Of Sloops, Dolphins and Mauve

A pleasant half hour could be spent on a weekday afternoon in the 1960s watching four people in show business uncover liars.

We’re speaking of To Tell the Truth.

The panel evolved until it featured my favourite version—Tom Poston, Peggy Cass, Orson Bean and Kitty Carlisle. Like all good panel shows, the four had a chemistry but were all a little different from each other.

This is where I know Poston the best. The newspapers of the day reported CBS wanted a comedian on the panel, so Poston auditioned as a fill-in on January 20, 1959 and soon was given a regular job (Bye, bye, Hy Gardner!). More people today probably think of him working on a Bob Newhart sitcom. His fame came well before that, as one of the man-on-the-street interviewees on Steve Allen’s Sunday night variety show on CBS from 1957 into 1959.

Of course, fame is never instant, and it’s interesting seeing what people did along their path to bigger things. In 1946, he and his brother Dick were featured in the Del-York Players’ production of the Corliss Archer comedy “Kiss and Tell” at the Rehoboth Beach resort’s Straw Hat Theatre. “Tom is plenty funny and droll,” decided the critic for the Salisbury, Maryland Times on Aug. 8.

Three years later, he appeared with the famous Kenley Players in summer stock in “Petticoat Fever,” starring the famous Sonny Tufts. The theatre page Mahanoy City Record-American of Sept. 21, 1949 contained this verdict: “we have found his performance outstanding. He just doesn’t seem to know how to ‘do’ a bad job. This week, as a British nobleman, he deserves every complimentary adjective that can be paid an actor for a stellar performance.” (Poston told Associated Press entertainment reporter Cynthia Lowry in 1964 that “it was great experience but financially disastrous.” He and Dick had formed the stock company in Delaware).

It was on to the New York stage for Poston. And television. Sid Shalit, in the Daily News of March 11, 1955, wrote: “Tom Poston, the much-heralded young satirist, is beginning to liven up WABC-TV’s daily two and a half-hour ‘Entertainment’ stanza. He is highly personable and quick-witted with a professional aplomb far beyond his young years.” At the start of that year, he had been appearing in a satire on stage at the Plymouth Theatre on West 45th. Columnist Earl Wilson gave him a spotlight in this feature column of Feb. 17, 1955:

Actor Tom Poston Has Lots Of 'Homes' In Ohio
By EARL WILSON

NEW YORK—I’m almost willing to bet that young actor Tom Poston was kidding me with his explanation of why most of Ohio is his "home town.”
We were chatting backstage where he’s making big hit on Broadway with his drunk scene in “The Grand Prize,” starring June Lockhart. Critics praised Poston for his "shrewd characterization of an inhibited young man liberated by drink."
“Whereabouts are you from?” I asked innocently.
"Well," Tom said, leaning back in an armchair, "I'm from Steubenville, Massillon, Canton, Williamsport, Mount Gilead, Toledo, Marion, Cleveland, Columbus, Akron and Upper Sandusky.
"BUT I WAS born on a sloop off the coast of North Carolina. Birth certificate's registered in Charlotte.
“The reason we moved around so much,” he went on with a smile, "was that Dad always liked to keep one step ahead of the sheriff. He was busy in those days making 90-proof beverages without the bother of labels and stuff."
"You mean he was a moonshiner?"
"Please,” Tom held up a hand in apparent shock, "Dad calls himself a chemist.
“That explains why I happened to be born aboard a sailing sloop."
AND, OF COURSE, you could only expect, in the light of his background and the part he's now playing, that Tom claims he hasn't a had a drink in three years.
“My first Broadway show,” he said, "was Jose Ferrer’s ‘Cyrano de Bergerac.’
Then I was in his production of ‘The Insect Comedy.” I followed that up with ‘King Lear,’ starring Louis Calhern."
Poston also did a few productions in the Children's World Theater. "I was a wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, he said, and a more pooped wolf you never saw. Besides having more lines than Hamlet, that wolf had to dance, sing and tumble, shouting all the lines through a heavy mask. At the end of the second act, I just lay down on the stage.
“In that part I near to died!”
"By the way,” I said, hoping to pin him down to a specific Buckeye town, "got any relatives in Ohio?"
Nope," he replied, "most of them are in Kentucky.”

