Bessie the Animator

Buried in the “Coming and Going” column of Film Daily of July 13, 1936 is this item:

BESSIE MAES, animator connected with the Max Fleischer studios, went to Minneapolis last week to lecture on animated cartoons at the University of Minnesota summer session.

Research is bringing to light the women who animated cartoons in the Golden Age, including at Walt Disney. This post isn’t very scholarly but we’ll pass along a couple of stories from the Minneapolis newspapers of the day about her. Both were published July 8, 1936.

First, a bit of a set-up. It would appear she was seconded away from her drawing board, judging by a column in the Minneapolis Journal of April 1, 1936. It read, in part:

Take the case of Bessie Maes, who for years was on the art staff of Fleischer (Betty Boop) Studios, holding a position never before or since held by a woman . . . animated cartoonist.
The public’s demand for knowledge as to how animated cartoons are made was so great that Paramount decided to feature Bessie Maes in a program and put it on in their theatres. She was billed as a lecturer and staff representative. Some clubs, colleges and other organizations began to ask for the programs. Six months of each year was spent in “animated lecturing” at these places. Out of these busy days, some way or other time was squeezed out to draw the cartoons.

The Journal’s story on July 8:

Betty Boop Having Figure Worries, Says Cartoonist
Mrs. W. A. Hirschy Is Spending Summer at Home in City
Betty Boop's figure is causing her to worry and the poor girl is contemplating a salad-eating and rope-skipping campaign to reduce, according to Mrs. W. A. Hirschy, one of Betty's "bosses," who, with her husband, is spending the summer at the Minneapolis home of the Hirschys at 3510 Twenty-seventh avenue S.
Known professionally as Bessie Maes, Mrs. Hirschy is the only woman animated cartoonist in the world. She works for the Max Fleischer studios in New York City drawing Betty Boop and other cartoon characters for the screen.
Has Reason for Worries
"Betty's reason for worrying about her figure," explained Miss Maes, "is because fourth dimension pictures are fast being developed. Betty Boop has made one of these already. So, with the fourth dimension to think about, Betty has to keep an anxious eye on her calories."
Miss Maes is one of a staff of 230 artists, tracers, cameramen and other employees who work on cartoon comedies. It takes 15,000 separate pictures to make a one-reel cartoon and requires 10 full weeks of the staff's time. Artists draw as high as 350 separate pictures a day.
Pioneering at Cartooning
A diminutive, attractive blond with a small wee voice, Miss Maes is not unlike the Betty Boop she creates. She is a pioneer in animated cartoon work and proud of the fact she is the only woman in the world in this work.
She spoke before an audience of nearly 500 students in the music auditorium of the University of Minnesota yesterday, describing the work of making the cartoon comedies for the screen.

This is the version from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Animated Cartoons Visit City With Woman Creator
Only Feminine Artist in Films, Bessie Maes, Tells How They're Made.
Betty Boop gave her dress an extra saucy fillip in Minneapolis Tuesday under the approving eye of Popeye the Sailorman. Oswald the Rabbit looked on wonderingly, but Mickey Mouse was too busy making eyes at Minnie to pay much attention.
The person who brought about all these strange things was Bessie Maes, who believes she is the only woman animated cartoonist in the world. She gave an illustrated lecture Tuesday afternoon in the music auditorium at the University of Minnesota, but first she told something about how she comes to be in a class by herself.
The mental strain of preparing the hundreds on hundreds of pictures that go to make an animated cartoon has proved too much for most women, she said, adding that it bothers her less perhaps since she was in the animated cartoon business from the start.
She was ready to become a cartoonist just about the time the bright lads got the idea that there was a gold field to be captured by turning the comic strips into celluloid strips. And she's been in the business down through the days that saw Betty Boop develop into one of the major film stars. Popeye become the rage of the day, and Walt Disney take the show houses by storm with his Mickey Mouse creations. She has worked with most of the leading animated cartoonists, including Disney and Walt Lantz, the creator of Oswald the Rabbit.
She doesn't dare to have any favorites, she said, but admitted she has an especially soft spot in her heart for the husky Popeye.
In an average cartoon some 125 persons in a studio begin racing against time as soon as scenarists dump the light story on the producer's desk. Each of the cartoonists is allotted a number of the scenes, drawing the hundreds of pictures that take Mickey Mouse, for instance, through the act of sliding down a rain pipe. Then they are assembled, the necessary re-takes made. Women in the studio generally are used for tracing, washing celluloid and similar jobs.
Miss Maes’ husband, W. A. Hirschy, resides at 5510 Twenty-seventh avenue south.

What’s odd about this is Fleischer employed Lillian Friedman as an animator. How could Maes not know her?

