Dave Ketchum

He was a screenwriter, a columnist, a disc jockey and a cartoon voice, but may be known more for sticking his head out of sofas, mailboxes and washing machines.

That was all part of the role of the hidden spy, Agent 13, on the mid-to-late ‘60s comedy show, Get Smart.

He was played by Dave Ketchum, who has passed away at age 97.

Ketchum’s fame in the 1950s was pretty much restricted to southern California. The San Luis Obispo County Telegram-Tribune of May 24, 1952 notes he was a speech student at San Diego State College who was 11 days from starting a movie career in October 1950 when he entered the army with a National Guard group. He was discharged the day before the story was published as a sergeant at Camp Roberts where he wrote 42,000 pages of script and emceed shows at the camp and toured with the USO.

He then put together, as the Sacramento Bee of Dec. 1, 1956 calls it, “The Dave Ketchum Show, a singing, dancing and comedy revue which has played to service audiences all over the world.” A year later, the revue was in Alaska. Included in the company was folk singer Louise Bryant, whom he married. In November 1955, he was in the cast of KRCA Kapers “an experimental showcase to comics and writers who are trying to develop into big-time pros,” as columnist Hal Humphrey called it (the February 28, 1956 show was broadcast in colour).

Ketchum wrote a column called “Assignment Hollywood,” distributed by New Era Syndicate. A squib in the Valley Times of August 30, 1957 mentions Ketchum was headed to Mexico City to interview people for the column before returning to play a comedy role in Will Jason’s film Desert Massacre. I can’t find that it was released.

As the new decade came, Ketchum landed some roles on network TV. He appeared on I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster before David Swift cast him in another comedy series, which had an animation connection. Here’s a column from the Newspaper Enterprise Association that appeared in papers starting in late September 1965.

Zany Comedy Makes Series ‘Incomparable’
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD (NEA)—Don't fire until you see the whites of their pies.
In proof that there's reaIly nothing new on television this fall, the show business trade paper Variety recently listed the new shows. In one way or another, each show resembled one of last season's hits.
But one new show, NBC-TV's "Camp Runamuck" did not appear on the list.
"And I think that's a good sign," says David Ketchum, the lean, likable comedian who stars as Spiffy in the series. "If nothing else, we are incomparable and I think that's something on television these days."
Wild really is the word for "Camp Runamuck" with silent movie comedies, Red Skelton and pair of one-time Disney studio animators being responsible for its zany approach.
This may be news to Skelton, but he is at least responsible for David Ketchum's career as a comedian.

In 1941 Ketchum was a high school student in San Diego. Red visited the campus for a war bond rally and broke up the student body when he drove up in a jeep, stepped out and promptly fell flat on his face.
"If you can make people laugh by falling down, why don't we try it," Ketchum said to a student pal. With that both lads 'fell' into show business by taking lessons in the art of falling and then putting together a rambunctious act for servicemen's camp shows which led to night clubs, TV and movies.
After 24 years, Ketchum is still falling down for laughs.
The format of "Camp Runamuck”—a boys' camp under the supervision of four experts in chaos—tells only half the "incomparable" label. Ketchum tells the other half when he says:
"The show really is 75 per cent sight gags—the chases, falls, stunts, and other mishaps right out of old silent movie comedies. In the first six shows we have sent a fellow across a lake on a surfboard equipped with a jet engine, shot a fellow into the air from a giant bow and arrow, recreated the gunfight from High Noon with pants falling down, had an entire house collapse on us and flooded the entire camp with soap suds.
"The show is mad, mad, mad. There's only one thing I can compare it to and that's the movie, 'Mr. Hulot's Holiday.’ We don't stop between gags to try to make sense." The pre-planned sight gags of the show are developed in special story-board technique, a skill the show's creator David Swift acquired early in his career as a Disney animator. Still another ex-Disney sight gag man, Cal Howard, is the show's full-time "animator."
In the Swift-directed movie, "Good Neighbor Sam," Ketchum was the Hertz car man in a spoof of the TV commercial. Everytime he slid down the wire he missed the car and fell on his face.
"But," laughs Ketchum, "that was tame compared to 'Camp Runamuck’.”

Runamuck was run off the NBC schedule after one season. He told the press at the time it was likely because CBS’ The Wild Wild West kicked them in the ratings, and some affiliates delayed airing the show.

Ketchum was quikly cast in Get Smart after Victor French, who played a similar role as Agent 44, left. He evidently made an impression on newspaper columnists, as a number of them talked to him about the show. This is from January 1967.

Dave Ketchum Proves to Be A Very Versatile Performer
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD (NEA)—In the new role of Agent 13 on television's Get Smart this season, Dave Ketchum turns up la the strangest places.
With sudden abruptness Agent 13 appears inside a popcorn dispenser or from out of a trash can, inside a foot locker or out of a mail box, inside a sofa or out of a picture frame.
Guessing where he will be next week has become a game with regular fans of the show.
Off screen Dave Ketchum also keeps Hollywood guessing about where he will show up next. The other day even a man from NBC guessed wrong about Dave’s presence on the Get Smart set. There had been a last-minute change in the shooting schedule, it was explained, to permit Dave to play a role in another TV series.
We found him, four miles away, playing the part of a real estate salesman on The Andy Griffith Show. For a rival network yet.
"I like to be a moving target,” Dave kidded about a career which has been booming since he starred in the short-lived Camp Runamuck series after first winning TV fan attention in I’m Dickens ... He's Fenster.

In addition to acting these day s he’s also writing (five Petticoat Junction and three Hey, Landlord scripts); working in TV commercial (he’s that fellow with a glass garage for his 1967 car) and providing the voices of five different characters in the Roger Ramjet kiddie cartoon series.
Some actors belittle commercials and cartoon voices, but Dave welcomes them. He says, “I once read that the Hollywood Screen Acton Guild has a membership of 10,000 but that only 1,000 members work full time in the industry. I’m proud of the fact that in this basically insecure business I’m a full-time worker. To be one, it's necessary to be versatile.”
That, of course, is the story of his show business career which started on a San Diego, Calif., radio station before he invaded Hollywood television.
Since turning to writing TV scripts (with Bruce Shelley) Dave says his eyes have been opened to a new advantage for him as an actor.
“Writing scripts,” he explains, “has taught me to recognize good parts which I might otherwise have turned down. Writing scripts teaches you how to read scripts from a different viewpoint.”
About his TV commercial work, he said:
“It takes two days to film a one-minute commercial. It's just like making a big-time movie and I think there’s more real creative talent behind some commercials than in many TV shows. For young unknowns, a one-minute TV commercial is better than a major studio big screen test”

This piece likely came from the producers as there is no byline. It also appeared in papers in January 1967.

