From Horse to Hefner

Quick, the answer the question: Who played Irving, the Unemployed Horse? (No coaching from Greg Ehrbar, please).

The correct answer is Allan Melvin.

Irving wasn’t a cartoon character. He was the star of an MGM children’s record put on the market in 1947. Columnist Leonard Lyons noted in Sept. 26 that year that Melvin played 37 different roles on the record (two double-faced, 10-inch 78s). Melvin was 24 years old at the time.

Before his long TV career, in animation and live action, Melvin got his break thanks to the audience of Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts on CBS radio. Like Art Carney, Melvin began his career as an impressionist, and won the amateur contest on the Oct. 15, 1946 show. He hit the cabaret scene the following year, appearing at the Café Society in Greenwich Village; Lew Sheaffer’s column in the Brooklyn Eagle of Nov. 14, 1947 mentioned he impersonated Humphrey Bogart and Frederic March.

The impressions led to a role in the stage production of Stalag 17 (Comedy in a POW camp? That can’t be possible!), which opened at the 48th Street Theatre in New York in May 1951 with Melvin’s character giving impersonations of Hollywood celebrities. A story in the San Francisco Examiner in 1952 reported Gary Cooper thanked Melvin for his version of him in the road show version in Los Angeles.

Melvin couldn’t get out uniform for a while. He jumped to TV as Sgt. Henshaw on the Phil Silvers show starting in 1955, played Rob Petrie’s army buddy in a number of episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show and appeared as Staff Sgt. Hacker off-and-on on Gomer Pyle, USMC.

The military roles led to cartoons. Melvin’s first animated voice roles were in the 1963 syndicated Beetle Bailey cartoons, where he played Sgt. Snorkle and Zero opposite Howard Morris. Those animated roles led to cartoon stardom a year later in Hanna-Barbera’s Magilla Gorilla opposite Howard Morris.

All this is before his better-known, non-Army TV roles—appearing periodically as Sam the butcher in The Brady Bunch and Archie’s buddy Barney Hefner in All in the Family and Archie Bunker’s Place.

Sam gets bypassed in this feature story about Melvin on the Associated Press wire, June 6, 1981.

Allan Melvin: From Al the Plumber to Barney Hefner
By JERRY BUCK
AP Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP)— Allan Melvin has played Archie Bunker’s best friend since 1972, but it didn’t start off as a chummy relationship.
The very first time Melvin appeared on “All in the Family,” it was not as Barney Hefner, best friend, but as Sgt Pete Pulaski of New York City’s finest.
“The fun of that episode was that Archie came down to the police station and was making remarks about the Polish,” he recalled. “Somebody says, ‘Oh, yeah, tell that to Sgt. Pulaski’ — and I throw Archie into the can.”
It was a few months after that that Melvin was reincarnated as Barney Hefner. He remained with the CBS show when it was changed to “Archie Bunker’s Place,” and only Carroll O’Connor, has been with the series longer.
Melvin, who got his start as a stand-up comic and mimic and then played on Broadway in “Stalag 17,” has had a long and profitable career in television as the foil to the leading man.
A lot of that time was spent in uniform. On “The Phil Silvers Show” he was Cpl. Henshaw, who was Sgt. Bilko’s partner in his attempts to bilk the other soldiers. He was Dick Van Dyke’s old Army buddy on his show and Sgt. Hacker on “Gomer Pyle.” He also had recurring roles on “The Joey Bishop Show” and on “The Andy Griffith Show.”
“I went in the same season from Pulaski to Barney Hefner,” he said “I think thy make allowances for the fact that the audience will accept certain changes I guess they figure since it was a one-shot I wasn’t that established I’ve been Barney ever since.”
Melvin recalled that during the making of “The Phil Silvers Show” in New York, the technical adviser assigned to the show was a captain named George Kennedy.
“He would beseech Nat Hiken for a role,” he said. “Finally Nat made him an MP and let him stand by the door and wear a helmet. He was thrilled. Did I ever think he’d become an actor? No way.” Kennedy, of course, not only became an actor, but went on to win the Academy Award as best supporting actor.
Melvin is also well known as Al the Plumber, a character he has played for 14 years on the Liquid Plumber commercials. Less well known is the fact that he does many cartoon voices. He has been the voice of Bluto on the “Popeye” cartoon for the past four years. He’s also done the voice on “Magilla Gorilla” and has done many impressions for “The Flintstones.”
In fact, the day after the interview he was due to spend the day at Hanna-Barbera studios, recording voices.
Few characters on television ever seem to have jobs, but Barney Hefner is a bridge inspector. Not that he ever works at it. “He never really inspects any bridges,” said Melvin. “He just says they’re all unsafe. That’s how he can spend so much time at Archie’s Place.”
As Archie’s oldest friend they are very similar. “He’s very much like Archie in his thinking and his values. But not to the extreme that Archie goes. He’s more temperate.”
Melvin was born in Kansas City, but was raised in New York and New Jersey. He and his wife now divide their time between their home in Brentwood and one on Monarch Bay in Laguna. He also spends much of his spare time on the golf course.
His own oldest and closest friend is author Richard Condon, who wrote “The Manchurian Candidate.” Condon wrote an early children’s record that Melvin recorded and wrote a night club act for him. It was that night club act that caused the producers of “Stalag 17” to alter the role of Reed to fit Melvin’s background and his act.

