A Box Gag Returns

Some old cartoon ground is ploughed by director Dick Lundy in Caballero Droopy, an MGM release starring Droopy, the matador wolf and a bull. We saw them all in Tex Avery’s Señor Droopy, released three years earlier.

Avery had been given time away from the studio to deal with some personal things. His writer, Rich Hogan, left animation at the same time. In came Lundy, with Jack Cosgriff and Heck Allen to help with the gags. They crafted yet another story of Droopy and the wolf vying for the hand of a Latina (in this case, a cartoon, not a live-action Lina Romay).

There are Avery-type gags, too. One was lifted from King-Size Canary (1947), where a hungry hobo cat piles two boxes on top of each other to reach a window; the boxes suspend in mid-air.

Here, it happens after the wolf sends an Avery-style anvil into the air. Ignore the horrendous DNR in the frames below; there's a better version out there but I don't have it.



The stacking starts in mid-action.



He’s got the girl! Oh, no, he hasn’t. The anvil he sent in the air earlier returns, thanks to the laws of gravity.



Exhibitor magazine of July 30, 1952 rated it “fair” and complained the cartoon slowed down after the first half. By comparison, Señor Droopy is superior. It has some great posing and animation by Bobe Cannon.

The animators here are Avery’s team from when he left: Grant Simmons, Mike Lah and Walt Clinton, with Ray Patterson from the Hanna-Barbera unit taking care of some scenes (Bob Bentley would soon be hired). Johnny Johnsen is uncredited as the background painter.



The official release date was Sept. 27, 1952 but the cartoon played at the Paramount in Bristol, Tennessee from Aug. 24 to 28 with The Merry Widow.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: The Islands of South China & Java Seas

Here’s a promotional film from the 1980s that entices viewers to visit Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Hong Kong by ship.

A Royal Cruise Lines ship, that is. After all, the company paid for the movie.

The scenery would look great if the resolution on the film was higher. However, I’m posting it solely for the narration. I suspect you’ll recognize the voice instantly.

It’s a shame he didn’t read the copy as Boris Badenov.

Before She Was Mrs. Day

Jack Benny’s radio show had plenty of secondary characters, many of them played by the most in-demand actors on the air in the west. People like Bea Benaderet, Sara Berner, Joe Kearns, Frank Nelson, Mel Blanc, Herb Vigran . . .

And others, such as Verna Felton.

Her best-known role was Dennis Day’s mother. Day was new to radio acting when he was hired in 1939 and the veteran Felton was brought in as kind of a comedy insurance policy since he needed a bit to time to develop. She appeared on the first four broadcasts of the 1939-40 season beginning Oct. 9, 1939, missed an episode, returned for the next two, skipped the next episode, then returned twice in December.

After that, she was brought in occasionally. Her final show was May 8, 1955, not many weeks before Benny left radio.

Felton had a lengthy stage career, starting by August 1900, before she was hired to yell “Ahhhhhh shaddap!” at Jack Benny. Hollywood Citizen-News radio-TV editor Zuma Palmer profiled her in three parts, beginning Feb. 25, 1952.

