Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: Marginal Weather Accidents

Animation studios were busy during World War Two, and we don’t just mean theatricals where Nazis and “Japs” got their just desserts, or gags about rationing or working at Lockheed.

The U.S. military commissioned all kinds of animated films, some made at special government film units on either coast, others contracted out. Thanks to restoration and exposure, the Snafu shorts put together by the talents at the Schlesinger studio are best-known.

Walter Lantz, MGM, even Hugh Harman were signed by the Army or Navy or government departments to make shorts to instruct personnel or get civilians to preserve fats, stay away from the Black Market, and so on.

UPA was another studio that provided the government with cartoons. Though there is no credit on Marginal Weather Accidents, the designs scream UPA (or whatever it was called then) and the main character sounds like Jerry Hausner, who was Waldo in the Mr. Magoo cartoons in the ‘50s, and spent the war with AFRS.

(A check of Amid Amidi’s Cartoon Modern states this was one of 16 cartoons produced between 1945 and 1947 to promote flight safety, mainly directed and designed by John Hubley, with additional design and direction by Zach Schwartz and Bill Hurtz, and backgrounds by Paul Julian).

If I had to guess, I’d say the score was composed by Clarence Wheeler.

It’s a shame the artwork is masked by the corporate bugs and the resolution is low, but it’s worth a look to see the early UPA in action.

No TV for Benny in 1949

Jack Benny was supposed to saunter onto TV screens a year before he actually did.

Erskine Johnson’s column for the Newspaper Enterprise Association on July 4, 1949 had this item:

“Only part of his radio cast will be with Jack Benny when he plunges into television this fall. Too expensive.”

It would appear CBS broached the idea of Jack doing some network television in the 1949-50 season. It never happened.

Jack Shafer in the Newark Star-Ledger reported in his column the day before:

Benny ponders video; calls style too subtle
Jack Benny was in town on another business jaunt this week. He has a new publicity gimmick. It used to be the semi-annual word of his impending retirement (a device which Fred Allen still uses—and insists he means this time). Now Benny is aboard the television wagon, riding it hell-bend-for-newspaper mentions.
On his last trip east this spring, for example, teevee was Jack's alleged oyster. His years in vaudeville were just what video needed. The matter of memorizing scripts? Why, that wasn't too formidable. He'd go on every other week, maybe, to start, and then increase the schedule. Get the cameras all set by September. Television was Jake with Jack.
Now Jack isn't so sure. In a quickie interview this week, he told me his mind is open on the question. He still thinks he's ready for television, but he's not so sure of the vice-versa angle!
"SUBTLETY doesn't register well as television now stands," he explained. "You can get the slapstick stuff across in television, sure, like hitting people with pies or buckling up like Leon Errol, but that's not my style, you know. I haven't gone in for slapstick in radio, and it wasn't my style in vaudeville, either. It seems to me that the comedians who are clicking in television have always been the noise-and-nonsense type. That's the only type television is ready for."
"I doubt that particular style will last (heaven help the poor psychiatrists if it does!), but why buck a passing fancy? What I'd do on teevee might seem so strange that people would laugh AT me instead of with me. So why take the risk when I'm doing all right in radio? Maybe I'll sit this season out. I won't really know until September."
Unlike a lot of other radio stars who are similarly on Indecision Street, Jack doesn't mind the dilemma.
"Why worry about it,” he insists. “The entertainment business is just the tinsel of life, anyway. Look underneath that tinsel and find the REAL tinsel."

There was another reason for Jack's skittishness which he expressed to the North American Newspaper Alliance. This was published starting June 30, 1949.

