June Lockhart

Most sitcom moms, way-back-when, dealt with their child’s problems.

One dealt with more than that. She dealt with a dog and with a robot. And someone else’s three daughters.

That was June Lockhart.

She took a back seat on screen in the late ‘50s to Lassie. And when Lost in Space came along in the mid-‘60s, she took a back seat again to a scene-stealer who turned a space adventure series into camp comedy, with a sidekick robot and a reality-anchor boy whose performances made you appreciate what a good actor he was.

Then when Petticoat Junction star Bea Benaderet died, Lockhart was parachuted into the show opposite Benaderet’s three 20-something daughters. Despite her pleasant, smiling style, Lockhart didn’t quite fit in for me. The show had built a whole community of characters over a number of seasons and she hadn’t been among them; she was a sudden outsider to some viewers.

Instead of a mom, at one time Lockhart was known as a daughter, being the off-spring of actors Gene and Kathleen Lockhart. She worked in films and on the stage as a girl—even winning a Tony—but, the power of television being what it is, became known through a collie that also had a venerable film career.

Here’s an article from the Times-Mirror Syndicate that appeared in papers starting July 7, 1959. Lockhart was quite happy not dealing with stardom but she wanted more of the star’s camera time. The second line proved somewhat prophetic, given her career path.

Actress June Lockhart Loves That ‘Lassie’ Show
By HAL HUMPHREY
HOLLYWOOD. — June Lockhart wishes people would stop feeling sorry for her. Since she took over the TV role of foster mother to Jon Provost and Lassie, many of June’s friends and fans treat her as if she had volunteered to be the first woman shot into space.
“Why did you do it, June” they wail, solicitously. “Think what it can do to your career!”
These well-wishers don’t understand that her career is precisely what June had in mind when she joined the “Lassie” cast last year. (CBS-TV and Ch. 4 at 6 p.m. Sundays.)
“Everyone seems to be concerned over my missing ‘better things.’ My answer to that is, what are those better things?
“I’ve been a freelance actress and waited for the right script. They don’t come along very often, and being unemployed at the end of each one can be pretty dull,” says June.
Last March, during the seasonal recess between “Lassie” shootings, June went back to New York and appeared with Tom Ewell in “Square Egghead,” a very entertaining comedy on the “U.S. Steel Hour.” She not only luxuriated in a “whole week” of rehearsal but found herself the envy of every unemployed actress in Manhattan because she had a steady job.
STEADY WORK
“Steady work, a certain amount of creative satisfaction and dignity are the things an actor wants most, and I have found all three with ‘Lassie’”, June insists. Jack Wrather, the Texas oil and TV tycoon who planked out $3.5 million for the “Lassie” show three years ago, wanted June to play the boy's mother when Jan Clayton left two years ago, but June was having personal troubles which climaxed in a divorce. She didn't want to further complicate her life at that time with a TV role which demands that the actress’ private life be at least 99 per cent pure.
June got another crack at it when Jan Clayton's successor, Cloris Leachman, became disenchanted with the part and left “Lassie” after a season.
MOVIE ROLE
Wrather didn't have to introduce June to Lassie. In 1944 she was the ingenue opposite the canine in MGM's “Son of Lassie.” The original dog, incidentally, died last year at the ripe old age of 19. June's debut in the TV series this past season left her with little to do except stand in the background with a benign smile and less dialogue than the writers gave Lassie.
“I think you'll see an improvement next season,” says June. “Jack Wrather’s wife, Bonita Granville, will be the associate producer. She has looked at all of the ‘Lassie’ films from the beginning and wants to make it more gutsy. Hugh Reilly and I will shout at each other once in a while.”
Actually, the whole series can stand considerable beefing up. During the first two seasons producer-owner Robert Maxwell injected some real life problems into the lives of the characters, and there were entertaining episodes dealing with such things as racial tolerance and a boy's growing up pains.
After Wrather took over, things seemed to decline into the familiar, simpering boy-loves-his-dog situations.
STAY FOREVER
Next month June Lockhart will have a meatier part when she attends two Campbell Soup (her sponsor) sales conventions in Chicago and New Orleans and delivers herself of a speech on both occasions.
She was married to architect John C. Lindsay in April and with her two daughters (Anne, 5, and June 3) they live in the swank Brentwood home recently purchased from Dore Schary.
“It's very flattering to have people worrying about my career, but really I'm happy just the way I am," June re-emphasizes. “I never had that drive to be famous anyway. If I were doing ‘The June Lockhart Show,’ think of the responsibility I’d have. This way, I just do the job, take my money and go home—and, if Lassie will forever.”

Lockhart and Lassie left each other in 1964 and the following year we find her blasting off for three seasons on the Jupiter Two. Well, almost three seasons. Lockhart was suspended and didn’t appear on the last two episodes because she kept cracking up while filming a ridiculous show about alien vegetable people. Afterward she changed her mode of transport from space ship to steam train to Hooterville for two more years on the small screen.

