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Kukla,
Fran and Ollie was the first children's show to be equally
popular with children and adults. The show's immense popularity
stemmed from its simplicity, gentle fun and frolic and adult wit.
Burr Tillstrom's Kuklapolitan Players differed from typical puppets
in that the humor derived from satire and sophisticated wit rather
than slapstick comedy. At the height of the show's popularity, the
cast received 15,000 letters a day, and its ratings were comparable
to shows featuring Milton Berle and Ed Sullivan.
Each
program began with Kukla Fran and Ollie singing "Here we are...Yes,
by gum and Yes, by golly, Kukla Fran and Ollie..." The secret to the
show's charm was the special chemistry between puppeteer Burr
Tillstrom and Fran Allison who treated the puppets like real people.
Reportedly, she never looked at the puppets back stage, always
retaining the fantasy that the puppets were alive.
The characters were memorable.
Kukla, sweet and long suffering, Ollie, impressionable,
enthusiastic, always seeking the most that life could offer, Beulah
Witch, Madame Ophelia Oglepuss, a diva of great stature, Fletcher
Rabbit, who, among other duties, was
the mail man and the most straight
forward person one could imagine, Cecil Bill, who spoke a language
of his own - toui, te toui, toui, which, over time, the audience
came to understand, Colonel Richard Crackie, a southern gentleman
slightly reminiscent of Senator Claghorn on the old Fred Allen Show,
Delores Dragon, Ollie's cousin who learned to speak on the program,
and one Christmas season sang her first song, Silent Night, and, of
course, Fran Allison who in her role and in life was one of the best
people ever to draw breath.
Kukla was a bald puppet with a big nose and a high voice (whose name
incidentally means "doll" in Russian). Oliver J. Dragon (a.k.a.
"Ollie") was an amiable creature with only one tooth. The
basic plot was that Ollie was up to something. He would enlist a
reluctant Kukla and Fran, and most often, the plan would fall apart
before his - and our - eyes. He would be chastened - saddened, but
in the end, reassured, very often by a song from Fran.
But back in 1939, it was just
Kukla and Ollie. The pair had begun to make appearances on Chicago
TV as early as 1939, and in 1947, Fran Allison, who had been working
on the Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club radio show, joined the
merriment.
The show was then broadcast over NBC’s Midwest network, airing daily
for several seasons before making the move to Sunday afternoons. In
this incarnation, both a studio audience and an orchestra were
brought in. Hugh Downs, who at the time was a Chicago television
personality, acted as the show's narrator. It was during this period
that Kukla, Fran, and Ollie won its first and only Emmy, in
1953.
Kukla, Fran, and Ollie moved to a nightly slot when ABC
picked it up from 1954 to 1957. Then, NBC ran the show in quick
five-minute segments in which Fran appeared only weekly.
In 1967, Fran was back full-time,
and the trio began hosting the long-running, critically acclaimed
CBS Children’s Film Festival. Simultaneously, from 1969 to 1971,
Kukla, Fran and Ollie was revived for PBS.
Hopes for another revival existed all the way up until 1985, when
pupeteer Tillstrom died, and the final curtain closed on the
Kuklapolitan Players.
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PUPPETS
Kukla
Ollie (Oliver J. Dragon)
Fletcher Rabbit
Mme. Ophelia Oglepuss
Buelah Witch
Cecil Bill
Col. Crackie
Mercedes
Dolores Dragon (1950-1957)
Olivia Dragon (1952-1957) |
The Kuklapolitans participated in many of the
first private tests of color television (in September of 1952, and
in March & April of 1953), and were chosen to star in the first
public color broadcast, on August 30, 1953.
See a
clip of that first public color broadcast, St. George and the
Dragon (from a black & white kinescope,
unfortunately!).
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