Benny in N. Y. Talking Video
By DAN ANDERSON
NEW YORK (NANA).—It all depends on the quality of kinescope recordings whether Jack Benny will be seen regularly on television, at least in the east, beginning in the fall, the comedian said recently. If the filmed versions of T. V. shows don't improve markedly above their present technical level, he won't be on.
* * *
Benny is here for conferences with executives of the Columbia Broadcasting system, to which he recently switched, and of the American Tobacco company, his sponsor, about television. He'll start back for the west coast soon, but probably will make no decision about going on television until early September.
Foregoing comedy, he explained, "it depends entirely on how much improvement there is in the quality of kinescope.
"It will have to improve to great deal. But some of the engineers say that it may in a very short time. I’ll make up my mind a few weeks before my radio show resumes. Early September probably is the dead line.
"Kinescope will have to be almost as good as live presentation for me to want to go on television with a regular program, probably half an hour every two weeks. It will have to be kinescoped to be shown here. It would be a physical impossibility for me to fly to New York every couple of weeks for a show and back to the Coast for my radio program.
"If I don't do a regular program, I might come here every two months or so for a big special program.
"I like television. I've been on once, when the CBS station opened in Los Angeles. That was live, of course.
* * *
"It was fine. It took me back to the days on the stage.
"The regular show, it I do it, will be a variety program, bringing in acts from the radio program. It will have to be done in Los Angeles, and if it isn't going to show well on kinescope, then my regular television appearances will have to be postponed for a year, anyway, even though I like it."

September rolled around. TV was on the air. Jack Benny wasn’t on it. The Los Angeles Daily News talked about it in its Sept. 10, 1949 issue.

New Jack Benny program Sunday full of vim, vigor
By WALT TALIAFERRO
(Radio and Television Editor)
Jack Benny proved to us he still has his mind concentrated on maintaining a top radio show rather than worry about television. We saw the rehearsal of the first Benny show of the season to be aired Sunday.
Instead of spoiling the fun for you by reviewing the show in advance we'll just tell you that the rehearsal was so good we are going to listen to the show too.
The vacations must have done the whole Benny gang good. They are in fine spirits and the writers gave out with a lively script to which you'll have to seep listening closely to keep up with the gags . . . if the audience doesn't drown them out.
Before Jack left on his vacation he told us—and we reported to you then—that he was not going to worry about television, but produce a top radio show.
We asked him yesterday if he had changed his mind.
"Definitely not. We’re going to get this show back on the air with the best of everything we have before we even think about television," Jackson said.
"Not that we've anything against television, but this will be our 18th consecutive year on this show . . . this is no time to split our efforts and do two things partly good instead of one really good," he added.
Benny emphasizes the fact that he has no commitments for any TV shows this season.
"If I do any at all . . . and that's not even certain . . . they will only be special occasions, not a regular show," he declared.
Even though this was the rehearsal of the first show of the season, the Benny gang had that same feeling of all being one big family that is reflected in the ease and happiness of their performances.
Even the violin virtuoso himself seemed happy they were all back to work again. And we got that impression we have often had while listening to Jack . . . he doesn't hog or steal the whole show.
We've watched rehearsals of some shown—with top performers too—and then listened to them and found that some of the good gag lines had been switched to the "star" because they were "too good" for the member of the cast for whom they had been written into the script.
If someone else in a Benny show can steal a scene with good lines . . . even an ad-lib, Jack doesn't highjack it. (And that was no pun either.) He leaves it in and lets the full benefit of the laughs go to the guy or gal who puts it over . . . or perhaps suggested it for the script.
Incidentally, one gag you won't hear on Sunday's show is the one Rochester pulled on yours truly . . . and he didn't mean it as a gag either, he just didn't know.
When he was introduced to Taliaferro, he said he'd been trying to get out and watch the games for a long time and still hoped to sometime. It threw us for a minute, but then it dawned that he was thinking he was meeting the great football player by that name.
We just aren't the same Taliaferro . . . as we have said before, we'll be happy if we can write as good as that one plays football. But as for physical effort . . . it's taken us a day to recover from landing a 25-pound white sea bass from the boat Alalunga on our day off Thursday.
Rochester, Mary Livingstone, Dennis Day, Phil Harris, Don (fat as ever) Wilson, and the rest of the cast will really be throwing their best at you Sunday afternoon at 4:00 p. m. and again at 9:30 p. m. over CBS-KNX.

To paraphrase the old song title, what a difference a year makes. Jack’s consternation about splitting efforts and flying to and from New York evaporated. Concern about kinescopes did, too. It was a matter of practicality (until Desi Arnaz, in a brilliant bargaining move, convinced CBS to allow him to film his TV show in Los Angeles in 1951). Jack began his TV career on Oct. 28, 1950, periodic at first. But his series remained on the air in 1965, done in at CBS by executive Jim Aubrey and then at NBC by competition down the dial.

Neil Sedaka Gets His Start

Something pleasant was mixed in with all the bad things that went on during the worldwide COVID-19 epidemic.

