Episode 286: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – “Everyone Feels Good Today” (October 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 Tilstrom. “Everybody Feels Good” aired on Thursday, October 19, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

What happened: The curtains part on Kukla sweeping the stage. He chats with Jack a bit and sings “Look to the Rainbow.” Fletcher walks in on him doing weird screeches, and Kukla tries to muster an explanation that he was playing “hide and seek.” Fletcher doesn’t understand, but says that he’s never felt better in his entire life. The first hit’s always like that, Fletch. He celebrates by banging his snare drum against the stage, much to Kukla’s consternation.

It’s very cute.

Kukla expresses his happiness and cheer as he kicks Fletcher off the stage. He calls in Fran to play with him. What emerges from the bottom, however, is Ollie with a Kukla mask on. When Fran mentions that someone’s come to see him, Ollie blows his cover, saying that he has a Kukla mask for Halloween. Fran notes that it’s made out of a potholder. Kukla sees the mask and freaks out.

He’s back pretty quickly, however, to talk to Fran about feeling good. She tells a story about buying a hat she really wanted as a child. Not exactly one-woman-show material. Madame Oglepuss shows up with her harp, and is also feeling very happy today. She offers Kukla the harp, but he turns it down flat. Ollie is feeling so good he’s decided to host the first poetry hour of the year. Well, he’s got about 15 minutes.

Ollie calls Fran in, and she hands him Old Mother Hubbard. He doesn’t want to read this one, and asks for another assignment from the deck. While they’re arguing, Kukla pops up in a tutu, apparently thinking they were doing ballet. Despite some frustrated yelling, he maintains that he is very happy, as does everyone else. Meanwhile, Beulah Witch is trying to sign people up for a broomstick ride, and Cecil Bill is still investigating in his Sherlock Holmes outfit and a “clues hamper”.

Fletcher manages to seize the mic and makes an address to “Halloween Friends”, saying that he wants to teach them how to carve a pumpkin. But it’s already time for Kukla to plug Sealtest ice cream. Fletcher finally gets the phone call he’s been waiting for, and agrees to appear on We, The Rabbit. Ollie pops up in a new hat, fully in his DJ persona. He proposes singing their number from “Big Top” last year, which he and Fran do. A surprising amount of it is about the landscape. Ollie is finally ready to launch into the poetry hour, but Kukla cuts him off as they’re out of time.

What I thought: A lot of TV comedies these days are pointedly “nice.” Ted Lasso has become the standard-bearer of this genre, but one can find roots of it in Parks and Recreation and possibly much further back. Whether it’s because of a fear of backlash if a character shows an intolerant attitude, a desire to model moral behaviour, or the goal of providing a relief from the very upsetting world, there’s a trend towards art which aims to be friendly and have “good vibes” instead of compelling conflict.

It’s always nice when they get the harp out.

Kukla, Fran, and Ollie is a very nice show. All of the characters on it are friends, and nobody really means each other any harm. They sometimes have fights or disputes but always come back together because, fundamentally, they love each other.. But it doesn’t feel like a “nicecore” sitcom to me. The puppets are always butting heads and finding points of disagreements like real friends who work together do.

“Everyone Feels Good Today” shows how just insincere the show would come off if this wasn’t the case. Throughout the half hour every character maintains that they’re very happy. But they all also seem very annoyed, and unable to get on the same page about what they want the show to be today. The proclamations of happiness are a kind of facade to avoid dealing with the emotions of frustration and annoyance. The more plans fall apart, the more intense the pretense becomes, until characters are swearing they’re the happiest they’ve ever been in their life.

I’m not sure how much of this was intentional – there’s no real climactic moment where we learn a lesson about processing our emotions. But through its manic tone “Everyone Feels Good Today” illustrates the absurdity of trying to be eternally pleasant. As an audience, we like when Ollie is being impossible or Beulah Witch is throwing a fit. When everyone is happy, it’s a little off-putting.

Even back in the 1950s, there was plenty of gormless children’s entertainment which aimed to simply be a bombardment of happiness. (We’ve seen some of it.) I’m not sure if this episode was a reaction to anything else, but it certainly highlights how the element of conflict, even petty and mostly silly conflict, was crucial to making Kukla, Fran, and Ollie the show it was.

