How A Snooty Rich Woman Helped Sara Berner

Radio actors in the Golden Age had to be versatile. That was one way to get steady employment. When you could only hear them and not see them, performers didn’t get typecast. Frank Nelson, Joe Kearns and Elliott Lewis were equally at home on comedy and dramatic programmes.

There were specialists, too, who could spout in different dialects, celebrity impersonators, animal noises or vocal effects.

Sara Berner mastered various accents and celebrities. It helped her land work on radio and in animated cartoons. Director Bob Clampett called Berner “an important voice artist at Warners” and “our female Mel Blanc.” Tex Avery’s recollection was Berner and other actors got $75 a session, with an extra $5 if they did more than one character.

Besides this, there were novelty records, too. Berner managed to attract enough attention that she was given a starring role on her own radio show in 1950-51, though it quickly fizzled. She also had personal and health problems in the ‘50s after marrying her ex-manager.

We’ve reprinted articles on her career before, but let’s give you a few more. This piece is from the Oregon Statesman of Feb. 26, 1937. Major Bowes had a radio amateur hour (later taken to television by his protégé, Ted Mack) which netted him a small mint. He hired his best contestants and put them in little troupes that travelled all over the U.S. to perform in theatres.

Bowes Unit Will Come Next Week
Sara Berner, Who Failed as Salesgirl, One of Stars in Troupe
She mimicked the customers in a department store. So the manager fired her.
But today Sara Berner, young brown-eyed, good-looking brunette, appears before thousands of persons, travels throughout America and makes more than five times the weekly salary she earned as a saleslady—by mimicking.
She entertains Salem theatre fans with Major Bowes all-girl unit which comes to the Capitol theatre for one day only on Friday, March 5.
Miss Berner studied drama two years at Tulsa University in Oklahoma, but family reverses forced her to quit college. Department store salesgirl . . . fired for mimicking . . . New York . . . Job in department store . . . stage frightened amateur broadcasting to millions of listeners . . . a nod from Major Bowes . . . show-girl . . . that's the Horatio Alger story of Sara Berner to date.
With 15 other clever talented young women on the same bill, the Bowes all-girl unit promises to be outstanding among stage presentations.

Keith Scott’s Volume 2 on cartoon voice actors points out Berner’s first role at Warner Bros. was in Daffy Duck in Hollywood (1938) as the hen with the Katherine Hepburn voice. You can hear her at MGM, Columbia and elsewhere. More on that from this feature story published May 1, 1946.

Sara Berner Known As The Voice in Behind Scenes Of Movies
By HAROLD E. SWISHER
Motion Picture Editor of United Press Radio
If Sara Berner had paid any attention to the adage about good little girls should be seen and not heard, she might have got an “A” in deportment, but she would have missed out on a career.
As things have turned out Sara is always heard, but never seen. Which is a pity, because she's a pert and petite redhead, with shining brown eyes.

Long before anybody thought of giving Frank Sinatra the title, Sara Berner was known around Hollywood as the voice. That's because she has been the voice for everything from little Jasper in George Pal’s Paramount Puppetoons, to the tauntingly vocal fish in The Road To Utopia.”
Miss Berner became a career girl by what seemed at the time an unhappy accident. It was 10 years ago and she was a youngster working as a salesgirl at the stocking counter of a Philadelphia department store.
One day a pompus dowager came in, showering snooty syllables all over the place. Sara couldn't resist doing a satirical take off right on the spot. The lady overheard, and the little clerk made a quick sprint to her boss, quitting a split-second before she could be fired.
Next day she went into radio, working 12 hours a day at station WCAU.
Today Miss Berner makes 300 dollars for a one-minute appearance weekly on a top comedy program (the Jack Benny show) where she does a stint as Mabel Clapsaddle, a gum-snapping switchboard operator from Brooklyn. Her chores as Jasper’s voice in “Jasper in the Jam,” and other puppet features, net her a comparably pleasant and rewarding sum.
Of course she hasn’t a thing in the world to cry about, but Sara bawls like baby for a series of radio transcriptions advertising a diaper service.
Among other things, this versatile mimic has been the voice of Universal's Andy Panda, and of Daisy Mae and Pansy Yokum in the “Li’l Abner” series of Columbia cartoons. She has provided voices for dogs and cats, cows and chickens, skunks and foxes, snakes and pigs.
Many’s the fan who delighted in telling about the camel in “The Road To Morocco” who turned to the audience and said: “this is the screwiest picture I’ve ever been in!” That was Sara.
With her talented vocal chords, and somebody else’s art work, she danced with Gene Kelly in “Anchors Aweigh.” She was the mouse, of course. She’s Jerry in the Tom and Jerry shorts, too.
But Jasper is Miss Berner’s favorite assignment. Originally Jasper’s voice was recorded by a little negro boy. But time passed and one day his voice cracked and changed midway through a Jasper film. Then Sara took over.
Only once since the Philadelphia accident has Sara been perturbed -by one of her vocal creations. That was when she did the speaking chores for a vulture. To her horror and consternation, when the vulture spoke from the screen, the voice that emerged was an all too-perfect mimicry of her hardboiled landlady of that time. It’s hardly necessary to add that she has since moved.
And her most valued treasure is a cigaret lighter presented personally by Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King as a token of Canadas gratitude for a series of victory loan shows she did in the dominion.
To the rest of us her top treasure appears to be those versatile vocal chords.

