Lidsville hit the nation's airwaves in 1972, courtesy of those wacky brothers, Sid and Marty Kroft, creators of such classic (albeit, trippy) kids shows as Land Of The Lost and H. R. Pufnstuf. If you thought those shows were odd, and they were, well Lidsville was even stranger. In short, it was the koo-koo-kookiest.

The basic idea behind the series is this:

A young man named Mark (Butch Patrick, better known as Eddie Munster from TVs The Munsters) decides to look inside a magician's hat after witnessing a magic show. The hat grows, and he falls inside of it and is whisked away to the strange land of Lidsville. In Lidsville, everyone is a hat except for an evil magician named Hoo Doo (Charles Nelson Reilly… this man needs no introdction and if you don't know who he is you're simply not doing your homework). Hoo Doo causes all sorts of problems for the population of Lidsville. He wants them to acknowledge him as their master and enforces his will by employing a gang of bad hats who act as thugs and do his dirty work.

At any rate, Mark finds himself stuck in Lidsville, unable to return to the normal world from which he was spawned. Luckily, he becomes fast friends with the citzens of Lidsville, as well as a genie who was formerly in Hoo Doo's employ. Each week a new adventure would present itself to Mark, more often than not in the form of a way for him to get back to his homeworld, and each week Hoo Doo would try and spoil it for him for one reason or another.

Aside from the obvious novelty of seeing a troupe of midgets running around in crazy giant hat costumes, many of whom are so racially stereotypical as to almost cringe inducing at times (just listen to the Native Indian hat and the Chinese Hat speak!), Lidsville also has some wacky Chroma-key effects, a strange theme song, and some very cool sets. Anyone who ever watched HBO's Mr. Show and remember the Drugatoushetts sketch will see some obvious similarities to Lidsville and some of the ideas here, like the tiny band that lives in Hoo Doo's headquarters, were very likely the inspiration for some of the bits used on Pee-Wee's Playhouse some twenty years later.

While the show is extrememly imaginitive and very much so a one of a kind series, sadly, this isn't top tier Kroft Brothers material. Butch doesn't make for a very charismatic hero (though he has very nice hair), and despite Charles Nelson Reilly's best efforts, he's not a particularly menacing villain either. The hats are pretty cool when they zip into fast forward to get things done on time and some of the more interesting hat characters, like the John Wayne ten gallon hat and the pith helment English explorer hat are a lot of fun, but then others like the grandmother on the motorbike are simply annoying.

Highlights to the series include Hoo Doo's flying hat attack, where Reilly zips around Lidsville in an upside down top hat shooting fireballs out of his hands at the citizens of Lidsville, Mark's spirally fall into the magical hatland in the opening credits, and seeing some of the bad hats menace the good hats in typical 'you dirty rat' fashion.

Disc One contains World In A Hat, Show Me The Way To Go Home, Fly Now Vacume Later, Weenie Weenie Where's Our Genie?, Let's Hear It For Whizzo, Is There A Mayor In The House?, and Take Me To Your Rabbit.

Disc Two contains Have I Got A Girl For Hoo Doo, Mark And The Bean Stalk, Turn In Your Turban – You're Through!, Alias The Imperial Wizard, A Little Hoo Doo Goes A Long Way, Oh Brother, and Hoo Doo Who?.

Disc Three contains The Old Hat Home, The Great Brain Robbery, and Mommy Hoo Doo.

The show was very much a product of its time and it has 'early seventies' stamped all over it from the clothes to the music to the special effects. This lends the series a nice nostaligic feel to it that elevates it a little bit when you actually think about the quality of the episodes themselves (which aren't all that good in reality). The show is fun and it has a few things working in its favor but it's far more likely to be enjoyed by seventies nostalgia buffs than some of the better Kroft shows which stand well on their own without the kitsch factor taken into account.

Video:

The fullframe 1.33.1 image is merely adequate, and hardly spectacular. The stock footage used in the opening credits looks pretty rough (as does the opening credits sequence in general) showing some serious wear and tear and print damage. Once you get to the actual episodes, things do improve a bit, but still aren't exactly reference quality. The show was shot on tape and it shows, as the image is quite soft and slightly faded. Thankfully the print damage that plagues the opening credits isn't a problem on the actual episodes proper. The colors look like they could have been bumped up a bit in the brightness department and the skin tones look just a tad too pale (unless that's Butch Patrick natural complexion, and maybe it is – he was pretty pasty faced in The Munsters - ba dump bump – thank you, I'll be here all week).