Episode 253: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – “Fixing the Floor” (September 26, 1950)

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. “Fixing the Floor” aired on Tuesday, September 26, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

What happened: Kukla wordlessly props up a winch on the front of the stage and starts cranking it. He also has an angled ruler. He tries to wedge a piece of wood in the winch and fumbles it, giving me instant flashbacks to high-school shop class. He sings a surprisingly operatic tune about following your guiding light. Cecil Bill finally shows up to help him, including producing a giant saw, which draws laughter from the crew. (I guess it’s only really giant in proportion to the puppets.)

I guess it’s only giant in relation to the puppets

They try to whittle down the edge of the board with a smaller blade. Kukla explains that they were fixing the wall last night, but Ollie got too dizzy after looking through the telescope and had to walk. Fran shows up looking for some strawberry Sealtest ice cream, with Kukla reminding her to mention the product name. He also asks Fran to bring the contraption they’ve been using to travel back and forth from the sub-basement.

Ollie finally makes his way up from the ruined mailroom to announce that he’s come up with a new business model. He’s going to take expensive hats and copy them. I think some people in New York are still doing this. Fran thinks this is dishonest, and is still cranky about missing her strawberry ice cream. Ollie shows her a photo of the moon’s surface, presumably not taken from his telescope, and says they’ll all be going there sometime soon.

Kukla is also tired, because he’s been missing his cereal. Probably shouldn’t have been keeping that food in the mailroom. Fran threw it out thinking it was sawdust. Beulah pops up, and is surprisingly peppy, saying that she loves remodelling. She has a “do-all” device that she says can answer any question, and Fran asks her about the ice-cream. However, Beulah gets her dress caught in the gears, and Fran has to help her, genuinely cracking up.

There’s something very disconcerting to me about the process of scooping ice cream sideways out of a box.

Finally, Kukla surfaces with the strawberry ice-cream, and Fran is happy again. Ollie rejoins them, finally bringing the title trio together. Ollie says he’s going to put in parquet floors all over the place, and make the hats in between. Fran is exasperated, but says “I guess if you did everything write, you wouldn’t be Ollie.” She sings about waiting a month of Sundays for Ollie. Fran, he’s on every night. But it’s a very nice song. Burr Tilstrom has Kukla give him a haircut in a remarkably brave bit of puppetry during the sign-off.

What I thought: After last week’s various ice-cream-related feuds, we have another mini-storyline on Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, with the broken floor that was an out-of-sight gag in yesterday’s episode being the main topic of concern. Of course, as is common with KFO, the nominal plot gets a little lost amidst character-based gags and performances. By the end of the half-hour, I don’t think they’ve fixed the floor. The next episode is labelled “Cinderella”, so this may be the end of the story, but we’ll have to see. It’s not exactly Lost, but it’s more continuity than grown-up shows were doing at this time.

I’d like to focus this recap a little bit on Fran Allison’s performance, and more broadly what she does for KFO. When watching , I was struck by the way Fran kept moving her head to look at one of the puppets when they were talking, and then look back to the audience. It’s a small gesture, but it cuts to the hart of a common issue with TV and stage blocking. When people talk to each other, they generally face each other (unless you’re a weird autistic no-eye-contact guy like me), but a performer always wants to face the audience or camera. This leads to conventions like the shot-reverse-shot scene (not available to a show like KFO with a fixed camera) as well as a lot of side or three-quarters conversations.

I tried to make a gif out of this motion, but failed.

Fran’s motion of turning to look at the puppets is a kind of compromise between realism and theatricality. As the only human performer, it’s her job to make the puppets feel real to the audience, and she never treats Kukla, Ollie, and the rest as anything less than humans. By turning back to the screen, she also invites the audience into the conversation. It’s a small thing, but on such a minimalist program it’s crucial.

It must have been strange for Allison to not just act alongside a bunch of puppets but have it be a decades-long run that would define her career. Allison also acted on radio, most notably on Chicago show The Breakfast Club, where she played spinster “Aunt Fanny”, and would go on to host a talk show. Her career never left Chicago, but this was a time when one could have national broadcast career in the Second City. None of it — the puppets, the radio show, being based out of Chicago — would be possible in another decade.

Ultimately, the job of acting is to get the audience to believe in something they know isn’t true. Working on television, with puppets, adds an additional level of difficulty. But Kukla, Fran, and Olllie makes me feel like these pieces of cloth are actual people that I know, and they really might be struggling to fix a floor back there. Fran Allison and Burr Tilstrom’s performances are crucial to that sense of reality.

Coming up next: The Cisco Kid rides again.

Episode 251: Kukla, Fran & Ollie – “Salute to Ohio” (September 25, 1950)

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. “Salute to Ohio” aired on Monday, September 25, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

What happened: Colonel Crackle welcomes us to the show. He say that this won’t be a “stupendous dramatic production.” They’ve decided to salute the state of Ohio, where many of their fine listeners live. He says he’s going to turn over the program to Oliver Dragon, but Ollie doesn’t show up. The Colonel goes looking for Ollie, and falls down through a whole in the floor of his dressing room. He falls down two flights into the lavatory, but thankfully seems to be only a little dazed. (This happens off-screen, of course.)

