It Ain't Over Until...

There are vast numbers of Americans, it seems, who love sentiment mixed with patriotism. And there are people who are adept at dishing it out to engage in another love in the U.S.—making money.

Such describes Kate Smith.

Well, only partly. She had (at least, in my opinion) a lovely singing voice. Since few of us go back to the early 1930s, when she made a name for herself on network radio, most people who remember her connect her to hockey’s Philadelphia Flyers, for whom she sang “God Bless America” before each game at the Spectrum.

But back to radio.

Smith fronted a number of musical shows in the 1930s and into the war era, sponsored by General Foods. The company forced Jack Benny and her to switch products between Grape Nuts Flakes and Jell-O (one of the reasons Benny got miffed and dumped the company for American Tobacco). After the war, she had settled into a chatty weekday show where she served up buckets-full of warm fuzziness (and, occasionally, recipes), as her manager Ted Collins hitched along for the ride.

Radio satirist Henry Morgan took a jab at Smith’s “Hello, everybody” greeting to fans. Radio columnist John Crosby wasn’t quite as cynical, but he gave his assessment of Smith’s show in his syndicated column of January 29, 1947. Smith never married, let alone had children, which Crosby notes in her continued gushing about motherhood.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By JOHN CROSBY
Big Ray of Sunshine
There was a time not so many years ago when Kate Smith was as important to the gag-writing profession as John L. Lewis is today. (“I once made a non-stop flight around Kate Smith.”) Today a joke about the golden-throated contralto with the impressive architecture would be almost profane.
Some idea of Miss Kate’s standing in the community can be gained from the titles of her two radio programs, “Kate Smith Speaks” (C. B. S., noon, Mondays through Fridays), and “Kate Smith Sings” (C. B. S., 6:30 p. m., Sundays). Like the phrase “Garbo Laughs,” the titles of these programs are the simplest possible statements of what goes into them and nothing else is required. You have to be a national institution before a simple subject and predicate explain your activities so completely as to be understandable to every one.
Miss Kate is now rated as radio’s top feminine entertainer, which is a misnomer. The gentle, folksy, harmless and overwhelmingly sentimental banalities which she voices in her soft, homespun voice on her daytime program are not so much entertainment as heart balm and solace to millions of housewives. She and Ted Collins, her manager—or Svengali, as he is referred to by the more cynical Broadway characters—simply chatter for fifteen minutes about any folksy news item that gives Miss Kate an opportunity to say at some point, though not in these words, that God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world.
. . .
A news item from Columbus, Ohio, announcing that a survey revealed 51 per cent of American women prefer the kiddies and the dishes to careers will send her into paroxysms of sentimental delight, which sound a little odd, coming from a woman whose career is one of the wonders or broadcasting.
“No career on earth could give any woman the warm satisfaction of watching her little child at play. Nothing gave me more pleasure than this survey in Ohio. The American home is safe” she will cry. Any one who can say “The American home is safe” without making a parody of all home life is unquestionably a genius of some sort.
The sanctity of the home, mother and America are Miss Kate’s constant themes. Any criticism of America, no matter how slight, will bring down her wrath and also that of Mr. Collins. Recently, for instance, a French expert had the temerity to suggest that American women used too many rich fats in their cooking, fried too many meats, overcooked their vegetables.
“I hope he survives his visit,” said Mr. Collins with withering sarcasm.” “It would be awful if he starved to death over here.”
“I feel sorry for this visitor,” said Miss Kate. “I wonder if he’s ever tasted a hot apple pie made with cinnamon or Maryland fried chicken or sugar cured hams or apple pan dowdy.”
. . .
Food, housekeeping, children and clothes are probably closest to the American housewives’ hearts and Mr. Collins, who does the thinking on this program, sees to it that they make up the bulk of the chit-chat. However, Miss Kate, an excellent cook and a hearty eater, can summon up more enthusiasm for food than anything else, which is just as well since she’s sponsored by General Foods.
The news that English war brides in Chicago were taking cooking courses to learn how to bake doughnuts brightened her whole day. She gave the project unqualified blessing, which is as close to knighthood as you can come in this country. “Cooking,” she will say, as if she’d just thought it up herself, “is the way to a man’s heart.”
When she isn’t exulting over new recipes, Miss Kate likes to tell cheerful little stories about the lame, the halt, the blind and the orphaned. Speaking of an orphanage run by the Loyal Order of Moose, she said: “It’s pleasant with all our unhappy headlines to contemplate this school built on love.” Right there is not only the root of her philosophy but the secret of her success. Her fans have had enough of the unpleasant headlines: they want a little sunshine and Miss Kate is bursting with sunshine. They will even forgive her for saying “sumpin’” for something and for her frequent redundancies (“and et cetera”) because her heart is pure.
. . .
Even her evening program is pervaded with optimism. When “Kate Smith Sings” her sentimental contralto sounds best in ballads, particularly the ones that shout to the world that it’s great to be alive, especially in America.



