Mercer and Matalone

He may have voiced more cartoons uncredited than anyone in the business.

Even at a time when Daws Butler and Don Messick’s names were appearing on televisions in the early 1960s, his was not. And, his obit says, he voiced 220 Popeye cartoons for the small screen in a year.

We’re talking about Jack Mercer.

Of course, this doesn’t include 240 Felix the Cat TV cartoons for Trans-Lux where he did every voice. Nor the dozens and dozens of theatrical shorts for the Fleischer and Famous (Paramount) studios going back to the mid-1930s.

As you likely know, Mercer did get screen credit in the glory days of cartoons—for stories. He was an inker who was moved into the story department near the end of the Fleischer studio in the early ‘40s.

Mercer also got very little public press until the era of book-writing cartoon historians. One time was the serendipitous occasion when he married the Miami studio voice of Olive Oyl, Margie Hines, in 1939.

Another occasion can be found in an unusual place. He was mentioned in a feature story in an Australian newspaper, the Macleay Argus of Kempsey in New South Wales. It also sums up how a cartoon was made at the Fleischer studio. The story appeared in the issue of May 20, 1938; the local theatre was showing Puddy’s Coronation, a 1937 Terrytoon.

Something interesting is the revelation of the voice of Wimpy in the cartoons of the time. Frank Matalone was an imitator who won an amateur contest on Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight of April 15, 1936, imitating a traffic whistle, a cuckoo clock, a pair of rolling dice, and the opening of the bottle. I suspect he came to the Fleischers’ notice because his last imitation was Jack Mercer as Popeye, singing the spinachk-eating sailor’s theme song. You can hear him below at around the 49:55 mark. The Brooklyn Times-Union reported at the time he had done the Popeye impression at an amateur night a month earlier at the RKO Albee



(As an aside, the next amateur is a harpist who plays the Friz Freleng favourite “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms.” No one explodes).

Mae Questel rates a mention as Betty Boop and Olive Oyl but the singer who portrayed Bluto is left out of the story. Gus Wicke was part of a long-time “Gay 90s” revue at a New York restaurant. E.O. Costello put together a fine, annotated biography at the Cartoon Research site.

Substitute the word “newspaper” for “screen” in the third paragraph.

