Collecting Krofft -Great Krofft Lunchboxes: H.R. Pufnstuf (1969-70)
Having a lunchbox festooned with your favorite film or TV characters was one of the best parts of being a kid. Virtually indestructible, these delightful vessels could carry the best of lunches (snacks, pretzels, cookies or chips) or the dreaded “piece of fruit.” Lunchboxes were like playing the slot machines in Vegas, except you were at school. Anything could happen!
The history of lunchboxes is actually quite interesting. There was a basket-shaped metal lunchpail produced around 1900, but the box form that we know today really hit its stride during the postwar era in the United States. Metal lunchboxes have been produced since 1950, when Hopalong Cassidy was king. When that lunchbox was a hit, manufacturers scrambled to create more. At first the design on the outside were decals, moving to lithography just a few years later in 1953 when the American Thermos company released their Roy Rogers box. Things were rolling right along for the lunchbox makers, who licensed every fun franchise that they could imagine, resulting in a mind-bogglingly huge array of fun lunchboxes for collectors to acquire today. The fun had to come to an and, and it almost did whenduring the 70s Florida mothers became concerned that metal lunchboxes could be used as a formidable schoolyard weapon. Companies introduced the friendlier, less deadly plastic version, but eventually the lunchbox fad came to an end in the 1990s. Today, soft cloth lunch sacks are the norm, still printed with movie and TV imagery. A sad, vaguely square-shaped imitation of the glory days.
The first of six glorious Krofft lunchboxes produced featured television’s favorite public servant: Living Island’s Mayor H.R. Pufnstuf from the Krofft’s hit children’s TV show, H.R. Pufnstuf (1969-70). In the scene on the front of the lunchbox, kids were treated to the intriguing image of Pufnstuf and Jimmy fighting off four giant trees armed only with Freddy the Flute, a giant bug sprayer, and an enormous frog dressed like Judy Garland. The obverse displays everybody’s favorite witch Witchiepoo menacingly flying her Vroom Broom, accompanied by her evil bird henchman, Orson. A kid could spend hours gazing at this lunchbox, eyes crossing in concentration. So freaky! So much action going on!
Five other incredible Krofft lunchboxes followed: The Bugaloos, Lidsville, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Krofft Supershow and Land of the Lost. All will be described and dissected in excruciating detail in other Krofft Archives posts. Stay tuned!