Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: Improve Your Personality

Two big stars in one small film!

Ah, not just any small film. But one made by those teenage behavioural specialists—Coronet.

The company’s best-known social guidance film is likely Dating Dos and Don’ts (1949), where Woody Woodruff, played by John Lindsay, is helped by narrator Ken Nordine on how to have a good time with Anne (pronounced “A-yann”) on a date at the high school teen carnival.

He’s not my favourite Coronet actor. That honour falls on whoever played Nick Baxter in What To Do on a Date (1951). His acting and dialogue delivery are unbelievably stiff. Yet I think he’s trying his best so you can’t fault him for that.

It turns out Lindsay and “Nick” appeared in a Coronet film together—Improve Your Personality (also 1951). You can’t miss “Nick” (unnamed in this one) as he says after a girl walks past him: “Boy, has she got personality!” Either “personality” is a euphemism (and in a Coronet film, double entendres are highly unlikely) or he can tell what someone is like just by walking past him without looking.

But changing someone’s behaviour is the purpose of these Coronet films. In this one, Woody Woodruff learns you can get what you want by kissing up to someone. Sincerity? Ah, you can fake that. Somehow, I don’t think that was the intended message of this film.

Besides the narrating Nordine, Dorothy Day reprises her role as Woody’s mom. In Dating, Woody’s first name was Alan. Here, it’s Bill. They weren’t big on continuity back then (and in a Coronet film, why bother?).

The opening of this print is the victim of a splice, but anyone who knows their Boosey and Hawkes library will recognise the opening music as “Paris Interlude” by Edward White, the same English composer whose “Puffin’ Billy” was heard on Captain Kangaroo. “Paris Interlude” is also used again and again in the Sid Davis epic The Cool Hot Rod (1953).

Things Go Swimmingly For Jack Benny

It likely won’t surprise you to learn that Radio Guide, in June 1935, announced that a poll with 1,256,328 votes had picked Jack Benny as their favourite radio performer. What will likely surprise the casual fan is the Jack Benny show wasn’t the Jack Benny show you’ve come to know and love.

In 1935, there was no Rochester, no Phil Harris, no Dennis Day, no Mel Blanc (or a Maxwell or violin teacher or harassed Christmas-time store clerk), no Frank Nelson going “Yehhhhhhs?”, no Sheldon Leonard touting, no Fred Allen feud.

What there was, was Mary Livingstone, in almost a Dumb Dora role spouting poems, Don Wilson cheerily telling the world about six delicious flavors contained in a box with big red letters, and Sam Hearn’s Schlepperman doing Yiddish dialect.

Only two broadcasts from 1935 survive (one is Kenny Baker’s debut late in the year) but, fortunately, Laura Leibowitz crafted two wonderful books containing a summary of each Benny radio show, with complete cast and music lists. The Benny estate still has scripts for each show and Kathy Fuller-Seeley is making her way through them to have them published. These are admirable literary efforts and deserve your full $upport.

The other thing the show had in 1935 was writer Harry Conn, no doubt stewing that he was the real brains behind it and anyone could get laughs with his lines (he soon proved to himself how wrong he was).

Benny had signed a movie contract, which forced him to move the show to Los Angeles.

The San Francisco Examiner looked at the show in its June 9, 1935 edition. NBC hadn’t built the lovely studios at Sunset and Vine at this point. Whether this is mere P.R. hokum, we will let you decide.

BENNY’S HOUR EFFULGENT
Jack Benny's Sunday broadcasts originating at the NBC studios in Hollywood and heard locally over KPO at 7:30 p. m., have taken on all the glamour that used to be attached to film premiers at Graunmann's [sic] Chinese Theater, with famous picture stars, stage favorites, noted composers, visiting royalty, society matrons and other "who's who" in attendance.

