Oswald Gets Dressed

A bulldog grabs onto Oswald the rabbit, who is trying to grab a roast chicken cooling on a window sill in Weary Willies (1929).



The dog pulls Oswald’s black ink right off him.



Oswald is left in his underwear (with a flap). How embarrassing for a major cartoon star!



A shadow now appears where there had never been one before.



Yeah, the shadow telegraphs the gag. But I like it anyway (Didn't Felix do the same thing once?). Some representative frames.



Exhibitors Herald World, on June 29, 1929, reviewed the short:

"Weary Willie" (Universal Cartoon — One Reel)
THE bright, extremely clever, the unexpected and agreeable, the skillful manipulation of comedy quirks are not very often met with in pictures. Here, though, is a cartoon, one of the Oswalds turned out by the Winkler boys, that has plenty of these rare ingredients that are conducive to laughter. And it contains them in profusion. Ninety-nine out of every one hundred persons should get a laugh out of the rabbit's adventures with a tramp bear. Touched up with sound effects, this one hurdles all obstacles and grabs a laurel wreath labeled : first-rate cartoon comedy. — RAYMOND GANLY.

The cartoon was made during the period Charlie Mintz took control of the Oswald series from Walt Disney, and offered jobs to Hugh Harman, Rudy Ising, Ben Clopton, Ham Hamilton and another ex-Disney staffer who directed this cartoon.



Another animator on staff was Walter Lantz, who happened to be a social friend of Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal, which distributed the Oswald cartoons. On April 9, 1929, Universal announced it was setting up its own cartoon studio. Walter Lantz was put in charge, with Bill Nolan assiating. Farewell to Mintz, Harman, Ising, Freleng and the ex-Disneyites that Mintz enticed to join him. Lantz recalled to Leonard Maltin (quoted in "Of Mice and Magic") his first job was to add sound to six Winkler cartoons that hadn't been released. Presumably, Weary Willies was one, though a low-resolution print with music added by someone is all that's available to view. The cartoon came with sound on film and on disc.

Motion Picture News reported the cartoon was released July 22, 1929. Exhibitors World Herald eventually gave a date of Aug. 5, 1929. The last Winkler cartoon released was Saucy Sausages on Aug. 19, according to Motion Picture News. It was directed by Ben Clopton.

The next cartoon was released on Sept. 2, 1929. Race Riot bore the names of animators Walter Lantz, Bill Nolan and Tom Palmer, with synchronisation and score by Bert Fiske. Rollin C. (Ham) Hamilton replaced Lantz as an animator while David Broekman, the head of Universal's music department, took over from Fiske before the end of the year.

Freleng had been credited on other Oswald shorts for Mintz/Winkler: The Fiery Fireman (Oct. 15, 1928); Homeless Homer (with Rudolf Ising, Jan. 7, 1929); Hen Fruit (with Ising, Feb. 4, 1929); and Wicked West (June 10, 1929).

Colonna Entertains Troops, Real and Fake

Jerry Colonna will always be associated with Bob Hope, but another comedian gave him his big break.

Colonna was a mainstay on Hope’s radio show starting in fall 1938, along with Vera Vague (actress Barbara Jo Allen), Brenda and Cobina (Elvia Allman and Blanche Stewart) and Pepsodent plugger Wendell Niles. Colonna would end up in silly, impossible situations that everyone accepted and turn them into a routine that ran during the broadcast. Hope dismantled his show in fall 1948 when ratings fell. Colonna was sent packing, though Hope brought him back periodically.

But it was on May 27, 1936, that Colonna almost became known to radio audiences. “Almost” because he wasn’t billed other than “Boris,” speaking unintelligibly in a Russian accent and then bellowing “The Road to Mandalay.” The show was Town Hall Tonight, and the comedian was Fred Allen. Colonna made a return engagement Feb. 24, 1937 and at least one more afterward.

How was it he ended up on the other coast and working with old Ski Nose? He reminisced in a column in the North American Newspaper Alliance, published Jan. 27, 1964. There’s nary a mention of Allen.

