The Other Bugs

Does Bugs Hardaway deserve more recognition than he gets?

About all he’s known for these days is he gave his nickname to a rabbit, who, within a few years, was completely re-designed in appearance and attitude to become a different Bugs Bunny than Hardaway started with. And his rabbit's personality suspiciously resembled Woody Woodpecker, whom Walter Lantz always took credit for creating.

Hardaway died long before animation historians existed, so he didn’t leave behind recollections to them. But allow us to pass along two newspaper pieces and something from the Schlesinger cartoon studio. The first is from the Nov. 18, 1916 edition of the Kansas City Post, which employed him at the time. His birth date was actually May 21, 1895.

ONE Halloween several years ago some naughty boys took a soap stick and drew a picture of a certain druggist on the front window of his store.
The druggist liked the art work so well he called in some painters who touched up the portrait and there it is to this day—on the same drug store front window.
The youth who drew the portrait was much pleased at the reception given his work of art and straightway gave up his newspaper route and applied for a position on The Kansas City Post.
He started out by drawing sport cartoons. His work drew favorable comment and he's been at it ever since.
Thus was the beginning of "Bugs" Hardaway, whose work you often have seen in The Post sporting pages.
Bugs' real front name is Benson, which he will admit after rigid cross examination, he was born at Belton, Mo., in 1894 [sic], but at an early age and without his consent his parents brought him to Kansas City. He attended ward school and Manual until two years ago, when he started his work on The Post.
Bugs is a student of the school of Goldberg and other famous cartoonists who follow the extravagant style of drawing. He spends all of his leisure hours playing baseball and is one of the valuable players in the Kansas City Athletic club league.

Hardaway served in the 129th field artillery in France during World War One. The Post of Nov. 4, 1918, noted he had been wounded overseas, but “the wound was not serious.” He resumed his work on the Post after the war. Here are several of 1915 sports cartoons, the death of the Federal League being a target.



How did Hardaway end up in animation? The Schlesinger newsletter, The Exposure Sheet, explains in its first issue in 1939.

A DIRECTOR: J.B. "Bugs" Hardaway, better known as "Laughing Boy", was first heard from when his mother entered him and his brother in a Baby Contest at a County Fair in Belton, Missouri. Bugs walked away with the grand prize - a calf - for being the ugliest infant in the contest!!! His brother only won a ribbon for being the prettiest.
Two years of school on a farm went by before Mother and Father Hardaway - with eight little Hardaways - moved to Kansas City. With school finally completed, a paper route was the first business enterprise for Bugs. To be a baseball player was the big dream at the time, and this was later realized.
When he was sixteen, he rode a bicycle from Kansas City to St. Louis, a feat for the papers. (Get him to show you his clippings) In 1912 he worked for the first suburban picture-show in Kansas City as janitor, ticket-seller, and when the projectionist was "indisposed", Bugs did his work, too.
Next we find him traveling day after day on the Santa Fe from Kansas City to Denver. You might not have recognized the deep, bass that barked: "Ice cream, cream without ice, sandwiches - or maybe an orange." All was sweet profit until the day they changed trains and Bugs lost a crate of apricots! That spelled "finish" to his career as news butcher. Then his dream came true: he joined a girls' baseball team -the original "Boston Bloomer Girls". Try to picture Bugs as a girl in bloomers (?) and a wig! He next joined the Oklahoma Indians’ baseball team, and was the only blond Indian in captivity!
From here we jump to the Kansas City Slide Company. Here Bugs placed black borders around slides that were to be used between reels three and four. To wit: "LADIES KINDLY REMOVE YOUR HATS". Or: GENTLEMEN WILL PLEASE REFRAIN FROM SPITTING IN THE AISLES." Then on to the Kansas City Post. His boss was none other than Griff Jay. Fay King, whose work now appears in the Los Angeles Herald, was also there as a cartoonist. The owners of the paper were the two famous characters in Gene Fowler's book "Timberline", Tammen and Bonfils, who later took over the Sells-Floto Circus.
The next time Bugs looked around, he was in the army where he remained for 26 months, 14 of those were spent in France with the 35th Division.
On his return to the U. S., he went back to the Kansas City Post where he remained until it was sold to the Journal. Then followed a year of selling advertising. This led to the Film Ad Service, there he found himself working with Walt Disney, "Tubby" Millar, Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harmon, Art Gobel, "Frizz" Freleng, and many others. In 1928 Bugs became Branch Manager for this firm in the Milwaukee branch, and for the next four years all was rosy. Then the stock market -- and all went black! When the smoke cleared, Bugs was in Los Angeles, working for Ub-Iwerks. Then came Walt Disney's, and in 1933 Bugs came to roost at Schlesinger's. As far as hobbies are concerned, Bugs is a whizz at pool, and he takes to the Santa Anita ponies -- and vice versa.