Coming up next: The Lone Ranger tries to stop a rhyming crime in time.

Episode 285: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – “Round Table Discussion” (October 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. “Round Table Discussion” aired on Wednesday, October 18, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

What happened: Fletcher Rabbit is here with a package for Kukla. It contains a shiny ornament that just looks like Kukla. I swear, Christmas starts earlier and earlier every year. There’s also a present for Dolores, who is taking a nap right now. Beulah accepts the present for her, a pillow reading “Dolores is a good girl.” Dolores also receives a little knitted hat from a woman in Brooklyn.

Cecil Bill arrives in a Sherlock Holmes hat and coat, but keeps his distinctive role of speaking. This was apparently an anonymous gift. Fletcher sings about the sadness of being a mailman and never getting any mail himself. Fran meets up with Cecil Bill to admire his Sherlock outfit. Fletcher translates for him off-stage, noting that he’s been dusting the piano keys for clues.

I didn’t get this many presents when I turned 3.

We finally get two of the title characters talking as Ollie pops in from lunch, during which he enjoyed a roundtable discussion. He also has a nice hat. Ollie is now bent on making the show educational, so everyone can learn from it. Fran agrees to go along with his plan to have “some kind of forum”, which Ollie dubs a “squaretable discussion.”

Colonel Crackle pops up to suggest that at least two members of the troupe leave in case “the fur begins to fly.” This discussion is going to be so intense they need a designated survivor. He and Madame Oglepuss drive away in their 1950 Ford. The panel discussion begins with Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, with Kukla in a nice little hat. Fran has selected a topic randomly from the bookshelf and decided on the topic of “The Little Red Hen.” She starts reading from the book, and is frequently interrupted by Kukla and Ollie, offering their literary interpretation. Leave it to the professionals, guys.

Kukla and Ollie get into an argument about the nature of the little red hen, which continues even after Fran tries to keep reading. They get in a fight, and Ollie rips off Kukla’s hat and toupee. Fran notes that this is just like everyone talking over each other on panel shows. Instead of continuing, she decides to sing “So this is Love.”

What I thought: This episode of KFO is a parody of something that hasn’t come up much in our viewing sample so far: the public-affairs show. Early TV often hosted remarkably intellectual roundtable discussions on political and literary issues. This would peak later on in the decade with series like Omnibus, but by 1950 we already had The Johns Hopkins Science Review and Meet the Press as well as shows with titles like Author Meets the Critics and The Week in Review. Eventually, this type of show would be shuttled off to PBS where they could be not watched in piece.

I have to assume this hat was also a regular part of panel shows.

The existence of these shows could make early TV seem like a golden age of earnest, high-minded public discourse. In truth, the shows were mostly made for cheap to fill up less lucrative timeslots, such as Sunday afternoons, or to run against popular programs on other networks. When the FCC came calling, networks could point to this educational programming as proof they were doing a public service by enlightening the masses.

While we’ve reviewed some documentary and educational programming here at ECP, I don’t think we’ve had a panel discussion, so I can’t judge how accurate KFO’s parody is. In the segment Kukla and Ollie are constantly interjecting their ideas about what the author really meant, almost a parody of close reading that reveals the absurdity of analysis by applying it to a simplistic pre-school text. (Some might say this blog is a parody of close reading, but I ensure you, it’s entirely in earnest.)

This approach is broadly in line with what was happening in academia in the 1950s. Modernist-influenced close reading dominated, which demanded exhaustive formal analysis of a text to reveal the true genus of the author who wrote it. The next half-century of literary studies would be a fervent opposition to this approach, but in many ways it is still the mainstream understanding of critical analysis. Today, a panel discussion at an academic conference might instead talk about how the Little Red Hen disrupts heteronormative epistemology or provides us new ways to think about the climate crisis.

Last time out on KFO I speculated about whether Beulah’s quest to prepare for Halloween would be an ongoing plot thread. It isn’t really present in this episode, although we do get a reference to her arrest, and Dolores is under the weather from her excursion. But t does seem as though many of the characters are thinking about yesterday’s events. Call it continuity in thought, if not in plot.

Coming up next: Now that the discussion’s over, everyone’s just happy.