Verna Felton at Home in Television
By ZUMA PALMER
Verna Felton added just as greatly to the quality of the sec[ond] Dennis Day television show as she did to the first.
"Timing," some would say. "Experience," the gray-haired, stoutish actress would declare.
And acting experience she has had. The kind only to be gained in stock where you "were forgetting a play, acting a play and learning a play, all at the same time."
Television is more like the stage than anything else, Miss Felton believes. "It will give newcomers some of the opportunity to learn to act that stock did," she remarked. "They can start out as extras, supers and work up." Miss Felton is a native Californian. It was in our state capital that, as a child, she got her start —with the Jessie Shirley company.
* * *
Every August for 20 years Verna Felton, Clara Allen, her mother, a character actress, and other members of the stock company managed by her father, Dr. H. W. Felton, began a tour of Canada from British Columbia. They gave 10 performances a week, a different play each time. When the company reached Ontario, at least 14 new dramas were prepared for the return. The actors had only Tuesday daytime free. If not performing, they were rehearsing.
Miss Felton, Dennis Day's mother on his NBC television show, said she never had a complete script to study, just her part and cues. The pay for the stars was $50 a week which was thought to be big.
PREPARATION
Before a play went into rehearsal, the director had blocked out on a board in his hotel room every move of every actor. No time was ever wasted in the theater deciding whether, for instance, it would be better for an actor to pass in front or behind another.
Many of the theaters were about the size of the Biltmore. In one building in which they performed, there was not seating for all who wanted to see the show. The emergency was met by selling space on the actors' trunks which had been placed outdoors in front of windows.
* * *
Players who toured in stock usually have some memories which bring a chuckle. Verna Felton is one.
The roll up curtain was in use when she was starring in Canada in plays by Shaw, Ibsen and other famous writers. As she was "dying" in "Camille" one night, the curtain came down too soon, catching in the puffs of the actress bending over her. Then up it went carrying with it the girl's false hair and veil. The audience didn't burst into loud laughter as might be expected, just tittered.
Miss Felton said you know your audience in five minutes. "In 'Camille,'" she related, "we would play it low, keep dropping our voice, until we would hear a rustle of a program, then we would come up.
Lee Millar joined the company. A romance began which continued until his death a few years ago.
Miss Felton and her husband were on Broadway in "Appearances." Mr. Millar then became a director for Leo Dietrichstein who was associated with the Shuberts and Cohen and Harris. He also worked for Walker Whiteside.
TRANSITION
When theater work became more difficult to obtain, the actress suggested radio. "Radio!" Her husband was horrified at the idea. Finally she told him if he wouldn't try to get a job in it, she would. After all, there was a little matter of eating. Mr. Millar went to NBC, met someone he knew, was given a chance to act and found, to his surprise, he enjoyed being in radio. One day he carne home and told his wife Tom Hutchinson had a place for her, too.
After reading her part, which was in "Ramona," the director said, "There's no one in the back gallery." Miss Felton had to forget that before the microphone, she didn't have a farthest most seat to which to project her voice.
Miss Felton has been on numerous broadcasts since 1932 when the pay was $9 a program, in pictures and is now in television, as Dennis Day's mother.
The gifted character actress has a son, Lee Millar, an actor; a daughter-In-law, four cocker spaniels—Mike, Tracy, Hildegarde and Gus Gus, and a Persian cat, Veronica.

Ramona was broadcast on KPO, San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 1, 1932 at 10 p.m. Included in the cast were Bernice Berwin, Dorothy Desmond, Ted Maxwell, Max Waizman, Henry Shumer, J.A. Smythe and Cameron Prudhomme. (A side note: at 6:30 that evening on KGO in Oakland was a half-hour programme starring humourist John P. Medbury and an orchestra led by someone named Phil Harris.

Palmer revealed in her column of Nov. 10, 1939 that Dennis had sat in on auditions for his mother's role. Jack left the decision up to him and, out of the final two actresses, he picked Felton.

Her final appearance as Dennis' mother was on Jack Benny's TV show, June 3, 1962. She died Dec. 14, 1966 at age 76.



Felton has an accomplishment from that era rarely spoken about. It was reported in the Victoria Times, on Sept. 9, 1933.

Verna Felton is NBC Announcer
Verna Felton, popular actress, who formerly had a stock company in Victoria, who has a host of friends among western Canada theatregoers, has gained radio fame in her appointment as the first woman announcer of a sponsored series of programmes over the National Broadcasting Company network.
Word has been received from San Francisco of Miss Felton’s assignment to the new and popular programme “Do You Believe in Ghosts,” heard Thursday evenings at 7:15 and Sundays at 9 p.m. over the coast network. The programme is written by Harold Burdick, former Seattle newspaperman, who is also narrator.
Miss Felton and her husband, Lee C. Millar, have been appearing in NBC productions for some time.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s radio writer, James Adam, caught the first broadcast and commented on Sept. 5, 1933 he didn’t like Hal Burdick's show or Felton. All we can say is “Ahhhhhh shaddap!”

From the Lantz Clipping File

Walter Lantz had an admirable career, despite what may be considered less-than-entertaining cartoons in the 1970s. He starred in silent films in the 1920s, successfully owned his own cartoon studio for decades, developed a star character in Woody Woodpecker (no doubt with a lot of help from Bugs Hardaway), appeared in some pleasant little vignettes on a syndicated half-hour show that was picked up by Kellogg’s and travelled around the world with his wife, contributing to charity along the way.

He also picked up some talented people for a time, including Tex Avery, Ed Love, Emery Hawkins, Dick Lundy, Bill Garity, Pat Matthews, Freddie Moore, Mike Maltese and a pile of others who needed a new cartoon home.