Hardaway was a writer for Schlesinger when he arrived, then given eight Buddy cartoons to direct, starting in 1934. Buddy vanished a year later and Hardaway went back into writing. He got a story credit (though it seems all writers pitched in at the time) in Daffy Duck and Egghead, released in 1938. When Friz Freleng left for MGM, Cal Dalton was named a director working, first, with Cal Howard, then Hardaway.

You’ll notice no mention of Bugs Bunny. The late Martha Sigall, in her wonderful book Living Life Inside the Lines (University Press of Mississippi, 2005), had personal knowledge of what happened.

I had heard he [Hardaway] was going to be directing, and I wished him luck. It was at this time that he told me he would be doing a Porky Pig hunting cartoon and that he was going to "put a rabbit suit on that duck." I got it, a character who would look like a rabbit, but have the crazy personality of Daffy Duck. A few months later, our department was painting a lot of scenes with a white rabbit. Soon after, "Porky's Hare Hunt" was shown in our projection room and received many laughs. I also saw that cartoon at the Warner Bros. Theatre in Hollywood and the audience just loved it. Of course, I reported this to Bugs the next time I saw him. He seemed pleased, but he never showed much emotion one way or the other. I think our studio was more than pleased however, because the publicity people at Warner's received lots of calls and letters from fans wanting to see more "of that rabbit."

Schlesinger wasn’t happy. He induced Freleng to return. Hardaway was bumped back into the story department, where there was a sense of self-preservation and maybe insecurity. Mike Maltese spoke to Mike Barrier about it in 1971.

When Maltese started in the story department, he recalled many years later, it occupied two rooms, one for "the Kansas City boys"—Ben Hardaway chief among them—and the other for a younger, looser crew—Pierce, Monahan, Richard Hogan, and Cal Howard. The Kansas City boys tried to freeze him out, Maltese said; they were working on a Porky Pig cartoon about a bullfight (apparently Clampett's The Timid Toredor, released in 1940), and they scornfully rejected every gag he suggested. "I got wise," he said. "I wrote down all my gags." After two weeks, Schlesinger's assistant Henry Binder summoned Maltese, "and he said, 'Mike, you didn't work out .... Bugs Hardaway says you didn't open your mouth once. You didn't make any suggestions: I said, 'Is that so?' Ta-dah! I whipped out pages of gag material. 'Look—two weeks' work.’ ” When Binder sent him back to the story department, Maltese said to Hardaway, "who the hell did you expect, Mark Twain?"

Hardaway didn’t last much longer. He joined the Walter Lantz studio on August 12, 1940, three and a half months before the first screen appearance of Woody Woodpecker. Given the time it takes to produce a cartoon, it appears he wrote Knock Knock as a freelancer.

We mentioned his war service. Battery D of the 129th Field Artillery was under the command of another Kansas Citian named Harry Truman, who went on to bigger things. The Valley Times used the connection to profile Hardaway in its issue of March 17, 1947

