Far Out Space Nuts is one of the lesser-remembered Sid and Marty Krofft live action children's puppet shows of the 1970s, but oddly enough it had the best acting and biggest names of any of the Krofft shows, starring Bob Denver (better known as Gilligan from Gilligan's Island) and even a guest appearance from legendary actor John Carradine. The show ran from September 1975 to September 1976 on CBS, appearing every Saturday at 9:30 AM and running for a half hour. It then ran in reruns from September 1976 to September 1977 on CBS, this time on Sunday at 9:30 AM.
The show starred Bob Denver as Junior, an incompetent NASA dockworker, and Chuck McCann as his pal Barney. One day, the two were loading food into a rocket when Barney mentions "lunch;" somehow, this gives Junior the initiative to hit the "launch" button, sending the two careening into space. On the trip, they landed on various planets, meeting all sorts of aliens, both villainous and friendly. On the first episode, the duo made friends with "Honk," (played by Patty Maloney) who looked like a shaggy white dog with a huge horn on his head.
The show ran for one season, and on the final episode, the duo returned to Earth, only to have Junior accidentally launch them into space again to close out the first season and end the series forever.
Far Out Space Nuts is probably most notable for the fact that it was a shining example of the Krofft production machine on its downhill slide. The show simply didn't have the production value that some of the very well done earlier Krofft productions, such as The Bugaloos, Sigmund and the Seamonsters, Lidsville, and especially H.R. Pufnstuf had. It honestly looked like the sets and costumes were tossed together from the bargain bin at the local fabric store just the night before. Every "monster" was a person in a felt-on-wire-frame costume with lots of silver and gold face paint; very poorly done.
The scripts for the show were poorly done, too; most of them were essentially watered-down Three Stooges knockoffs with the villain being Moe and Junior and Barney being Larry and Curly. Even good acting from Bob Denver and, on perhaps the best episode, John Carradine couldn't save these sorry scripts.
This show is a prime example of some of the poor drivel that passes itself off for children's programming. Poorly written scripts with no real point or value, bad costumes, and bad sets add up to one of the low points in the production career of the brothers Krofft, who must have stopped caring at this point and were mostly just churning out the shows.