Word: pufnstuf
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...former child actor who starred as the Artful Dodger in the 1968 film Oliver!; of mouth cancer; in London. Wild's impish charms won him an Oscar nomination for his part in the Dickens adaptation and earned him a starring role in the surreal U.S. kids' TV show H.R. Pufnstuf in 1969. But adult acting roles dried up as he struggled with alcoholism in later years. After giving up drinking in the 1980s, Wild appeared in a series of bit parts, including a supporting role in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves...
...releases of old TV shows promise to create a generation of videasts. And it's not just a handful of hits that benefit. Rhino Home Video, for instance, offers cult classics ranging from Chris Elliott's slacker sitcom Get a Life to the trippy '60s kids' show H.R. Pufnstuf (the DVD versions offer videophile gimmicks like being able to turn off Life's laugh track). This is a material world: if you convert an evanescent work into something tangible, shelvable, revisitable and Christmas-giftable, we respect it better. Says Robert Thompson, professor and head of the Center for the Study...
...those angles have worked out. A comedy they hoped to produce last year about pioneering sex researcher Alfred Kinsey fell apart during the development process. A film about disco icons the Village People derailed when they couldn't obtain creative control. An homage to the kid-show character H.R. Pufnstuf came close to being produced several times but still hasn't been made. And then there are the dozens of off-center biopic ideas that people are continually bringing them--baseball manager Billy Martin, TV preacher Gene Scott, sideshow freak Johnny Eck, pin-up girl Bettie Page...
...Pufnstuf and The Bugaloos (NBC) represent a vigorous attempt to utilize the freedom of cartoons, the whimsy of puppets and real actors. Heavily costumed, a group of slapsticians carom off each other, accompanied by raucous witches. The shows are uneven, but their comedy is genuine. The producers, Sid and Marty Krofft, are fifth-generation puppeteers whose initial success was the spicy adult show Poupées de Paris. Today several Krofft troupes tour the country. Claims Sid Krofft: "We were an adults-only show, and when the whole world went tits, we decided to go back to children...
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