Chocula. If not Lucky Charms, King Vitaman, or Space Food Sticks. Or Cocoa Puffs. They could have bottled Cocoa Puff chocolate milk as its own product. Which I would've happily consumed if we didn't already have Carnation Instant Breakfast (in the 3 flavor variety pack). No protein for breakfast but man there were a lotta carbs around.
Pufnstuf and Lidsville were drug trips, plain and simple. I don't think there's been anything as inexplicable and psychedelic since, at least until the Boobahs came along for the preschool set. Not sure I could even sit thru a Pufnstuf episode now.
Yes, Space Food Sticks! We had all sorts of 70's "convenience" foods around, from frozen dinners to Space Food Sticks and Carnation Breakfast Squares; the latter of which were sort of a dry, cakey civilian MRE, and apparently such an obscure product that I can't point to a decent online image of the box (they are not the breakfast 'bars' of the 80s). Being a Cinci kid, of course we had P&G's Pringles in house too. Modernist food was fab back in the 70s.
HR Pufnstuf and Banana Splits represents this odd moment in time when 1960s counterculture suddenly invaded Saturday morning TV. It was really about the mainstreaming and profiting of the counterculture by courageous, visionary ad men who weren't going to let the fear tactics of the Nixon/Agnew adminstration hold them back!
As for Sid and Marty Kroft, it matters less what was in their medicine cabinets as than how high they held up their fingers once the winds of change began to blow. Lest we forget, a few years after Pufnstuf went off the air, they were busy producing the The Donny and Marie Show.
16 comments:
oh my god, YES!!!!! i grew up on these shows. i think it made me the weirdo i am today.
Count Chocula or Frankenberry?
HA!
Chocula. If not Lucky Charms, King Vitaman, or Space Food Sticks. Or Cocoa Puffs. They could have bottled Cocoa Puff chocolate milk as its own product. Which I would've happily consumed if we didn't already have Carnation Instant Breakfast (in the 3 flavor variety pack). No protein for breakfast but man there were a lotta carbs around.
Pufnstuf and Lidsville were drug trips, plain and simple. I don't think there's been anything as inexplicable and psychedelic since, at least until the Boobahs came along for the preschool set. Not sure I could even sit thru a Pufnstuf episode now.
That Banana Splits sequence was shot at Coney Island in Cinci, if I'm not mistaken. Now THAT is going way back.
SPACE FOOD STICKS?
Danger, Will Robinson!
Yes, Space Food Sticks! We had all sorts of 70's "convenience" foods around, from frozen dinners to Space Food Sticks and Carnation Breakfast Squares; the latter of which were sort of a dry, cakey civilian MRE, and apparently such an obscure product that I can't point to a decent online image of the box (they are not the breakfast 'bars' of the 80s). Being a Cinci kid, of course we had P&G's Pringles in house too. Modernist food was fab back in the 70s.
My bad, the breakfast squares were General Mills. http://www.flickr.com/photos/29884868@N04/2999975591/
Back to Chocula though, I think we had every flavor at some point, Booberry, the pink stuff. Maybe not Fruit Brute (the ill-fated Wolfman flavor).
Sid and Marty Kroft. WHAT the hell was in their medicine cabinet?
As an adult I also loved these shows...
I have the Banana Splits CD, it's actually really awesome. There's a song about sitting in hot tubs with ladies in New Orleans.
I actually do remember Space Food Sticks. God, they were weird, some sort of extruded protein/sugar paste.
And now I am (of course) trying to find the Banana Splits CD.
"Fleagle, Dreegle, Drooper and Snork"...how did I do?
MR
WOW...WV..."teetinat"....as in, "excuse me Miss, is there or is there not a teet in at sweater...?
Fruity Pebbles and Quisp!!!
HR Pufnstuf and Banana Splits represents this odd moment in time when 1960s counterculture suddenly invaded Saturday morning TV. It was really about the mainstreaming and profiting of the counterculture by courageous, visionary ad men who weren't going to let the fear tactics of the Nixon/Agnew adminstration hold them back!
As for Sid and Marty Kroft, it matters less what was in their medicine cabinets as than how high they held up their fingers once the winds of change began to blow. Lest we forget, a few years after Pufnstuf went off the air, they were busy producing the The Donny and Marie Show.
Brilliant observation, Kirk, and so damn lamentable.
I watched all those as a kid. But I now have to wonder how much acid went into the making of HR Puffenstuff and Lidsville.
'Twere the sixties and early seventies, yanno?
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