Hollywood—Dave Ketchum may have been destined from birth to appear in strange places. He was born in an elevator.
Today, he may be found in mailboxes, lockers, washing machines, garbage cans, cigarette machines and grandfather clocks.
Ketchum, as Agent 13, has been hiding inside these various containers while awaiting contact with other operatives in Get Smart on the NBC-TV Saturdays.
"I'm not bothered by claustrophobia," said Ketchum, "But I have a slight tendency towards motion sickness."
The only time this problem seems to arise, however, is when he's spinning around inside a washing machine.
Asked what's more his speed, he said:
"F-11 at 125."
As any shutterbug knows, this is shoptalk for a standard lens opening. Ketchum, who has handled a camera since he was a youngster, would just as soon take pictures than be in them.
"I'm often in the dark room until three and four in the morning," he said. "It's a great place for getting away from it all."
He's ALWAYS had a hideaway of some kind. As a youngster it was a friend's hut.
"Once we saw a movie with a steam room scene," said Dave. "We decided to turn our hut into a steam room. We didn't know how to make steam so we used dirt instead. We poured buckets of dirt into the hut and sat around breathing dust."
In time Dave came to Hollywood.

"When I first came to this silly little city I lived in a little room, the size of a restaurant booth, under a staircase," he said.
The room's major virtue was the cost—five dollars a week.
Dave has done many things and popped up in many places. He was a student at UCLA, an entertainer with the Armed Forces and for the Defense Department, and currently he is one of the busiest and most versatile talents in show business.
"I haven't been on unemployment for years," said Ketchum.
His last series was Camp Runamuck. When camp closed, he packed his bags, slipped out of his tent and became the peek-a-boo agent on Get Smart.
WHEN NOT HIDING behind his role or in the dark room, Ketchum hides behind a typewriter.
"I've written 10 scripts in one year," said Ketchum. "I've also written a television pilot. I write with Josh Shelley. We were in the Army together."
They work in a small room, naturally.
"We started out in a larger room," said Ketchum. "But we had a hard time getting started. So we moved to a smaller room. I work better in small spaces."
Some people say their life is an open book. Ketchum puts it differently,
"My life," he said, "is a little room."

After Get Smart, it appears Ketchum focused more on writing than performing. It’s too bad. Even in the most over-the-top roles, Ketchum was never-over-the-top. As Yogi Bear might rhyme: “As a hidden spy, he was a regular guy.” That, to me, was appeal during his time on the small screen.

Eye-Sproing on Broadway

Animation takes could be pretty exaggerated during the years of World War Two. Take a look at Tex Avery’s Northwest Hounded Police (MGM, 1946 release). By the 1950s, that kind of thing had settled down, as cartoon characters became more stylised. My guess is the take-gag had also become a cliché.

Occasionally, one would pop up in a ‘50s short. The eye gag at the end of Droopy’s Double Trouble (MGM, 1951 release) is my favourite. Here’s one from in Broadway Bow Wow’s, released on August 2, 1954.

The tale is of lovers John and Mary, whose dancing act rises to the top of vaudeville. Then, John gets a look at a femme fatale. Here’s the take.



This short was one of two made by Ray Patterson and Grant Simmons for Walter Lantz. People on the internet claim Grantray-Lawrence made it. Let’s look at the facts. Variety of June 16, 1953 reported Lantz had hired Simmons and Patterson as part of a studio expansion, and mentioned on July 21, 1954 the two had formed Grantray Animation to do commercial work for Robert Lawrence. As the cartoon was released August 2, 1954, there’s no way it could have been made at Grantray-Lawrence.

However, Business Screen magazine’s issue of August 1954 reported the two “have been in the animation business for twenty years. Both were formerly with Walt Disney and later with M.G.M. cartoon studios. Operating as a partnership for the past two years, Simmons and Patterson have been producing television animated commercials and writing and directing theatrical cartoons.”

Buried in the background of one scene is a sign reading “Grantray’s Snake Oil.” There are also signs saying “Garity’s Goiter Pellets” (for Lantz’s studio manager, Bill Garity) and another for “Batchelor’s Eye Wash” (for Mickey Bachelder, Lantz’s chief cameraman). There’s also one for “Avery’s Liver Tonic.” I am assuming that’s a reference to Tex Avery, who was hired by Lantz in December 1953 to be his executive producer, according to the Hollywood Reporter of December 23 that year.

There are no animation credits on the short, but Ray Jacobs and Art Landy handled the backgrounds and layouts, and Dick Nelson got screen credit as John, the narrating dog.

This post will be the last on Tralfaz for the indefinite future.

Indestructible Benny

There may not have been a comedian who was analysed so much during his time as Jack Benny.

Over the years, we’ve posted a number of articles from columnists explaining the appeal of Benny and his show. Jack talked about it himself at the time as well.

This article is from Leon Gutterman of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. What may be interesting is a great deal of credit was given to his irregular supporting cast. Don Wilson, Dennis Day, Phil Harris and Mary Livingstone were the only people to be mentioned at the start of each radio show. Anyone else got credit for their performances only on rare occasion. An exception might have been Mel Blanc, whose name Jack mentioned as the show was unfolding on the air. Unlike other radio shows, you wouldn’t hear “Appearing tonight were…” though credits were given on the Benny television programmes.

The writer got Schlepperman’s catch-phrase wrong, but his column otherwise sums up the Jack Benny show that people remember today.

It was published Oct. 13, 1950.

