bkoganbing I find it hard to believe that H.R. Pufnstuf only had a 17 episode run. It seemed like it was in syndication for years on Saturday morning.Sid and Marty Kroft were geniuses and Pufnstuf was a great creation, maybe their greatest. The premise was young Jack Wild got into a boat with his talking magic flute Freddie. It was all part of a nefarious scheme by the resident villain Witchiepoo to gain the flute. And after Pufnstuf rescues Wild and gives him sanctuary every week we were treated to Witchiepoo's latest schemes to obtain Freddie and how Pufnstuf and Wild foiled them each week. Witchiepoo and Hamilton Burger had a lot in common.For adults I found it interesting that the various characters on Living Island seemed to resemble TV and film personalities. Billie Hayes was hilarious as Witchiepoo and she followed in the great tradition of Margaret Hamilton. Dr. Blinky sounded like Ed Wynn, who else would play the West Wind but a John Wayne imitator, and Ludicrous Lion sounded like WC Fields.As for Pufnstuf, his was the familiar television voice of an Andy Griffith soundalike. Made it a bit fun for an older generation who knew who these folks were.Great children's entertainment

ertai_wizard632000 as children we grew up on this program. the music and themes were great but hey what did we know we were children. i can still sing the h r puffenstuff song 35 years later. all i remember is that we waited every for every Saturday morning to see this program. i never understood the drug reference til i got a lot older. The show followed a little boy with a magic flute that could talk. witchiepoo was always trying to trap the little boy and steal his flute and she actually did capture him a couple of times but hr puffenstuf saved the day. h r puffenstuff looked like mayor mc cheese and looked like something out of the muppets rather then Saturday morning animation. this guy could have easily done a cameo on the muppets. The show was cheesy however most of the shows for that time period were pretty cheesy but it was junk food for the brain. we simply have to say thanks to Sid and Marty kroft for a great show because it did keep us occupied on those cold Saturday mornings

Jordan_Haelend I've seen this on tape and I think it's really great! It's surreal and funny, and any kid who ever had an imaginary playmate would enjoy it.The people who created this series were obviously given quite a bit of leeway and let their imaginations run (pardon the pun) Wild.

rmikec This show, and many other Krofft programs (i.e. Lidsville and Land of the Lost), scared the hell out of me. In 1979 HR was deep in syndication, but that didn't stop a 4 year old from finding it. You'd sit down and watch, allured by the surreality, the "stranger in a strange land" themes and the larger than life puppet-like characters. You'd expect a benign Sesame Street-like program full of soft freindly characters. But in the land of Krofft all things are slightly twisted, mysterious, surreal. Just look at the expressions they've sewn into the faces of the characters. Dark man, dark. You'd be a little tense for the first 15 minutes, but then Freddy the Flute would bite Witchiepoo on the finger or some hitherto inanimate object would turn around and talk and freak the hell out of you, push you right over the cliff into full throttle terror... I remember crying hysterically and trying explain to my grandmother the freaky stuff that just went down on TV. She probably thought I was crazy. This stuff permeated my dreams and nightmares for years. I deeply repressed all things Krofft and then around age 20 learned that this show actually existed. Boy was I relieved, I hadn't made it all up. Absolutely priceless program, I've got some on tape. Remember the sleestak? Enik? Chaka? That's a whole nother source of Freudian terror.