Episode 333: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie - The Bohemian Girl (November 15, 1950)
The big opera is finally here, but Fletcher Rabbit is missing
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. "The Bohemian Girl" was directed by Lewis Gomavitz and aired on Wednesday, November 15, 1950 at 7:00 PM on NBC. Video is available on the official KFO YouTube channel.
What happened: Colonel Crackle introduces us to another presentation of the Kuklapolitan Opera: The Bohemian Girl, long-planned. However, they had difficulty turning the opera into a half-hour show, so they had to cut it liberally. The opera opens with two fast-moving puppets banging on a drum. I think it’s Kukla and Cecil Bill, but it’s honestly a little hard to tell.
However, when the play begins in earnest, Fletcher Rabbit, who was meant to be the star of the show, is nowhere to be found. Ollie is too busy preparing to play Count Arnheim off-stage, before being drafted into playing the role of Thaddeus. Fran appears as Arline, the titular Bohemian Girl, but she gets tripped up by Ollie not knowing the lines and skipping ahead to a later moment in the play.
Ollie gives her a “medallion”, actually a vice president button, and now Fran is also lost. Madame Oglepuss pops up to buy time by singing a song, and according to this Wikipedia page I think she’s playing “Buda, Arline’s attendant.” Kukla plugs the very Bohemian Ford station wagon.
Fran sings “Golden Earrings”, which is not from “The Bohemian Girl” but does contain the lyric “Be my gypsy.” Kukla has now taken up the role of her suitor Thaddeus, but before they can do the big romantic scene Beulah interrupts her as the gypsy queen, stealing the medallion. This forces the duo to go to court. Ollie returns to his original role as Count Arnheim, which involves wearing a silly toupee and even sillier moustache.
He also sings, until he recognizes Fran as his daughter, but still gets confused by all the role-switching. Fran sings the big finale, “When Other Lips and Other Hearts”, in a pretty good Irish brogue. Fletcher finally arrives at the end, and is mortified to find that he’s missed out on his favourite play. Kukla promises that they’ll do the whole thing over again, just for him.
What I thought: “The Bohemian Girl” has been mentioned and used as a punchline so much in past episodes of KFO (usually by Fletcher Rabbit) that I was kind of shocked and excited to see it as the episode title. I had kind of just assumed it would be a running gag that would be paid off years from now, if at all. I was also a little surprised that “The Bohemian Girl” was an actual play. It turns out that it’s an 1843 Irish opera (another thing I had never thought about existing) about a girl who gets amnesia and falls in with a travelling Roma circus. (They didn’t use “Roma” in 1843, or 1950.)
As is typical with KFO’s big play episodes, the entertainment is less in seeing the material acted out and more in the chaos and mishaps that often accompany live theatre. In this case, Fletcher Rabbit’s absence is both an ironic punchline and the impetus for the cast to be constantly switching roles. In combination with the already-compressed and distorted script, this creates a rather chaotic production.
Still, even if one doesn’t know the opera enough to follow it, it’s still a very funny episode. The songs are also presented surprisingly seriously, at least the ones Fran sings. Even Beulah Witch’s number is pretty fun to listen to. I guess that’s the educational, public-service part of the show: you come for the puppet hijinx, and get a little bit of genuine opera slipped in there.
TV Guide: I’ve been gradually reading through that Radio Mirror issue I linked on the last KFO episode. It’s mostly soft-touch portraits of various TV and radio stars, including Skitch Henderson, who hosted NBC’s Talent Search as well as appearing on the radio as a piano-playing DJ; the International Barbershop Quartet Champion; and various other radio hosts. There’s also an advice column, including a letter from a man asking if he should divorce his wife who is in an insane asylum, and a reprinting of the classic “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” letter, as this is the December issue. A big chunk of the magazine, however, is advertisements, aimed squarely at female readers for various cosmetic and and beauty products. It’s a good reminder that TV and radio’s audience was, and to an extent still is, predominantly female.
Coming up next: We become unstuck in time.