He gave some interviews during the time on To Tell the Truth. We’ve mentioned the one with Lowry. He once told the Miami Herald how he slept in and Johnny Olson was forced to pad his warm-up to make up time until he got to the studio. There’s an interesting one from Rick DuBrow of UPI (click on story on the right) about the time the two appeared together in a show at Northwestern University and “helped” Poston’s career. Well, it actually wasn’t an interview as Poston didn’t say anything.

That’s kind of like this syndicated half-pager from January 20, 1967. Poston never did talk about the game show. Instead, he showed the quirky, and I suspect deliberately mischievous, side of his sense of humour.

In Search of the 'Real' Tom Poston
By LEE VINSON
NEW YORK—Of the four knowing panelists on CBS-TV's To Tell the Truth, Tom Poston has the highest rating when it comes to identifying the genuine character and shunting aside the bogus "expert." His batting average, in tabbing the genuine article, is 75 per cent.
And so, just as Lewis Carroll once ventured on the trail of the snark, I set off in quest of Poston.
"Sure," he said on the phone. "Drop by the stage door right after the show and we'll talk it up."
WE MET AN hour later. In sports jacket and faded slacks, he had the casual air of a man just back from raking leaves. His blue eyes met the world straight on. His stance was one of leniency toward his peers.
"How about lunch someplace?" I asked. "No better place than the Stage Delicatessen," he said.
"Kind of noisy for conversation," I ventured.
"But quiet enough for Hungarian goulash," he replied.
En route to the delicatessen, I asked him how one man in one lifetime had stored up so many irrelevant facts.
"YEAH, LET'S talk about that," he said. "But first, we'll stop in here for a minute."
We entered another CBS-TV theater where Garry Moore was rehearsing his show. Everybody smiled at our companion.
"Hey, Tom,” someone called. It was Morey Amsterdam with Rose Marie. "Tom," Amsterdam said, "you know everything. Do Dolphins really . . . ?”
"Dolphins are okay," Poston assured him. "But are you aware that Lake Nicaragua in Central America is the only fresh water lake in the world which has man eating sharks in it?"
"No kidding,” said Rose Marie, aghast.
AMSTERDAM said, "But do Dolphins—?"
"See you," Poston told them, and waved at everyone as we left.
By the time we got to the corner, a production assistant from To Tell The Truth was trying to hail a cab.
"How'd you know about the sharks in Nicaragua?" I asked.
"Let's help her grab a cab," Poston said. So Poston went into the street and did all the waving to flag the cab, ushered the lady into it and saw her on her way.
We made it almost another block when Poston stopped to observe a building whose side was newly exposed because another structure had been torn away.
"LOOK AT that faded sign," he said, pointing. "An ad for liver pills. There's a date. 1912."
We studied the side of the building carefully, with minds full of wonder about liver pills and all the events of 1912. Eight people joined us, staring at the sign, and maybe they, too, were thinking about 1912. But, after all, in New York, people will stare at anything. As we walked away, they stared at us.
"Nice bunch of people," Poston said.
"They seemed to get along fine," I agreed. I was thinking of a conversational gambit to plumb the depths of Poston's knowledge when he pulled a manuscript from his jacket pocket. "Interesting why O'Neill is spelled that way," he said.
"GOING TO do a play?"
"No, not this one anyway. It isn't O'Neill, or anything worth a hang. I'd like to find a good one."
"Tough, huh?"
He waved at an elderly couple who were waving at him. "You know most of the stuff written today isn't very funny. Nor very stimulating. I read all the time, but I haven't found anything. You're a writer, aren't you?" "Well, yes, but now let's talk about you. Why do you have the best batting average on the series?"
"OH, THOSE things happen. Ever see such a day like today?"
Now we were at the delicatessen. We were offered a table in the corner, but he chose a small table flanked on either side by people and slurping sounds. He ordered a roast beef sandwich and urged me to have the goulash. "I guess you've picked up all that knowledge from events in your life. You were a bomber pilot, weren't you?"
"Were you in the service?" he asked. "Say, where are you from?"
"Texas originally. I read you were born in Kentucky.”
"OHIO," HE said, and autographed the menu for a man seated at the next table. "That's funny," I said. "I read a bio of you and it said Kentucky."
"Well, I was almost born in Kentucky," he explained. "My mother was on a train, and the train got to Ohio in time.”
I didn't say it, but I had also read that he was born on a river boat in Missouri.
"Were you born on anything?" he asked.
"On anything?"
"WELL, A SHIP or something."
"No. I was born in a bed. Just a regular bed."
"Just a bed," he mused. "Well, we better get out of here so they can have the table."
On the street, I said, being born on the train . . .”
"I'll never take over anyone else's role again," he told me.
"Terrible. Terrible. The other actors who have been in the play all along get locked into hearing a line said a certain way. The guy who created the part might have been saying it all wrong, but the rest of the cast is used to it. When you say the line your way, they feel you're some kind of nut.”