It seems actors don’t like to be typecast once they get regular roles and by the ‘70s, June Lockhart appears to have chafed at being a benign, nice character. Here’s a syndicated feature story from July 17, 1971, cobbled together from several papers.

June Lockhart Tired Of Sweet Image
By MIMI MEAD
NEW YORK—Out of the bog of whipped cream and sugar that has enveloped her most of her acting life comes June Lockhart, ribs up, eyes shining, hair down, her enthusiasm as bright as any kid's, her conversation as salty as any old trouper’s.
June Lockhart “Lost in Space,” being Lassie's mother or practicing medicine in “Petticoat Junction,” is a far cry from June Lockhart off-camera. She is sick to death of the sweet and wholesome image, is the unofficial den mother for the Los Angeles company of "Hair," and happily embraces the outlook of “Hair,” and happily embraces the outlook of the more liberated young of this decade.
She is not, however, one of those dreary women who stalk about braless and hair-ribboned, less eager to genuinely embrace a new philosophy than eager to “pass” among the under-thirties. She is a cheerful, practical outgoing woman, a true professional in her work and a sensible kook in her private life.
She will be seen next Saturday (July 24) as hostess for CBS’ “Miss Universe Beauty Pageant” at 10 p.m. She performed the same function for the “Miss U.S.A. Beauty Pageant” (held this year on May 22 and won by Michele McDonald, 18, of Butler; Pa.), and it is her fifth year on the job. Bob Barker is co-host.
“In the six years I've done it I've never been on the air in the same shot with Bob Barker, not to talk to him,” she said smiling. “In fact, the Rose Bowl of '69 was the first time we've ever been on a show together.
LITTLE MINGLING
“I don't really have much to do with the girls themselves, you know. The girls I work with most are the girls who are giving up their crowns, last year's Miss U.S.A. and Miss Universe.”
Although her participation requires her to assume once more the peaches-and-cream-stately image, June said with a shrug, “I rather like it. The girls are very cordial. The Miss Universe girls seem to be more opinionated and better able to express themselves than the Miss America girls, which is nice. As a matter of fact, I heard they're going to encourage the girls to speak out even more this year.
“I know all about image,” said June with a giggle. “When I was on the Lassie show, I heard a great deal about how to conform to an image. I remember Dan Jenkins of TV Guide did an article on me in 1961 or so, the most marvelous article, and the sponsor almost didn’t get over it.”
Jenkins, who says he had gone to interview June thinking she was an awful-stuffed shirt and discovered she was a “delightful nut,” wrote the article in the form of an expense account memo in which he related that his first meeting with Miss Lockhart was in the Brown Derby and she was so eager to get downtown to nose around a sensation murder trial, that she ordered a jigger of scotch and left it half unused.
TEMPERANCE LECTURE
“Well, that scotch just about did for them,” June recalled. “They lectured me at Campbell Soup for one hour and 45 minutes about the image and concept of Lassie’s mother. Lassie’s mother doesn’t drink, and if she did she wouldn’t tell TV Guide. They harangued and each one took a turn at me. So finally I said, ‘Well, gentlemen, I made a mistake. Hasn’t any of you ever made a mistake?” And that started them off again.
“When Bonita Granville (‘Lassie’s’ producer) heard about it she was furious, and I must say I wouldn’t put up with that sort of thing today. But in those days I wasn't so sure of myself. Really! You would have thought I’d done something really inflammatory, like run naked through the park or something.”
And then, in a typical Lockhart departure, she illustrated with word and gesture some of the ways past Miss Universe candidates had expressed their inner selves, as well as some of the more intimate physical problems of being a beauty pageant entrant, to the edification of an apparently imperturbable waiter who revealed his genuine interest in the conversation when, he poured the tonic in the glass and the gin into the ice bucket.
June was in New York ostensibly to do promotion for the pageants but primarily it would appear to enjoy herself. She saw 14 Broadway shows in nine days, went shopping, went sightseeing and had a generally good time, accompanied by Bob Corff, an attractive young actor in his mid-20s with whom she was sharing her suite.
Corff played Claude in the Los Angeles production of Hair, and was assigned to escort June during the 1969 Peace Moratorium performances, and when pressed to explain their current relationship she smiles and said, “It isn't exactly romantic. Bob is a dear.” The one thing that does seem certain is that he is definitely not a beau of either of her two daughters, Anne Kathleen and June Elizabeth.
IN THE FAMILY
June Lockhart is a third-generation performer, the granddaughter of concert singer John Coates Lockhart and the daughter of movie actor Gene Lockhart. (Her daughter Anne, 17, with whom June taped a “Dating Game” show this spring, has signed with WilliamMorris agency to become a fourth-generation actress in the family.)
June made her debut at the age of 8 in the Metropolitan Opera production of “Peter Ibbetson.” She appeared in small movie roles while still in school, including “All This and Heaven, Too,” and “Sergeant York,” but her career started with a contract with MGM under which she made “White Cliffs of Dover,” “Meet Me in St. Louis,” “The Yearling” and—prophetically—“Son of Lassie.”

