The Articulate Hansel

Hans Conried always had a sense of high-brow theatricality about him. But he never came across as snooty or superior. I suspect he cultivated it because he thought it was amusing.

Conried was always amusing in everything he did, at least when it came to comedy. He was an accomplished dramatic actor, too, appearing on shows including Lux Radio Theatre, The Cavalcade of America and Suspense. He recalls he turned more to comedy after the war, through he did a number of shows with Burns and Allen starting in 1943. This allowed him to put his talent for outrageous accents to use.

Television, as Conried and others noted, was limiting as you had to look like what you were playing. Still, Conried found a career there, too—acting, appearing on Pantomime Quiz and other game shows, and a late-night merchant of observations with friend Jack Paar. And, yes, because someone will say I “forgot,” there were cartoons and Fractured Flickers for Jay Ward (for a full list, consult the internet).

Here is Hans on his career to the North American Newspaper Alliance, in a column that appeared in February 1961.

The Many Sides of Hans Conried
By HAROLD HEFFERNAN
North American Newspaper Alliance
HOLLYWOOD, Feb. 4—Movie, radio and TV actor Hans Conried for many years was just a voice—doing as many as six network radio shows a day, playing Italians, Germans, Greeks, Brooklynites and Injuns. In one program he did 18 different characters in 25 minutes.
"You could get away with it then," laughs the Baltimore-born son of Viennese parents. "No makeup, no wardrobe—just a change of voice."
HANS BECAME a face—playing Nazi sub commanders, a Lebanese matchmaker (he's Lebanese again this year as Danny Thomas's Uncle Tonoose on TV), a Russian spy, a British lord.
And next he was revealed as a wit—decorating most of the top panel shows and saving many from disintegration with his rapid repartee.
"My voice and face were always much better known than my name," he frankly admits.
ALL THE Hans Conried pieces will be put together in the June Allyson Show (CBS-TV, Feb. 13), in which he plays a masterful imposter, impersonating a distinguished professor in a play titled "A Great Day for a Scoundrel." It will be one of his rare forays into straight drama.
"Oddly, this role somewhat parallels my own life," Hans observed in the home he occupies with his wife and four children overlooking a lake high in the Hollywood hills. "This character is an eloquent lecturer. Well, I may not be eloquent, but I spend half my time lecturing. "Whenever I'm afraid of overexposure on TV, I hit the road and talk before women's clubs. It's a gold mine.
"YOU KNOW how many women's clubs there are in the country?" He asked, and answered with a surprising "over 100,000. Know what many of them pay for guest lecturers? From $350 to $1000. And just for an hour's talk. "Why, if I'm properly scheduled I can knock off two a day.
"Of course, there's a drawback to everything," pointed out the 6-foot-2 former Shakespearean actor. "The chief trouble with a lecturing career is all the clubs serve chicken a la king.
“And when it comes to chicken I'm—well, I'm chicken. You can eat only so much of the stuff before you start to cackle."
CONRIED GIVES the clubs a choice of subjects for his talks. Shakespeare, music appreciation or modern philosophers.
"Know what subject they ask for most?" he asks. "That's right, all want me to talk about Hollywood. So I read up on the columns and give them a big earful."

While the Paar show brought him name-recognition which resulted in large sums of cash as an arch relater of show biz gossip to that quaint specimen of obsolete Americana, the afternoon women’s charitable club, he maintained his affection for network radio.

Here’s a 1963 story which was published in newspapers in February that year.

Conversation Leads to Stardom
BY DONALD FREEMAN
Copley News Service
HOLLYWOOD, Feb 11—Hans Conried, that richly theatrical mummer who might well have sprung to life in one of the more flamboyant Restoration cornedies, sums up his current professional state in a phrase: “I am not a star."
Then he reconsiders with a rueful smile: "Ah, but to a star I'm not a star"
A mere technicality of course. Or is it?
“Well, my name is now placed above the title of the play," said Conried. "And I am recognized in the various cities where my profession calls. I am, in a word, known. Which is a far cry from my days in radio.
"Ah, radio," Conried sighed, "the theater of the mind, a stage where the rubies were always big and flawless and where an actor was cloaked in blessed anonymity—very desirable, I might add, since audiences could not therefore take your measure for a suit of tar and feathers."
FOR MANY YEARS now the disarmingly candid Conned has enjoyed a public acceptance—notoriety he would probably call it, based on a variety of roles. Today, for instance, he might play Uncle Tonoose on the "Danny Thomas Show," then act in a dramatic special, then romp through a session of charades on "Stump the Stars."
And of course Hans is one of the talking people thrust into a special niche by the "Jack Paar Show," with its stress on airy conversation. Conried's flair for talk has, in fact, given him another public cloak—he is now a "television personality."
"For years I was just an actor, a wandering player," Conried noted, with his usual wry self-deprecation, "and then Jack Paar fortunately exploited my, uh, leaning to the verbose. Paar, you know, likes to glance about him before going into battle and see the old trustworthy faces waving the banners aloft. That is to say. he's loyal to old friends.
“Now, as a result, I've become a 'personality.' I never sought to be one but I accept it gratefully, for it has been, after all, a boon to my career—a word I usually avoid. It's nice."
NOT LONG AGO, Conried was one of the regulars who journeyed with Paar to Japan. I wondered, was he often recognized by the Japanese?
Conried shook his head. "They only know American cowboy heroes. In my day I have played western engagements but I was strictly black sombrero—a villain or a charlatan or a snake oil merchant. I was never in short a laudable page out of the great book of Americana."
Conried was momentarily thoughtful. "I started out, you know, as a classical actor. Born in Baltimore—but left as a babe of 6 weeks so they can't claim me. Claim me? They don't even want me. I've never been back and I've heard of no public outcry to have me return to place my feet in cement. . .”