We’ve written about Lantz in the 1920s several times before here; he was the focus of trade publications and then the popular press when he began to make cartoons in the west. Instead, let’s pass on some odds and ends from 1925. To the right is from Exhibitor's Trade Review, August 25, 1925.

First, a preface. Lantz had begun his Dinky Doodle series in 1924; a publicity article in Exhibitors Trade Review of Aug. 16, 1924 foretold the Bray studios would be releasing a new cartoon series with Dinky Doodle and Weakheart, with the first titled Dinky Doodle and the Wonderful Lamp. The one-reelers were distributed through Selznick Distributing Corporation until creditors filed for bankruptcy in October 1924 and Film Booking Offices took over. Exhibitors Trade Review’s list of films published Nov. 1 says the short was called Magic Lamp and released Sept. 15, 1924, while the same publication reported on Sept. 6 that the cartoon was finished in eight weeks.

The Dinky cartoons, said the trades, were written and directed by Lantz and produced by the Standard Cinema Corporation.

When 1925 rolled around, he took on a second animated series.

Bray Cartoons Acquired
“We Want More” is what exhibitors say to the F. B. O. sales staff when speaking of the famous Bray cartoons, and in response to this universal exhibitor request, Film Booking Offices has made a new contract with J. R. Bray whereby the company will get 26 comedy cartoons from the Bray studios during the next year.
During the past year the Bray studios have furnished F. B. O. with thirteen Dinky Doodle comedies, a series of cartoonized burlesques on well known fairy tales and nursery rhymes, a series originated by Walter Lantz of the Bray staff. (Exhibitors Herald, May 23, 1925)

Bray Studios Will Make 26 Two-Reel Comedies for F. B. O.
THE Bray Studios are taking additional space at 130 West 46th Street, New York, the building in which they are housed, in order to accommodate the increased art staff which has been engaged for the production of twenty six subjects which Bray will make for F. B. O. release for the 1925-26 season.
These twenty six subjects will consist of thirteen Dinky Doodle cartoons, and thirteen comedies which will be known as "Unnatural History" cartoons. The Dinky Doodle cartoons will be burlesques of famous fairy tales and burlesques of the best known feature pictures of the current year. "Don Q" will be the first big production to be burlesqued by Walter Lantz, well known cartoonist. Work on this short subject will commence immediately that Lantz completes the thirteenth of the Dinky Doodle cartoons, a burlesque on the story of Rip Van Winkle.
The "Unnatural History" cartoons will also be burlesques, and the titles of the first four subjects, "Where The Leopard Got His Spots," "How The Elephant Got His Trunk," "Where The Camel Got His Hump" and "Where The Zebra Got His Stripes," are indicative of the laugh-creating possibilities in comedies of this nature. (Moving Picture World, July 25)



Bray Company in Adirondacks
Walter Lantz, director and star of Bray Studios, has taken his staff to the Adirondacks to get exteriors for “Dinky Doodle and the Babes in the Woods,” cartoon. (Exhibitors Herald, Aug. 8)

Fuller on Bray Staff
"Ving" Fuller, the well known sports cartoonist of the New York Daily Graphic has joined the staff of the Bray Studios. He will act as one of the animators associated with Walter Lantz in the production of the new "Unnatural History" Cartoons and the Dinky Doodle series of cartoons which J. R. Bray is making for F. B. O. release. (Moving Picture World, Aug. 15)

“Dinky Doodle and the Babes in the Wood” has been finished for release August 12, and Walter Lantz, the cartoonist, has completed the script for the thirteenth, “Just Spooks.” (Exhibitors Herald, Aug. 15)

The Bray studios are producing 13 Dinky Doodle cartoons and 13 Unnatural History cartoons. “Ving” Fuller is associated with Walter Lantz in the latter. (Exhibitors Herald, Aug. 22)

Bray Studios have added two new men to their production staff. They are Frank Leonard, sport cartoonist, who will assist Walter Lantz in the production of the Dinky Doodle Series and the Unnatural History Series, both released through F. B. O. Ernest Corts, naturalist and photographer, is the other.
Lantz and Charles Walters, child player, will act before the camera in conjunction with the cartoon characters in the first of the Unnatural History series, "How the Elephant Got His Trunk." It is now in production. (Exhibitors Trade Review, Aug. 22)

