Sid Krofft, the Canadian-born puppeteer and television visionary who partnered with his younger brother Marty to build one of the most distinctive creative empires in the history of children’s television, died Friday at the Los Angeles home of his friend and business partner Kelly Killian. He was 96. Marty had died in November 2023 at age 86. With Sid’s passing, an era ends completely.
Together, the Krofft brothers created a body of work that was impossible to categorize and impossible to forget. H.R. Pufnstuf, The Bugaloos, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Land of the Lost, Lidsville — these weren’t just Saturday morning shows. They were full worlds, built from scratch with big-headed puppets, psychedelic colour, low-budget ingenuity, and a genuine creative recklessness that network television has never quite replicated. The shows ran for short original broadcast runs and then lived for decades in reruns, burrowing into the memories of every kid who watched them. H.R. Pufnstuf alone ranked 27th in a 2007 TV Guide poll of all-time cult favorites.
The brothers always denied the obvious question. “You can’t do a show stoned,” Marty told The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re bizarre, that’s all.” Bizarre was the right word, and it was always meant as a compliment. Their shows had an edge that Disney never touched, vivid and slightly unsettling in ways that kids couldn’t name but absolutely felt. The Beatles reportedly requested full tape sets of Pufnstuf episodes. McDonald’s copied their aesthetic so directly for McDonaldland that the Kroffts sued, winning a reported seven-figure settlement in 1977.
Sid was the dreamer. Marty was the one who made the dreams survivable. “I get a dream, and Marty gets it done,” Sid said in a 2000 TV Academy Foundation interview. That division worked for decades. Sid was performing at clubs in New York by age 15, working for Ringling Bros. by 20, and running a wildly popular adults-only burlesque puppet show, Les Poupées de Paris, by the early 1960s. That show drew an estimated 9.5 million viewers in its first decade and played world’s fairs in Seattle, New York, and San Antonio. Richard Nixon attended during his presidential run. Shirley MacLaine was at opening night.
When NBC recruited them to design costumes for The Banana Splits Adventure Hour in 1968, the Krofft era of television had effectively begun. H.R. Pufnstuf followed in 1969, running 17 episodes before NBC’s low rights offer ended the run. The show outlasted that cancellation by generations. Their variety work, including The Donny & Marie Show, The Brady Bunch Hour, and Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters, showed they could work across formats. As recently as 2015, Mutt & Stuff was a genuine hit on Nickelodeon, proving the Krofft sensibility hadn’t aged out of anything.
In 2018, the brothers received a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2020, they were honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Sid had been working on two books at the time of his death, one from his perspective as a performer, one from behind the scenes.
“I loved Sid with my whole heart,” Killian said. “He taught me more than I could ever put into words, about the art of Hollywood, the magic of the stage, and the depth and complexity of human nature. I wish so very much that I had more time with him.”
Survivors include his three nieces, Marty’s daughters Deanna, Kristina, and Kendra.