| Creator: | Sid and Marty Krofft |
| Starring: | Butch Patrick Charles Nelson Reilly Billie Hayes |
| Voices: | Lennie Weinrib Joan Gerber Walker Edmiston |
| Country: | United States |
| Num Episodes: | 17 |
| Producer: | Sid and Marty Krofft |
| Runtime: | 25 minutes (per episode) |
| Company: | Sid & Marty Krofft Television Productions |
| Network: | ABC |
Lidsville is an American television show created by brothers Sid and Marty Krofft. It was their third series, following H.R. Pufnstuf (1969) and The Bugaloos (1970). As did its predecessors, Lidsville combined two types of characters: conventional actors in makeup taped alongside performers in full mascot costumes, whose voices were dubbed in post-production. Seventeen episodes aired on Saturday mornings on ABC during 1971 - 1973.[1] The show was rebroadcast on NBC Saturday mornings the following season.
The opening was shot at Six Flags Over Texas. Otherwise, the show was shot at Paramount Pictures film studio in Los Angeles.
Like predecessors H.R. Pufnstuf and The Bugaloos, Lidsville ran for only one season (1971–1972), with reruns airing the following year (1972–1973).
Like most children's television shows of its era, Lidsville contained a laugh track.
The show involved a teenage boy named Mark (portrayed by Butch Patrick) who fell into the top hat of Merlo the Magician (portrayed by Charles Nelson Reilly) (HooDoo's alter ego), following Merlo's show at Six Flags Over Texas. Inside the hat, he arrived in Lidsville, a land of living hats that are depicted as having the same characteristics as the humans who would normally wear them. For example, a cowboy hat would act and speak like a cowboy. The characters' houses were also hat-shaped.
The villain of the show was magician Horatio J. HooDoo (also portrayed by Reilly). The vain, short-tempered, but somewhat naive HooDoo flew around in his Hatamaran, blasting the good citizens of Lidsville with bolts of magic (referred to as "zapping") and keeping them in fear, demanding that they pay him their Hat Tax. Mark was seen as a suspected spy against HooDoo on behalf of the good hat people and was captured at Derby Dunes by HooDoo's minions the Bad Hats the moment he had fallen into the world of Lidsville. He escapes from his clutches alongside a genie named Weenie (Billie Hayes). Mark helped the good hats resist as he attempted to find a way back home. HooDoo, trying to reclaim control of Weenie the Genie from Mark, often enlisted the services of four Bad Hats.
In his high hat home, HooDoo was constantly besieged by the taunting music of his Hat Band, as well as all of his talking knickknacks (Parrot, Mr. Skull, mounted alligator head, the sawed-in-half lady, etc.). HooDoo also experienced further aggravation at the hands of his aides, the dimwitted Raunchy Rabbit and his two-faced card guard Jack of Clubs. HooDoo watched the action going on in downtown Lidsville from his hat home by using his Evil Eye, a device similar to a TV set that resembled an eyeball. He also had a hot chatline phone. The show relied on an endless array of puns based on hats. One such pun was "Derby Dunes", an area in Lidsville which sand dunes were shaped like derby hats.
Many of the episodes were about Mark trying to get back home, but the evil HooDoo prevented him from leaving. Weenie, being a nervous bumbler, was in fact a genie, but many of the tricks and spells did not work correctly after having been HooDoo's captive for so long.
In the show's final episode, scenes from some of the past episodes were featured as HooDoo's mother (portrayed by an uncredited Muriel Landers) had paid a visit to find out what has been going on in Lidsville while making sure that her son is still bad.
As the show only ran one season of original episodes, Mark never returned home—his fate remained unresolved.
Music was also a part of the show, with songs being performed by the characters in several episodes.
A three-disc complete series set was released on DVD in the United States in January 2005 by Rhino Entertainment. The set contained all seventeen episodes in digitally remastered, uncut and original broadcast form, plus interviews with Charles Nelson Reilly, Butch Patrick, and Billie Hayes. They and the Krofft brothers also provided audio commentary on some of the episodes.
Gold Key Comics published five issues of a Lidsville comic book. The books were a mix of new stories as well as re-workings of some of the television episodes.
On January 31, 2011, it was announced that DreamWorks Animation was adapting Lidsville to make a 3-D animated musical.[2] The feature would be directed by Conrad Vernon, and the music would be composed by Alan Menken, known for composing multiple musical scores for Walt Disney Animation Studios films.[3] Menken stated that, "The songs will be an homage to '60s psychedelic concept-album rock."[4] In January 2013, he posted on Twitter that "Lidsville is underway... Finally."[5] The lyrics would be written by Glenn Slater, a frequent Menken collaborator.[6] In June 2016, Sid Krofft said in an interview about the project: "It was going to be like Hair or Tommy, a full-blown musical. But they went in a strange direction and it just didn't work."[7]