"Just Spooks" Completed
Walter Lantz has just completed production on the 13th Dinky Doodle subject titled “Just Spooks.” This subject is a departure from previous Dinky Doodle subjects inasmuch as it is not a Burlesque on a Fairy Tale. Playing on the vogue for mystery dramas, the story makes Dinky Doodle and his companion the pup, “Weakheart” decide they will play a joke on the artist and Walter Lantz gets the scare of his life in this subject when the boy and the dog, masquerading as a ghost, cause him to go through a number of thrilling adventures in order to escape the clutching hand of the ever pursuing spook. F. B. O. will release this subject September 15. (Moving Picture World, Sept. 5; photo from Exhibitors Herald, Aug. 29).



Walter Lantz of the Bray Studios, who acts in conjunction with the cartoon characters he creates, has finished two of the 26 cartoons he is scheduled to produce for the distributing company The first of these, a Dinky Doodle cartoon, called “The Bad Man” is a burlesque on the vogue for wild and wooly westerns, while the second is an Unnatural History cartoon called “How the Elephant Got His Trunk.” (Moving Picture World, Sept. 5)

Bray Studios Forms Gag Club
NEW YORK.— A Gag Club has been formed at the Bray studios. The entire staff meets Monday nights with J. R. Bray, president, and threshes out scenario problems brought up by Walter Lantz, department chief. (Exhibitors Herald, Sept. 5)

Hurd with Bray Studios
Earl Hurd, the famous cartoonist, creator of Bobby Bumps and other internationally famous cartoon characters is once again with the Bray Studios. Hurd achieved a tremendous vogue years ago when he drew Bobby Bumps for Bray. The Paramount organization released these pictures. He is now back again and the first subject he will work on is the third of the Unnatural History Comedies titled “The Camel’s Hump.” Walter Lantz will enact the leading role in this subject together with little Frankie Evans the child “find.” Clyde Geronimi will handle the megaphone on this production. This novelty will be released early in November by F. B. O. (Moving Picture World, Oct. 24)

15th Dinky Doodle Concluded
The fifteenth Dinky Doodle subject which F. B. O. is to release early in November has been placed in production at the Bray Studios. Walter Lantz, the artist creator of this character will appear together with Dinky Doodle and the other cartoon character, Weakheart the dog, in this subject which is to be titled, “Dinky Doodle in the Hunt.” (Moving Picture World, Oct. 24)



Above is an ad in the Oct. 10, 1925 edition of Exhibitors Trade Review.

The Lantz cartoons were released in Canada and England as well. The Daily Sketch of London gave us this profile of Lantz, his co-stars, and his boss on April 17, 1925. The word “Universal” is a nice coincidence.

