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. “Ollie’s Chemistry Set” aired on Tuesday, October 10, 1950 at 7:00 PM on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.
What happened: Ollie is reading his big book of 301 Things A Bright Boy Can Do. He takes interest in one entry, “the boy chemist”, which says that he just needs a few apparatuses and some chemicals from the corner drug store to get started. The 50s were wild, man. At least we know he already has a Bunsen burner. Cecil Bill interrupts, and Ollie threatens him a bit. The dragon is uninterested in testing acids and bases, and is instead aiming for something more ambitious, inspired by “Mr. Sealtest”, the inventor of ice cream.
Cecil Bill alerts Fran that Ollie is up to something. Fran interrogates him, noting that he’s leaving the house because he had his hair done up. She offers to help with the experiment, singing about what a lovely day it is to do something. Pretty broadly applicable song, that. Ollie gets her to leave by saying that he has a problem related to his appearance, relating to an earlier conversation about Fran saying his hair lacks volume.
Kukla has started conducting his own experiments with the set, filling a beaker up with dark liquid. Ollie finds his set in use and tries to figure out the culprit without alerting Frances. Kukla calls Fran over to check out what he’s doing. Kukla gets a phone call, which turns out to be for Beulah. She talks for a while, claiming that she’s “The same old Beulie-loolie”, and mentions that the 3rd anniversary of the show is coming up.
Madame Oglepuss, Kukla, and Fran all gossip about the contents of Beulah’s call., with Fran thinking it might be her old flame Crawford. Fran shows off her dessert for the night: angel food cake, topped off course by Sealtest, and she and Kukla discuss Ollie’s strange behaviour. Kukla and Ollie finally get up to some chemistry, pouring the liquid into a different container and immediately running away scared. Beulah comes around and takes a glass of the mysterious liquid to drink.
Ollie reveals to Fran that he was making lotion to help straighten his hair. Fran comforts him as Kukla tears out his hair pins. After a little combing, Ollie is totally revitalized, singing about Old King Cole. For some reason, I always think of that one as a Christmas song. Everyone is happy again, apart from Beulah, who is presumably lying poisoned somewhere.
What I thought: I had a certain image of this episode in my mind after reading the episode title. Ollie would get a chemistry set and, after mixing up something terribly, it would all blow up in his face. leaving him covered in ash. After all, that’s what usually happens in cartoons when someone messes with chemicals, especially someone as goofy as Ollie. An explosion would normally be beyond the realm of KFO‘s special effects, but I’m sure they could have cooked something up.
Of course, I should have remembered that Kukla, Fran, and Ollie never goes the obvious route. Instead, the story we get is only one that loosely involves the titular chemistry set, and is more about the hurt feelings from an offhand comment Fran made about Ollie’s hair. This is becoming a pretty standard KFO plot, also seen in previous episodes featuring Beulah and Madame Oglepuss: somebody (actually Fran, in all three cases) accidentally offends another member of the cast, and has to find a way to apologize to them and make them feel better.
This is nice emotional education for kids, to learn that sometimes you will hurt someone’s feelings without meaning to and the onus is still on you to make up with them. It’s also a fine line to walk: the offending comment has to be light enough that Fran doesn’t look cruel, and serious enough that Ollie doesn’t look ridiculous. (Well, more ridiculous than he should.) I think these episodes have mostly walked that line, although erring a bit on the side of lightness.
This episode also works to set up what could be future stories. You have Fran mentioning her old beau, and also ra reference to the upcoming 3rd anniversary of the show. And of course, Beulah drank a whole flask of mystery liquid, so presumably she’s going to be on the toilet for all of tomorrow’s episode. It’s not exactly Lost, but it works to reward the viewer who works every day. Assuming they aren’t offended by hearing that their hair lacks volume, of course.
Coming up next: Maybe we’ll get an explosion on The Cisco Kid.
The Eternal Couch Potato 