Marty Kroftt. who along with his brother Sid, produced many memorable children’s shows throughout his career, including H.R. Pufnstuf and Land of the Lost has passed away at the age of 86..

A family representative told Variety that Krofft died of kidney failure Saturday November 25th in Los Angeles, California.

Krofft was often known as the “King of Saturday Mornings”, and along with his brother, Sid also produced primetime variety shows including Donny and Marie and Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters.

Photo: JPI

At the 45th annual Daytime Emmy Awarda, Marty and Sid were the recipients of the Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. The Kroffts also produced Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, The Bugaloos and Lidsville.

The brothers always shared that they came from a line of puppeteers, and Sid, traveled the world as young man performing an elaborate puppet show. The brother’s partnership worked due to Sid was the more on the creative side, while Marty was more on the business side.

Marty said in the book “Pufnstuf & Other Stuff: The Weird and Wonderful World of Sid & Marty Krofft” (1998), written by TV critic, David Martindale, “Sid was always ‘the artist’. He never did have a business sense. So I came in and filled that vacuum.”

Photo: JPI

The wait is over! The 50th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards broadcast originally slated for June 16th and postponed at that time due to the writers strike, has a new ceremony and air date on CBS.

The ceremony will now air live on Friday night, December 15th at 9 p.m. ET and taped delayed in the west on CBS (and also either live or the next day on Paramount+, depending on your subscription plan).

The revised date will be the the 17th time CBS has broadcast the Daytime Emmys, which has been more often than any other network.

Photo: JPI

Entertainment Tonight’s Kevin Frazier and Nischelle Turner are returning as co-hosts of the ceremony from the Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles.

Daytime icon, Susan Lucci (ex-Erica Kane, All My Children) is set to receive Lifetime Achievement Honors during the ceremony.

Photo: Justice Apple

In a statement, Adam Sharp, President and CEO, NATAS expressed: “We are pleased to set this new date with CBS for the Daytime Emmys to celebrate our Golden Anniversary. We know the loyal fans of daytime television have waited patiently to properly honor and recognize all of the deserving nominees and we look forward to the celebration we have all been waiting for.”

With the announcement of the 50th Daytime Emmys broadcast, it joins a jam-packed weekend of ceremonies from NATAS including: The Daytime Creative Arts & Lifestyle Emmys and the Children’s & Family Creative Arts Emmys on December 16th, The 2nd Annual Children’s & Family Emmy Awards and Trustees’ Gala on December 17th.  In addition, The Gold and Silver Circle honor society private luncheon, honoring 2023 Daytime and Children’s & Family inductees will take place on December 14th.

With the new date officially set for next month, it comes after NATAS and CBS’ decision to wait till the resolution of the SAG-AFTRA strike before confirming the new date (even though the Daytime Emmys and most of its categories fall under the SAG-AFTRA Network Code agreement, which was not a part of this year’s union strike).

Photo: ABC

Leading the nominations this year is ABC’s General Hospital with 19, followed by CBS’ The Bold and the Beautiful with 14 and The Young and the Restless 13, and then Peacock’s Days of Our Lives with 10.  More on the nominations can be found here.

Adam Sharp and Lisa Armstrong are executive producers of the 50th annual Daytime Emmy Awards representing NATAS, while David McKenzie is executive producer from ATI, who is producing the show.

So, excited to hear that the 50th annual Daytime Emmy Awards are finally going to happen and air on CBS? Comment below.

After an historic strike of 118 days, SAG-AFTRA has announced they have approved a tentative agreement with the Hollywood studios.  The strike will officially come to an end at 12:01am on Thursday, November 9th.

The ending marks the longest actors strike against the film and TV studios in history. SAG-AFTRA says that its tentative agreement with the studios is worth more than $1 billion over three years and added that it has “extraordinary scope” and “unprecedented provisions”.

The AMPTP in their own statement heralded that the agreement is, “the biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union” and one that represents a “new paradigm”.  SAG-AFTRA shared that the full details of the agreement will not be provided until it is reviewed by the SAG-AFTRA National Board on Friday.

Photo: NPR

Some of the deal points reportedly are minimums to increase by 7%, plus streaming participation bonuses. In an email sent out to its membership, SAG-AFTRA shared, “We have arrived at a contract that will enable SAG-AFTRA members from every category to build sustainable careers. Many thousands of performers now and into the future will benefit from this work.”  The union also shared in their memo that the new contract has, “unprecedented provisions for consent and compensation that will protect members from the threat of AI.”

The performers union also thanked the Writers union (WGA) for standing in solidarity with them: “We also thank our union siblings — the workers that power this industry — for the sacrifices they have made while supporting our strike and that of the Writers Guild of America. We stand together in solidarity and will be there for you when you need us. Thank you all for your dedication, your commitment and your solidarity throughout this strike. It is because of YOU that these improvements became possible.”

SAG-AFTRA plans to hold celebrations around the country in their different chapters in the coming days.  With the strike coming to an end, actors are again expected to hit the award show circuits and participate in events leading up to it. During the strike, they were not allowed to promote projects that were from the studios that they appeared in.

Photo: JPI

Daytime soap operas and their actors were not affected by the shut-down, although many soap actors did stand in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in the picket lines throughout the strike. The soaps, as well as unscripted reality shows, game shows, news shows, and non-primetime programs are all under Netcode contracts and were permitted to keep working on Netcode-affiliated projects.  This contract is not up for renegotiation till July of 2024.

So, happy to hear the SAG-AFTRA strike has come to an end? Looking forward to your favorite primetime shows and films getting back into production as we head into 2024, and the award shows circuit to come alive once again? Comment below.