The rest of the Crosby columns for the week:

Monday, January 27: A comparison between shows aimed at rural listeners to CBS and NBC.
Tuesday, January 28: One of Canada’s radio exports to the U.S., besides Alan Young and Gisele MacKenzie, was an obscure programme of music and stories called Once Upon a Tune (above, top). Crosby’s description makes it sound like a children’s show, but he doesn’t call it that. DuMont briefly broadcast a television version in 1951 with different writers.
Thursday, January 30: Odds and sods, partly dealing with a doctor’s conclusion about high blood pressure and radio (above, bottom). Apparently, Gabriel Heatter was bad for your health. Ah, there’s no good news tonight!
Friday, January 31: One of daytime radio’s evergreens that wasn’t a soap opera was Galen Drake (right), whose gimmick was a club called “The Housewives Protective League.” Drake began in the late ‘30s and carried on until the dying days of network radio in the early ‘60s, with his show finishing its run on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

You can click on the stories to enlarge the copy. Cartoons are from the Daily News in Los Angeles.

Why the Squirrel Didn't Go To School

Tex Avery and writer Heck Allen find a convenient way to end The Screwy Truant (1945).

At the start of the cartoon, Screwy calls kids going to school “a bunch of chumps” and grabs a bamboo fishing rod from behind a tree. For the next six minutes, he harasses a dullard truant officer determined to bring him in.

But fishing had nothing to do with the truancy. At the end of the cartoon, Screwy reveals he has measles.



A typical Avery reaction.



I like this in-between.



It turns out the measles are highly contagious. They spread to the truant officer and then the “The End” sign in the background to end the cartoon.



Don’t ask why Screwy showed no signs of measles before this. He’s screwy, you know.

This cartoon has, like all the Screwys, great gags. The roll of phoney squirrel tail may be my favourite.

Ever See a Dog Fly?

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit disappears for about half a cartoon in The Quail Hunt (1935). Perhaps he wanted to avoid being connected to this sorry effort that was co-written by Walter Lantz.

The nominal star of this short is Elmer the Great Dane, who is Oswald’s hunting dog. The quail he’s hunting turns sympathetic and saves Elmer’s life, enabling him to appear in more lacklustre cartoons. A hawk comes into the picture to try to capture the quail, and it’s Elmer’s turn to save a life.

In the most surreal situation in the cartoon, Elmer manages to grab the hawk by the tail and pull him off a tree. They roll backwards and crash into another tree.



When the dust disappears, Elmer now has the hawk’s feathers. Not only that, he has developed wings and can fly!



This was a pretty fallow period for Lantz. He tried to make stars out of three chimps, a turtle doing a bad impression of Rochester from the Jack Benny show and a panda he eventually took off the screen and put in comic books.

The animators on this one are Ed Benedict, Ray Abrams, Bill Mason and Fred Kopietz.

Milk and Money Backgrounds

Tex Avery enjoyed a left-to-right pan over a background drawing whenever it fit in with one of his cartoons, both at Warners and MGM.

That’s how he begins the 1936 Porky Pig short Milk and Money.

It starts with an overlaid cel of trees.



The trees are pulled away from the actual background, which also has animation of Porky’s dad hoeing the garden to the strains of “Home Sweet Home.”



The background artist is uncredited, but we know who it is, thanks to a newspaper article of the day. It was John A. Waltz, who sandwiched in some time at Leon Schlesinger’s studio in between stops at Walt Disney. You can read a partial list of his credits at Warners in this post.

Making Alvin Safe For Children

Ross Bagdasarian got a lot of mileage out of a novelty record.

In 1958, he assumed the guise of David Seville and, with his voice sped up as a chorus, made the goofy love song “Witch Doctor” a number-one hit for Liberty Records.

A real inspiration struck Bagdasarian. Why not turn his sped-up chorus into a novelty trio of chipmunks (named for Liberty executives)? They debuted on Liberty the same year with a Christmas novelty song.

Milking the idea didn’t stop there. After The Flintstones became a prime-time success in 1960, television networks looked around for more potential night-time animated hits. Right in front of them was Bagdasarian and his Chipmunks (drawings of which had been limited to album covers). Animals make perfect cartoon characters. The Chipmunks were already popular. They could even sing funny songs. A recipe for a TV comedy success.