Film Gagman Truman Buddy in First War
President Harry Truman and Joseph Benson Hardaway, North Hollywood film cartoonist and gagman, have two things in common—they served in the same Army outfit in World War I and each, according to Hathaway, is a "hot" piano player.
Harding [sic], a neophyte pianist in his early entertainment career, explained that he has first hand information on the president's keyboard talents, having been entertained with Truman piano selections at an exclusive Los Angeles breakfast in 1944.
Occasion for the breakfast was a get-together of Southern Californians who had served under the president, then Capt. Harry Truman, in Battery D, 129th Field Artillery, 35th Division.
Got Telegram
A telegram notified Hardaway and the six other Los Angeles members of old Battery D of their former commanding officer's pending arrival. "Fall in, Battery D" it read and was signed "Capt. H. Truman."
Hardaway and the other World War I veterans met the train and ttok priority over a batch of politicians when Harry Truman stepped off at Union Station. Truman "ordered" his former GIs to breakfast with him at the Biltmore, where in due time the future president improvised for their edification on the piano.
"Mr. Truman is a wonderful fellow," Hardaway reminisced. "He's down to earth, honest as the day is long, loyal and all that . . . but he is a 'corny' piano player."
Identification Cards
Hardaway said that so many outsiders are claiming to have served in old Battery D that the bona fide members have been forced to issue identification cards to distinguish the real from the phoney veterans of the organisation. His card, number 47, was issued in 1945 and bears the signatures of Harry Truman and Ernest L. Schmidt, secretary-treasurer of Battery D.
Before the Armistice of 1918, Hardaway rose from corporal to sergeant major- He was in the service 26 months and participated in five engagements during thirteen months overseas under Truman's command.
Hardaway, who lives at 11211 Kling st., North Hollywood, said his own "mildness" at the piano is traceable to an arm injury received when he was a semi-professional baseball pitcher as a youth.
"Every since then," he explains, "I have not been able to play properly with my right hand." At one time, however, he played the piano in a movie theater.
Music In Family
That music runs in the Hardaway family is attested by the eminence attained by his son Bob, 19, who played the saxophone and clarinet with several name bands before joining the Army. Currently, Bob plays with the Army Air Force band at Bolling Field, Washington, D.C. Both Bob and his sister, Mrs. Jack Evan Kirby, are graduates of North Hollywood high school.
Hardaway himself came to the Valley in 1931 and since has been associated with animated cartoons in the motion picture industry. Although he never took an art lesson in his life, he created "Bugs Bunny" in 1938 and has had the satisfaction of seeing the animal character win popularity with newspaper comic strip readers as well as motion picture fans.
Story Editor
Hardaway is story editor for Walt Lantz Productions at Universal Studios, where the animated cartoons "Woody Woodpecker" and "Andy Panda" are filmed. He also is the "voice" of the woodpecker character.
He got into motion pictures via newspaper cartooning. He was political and sports cartoonist on the old Kansas City Post for seven years before becoming associated with the United Film Ad Service of Milwaukee, where he worked twelve years.
Walt Disney also was once employed by the Milwaukee firm and through a friendship formed there, Hardaway later was employed at the Disney studios in the Valley.

Lantz laid off his creative staff for a planned three months on December 15, 1947, and Mike Barrier’s Hollywood Cartoons says the studio never really reopened again until it closed completely at the end of 1948. For Hardaway, that meant the search for work. Evidently, he thought his Truman connection would help. E.O. Costello discovered Hardaway applied for a government job during the shutdown. However, he ended up back at Warner Bros.; the Warner Club News of December 1948 said he had been hired to write in the Freleng unit.

Hardaway received only one screen credit for story, on A Bone For A Bone, not released until 1951. Freleng’s unit was in a state of story man flux. There is no story credit on A Stooge For a Mouse (1950) and Cal Howard has a co-story credit with Warren Foster on Canned Feud (1951). Before all this, Freleng had been using Tedd Pierce, who ended up being switched with Foster in Bob McKimson’s unit, as was announced in the May 1949 edition of the Club News.

When and why Hardaway left Warners may be buried somewhere; in 1950, there is no occupation next to his name in the U.S. Census, while his wife was running a restaurant. In 1954, he was advertising a cartooning course.

He finally found work in cartoons again. He was writing stories for Pow Wow the Indian Boy cartoons produced by Sam Singer’s Tempe-Toons. He died of a heart attack at his home on Feb. 4, 1957. He was 61 (all his newspaper obits claimed he was 66).

So what are we to think about Hardaway? Setting aside Buddy and Pow Wow, he seemed to favour out-of-control hecklers—Daffy Duck, Woody Woodpecker and his Bugs-Bunny-In-Name-Only. He liked corn—witness the groaners and puns in his early Lantz cartoons. He was demoted twice as a director at Schlesinger, then returned to Warner Bros. as a writer, only to vanish for unknown reasons.

He clashed with Shamus Culhane at Lantz, who complained Hardaway’s sense of humour was unsophsticated, while Hardaway couldn’t understand Culhane’s style of direction. (He called a scene in The Barber of Seville “a Chinese goulash.” Hardaway does not seem to have liked Chinese food, referring to it in an extremely racist term in a 1920 cartoon for the Post). When Lantz started hunting for staff in July 1950, to get his operations going again for Universal-International, Hardaway was not brought back.

We wrote about Hardaway in an earlier post. And Tom Klein put together more information in this post some time ago on Cartoon Research. It's a shame we don't have his own story in his own words.

Profiles in Animation, 1924

One and two-reel shorts filled theatres in the silent era in huge numbers. In 1924, Pathé was not only releasing Aesop Fables made by Paul Terry, the studio’s schedule included shorts by Stan Laurel, Will Rogers, Charlie Chase, Mack Sennett (Harry Langdon and Ben Turpin), the Spat Family, Our Gang, Snub Pollard, the Sportlight series, Dippy Doo Dad, Leatherstocking, and others.

Other studios were just as busy, even in animation.