The Colonel calls on Fran to upbraid her for the general disrepair the backstage area is in. He threatens to quit unless there are repairs. Look, Madame Oglepuss just tried that last week, get your own plot. Speaking of which, Beulah pops up to enjoy the Colonel’s misery. The women comment on how the Colonel has grown out his crew cut. He heads off, and Beulah offers to tell Fran who’s responsible for removing the mailroom floor. Fran refuses to hear the gossip, and asks Beulah to be in the Ohio pageant. Beulah heads off to smoke her pipe and get ready.

Kukla is the next to pop up, also looking for Ollie. The backstage is still in chaos, with Cecil Bill objecting from down below. Ollie finally pops up, and it turns out that he’s been mixed up by the recent time change, and did the pageant an hour ago. Happens to me all the time. When Kukla tells him that they’re now using standard time, Ollie replies that “all time is standard” and goes on a cosmological rant that ends with him begging to be allowed to look at the lunar eclipse.

Ollie is eager to re-start the pageant, but now everything has been thrown out of whack. Kukla and Fran launch into a song where they go through all of the major Ohio cities but focus on greeting all their friends in Toledo. Fletcher Rabbit pops in and recounts his own story of falling through the floor while visiting the mailroom.

Kukla and Fletcher haul up the most important item to protect: the RCA Victor record player. Fletcher tearfully reads off its specs. Kukla comforts Fletcher by saying that he can stay in his room, but Fletcher is still worried about the mail he dropped. This leaves the pageant pretty much in shambles until Madame Oglepuss pops up with Colonel Crackle. Things are in such dire straights that the film starts deteriorating.

They’re looking at Planet RCA.

Crackle has cheered enough to do his own song about Ohio, and dance around a little bit with Madame O. Ollie returns at the end, happy that he’s seen the moon. Must be starting to get dark late. Fran sings a soft, sweet song called “Beautiful Ohio”, and Kukla eventually joins in. Fran Allison does have a very nice voice. They reference some of the stuff they had planned, like covered wagons, but Ollie is still hyped up about the moon. It turns out he’s just looking at the window instead. Kukla helps him with a telescope, which helps him to discover the closing ad read.

What I watched: This is at least nominally another one of KFO‘s “salute” series, in which they pay tribute to all of the various NBC affiliates throughout America. I’ve kind of mocked the concept of these episodes in the past, but I can see their appeal. As someone who has lived in an unglamorous mid-sized city for most of my life (shout-out to Hamilton, Ontario!) I know that you get a little thrill of recognition on the rare occasions you see your city referenced on television. Ohio is a state that seems to be composed mostly of unglamorous mid-sized cities, so I would imagine they felt the same.

At the same time, this mundanity makes it difficult to compose an episode about Ohio. You could do something for its neighbour Michigan with the Ford sponsorship, and even upstate New York has plenty of cultural associations, but Ohio doesn’t give you much to work with. There’s Ohio State football, but no child should be exposed to something so obscene until they are ready. So Kukla, Fran, and Ollie has to take a slightly different approach.

“Salute to Ohio” is one of the more meta-episodes, precisely about not doing a “salute to Ohio” episode. Instead, it becomes an episode about a stage show where everything goes wrong, one of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie‘s fortes. This episode has an even wilder comedic sensibility than KFO is used to, with references to people falling down two stories off-screen and Ollie doing a bizarre monologue about the stars and physics. It’s a very madcap episode, but I think it works.

The more genuine tribute to Ohio comes in the musical numbers, which touch on the state’s features and cities at least lyrically. I normally don’t talk much about the music much in these write-ups, as it’s not my area of expertise, but it is a heavier presence in “Salute to Ohio” than in other episodes, with three separate musical numbers. Fran Allison’s versatile voice is KFO‘s secret weapon, able to handle a number of genres. There’s also a gag based on setting back the clocks, which is one of our society’s most arbitrary rituals which needs to be explained to children.

Colonel Crackle’s opening monologue runs for a solid five minutes

I’m not sure how kids and families from Ohio felt about their episode. One might be upset to find out that their state got a less dedicated tribute than Utica, New York, but maybe Ohioans greeted the episode with a humble Midwest humour. All I know is that if they do a tribute to Hamilton, Ontario, I am definitely on board, no matter what it looks like.

Coming up next: Studio One takes us “Away from It All”

Episode 248: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – “Beulah Witch and Madame Oglepuss Make Up” (September 22, 1950)

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. “Beulah Witch and Madame Oglepuss Make Up” aired on Friday, September 22, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

What I thought: Ollie is reading poetry from some loose sheets of paper, which he calls the “galley proofs.” It turns out to be Mother Goose rhymes. Ollie has Fran take the papers away to test his memory. He does a garbled rendition of “Three Blind Mice”, now “Three Kind Mice”, and Jack and Fran provide musical accompaniment. Our dragon friend explains that he’s getting a new floor put in. He wants it done by Sunday so that he can watch the Fred Allan show.