Episode 283: Kukla, Fran and Olle – Dolores and Beulah Witch (October 17, 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. “Dolores and Beulah Witch” aired on Tuesday, October 13, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

The girls are looking good.

What happened: We open on the titular Beulah and Dolores getting all dressed up. Dolores is very resistant to the bonnet she’s wearing. Beulah is tired of practicing music from the last episode, and wants to go out. Dolores doesn’t seem too excited, but Beulah drags her out anyway, taking her off on her broom.

The scene is soon occupied by Fran and Ollie, discussing their absence. Fran is mad/worried about Dolores going out into the city, but Ollie is sure she can handle herself. Kukla pops up to help something that’s gotten into Fran’s eye. Ollie is very insistent that Fran doesn’t use mascara, and to demonstrate his friendship he sings a song about wanting to shout “I love you!”

Kukla takes a brief lie-down, which alarms Ollie. Fran goes off to get the letters. Kukla says that he’s heard someone received a love letter, through eavesdropping on a phone call. This has something to do with people named Bobsy and Crawford, and Beulah’s sorority of witches that are visiting for Halloween. Ollie is worried that Beulah hasn’t even prepared for the convention.

After a brief interruption by Fletcher, Dolores comes back crying and screaming. Fran calms her by promising an ice cream sundae, because it’s Tuesday. This leads into a hard sell on the Kukla and Ollie ice cream spoons available through Sealtest. The phone starts ringing, and Kukla answers it. It turns out Beulah is in the clink! They said the 1950s were the new witch hunts. Fran gets on the phone to vouch for Beulah’s character, saying that she comes from South Carolina. This is apparently enough for them to get the police to release Beulah and send her back to the stage. Witch privilege, I guess.

Ollie is still freaking out about Dolores, despite Fran’s attempts to reassure him. Fran has a bit of a malapropism, causing Kukla and Ollie to lightly mock her. A now-exhausted Ollie heads off to bed, running into Fletcher’s leftover tambourine on the way. Fran sings “It’s A Marshmallow World in the Winter”, despite them talking the whole episode about how it’s unseasonably warm even for October.

Beulah returns, looking frazzled and with a bouquet of flowers. She says that she was arrested by an officer who mistook Dolores for an un-leashed dog. This led to an argument that led to Beulah’ arrest. Will this police violence never end? They resolve to calm down after this turbulent day with some Sealtest.

What I thought: This is another one of those KFO episodes which mostly feels like an omnibus of loose ends. The title comes from a story about Beulah taking Dolores out for a walk in the park, but they’re gone for most of the runtime. This is the most we’ve seen from Dolores, who is usually something of a bit character, and we even get to hear her make some sounds. The series gets a lot of mileage out of Dolores in the Rerun-like “younger kid” role that the basically childlike Kuklapolitans have to take care of, and this episode is no different.

Kukla on the phone oes a lot of the heavy lifting in this episode.

There are a few references to yesterday’s concert episode, but for the most part this episode is focused on the future. There’s a lot of talk around Beulah’s upcoming witch’s convention on Halloween, which she seems blissfully unaware of. I do like the idea of Beulah having a whole witchy past and witchy friends. I haven’t watched the Halloween episode they did the previous year, so I’m interested to see how they represent the other witches, if they do at all.

It’s somewhat unusual to see KFO setting up a story two weeks in advance, with Halloween set as the obvious climax of Beulah’s efforts. This seems more like something Howdy Doody would do, preferably with some mysteries and puzzles tossed in. I doubt that the next ten episodes will deal entirely with Beulah’s prep for the big reunion, but it will be interesting to see how much they empathize this thread.

Other than that, this is a fine episode of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, if not an especially memorable one. The nature of the show means that most of the action with Beulah and Dolores in the park has to be related to us instead of depicted on screen, but this isn’t too big of a hurdle. Ultimately, KFO is about hanging out with your friends and telling stories, and that’s what we have here.

Comng Up Next: Cisco and Pancho are chasing rustlers again.

Episode 282: Kukla, Fran and Ollie – Concert Day (October 16, 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. “Concert Day” aired on Monday, October 16, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel. This episode also features credits sequence, which identifies the director as Lewis Gomavitz.