The Aug. 16, 1924 issue of Exhibitors Trade Review published feature articles on three of them. Conspicuous by her absence is Margaret Winkler, who was handling the Felix the Cat cartoons and the Alice Comedies of Walt Disney.

Comedy Gets a New Character
JACQUES KOPFSTEIN
Gen'l Manager Bray Productions, Inc.
SCENE — Bray Studios.
Enter Colonel Heeza Liar (illustration of Colonel Heeza Liar)
"Gee ! I've been working around the Bray Studios for twelve years now, and am the oldest cartoon in existence. I wish Bray would give me a rest.
"Look what's happened to the other Bray characters. Bobby Bumps has grown up, and is a big boy now; Goodrich Dirt, the famous tramp, became a war profiteer and is living on Fifth Avenue. He's quit the movies too. Dud Perkins and his gang who made "US FELLOWS" famous are all going to college now, and even "Jerry" is not on the Job any longer.
"Of all the Bray cartoons I am the only one that is still working, I wish Bray would give me a vacation."
J. R. Bray heard Colonel Heeza Liar's complaints and told the COLONEL that he would not send him to the Old Soldier's Home, or put him on a pension, but would just give him a short vacation, and then came the thought of another character which would bring joy and smiles to the international audiences that enjoy the Bray Cartoons, ever since they were invented many years ago by Bray himself.
A new cartoon which will come from the Bray Studios during the coming season at monthly intervals will be known as DINKY DOODLE. Dinky Doodle is a rough and tumble boy, full of pep and life — sure to become a favorite of all. — His constant companion is a black and white dog, known as "Weakheart," who takes part in all Dinky Doodle's mischievous under takings.
The first of the Dinky Doodle series is entitled "Dinky Doodle and the Wonderful Lamp" — a burlesque on the Fairy Tale of "Aladdin and his Magic Lamp."
Dinky Doodle will work in this series in conjunction with the cartoonist himself. In other words, these series will not be straight cartoons but will be what are known as "combination" cartoons, where the actor appears in conjunction with the cartoon character — a process which was invented by J. R. Bray — which not only gives novelty to each individual subject, in addition to the entertainment, but is mystifying as well. Walter Lantz, the famous cartoonist who has achieved success in directing the COLONEL HEEZA LIAR SERIES will direct the new Dinky Doodle Series. Distribution will be through the Standard Cinema Corporation.

‘Out of the Inkwell’ Comedies
THE Red Seal Pictures Corp., a comparatively new entrant in the independent production and distribution field will have a program of novelties for next year meriting comparison with the best, according to Edwin Miles Fadman, president of the company.
The organization is confining its activities to the production and distribution of novelty releases alone. Of the total of 120 to 150 novelty reels, over 75 per cent of them will have the comedy element predominating.
Heading the list there will be 22 new single-reel Out-of-the-Inkwell novelties by Max Fleischer, released one every three weeks. Mr. Fleischer's product has enjoyed a popularity and a reputation of cleverness for a period of many years.
There will also be something brand new in the way of a fun novelty which will be released as 13 Song Cartoon reels composed of well known old time and modern songs done in funny cartoon form and adapted for audience singing where desired, perfectly timed, scored and synchronized ; and released one every four weeks.
The first of these reels went on for a pre-release run at the Rialto, New York, and was composed of the three old time Charles K. Harris songs, "Mother, mother, mother pin a rose on me," "Goodbye my Lady Love" and "Come take a trip in my Airship." The trade papers commented freely on the unusual success of this novelty. The New York Tribune said "these things are simply impossible to describe. You must go and see them for yourself."
Releases commence in September.
In addition to 13 Film Facts, (medley hodge-podge reel) humorously edited and titled bv Max Fleischer and released one very four weeks, there will be 9 Funny Face single reel comedies and 52 Animated Hair Cartoons. These Hair Cartoons are about 300 ft. in length and are composed of famous characters, actors and actresses done in animated form by Edwin Marcus, cartoonist for the New York Times. As an instance, he draws Charlie Chaplin on the screen and then changes the hair around so that it turns into Rudolph Valentino right before the eyes of the audience.
The Red Seal is the only organization in the independent field producing a complete program of novelties for the exclusive use of first run theatres and high class independent exchanges.
Among the many first run theatres throughout the country using this material for next year are such representative houses as : The Rivoli and Rialto, New York ; Stanley, Philadelphia ; Fenway, Boston; Eastman, Rochester; Missouri, St. Louis ; Rialto, Washington ; and Victory, Denver.