Madame Oglepuss arrives, bringing a small box along (although it’s a big box for her). She drops it over the edge of the stage, and the show director has to pick it up.. There’s what might be a very oblique casting couch joke. Madame O is stuffing her suitcase with appropriately-sized clothes.

Colonel Crackle is dismayed to hear that Madame O is apparently leaving. He tells Beulah Witch this, and she is shocked. Beulah notes that she is often too harsh, and didn’t mean any harm. Beulah brainstorms ways to win her back over alongside Fran. Fran wants Beulah to play strings for her, which the witch is reluctant to do, but Fran says it’s important to make Beulah feel needed.

This is how you lose a sponsor.

Uninvolved in all this drama, Kukla and Ollie are playing around with a record player, which just so happens to be from the RCA Victor sponsor. Dolores Dragon pops up and tries to eat the record player’s arm. Kukla explains the concept of sponsorship to her. There’s some audible laughter in the background as Kukla gets weirdly aggressive about the record player’s technical detail, and Dolores fails to play along.

Fran and Beulah put their plan into action, bringing out their cello and violin and asking for Madame Oglepuss’s help finding the right note. Madame O explains that her harp is being fixed and she can’t help. Eventually, they convince her to join in on vocals for “Up by the Mountain.” Beulah is just a little off-pitch. Madame Oglepuss decides to stay to help everyone else out, and all’s well that ends well.

What I thought: “You certainly made a mess out there,” Beulah Witch said when they got home.

“What can I say?” said Madame Oglepuss, with a theatrical flourish of her hands. “A woman has to make sure everyone knows how important she is for the production.””

They’re very good friends.

“Great,” said Beulah. “Except now we’re gonna have to play strings with Fran all weekend.”

Madame Oglepuss chuckled. “Well, it was your idea. It was so sweet you would think I wouldn’t notice what you were doing.”

Beulah could only cackle. This was how her and Madame Oglepuss’s relationship had always been: full of unspoken games and manipulation, some playful and others a little more deeply felt. Both of them had packed their suitcases a dozen times, but never made it out the door. They loved making a scene. She really had been upset about the ice cream soda thing, though.

Madame Oglepuss wrapped her arms around Beulah. “So what’s it tonight, Bee? Out to the opera? The nightclub? Or shall we have some friends over?”

Beulah made a show of musing on the matter. “Hmm… I think we’ll stay in. Jackie Gleason’s on tonight, after all. Or if you want something else, I’ll let ya change the channel… as long as you’re not leaving, after all.”

“Well, I think I’ll stay for another night,” said Madame Oglepuss, with a twinkle in her button eye. “I do like Jackie Gleason.”

Episode 246: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – “Fran and Beulah Witch Make Up”(September 21, 1950)

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. “Fran and Beulah Witch Make Up” aired on Thursday, September 21, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

What happened: The show opens with a call from the NBC news department to musician Jack. Apparently a famous recording artist is in town, and he wants to use the studio. Kukla has another behind-the-camera guy, Claude, bring in a music stand. Ollie emerges in a tie, playing the role of the famous musician. He provides a slightly condescending educational note, defining a sixpence. He sings a very theatrical version of the old nursery song about birds being baked in a pie.

Ollie heads down, and it’s Madame Oglepuss’s turn to perform. She pronounces that she’s leaving the troupe. Fran offers to help her pack, and Madame O says that she’s not taking it seriously. Apparently Beulah is upset because of some comments Fran made about how to make soda, and Madame O took offense. Beulah’s main complaint, however, is that Jack played her song to introduce Ollie.

Fran and Oglepuss leave, and Beulah pops up with a flowery hat. She flirts a little with Jack. She confides in Kukla that she’s very upset about the soda thing, and eggs him on to help embarass Fran by forcing her to make her own chocolate soda. Ultimately, she decides “I’ll just heckle her for a little while and I’ll feel better.” A witch after my own heart. She kisses Kukla, and he acts bashful about it. Good thing he’s already blushing.

Fran doesn’t see the big deal about making a soda, but also refrains from doing it herself. Beulah comes up and starts tickling Kukla, causing him to freak out. This leads into Beulah’s own demonstration of how to make a soda, which once again is what they call an ice cream float. Beulah keeps popping up to ridicule her technique. Fran overloads the glass with a ton of ice cream and chocolate. Madame Oglepuss also freaks out about it, but Beulah comes to Fran’s defense. This leads to Beulah making up with Fran while simultaneously getting into a feud with Madame Oglepuss. Such is the way of things.

I love the little shocked face on Kukla’s underside.

Kukla and Ollie come out to close the show, with Ollie talking up the great singer who visited them at the top of the show. Jack plays along with the gag. Kukla pulls up his tie and collar to reveal the truth. The show ends with Fran very happy, and maybe doing a little bit of stretching. She sings “I Hadn’t Anyone ‘Til You.”