It was Neil Sedaka.

He kindly lent some comfort to people on-line by posting some short videos of him playing, and talking about, his old songs.

I was a teenage disc jockey (from the movie of the same name) when Sedaka made a comeback with a re-tempoed version of “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do,” getting a musical shout-out by Toni Tennille, and dueting with Elton John. Of course, in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s he had a nice string of pop hits.

Sedaka got attention in high school. He was one of 15 music students who won the sixth annual talent search of the New York Times and WQXR radio and appeared on the station, age 16, in April or May of 1956.

The New York Daily News of June 24, 1956 showed he was already getting out of the amateur category.

2 Teenagers Get Start on Music Ladder
Even before they get their diplomas Tuesday [26], a couple of Abraham Lincoln HS students are off to a lively start of musical careers.
Annette Farro, 17, of 2245 E. Fifth St., is one of the ambitious Brooklyn teenagers. She aims to be one-half of a girl singing team with her married sister, Rose, (a graduate of the same school, and already is being heard over the air waves via a record sung by the sisters.
The other talented student, 17-year-old Neil Sedaka, of 3260, Coney Island Ave., also is hitting the air waves through recordings of two songs he has written with an Abraham Lincoln High school alumnus, Howard Greenfeld [sic], who lives at the Coney Island Ave. address.
Faculty Composers
Indicating how things musical pop at this Brooklyn high school, Benjamin Goldman, of 2465 Haring St., Sheepshead Bay, chairman of its Music Department, is co-composer with another Brooklyn high school faculty member, of the song "I Found the Combination to Your Heart." He has also collaborated with Neil and Howard in composing a rock-n-roll number, "Wishing Well."
Describing the youngsters' accomplishments and the activities of others in the school's unique music course, the chairman said, "They show that many of these students will apply their musical training to future work just as mathematic majors will do in science or typists in business [sic]. It is gratifying."
Annette, slender and brown-eyed, has been active in the school's many musical doings, including singing with its student dance band and choral society.
Neil, a pianist who has won a scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music, has been busy too, along with his other studies at home in classical or pop music, he served as accompanist for the choral group and also the dance band.
Would Rather Sing
Annette, whose singing 19-year-old sister is Mrs. Salvatore Impoco, of 468 Ave V., Brooklyn, says, "I've no desire to go to college. I’d rather sing, even though it's hard to get a singing career started."
Neil, on the other hand, hopes after he completes his musical studies to go into teaching and continue composing and piano playing "on the side."
Recently he formed a pro singing group consisting of himself and three other students. It, too, has reached the record-making stage.

The Daily Province in Vancouver published a music page with the top ten songs on each of the local stations. Sedaka wasn’t in any of them on Dec. 20, 1957 (four of the five pop charts were topped with Jimmy Rogers’ “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine”) but there was an article about him, likely a release supplied by Decca’s distributor.

Play it smooth or 'rock'; Neil does both with ease
It's quite a jump from the classics to rhythm and blues — but it's a jump that young Neil Sedaka has bridged successfully. Neil, who makes his Decca bow with two original compositions, Snowtime and Laura Lee, is, when not rocking and rolling, a student of classical piano at the world-famous Juilliard School of Music.
This new facet of his musical activities is, as of now, a temporary one. For 17-year-old Neil still intends to follow the career that was his first love—the concert stage.
Neil was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on March 13, 1940. As far as he is able to determine, he inherited his musical leanings from his grandmother, who had studied with Walter Damrosch.
By the time Neil was in the fourth grade of P.S. 253, his talent was recognized. He was right in front of the school chorus, and it was his teacher who suggested to Mrs. Sedaka that Neil should be given piano lessons. After getting the piano, Neil studied privately for one year. His progress was so rapid that at the end of that time his instructor recommended him to Juilliard, where he received a scholarship.
During his last year at the Juilliard prep school, Sedaka won the New York high school musical talent auditions, which were held before noted pianist Artur Rubeinstein [sic].
IN THE MEANTIME, however, he had started to go to parties and had, like other youngsters his age, developed an interest in pop music. With the full approval of his teachers at Juilliard, he entered into activities in this field with almost the same enthusiasm that he has always shown for the classics. He began to write tunes, he formed his own vocal group with a few other classmates at Lincoln High School, he has been musical director at summer camps and, during the summer of 1957, played and sang with the orchestra at the Lake Tarleton Club in New Hampshire.
On his first Decca release, Neil exhibits several of his talents. He is co-author of the two tunes, he plays the piano and sings not only the vocal lead, but all of the choral parts as well.

