Sigmund and the Sea Monsters: The Monster Who Came to Dinner

Sigmund and the Sea Monsters: The Monster Who Came to Dinner
NBC
September 8, 1973
Children's
DVD
B-

If proof were needed that the '60s were basically over by this point, consider how un-psychedelic this show is compared to the three major Krofft productions preceding it.  Here you simply have two junior-high-age boys trying to hide a friendly sea monster from their Aunt Zelda (63-year-old Mary Wickes, a former child star who kept acting for another twenty years after this).  OK, and meanwhile his mean family resent him leaving.  The show is topical in a different way, with Sigmund's father, given to saying "dingbats" and "stifle," clearly modeled on Archie Bunker, and the shellivision offering Serpent and Son.  I watched it either at the time or later in the '70s partly because of the parents-free beach setting and partly because of a mild pre-teen (or maybe it was a pre-pre-teen) crush on 13-year-old Johnny Whitaker, who I knew from Family Affair.  He sings pretty well, like Beach Boys Lite, with an extended version of the theme song in this pilot episode.  The title by the way refers to Great-Uncle Siggie, although I guess it could also be taken as an anti-police statement considering who Zelda's dinner guest is.  (Joe Higgins had been a Staff Sergeant on That Girl, and the role of Sheriff here is one he'd often play on various programs.)

This time the Krofft regulars include Sharon Baird (as the body of Big Daddy Ooze, with important supporting roles on H.R. Pufnstuf, The Bugaloos, and Lidsville), Billy Barty (as Sigmund, and earlier Sparky on The Bugaloos,) Walker Edmiston (as the voice of Big Daddy, and by then a veteran of Pufnstuf, The Bugaloos, and Lidsville), and Van Snowden (as Sweet Mama Ooze, previously Tweeter on The Bugaloos).  Si Rose wrote for all three of the previous Krofft programs as well.  Five-year-old Sparky Marcus is credited as Shelby, although I didn't see him, and would be on The Bob Newhart Show around the time he was Ape Face in Freaky Friday.  This episode incidentally aired at the exact same time as The Brady Kids second-season premiere, so I went alphabetically.