Here is something featuring Hans Conried that you may not have seen. It’s a Jay Ward-esque look at model railroading, with a kazoo soundtrack, an oom-pah Germanic march, and that annoying BOINGGG! you hear in the Gene Deitch Tom and Jerrys. It opens with a little chat by Walt Disney’s most amusing animation director of the day, Ward Kimball. Conried is narrating.

Transitioning Tex

Tex Avery is known for his gags, but his career at Warner Bros. shows him interested in cinematic effects, too. You’ll see overhead layouts, montages, double exposures, and so on.

In I Wanna Be a Sailor (1937), he changes backgrounds on Petey Parrot as he is still walking.

Tex also liked overlays. Above, you can see Petey walking behind a chair on a separate cel.



Below are a few cels from Petey’s walk cycle. You can see how the living room background fades out and an outside background fades in.



Below, notice where the picket on the fence is in relation to the drainpipe compared with the frame above.



The fence, “sup” can, flower and ground are on a cel underlay that’s being moved by the cameraman (Manny Corral?) while the house in the background is stationery. It gives a feeling of depth. Avery would have to plan all this movement.

My favourite “depth” shots of Avery’s are when he starts a cartoon with a pan over some scenery, with underlays or overlays shot at different rates while a long background painting remains in place. He did this both at Warners and MGM.

The background artist wasn’t credited. It doesn’t look like Johnny Johnsen to me. I suspect Paul J. Smith got the rotating animation credit.

The Last Man

Hugh Harman’s Peace on Earth (1939) goes back and forth from extremely realistic artwork to fuzzy little cartoon animals with cartoon-y voices. Somehow it works, and Harman had every right to be proud of this cartoon.

Grandpa squirrel tells the tale of how men couldn’t stop fighting each other and, finally, the last two men on the planet shot each other to death.

Harman employs some melodramatics in showing the last man on Earth dying during a World War One-type trench war.

The short is set at Christmas time, as the little animals sing “Peace on Earth” to the melody of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”

Harman began planning this cartoon before World War Two began. Its anti-war message was still welcome at the time of its release. I imagine it wouldn’t have been once Pearl Harbor was attacked. The story (by Charles McGirl?) talks of a war between vegetarians and meat eaters. After December 7, 1941, America was involved in a war far less trivial.

The background art and effects animation are outstanding. It is shame whoever was responsible for it never got credit.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: The Key to Efficiency

We don’t talk a lot about non-American animation on the blog, as the focus is mainly on theatrical cartoons that appeared on TV in the 1960s (and a little earlier).

However, I enjoy much of the stylised artwork you can see on animated commercials and industrial films of the ‘50s, and not just from the United States.

Here’s a nice example in a 1959 commercial film for British Petroleum called The Key to Efficiency. When you think of British animation, Halas and Batchelor come to mind. This short was made by someone else. The designs are derivative of UPA but I quite like them. Frank Cordell’s score matches the action quite well.

I have not been able to find much information about this cartoon but this blog has intelligent readers who may know something.

The Yes Man

When Jack Benny would exclaim, “Oh, floorwalker!” the audience knew exactly what was going to happen next. It always got a laugh.

The floorwalker would turn around and reply: “Yehhhhhhhhhhs?”

Frank Nelson may be best known for that one word, but he had an incredibly prolific career that would be impossible to list here, so it’s pointless to try.

In addition to radio and TV, he voiced cartoons, narrated industrial films, appeared in commercials, and had a second career as the national president of AFTRA from 1954 to 1957. He was a founder of the union and instrumental in creating its pension plan.

