Is Being 39 Still Funny?

Even after turning 80, and shortly before being felled by pancreatic cancer, Jack Benny didn’t appear to be slowing down.

He was still on the road, performing two different types of comedy shows that had been honed and perfected over the years, the same modus operandi he employed back in his days of vaudeville, travelling to a new town every three to seven days.

He came up with a comedic stage routine he guest-performed with symphony orchestras, satirising snooty concert vioinists, at the same time raising money for musicians, concert halls and the orchestras themselves. With modifications, he performed it until the end of his life.

But he also modified his "live" TV act (as opposed to the sitcom format he used alternatively). There was a monologue, a singer, then a duet violin act with a little girl. I'm pretty certain it included an "annoyed" Jack trying to upstage her and retorting "Fool around with me, will you, sister!"

That's the kind of performance he gave audiences for a week in Danbury, Connecticut (the girl in this case was named Sonja, age 11, from Los Angeles). The local Times-News joined the rest of the media in sending a reporter to a pre-rehearsal news conference with Benny. This is the paper’s report, published Aug. 7, 1974. Jack was dead less than six months later.

Jack Benny: ‘There’s no more time for 39’
By Margie Freaney
Modern Living staff
Some jokes just aren't funny anymore to Jack Benny.
The comedian's wry brand of humor made him a winner in vaudeville, movies, on radio and then television. He jumped successfully from one medium to the next.
Now he's appearing all over the world as a "violinist," and audiences like those at Candlewood Theatre in New Fairfield are just as appreciative as ever. But Benny says he's changed his act.
"You have to know when to quit something," he observed at Ramada Inn the other day.
Gags about being 39 years old (he was born in 1894 according to Who's Who), or being stingy, or about his car, "Maxwell," are Benny trademarks. But the comedian retired those jokes to keep himself on stage.
"Being cheap isn't funny anymore," he explained in the bored ironic tones that kept radio and television audiences tuned in for decades.
"And there's no more time for 39 years old. It's all passe, corny. It'd have to be something exceptionally great before I'd say '39' or 'Maxwell,' " Benny added.
He was relaxed and gracious, clearly enjoying the opportunity to discuss his 60-plus years as an entertainer and his enduring reputation as a man who can make people laugh.
He passed up the chance to make fun of his losses in the recently disclosed oil investment swindle that bilked entertainers and businessmen out of millions.
"I didn't even know I was in it," Benny said with his patented "so what?" shrug. "My lawyers were in it. But some really smart businessmen were involved. I don't feel ashamed."
He figures he got back at least part of his $300,000 stake, and as for the rest, Benny said, he might be able to deduct losses from income tax.
Benny admitted a lot of people think he's retired, despite the annual television specials and concert tours. He appears in Europe and Canada, at benefit symphonic concerts — often arranged by violinist Isaac Stern — and small theaters like Candlewood. His act is mostly talk, although he does play the violin.
"I don't try to play badly," he insisted. "The humor is that I try to play as well as I can ... and can't quite make it.”
Benny seems to have almost miraculously updated his appearance along with his material. But when someone asked how he keeps his face and body so youthful, Benny chewed his cigar and looked over the top of his bifocals:
"When did you see my body?" he asked blandly.
And that's about as risque as he gets in concert appearances, although he said "it's easier to be funny" now than it was even seven or eight years ago because of a more permissive society.
Benny, along with his great pal George Burns, started out as a stand-up vaudeville comic playing small towns. Now, he pointed out, any comedian who shows promise is immediately paraded before millions of people on television.
And if you bomb on television, it's all over.
"Unfortunately, today, we have no place to be lousy," Benny said, quoting Burns and doing a fair imitation. "I can't even be lousy in Danbury."
But Benny really doesn't have to worry about being lousy anywhere. Even reporters at the press conference treated him with deference, pausing afterward to pose with him or secure an autograph.
Fans inquire after his television and radio "family" as if they were personal friends — as they must have seemed to those who listened to radio in the thirties and forties and watched his weekly television program for 24 years.
Mary Livingston [sic], Benny's wife of 48 years, stays home in California while he makes personal appearances. And what about "Rochester," the black actor who played Benny's stage valet? The show was later criticized for portraying Rochester as an offensive stereotype of a shuffling, bumbling black man.
"I never heard that." Benny said firmly. "People liked it . . . it was a certain love relationship. Anything that made me angry, and that I blamed Rochester for, always turned out to be something I caused myself." After a slight pause, he added, "He got a fortune of money too, which they don't know."
Most of Benny's memories are on the bright side, anyway, when he cares to look back. But smart showmen don't rest on past hits or yellowed copies of good reviews.
Wouldn't he really like to see the golden age of radio return?
"No," Benny answered quickly, "that's over.
"You have to get into whatever business there is."


