Decades after the creative world of Sid and Marty Krofft was first unleashed with H.R. Pufnstuf, the Kroffts are again entertaining young people with a new series, Mutt & Stuff, which airs weekdays at 10 a.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon.
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Mutt & Stuff is set in a unique school for dogs and stars Calvin Millan and his dad, Cesar, the “dog whisperer” star of Cesar 911, alongside a cast made up of real dogs as well as puppets. The show has been a success for Nick, ranking as the number-one preschool show in its time period. One of the stars of the new series is “Stuff,” a character who looks a bit like the classic Krofft creation H.R. Pufnstuf, and there’s a reason for that — Pufnstuf is his uncle.
Next week, Nickelodeon will be airing a special episode of Mutt & Stuff titled “H.R. Pufnstuf Comes to Mutt & Stuff,” in which Stuff’s favorite uncle comes to visit him at the canine school, bringing his friends from Living Island with him. When they arrive, Stuff goes overboard to try to impress him and make sure everything is perfect.
When Mutt & Stuff was being developed, the main intention was to get the show on the air; not necessarily to bring back Pufnstuf… but the news of the character’s return has gotten a lot of tails wagging with happiness and excitement. To bring him back, new costumes had to be made and some old ones were brought out of storage. “We had to rebuild the Pufnstuf [suit]. With Cling and Clang, we had those suits because when we got the TV Land Pop Culture Award, TV Land spent about a quarter of a million dollars doing a big production to introduce it, which we never even knew about until that night! So, they existed, so we didn’t have those… didn’t have the Rescue Racer. We had to duplicate it, but it’s blowing everyone who has seen it away here. So, we did this right,” Marty Krofft told us last week when ComicBook.com visited the show’s set recently.
It isn’t the first time that a Pufnstuf return had been tried by the Kroffts. “We’ve tried to develop it and make a movie four times… three times at Sony, once at Paramount… but we had problems with the scripts. We’re going to do it again, so there are some exciting things happening,” Krofft teased.
For Mutt & Stuff, the Kroffts teamed with the Cesar Millan. Was Millan a fan of the original Pufnstuf? “You know, I’m not sure about that, but he was very into Land of the Lost,” Marty Krofft told us. “So, I never had that conversation with him… why, I don’t know. This all started with me meeting Cesar, and saying ‘wait a second. I think I can come up with a show with dogs’… this has been a great partnership,” he enthused.
“If I hadn’t met him, it wouldn’t have given me the thought to say “wait a second. Let’s do a show with lots of dogs, puppets, and kids, and you can’t miss. My brother Sid always said if we did that, it would work,” Krofft continued, adding that he and his daughters are all dog people who rescue dogs, and he describes the project as a “dream come true” for his oldest.
Mutt & Stuff, behind the scenes, is a family affair. On the Millan side, there are both Cesar and his son, Calvin, who are involved. On the Krofft side, all three daughters are involved… one of them even plays the veterinarian on the series.
“Do you know why my daughters never come home? They never leave!” Krofft joked. “They’re around because they’re talented, and they want to be around. We’re not a money company; we’re a creative company, and I think our emphasis is to do things that we’re proud of,” he said. That family philosophy continues into what we see on the screen. “We’re not interested in doing a ‘R’ movie, although we got close with Land of the Lost, which was not a happy time for us. We had Will Ferrell who I wanted — but it was a problem to do just a ‘PG’ movie. You can’t do a PG-13 movie and expect to have these kids show up. But that was an isolated event,” Krofft explained.
For now, though, Krofft fans have Mutt & Stuff to look at with his special Pufnstuf episode airing earlier this year.
“We probably spent more on this episode than normally we would ever do, but you know what? You can be creative and have no budget restrictions at all. To me, that’s not creative. So, we’re creative and responsible. If Nickelodeon is aware of it, we’ll be in good shape, and they’re aware of it,” he said.
“The people are terrific. That’s all I’m interested in, because I work with the people – Sid and myself, we can sweep up the floors, that’s okay, but you know, without people, you have nothing,” he enthused, referring to his partnership with his brother.
And how did it all make him feel?
“I’m different than Sid. Sid walked in this morning, because he hadn’t seen the trees, and didn’t see the Rescue Racer… the big thing with me is, I work in fantasy, but I don’t live in it. Of course, we’ve created a show and sold it to a network… in this case, Nickelodeon. Where I am with my life now? I should be in the Guinness Book of Records for being the oldest producer, and I leave you with that. It’s not easy to be my age when I’m the baby of the family, but you know what? If you live this long, you’ve gotta get older,” he stated.
“H.R. Pufnstuf Comes to Mutt & Stuff!” airs Monday, February 15, at 10 a.m. ET/PT on Nickelodeon.
