Sigmund and the Sea Monsters

Sigmund was a misfit sea monster rejected by his relatives. Seems that he didn't want to scare humans like his folks did! A couple of boys come across Sigmund on the beach. They're scared at first, but Sigmund proves to be a great friend. Problem is, the boys have to hide him from everyone else. This is not an easy task, as Sigmund's relatives keep popping up to cause havoc. I don't think this Krofft show is a popular as the others they created, but it was a pleasant half-hour of TV on Saturday mornings.

I remember watching Sigmund and the Sea Monsters on Saturday mornings when I was in my teens and I thought it was one of my favorite shows from the duo of Sid and Marty Krofft. It was a lot different from the Kroffts other shows since there were no psychedelic sets like HR Pufnstuf and it was more of a standard sitcom aimed at a young audience. What made the show click was the chemistry between Johnny Whitaker and Scott Kolden, who played brothers Johnny and Scott Stewart. They got along so well on and off the set and they have been friends for years. Billy Barty was also outstanding as Sigmund, who was kicked out of his home by his mean sea monster family because he couldn't scare humans. Sigmund's family live in a seaside cave with a shellophone (which was always answered "Shell-o!") and a Shellevision that was powered by an electric eel. Big Daddy, to me, sounded a lot like Archie Bunker. There was also Sweet Mama who tried to keep her husband and Sigmund's rotten twin brothers Blurp and Slurp in check. Those two frequently tried to bring Sigmund back home, but they always failed. Also adding to the mayhem were Mary Wickes as Zelda, the housekeeper, later replaced by Fran Ryan, Joe Higgins as Sheriff Chuck Bevins and Margaret Hamilton as nosy neighbor Miss Eddels. There were also guest star appearances by Pam Ferdin and Jack Wild. The first season to me had the best episodes since they focused more on the boys hiding Sigmund and the conflict between Sigmund and his family. Also, Whitaker got to sing in a number of first season episodes as well as the show's opening theme. But by the second season, the theme song was changed and Whitaker no longer sang on the show. Also, Rip Taylor was added as Sheldon, the Sea Genie and the shark began to jump when the show focused more on Sheldon and Sigmund. After two seasons, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters said farewell to Dead Mans Point.

"Sigmund and the Seamonsters" was probably the last Sid and Marty Kroft show I ever watched, except for maybe Land of the Lost. Like H.R. Puffinstuff, the Bugaloos, and Lidsville, I watched the shows every week and even knew the order the shows fell in when they did re-runs. Just a few details some people may have forgotten since they are not being included and some people seem a little hazy. There were at least two theme-songs (the early one, started out 'Nothing like a day out on the beach' and the main chorus was, "Friends, friends, friends (everybody needs friends). After season 1, the theme song shifted to something in a more minor-key. The name of the town/beach was Dead Man's Point. There were rocks so it was probably in California or Maine. Zelda was a housekeeper, not an aunt, and she was very matter-of-fact down to business. The boys' names, of course, were Johnny and Scott. They had a troublesome next-door neighbor, Mrs. Eddles, who would occasionally see something involving the boys and the sea monsters and would get hysterical and call the sheriff or Zelda. The Sheriff's name was Sheriff Bevins, and he seemed to have a crush on Zelda. As for the sea-monsters themselves, Sigmund's troublesome brothers names were 'Blurp' and 'slurp'. They were very destructive and rude. Sigmund's mother and father (Sigmund ran away from home to live with the boys, staying in their clubhouse) were simply referred to as "Big Daddy" and "Sweet Mama." They were awful, too. Big Daddy was something between Archie Bunker and a gangster in his personality, the mother was whiny and pathetic and repulsive, always miserable. They did have a pet lobster named Prince which barked like a small dog. The sea monsters lived in a cave in the cliffs by the sea, and usually (the way the plot worked) whatever was going on at Johnny and Scott's place was being paralleled at the sea monsters' cave. For instance, if Zelda the Housekeeper insisted on cleaning the house on a certain day, Sweet Mamma, the Seamonster mother, was usually forcing her family of sea monsters to do the same thing. Most episodes involved the monsters' harassing Sigmund or stealing something from the humans which had to be retrieved, and most episodes involved Johnny and Scott deceiving the dimwitted sea monsters and escaping with their prize. Pursuit would follow, and many scenes involved running around the dark caves. What a life -- every kid wants to live by the sea, and discover caves, treasure, sailing, surfing, and sea monsters. A classic childhood dream. Maybe Sheldon the Genie was OK in the second season, but the show certainly took on a different character then, and eventually lost my interest. the two boys also did promos for the Heart Association and for the Boy Scouts, in their characters.

