Bessie the Animator

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

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

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

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

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

The Journal’s story on July 8:

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

This is the version from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

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

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

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

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

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

Don't Don't Don't, You Cartoon Makers

It’s bemusing that old animated cartoons are either not seen, are edired or contain warnings. These very same cartoons already went past the censor’s eye before they were even approved to be shown to audiences.

This was in a time when the film industry was far more prudish than it is today. Sex and religion? Out! Stereotypes? Painful violence? Innocent fun. Mind you, animated cartoons left the theatres and became TV fare (mostly aimed at kids) in the ‘60s and ‘70s and became subjected to different standards.

I don’t propose to get into a huge debate about the subject here. What I’ll do is post a couple of feature stories from the United Press from when these cartoons were created. Our first stop is in Culver City, the home of Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera and Tex Avery. This appeared in newspapers around April 12, 1949.

Cartoon Characters Have Their Troubles With The Censor Too
By ALINE MOSBY
HOLLYWOOD, April 12 (U.P.).—A buxom movie queen lolling in bed isn't the only item that gets axed out of the movies. The long arm of the censors reached out to the love life and hip wiggles in the cartoons, too. The two guys who create Tom and Jerry, the Oscar-winning cat and mouse, sigh they have to worry about slipping gags past the censors just like the big directors do.
"We have to be careful about Jerry kicking Tom in the back-side. Those gags don't get by so much any more," says Joe Barbera, who writes and directs the cat and mouse series at MGM with William Hanna.
Tom and Jerry usually don't wear a stitch of clothes in their movies, unlike Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. But in "Springtime for Thomas" Tom had to crawl into trousers while he yowled his love to a lady cat.
"She had on clothes and it wouldn't look right for Tom not to wear any," Barbera says. "If he's in a scene with a kitten he can go clothesless, though."
Tom wears goatskin pants and Jerry a Robinson Crusoe outfit in their next movie. But Barbera and Hanna undressed them in a hurry so the 125 animators wouldn't have to draw clothes in all the 15,000 "frames" that make one cartoon.
"We had 'em do a subtle strip tease," grins Barbera. "Hope it gets by."
Once the Johnston office turned thumbs down on a scene in a cartoon, not of Tom and Jerry, which showed a dog sniffing at a man disguised as a tree. And in "Red Hot Riding Hood" the censors frowned when Red Riding Hood, a nightclub bump-and-grind queen, got too life-like with the hip wiggles. The part where the wolf drooled over her had to be toned down, too.
The censors didn't blink, though, when Jerry used a brassiere as a parachute in "Yankee Doodle Mouse."
Besides being censored, Tom and Jerry are like live movie stars in other ways, too. They have wardrobe "tests" before the cartoon is drawn, just like Lana Turner. They get stacks of fan letters ("Why does the cat always get beat up?").
Their sound effects department, with records labeled "scratches" and "plops," is as big as those for live movies. And music is furnished by the same big orchestra that saws away for multi-million productions. One future cartoon, "Texas Tom," is scheduled for a big premiere in Dallas. Jerry even danced with Gene Kelly in "Anchors Aweigh." And the cat and mouse have won more Oscars—five—than any other actors, alive or otherwise, plus the grand cartoon prize at a world film festival in Belgium.
"All that, and the cartoon whizzes by the screen in seven minutes," sighs Director Barbera.

Walter Lantz was interviewed on more than one occasion about being told “You Can’t” by the blue pencil brigade. This one showed up in the press on October 18, 1951. At least one paper showed publicity drawings of Lantz’s version of Tex Avery’s Red; Miss X was animated by Lantz’s version of MGM’s Preston Blair, the great Pat Matthews.

Movie Censors Use Scissors Even On Cartoon Love Scenes
Heroine's Wiggle Is Under Ban
By ALINE MOSBY Hollywood, Oct. 17. (U.P.)— A cartoonist complained today that curves and sex get censored even out of the Woody Woodpecker cartoons these days.
In fact, sighed Walter Lantz, Jane Russell, and Lana Turner can expose more of their famous flesh than the animated cuties do.
The artists who dream up Woody's antics at the Lantz studio have to draw the passionate kisses, cows, and curves with the censors peeking over their shoulders.
Betty Grable Shows More
"Every picture we do is looked over very carefully by the Johnston office," Lantz explained. "They watch us closer than they do the feature pictures.
"In one cartoon, ‘Aboo Ben Boogie,’ we had a sexy girl, looking like a Betty Grable. She had on transparent pantaloons so you could see her legs.
"Well, the censors sent the picture back and we had to put a skirt on her. Betty Grable shows more than our girl did."
In another Woody epic, he said, the blue-pencil boys decided the heroine wiggled her hips too much when she danced. Instead of redrawing the scene, Lantz' crew just re-photographed it—from her waist up.
In the old days of "Felix The Cat" flickers, animators had too much fun with their characters, Lantz said. "So nowadays the censors clamp down if the animator's paintbrush wiggles in the wrong direction.
Censors May Have Point
"We used to always draw old Chic Sales in the back yard, but they're out now," said Lantz. "We can't ever draw all of a cow, either.
"We can't show too much cleavage on a female character. And no horizontal love scenes. Most cartoon characters wear clothes. Woody doesn't, but his feathers are arranged so they look like clothes."
The censors have also cut bank robberies, holdups, and ghosts from cartoons to keep the children happy.
"We have to watch that in the Woody cartoon we're making now, ‘Stage Hoax,’ " said the cartoonist.
"But the censors have a point there. I think there still is too much blood and thunder in some cartoons.
"If you give some animators an inch they might take 10 feet. It's just as well we have restrictions on cartoons because lots of children see them."