27 years later, the same wire service led off his obituary with his time consorting Alice the maid where “his place in pop culture will be fixed.” Brady Bunch fans had now grown up to pen newspaper obits. Irving the Unemployed Horse was forgotten.

We haven't forgotten. If you are interested in hearing Melvin narrating the story of Irving, someone had digitised it. Listen below.

What? How? Why?

While being chased across the U.S. by Yosemite Sam, Bugs Bunny skids to a stop and gets “that funny feeling” that gold is nearby (in reused animation). Sam can’t any chances in case he’s not being tricked again, so he starts a-diggin’.



But it is no trick. Sam discovers Bugs’ feeling was right.



The camera pulls back.



Wait a minute! That “Fort Knox” sign wasn’t in the shot before this. Where did it come from?

Well, the answer’s simple. If writer Warren Foster had it planted at the outset, it would have ruined the reveal gag. So he and background man Irv Wyner left it out. This bothered me as a kid. A sign can’t show up on a lawn out of nowhere.

The ending bothered me, too. “And what are YOU doing here?” an MP asks Bugs.



“Oh, me?” nervously answers the rabbit. “Well, I, uh, I’m waitin’ for a streetcar.”



We hear the sound of a ship. Cut to an ocean liner pulling up on the lawn of Fort Knox.



“But, in a spot like this, a boat will do,” Bugs says happily.



The cartoon ends with the boat ploughing across the lawn into the distance, as Carl Stalling plays the Warner-owned “The Song of the Marines” by Warren and Dubin (from the Warners feature The Singing Marine).



Me-as-kid didn’t like Deus Ex Machina stuff like this. “I could have thought of that,” likely said I. Foster was just trying to be off-kilter, but the ending seems more convenient than surreal.

Virgil Ross, Art Davis, Manny Perez and Ken Champin get the animation credits in 14 Carrot Rabbit, released in February 1952.

Rock and the Villain

One of Tex Avery’s gags in Homesteader Droopy (released 1954) reminds me of something from a Roadrunner/Coyote cartoon, but Avery handles it much differently than Chuck Jones would have.

In one scene, the evil Dishonest Dan (yet another incarnation of an Avery wolf) tries to destroy the homesteaders’ house with a huge boulder on a cliff.



Cut to a longer shot. The boulder won't fall no matter what Dan does.



Finally, he comes up with the solution—just push away the cliff and the boulder will fall.



If this was a Jones cartoon, he would focus on various facial expressions (a la Wile E. Coyote). Avery doesn't bother with poses. He simply goes for the quick gag.

You’ll notice how the house moved from under the boulder to make the gag work. I doubt any theatre audience noticed as Avery’s cartoons boot along from one gag to the next.

Bob Bentley, Grant Simmons, Mike Lah and Walt Clinton are the credited animators. Backgrounds by Johnny Johnsen.