"IS THERE any script you think you might do? I need something like that for my story.”
He turned into a building doorway, and we went up in the elevator and into an office. He introduced me to the secretary, and dropped off the play script.
"Tom," I said, when we were on the street again. I felt I now had the right to call him Tom.
He sensed that I was going to say more than his name. He knew there was going to be a return to the question, to what now would be known as The Tom Poston Question.
AND SO HE bobbed into another doorway. We took another elevator. We entered another office. We said hello to another secretary, and Tom pointed to the paintings on the wall. "There's a fine one," he said, "but look at the border. Mauve."
It was his agent's office. His agent was out.
"There's never been a real mauve period for paintings," Tom said. "The yellows, yes. And the reds and blues. But mauve, no."
"You're a student of the fine arts?" I asked.
And he wheeled and took us back to the street. There he met Martin Balsam, an old pal of his. "This man is a writer," Tom said to Balsam.
"Send me something," Balsam said. "I read everything."
"SWELL," I told him. "I've got to get back. See you fellows another time."
From a block away, I looked back. Poston was standing talking to four people, and I wondered about what. Not about Poston, for sure. Not about all the time he's spent on the stage in roles he himself created. Not about the bomber he piloted in World War II.
Not about the old Steve Allen show that made him famous. Or his training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Or the movie. Or the University of Virginia. Or his degree in chemistry.
TO TELL the truth, there was no telling what he might be talking about. But the four people were pleased to be with him. Just as I had been. It's good to see a man like him around.
If we don't bump into him again soon, we'll see him on television anyway. And we'll probably never know how he comes by all the stuff he knows. But do we have to?
Does it really matter if the real Tom Poston never decides to stand up?

I always liked Tom Poston. He struck me as a pleasant man who could be funny instead of a man trying to funny. And quirky is good, too.

Flipping Betty

The Fleischer studio did what it could to freshen the Betty Boop series.

In a 1938 cartoon, we get an old Fleischer concept in the title—Out of the Inkwell. Actually, Betty doesn’t come out of the inkwell. She goes into it at the end.

The short also has live action and stop motion. A janitor in Max’s office reads a conveniently-place book on hypnosis and puts Betty on a background drawing in his spell.



He causes her to flip around. There are nine drawings on a cycle.



The drawling, lazy janitor is pure Stepin Fetchit.

Tom Johnson and Otto Feuer are the credited animators.

The Rule of Three

Tex Avery sets up a scene in Ventriloquist Cat with two false starts, and then the gag.

The premise of the short is the generic Avery cat throws his voice to lure and cause harm to Spike (because, at the beginning of the cartoon, he tells us he hates dogs, as a matter of principle, I guess).

In this scene, the cat throws his voice to two store mannequins, and then a cop outside the store. Spike hears the noise, and rips off the clothes of each to find the cat.



See how Avery uses poses and expressions. Spike stops, looks and reacts as he realises his mistake. Tex could be a master of poses just as much as Chuck Jones.



My guess is the scene is by Mike Lah, judging by the angles on the characters and the conjoined eyes (which he drew in his cartoons for Hanna-Barbera). Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons also animated this 1950 release, with the story credit to Rich Hogan.

They Can't Stand Him Because...

It started out as a parody and turned out to be a gold-mine of publicity.