Jack’s Dennis Day and Eddie Anderson were on the road that month, too, performing at the Douglas County Fair in Nebraska (adults, $1.50).

TV specials after his series ended in 1965 were different than the sitcom-ish format he adopted in his radio years and carried on into television. They consisted of a monologue, guest stars interrupting (interruptions were a Benny staple from his earliest radio days) and some kind of routine or sketch. He had another one in the hopper at the time of his death. Even then, stories about the Maxwell, 39 and cheapness were remembered with a smile. It may have been corn to Jack, but his fans still laugh at it 50-plus-years later.

Threatening a Straw House

Bob McKimson’s early cartoons are full of characters waving arms around, though it seems McKimson didn’t like it all that much. If you think of Bugs Bunny’s “death” scene in A Wild Hare (1940), the acting is subtle.

In an interview in 1971 with Michael Barrier, McKimson explained when Rod Scribner returned to his unit after an absence, he had to “calm” his animation.

Another animator McKimson inherited when he became a director was Manny Gould, who was responsible for exaggerated open-mouths and other fun drawings for Bob Clampett, after a tame career at the Mintz studio going back to the silent era. Gould didn’t have a chance to be “calmed.” He left for Jerry Fairbanks Productions in September 1947. The last cartoon he was credited on was The Windblown Hare, released August 27, 1949.

In one Gould scene, the Big Bad Wolf was priming himself to religiously follow the book “The Three Little Pigs” by rehearsing lines from it while walking. The scene is animated on ones. Here’s my favourite drawing.



The wolf strolls into the scene where background artist Dick Thomas has rendered a straw house based (I presume) on Warren Foster’s story sketches and Cornett Wood’s layouts. He delivers his famous line. Here are random frames by Gould and the studio’s in-betweeners.



Why would anyone want to “calm” this type of animation? And why are characters out of the frame in McKimson cartoons?

This is one of McKimson’s cartoons I really like. Foster’s story is solid. It’s so solid, he remade it with Yogi Bear (Oinks and Boinks, 1960). Chuck McKimson, Jack Carey and Phil De Lara are the other credited animators.

It’s a little sad, but a hunt through available copies of Daily Variety has resulted in less than a treasure trove about McKimson. There’s a June 1965 story about him directing the Road Runner series on CBS for DePatie-Freleng. But there’s also this story from July 28, 1969.

Hendricks, Blount Are Documenting ‘Space’ For W7
A two-planet space documentary, “Who Needs Space?”, currently is in production at Warner Bros.-Seven Arts.
Recounting progressive steps in American space exploration culminating in the Apollo 11 moon landing, “Who Needs Space?” is being produced by the studio’s animation-commercial division in collaboration with North American Rockwell Space Division.
William L. Hendricks and Earl Blount are producing the film, scripted by Jay Dresser, with Bob McKimson directing animation sequences. Hal Geer is editing with Buddy Eyanson coordinating film coverage.

Whether this was completed, someone may know, but McKimson spent the rest of his career at DePatie-Freleng. He was having lunch at the Smoke House with Freleng and others from the studio when he had a coronary and died, September 29, 1977. He was 66.

Jim Korkis spoke with Bob Clampett about McKimson and you can read the interview here. And Mark Nardone’s 1980 with McKimson from the Peary brothers' “The American Animated Cartoon” can be found here with an Internet Archive subscription.

Painted Pun

Daffy Duck's being chased by Little Beaver in The Daffy Duckaroo. The pun in this scene is a groaner, the kind that might have been thought up by Bugs Hardaway, or Tex Avery's unit.



Pan to the right. Daffy and the Beav run through the scene to the sound of J.S. Zamecnik's "In the Stirrups" (aka "Western Scene"). The initial sign proved to be correct.



Mind you, if Avery and Rich Hogan or Heck Allen pulled this one, there would be a sign or someone putting down the gag.

