Kukla, Fran and Ollie
Encyclopedia
Kukla, Fran and Ollie is an early American television show using puppet
s, originally created for children but soon watched by more adults than children. It did not have a script and was entirely ad-libbed. It first aired from 1947–1957.
was the creator and only puppeteer on the show, which premiered as the hour-long Junior Jamboree locally on WBKB
in Chicago, Illinois, on October 13, 1947. The program was renamed Kukla, Fran and Ollie (KFO) and transferred to WNBQ (the predecessor of Chicago's WMAQ-TV
) on November 29, 1948. The first NBC
network broadcast of the show took place on January 12, 1949. It aired from 6–6:30 p.m. Central Time, Monday through Friday from Chicago.
Fran was Fran Allison
, a radio comedienne and singer who was usually the only human to appear on screen, filling the role of big sister and cheery voice of reason as the puppets engaged each other concerning their foibles. The design style of puppets was in the style of Neapolitan
puppet shows, or Punch and Judy
without the slapstick, but their personalities were less caricatured. The puppet cast included Kukla, the earnest leader of the troupe; Ollie, or Oliver J. Dragon, a roguish one-toothed dragon
(who would slam his flat chin on the stage in frustration or roll on his back to be endearing); Madame Ooglepuss, a retired opera
diva; Buelah Witch, a liberated witch; Fletcher Rabbit, the troupe's mailman and resident fussbudget; Cecil Bill, the troupe's union
stagehand who spoke in "tooie talk"; Colonel Crackie, a Southern gentleman; Doloras Dragon, Ollie's younger cousin, and a number of others.
The series' music was written and performed by Jack Fascinato, who first accompanied the troupe on solo piano, and later conducted the show's small orchestra.
Like Jack Benny
's radio program, KFOs humor relied on building a relationship between its characters and the audience over time. The humor was quite tame by the standards of later comedy. There were few laugh-out-loud jokes per show—KFO relied on the humor of familiarity, much like The Honeymooners
.
KFO evoked not only loyalty but also a deep belief in its characters from regular viewers. Fans became so attached to the show that when it was cut back to 15 minutes in November 1951, letters of outrage poured in to NBC and The New York Times
. The Bob & Ray Show was the replacement 15-minute program and had considerable vitriol heaped on it by angry KFO viewers. From August 1952 to June 1954, KFO ran as a weekly program on Sundays from 3–3:30 p.m. CT. They also began a weekday radio show in October of that year. It was then picked up by the ABC
network and returned to the 15 minute daily format [7-7:15 p.m. ET] until the last regular program aired on August 30, 1957, a continuous run of nearly ten years.
During that time, KFO was a hugely successful show that counted Orson Welles
, John Steinbeck
, Tallulah Bankhead
, Ben Grauer
, Milton Caniff
, and Adlai Stevenson among its many adult fans. The show had sponsors like Life magazine, RCA
, Nabisco
and Ford Motor Co., who surely weren't trying to reach children. James Thurber
once wrote that Tillstrom was "helping to save the sanity of the nation and to improve, if not even to invent, the quality of television."
in 1949 for its "whimsy and gentle satire of the James Barrie-Lewis Carroll sort," and two Emmy award
s: in 1954 for Best Children's Program, and in 1971 for Outstanding Children's Programming.
. Tillstrom and his puppets returned to NBC television without Allison in the early 1960s for Burr Tillstrom's Kukla and Ollie show that aired weekdays. In 1967, KFO began hosting CBS Children's Film Festival
. In this context, their conversations were restricted to a brief introduction, commercial segues and a summary of the film, and could only provide a hint of what had made KFO so popular. Many people know the troupe only from this filmed show and their later taped series for PBS
. Burr also brought the troupe to the Goodman Theatre
in Chicago for a series of live performances in the early 1980s.
KFO can claim a number of television firsts, including the first ship-to-shore telecast. The first publicly announced network broadcast of a program using the NTSC
"compatible color" system was an episode of Kukla, Fran and Ollie on August 30, 1953. Burr was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1986 for his many contributions to the medium. Tillstrom influenced and mentored many later puppeteers, including Shari Lewis
and Jim Henson
.
Kukla, Fran, and Ollie was released on DVD on August 11, 2009. Five episodes that were shot in color between 1969 and 1971 were released in a box set.
On the same day, August 11, 2009, the United States Postal Service
issued a commemorative stamp to honor Kukla, Fran and Ollie. A Hollywood gala was scheduled to celebrate both the stamp and the 60th anniversary at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Puppet
A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....
s, originally created for children but soon watched by more adults than children. It did not have a script and was entirely ad-libbed. It first aired from 1947–1957.