Jerry Colonna Credits Crosby for Success
By HAROLD HEFFERNAN
Hollywood (NANA) — Jerry Colonna has been picking up regular checks for a longer time than most Hollywood personalities. So a tip from him isn't to be taken lightly.
Says the stony-faced comic with the popped eyes and walrus mustache: "It isn't necessarily what you know but who you know, if you want to get along in this business."
Jerry was reflecting on his career, pointing back more than 25 years to a meeting with Bing Crosby and a friendship that has continued ever since.
He was taping a string of toothpaste commercials to be delivered on the Crosby A. B. C.-T. V. special on February 15. He doesn't go in for ad plugging as a regular bit but is happy to be a part of anything his old helpmate does. We went on to trace their association:
IN TROTTER ORCHESTRA
"We met in Spokane where I was playing trombone with John Scott Trotter's orchestra and Bing was doing his radio show. It all started there, and shortly afterwards when my wife and I were house guests at Bing's home near San Diego — that's when he was running the Del Mar Race Track with Pat O'Brien — he introduced me to Bob Hope. That was the turning point. Bob wrote a spot for me on one of his radio programs, and our palship has gone on from there."
Colonna has never made the big time in the publicly accepted sense, but his bank account shows a much fatter balance than those of most Hollywood figures rated as stars. He's never hired a publicity agent, is invariably in the background—even is proud of a criticism written about him early in his career by a New York reviewer — "He sounds like a Harvard professor who hasn't quite made it."
The point is, Colonna has made it. It consists of a couple of dozen movies with Hope and Crosby; and a successful night club act of his own which keeps him on the road 36 weeks every year.
"After all those overseas tours with Bob, I'm used to packing; can't stand the dust on my suitcases when it starts to accumulate," he grins.
"I like this deal with Crosby's T. V. operation. Some people say it's beneath an actor's dignity to do commercials, but I don't agree. I figure if a company is smart enough to hire an actor or a comic like me to help sell the product, he should be flattered.
"Besides," he said carefully smoothing that thick trademark (he hasn't shaved it since the 1925 sprouting year), "I don't have the temperament to be a dramatic actor. Far as I'm concerned. 'Hamlet' is a miniature Piglet."

My first experience with Colonna wasn’t with the human Colonna at all. It was with Warner Bros. cartoons. Whenever a character said “Greetings, gate!” Or “I don’t ask questions, I just have FUN!” or “Monotonous (or another word), isn’t it?” that was Jerry Colonna. Friz Freleng made a short in 1941 called The Wacky Worm, with the title character suspiciously resembling Colonna. The worm made a return appearance in Freleng’s 1943 short Greetings, Bait.

I’ll spare you a list of Colonna stand-in appearances, but will mention he’s caricatured in Tex Avery’s Hollywood Steps Out (1941) and there’s a funny performance of a vulture singing a la Colonna in Bob Clampett’s Prehistoric Porky (1940), played by Mel Blanc.

The first time I saw Colonna was as a guest star on McHale’s Navy. I didn’t know Colonna was an actual person. I thought it was a character invented for the episode, not having listened to any old Bob Hope radio shows at the age of eight.

This story appeared in newspapers on April 10, 1965. I suspect it was from the ABC promotion department.

Jerry Colonna Visits Only GI Island He Missed
Jerry Colonna has finally dropped down on the only island he missed in 23 years of entertaining U.S. troops abroad. It's the one in possession of "McHale's Navy."
Guest starring in "Hello, McHale?—Colonna!", the episode of the TV series to be televised at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Colonna said he felt right at home.
"Hope (Bob) and I used to travel from island to island in PT boats," he recalls. "Our skipper was usually George Halas, owner-coach of the Chicago Bears. Reminds me a lot of Ernie Borgnine."
Jerry, who looks about three weeks older than he did in 1944, professes to be alarmed by the way some servicemen greet him at overseas base. "Hey, Jerry," they say, "I remember when I was a kid, my dad told me about a show you and Bob Hope put on at Kwajalein."
Colonna adds, "It's a new generation, but one thing stays at the same. They still laugh at the same jokes. They're the best audiences in the world."
Reminiscing about those audiences, which at times numbered as high as 50,000, Colonna chuckled as he recalled one of the Bob Hope troupe's most memorable performances.
"It was in Alaska, a hundred miles from anywhere. Our plane was in trouble, and we set down, at an emergency landing field. A GI rushed over, saw Hope and me, some pretty girls and musicians, and almost passed out. Then he asked, very timidly, if we could do a few songs and jokes for the troops. We said sure. So in a minute he came back with the troops—both of them.
"While the pilot worked on the plane, we went through every joke, song and dance we know for two and a half hours. Finally, Hope told the three boys, 'Well, fellas, that's the show. We've run out of material.' " 'Oh, that's okay,' one of them piped up. 'Just do it again. '"
Colonna continued: "That's the answer to the question we're often asked—'How long are you tottering old geezers going to run around the world putting on shows for the servicemen?" "For as long as the boys say, 'Just do it again.' "
In this McHale’s Navy chapter, arrangements for Colonna’s visit hit a snag. It develops that Colonna’s plane only touches down at bases with at least a 50-bed hospital. McHale’s island hospital has only 28. So McHale’s men take steps to change the situation.

