kon. Their last big show, “Mutt & Stuff” for Nick Jr., featuring a human host, a pack of real dogs and puppets of varying sizes, was their first geared to a preschool audience, and also their biggest, if reckoned by the number of episodes. The young adults of the 2030s may recall it fondly.