The luxurious limousines start arriving half an hour before broadcast time and Melrose avenue is crowded as a steady stream of pedestrians and motorists make their way toward the iron gate of the RKO lot where the broadcasting headquarters are established. This happens twice each Sunday as the Benny troupe makes separate appearances for eastern and western listeners.
Firm executives are always among those on hand. Fashion writers are present to see what the stars are wearing. Autograph collectors hover about the entrance of the studio and candid camera men snap pictures of the notables. Jack and Mary get away from the crowd as soon as they can after the broadcasts are over. After the first show, which is broadcast east of the Rockies, they return to fashionable Beverly Hills and take a dip in their private swimming pool. Following the evening broadcast they go home and catch up on the Sunday papers.
During tonight's broadcast, by the way, Jack Benny will introduce one of the latest screen "finds," 8-year-old Bobbie Breen. The program will mark the first radio appearance of Bobbie, who is under contract to Sol Lesser, noted movie producer. Benny believes he will be a sensation on the air.

Breen would become a regular with Jack’s buddy Eddie Cantor. The “Hollywood pearls” routine was a running story-line. Radio columns of the time noted it climaxed on the June 16 broadcast, which also included “a young girl who recently won the $1,000 award of the Allied Arts Festival of California as that state’s outstanding girl vocalist. Her name is Wynn Davis, she is 22 years old, and will make her radio debut this afternoon.” (unbylined, The Nashville Tennessean).

One of Jack’s running gags some years later involved his stardom in an odd film, The Horn Blows at Midnight. He talks about some film experiences in this 1935 column in the San Francisco News. Again, we leave it to you to decide if the idea of a piano-playing Jack Benny, or anything else, is true.

JACK BENNY FINDS MOVIES SO DIFFERENT!
BY LEICESTER WAGNER
HOLLYWOOD, June 1 —When is a mouse trap not a mouse trap? asks Jack Benny, who then falls all over himself in his haste to declare a mouse trap is a sound effect in a radio station.
But Hollywood’s realism has Jack baffled. In the broadcasting station you put over the idea of eating by munching a stale cracker in front of the microphone.
"In pictures,” he sighed, you sit down to a steaming meal and do a ‘Jack Spratt and his wife’ the first time the scene is filmed. After six ‘retakes’ you begin to long for the old cracker sound effect where a crunch will put over the idea instead of two dozen helpings of herring and weiner-schnizel [sic].
Shower of Perfume
"I had my first contact with studio realism in ‘Hollywood Revue of 1928’," Benny went on. “I almost lost my wife and friends because of it. We were shooting the ‘orange blossom time’ number. To give the scene realism, gallons of perfume were blown through the ventilators. It took me months to explain to my wife and the boys at the smoker refused to let me in the clubroom.
Too Many Tricks
“Being a musician or note—some claim it’s a sour one, but you know how jealous my competitors are—I sat down at the grand piano to dash off a little selection of my own writing.
“Director Roy Del Ruth—some kidder—pushed a button and presto!—the piano disappeared, which left me playing on thin air.
“He pushed another button and the piano stool vanished, which momentarily left me sitting on thin air.
“Yes, everything's real in Hollywood except the weather. If I decide to settle down in California. I'll have a tombstone made for my grave which bears this inscription:
“ ‘Killed by unusual weather.’
“And I hope my mourners will be able to read it through the fog.”

While it’s true Jack Benny “composed” a song later in life, the music for “When I Say ‘I Beg Your Pardon’ (Then I’ll Come Back to You)” was written by Mahlon Merrick. Jack got credit for the lyrics. It was his show, you know.

If there’s any doubt about the popularity and pull Jack had in 1935, here’s a piece from the Superior, Wisconsin Evening Telegram of June 19:

WEBC's scout heard a new Jack Benny story in Chicago. It seems Benny entered a well-known music publishing house to pick up a professional copy of a recent song-hit, issued free to all in show-business. The bright young fellow at the counter asked curtly who he was. Benny stated mildly that he was with NBC.
"Then," says the bright young fellow, "you must have a copy, since we always send a lot over there for distribution."
When Benny insisted that he wanted a copy, the B. Y. F. says further, “Next, you'll be telling me you're Jack Benny.”
“Why, I am,” says Benny, in surprise.
“Ha! Ha! No, you aren't. I guess I know Benny,” retorts the B. Y. F.
“You do, eh?” Benny asks, and turns, and walks into the office of the head of the music-house, returning almost immediately with a furious man waving his arms and calling upon heaven to witness if ever he had known such a stupid clerk.
Fortunately, for the clerk's job, the clerk was the man's son.
“This is Jack Benny,” he shouted. “Give him anything he wants.”
To a music publisher, Jack Benny is mightier than the prince of Wales. His plug of a song would send the sales shooting skyward.