He told of how his acting career started at KOA in Denver playing a 30-year-old man—when he was 15. At 18, in 1929, he arrived in Hollywood and continued his radio career. He started in drama with the KNX Players but he eventually surfaced on the big comedy and comedy/variety shows from Los Angeles because, as he told interviewer Chuck Schaden, “comedy paid better.”

Nelson recalled the first appearance on the Benny show was in an insert on June 1, 1934. It was on an hour-long show from Chicago touting the Century of Progress exhibition, and he played Clark Gable. Through the 1930s into the ‘40s, Nelson would appear with Benny as an announcer/narrator, play-by-play sports imitator, a radio salesman for Yhtapmys Soothing Syrup, a medium’s henchman (and others with an evil laugh), doctors, and an array of clerks, floorwalkers (some not as masculine as others) and people Benny had to deal with who didn’t want to deal with him.

His most unusual role wasn’t on the Benny show. He played the voice of Monty Woolley’s beard on the Woolley-Al Jolson programme for Colgate on June 1, 1943.

Nelson stuck with network radio pretty much until the end. He was an railroad information counter clerk on Benny’s second-last radio show on May 15, 1955 and finished his career in May 1960 on a broadcast of The Amos ‘n’ Andy Music Hall.

We mentioned cartoons. In the late 1940s, Nelson was the narrator of the Jerky Journeys and followed up with voices for John Sutherland Productions, including the the Devil in The Devil and John Q. (1952) and as the dog narrator in Walter Lantz’s Dig That Dog (1954). He doesn’t mention these, but he talks about cartoons in Henry Mitchell’s “Dixie Dialing” column of the Memphis Commercial Appeal of April 20, 1961.

LOOK AT the little picture and tell me his name—QUICK. Oh, sure, I know you've seen him 100 times, and I know it's right on the tip of your tongue but you're like me, there are a lot of faces and even performances familiar to you but you can't quite come up with the name in a hurry.
It's Frank Nelson, and he's been with Jack Benny on his shows for 27 years now.
New Amos 'n' Andy
"But we've seen you on a lot of other shows, too," I began (on the phone yesterday) and he admitted to doing roles in The Real McCoys, I Love Lucy, Our Miss Brooks, The Life of Riley, Ann Sothern Show and Danny Thomas Show—as well as on that recent grim Audrey Meadows show (the adjective is mine, not his), in Ronald Reagan Theater. Also in the still-unreleased Weir [Wiere] Brothers series [Oh, Those Bells on CBS in 1962]. But what I asked him about was this new Amos 'n' Andy show we keep hearing about.
"Well it's by Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll (the creators of the old radio show and later on the TV series) and it's to be cartoons. The characters will be Southern but not Negroes. They've done the first five of the shows, though they won't be telecast until fall, and I do voice roles in three of them.
"I've done some of the voice work in the Flintstones series, by the way, and in the Mister Magoo series. I haven't actually seen what the cartoon characters will look like, but I do know the show was sold to a sponsor just on the strength of the story outlines and the ability of Gosden and Correll.
"In all these things I play some crazy character, but it's not associated with Frank Nelson.”
I interrupted to say that might be just as well, but he said it was a mixed blessing.
Taking No Risk
"Like most actors I work freelance. I'd love to do something heavy for a change, but these casting directors are not going to take any calculated risk. If anybody wrote in and said they saw the show and me on it and were disappointed the thing was not a comedy, the producer would tell the casting director he was out of his mind to use an offbeat character when there are so many good heavies around.
"You ask how I feel about television in general. Well, I'm a past president the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and I happen to be pretty much a defender of TV. When you consider the amount of product that appears on television, I think it has a pretty high standard. How many good shows are on Broadway, or how many good movies are there?
“As for movies on TV, I think it's unfortunate we have to look at something made 30 years ago to get our entertainment—it's been foisted on the public and these old movies they wouldn't pay a dime to see in a theater. Until TV came along looking for a cheap way to fill in time those movies were sitting in vaults and the movie companies never dreamed of ever doing anything with them.”
Has Trademark
"But back to my character—he's usually just nameless, though Benny sometimes refers to him as “Mr. Nelson” in a show. I think most people recognize me for the way this character sayss EEYESSS (yes).
"I once walked in a producer's office and he said I certainly didn't look the way I sounded and I said thank God for that."
You'll notice Mr. Nelson in the Benny show this Sunday, repeat of the one starring Benny, Oscar Levant and Nelson—the one in which Jack Benny goes to see a psychiatrist.
For a change I thought we might pin down one of these wonderfully familiar characters on TV who don't get star billing, yet they're in our living rooms oftener than orange peels (it you have children).