Dinky Doodle and Weakheart
YOU will all by meeting these two in a month or so, and I, who have had the privilege already, can vouch for it that these are going to be real new friends.
Such friends, too, as you have not met before.
Suppose Felix, whom you all know so well, were to add one final feat of magic to those he already performs on the screen.
The wonder of Dinky and Weakheart is that they live in two worlds at once. You can never be quite sure whether they are fantastic adventures in company with real men and women or lively wanderers in their own realm of make believe. They share pictorially the magazine gifts of Alice both in and out of Wonderland, and have her easy knack of transferring from one side to the other of the Looking-Glass without effort.
I was watching a picture of Walter Lantz, the kinema cartoonist, at work in his studio.
Under his fingers there grew up on the paper the oldest of big-eyed, spindly-legged urchins, a pigmy so obviously ripe for anything that I just rubbed my eye with a slight sensation at wonder only when he stepped off the paper, sat up and began to play pranks his with artist creator.
Followed another creature of pen-and-ink, whom in politeness I must name a dog. This was Weakheart.
Lantz put down his pencil to pass a merry interlude with the pair of them. He tried a fairy tale on them. Dinky Doodle wouldn't believe in fairies., whereupon from the open page of a big book on the table a Chinese magician walked out, grabbed Dinky and Weakheart together back into the pages and so breathlessly bewildered through the entire adventure of Aladdin. At the finish, the pigmies were flung back into the lap of the artist ready for a fresh journey.
This in actual fact was the birth episode of Dinky Doodle and Weakheart.
Although Walter Lantz is their artistic parent, their godfather is J. R. Bray, who 14 years ago devised the first of the animated cartoons for the screen. Others have adopted similar processes since, but it is in the Bray studios that Lantz produced this crowning achievement of acting himself with the figures sprung from his fancy.
J. R. Bray at rather more than 40 is the head of one of the busiest and most successful organisations in America, but the story of his climb to fame and fortune is a romance of courage and belief in himself when other people thought him simply crazy.
Son of a Methodist parson in a little town of Michigan State, he was training for a musician's career, when he saw a chalk cartoonist at work and ran off to draw cartoons himself for a Detroit newspaper instead.
With the first fifty dollars saved he moved on to New York, took a double chance in getting married and trying to earn a livelihood as a free-lance artist, and made good in both.
The comic strip in the newspapers and the crude motion pictures then showing gave him the germ of an idea for combining the two. "For eighteen months," he says, "I almost lived with a pencil him in my hand I used up acres of paper. At the end of the time I sold my first 'animated cartoon' and received an order for six more."
It would need too technical and complicated description to explain in detail what happens, but, briefly, the animated figures are drawn with opaque ink on transparent celluloid, while the real scenes amid which they are to appear are photographed with a kinema camera in the ordinary way. The tiny strip of film picture is enlarged and the pen and ink figures laid over them one after the other. Then these strips are photographed afresh.
A reel 600 feet long would this seem to need 9,600 separate pictures, but in actual fact the positions are held more than one, and the usual total of drawings is nearer 2,000 or 2,500.
Walter Lantz has been with the Bray studios since they were started, and it was he who conceived the further idea of putting himself into a motion picture as a background for the figures he created.
"We wanted a new character with a universal appeal," he says, in telling how Dinky Doodle was born." Already we had decided to burlesque the most famous of the fairy tales. It seemed that a boy not too old and not two young, but full of the spirit that moves all boys, was what was wanted. Such a boy would naturally have some dumb animal as a companion, and ‘Weakheart’ arrived. Then I walked across the room with an outstretched arm just as though the dog were perched on it. In reality the dog was drawn separately on the celluloid and laid over the moving photograph already made of myself. And so through all the subsequent movements."
This was only last year, and already there are Dinky Doodle adventures with the Pied Piper, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Peter Pan, and several other stories. They will be coming to London shortly.
L. D.

Dinky Doodle lasted through the 1924 and 1925 release seasons. The Exhibitors Herald reported in July 10, 1926 that J.R. Bray would be distributing cartoons by Walter Lantz with “new ideas.” Thus the Hot Dog series starring Pete the Pup was born, and survived a season.

On May 17, 1927, Lantz jumped into his Locomobile, and with the words “To California without a flat or bust,” headed to the west coast. Exhibitors Daily Review claimed it was “primarily for a vacation.” The operative word here is “primarily.” As Joe Adamson recorded in his fine biography of Lantz, the Bray animation studio closed, there was no directorial work for him in New York, so he moved across the country.



Lantz used his shrewdness to land his next big animation job. Producer Charlie Mintz had wrested Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from its creator, Walt Disney. Disney didn’t own his creation; he was a worker for hire. But Mintz didn’t own Disney’s creation, either. It was owned by Universal pictures. The end result was a moment of karma: Universal boss Carl Laemmle dumped Mintz and put his social buddy Lantz in charge of making the Oswald cartoons. (Picture above from Exhibitors Herald, Mar. 26, 1927).

Several of Dinky’s comedies have been restored as best as possible by Tommy Stathes, you can enjoy one below and check out his Cartoon Roots collections of DVDs/BluRays at this site.

Friz Gets A Director's Chair

Friz Freleng may have turned 121 today (see note below). Readers of this blog are knowledgeable enough that they don’t need me to go through his background.

However, we will give you a bit of a set-up from an interview by Jerry Beck in 1989 and published in that great magazine Animato!. Freleng explained he, Hugh Harman, Rudy Ising and Ham Hamilton did a demo sound film starring Bosko after they were all dumped when Universal decided to take Oswald the rabbit away from their studio in Los Angeles. Freleng went to New York to work for Charlie Mintz on Krazy Kat cartoons.

Then in 1930 Hugh and Rudy sold Leon Schlesinger on a Bosko series. Freleng left Mintz and returned from New York to animate on it.

