It's the Sid and Marty show

The Kroffts certainly were willing to try anything, and they went well beyond Saturday-morning shows. They launched the teeny-bopper variety show "Donny and Marie" for ABC in 1976 and a year later brought the cast of "The Brady Bunch" back on the air as stars of a variety show. That show was met with howls, but even worse was the infamous "Pink Lady and Jeff," an NBC variety show built around the Japanese pop duo Pink Lady.

"The network made the deal and gave them the show," Marty said, "but that's when we found out that they really couldn't speak English. That was a problem. But what can you do?"

The show must go on, and "Pink Lady" did -- for a few deliriously awkward episodes. The Kroffts bounced back -- their "Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters" was a hit, teaming the country stars with Krofft puppets in the early 1980s.

But the tide was turning against them. The variety-show format was dying. They could no longer find a foothold with their live-action morning children's programming; Saturday mornings by that point belonged to cartoons.

More than that, the business of TV had changed. The Kroffts were true independent producers; they had made their shows on their own (usually small) budgets and then brought the finished product to the networks. By the '90s, that model was outdated.

Plenty of people approached the Kroffts about buying their library, usually at fire-sale prices. They said no to every offer, even the one from pop superstar Michael Jackson.

"The biggest thing as an independent is to survive. No one else really survived out there," Marty said. "Either they're dead or they sold the company. We're lucky."

Sid still gets misty every time he meets some 40-year-old who recognizes his name and reminisces about talking flutes or gentle, goggle-eyed sea monsters. "There aren't many things," he said, "that we take in our lives and carry for so long."

Marty nodded in agreement. The shows were lucky in love, he said, but not in lucre.

Maybe that will change now that the Kroffts, after five decades in a small spotlight, are getting a late-in-life chance at the big time.

"How much money are we going to make?" Marty asked. "I'm not counting anything. I just want to be alive when the picture opens. It opens July 17, 2009. Don't forget to put the date in the story."

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geoff.boucher@latimes.com