Which Craft was an early educational instructional television series hosted by Diana Tollefson (born November 1, 1918-died September 28, 2009). In this series (a production of KUSD-TV), Diana Tollefson demonstrated various craft techniques to art students in grade school. The show's opening always showed a close up of a Persian-style or Adaddin-style oil lamp as the theme music played. In the series, Diana Tollefson was typically seated at a table. An overhead camera would occasionally provide views of the various crafts that Tollefson was making. If the craft involved the folding of construction paper, Tollefson typically used paper which had a lighter color on one side in order to bring out the contrast on black and white television. This was one of Diana Tollefson's early television series which was made in black and white.
Of Tollefson's educational/instructional shows, this one was shown no later than the early 1970's. The black and white series was removed from circulation when more color educational/instructional shows became available. Since that time, the series has not been broadcast by South Dakota Public Television; although, some older viewers do still remember the program. Of all of the hosts of educational television shows from South Dakota, Diana Tollefson was the one who was probably the most readily recognized.
The black and white television images from Which Craft were of good quality. Based on memories from having watched the black and white images half a century ago, the quality of the black and white television images was comparable to those from the old Ernie Kovacs shows. There was good definition. Black and white television from that time also had the peculiar quality in which the television cameras compensated for the brightness of bright objects in such a way that the bright objects appeared to be surrounded by dark halos.
The theme music to Which Craft was an experimental jazz song called Unsquare Dance. The song was a track on the 1961 album, Time Further Out, by the Dave Brubeck Quartet.
It is not known at this time whether or not SDPTV (now known as SDPB TV) has retained its recordings of Which Craft. The series was removed from rotation when color educational/instructional television programs began to dominate the broadcast schedule. When SDPB TV has shown retrospectives of its old television programming since that time, it appears to have never shown clips from Tollefson's old series, Which Craft. During the early years of television, some local broadcasters were said to have focused more on looking forward rather than on preserving their legacies. It is known that many broadcasters with limited budgets (as well as limited storage space) tended to get rid of recordings of their older shows when the shows were no longer being shown. Since Which Craft was a black and white series, retention of recordings of this series was likely considered to have been a low priority. After the development of color television, old black and white television shows were often considered to have been of no interest.
In more recent years, SDPB TV has expressed an interest in recovering old recordings of its early black and white television shows. If anyone (perhaps a school with an old reel-to-reel video recording machine) were to possess an old recording of Which Craft (or of any other early series which was produced by KUSD-TV/SDPTV), SDPB TV would probably be very interested in obtaining a copy of the recording for its archives for historical purposes.
This webpage should be regarded as a work in progress. New information may come to light in the event that documentation about the show is discovered. That new information would be incorporated into the article.
Which Craft is the copyrighted property of South Dakota Public Broadcasting and KUSD-TV in Vermillion, South Dakota. Neither SDPB nor KUSD-TV are responsible for the contents of this article. No copyright infringements were intended in the writing of this article. This article was written as a tribute to the TV show.