The ending to this one is so bizarre, it's in Screen Gems territory. A tribe of American Indians rides on horseback toward Daffy and his burro, who hid under their travel trailer. Out of nowhere, an Indian who had never been part of the cartoon walks carrying a stack of tires that had been taken off the trailer (unseen because of dust clouds that obscure the scene). "No fit-um putt-putt," says the native (with the voice of Chuck Jones' Martian), who rides off on motor scooter with no wheels and into the distance. McCabe seems to have been stuck inserting wartime propaganda or messages into his cartoons, incongruous to the plot or not. That's how this one ends. Rubber shortage gag.



It may have been patriotic, but it had absolutely nothing to do with the cartoon.

Cal Dalton is the credited animator, but Izzy Ellis, Vive Risto and Jack Carey handled scenes as well.

The official release date of the cartoon was Oct. 24, 1942. Daily Variety reported on Nov. 12 McCabe had been inducted into the First Motion Picture Unit at "Fort Roach."

You know how Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising had different characters emerge from behind the drum to say "So long, folks!" I wish the studio had carried on doing that on the Looney Tunes. I would have liked to have seen Daffy (or maybe Little Beaver) burst out. Instead...

A Mid-Day Siesta

Audiences probably found it a new, refreshing gag in 1937, but it’s something today Golden Age cartoon viewers would expect out of Tex Avery.

Picador Porky opens with a title card that appears to be on parchment, telling us about a siesta interrupted by a soft guitar.



You and I both know the next scene will be anything but placid. We are not disappointed.



I like how Avery makes the transition. It's a gag in itself. Instead of a dissolve, the parchment rips open. Treg Brown ingeniously puts a ripping noise on the soundtrack.

The background drawing is the same one seen over the opening title, which is placid.



This cartoon gets its fame from Mel Blanc's talk-show circuit chatter about being asked to do the voice of a drunken bull when he was being hired at Warner Bros. He actually voices a guy in a bull suit.

Tex revisited a bull-fight at MGM with Señor Droopy (1949). The stories are quite different but they're both funny cartoons. In this one the bull disappears inside Porky's cape. In the Droopy short, Avery improves on it by pulling out an egg, cracking it, and the liquefied bull pours out and into his normal shape.

Chuck Jones and Sid Sutherland are the credited animators. There is no story credit, but Bob Clampett said in at least one interview he worked on the plot and gags with Avery.

Does Anyone Remember Willie and Martha?

There are situation comedies from the great days of network radio shows have drifted into obscurity.

Remembered by many today are Fibber McGee and Molly, The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show and the ones that made a large leap into television popularity, including The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.

But how many have heard of the Tales of Willie Piper?

It debuted on ABC on Sunday, October 20, 1946, at 6:30 p.m. (Eastern), switching to Wednesday evenings as of January 22, 1947. It was sponsored by General Electric. The show signed off May 27, 1948, replaced by a revival of What’s My Name? with Arlene Francis and Ward Wilson.

It was a low-key programme with a gimmick. The announcer/narrator fully admitted the Pipers were characters on a radio show. On one episode, the announcer bemoaned he "could have used a good, juicy sound effect" (a crash followed, with the audience laughing), and he’d have another show next week.

