Lidsville

Did You Know?

• Like its predecessors, Lidsville ran for only one season (1971–1972), with reruns airing the following year.
• The show contained a laugh track, as was common for children's television of its era.
• A three-disc complete series DVD set was released in January 2005 by Rhino Entertainment, containing all seventeen episodes in digitally remastered, uncut original broadcast form plus interviews and audio commentary.

Plot

The series follows a teenage boy named Mark (portrayed by Butch Patrick) who falls into the top hat of Merlo the Magician (portrayed by Charles Nelson Reilly) after a show at Six Flags Over Texas. Inside the hat, he arrives in Lidsville, a land where living hats have the same characteristics as the humans who would normally wear them—for example, a cowboy hat acts and speaks like a cowboy. The villain is magician Horatio J. HooDoo (also portrayed by Reilly), a vain, short-tempered, but somewhat naive magician who flies around in his Hatamaran, blasting the good citizens with bolts of magic called "zapping" and demanding they pay him their Hat Tax. Mark is captured at Derby Dunes by HooDoo's minions the Bad Hats the moment he falls into Lidsville, but escapes with the help of a genie named Weenie (Billie Hayes). Mark helps the good hats resist HooDoo while trying to find a way home. HooDoo, seeking to reclaim Weenie, often enlists four Bad Hats. In his high hat home, HooDoo is besieged by the taunting music of his Hat Band and his talking knickknacks (Parrot, Mr. Skull, mounted alligator head, the sawed-in-half lady, etc.), and further aggravated by his dimwitted aide Raunchy Rabbit and two-faced card guard Jack of Clubs. He watches Lidsville from his Evil Eye device and uses a hot chatline phone. Many episodes involve Mark trying to return home while HooDoo prevents him; Weenie, a nervous bumbler, has many spells that fail after being HooDoo's captive. In the final episode, HooDoo's mother (portrayed by an uncredited Muriel Landers) visits to see what has been happening and ensure her son is still bad.

Characters

Mark, played by Butch Patrick, is a teenage boy and the main character. He gets pulled into Lidsville after tumbling into the hat of a magician named Merlo. There he meets Weenie the Genie, portrayed by Billie Hayes, who becomes his friend. Hayes performs this role as a male character. The main villain is Horatio J. HooDoo, played by Charles Nelson Reilly, an evil magician who constantly schemes to keep Mark trapped in Lidsville and to get Weenie back. HooDoo has a dimwitted henchman named Raunchy Rabbit, performed by Sharon Baird and voiced by Walker Edmiston doing an impression of Frank Fontaine; this rabbit wears a fez. Another resident is Jack of Clubs, voiced by Walker Edmiston impersonating Frank Nelson, a walking deck of cards with a Jack of Clubs as its face card, wearing a crown marked with clubs, and both its top and bottom heads can talk. HooDoo commands a group called the Bad Hats, which includes Mr. Big, performed by Angelo Rossitto and voiced by Lennie Weinrib, a gangster fedora who leads the group despite being very short; Captain Hooknose, voiced by Lennie Weinrib, a pirate hat with a hook for a nose; Bela, voiced by Walker Edmiston impersonating Bela Lugosi, a vampire hat with bat ears and a fanged brim; and Boris, performed by Jerry Maren and voiced by Walker Edmiston impersonating Peter Lorre, an executioner's hood who carries an axe and sometimes goes by Eggbert or Chauncey. Above HooDoo is the Imperial Wizard, voiced by Walker Edmiston, an evil wizard who is his master. Rah-Rah, performed by Sharon Baird and sometimes Jerry Maren, voiced by Lennie Weinrib, is a football helmet with a dumb jock personality who can be helpful in a crisis. Madame Ring-a-Ding, performed by Sharon Baird and voiced by Joan Gerber, is a party hat with a party favor nose who acts as the town's social director. Mother Wheels, voiced by Joan Gerber, is an elderly motorcycle helmet dressed in black leather, often seen on a motorcycle, and her catchphrase is "Hiya, Hon-ees." Nursie, performed by Joy Campbell and voiced by Joan Gerber, is a nurse's hat with glasses who serves as Lidsville's closest thing to a doctor. Twirly, performed by Joy Campbell and voiced by Joan Gerber, is a beanie hat with a propeller, speaks in a little boy voice, and is apparently the youngest hat in town.

Other media

The early 1970s saw characters from Lidsville skating in the Ice Capades. The HBO comedy series Mr. Show later parodied the program. Marilyn Manson’s 1994 album Portrait of an American Family includes audio samples from the show in the track “Dope Hat.” On the television series Millennium, in the episode “Jose Chung’s ‘Doomsday Defense’,” Charles Nelson Reilly’s character Chung claims he acted in a “brilliant, award-winning film” while a clip of HooDoo appears. In the Archer episode “Space Race, Part 2,” when Malory tells Cheryl she is “not fit to be queen of... name a place,” Cheryl answers with Lidsville. DreamWorks Animation announced in January 2011 that it would adapt Lidsville as a 3-D animated musical, with Conrad Vernon directing and Alan Menken composing. Menken described the songs as an homage to 1960s psychedelic concept-album rock. In January 2013, he tweeted that the project was finally underway. Glenn Slater was set to write the lyrics. Sid Krofft said in June 2016 that the adaptation was intended to be a full-blown musical like Hair or Tommy, but it went in a strange direction and did not work out.