ECP Episode 339: Kukla, Fran and Ollie - "Ollie's Culture Corner" (November 21, 1950)

Ollie brings us some poetry from viewers, and a giant letter

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. "Ollie’s Culture Corner" was directed by Lewis Gomavitz and aired on Tuesday, November 21, 1950 at 7:00 PM on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.

What happened: Kukla is looking for Dolores, but Jack doesn’t know where she is. The crew now has a name for their camera, Zoomar, or maybe that’s just the brand name. Everyone seems a little sleepy, Fran included. Kukla explains the Kinescope time gap for networks in the West and other places that aren’t directly hooked up to the NBC network, where this episode might air on Christmas Eve instead of Thanksgiving week. (This has bedeviled me in the past, as regular readers will know.)

After Kukla and Fran’s discussion, Ollie pops up in today’s ridiculous costume, a fashionable beret with a bowtie and collar. (The latter seems like a hat on a hat, but Ollie knows more about fashion than I do.) He’s holding a Culture Corner, where he reads poems submitted by readers. He clarifies that he’s not actually wearing a beret but a thinking cap, and reads an ode to him written by two viewers in Stanford, Connecticut.

Finally, someone to class up the joint.

Another poem from Buffalo pays tribute to both Kukla and Ollie, but mostly the latter. Kukla criticizes Ollie for only reading poems about himself, and Ollie responds with the witty riposte of biting Kukla’s nose. Fran breaks up the fight, and Ollie leaves in a huff. They ask Fletcher about whether these poems are representative, and he suggests that they aren’t. He brings up a giant letter from Orchard Park, New York, which has drawings included.

The letter writers are kind enough to include a reference to Sealtest ice cream. This leads to Kukla and Fran making a sundae with ice cream. Ollie returns with his beret frumpled to read more poems, but is upset that the other two took his ice cream. It’s been a rough episode for him. Fran reads a rather nice poem about the show. They call up Ollie, which he’s rather grumpy about. Fran sings about how she only wants the best for her puppet friends, and then everyone sings about Sealtest to end the show.

What I thought: This episode starts out with the premise of being “Ollie’s Culture Corner”, but is really just a mailbag episodes, with the crew showing off everything that people have sent them. There’s poetry, although it isn’t exactly the modernist free verse that Ollie’s hip beret might suggest. We kind of just did this last week, but if people were writing me giant letters to me, I’d probably want to show that off too.

I am tired of these jokes about my giant letters. The first such jokes…

Of course, putting letters on screen begets more letters, ensuring there will be plenty of material for slower days in the future. I was particularly struck by a letter which describes the Kuklapolitans as “part of our home.” In a literal sense, it was true: television allowed film entertainment to be not just something you went to elsewhere, but something that was domestic, allowing for a much more parasocial relationship with the stars (if still with greater remove than modern social media.) I think Burr Tilstrom realized sooner than most how TV could be use to create a sense of community instead of the more traditional one-way relationship between entertainer and audience.

This episode is also a little unusual in that we see Kukla and Ollie come to blows, or at least as much as two arm-less puppets can come to blows. It’s not treated very seriously, but it’s definitely more antagonistic than their relationship is typically depicted. But getting in random, harmless fights is also perhaps something that a young audience could relate to.

TV Guide: Continuing with the December Mirror, we have a number of profiles for emerging radio stars. All of these stories have some sort of rags-to-riches element: Cedric Adams went from a local radio personality to a regular on Arthur Godfrey’s program, Ralph Sigwald was a janitor who became a star singer, and Mindy Carson went “from a sales job to star billing”, and more importantly “from tomboy to wife.” As the entertainment industry expanded rapidly into radio and television, there were no doubt a lot of formerly obscure figures who shot to fame, but there’s an element of Horatio Alger to all of this. There’s also a four-page spread that’s purely photos and mini-bios of news anchors, including names like Edward Murrow, Robert Montgomery, and H. V. Kaltenborn, along with a lot of now-forgotten names.

Coming up next: Cisco and Pancho play wedding crashers.