What happened: Fletcher Rabbit opens the show, and is quickly joined by Fran. They get into a dispute over their recent musical practice, where Fletcher threw Fran off the beat. Fletch tries to make up with her by launching into a song about keeping the sunny side up. This, and some extreme flattery, seems to charm Fran and she does a song as well.

All of the classical musical instruments are here.

Kukla joins the conversation, and Fletcher quickly departs, but not before hitting his head on the stage the way out. Kukla also wants to talk about their musical performance, and brings a metronome to demonstrate how Fran has been off-time. It turns out that they’re all been playing together in a kind of classical orchestra, which I would really like to see. Beulah Witch is the star cellist, and she pops off as well to complain about Fran’s violin playing.

The women head out, and Kukla practices playing the oboe (that’s not a euphemism.) Ollie pops up, and discusses proper oboe technique. Kukla then tries his hands at the clarinet, trying to keep with the metronome’s time. Dolores Dragon appears to bother him a little bit. After hearing some of Dolores’ non-verbal words, Kukla is excited to learn that Dolores has perfect pitch, and tries to introduce her to the slide trombone, but she bites off the mouthpiece. That was me in middle school music class.

Kukla calls Fran in to witness Dolores’ natural talents. Fran turns out to be more interested in Dolores’ ability to spin her head completely around. Dolores drops down and her brother Ollie appears to tell everyone that she’s not a natural musician, but rather is just teething. He has a very fancy album he wants them to play today, which is a natural segue into the greatness of RCA 45 record players. They listen to the music for a little bit, and are inspired. Ollie even sings a little, inspired by our old friend Toscanini.

Fran brings out sheet music, and it’s time for the big performance. Kukla sets up the percussion section. Fran only plays the triangle for three pages of the song, and Fletcher bangs on the drum. Jack’s piano playing really carries the piece, if you don’t mind me saying. Things get more chaotic later, as Kukla joins in on the drumming, Fran plays the slide whistle, and Kukla and Fletcher both switch to the xylophone. It’s a cacophony, but they seem to enjoy themselves.

What I thought: In past episodes, Kukla, Fran, and Ollie has been great at encouraging and recapturing the creative play of childhood. As a kid, art and music aren’t just something you consume but something you do, as easy as grabbing a piece of paper and crayon or strapping some rubber bands around a shoebox. Nobody really cares if it isn’t good as professionally-produced media – after all, you’re just a kid.

But when you get a little older, you realize how inadequate your skills are, and how much actual work is involved in improving them. Making art that other adults actually want to see involves doing the same thing hundreds of times, and doing it badly every time in hopes you’ll do it slightly less badly the hundredth time. Most people will hit a wall where they can’t make the thing that’s in their head, and give up, or pursue the things they have more of a natural talent for instead. That was me with art and music as a teenager. I was lucky enough that writing is an art where mediocre craft isn’t as immediately visible to observers.

Kukla really gets some stank on that oboe.

“Concert Day” is exactly about these kinds of menial tasks that make up an artist’s working life. The group wants to perform a concert, but they can’t get on the same rhythm. The use of classical instruments here helps to drive home the hard work involved in music. Only Dolores, the most childish character, has the natural genius of perfect pitch, and ultimately the group has to perform without her.

The final concert, of course, is complete pandemonium. The limitation of only being able to have two puppets on stage at once, which the show usually works round pretty deftly, is a bit of a hindrance here as we can’t actually see Ollie and Madame Oglepuss joining in the cacophony. But Kukla and Ollie make enough chaos on their own, switching back and forth between instruments, to make it clear that the band isn’t going to record a RCA Classical Record any time soon.

But that’s okay. “Concert Day” may focus a little more on the exacting craft of music than previous episodes of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, but ultimately it’s still about encouraging creativity and having a fun time with your friends. Getting better at any skill is a serious and often tedious business, but it helps to have a little fun along the way.

Coming up next: Beulah & Dolores take a trip on another Kukla, Fran and Ollie.

Episode 278: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – “Third Anniversary Show”

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.

This is the raciest episode yet.

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.