More Than Hazel

At first, it would seem ridiculous that a woman who won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Tony for a heavily dramatic role in Come Back, Little Sheba would be cast in a light-weight domestic sitcom on TV. But Hazel was far from Shirley Booth’s first stab at comedy. For that, you have to go back to radio and “Where the Elite Meet to Eat.”

Here’s a feature column from the Associated Press, Sept. 17, 1961.

Shirley Booth Late to TV
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
HOLLYWOOD — The last time Shirley Booth had a continuing role in broadcasting was 20 years ago when she played Miss Duffy, the waitress, in radio’s great and well-remembered Duffy’s Tavern.
On September 28, Miss Booth comes to television as the star of NBC’s Hazel, a situation comedy revolving about the maid who runs the Baxter family with an iron glove on a velvet hand.
Between Miss Duffy and Hazel, she has become one of the great stars of the American stage and screen, winner of a bucketful of acting awards, including an Oscar and the official title of “world’s best actress,” for her performance in “Come Back, Little Sheba.”
Booth fans may legitimately be a little nervous about the vehicle which will bring this versatile performer into their living rooms each week. Hazel was born as a cartoon character in a weekly magazine in 1942 and has been appearing regularly ever since. It is hard enough to give life to a cartoon character. It is even harder when the background is upper-middle-class family life, so thoroughly explored in TV comedy it has become a cliche.
Miss Booth, however, feels confident and calm.
“I guess I’m a little late getting into weekly television,” she said, almost apologetically. “But then I always get in at the tail-end of everything. But as long as I’m occupied and busy with plays, I’m perfectly content.”
She has had Hazel on her mind for several years, however, Ted Key, the cartoonist who created the character, wrote a play about his brainchild several years ago and presented it to Miss Booth.
“I didn’t feel that it was right—I thought even then that one play was not as good for Hazel as an episodic medium.
“But once we were under way, the thing I had to do was get some depth, a different dimension to her character. The comedy will take care of itself, but the problem was to give her warmth. The only really important job of the actress is to get the audience interested in and caring about the character.”
‘Create a Character...’
Key’s job as a magazine cartoon-1st is to produce one laughter-evoking picture a week. Miss Booth’s job in creating a flesh-and-blood Hazel was “to create a character, not a caricature.”
“So the audience won’t always laugh,” she continued seriously. “That would ruin everything. To build up comedy, you must build up some protection around the funny lines. You must have arid spaces—a desert—before you can have an oasis. So you must have contrast to humor to make it effective.”
Now in her early 50s, Shirley Booth has been an actress since she was 12 and joined a Hartford, Conn., stock company.
In 1925 she was the ingenue (with Humphrey Bogart, another youngster) in the Broadway production of “Hell’s Bells.” In 1939 she won critical notices that topped those of Katharine Hepburn for her acting in “The Philadelphia Story.” But although the rave notices—for serious parts and for comedy—rolled in over the years, stardom came with “Come Back, Little Sheba” in 1950, when she played the poignant, lost Lola Delaney in the Broadway play.
Has Two Poodles
A small, round-faced woman with a quiet wit and easy smile, Miss Booth has hedged her Hollywood bets. She continues to maintain her New York City apartment, is having an addition built on her Cape Cod home—and is sharing her apartment-hotel quarters with her two poodles, “Prego” and “Grazia.”
Her marriage to comedian Ed Gardner ended in divorce in 1942—and it also ended the best years of his Duffy’s Tavern because she left the cast. She subsequently married investment broker W. H. Baker Jr. who died 10 years ago. “I keep very busy,” she confided. “My emotional life now? You can see the answer to that easily: I own two poodles.”

Booth’s Hazel caught the eyes of viewers. Among them were Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, always looking for sources for new cartoon characters. In 1962, The Jetsons debuted. Just as they tagged The Honeymooners on The Flintstones, TV critics equated The Jetsons with Hazel, thanks to Jean Vander Pyl’s portrayal of the robot maid, Rosey, who suspiciously sounded like Booth’s Miss Duffy. Writers had her calling George Jetson “Mr. J,” just as Hazel addressed her boss as “Mr. B.”