In 1947 she appeared on Broadway in “For Love or Money,” for which she won the Donaldson Award, the Theater World Award, the Tony award and was named the AP Woman of the Year in Drama. Brooks Atkinson said, “She is enchanting and should be kept . . . from returning to Hollywood.”
“I like it all, all kinds of media,” she said happily, “as long as I am working. I really do enjoy my work very much. I sympathize with those millions who go to work every day hating what they do. What I want now, though, is to get back to what I was doing because I was Lassie’s mother,” she added wryly. “I used to play nymphos, drunks, crazy ladies, everything.
“My favorite of all was once on ‘Gunsmoke,’ when I was the whole thing, with breasts hanging out and the bottle and everything. I was an alcoholic, nymphomaniac murderess who was retarded and had a 12-year-old mind. But she was sorry afterward which made it all right.”
As far as the stage goes, “I’m thinking about it more and more,” June said. “I would like to do a play if I don't have to go through the agony of that out-of-town tryout and rehearsal period. Replacing someone would be lovely, when all the dirty work is done,”—a remark, incidentally, that is sensible and practical and absolute heresy to the average stage star who wants to “create” a role herself.
One of her great enthusiasms, as stated, is for Hair. “I was a Hairophile. I had seen the show three or four times, and I called to see if I could participate in one of their Moratorium performances and I went to Washington to show middle America that someone over 20 cared about the war in Vietnam.
After that I've done several things with them. I arranged for them to play Chino Women’s Prison, for instance, which hadn’t had a professional performance in 10 years. And on a more personal level, a couple of the kids were picked up by the police for marijuana and I vouched for them.”
She also acted as unofficial advance man for the show in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and was then hired to do advance work for it in Minneapolis.
DOES HER OWN THING
Lockhart gives very much the impression not of “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may” but of doing your own thing. Twice divorced, she lives with her daughters Anne, 17, and June, 15, and there is obviously very little generation gap.
“They're a kick,” said June. “We really do have the jollies together. I’m a very permissive parent, really. I figure they're going to be adults much longer than they’re going to be children, so we might as well expose them. And they haven’t become jaded.
“But there are several ways of exposing them. Even though Annie and Junie have been raised in and out of the atmosphere of show business, their appreciation of good films, good theatre, good music is very high. They love the symphony, for instance, and Zubin Mehta (conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra)—Zubie baby, as we call him—is one of their favorites.
“Of course, when I became the den mother of the Hair company, I really made marks,” said June Lockhart delightedly.

Lockhart continued to appear on TV—sometimes in recurring roles—and heard, as well. In 1993, she called up Bob Camp and said she was a big fan of Ren and Stimpy. Camp found a place for her.

If she wanted to cast in a show far from her “type,” she found it. Ren Hoek is no Lassie.

Carnegie Hall in Bloom

Jack Benny’s radio show began in New York, but when the film capital beckoned, he packed up and moved to Los Angeles. He and his cast made periodic returns to city—for personal appearances, war-time morale-boosting shows for the military, and in the early days of TV when network shows came out of Big Town (there was also the jewellery smuggling trial, but we’ll skip that).

In January 1943, Jack was in the east for several reasons. Wherever he went, reporters would follow.

Billboard assigned someone to a rather large news conference to push a charity event. Jack never failed to give reporters some kind of amusing angle to put in their stories. This one appeared on January 16th.

Benny Ad Lib Session Launches Drive
NEW YORK, Jan. 9.—If there were any doubts left in the trade as to whether or not Jack Benny could show his face in public without a script, they were dispelled Wednesday (6) when Benny treated upwards of 500 cohorts, hangers-on and lunch time expendables to an ad lib session which marked the opening gun of the drive of the amusement division of the Federation of Jewish Charities.
Benny, guests of honor at the two-buck-a-head feed at the Hotel Astor, threw plenty of good-natured but well-aimed needles at Paramount (Barney Balaban is chairman of the drive), and there were enough Para big shots on the dias [sic] to cringe with laughter.
Louis Nizer, Paramount attorney and banquet orator, in introducing Benny with the eloquence these affairs always seem to bring out, cited the comedian's contribution to the morale of the armed forces and even quoted Sigmund Freud on humor and the will to carry on.
Benny, however, said that even Freud couldn't ask him to be funny after signing a donation pledge. There isn't a worthier cause, said Benny, but he suspected that Balaban, in his letter asking him to appear, addressed him as "Dear Jake," so that "If I didn't appear it would make me feel as tho I were turning down a relative."
One of the reasons for Benny's coming to New York, in addition to appearing at eastern army camps, is to arrange a deal for him to produce his own pictures. Said he's working on a deal with United Artists now to "write, produce, direct, finance and blow my brains out." Paramount came in for a bit of heckling in his reasons for switching to Warners. Not only, he related, did he get tired of trying to steal his pictures from Rochester, but the straw that broke his back was that his next picture was to be The Life of Booker T. Washington. Said that under his first independent schedule he hoped to star Bob Hope and Fred Allen in The Road to Grossingers.
Only other speakers were Judge Samuel Proskauer and Davis Bernstein, Loew executive. Advice from the judge was to give plenty this year and deduct it from income taxes. Bernstein said that naval officers at Lakehurst Air Station, where Benny made an appearance, told him that nothing done so far has built up the morale and efficiency of the men stationed there as much as Benny's visit.
Benny, in a more serious vein, told the gathering that he was really honored to have this clambake tossed for him, because it's the first testimonial dinner in New York where he was the guest of honor. Back in the old days, he related, he was always toastmaster at the Friars, but couldn't get the top spot because the two people who had the guest of honor racket tied up were J. C. Flippen and Doc Michel.

