Burr
Tillstrom's hands may seem perfectly ordinary, but more
than
three
million devotees of Kukla, Fran and Ollie know
their remarkable talent.
Burr
Tillstrom's hands may seem perfectly ordinary, but more
than
three
million devotees of Kukla, Fran and Ollie know
their remarkable talent.
|
EVEN
if you've never sat entranced before a television
set, looking into the delightful world of the
Kuklapolitan Players, you know all about Kukla,
Fran and Ollie (NBC-TV, Monday through
Friday, 7 p.m., EST). That is, you know all there
is to know: that the bulb-nosed clown Kukla and
the prankish dragon Ollie head a cast of 10
individualistic hand puppets, that their human
friend Fran Allison talks and sings to them with
complete naturalness, that they and their
unrehearsed adventures are the creation of
33-year-old Burr Tillstrom, that this show, one of
the oldest on commercial network TV, is as popular
with adults as it is with children.
And, knowing these facts which can be put on paper, you know nothing. For the thing about Kukla, Fran and Ollie is not a fact but a feeling. It's something that no one has yet been able to define, even with the help of words like "charming," "heart-warming," "gentle," "subtle," "spontaneous," "creative." Not even the look in a little girl's eyes (below) nor critics' assurances that the program is the richest thing on television can quite convey the spell that Kukla, Fran and Ollie casts. We can only conclude that it's magic - a pure and precious kind of magic. Photos by Douglas Jones |