Maes was born Elizabeth Mae Kelley on November 10, 1891. 1936 saw the death of her father, Josiah B. Kelley, in Maine. She evidently gave up employment in the Fleischer studio as she is in the Minneapolis directory in 1937. She had no job recorded in the 1940 or 1950 Census for the city.

Maes’ husband, William Amerland Hirschy, passed away in 1980. Maes died in Lake City, Minnesota on Oct. 21, 1981.

(Late Tralfaz bulletin: I mentioned "research" above. I was thinking about Mindy Johnson's efforts to find information about women in animation in the theatrical days. After putting up this post, she sent a note saying she is working on a book with Bessie's story. I look forward to her important research to dispel myths. Find out more at this link).

Getting a Nickel Back

Tex Avery pulls out some of his favourite Warner Bros. bits in The Bear’s Tale. There’s a pan over a long outdoor background with cel overlays. There’s a large character that can’t top laughing (played by Avery himself). There’s a mash-up of fairy tales. And there’s the split screen routine.

Red Riding Hood calls Goldilocks at the Three Bears’ house (she just happens to have the number) to say the wolf is coming over there to get her. Then, ignoring the screen, Red hands Goldie the wolf’s note.



Goldie thanks Red and the two hang upleave the scene.



Avery’s not finished. He uses another one of his bits—the theatre audience is watching a cartoon and the characters in it know it’s happening. There’s a metal clinking that anyone who has used a pay phone will recognize as the sound of a coin falling into the coin return. Goldilocks comes back into the scene and tries to fish out the nickel. Then, she realises the theatre audience can see her doing it, and retreats out of the frame.



Bugs Hardaway is given a story credit, but this doesn’t feel like a Bugs Hardaway cartoon.

Sara Berner is Red. Berneice Hansell is Goldilocks.

Tumbling Bear

Favourite scene in Chuck Jones’ Bear Feat? That’s an easy one.

Junior Bear grabs Papa Bear and tumbles him in an airborne somersault. Pa is in a six-drawing cycle animated on ones, as Junior da-da-das to one of Carl Stalling’s musical favourites, “Frat” (he also employs J.F. Barth’s old chestnut over the opening titles).



But the best part is Mama Bear zips into the scene wearing a curly-haired girl wig and a dress, joining Junior in the da-da-da version of “Frat.”



The whole idea comes out of nowhere and is completely ridiculous, as only Mike Maltese could dream up.

The Jones unit, being at the top of its game, ensures the cycle isn’t static. Junior raises and lowers his legs a little so Papa Bear’s tumbling goes up and down a bit on the frame. And Mama Bear twists and turns and looks toward and away from the tumbling.

Stan Freberg is Junior and the opening narrator, Billy Bletcher is the father and Bea Benaderet the mother who switches from the ultimate in deadpan to various facial expressions as she watches Pa get abused through the whole cartoon.

Second favourite scene? Papa Bear has had enough of Junior’s screw-ups and wants his kid physically harmed for it. Here’s how Maltese’s mind works. He comes up with a creative form of punishment.



Junior is such a head-headed dope that baseball has no effect other than to bounce off him with a metallic sound. Jones’ timing is great. Just the right number of frames.



That’s it. What else do you need? On to the next scene.

Jones made one more Three Bears cartoon after this, the 1951 release A Bear For Punishment, and then the trio retired from the cartoon short business. Too bad.

$80 For Immortality

You do not recall him as the host of Night Quiz Court.

You do remember him, I would hope, from one of the most famous of all radio adventure show introductions which migrated to TV. It began with the William Tell Overture.

Yes, you know the words.

The Lone Ranger had several announcers over the years on network radio, but the most famous one is Fred Foy, who died in 2010.

The Ranger emanated from the studios of WXYZ in Detroit, which was also the home in 1947 of Night Court Quiz, a traffic safety programme where announcer Foy took contestants on a simulated drive through Detroit. Winners got cash.

Detroit was Foy’s home town. He attended Eastern High School and Wayne University before being stationed in Cairo during World War Two. He could be heard on Armed Forces Radio, and had begun his radio career as an actor on WMBC.

Foy chatted about his career to date to the Detroit Press Press of March 9, 1958.

