Calvin, the Colonel, Amos and Andy

Amos and Andy finished their radio career on CBS on November 25, 1960. With a promise.

At the end of the programme, Freeman Gosden said: “For the past few months, we have been working on another idea which we hope to present to you in the not-too-distant future. It will be entirely different from anything we have done in the past.”

That cryptic announcement may have been explained in Fred Danzig’s TV column for United Press International on February 1, 1961: “Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, creators of the ‘Amos ‘n Andy’ voices, will create new voices for ‘Calvin and the Colonel,’ a new half-hour animal cartoon series that ABC-TV plans to present in the 1961-62 season. Producers are Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, creators of ‘Leave It To Beaver.’” They had also written the various Amos and Andy shows for the final 15 radio seasons.

Danzig’s counterpart at the Associated Press, Cynthia Lowry, noted in her column the following day that “Instead of playing the well-known human characters (who were not popular with organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Gosden and Correll will be the voices of a bear and a fox.”

What Lowry didn’t report is that Gosden and Correll simply couldn’t instantly concoct an Amos ‘n’ Andy cartoon series out of thin air if they had wanted to. They didn’t own the names to the characters and hadn’t for years. CBS did. The two would need to strike a deal with the network to revive them in animated form, irrespective of the NAACP. The Amos ‘n’ Andy TV series was still in syndication at the time, by the way.

1961 was the year of Great Prime Time Cartoon Experiment. The Flintstones were a hit on ABC after a September 1960 debut, so the networks were eager to have similar animated successes. It never happened. All the new shows were cancelled. Some went to Saturday mornings in reruns.

Calvin and the Colonel began with a lot of promise, and a bit of distancing from its origins. The story from the King Features Syndicate’s TV Key service appeared in newspapers around Sept. 2, 1961.

Amos and Andy Speak For "Calvin and the Colonel"
By HAROLD STERN
HOLLYWOOD—Back in the good old days, when radio was king, the world came to a grinding halt every Monday through Friday at 7:00 p.m. It was Amos and Andy time, and that was enough for most people.
This season, in an era which has seen the collapse of monarchy, when television is king, there's a wild possibility that history might repeat, this time at 8:30 p.m., EST on Tuesday night (Premieres Oct. 3) on the ABC-TV network. The occasion will be a new animated series called "Calvin And The Colonel.”
THE REASON THERE is even the slightest hope that "Calvin And The Colonel" might have the same impact on America that Amos and Andy once owned is that Freedom Gosden and Charles Correll, the voices of Amos and Andy, will also be the voices of Calvin and the Colonel. And Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, who wrote 12 years worth of Amos and Andy scripts, are producing and writing the series.
"The characters of Calvin and the Colonel are southern characters, but they're not Amos and Charles Correll told me. "There are no malapropisms, no mispronunciations, no Negro dialects.
"We created the characters," said Freeman Gosden. "'We used to kid around telling each other 'Colonel' stories in order to keep from getting to work, Then we realized we might have something here. We'd been talking about animation for a long time and we decided we'd do it with animals.
"The Colonel is a fox," said Correll. "Calvin is a bear, a bit bumbling fellow. In preparing for the series, we learned that the bear is the most popular of all the animals. In the show the bear has a favorite expression which he uses whenever he passes a pretty girl. It's ‘Howdy-do.’ We have a toy coming out for this Christmas, which is a replica of Calvin the bear. He takes off his hat and says ‘Howdy-do.’ We expect it will catch on.
UNLIKE THE "Amos and Andy" show, Gosden and Correll will not be doing all the voices for this TV series. Gosden plays the Colonel, Correll plays the bear and various other actors play the other roles.
For example, both Calvin and the Colonel have wives, and the Colonel's wife has a sister. So, she's being played by Beatrice Kay. Paul Frees is the voice of an attorney called Oliver Wendell Clutch.
"Our show is not directed at children,” said Gosden with conviction. "We hope the children will be attracted by the animation, but the show is being aimed strictly at adults. And with an 8:30 time slot, it's on the prime adult evening time on ABC. Do you know that we had a suggestion to eliminate the animation and use puppets. That would have been terrible. You can't believe puppets, but you can believe animation."
"We had thoughts of doing 'Amos and Andy' in animation," said Correll, "but that's as far as it went. I think 'Amos and Andy' has had its day. We put in about 37 years at it in radio, television and we even did one motion picture as the Amos and Andy characters. It was called 'Check and Double' [sic] and we'd be just as happy if you said no more about it."
"Did you know we recorded 24 sides for Victor as singers?" asked Gosden.
"That was way back,” said Correll. "We were known as staff artists at the time. We were going great guns as singers until the rhythm boys came along [the Rhythm Boys included Bing Crosby].
ACTUALLY, THEY didn't do that well as recorded singers, but they still chuckle over their "hit" record, a tune they don't even remember. After stumbling around with records for a while, suddenly one of their records took off and as Gosden and Correll went around from record store to record store asking for it and gleefully finding it was sold out they felt: "Finally, public recognition!”
The day of reckoning came when someone pointed out to them that their song was on the back of a Gene Austin number and Austin was the hottest recording artist of his day.
That may be true of records, but as for "Calvin and The Colonel," the only backing it can use is that of the public.
"I have a sneaking hunch that 'Calvin and The Colonel' will work out," said Gosden. "Connelly and Mosher are good writers and their scripts for the series are just great. They are primarily very funny men. They can produce all the other shows they want to, but writing good comedy scripts is what they do best."