As for the psychiatrist show, originally aired on Nov. 30, 1958, but rerun on April 23, 1961, the highlight of the second half was a sketch filled with Frank Nelson. William L. Doudna, the television editor of the Wisconsin State Journal was one of a number of columnists who wrote about the show on re-broadcast day.

A man who has been heckling Jack Benny for 27 years would like to do something else for a change, he told The Wisconsin State Journal in an exclusive interview.
The man is Frank Nelson, a 36-year veteran of radio and television who was on radio's first coast-to-coast broadcast.
Nelson joined Benny in 1934, he said in a telephone conversation from Beverly Hills, and has been with him ever since.
While his chief job has been heckling Jack on the air, Nelson has done it in a variety of roles. He'll give a sampling of these in an "iron-man" performance on the Benny show over CBS-WISC-TV at 8:30 tonight.
In this, Nelson will rival even King Baggott, star and director of silent films who, some 45 years ago, played every role in a courtroom drama and directed the multiple-exposure movie as well.
Among modern stars, one of the most versatile is Alec Guinness, English actor who played eight parts in "Kind Hearts and Coronets."
12 Roles, 24 Minutes
Tonight, in one-third the time of the Guinness film, Nelson will be seen in 12 roles within 24 minutes. He'll be an insolent waiter, a men's clothing salesman, a hot dog vendor, a filling station attendant, a psychiatrist's patient—and more.
Even though Nelson plays many parts, he still feels he's typed as Benny's heckler.
"I'd like to be a performer rather than a type," he said.
"I enjoyed radio more than I do television," he added. "There, even when the parts were somewhat alike, there was variety in the work, and, because the audience didn't see me, I wasn't so closely typed."
Nelson said he would like to play serious roles—almost anything, even a villainous part.
"I would like to do movies, because they give the actor more scope than television does, but I expect I'll stay in TV," he said.
Started as Announcer
He finds himself in much the same position as his close friend, Willard Waterman, a native of Madison. Waterman became so closely associated with "The Great Gildersleeve," in which he can still be seen in re-runs, that he found it difficult to get serious parts.

Nelson was born in Colorado Springs, but spent much of his boyhood in Denver before moving to Los Angeles, Calif. He started his career as a radio announcer on an early morning show.
"I had to get up so early that sometimes I actually went to sleep at the microphone," Nelson said. "One morning, the engineer went to sleep, too, and we had a great time explaining the silence to listeners."
On the West Coast, he was announcer for the National Broadcasting Company's first coast-to-coast broadcast which featured Groucho Marx.
He joined Benny in 1934 when Jack had a 5-minute insert on an NBC program, and has been with him ever since on both radio and television. In the meantime, he appeared in a few movies, but he has made his real career in the job with which he is as closely associated as Basil Rathbone with "Sherlock Holmes" and Percy Grainger with "Country Gardens."

Nelson died of cancer on Sept. 12, 1986. Is he still remembered today? Considering his occasional appearance in the Gasoline Alley comic strip, you can probably figure out how Nelson would answer that one.

The Low, Low Price of Two Million Dollars

Jay Ward made funny cartoons.

Jay Ward made other funny things, too.

If you’ve read Keith Scott’s essential book The Moose That Roared, you’ll know Ward had a promotional department that sent out ridiculous news releases, twisting current events to get attention.

It worked. Newspaper columnists with a sense of humour loved getting anything other than the same staid announcements. We have reprinted their bemused reportage in previous posts and we do so again.

This one is from the Pittsburgh Press of May 26, 1961. Ward, Scott and his release writer (Alan Burns?) made fun of the concept of a Book of the Month Club or Record of the Month Club.