So it was The Alvin Show debuted, with Format Films contracted to make the half-hour series. Format had been set up by Herb Klynn and others who walked out of UPA during the making of the Magoo Arabian Nights feature. Bob Kurtz designed the characters for animation, and the company hired good writers including Tedd Pierce and Dale Hale.

But Bagdasarian (whose name became a musical tag at the end of each show) mother-henned the series, at least in his version of events.

Here’s Chuck Wheat’s column in the March 12, 1962 edition of the Tulsa World. Wheat didn’t like other cartoons on CBS; I presume he must have meant Terrytoons. It’s odd he would think they had less animation than TV cartoons.

“Clean up your plate, dear . . . remember the starving Armenians.”
Ross Bagdasarian can’t tell his kids that mossy axiom . . . he breaks up in laughter every time he starts it. Ross (I’ll call him by his first name—save plenty money on type) and his cousin, William Saroyan, should be called gorged Armenians.
Together sometimes but most often separately, they have parlayed their madness into piles of long, green currency. Ross talked by telephone this week on his latest gambit, “The Alvin Show” on CBS.
After almost a season, Alvin and his fellow chipmunks seem pretty healthy — at least their sponsor is satisfied. It’s a show that surprised me, because quite frankly I am sick to death of shabby cartoon work icing down a rancid cookie of had situation comedy. Most of the animated shows on The Eye are peculiarly lacking in real animation.
Alvin, however, very often glimmers. The mischievous chipmunks are mostly enjoyable, but I get a hoot out of Clyde Crashcup, the professor who invents old things.
“Did you notice how Crashcup and his sidekick Leonardo look like Virgil Parch [sic] drawings?” asked Ross. “I hope they look utterly deadpan in their insanity—like VIP drawings.”
Ross’ cuckoo-bird mind comes up with some real odd stories on the weekly show, just as cousin Saroyan’s mind came up with wacky stories and plays that delight and confuse.
“Bill lives in Paris, but we get together once in a while,” says Ross. “Are we crazy, you ask? We’re the SANE ones in the family.”
In order to justify my call to Ross I asked him to tell us how a cartoon half-hour show comes on The Eye. Here is his description:
First the story line is written, based on ideas Ross throws out. The writers also draw sketches, much like magazine or newspaper cartoons. The story line is a phrase under each picture.
Once this “story board” is finished, Ross checks it and if he likes it, everybody troops to a recording studio where the show’s sound is put down. Then the sound recordings go to a director and layout man who turn it on for the animators. They make the action fit the noises just recorded.
You don’t call this lipsynch—this isn’t the recorded voice while the real singer pants silently and moves her lips. This is facephake—the real voice and the recorded singer.
This whole process takes about four months, according to Ross, and costs about $65,000 for a half-hour show. He hastens to explain that by now the Alvin show studios are an assembly line with a one-a-week output at least.
“The Alvin Show” moves to 5:30 p.m. Sundays next season (or maybe sooner—I’m not certain on this point) and Ross is satisfied. Or maybe oblivious—since his jobs on the show include creator, writer, boss animator, director and voice—and oh yes, he owns the show, too.
“One thing I’d hope you’ll get across,” he said. “I’ve got kids of my own and Alvin is never going to be a little skunk (ha ha, chipmunk but no skunk)—his tricks better not be destructive or dangerous.
“I once found my 5-year-old getting ready to fly off our garage because he saw Superman do it.”
Television could do with more madmen like Ross Bagdasarian. I hope he has hysterics all the way to the Armenian National Bank of America.

What stories or gags did Bagdasarian throw out? He gave some examples in a wire service interview, published December 11, 1961.