OUR FILM FOLK
Why Jack Benny Is the Indestructible Comedian
Jack Benny has returned to the nation's air waves for the 19th season of his comedy career in radio. And he has come back, as always, in his familiar role of the balding, penny-pinching patsy, but his CBS program as in the past, will be replete during the coming year with new riotous laugh skits, new characterizations, new guest surprises. At least that's what Jack tells me.
This indestructible quality of the great wit's character creation and a show format flexible enough for a perennial infusion of fresh idea material and talent point to the secret of his enduring and inimitable success. As one newspaper editor once wrote: "Benny hasn't, as is so persistently rumored, been doing the same thing for 18 years. He wouldn't have lasted that long if he had."
Comedy situations in a Benny program season had, year after year, been marked by freshness and originality. New characterizations, his own and those of an odd assortment of fellow actors and actresses, have paraded across; the script in endless procession. His guests, too, have been spectacularly impressive, as witness the case of the Ronald Colmans, who appeared 16 times on the show.
But the program personalities, including the whimsical portrayals of regular cast members, are probably the most memorable highlights of the Benny saga. Among those who turned up last season was Frank Fontaine, a new comedian, playing a mentally retarded sweepstakes winner named John L. P. Sivony [sic]. Mel Blanc, a regular, (the voice of Bugs Bunny) did a week-by-week impersonation of Al Jolson. Jack himself added another facet to his characterization, that of the naive treasurer of the Beverly Hills Beavers, a boy's club.
Once, there was an ostrich in the script, and even a polar bear named Carmichael. Jack kept Carmichael in the cellar and Rochester was his keeper. At the time, the husky-voiced valet was in an endless search for a gas man to do some repairs. The versatile Mel Blanc played Carmichael. Blanc now is the voice of the Benny parrot, which keeps Rochester from delivering soliloquies while doing the household chores. Its screams drive him to distraction. Blanc is also Benny's French violin teacher. He is the coughing, sputtering voice of the rattletrap Maxwell auto as it tunes up, and he doubles as well as the rhythm-tongued train announcer calling out Azusa, Cucamonga and other weirdly-named stations.
Buck Benny Rides Again
Who doesn't remember the famous Buck Benny of the long-running "Buck Benny Rides Again" sequence? Andy Devine, whose entrance line was "Hiya, Buck" was the chief stooge of this comedy turn. The skit ceased with the release of the Paramount film "Buck Benny Rides Again." in which Jack and most his fibbers appeared.
Mr. Billingsley was a quaint character dreamed up and played by Ed Beloin, a former Benny writer. A subnormal, self-appointed house guest, Mr. Billingsley consistently made wry comments at the wrong time in a dry voice. Beloin, never an actor, always had Benny worried that he'd miss his cues or fluff his lines.
Another witty specimen knocked on the Benny door anouncing [sic] "A telegram for Mr. Benny." The role was played by Harry Baldwin, Benny's secretary, who would glow with Barrymore-like pride at the end of each performance, over his laconic line.
Mr. Kitzel, a current fabrication, is played by Artie Auerbach, former New York newspaper photographer. His "peekle in the meedle with the mustard on top" and his baseball stories are laugh toppers. Mable Flapsaddle and Gertrude Gershift, the Benny telephone opertors [sic], enacted by Sarah Berner [sic] and Bea Benadaret [sic], tie the program in knots with them saucy badgering of the boss.
Schelepperman’s "Howdy Stranger"
Off and on the show have been Sheldon Leonard, Sam Hearn, Frank Nelson and many other stooges. Leonard is the racetrack tout with the soft, patronizing voice. Hearn played Mr. Schlepperman, whose greeting, "Howdy, Stranger," stirred a ripple of chuckles. Nelson is often heard as the haughty floorwalker, the butler or some generally nasty type, with a mocking "Yeahus" when addressed.
Jack's main foils of course, have come in for equally hilarious typing. Tenor Dennis Day is the timid mama's boy who is always asking for his salary, and Phil Harris is ribbed as a lady-killer with a predilection for word-mangling and liquid refreshments. Rochester as the extrovert valet and chauffeur constantly befuddles the harassed Benny. Mary Livingstone, Jack's wife, is the heckling girl friend whom Benny constantly threatens to send back to the hosiery counter at the May Company department store.
Practically every important figure in show business has guested on the Benny funfest, but Fred Allen's visits have been among the most notable. Jack and Fred carried on a feud for years, on their own programs. Every once in a while they crossed over for mutual calls, letting the quips and sparks fly at close range. "If I had my writers here," Jack once exploded, "you wouldn't talk to me like this."
Benny at His Best
For years, the Benny comedy situations have run the gamut of thing that could possibly happen to Jack Benny has been satirized. Last season, for example, he did a takeoff on an actual operation on his nose, and in another skit he roved through the script for several weeks spending his money like a drunken sailor after a can of tomatoes fell on his head and put him out of his mind. It was Benny at his best.
To his sheer delight, the fabulous funnyman has taken the worst beating from his stooges of any comedian in radio history. Everything about him is mercilessly lampooned . . . his thinning hair, his baby blue eyes, his age (39 years), his romantic attractiveness, his Maxwell, his money vault, his thriftiness and his fiddle. A few years ago his writers even dreamed up a contest in which listeners were invited to send in letters of 25 words or less dwelling on the theme "I can't stand Jack Benny because . . ." More than 500,000 letters poured in. Benny revelled in the scheme.
That's why Jack Benny is the indestructible comedian, who never changes himself but keeps his show over fresh with funsters. That's the secret of his 19 years of radio success.

Swing Symphonies

Carl Stalling had a great advantage when it came to scores for Warner Bros. cartoons. All songs published by Warners’ subsidiaries were available to him and arranger Milt Franklyn. Scott Bradley was able to utilise music owned by MGM. The same for Win Sharples at Fleischer/Famous/Paramount.

Other cartoon musical directors—even the ones at Disney—had to create their own scores from public domain music or whatever they wrote themselves.

And then there was Darrell Calker.

Calker was hired by Walter Lantz in 1940 to replace Frank Marsales. Lantz’ studio was independent; Universal only released the cartoons. Lantz was having money troubles about the time Calker was hired, but someone at the studio came up with the idea of putting out the cash for the rights to popular music and building a series of big band-style cartoons around them.