There was a bit of inconvenience for the Benny gang during one military stop. The Hollywood Reporter told readers on Jan. 12th:

Jack Benny Certain Sherman Was Right
Rigors of war-time traveling for theatrical troupes were impressed upon Jack Benny and his troupe on their present tour of eastern Army camps. Arriving in Bangor, Me., recently in sub-zero weather, Benny's gang could find no red caps or taxicabs at the depot, so the company of 39 carried their luggage for six blocks to a hotel.
They ran the gauntlet of autograph seekers, who clamored for the frozen-fingered Benny to sign his name, but none offered to carry his bags. Next day they rehearsed in a cold theatre because of the fuel oil shortage, and that night did three shows to accommodate all the men at Dow Air Field.
Returning to Boston the following day, the blue-nosed performers rode all day in an unheated coach, with no dining car attached. They missed lunch and didn't have dinner until after 11, when their show at the Boston Navy Yard was over. They left Boston at 1 a. m. that night, arriving in New York in the cold dawn.
The Benny troupe has scheduled future shows at the Maritime Service Training Station at Sheepshead Bay, New York; Camp Lee, Virginia; Fort Mead, Maryland; Quantico, Virginia; Norfolk Navy Yard, and then around Toronto, Chicago, Great Lakes and St. Joseph, Mo. Transportation expenses of the troupe are being paid personally by Benny.

There was another reason for Benny to surface in New York City in January 1943. It found its way into the plot of one of his radio shows. The New York Times of January 14th had this story:

JACK BENNY SET FOR VIOLIN DEBUT
Comedian Will Invade Carnegie Hall at Concert on Sunday to Help Paralysis Fund
TO PLAY 'LOVE IN BLOOM'
Oscar Levant Will Be the Piano Accompanist in Super-Special Arrangement of Favorite
Jack Benny's prowess as a violinist will undergo its most severe public test on Sunday evening, when he invades New York's shrine of classical music, Carnegie Hall. This was announced yesterday by Basil O'Connor, president of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, under whose sponsorship Mr. Benny's performance will be held.
The occasion for his appearance is a concert for the benefit of victims of infantile paralysis, in which Metropolitan Opera and concert stars will participate. The other artists will be Marjorie Lawrence, who recently recovered from paralysis; Gladys Swarthout, Jarmila Novotna, Jan Peerce, Ezio Pinza and John Charles Thomas of the Metropolitan Opera; Josef and Rozina Lhevinne and Oscar Levant, pianists, and Isaac Stern, violinist. Deems Taylor will be master of ceremonies.
The first announcement that Mr. Benny would "do his stuff" came several days ago. But when the foundation's publicity department sent out a release giving the news there was an unexpected reaction from some of the recipients. Three of them telephoned excitedly demanding explanations and accusing the organization of pulling their legs.
E. A. Powers, campaign director for Greater New York, realized the seriousness of the situation. He told all and sundry to come to his office yesterday afternoon and they would see for themselves that it was no joke.
Skeptical, reporters turned up. So did Jack Benny. And Oscar Levant, too. There was no kidding. And each bought—and paid for—five tickets. Photographers took pictures to prove that to the world, too.
But, you may ask, why was Oscar Levant there ? The answer is Simple. He will be Mr. Benny's accompanist.
The press was told that the performance will be the comedian's "much discussed, long awaited debut as a concert violinist." But no one need take that too seriously. Jack says it will be both serious and funny.
What is he going to play? "Love in Bloom," of course. Persons close to Fred Allen say he does not dare try anything else. Anyway, this time it will be a super-special arrangement for piano and violin.

Ben Gross of the Daily News Ben Gross didn’t review the concert, but he waxed about the Benny radio broadcast in his column of Jan. 18th:

The Jack Benny broadcast last evening (WEAF-7) abounded in laughter again. Oscar Levant proved an amusing guest star, even if the burlesque on "Information Please" was not so funny as it might have been. A new comic to radio, a funster named Besser, made his bow in a wacky stooge role. His rather effeminate spoof was a veritable riot with the studio audience. Being present at the broadcast, I naturally wondered how he sounded over the loudspeaker. On returning to the office, my assistant, Bill Levinson, remarked: "That fellow Besser was very funny, but not quite the howl over on the air that he seemed to the visible audience." Benny's easy going, casual technique improves with the years, and, as for Dennis Day, the singer, he, too, is becoming more and more of an outstanding comedy attraction. P.S.— All of the aforegoing was but the prelude to the real wow of the evening, Jack's appearance as a violin soloist at a benefit show in Carnegie Hall.