Unfortunately for Gosden and Correll, it didn’t work out. It wasn’t for a lack of trying. The programme became the first casualty of the TV season. It was taken off the air on Tuesday, Nov. 14, 1961, re-worked, and then returned in two months. But suddenly, it’s no longer an adult show. Or is it? Holy mack’rel, Andy!

This syndicated story from January 6th goes into the production of the series.

Calvin and the Colonel’ Back from Repairs
By ISOBEL ASHE
It’s a weary cliché out Hollywood way that no one ever set out to make a bad movie. These days of television, it’s also become truism that all TV shows are intended to be great, garner high ratings, stay on the air a minimum of three years, and earn their creators retirement-type fortunes.
It was therefore a bit of a shock when the much-heralded Calvin and the Colonel, starring the perennials of Amos and Andy, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, was cancelled after a short run.
Devotees of the bear and the fox can take heart, however. The show is returning, in a switch unparalleled in TV’s short history. On Saturday night, Jan. 27, at 7:30 p.m., Calvin and the Colonel will resume on the ABC television network.
"We wouldn't knock Perry Mason." says a spokesman for the show. "That would be like something bad about Mom's blueberry pie, because Mason has become an institution. But being opposite that show isn't all that horrendous. There are an awful lot of children who don’t understand legalistics or don't want to. And they're the audience toward which we are aiming."
It was never intended for Calvin and the Colonel to be a kiddies' show, and even though changes will be made in the new version returning to the air, Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, the producers, feel they've got something to attract all age-groups, other than frustrated lawyers, of course.
The mechanics of producing Calvin and the Colonel are unique ones. Only in a cartoon show are the actors allowed the latitude given Gosden and Correll, Paul Frees who plays Oliver Clutch, Beatrice Kay as Sister Sue and Virginia Gregg, who is Maggie Belle.
As in all shows of this type, the story board is The Word. A board is exactly like the story comics in the daily papers. It has illustrations with the words in the words in each segment.
From the story board, the script is written exactly as a live television script, with the dialogue on one side of the page, and description of the action opposite it. And perhaps the session of the live actors' weekly recording voices is the most interesting aspect of the series' production.
Explains recording executive Clif (for Clifton) Howell, "'We get together at 7 on a given evening at Radio Recorders Studios in Hollywood. Freeman and Charlie are always there first, along with the engineers and me. They're both sticklers for punctuality and if one should arrive late—well, they don’t like it.
"The reason we record at night is that many of the actors we use work during the day on other TV shows or in movies.
"Just last week, Virginia Gregg came right from a Wagon Train show she'd done, complete in Old West costume and makeup. Quite a contrast to Beatrice Kay in her black chiffon basic sheath, high heels—she's not even five very feet tall, you know—and Virginia at 5'8" or thereabouts and that costume—well, quite a contrast, as I said," Howell laughed.
The recording session commences with a table reading, with all the cast members, seated around a long table, and Howell directing. "Actually," he continued, "very little direction is required. These people are all pros, and they can pick up a script with a dry reading—no advance preparation—and make it sound as if they'd worked on it for days. They've all had plenty of radio experience, and that's what we need on the show."
In addition to the cast regulars, Gloria Blondell plays the manicurist, June Foray, described as the girl with a thousand voices, does several of the Calvins, as do Lurene Tuttle and Hans Conreid.
According to Screen Actors Guild pertaining to actors working on cartoon shows, they are permitted to “triple”—do three voices on one show.
"And that's why we like to use people like June Foray for example, who has so many voices and so much versatility. She's really incredible.
"Paul Frees, for example, is another one. He looks like a wealthy beatnik since he shaved off his handlebar mustache. He's got that florid complexion and wears Texas-type boots with a wild shirt and scarf. The coat never matches the pants—they're usually dark Ivy League and the coat’s an olive-yellowish corduroy.