It worked. The Swing Symphonies were among the finest cartoons that came out of the Lantz studio, perhaps surpassed only by the Musical Miniatures later in the ‘40s when classical music was at the forefront.

Cartoon music scholar Daniel Goldmark sent me some links last fall to editions of Down Beat which mentioned some cartoon composers. I thought I had transcribed the stories about Calker, but I must have gotten sidetracked. We’re rectifying that now.

First up is a short one from May 1, 1943. By this time, Calker had been making musical cartoons for some time. The first was Scrub Me Mama With a Boogie Beat (released March 28, 1941). The less said about the plot of this one, the better. It was followed by Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company “B” (Sept. 1, 1941). At this point, Lantz made the Swing Symphonies a series, beginning with $21 a Day (Once a Month) (Dec. 1, 1941), Juke Box Jamboree (July 27, 1942, Oscar nominee), Yankee Doodle Swing Shift (Sept. 21, 1942), Boogie Woogie Sioux (Nov. 30, 1942), Cow Cow Boogie (Jan. 3, 1943), Swing Your Partner (Apr. 26, 1943) and Pass The Biscuits Mirandy! (Aug. 23, 1943), Shamus Culhane’s directorial debut at Lantz.

Cartoon Films Feature Jazz
Hollywood—Meade “Lux” Lewis, king of the honey tonk pianists and, to serious students of the jazz idiom, one of its greatest figures, will be featured—although not seen in the first of a series of “swing symphony” cartoons produced by Walter Lantz for Universal release.
Lewis, accompanied by a studio band under the direction of Darrell Calker, recorded Cow Cow Boogie, around which the cartoon featurette was drawn.
Same series of cartoons will include one built around a song entitled Boogie Woogie Man’ll Get You, musical accompaniment of which will feature the Loumell Morgan Trio.

The Boogie Woogie Man cartoon was released Sept. 27, 1943 and was Culhane’s second cartoon.

Three fine Swing Symphony cartoons appeared in 1944: The Greatest Man in Siam (March 27), Jungle Jive (May 15) and Abou Ben Boogie (Sept. 18). The final two in the series followed in 1945: The Pied Piper of Basin Street (Jan. 15) and Sliphorn King of Polaroo (Mar. 19), Dick Lundy’s first directorial job for Lantz. No more of the cartoons were made at the time this article in Down Beat appeared on Sept. 15 in the "On the Beat in Hollywood" column.

We’ve had many requests to write more about cartoon scoring. Adequate coverage of the subject will have to wait for a let-up in the paper shortage but we’ll devote, our column this time to some notes on Darrell Calker, the “one-man music department” for Walter Lantz productions (Swing Symphony series) who was first to see the possibilities of building the animated cartoon shorts around top rank jazz musicians.
We recently paid a visit to Darrell in his unpretentious headquarters at the Walter Lantz plant adjacent to the Universal studios during which he ran some of his pictures for our special benefit and supplied us with some of the best screen entertainment we’ve had in a long time.
Between showings we questioned him on his musical background (we like to find out where musicians came from and how they got that way) and although he held out a formal biography we wormed out of him such interesting facts as that he, like so many other of today’s musicians who combine a good sense of jazz values with a sound musical schooling, stems from the old Goldkette group; that he was once a banjo player, went to college to become an engineer, has had compositions played by major U.S. symphonies.
Calker didn’t have a print available of his first application of jazz to the cartoon comedy medium—a short featuring Meade Lewis—but he showed us the Bob Zurke short, Jungle Jive, and the two Teagarden pictures, Sliphorn King of Polaroo and Pied Piper of Basin Street. These pictures have been available for some time but are still to be shown in many houses. If you haven’t caught them, request them at your local theater.
Zurke, like Teagarden, an old friend of Calker’s, recorded his piano solo for Jungle Jive (the animators built the picture around the previously recorded solo—an original boogie by Zurke) just a month before his death, but it is one of his best. The interesting “jungle drums” passages in the picture are by the veteran Vic Berton. Calker backed Teagarden with a band of ace dance men. His cartoon music, for that reason has a solid beat running through most of the score instead of the conventional “mickey mouse” quality. The fine pianist heard in the Teagarden pictures is our old friend Stan (Blues in the Night) Wrightsman.
But Calker gave us a real surprise by running a government short, a three-reeler used to teach medical corpsmen the dangers of infection during surgery, for which he had done a full length symphonic score recorded under his direction by the 75-piece AAF orchestra under Lt. Col. Eddie Dunstedter (now retired). It’s unfortunate that this picture, Enemy Bacteria, will not, for the present, anyway, be shown publicly, as it is, in our opinion, not only an excellent picture but one of the best examples of dramatic picture scoring we have encountered. In one passage the rhythm is taken directly from a human heartbeat, actually recorded and heard in the sound track. What might have been a dull training film becomes an engrossing human drama due mainly to the intensity created by the music. We’ll be hearing more of Mr. Calker.

Calker was musical as a child. A news report on January 21, 1917 told readers Calker was a boy soprano who sang after a meeting of Potomac Council of the Knights of Pythias in Washington, D.C. He was a soloist at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. He was 11 years old. Another newspaper story from Washington on July 24, 1925 tells how he was part of the Maccabee Caravan Entertainers, about to play vaudeville houses across the U.S. We learn more from another D.C. paper of April 12, 1936 which reported he was at WHN radio in New York and had made his first professional appearance as a banjoist in the Club Le Paradis at age 14. His father Maurice had been a bandleader.