"Fables" and "Topics" are Popular
PATHE'S "Aesop's Film Fables" are fast becoming the most popuular one reel subject in the field today, is the consensus of opinion of exhibitors scattered throughout the country. This popularity extends to the theatre manager as well as to the public at large and is due to the fact that the "Fables" have proven themselves "sure fire" program units.
Much of this credit should go to Cartoonist Paul Terry, who conceived the idea and contributed much to their success through his insight into human nature and an over developed bump of humor, which can carefully draw a line between the grotesque and real laughs. To the manager that runs a combination house of vaudeville and pictures as well as to the manager of the regular run picture theatres these one reelers have proven a "lifesaver" in more than one instance. They can always be relied upon to fill a big gap in any program and are an absolute insurance against the show "flopping" for the want of comedy and laughs.
They are released weekly and are booked over every one of the larger circuits throughout the United States. The B. F. Keith Circuit in the East, the Orpheum, Pantages and Loew circuits in the West use the Aesop's cartoon reels as a regular part of the weekly program, and many times local newspaper reviewers credit the film over the rest of the show.
Pathe's "Topics of the Day" enters its sixth year of success as one of the most "business getters" in the short field.
As a snappy joy reel of wit it has no equal, and quite a number of theatres throughout the country have not missed a single weekly issue since its inception. Even radio services and broadcasting stations have adopted it as part of their regular program while the larger class vaudeville houses use it as an advertised feature. The leading high class vaudeville theatre of the world, B. F. Keiths' Palace Theatre in New York, has booked this one "reeler" on every issue since the first.
The Topics of the Day are produced by the Timely Films, Inc., and distributed by the Pathe Exchanges, Inc. It consists of some timely cartoon in animated form and excerpts of wit and humor culled from the leading publications of the world. Exhibitors scattered throughout the country are very strong in their praise of the subject.
As an example of its growing popularity a contest was run in connection with the release some time ago and as many as 18,000 answers per week were received, representing all sections of the country. At the time of the contest the film was running in over 3,000 theatres in the United States and this number has been multiplied by two since that date. Over 100,000 contestants were entered before the closing of the contest.

The animated cartoon landscape changed within a few years. By the dawn of the sound era in 1928-30:
● Harman-Ising, Ub Iwerks, Paul Terry/Frank Moser and Universal/Lantz had started their own studios. (Dare I mention Romer Grey or Scarfoot?)
● Silent stars like Felix and Ko-Ko the clown started fading away.
● Dinky Doodle and Colonel Heeza Liar were distant memories.
● Krazy Kat returned in silent shorts and lasted about a decade when sound came in.
● The Fables studio took its owner’s name and Amedee Van Beuren carried on producing cartoons for a few more years.
● The Fleischer brothers went with a newcomer named Bimbo.
Oh, yes.
● Disney came up with a musical mouse. Whatever happened to him?

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).

From the Lantz Clipping File

Walter Lantz had an admirable career, despite what may be considered less-than-entertaining cartoons in the 1970s. He starred in silent films in the 1920s, successfully owned his own cartoon studio for decades, developed a star character in Woody Woodpecker (no doubt with a lot of help from Bugs Hardaway), appeared in some pleasant little vignettes on a syndicated half-hour show that was picked up by Kellogg’s and travelled around the world with his wife, contributing to charity along the way.

He also picked up some talented people for a time, including Tex Avery, Ed Love, Emery Hawkins, Dick Lundy, Bill Garity, Pat Matthews, Freddie Moore, Mike Maltese and a pile of others who needed a new cartoon home.

We’ve written about Lantz in the 1920s several times before here; he was the focus of trade publications and then the popular press when he began to make cartoons in the west. Instead, let’s pass on some odds and ends from 1925. To the right is from Exhibitor's Trade Review, August 25, 1925.

First, a preface. Lantz had begun his Dinky Doodle series in 1924; a publicity article in Exhibitors Trade Review of Aug. 16, 1924 foretold the Bray studios would be releasing a new cartoon series with Dinky Doodle and Weakheart, with the first titled Dinky Doodle and the Wonderful Lamp. The one-reelers were distributed through Selznick Distributing Corporation until creditors filed for bankruptcy in October 1924 and Film Booking Offices took over. Exhibitors Trade Review’s list of films published Nov. 1 says the short was called Magic Lamp and released Sept. 15, 1924, while the same publication reported on Sept. 6 that the cartoon was finished in eight weeks.

The Dinky cartoons, said the trades, were written and directed by Lantz and produced by the Standard Cinema Corporation.

When 1925 rolled around, he took on a second animated series.

