Necking By the TV

No more dragging dad away from the set for dinner, thanks to the “T.V. of Tomorrow.”



There’s actually more black between the two rooms, no doubt to enable Tex Avery to time the scene exactly the way he wanted it.

Designs are by Ed Benedict. Animation by Ray Patterson and Bob Bentley added to Tex’s ‘50s crew of Grant Simmons, Mike Lah and Walt Clinton.

Clobbering Elmer

Daffy Duck—okay, Chuck Jones—doesn’t waste time bashing clueless Elmer Fudd with a large mallet in “To Duck or Not to Duck” (1943). Daffy pulls out a mallet in three frames, holds his pose for seven frames, then clobbers Elmer in three frames. That’s about a half second.



Bobe Cannon gets the animation credit on this cartoon, but Ken Harris and Rudy Larriva were animating for Jones as well at this time.

TV Without Mary

Stories abound about Jack Benny’s wife, Mary Livingstone, and not all of them are pleasant. All I know is from a radio listener’s standpoint, she had the ideal dry, cutting delivery that added to the Benny show’s enjoyment.

The former Sadye Marks had become part of her husband’s vaudeville act as a last-minute replacement, and then remained on his radio show past a one-shot appearance when her performance prompted favourable letters from listeners. But Benny biographies reveal she was nervous while on stage to the point that, finally, some of her last radio shows featured her recorded voice dubbed in afterward (script girl Jeanette Eymann read her part during the actual performance in front of an audience). You’d never know listening to the shows that she had mike fright.

The prospect of television apparently frightened her, though she had made the movie “This Way Please” in 1937. So with only a few rare exceptions, she never made the jump to the new medium with Jack. But so strong was her character that some viewers apparently never noticed. Here’s an Associated Press column dated October 11, 1960.

Mary’s Staying Home
Benny Goes on Alone
By BOB THOMAS
Associated Press Writer
Hollywood — There was much to-do when Gracie Allen retired from show business. Not generally known is the fact that her close friend, Mary Benny, has been virtually retired for almost a decade.
This was disclosed by Jack Benny as he prepared to start his 11th and most strenuous season on TV. He'll face it without Mary.
She had been scheduled to appear in the first show tomorrow. “I needed a scene in which someone would scold me for going on TV every week, and Mary was the only one who could do it because she is the only woman who has a close relationship with me,” Jack explained.
“But I could see she was getting more and more nervous as the show got closer. So we rewrote her part rather than subject her to the strain. She gets nervous, even without an audience.
“Actually, Mary never was crazy about performing. In our last days on radio, she did all her work at home, and the script girl read her lines with me before the audience. The people never minded, once I explained the situation to them.”
WHILE MARY has given up performing, she's still an important member of the Benny team, the comedian indicated.
“I always take decisions to her, because she has great insight,” he said. “When I was thinking about going on TV every week, I asked her what she thought about it. I'd either do that, or stay on every other week and do a few specials.
“She advised me to go on regularly but to avoid the specials. 'You'll always be trying to top yourself with specials, Jack,” she said. “'You'll feel miserable if you don't.' She's absolutely right.”
And so Benny is embarking on a weekly grind though he is 27 years beyond his legendary 39. He doesn't need the money. He doesn't need the fame. So why does he do it?
“I THINK IT makes more sense in building an audience,” he explained. “Before, no one knew exactly which week I was on; I didn't even know myself It was hard to maintain a rating, because people who liked my show might not like the alternate show, and vice versa.
“Besides, I like to work. I've always been a little show crazy. Bob Hope and I often argue which of us is the worse in that regard. We both hate long vacations.
“By doing a show every week. I can get into a regular routine. I don't have those dull periods when I'm anxious to get to work. The writers like it better, too: they know what their deadlines are and they prepare for them.”
THE SCHEDULE still leaves him time to play golf three or four times a week (though he groused about the loss of daylight saving) and to play fund-raising concerts, as he will next month in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Indianapolis. It's a busy schedule at an age when a lot of folks are collecting Social Security.
“I think it's working that keeps me young,” he observed. “If I had quit a couple of years ago. I'd be an old man by now. As it is, I just got the returns back from my annual checkup, and the doctor says I'm in fine shape.”
His secrets of continuing success? Jack offered two:
—“I hate a lousy show. If I do one, I feel miserable afterward. I think most of my shows are good ones. A few are great.”
—“I think I'm a good editor. I work closely with my writers—two of them have been with me 18 years. I edit them closely, and I know what is good for me.”