By 1945, radio was full of “I like name-of-product because” contests where listeners wrote, in 25 words or less, why they were so excited about something they bought at the store. It was a cliché.

Jack Benny and his writers decided to turn it around.

Jeanne Yount of the Oregon Daily Journal of Dec. 30, 1945 put it well:

Jack the Reaper
Jack Benny made one of the best buys in the business when he offered $10,000 in prizes in the recently concluded can't stand Jack Benny because" contest. In return for a sum not very large in comparison to the program's weekly package price of $25,000 he received countless free plugs on other shows, additional listeners according to Hooper's audience ratings and material for several weeks' scripts. According to Variety, the contest idea was submitted by Jack's writers in half-earnest fashion and it was the comedian himself who saw its possibilities.

Writer George Balzer gave credit to Benny for coming up with the phrase “can’t stand.”

We visited the contest in this blog post some years back. Let’s re-visit it again.

Ed Sullivan was a long-time Benny fan. He opened his column in the Daily News on December 12 with:

Lucille Ball’s entry in the “I can’t stand Jack Benny: sweepstakes gave Jack his biggest chuckle: “I can’t stand Jack benny because he beat me out in the femme role in ‘Charlie’s Aunt’ four years ago proving he’s so money-mad he’d even play a woman’s part in order to make a few cents.”

Three days earlier, Ben Gross of the same paper reported more than 30,000 entries had been received.

Newspapers, of course, mentioned the Benny show in its radio highlights column, some with mentions of the plot along with the contest. Some also put squibs about the contest in their radio column. I imagine some were provided by the network. The Burley Bulletin of Burley, Idaho provided a quote in its issue of Dec. 18. It didn’t come from an actual broadcast, that I can find.

“The boss doesn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted by all this mail,” say[s] Rochester. “I keep telling him and telling him that even though the letters say they can’t stand him it doesn’t necessarily represent their true opinions. After all, some people will do anything for money.”

While the column jokes about it, Don Trantor in the Buffalo Courier-Express of Dec. 9 had this to say:

Although Jack Benny’s new contest, wherein he offers $10,000 in Victory Bonds for the wittiest completions of the sentence, "I can't stand Jack Benny because—,” is strictly on the level and all in a spirit of fun, we’ll wager there’ll be many a note received from irate listeners telling the comedian what they actually dislike about him or his program.
We say this not of Benny as an individual, but of all radio comedians who have been on the air for a long time and reach millions of ears each week. They’re bound to displease a certain percentage of the audience and cranks thereof always jump on an opportunity like the above to vent their feelings.

Irving Fein wrote in his biography of Jack that only three anti-Semitic letters were received. Fein also noted:

One answer that judge Fred Allen did a doubletake on was: “I can’t stand Jack Benny because he helped build up Fred Allen, and him I can’t stand.”

The venerable Newsweek magazine had a little story about the contest in its Dec. 24 issue.

“I can’t stand Jack Benny because my uncle likes him and I can’t stand my uncle.”
“I can’t stand Jack Benny because with those who know Jack Benny best it’s Fred Allen two to one.”
These are samples of the 300,000-odd letters, wires, and records that have deluged the Los Angeles postoffice since Dec. 2. The reason: the latest contest in what is rapidly becoming, again, a contest-mad nation. The rules are simple an inviting as plugged on Benny’s Sunday night show (NBC, 7-7:30 p.m., EST). In 50 words or less—the usual 25-word limit was discarded as too restricting—complete the sentence: “I can’t stand Jack Benny because . . .” The prizes total $10,000 in Victory Bonds, with the funniest entry squeezing bonds worth $2,500 out of Benny—or more accurately, out of his sponsor, the American Tobacco Co.
The contest was born in the buzzing brains of Benny’s gag writers, on the hunt for giggles. But even they were surprised when Benny took such wholesale self-derision seriously and screamed: “This is sensational, let’s do it.” Proof of Benny's perspicacity is the heaviest contest mail in the history of Los Angeles, the hurried plans of other sponsors for a return to the Why-I-Like days, and a round robin of plugs for Benny from a multitude of other entertainers.
The youngest contestant so far is aged 4, the oldest 103. But: only a handful of letter writers have been seriously nasty and vitriolic.
Out of Pocket: The contest, which runs through Dec. 24, has three carefully qualified judges: Goodman Ace, for his knowledge of humor, Peter Lorre, for his mastery in handling weird jokes, and Fred Allen, for obvious reasons. Judge Allen confided to Newsweek: I am the greatest living authority on Jack Benny. I have seen him reach for his pocketbook. No other living American can make that statement. I have known Jack Benny, man and boy, for 80 years. He was born a man and matured into a boy.”
Asked what he would say, could he enter, Allen cracked: “I can’t stand Jack Benny because with his legs that look like two nasturtium stems he can hardly stand himself, and if Mr. Benny can’t stand himself, why should I try?” As for Benny, he is glowing under the abuse. The only jar to his happiness: It is costing him about $4 a day, to make up due postage.