Billboard reviewed the release in its Dec. 7, 1957 issue. The review was dropped into its Country and Western category, along with records by Roy Acuff, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Grandpa Jones and the great Wanda Jackson. It explained:

Laura Lee DECCA 30520 – Bright, cheerful sounds by the chorus on this rock-a-blues gives it a good potential in both pop and c.&w. markets. It could catch on. (Norman-Leonard, BMI)
Snowtime
Rockaballad is fervently sung by the crew. This, too, could cop play, but flip appears a stronger try. (Norman-Leonard, BMI)

The next we hear of Sekada in Billboard is in its Sept. 15, 1958 edition, when it reviewed two songs: “Ring a Rockin’” backed with “Fly Don’t Fly on Me” on the Guyden label. This gained the attention of TV hitmaker Dick Clark, who featured him (and Julius La Rosa) on American Bandstand on Oct. 18, 1958.

In less than a month, Sedaka was recording for RCA. He was on his way.

It’s sad to learn of Sedaka’s death, but encouraging that he was a boy who fulfilled a dream and, years later, did what he could to help other people through a pandemic.

Such Language in a Cartoon

The familiar theme of noise/silence is explored yet again by Tex Avery in his final theatrical cartoon, Sh-h-h-h-h-h (Walter Lantz, 1955).

Unlike Avery’s other cartoons with this plot device, Mr. Twiddle doesn’t run into the distance and make noise. He and other characters hold up little signs instead.

In one scene, Twiddle stubs his toe on a footstool.



Cut to the sign gag and topper.



Notice Twiddle has a red nose like an Avery character at Warners in the late-'30s.

The cartoon is a disappointment to me. The idea of the hotel staff maintaining quiet is completely violated when noise comes from the room next to Twiddle’s. Why aren’t they taking any measures to deal with it? And in the opening scene, Twiddle’s reaction to the noise is weak compared to the emotional reactions of Avery’s wolf in Northwest Hounded Police at MGM ten years earlier.

Avery left Lantz after this cartoon and, after a bit, worked on TV commercials, which he found less stressful.

The picture everyone seems left with is Avery was a sad and broken man when Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera gave him a job near the end of his life, where he had to deal with the restraints of television and the sausage factory attitude of the studio.

As this was Avery’s final cartoon for the big screen, this is our final post as we go on an indefinite hiatus. Thank you for reading.

So Long, Catherine O'Hara

SCTV was not only the most brilliant show to come out of Canada, it was one of the best of all time to come out of anywhere.

It started as a low-budget satire revue shot in a TV studio in Toronto. The money got bigger. The writing got sharper. And the cast was terrific.

How can you not marvel at the performance of Catherine O’Hara as Lola Heatherton? Or her tribute (as I like to think of it) to bawdy women nightclub comedians of the ‘50s as Dusty Towne? Or the inept Margaret Meehan who answered quiz questions before they were asked on a parody of Reach For the Top?

She’s gone now. Age 71.

O’Hara’s performances 50 years ago—before Canadian-content hungry Global put Second City Television on the air—were noticed by the press in, and near, the Centre of the Universe (that’s Toronto, for you non-Canadians). Here’s part of a story from the Toronto Star of July 17, 1976 where she explains how she developed her characters and routines, some of them later ending up on SCTV.