Alvin Can Do No Wrong
By JOE FINNIGAN
UPI Hollywood Reporter
ALVIN THE CHIPMUNK’S mentor is keeping an eye on the trouble prone animal to keep him from leading youngsters astray.
Given half a chance, Alvin might start a juvenile revolution that could –upset many of the nation’s households.
But Bagdasarian, apparently a fellow who doesn’t believe in overthrowing homes or governments by force, keeps a tight rein on the squeaky voiced Alvin.
“This is one of the most important things,” said Ross, explaining his reluctance to let Alvin run loose. “We joke a lot but we won’t lot any of the characters do something wrong which kids think is okay. We have a responsibility to people who watch, especially the kids.”
BAGDASARIAN built Alvin’s CBS-TV show from a phonograph record to a multi-million dollar business. Alvin and his two brothers, Simon and Theodore, are created at Format Films, where Ross oversees the whole operation.
It’s difficult to think of rascally Alvin as a pillar of any community, but that’s almost what Ross would like. Bagdasarian keeps tabs on the show’s writers to keep any vicious image of Alvin from getting on the air.
“There was a script that had Alvin giving one of his brothers a hot foot,” said Ross, cringing at the thought. “It played very funny to adults, but kids would think it’s okay to do that.
“In another script, Alvin was sitting in the car and drove it through the garage wall.”
Ross almost groaned thinking about the consequences of that little trick and said, “We could see kids in the family car going through their own garage.”
In both instances, Ross edited the scripts so Junior wouldn’t get any ideas.
IT’S FAIR to assume that Bagdasarian, who has three children, was also thinking of himself when it came to the hotfoot and automobile wreck scenes. His own youngsters might have gotten some ideas and taken one of Dad’s high powered cars for a joyride through the garage wall.
‘We’d rather have the show go off the air than maim thousands of kids,” said Ross, expressing one of TV’s nobler sentiments.
Ross admits that Alvin has no halo over his head. But he insists the little fellow is no switchblade delinquent.
“Alvin is a very delicate character,” Ross said. “He goes against authority because he feels he had a better way of doing something. He’s not a precocious brat.”

Bagdasarian’s “What about the children” attitude didn’t keep the series on the air. The prime-time animation fad disappeared as fast as it arrived as the ratings numbers just weren’t there. What looks like a CBS-TV release in newspapers starting June 2, 1962 announced The Alvin Show would debut on Saturday mornings on June 23 and would leave prime time on September 12.

That was a momentary blip. The Bagdasarian family conjured Alvin 2.0 with new records, new cartoons, new characters, new huge profits.

There’s still something to be said about The Alvin Show, despite the creaky songs turned into music videos and a title character who wasn’t likeable some of the time. Nobody had really tried a musical comedy format, so the series broke some ground. And a show with a Steven Bosustow-lookalike selling Crashcup noses in Crashcup Land can’t be bad.

Re-Writing For Benny

Jack Benny was born on this date in 1894 (insert your own “39” joke here) and through his TV years, columnists found a way of marking it.

This time, we’re going to skip those kinds of columns and go back to one published on his birthdate in 1937 by the Los Angeles Times.

There’s no mention of his birthday. Instead the story involves writing the Benny radio show for the 4 p.m. (Pacific) broadcast, and then re-working it for the live repeat show for NBC red network stations in the West at 8:30 p.m., based on what got laughs on the broadcast heard elsewhere in the country.

The columnist also briefly mentions how Ed Beloin and Bill Morrow were hired by Benny, avoiding the reason Jack was “fresh out of material and writers.”