Original series
Burr TillstromBurr Tillstrom
Franklin Burr Tillstrom was a puppeteer and the creator of Kukla, Fran and Ollie....
was the creator and only puppeteer on the show, which premiered as the hour-long Junior Jamboree locally on WBKB
WLS-TV
WLS-TV, virtual channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The station operates their full power digital operations on UHF channel 44, with their digital fill-in translator on VHF channel...
in Chicago, Illinois, on October 13, 1947. The program was renamed Kukla, Fran and Ollie (KFO) and transferred to WNBQ (the predecessor of Chicago's WMAQ-TV
WMAQ-TV
WMAQ-TV, channel 5, is an owned-and-operated television station of the NBC Television Network, located in Chicago, Illinois. WMAQ-TV's main studios and offices are located within the NBC Tower in the Streeterville neighborhood, with an auxiliary street-level studio on the Magnificent Mile at 401...
) on November 29, 1948. The first NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
network broadcast of the show took place on January 12, 1949. It aired from 6–6:30 p.m. Central Time, Monday through Friday from Chicago.
Fran was Fran Allison
Fran Allison
Fran Allison was an American television and radio comedian, personality and singer. She is best known for her starring role on the weekday NBC-TV puppet show Kukla, Fran and Ollie, which ran from 1947 to 1957, occasionally returning to the air until the mid 1980s...
, a radio comedienne and singer who was usually the only human to appear on screen, filling the role of big sister and cheery voice of reason as the puppets engaged each other concerning their foibles. The design style of puppets was in the style of Neapolitan
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
puppet shows, or Punch and Judy
Punch and Judy
Punch and Judy is a traditional, popular puppet show featuring the characters of Mr. Punch and his wife, Judy. The performance consists of a sequence of short scenes, each depicting an interaction between two characters, most typically the anarchic Punch and one other character...
without the slapstick, but their personalities were less caricatured. The puppet cast included Kukla, the earnest leader of the troupe; Ollie, or Oliver J. Dragon, a roguish one-toothed dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
(who would slam his flat chin on the stage in frustration or roll on his back to be endearing); Madame Ooglepuss, a retired opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
diva; Buelah Witch, a liberated witch; Fletcher Rabbit, the troupe's mailman and resident fussbudget; Cecil Bill, the troupe's union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
stagehand who spoke in "tooie talk"; Colonel Crackie, a Southern gentleman; Doloras Dragon, Ollie's younger cousin, and a number of others.
The series' music was written and performed by Jack Fascinato, who first accompanied the troupe on solo piano, and later conducted the show's small orchestra.
Like Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
's radio program, KFOs humor relied on building a relationship between its characters and the audience over time. The humor was quite tame by the standards of later comedy. There were few laugh-out-loud jokes per show—KFO relied on the humor of familiarity, much like The Honeymooners
The Honeymooners
The Honeymooners is an American situation comedy television show, based on a recurring 1951–'55 sketch of the same name. It originally aired on the DuMont network's Cavalcade of Stars and subsequently on the CBS network's The Jackie Gleason Show hosted by Jackie Gleason, and filmed before a live...
.
KFO evoked not only loyalty but also a deep belief in its characters from regular viewers. Fans became so attached to the show that when it was cut back to 15 minutes in November 1951, letters of outrage poured in to NBC and The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
. The Bob & Ray Show was the replacement 15-minute program and had considerable vitriol heaped on it by angry KFO viewers. From August 1952 to June 1954, KFO ran as a weekly program on Sundays from 3–3:30 p.m. CT. They also began a weekday radio show in October of that year. It was then picked up by the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
network and returned to the 15 minute daily format [7-7:15 p.m. ET] until the last regular program aired on August 30, 1957, a continuous run of nearly ten years.
During that time, KFO was a hugely successful show that counted Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
, John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
, Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was an award-winning American actress of the stage and screen, talk-show host, and bonne vivante...
, Ben Grauer
Ben Grauer
Benjamin Franklin Grauer was an US radio and TV personality, following a career during the 1920s as a child actor in films and on Broadway. He began his career as a child in David Warfield's production of The Return of Peter Grimm. Among his early credits were roles in films directed by D.W....
, Milton Caniff
Milton Caniff
Milton Arthur Paul Caniff was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.-Biography:...