None of the actors on the show were identified on the air. When the programme began, Dick Nelson played Willie and Jean Gillespie was his wife. By the time Herald Tribune syndicate critic John Crosby got around to reviewing the show, Billy Redfield was Willie. But even Crosby didn’t identify the actors in his column of March 4, 1947.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By JOHN CROSBY
The Pipers of New England
Willie and Martha Piper, a young couple who live in Seaport on the New England coast, got married November (when this new comedy series started on A. B. C.). It was a beautiful ceremony marred only by the fact the Willie's suspenders broke at the last moment. His best friend, Alonzo Bissell, an old Western Union messenger, who talks with the brevity and unsmiling candor of Calvin Coolidge, had to hold them up for him.
As a wedding gift. Alonzo sent them a singing telegram, a special kindness which so overwhelmed Martha she almost burst into tears Alonzo explained diffidently that as a member of the firm he got special rate. The wedding present from Mr. Gillespie, Martha's father was a paid honeymoon in a Boston hotel, which unfortunately had been torn down ten years earlier. Mr. Gillespie doesn't get to Boston very often and he couldn't possibly know.
Willie and Martha spent most of their wedding night on a park bench, in Boston Common; then, through a case of mistaken identity, they blundered into a penthouse suite reserved by the State Department for a South American diplomat. They were a little dazed when it was explained that the Government had paid for the suite but Willie concluded it was part of the G. I. Bill of Rights.
When they returned to Seaport, they settled down in a small New England house with two bedrooms—one occupied by Mr. Gillespie—a parlor, kitchen, dining room and bathroom (the handle on the door keeps getting stuck.) For a father-in-law, Gillespie is not hard to get along with. He laughs a little too uproariously at his own jokes and his feelings are rather too easily hurt but you have to make allowances. In general, he sides with his son-in-law against his daughter on such issues as Christmas presents, but usually both males are defeated.
The Pipers have the usual small mishaps common to young couples. Willie, who is a grocery clerk, brings the boss home to dinner unexpectedly when there is nothing in the house but left-over fishballs.
"Can’t you stretch them a little?" inquires Willie.
"I already have. How far can you stretch a fishball?" says Martha angrily. The boss, Mr. Grindle, gets violently ill.
Not all of the adventures are so routine or so small. Willie, for instance, gets his foot stuck fast under a root in the New England woods. As the twilight deepens, he keeps frantically blowing his moose call to attract Mr. Gillespie who has plunged through the woods after a deer. He succeeds in attracting only a moose. "Go away. I'm not going to shoot you. You're protected by the Government."
* * *
More recently, the Pipers, Gillespie and Bissell got throughly confused trying to meet a train on which Mr. Bissell's niece Shirley was coming to town. The train was due to arrive at 6:30 a. m. and Mr. Gillespie insisted that he could awaken on the dot of 5:30 a. m. just by concentrating. Nevertheless, Willie sets the alarm to be on the safe side.
"Why didn't your alarm go off?" roars Gillespie.
"I don't know. Why didn't your mind go off?"
"I didn't set it."
Shirley is a girl with a genius for mixing metaphors. "If wishes were horses, I'd have taken the bull by the horn instead of letting the grass grow under my feet," she exclaims with enthusiasm. She also has a great fondness for that curious Americanism: "Likewise, I'm sure."
That brings the Pipers up to the present. For a radio series it's remarkably credible. Samuel Taylor, who writes it, is not afraid of blending low comedy (Willie getting stuck in the bathroom) with his domestic comedy (what to do with old razor blades.) He is also not afraid of sentiment or pathos. By delicate handling, this mixture makes the program deeply human. The reason, I think, is that his characters never slop over into caricature. Willie is kind, boyish, over-excitable, and a little simple—but he is no Dennis Day. Martha is just a nice small-town girl who always warms her friends to be careful of the taxicabs when they take a trip to Boston. The series is very well cast and beautifully paced by its director, Frank Brown. Gentle and human as the Piper program is, it's surprisingly funny.
It's pleasant to find that the broadcasting industry has discovered New England, a small but heavily populated region somewhat to the north of New York. If you'd like a further acquaintance with the Pipers, you'd find them on the nearest American Broadcasting Company station 8:30 p. m. DST on Wednesdays.

As for Crosby’s other columns for the week, he completed his series from Hollywood:

Monday, March 3: Radio sponsors want to save $.
Wednesday, March 5: Controversy between the Brits and Bing.
Thursday, March 6: The Voice of Firestone (Los Angeles Daily News artwork to the right).
Friday, March 7: Bell Birthday.

You can click on them to read them.

Follow My Hop

Dry brush and multiples enliven a sequence in Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt, a June 1941 Warner Bros. cartoon directed by Friz Freleng.

Bugs Bunny tries to escape from Hiawatha’s arrow to the head by hopping sideways. Hiawatha keeps up with him. The annoyed Bugs blurts out “Well, try this one!” That’s where the dry brush and multiples come in as Bugs hopes to a nearby cliff. These are random drawings. Freleng, or his layout artist, has Bugs hopping to and from the foreground.



Hiawatha follows.



Yes, it’s that fine old cartoon gag. Gravity takes effect after a character next to a cliff realises he’s in mid-air. Joe Barbera and Charlie Shows were still employing it in 1958 on poor Yowp in the Yogi Bear cartoon Foxy Hound-Dog.



We get the sucker-transformation gag seen in All This and Rabbit Stew (Avery, 1941). Does anyone know when it was first used in a cartoon?



Down he goes.



Mike Maltese wrote the story for this, with Gil Turner handed the animation credit.