There is only so much you can do in a domestic sitcom, and Hazel staved off disappearing from prime time in 1965 by switching networks and replacing almost all of the cast. Hazel polished the silver for one more season. Booth had been hospitalised for exhaustion and likely didn’t want to carry on with a weekly series.

Better make that “weakly” series. The new Mr. B., Ray Fulton, complained to Dick Kleiner of the Newspaper Enterprise Association that the scripts stunk; they were full of basic grammatical errors, plot flaws and repetitions, and sloppy writing. “What’s amazing,” he said, “is how Shirley Booth can make something out of nothing. It has been an education to watch her work.”

The Associated Press talked to her again after the cancellation. This is from April 16, 1966:

Shirley Booth Chooses ‘Menagerie’ Role on TV
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
HOLLYWOOD (AP)—A Hollywood trade paper recently carried a note that a producer of a television series was trying to get Raymond Burr, whose “Perry Mason” series recently came to an end, to play a trial lawyer in one episode. It is extremely doubtful that, no matter how attractive the series, money or role, Burr could be persuaded to take the assignment. This is typecasting, more dreaded by actors than a low Nielsen rating.
“Well,” said Shirley Booth with a smile as she concentrated on maneuvering her hardtop into a right-hand lane for a turn onto Sunset Boulevard, “nobody has offered me any parts as a domestic.”
Miss Booth, an Oscar winner—“Come Back Little Sheba”—and a three-time winner of Broadway’s “Tony,” has wound up five busy years of playing the title role in “Hazel,” a comedy that earned her an “Emmy” as well.
* * *
The first assignment she accepted was the lead in a CBS special, Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie,” which will be produced in London in October for broadcast early in December.
“Of course, I’ve been offered lots of guest star roles,” she continued, moving into the noon-hour stream of traffic. “And some series. I really don’t want to get into another series but I’m very reluctant to say ‘never’ about anything because something might come along and I’ll change my mind.”
When the chance to do the Williams play turned up, she said, she was even reluctant about that, at first.
“I remember Laurette Taylor in the Amanda part,” she said. “I remember that performance so vividly — she really contributed something important to theater with it. I didn’t feel as if I wanted to take on something in which I’d just be doing an imitation of somebody else.”
She drove into a driveway of a handsome little house on a hillside in a secluded section and there followed a leisurely luncheon in the patio. One eye was on the clock, however, for she was due back at the studio in midafternoon to wind up chores on a two-hour film, “Package Deal” she is making for NBC’s “World Premiere” series next season.
“I also decided to do this film, even though it broke into my Cape Cod summer,” she continued. Pleasant parts — women with humor and wholesome outlooks — are hard to find these days, and I just didn’t feel like playing a lady drunk or a woman of loose morals and those parts are all over the place now.”
* * *
Meanwhile, re-runs, of “Hazel” will be on television channels all over the lot—which provides a painless steady income for the star.
Miss Booth, still remembered fondly as “Miss Duffy” in radio’s immortal “Duffy’s Tavern” and as a musical comedy star of Broadway’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” has four homes.
Her voting residence is the hillside house in Los Angeles. For weekends and holidays in winter, there is her recently acquired desert home beyond Palm Springs. Back East she has her summer home in Chatham on the Cape, plus the co-op apartment she owns in New York.
A widow, she enjoys movie and theater going, does a little Sunday-type painting, collects antiques, and is a passionate art collector. Most of all, though, she likes acting.

There were plenty of pre-broadcast newspaper publicity interviews by Booth for The Glass Menagerie. She got an Emmy nomination for that role, too.

One more sitcom awaited Booth. She played a widow in A Touch of Grace, that ran on ABC in 1973. Why did she come back to television? She told a press junket (as reported in the Omaha World-Herald) she had read the scripts for three series and preferred Grace. “I like the regimentation of doing the show, because I like to be a certain place at a certain time. For a lonely woman, it’s nice to have a built-in family.”

The show had a very good cast—J. Pat O’Malley, Warren Berlinger and the wonderful Marian Mercer—but eked out only 13 episodes. The finale featured a monologue by Grace to a table that represented her late husband’s gravestone. O’Malley and producers Saul Turteltaub and Bernie Orenstein cried when Booth rehearsed the scene and, as reported by Cecil Smith of Los Angeles Times syndicate, the two long-time TV show-runners quietly marvelled to each other about her acting abilities.