The Jack Benny radio show had so many pieces, if one was missing on occasion, you might not notice unless it was pointed out on the air. But not all the pieces were there when the show moved to television and that resulted in some modifications. The TV show was good, but the radio show was far more enjoyable to me simply because a good mix of personalities and characters had been worked out over the years. And a large part of that was Mary Livingstone.

To Make a Terrytoon

Frank Moser may be known for two things in the animation world—he was an incredibly fast drawer and he lost a lawsuit against former partner Paul Terry after leaving their studio in 1936. At the time of the split, he said he wanted to spend his time painting, but then accused Terry and others of screwing him out of the partnership.

He had been a newspaper cartoonist whose career in animation went back to the teens; he was working for Raoul Barré in 1916 and a few years later was making cartoons for Hearst under license before hooking up with Terry.

Here’s Moser speaking to his hometown newspaper, the Hastings News, about his studio and its cartoons. It appeared December 15, 1933.

Hastings Man Tells How He Turns Out Terrytoons And "Oilcan Mystery" Series
Every moving picture fan studies the life and habits of his particular idol of the screen. Magazines and newspapers keep him supplied with the information he so avidly seeks. But what of the ardent followers of the "Oilcan Mystery Series," or the admirers of the well-known farmer and his little white dog who appear in the Terrytoon cartoons? Frank Moser, of Hollywood Drive, Hastings, and his partner, Paul Terry, have been making these Terrytoons for five years.
Mr. Moser has explained something of the work and method that goes into making these short, bright little bits of entertainment. From his studios and offices in the Consolidated Films Laboratories on 146th Street, New York City, twenty-six pictures are turned out every year at the rate of one every two weeks.
Twenty-eight people are necessary to the making of one picture. The story, or script, is written first, as in the making of a legitimate moving picture. The 15-piece orchestra is then called in under the direction of an accomplished musician, Philip A. Scheib, and the music is composed and played for the story. With the music as a pattern and with the aid of a stop watch for timing and synchronization, the artists, assisted and directed by Mr. Moser, draw the four thousand pictures necessary for a six minute picture. Every movement in the action must be a separate picture.
The finished drawings are given to assistants to trace on transparent celluloid, and when the films are ready to be shown, the artists are called In for a three-hour "session" to make the sound effects. One radio quartet is engaged regular for almost every picture, and actors and actresses are brought in from their work on Broadway to insure the dramatic success of the little cartoons. From such sources the funny little characters derive their genuine talent. Mr. Scheib, the musical director, has had four years' training in Germany, and played in eleven different theaters in New York before sound took the place of theater orchestras.
Mr. Moser has a great fondness for the amusing little people that characterize his pictures. They grow, he says, from just an idea into living characters. In the case of such public favorites of the animated cartoon as the immortal Mickey Mouse, new ideas have been added continually until the star has achieved a real screen career.
Terrytoons, however like Silly Symphonies, seldom carry on a series except in a few cases such as the Oil-Can Mysteries which appeared in six sequels in which the courageous hero rescued the beauteous heroine from the wicked situations devised by the villain.

