What I watched: An episode of the early children’s show Kukla, Fran and Ollie. The series starred the titular Fran Allison and guest star Dave Garroway, with all other roles being played by series creator and puppeteer Burr Tillstrom. This episode aired on October 6, 1949 at 7:00 PM on NBC. Video is available on DVD.
today.
What happened: Our Southern-fried opera announcer says that tonight we have another performance by the Kuklapolitan Players, this time a concert. We open with Fletcher Rabbit attempting to play a xylophone, which is pretty difficult when you’re a puppet half the instrument’s size. Kukla pops up with another hammer to help out, although it briefly looks like the two are going to duel instead. In the end, they mostly just hammer manically on the keys.
After the performance, a panicked Ollie pops up with an envelope. Fran also shows up, and discovers that the envelope contains tickets to the Presidential inaugration last January. Even though the occasion is long gone, they’re determined to make use of the tickets. Their AD Russ is getting married on the weekend, so they decide to crash his honeymoon and take the show to Washington the next week. Poor Russ’s bride doesn’t get much of a say in the matter.
But there’s a problem: the crew has already agreed to go on Dave Garroway’s show this weekend. They decide to invite Dave on the trip to Washington as well. Dave, a glasses-wearing human who keeps facing away from the camera, enters. He gives Ollie cufflinks so that he’ll fit in when they get to DC. He humbly plugs his appearance in next week’s Life magazine, which was a big deal in the 1940s. Kukla and Ollie seem positively starstruck.
The next order of business is coming up with light refreshments for the trip. The gang has a new freezer, which can hold all different types of Sealtest ice cream (which just so happens to be a sponsor of the show.) They’re particularly impressed by Neapolitan ice cream, which to be fair I was too as a kid. Fran closes out the show by singing a song from the recently-released South Pacific about being in love with a wonderful guy. I hope he’s not a puppet.
What I thought: This episode is sort of a grab bag, a mixture of short performance segments and table-setting for upcoming episodes. Even the episode title, “Ice Cream”, only applies to a brief commercial plug. Doing a daily show, it’s not surprising that KFO would mix in these kind of hang-out episode along with the more elaborate productions, although it’s a little surprising that it got included on the DVD set.
Most of the talking concerns the show’s upcoming visit to Washington, D. C. (and ruining poor AD Russ’s honeymoon on the way.) I’d be interested in seeing what the road show looked like — the set-up for KFO is obviously pretty minimal, which raises the question of whether it would even look any different. The very idea of “taking the show on the road” reflects the locally-rooted nature of KFO, and how its Chicago setting was so important to its seemingly fantastical action. We also get a bit of postwar car culture here, as Fran effuses over the beautiful drive down to Washington in fall.
One of the more interesting segments is Dave Garroway’s visit. Garroway was a local Chicago TV host whose program, Garroway at Large, was quickly picked up nationally by ABC. He would go on to host several shows, including the early years of The Today Show. From my glimpse at him here, he resembles Ed Sullivan in his lack of obvious TV appeal or savvy, but there’s a bit of charm to just how relaxed and nonchalant he appears on camera. Unfortunately, none of Garroway’s early show seems to be available, and he spent his career doing the type of ephemeral program that was rarely preserved or re-released. Hopefully a Kinescope will turn up here or there.
Beyond that, we have the musical segments. The xylophone duet is humorous enough, and Fran’s South Pacific performance is brief but enjoyable. (Between this and Toast of the Town, that show seems to have dominated pop culture in 1949. Maybe I should watch it. Eh.) The overall package is nothing amazing, but it’s a quick enough way to pass thirty minutes, and that may be all TV audiences expected in 1949.
Coming up next: Our first glimpse of what a normal episode of The Lone Ranger looks like.
The Eternal Couch Potato 