Second City’s second best work hard while waiting for a star to break a leg
By TRISH CRAWFORD
Star staff writer
THURSDAY night is nutsy night for Catherine O'Hara. For years her parents went out to bingo games on Thursdays and the seven children in the family, left to their own devices for the evening, whomped up some pretty crazy comedy for entertainment.
O'Hara, 22, who has been a member of Toronto's kooky Second City troupe for two years now, believes her comedy training started at home.
Like the time one of the clan was having a birthday party and they all agreed to scream their lungs out when the birthday boy blew out the candles.
Sense of comedy
"We all have a good sense of comedy. Sometimes we'd get a tape recorder and pass it around so everyone told a joke. We'd get hysterical."
She remembers painting her face all crazy colors and then walking nonchalantly over to the table, where the family was quietly munching dinner.
Practical jokes like having stuffed pant legs protruding from the covers of her parents' bed got all the kids in on the act, she said.
"I'm sure my older sister lost more boyfriends that way." said O'Hara, who added in a recent interview that after a while her sister wised up and started warning her dates in advance that perhaps the evening at home would be a little unusual to say the least.
O'Hara says she draws on all her experiences for the improvisational theatre that goes on at the Old Firehall Theatre. The Second City troupe does improvisations at 11 p.m. after the regular show, For a Good Time Call 363-1674.
Straight face
The improvisations are used as the basis for their comedy shows and O'Hara says she sometimes has difficulty keeping a straight face during some of their crazier moments.
"You're always learning here. Whatever you see, people you meet, situations you find yourself in, they stick in your mind. To have the chance to go somewhere that night and act them out is great."
Not that it's always easy.
"Comedy is tough. You have to act or you don't get the laughs. There's a lot of pathos and dramatic moments in a lot of Second City scenes."
Although O'Hara's family may have known right from the start that they had a comedienne on their hands, it wasn't quite so self-evident to others.
Fresh out of high school, she took a waitress' job and auditioned to join the Touring Company (also called Second Best). This company of young comedians-in-training fill in on Sunday nights when the resident troupe has the night off, attends workshops and rehearsals and understudies the resident members.
It took two shots before O'Hara joined the touring group, but only our months later she got her big chance in Chicago. . . .
Much pleasure
“The Touring Company have their moment on Sunday night,” said O’Hara. “You have so much pleasure there. You do what you believe in, hoping someone will see you, and still enjoying yourself.”
She said she’s making a good living with the children’s television series, Coming Up Rosie, but she isn’t contemplating leaving Second City.
She recently returned from a few days off and, when she returned early from her vacation, she really didn’t know what to do with herself.
“It was strange to be in the city with the play going on and not be in the performance.”

The TV Times newspaper supplement profiled her in its cover story of November 19, 1975.

SHE IS PICKING HER SPOTS
WESSLEY HICKS
National Editor, TV Times
Catherine O'Hara figures she is going places by staying where she is. She is running on a spot and letting other spots come to her.
Cathie, who is 22, is the reigning comedienne of The Second City troupe, a zany quintet which displays remarkable comedic talent at the Old Firehall Theatre on Adelaide Street in Toronto. The Old Firehall has two diningrooms and the theatre which occupies the space where the fire trucks were parked. There is rarely a night when there is a vacancy in the 200-seat playhouse, and rarely a moment when it is not filled with laughter.
"You learn so much about the theatre, because we do the writing, the acting, the editing, the revising," Cathie says. "I'd be very leery about moving from the Second City company because everything that has happened to me while I've been there has been good. Even my old high school principal treats me with respect."
One of the good happenings has been that she appears regularly as a member of the cast of Coming Up Rosie, the sophisticated kids' show which is televised on the CBC network. Another is that the Global network has booked The Second City company for a monthly TV show until January, 1977, when it will be scheduled weekly. ABC in the U.S. is looking hard at the show and it may make its debut on that network early in 1977.
She recently completed a pilot for a new CBC sitcom series entitled The Rimshots, the saga of four comedians who live together. That show is tentatively scheduled to go on the air in March 1977. If the kid continues to garner new shows, she will soon need a network of her own.
Then there are the commercials, and she does several. Finally, there is the principal of Burnhamthorpe high school in Etobicoke, a suburb of Toronto, where Cathie was exposed to scholarship. From Grade 11 to Grade 13, she studied theatre art and undoubtedly some of that clung to her.
Recently, she returned to the school for a class reunion, and was accorded a rare honor. "The principal let me cut the anniversary cake," she says. "It was a very emotional moment."
When the school's distinguished graduate engaged in a no-holds-barred tussle with the big world in 1973, she was a hatcheck girl at the Old Firehall. She was quickly promoted to be a waitress, and began auditioning for the Second City company. She was consistently second, but her second-place finishes became so impressive that she was engaged as a performer in the Second City road show. Late in 1974, she was given a role as a regular in the company and ever since has been happily performing at the Old Firehall eight times a week.
She has natural talent as a comedienne. She has bright blue eyes, brown hair, a long-jawed face which is as pliable as a rubber glove, and a voice which just wraps itself lovingly around any character she is portraying. Second City, which opened in Chicago about 16 years ago, has a tradition for fashioning great comedians. David Steinberg, Alan Arkin, Barbara Harris, Shelley Berman, Elaine May and Mike Nicholls are some of the alumni. The company settled happily in Toronto about six years ago and has sent Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner to the Saturday Night Live Show in New York.
The format is unique. For the last hour of each show, the performers ask the audience for suggestions which could be based on book titles, occupations, or quotes. From those suggestions, they fashion skits in a few minutes, complete with dialogue, action, and even songs. The entire stage set consists of four very domestic-looking chairs.
But from the skits which blossom from the audiences' suggestions come the set pieces in the show. The result is a remarkably funny two hours of superb zaniness.
Catherine O'Hara is one of seven children and currently, she is living with her sister, Robin, who is her understudy at Second City. Since an understudy is given a chance to perform only when the principal is unable to go onstage, it is a situation fraught with peril. An ambitious understudy may resort to mayhem to advance her career.
However, Cathie believes that she has insurance against any mishaps. "I wear Robin's clothes a lot," she says. "Even when I go out, I wear her coat. And I bleed easily."