Mr. Moser prefers his animal characters, mice, rabbits, cats, and such to human characters. He believes that animals doing the funny things expected of human beings are funnier than people can be under the same circumstances. Cats and mice are the most adaptable of the cartoon characters, although the farmer is an old favorite with his producers.
The Fox Film Corporation handles the actual production of Terrytoons, relieving Mr. Moser and his partner of the true and worry of financial arrangement. The films are sent, through Fox, to all parts of the world from the Hastings Theatre, which is running them at present for the space of six months, to South Africa and the Orient. Pictures for European countries are selected and foreign titles added by Fox. The first 26 Terrytoons produced were shown in Australia.
One of the most enthusiastic markets for Terrytoons is the U.S. Navy, which buys the films outright and shows them on ships for the sailors after dinner show. The Boy Scouts of Hastings have also shown their appreciation of Mr. Moser's work by having one of his cartoons as a part of their benefit show Friday evening. The cartoon will be an Indian story entitled "Old Suzzanna."
Mr. Moser, unlike the average conception of a moving picture director, is calm and placid in his enjoyment of his work. His characters, from stars to mere extras, indulge in no fits of temperament, and are affected not at all in their work by the recent repeal of prohibition.
Mr. Moser did his earliest work as a cartoonist in newspaperdom, his first job being on the Des Moines Register and Leader. Political cartoons and illustrations of a daily story were his regular job on that paper, although he accompanied the photographer to make pictures for important news stories.
He remembers with amusement some of his earliest assignments, even to his first pictures that he drew of three Senators after timidly entering the Senate hall with a letter of introduction. In his efforts to be as unobtrusive as possible, he seated himself in a Senators chair, and then withdrawing to a remote corner made the sketches that pleased his editor and subjects so well that his successful start was assured.
On another occasion, he and the photographer located a tramp who prided himself on his methods of free railroad transportation, and, with a freight car at a background made pictures of that traveled gentleman in every angle and position he could assume on the train. The tramp later published a book on his experiences.
His first experience with human nature on the newspapers came from two men, one of whom refused absolutely to have his picture done, and the other, a less important person who was so insistent that Mr. Moser consented to do the picture to save himself from further annoyance. When that picture appeared in the paper, contrary to the editor's intentions, the man bought a thousand copies to send to his friends.
From Des Moines, Mr. Moser came to New York to work on the old New York Globe. He began his human interest work there with comic strips and pictures of news value. He found his newspaper work, he said, more absorbing than moving pictures, but the growth of the huge newspaper syndicates has killed the held for individual newspaper cartoonists.
Mr. Moser and his partner, Mr. Terry, were among the pioneers in the field of animated cartoons. Mr. Moser began his moving picture work in 1915. In 1916 he produced the first Krazy Kat picture on the screen. At different times he has worked with Edison Pathe, Famous Players, Educational, and Fox. In 1918. he joined the company that produced Aesop's Fables for moving pictures, and remained there until five years ago when he and Mr. Terry started the independent company of Terrytoon cartoons.
The animated cartoon had little difficulty beyond that of synchronisation when the moving pictures went "talkie." The ever adaptable character of the cartoon did not change in the least. Actors from the stage already trained vocally and in diction were available, and the characters went on acting as usual. Cartoons with sound effects appeared shortly after Warner Bros. began using the new style in pictures.
Mr. Moser, whose cartoons have appeared in Life and Judge, is also an artist of merit. He paints, he says, for the pleasure of painting, and in his spare time. His home is hung with oil paintings. He has done from time to time, which strangely enough, take for their subjects, outdoor scenes and inanimate objects. A beautiful view of the Hudson in the snow which Mr. Moser painted from his own upstairs window hangs over the mantel.
Through his painting, Mr. Moser has become well known in art circles in Hastings and Westchester. He is treasurer of the Hudson Valley Art Association, and hopes, at some future date, to exhibit with Mrs. Moser who is, herself, a talented artist. Mr. and Mrs. Moser spend many enjoyable hours on their joint excursions to paint the beautiful spots which interest them. Mrs. Moser in water colors, and Mr. Moser in oils. They worked together at one time in Famous Players, producing moving picture cartoons, and Mrs. Moser was at one time his assistant in producing his pictures.
Mr. Moser states that he expects to continue in his moving picture work, and to keep abreast of any new changes and developments in the future of the industry.

Piggie Pick-Up

The Oswald cartoon “Oh, Teacher” (1927) is mainly about a cat trying to take Oswald’s girl away from him. But the plot’s interrupted by a scene of a piglet being picked up for school. His mother leaves him on a hook! Then a mechanical hand from the school bus grabs him.



Somehow, Walt Disney didn’t fit in an udder joke (there’s no cow in this one), but there is an outhouse joke.

Eyes and Noses of Tom

Multiple eye and nose take from “The Bowling Alley-Cat” (1942).



Only directors Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera are credited.

Atsamatter With Luigi

Radio situation comedy in the ‘40s was filled with befuddled or bullheaded men, long-suffering wives, ditzy dames, earnest would-be suitors, boy-crazy teenaged girls and snooty neighbours. Characters in two or more of those categories would be mixed and matched in contrived stories that often bore no resemblance to reality. The best shows were able to rise above it through clever dialogue and good acting. But far too many relied on one-note or broad characters and done-too-many-times-before plots.

And to that recipe, ethnic stereotypes.