Colonna entertained troops with Bob Hope during World War Two. He wrote a book in 1945 about his overseas escapades with Hope called “Who Threw That Coconut!” (We can only imagine what he couldn't print).

"Professor" Colonna made 15 annual appearances with old sickle-snoot at military bases, ending with a second tour of Vietnam in 1965. He missed 1966 because of a stroke that partly paralysed him. Hope was loyal. Before making his 1966 Christmas appearances in Vietnam, he presented Colonna with a plaque from Los Angeles City Council honouring his 15 hundred shows for soldiers, and the four million miles he travelled to entertain.

Hope found a place for him in a 1970 TV special, despite not looking well. Colonna continued to have heart problems, though he died of kidney failure in 1986 at age 82.

Many of us grew up watching Hope TV specials where he read old-hat routines off cue cards. His Pepsodent radio show was far different. Hope was quick, ad-libbing and fairly entertaining. But to me, the best part was the ridiculous nonsense spouted by the energetic Jerry Colonna.

Dolly Parton

At one time on the radio, there were “cross-over songs,” where a tune designed for one audience would also find another audience. Some country songs would be heard on rock or MOR stations.

So it was that you could hear Dolly Parton all over the radio dial.

She started her career in music very early, as you can see by the ad to the below right from July 8, 1957 in the Kingsport, Tennessee, Times.

Dolly was a local phenomenon at first. The Knoxville Journal of Aug. 25, 1962 pointed out she was on the way up.

Sevier Radio Singer Has New Record
Dolly Parton, 16, Sevier County High School student, who has a five-year contract with a recording firm, has a new record out which reported is selling well. The recording, "Sure Gonna Hurt" and "The Love You Gave," is the singer's first try in the popular music field.
Miss Parton has appeared on radio and television talent shows since she was 10, singing country, western and religious songs. She and her uncle, Billy Earl Owens, guitar player and singer, have a song writers contract with a Nashville company.
She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lee Parton, of the Catons Chapel Community in Sevier County.

I don’t suspect a lot of 21-year-olds have a day named in their honour. Dolly did. The Knoxville News-Sentinel of Oct. 1, 1967 talked about it.

Sevier To Have Dolly Parton Day
SEVIERVILLE, Sept. 30 (Special)—Dolly Parton Day will be observed in Sevier County next Saturday. County Judge Ray L. Reagan proclaimed it in honor of the country music singer and writer.
She will be welcomed into town in an escorted motorcade at 10:30 a.m. With her will be Porter Wagoner and his Wagonmasters. Dolly recently became a member of the Wagoner show for television and personal appearances.
Mayor Bob Howard will present a key to the city and flowers. Dolly, Wagoner and the motorcade will then go to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg for appearances. The climax of activities will be a music show on the court house lawn in Sevierville at 2 p.m. All will be sponsored by Radio Station WSEV, where Dolly and her uncle and personal manager, Bill Owens, cut their first record and provided their own accompaniment.
Dolly was born in a farm home on Pittman Center Road, one of 12 children in the family of Robert and Avie Lee. Dolly often played and sang in school programs. She graduated from Sevier County High School in 1964. Her first success was as a songwriter.
She was married in May to Carl Dean, a contractor.

This post doesn’t really have anything to do with her music. I’m not big on country tunes, new or old school. But I notice that in Nashville in 1965, she appeared with some big names: Boots Randolph, Ray Stevens, Chet Atkins and Floyd Kramer in a special Toys For Tots concert sponsored by the Marine Corps Reserve.

It strikes me that Dolly has always been doing something for someone else, especially children. As a newspaper article written at the time of Dolly Parton Day put it: “I found her to be...very ‘down to earth’.”

Being helpful, kind and sincere is something that transcends music. They’re qualities we need in this world. I imagine that’s why many are mourning the death of Dolly Parton at age 80.

How Not To Get Rid of a Starfish

Aloha Hooey is said to be a cartoon Tex Avery started before he left Warner Bros. and was finished by Bob Clampett directing his unit.