By the way, if you want the top ten winners in the five categories that involved Jack’s show, here they are. Frank Parker was on the Benny show during the poll. The photo comes from the June 24, 1935 edition of the Evansville Journal.

Performer — 1, Jack Benny; 2, Lanny Ross; 3, Eddie Cantor; 4, Bing Crosby; 5, Joe Penner; 6, Fred Allen; 7, Frank Parker; 8, Will Rogers; 9, Edgar Guest; 10, Don Ameche.

Teams — 1, Amos ‘n’ Andy; 2, Burns and Allen; 3, Jack Benny and Mary; 4, Myrt and Marge; 5, Lum and Abner; 6, Hitz and Dawson; 7. Mary Lou and Lanny Ross; 8, Block and Sully; 9, Marion and Jim Jordan; 10, Easy Aces.

Musical Program — 1, Show Boat; 2, Rudy Vallee’s program; 3, Jack Benny’s program; Himber’s Champions; 5, Fred Waring’s program; 6, WLS Barn Dance; 7, Beauty Box Theater; 8, Town Hall Tonight; 9, Breakfast Club; 10, Pleasure Island (Lombardoland).

Orchestra — 1, Wayne King; 2, Guy Lombardo; 3, Richard Himber; 4, Ben Bernie; 5, Jan Garber; 6, Kay Kyser; 7, Don Bestor; 8, Fred Waring; 9, Rudy Vallee; 10, Walter Blaufuss.

Announcers — 1, Jimmy Wallington; 2, Don Wilson; 3, Harry Von Zell; 4, Ted Husing; 5, David Ross; 6, Milton J. Cross; 7, Phil Stewart; 8, Don McNeills; 9, Tiny Ruffner; 10, Jean Paul King.

Why Is Jay Ward in the Sports Column?

The concepts of Iron Curtain spies and science fiction space aliens are a little outdated, but remain entertaining when placed in the right hands. And, in this case, the hands belonged to the people at Jay Ward Productions.

Rocky and His Friends debuted in 1959. Its cartoons are still enjoyable. You can put dopey moose Bullwinkle in all kinds of situations—witness the “Bullwinkle’s Corner” and “Mr. Know-It-All” segments—and get fun out of them. It’s still fun almost 60 years later.

“Fractured Fairy Tales” still hold up, thanks to clever stories and excellent voice casting.

Several columnists acclaimed Ward and his staff in the early going (before moving to NBC, adding Dudley Do-Right and becoming The Bullwinkle Show). Perhaps the most unusual spot for praise was in Jim Scott’s sports column of Oct. 17, 1960.

Actually, it wasn’t unusual at all. Scott wrote for the Berkeley Daily Gazette, Ward’s hometown paper. He fit Ward into his commentary about U.C. Berkeley’s 27-10 defeat by the U.S.C. Trojans football team.