Air Comedian’s Gags Metered For Laughs
If Joke Rolls ‘Em in Aisles, It’s “B.W.;” Studio Audience Response to Jack Benny Humor Graded by Script Writers
By CARROLL NYE
Radio Editor
If you crash the control room at N.B.C. during a Jack Benny broadcast and peer over the shoulders of Bill Morrow or Ed Beloin, the Jesters ace writer you’ll find them making “chicken tracks” on their script.
What they actually are doing is grading the gags according to the response of the studio audience. Top rating is “B.W.,” which signifies (pardon my French!) “belly wow.” Lowest grading is “S.,” standing for “snicker,” and the intermediate ratings are “G.,” for “good,” and “V.G.,” for “very good,” with variations of plus or minus for all.
MARKED TWICE
The scripts are marked in pencil during the afternoon broadcast; then remarked in ink during the repeat broadcast for the West. When gags get the same response on both shows they are marked “D.,” for “ditto.”
A survey of Benny’s last three “report cards” reveals that Mary Livingstone leads the parade of comics in the classroom with an average of B-minus, and Kenny Baker is tied with Benny with a rating of G-plus. Don Wilson’s rating is low because he’s friendly to Jack, while Phil Harris’s score goes up every time he tiffs with the star. Andy Devine’s first appearance on the program brought him a B-plus mark, but he subsequently slipped into a straight “G.” groove.
TOPICAL JOKES
In general, the survey discloses that topical jokes and “ribs” on personalities in or out of the cast are the consistent “B.W.” getters—which is gratifying to all concerned because the success or failure of the series has always hinged on that type of humor.
Puns or epigrammatic lines are only good for a snicker, and a subtle shaft of humor doesn’t get a stronger reaction unless it is linked with a situation. In any event, no gag is expected to stand on its own—nor will the writers inject a series of unrelated gags. “Those methods were good in vaudeville,” said Morrow, “hut the ‘bang-bang-bang’ comedy is a total loss in radio.”
ALLEN FEUD REGISTERS
Benny’s feud with Fred Allen is apparently accomplishing its purpose, because every mention of the “Town Hall Tonight” star in the script is followed by a B-plus. An example was Jack’s line: “I should stoop to arguing with a toothpaste salesman.”
I rapped on the door of Morrow’s Hollywood apartment last Wednesday evening and we enjoyed some chitchat until Allen’s program came on the air. In the hour that followed, my host listened intently—knowing that he’d have some special work cut out for himself if Allen did a particularly good job of putting his boss on the spot.
After listening to that “rib” I gather that Morrow and Beloin started burning the midnight oil. Anyhow, we’ll hear the result today.
PUT HIM ON SPOT
“We should worry,” said Morrow. “We put Fred on the spot when Jack announced last Sunday that he’d lost his violin, and made the drawling comedian rush out a new routine.
“In fact, we never let ourselves worry about our show because it is impossible to write good comedy under pressure. We’re serious, but relaxed—and that’s the way Jack expects us to work.”
The pair of writers goes into a huddle with the headman after the Sunday night broadcasts to map out a general plan for the next week’s show. Sometimes they evolve a routine for broadcasts two or three weeks hence.
THINK IT OVER
On Monday the writers think about working but seldom do anything about it. Tuesday, Beloin Invades Morrow’s apartment (next door to his) and after a few hours of friendly wrangling they fill one “spot,” which is taken to Benny for acceptance, changes or rejection.
Other situations are usually worked out on Wednesday, and by Thursday they give the boss a rough draft of the whole script. However, they often leave holes that aren’t filled until the reading rehearsal Saturday, when the star comedian reads the parts for every member of the cast and injects new gags as they come to him.
Carole Lombard, their best and severest critic, hears most of the jokes while they are in the process of formulation, and Don Wilson’s spontaneous laugh is Benny’s barometer at the reading rehearsal.
It is something of a coincidence that Beloin and Morrow became Benny’s writers. Ed peddled his first comedy script 1ast winter to Allen, who passed it up because he writes his own material. However, Benny, being fresh out of material and writers, took the script at first reading.
Benny got in contact with Morrow, who had just finished a season writing for Phil Baker and Eddie Dowling, and the three of them met two weeks later in Detroit.
Beloin and Morrow locked themselves in a hotel room and turned out their first script—as a team. Jack accepted it, sent the lads to Hollywood and now has them under contract.

There’s no mention of another writer Jack relied on around this time and who died in 1937. Homer Canfield’s column in a number of southern California newspapers on June 19, 1937 gave him a brief tribute.

Hollywood, June 19—
WHERE THERE’S LAUGHTER THERE ARE ALWAYS TEARS. THE death that came to Al Boasberg in the quiet lonesomeness of Friday’s early hours was a terrific shock to Jack Benny. As a result, plans for his Sunday program are still somewhat unsettled. But in true trooper fashion, it is expected the show will go on. (KFI, 7:30)
Benny not only looked on Boasberg as the tops in gagmen, but as a close personal friend. It will be hard not to read tragedy into his funny lines.
As the red light flashes “on the air,” radio’s No. 1 comedy program will flood through the network. Jack will joke people will laugh at a dead-man’s humor. And will continue to laugh for years to come.
Boasberg’s prolific sense of the ridiculous gave birth to enough material to keep comedians supplied for yeara to come. It will be redressed and used many times over. like Charlie McCarthy, most funnymen need to have someone else throw the words in their mouths.
Just what was Al Boasberg’s connection with the Jack Benny program?. . . Haven’t we read so often that Ed Beloin and Bill Morrow were Jack’s scriptwriters? are a couple of questions I’ve had to answer over and over today. True, Beloin and Morrow wrote the comedian’s scripts. But Boasberg was the seasoning. After the script had been completed, he was called in as the gagman. Throughout the program he would plant lines to assure laughter. His was the touch that lifted the show out of the good program class to the top of the heap. May he find as much laughter on the other side as he gave here.

In our next Benny post, we will check in with one of his two writers, who will spill more (rather lame) gossip about Jack and putting together the show.

Two Silver Spoons

John Brown’s hipster tells John Brown’s Noah Webster he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Webster tries to imagine it.



So comes the first visual pun in Tex Avery’s Symphony in Slang, released by MGM in 1951

The gag wasn’t a new one. You can see it in Friz Freleng’s Confederate Honey, released by Warners in 1940. The narrator (John Deering, not John Brown) tells us Colonel O’Hairoil has a daughter, Crimson, who was born the same way.



Cut to reveal the gag.



