Sid and Marty Krofft

Beginning in 1968 (with the live-action portion of "The Banana Splits Adventure Hour"), two puppeteering brothers named Sid and Marty Krofft invaded Saturday morning television and dominated TV screens with their colorful, off-the-wall shows for the next decade. Sadly, by the '80s live-action was out and Saturdays became immersed with Smurfs, Shirt Tales, Rainbow Bright and other overly moral "goody-goodies" (as Witchiepoo would say) of the ilk, though the Krofft shows were rerun in a rather limited release in various markets around the world -- and they continue to be rerun to this day. But let's look at the guys behind the dolls...Born in 1929 to nomadic Peter Yolas, a clock salesman, and wife Mary, a doctor (who never acquired a medical licence in the USA), Cydus Yolas (later to be known as Sid Krofft) took an interest in puppeteering in childhood. Early puppet shows were staged in the back yard with paper puppets, and Sid decided to charge peers a penny to view it. When his parents put the kibosh on that idea, Sid instead charged friends a button to see the show (buttons became the standard currency on Living Island decades later in "H.R. Pufnstuf"). Encouraged by his family, Sid took his act on the road starring in circuses and the like, and he was soon joined by his father, who worked as apprentice to the young Sid. In the 1940s, a publicist concocted a story that Sid was the fifth generation of a puppeteering family -- a story that haunted the brothers Krofft for five decades, until they finally came clean in mid-2008 and confessed that the story was a hoax.Meanwhile, brother Moshopopulos (Marty), born in 1937, found Sid's leftover puppets while his big brother was touring Europe, and began tinkering with them. Soon Marty was staging his own puppet shows, claiming to be Sid (who was already garnering a reputation as a puppeteer). Marty got a taste of starring on television in his early teens, appearing on shows like New York's "Startime Kids" and "Ted Mack and the Original Amateur Hour," but he eventually found a more stable career as a car salesman. In the late '50s, while touring with Judy Garland, Sid was in desperate need of another puppeteer, so he enlisted Marty to help out. Despite a temperamental relationship -- the brothers are polar opposites -- the two have been working together ever since. Sid is generally regarded as the idea man, and Marty is the one commissioned to make all of his brother's wild fantasies come to life. For a time Harry, a third surviving brother (the fourth Yolas brother was killed in World War II) worked with them too, but he eventually quit the business and became a real estate salesman.