Booth decided to retire not much later and lived until the age of 94, passing away in 1992.

Van Beuren Farm Fun

Unexpected, funny things used to happen in early 1930s Fleischer cartoon, like a plant being watered, coming to life and waving “Thanks!” In a way, what happened seemed logical.

At Van Beuren, unexpected things happened and you were left wondering “What was that?”

I swear John Foster and whoever helped him got drunk on bootleg booze during story sessions and decided to go with any weird idea they could think of.

In The Farmerette (1932), two cows are grazing on pasture. One google-eyed cow stands up and pulls her tail and the one next to her. Their skirts go up. Why? Who knows. It’s a Van Beuren cartoon. (Note in the third frame, the horns are inked in. The animation is in a cycle so the horns kind of flash).



Then the horns turn into horns that honk.



The two cows dance and collapse. One gets up to sing “Hey, hey!” to end the scene.



First, an inking error, then a camera error. In some cartoons, you’ll see a blip on the screen when a character loses a body part on a separate cel for maybe a frame. In The Farmerette, one poor “dog in the kennel” loses his entire body for 12 frames.



Foster and Harry Bailey get screen credit for this short.

Off With His Head

Bugs Bunny reacts to being fired on in Rebel Rabbit (1949).



This is one of those cartoons where parts of a character’s body disappear out of the frame during a take. I’ve never understood why a drawing would be shot that way. Below, Bugs’ head springs back into the frame.



Here, Bugs’ head springs out of the frame.



Multiple brushwork hands. This is one of several similar drawings.



There are about ten frames where we don’t see Bugs’ head as he runs in mid-air.



The Bob McKimson unit made some good Bugs cartoons in the late ‘40s (pigs, genie) but this isn’t one of them. I never bought Warren Foster’s plot that Bugs was outraged about a bounty. To me, Bugs didn’t care. I could see Daffy getting upset about a duck bounty.

Anyway, Manny Gould, Chuck McKimson, Phil De Lara and Jack Carey are the credited animators on this one.

Warm Warner Cartoon Birthday Greetings

By now, I’m sure you’ve read it on the internet. 90 years ago today, Warner Bros. officially released a landmark cartoon featuring one of the most beloved animated characters of all time. Yes, we’re talking about I Haven’t Got a Hat. Let us, then, wish a happy 90th birthday to that charming cartoon favourite:



We mean none other than Miss Cud.

Sure, Disney had Clarabelle Cow. But Miss Cud entertained the world in at least three cartoons. Besides her dynamic role as an elementary school teacher in her debut, she briefly appeared in Hollywood Capers (1935)



Jerry Beck has identified Miss Cow as the bovine homeowner in Porky's Moving Day (1936), giving an outstanding dramatic performance while wearing an Olive Oyl skirt. If Jerry says it's Miss Cud, I won't argue.



The story has been oft told, in Michael Barrier's Hollywood Cartoons and elsewhere, about how Leon Schlesinger wanted to replace the incredibly lacklustre Buddy as the star of his Looney Tunes series, and the idea was floated to rip off the popular Our Gang series and create an animated group of animal kids. Bob Clampett and Friz Freleng both took credit for naming two members of the “gang,” but nobody ever claimed “I came up with ‘Miss Cud’!” Shame, shame.



As you can see by the title card above, poor Miss Cud wasn’t considered star material. It showcases Little Kitty, Beans, Oliver Owl and Porky Pig (sorry Ham and Ex).

Miss Cud, at least in her debut, was played by Elvia Allman. Elvia’s career was bittersweet. She was based in Los Angeles and began appearing on radio there in the mid-1920s. This was an era when the West Coast had its own strong network of stations, with broadcasts originating from San Francisco or Los Angeles being heard on stations in major cities up to Seattle. NBC and CBS didn’t reach the West until the late ‘20s.