This was the first cartoon made by Freleng after he escaped from MGM and accepted an offer from Leon Schlesinger to return. It’s a parody of Gone With the Wind with rotoscoping, effects animation, lots of overlays at the beginning, radio references, racial stereotypes, Mel Blanc as a Hugh Herbert caricature, and Elmer Fudd. Freleng’s next release for Warners, The Hardship of Miles Standish, features at least the latter four.

Ups and Downs For Jim J. Bullock

Overnight successes are generally people who have been around the entertainment business a lot longer than overnight before getting cast in a regular, breakout role.

Then there’s Jim J. Bullock.

He spent four years in Los Angeles after leaving Odessa, Texas, where he appeared in a Permian High School production of Bye, Bye Birdie (in Paul Lynde’s role), then in college productions of Godspell and A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Bottom (I am resisting any comment), and in the cast of a Christian Broadcasting Network series called Sunshine Factory.

A large percentage of that four years did not involve The Bright Lights of Hollywood. He was employed for a year at Bob’s Burger Bar, then at Victoria Station (tips were better). He found part-time work at a bank, then jobs as a corporate messenger and a mall Santa. As far as show biz, nothing happened for him until success on a Monday pot-luck night at Mitzi Shore’s Comedy Store, which led to a contract at ABC and his first appearance on Nov. 25, 1980 on Ted Knight’s series Too Close For Comfort.. Two days before the episode aired, the Odessa American crowed that Bullock’s character would become a regular. He was a sudden success at age 25.

Here he is talking about his role to a syndicated news service column dated May 15, 1982.

How JM Bullock Copes With Success
By BOB LARDINE
New York Daily News
HOLLYWOOD—It happens to a lot of nobodies in this town. One day they’re a whisper away from the unemployment line, and the next day they’re pulling down $6,000 a week or more on a top television series.
Some performers go berserk with that kind of money. That’s what happened to JM J. Bullock. At 26, he had never earned more than $200 a week in his life. The most notable thing about him was that he dropped the ‘i’ from his first name, Jim, just to be different. And then, suddenly, he turned up as Monroe on CBS’s [sic] hot series, “Too Close for Comfort.” He was making big bucks and was an instant star.
“I went crazy with all the money I was making,” he admits. “I spent $50,000 in a flash, and to this day I still can’t tell you where it all went. I know I did go out and buy a new Datsun 280-ZX, but I don’t know where I spent the rest. I was afraid to tell my father (an executive with a small oil company in Odessa, Texas) that I had gone through so much money, but somehow he understood when you’ve gone without for so long and then come into a lot of money, you tend to go out and enjoy spending it.”
Bullock manages his money much better these days, but he’s still pouring out the cash. A couple of months ago he splurged on a brand new home in the Hollywood Hills, which cost him half a million dollars. The house is enormous — 4,000 square feet that includes four bedrooms, 4 1/2 baths and a kitchen so huge you could put a basket at each end and call it a basketball court.
The actor lives in the spacious triple-deck home all by himself. “Sure, it’s big,” he says, “but I need a large house because I’m a party person, and I intend to have tremendous get-togethers with my friends. It’s going to be party, party, party from now on.
Somehow, you don’t expect that kind of revelation from a deeply religious person who was brought up a Baptist in Texas, and who still goes to church every Sunday. But Bullock is a strange guy, almost like the character he portrays on “Too Close for Comfort.” He’s constantly seen in gorilla or chicken outfits, and always plays an idiot on the show who is a constant irritant to the series star, Ted Knight.
Bullock gained a spot on the show after it had aired twice in 1980. He was appearing at The Comedy Store, a showcase for young comics, and was recommended to ABC. “But the network didn’t know what to do with me,” he says. “First, they tried to get me on Mork & Mindy,’ but I wasn’t right for them.
“Then ABC sent me over to the ‘Too Close for Comfort’ producers. Arne Sultan and Earl Barret. They hated me. I weighed 215 at the time, and decided I was too fat. I dropped 45 pounds in four months, and ABC decided that I should have another shot at ‘Too Close for Comfort.’ But Sultan and Barret wouldn’t hear of it. ‘We don’t want him,’ they said. ‘We’re looking for a Woody Allen type, a short guy with horn-rimmed glasses.’ ABC insisted that they let me read for them. They did, reluctantly, and after hearing me, they gave me the role.”
Bullock sounds like Paul Lynde, looks like Steve Martin and forever seeks to be the fool. But there’s another side to this young actor, who spent the first three years in Hollywood waiting on tables.
“I’d like to be seen more realistically on the show in the future,” he says. “I’d like to get away from being such a cartoon character, and be given a chance to reach other levels. I’d like to show other sides of my personality other than just the silly side.”
He enjoys working on the show, and claims he is closest to Nancy Dussault.