Three thousand packed Carnegie Hall. The Times story on the 18th about the concert mentioned “sporadic clashings of a cymbal” during the Benny/Levant performance. But we’ll leave the final word to Jack’s “foe” as reported by Ed Sullivan in the Daily News on Jan. 20th:

After Jack Benny tied up the Carnegie Hall show in a knot, with Oscar Levant at the piano, Fred Allen sneered to Alfred Hitchcock: “First time a violinist combined his debut with his farewell performance.”

Allen, of course, was joshing. And years after his death in 1956, Jack was still on stage with his violin, raising millions of dollars for various causes. They were stopped only by Benny’s passing in late 1974.

A Meddling Kid For Over Half a Century

A lot of people love Don Knotts. It would seem a cinch, therefore, that being hired to be part of the cast of his variety show would mean fame and oodles of cash. Not like doing a fairly straight voice in some new Saturday morning cartoon show a year earlier.

The Don Knotts Show was cancelled after 24 episodes in the 1970-71 season. The cartoon show? It may never die.

Its name is Scooby Doo, Where Are You! and the actor in question is Frank Welker.

We can first find him with the Santa Monica City College theatre arts department in January 1966, on stage in “A Phoenix Too Frequent.” There were other productions, too, including The Wizard of Oz (One wonders if he did a Bert Lahr impression. Or Snagglepuss, even).

He soon joined the throng of “fastest rising young comedians.” In July 1967, he worked for Disney. Not in cartoons, but on stage at Disneyland. He landed a gig at the Purple Onion in San Francisco the following month. The next year, he showed up on the daytime talk show Pat Boone in Hollywood. His next break came when he toured with the Righteous Brothers. A columnist named Barney Grazer reviewed their stop at the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles in late May 1968:

The opening act posed the question: what’s a Frank Welker?
Take a standup comedian, remove his standard tux, suit him in mod threads, grow his hair longer, equip him with a rubbery face and soundbox and let him go to work mimicking a dog, bird, duck, John Wayne, Walter Brennan, LBJ, Mayor Yorty, Bobby Kennedy, the Queen Mary’s toot, and 15, yes 15 ducks singing “Wish You a Merry Christmas.”
That’s what a Frank Welker is, a new generation comedian adjusted to the times and its laughter.

John L. Scott of the Los Angeles Times of May 25 decided:

A young comedian, Frank Welker, opens proceedings with a series of pretty fair impersonations which climax with hilarious avante-garde mimicry featuring, believe it or not, 15 ducks singing “I Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Welker reveals a good comedy potential.

Then came a blurb in the Hollywood Citizen-News of May 27, 1969 that he and Casey Kasem, Nicole Jaffe, Don Messick and Stefanianna Christopherson had been signed to lend their voices to a half-hour animated series which needs no introduction.

The Great Dane continued to be a cash cow for Hanna-Barbera. But it was “only” a Saturday morning cartoon. So it was that Welker didn’t get a lot of recognition. However, the Thousand Oaks News Chronicle profiled his voice career in a full-page story in its Dec. 23, 1988. This may have been the first time he talked on the record about being hired for Scooby-Doo.