Over the years, Calker and his orchestra (the Swing-Phonics) had a 15-minute programme, transcribed, on various stations in the U.S. There was a half-hour show as well, as outlined in Radio Daily of July 1942:

Treasure Tunes
In "Treasure Tunes" Daryle Calker, arranger-composer-conductor, and his concert-dance orchestra furnish the setting for "the Hit Parade of Tomorrow and Today," 30-minutes of new songs and music played and sung by top notch talent of Hollywood. Wide appeal is gained by introducing original songs selected by our song jury and voted upon by listeners. Merchandising is present in the fact that the program presents the work of thousands of new songwriters attracted to entertainment especially built for them.
Presentation: Live talent
Available Time Units: 30 minutes, once weekly
Audience Appeal: Entire family
Suggested for: Evening
Client Suitability: Nationally distributed low-cost product
Number of Artists: 30
Unit Cost: $3,000.00 a week
Audition Facilities: Transcriptions
Submitted by: Paul Cruger Radio Productions

His musical scores are in the possession of the University of Wyoming. About him, its web site says:

The Darrell Calker papers include more than 250 musical scores which Calker composed for ballets, television, motion picture productions, as well as symphonic and radio music. Works in the collection include "Geronimo," "Penguin Island," "Manhandled," "My World Dies Screaming," and "Albuquerque." The collection also contains music Calker composed for Walter Lantz cartoons, shooting scripts for motion pictures for which Calker provided the soundtrack; music transcripts (records and audiotapes) ballets, television and motion picture productions, as well as symphonic and radio music. The collection also contains scrapbook material and personal photographs.
Darrell Calker (1905-1964) was a prominent composer, conductor and arranger, educated at Maryland University where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree, and at the Curtis Institute where he studied under Edgar Priest and David Pell. He joined ASCAP in 1953 and composed musical scores for ballet companies including the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, the Ballet Russe, and Sandler Wells. His classical works include "Penguin Island" and "Golden Land." His ballets include "Royal Coachman," "Quiet Wheel," and "Decameron." He also composed music for "Geronimo," "Albuquerque," "The Red Ryder" serials, and Walter Lantz cartoons.

The summary skips over his work for the Screen Gems cartoon studio, which sounds a lot like warmed-over Woody Woodpecker scores. They certainly weren’t up to the standard of the Swing Symphonies and Musical Miniatures. Calker left Lantz and Columbia when their cartoon studios closed; he did not return right away when Lantz started up again in 1951.

Calker was hired in 1959 to score films for Pacific International Pictures, but he had a second go-around with Lantz, receiving credit on Fouled Up Birthday (April 1962), and 15 more cartoons through Rah-Rah Ruckus (June 1964, hilarious frame-grab to the left). Yeah, I know, Superman and the Mole Men, The Amazing Transparent Man, etc. If you want a full list, find it elsewhere on-line.

Like Frank Churchill at Disney and Gene Poddany (also at Lantz), Calker met a sad ending. The Los Angeles Independent of Feb. 27, 1964 reported:

MGM Arranger Found Deat At Hotel
Darrell Calker, 21336 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, a musical arranger for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, was found dead in a downtown Los Angeles hotel room with his wrists cut last Wednesday.
Calker, 59, was found lying dead in the bathtub of his room by a security guard R. W. Gerst who had been summoned by a maid. Calker had checked into the hotel Feb. 7 under the name of Dean Catheart.

You can read more about Calker in this post. Links to old issues of Down Beat, where more stories about Calker and cartoon composers, can be found here.

Kiss My...

Van Beuren cartoons are at their best when weird stuff happens out of nowhere. Not an awful lot weird happens on In the Park, a 1933 Tom and Jerry.

If this were a Fleischer cartoon, there would be a sense of danger as the hero tries to rescue a wayward child toddling into perilous situations. In this one, Tom and Jerry spend the cartoon trying to keep the baby quiet.

There is one Fleischer-type gag. The child is hanging from its baby gown (what is that called, anyway?) on a tree branch. Suddenly, a safety pin pops over and the child’s diaper falls down.



All is not lost. A helpful leaf on the tree pulls the diaper back up.



The end gag is, literally, an end gag. A cop has been making time with the baby’s nurse. After the cop kisses the nurse, the kid falls into his arms. He goes to kiss the nurse again, but just about kisses the baby’s butt before he opens his eyes.



Boy, is his face red! Or would be if the cartoon were in colour.



Tom and Jerry chortle to bring this tame short to an end.



Frank Sherman and George Rufle get the "by" credit. They handled the next two Tom and Jerrys before the series was brought to an end.

I Don't Care What You Say

Here we have an eight-frame cycle of a camel chewing on, well, I’m not quite sure. Note the spacing of the drawings. There seems to be barely any movement at one point.



This is the cycle slowed down, which gives you an idea of how the mouth moved.



Yeah, I know. Not the post interesting of posts, unless you are into timing of poses and in-betweens. The director is Friz Freleng, and the cartoon is Hot Spot, a 1945 Snafu short. The gag is an example of how everyone borrowed from Tex Avery. In fact, the short is like an Avery travelogue in places.

In this scene, the narrator (the Devil, played by Hal Peary, complete with Gildersleeve laugh), informs us “Here, the native beast of burden, the camel, is the only one who doesn’t mind the heat.” After chewing a bit, the camel (Mel Blanc) turns to the viewing audience and says “I don’t care what you say, I’m hot,” and resumes chewing.



Say, that gag is familiar, isn’t it? Let’s think back to Avery’s Wacky Wildlife (1940), where a camel is strolling across the desert. Narrator Bob Bruce informs us the camel “plods over scorching desert sands, in terrific heat, never once desiring a cool, refreshing drink of water. The camel (Mel Blanc) turns to the viewing audience and says “I don’t care what you say, I’m thirsty,” and resumes strolling.



Say, that gag is STILL familiar. That’s because Avery used a variation of it earlier in the year in Cross Country Detours. In this one, a polar bear is shown on a chunk of ice. “Mother Nature has provided him with layer upon layer of fat, plus a thick coat of heavy fur, to keep him good and warm,” says the narrator. The camera moves in and the bear (Mel Blanc) tells us “I don’t care what you say, I’m cold.”



Is it any wonder that Avery came up with the idea of footage of real animals with superimposed cartoon mouths that made wisecracks. The idea ended up at Jerry Fairbanks Productions, which made the Speaking of Animals series for Paramount. If the “I don’t care what you say” routine was one of the gags in those shorts, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

What about the end gag of Hot Spot, you ask? Thanks for reminding me. The short has emphasized how hot it is in Iran, hotter 'n Hades as they used to say. The short finishes with the Devil discovering the camel is now in his office in Hell. The camel turns to him and casually remarks, “I don’t care what you say, I’m cool.” It resumes chewing to end the cartoon.