Who Said Announcing’s Easy?
Foy's Spent Three Hours On One Line
BY MYRA MacPHERSON Free Press Writer
“ISN'T THAT the life?” you think, settling into your easiest chair. You're watching the smiling TV pitch man who throws in a word or two about his sponsor's beer just before the Tiger baseball game.
"What an easy way to make a buck," you think, reaching for a potato chip and waiting for the "play ball!" call.
The smiling man is Fred Foy and he can tell you a thing or two about his so-called simple job.
He knows one week he might earn $600—the next $80.
Although his free-lance announcing work is as precarious as betting the horses, he says he wouldn't trade it for any 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. desk job.
"When I'm working, I get paid well," he says, glancing around his spacious home.
"And I'm very busy. During baseball season last year I'd have day games, night games, double-headers, commercials for late evening shows and two or three recording jobs all in one week."
• • •
SITTING close by, Mrs. Foy adds:
“The children (Wendy, 3 and Nancy 7,) called their father ‘that man in a car’ they saw him so seldom.
“And I learned to knit beautifully,” she says, her needles clacking as she talks.
“Busy or not, I'm going to miss doing the games this season,” says Fred.
After two years, the sponsor has different plans for plugging their product. There will be no need for a commercial announcer.
• • •
“ITS SURPRISING how many people think you work only for the two or three minutes they see or hear you on radio and TV,” says Fred.
He used to get the Lone Ranger radio show off to a bullet-fast start with his "out of the West come the THUNDERING hoofbeats of the great horse Silver!"
For this, he would spend a good four hours.
“At 3 p.m. there would be the general read through of the script. Then a half hour spent timing the show. Then the production rehearsal to make sure the sound effects fitted in with the talking.”
A couple more hours work. A dress rehearsal. And the show would go on the air.
Fred's experiences with the Ranger radio show came in handy.
He was picked to yell "Hi Ho Silver" on the sound track as the Lone Ranger fades into the west in a newly filmed movie. For this he got $80.00.
• • •
FRED TRIES to explain the rather complicated system for paying announcers.
"You can't pin point the exact amount you make for each job. The set union scale is about $40 per half-hour local TV show. But your sponsor may pay you more if he thinks you're worth it.
“Sometimes the fee includes rehearsals, other times it's a flat rate,” he adds.
And sometimes there's a lot of preparation time at his own expense.
For one of his three minute car commercials, there's about an hour and a half rehearsal time. Fred walks to and from the car, opening doors and facing the camera while the lights are properly set.
• • •
FOR LOCAL one-minute spot commercials, the flat rate is usually $15.00 plus $7.50 for each hours work. A recent one minute radio truck commercial took all day because the voice had to be worked in with background music. In the contract for this commercial, Fred gets paid $45.00 every time it's re-used.
Although the fear of many announcers is catching a cold or losing their voices before a big job, Fred's baritone gives him little trouble. “I have to be careful about smoking too much, though.”
• • •
AND HIS wife adds:
“Many times he leave a party early so he can be well-rested for TV.” Thirty-seven-year-old Fred with 20 years announcing experience behind him says he can't imagine doing any other work.
He knows there'll come a time when his voice and fair-haired good looks may fade, but the Foys are prepared for that.
“In this business you can't live on every cent you make. We've been budgeting and saving all along.”

The Lone Ranger was in reruns, but Foy was still working in 1972. Here’s an interview from September 3.