Said Friz:

I stayed with Hugh and Rudy through the start of the Schlesinger era. When we lost the contract with Schlesinger [in 1933], we were doing work for Van Beuren, farm-out work. I stayed with Hugh, but I thought he was going nowhere. Not that I could see the future.
When Leon Schlesigner tempted me away from Hugh and Rudy when they went to MGM, I had a guilt complex about it. Schlesinger sent Ray Katz over to see me, called me every once in a while, and tempted me to come over. He had hired a guy by the name of Tom Palmer, and Jack King, a couple of guys from Disney. Guys who were not making it. . . .
And when I came over they let Tom Palmer go. . . . and I took all the drawings that he had made. Warner would not accept their cartoons, and Leon thought he was going out of business. He said, "I've got everything I've made in my lifetime dumped into this thing." So I took a lot of the drawings, and I retimed them, threw out a lot...

Palmer’s two cartoons were Buddy’s Day Out and I’ve Got to Sing a Torch Song. Freleng isn’t credited on either of them.



His first directorial credit is on Buddy the Gob, released Jan. 13, 1934. It’s not exactly strong on story or gags but, as the studio discovered, there wasn't a whole lot they could do with Buddy; he's a watered-down version of the plucky Mickey Mouse in this cartoon. Freleng and whoever was in the story department tossed in a pop culture reference. The camera pans to the right from two Chinese dancers in a parade ...



I couldn’t tell you who is on the left, but the one on the right is Hot-cha-cha! Jimmy Durante. (Note: Strummer Petersen believes it's a poor drawing of Marie Dressler. Considering she was big at MGM, he's likely correct). We get a close-up of The Schnozz.



The plot involves Buddy jumping off his ship and rescuing a girl who is to be fed to a fire-breathing dragon. Of course, there’s a butt-violation gag.



As Bernie Brown plays Warren and Dubin's "Shanghail Lil" (from the 1933 Warners feature Footlight Parade) Buddy and the girl escape from an angry mob, cutting the ropes holding up a wooden bridge after making it over to the opposite cliff.

One of the mob throws a spear at the heckling Buddy and misses.



The arrow develops a mind of its own. It turns around and, well, if one butt-violation gag is funny, then two are TWICE as funny, right?



And then. Well, nothing. That’s all, folks. Buddy appears just as stunned as the theatre audience that the cartoon just stops.



Before the year was over, Bugs Hardaway and Jack King took over the Looney Tunes with Buddy while Freleng concentrated on the Merrie Melodies. Besides a misbegotten stint at MGM in the late ‘30s, Freleng stuck with the Warners studio until just before it closed in 1963. You know all about a stop at Hanna-Barbera, and a studio with David DePatie and a panther and such, so we’ll skip that.

Buddy died about a year and a half after this cartoon appeared. It's safe to say Friz's directorial career went on slightly longer. And he was responsible for some of the most enjoyable cartoons ever made.



Note: The "Record of Births—Kansas City, Missouri" for August 1, 1904 (page 42) show a boy and a girl (the girl, Fannie Freling, died of septicemia on Sept. 17, 1904, age six months) with nothing later in the month, nor in 1905. The parents' surname was spelled several different ways over the decades. The Kansas City Journal reported the Aug. 1 births in its Aug. 13, 1904 edition. It is possible we are dealing with two different people, but Kansas City Directories indicate there was only one Louis Freleng (of any kind of spelling). Friz' World War Two Draft Card give his birth date as Aug. 21, 1904. The April 25, 1910 U.S. Census records his age as 5, meaning he would be 6 in August. The Jan. 3, 1920 U.S. Census states he was 15, and would turn 16 in August. The April 9, 1930 Census gives his age as 25, so he would turn 26 in August. The April 20, 1940 Census says he was 35, making him 36 in August. The April 1, 1950 Census records his age as 45, meaning he would be 46 in August. All these returns mean he was born in 1904. The U.S. Social Security Death Index says Aug. 21, 1904. The California Death Index says Aug. 21, 1905. His grave marker reads 1906. You be the judge.

Life Imitates Tex

Tex Avery’s Car of Tomorrow (1951) made fun of the step-down Hudson and the wrap-around-window Studebaker; both were joked about on network radio comedy shows of the day. But there was also a gag where, eventually, life imitated art.

A small car appears on the screen, and narrator Gil Warren describes it: “The super-thrifty Scotchman model. This car uses absolutely no gasoline.” Dissolve to the gag.