None of the artists who worked on this are given screen credit.

Before Aunt Harriet

I’ve always enjoyed Madge Blake on the Batman TV series. She gave fine performances as the naïve but kindly Aunt Harriet.

Considering the huge impact the show had on kids when it debuted, it’s hard to realise Blake made regular appearances on TV shows before that.

At the time, some of her roles were proudly profiled in local newspapers. Here’s a feature story form the Modesto Bee of May 7, 1961. She had been appearing periodically on The Real McCoys at the time. It explains why she got into acting late in life.

Madge Blake Of The Real McCoys Visits Son In Merced
By Richard Watry
McClatchy Newspapers Service
MERCED, Merced Co. — Madge Blake is a wonderfully warm actress-mother whose theatrical star orbited when she was cast as the delightful Flora MacMichael on the highly popular The Real McCoy's television show witch features the venerable Walter Brennan.
Mrs. Blake has been here on a brief visit with Ted Blake, one of her two teaching sons. Blake is a science instructor at Merced High School. His other brother, Jim, teaches in a Southern California high school. And while in Merced the past few days Mrs. Blake found time to drop in at El Capitan High School to be guest lecturer in Alice Osborn's drama class.
Madge Blake — that is her real name — did not stumble into acting but entered it late, only 12 years ago. The daughter of a Methodist circuit riding minister, she always had a bent for the dramatics.
"But my father was a true hell bent for the Lord type of a man who would tolerate no smoking, lipstick, late hours or dramatics," she said.
However, living alone after her sons went into military service in World War II, Mrs. Blake worked for Cal-Tech in the chemistry division, a post for which "I guess they felt my one year of high school chemistry made me eminently qualified to do the task." Nonetheless she was given a special citation for her tasks in the war effort.
Not readily recognizable was her developing talent in little theater work "which I did to fill the vacant hours".
It was the late Fanny Brice who triggered the countdown for Mrs. Blake's eventual recognition as character star material. She had seen a performance by Mrs. Blake and subsequently was instrumental in landing the latter the role of mother to Spencer Tracy in Adam's Rib.
This was in 1949 and Mrs. Blake credits Katherine Hepburn also with "aiding and abetting my career". Miss Hepburn, also in that film, kept building up Madge Blake's part by tossing her some unauthored dialog which Director George Cuker [sic] left in the script.
Since then Mrs. Blake has done some 50 to 60 films and more than 300 professional shows.
And gilding the lily, so to speak, was her selection to play veteran actor Andy Clyde's sister Flora in The Real McCoys for television. She was just right for the sweet, soft spoken foil to Brennan.
It is a tribute that wherever she goes young and old alike hail her as Flora MacMichael instead of Madge Blake.
Even greater theatrical heights are in sight for her this fall when the Joey Bishop show is scheduled for a weekly run. She already has signed contracts to appear as his mother. And Jack Benny wants Mrs. Blake to join him once again for his summer show in Las Vegas because of her success with the show there last year.
Mrs. Blake has no affectations. She is in real life much like Flora McMichael who sat in this reporter's home until 1 in the morning eating ice cream, munching cookies and dispensing with some warmly amusing bon mots about her love affair with the theater.
She lives alone in Pasadena, her place of residence the past 24 years. In her younger days she lived in the Dinuba and Reedley areas while her father was in the ministry. How does this belated film and television activity affect her?
"Well,” she remarked, "I just love it. I am glad I had smaller roles and a chance to develop into character parts gradually. I love to cook and do some entertaining. And, of course, the pride of my world is not the acting profession but my four delightful grandsons in Southern California.
"I enjoy visiting in Merced and meeting Ted and Millie's friends. And I do love the theater. I just hope I can go on and on and on and I am looking forward to my new series with Joey."

The “new series with Joey” wasn’t as permanent she might have hoped. The series went on, but Blake was dumped after the first season as Bishop tinkered with the sitcom’s situations. Here’s Blake speaking to the Merced Sun-Star of May 12, 1962.

HOME IN MERCED FOR MOTHER’S DAY
Veteran, Twinkling Star in Appearance at Merced High
Madge Blake's large expressive eyes twinkled and a warm, friendly smile flashed across her face as she offered this bit of advice:
"If you want security in your life's work, don't go into show business. Become a dressmaker or a plumber."
Mrs. Blake, known to tele-viewers as the loveable and flustered mother of Joey Bishop on the television comedy show of the same name gave a few hints about show business in a brief talk Friday afternoon before Merced High and El Capitan High Schools drama students.
"Show business isn’t really as glamorous as it appears looking in from the outside," she told the students. "You have to put in many long hours and work awfully hard.
"I know that some days I came home and am so exhausted I wonder if I'll be able to get up the next morning."
Mrs. Blake is in Merced for Mother's Day and is staying with her son, Ted Blake, who is a teacher at Merced High School.
The actress told the students she got into show business at the end of World War II after working at a number of other jobs, including a two year stint at Cal Tech, Pasadena, in experimental chemistry and as a salesclerk in a large well known Southern California department store.
"After the war ended and my two sons came home I became interested in acting and went to the Pasadena Playhouse," Mrs. Blake related. "I just had to learn to act because it seemed like a challenge.
"In the years that followed I learned that much hard work has to go into an acting career and I had many bit parts and good breaks in a number of films.
"I learned, for instance, that in comedy, timing is the important thing. A good scene can go down the drain if an actor isn't aware of the importance of timing."
Mrs. Blake recalled that she played the part of Spencer Tracy's mother in the film Adam's Rib.
"When Spencer learned that I was to play that part, he was considerably annoyed," she continued. "I am younger than him and he felt that it wouldn't work out.
"I told him that in the movie I play the part of a rich woman who has no worries and said that the woman holds her age well and looks young. He seemed satisfied with that and we got along wonderfully."
She also was in the casts of "I Remember Mama" and "The Long, Long Trailer."
"Lucille Ball, one of the stars of "The Long, Long Trailer," told me recently that she saw that film in New York," Mrs. Blake remarked. "She said the scene where I got so mad when the trailer rolled over my garden evoked a lot of laughs.
"I've never been in New York in my life but apparently my shadows rocked the walls of a movie theater there."
She also has been in the production of "The Happiest Millionaire," "Bell Book and Candle," and "Harvey."
Mrs. Blake said that when young persons who aspire to be actors and actresses ask her for advice she tells them this is her recipe for success in show business:
"Develop the hide of a rhinoceros and add a little rubber to your diet so you can bounce back if you get knocked down."
She explained that the new format of the Joey Bishop show next season will probably mean she will appear less in the program.
"Joey plays the part of an entertainer who has his own show," she noted. "This is really what he enjoys doing the most. He's a talented man and is a darling to work with."
Mrs. Blake said she doesn't know what all she will be doing during the next season but imagines she will be working on different programs.
She has had the part of Grandpa's girl friend in "The Real McCoys" and will be seen next week in the "Dr. Kildare" series. After this weekend, Mrs. Blake will return to her home in Hollywood.