'Film Series Of Month'
Bonus Selections Lampooned
By FRED REMINGTON
The economic slump has "saucered out" now as they say, and you may have $2,000,000 to spare that you didn't have back there a few months ago when things were tighter.
Well, you might want to look into the TV Film Series of the Month Club.
"Remember," states the Club's monthly bulletin, "as a member you agree to buy six Jay Ward TV series within the next 12 months at our list price. After buying six series, you are entitled to a bonus series of your choice WITHOUT CHARGE! Join now!”
Jay Ward and his partner, Bill Scott, produce the "Rocky and His Friends" cartoon series. Their trade paper advertising and periodic mailings are delightfully funny.
The TV Film Series Of The Month Club Bulletin is a sample of their humor. Like the book club bulletins, this one lists the monthly selection, plus the various available bonus selections, with capsule descriptions. For example: This month's selection—
"BEAT THE PRESS." Frank Sinatra and Anita Ekberg pound, maul, pummel, hit, scratch, claw, kick and bite four well known members of the press each week for 28-action packed minutes on a bare stage! In show No. 1 alone, Frank destroys over $6000 worth of press camera equipment! Guests: May Craig, Walter Lippman, Lawrence E. Spivak and Hedda Hopper.”
The bonus selections includes—"HUM ALONG WITH MITCH." Jay Ward offers a solution to those who want to participate but can't remember the words.
"YOU ASKED TO SEE IT." Persuasive Jay Ward has made it possible for the home viewers to see such off-beat footage as lovely screen star Audrey Hepburn eating a live chicken.”
"THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.” Thoughtlessly turned down by the Prudential Insurance Co., this fascinating re-examination of a marvelous era is now available to you. Host-narrator is Robert Welch of the John Birch Society.
"CHAMPIONSHIP MAHJONGG.” Exciting action series with world's great players competing for weekly jackpot of $100. Host Lenny Bruce provides wholesome fun to relieve between-match tension. Fun for the whole family!
"TOUCH FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS." From Washington D. C., Palm Beach, Fla., and Hyannis Port, Mass.
On Mothers Day weekend, Ward and Scott ran trade paper ads offering: Free—Make a long distance phone call to your mom anyplace in the USA. All you have to do is buy a Jay Ward TV series, 39 weeks. Just $2,000,000.
This novel promotional campaign is prompted by the fact that the Ward enterprises have 20 unsold cartoon series, including "Super Chicken" and "Watts Gnu?"
"We're not discouraged about our big backlog of unsold shows," Scott told the United Press International the other day. "When one sells, they'll all sell, and we'll be rich. Rich. Rich. Rich."

Watts Gnu was a puppet show that Ward couldn’t interest the networks in picking up. The concept of Super Chicken was revived a few years later as a segment of George of the Jungle. Some like it better than George.

However, Ward’s major stars, Rocky and Bullwinkle, took advantage of the rush by the networks in 1961 to have their own “Flintstones,” i.e. a successful night-time cartoon comedy. That’s even though, according to this story by Jim Scott in the Berkeley Gazette of Sept. 23, 1961, NBC didn’t want it.

TV Premiere—
There's a Lot Of Berkeley In 'Bullwinkle'
There's a lot of Berkeley in Bullwinkle, who could be hottest thing on television this fall.
From a supporting role in "Rocky and his Friends," Bullwinkle, a moose, goes in his own show—"The Bullwinkle Show," of course—at 7-7:30 p.m. Sundays on NBC's 60-city network starting Sept. 24.
The pixie behind Bullwinkle, who'll be done in color, is J. T. (Jay) Ward, a onetime Berkeley sports buff who still heads the J. T. Ward (realty) office on Domingo across the street from the Berkeley Tennis Club.
Actually, NBC doesn't care much for old Bullwinkle but big General Mills, Inc., likes him even better than Wheaties. After paying Jay an estimated $3,000,000 for Bullwinkle, it used its great weight to force NBC to show the moose at the prime time.
Already Bullwinkle's creator, Ward, has become a legend in Hollywood though he's been there only two years. A brilliant organizer with a light, Jay achieved success by hiring only top talent. This goes double for his co-producer, Bill Scott.
Besides his former associates, Rocky, a flying squirrel, spy Boris Badenov and his cohort, Natasha Fatale, Bullwinkle will have to deal this season with one Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties, a meat-head who smells of the Nelson Eddy influence. BULLWINKLE is far from being the only star in Jay's stable. He's now ready to go with several other shows, including the "Fractured Flipper" [sic] and "Hoppity Hooper."
Operating in three buildings on Sunset Ward is never too busy to talk to Berkeley friends, particularly if they're hep to Cal athletics.
On a recent visit with Jay, this writer found him and Scott relaxed over cool drinks. (“We can think up ideas better than this," said Jay). Around and about them worked 25 (temperamental) artists.
In addition, Jay maintains a unit in Mexico City, where more than 100 cartoonists ink out the bulk of his work. In his Sunset studios, artists come and go as they please. Some do the work in their homes.
Ward is one of the few Hollywood producers who realize the vital role of the writer. "The writer is more important than the animator," says Jay. "Many producers are so intrigued with the novelty of the moving drawing that they forget the prime factor—the story. Cartoons, like the comic strip, have a basic appeal. But an audience will tire if they present only action and no plot. Some cartoon makers have perfected animation to a life-like reality. But the story suffers. We try to use animation to tell a story."
WARD was first exposed to the entertainment field while attending the University of California here. As chairman of the Radio Committee, he wrote many of the scripts. After service in the Air Force during World War II, he enrolled at the Harvard Business School. He returned to Berkeley following graduation to operate the real estate business he had inherited from his father.
Jay had been in his office just one day when a runaway truck smashed through his building. Ward's leg was broken. While convalescing, he turned to writing.
It was then that Jay conceived the revolutionary idea of animated cartoons for television. At the time the seven-inch screen were offering only tired vaudeville acts.
Jay and Alex Anderson in 1948 produced "Crusader Rabbit," which ran for two years on ABC. But they lost the valuable property when the sales agency which had taken it over went bankrupt.
But the Crusader's financial romp was a gnawing challenge to young Ward to do it again. To do it right, he went to Hollywood, started hiring the best talent. Yet he made his pilot film for only $5,000. His voices included such well-known names as those of Edward Everett Horton and Charles Ruggles.
THE INTEREST evinced at once in Rocky prompted Jay to expand fast with the aid of investors from Berkeley.
But his enterprise almost came a cropper at the outset. Flying home from New York, his plane hit a rough pocket that really jolted the passengers. Ward was stricken.
Since it appeared that he was suffering a heart attack the plane made an emergency landing in Salt Lake City. Physician there couldn't determine Jay's trouble but they didn't think it was his heart. He had difficulty breathing, feared he couldn’t take his next breath. He suffered claustrophobia. But, even though working at a slower pace, he met with nothing but success in his venture into animation.
Today Jay has completely recovered. Recently he drove his own car to Berkeley, from where he left his office manager, Dave Carr, on a fishing trip to the High Sierra.
"If that boy will just stick with me—and watch his weight—he'll go far," said Bullwinkle with a wink that TV watchers have come to love.