Bray Cartoons Acquired
“We Want More” is what exhibitors say to the F. B. O. sales staff when speaking of the famous Bray cartoons, and in response to this universal exhibitor request, Film Booking Offices has made a new contract with J. R. Bray whereby the company will get 26 comedy cartoons from the Bray studios during the next year.
During the past year the Bray studios have furnished F. B. O. with thirteen Dinky Doodle comedies, a series of cartoonized burlesques on well known fairy tales and nursery rhymes, a series originated by Walter Lantz of the Bray staff. (Exhibitors Herald, May 23, 1925)

Bray Studios Will Make 26 Two-Reel Comedies for F. B. O.
THE Bray Studios are taking additional space at 130 West 46th Street, New York, the building in which they are housed, in order to accommodate the increased art staff which has been engaged for the production of twenty six subjects which Bray will make for F. B. O. release for the 1925-26 season.
These twenty six subjects will consist of thirteen Dinky Doodle cartoons, and thirteen comedies which will be known as "Unnatural History" cartoons. The Dinky Doodle cartoons will be burlesques of famous fairy tales and burlesques of the best known feature pictures of the current year. "Don Q" will be the first big production to be burlesqued by Walter Lantz, well known cartoonist. Work on this short subject will commence immediately that Lantz completes the thirteenth of the Dinky Doodle cartoons, a burlesque on the story of Rip Van Winkle.
The "Unnatural History" cartoons will also be burlesques, and the titles of the first four subjects, "Where The Leopard Got His Spots," "How The Elephant Got His Trunk," "Where The Camel Got His Hump" and "Where The Zebra Got His Stripes," are indicative of the laugh-creating possibilities in comedies of this nature. (Moving Picture World, July 25)



Bray Company in Adirondacks
Walter Lantz, director and star of Bray Studios, has taken his staff to the Adirondacks to get exteriors for “Dinky Doodle and the Babes in the Woods,” cartoon. (Exhibitors Herald, Aug. 8)

Fuller on Bray Staff
"Ving" Fuller, the well known sports cartoonist of the New York Daily Graphic has joined the staff of the Bray Studios. He will act as one of the animators associated with Walter Lantz in the production of the new "Unnatural History" Cartoons and the Dinky Doodle series of cartoons which J. R. Bray is making for F. B. O. release. (Moving Picture World, Aug. 15)

“Dinky Doodle and the Babes in the Wood” has been finished for release August 12, and Walter Lantz, the cartoonist, has completed the script for the thirteenth, “Just Spooks.” (Exhibitors Herald, Aug. 15)

The Bray studios are producing 13 Dinky Doodle cartoons and 13 Unnatural History cartoons. “Ving” Fuller is associated with Walter Lantz in the latter. (Exhibitors Herald, Aug. 22)

Bray Studios have added two new men to their production staff. They are Frank Leonard, sport cartoonist, who will assist Walter Lantz in the production of the Dinky Doodle Series and the Unnatural History Series, both released through F. B. O. Ernest Corts, naturalist and photographer, is the other.
Lantz and Charles Walters, child player, will act before the camera in conjunction with the cartoon characters in the first of the Unnatural History series, "How the Elephant Got His Trunk." It is now in production. (Exhibitors Trade Review, Aug. 22)

"Just Spooks" Completed
Walter Lantz has just completed production on the 13th Dinky Doodle subject titled “Just Spooks.” This subject is a departure from previous Dinky Doodle subjects inasmuch as it is not a Burlesque on a Fairy Tale. Playing on the vogue for mystery dramas, the story makes Dinky Doodle and his companion the pup, “Weakheart” decide they will play a joke on the artist and Walter Lantz gets the scare of his life in this subject when the boy and the dog, masquerading as a ghost, cause him to go through a number of thrilling adventures in order to escape the clutching hand of the ever pursuing spook. F. B. O. will release this subject September 15. (Moving Picture World, Sept. 5; photo from Exhibitors Herald, Aug. 29).



Walter Lantz of the Bray Studios, who acts in conjunction with the cartoon characters he creates, has finished two of the 26 cartoons he is scheduled to produce for the distributing company The first of these, a Dinky Doodle cartoon, called “The Bad Man” is a burlesque on the vogue for wild and wooly westerns, while the second is an Unnatural History cartoon called “How the Elephant Got His Trunk.” (Moving Picture World, Sept. 5)

Bray Studios Forms Gag Club
NEW YORK.— A Gag Club has been formed at the Bray studios. The entire staff meets Monday nights with J. R. Bray, president, and threshes out scenario problems brought up by Walter Lantz, department chief. (Exhibitors Herald, Sept. 5)

