Today's Radio Catchphrase

Newlywed bugs try to get some privacy in their suite in the Honeymoon Hotel, from the Warner Bros. cartoon of the same name. But the moon is not only spying on them, it’s singing to them.



Mr. Bug takes care of the interloper by shutting off the thimble lamp so it can't see.



The moon takes advantage of the fact that this Merrie Melodies cartoon is in Cinecolor. It turns red and then contritely says “Is my face red!”

If you’re wondering where the line came from, one place it was revealed was in the October 28, 1930 entertainment page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette with a side note revealing “as W. Winchell says: ‘Is my face red?’”

Walter Winchell was a Broadway columnist who began broadcasting on CBS in May of that year. His catchphrase was picked up by Allen Rivkin and Ben Markson, who used it as a title of their play about a gossip columnist the following year. RKO bought the movie rights in 1932, which the Hollywood Reporter baldly announcing “Robert Armstrong will play the Walter Winchell part.”

Back to the cartoon...

Honeymoon Hotel was the first color short made by the Schlesinger studio. It was one of a handful directed by Earl Duvall, with the animation credits going to Jack King and Frank Tipper (after Duvall was fired for a drunken outburst, King took over as a director). Bernie Brown gets the rotational music credit, with the score including the title song (originally heard in the feature Footlight Parade) along with another Warren-Dubin song, “You’re Getting to Be a Habit With Me,” the Warner cartoon favourite “By a Waterfall” and the 1905 Gus Edwards’ chestnut “In My Merry Oldsmobile.”