  Saturday Morning Flashback I think one of the reasons I've enjoyed dropping acid is that, as an adult, it's the closest I can come to reliving the childhood trippiness I got from urlLink Sid & Marty Krofft . This may come as a surprise to you, but I was a strange child. No, really ! For instance, I loved, loved, loved puppets. A lot. I had quite a few and we'd have these endless, drama-packed, Byzantine adventures (that I'm sure several child psychologists and early child development experts would like transcripts of).
So imagine my absolute delirium when one Saturday morning while turning the dial (yes, dial...we actually had to touch the TV in those days) and just feeling the rush from my bowl of urlLink Quisp , I stumbled across a friend that would change my life from that day forward: urlLink H.R. Pufnstuf . My little brain melted. It was too, too fabulous. I wanted a talking dragon-like friend who was mayor of his own island where everything talked, I wanted a urlLink talking golden flute , I wanted to be stalked by a urlLink wacky Witchiepoo ! I was glued to the television, singing the songs and soaking up the lessons (there really ain't no rhyme for oranges). And the minute it was over, I was out of the house, roaming the neighborhood trying to find a way off Living Island, keeping my eyes peeled for Witchiepoo's henchmen who only wanted to get their grubby hands on my golden talking flute (first one of you smartasses who mentions Freud gets kicked down a flight of stairs).
I was almost always Jimmy, sometimes Puf, but any poor soul who got coerced into playing with me only had hopes of being a secondary character. Poor Wendy Corso from next door really thought she had a chance of being Jimmy one afternoon...her contract was promptly cancelled. I sent her back to her urlLink Julia coloring book (until she got that urlLink Easy-Bake oven , and then we were friends again, until I got urlLink Incredible Edibles , then I didn't need her...). All sorts of inanimate objects began talking to me and I'd often bring them up into my favorite climbing tree on the corner of Plymouth Street.
The neighbors probably pitied my mother for having such an idiot child. They didn't know she was Witchiepoo. As is the way with these things, Pufnstuf was just the gateway. Soon I was narrowly evading urlLink Sleestaks , smuggling urlLink Sea Monsters , battled urlLink Hoo Doo for control of the magic ring, and very, very briefly joined forces with urlLink Electra Woman (all it took for that to end was Wendy's brother, Mark, to ask what I was playing and then pound me into the ground -- I sure did like the cape, though).
I'm proud to say I never succumbed to urlLink The Bugaloos . Even then I knew they didn't have enough edge for me. They were just too faggy. And so I was warped by way too much time alone, an overactive imagination, and the psychodelic thought waves transmitted through the television into my eager mind by the Messrs. Krofft.
It lives with me still. I don't have to tell you that I'm still trying to keep at bay those evil forces who are after my golden talking flute. And whenever I'm out at a big club and I'm presented by a large, glazed-eyed creature lumbering towards me, I always think, "Sleestak! " Just the other day, I was in the elevator with three big-haired, gum-smacking Jersey girls who were going on and on, much too loudly, about bikini waxing.
When they finally got out at their floor and the door closed, I accidentally said out loud, " urlLink I hate those Bugaloos ! " The remaining passengers just blinked at me, but I enjoyed it. Which brings me to another point: for the sake of my sanity and any hope of a future, I've added to my dating criteria "must have experienced H.R. Pufnstuf in its original run. " I know that's gonna limit my dating pool, but I think it's important to have similar psychic damage... I feel sorry for the kids today. I was watching a little TV this morning and all of this "Digimon" and "Pokemon" and "Rusty the Boy Robot. " It's all so cold. Where's the fantasy? Where's the wacky hijinks? Where's the acid-flashbacky pedophiliac dragon-thingy and his drag queen nemesis? Sid & Marty, save the youth! 