Allman was a bona fide star then, doing monologues, voices and comedy songs. But when the big radio comedy stars began moving west in the mid-‘30s, and bringing their shows with them, regional programmes began dying off. Allman's starring days were done. She moved into character roles and was in very much in demand on radio and, later, television (The Beverly Hillbillies is where I first saw her).

The best you can say about Miss Cud is she never was a has-been, because she never got that far. We can say that about the “gang” character originally plucked from cast of I Haven’t Got a Hat—wise guy Beans the Cat. Jack King starred him in seven cartoons. In the meantime, Schlesinger made the incredibly wise decision to hire Tex Avery as a director. Avery directed a Beans picture (Gold Diggers of ‘49, 1936) but gave a larger role to Porky. It was clear to Avery that the pig had more potential than the smart-alec cat, so he tossed Beans from his desk at Termite Terrace and starred Porky in the fine cartoon The Blow Out (also 1936). That cartoon also had a silent Miss Cud-like cow.

Beans’ fate was sealed. And Leon now had a real star.

The Hollywood Reporter of January 28, 1936 mentioned I Haven't Got a Hat was up for consideration for an Oscar. It never got nominated.

Jerry has advised cartoon fans not to accept release dates in his book (or elesewhere) as when cartoons first appeared on screens; theatres could rent and show anything as soon as it arrived at the local exchange. To the right, you see an ad for a movie house in North Carolina which includes I Haven’t Got a Hat on its programme two days before the “release.”

Regardless, birthday greetings are in order for Miss Cud. As for this post, th-thee-th-thee-th-That’s all, folks.

First Stop, Kansas

The Jack Benny radio show’s humour became so honed after World War Two that when Jack took his show on the road he knew exactly what elements he needed for success.

Eddie Anderson was one. Another was Phil Harris. The bandleader once said “Jack and I did our own routines in lots of theaters, and we were a good team and always kept the audience laughing.”

One of the Benny entourage’s stops was in Wichita, Kansas in 1950. Going along with the three were guitarist Frank Remley, who was regular travelling company of Jack’s, drummer Sammy Weiss, and the Wiere Brothers. Jack loved them so much, he tried to get them on TV. Eventually, they succeeded in breaking onto the schedule in mid-season 1962, and succeeded in being cancelled before the season was done.

The Wichita Eagle of May 17, 1950 featured several stories about the record-breaking shows the night before.

8,200 at Show in Forum
Jack Benny’s Troupe Plays As Radio Audiences Like It
By TED HAMMER
(Eagle Staff Writer)
If Wichita’s city dads are asked soon to repair the roof and rafters of the Forum, blame the Jack Benny-Phil Harris show which played there to two standing—room-only audiences Tuesday night, setting a new stage attendance record. More applause and laughs were provided by the show than ordinarily might come from a good season of top attractions.
The principles just played themselves, as radio audiences have learned to like them. Jack Benny appeared hurt when numerous performers declined to let him accompany them on the violin, he finally got to play “Love In Bloom,” and Phil Harris showed him how to play a love scene. Eddie (Rochester) Anderson was brought on after a telephone bell interrupted a Benny speech, just as it happens on the radio every Sunday night when the CBS show is broadcast by KFH, KFH-FM here.
Benny found the easy way that if he doesn’t get a new radio contract and doesn’t click in television, he can return to his old time single act, a monologue. And Wichitans loved him just as they did back in 1922 when he played at the Orpheum, before he became famous on screen and radio.
There just wasn’t time enough for Harris to satisfy the audience with his southern style songs, but he had to sing four of them before he and Benny started s new routine to stop the applause. Vivian Blaine of the films did three songs which proved why she has been given her own television show next fall. And Rochester demonstrated that his singing and dancing are just as good as his gags spoken in the crackly, high pitched voice which radio fans enjoy so much.
The three Wiere Brothers, who also have been in pictures and are internationally famous, could have stayed on the stage another half hour with their violins, dancing and comedy. They proved more than equal to advance billing as top jugglers, with some hat and stick feats new to Wichita theatergoers. Phil Harris baud was responsible for much of the show’s success.
The Stuart Morgan Dancers, three fellows and cute girl, did some breath taking adagio which made the audience believe Benny when he said he went to a lot of trouble to get them.
Closing the show was a musical routine featuring Benny and Miss Elaine with members of the Phil Harris band. Dressed in weird costume they provided “mountain music,” with Benny as director and violinist, while Miss Blaine played it deadpan, Sam the drummer and Frank Remley guitar player, were in this group, the “Beverly Hillbillies.”
Good as the others in the cast are, it was a Benny-Harris show, marked by gags and songs of the type for which they’re famous—even including the band leader’s “That’s What I Like About the South” and “Is It True What They Say About Dixie?”
The Wichita shows were attended by more than 8,700, with some 100 persons allowed to buy standing room, to set a record. Extra seats were placed down in front and in corners at the last night to accommodate a few more persons, according to Mrs. Mary Floto who handled the ticket sale.

