Product Description

Studio: Wea-des Moines Video Release Date: 04/25/2000

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44258 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-05-02
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Animated, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 100 minutes

Amazon.com
Sid and Marty Krofft created many wildly creative series for Saturday morning television. One of the most memorable was Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, the story of a sea creature, Sigmund, who runs away from his family's cave by the ocean and is adopted by two human children. This DVD from Kid Rhino showcases the first 4 of 29 episodes that originally ran from 1973 to 1975, and gave us quite interesting characters like Sigmund, Big Mama, and Sheldon the Sea Genie (played by comedian Rip Taylor). The shows are chock full of pop culture references from the time period, and feature many familiar voices behind the monsters. Although the plot rarely changes (the kids must keep Sigmund hidden from the other humans around them, despite the trouble that he causes), they are all enjoyable to watch. Each episode concludes with a song written by the team of Boyce and Hart (responsible for many of the Monkees' early hits) and sung by star Johnnie Whitaker (Jody on Family Affair). Of course, the theme song, "Friends," is widely remembered and as hummable as it ever was. The foam rubber and goggle-eyed monsters are far from scary, but do provide a glimpse into the past, when high-tech special effects weren't necessary to create fantasy worlds. The show revels in its simplicity, and it appears as if the actors had as much fun making the series as we do watching it. --Zachary Lively

Customer Reviews

Saturday morning, 1975...
Okay, I'm 34 and I bought it. Why? Because when I was 8 years old Sigmund & the Seamonsters kept me glued to the TV. Like most of the Krofft programs (namely this and Land of the Lost) it was just different from everything else on. Until recently I had racked my brain trying to remember some of the titles (Bugaloos, Kaptain Kool & the Kongs, Dr. Shrinker, the one about the dune buggy) but now they are all over the internet. These shows were far from cheesy to a little 70s kid. They had a profound effect on the way I grew up. Magic, dreams and imagination are much tougher to come by in todays children. It's all spelled out in digital glory. Before long you'll be able to play Shrek on your X-box 2 and it'll look better than the film. It's amazing to go back to a time before there was Playstation...or even Atari. Just a box of sugary cereal and a Krofft program. Take me back!!
I save these for when I'm in a special mood some saturday morning. I pop this in the DVD and get transported to a more simple time. It's really bizarre the effect these have on me. My first thought when I ordered it was that I'd wasted my money on a little kid's show I used to watch and it would not match my memories of those wonderful times. Well, surprize! These are better now than they were. The sense of nostalgia is staggering. And there's a bonus: wonderful unintentional humor. The way the puppets move and talk is hilarious even if they don't say anything funny. I get a sense that the Krofft brothers knew all along what it took Mystery Science Theater 3000 10 years to teach me. It's been said that Pufnstuff was watched mostly by hippies in the 60s and 70s. After a friday night ... ... they'd get up saturday morning and watch. And what did they watch? ..., ... landscapes, bigheaded creatures talking in zany voices. I've ordered Land of the Lost DVD and can't wait to put it on my shelf. If you grew up with these then take the trip too. The World of Sid & Marty Krofft is brighter than it ever was! You'll have fun. I promise you.

A Must-Have for any Sigmund Fan
"Who ever heard of a friendly sea monster..."

I don't know what it is about this show. Could it be the warm memories I have of watching it when it first came out? Whatever it may be, whenever I watch Sigmund and The Sea Monsters, I'm immediately cheered up and a goofy smile comes to my face as I watch Johnny and Scott come to rescue Sigmund once again from the clutches of Burp and Slurp, Big Momma and Big Daddy.

Unlike many children's shows, there's no violence here. No weapons. No fighting. No one is truly evil - just mean old monsters that are too incompetent to be of any real harm. And even though Aunt Zelda is the authoritative adult on the show, she's loved by Johnny and Scott who obey her without too much of a fuss. It's an idealistic world that they live in. Maybe that's part of the charm.

This DVD contains four episodes, an interview with Johnny Whitaker and Scott Kolden, a Singmund theme song sing-along, the introduction song to HR Pufnstuf, along with a few stills from the show.

Children will enjoy these shows as much as any adult who remembers them.

What I would have loved to see would have been actual commercials from the period inserted at the appropriate spots!

Sigmund is not a symbol of evil
In almost every Sid and Marty Krofft show, the kid protagonists start out in the normal world, and then stumble upon some sort of psychadelic Wonderland (a la Alice), which of course can be read as a kind of representation of the Jungian subconscious...or the experience of being on drugs. The effect it achieved (and the fact that it was live-action, and not an animated program was crucial to this!) was that it encouraged children to imagine that there was much more to the world than adult society would have them believe. Watching a kid who looked a lot like them, living a life that looked a lot like theirs, discovering another world just under the surface must seem to the imaginitive mind of a child at least somewhat believable. This blurring of fantasy and reality is an important part of the formula...I know that part of the power HR Puff N Stuff had on me when I first saw it was that I almost couldn't believe it was a real TV show.
Sigmund and the Sea Monsters differs slightly from shows like HR Puff N Stuff in that the magical world the kids discover and their normal, 1970s suburban beach neighborhood occupy literally the same space. It is not the children, but the sea monster who is the stranger in the strange land, offering a more direct social critique than other Krofft programs. Sigmund is a childish, lisping symbol of the human Id; the kids try and try to keep him under wraps, designating the club house as a place where he can live without getting in trouble, but he always gets out or bubbles over, revealing himself to, say, a pretty neighbor of the boys who take care of him. Like a children's version of Cthulu, Sigmund comes out of the ocean as a threat to normal, decent society. But of course, Sigmund isn't a symbol of evil; he's just a goofy, lovelorn, scared and misunderstood mess of a creature whose eccentricity and purity of spirit are to be admired and appreciated. I hope kids who watch this show can learn from it to appreciate their own inner sea monsters. : )