Well, I watched this show religiously, but at such a young age that as an adult I was unsure of what it was. I was only about three of four when it was on. I used to watch it and then Land of the Lost right afterwards. I did know that I loved the show and that it was about seamonsters but I always thought it was called Simon the Seamonster. I asked around on nostalgic tv show sites but no one seemed to know what I was talking about. Now that i have found the name of the show, I hope I can find copies of it to see. I do recall that it always had the parents I think coming up out of the sea and I remember a mom coming down a stairway to the beach area. That is all I can remember though, but it leaves a happy memory.

One of the things that I like about watching this show 50 years after it first aired (nearly) is the fact that it shows the two boys, Johnny Whitaker and Scott C. Kolden using their creativity to create fun on their gorgeous beach house and private clubhouse, making the best of the fact that their parents are away constantly. They are being taken care of by the housekeeper Zelda, played by the legendary stage, movie and TV comic Mary Wickes whose career had begun 40 years before and would continue for several decades after this. In some episodes, she's only on for a few minutes, but pair her with nosy neighbor Margaret Hamilton, and she gets a lot better material. The idea that the boys are hiding the sea monster, Sigmund, from her, dominates the episodes that I watched, and it would be more interesting to see how she would react if she found out he was a real sea monster and how she would deal with him as a friend of her charges. She encounters him in one Halloween episode and think he's a little boy. That's Billy Barty sweating it out in the costume, but the voice coming out did not sound like him. He does nothing really but run and roll around, but Barty is obviously quite limber. The roles of his brothers, father and mother and other various sea monsters who pop in and out are also played by very energetic actors in costumes, and I find the lobster who barks like a dog absolutely adorable. However, time has worn out a desire to totally recapture everything about this, and after a while I was fast forwarding to see what Wickes would have to say for what type of Gladys Kravitz mischief that Hamilton in her three episodes would get into. The monsters have the best lines actually, referring to their TV as shellovision, and making references to human TV shows as if they were shows for monsters. A separate network that isn't available on human TV's. There is a lot of cleverness, but the rubber costumes at the monsters wear are indeed a bit creepy looking. As a follow-up to HR Pufnstuff, Lidsville, The Boogaloos and others, it's dated but fun, perhaps better viewed in small doses.

Though this one wasn't as trippy as the previous shows the Kroffts produced. The first season was especially good because it pretty much focused on Sigmund's relationship with Johnny and Scott. However, they blew it in the second season when they introduced Rip Taylor as Sigmund's gennie Sheldon and then things went really downhill the third season when they introduced Sheldon's nephew Shelby, played by Sparky Marcus. However, this show was pretty decent and quite enjoyable.

Like Scooby Doo's Scooby Snacks, the Krofft shows will always be drug-related when they are seen and re-discovered. No one watches Sesame Street or the Muppets and recalls drug usage. I for one think you could have watched Sixty Minutes back then and been stoned and thought 'far out.' I have just converted my Krofft shows that I recorded off Tvland to DVD and watched them again. Sigmund was quite a standout, I thought, mainly for the Ooze family and Mary Wickes as Aunt Zelda, but the whole Johnny Whitaker thing had me shaking my head. Like Ron Howard, Whitaker was likable, but the show often placed Whitaker as a cool kid, which he certainly wasn't. When he does behavior for his age, he works, and he speaks very well to adults, such as Wickes, but his singing? Who thought he could sing? The songs are amazing copy-right infringes on the Beach Boys "California Girls" and the Beatles "Got to Get You Into My Life". The song Whitaker sings at the end of the Trick or Treat episode borrows from "Alley Oop". Still, its a fascinatingly constructed show. Aunt Zelda definitely delivers an authoritative threat as to why Sigmund cannot be found. I wonder what she would have done? Told her sheriff boyfriend and they would have taken him to a science lab for studying? The transition of Krofft shows from Pufnstuf to Kaptain Kool (I never watched Pryor's Place or DC Follies) are intriguing to study, and Sigmund definitely stands out well on its own. As for the later Rip Taylor-Sparky Marcus episodes, never watched those and don't want to.