Berner revealed to a Los Angeles Daily News columnist that at WCAU, she was given a 15-minute show that was written by Arthur Q. Bryan, who you know as the eventual voice of Elmer Fudd.

Unfortunately, Berner ran afoul of someone who was normally very dedicated to his cast—Jack Benny. I read a short blurb about it once, but found the specifics in Paul Price’s column in the Daily News of Jan. 18, 1954. Jack was generally dedicated to his cast but would stop calling in someone if they annoyed him. Berner played one of the telephone operators for the final time on radio on Dec. 27, 1953. She was replaced, first on Benny’s TV show.

Benny’s vault doors close on Sara Berner
Those massive doors on Jack Benny's famous vault were creaking so slowly yesterday that they prevented Sara Berner, the original "Mabel Flapsaddle,” from appearing on Jack's TV show.
You might say she was shut out at the safe.

Sara, who originated the character of the gabby telephone operator on Benny’s show some 12 years ago and so far as I know has played Mabel ever since, was dropped from the cast at practically the last minute.
It must have been practically the last minute because Sara’s appearance was widely publicized by the CBS press department until late Friday afternoon. Then there was a sudden switch in plans and the CBS press corps got on the telephone to say that Shirley Mitchell had been substituted.
So. if you missed a familiar face yesterday and thought “Mabel Flapsaddle” looked a little different, here’s the inside story.
SARA NOW, she’s the real flip, talky one and Bee Benadaret [sic] plays the other operator—was called several days ago to do the Benny show. Unfortunately, nobody talked money and Sara assumed she was to get her regular salary for a guest spot.
Somebody on the Benny show, however, assumed otherwise and Sara was offered approximately $250 below her asking price. "That is fine, but not for me,” was Sara’s attitude and who can blame her? After all, in a sense, she represents "Mabel Flapsaddle,” and besides how much difference can $250 make to a major production such as the Benny show?
It was a deadlock, and on Friday Producer Ralph Levy made the switch to Shirley Mitchell. Well, it’s all in a day’s work, but some persons might think that 12 years’ service and identification with a character is worth an extra $250 on an occasional TV show.
Especially when you figure that the budget on the program, excluding air time, must go to $30,000.
Sara took it all in stride, however. She said:
"Well, it’s only money.”
See Jack? Or should it be, see Ralph Levy?

Actually, it should be “See Jack?” There’s no way a casting change like that would be made without Benny’s approval.

Mitchell was Mabel when the character appeared on radio again on Feb. 14, 1954 and until the series ended. Berner was hired only once more for Benny’s radio show, and that was to play the nasal singer in a 1955 episode.

Work dried up. She was in fair condition in hospital in early September 1969 and died just before Christmas, without any notice from Variety or The Hollywood Reporter. Nor any wire service, as best as I can tell. Berner was a fine comic actress and impressionist. She deserved better. At least over the last number of years, as people become interested in the people on radio and in cartoons who made us laugh, Sara Berner is getting some belated recognition.

Puppetoons Go to War

Hollywood went to war in a big way after Adolf Hitler decided an invasion of Poland was a sehr gut idea for the Fatherland. Animation studios played their part.