In these interviews, Blake comes across as a down-to-earth, rather gentle person. I hope that’s an accurate assessment. I’ve enjoyed her in many different roles over the years. It’s a shame ill health (and a focus on Batgirl and some preposterous villains played by Barbara Rush, Rudy Vallee and Milton Berle) prevented her from doing much on Batman after the second season. She passed away on Feb. 19, 1969 after a heart attack.

Bobby Sherman

Let’s get the phrase out of the way right now.

Teen idol.

You’ll see those words on any story dealing with one of 16 Magazine’s greatest salesmen of all time: Bobby Sherman.

It was long before social media, when publicists for David Cassidy, Donny Osmond and other young men battled for space in Tiger Beat and every other publication aimed at teenaged girls. There you could learn Mark Lindsay’s super secrets, or the food Davy Jones found yucky.

Sherman’s initial fame came from Jimmy O’Neill’s Shindig, ABC’s attempt to grab teen eyes with a pile of guest musical artists packed into a half-hour (a syndicated story by Charles Witbeck in September 1964 doesn’t even mention Sherman). Staking out fame was a little difficult because, at the same time, there was a stand-up comedian with the same name.

But he must have stuck out. 13-year-old Lucie Arnaz gave her opinion to the Los Angeles Times of Sept. 18, 1964: “Bobby Sherman was the best thing in it,” she proclaimed, then chastised confused columnist Cecil Smith. “EVERYONE,” she said, “knows Bobby Sherman!!”

This would have been quite an accomplishment because Sherman was plucked out of nowhere with Donna Loren to be the regular singers. We learn about Sherman from columnist Harrison Carroll, who wrote on June 18, 1963 about a 16-millimeter art film being produced and funded by Sal Mineo.

A new young singer, Bobby Sherman, will play the lead. They are locationing in Sacramento at the La Sierra High School.

How Mineo and Sherman met isn’t clear. But it certainly wasn’t at the beach party given by Mineo for the cast of The Greatest Story Ever Told. Columnist Harrison Carroll wrote on August 21, 1963:

Bobby Sherman, the boy who plays the lead in Sal’s independent movie, was a hit singing at the party. Sal is putting him under contract to his record company.

It took a year before Sherman was hired for Shindig. This is from the Women’s News Service, appearing in papers around May 15, 1965.

Bobby Sherman Shuns Beatles, Aims to Revive ‘American Sound’
By JEANNE SAKOL
NEW YORK (WNS) — Bobby Sherman may bring back the "American Sound" to popular music.
The tall, slim, fair-haired singing star of television's "Shindig" began his career July 4th when he was discovered at a California beach party given for Hollywood's younger set by movie star Sal Mineo.
Bobby refuses to wear the Beatles-style haircut that has become uniform among rock 'n' roller performers. Instead, he wears his hair "American-cowboy" style, short on the sides, longish in back and leaving the forehead bare. It is possible that he is the only teenage favorite who does not shake his head from side to side when he sings.
* * *
"The 'Liverpool sound' is fading," Bobby predicted during a three-day stay in New York.
"The old rock 'n' roll is coming back — only with some differences. The kids will love it. After all, the English pop music is all based on old rhythm and blues and gospel music from America in the first place.”
The young singer's strong American feelings may be tied to the trick of fate which took him to Mineo's party last Independence Day. Bobby didn't know his famous host but was brought along as the escort for a girl who had been invited.
Famous faces were all around him, Natalie Wood, Jane Fonda, Roddy MacDowell [sic] among them. While the Peppermint West band played, the guests danced in the sunshine, swam in the Pacific and played beach games.
When his date led him up to the bandstand and insisted he help entertain by singing, the gates of stardom began to open. By the time the party ended, Mineo had arranged to have his own manager meet Bobby.
* * *
About that time, auditions for "Shindig" were being held in Los Angeles, Bobby Sherman, again keeping in mind the American sound, belted out his own version of "Back Home In Indiana," and got the job.
Not that Bobby comes from Indiana.
Now 19, he was born in Van Nuys, Calif., where his father, Robert Sherman, owns a dairy. Bobby is a graduate of Birmingham High and spent a year at Pierce College, Canoga Park, taking physics and electronics courses.
His Russian is sketchy, he admits, but he does know enough to get the gist of Russian speeches at the United Nations and Russian commentators on news reports of space flights.
Electronics interest him far more than languages.
He plays eight musical instruments and makes his own sound tracks with a home studio fitted out with recording devices.
That way, he can record drums, trumpet, French horn, trombone, bass guitar, harmonica and piano at one time and blend them together for a one-man orchestra accompanying his own voice.
* * *
He's built his own closed circuit television system at home, too. He televises himself and sees the results on his own monitor.
"This isn't as crazy as it may sound," Bobby said.
"Television is far more demanding than records, movies or personal appearances. I have to see how I look and how I sound — on television — before I actually appear. Teen-agers are a very hip audience. They don't want you unless you're right in there. With it."
The first teen personality to be created by television alone, Bobby would appear to be very much with it. He will star in the "Shindig" movie being filmed this month and is signed to top billing for next season's program. Some 500 letters a week ask for his autograph, advice and picture.
Girls ask mostly for pictures, boys for fashion tips.
“I guess you’d call my clothes 100 per cent U.S.A., too,” the singer smiled. “I believe in wearing a conservative suit and a tie for meeting people and doing business, turtle-necks and velour pullovers for casual wears.” His favorite actor is Marlon Brando and, like his hero, Bobby Sherman may often be seen driving a motorcycle, wearing black pants, motorcycle jacket, boots and goggles.