From this unscripted beginning sprang some great careers. O’Hara went on to comedy films and other endeavours, but I’ll remember her for a show from Toronto (and, later, Edmonton) with some truly remarkable talent.

Zooming Head of Red

Van Beuren cartoons vary between odd and bizarre. Red Riding Hood (1931) falls in the “bizarre” category.

There’s the scene where grandma pours some “jazz tonic” all over herself to become a black-bottom-dancing flapper who runs off with the wolf to get married. Red puts a stop to it by telling the wolf’s wife, who interrupts the ceremony by marching into the church with a phalanx of kids—all armed with rolling pins.

In the final scene, the stood-up grandma starts crying. Then Red cries. Then the preacher cries. But suddenly, they all stop and happily sing “And that is the story of Little Red Riding Hood.” Being a Van Beuren cartoon, it ends with the three characters’ heads zooming toward the theatre audience.



As a bonus, we get Minnie Mouse as Red. Or, as Disney’s lawyers would say, too close of a reasonable facsimile of her (in the Van Beuren cartoon, she has a really bad falsetto).

Harry Bailey and John Foster are responsible for this cartoon.

From Wales to Bombay

Yet another of television’s familiar faces on comedies in 1970s belonged to a man who found occasional employment as the bumbling Colonel Crittendon (Hogan’s Heroes) and the lady-killing Dr. Bombay (Bewitched).

Bernard Fox’s break in North America came on another show.

Back in the U.K., Fox, Michael Medwin and George Rodney played layabouts in the ITV series The Love of Mike, then took the same characters in 1961 and turned them into radio and TV repairmen in Three Live Wires. Fox soon decided to cross the Atlantic to see what he could do, after picking up a role in the movie The Longest Day, stole the show as a clumsy waiter in Sid Melton’s nightclub on The Danny Thomas show in late 1962.

Thomas was produced by Sheldon Leonard. The next thing, Fox was cast in two other Leonard series, The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show.

An awful lot of Fox’s career was taken up with stage work in Canada and the U.S. A production of Beginner’s Luck in El Paso reunited him with Bob Crane. Fox was interviewed by the Herald-Post. If he was there to publicise the play, he somehow doesn’t seem to have got around to it in a rambling interview. This saw print May 12, 1972.

