The battle over color television – the RCA “compatible color” system against the CBS-developed mechanical color system – is an epic in itself, and has been ably chronicled by others. (A great place to start is here.) That said, the years-long effort left us with some interesting artifacts, and if you’re fortunate you can find some surprises.
Some time ago, some good people compiled and restored a whole lot of kinescoped episodes of Kukla, Fran and Ollie.1 The restored episodes have been released on DVD, and they’re a fun way to visit the gentle world Burr Tillstrom created. They have a time-capsule quality to them, and not just because the commercials are still in them. Sometimes famous people from the era make guest appearances: Dennis Day, Jose Greco, and even a certain bespectacled former disc jockey we know and love.
In the third disc set is a special treat: a compilation of footage from experimental color broadcasts, as well as footage of some of the Kuklapolitans goofing around before a performance recorded for the 1964 World’s Fair. (All, unfortunately, are only in black and white. The color tests were not preserved on color film.) The first color test, done in 1949, is a simple affair that was done as a limited broadcast to the FCC and RCA officials. But the 1953 color test, which was aired over the network as a real test of compatible color2, pulled out the stops. For this special broadcast, NBC presented Kukla, Fran and Ollie in a production of “St. George and the Dragon.” They had performed it in Boston on June 7, with Arthur Fiedler conducting. It had been received very well. So NBC decided to stage a repeat performance as part of a color test, and it aired August 30. For one afternoon, the Colonial Theater in New York – where NBC learned how to work in color – became the Kuklapolitan Opera House. Arthur Fiedler would again conduct for this very special performance, this time leading the NBC Summer Symphony.
And they’d need a host. Someone who could lend the appropriate dignified whimsy to the proceedings. Who might that be?
There he is: our Dave, speaking to us from Box 44 at the Kuklapolitan Opera House in New York3, from which point NBC is about to bring us another afternoon of fine opera.
Dave’s doing his imitation of Metropolitan Opera radio host Milton Cross as he introduces the performance. You may not be able to tell from the screen grab, but he’s having fun with the Milton Cross style, too. The broadcast was sponsored by the Society For Improving Relations Between Dragons and Other People.
And at the end of the performance, of course, it wouldn’t be Dave without his trademark benediction. “From the Kuklapolitan Opera House, we bid you good afternoon…and peace.”
To find out how to get your own set of these priceless compilations, go here. They’re highly (and warmly) recommended.
- If you’re not familiar with the Kuklapolitans, you’ve missed something truly special. And if you only know them from their days hosting the CBS Children’s Film Festival, you didn’t get to see them in their prime. Go here to learn more about them.
- Which meant people with black-and-white sets would be able to watch the program, too, but they’d just see it in black and white. The CBS color system required people either to buy new TV sets that could pick up the program’s signal, or buy a converter box that would let their black-and-white sets decode the signal.
- Just as Milton Cross broadcast from Box 44 at the old Metropolitan Opera House in New York.