Other people took advantage of the contest for their own publicity. To the right, you see trade unionists upset at Benny’s sponsor, American Tobacco, picketing outside NBC at Sunset and Vine.

One place the Jack Benny character nostalgically assured his audience they loved him was St. Joe. It’s not surprising, then, the St. Joseph Gazette put the contest on the front page. This is from Dec. 31.

The imaginary statue of Jack Benny that stood in the Civic Center since last summer has disappeared—all but the ears.
When the time comes for the spirit of Jack Benny to leave this weary world that he tried so hard to amuse, the man should leave something to the city treasury for all the gags he has been able to extract from two short visits to St. Joseph. It is reported that the radio comedian pays gag writers big money for ideas.
Last night the city was publicized nationally again in connection with the convulsing feature of the Benny program of the last several weeks in which he offered to divide a sizeable chunk of his wealth with those persons who would write him a letter and finish a sentence beginning: “I can't stand Jack Benny because—”
Jack and his wife, Mary Livingston, were knee deep in letters during last night broadcast and Miss Livingston remarked casually that “there are 48,000 letters from St. Joe."
“That can’t be!” protested Jack. “They love me there. They put up a granite statue to me last summer."
“Well, they're sending it to you in pieces," Mary remarked, "a piece in each letter. Listen to what this letter says: “We are sending back all of Mr. Benny's statue except the ears—we're saving them for bird baths."

We’ll leave the final word on the subject to Carroll P. Craig, Sr., the winner of the contest. Ronald Colman read the entry on the Benny show of February 3, 1946. “You know, Benita,” Colman remarked, “maybe this fellow is right. The things we find fault with in others are the same things we tolerate in ourselves.”

I can't stand Jack Benny because
He fills the air with boasts and brags
And obsolete, obnoxious gags.
The way he plays his violin
Is music's most obnoxious sin.
His cowardice alone, indeed
Is matched by his obnoxious greed.
And all the things that he portrays
Show up my own obnoxious ways.

A Friendly Ghost? Shay It Isn't so!

Remember that cartoon where Casper went up and said “hello” to someone who reacted with a take of terror and shouted “A g-g-g-GHOST!”?

Yeah, it didn’t happen often, did it?

To quote Leonard Maltin in Of Mice and Magic: “Casper was the most monotonous character to invade cartoonland since Mighty Mouse. It seemed as it every Casper cartoon followed the same story line, with only minor variations.”

However, Mr. Maltin also admits the animation on the Famous Studios cartoons was generally good and the backgrounds were often superior going into the early 1950s.

Here are some frames from a take in The Ghost of the Town (1952). You can see the anticipation, a head shake and then the extreme.



The animator keeps the take from being static by moving the eyes in every frame before they go back into the cabbie's head.

For the record, Jack Mercer’s taxi driver doesn’t say “A g-g-g-ghost!” He just says “A ghost!”

Izzy Klein is responsible for the story, and it is pretty well structured. Casper, for some reason, is in a ghost army, and kicked out by a tough-guy sergeant (Jackson Beck). Being dishonourably discharged, Casper goes to the city in search of friends, and is hailed as a hero for rescuing a baby from a burning apartment tower.

The cartoon cuts to a TV set where the news is reported by Walter Winchell, voiced by Sid Raymond.