There were propaganda cartoons for the home front, with unsubtle pleas to Buy Bonds interrupting the story. There were even less subtle caricatures of Axis leaders (Hitler getting bashed around is still funny) and the enemy in general, especially the Japanese (which, I suppose, was funny at the time, but chopped from post-war prints). On top of that, allied governments contracted studios to make films for the military. Disney, Schlesinger, Lantz, Hugh Harman were among them. So was George Pal.

Watching Pal’s characters move is something I still marvel at. That’s not even considering the incredible amount of work that went into designing, making and shooting his stop-motion models. Then combine that with an inspired story and you get something really remarkable; Tulips Will Grow is an amazing film by any standard.

While this story in the Showmen’s Trade Review of December 2, 1942, refers to war-time work, it’s really about how Pal’s Puppetoons were made.

All the studios were hit with staff being called up for war duty. Pal was no exception. The magazine reported on October 10, 1942 that just as Pal’s Jasper and the Choo Choo began production, nine of his employees were told that duty called with the U.S. Army.

Pal got out of shorts in the late ‘40s; it cost too much to make them. He moved into features where he, arguably, received more fame and honours.

Pal Puppetoons Get Wartime Assignment from Uncle Sam
Famous Wooden Characters Star in Training Pictures; Creator’s Technique Detailed
Some years ago when George Pal had the idea of using wooden puppets in animated pictures to achieve third dimension, he probably never realized that his idea, besides revolutionizing the animated picture, would also prove valuable to a nation at war. But that's what has happened, for Paramount's Puppetoon King has joined the ranks of shorts and cartoon producers making training films for the United States Government.
Depth and perspective are important in projecting a realistic miniature scene of an actual maneuver or plan of action in these films, it is pointed out, with the result that Pal's technique is proving its usefulness in wartime.
Nearly a dozen years ago when George Pal received his degree in architecture in Europe, he hoped to make a career of designing sets for feature pictures. He did follow that course for a while, but the idea of making his own wooden puppets so that his pictures would have a third dimension caused him to change his course. He photographed puppets in all sizes and forms, photographed them with a stop-motion camera, studied their action, carried on endless experiments and developed his new technique to the point of perfection. He was then ready to produce pictures.
He Trained a Large Staff
In Eindhoven, Holland, he opened a studio, went to work. His Puppetoons were enthusiastically received in the first-run movie theatres in England and on the continent, and were warmly praised by film critics. Rushed in making pictures to meet the public demand, Pal trained a large staff of assistants. His studio became the largest animation studio outside the United States. It was there that he developed and perfected his revolutionary system of third dimensional animations.
From Holland and England his fame spread to America. Paramount brought him to Hollywood where, in little more than a year, he has become one of the most successful artists in the film capital.

Those stringless puppets romping across the screen represent the ultimate advancement in the field of animated motion pictures. The wooden figures perform against actual sets with synchronized music and special sound effects.
Whereas animated cartoons require a separate drawing in celluloid for each movement. Pal builds a separate wood figure or puppet. The result gives a more fluid action, with the theatrical advantage of complete third dimension.
First steps in the making of a Pal Puppetoon: writing the script, composing the music (done first so movement of the characters may be clearly defined before they are made) and designing the sets. The sets are just as real as in feature films, but small and according to exact scale.
Pal then makes color models of the first, middle and last phase of each movement of each character. Assistants complete the twenty-five or more models of the intermediate steps. Then they are photographed and projected to test the movements.
Each puppet is made up of three sections: body, head and legs. Contrary to common belief, a complete puppet is not made for every step in the action of the picture. Since the body remains the same regardless of the action, only one body is needed. Walking or running action is achieved by changing the legs. The heads number some 200, with varying expressions. For the proper expression. Pal's assistants record the sound track on the film, listen while the expression is run back. Then they select a head with a mouth of the shape and size to synchronize with the sound.
When actual filming begins, the position of the puppet is determined and holes are made in the floor of the- set in which the pin protruding from the bottom of the feet will be inserted. That will hold the puppet in the desired position. The other holes, past and future, are filled with removable pins until they are needed.
Shooting Time: Six Weeks
Altogether, approximately 10,000 individual pictures are taken for the subject that will run seven minutes. Actual shooting time is about six weeks, in spite of the fact that 90 per cent of the work on a cartoon is preparation that has nothing to do with the actual shooting.
The ordinary Technicolor camera takes scenes from behind three different lenses. Not so with the camera used to take a single frame at a time. This camera has a Technicolor attachment consisting of three different color filters. Each frame is "shot" three times, each time with the color changed. When the film is printed, the positive is exposed to each of the three different color frames of the same scene, one at a time. Result: one Technicolor positive, the same as a positive made from the ordinary three-film-color negative.
Hollywood producers have spent millions to develop animated mediums. In spite of the most careful measures to give wooden, plastic and clay subjects smooth animation, the problem had been long unsolved until George Pal came along with his highly developed Puppetoons. His famous little characters, while entertaining millions, will also carry out their acting assignment for Uncle Sam to speed the day of victory.