In radio’s Golden Age, there were still listeners who grew up with parents or grandparents who were new to the U.S., who still carried with them the accent and habits of the Old Country. Because of that, audiences identified with characters like that on radio, no matter how over-the-top they might have been. Well, not everyone in the audience. Some chafed at the clichés, no matter how well intentioned.

That brings us to “Life With Luigi,” a comedy based around a new Italian émigré to the U.S. It was a success on radio, lasting five seasons as the medium sputtered and coughed. The creators evidently realised a half-hour of “atsamatter-for-you” would result in eye-rolling (or worse, radios switching to another network) so they came up with a solution: bathos. One minute, the characters would be engaging in fat jokes. The next, Luigi would be summoning up patriotism in his listeners by almost-tearfully waxing about the Great United States in a letter to his sainted mother who he missed oh-so-much. You’ve have to be un-American to hate that. Or a radio critic.

The astute John Crosby nailed the problems with the show. He reviewed it, first when it appeared on radio, then television. Here’s his radio review from October 14, 1948, via the Oakland Tribune.

Luigi Discovers America
By JOHN CROSBY
“Life with Luigi,” a new CBS show at 9:30 p.m. Tuesdays, may not be the best radio idea in a decade or so but it is well up there and I’m sorry it had to come along in what I stubbornly think of as radio’s twilight years.
Luigi Basco, the hero of this radio comedy, is an Italian immigrant. The derivation of his last name is fairly obvious—I’m happy they didn’t call him Christopher Bolumbus anyhow—and supplies a pretty good idea of the show.
Liugi, in short, is an explorer. He is discovering America and he finds the place a delightful though puzzling place to live. He looks at American with the fresh eyes of an immigrant and, in his naivete, he reveals to the rest of us, the older inhabitants here, some of the wonders we have long since taken for granted.
Most of these dazzling discoveries are incorporated in a letter to Moma Mia, who is still in Italy. “In America,” writes Luigi, “when couple has three children they call it triple play. Right away they go on radio program.”
When you come right down to it, America teems with curious customs which, when viewed with the innocence of a newcomer, are just as quaint and possibly even more revolting than the practice of head-shrinking in the upper reaches of the Amazon.
Luigi, to get on with this, takes up residence in Chicago and I heartily approve of his choice. Radio has too many small towns on its agenda, enough New York City locales, and far, far too many Hollywood settings for its comedy shows.
The Windy City is a lovely and refreshingly new spot to locate Luigi. He runs an antique shop jammed to the rafters with Americana. “Everything in da shop is old,” he explains. “I’m da youngest ting in da place.”
In most respects, Luigi approves of Chicago and the United States but there are some things he doesn’t like and doesn’t understand.
When, for example, he names a price for one of his precious antiques (and he’s not at all anxious to sell any of them), he expects the customer to explode into wrath and name his own price, preferably around one-tenth of his Americans, he discovers to his dismay, simply write out a check without haggling.
It isn’t fair, he explains passionately to one American lady, to deprive a storekeeper of his right to wave his arms around and call the heavens to witness. How is a man to get his exercise if a customer won’t bargain with him?
While the aims and much of the execution of “Life with Luigi” excite by the warmest admiration, I have a number of small reservations which better be expressed forcibly right now before these defects become irrevocably imbedded in the show. For one thing, the little immigrant’s patriotism had best be confined within reasonable limits.
Luigi, to take a recent example, explained to an American insurance man why he felt so strongly about a Winston-Salem chair, expounding on the early history of Winston-Salem to the accompaniment of soft, patriotic music in the background.
That sort of thing—Luigi better find out about this before he’s been in this country another fortnight—is known here as corn. Corn, Luigi. Avoid it.
We like the local citizenry to be proud of the place, old man, but we are inclined to be suspicious of the guys who start beating their breasts about how much they love it—especially to the accompaniment of violins in the background.
Reservational No. 2, a minor complaint, concerns a certain vaudeville air that creeps into the proceedings now and then. Luigi and his friend, Pasquale, are made occasionally to sound like burlesque pantaloons and too much of this will rob the little immigrant of his dignity.
On the whole, though, Luigi is a fine idea. Cy Howard, who dreamed up CBS’ highly successful “My Friend Irma”, is also responsible for “Life with Luigi.” According to a press release, Howard spent months in Italy digging up local color for this show; at least, that’s what he told the accounting department, who, I suppose, had to have some reason to justify the expense account.
J. Carroll Naish, an excellent actor, plays Luigi with just enough accent to be amusing and not enough to be incomprehensible.