Pop culture changes as people age. Teenagers become adults, kids become teenagers and they find their own stars. If they didn’t, today they’d be listening to Rudy Vallee.

Here’s a feature story from about May 4, 1980. Sherman appears to taken his fall from a life of constantly coping with screaming girls fairly well. The writer is playing up Sherman’s status on Here Come the Brides. David Soul didn’t come out too badly.

Bobby Pays the Kids Back
By NANCY ANDERSON
Copley News Service
HOLLYWOOD — "God less the kids!" Bobby Sherman cried piously. "They made it all happen."
What the kids did was, first, make Bobby a teen idol by way of “Shindig” and “Here Come the Brides.” Then, more or less concurrently, they made him prosperous and experienced enough to become a successful record and film producer and a director.
"There's nothing in show business I don't enjoy doing," Sherman declared. “But I'm not one of those people who feels that he always has to be in the limelight."
Possibly because of this modesty, Sherman hadn't worked as an actor for a while before he was cast as an insecure rock star in the Operation Prime Time production, "The Gossip Columnist."
He referred to the casting is "a comeback if you can call it that."
Yet, though he's been off screen, Sherman has never been away from show business, because, unlike less fortunate former teen idols, he was prepared to shine behind cameras once he and his groupies grew up.
The first personality to star in three television series before he was 30, Bobby made his initial impact as a singer in "Shindig" when he was 18. Then, for two years, as a Bolt brother he was the superstar of "Here Come the Brides," though his status hadn't been anticipated. But it was Sherman who stirred female viewers to mania and who, when the brides had come and gone, got his own series.
The weekly attraction produced post-"Brides" to star Sherman was "Getting Together."
However, it failed to get enough rating points together to become a television staple.
Sherman survived this disappointment nicely, since he had a 16-track recording studio in San Fernando Valley where he was helping other young artists get their sounds on discs and where he was also making his own music. He's still doing both.
"I'll find a group with no record contract and no demos," he says, "and take them into the studio and help them cut something. Then I'll try to get them a record contract."
So far, none of his proteges has set the music world on fire, though Bobby hopefully describes some as "up and coming."
Through his Phase I Productions Co., Sherman has developed a mobile unit which he's used in the production of commercials and industrial films.
He's also into television and motion picture production having produced the "ABC Movie of the Week," "The Day the Earth Moved," for which he composed and performed the score.
Further, he has "a couple of things in development, one for Universal."
Holder of a dozen gold records. Bobby enjoys writing music but not under pressure.
"I can't just sit down and say I'm going to write a song," he says. "I wait until something triggers an idea for one. Writing music is easier when it's done by chance."
He is on the board of directors of the San Fernando Valley Child Guidance Clinic and has generously underwritten cancer research through the Bobby Sherman Cancer Research Fund.
The fund came about through his appreciation of his fans.
"I'd done a concert in Memphis," Sherman explains, "and was packing to leave town when a pair of the city's finest knocked or my hotel room door.
"The policemen told me that they'd brought someone who wanted to meet me, the mayor."
The mayor told Bobby that he wanted him to go or a mission and that, if he declined, he'd have him arrested.
"So, since he put it that way, I went," Bobby laughs. The mission, as it turned out, was no laughing matter, for Bobby's escorts took him to the bedside of a fan, a girl who'd missed his concert, because she'd just lost a leg to cancer.
Bobby was so moved that he determined to learn more about the disease which hi discovered was a major killer of young people.
“Young people had done so much for me that I wanted to do something for them,” he says.
And thus was born the Bobby Sherman Cancer Research Fund.
When Sherman exclaims, “God bless the kids,” he’s not just talking.
He puts his money where his mouth is.

The sad irony is Sherman’s wife announced he had Stage 4 cancer in March.

Sherman had been helping young people for a long time. In 2011, he set up a foundation in Ghana, which provides education, health, and welfare programs to children in need. Before that, he trained as an emergency medical technician and was a reserve officer for the Los Angeles Police and San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

Whatever you think much of bubble gum music, Bobby Sherman entertained. And when the bubble gum ran out of flavour, he helped the community at large. That’s a pretty good legacy.

Where's Bugs?

Bob McKimson’s early Bugs Bunny cartoons as a director baffle me.

There’s potentially good animation that’s lost in the odd staging. Whether McKimson was responsible or layout man Cornett Wood was responsible, I don’t know.

Here are a few examples (and there are more) in A-Lad-in-His-Lamp (1948). In the frame below, the genie, who was on the right half of the screen, has gone back in the lamp.



There’s a take as Bugs sees Caliph Hassen Pheffer coming for him. But the take is off-screen. You can’t see the animation.



McKimson’s cartoons go from huge open mouths to teeny mouths like the drawing below.



Bugs leaps into the air before running away. I really don’t get the point of having Bugs in mid-air when you can’t see the top half of him. It seems like a waste of an animator’s work.



McKimson’s shots can be either too close or too far. Below are consecutive frames. Look at the dead space in the second one. You can’t read the expressions later in the scene.



McKimson liked perspective animation in his earliest cartoons. You’ll see characters running toward the camera and back. Here’s a perspective example from this cartoon.



The genie is a fun character and would have got more laughs in 1948 as he was recognisable to audiences then. His character was lifted from the Alan Young radio show, the upper-crust, East Coast millionaire Hubert Updyke III, complete with catchphrases. This was Jim Backus' first cartoon appearance.

Chuck McKimson, Phil De Lara, Manny Gould and John Carey are the credited animators. Dick Thomas went from forest to caliphate in his backgrounds.