Episode 276: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – “Columbus Day” (October 12, 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. “Columbus Day” aired on Wednesday, October 12, 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, which is how you know it’s a big production. This is the third (or second) consecutive presentation of the show’s Columbus Day pageant. He notes that the continent of America had already been discovered by the Vikings centuries before Columbus. (And presumably by the people living on it, but Colonel Crackle isn’t up on his post-colonial theory.) He also apologizes for not being able to make the International Dairy Pageant in Indianapolis.

The story of Columbus is presented this year as an English-language opera. Fletcher Rabbit is playing a guy named Nicholas, who does a very improvised song about getting an audience with the King. He runs into his friend Chris, played by Kukla. Columbus wants to sail around the world to prove it’s round, which is not exactly how it went down historically. Nicholas decides to help finance him. The first act comes to an end, and is followed by an intermission when Fran and Crackle shill Sealtest Ice Cream in operatic verse.

Act two starts in the Spanish throne room, where Cecil Bill introduces the Queen, played by Fran, and King Ferdinand, played by Ollie. These are the only two people in the story more villainous than Columbus. Ferdinand sings a jaunty number about how he adores his wife. After this goes on at length, Kukla-lumbus finally makes his pitch for sailing around the world. The Queen likes the idea.

The highlight of the episode is the costumes, especially Kukla’s little cape.

After this we skip entirely to the boat itself, symbolized by a cardboard prop and moving waters. Nick tells Chris that there’s a mutiny aboard the ship, as the sailors think the Earth is flat and that they’ll fall off. Just as things look bleak, they see a glimpse of land, and proclaim that they’ve discovered the new world.

Kukla-lumbus, the good colonialist, immediately claims the land in the name of the Spain. Ollie emerges in a headdress and sings “Ugh, ugh, ugh, white man coming now”, which is also what they say when I put in an order at the Chinese restaurant. Fran shows up as a reporter with a camera to commemorate the occasion. The tableau is ruined when the headdress prop starts falling off Ollie, and everyone starts singing chaotically, albeit in extremely fluid opera voices. They sing the finale, a reprise of Kukla and Fran’s song from earlier.

What I thought: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie has often in the past used its premise as more of a springboard for a lot of character-based goofs and self-reflexive commentary. Surprisingly, however, when it comes to perhaps the most arbitrary and derided holiday in contemporary America, it presents a more or less straightforward celebration of Columbus Day and yes, Christopher Columbus himself. This is the rare instance where I kind of wanted the show to get weirder.

Of course, Burr Tilstrom and Fran Allison couldn’t have known that seventy years later this rather anodyne holiday would come to be hot-button issue, seen by many (with good reason) as a symbol of colonialism and genocide. The actual Christopher Columbus was, by the historical record, a middling adventurer adventurer who not only began an age of rampant violence against Indigenous people but was also tremendously cruel to the Indigenous on a personal level, to the point of being denounced and arrested in his own time. Some jurisdictions have hence renamed the holiday Indigenous Peoples Day, the kind of feel-good symbolic gesture beloved of modern liberalism.

My position, as a Canadian, is that the holiday in early October is Thanksgiving and anything else is silly. But to be a bit more serious, the key point here is that Columbus Day celebrations didn’t begin until Columbus was centuries gone, typically promoted by the Italian-American diaspora. To point out that the real Columbus didn’t live up to his reputation is as besides the point as discussions of the historical Jesus. Columbus has a holiday in American mythology not because of the Italian sailor who landed some boats on the Bahamas, but because he is a symbol of the bringing of European culture to the Americas, and hence eventually the creation of the United States. In this sense, the puppet play of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie is perhaps more germane to Columbus Day than a historically accurate drama would be.

If this had been a Wednesday show, they could have just driven a Ford across the ocean.

This isn’t a bad episode of KFO, although as I mention above it lacks the bite the series has at its best. It spends a lot of time with the Spanish King and Queen, perhaps because that’s the only real role for Fran in this story, and barely has any room at the end for the actual landing. Perhaps that’s for the best: Ollie in his headdress doing broken English is the closest this episode gets to being capital-p Problematic, although at least it acknowledges that Columbus’s landing was not so great for Indigenous people.

Nobody is seriously learning history from a TV puppet show, but I do wonder how much episodes like this reinforce the false history that was primarily being taught in schools and on more serious program. To this day myths such as Columbus seeing to prove the world was round, or the general idea that his story ended with the first landing, persist in the public memory, and even a mostly harmless children’s program contributes to them. Still, at least it was better than the Sopranos episode about Columbus Day.

