CBS Children's Film Festival

CBS Children's Film Festival (also known as CBS Children's Hour) is a 1967–1984 television series of live action films from several countries that were made for children (several of them dubbed into English). Originally a sporadic series airing on Saturday mornings, Sunday afternoons, or weekday afternoons beginning in February 1967, it became a regularly scheduled program in 1971 on the CBS Saturday-morning lineup, running one hour with some films apparently edited down to fit the time slot. The program was hosted by 1950s television act Kukla, Fran and Ollie, a.k.a. puppeteer Burr Tillstrom and actress Fran Allison.[1]

Kukla, Fran and Ollie were dropped from the series in 1977 and the program was renamed CBS Saturday Film Festival.[2] In 1978 CBS canceled the show in favor of the youth-targeted magazine 30 Minutes which was modeled after its adult sister show 60 Minutes. CBS canceled 30 Minutes in 1982 and brought back Saturday Film Festival which ran for two seasons until CBS cancelled it for good in 1984.

Perhaps the most famous "episode" of the series was the 1960 British film Hand in Hand, the story of a deep friendship between two elementary school students, one a Roman Catholic boy and the other a Jewish girl.

In addition to many American and British films, the series also featured motion pictures from Russia, France, Bulgaria, Japan, Sweden, Italy, China, Australia, South Africa, and Czechoslovakia, as well as several other countries.

Other films that aired during the series run include the Academy Award-winning French film The Red Balloon; Skinny and Fatty from Japan; Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World from Great Britain; Tillie, the Unhappy Hippopotamus from Czechoslovakia; and Mi-Mi, the Lazy Kitten from China.

Actor Ray Bolger, a star of The Wizard of Oz, served as narrator for some of the episodes during the show's 1980s run.[citation needed]

Joel Hodgson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame stated that the characters of Kukla, Fran and Ollie were an early influence on his show.[3]

Films

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Following is a partial list of films aired on the program:[4][5]

References

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Informational notes

  1. ^ J.T. was so critically acclaimed as a Saturday-morning entry, it was rebroadcast in Prime Time by CBS several times over the next decade.[6]

Citations

  1. ^ Woolery, George W. (1985). Children's Television: The First Thirty-Five Years, 1946-1981, Part II: Live, Film, and Tape Series. The Scarecrow Press. pp. 84–85. ISBN 0-8108-1651-2.
  2. ^ CBS Children's Film Festival at TVGuide.com. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015.
  3. ^ https://www.mst3ktemple.net/prehistory.html
  4. ^ The Kuklapolitan Website
  5. ^ The CBS Children's Film Festival at Tripod.com
  6. ^ a b CBS Children's Hour: J.T. at UCLA Film and Television Archives. Archived from the original on December 4, 2017
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