Hurd with Bray Studios
Earl Hurd, the famous cartoonist, creator of Bobby Bumps and other internationally famous cartoon characters is once again with the Bray Studios. Hurd achieved a tremendous vogue years ago when he drew Bobby Bumps for Bray. The Paramount organization released these pictures. He is now back again and the first subject he will work on is the third of the Unnatural History Comedies titled “The Camel’s Hump.” Walter Lantz will enact the leading role in this subject together with little Frankie Evans the child “find.” Clyde Geronimi will handle the megaphone on this production. This novelty will be released early in November by F. B. O. (Moving Picture World, Oct. 24)

15th Dinky Doodle Concluded
The fifteenth Dinky Doodle subject which F. B. O. is to release early in November has been placed in production at the Bray Studios. Walter Lantz, the artist creator of this character will appear together with Dinky Doodle and the other cartoon character, Weakheart the dog, in this subject which is to be titled, “Dinky Doodle in the Hunt.” (Moving Picture World, Oct. 24)



Above is an ad in the Oct. 10, 1925 edition of Exhibitors Trade Review.

The Lantz cartoons were released in Canada and England as well. The Daily Sketch of London gave us this profile of Lantz, his co-stars, and his boss on April 17, 1925. The word “Universal” is a nice coincidence.

Dinky Doodle and Weakheart
YOU will all by meeting these two in a month or so, and I, who have had the privilege already, can vouch for it that these are going to be real new friends.
Such friends, too, as you have not met before.
Suppose Felix, whom you all know so well, were to add one final feat of magic to those he already performs on the screen.
The wonder of Dinky and Weakheart is that they live in two worlds at once. You can never be quite sure whether they are fantastic adventures in company with real men and women or lively wanderers in their own realm of make believe. They share pictorially the magazine gifts of Alice both in and out of Wonderland, and have her easy knack of transferring from one side to the other of the Looking-Glass without effort.
I was watching a picture of Walter Lantz, the kinema cartoonist, at work in his studio.
Under his fingers there grew up on the paper the oldest of big-eyed, spindly-legged urchins, a pigmy so obviously ripe for anything that I just rubbed my eye with a slight sensation at wonder only when he stepped off the paper, sat up and began to play pranks his with artist creator.
Followed another creature of pen-and-ink, whom in politeness I must name a dog. This was Weakheart.
Lantz put down his pencil to pass a merry interlude with the pair of them. He tried a fairy tale on them. Dinky Doodle wouldn't believe in fairies., whereupon from the open page of a big book on the table a Chinese magician walked out, grabbed Dinky and Weakheart together back into the pages and so breathlessly bewildered through the entire adventure of Aladdin. At the finish, the pigmies were flung back into the lap of the artist ready for a fresh journey.
This in actual fact was the birth episode of Dinky Doodle and Weakheart.
Although Walter Lantz is their artistic parent, their godfather is J. R. Bray, who 14 years ago devised the first of the animated cartoons for the screen. Others have adopted similar processes since, but it is in the Bray studios that Lantz produced this crowning achievement of acting himself with the figures sprung from his fancy.
J. R. Bray at rather more than 40 is the head of one of the busiest and most successful organisations in America, but the story of his climb to fame and fortune is a romance of courage and belief in himself when other people thought him simply crazy.
Son of a Methodist parson in a little town of Michigan State, he was training for a musician's career, when he saw a chalk cartoonist at work and ran off to draw cartoons himself for a Detroit newspaper instead.
With the first fifty dollars saved he moved on to New York, took a double chance in getting married and trying to earn a livelihood as a free-lance artist, and made good in both.
The comic strip in the newspapers and the crude motion pictures then showing gave him the germ of an idea for combining the two. "For eighteen months," he says, "I almost lived with a pencil him in my hand I used up acres of paper. At the end of the time I sold my first 'animated cartoon' and received an order for six more."
It would need too technical and complicated description to explain in detail what happens, but, briefly, the animated figures are drawn with opaque ink on transparent celluloid, while the real scenes amid which they are to appear are photographed with a kinema camera in the ordinary way. The tiny strip of film picture is enlarged and the pen and ink figures laid over them one after the other. Then these strips are photographed afresh.
A reel 600 feet long would this seem to need 9,600 separate pictures, but in actual fact the positions are held more than one, and the usual total of drawings is nearer 2,000 or 2,500.
Walter Lantz has been with the Bray studios since they were started, and it was he who conceived the further idea of putting himself into a motion picture as a background for the figures he created.
"We wanted a new character with a universal appeal," he says, in telling how Dinky Doodle was born." Already we had decided to burlesque the most famous of the fairy tales. It seemed that a boy not too old and not two young, but full of the spirit that moves all boys, was what was wanted. Such a boy would naturally have some dumb animal as a companion, and ‘Weakheart’ arrived. Then I walked across the room with an outstretched arm just as though the dog were perched on it. In reality the dog was drawn separately on the celluloid and laid over the moving photograph already made of myself. And so through all the subsequent movements."
This was only last year, and already there are Dinky Doodle adventures with the Pied Piper, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Peter Pan, and several other stories. They will be coming to London shortly.
L. D.