Coming up next: There’s “Danger Ahead”, according to a very generic Lone Ranger episode title.

Episode 275: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – “Destination Moon” (October 11, 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. “Destination Moon” aired on Wednesday, October 11, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

What happened: Kukla and Ollie are looking through the telescope, which isn’t helped by Ollie holding it in his mouth and dropping it. Kukla asks if the moon is really like it is in the movie Destination Moon. Ollie takes the opportunity to play science teacher, referencing a recent Life magazine article about the galaxy. Ollie offers to tell more about the moon if Kukla tells him about flying saucers. This is how all scientific conventions work, I assume.

Fran comes in to join the conversation, and Ollie comes up with the idea of putting on a play about going to the moon. He also wants to add “more romantic type roles” to the story. They come up with the names Luther (Kukla), Lena (Fran), and Lionel (Ollie) for their trip to Luna, and Ollie and Kukla both volunteer to be in love with Fran. Ollie nixes the love triangle by making Kukla her brother. Presumably a young George Lucas was watching taking notes.

Serious men with serious hats.

We jump into the action, with both Ollie and Kukla wearing makeshift space helmets. Lionel wants to prove himself by making the trip before he marries Lena. They hide the truth from her for a moment before their silly hats give them away. Lena wants to come on the trip, but there’s only room for two. She’s sad, but not too sad to join in a song about “Leaving for Luna.”

Meanwhile, Buster Rabbit and Cecil Bill are working at a radio lab on Earth. They get a strange signal, and have to call in Beulah to interpret it. It’s a message from Lionel and Luther, who are stuck on the moon without fuel to get back. They all apparently know Lena, and call her in. Beulah breaks the news while working in some insults to the two men. Once again, Lena soothes her feelings through song, this time a slower and sadder number. Beulah then pitches her on a new Ford car, which will help take her to the moon. Even car salesmen don’t normally exaggerate that much.

Wielding both space helmets (one with a bow) and the old car prop, Lena and Beulah travel to the moon, singing “Leaving for Luna” again. On the moon, Lionel and Luther are unhappy, with Lionel launching into an operatic lament for Luna. Fortunately, Lena arrives with the Ford to save them. They sing about how nice it is to be back on Earth. Burr even dons the space helmet for his usual sign-off.

What I thought: This is the second episode we’ve seen in our project that relates directly to the 1950 movie Destination Moon, after the Hollywood behind-the-scenes show City at Night. This is probably just a weird coincidence relating to what shows have survived, but it’s an unusual footprint for a movie that was successful but not a massive hit. By contrast, 1950’s top-grossing movie, the Cecil B. DeMille epic Samson and Delilah, hasn’t been mentioned in any of our programs, and indeed has mostly been forgotten. There’s almost something charming, in this day and age, about two programs talking about a moderately successful sci-fi film several months apart.

I haven’t watched Destination Moon but, based on my exhaustive study of its Wikipedia page, it seems to be a strange artifact. It was based on a book by legendary sci-fi author and weirdo Robert A. Heinlein, who imagined that space travel would be taken up by private corporations instead of governments. (In this, as in other things, he may have been an inspiration for the Bezoses and Musks of the world.) The film was an earnest attempt to depict what space flight might actually look like, roughly a decade before Russia put a man in orbit and John F. Kennedy pledged to put one on the moon.

Even the spacesuits are gendered.

The Kukla, Fran, and Ollie episode “Destination Moon” is not really about any of that. Instead, the episode uses the movie’s rough premise to jump into its own style of extraterrestrial adventure. The fantasy, while presented as a spontaneous bit of imagination, is surprisingly developed, with character names, a romance, props, and catchy songs. It fully embraces the romantic aspects of space travel while gently poking fun at them at the same time.

The thing that makes “Destination Moon” great is that, even though the story the gang comes up with is silly, it’s still a good story. The plot element of Ollie’s Lionel feeling he has to prove himself before he’ll be accepted by the one he loves is a meaningful one, and there’s a surprising poignancy to his dialogue, even if it’s a romance between a puppet and a human on a show within a show. A lot of KFO‘s let’s-put-on-a-play episodes are mostly about backstage chaos, but there’s a genuine commitment to this one that makes it work even when the climax is Fran driving a car to the moon.