Casper is invited to appear on (now, remember the name of this cartoon) Toast of the Town, which was the original name of The Ed Sullivan Show. Sullivan appears in some rotoscoped footage which is more stiff than the real Sullivan on camera.



Keith Scott, author of a book on cartoon voice actors, essential for any fan of old theatrical cartoons, says it actually is Sullivan doing the voice as a gag.

As for Casper, I thought Cecil Roy was the voice, but according to Graham Webb’s The Animated Film Encyclopedia, it belongs to a boy actor named Alan Shay. When he became Casper, I have no idea. Passaic News-Herald staff writer Arthur F. Lenehan met Shay at the birthday party for a child actress and reported on it on the Oct. 17, 1949 issue. Shay’s windy list doesn’t mention Casper.

“My name is Alan Shay,” said one little man with an expansive manner. “I’m Little Nick, who does those Nedick orange drink commercials you hear every day.”
“How do you do, Little Nick?” I said.
“I also have worked on the Helen Hayes Show, Calvalcade [sic] of America, and The Strange Romance of Evelyn Winters, among others. In television I’ve appeared on the Ford Theatre show, Celebrity Time, Martin Kane, Private Eye, to name a few. I’ve also done two movies and four Broadway shows. Spell my name right, will you?”

Actually, “Alan Shay” wasn’t his name. And he wasn’t the original voice of Little Nick. Dick Leone was, but because his voice changed, 11-year-old Shay replaced him in March 1949.

Shay spoke about Casper many years later, in an article in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel of May 23, 1995. He sounds a little more modest with age. If there is an earlier reference to Shay as Casper, I haven’t found it.

A LOCAL HAUNT
THE FRIENDLIEST GHOST YOU KNOW IS ONE OF US
By ROBERT NOLIN
Casper the Friendly Ghost is alive and well and living in Plantation.
As a stockbroker.
Sometimes he gets nostalgic for the old days, his old studio haunts, the crowds of autograph seekers. But time has diminished his fame. Now it's the granchildren who want to see the old cartoon videos, or co-workers who want to hear his signature song.
Alan Schreiber, the flesh-and-blood incarnation of 'toondom's blithe spirit, readily obliges. He strains to replicate the high, sweet notes of his ghostlier days.
"I'm Casper the Friendly Ghost, the friendliest ghost you know. I romp and play, sing and dance all day ... " Schreiber begins, then halts. "I don't remember the rest of it."
That's understandable. It was almost 50 years ago that Schreiber, then a professional child actor in New York, supplied the voice of the original Casper. In about a dozen cartoons he uttered such memorable lines as: "Hi, Mr. Frog, how are you?" or "I don't want to hurt you, I want to be your friend."
Now Casper, the specter of the past, has become cinema's spook du jour.
A high-tech, Steven Spielberg-produced film, Casper, opens on Friday across the nation. The would-be summer blockbuster recounts the origins of the roly-poly ghost and his adventures involving a little girl, hidden treasure and three grouchy ghouls: uncles Stinky, Stretch and Fatso.
The new movie reawakened memories for Schreiber that were previously just footnotes to a career in which he bore the stage name Alan Shay.
During the late '40s and early '50s, Casper cartoons based on the comic-book figure were screened before feature films, along with serials and newsreels. Schreiber, now 57, was already an accomplished child actor ("I was always cast as a crying orphan") when he answered an audition to play the baldheaded Casper. His high-timbred voice - sweet, pleasant, emotional - got him the job.
Acting since age 6, Schreiber had landed leading kid parts in four Broadway plays. The Casper role was just another gig. "All you had to do was be able to read," Schreiber said. "You'd walk into the studio, they'd hand you the script and you'd go to work."
Schreiber read only Casper's lines. Other characters' lines were read individually and edited in later. "I never really knew what the thing was about until I went to the movies," Schreiber said.
He took home a whopping $30 per cartoon. "But I never saw the money," Schreiber said. His mother, Lucille, used it to pay for his private school.
But to a 12-year-old, being noticed was better than money. "I think what I liked most was the recognition of the fans," Schreiber said.
Still, stickball and football on the streets of New York City's West Side were more appealing than possible stardom. "I never had that feeling that I was a big shot, I just felt good about what was happening to me," Schreiber said. "I didn't have a care in the world."
Then Schreiber's voice changed. At about 17, he decided to give up showbiz, go to college and get a "secure job."He followed in the footsteps of his father, Moe, and worked in finance. Now, though he's a vice president at the Smith Barney investment firm, traces of singing commercials from his days as a child actor still rattle around Schreiber's head. He can recite snatches of jingles for Cream of Wheat, Nedick's candy bars and Bosco chocolate drink.
"I get kind of nostalgic when I think about it sometimes," Schreiber said. "It was a fantastic time of my life."
Schreiber is eager to see the Casper film when it opens - he's still enough of a trouper to want to check out the competition. "I'd be curious to listen to the voice," he said.