Making a Puppetoon

Stop motion animation should seem primitive today but there’s still something warm and touching about the best of the films made by George Pal for Paramount. Pal moved on from shorts when they simply got too expensive to make.

His Puppetoon technique won him an honorary award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1944. Calling his series “Madcap Models” was purely alliterative. There wasn’t really anything madcap about Pal’s work, certainly not in films such as Tulips Will Grow and John Henry and the Inky-Poo.

Pal’s main character is viewed as an unfortunate stereotype today. At the time, nothing would have been thought of it. Jasper is involved in telling the story of the Puppetoons to a United Press reporter in an article published on July 20, 1945.

PUPPETOONS' RESENT TRADE COMPARISONS
George Pal Gets 'Oscar' For Three-Dimensional Movie Shorts.
By ED BARLOW.
United Press Staff Correspondent.
HOLLYWOOD.—(UP)—Hollywood's only wooden-headed Academy Award winner became highly indignant when I suggested he might someday surpass Pinocchio.
"Who's this character pistacchio? Never heard of him! Who starred him and what'd he do?" Jasper and his crow-packin' friend the Scarecrow were really mad now.
"Well—uh—he was a puppet, you see, and he wanted to lose his strings, and uh—that is—"

"Well, sho 'nuff, boy, do you see any strings on me anyhow?" the Scarecrow was wielding an oversized razor so I agreed he was absolutely stringless.
When I had assured them they made Pinocchio a piker, the stars of George Pal's "Puppetoons" sat down and gave me their life histories.
Seems there is—are—thousands of Jaspers. Just as animated cartoons use a separate drawing on celluloid for each movement, Pal builds a separate wooden figure or puppet. Twenty-eight leading ladies are needed for one complete wink of an eye.
Every figure and all the scenery, props and settings are turned out by hand. It is the third-dimensional effect thus created that won Pal a special "Oscar."
Script writing and composition of music are the first steps in one of these productions. Then miniature sets are created, exact in every detail, by skilled craftsmen.
"Tellim about the paint, the paint, the paints," squeaked the bobbing crow. Seems the paint room is a nerve-center of the Pal studios.
"Yawsuh, all of me is gotta be painted exactly the same way with all them lines in just the same place or ah jumps around like ah had strings," commented Jasper.
Arms and legs are made of flexible materials and animated by men who have developed a skill for maintaining registration with every movement.
All the tricks of stage lighting and color can be employed in the technicolor "Puppetoons," since everything is three-dimensional.
"Whatchyall mean with this here third-digressional hocus-po-lukus. I ain't no digressional scarecrow. I is a Democrat."
Music, dialog and sound effects are recorded in advance and the action inserted later to insure perfect synchronization in the finished film.
"Cawt, cawt, camera. Look at that hunk of junk, willya?"

The camera isn't the regular three-strip technicolor affair, but a specially-designed job. Exposures are made on a single negative thru varicolored filters by means of a color wheel on the camera. A special attachment permits variation of length of ex posure on each screen frame, and the color records are separated on a special printer and made into the finished product.
Small lens apertures, much as used in still photography, aid in creating depth of field and the extra dimension effect.
"There y'all go with the digression stuff again."
Pal's stars really should speak with a Dutch accent, since they got their start in Eindhoven, Holland, where the Puppetoon idea got its start under sponsorship of large advertisers.
Pal, an architecture graduate and artist, trained a large staff of specialists in Holland and soon had the largest animation studio outside the United States.
Then he was brought to Hollywood by Paramount.
One part of the Pal studio is blocked off nowadays, with a sign proclaiming it the business of Uncle Sam only. Some of Jasper's distant cousins are being used in army training and educational films bearing top hush-hush ratings.
"Yeah, and you tell this here peanutsio or whoever not to go a-triflin' around in our territory or we'll splinter him like a toothpick—yah heah us?"