Bullock gave a lot of interviews around this time. In some, he went into specifics about the second Too Close For Comfort audition. This was related by Stacy Jenel Smith of Editor’s News & Features International. It reminds me of the behaviour of another TV character—Ted Baxter, snivelling to Lou Grant.

“I was blazing with confidence,” he recalls. “I had the strangest feeling I would get it.”
Nevertheless, the ABC executives kept him waiting 45 minutes for the interview. When he was finally called into their inner sanctum, he angrily stormed in, threw his script on a desk and yelled, “Don’t you ever keep me waiting like that again! I’m calling my agent!” and stormed out. Only to return on his knees a second later, pleading their forgiveness.
That was followed by his grabbing executive producer Arne Sultan by the ankle, kissing his feet and begging, “Pleeeeease, Pleeeeease, give me the job.”
Such outrageous behavior is by no means unique with Bullock, nor is it always associated with his work. For Instance, on a recent cross-country flight, he got the urge to entertain, cut eye holes in an air-sickness bag, put it over his head and made his way down the aisle asking passengers what they’d like to drink — as “The Unknown Steward.”



Jump ahead about 10 years and Bullock’s interviews were quite different. He survived a storyline change on Two Close For Comfort but it didn’t save the show. His career and personal life were up and down. This is from the Los Angeles Times syndicate, Dec. 19, 1995.

Having the Last Laugh
After a Rough Stretch, Jim J. Bullock Is Back at Work and Has Managed Not to Lose His Sense of Humor
By ERIC SHEPARD
Times Staff Writer
Forgive Jim J. Bullock if he doesn’t apologize for shouting to the world that he’s 40 and gay.
When you’ve lost as many things in your life as Bullock, including money, self-esteem and countless friends, being honest is an easy challenge.
“There might have been a time when I would have carefully watched what I said or what I did, but that day has long passed,” said Bullock, a comedy actor best known for his portrayal of the nerdy character Monroe Ficus on the television sitcom “Too Close for Comfort” in the 1980s. “I’ve been through too much to act like somebody I’m not.”
When the program was being put together for the play “End of the World Party,” which Bullock is currently starring in at the Celebration Theatre in Hollywood, director Bob Schrock couldn’t believe the bio sketch his lead actor turned in.
Bullock nixed listing his credits and accomplishments—including an about-to-air TV talk show he is co-hosting with Tammy Faye Baker—opting instead for the simplified “I’m 40. I’m queer. I’m here. Thank God.”
Strangers may think Bullock is being arrogant or looking for attention with such a statement, but friends know otherwise. They know it’s nothing more than a way to laugh off what has been a difficult period.
After his six-year run on “Too Close for Comfort,” Bullock became a regular on a new version of the “Hollywood Squares,” hosted by John Davidson. That lasted 2½ years and was followed by a season on “Alf.”
For those 10 years. Bullock was one of Hollywood’s more recognizable faces, with his Texas accent, streaked blond hair and big eyeglasses.
But when Bullock finished his work on “Alf” in 1989, he began a four-year stretch of unemployment. He lost his manager and his agent. His 4,000-square-foot home in the Hollywood Hills went into foreclosure and he filed for bankruptcy.
“I was surrounded by people who told me I had nothing to worry about,” said Bullock, who studied music and acting at Oklahoma Baptist College.
“Everyone kept telling me that I was terrific and that I’d be working for years. I will never trust my whole career in the hands of others again.”
The lack of work drove Bullock into a deep depression. His friends rarely saw him, and when they did his trademark sense of humor was almost non-existent.
With a few remaining personal possessions, Bullock moved into his boyfriend’s one-bedroom condominium in West Hollywood to start over. He gained 40 pounds and five inches around his waist but didn’t have enough money to buy new clothes, and he was contemplating taking a job as a bartender at a nearby restaurant.
Then in the fall of 1992, Joan Rivers called and asked Bullock to appear on an episode of her talk show that was going to reunite the cast of “Hollywood Squares.” There was a long pause on the other end.
At first, Bullock said no. He didn’t want to face people from happier times. But in the end, he agreed.
When Rivers asked Bullock on the air what he had been up to, he replied: “I’ve been in foreclosure,” and got a big laugh.
Big enough, in fact, to impress talent agency owner Cheri Ingram, who was watching the show and called Bullock the minute he returned to Los Angeles.
“I had heard Jim hadn’t been doing well, but when I saw him on that talk show I could see that he was still the great guy so many people had loved all those years,” Ingram said. “I thought he still had a lot of life in him, and I wanted to be the one to get it out of him.”
Ingram promised Bullock work within 90 days, but two weeks later she got him a regular role on the syndicated comedy “Boogie’s Diner,” which was produced in Toronto and was a big hit in Canada. In the United States, it aired on the Family Channel.
Bullock left that show last year after securing a deal to host the new syndicated talk show with Tammy Faye that will debut in many markets Dec. 26. In Los Angeles, the station and start date have yet to be determined. The hourlong show is being billed as an alternative to the popular “Regis and Kathie Lee” morning show.
“Yes, I really am working with Tammy Faye,” Bullock says with a smirk. “Everyone thinks it’s a joke, but it’s legitimate. Actually, we’ve been having a blast.”
Despite a busy production schedule, Bullock is earning about $14 a performance portraying the character of Hunter in “End of the World Party,” about six gay men who share a summer party house on Fire Island in New York. The friends find it increasingly difficult to let loose and have fun with AIDS hanging over the house like a storm cloud.
Bullock’s character is the 38-year-old den mother of the group who deflects everything with humor. The part seems tailor-made for a man who likes to tell jokes but has also lost his share of friends to the deadly virus. Although the play has been extended through January, Bullock will leave this week, when the play goes dark over the holidays, in order to have more time to take care of his boyfriend who’s battling AIDS.
“I had sort of a rough summer, and this play came along at a time when I needed to lift my spirits,” Bullock said. “It isn’t easy being a gay man in the ‘90s, but it’s important not to lose your sense of humor. This play has helped me keep a smile on my face.”
The play was written by Chuck Ranberg, who earlier this year won an Emmy Award for comedy writing with partner Anne Flett Giordano for an episode of “Frasier.” Ranberg said the play won’t be the same without Bullock.
“The minute I saw Jim’s audition tape I knew he was perfect for the part,” Ranberg said. “He brings a humor and wit that’s very difficult to find. An even with the things going on in his life, he’s always the one who keeps the rest of the cast up and laughing. I wish we could keep him forever.”
Such words are a comfort to Bullock.
“I’ve been to the bottom, and I know what it feels like,” he said. “I’m grateful to get a second chance because life’s too short to take for granted. Life is certainly not a dress rehearsal.”

