Q&A: Sid and Marty Krofft are back with ‘Mutt & Stuff’: ‘We go with our heart’

Sid and Marty Krofft have been to more Comic-Cons than they can count, starting at some of those first early meetings in San Diego, always with the hope that they could connect their brand of entertainment with like-minded people.

Now, they’re hoping that their new offering on Nickelodeon, “Mutt & Stuff,” will bring back the magic of some of their earlier, super-successful shows.

Brothers Sid, 85, and Marty, 78, had been doing live shows featuring their puppet creations since childhood when, in 1969, NBC approached them to create a Saturday morning children’s series that became “H.R. Pufnstuf.”

What followed was a string of successful shows that helped define kids’ programming and variety shows for a generation: “The Bugaloos,” “Lidsville” “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters,” “Land of the Lost,” “The Krofft Supershow,” “Donny & Marie Show” and even the “Brady Bunch Variety Hour” just to name a few.

Although those show titles may be lost on anyone younger than 40, the brothers are back with “Mutt & Stuff,” a live-action preschool series that airs Fridays at 10 a.m. on Nickelodeon.

The show stars 16-year-old Calvin Millan and his dad, Cesar, of “Cesar 911” and “Dog Whisperer” fame, interacting with a cast of real dogs and puppets at a canine school called Mutt & Stuff. The show also carries a message of pet adoption and responsible pet care based on the elder Millan’s philosophies.

We sat down for a quick chat with the Kroffts in San Diego as they attempt to spark the imaginations of a new generation of viewers.

So many people are influenced by what you’ve done. Did you watch shows that may have helped you along?

Marty Krofft: We never watched other shows to do our shows. I don’t know everything that’s on, but I do know that a lot of it was either produced bad or produced great.

Sid Krofft: When we did our shows, it was really important to us not to have the parents baby-sit our shows. We wanted mom and dad to sit and watch it, so we wrote it up many, many notches. If a kid hears mom or dad laugh at a joke, then they, even though they don’t understand it, they’re going to laugh with them. Then, when they got older, they understood.

Kids shows today don’t have the same feel to them that your programs relayed ...

Sid Krofft: Well, they’re just not memorable. It’s fine for the moment, but you immediately forget what you just saw. I think it’s too violent, some of it. I don’t understand how, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, on some of the cable networks, the things that they say and do. It’s scary.

Marty Krofft: The bottom line is, we look at our own shows. We don’t go out and test stuff like the big companies. We go with our heart, and this show that we’ve just put on is another Krofft show as far as I’m concerned. It’s got the Krofft look. It’s got the fantasy. It’s got the reality. The kid is a star.

And now you’re attracting new fans, like the ones at your Comic-Con panel.

Marty Krofft: That’s the challenge. The fans are there for us. If you were in that room, you saw it.

Sid Krofft: And a lot of the fans brought their kids and have handed [our programs] down to their kids. It was exciting to see a mom and dad, and they’re so proud that their kids now are watching copies of our shows.

Speaking of your older shows -- what do you think of the remake of “Electra Woman and Dyna Girl?”

Sid Krofft: We’re not really sure.

Marty Krofft: We’re praying over that. That was a deal I made with Legendary. That’s for a more adult audience and that’s going on Fullscreen for subscription, so unfortunately not that many people will see it.

Was it tougher or different in terms of getting the show up and running?

Marty Krofft: We have a show on the air, and at 111 years old, we sold the series. We’re the oldest producers in the Guinness book of records. I’m kidding. But we created the show and we never let it die. We did a pilot, and they dropped it. We did another pilot. You never give up. I think we have the touch for kids. No matter whether it was in the past or the present. ‘Cause kids are kids. There may be more computers and more iPhones, but the kids still want a good story, and of course, everybody loves dogs. And we have 23 dogs on the show.