Pal’s last short was Rhapsody in Wood (1947), ending up with seven Oscar nominations in total for his Puppetoon releases. Pal then jumped into feature films. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 and passed away in 1980 at the age of 72.

Early Bouquets For George Pal

George Pal had a reputation amongst the cognoscenti when he arrived in North America from Europe in early 1938. His stop-motion films had been well received by critics overseas and he soon made his mark in North American theatres. He animated his Puppetoons for Paramount release until the profit margin disappeared, then turned to feature film work.

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times may have been the first critic in the U.S. to write about Pal’s work. In the paper’s March 13, 1938 edition, he said, in part:

Pal has already shown some of his work here privately—and a delighted spectator may be permitted to endorse it enthusiastically. He is a master of vivid color compositions and a slyly inventive humorist, generally in the vein of the more impish European artists. All of his best films have been made as “commercials”—that is, to advertise (though anything but offensively) such products as Horlicks malted milk and Phillips radios—because, he says, the European market for non-commercial shorts is small and is generously supplied from this country. Therefore, he has not yet created a recognizable character around which to build his plots in the manner of the American cartoon animations. When he does so, his creations should be even better than they are now.
And—if a discreet jot of sooth may be permitted herein—it is safe to opine that Pal has what it takes to be just that to the American movie public ere long.

The first lengthy article on Pal’s work I can find is in the Summer 1936 edition of the English publication Sight and Sound. Others in Europe were making puppet films—Starevitch and Réné Bertrand in France, the Diehl Brothers in Germany and Ptushko in the Soviet Union. Pal, however, was the first one profiled by the magazine.

GEORGE PAL
By Marie Seton
IN this country there is still a lingering prejudice against advertisement films; audiences are slightly resentful when they are told they must buy such and such a commodity. Were it not for this conviction that art and entertainment seldom go amicably in hand in hand with commercial propaganda the cartoon and doll films of the young Hungarian, George Pal, would be far better known in England than they are.

Thanks largely to the Dutch firm, Phillips Radio, Pal is making a steady contribution to the cinema. He works at Eindhoven, Holland, where Phillips have given him a studio, and allow him free rein to further the ideas he began developing a few years ago in Berlin where he was an art director for Ufa. His first important film, Midnight, was made in 1932 for a Berlin cigarette firm. It was black and white, and in it Pal animated an army of little puppets made in the form of cigarettes. Since then his dolls and the materials he utilizes have become extremely varied. Of his drawn cartoon films, The Revolution of the Bulb is the most amusing; it seems, however, that the puppet film is becoming his real métier.
Pal’s dolls are of brightly painted wood, and have the appearance of toys; and as in cartoon where each stage of a movement has to be drawn, so in Pal’s films there has to be a number of figures in slightly different positions to develop a single movement. The series of dolls completing such a movement as walking, dancing, or jumping are attached to wooden boards; while the figures which have to give the impression of moving through the air are made in profile and fixed to sheets of glass. The puppets are then arranged in a miniature set built of pasteboard and wood.
Pal’s style of work is fantastic and delicate, and he relies upon individual characters far more than armies of animated objects and crowds of dolls. His humour is subtle. Of his advertising pictures, Ship of the Ether and The Magic Atlas are the most imaginative. Ship of the Ether is an enchanting fantasy of a broadcasting studio in which the doll artistes go through dreamlike antics and ships in twisted glass sail over fantastic seas. Magic Atlas presents a variety programme from important radio stations, showing what you can enjoy if you have a Phillips set. The dolls in this film, as well as some in Ship of the Ether, are often amusing caricatures of celebrities such as Strauss, Henry Hall and Tauber; there is also a delicious tennis tournament broadcast from Paris.
Recently George Pal has been making a series of independent film with English dialogue, based on stories from the Arabian Nights; the first, Ali Baba, is complete. Because it does not have to conform to advertisement, Ali Baba is Pal’s best film. It is a delightfully whimsical version of the old story, and the use of colour (Gasparcolour is used) and the composition of the whole are excellent. He has also just completed a puppet film in England for Horlick’s Malted Milk which is so good that two more may be sponsored by the same firm immediately.

The Los Angeles Times noticed Pal in its March 27, 1938 edition. It explains the incredible amount of work needed to make a Puppetoon.