It’s bad enough Shay never got a screen credit for his work as one of Famous’ Studio’s most popular characters, but $30 a session is scarier than any Casper cartoon. The kid was robbed.

Shay was born in Brooklyn on July 12, 1937; his father Moe Schreiber managed a food store. As best as we can tell, he’s still living in the Sun Belt.

Just to wrap up about this cartoon, Steve Muffatti and Morey Reden are the credited animators. Anton Loeb did a fine job with the backgrounds, especially the blue-ish nighttime ones.

Whoopee For Goopy?

Goopy Geer had the potential of being a big cartoon star.

Warner Bros. wanted musical cartoons made from songs it owned. One song was by Herman Hupfeld, copyrighted at the end of 1931, called “Goopy Geer: He Plays Piano and He Plays By Ear.” Here’s a song about an actual character. He was ripe for being turned into a cartoon character by the Harman-Ising studio (while pushing the song at the same time).

But Goopy doesn’t seem to have inspired the studio’s writers or director. In Goopy’s 1932 debut, there’s a scene of Goopy running around a piano. If that’s a gag, I don’t get it.

In fact, not only is Goopy not in entire sequences of his own cartoon, Hugh Harman and/or Rudy Ising didn’t even bother with all-new animation. Scenes were re-used of a gorilla waiter weaving around, a wide-mouth hippo and drunken horse from a cartoon made the previous year called Lady, Play Your Mandolin.

Goopy doesn’t even supply the main vocal for the cartoon. That’s done by a kitten in ill-fitting high heels singing “I Need Lovin’.”

Another scene has hat racks coming to life to dance. Here are the poses as they get into position. I like how the upper hat peg turns into a cigar.



The racks high-step in unison.



They tap a little bit.



And (are you chortling?) one kicks the other in the butt.



Keith Scott tells us Johnny Murray is Goopy. Friz Freleng and Ham Hamilton are the credited animators.

The other two cartoons starring Goopy don’t feature him playing a piano (by ear or otherwise). He’s a mountaineer in Moonlight For Two and a court jester in The Queen Was in the Parlor. All three Goopys were released in 1932 and were three of four consecutive Merrie Melodies. (The other cartoon, It’s Got Me Again, was nominated for an Oscar). Goopy made a cameo appearance in Bosko in Dutch (1933), then disappeared.

Well, actually, Goopy didn’t disappear altogether. In November 1932, a 15-minute show called “Goopy Geer” was heard on KMBC in Kansas City. I figured it must have featured someone playing the piano in character. After a little digging, I spotted this photo in the March 25, 1934 edition of the Kansas City Journal. The caption reads: “The man with the reclining tendencies is His Royal Laziness, Goopy Geer, whose nimble fingers and drawling voice are heard on KMBC each week day afternoon at 1:15 o’clock. Ted Malone, who announces Goopy’s program, is shown in his usual routine two seconds before program time. Goopy’s specialty is composing impromptu melodies out of four or five musical notes his listeners send in. Paul Sells, well known Kansas City pianist-accordionist-conductor, portrays the sleepy piano pounder.”

Goopy survived on KMBC into May 1936. By then, Harman and Ising had left for MGM, and the replacing studio had gone through some other lame starring characters until Tex Avery decided a little pig had possibilities and made him the solo star of The Blow Out.

Now, for your listening pleasure, a jaunty instrumental version of the song by Jimmy Grier’s orchestra.