There’s a cliché about gays and drama. Unfortunately, more drama than in a Bette Davis movie followed Bullock after this story was published. Tammy Faye got sick and the re-cast show limped along for only a few months. His husband passed away from AIDS. He was outed in the National Enquirer as being HIV-positive. All this triggered a crystal meth addiction that he was able to overcome after several years.

Drug-free, Bullock got what he might call “a third chance.” He returned to the stage (in several companies of Hairspray among them) and, presumably, cashed residual cheques from Too Close For Comfort

Jim J. Bullock is 70 now and enjoying the warmth of Palm Springs. And, we hope, the warmth of fans.

Out-Foxed Background

Johnny Johnsen has a few long backgrounds in MGM’s Out-Foxed (released in 1949), including a painting with overlays that opens the cartoon and owes its life to the Warners cartoon Of Fox and Hounds (released in 1941).

Here’s another one. My apologies that the colours don’t blend after putting the frames together.



Like Johnsen, The layout artist is uncredited.

The fox is named “Reginald” even Daws Butler’s voice evokes Ronald Colman.

Avoiding the Boot

The greatness of the early Tom and Jerry cartoons relied on a number of things. One of them was the expressiveness of the characters. Audiences knew what they were thinking.

In this scene from Puss Gets the Boot, Tom is creeping away from the housekeeper, who has threatened him with eviction if he breaks anything else in the house. Almost instantly, he smacks into a table with a vase. The table wobbles. The expressions speak for themselves.



The last frame shows his annoyance when he hears Jerry behind him laughing at his plight.

Interestingly, when Tom is finally booted “o-u-w-t” of the house, it happens off-screen. That saves money-consuming animation. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera did this time, and time, and time again in their TV cartoons (which, at least, involved a camera shake, which is more than what happens in this short).

Today marks the 85th anniversary of the cartoon’s official release date. You can read about the short in this transcription of the January-February 1940 edition of the MGM internal magazine “Short Story” in this post. The characters, according to Metro publicists, were named Jasper and Pee-Wee (with appearances by “the housekeeper,” who never had a name in the whole series).

Judging by the trades, the cartoon showed up somewhere in MGM’s release schedule between the start of October and the beginning of December 1939. The story remains to be found or told about how Hanna and Barbera managed to convince someone in power to let them join forces to direct a cartoon at what had been a studio full of internal politics since opening in 1937.