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. “Third Anniversary Show” aired on Friday, October 13, 1950 at 7:00 PM on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.
What happened: Kukla is in the bath, getting ready for the third anniversary of the show. He chats with Jack and gets sentimental about the occasion, even launching into a song about how lucky he is. Fletcher delivers a stack of telegrams wishing the show happy birthday. There’s also a cake on the way, and I’m already hungry.
Next up in the bath is Madame Oglepuss, who does some vintage shower singing. Fran is afraid that the noise will collapse the cake. Ollie hops in the tub, and starts singing too, an old “dragon madrigal”. Kukla dries his hair, and conveys the “no yelling” rule. The cake will take another 40 minutes, which is an issue as there are only 17 minutes left in the episode. Dolores also gets in the bath and gets her clothes and ribbons wet, which causes a very maternal Fran to jump in and try to clean her up. Even Beulah jumps into the tub before a quick refresher before it gets taken off stage.
Kukla brushes Ollie’s hair while he inquires about the cake. He goes over the anniversary messages they’ve received, including a big broadsheet signed by the entire crew of their Philadelphia affiliate station, and a rhyming scroll from WTMTJ-TV in Milwaukee. The reminisce on their first show, a “very long” hour-long edition, and thank RCA for their support. Fran sends us off with a song about how “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime.” It’s very sweet, and another oddly romantic song.
The time has finally come to take the cake out of the oven. No ice cream, because it’s not a Sealtest day. Fran puts on the three candles, and Ollie suggests that they make a wish. Whatever it is, they keep it to themselves, and blow out the flame before sending it to a RCA Victor plug.
What I thought: There are a lot of things you can do with an anniversary show (which, for shows operating on a standard schedule, is usually just a season premiere.) You can have an especially dramatic episode with big plot moments, or an especially funny premise you’ve been sitting on for a while. You can bring back a beloved guest star, or a bunch of guests for a big celebration. Or, if you’re Kukla, Fran, and Ollie you can spend most of it on your characters singing in the shower.
This kind of low-key episode is perhaps the best summation of KFO‘s appeal. The show could certainly put together a lot of high-concept productions, as in its various revues and operettas, but it was always basically about hanging out with your TV puppet friends. And the songs are very nice, even if they seem disconnected from the occasion. Maybe KFO did something more elaborate for its first or second anniversaries, but by the this year the series was well in its groove, and confident that its viewership would stick around even if there wasn’t a laugh a minute.
At this point, Kukla, Fran, and Ollie was at the peak of its popularity. The thanks that pour in from station managers aren’t entirely pro forma — the show was a big draw with both children and adults, as demonstrated by its range of advertisers. The 30-minute, five-day-a-week format would only last for another year, however, with a mixture of network meddling and the inevitable decline in popularity setting in. But we’ll get to that when we get to it.
One interesting facet is that this episode actually covers the preparation for the Kuklapolitans’ anniversary party, not the party itself. It’s a testament to the reality that Kukla, Fran, and Ollie were able to conjure that it’s easy to imagine the puppets celebrating well into the late hours of the night, even after the cameras have stopped rolling. I can just see the gang late at night, as Ollie goes for the last piece of cake, and Kukla gets a little loose and talks about how much he loves everyone. Everyone is exhausted the next day, but they all think it’s worth it.
Coming up next: Gene Autry’s got to save a kid again, in a more literal way this time.
The Eternal Couch Potato 