What I thought: In 1985, an edition of Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For featured a character describing a “test” they applied to movies to see if they were worthy of her interest: if they had more than one female character, those characters talked to each other, and it was about something other than a man. This idea has since become widely disseminated as a criteria for feminist filmmaking, somewhat against the author’s intent. It’s an especially imperfect test for TV, because over the countless hours that make up a long-running series two women will probably have a plot-moving conversation no matter how misogynist the show in general is. (Although there are probably a few who still fail.)

But it does seem worth noting that this episode of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie hinges on the relationship between three women, on a show with one female cast member. The feud between Fran and Beulah over ice-cream floats is silly, but it’s also the kind of silly tiff that becomes a big things a lot of viewers could relate to, especially young ones. Shows that focus on female relationships have been rare in my survey. The Life of Riley and The Goldbergs had mother-daughter pairs, but I don’t remember them interacting that much. And it sounds like tomorrow’s episode will continue the trend.

This episode is also part of something of a serialized storyline. The inciting incident happens in the ice cream float episode, and “Fran and Beulah Make Up” sets up a conflict between Beulah and Madame Oglepuss that will likely continue into the following show. We even have a B-plot in this episode, dealing with Ollie’s attempts to masquerade as a big-time musician. So Kukla, Fran, and Ollie in some senses has more complex storytelling than we’ve seen in prime-time shows from the era.

All of this is perhaps a pretty pretentious way to understand a show that was a vehicle for selling ice cream. (Sealtest on Tuesdays and Thursdays!) Having an ongoing storyline may have just been a response to the limited number of ways one could incorporate the sponsor. But the thing that made Kukla, Fran, and Ollie so appreciated by the audience is how it never talked down to its audience, and that’s very much on display with “Fran and Beulah Make Up.”

The Beulah test is when you see if there are at least two female puppets, and if at least one has a fancy hat.

What else is on?: The 7:00 weekday slot at this time seems to have mostly been dedicated to family programming. DuMont had Captain Video, which we’ve briefly looked at, while other networks aired Western movies and musical programming. CBS had The Garry Moore Show, which it seems was more of a general variety show.

Coming up next: We turn the dial right over to a less serialized kids show with The Lone Ranger.

-little shocked face on Kukla’s underside (2:06)

Episode 245: Kukla, Fran and Ollie – Nightclub Circuit (September 20, 1950)

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. “Nightclub Circuit” aired on Wednesday, September 20, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

What happened: Colonel Crackie starts off the show with a little speech, promising us that there’ll be something enjoyable tonight. He tells us that tonight’s show will be a response to the current popularity of Westerns, and sets the scene in “cattle country.” Ollie emerges, wearing a cowboy hat and affecting a great Southern drawl. His partner Kukla pops up, but is a little confused as to his role. Ollie’s an oil baron and Kukla’s a cattle rancher, not a cowboy, although I’m not sure there’s a practical difference. They’re lonesome cousins.

I wonder how much use they get out of these hats.

Kukla proposes they go out to New York to get something to eat. Why does nobody ever try that in The Lone Ranger? Kukla heads down to the General Store and greets the owner Fletcher. They break character a bit. Kukla wants to hire a car so that they can go in style, and Fletcher happens to be the local Ford dealer, allowing for some anachronistic product placement.

They take the car to New York, and see a nightclub. The main attraction is Madame Glockenspiel, portrayed by a hair-down Fran. She sings a jazzy version of “You Are My Sunshine.” Kukla runs into Fletcher again, who just happens to have also travelled to New York and is overly familiar towards them. Kukla and Ollie blow him off and head over to another club.

Fran is also performing here, as a starstruck French singer. She talk-sings her way through a rowdy multilingual song. Ollie is upset that they can’t get away from her. Kukla wants to head over to Carnegie Hall, and Kukla agrees, as he wants to hear something operatic. Always high class, this show. Fran appears again, in a flowery hat. She sings an aria that abruptly turns into a folk song about the mighty rushing rivers of the West. I heard that’s how Woody Guthrie got his start.

A despondent Ollie wants to go back home. However, they’re overjoyed to see their old friend “Frances Allison”, in a bonnet and polka-dot shirt. She sings a truly down-home jitty, and Kukla and Ollie join in. They remind us to buy a Ford before closing the show.

What I thought: “Nightclub Circuit” opens by telling us that this is going to be a Western show, just like the others that were popular on television at this time. Indeed, cowboys were making up a huge portion of kids TV in 1950. On this blog,I just got done writing about The Cisco Kid, and am well familiar with The Lone Ranger, The Gene Autry Show, and the Western-themed Howdy Doody. Western B-movies, while outside the scope of this project, were common, easy-to-license programming for off-primetime hours, with the Hopalong Cassidy shorts in particular being a favourite of kids. So even a very young audience would be familiar enough with the tropes of the Western.

Not sure the pioneer look suits Fran.