It turned out someone actually made a “Scotchman.” Studebaker produced the Scotsman (scotch is a drink, not a nationality). Studebaker produced the economy car in 1957 and 1958.



No, it didn’t run on pedal power. But it got “25 to 29 miles per gallon,” according to newspaper ads in June 1957 (“Oil industry trembles,” the ad announced). The Scotsman came in two-door, four-door and station wagon models.You got a heater and turn signals as free extras.

By this time, Avery was in the cartoon commercial business, though he wasn’t animating a Studebaker.

Rayburn of the Radio

I liked both versions but The Match Game of 1963 wasn’t really the same game as The Match Game of 1973. The original had that great theme song, “A Swingin’ Safari,” and the humour was light-hearted. The other was like a party.

Besides matching, both had at least two things in common—announcer Johnny Olson and host Gene Rayburn. Read about Johnny in this post and this post and in this post.

Rayburn graduated from Lindblom High school in Chicago in January 1936; he was class president. In April 1941, we find him in the Vassar College Experimental Theatre co-writing a revue about television called “Sight Unseen.” That July, an ad in the Baltimore Sun urged people to “Dance Tonight with Gene Rubessa and his Big Name Bands” from 11:05 to midnight on WITH. At the end of 1942, he hosted a show on WNEW New York, but a year later he was in his wife’s home state of Texas. He was stationed at the SAAAF Bombardier School where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant, and sold real estate on the side.

When the war ended, he resumed his disc jockey career in New York City, teaming with Jack Lescoulie and then Dee Finch.

Bernice Judis was the general manager of WNEW. Rayburn looked back on those days in a syndicated column that appeared in papers around July 16, 1973, ostensibly to promote his revived game show. (The drawing is from the Toledo Blade).

Rayburn Recalls Radio Ruses
By DON FREEMAN
Copley News service
HOLLYWOOD — They call it "Match Game '73," which is a way of saying that the popular game show of a few years back has returned with a new designation. And the host has returned as well, being Gene Rayburn, a television veteran who might well have inspired the word "congenial" if it had not yet been invented by Webster.
"How I became Gene Rayburn is a little story in itself," Gene was saying in his voluble way. "Eugene Jeljenic — wait, now, I'll spell it for you — is how I was born in Chicago several years ago. Jeljenic — that's Yugoslavian. When you see a 'c' or a 'ch. on a Slavic name, it means something like the 'O', as in 'O'Brien' in an Irish name. It means the family of."
"All right, so my father dies, and my mother remarries. Rubessa is the name of my stepfather, a great guy. Gene Rubessa became my name, and it's the name I used when I went into radio shortly after it was invented."
"So now," said Gene, "I'm working for this lady at a station in New York. She says to me, 'Rubessa. That name of yours sounds Eye-talian. Change it.' I swear she said it just like that."
"Where do you find names? Well, of course, in the phone book. It has plenty of names. I picked up a phone book and saw a lot of names that I didn't want and one that I did want and that name was, of course, Rayburn. And I became Gene Rayburn."
Long before that, Gene said, he had gone to Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. "Actually, I went to college for about 20 minutes," said Gene, "and then I ran out of money and went into the cold, cruel world to make some. A part of that cold, cruel world was radio."
Eventually, Gene joined forces with another radio personality named Jack Finch [sic], and they were a big hit around New York in the late 1940s.
"We had an early morning, wakeup show," said Gene. "Worked out well. We revolutionized the style for early morning radio, and we were widely imitated. We were really rolling along and feeling our oats when we hit the boss for a raise. The boss — it was, by the way, the same lady who changed me from Rubessa to Rayburn — said we didn't deserve a raise, for one thing, and for another we were over-estimating our pulling power."
"All right, we decided to prove our point, me and Finch. We decided to track down the worst recording in the history of human accomplishment, the worst sound since man invented music. We put it on the air and we told our audience, 'Look, gang, this is a song that's bad enough to be a hit.' "
"We played it and we played it. I remember the song began with these lyrics, 'Put another nickel in the nickelodeon.' I tell you it was nauseous. But soon 20 companies were recording it and an unknown little singer named Teresa Brewer made her version and sold a million copies."
"And then," I said to Gene, "You guys got your raise, right?"
"Wrong," said Rayburn. "The boss lady said it was a fluke. So we did it again, with a little monstrous ditty called 'Hopscotch Polka,' which old settlers will remember because about 28 different singers recorded it and even Guy Lombardo made a smash, 600,000-selling item out of it, to show you how awful it was. And when we didn't get a raise then, we both figured it was time to move on and we did."
In time, Rayburn turned to acting and he was an announcer-foil for Steve Allen on the old "Tonight Show." And he also became a whiz at handling game shows.

