Sunday, June 06, 2010

Separated at Birth: Helen Thomas & Witchiepoo
















Helen "Jews go home" Thomas (left) is part of the White House press corps.

Witchiepoo (played by actress Billie Hayes) was a character in the 60s TV series H.R. Pufnstuf.

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9 comments:

  1. Helen Thomas is a dead ringer for a kitchen witch doll my mom had hanging up in the kitchen in the house I grew up in.

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  2. Good comparison. Even their voices are similarly grating. For some reason, I was thinking of that old show this weekend. I had a Jack Wild haircut in fourth grade. Pufnstuf and Barney may not qualify as "separated at birth," but there's gotta be some common lineage there.

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  3. A few years ago the young Mall Diva and I were channel surfing when we came across an old HR Pufnstuff episode. I told her the show had been quite popular for a time in the 70s. We watched for about 10 minutes and then she turned to me and said, "Drugs must have been a real problem in the 70s."

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  4. "Drugs must have been a real problem in the 70s."

    Hence the title Pufnstuf.

    "Puffing Stuff." Get it?!?!

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  5. I am surprised that none of you guys mentioned the Bugaloos. Didn't witchipoo do some cross over episodes with them? I remember some teenaged girl running around in a fairy/bug costume with a diaphanous miniskirt with antennae on her head.

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  6. "Drugs must have been a real problem in the 70s."

    I think Krofft puppets were a real problem in the '70s.

    The antagonist on the Bugaloos was Benita Bizarre, played by Martha Raye. (Her credits, as once noted in a commercial: "Actress, denture wearer.") BTW, I think dragons were "puffin stuff" long before the '60s.

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  7. I thought Pufnstuf made a crossover appearance on "Sigmund and the Sea Monster."

    I know the diminutive Billy Barty was in practically every Kroft show.

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  8. I was more a Banana Splits Bunch guy. Sa-a-a-ay, do you think that Snorky the elephant was using his trunk to, you know, snork something? Is that why he could only "talk" in funny noises?

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