It’s a little surprising, then, that what we get is not a TV Western, or even a parody of a TV Western, but a distinctly Kukla, Fran, and Ollie version of an Old West story. In this story, the cowboys do what everyone else wants to do in the KFO universe: they go into the city and see a show. I suppose that these are modern-day cowboys, living in a rural area but still able to rent a 1950 Ford. It’s like The Power of the Dog.

The back half of the episode, after an improbable Ford plug, is essentially an excuse for Fran to appear in a bunch of outfits and do a bunch of songs, not that I’m complaining. There are actually some impressively quick changes here, where Fran is off-screen for less than a minute. The episode provides a rough tour of the genres of stage show one might expect to see in this era, from jazz to opera. Once again, we’re reminded that in this period, or at least in the world of KFO, nightclubs are associated with performances, not lust (or at least not entirely lust.).

In a sense, I wonder if this episode is symbolic of what Kukla, Fran, and Ollie saw itself doing in the television landscape. It took an audience typically more interested in cowboys punching out troublemakers and introduced them to ballet, opera, and all other kinds of “high” art. At the same time, the show’s warm humour helped it avoid feeling like good-for-you edutainment. As in other episodes, “Nightclub Circuit” makes the adult world more approachable for children, and perhaps for adults too.

Coming up next: It’s going to be another week off for holidays and list-updating, then we’re back to the Kuklapolitans with a feud between Fran and Beulah.

Episode 242: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – “Art Elkins: 20 Years With NBC” (September 19, 1950)

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.

The Ollie design does look pretty cool.

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.

The scientific method at work.

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.

Episode 241: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – “Ballet Day”(September 18, 1950)

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. “Ballet Day” aired on Monday, September 18, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

Kukla and Fran’s gazes focus the viewer’s attention on Dolores, who stares back at them.

What happened: Madame Oglepuss leads a ballet rehearsal. After a few minutes, Dolores Dragon pops up, and Oglepuss is upset about her being “underfoot.” Kukla calls for her to go downstairs. (He can’t come up, as there can only be two puppets at a time.) Madame O finally resumes her lesson, although it’s not clear who she’s teaching.

Fran comes in. She was supposed to get tutus for Oglepuss, but she forgot. Fran talks to Kukla, whose job in all this is to manage the finances. Apparently all of the puppets are doing different ballets: Ollie is the lead in Giselle, as he’s the only one who’s tall enough, while Beulah Witch is starring in The Spectre of the Rose. Dolores pops back up, and Fran tries to find a role for her in the ballets.

Ollie is, of course, a complete primadonna about his role, needing strawberries and cream after each performance. Madame O shows off her record of ballet music, which of course is available with a RCA Victor record player, but she wants to resist turning it into a commercial for aesthetic reasons. She decides the first one they practice will be Giselle, about a young woman in love who “loses her head.” Cecil Bill pops up in a fancy dress that looks a bit like a stripey sock, and dances his part.

Next up is Spectre of the Rose. Again, Madame O explains the plot in her own muddled way. Beulah pops up, saying she’s prepared because she saw the movie. Hey, that’s how I got my English PhD. Dolores again disrupts proceedings. Beulah comes out in her nightgown, with her scratchy voice contrasting just a bit with the elegant music. She doesn’t have ballet slippers, which also makes the dancing a bit difficult. Colonel Crackle plays the male lead, which upsets Beulah, who doesn’t want him to get near her.

Fran is impressed with Beulah’s skill and her claimed role as a “major general”, and apologizes for being bossy in last week’s ice cream soda episode. Dolores pops up again with a veil, and Fran intuits that she wants to dance too. She sings a nice, romantic song. Fletcher Rabbit turns up in a tutu, but it’s too late to dance. Ollie is also finally ready, but there’s only two minutes left in the episode, and they only have time left for one more RCA Victor plug.

What I thought: There’s nothing the Kuklapolitans love more than putting on a show. In the somewhat scattered collections of episodes I’ve seen so far we’ve seen opera, fairy tales, theatre, and now ballet. There’s always a double layer to these episodes: there’s the story of the show, and the story of putting on the show, both depicted with equal playfulness and verve. “Ballet Day” doesn’t have as much of an over-arcing story as some other KFO episodes — it’s a lot of short scenes, with different puppets popping in and out. Instead, it’s just a fun ensemble comedy, with the half-hour mark sneaking up on both viewer and actors.

I’m again amazed at how much knowledge of high culture was assumed of TV audiences in this era, even an audience that included young children. Today, I don’t think you could expect an average viewer to recognize any ballet except Swan Lake and The Nutcracker — and even for those, the extent of their knowledge might be that it’s a ballet. But this episode makes free reference to works like Giselle and The Spectre of the Rose, even using the French title of the latter. I don’t think this is a case of audiences becoming dumber so much as the vast increase in cultural production, including media and genres that hadn’t even been invented in 1950. Older, snootier culture forms naturally got pushed down into the recesses of public art.

