Is Leon a Dog?

Tex Avery and writer Dave Monahan weren’t just parodying film studios with “yes” men and jodhpur-wearing Germanic directors in Daffy Duck in Hollywood, they were taking a little shot at their own studio.

Producer I.M. Stupendous of Wonder Pictures is rotund with a carnation in his lapel and smokes cigarettes in a holder. Avery and Monaham knew a producer just like that. Someone named Leon Schlesinger.



Adding to the inside joke is a phone call that Stupendous makes. “Miss Morgan?” he addresses his secretary on the line. The Schlesinger studio receptionist was Ginger Morgan.

I like the gag where the camera pulls back to show Leon and his director on the phone—in the same office. It’s a completely different office than the one in the pan shot above.



Virgil Ross gets the animation screen credit.

The Senator From the South. The South, That Is

Fred Allen can thank Alan Young for the most popular character in Allen’s Alley. Well, he can thank Alan Young’s sponsor.

Young, you see, had a situation comedy on the radio in 1945. One of the characters Young encountered on his show was a loudmouth politician named Counsellor Cartenbranch. Word is that Bristol Myers, which had Young plug Vitalis on his show, hated the Counsellor, so off he went. The astute Allen picked up the character, made a few modifications, and turned him into Senator Claghorn.

Both were played by Kenny Delmar, who doubled as Allen’s announcer. The Senator was an instant hit. Southerners loved him, despite the fact he was a caricature of them. Everyone else loved the political satire. Within a couple of years, Allen tried to wean him off the air, presumably concerned that the Claghorn fad had burned itself out. But Delmar’s new characters didn’t catch on, so the Senator appeared on the air once again.

Delmar got an awful lot of publicity in 1946; you can read some of it in this post. He was the cover story that year in the May edition of Tune In, a New York City-based radio magazine.

CLAGHORN'S THE NAME
BUT CALL HIM KENNY -- DELMAR THAT IS
By TWEED BROWN
THAT gunning whirlwind whipping in and out of Radio City isn't a refugee from the sound effects cabinet. On closer inspection it will prove to be a bushy-haired young gent out of Boston by came of Kenneth Frederick Fay Howard, attempting to keep up with his radio commitments.
This bustling Bostonian has ample reason to rush, for under the professional name of "Kenny Delmar" his actor-announcer talents are in such demand as to require would-be sponsors to queue up for considerable distances. Not only is Delmar sought for more announcing chores than he can shake a Social Security card at, but his brainchild, "Senator Claghorn" (That's a joke, son!) is currently the "hottest" thing in radio. If you don't immediately identify "the Senator" as the unreconstructed tenant of Allen's Alley—the Fred Allen program—then he is the person responsible for normally sane citizens from Wenatchee, Wash., to Puxatawny, Pa., speaking in this fashion:
"Claghorn's the name—Senator Claghorn. Ah'm from Dixie—Dixie, that is. Ah represent the South—the South, you understand, Ah don't travel any place Ah can't get to on the Southern Railroad, And Ah won't patronize—Ah say, Ah won't patronize any restaurant that serves Yankee Pot Roast!"

