Episode 329: Kukla, Fran and Ollie - "A Quiet Day" (November 14, 1950)
Everything is calm, except for Ollie
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. "A Quiet Day" was directed by Lewis Gomavitz and aired on Thursday, November 14, 1950 at 7:00 PM on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.
What happened: Kukla opens the show by telling the crew that he wants to have a nice quiet day, after all the football shenanigans yesterday. This immediately goes awry, as Fletcher pops up banging a drum, thinking they’re performing “The Bohemian Girl.” They’ll get to it one day. Fletcher instead decides to read a magazine, in particular an issue of Radio & TV Mirror with an article written by Fran.
Fletcher then brings in the mail. These include a letter for Cecil Bill about the altercation he got into in New York, and a letter for Linwood. Linwood says that he gets lots of mail from both boys and girls, then quickly excuses himself. (Happy Pride!) There’s another message from the mail service about the increased demand for communication in the upcoming holiday season.
The final item of mail is a letter from the army for Ollie. Feel free to burn your draft card, it’s not illegal yet. Ollie acts melancholy, talking about how “the bugle has blown.” He calls for Cecil Bill to bring him the telephone, so he can call his mother and deliver the presumed news. He starts laying out his costume items for other members of the cast to keep.
Fran arrives to put an end to all this silliness. Kukla wants to talk production with her, by which he means eating Sealtest ice cream. Fran demonstrates how to make a milkshake with the ice cream. This leads to Fran singing “Nice Work if You Can Get It”, with Cecil Bill and Fletcher playing the drums (more like a single cymbal.)
Fletcher has opened the letter to Ollie accidentally, and in the process committed a federal crime. It turns out a group in the infantry just wants Ollie to perform for them. He arrives to tell them he couldn’t pass the examination, because he only talked about Sealtest. Having no legs probably didn’t help either. Well, the 4-A designation will certainly help him in the future.
What I thought: This episode of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie does what it says on the tin – a quiet interval between some of the more boisterous and higher-concept adventures. We’ve seen this type of episode before, and like the previous editions this one uses the mailbag as a kind of loose structure. There’s not any really memorable gifts this time, but it’s still a nice way for the show to stay in touch with its fans. And I do hope we get to see The Bohemian Girl one of these days.
The story takes a surprisingly serious turn when Ollie thinks he’s been drafted into the military. Obviously this is mostly played for laughs, but the show can’t entirely dispel the idea that our beloved dragon will be on a battlefield. We don’t often think of the early 50s as a time when young men had to deal with the draft in the same way as during the World War II or Vietnam eras, but over 1.5 million men were drafted into the Korean War. The conflict had only begun in June 1950, and few had been drafted at this point, but it still obviously had some kind of resonance.
TV Guide: You can find Fran’s article, along with the rest of the Radio and TV Mirror magazine, online. It’s a very sweet piece about Fran’s friendship with Janette Davis, who was a singer on Arthur Godfrey’s variety show. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to hear Ms. Davis for ourselves one of these days.
Coming up next: It’s been a bit of a drought for the anthology dramas, but we have another instalment of Suspense to spook and chill us.