Ultimately, this is one of my favourite Kukla, Fran, and Ollie episodes I’ve seen, and one that reflects the show’s best quality: its ability to completely transform itself into something else for half an hour. (It also envisions a space prpogram that has much more significant roles for women than the real one would decades later.) So, while I may or may not ever watch the movie Destination Moon, I’m glad it inspired this fantastical puppet show.

Coming up next: We stick with the Kuklapolitans for the potentially much more controversial “Columbus Day.”

Episode 273: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – “Ollie’s Chemistry Set” (October 10, 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. “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.

This book could spawn a lot of plot lines.

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 3^rd 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.

I think his hair looks nice, personally.

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.

Episode 270: Kukla, Fran and Ollie – “Dragon Prep Rally” (October 10, 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. “Dragon Prep Rally” aired on Friday, October 6, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

What happened: We open on Kukla waxing the newly-installed floors on the Kuklapolitan stage. It’s so slick that the puppets start sliding across it, including Fletcher Rabbit, who nonchalantly jumps into Kukla’s arms, and Beulah Witch, who does a belly flop into a stage-left exit.

Cecil Bill has to go through quite a bit of effort to actually get the beanie on Ollie’s head.

Ollie gets the main plot started by finding a chest with all of his old souvenirs from Dragon Prep: a beanie, a Bunsen burner, a corsage and the school scarf. He notes that he went to the school at the height of the Depression, which I think puts Ollie in at least his mid-30s.

Kukla comes along after he’s gone and finds the book of pep songs he’s left behind. He shows it to Fran, who does a decent job of miming slipping on the floor. Jack just happens to know the music, letting the duo sing a salute to the school. Ollie joins them and explains that the school was very fancy and had its own style of architecture, Dragon Gothic. Sounds like my fashion sense in high school.

This turns into a story about Ollie’s dad embarrassing him by playing his zither. He also belonged to a dragon fraternity, which was founded by his family. Ollie joins them in another round of “We Salute You, Dragon Prep.” He also explains that he used his family influence to allow for the admission of female students, or “dragonettes”, beginning in his second year.

There’s a brief commercial diversion when Madame Oglepuss pops up to show off a magazine ad for RCA Victor. Call it a meta-ad. She even plays a record with a trance-like “call of the bayou.” It’s very silly. Madame O is moved to dance with Kukla, with which the slippery floor turns into just slamming him against the sides of the stage.

Ollie re-emerges, wearing his scarf, to sing the old dragon fight song. Fran sings the dragonette part. He offers to bring them back to the school. Kukla briefly plugs some sort of Sunday special with a KFO-related feature before one final cheer for RCA.

What I thought: Dear Parents,

We are pleased to welcome you back to another exciting year at Dragon Prep. After two years of long-distance learning and masked classes, we are pleased to see your smiling snouts again. Firebreathing class will be returning to the syllabus. However, all teachers, janitors, kitchen staff, and other school employees will remain masked for your children’s protection.

Dragon Prep is also pleased to implement a new curriculum based on our discussion with Diversity ,Equity and Inclusion (DEI) consultants. We will be retiring our mascot “Squinty the Kobold”, and all of our non-male sports teams will now be known as the Dragonxs instead of the Dragonettes. Dragon Prep remains committed to including dragons of all types, whether they be metallic, chromatic, crystalline, long, pseudodragons, or wyverns, as long as they can pay tuition.

The official Dragon Prep School Song Book is mandatory, and can be purchased from the school bookstore for $99.99.

This year’s school trip will be to Aspen, Colorado. Students will learn essential skills such as skiing, high-altitude flight, wine tasting, and horde construction. We are currently looking for parent volunteers to act as chaperones.

Note that peanuts and peanut products are banned on campus due to allergies. Please do not send your little dragons to school with peanut butter-covered mice in their lunch boxes. Our school kitchen provides an assortment of healthy treats with vegan and vegetarian options. On a similar note, bows and arrows are barred from campus, outside of the annual Smaug’s Night festivities.