"But the voices he does! He's told me he's done as many as five and six in one commercial, and I'm sure if you were familiar with all his voices, you'd hear him dozens of times in one evening watching television or listening to radio," Howell marvels.
Each script runs approximately 25 minutes, and the first table reading takes roughly 35 minutes, allowing for interruptions from Howell or the actors themselves who may not be satisfied with the first interpretation. They stop for a coffee break of 5 or 10 minutes, and then the actual recording session commences.
Gosden and Correll share one microphone, just as they did in the days of radio. Beatrice Kay stands at one mike with Virginia Gregg behind her. Explains Howell: "Beatrice talks up into the mike, and Virginia talks down. It works very well. The other actors come on mike when required and get back, again exactly as in radio. They're all so experienced in the technique, it presents no problem. And then we take it from the top.
"There's no pressure. If an actor fluffs, or we want a different intonation on a line, we get it. And we mark on the tape where the change was made, so immediately after the recording session, the editing is done and we've got a clean and perfect tape.
"We don't record sound effects at this session—that’s done later—and we don't record music.
"We use all original music with 11 to 14 musicians under the direction of George Bruns who is our composer too. He did cartoon music for Disney for years, and now is associated with us in the same capacity."
After Bruns sees the show, he works on his ideas with animation producer Bob Ganon of Creston Studios, and he decides what type of music the action requires—if there will be tuba bass notes, whistles, glissandoes, rhythm shuffling, or music for a chase.
Bruns points out, "Often music will give an effect that you can't get with dialogue and that's the most important part of my job, to create the effect we want."
There is little clowning around during the recording session. Some of the actors are tired from a day's work on other shows, and all of them want to get home.
Says Howell, "Freeman will tell a joke now and then, or an anecdote about his last golf game. He spends a lot of time in Palm Springs with former President Eisenhower, and he might tell us of something that happened the last time he saw him. Or comment on what the stock market did that day.
“Charlie’s son, Richard, works on Leave It to Beaver, and he's with him most of the time on that set. So he'll tell us what happened there. But for the most part, we're all here to do a job, and we do it.
“We rent the studio from 7 to 10 but I can't recall a single instance when we've worked until 10. The recording takes about 35 minutes, and we fix up the mistakes, stop for another cup of coffee, and that's it."
All told, Howell estimates some 35 people are directly involved in each segment of Calvin and the Colonel and he's highly enthusiastic about changes in the upcoming shows. The characters will remain the same, of course, but they will look slightly different. The mouth movements will be different. The bear will have a more lumbering walk. The two women will be prettier, and there will be new openings and closings.
"To sum up, you could say we'll have more slapstick for the kids and more action for the grownups. I like the new approach and I think the people will too," he says confidently.

No, Mr. Howell, they didn’t. Variety reported on April 4, 1962 Calvin and the Colonel had been cancelled in late March. It didn’t get the Saturday morning rerun treatment by the networks; instead MCA-TV put the 26 episodes in the syndication market in 1964. There don’t appear to have been a lot of nibbles outside of stations in Los Angeles, Boston and Philadelphia.

For kids, the problem with the show was none of the characters were likeable like Yogi Bear, Bugs Bunny or even blowhard Fred Flintstone. Kids didn’t root for them like they did when Mighty Mouse vanquished evil cats. Calvin and the Colonel were a schemer and his slow-on-the-uptake friend. In other words, they were Amos and Andy. Even without the dialect, their voices were pretty much the same. News articles about the cartoon series continued to refer to the old radio show, not surprising because that’s all Gosden and Correll were known for. One paper in Wisconsin even had a drawing of the two in costume and blackface, like it was still 1928.

However good Gosden and Correll’s intentions were, by 1962 America pretty much had enough of that. Even if it was hidden in animal-face instead.