It’s a pretty tame cartoon for either of them. There’s a dullard crow with buck teeth (Pinto Colvig doing his Goofy voice, same as in Little Rural Riding Hood for Avery at MGM) and a slicker seagull (Mel Blanc, sounding much like Technical Fairy First Class in the Snafu shorts). They two engage in a competition for an island bird (Sara Berner). Unlike Avery’s Spike vs. Droopy at MGM, neither of them is evil; the bad guy shows up out of nowhere near the end of the cartoon and is quickly quelled. And the procreation gag at the end is familiar, too.

There are really few highlights, but one is for freeze-frame fans. Cecil Crow tussles with a starfish that attaches itself to various parts of the body, which seems like something in an early Jones cartoon. This provides dry-brush work for the ink and paint department. Cecil shakes his head to no avail.



Cut to a medium shot. The swirls remind me of the ones with Bugs and the sumo wrestler (by Virgil Ross?) in Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips (1944). First, the starfish attaches itself to Cecil’s butt (and kicks it), then puts him in a toe-hold.



Ross is the credited animator on this short, with story by Mike Maltese. Carl Stalling fills the soundtrack with Arkansas Traveler.

This frames above are from a laser disc.

A Box Gag Returns

Some old cartoon ground is ploughed by director Dick Lundy in Caballero Droopy, an MGM release starring Droopy, the matador wolf and a bull. We saw them all in Tex Avery’s Señor Droopy, released three years earlier.

Avery had been given time away from the studio to deal with some personal things. His writer, Rich Hogan, left animation at the same time. In came Lundy, with Jack Cosgriff and Heck Allen to help with the gags. They crafted yet another story of Droopy and the wolf vying for the hand of a Latina (in this case, a cartoon, not a live-action Lina Romay).

There are Avery-type gags, too. One was lifted from King-Size Canary (1947), where a hungry hobo cat piles two boxes on top of each other to reach a window; the boxes suspend in mid-air.

Here, it happens after the wolf sends an Avery-style anvil into the air. Ignore the horrendous DNR in the frames below; there's a better version out there but I don't have it.



The stacking starts in mid-action.



He’s got the girl! Oh, no, he hasn’t. The anvil he sent in the air earlier returns, thanks to the laws of gravity.



Exhibitor magazine of July 30, 1952 rated it “fair” and complained the cartoon slowed down after the first half. By comparison, Señor Droopy is superior. It has some great posing and animation by Bobe Cannon.

The animators here are Avery’s team from when he left: Grant Simmons, Mike Lah and Walt Clinton, with Ray Patterson from the Hanna-Barbera unit taking care of some scenes (Bob Bentley would soon be hired). Johnny Johnsen is uncredited as the background painter.



The official release date was Sept. 27, 1952 but the cartoon played at the Paramount in Bristol, Tennessee from Aug. 24 to 28 with The Merry Widow.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: The Islands of South China & Java Seas

Here’s a promotional film from the 1980s that entices viewers to visit Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Hong Kong by ship.

A Royal Cruise Lines ship, that is. After all, the company paid for the movie.

The scenery would look great if the resolution on the film was higher. However, I’m posting it solely for the narration. I suspect you’ll recognize the voice instantly.

It’s a shame he didn’t read the copy as Boris Badenov.

Before She Was Mrs. Day

Jack Benny’s radio show had plenty of secondary characters, many of them played by the most in-demand actors on the air in the west. People like Bea Benaderet, Sara Berner, Joe Kearns, Frank Nelson, Mel Blanc, Herb Vigran . . .

And others, such as Verna Felton.

Her best-known role was Dennis Day’s mother. Day was new to radio acting when he was hired in 1939 and the veteran Felton was brought in as kind of a comedy insurance policy since he needed a bit to time to develop. She appeared on the first four broadcasts of the 1939-40 season beginning Oct. 9, 1939, missed an episode, returned for the next two, skipped the next episode, then returned twice in December.

After that, she was brought in occasionally. Her final show was May 8, 1955, not many weeks before Benny left radio.

Felton had a lengthy stage career, starting by August 1900, before she was hired to yell “Ahhhhhh shaddap!” at Jack Benny. Hollywood Citizen-News radio-TV editor Zuma Palmer profiled her in three parts, beginning Feb. 25, 1952.