Of Rocky's Best Friend—Jay Ward
AMONG THE CAL ROOTERS at the game was J. T. (Jay) Ward. You may know him as the Domingo Ave. realtor. But he's a legend in Hollywood — though he's been there only a year. Jay's in the animated cartoon business. You've seen "Rocky And His Friend," [sic] TV's highest rated daytime show. That's his. General Foods paid him $2 million for 78 issues. Coming up are "Hoppity Hooper," "Watts Gnu" and "Super-Chicken."
I toured Jay's three buildings on Sunset Blvd. His office is in an apartment in a Spanish courtyard. There he and his co-producer, Bill Scoutt [sic], run the show, which includes (temperamental) artists. In addition, Jay maintains a unit in Mexico City, where more than 100 cartoonist ink out the bulk of his work. In his Sunset studio the artists come and go as they please. Some do the work in their homes. The most industrious seemed to be a little guy who was turning out merchandising ideas for Jay's weird creatures. Actors, directors, animators, musicians and designers also are involved.
One of Jay's pledges, Marcelle Philpott, who picked me up at the Biltmore, turned out to be a 1950 Berkeley High grad. She said that Jay's so successful because he alone can handle artists. "Artists respect him," explained Miss Philpott, "because he does only quality work and is such a warm and understanding human being. He's fair with everyone. They wouldn't work for anyone else!”
The real estate business was inherited from his father; Jay's heart has always beat for cartooning. Why back in 1948, before television had even come to the Bay Area, Jay got the idea of combining for it newspaper cartoons with Hollywood animation. He and his boyhood pal, Alex Anderson, came up with the enormously successful "Crusader Rabbit." But they lost the property when the sales agency which had taken it over went bankrupt.
Crusader Sparked It All
The Crusader's financial romp was a gnawing challenge to young Ward to do it again. He came up with Rocky, the flying squirrel. To do it right, he went to Hollywood, started hiring the best talent. Yet he made his pilot film for only $5,000. His voices include such well known names as those of Edward Everett Horton and Charley Ruggles.
"You probably never heard of three others whom we use," said Jay. "They're Paul Frees, Daws Butler and Walter Tetley. But they're the highest paid performers in Hollywood. Their voices in cartoons net each of them $250,000 a year."
You know what a copy-cat Hollywood is. You see it even in the architecture near Jay's office. A new bank, Lytton Savings, on Sunset, has a folded, zigzag roof. Well, before it could be completed, an elegant hot-dog stand, "The Plush Pup," went up next door—with an identical roof.
But Ward doesn't fear such competition. "There are lots of artists in Hollywood," he said, "but not too many good ones. Most of mine started out with Disney. It takes a long time to learn this business. You have to wait for the profits, too. But, when they come, they can be oh so delightfully big."
Although Jay, a brilliant organizer, works a seven-day week on Sunset, he still operates his Domingo Ave. realty business, still is a member of the Berkeley Tennis Club, across the street from it. Several months ago, his wife and three children moved to Hollywood. They live within walking distance of Jay's studios.
While Ward has made many cartoon commercials, he's interested only in the big stuff with the heavy residues [residuals?]. (“Rocky” already has been sold to Australia, and all sorts of merchandisers are making use of the squirrel.)
Has Hollywood changed Jay Ward? Oh, he has acquired a something of a pot. But he still has all that thick black hair, the same easy smile and engaging ways that were his in his BTC and realty days.
"This work is fun, Jim." he said. "Actually, I'd be doing it if I didn't make a damned cent."
WHAT'S JAY WARD GOT TO DO with sports? Not much, actually. It's just fun, now and then, to do a success story for a change of pace.

Ward never got Watts Gnu on the air; no one wanted a puppet series. Hoppity Hooper was picked up by ABC in 1964. It was one of Ward’s lesser efforts. Super Chicken finally got on the tube in 1967 as part of George of the Jungle, and some people say it was funnier than the title show.

The company’s cash flow likely came from Quaker Oats, as it put its brand of humour (and stock cast) into more than a decade’s worth of commercials for Cap’n Crunch cereal (ending in 1984). Several other proposed projects never got off the ground and Ward retreated into the former Plush Pup hot-dog place and opened Dudley Do-Right’s Emporium, standing behind the counter and meeting fans who had no idea whom they were talking with.

A number of cartoon studio owners or managers had no background in animation. Ward was one of them. But he allowed talent to flourish and we can still smile at the fruits of their labours.

Lightning Only Strikes Once

The Hanna-Barbara unit was still at the top in 1947 when it came to expressions, as you can see in Old Rockin’ Chair Tom.