You may not recognize the face or know the name, but he has a household voice
Frank Welker sounds like a winner
By BRIAN McCOY
News Chronicle
Give Frank Welker's resume a quick read and you might think he's among that breed of marginally successful journeyman actors that Hollywood literature and lore so love to depict.
A three-sport letterman at his high school in Denver, the Agoura resident had never seen a play before coming to Southern California in 1965. He had a way with a joke, though, and some radio experience, so he was able to pay the bills as both a standup comic and comic actor.
Welker's career began to bloom as the decade waned. He parlayed his joke-telling into gigs opening for the Righteous Brothers and Brasil '66 and landed some face-in-the-crowd roles in a few far-from-distinguished films.
Television then beckoned, and in the early '70s Welker appeared on a number of shows, even made a few pilots. His best shot at the TV big time fell victim to the network ax, however, and Welker's face has appeared on the small screen irregularly over the past 15 years.
Asked to construct a story around that framework, most novelists would cook up some neo-Gothic tale of Hollywood's seamy underside. Big-eared kid comes to LA. to earn his fortune but winds up playing the struggling actor, just another nameless face on countless cattle calls.
But that "Sunset Boulevard" scenario couldn't be further from the truth Frank Welker enjoys. He lives on a pricey, rambling estate that includes a pool and tennis courts. He counts Jonathon Winters and Howie Mandel among his friends. He can barely keep up with all the work he gets.
Very few people outside the entertainment business know Welker's face, of course, but everyone knows his voice. From commercials. From movies. From the dozens of Saturday morning cartoon characters he's spoken for over the past 18 years. Welker — the man behind such animated favorites as Slimer on "The Real Ghostbusters," baby Kermit and Skeeter on "Muppet Babies" and Hefty and Poet Smurf proves you don't need a high profile to flourish in Hollywood.
"Since I started in the business. I've never stopped working. I guess it's like medicine; once you're in medicine there are a million things you can specialize in. The key is they can't hold you down; you can do anything you want."
And during the March-to-September animation season, Welker's voices keep him running from sunrise to sunset.
"I'll probably do on the average three shows a day with commericals [sic] in between and sometimes a radio show. I may start at Rick Dees at seven in the morning, go in and do some voices for Han (Hanna-Barbera) and then go to a commercial session and do a chicken or something."
Voices are Welker's mainstay, but he's always kept a hand in his other interests and it's his comedy that's receiving the attention now thanks to his recently released album, "Almost Sold Out."
"I guess I enjoy doing it all and I find that I'm busiest now doing voices but ... I never let (comedy) get too far away because it brings good stuff."
Among the “good stuff” were appearances on "Laugh-ln" —Welker was set to become a series regular when the show was cancelled — and his first commercial.
"I was working a nightblub [sic] in Westwood and I do this dog-and-cat-fight routine in my act. And this guy...was doing a commerical for Friskies dog food and he said, 'Hey you do great dogs, come and do a voice-over.'
"I didn't know what a voice-over was, so I said sure and I went in did the voice of the tail of the dog."
That was in 1970, Welker says, "and the way those things go, his girlfriend worked for ABC and she was casting 'Scooby Doo.' So I went in to read with Don Messick and Casey Kasem and a bunch of other people and read for the dog.
"I didn't get the dog but they called me back and said, 'Look, why don't you read for the part of Freddy.' So Casey got Shaggy, I got Freddy and Don Messick got the dog. That was my first cartoon show."
Welker's first film had come two years earlier, when he landed a small role in Elvis Presley's final feature. "The Trouble with Girls (And How To Get Into It)."
During the seven weeks he worked on the film, Welker got well acquainted with Presley, who would often ask him to do his dog-and-cat fight.
"He was so great and all the people traveling with him were so friendly on the set. And he was going into Vegas to start that cycle of his life and was real excited about it.
"Just the way happenstance goes, I never really touched base with him again. I was working with Ann-Margaret the night he died and I was standing where he played at the (Las Vegas) Hilton."
Welker's decision in the mid-'70s to put his on-camera career on hold was not a conscious one, he says, but it did give him more freedom.
"I found that in '74-'75, I started hooking up with the nightclub act and getting out of the on-camera stuff.
"That's so confining, when you're doing on-camera stuff. You're again at the mercy of basically the way you look, what look is in, whether you're going to get this part based on this or that.
"There are so many things involved. With standup, you can look any way and you can create your own material. With the other thing, you count on too many other people."
Welker says he loves what he does, though the anonymity his career provides is a "double-edged sword."
"I think there are times when I would like that kind of exposure, but on the other hand it's awfully nice when I watch what happens (to the famous faces) when they're tilting to eat."
And, he says, he doesn't need mass adoration for his ego either.
"I get a lot of nice ego builds from the people I work with. In fact, I work with Jonanthan Winters [sic] on 'The Smurfs' and when he turns to you and goes, 'Oooooh, good voice' that's like worth a year" of applause.

You could probably count the number of cartoons Frank Welker voiced before and after this story, but it would take up a lot of time. Happily, he is still working as of this writing. Considering his talent, that’s no mystery for some meddling kids and their dog.

Hot Head

Tex Avery and writer Heck Allen set up a premise and use variations of it throughout Red Hot Rangers (MGM, 1947). George and Junior try to catch a living flame. Junior screws up every attempt. George kicks him in the butt. The little flame then moves across the screen as they look at him.

In one sequence, George’s butt is on fire. Instead of grabbing a pail of water, Junior picks up a bucket of gasoline. George sits in it. The flaming butt causes the only possible result (You can see some frames in this post).

Tex isn’t done yet. George’s hat catches on fire. The frames tell the story as the premise plays out.



Like a Hanna-Barbera TV cartoon, the main violence (Junior bashing George’s head with the shovel) happens off camera. And if Carl Stalling were scoring this, you’d hear “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” as the flame makes his appearance.

Showmen’s Trade Review of April 5, 1947 had this story about the cartoon.

Forestry Service Seeks ‘Red Hot Rangers’ Tieup
The United States Forestry Service has asked MGM for a special preview for its Washington staff and for a national tieup on the Technicolor cartoon. "Red Hot Rangers," Fred Quimby, head of MGM's short subjects department, has announced. The cartoon, produced by Quimby, was directed by Tex Avery and it features George and Junior in a story that concerns the dangers to forests by careless smokers.
Quimby also announced that negotiations have been completed with William C. Erskine, New York merchandising executive, for the development and merchandising of various types of novelties, toys, jewelry, dolls and comic books displaying the MGM cartoon characters, Tom and Jerry, Red Hot Ridinghood, Barney Bear, George and Junior, Skrewy Squirrel and many others. Erskine will handle world-wide distribution of these articles in department stores, news-stands and shops everywhere.

