The head and arm of a little girl doll vanishes when blowing a tuba.
And a pair of long underwear bapping its flap to the title song hides for a frame.
As this is a Harman-Ising cartoon, one of the toy men does the same slide-step dance as Bosko (twice).
Friz Freleng and Larry Martin get the animation credits. Friz’ status in the business is legendary. Martin isn’t as well known. He was a member of the Los Angeles Times Junior Cartoon Club in 1926 and ’27. A Mary J. Martin lived at the same address as given in a 1926 edition of the Times. Martin’s claim to fame was being the model for Dishonest John of the Beany and Cecil puppet show/cartoons. Beany’s creator, Bob Clampett, once explained how he worked under Martin when Harman and Ising worked for Leon Schlesinger, drew caricatures of Martin as an 1890s melodrama villain and labelled them Dirty Dalton. Clampett said Martin later came to work for him at Snowball in 1961 and when asked about model sheets for Dishonest John was told to look in the mirror. Martin moved with Harman and Ising to MGM, but was at the Schlesinger studio in 1937 (Variety reported Martin’s wife was seriously ill). I haven’t been able to find any other information about him.
The only nugget I could find that isn't mentioned elsewhere is this:
ReplyDeleteIn the 1937 LA city directory, he's listed as a "cartoonist" living at 5602 Fernwood Avenue, which is about a 1/2 mile from 1351 North Van Ness Avenue, where Leon Schlesinger's studio was.
the 5602 Fernwood Avenue address is apparently that of the Fernwood Apartments, which was built in 1926. Carl Urbano was also living there in 1937.
ReplyDeleteMan, those animated union suits with their flapping flaps just kill me...
ReplyDelete