Madame O expresses herself

“Ballet Day” is also kind of a showcase for the secondary Kuklapolitans. Kukla and Ollie are in distinctly secondary roles here, with Madame Oglepuss, Beulah Witch, and Fletcher Rabbit all getting solos. In general these characters don’t have quite as much depth as the title trio, but it’s important to have variety, especially for a daily show. Beulah and Madame O in particular seem to have a dynamic worth exploring.

Dolores Dragon gets more screen time here than in any previous episode I’ve seen. Kid’s shows and properties often add these kind of young, non-speaking characters. — the examples that spring to mind are Dil in Rugrats and Rerun in Peanuts, both added late in their series’ runs, although I’m sure there are better ones I’m missing. This type of character serves a dual purpose: for the youngest kids in the audience, she’s a point of identification, while for older children Dolores is a way to learn about treating a younger, non-speaking sibling or other child. That and it’s a cute puppet.

There’s a crassly commercial reason for this episode, one reinforced throughout: RCA Victor has a record of ballet music that comes with the record player, and they’d like to represent this as a great deal instead of a boring public-domain pack-in. But rather than coming off as a tacky half-hour commercial, there’s a playful, cheeky way that Kukla, Fran, and Ollie integrates the advertising into the plot. This might be the true thing that distinguishes television as an art form, that ballet and opera and all the rest couldn’t manage: turning commerce into entertainment, and vice versa.

Coming up next: I’m going to go back and fill in a very early recording next week, before returning to the next day’s KFO.

Episode 237: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – “Fran, Girl Photographer” (September 15, 1950)

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. “Fran, Girl Photographer” aired on Friday, September 15, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

What happened: The episode opens with Kukla answering the phone in his own distinctly dramatic fashion. He hears that a photographer’s coming to take glamour shots of the /kuklapolitans. Ollie overhears and yells at Fran to get ready, but she’s still absent. When Fran shows up, she brings the camera with her, a rather elaborate (perhaps old-fashioned) camera with her..

Fran announces herself as “girl photographer”, to the titters of Kukla and Ollie. She explains the choice as a cost-cutting measure, asserting that she can do as good a job as any professional. But she falters when it comes to the technical elements of setting up the camera, which has an accordion-type fold that plays actual music when she stretches it.

Kukla is first up to get his picture taken, but first Fran throws a sheet over herself to protect from the flash. Then she forgets to put in the plate to capture the image. Fletcher Rabbit pops up, but says he’s not feeling good enough to get his picture taken. Fran cheers him up by singing a song about keeeping the twinkle in your eye. It’s a bit of a digression, but it’s a nice song, and the dancing between Kukla and Fletcher is great.

Good for them.

Fletcher gets spooked by Fran showing him the camera’s light meter. Cecil Bill briefly pops up, then runs away. Even Kukla is trying to persuade Fran not to take pictures. Madame Oglepuss, on the other hand, is happy to be thecentre of attention, and wants a photo taken with her “paramour” Beulah, who Fran identifies as her “girlfriend.” Beulah pops up in a frilly dress instead of her usual witchy csotume. However, they fall off the stage, unbalanced by the sheet.

Ollie shows up and, in his typically insecure way, is concerned that Fran’s new photography career will take her away from the Kuklapolitans. She reassures him, and says she learned how to develop photos from pianist Jack, which shocks Ollie. The camera cuts to Fran’s dressing room, which is now doubling as a darkroom. Kukla and Ollie’s conversation plays over it, questioning her competence but then realizing that she’ll use the handy RCA Victor record player to help time the development by playing a Perry Como song. Now there’s a crossover I’d like to see.

There’s some pretty obvious stretching over the image of Fran developing the photo. She’s unhappy when she sees it, and rips up the negative.Kukla and Ollie explain that the problem is that all the lights are on in her “darkroom.” When the photos come out, Fran is unhappy, and Ollie is startled by them. She disowns her work. Presumably the photos will be credited to Alan Smithee. Kukla and Ollie sing “If You Were My Girl” to cheer her up. There’s that weird romantic dynamic again. Anyway, they resolve to try photography again, and the week ends happily.

What I thought: I was pretty surprised to see the cumbersome camera that Fran used (or tried to use) in this episode. I obviously didn’t expect the Kuklapolitans to be busting out camera phones, but I had sort of thought that personal cameras had become fairly easy to use by 1950. Some quick research discovers that there were some more convenient “point and shoot” options available in 1950, including the earliest Polaroids. Fran does note in the episode that the camera she uses is “old fashioned”, so maybe it was deliberately chosen for comedic potential.

Still, Fran’s struggles with the camera prove to be pretty good story fodder. Fran often plays the straight woman, so it’s fun to have an episode where she is sort of the butt of the joke, her false confidence causing all manner of difficulties. True to KFO‘s gentle spirit, this is more a cause for kind concern from her friends than mockery. It also provides a fun opportunity for some of the secondary Kuklapolitans to pose and dress up, with Beulah’s bridal costume the highlight. (She and Madame Oglepuss must be really good friends.)

