Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 09:05:17 -0800
To: puptcrit-AT-lists.driftline.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] "Kukla, Fran and Ollie" puppeteering


	x-avg-checked=avg-ok-69A672A6

Wow Mark...what a wonderful website.  I will pour
over the video clips and gain a greater respect
for this work.  Thank you so much for archiving and preserving this history!

Ax


At 03:02 PM 1/13/2006, you wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I'm the webmaster for The Unofficial Kuklapolitan Webpage, and Leslie
>mentioned to me that there was an interesting KFO dicussion going on here,
>so I thought I'd join!
>
>People have commented on the lack of Ollie's lipsync over the years, and
>it's true that Burr never seemed to put too much effort into it.  But I
>think that has to do with how he worked: all his attention was focused on
>the interplay between the 12 or more characters that he had to bring to
>life, not on the details that only close scrutiny exposes.
>
>You can see the instense concentration it required.  If you watch the show
>closely, you will notice that when there are two characters on stage
>(apparently the Kuklapolitans felt that three was a crowd), the character
>who is not speaking usually goes "dead."  It appears that in order to be
>able to switch so quickly and so completely from one character to the next,
>Burr had to focus all his attention on the one that was speaking.
>
>For me, the true genius of Burr's work was that it relied on only three
>things: a carefully crafted persona for each character (John Steinbeck once
>said that Burr's creations were like his own: they could never do anything
>out of character), a completely distinct voice for each character, and
>convincing movement.
>
>The puppets were crude, the sets virtually non-existent, details like
>lip-sync were ignored, and yet the entire cast becomes real if you watch
>more than a few episodes.  Any regular viewer will tell you: the
>Kuklapolitans were real people.  They may have been made of cloth, but there
>was no doubt in your mind that they were alive.  I remember when Burr died;
>it felt like a dozen of my friends had all been lost in a plane crash.  Not
>only would I never speak to Burr again, I would also never hear from Buelah
>or Fletcher or Kukla, etc.  It may sound silly, but it really felt like a
>mass death had occurred.
>
>I never knew what a masterful puppeteer Burr was until I started making
>RealVideo clips for my website.  I found that I could lower the image
>quality and the sound quality if I needed to make the file sizes smaller,
>but if I limited the motion, the puppets died.  Without Burr's surprisingly
>unnoticeable changes in the movement of each character, they were no longer
>alive.  Ollie's twisting head movements, Buelah's contortions, Madame O's
>breasts vibrating when she held a high note - all these were as essential as
>Burr's vocal skills in convincing us we were watching friends, not puppets.
>
>I think the limitations of Burr's presentation (no sets, no effects, poor
>cameras, etc.) only prove how brilliant he was.  Take a look at the clips at
>my site and see if you agree:
>
>http://users.ultinet.net/~kfo
>
>Best,
>
>Mark M.
>
>
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Steve Axtell
Axtell Expressions, Inc.
****************************************
<http://www.axtell.com>Amazing Puppet Characters Web Site
New show "<http://www.axtelevision.com>AxTelevision" on DVD
International <http://www.axtell.com/performers.html>Performer's Directory
The original content of this email or attachments
is =A9 2005 Axtell Expressions, Inc.


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