The cartoon was used as a public service message, as the Review reported on Aug. 9 that year. Tex gets “top spot.”

Good Tie-in Bill
Manager James LaRue of Interstate's Kimo Theatre, Albuquerque, N. M., had a ready-made tie-in bill for the observance of Forest Fire Prevention Week. The feature, appropriately enough, was MGM's "Sea of Grass," and the principal short subject was the same company's "Red Hot Rangers," a Technicolor cartoon.
Accordingly, he utilized a show window which advertised both the feature and short subject (with the short getting top spot) and displayed forest fire-fighting equipment plus instructive placards put out by the Forest Ranger service.

Layouts in this cartoon were drawn by Irv Spence (uncredited) while Preston Blair, Ed Love, Ray Abrams and Walt Clinton got animation credits.

How to Hurt a Tail in Nine Frames

Tex Avery gets credit for picking up the pace of theatrical cartoons in the 1940s, but the artists at MGM were quite capable of fast action before he got there.

In one scene of Wanted: No Master (1939), Count Screwloose races into the bathroom, races out, then races in again. J.R. the Wonder Dog’s tail gets caught behind the door.



The reaction drawings below are all one per frame. I love the exaggerated open mouth. It’s like something in an Avery cartoon.



There’s some really frantic animation as J.R. tries to free his tail. Devon Baxter tells me it its all by Bill Littlejohn. No animators are credited on the film (frames from Mark Kausler).

This short was the product of New York newspaper cartoonist Milt Gross, whose career in the MGM cartoon department lasted from May to September 1938. The California-based animators didn’t hit it off with easterner Gross, and producer Fred Quimby didn’t like his work, either. Pretty soon, Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising were brought back in to stem the turmoil, and wildness in the studio’s cartoons pretty much had to wait for Avery’s arrival.

A Less-Than-Magical Time For Dick Sargent

The Phil Silvers Show with Sgt. Bilko was a huge hit. “I know!” said someone. “Let’s do Bilko except move it from the Army to the Navy.” Thus begat McHale’s Navy. “I know!” said someone. “Let’s do McHale, except make it female instead of male.” Thus begat Broadside.

The show accomplished one thing—it proved you can go to the well only so many times.

One of the cast members was Dick Sargent. I suspect when you see his name, this is not the sitcom you associate with him. But even before Broadside Sargent was the star of another TV comedy. One Happy Family was a 1960-61 mid-season replacement with a cast that included Jack Kirkwood and Cheerio Meredith. Broadside was on the air for 32 episodes. One Happy Family was ousted by ABC after 15.

One of the wire services caught up with Sargent to talk about his new series in a story published Jan. 8, 1961.

HATES HORSES, ACTOR FORCED INTO COMEDY
Dick Sargent Born to Horsey Set but Fears Steeds
HOLLYWOOD (UPI) — When Dick Sargent quit Stanford University in 1951 to become an actor he simply had to become a comedian—there's not too much of a market for tragedians these days and Sargent can't stand horses.
Sargent, who begins a television series "One Happy Family" Jan. 13, came from a long-time family of horsemen, but even the thought of climbing aboard one makes him break out in a sweat.
"You can see this made things a little rough trying to break into Hollywood in 1951," said the tall, good looking 30-year-old Sargent. "Almost everything that was being produced involved at least one horse."
Sargent said his agent got him one role in which he had to drive a two-horse team, together with several other teams.
"I don't why but just getting behind the horses seemed to make me tighten my grip on one side and my team went racing out of the camera angle away from the others," he said.
"For the next year I didn't get a part."
During his break-in period in Hollywood Sargent was endowed with an asset most prospective actors do not have—money.
"This trust fund kept me eating," he said. "During that one year without work I moved to a little town in the interior of Mexico," then—it kind of crept up on me—the trust fund ran out. All I had left was $200. I came back to Hollywood."
Sargent said his next contact with a horse was in the TV show "Wichita Town."
"They had a couple of scenes with horses but the director had to use a double," he said. "Believe me, producers don't like this because it costs money."
Sargent blames his fear of horses on his grandfather, John MacNaughton.
"When I was about five or six, grandfather gave me a hobby horse," he said. "I promptly got on and just as promptly fell off."
"Grandfather MacNaughton, incidentally, was the first horse-racing commissioner in the State of California."
Sargent's father, Elmer Fox, died when he was 12. He owned a large horse breeding ranch at Carmel, Cal., the Central California resort city Sargent still calls "home" although he owns his own home near the ocean not far from Hollywood. He's still a bachelor.
In his role in "One Happy Family" Sargent portrays a meteorologist who marries into a family of zany characters whose operation is somewhat different than his scientific thinking. It involves the humorous situations that could and do develop with three generations living under one roof.

Audiences may not have been happy with One Happy Family but producers were happy enough with Sargent. He worked steadily in films and got another crack at TV stardom in 1964. One of his publicity stops was in Dayton, Ohio, which resulted in this feature story published September 14.