Verna Felton at Home in Television
By ZUMA PALMER
Verna Felton added just as greatly to the quality of the sec[ond] Dennis Day television show as she did to the first.
"Timing," some would say. "Experience," the gray-haired, stoutish actress would declare.
And acting experience she has had. The kind only to be gained in stock where you "were forgetting a play, acting a play and learning a play, all at the same time."
Television is more like the stage than anything else, Miss Felton believes. "It will give newcomers some of the opportunity to learn to act that stock did," she remarked. "They can start out as extras, supers and work up." Miss Felton is a native Californian. It was in our state capital that, as a child, she got her start —with the Jessie Shirley company.
* * *
Every August for 20 years Verna Felton, Clara Allen, her mother, a character actress, and other members of the stock company managed by her father, Dr. H. W. Felton, began a tour of Canada from British Columbia. They gave 10 performances a week, a different play each time. When the company reached Ontario, at least 14 new dramas were prepared for the return. The actors had only Tuesday daytime free. If not performing, they were rehearsing.
Miss Felton, Dennis Day's mother on his NBC television show, said she never had a complete script to study, just her part and cues. The pay for the stars was $50 a week which was thought to be big.
PREPARATION
Before a play went into rehearsal, the director had blocked out on a board in his hotel room every move of every actor. No time was ever wasted in the theater deciding whether, for instance, it would be better for an actor to pass in front or behind another.
Many of the theaters were about the size of the Biltmore. In one building in which they performed, there was not seating for all who wanted to see the show. The emergency was met by selling space on the actors' trunks which had been placed outdoors in front of windows.
* * *
Players who toured in stock usually have some memories which bring a chuckle. Verna Felton is one.
The roll up curtain was in use when she was starring in Canada in plays by Shaw, Ibsen and other famous writers. As she was "dying" in "Camille" one night, the curtain came down too soon, catching in the puffs of the actress bending over her. Then up it went carrying with it the girl's false hair and veil. The audience didn't burst into loud laughter as might be expected, just tittered.
Miss Felton said you know your audience in five minutes. "In 'Camille,'" she related, "we would play it low, keep dropping our voice, until we would hear a rustle of a program, then we would come up.
Lee Millar joined the company. A romance began which continued until his death a few years ago.
Miss Felton and her husband were on Broadway in "Appearances." Mr. Millar then became a director for Leo Dietrichstein who was associated with the Shuberts and Cohen and Harris. He also worked for Walker Whiteside.
TRANSITION
When theater work became more difficult to obtain, the actress suggested radio. "Radio!" Her husband was horrified at the idea. Finally she told him if he wouldn't try to get a job in it, she would. After all, there was a little matter of eating. Mr. Millar went to NBC, met someone he knew, was given a chance to act and found, to his surprise, he enjoyed being in radio. One day he carne home and told his wife Tom Hutchinson had a place for her, too.
After reading her part, which was in "Ramona," the director said, "There's no one in the back gallery." Miss Felton had to forget that before the microphone, she didn't have a farthest most seat to which to project her voice.
Miss Felton has been on numerous broadcasts since 1932 when the pay was $9 a program, in pictures and is now in television, as Dennis Day's mother.
The gifted character actress has a son, Lee Millar, an actor; a daughter-In-law, four cocker spaniels—Mike, Tracy, Hildegarde and Gus Gus, and a Persian cat, Veronica.

Ramona was broadcast on KPO, San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 1, 1932 at 10 p.m. Included in the cast were Bernice Berwin, Dorothy Desmond, Ted Maxwell, Max Waizman, Henry Shumer, J.A. Smythe and Cameron Prudhomme. (A side note: at 6:30 that evening on KGO in Oakland was a half-hour programme starring humourist John P. Medbury and an orchestra led by someone named Phil Harris.

Palmer revealed in her column of Nov. 10, 1939 that Dennis had sat in on auditions for his mother's role. Jack left the decision up to him and, out of the final two actresses, he picked Felton.

Her final appearance as Dennis' mother was on Jack Benny's TV show, June 3, 1962. She died Dec. 14, 1966 at age 76.



Felton has an accomplishment from that era rarely spoken about. It was reported in the Victoria Times, on Sept. 9, 1933.

Verna Felton is NBC Announcer
Verna Felton, popular actress, who formerly had a stock company in Victoria, who has a host of friends among western Canada theatregoers, has gained radio fame in her appointment as the first woman announcer of a sponsored series of programmes over the National Broadcasting Company network.
Word has been received from San Francisco of Miss Felton’s assignment to the new and popular programme “Do You Believe in Ghosts,” heard Thursday evenings at 7:15 and Sundays at 9 p.m. over the coast network. The programme is written by Harold Burdick, former Seattle newspaperman, who is also narrator.
Miss Felton and her husband, Lee C. Millar, have been appearing in NBC productions for some time.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s radio writer, James Adam, caught the first broadcast and commented on Sept. 5, 1933 he didn’t like Hal Burdick's show or Felton. All we can say is “Ahhhhhh shaddap!”