The Last Radio Voice of the Lone Ranger
By PHILIP NOBLE
Gannett News Service Special
"A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty 'Hi-o, Silver!,' the Long Ranger."
The last man to say those stirring words on radio was Fred Foy, the last voice of the Lone Ranger and presently the Announcer of the Dick Cavett Show. Foy stumbled into immortality after World War II when he joined an especially creative radio station in Detroit which organized the Lone Ranger, Sergeant Preston and The Green Hornet — three of the biggest shows in radioland.
He did all of the announcing for The Lone Ranger and occasionally played a mean varmint. In the mid-fifties, the Masked Man rode off to television and this forced Foy to different fame and fortune.
Foy and I rendezvoused in a subterranean room at the Cavett Studios. After kicking out a goldbricking cop, we talked about the golden old days and the plight of the modern announcer.
Q: Your job is a pretty soft touch, Isn't it?
A: I guess a lot of people think it is. It always seems like such a simple thing to the layman. I guess they think that all you do is walk into the studio and just pick up the script and read the words. But it entails a lot more than that. You do have to rehearse.
Q: There aren't many jobs, though, that are worth the kind of money you make for the kind of effort you put out. A: For the effort involved, perhaps there are jobs that take a good deal more work to earn the dollar, but in this business you can't be assured of long-term employment. You have to look forward to today, and not worry too much about tomorrow. You can have a marvelous show and suddenly, like with Dick Cavett right now, if the ratings aren't good you are looking for a new job in a month. I've become so accustomed to this over the years that I just don't think about it any more.
Q: When you were doing the Lone Ranger show, did you realize you were taking part in an important piece of Americana?
A: No, it's surprising, but I really didn't. These shows originated from WXYZ in Detroit, which was a local radio station. Even though I would close every night with the ABC identification—"Fred Foy speaking. This is the ABC Radio Network"—I still did not have the feeling that it had any national effect. I knew it was going out to the country —on the network, but somehow—because I was working in a local area and not in New York City—I had the feeling the show wasn't going too far.
Q: Who played the Lone Ranger when you were there?
A: Brace Beemer. Brace Beemer was the longest-running Lone Ranger. He started in the 1930's after the first Lone Ranger was killed in an auto accident. They broke Beemer's voice in gradually by having the Lone Ranger mortally wounded so he could not speak for a while and then he finally said one word, then another word, and so on.
I think Brace would have been the only hero character on radio that you would not have been disappointed in if you met him in person. He was the picture of what you would imagine the Lone Ranger to look like—a tall, handsome, rugged outdoorsman.
Q: How come he never made it on television?
A: When it finally came to the day when they decided to do it on TV, they tested him but Brace was not youthful any longer. He had already been the Lone Ranger for 20 years.
Q: Who was the man behind Tonto?
A: Tonto was played for a number of years by John Todd. He was a short, bald-headed Irishman, an ex-Shakespearian actor and a marvelous man.
Q: I suppose they kept Todd out of sight then?
A: I don't know whether they publicized the fact he was an Irishman. And, of course, we never had a studio audience for the show. We had a little sponsor's section which could seat maybe 10 people and sometimes you could have visitors — but never any children because it would shatter all of their illusions.
Q: Do you think Tonto could be played as a wooden Indian today?
A: It's a character that should remain in the storybooks, I guess. Don't forget, the Lone Ranger was the hero and Tonto his "faithful companion." I do remember a similar circumstance when we doing the Green Hornet. Cato was the Green Hornet's right-hand man. But when the war came on, they had to change the character of Cato from a Japanese valet to a Filipino valet.
Q: Do you miss radio?
A: Yes, I do. Namely because it was in many ways easier than television. You could be very comfortably dressed, unshaven if necessary, because there was no one around. It was more relaxing and a hell of a lot simpler.
Q: What makes Ed McMahon of the Johnny Carson Show so successful? How is it that he has achieved a status that no other announcer has?
A: I don't think he's done anything that no other announcer has. I think it's the old story of being in the right place at the right time and getting the lucky break to work with someone like Carson—which then leads to other areas. It's the old snowball effect—one thing leads to another.
Q: Essentially, you are just another pretty voice in the business, aren't you?
A: Yes, but strangely enough, in today's market, they aren't looking for the pretty voice any more. They are looking for the unusual voice, I am speaking commercially now. They feel that beautiful tones that used to enchant people on radio are not what's in demand at the moment. They get the off-beat voice.
Q: What are the problems in your business? How far can you expect to go?
A: As far as "success" for an announcer, that word today is sort of passe'. The announcer, per se — in the big days of radio when you were a network staff announcer — held a certain prestige and class because he was called upon to do everything. Today however, this has all really vanished because radio itself has changed so much. You have disc jockies and newsmen and what they call reader-writers, who write and announce their own material. The picture has entirely changed. An announcer — the term really doesn't hold that much today. What the announcer has to try to become is a personality and how far he can go depends on Lady Luck.

When I watched the Cavett show, I didn’t realise the announcer was Fred Foy. He never had that tone of urgency recalled so well from the opening of The Lone Ranger TV show. I wasn’t the only one. In this review of the Les Crane TV show in early 1965, Bert J. Reesing of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote:

One rather interesting bit brought out by Crane involved the show’s announcer, Fred Foy. His is only an off-stage voice. Crane asked if the voice was familiar to anyone in the audience. No one recognized Foy’s voice. So Crane asked “Fred, give us your sign-off in the last radio show you announced.” Fred Did. “The fiery horse with the speed of light . . . etc.,” he said. It was surprising how many persons remembered. Foy then told the audience he believed the “‘Lone Ranger’ was retired on his ranch in Oxford, Mich.”

The reaction would likely have been different if he introed him as the host of Night Quiz Court.

Bear Feat Layouts

If only Chuck Jones and Mike Maltese had made more Three Bears cartoons.

I was watching Bear Feat (1949) the other day, and it was funnier than I remember it. And it’s a well-designed cartoon, too. There’s perspective animation with characters going toward and coming from the “camera.”



Notice above that Father Bear, who is about to drop into the chimney, still has the unicycle he was riding on the high wire when he was catapulted into the sky.

Bob Gribbroek is the layout artist. He has some settings looking up, others looking down.



Maltese has some inspired gags in this. We’ll get to one later this week.

Ben Washam, Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris and Phil Monroe are the credited animators.

Hit the Love Jackpot

Tom and Jerry and the female cat don't speak in Springtime for Thomas (1946), so words are not necessary to describe this fun sequence.



Ed Barge, Ken Muse and Mike Lah received screen credit for animation in this short (I think that's Muse doing the Cupid scene). Frank Graham supplies the voice of the evil aparition of Jerry.