The sobriquet “girl photographer” here suggests a kind of spunky professional women, akin to the female reporters in movies like His Girl Friday, there to show pluck before ultimately falling in love with the hero. It’s a little condescending, especially for a 42-year-old woman like Fran, but KFO turns the trope a bit on its head. This episode does end in a love song, but as with many such songs on KFO it’s repurposed to reflect the platonic love between the three stars.

Fran’s non-dark darkroom is a rare second location.

Fran’s camera difficulties also suit the educational qualities of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. By watching Fran learn how to operate a camera, the kids in the audience learn it too, and in an approachable, non-condescending way. The children of 1950 wouldn’t end up needing to know how to put a plate into their camera, but there’s still a natural desire to try the activity out oneself, the spirit of creativity that KFO encouraged.

There’s also a solid emotional core to the narrative. “Fran, Girl Photographer” is practically an instructional manual on how to treat a friend who is in a bit over their head on a new hobby or creative endeavour. Kukla and Ollie are skeptical about Fran’s photography but still encourage her, give advice, and cheer her up with song when the pictures don’t turn out as she’d hope. As an amateur, frequently mediocre creator, you couldn’t ask for more.

Coming up next: Gene Autry gathers a posse. Or maybe the posse is gathering against him. I haven’t watched the episode yet.

Episode 235: Kukla, Fran and Ollie – “Committee Day” (September 14, 1950)

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. “Committee Day” aired on Thursday, September 14, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

What happened: Kukla starts the show unhappy with the pace and pronunciation of the announcer’s introduction to the show. Given that the show’s been back for three weeks, he expects more. He’s also unhappy about the lighting, which looks much better on Fran. Ollie comes in to make fun of his perfectionism. The lighting seems to dim during this segment, which may be part of the bit or may just be the Kinescope.

Ollie gets behind the camera and plays director, talking about how great Fran looks but acting like he’s unable to see Kukla. Kukla wants to hold the regular fall meeting about the show. They take the minutes, with everyone identifying themselves. Fran thinks the whole thing is silly, obviously not understanding the importance of Robert’s rules of order.

Fran is never getting to Inbox Zero

The first order of business is the Treasury Report, which consists of Ollie dragging up an old cash register and opening this up. There’s some argument about who can second a motion or not. Ollie wants to add a constitutional amendment, which leads to the question of whether or not they have a constitution.

Kukla and Ollie vote to adjourn, but just as they do Fletcher Rabbit arrives, with a report on the “mail situation” Fran tells him he shouldn’t be speaking as the meeting is not in session, but he proceeds anyway. He brings in letters that several children have written to the show. The letters all look to be quite extensive, and are from across the US. They all encourage more people to write in, despite the mail seeming pretty overwhelming already.

Beulah Witch also shows up to give a report, although she’s not sure what about. She decides to make an ice cream soda on stage, to demonstrate the uses of Sealtest ice cream. Beulah demonstrates the method of making an ice cream soda (what I’m used to calling an ice cream float), putting particular emphasis on placing the glass on the table. Beulah takes off before Fran can load in the ice cream, so she lets Cecil Bill stir it. The glass begins to overflow, but Beaker still wants to add more syrup. Damn, now I’m hungry.

Ollie comes back to take the floor. He gets the camera to show off the people behind the show, including cameraman Kumar and pianist Jack. They sing a call-and-response song I’m not familiar with. Everyone votes to adjourn once again, and tell everyone to buy Sealtest. After that float, they don’t really need to convince me. Burr drinks from the float as the show signs off.

What I thought: This is another Kukla, Fran, and Ollie episode that is essentially housekeeping, tying together a bunch of neccesary small tasks into a half-hour whole. For all that, it’s a fairly fun and breezy watch. The structure of a committee meeting provides a good way to integrate miscellaneous items like the reading of fan-mail and an extended advertising demonstration, and also allows for some good jokes about the absurdities of bureaucracy. The little fourth-wall breaking jokes like Kukla being disappointed in the announcer and Ollie turning the camera back on Jack Fascinato, the musician who both composed and performed most of the show’s accompaniment.

These jokes would seem to be some of the show’s more adult-oriented humour. Kids probably hadn’t sat in meetings dominated by questions about the right order to do business in and the difference between sponsoring and carrying a motion. Then again, kids certainly understand what it’s like to be involved in something boring that has pointless rules. There’s a kind of bureaucracy-driven humour here that wouldn’t be out of place in the works of Terry Gilliam.

The most business-like part of the episode is the reading of fan-mail, but in a sense it’s also the most tender and heartfelt. In a pre-Internet era, fan mail was genuinely one of the only ways to communicate with an artist, and there was even the hope that they might actually read it. It was also one of the few ways TV shows (and comics, newspapers, etc.) could get feedback from ordinary consumers, and give them a sense of what was working and what wasn’t. By naming letter writers on show, Kukla, Fran, and Ollie helped to build a sense of community with their viewers. Just hearing their name on TV could also be a surreal treat for kids around the country.