It’s one of a pair of cartoons when the maid replaces Tom with a better mouse-catching cat (the idea was re-used with Mr. Jinks on TV). Chair has some fine lightning effects (visual and sound), Jerry faking being surprised, Scott Bradley finding a place for “The Trolley Song” on the soundtrack (as well as “Old Black Joe”), and the maid not being Lana Turner (in another fine screaming performance by Lillian Randolph).

This is another swallow-something-metallic-and-pulled-by-a-hidden-magnet cartoon. My favourite of this type is probably the Warners’ short Bugsy and Mugsy (1957), though it goes back at least as far as Cracked Ice (Warners, 1938). In this case, the object is an iron.



Here’s a lovely sploosh against a wall.



The MGM ink paint department’s dry brush artists do a nice job in a four-drawing cycle (on ones) of Lightning turning in mid-air.



As in the later Jiggers… It’s Jinks! (H-B, 1958), the meeces mouse and cat team up against the intruder to restore order by the end of the cartoon. Tom doesn’t come through altogether unscathed. As Lightning kicked him out of the house, he returns the favour, but forgets the iron is still planted in Lightning’s butt.



The cartoon ends with the two of them sharing a lemon meringue or banana crème pie served by the maid to the sound of another MGM-owned song, “I’m Sitting on Top of the World.”



Ray Patterson, Ed Barge, Ken Muse and Irv Spence are the animators.

The cartoon's official release date was Sept. 18, 1948, but title was mentioned by Fred Quimby in stories in both Boxoffice and The Motion Picture Herald dated July 19, 1947. Scott Bradley's score was copyrighted on Nov. 24, 1947. It was playing Aug. 29, 30 and 31, 1948 at the Riviera Theatre in St. Paul, Nebraska, and got a "good" rating out of Boxoffice and The Exhibitor. The short was re-released on Dec. 30, 1955 and again in the 1964-65 season.

The Forest Rabbits

Forest rabbit Bugs Bunny is reading “Little Hiawatha” and gets to a line about the “mighty warrior” hunting “the forest rabbit.” Bugs suddenly realises that means him.



Bugs runs around in circles before leaving, stage left. To make the exit seem faster, Bugs develops multiples of himself. Some drawings.



Maybe Leon Schlesinger liked this cartoon as he put it into Oscar contention, but Hiawatha is too much of a dullard for me. (Clampett. Re-used footage. Yes, I know).

The original credits said Gil Turner animated some of this short for the Friz Freleng unit.

The Memory of Love's Refrain—Tonight on CBS

They were singers who starred on network radio in the 1940s—Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Al Jolson, Hoagy Carmichael.

Hoagy Carmichael?!?

I’m not old enough to have been around in the ‘40s, so my first exposure to Hoagy was on an episode of The Flintstones. Much later in life, I discovered he actually wrote “Stardust,” and had his name butchered at the Oscars in 1948 by Sam Goldwyn.