WHO IS THE VOICE OF POPEYE?
HOW CARTOONS ARE MADE
For many years the animated cartoon has been a highlight during most programmes, and has introduced many figures that have left favourable impressions in everyone’s mind, the most important of these being “Popeye,” “Betty Boop,” “Felix the Cat" and “Mickey Mouse.”
To-day we have “Popeye” the spinach eating sailorman, a name that is widely known throughout the world, not only as a movie cartoon, but also as a newspaper comic strip. “Popeye” made his debut in screen cartoons in the year 1929 [sic] in “Thimble Theatre,” starting as a supporting character. Gradually he gained popularity, eventually becoming the star of what is known to-day as the greatest cartoon figure.
Included among the many artists are three people whose voices have made you laugh very heartily, and yet their names and features are absolutely unknown. That deep-chested voice, which bellows forth continual challenges to Bluto, Popeye’s most dangerous opposition for Olive Oyl's heart, is furnished by Jack Mercer, while Mae Questel puts all the “thrill appeal” into her pleas when Olive Oyl is the cause of some argument between these two tough men.
Olive Oyl was one of the original characters created by Segar in 1919, and it was not until many years later that she saw the light of the screen in the talking pictures. Mae Questel, who is partly responsible for the success of this beauty (if we may say that) is also talented in such a way that she puts over the voice for another character, “Betty Boop.” It was thought for quite a long period that the voice of “Betty” was that of an old screen favourite, Helen Kane, and owing to this public opinion, Miss Kane tried to sue Miss Questel, but her efforts proved futile, so Miss Questel still carries on with both jobs.
Again in 1929 Mr. E. C. Segar introduced another personality known as “Wimpy,” and the vocal substitute is Frank Matalone.
The making of these cartoons does not, as most people think, incorporate about a dozen people; on the contrary, it necessitates a regiment of workers, each one skilled at his particular job, working in close contact with the others. Altogether this one reel cartoon passes through the hands of 15 different departments, which, all told, amounts to 200 persons.
The first to deal with “Popeye” is the scenario department. Writing themes for cartoon characters presents quite a different problem from that of the human actor. They must concentrate on themes that are farcical and yet humorous. From this department the finished scenario is sent to the animators.
The boys (and girls, too) who do the original drawings, are the highest paid employees in this type of work. It is on the efforts of these people that the success of the whole cartoon is placed. The expressions, the actions of each measured foot, is entirely their responsibility, and each position requires not only one drawing, but perhaps a dozen, to give the full natural appearance of life.
As mentioned previously, many drawings must be made before a cartoon can become really animated. The average one-reel cartoon takes 15,000 separate drawings. If a scene requires 12 sketches to give complete naturalness, the head animator may draw, say, 1, 5, 10 and 12, and the “inbetweener” as they are called, will fill in the missing drawings.
But the pencil work does not finish at the 15,000 drawings. After close scrutiny of the original drawings, to see that each one will give perfect action and not jump from one movement to another, the tracing depart-partment [sic] comes into the picture. Each drawing and movement made has to be traced on to black celluloid. This is a long tedoius [sic] business, which must be done so that the backgrounds, which are just as important as the characters, will be visible when the photographer places them in front of the highly sensitive lens.
That covers the drawings which amount to 30,000—15,000 original sketches and the same number of tracings.
We now leave the departments that are responsible for the foundation of the cartoon, and visit the colouring and inking copyists. It is the job of this classroom of copyists to fill in “Popeye’s” body with colour, taking particular care about the shading, and making certain, too, that all colours correspond with these of his fellow workers. Some colours have more than seven definite variations in shade.
Up to the present, the concentration has been entirely pointed to the making of flat-surfaced black and white cartoons, but with the advance of motion picture science, Max Fleischer and Paramount have experimented for two years in the creation of third dimension (stereoscopic) and have at last finally succeeded to get it into workable state.
The main difference between the flat and the stereoscopic is found in the backgrounds and settings, as the characters have the same process as told above. In the ordinary cartoon, the backgrounds are drawn and then photographed, but with the new process it has to be built in correct proportion and full perspectiveness. This means all sides are erected, not merely as motion picture sets, but just the portion that is visible to the camera.
These sets are then placed on a turntable, and as the action travels from one scene to another, the turntable revolves so as to keep “Popeye” and his confederaes [sic] in a continual line with the lens of the camera. The camera never moves.
And now that you are thoroughly conversant with the making of a “Popeye” cartoon, it should be easier for you to appreciate that it is not just eight or nine minutes of entertainment, but a highly skilled piece of work.

Mercer finally got screen credit for Popeye when Hanna-Barbera licensed the comic strip characters from King Features in 1978 (another one of Paramount’s cartoon writers, Larz Bourne, was story editor of the series). He told the Associated Press’ Tom Jory in 1979 that Hanna-Barbera made him audition for the series. His wife was astounded. “What?” she asked, “He has to audition for his own voice.”

Jackson Beck, the post-Fleischer voice of Bluto (and Brutus in the 1960s TV cartoons) claimed in a 1990 story in Newsday that Mercer “was the cleverest voice man I ever knew. He could do more than Mel Blanc. He played animals. He did motors. He was a little wimpy guy who never had the guts to ask for the money he deserved.”

Matalone didn’t pursue show business, other than being part of a touring company made up of some of Fred Allen’s contest winners; another person on the tour for a while was a musician by the name of Vic Mizzy. The Miami News of March 11, 1936, the day Matalone was supposed to appear on Allen’s show, called him a “Baltimore art student and chauffeur.” This is more than likely the Frank Matalone who worked 54 years as a chauffeur for the village of Hempstead, New York, and was a member of the village volunteer fire department for 41 years. He died July 19, 1976 at the age of 78. He was born in Italy on December 23, 1897. There was no mention of Fred Allen or cartoons in his newspaper obituary.