What I watched: An episode of the early children’s show Kukla, Fran and Ollie. The series starred the titular Fran Allison, with all other roles being played by series creator and puppeteer Burr Tillstrom. “Art Elkins: 20 Years With NBC” aired on Tuesday, September 19, 1950 at 7:00 PM on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.
What happened: We open on a long sequence of Cecil Bill setting up drums on the stage which, as anyone who’s been to a concert can tell you, takes a while. Fran is there, very happy to see Cecil Bill again. She says she hasn’t seen him in a while. Fran, he was in yesterday’s episode. He seems to cheer up, singing a little song in his stagehand speech and banging on a tambourine. Fran joins in, singing a song about Bill’s unique way of speaking. It probably wasn’t written for the show, but it fits the context perfectly
Fletcher pops up to claim the tambourine, which he claims is his. He needs it for a production of The Bohemian Girl, and says they’re headed off for “the gypsy camp.”Bill heads off with Fletcher, and a moment later Kukla comes looking for him. As usual, Ollie is throwing a snag in the workings. He says that he won’t perform because his tambourine is broken.
Bill pops back up, suddenly shy. He seems resentful of having to do his usual cleaning jobs, although he does angrily shine a spoon using the stage curtains. The conversation turns, as it often does, to SealTest ice cream, and the special Kukla and Ollie spoons that have been released. The show even goes to a voice-over narrator to explain how you can send away for your own spoon set.
Advertisements dispensed with, Kukla is eager to get on with The Bohemian Girl, but Ollie comes in with some important news. Art Elkins, the sound engineer for the show, is celebrating 20 years with NBC. Ollie decides to celebrate this milestone with a lecture on sound through the ages, and the importance of the sound engineer. Kukla and Ollie drag up a thick book on broadcasting from below the stage.
In stenorian style, Ollie explains how sound waves travel. He and Kukla demonstrate this by dropping a stone into a pan, although it inadvertently falls on another tech guy. Fran momentarily wanders into the picture with a glass of water, which gets Ollie upset. The “sound waves” are visualized through some old ocean waves props. Ollie conducts a further demonstration with a ringing bell, but finds he can’t stop the bell with his tooth. All of these technical mishaps cause Ollie to launch into a very fun song called “Boom Boy, Watch It.” So an intended tribute to the lowly crew worker ends up castigating them. Even Burr joins in the song during his end-of-show sign-off.
What I thought: This episode isn’t really a tribute to Art Elkins. For one thing, he isn’t mentioned until halfway through.The first fifteen minutes feature some Cecil Bill gags and a lot of tomfoolery as the gang prepares to put on The Bohemian Girl, an Irish opera that had been adapted multiple times for films. In the end, they never get to the play, which is something of a relief, both because we just went to the ballet yesterday and because I don’t have to write a very heavy analysis of American depictions of the Roma people. It doesn’t feel like a letdown so much as the feeling of guilty relief when someone else cancels plans on you.
Instead, Kukla, Fran, and Ollie recognizes their long-time sound guy. However, this is a curious tribute — Elkins doesn’t come on screen, and instead Ollie gives a farcical lecture on the topic of sound. I suppose his inept work as a foley artist show just how difficult sound design really is, but in some ways it’s also a joke about the obscurity and technicality of the job. It’s definitely more interesting than an earnest tribute to a coworker would be.
With that all said, it’s kind of charming that Kukla, Fran, and Ollie even stops to acknowledge the sound guy after all. Usually these kind of technical positions are unheralded no matter how popular or acclaimed the production is. At the absolute highest level, you might get an Oscar speech that everyone kind of sits through while waiting for the famous people to show up. But Kukla, Fran, and Ollie is all about highlighting all kinds of artistic pursuits, and frequently gives time to the more obscure members of the crew. Pianist and composer Jack Fascinato has been on screen before, and Burr gives us a glimpse behind the curtain with his appearance at the end of each episode. The puppets frequently call out cameramen and other crew members by name. One gets the impression that the Kuklapolitans and the humans filming them are all part of a tight-knit family.
There’s also a loose, improvisatory nature to this show, even more than other KFO episodes. You’re never entirely sure how many of the gags are planned and how many were spur of the moment. Stuff like Ollie’s failure to ring the bell or the “Boom Boy” song seem to arise spontaneously from the accidents of framing, but also seem well-prepared and totally professional. Perhaps that’s also a tribute to how familiar Tilstrom, Allison, and the rest of the crew were with the show and its rhythms by now. They seem able to adapt to any failure or mistake.
Art Elkins won’t appear in any retrospectives or histories of this era in TV, or even of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. I don’t list sound engineers or other below-the-line staff in my descriptions, and would probably have no idea who Elkins was if it wasn’t for this episode, despite listening to hours of his work. But for one day, now preserved in time, he got his due. And no matter how satirical or goofy the tribute was, it’s still more than most sound guys get.
Coming up next: Suspense returns with “Dark Shadows.” No, it’s not a backdoor pilot.
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