Dinky Doodle lasted through the 1924 and 1925 release seasons. The Exhibitors Herald reported in July 10, 1926 that J.R. Bray would be distributing cartoons by Walter Lantz with “new ideas.” Thus the Hot Dog series starring Pete the Pup was born, and survived a season.

On May 17, 1927, Lantz jumped into his Locomobile, and with the words “To California without a flat or bust,” headed to the west coast. Exhibitors Daily Review claimed it was “primarily for a vacation.” The operative word here is “primarily.” As Joe Adamson recorded in his fine biography of Lantz, the Bray animation studio closed, there was no directorial work for him in New York, so he moved across the country.



Lantz used his shrewdness to land his next big animation job. Producer Charlie Mintz had wrested Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from its creator, Walt Disney. Disney didn’t own his creation; he was a worker for hire. But Mintz didn’t own Disney’s creation, either. It was owned by Universal pictures. The end result was a moment of karma: Universal boss Carl Laemmle dumped Mintz and put his social buddy Lantz in charge of making the Oswald cartoons. (Picture above from Exhibitors Herald, Mar. 26, 1927).

Several of Dinky’s comedies have been restored as best as possible by Tommy Stathes, you can enjoy one below and check out his Cartoon Roots collections of DVDs/BluRays at this site.

Rhapsody in Cement

Friz Freleng’s Rhapsody in Rivets (1941) was one of a number of cartoons to synchronise Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 to animated action on screen. It was nominated for an Oscar, but the cartoon based on the same music which won the award was the Tom and Jerry short The Cat Concerto (1947).

Mike Maltese (at least he received the rotating story credit) and Freleng must have worked closely to match gags to the timing of the music. I can’t explain it, but the humour is something that would come out a Freleng unit cartoon.

One routine involves a cement mixer acting as a cocktail shaker. After the “drink” is poured out, an arm appears from behind the mixer and plops a garnish on top. I cannot picture Chuck Jones (even with Maltese writing) using this kind of gag.



Correct me I’m wrong, but I believe the first cartoon to employ this piece of music was in 1929 in The Opry House, a Mickey Mouse short. You can also hear it (besides in the aforementioned cartoons) in various lengths in Fire Bugs (Fleischer, 1930), Bars and Stripes (Mintz/Columbia, 1931), The Candy House (Lantz, 1934), A Car-Tune Portrait (Fleischer, 1937), Farmyard Symphony (Disney, 1938), Dipsy Gypsy (George Pal/Paramount, 1941), Rhapsody Rabbit (Warners, 1946), Back Alley Oproar (Warners, 1948), The Magic Fluke (UPA/Columbia, 1949) and Convict Concerto (Lantz, 1954). I must be missing some.

(Yes, I know, The Simpsons, Roger Rabbit. I’m talking about theatrical animated shorts).

It was originally released Dec. 6, 1941; the Warners’ theatre in Fresno screened it that day. Spake an exhibitor to the Motion Picture Herald:

You might call this a partial burlesque of Fantasia. No matter what you call it, it is a very, very clever cartoon showing the building of a skyscraper to the Second Hungarian Rhapsody music. My audience laughed a great deal and praised it afterward.

Gil Turner received the rotating animator credit, chopped off when the cartoon was re-released in 1947. The backgrounds appear to be the work of Leonard Kester.

Woody Builds a Car

Woody Woodpecker is too busy singing and pointing at people in the theatre watching his cartoon that he crashes his car into a telephone pole.

No matter. Woody splits into multiples of himself, some in outline drawings, and rebuilds his little convertible in about a second of screen time. The frames show how.



I like the earliest, goofy-looking version of Woody, though some of his stories were lacking a bit. This scene is from The Loan Stranger (1942), with voices by Kent Rogers, who throws in a Red Skelton voice ("You bwoke my liddle head!") and the loan-sharking fox doing Jolie ("Mammy!). Woody singing at the outset is unmistakeably Mel Blanc. Direction is by Alex Lovy, story by Bugs Hardaway and Milt Schaffer, and animation is credited to Frank Tipper.