Should there be a line? And where to draw it?

There wasn’t an agreement on the answers to those questions in the days of Red and Woody. I don’t suspect there ever will be.

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.

A Lantz Inside Gag

A couple of familiar names to staff at the Walter Lantz studio found their way into the 1956 cartoon Pigeon Holed.



Two of them are Lantz directors.



The third name belongs to writer Homer Brightman. Lantz had a Homer Pigeon before this cartoon, but he disappeared in 1943. It is possible Brightman’s name inspired a revival, though this version of H. Pigeon sounds and behaves differently than the one on screens in World War Two. He did not star in a cartoon after this one, though he made an appearance in a lame Hallowe’en TV special that Lantz produced in 1964, so it is possible the two Homers were just a coincidence.

Sex and the Woodpecker

Andy Panda’s dad tries to blow up a pesky, unnamed woodpecker with sex in Knock Knock (1940). His bait: a time bomb inside a mechanical female bird emulating Mae West.



The bird thrusts at the camera. You think this could have been done in live action then?



Were “Oh you kid” or “chicken inspector” buttons still a thing in 1940?



Frames of the woodpecker’s reaction to being kissed. Bring on the dry-brush.



The woodpecker makes the next move. The bird bomb blows up into pieces. The woodpecker isn’t even singed, other than emotionally. “Betrayed!” wails Mel Blanc.



You old-time animation fans know the woodpecker stole the show. Walter Lantz wisely gave him his own series, which lasted in first-run on the big screen until 1972, very much watered down.

Today marks the official theatrical release of Knock Knock 85 years ago, though it showed up in Shine’s Miami (Ohio) the day before. It was announced in the trade press at the end of August 1940.

Woody Woodpecker’s debut got mixed reactions in the trades.

Andy Panda and Papa Panda are disturbed by the pecking of a zany woodpecker. The pursuit of the bird is then the main concern of the cartoon. Their efforts are unsuccessful and not too funny. Running time, 7 mins. (Motion Picture Daily, Nov. 28, 1940)

Andy Panda and his father have a time chasing a woodpecker that is boring holes in their house. At length they catch him. Meanwhile the general order is routine animation and an unimaginative scenario. (Boxoffice, Dec. 7, 1940)

Knock, Knock (Very Good)
Univ. (5243) Cartoon No. 3 7 mins.
Here is a cartoon that while not outstanding by any means is nevertheless better than the previous releases in this series and one that should entertain your patrons, especially the kiddies. It's all about the agitation caused Andy Panda and his papa by a sassy woodpecker who knocks holes in the Panda roof. Every effort to subdue the bird is futile until Andy drops some salt on his tail. Photographed in Technicolor, the cartoon was produced by Walter Lantz. (Showmen's Trade Review Nov. 30, 1940)

"Knock, Knock"
Universal 7 mins.
Funny Cartoon
Andy Panda and his pop have a considerable amount of trouble with a very fresh and pugnacious woodpecker in this subject with laughable results. Pop Panda sets out to get the woodpecker, in a blistering rage after the bird has made the roof of their house look like a sieve. But, although Andy finally gets the bird cornered the pandas get the bird from the bird in the long run and the woodpecker bangs pop around plenty. (Film Daily, Nov. 29, 1940)

Bugs Hardaway and Lowell Elliot wrote the short (Hardaway’s influence is unmistakable), Frank Tipper and Alex Lovy are the “artists,” Edgar Kiechle is the uncredited background man, while Blanc and Sara Berner supply the voices.

An excellent summary of the cartoon can be found in Joe Adamson’s book “The Walter Lantz Story.” Beware of references you read anywhere to a woodpecker and a “honeymoon” as Lantz didn’t marry Grace Stafford until August 1941, months after this cartoon was released.

But What About That Buck, Alex?

What cartoon starred a duck that had to deal with a changing background behind him?

Duck Amuck, you say? Well, that’s one answer. But 15 years before it was released, Walter Lantz’s staff pulled the same thing in Happy Scouts.

In this 1938 short, the little duck is terrified that the forest background has become scribbles and notes.



As for deciphering the background, I will defer to Devon Baxter who has looked into the Lantz studio of that era more than I have. I can only guess at who was painting Lantz’s backgrounds then; Fred Brunish was the vice-president of Royal Revues at the time and I don't know where Edgar Kiechle was working.

At the bottom, “Fred” likely refers to Fred Kopietz, who directed this cartoon. I suspect Alex Lovy designed the characters (Oswald the Rabbit was re-designed for this short). At the top, “Ed” is possibly Ed Benedict. “Forkum” could well be Roy Forkum, who was credited on Lantz’s commercial film Boy Meets Dog (1938). You’ll have to guess the identity of “Edna” and why she was being called (Roy Forkum’s wife was named Eileen). And perhaps an animator can explain the diamond-shaped drawing with numbers around it.

Pink Elephants Not On Parade

There’s a great sequence in Walter Lantz’s The Bandmaster (1947) where a drunk on a circus high-wire sees pink elephants. There’s a cut to a scene where they are ballet dancing to the Overture to Zampa.

There’s a cut back to the drunk and the elephants, which dive into his bottle of hootch. Each of the three elephants go into the bottle in a different way. The drunk’s reactions are animated as well.



How did the drunk get up there? Beats me. Maybe that scene got cut.

Bugs Hardaway and Webb Smith came up with the gags. La Verne Harding and Les Kline received the animation credits but the star animator in this one is the great Pat Matthews, who gives us some lovely perspective animation of the staggering drunk. He is my favourite of the 1940s Lantz artists.

Darrell Calker does a fine job for the score.