It was 1978 and I was living in an apartment on Croft Avenue here in L.A. One day, my agent Bernie set up a meeting for me with a lady named Bonny Dore who had some title of importance — I'm not sure what it was — with a company called Krofft Entertainment. Basically, she was the person in charge of trying to sell new TV shows to the networks. Bernie said she'd sold one to NBC for Saturday morning and was looking for writers.
While I was very familiar with the works of Sid and Marty Krofft, I'd never heard their operation referred to as "Krofft Entertainment" and because of the street on which I lived, I somehow thought I was being sent to a company called "Croft Entertainment," not making the connection to Sid and Marty.
Yeah, I can be real dumb at times.
Their offices were located way, way out in the northernmost part of North Hollywood at the corner of Vineland and Sherman Way. It was about a forty-minute drive from my home and I wasn't that excited about any job that might have that long of a daily commute. But on the way there for the interview, my mind clicked over from "Croft" to "Krofft" and I started wondering if maybe this was Sid and Marty's company. When I got close enough to see the building, I realized it was.
As with everything about the Kroffts, their building was unconventional, painted in loud, circusy purples and oranges. I'm not sure what an "Acid Trip" looks like but if you could somehow build an office complex out of one, it would have looked a lot like that. I did not meet Sid or Marty that day but I got along great with Bonny Dore. She explained to me that the new show was called The Krofft Superstar Hour and it was a successor-in-format to The Krofft SuperShow, which was finishing its second and final season on ABC.
The SuperShow had featured a number of adventure-type serials and it had been hosted by Kaptain Kool and the Kongs, a rock group created by Sid, Marty and their staff for that program. The Superstar Hour would feature serials starring "superstar" characters from previous Krofft shows and Bonny was impressed that I knew a lot about them — H.R. Pufnstuf, Witchiepoo, Hoodoo, Stupid Bat, Sigmund the Sea Monster, etc. In fact, she said, she'd been interviewing potential writers for several days and I knew more about those Krofft characters than anyone else who came in for an audition chat.
They had promised NBC that this program would be hosted by a real, live rock group that had sold a lot of records. At the moment, according to Bonny, a deal was pending but (as yet) unsigned with ABBA. I thought but did not say aloud that it was unlikely they'd be able to lasso ABBA for a Saturday morn kids' show and I was right. We wound up with The Bay City Rollers.
I left the hallucinogenic office building that afternoon hoping I'd get the job. I usually don't think like that. In fact, it had already become a ritual of mine, after any discussion that might result in me getting any sort of gig to think as follows: "That interview was fun. I can't wait to see why I won't get hired for this one!" I just find it's more comforting to not get one's hopes up unrealistically. Better to go the pessimistic route, thereby setting yourself up for a possible pleasant surprise rather than the more common, deflating disappointment. Nevertheless, despite the long daily drive, I wanted to be part of this one.
Funny how you can sometimes remember vividly everything about a day when your life changed a lot. I remember every detail of the day I sold my first writing assignment, the day I met Jack Kirby, the day Jack hired my pal Steve Sherman and me, the day my second partner, Dennis Palumbo and I started on Welcome Back, Kotter, etc.
And I still recall the evening of that day when I went to see Bonny Dore. I took a friend of mine, Valerie Perri, to see Beatlemania at the Shubert Theater in Century City. During intermission, I checked my voicemail and there was a message from Bernie the Agent saying he had an offer for me to write on thirteen episodes of The Krofft Superstar Hour. After a few days of counter-offering and negotiation, I began making that long, long drive each weekday into The World of Sid and Marty Krofft.
It would prove to be a wonderful place to live in as much as I did for the following dozen or so years. And this feels like a good place to insert one of these…
