Scary 70s Thursday: Men in Giant Psychedelic Animal Suits

You're being chased through the woods by a man-sized fuzzy blue lion, who sings psychedelic Beatles songs at you while you run. An orange monkey, a tiger with an eyepatch, and a green dog wearing a big brown hat capture you in a massive net, then implore the lion, whose name is Rory, to read aloud a story to you. If you've never woken up from either this particular nightmare in a pool of sweat, or anything like it, you probably didn't grow up in the late 60s to early 70s, and completely missed out on the weekly (sometimes even daily) man-sized furry freakshows that were a mainstay of children's television. You think you had it hard with the Teletubbies, and thought that baby in the sun thing was trippy... You haven't seen what happens when the Teletubbies and the Wiggles get together and get laid while on horse tranquilizers...

Animal Kwackers sing Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds


It's a pretty simple rendition, actually, also found on their Animal Kwackers LP which I had as a child. Bongo, Rory, Twang and Boots play a happy melody written by the greatest rock and roll band ever in the world, and it just happens to be about being on LSD. I utterly loved this when I was a kid, and no amount of Just Say No campaigns later on as a teenager could remove the glory that was Animal Kwackers telling me to drop acid. None. So the good news is that when I finally do, I may actually be able to understand:

H. R. Pufnstuf


Technically this, and the following group of six-foot, two-legged monsters, were really made in the 60s, but their shows ran into the 70s and were on continual rerun throughout my decade. I never got to see the series of H. R. Pufnstuf, but did see the movie, and boy, between this, Hanna Barbera's version of Alice In Wonderland (or What's A Nice Kid Like You Doing In A Place Like This?), and The Phantom Tollbooth, you never actually have to say no to drugs. It's all right there, on the screen, man!

Anyhoo. Pufnstuf's name's a complete give away. He lives on Living Island, where, you know, wow, everything's alive, man, he calls everyone dude, dude. His friend Jimmy, the only true human on the show, is transported there by a magical talking flute. Not, you know, James Galway's magical golden flute, but one that talks, man. It's all, you know, wow, man... etc.


Not this flute, the one that TALKS!

Also notice that the title sequence is one minute forty-nine seconds. That's just for you guys at the back who zoned out halfway through the last show and couldn't remember what the hell it was about, or had some fight about 'bogarting' or somesuch.

The Banana Splits


There ain't much that can be said about this wacky foursome that hasn't been said before. Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snorky are the godfathers of six-foot psychedelic critterdom. (Fun Banana Splits fact: All the outside scenes in series one were filmed at Six Flags Over Texas theme park, by future director of Superman, Richard Donner.) Essentially The Banana Splits, a combine of the talents from Hanna Barbera and Sid & Marty Krofft who also created Pufnstuf, was a live-action cartoon. It used all the well-known Hanna Barbera sound effects and sight gags, and what's best is that there's absolutely no attempt to make the character's mouths move. So there's a lot of talking by creatures who grin like stoners or run around with their tongues sticking out like wasted junkies. So, sit back and enjoy The Banana Splits in all their wonderfully wacky-backy glory.

Now, thanks to the internet, these guys would be considered the godfathers of furrydom and I'm surprised there isn't some ultra-not-actually-sexy slash-fic written about them by basement bound 37 year-olds.

You know... Thinking about it... That doesn't sound like a bad idea at all... Time to start flexing those slash-fingers!