, and Adlai Stevenson among its many adult fans. The show had sponsors like Life magazine, RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
, Nabisco
Nabisco
Nabisco is an American brand of cookies and snacks. Headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey, the company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Kraft Foods. Nabisco's plant in Chicago, a production facility at 7300 S...
and Ford Motor Co., who surely weren't trying to reach children. James Thurber
James Thurber
James Grover Thurber was an American author, cartoonist and celebrated wit. Thurber was best known for his cartoons and short stories published in The New Yorker magazine.-Life:...
once wrote that Tillstrom was "helping to save the sanity of the nation and to improve, if not even to invent, the quality of television."
Awards
Among many other honors, KFO won a Peabody awardPeabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
in 1949 for its "whimsy and gentle satire of the James Barrie-Lewis Carroll sort," and two Emmy award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
s: in 1954 for Best Children's Program, and in 1971 for Outstanding Children's Programming.
Later series
After the original series ended in 1957, Tillstrom continued to search for a place for the Kuklapolitans, doing a daily five-minute show for NBC, and even appearing on BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
. Tillstrom and his puppets returned to NBC television without Allison in the early 1960s for Burr Tillstrom's Kukla and Ollie show that aired weekdays. In 1967, KFO began hosting CBS Children's Film Festival
CBS Children's Film Festival
CBS Children's Film Festival is a television series of live action films from several countries that were made for children...
. In this context, their conversations were restricted to a brief introduction, commercial segues and a summary of the film, and could only provide a hint of what had made KFO so popular. Many people know the troupe only from this filmed show and their later taped series for PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
. Burr also brought the troupe to the Goodman Theatre
Goodman Theatre
The Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago's Loop. A major part of Chicago theatre, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organization...
in Chicago for a series of live performances in the early 1980s.
KFO can claim a number of television firsts, including the first ship-to-shore telecast. The first publicly announced network broadcast of a program using the NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
"compatible color" system was an episode of Kukla, Fran and Ollie on August 30, 1953. Burr was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1986 for his many contributions to the medium. Tillstrom influenced and mentored many later puppeteers, including Shari Lewis
Shari Lewis
Shari Lewis was an American ventriloquist, puppeteer, and children's television show host, most popular during the 1960s and 1990s...
and Jim Henson
Jim Henson
James Maury "Jim" Henson was an American puppeteer best known as the creator of The Muppets. As a puppeteer, Henson performed in various television programs, such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, films such as The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, and created advanced puppets for...
.
DVD and stamp
Kukla, Fran and Ollie - The First Episodes: 1949-54 was released on Fran's birthday, Nov. 20, 2010 by The Burr Tillstrom Copyright Trust. It is the first release of the original series, and contains 20 kinescopes.Kukla, Fran, and Ollie was released on DVD on August 11, 2009. Five episodes that were shot in color between 1969 and 1971 were released in a box set.
On the same day, August 11, 2009, the United States Postal Service
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
issued a commemorative stamp to honor Kukla, Fran and Ollie. A Hollywood gala was scheduled to celebrate both the stamp and the 60th anniversary at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
See also
- "The Man Who Hated People", a 1950 short story by Paul GallicoPaul GallicoPaul William Gallico was a successful American novelist, short story and sports writer. Many of his works were adapted for motion pictures...
printed in the Saturday Evening Post magazine, about a fictional TV puppet show with a young woman whose ad-libbed interaction attracts a huge national audience, was inspired by KFO and was the basis for LiliLiliLili is an American film. An MGM release, it stars Leslie Caron as a touchingly naïve French girl, whose emotional relationship with a carnival puppeteer is conducted through the medium of four puppets...
(1953), an MGM movie starring Leslie CaronLeslie CaronLeslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...
and Mel FerrerMel FerrerMel Ferrer was an American actor, film director and film producer.-Early life:Ferrer was born Melchor Gastón Ferrer in Elberon, New Jersey, of Catalan and Irish descent. His father, Dr. José María Ferrer , was born in Cuba, was an authority on pneumonia and served as chief of staff of St....
. This, in turn, was adapted into the 1961 Broadway musical Carnival!Carnival!Carnival is a 1961 musical with the book by Michael Stewart and music and lyrics by Bob Merrill. The musical is based on the 1953 film Lili.-Background:...
, starring Anna Maria AlberghettiAnna Maria AlberghettiAnna Maria Alberghetti is an Italian-born operatic singer and actress.Born in Pesaro, Marche, she starred on Broadway and won a Tony Award in 1962 as Best Actress for Carnival! .Alberghetti was a child prodigy. Her father was an opera singer and concert master of the Rome Opera Company...
. Gallico later re-worked the plot of a real girl working with puppets into his 1954 novel, The Love of Seven Dolls.