Avery included stick figures in Porky’s Preview (1941), but another cartoon was based around them a year earlier.
Blackboard Revue was produced by Ub Iwerks for release by Columbia in 1940. The story itself is an old chestnut. Inanimate characters come to life at night, sing and dance, then when dawn breaks, they rush to become inanimate again.
The school teacher in the cartoon is an imitation of Tizzy Lish, who was a female impersonator on the Al Pearce radio show.
Some of the "students." And a dopey student.
A late student comes in and tells the teacher a tale of being stopped by Indians. Teacher: "Indians?! Were they Blackfeet?" Student: "How should I know? They were wearing shoes."
He jumped into an eagle's next, then tangled with the eagle.
He landed in front of a cave, and out stepped an enormous black bear. Teacher: "A cinammon bear?" Student: "How should I know what flavour?" (The Cinammon Bear was a kids radio show).
The student escapes from the bear by hoisting himself using the chalk numbers and letters on the blackboard.
The teacher believes none of it, and asks what he expects to be when he grows up. Now the cartoon switches gears and the student launches into a song, with the Rhythmettes singing behind Blanc. He wants to be an engineer. A girl student wants to be a movie star. Caricaturist Ben Shenkman gives us another approximation of Clark Gable. A hand-on-hip nancy boy wants to be a fireman.
"Well, shut my mouth!" This chalk drawing taps just like Bojangles Robinson.
The dullard student wants to lead a band. Everybody dances!
A bird on a tree outside sounds reveille. The drawings rush back to where they came from. The camera pulls away from the blackboard and the scene dissolves to outside the schoolhouse, which is how things started.
Ub Iwerks is the only artist credited, with both Eddie Kilfeather (music) and Joe De Nat (musical direction) getting credits. Among the staff at Cartoon Films in 1940 were Ed Benedict, Tom McKimson and Paul Fennell.
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