Beginning in the earliest days of television in 1947 and continuing on until 1957, the first Kukla, Fran & Ollie series was broadcast from Chicago weekdays on the NBC television network. Completely ad-libbed, and performing to an audience more full of adults than of kids, puppeteer Burr Tillstrom, the beautiful Fran Allison & the puppets Kukla, Ollie & the rest of the "Kuklapolitans" wowwed affiliate stations, high-brow intellectuals, tiny little toddlers & most everyone else in-between. The great Orson Welles was a fan, as was James Thurber, John Steinbeck & Adlai Stevenson to name a few more. Pioneering in its presentation, format, subject matter and just about everything else, the show was also responsible for the first ship-to-shore telecast as well as the first network program ever to be broadcast in color. Though it appeared on TV in a number of incarnations until the 1980s, it was the original series featured on this DVD that most won the hearts and minds of fans and critics alike.

01: Kukla, Fran & Ollie (1951, B&W, 29:30)

02: Kukla, Fran & Ollie (1951, B&W, 29:20)