As one of the first female dragons to be admitted to Dragon Prep, I have seen this school change a lot. What remains, however, is always the expression of joy on children’s faces, the creativity of youth, and the school spirit best embodied by the ringing voices singing “We Salute You, Dragon Prep.” Here’s to anther exciting year ahead.

Sincerely,

Dolores Dragon, Headmistress

Coming up next: Somebody’s poisoned the watering hole!

Episode 267: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – “Apples Today – Mother Goose” (October 5, 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. “Apples Today – Mother Goose” aired on Thursday, October 5, 1950 at 7:00 PM  on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

What happened: Fran is reading to Kukla and Ollie from a Mother Goose book of fairytales. Ollie likes the stories so much that he launches into a song based on “little Jack Horner”, with Kukla contributing a solo telling the story of Little Bo Peep. Fran puts them to sleep momentarily with her version of “Little Boy Blue.” Ollie raps out one I don’t know about a kind lady at Banbury Cross. There’s not much to the lyrics, but I like Ollie’s British accent.

Ollie and Kukla both get a familiar scent through their very differently-shaped noses. It reminds them of home and their mom’s cooking. Ollie finds a little baby puppet, which he rocks back and forth in his mouth. It’s meant to be a doll in the puppet-world, which raises all sorts of epistemological questions. The doll is a gift sent in from twin girls for Dolores, who quickly snatches the gift off the stage. Dolores also got gifts from a woman in Akron, who sent her little ballet slippers.

Just a little smooch between friends.

A messy-haired Beulah Witch pops up and assumes the slippers are for hers. Madame Oglepuss shows up just as she’s wrapping herself up in a fur. Ollie pops back up to promote his commemorative spoon, expertly throwing it to a voice-over announcer. Beulah is back, and also notices the smell. Ollie comes up with a gift: a large apple, part of a bushel shipped to them from a farm in Connecticut along with a very nice sign. Beulah takes it down out of the frame and noisily eats it.

Fletcher arrives with yet more mail: some “very interesting letters” have arrived. No one seems interested, so Fletch has to interact with himself a bit, reading off the names of senders. There’s even a letter from El Salvador with pictures, although they don’t have television down there. Kukla and Fran sing a sweet song to send us off. (No, not the Sealtest jingle.)

What I thought: I’ve described in the past how Kukla Fran & Ollie appealed to a broad audience, with its 7 PM timeslot bridging children’s and adult’s TV time. This episode is one of those more aimed at children, with the opening sequence revolving around fairy tales. Fairy tales are one of the last example of stories that are still passed down orally, despite their more codified version in books and movies. (My sister and I may be the only people in the world who associate the Three Little Pigs with take-away pizza.) It was interesting to see that I recognized most, but not all, of the nursery rhymes used — it seems some things do change over time. However, even in this section there are a few nods to high culture and more adult subject matter.

On Howdy Doody, they’d try to sell you the book.

Most of the half-hour, however, is more of a mailbag episode, with the puppets reacting to various things the viewers sent in. It’s fun to imagine people around the world sending in whatever they had on hand — freshly-grown apples, toys they had outgrown, and so on and so forth — into a somewhat baffled TV crew. Maybe the kids thought they were really giving presents to their favourite characters, or maybe it was just a way to show how widely appreciated the show was.

I’m almost as tickled about the letter from San Salvador as the cast are. There was no television service in El Salvador, but apparently a local magazine had chronicled Kukla, Fran and Ollie and readers had liked the look. It can be easy to overlook how much demand there was for American-style television and programming in smaller countries, even before it was available. Wikipedia tells me that El Salvador wouldn’t get TV until 1956, with the launching of Canal 6. I would imagine there aren’t going to be many Salvadorean programs available to cover on this blog, at least not for a good while, but at least I have plenty of time to practice my Spanish.

Anyway, that’s the show for this week. It’s hard to really come up with stuff to say about fairly quotidian episodes like these, but I did enjoy it. There’s such a natural dynamic between the members of the Kuklapolitans — Fran and Ollie’s gentle teasing of each other, Fletcher’s eagerness to be recognized by the others, Dolores and Beulah’s quasi-romance. It’s fun to spend time with these characters, even if they’re not doing much.

Coming up next: A show I definitely still know what to say about, The Lone Ranger.