“Luigi” came to television on September 22, 1952. It was a dismal failure. The show left the air on December 22nd, returned on April 9, 1953 with a new cast and vanished for good on June 4th. Variety of September 24, 1952 praised its “warmth.” The Associated Press talked to the man who came up the show, who championed it for not being full of loud, vaudevillian physical comedy (words like “Lucy” and “Berle” were diplomatically omitted) and for showing people of various ethnic origins working in harmony. Here’s that interview, published in the Tribune.

‘Luigi’ Presents New Comic Technique for Screen Fans
By HAL HUMPHREY
HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 27—(AP)—TV viewers watching the first “Life With Luigi” show on their screens this week must have been slightly baffled by the proceedings, if they had never met up with Luigi on radio. A video program billed as a comedy but having none of the equipment typical of TV’s funnies is as rare as a seven-inch screen.
Luigi, played by Irishman J. Carrol Naish, throws not pies, squirts no seltzer, and generally acts as an immigrant with his background might be expected to act.
To a host of fans who have pushed “Life With Luigi” into radio’s “top ten” during the past four years, Luigi and his friends (Schultz, Horowitz, Olson and Pasquale) are funny yet believable characters. Only the next few months will tell if they can gain the same fame on TV. The constant striving for the big boff (laugh) on TV has conditioned most viewers to a type of humor built on rapid-fire gags and side-splitting situations. Most comics on TV make you believe it’s funny by mugging into the camera.
This kind of diet does not prepare the video viewer for the show and more painstaking chuckle-type of humor which Luigi dispenses. There is more warmth and a touch of pathos where the little Italian immigrant is concerned.
Mac Benoff, writer and producer of “Luigi” is confident, however, that he and Naish can sell their brand of comedy on TV as they have on radio.
“I don’t believe,” says Benoff, “that humor has to be based on man’s inhumanity to man. Humor with a tear can be just as funny as being hit in the face with a pie.”
Both Benoff and Naish are convinced they are making the “Luigi” show a mission in life. “We’re keeping it honest, and I believe we’re doing more to break down racial prejudices than any other program on the air,” Benoff adds.
As a comedy writer of long standing, Benoff has formed some definite ideas about his craft. When he was first approached on doing “Luigi” for radio, his reaction was more or less negative, because he never liked dialect comedy.
He decided to do it as a challenge and to prove dialect could be done without making the characters look like clowns or fools. “Viewers won’t find Luigi in exaggerated physical situations and yelling ‘botcha galupe.’” Benoff states.
A two-man mutual admiration society developed between Benoff and Naish. Each claims he wouldn’t be able to do the job on “Luigi” unless he had the other to work with.
“The minute I saw Naish on the TV monitor as Luigi, I knew we were in,” says Benoff. And Naish wouldn’t think of doing “Luigi” without Benoff’s dialogue.
All they have to do now is convince TV viewers there are other ways of making people laugh than having a comic pull his hair over his forehead and throw his face out of gear.

Cue magazine didn’t buy any of that. Its summary: “‘Life with Luigi’ is back, and it's transparently evident that the vacation has not dulled its capacity for being one of the phoniest, unfunniest sessions around.” That assessment was shared by John Crosby, who also took exception to Benoff’s heart-tugging and “Hurray for America” flag-waving. This column was published September 30, 1952.