Whatever It Is That Makes You Relax, Bernard Fox Has It.
By JOAN QUARM
The actor may have no technique, no diction, and very little deportment, but still you know — you relax when he comes on-stage. He has something bigger than style, and unless he has that something, all the style in the world cannot help him. Bernard Fox, who ought to know, firmly holds to this opinion, and he has five generations of theater family in his blood to back him up. Whatever it is which makes you relax, he has it, as well as a fund of theater stories which make an outstanding history of the art, seen through the eyes of one almost literally born backstage in a basket, and quite literally reared on the circuit, playing Blessed Infant parts from blessed infancy onward.
ACTUALLY, it is difficult to sort out an interview with the Welsh-born actor who is this week appearing at the Marquee Theater. He is not only a raconteur of distinction, a mimic of any accent mentioned, and a fund of information on all things theatrical. He is also distractingly familiar with pages of dialogue. Remarking that he played the child in "East Lynne," on the road in his father's company when he was a little boy, Bernard Fox reproduced two entire pages at least of the death scene from that Victorian tragedy, in the high, piping tones of the moribund lad, and the soprano moans of the heart-stricken Lady Isobel Vane, ending with her famous "Dead, and never called me Mother!" " As if that were not startling enough, from a rosy-faced, husky, moutached middle-aged man, he went into some minutes of musical Welsh when "The Corn is Green" was mentioned, recalling the part he played in that lovely show on tour in England. Gradually, I learned to avoid discussing plays, in order to talk to the player about himself. It wasn't easy, for the temptation was to enjoy an afternoon of delicious excerpts, and let work be forgotten.
Delving into family history, it emerged that Mr. Fox's great-grandmother belonged to the famous Proctor's Pepper's Ghost Company, which toured Britain very early in the nineteenth century, startling the rustics by having a "real" ghost appear through concealed mirrors angled in a box below the stage. That was on his mother's side of the family, but his father, who was his own producer-manager and, incidentally, Wilfred Lawson's brother, is of equally interesting lineage: as well as having owned his own stock company, which produced such classics as "Richard III," (Mr. Fox and his sister appearing as the Princes in the Tower) and a variety of styles.
"MY FATHER'S old basket in the attic at home is full of interesting things," recalls Bernard Fox. They include some of historical value, such as the very sword Sir Henry Irving used in "Hamlet," (what I wouldn't give for that, if I had it!) and authentic World War One English and American army uniforms. All actors used to dress themselves, and their baskets were their pride. In the course of time, they collected costumes of all periods, as well as wigs and hand props such as fans, lorgnettes and snuff-boxes. Thatrical [sic] papers would carry such advertisements as "At liberty, crocodile — own skin." Own skin was so important that if an actor lost his basket, he considered himself as good as ruined.
Sometimes he lost it temporarily, of course, if a dishonest manager absconded without paying the company, and a landlady impounded its effects until her rent was paid. Such hazards were part of the game, and Mr. Fox well remembers being stranded in Ireland as a child with his mother, who sensibly went to the priest for help. That gentleman produced a pound note as soon as her first words, "We are from the theatrical company, Father . . .” were heard, so he must have been accustomed to starving actors.
More recently, stranded similarly in Rome, Mr. Fox merely wired home to England for a check. Times change, he said, but actors are still always hungry, particularly atfer [sic] the show. Somehow the interview ended with delicious mutual memories of Melton Mowbray Pork Pie. If it was an interview? Or was I reading Dickens's "Nicholas Nickleby," and in company with the famous Vincent Crummles himself? I must go back and see "Beginner's Luck" again, to make quite certain; and to enjoy that relaxation when the actor comes onstage.

What about his well-known TV roles?

This story appeared in the Houston Chronicle,April 26, 1998.

Come back
One-shot roles lead to regular gigs
By DAVID MARTINDALE
When it came to Dr. Bombay, laughter was positively not the best medicine.
His laugh ranks among the most memorably horrible in TV history. Bombay — the skirt-chasing, bad-pun-telling "witch doctor" of Bewitched fame — could crack mirrors with that hideous sound of hilarity.
But Bernard Fox, the British-born actor who played Bombay with bombastic charm, says that bad laugh brought him nothing but good luck. In fact, he considers that laugh to be the character's calling card.
"Dr. Bombay started out as just a one-shot role," Fox says. "I was playing this character, and I wanted to bring another facet to him, which I did when I had to tell this bad pun. I followed it with that awful laugh, which I picked up from somebody in a hotel many years ago in England.
"I was sitting with a lady, chatting away, and all of a sudden, in this other room, there was this raucous and tune-less laugh. The lady I was with, even today I only need to do that laugh and she's gone, laughing hysterically. Well, I suddenly remembered it while doing Dr. Bombay. And evidently that touched off the writers' imagination, and they continued writing for him."
By the time Bewitched ended its eight-year run (1964-72), Fox had been invited back to play Bombay another 17 times.
"I recently heard a piece of tape of me doing that laugh and I'm astonished at the amount of energy I put out at that time."
Although he was never a regular player on an American TV series, Fox also played memorable recurring roles in The Andy Griffith Show as mild-mannered Malcolm Merriweather) and Hogan's Heroes (as crazy Colonel Crittenden).
"What's funny is the same thing happened basically on both of those shows," he says. "Malcolm Merriweather was intended to be a one-time role, but they kept asking me back. And Crittenden was only supposed to appear in one episode, but it turned into one of my favorite characters. He was such a big, blundering idiot, a delight to play."
If there could be a sequel to Titanic, it's a safe bet Fox would be invited back for that as well. He was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award for his supporting role in the movie.
"Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet got the brunt of the water work, which could be excruciating. But the hardest part for me was just waiting to be called in. They would pick me up from hotel at about 3:30 and take me down to the studio. Then you would have breakfast. That was in the afternoon. Then you went into your makeup and wardrobe and you could literally sit there until 5 in the morning and you wouldn't get released because they never knew when they might want you. In the meantime, poor Leo and Kate are splashing around and freezing their butts off."
Fox's first Bewitched episode as Bombay, titled "There's Gold in Them There Pills," is at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday on Nick at Nite.