TOWN CALLED HOLLYWOOD
BY PHILIP K. SCHEUER
IMPORTED NOVELTIES screened at the Filmarte recently included a striking puppet play in color, “Ship of the Ether.” Last week a dapper young Hungarian named George Pal, newly arrived in town, told me that this had been his first creation in the puppet medium. He seemed unnecessarily apologetic about it; but since then, he explained eagerly, he has improved the art “200 per cent.”
Pal’s subjects, called “Puppet-toons,” have won unstinted admiration in Europe during the past four years. Oddly enough (to us,) they have all been sponsored by advertisers; but limited distribution channels abroad make the regular production of animated films unprofitable. Here Pal expects to work free of the art-for-art’s-sake basis, and is already negotiating with several of the major concerns with that in view. If he succeeds, you may look forward to something really different.
George Pal was a cartoonist originally, animator in a Budapest studio. Later he became head of the animation department at Germany’s U.F.A. plant. But as holder of an architectural degree he was never quite satisfied with two-dimensional drawings. Two years later he opened his own studio, and developed “the color cartoon in the third dimension”—i.e., with dolls against actual sets.
Although the actors are puppets, there are no strings attached. Nor are there any moving parts. A completely stationary puppet is created for each phase of a “movement.” And where the cartoonist would draw a separate figure for each motion-step, Pat builds a separate doll.
Or part of one. It depends how much of the doll’s body is supposed to “move,” from one frame of film to the next. Thus a “close-up” of the heroine making eyes at the hero would require replacement of the lady’s original head by twenty-eight others—each one advancing the wink until the twenty-eighth had told the story. When you consider that an average one-reeler contains 15,000 frames, Pal’s work would appear to have been cut out for him! But he just smiles and says, “It’s no more difficult than cartoons.”
Indeed a “working cartoon” is made and “shot” before the actual subject—in order, Pal explains, to test the movements of the dolls-to-be. Even earlier, the script has been written, the music scored, and the sets designed. When everything is ready the puppets go into “action.” Held in place by invisible pins, they are about six inches high. But they look as big as life.
Pal maintains a staff at Eindhoven, Holland, although his last subjects have been in English. They include “Philips Broadcast, 1938,” a tabloid revue (music by Ambrose;) “Home on the Range,” with synchronized dialogue; “Sleeping beauty,” and “The Queen Was in the Parlor,” which music by Jack Hylton’s orchestra.

A number of Pal’s stop-motion shorts were compiled into a film called The Puppetoon Movie a number of years ago, exposing his work to a new generation. Some of his shorts can be found on-line, and you should seek them out.

Jasper's Derby

CBS wasn’t among the networks covering the 67th running of the Bluegrass Classic in the George Pal Puppetoon Jasper’s Derby (1946). NBC and Mutual were. The Blue Network was there, too, even though the name had been discontinued on June 15, 1945 by the American Broadcasting Company (which couldn’t use “ABC” for a number of months because a smaller radio chain had that identifier).



The Puppetoons are striking pieces of work, thoughtfully laid out and technically dazzling. Boxoffice magazine reviewed the animated short in its edition of May 18, 1946, about four months before it was released by Paramount

Excellent. Striking Technicolor and skillful manipulation of puppets are combined to make this an outstanding one-reeler. In addition there is the amusing story of the violin-playing Jasper, who discovers that his music can reconvert a retired, broken-down race horse into a Kentucky Derby winner. The horse, Hi-Octane, not only wins the derby, but earns enough money in that race to provide Jasper and himself with a comfortable home and long, cool mint juleps.

Former Disney scribe Webb Smith came up with a fine story which builds nicely to a climax. Jasper’s violin playing becomes so intense, the strings break. But he quickly substitutes the horse’s tail for strings to keep the underdog animal zooming on the track. The race announcer says “But here comes something up from behind running in circles.” The perspective of the scene is from overhead and animator Herbert Johnson uses a cycle of eight drawings to have the old grey horse run around the young competitors. Notice the shadows. An incredible amount of work went into these stop-motion shorts.



The horse may be grey, but he has a stereotyped old Southern black man voice, while Jasper (played by Sara Berner) speaks in dialect as well.

Roughly a year later, Pal stopped making shorts. They became too unprofitable.