After The Bullwinkle Show premiered, Ward and Scott spent time ridiculing NBC’s apathy toward their series, worked on getting Hoppity Hooper and Fractured Flickers on the air (the latter in syndication). Oh, and there were nutty promotional events to grab more media attention.

Here we are, 60-plus years later, still laughing along with them.

The End at The End

An unexpected gag ends an expected situation in the Columbia cartoon Under The Shedding Chestnut Tree (1942).

Petey Pelican is “the village smithy” (though no village is seen) who is picked on throughout the whole cartoon, finally by a keg of TNT which follows him as he runs away, no matter which way he turns.

We know what’s going to happen. He’s not going to be able to escape before the blacksmith shop blows up.



Here’s the end gag. Literally. The camera pans up from the destroyed shop to Petey hanging from the words THE END.



There’s some good animation in parts and some creative layouts but whoever wrote this gives me no reason to care about Petey because we know he’ll get kicked around through the whole cartoon.

Volus Jones is the credited animator with Bob “I Can Work For Less Pay Than Art Davis” Wickersham directing. Frank Tashlin is still overseeing Screen Gems at this point.

Pinto Colvig is recognisable as Petey (the character’s name comes from the Motion Picture Herald’s review of the cartoon). I can’t figure out who the smile-voiced narrator is. More importantly, neither can Keith Scott so we may never know who it is.

Less Cowbell

Tom’s head reacts to the Dixieland jazz that is playing on a radio in Down Beat Bear. It involuntarily becomes a beating drum, a cymbal, a bell and a snare drum.



The gag was used in an earlier MGM cartoon but I’m blanking out on the name of it.

Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera show their Honeymooners fetish here. The bear is wearing an Ed Norton outfit, and when he dances into the cartoon, he’s moving his arms up and down the same way Jackie Gleason did before he said “And away we go!”



Hmmm. I think Bill and Joe gave that hat to another one of their bears. What was his name again?



Variety of June 22, 1955 reports that “Charles Lunard and Helen Lewis, nitery dance team, set by Metro to ‘choreograph’ new Tom and Jerry cartoon, ‘Down Beat Bear.’ ” The dancing animation is fluid but, as you can see above, there isn’t a lot of wildness to the animation. Imagine if Tom’s head had turned into a clarinet, sax, or trombone heard on Scott Bradley’s score.

Lew Marshall had replaced Ray Patterson in the Hanna-Barbera unit by now, with Ken Muse, Irv Spence and Ed Barge the other credited animators (above, Yogi is by Ray’s brother Don). Dick Bickenbach laid out the cartoon and the backgrounds were by Bob Gentle. Paul Frees (newscaster) and Daws Butler (all-night disc jockey) supply the voices.

The cartoon was copyrighted on Sept. 12, 1956 but released Oct. 12. Motion Picture Exhibitor rated it “Good,” but gave the Wags to Riches remake Millionaire Droopy an “Excellent” rating in the same issue.

The Failure of Phil Silvers

Two fine comedians couldn’t make television lighting strike twice in the early 1960s.

Groucho Marx spent more than a decade wisecracking with contestants on You Bet Your Life, but when he tried a similar show in 1962 called Tell It to Groucho, it bombed.