Fox was 89 when he passed away in Los Angeles in 2016.

Disciplines, Schmisciplines

Some years after making the Roadrunner cartoons, Chuck Jones came up with his list of “disciplines” he supposedly etched in stone for the series.

The first was “The Road Runner cannot harm the coyote except by going “Beep-Beep.”

Here’s a gag from Hot-Rod and Reel (released in 1959).



Uh, what was that “discipline” again, Mark Twain?

Mike Maltese was the writer of this cartoon, and many others with the Road Runner. My recollection is he told (I think it was Mike Barrier) he had never heard of any “disciplines” when he had to come up with a story.

When I was a kid, a Road Runner cartoon was a good excuse to go into the kitchen and make a sandwich. I didn’t need to see the cartoon. I knew the Coyote would fail and this would happen.



In this short, the first two gags ends with the coyote going off a cliff.

Years later, watching the cartoons, I found some gags that did not involve cliffs, and were actually pretty creative. That couldn't be helped when you put Jones and Maltese together.

Personally, I prefer the “Super Genius” Wile E. Coyote who turns out not to be vastly superior in intellect to Bugs Bunny, but you know that old saying about mileage.

The Mouth of Boop

There are times in the early Fleischer sound cartoons where characters talk but don’t move their mouths. Then you have the exact opposite in Dizzy Dishes (1930) when Betty Boop is singing on stage.

Here are some of the mouth shapes in close-up.



Grim Natwick and Ted Sears are the credited animators in this fun cartoon, with a cast including a dancing roast chicken (with no head).

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: Of Men and Wings

A good way to spend 20 minutes on a restful afternoon is with an industrial short featuring:

• A voice-over by Del Sharbutt.
• Music by Jack Shaindlin.
• Newsreel clips, especially overhead shots of scenery.
• Nazis losing.

Business Screen magazine profiled Of Wings and Men in its issue dated March 1, 1946.

Of Men and Wings
■ Currently receiving wide showing is Of Men and Wings, latest motion picture of United Air Lines.
Made on a rather low budget, largely from library clips, the film is nevertheless well done. There is little of the lack of continuity too often found in the stock shot type of picture. For this G. D. Gudebrod of N. W. Ayer Co., who supervised and supplied the words, Jack Schaindlin [sic], music, and the B. K. Blake organization, who produced, can take credit.
Of Men and Wings tells the story of air transport since the inception of coast-to-coast air mail 25 years ago. As an aid in orienting the story with the times, generous use is made of old newsreel clippings. Harding's nomination in 1920, Red Cirangc galloping across the gridiron in 1924, Gertrude Ederle's channel swim in 1926, Bobby Jones' grand slam in golf in 1950 arc a few of these. Interspersed with the old newsreel shots is appropriate music: "Yes, We Have No Bananas," "Exactly Like You," etc. Other sequences show the various steps of progress in airline equipment from the old biplanes of the twenties to the latest DC-6.
Of Men and Wings is being distributed by United Air Lines through its educational department and district traffic managers.

Television around this time aired an awful lot of industrial movies to fill time. They were certainly less expensive to broadcast than even a local cooking show with crew and a host. Of Men and Wings appeared on WJBK-TV Detroit on October 26, 1948.