Dick Sargent: An Actor Who Can't Tell a Lie
By GREGORY FAYRE, Daily News Sunday Editor
With his thick-lensed glasses, receding hairline and professorial manner, Dick Sargent, actor, could have passed for a refugee from "Mr. Novak," or "Our Miss Brooks," or "The Blackboard Jungle."
He was, in fact, absent with leave from something called "Broadside," a new television series described by its creators, or by their public voices, as a "female McHale's Navy." (It will be seen on Ch. 2 Sunday nights.)
It features, naturally, broads, if you will pardon the word, who join the Navy to see the world, or something like that.
In addition to Sargent, the show stars Kathy Nolan, who swapped her flower-sack dresses in "The Real McCoys" for bell-bottomed trousers, and Eddie Andrews, who usually is a guest star.
Dayton was one of the numerous stops Dick was making in the line of duty during what he laughingly called, "my vacation."
Over a dinner of swordfish, French fries and raspberry sherbet, (at 6-2, 173, he doesn't have to sweat his weight), he discussed his life, his career and his current vehicle, quite candidly. “I am one of those people who really loved his parents," Dick said. "You know there are so many actors and actresses who say. 'I lived in the slums and I hated them' or 'They gave me everything and I hated them.' Not me. I loved them."
Dick's father, to hear him tell it, was a combination of Errol Flynn, Rudolph Valentino, George Raft and Lionel Barrymore.
"He was fantastic," he says proudly and loudly for a soft spoken man. "He was many things ... a prohibition agent and a rum runner at the same time; a real estate man: an actor; an actor’s agent; a publicity man; many things. I was never able to top him."
He Headed for Mexico
After his father died when he was 12, Dick says he "became extremely introverted. I couldn’t talk to anyone for six years. I lived in a shell. My grandfather, who wanted me to grow up to be a businessman, sent me off to military school."
Finally, a more outward Dick Sargent emerged. He enrolled at Stanford, gained a group of friends, started acting and soon became "the human being I am today, whatever kind of human being that is."
He left college in his third year, hired an agent and landed two movie jobs quickly.
"I figured that it was a cinch that I would be working all the time."
Then, wham! He was out of work.
So he packed his bags along with a small trust fund and headed for Mexico and the export-import business.
"Somebody forgot to tell me that the trust fund would run out."
He went busted and latched on to odd job after odd job—selling silver door-to-door, trimming trees, digging ditches, anything to keep food in the cupboard and shelter over the head.
You've Gotta Have Faith
Then came a break and he soon had roles in "Bernadine," "Operation Petticoat," "The Great Imposter." "That Touch of Mink,” "For Love or Money," a few other movies, a few TV spots, and this series.
Dick lives by himself in one of two houses he owns. He is divorced.
He doesn't date actresses. "I dated every Susan Oliver in town," he said. "But when you sit and talk with an actress it's like talking to a man.
"They are worried about their careers. They say, 'I'm going to get that part from that woman. I'm going to knock on doors and land that part, etc.' I have enough to worry about with my own career."
Dick Sargent is a man who is doing what he wants to do.
"I am billed as one of the three stars in "Broadside." That is important. Not because I want the star billing, but because it means the studio recognizes me."
It means he has arrived, it means lean days in Mexico and peddling silver on the streets are behind him.
It means, as he says, "If you have faith in yourself and confidence in your ability, you will make it."
He doesn't know how to knock on doors, to push for a job, to step on other people, he says. He should, but he doesn't.
"I can't tell a lie on any level above little white lies."
Can "Broadside" make the team in the rating games?
"I think it can," Dick answered. "Frankly, I may sound cocky, but I don't think our competition is so tough."
In most cities the show goes against the last half of "Ed Sullivan" and "The Bill Dana Show."
As Dick Sargent said, he has faith in himself and in his series.

Faith in the series tuned out to be unfounded, but Sargent had reason to have faith in himself. That’s even though his next regular role was on The Tammy Grimes Show, which was pulled after four episodes. He jumped into a proven winner, replacing the pain-ridden Dick York on the sixth season of Bewitched. The series petered out after the eighth season but his performances as the mortal Darrin Stephens live on in reruns—along with a seemingly-immortal debate about which one played the role better.

Going Up?

A stretch in-between and dry-brush help move the “Gildersleeve” clerk who continually gets outsmarted by Bugs Bunny in Hare Conditioned (released in 1945).

Bugs is disguised as an elevator operator and tricks the rabbit-chasing clerk into getting off the lift, who suddenly realises what has happened.



He gets into the elevator again and Bugs shoves him out. Another reaction with multiples and dry-brush as Gildersleeve rushes to take the stairs instead.



Ken Harris, Ben Washam, Basil Davidovich and Lloyd Vaughan are the credited animators for director Chuck Jones.

The official release date was Aug. 11, 1945 but, naturally, it appeared on movie screens earlier. The Varsity in Iowa City showed it July 14 along with Rosalind Russell and Jack Carson in Roughly Speaking. Say! Someone should make a cartoon parodying that title. Are you listening, Mr. Jones?