It’s Informal But Lively at Rehearsals
In rehearsals of the Jack Benny-Phil Harris show, It’s “Phil, or Curly,” when members of the band or cast address the leader. And everyone calls Benny “Jack” or “Jackson.” The latter is the nickname used by Harris since they became associated 14 years ago.
When the drummer was called to the telephone during rehearsal at the Forum Tuesday, Harris took his place, even going through a number he was to sing in the show.
While Harris handled much of the musical rehearsal, Benny took care of “business” and timing. When Vivian Blaine asked Benny if she could use a different opening song than previously rehearsed, he told her “fine,” and she ran through it with the band.
“After all, Wichitans don’t know that we had the other number ready,” Benny said as he resumed his chair in a corner of the Forum stage. He was on his feet a moment later to hurry beck and forth, making suggestions.
Once, while Miss Blaine, Benny and Harris discussed a bit of business, the drummer called out, “Let’s go, we’ve got a show to do tonight.” Show time was four hours away, but everybody laughed.
In an interview on Don Anderson’s “Harmony Ranch,” over KFH, KFH-FM. Harris credited Benny with much of his success. After stating that he grew up in the show business, the son of parents who were in the theater, he said Benny helped him get the show started in which he and his wife, Alice Faye, are co-starred.


Benny and Company Make Vet Patients Noisy with Mirth
A hollering houseful of patients at Veterans hospital Tuesday saw a funfest fostered by Jack Benny and his company.
In the end they found that Benny, the consummate master of ceremonies, can really play the violin. Hot violin, too.
He’s no Joe Venuti, but he can finger the fiddle. With confidence and savoir—faire that best can be described simply as Benny-like, he finally fiddled after frustrating interruptions by Phil Harris, Rochester, and Vivian Elaine. The latter interruption was most welcome to Benny and audience.
An eight-man outfit from the Harris orchestra pulled the curtain ahead of schedule and entertained the ex-GI’s with improvisations that added up to Dixieland. The drummer, a bigger man than Broderick Crawford, used a folding chair and a tissue box for traps.
Benny entered to assure the vets that he isn’t stingy. I throw money away. Not very far, but..”
Harris interrupted for a routine with the boss and then did “Preacher and Bear” and “Darktown Poker Club.” The boys found out that Harris is not good, but perfect, and that he has to be a lot faster than it sounds like on the phonograph.
Vivian Blaine insulted the be-junior out of the boss with a frank appraisal of his sex appeal—zero—then caressed the patients with two numbers, including a job on “You Made Me Love You” that created a lot of hot but harmless humidity.
Then came Rochester, who apologized for making the boss look like a cheap skate. (“I have all the luxuries. Shoes, bread ...”)
Rochester, of course, stopped the show with “Sunny Side of the Street” and a return to his original occupation, booting, that gave the lads a laugh with every lunge.

Three thousand people greeted Jack and his group as they arrived on a TWA Constellation the day before. They were travelling by air because of a railway strike. A 50-passenger passenger plane was chartered along with a second plane to haul scenery, costumes and props.

The schedule was grueling—21 cities in 21 days. Stops included Montreal and Toronto. It climaxed at Carnegie Hall. Afterward, Benny, Harris and Rochester boarded the Queen Mary for return engagements to the Palladium in London and the Empire in Glasgow.

Greeting him on his return was a new radio season. And a new medium. He began his 15-year television career that October 28th.