The first two were made into cartoons for Warners by Leon Schlesinger Productions and the first was put into the hands of Tex Avery, who gave it the touches we expect from him. There’s a Kate Hepburn imitation (by Elvia Allman). There’s a tongue-tied iceman (played by Joe Twerp) who drives away, only to quickly drive back to say something to the audience, then drive away for good. There’s a radio catchphrase (“Hello, Strangzer!” by Professor Mockingbird is from Schlepperman on the Jack Benny show).
My favourite moment in the cartoon is when the professor plays Cyrano de Bergerac for the iceman, singing for him to impress Katie Canary. But the professor is hiding in the back of the ice wagon and freezing, which doesn’t exactly make him sound like Bing Crosby or Rudy Vallee. The chilled professor stops singing, turns to the audience and says in a regular voice “Boy, it’s bloody cold in here.”
Avery and his writing unit came up with a nice little ending. The iceman doesn’t win Katie’s love. She goes off with the professor, warming him up as, in the background, a crooner-broadcasting radio is replaced with a refrigerator. The iceman resigns himself to being stuck with an old crone (also played by Elvia Allman) he didn’t want. “Well, anyhow, she can cook,” he spits out as the iris closes to end the cartoon.
I originally wrote the iceman is an impression of spoonerist Roy Atwell, and he uses Atwell's "Let it go, let it go" catchphrase from the Fred Allen show. But there was more than one spoonerist on the radio back then, and Twerp worked on a syndicated show at this time with the team of Oscar and Elmer, the latter played by Lou Fulton. Twerp appears to have appropriated Fulton's act. Fulton, by the way, played the stuttering contestant in I Love to Singa (1936). You can hear them both below on a show called The Last Nighter, which aired on KFWB, right next to the Schlesinger cartoon studio. The male chorus on the show sounds familiar, too.
Billy Bletcher can be heard on the cartoon as well.
Martha Goldman inked parts of this cartoon and she swears the title was I Only Have Ice For You, which is an improvement.
Though it should be noted that the iceman actually says those words when he's (supposedly) crooning at Katie, so that could be where Martha's memory comes from.
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