Likewise, Phil Silvers’ Bilko show ended with the 1950s and he tried again in 1963 with a self-titled show, basically playing Bilko. But he couldn’t make it fly, despite the presence of director Rod Amateau and writers Harvey Bullock and Bob Allen.

Here’s a look-ahead to the new show, which appeared in newspapers starting around Sept. 13, 1963.

Silvers Still Bilko In New Civilian Role
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
Hollywood Correspondent Newspaper Enterprise Assn.
HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 13 (NEA)—Sgt. Bilko—oops, I mean Harry Grafton of the "NEW Phil Silvers Show"—leaves the factory set and plops down on a couch in his dressing room in corner of Stage 10 at the Fox studio. "Just a little dizzy," apologizes Silvers, who is Harry Grafton now. "Maybe it's tension—the new show, my wife expecting our fourth child, the freeway traffic this morning. A little hot tea should fix me up. Boy, a little hot tea, please."
The NEW Phil Silvers show makes its debut on CBS-TV Sept. 28. But as almost everyone knows, Sgt. Bilko is still with us except he is a factory maintenance boss now in a blue baseball cap and gray coveralls.
The name of Grafton is as appropriate as Gladasya Prods., the company Phil formed and which gives him full say on his laugh-getting and a chance to keep more of the big money the network is paying him for his enormous talents.
Harry Grafton, like Sgt. Bilko, is all "graft" in his diverse activities. The "Gladasya" goes back to Phil's early movie career when he always played the friend of the hero. His most important and sometimes only line always seemed to be, "Glad to see ya." That's how "Gladasya Prod." was born.
Phil is happy to explain how Harry Grafton was born.
Sipping the hot tea, he says: "Sure I was disappointed when CBS canceled the Bilko show. I didn't understand then, but I do now. It cost too much. It was split too many ways. The network tried to help me swing a deal to bring Bilko back to television, but it was still too expensive, too complicated, cut too many ways.
So how close Is Harry Grafton to Bilko? The answer includes the question, "How close is Phil Silvers to Bilko?"
Very close, yes sir. Phil has been playing Bilko in one way or another practically all of his life, you might say.
But for the first time, he's now in a position to let the fast talking scamp set him up financially for the rest of his me.
As Harrv Grafton, Phil will have as many things going for him as Bilko. His "sidelines" as the maintenance boss in the factory include a sliding wall behind which he operates a little factory of his own; leasing part of the warehouse after hours to an amateur theatrical group, and ownership of a coffee wagon.
Such a coffee wagon you’ve never seen. In addition to coffee, there are daily foreign food delights which usually are served along with dancing girls costumed to match.
For foils and accomplices, Phil's factory crew includes his old pal Herbie Faye as "Waluska," and Jim Shane, a six-foot, six-inch 235 pounder who will be the fall guy for Phil's wildest schemes. Stafford Repp, as the plant manager, will be as confused as Bilko's old army boss.
"This says Phil, "I'm gambling on myself. But I'm not playing the big tycoon behind the scenes. I'm sitting in only on what I know about."
The tea and the dizziness gone, Phil goes back to work as a baby sitter with a 14-month-old baby boy on his lap. As the father of four girls, Phil cracks between scenes: "It better be a boy, this next girl."

Hot tea may have fixed Silvers, but something more was needed to fix his show. First, CBS changed the time slot. And then Silvers decided to re-work the series.

This unbylined story in the South Bend Tribune of Jan. 25, 1964 was one of a number that explained the situation.

Silvers Admits He Made Mistake
HOLLYWOOD—Phil Silvers expands his television format introduces his new television family on "The New Phil Silvers Show" next Saturday.
Elena Verdugo, the onetime heroine of all Brooklyn in "Meet Millie" has been signed to portray Audrey, Harry Grafton's sister.
"Phil as Grafton will no longer be top dog. He'll have to contend a sharp, determined sister who knows his every trick," producer Rod Amateau said.
Boy Is Added
Amateau also announced that Sandy Descher, 18-year-old actress who made 50 films before she was ten and who was last seen on "The New Loretta Young Show," will portray Audrey's daughter, Susan.
Ten-year-old Ronnie Dapo, a lively lad in the film version of "The Music Man" and who will soon be seen in the film “Kisses For My President," will play Andy Grafton's nephew.
Silvers explained the new approach for the series this way: "I had put my head in the sand. We were trying to relate to the common people. It didn't occur to us that the factory foreman isn't the underdog; the underdog is the factory owner. In comedy anyway."
"I set a standard with Bilko," he said, "and I haven't lived up to it. My pride is such that I got a necessary kick in the pants this season. So we shut down for five weeks to take a breather and improve the series as best we could."
Honesty Is Incredible