Most of the rest of “Committee Day” is dedicated to a demonstration of how to make an ice cream soda. There are a couple of jokes here, but this is also a perfectly reasonable and usable set of instructions on how to make a simple kid-friendly dessert. Call it proto-food television. In any case, it’s a fairly fun integration of an advertiser, and an enjoyable end to a grab-bag of an episode.

I somehow had never noticed before that Kukla was a bald king like me.

(Motivated by this episode, I made an ice cream float with the root beer and ice cream I already had in my fridge. It may be because I was missing a couple ingredients, but it didn’t quite have the magical fizz I remember from root beer floats in my Nana’s kitchen. I guess you really can’t go home again.)

Coming up next: It’s the second-season premiere of The Lone Ranger. Wait, didn’t we just finish the first season?

Episode 234: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – “County Fair” (September 13, 1950)

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. This episode aired on Wednesday, September 13, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

What happened: Tonight’s episode is sponsored by Ford. It opens with _, who says this is the first time he’s speaking to the audience this year. He has short hair which looks a bit like a modern undercut. Instead of letting us know about the Kuklapolitan theatrical productions, which is his usual beat, he’s here to invite us to the county fair – KFO‘s recreation of fairs that are happening all around the country.

Fran, Madame Oglepuss, and Beulah are all here in big hats. They sing “Come to the Fair” off sheet music. Ollie and Kukla are also here. Kukla is excited for the fair, but Ollie is down in the dumps. He says he’s a city guy now, and just wants to stay home alone. Fran thinks he’s sick and trying to keep it from them, while Kukla thinks he’s still embarassed about a situation last year when he had to judge between jams made by the other Kuklapolitans.

I’ve seen less convincing car effects on TV.

Fletcher Rabbit is bringing a big peanut plant. They head to the fair in a big cardboard cut-out of a Ford car. Fran and Kukla have also prepared exhibits for the fair. Meanwhile, Ollie is brooding, but interrupted by a young female dragon, Dolores. Worried about her, Ollie puts on a flowery hat to imitate her mother and take her to the fair.

This disguise proves effective, and Ollie enjoys the opportunity to visit the fair as someone other than himself. Beulah, Madame O, and Fran all seem to not recognize him, as they search for a place to have their peach-plum jelly judged. When they have a glimmer of recognition, Ollie says that “my face is a common one you could see in any crowd.”

The three jelly-makers meet and decide on the mysterious woman as the perfect impartial observer to judge who has the best jelly. Ollie, predictably, is distressed by this, claiming that he has no sense of taste. Fletcher is just interested in the hoedown, prompting Fran to sing a distinctly non country-style song about country-style dancing. The story doesn’t really have a conclusion, but we are reminded to visit our local Ford dealer. This seems like a big step up from buying Sealtest ice cream.

What I thought: I was a city kid through and through, not to mention Canadian, so I never experienced the bucolic world of county or state fairs dominated by agricultural competitions, small midways, and well-past-their-prime musical acts. My family did, however, go to the Canadian National Exhibition as a yearly ritual. The Ex, as we called it, had its roots in just such a county fair, but the rides and games and spectacle had grown to more or less take over any agricultural aspect, save for a show-riding ring where I first learned what manure smelled like and a few other out-of-the-way exhibits.

When I was young, I always looked forward to the Ex, which seemed magical and bigger-than-life. It was a day of excitement that distracted from the evaporating final days of summer. But as I grew older, I realized that I enjoyed the anticipation of the day and the concept of a big day out more than the event itself. I was intimidated by most of the rides, I knew horses were a girl thing, and there weren’t enough tickets to play skewed midway games all day. As the reality of a day full of family bickering and logistical hassles set in, I would become surly, thinking to myself that I’d rather have stayed home and had a day to myself. As I entered my teenage years, this emotion seemed to encapsulate more and more supposedly fun things.

Ollie is a master of disguise

All of this is a very personal and round-about way of saying that I had a brief moment of intense identification with Oliver J. Dragon while watching this episode. It’s amazing how well Tilstrom’s puppets convey emotion, even with static facial expressions, and the same Ollie that was a rakish salesman in yesterday’s episode today reminded me of just the same sullenness I subjected my family to.

As it turns out, the perfectly sociable Ollie simply wants to avoid being put in a position to avoid having to choose between his friends, not whatever adolescent bullshit I was going through. He ends up disguising himself and, in true sitcom fashion, this leads to exactly the situation he was dreading. The episode ends before it feels like the story can be properly resolved, which is perhaps a consequence of the improvisatory nature of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. Still, it’s a fun episode, and one that tells a simple but affecting emotional story.

I’ve still never been to a real county fair. The closest that I’ve come is probably the Winona Peach Festival, another childhood tradition that I was bored by. Maybe one day I’ll move out to the country and have to judge between peach-plum jellies. Probably not. But if I do, at least I’ll know that a puppet dragon has been through the same thing.

Coming up next: I’m taking a one-week break to get some of the site’s infrastructure up to date, and then we’ll be back with another exciting KFO adventure.