Damn, you, Roberson!
 

I don't know if you've got the Disney channel or not, but am I the only one who sees the Doodlebops as being a major pillaging of the whole Kroft approach to kids' television, Bugaloos in particular?
 

We spent a lot of time around here watching the Doodlebops last year, but Georgia seems to have outgrown it a bit (now it's all Powerpuff Girls, all the time). I can see where you're coming from, but to me the Doodlebops were as much the Monkees (or even the Banana Splits) as they were the Bugaloos. But given that the Bugaloos were the Beatles by way of the Monkees by way of Krofft craziness, there's certainly some shared genetic material in there. What distinguishes the Doodlebops from the Bugaloos and puts them more in line with earlier examples, I think, is the lack of any kind of villain, which all of the Krofft shows had as a matter of course.

And yes, I've spent far too much time thinking about this kind of thing...
 

I've noticed that most kids' shows these days have eliminated the villain. The new Strawberry Shortcake, for example, went something like three years before the Peculiar Purple Pieman made an appearance (you can tell I've a house full of girls). But yeah, Doodlebops are missing a grade-A bad guy to really complete the Kroft reincarnation. They've got the trippy costumes and insidious songs down pat, however. What B list celeb could the Disney channel get on the cheap to be their foil? Too bad Charles Nelson Riley just died...
 

I'm guessing that Andy Dick would be the most likely candidate in that particular Hollywood Squares-like crapshoot. Just put an evil magician costume on him and set him loose...
 

THE BUGALOOS! YES. I'm sure you're shocked to discover that I loved them. LOVED them, I tell you! And yet, it always seemed like it was the show in rotation the least in the Sid & Marty Kroft hour. Perhaps it just seemed that way to me because I loved it so.