Just now, I’ve learned that Carmichael had his own radio show the same year. And much like Sammy Cahn did on Merv Griffin’s TV show years later, the composer sang. And not necessarily his own compositions, as we learn from music lover John Crosby in his syndicated radio column of Feb. 28. Crosby looks at a couple of other things, including more ridiculous radio censorship.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By JOHN CROSBY
A Composer Sings
About twice in the Hoagy Carmichael show (CBS 5:30 p. m. EST Sundays), an announcer intervenes to urge listeners to get rid of that "stuffy, congested feeling" and "that scratchy throat” by using Luden's Cough Drops. Then Hoagy, who has a voice like a tired rasp, will sing another song in those scratchy, congested tones which sound as if he hadn't paid attention to the commercial.
Whether or not the Carmichael voice succeeds in selling any cough drops, it provides a pleasant and relaxing fifteen minutes. In his singing, Hoagy sums up the Carmichael philosophy. He doesn't like any one to be in a hurry; in his one book, his many songs, and his few screen appearances, he celebrates the sheer bliss of taking it easy, though how he manages to take it easy with so many activities is his own secret.
Two of his own songs—"Two Sleepy People" and "Lazybones"—sum up fairly well how he sounds on the air. He sings as if he were lying on a hammock, dressed in a worn sweater, scuffed shoes, and his oldest flannels, just on the verge of falling asleep.
* * *
Some songs shouldn't be sung by any one else. "Limehouse Blues" sung in that hoarse, haunting voice, puts the smell of fog in your nostrils. "Among My Souvenirs," the corniest tear-jerker since "Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage," almost sounds like genuine sentiment after he finishes it. Most of the songs on the program are blues numbers or just plain low-down numbers like "Baltimore Oriole" ("Send her back home. Home ain't home without her warbling.") While his voice resembles the croaking of a frog more closely than it does a singing voice, Hoagy's phrasing is meticulous. He is one of the few singers who sing lyrics as if they know what the words mean.
The song writer also composes what little dialogue there is on the show. Most of it is simply amiable chatter with his secretary, Shirley, or his accompanist. Buddy Cole, about his book "On the Stardust Road" or about his old, beloved car. It's as unpretentious and slow-moving as his screen acting. In fact, the Carmichael program comes pretty close to pure radio; that is, it's intimate entertainment designed not to get a studio audience into hysterics, but to entertain a few people in their own parlors.
Incidentally, Carmichael isn't the only song writer who can sing. Harold Arlen, composer of "Stormy Weather," "Blues in the Night" and "Old Black Magic," has been entertaining his friends for years with his throaty singing. Many women claim he possesses the sexiest male voice they ever heard, and he is due to charm a wider feminine audience over CBS in the near future.
• • •
Integrated commercials, according to most radio polls, are the most popular type with listeners. An integrated commercial, in case you didn't know, is one in which the advertising is brought right into the script such as the Johnson's Wax commercials on the Fibber McGee and Molly show. Integrated commercials reached a new high in the recent Jack Benny parodies on operatic themes, which were as funny as anything else in the show and maybe even a little funnier.
However, the millennium did not occur until recently when Jack Carson imitated Al Jolson In a commercial for Campbell Soup. Hordes of letters poured in from listeners requesting a repeat performance. The repetition of a commercial by popular demand is, of course, unheard of. As far as commercial radio goes it is probably the end of the line. We can all turn our attention to space ships now; there is nothing further to achieve in radio.
And while on the subject of ultimates, the final extremity in censorship was attained on a script of "Murder and Mr. Malone." A pause was deleted by an ABC censor. Too suggestive, he said.

As for Crosby’s other columns for the week, he completed his series from Hollywood:

Monday, February 24: Network headquarters in Hollywood.
Tuesday, February 25: Bing and Bob.
Wednesday, February 26: Cars and other freebies.
Thursday, February 27: Abe Burrows and Vine Street.

You can click on them to read them.

And Away We Go

Of all the people whose fame came from television in the 1950s, Jackie Gleason may have been the one with the biggest influence on theatrical cartoons. And not just from the Honeymooners sketches he turned into a series.

Gleason’s variety show started with a monologue, then called for “a little travelling music.” He moved to a mark near the stage curtain, lifted up his arms and legs, shouted “And away we go!” and dashed off stage in profile.

Cartoon characters were known to do the same thing; maybe a well-known example is Yogi Bear in his first cartoon, Pie-Pirates (1958). But it happened several times in the Walter Lantz cartoon, I'm Cold (1954), starring Chilly Willy. The cartoon was written by Homer Brightman and directed by Tex Avery, who turned his Southern wolf from MGM into a furry guard dog (played again by Daws Butler), commenting on the cartoon in progress in a little more of a low-key way than the wolf did.

Both the dog and Chilly have cycles of Gleason-action, four movements up, three movements down before vanishing out of the scene, leaving behind dry-brush strokes.



The cartoon is full of good gags inside a basic plot, and Clarence Wheeler’s music is suitably comedic, with percussion effects when necessary. Don Patterson, La Verne Harding and long-time Avery collaborator Ray Abrams are credited with the animation.