Rayburn is being a little dismissive. The American Weekly weekend newspaper supplement of Feb. 12, 1950 revealed what Rayburn thought of as a joke had a happy ending for a 75-year-old former glockenspiel player in England.

Two radio disk jockeys at Station WNEW in New York City were weeding out old records from their files and preparing to throw them away.
Gene Rayburn and Dee Finch played through what seemed to be an endless stack, then they came to a real old-timer. It was "Scotch Hot" by Billy Whitlock, the re-recording he had made more than 25 years ago.
The disk jockeys played the record over and over. It was catchy. It should have some good lyrics. They got busy. Through the London Gramophone Corporation in New York they contacted a record company in London.
"Find Billy Whitlock," they begged. "We want a new record, with him playing the bells."
It took some expert detecting to find the old man in the lonely boarding house where he lived in a single room. His job, at the time, was as a night watchman in Brixton.
The ex-entertainer had lost the music for "Scotch Hot," but he remembered the tune and once again he played for an audience. This time it was an unseen audience and no one dreamed how large it would grow.
Gene Rayburn had persuaded Lyricist Carl Sigman to write words for the tune which became the popular "Hop Scotch Polka."
Records sold like hot cakes in this country and, across the Atlantic, Billy Whitlock moved into two large rooms. He didn't leave his boarding house, though, because his friends all live in the neighborhood. "It's like a dream," the old man said, "being back in show business again. I want to get a piano and start composing."
He fingered his contracts lovingly and one of his agents predicted the comedian would be worth several thousand pounds within the next few months.
The greatest thing for Billy, perhaps, is the fact that once again he is a figure of importance in his own small world. When he drops into the local pub, the bartender whispers: "That's Billy Whitlock." Those are sweet-sounding words to an old showman.

The first version of The Match Game ran from 1962 to 1969 on NBC, the second aired on CBS from 1973 to 1979, then in syndication to 1982. Thanks to cable TV, the CBS shows have attracted new fans who weren’t around a half-century ago.

Thanks also, in part, to Gene Rayburn, The Match Game was blank.

The Life and Death of Cancer

In mid-1944, former Disney men Larry Morey and John Sutherland set up Plastic Productions with the idea of creating stop-motion animated shorts. Several were released under the Daffy Ditties label by United Artists.

In November the following year, the company announced it would make industrial and commercial films, the first being Railroading by Radio, then said in April 1946 it was getting out of the “puppet” business. Variety reported on May 3 the company had signed with the American Cancer Society for a “cancer short for for showing to schools and social groups, to make public aware of disease and its diagnosis and cure.” The cost was to be $50,000.

The Traitor Within was not in production long. Variety reported on Aug. 28 it had been finished.

The cartoon took advantage of representational designs, still fairly new in 1946, and limited animation techniques, including drawings dissolving into each other.

A cycle shot of some cells in the human body (wear a cap and overalls) is interrupted by the narrator. “Once in a while, something goes wrong with the normal cells, and cancer originates.” Even in this faded print, you can see black death enveloping the healthy cell.



“It steals food from the normal cell.”



The cancer cell divides.



The narrator goes on to tell us cancer can be cured if it is stopped early. By surgery. By x-ray radiation. By rays emanating from radium.



The cartoon had distribution problems, like other films, because war-time materials for processing still weren't readily available. Variety said on Dec. 9, 1946: "John Sutherland Productions likewise is temporarily stymied in one of its educational shorts, “The Traitor Within,” made for American Cancer Society. With 250 prints ordered from Technicolor, Sutherland has been able to get delivery on only one print, which now is in hands of Society."

The uncluttered visuals and low-key narration still make this an effective film.

Unlike Sutherland cartoons at the end of the ‘40s and into the early ‘50s, The Traitor Within has a card with credits. The director was George Gordon, animation by Pete Burness, Irv Spence and Elmer Swanson, with “art direction” by Bernice Polifka. Norm Wright was responsible for the story and Paul Smith, ex-Disney, the music. Unfortunately, none of the voice actors are identified.