Luigi Discovers America
By JOHN CROSBY
“Life With Luigi” has just been transposed from radio to television where its manifold imperfections are terribly visible as well as audible. The trouble with “Luigi,” I’ve decided after long and profound thought, is that it’s almost completely phoney.
A comedy about the misadventures of an immigrant is not a bad idea. In fact it’s a very good one. But not when it’s conceived, written, directed and acted by a lot of Hollywood wiseacres whose concepts of immigrant life in this country are heavily larded with grease paint. “Life With Luigi” was dreamed up by Cy Howard, the creator of “My Friend Irma,” who has been described aptly by one of my friends as CBS vice president in charge of malaprops.
Like “Irma,” “Luigi” is loaded with malaprops, some of which will make your flesh crawl. (“That remark is incompetent and irrelevant,” a lawyer shouts. “You’re an incompetent elephant too,” retorts one of the characters).
Luigi struggles helplessly not only with the language but with every aspect of American life from bus travel to banking. Walking into the Case National Bank, he asks to see Mr. Case. “Mr. Case is dead.” “I’d like to see Mrs. Case.” “Mrs. Case is dead.” “Everyone’s dead. Whosa watching the business?”
Well, I don’t know. They have banks in Italy and Luigi must have seen one before.
That’s my chief objection to “Luigi.” There is hardly a credible line, or situation or character in it. Everyone is trying too hard, from the writers to the actors. There are beads of sweat on virtually every line of dialogue. “O ho,” says Pasquale, who is the comic villain of the piece, “what a monkey I gonna throw in his wrench!” And he winks at the audience like the villain in an 1890 melodrama. Both the line and its method of delivery are an insult to my intelligence.
J. Carroll Naish plays Luigi on the radio (where it still remains) and also on television and is described in a rather hysterical press release at my elbow as “one of the greatest actors alive,” a rather too extravagant estimate.
Naish is a good actor when he doesn’t overplay, but the type of material thrust on him requires him to act from hell to breakfast. So does everyone else.
The first installment revolved around Luigi getting his first citizenship papers. Three of the characters were his classmates in a citizenship class, each of them so horribly picturesque they made me faintly ill.
All the characters are similarly overdrawn. Rosa, for example, Pasquale’s daughter, is the bane of Luigi’s existence. Pasquale keeps trying to thrust Luigi into matrimony with her, a project Luigi strenuously resists. It’s not a bad comedy idea, but Rosa’s simpering, mincing, smirking demeanor belongs in nothing later than Restoration comedy.
This stanza ended in a courtroom where it looked for a moment as if Luigi would not only be denied citizenship but might, though the machinations of Pasquale, land in jail.
His three picturesque classmates showed up, spouting broken English, everyone talked at once and had a good cry and the scene ended with a pledge of allegiance to the flag, a bit of sentimentality which drove me to the kitchen in search of strong waters.
I suppose that in all fairness I ought to add that these sour opinions are not shared by just everyone. “Life With Luigi” was and is astonishing popular on radio and I’m afraid it looks as if it will repeat its popularity on television.
A Trendex survey in 10 cities gave the opening program a husky 42.6 rating which is frankly pretty terrific. I prefer to believe the citizenry was too paralyzed with astonishment to turn the darn thing off.
I’m not automatically against all immigrant comedy. “Mama,” another CBS operation—CBS-TV is getting to be one big immigration course—is playing the same side of the street. But then the original of “Mama” was written by the daughter of immigrants who plainly knew whereof she spoke; it’s a good deal more honest drama and the people in it, while drenched in sentiment, are fairly plausible.
Even in “Mama” though, I find that whining monotone of a Scandinavian accent wearisome. Does everyone in Scandinavia talk in that monotone?

Interestingly, while tastes in situation comedy were changing, one top show of the 1960s—crafted by former radio writers—had some similarities to ‘Luigi.’ The starring characters were immigrants of a sort, having packed up and moved to where they tried to figure out their new neighbourhood. They had stereotypical accents and a clichéd lifestyle. But people set aside the unbelievability of it all and embraced them, even when critics didn’t. They were the Beverly Hillbillies.

No Vacancy

Here’s Fred Brunish at work in the opening of “Woody the Giant Killer.”



Bugs Hardaway (Woody), Harry Lang (Buck Beaver) and Jack Mather (Giant) supply voices.

Escape From Grandma

Faster and more outrageous. That’s the difference between Tex Avery’s work at Warners and the cartoons he directed at MGM. It was an inevitable evolution.

Tex helmed a great spoof on the Red Riding Hood story at Warners in “Little Red Walking Hood.” But he picked up the pace and added even more outrageous reactions in “Red Hot Riding Hood” at Metro.

Here’s part of a scene where the Wolf crashes through the window of grandma’s penthouse to escape. Avery employs an old technique, inserting a coloured card in between animation drawings to heighten the impact. These are consecutive drawings; Avery had some animated on ones, some on twos and some on threes.



Ed Love, Ray Abrams and, of course, Preston Blair animated the cartoon. Sara Berner, Frank Graham and Kent Rogers provide the uncredited voices.

No Wire Hangers

No, it’s not Bette Davis. Or Tallulah Bankhead. It’s Joan Crawford.



Another great bit of artwork advertising an MGM film by Jacques Kapralik. This one is for “Mannequin” (1938).