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 Tilstrom. “Fletcher Loses His Pumpkin” aired on Friday, October 20, 1950 at 7:00 PM on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.
What happened: Kukla introduces the popularly-requested musician: himself, playing a xylophone (pronounced “zillophone.”) It sounds pretty good once the backing track kicks in. Cecil Bill comes out to put the kibosh on an encore. The next act up is Fletcher Rabbit showing us how to carve the Halloween pumpkin, although it looks more like a gourd to me. He tells us that he doesn’t approve of patterns, because everyone should use the opportunity to show their inner creativity. Well that’s nice.
Fletcher goes to show how to use a knife, and in the interim Beulah Witch appears to snatch his pumpkin. When Fletcher returns, he asks Jack and other producers where the pumpkin went, but they don’t have any straight answers. Fran also doesn’t know where it is, and Fletcher gets very emotional about the missing gourd. This situation calls for Cecil Bill in his Sherlock costume to gather information to help solve the mystery.
Cecil Bill gives Fletcher the third degree, and drags him away, suspecting him of some sort of plan. Ollie and Fran pop up, and she lets him know what’s going on. Ollie smells ginger in Beulah’s stall, and she tells him not to come near her pumpkin pie. Meanwhile, Colonel Crackle pops up to say that Fran has been named the Sweetest Girl in Television. Should I add that to the Golden Potatoes categories? She receives a bouquet of roses.
Fran and Madame Oglepuss bicker about whether you can have a “quince” or “mince”, which sounds very British to me. Kukla visits Madame O making her pie off stage and brings out the RCA Victor record player. It’s a shame this isn’t a Sealtest day or they could have the pie a la mode. Kukla, Fran, and Ollie sing from a sheet about the greatness of the RCA Victor player, in one of the clumsier commercial segments that the show has done. They make up for it a little afterwards by giving Jack some funny backhanded compliments.
Madame O pops up again wanting to sing the song, but it’s too late. She tries throwing her weight around as the Director of the Kuklapolitans Ladies Auxiliary. Fran eventually agrees to re-do the song with Madame Oglepuss and Beulah. After this she sings another song to try to comfort Fletcher. He’s happy enough to do another RCA plug afterwards, but he never does find out what happened to his pumpkin.
What I thought: Fletcher Rabbit was sitting backstage at the Kuklapolitan theatre. He quickly tried to gather information from his surroundings. Ollie was raiding the costume department again, entertaining everyone by coming out in crowns and feather boas. Kukla and Cecil Bill were hammering away at a set for next week. It was an ordinary evening after the show. It was almost just like it had been before The Incident.
He tugged down his sleeve and found a message, written in permanent marker. Beulah W. stole my pumpkin.
“Fletcher?”
He snapped to attention and saw Beulah Witch. What had he been thinking about? “I’m sorry. I have a condition.”
“I know about your condition, Fletch, you’ve told me a thousand times,” said Beulah. “I was asking if you wanted some pumpkin pie.”
So that was the pleasant smell. Fletcher loved pumpkin pie, but something bothered him. He looked down and rifled through the group of photographs he had put together to jog his memory. One snapshot depicted Beulah stirring a mixture in her cauldron. Don’t believe her lies was scrawled in his own handwriting.
“I’m not supposed to believe your lies,” said Fletcher.
“Well, believe whatever you want,” said Beulah. “The pie is real.”
She was right. That pie did smell delicious. Fletcher couldn’t remember what he was so upset about. He stood up to get a piece.
Coming up next: Gene Autry meets “The Black Rider.” Sounds tough!
The Eternal Couch Potato 