Pop Up Rabbits

“Delightful whimsical satire on Johann Strauss and the composition of his famous waltz, ‘Tales of the Vienna Woods’,” is how Variety termed the George Pal Puppetoon “Mr. Strauss Takes a Walk.”

Strauss turns into a human metronome at one point in the cartoon but the most interesting part to me was how rabbits popped up out of the ground. Not out of a hole. They just grew up out of the ground. And they obey the rules of squash and stretch. These are eleven consecutive frames.



This wasn’t Pal’s only encounter with the noted composer. He finished work on “Bravo, Mr. Strauss” around the start of 1943 and was so busy, a third sound stage for him was being built. Within five years, his stop-motion shorts got too expensive to produce.

Shooting a Haunted House

George Pal tries a bit of an elaborate camera move in “Jasper and the Haunted House” (1942). The camera is looking down onto the main floor of the old mansion. Then it trucks down and curves in to a head-on view of the front entrance. It doesn’t quite work. It’s bit much to combine that with the stop motion animation and the little sets that Pal’s staff built. The camera jerks, though you can’t tell that looking at the frame grabs below.



Pal’s name is the only one on the credits, so it’s tough to say who worked on this. Film Composers in America by Clifford McCarty reveals the score was done by Eddison von Ottenfeld, who was using the name William Eddison. Variety says little about the short, other than this in its August 28, 1942 edition:

George Pal closes his studio today to provide annual 10 day vacation for all employees. Producer just completed the Puppetoon short, 'Jasper and the Haunted House' for Paramount release. Pal heads for his cabin in the high Sierras.

The short’s national release was on October 23rd. It was the first Puppetoon of the 1942-43 season.

Bartholomew Puppetoon

“The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins” (1943) brought George Pal an Oscar nomination (it lost to MGM’s “Yankee Doodle Mouse”) and lots of praise. In 1946, the Film Daily was still touting it as the best of the Puppetoons. It still has a great deal of charm

The short was based on the 1938 short story by Dr. Seuss. The characters and sets don’t have a Seussian look but they’re nonetheless extremely attractive (in the book, Bartholomew kept removing the same style hat; in Pal’s version, each hat is different). Unfortunately, Pal and Seuss were the only people to get credit on the film so who was responsible for their design and for the layout of the picture isn’t known. But here are some of the sets, a few of which have some of the stop-motion characters blocking a full view.



Billy Bletcher is the king and the executioner and Robert C. Bruce is the narrator. As for Bartholomew, it might be Dix Davis, one of the top juvenile radio actors on the West Coast at the time.

Hoola Boola

George Pal’s Puppetoons were a sensation in the 1940s. Seven of them were nominated for Oscars and spawned stop-motion animation elsewhere, particularly at the Sutherland-Moray studio. Pal had to end production in 1947 because the Puppetoons became too expensive. Animation studios simply weren’t making enough money because theatres only wanted to pay low rentals on their films.

Pal never put credits on his shorts so whether he did the actual layout/staging, I couldn’t tell you. But it was really ingenious at time. I really like some of the work in “Hoola Boola,” released by Paramount in 1941. Castaway Jim Dandy lands on an island and falls in love with native girl Sarong Sarong. He’s captured by cannibals and put in a pot to be cooked. Suddenly, there’s lightning. The scene cuts to an up shot of the horned monument where something appears.



There’s a close-up of a large mask, twirling in dance. The shot cuts to Jim Dandy in the pot. Little creatures sprout up in front of him then start to dance.



Then they run toward the camera and chase away the natives. What are they? I have no idea. But I sure admire the sets. Pal even has some of the characters rendered in silhouette.



The mask walks toward Jim Dandy. You know what’s coming. It’s Sarong Sarong in disguise, saving her man.



Daily Variety helps us where the lack of credits doesn’t. It reported on March 3, 1941 that shooting had begun and the story was written by Peter O’Crotty, the first of five the ex-Warners gag-man was contracted to write for the studio (the ever-restless O’Crotty quit after less than two months at the studio). On April 24th, the short was reported to be in the cutting room. On June 24th, final editing was done. Variety revealed the short used “7,000 puppets. Thurston Knudson directed the music, consisting of ‘Aloha’, ‘Tomi Tomi’, ‘Hilo March’ and drum rhythms furnished by Augie Goupil” and his Royal Tahitians. There’s no word who supplied the voices.