Silvers' honesty is almost incredible. He assumes all the blame himself. Other stars belittle the network, sponsor, scripts, or rap viewers for not having enough intelligence to appreciate their work.
In giving the series a face-lift Silvers has burned 10 completed new scripts. A tremendously expensive bonfire.
"The 11 shows with the new format will be a situation family comedy," he said, "but not as sweet as those already on the air.
"The important thing is we've got Grafton out of the factory and into the world where he can operate under all kinds of conditions."
Credits Fan Loyalty
Silvers credits fan loyalty with preventing a total catastrophe.
"If it hadn't been for the affection of the fans who stayed with me maybe the show would have been off the air by now," he said. "Well, I owe those people something—a good series.
"And they're going to get it. If the new format is a big success I will stay with it next season. If not, I've got an entirely new idea for next fall that I really believe in.
"I can't reveal what it is, but it would be a new character in new setting with a new cast. It's my responsibility to my audience, and I want to discharge it the best way I know how."

Viewers didn’t accept a Bilko-like character in a family-like setting, especially when they could watch re-runs of the original Phil Silvers show. The New Phil Silvers Show lasted 30 episodes and by the summer, Silvers was in a touring company of his biggest hit: Top Banana.

Silvers was back on television the following season, but not on camera. Silvers’ production company, Gladasya, put a new show on the air, one that lives on in reruns today. It was about seven stranded castaways on an uncharted desert isle. I don’t need to name the series, do I? Silvers guest starred in my favourite episode as fast-talking, shady, show biz producer Harold Hecuba. In essence, he was playing Bilko one more time.

Betty Ends Prohibition

Betty Boop For President (1932) is about as satiric as any Fleischer cartoon could be, from Betty turning herself into caricatures of Democrat Al Smith and Republican president Herbert Hoover (but not F.D.R.), to opposing candidate Mr. Nobody singing that nobody will care if they have to beg, to donkeys and elephants sitting on opposite sides of the aisle knee-jerkingly disagreeing with each other.

The newspapers of 1932 clucked loudly about what they saw as the big issue—not bread-lines, nor poverty, but Prohibition. Roosevelt had promised to repeal it once the new Congress immediately amended the Volstead Act to allow the sale of beer.

The Fleischers, or at least their writers, sided with Roosevelt, as we can see in the ending of the cartoon. A Times Square-like ticker announces Betty’s election (with fireworks falling to form her head), then a parade over which a full stein of beer is superimposed.



The Motion Picture Herald, Oct. 1, 1932, called the cartoon “Clever, Amusing.”

Smart, novel and amusing is this Betty Boop animated cartoon, in which Betty carries on a vigorous campaign for President, and promises what she will do if elected. The novelty lies in the unusual drawings, the cleverness of the idea and execution. Pertinent at this moment, the short may be considered in a measure outstanding among animateds.

The opinion was echoed by several other theatre managers/owners writing to the publication.

Trade papers of the era say the cartoon was not officially released until Nov. 14, six days after the election, but you can see to the right a newspaper ad for the Capitol in Salisbury, North Carolina that it was playing on Oct. 24. The Rivoli in Muncie, Indiana was showing it on September 23rd.

Seymour Kneitel and Doc Crandall are the credited animators on this short.

Betty’s big song “When I’m The President” (after a Cantor-esque “We want Betty” shout from a crowd) was written by Al Sherman and Al Lewis. The Cantor reference would not have been unexpected, as the song was written for him and bears the subtitle “We Want Cantor” (and copyrighted Jan. 19, 1932) as part of his phoney 1932 presidential run. The tune is reprised (as are the donkeys and elephants) in Olive Oyl For President (1948) and sung both times by Mae Questel.

Note: David Gerstein points out a Betty-as-Calvin Coolidge scene was deleted from the cartoon. I presume it's at 1:05 when the scene cuts from Betty reaching into her box of guises to a long shot of the crowd.

Hopping Cinderella

It’s 9 o’clock. What does that mean? For Cinderella in Tex Avery’s Cinderella Meets Fella, it means her fairy godmother is late.

She gets on the phone and yells to the police to find her. The animator of the scene (Virgil Ross?) and his in-betweeners had some fun coming up with hyper drawings for her after calmly talking to police headquarters.



Mel Blanc is screaming “Go get ‘er, boys” on the phone as Cindy, though Berneice Hansell plays her in the rest of the cartoon.

You’ll notice Avery and storyman Tedd Pierce don’t waste time by having Cinderella turn the crank and call the operator. She just picks up the phone and starts talking.

The music behind the scene is Schubert’s “Erlkönig.”