In addition to appearing as Claghorn on the Allen show, Kenny handles the announcing chores for that Sunday RCA broadcast, the Saturday night Hit Parade, and puts the Jack Benny show from Hollywood on the air from New York every Sunday night, which also is nice work if you can get it. His weekly earnings fluctuate between $700 and $2,000 depending on how many extra shows he handles, and the trend has the Treasury Department rubbing its hands anticipatorily.
For a young gent whose name meant nothing to radio listeners a year ago, Kenny Delmar is doing very nicely for himself. Both Hollywood and Broadway have beckoned to him. Kenny was all set to appear as a quick-change comic detective in the Orson Welles-Cole Porter musical, "Around the World," but had to withdraw because of conflicting commitments. He also has received picture offers, but to date has not figured how he can go to Hollywood and still be on hand to fulfill his contract on the Hit Parade in New York every Saturday.
Delmar, who comes of a theatrical family, is a pleasant, heavy-set young man (five feet ten inches, 185 pounds) who wears thick-lensed glasses in enormous black frames. He has an unruly strand of curly, black hair and a velvety olive skin that can be attributed to a Greek grandfather. A hasty glance gives the impression of a composite Harold Lloyd-Ed Wynn, while his soft, confidential voice belies its Boston origin. He is beginning to worry about a "corporation" that is forming around his belt-line, but friends assure him that on Claghorn it looks good. Thirty-four-year-old Kenny will never be mistaken for one of the Radio City fashion plates, and when his clothes are a little more rumpled than usual he could easily pass for one of the Columbus Circle boys.
An interview with Delmar is an experience. His sudden success amazes him. "I go around pinching myself," he confides, staring out the window at a pretty girl in an office on the other side of the building.
"What was that you said, son?" he says with a start, several moments later.
One minute he is the soft-spoken announcer who leans forward and mouths ingratiating remarks on the Allen show as: "In case you want to invite me to your birthday party, my name is Kenny Delmar."
The next he is the bombastic Senator, reared back, feet braced, fist waving: "Yessir, Ah'm goin' into business for myself. Ah've just organized Delmar Productions. Delmar, that is."
Some one sticks his head in the door and grins, "Hello, Senator Claghorn, suh, Hello, that is."
Kenny beams and waves back. "Hello, son. Don't forget—Ah say, don't forget to vote the straight ticket!"
Between interruptions Kenny explains that Delmar Productions will offer dramatic and comedy radio package shows. These come with the cast, announcer, and script wrapped up in one bundle.
Right now Kenny runs into Claghorn everywhere he goes—even while dialing in other programs. But he lives in fear that listeners will wake up some morning and collectively decide that the Senator isn't funny any more. Fred Allen thinks differently, however, and he given the Senator a long-term lease on the Alley. When Delmar unleashed the repetitious rebel over the air waves last fall, he was afraid the Senator would offend Southern listeners—particularly, those of unreconstructed fabric. To his surprise, the bulk of his fan mail originates south of the Mason & Dixon and to date he has yet to receive an unfavorable missive.
"I guess they realize the Senator is not a vicious character—just a harmless guy with a big mouth," Kenny explained.

Claghorn's fan mail outnumbers that of any other tenant on the Alley and it became necessary for him to hire assistants to handle his average of a hundred letters weekly, not to mention a lot of gifts and gadgets. Every letter is gratefully answered and then filed away. Kenny prizes his mail collection very highly and probably some day will have assembled enough Claghorniana to open a small museum.
Some writers consider the Senator the long-awaited Messiah of the Confederacy, but most of them take him less seriously. Practically all writers like to play the Claghorn game and contribute dialogue, most of it of questionable merit. Sometimes ambitious free-lancers contribute entire scripts, but these are politely turned down, as Allen will not accept free-lance material. Very few contributed gags get past the hyper-critical Allen blue pencil. One did, however, from a Southern belle who ate only eels, because that was "Lee" spelled backwards.
Although a lot of Claghorn contributions come from south of the border—Mason and Dixon, you understand—many of them are from either pseudo or homesick Southerners. A Brooklyn rebel wrote: "I understand you'd defend any felon, as long as he has confederates." Another asserted that when sailing, he sat only on the lee side of the boat. A New Jerseyite professed to like birds at only one time of year when they were headed south.
There are few days when Kenny's mail does not contain some unusual gifts. One fan sent a Southern compass—with no north on it. Another fan sent a box of Confederate violets, which Kenny enthusiastically planted on the south side of his house. A Kansas fan sent a huge yoke for oxen with the notation: "That's a yoke, son!"
The prize contribution, however, came when Kenny went to Washington to attend the annual brag dinner of the Texas Citrus Growers. They presented Kenny with a very much alive mama rattlesnake. Thinking the reptile to be harmless, he left it in his hotel room covered only by crating and a thin netting. When Kenny got no room service and his bed went unmade for three days, he became perturbed. Then he brought the snake back to New York and kept it at home while negotiating with the Bronx Zoo to take it off his hands. Finally the zoo took the snake and when a note came from the zoo keeper thanking Kenny for the very venemous species of rattler, he almost had heart failure.
Although Senator Claghorn is a newcomer to radio as far as most listeners are concerned, Kenny got the idea for the blowhard character as a result of a hitch-hike trip to California eighteen years ago. A Texas rancher gave him a ride that lasted a couple of days and made an impression on Kenny that has never worn off. The rancher spoke with a loud, booming voice and was given to repetition. As they rolled across the Texas prairies, he would turn suddenly to Kenny and shout:

"Son, I own five hundred head of cattle—five hundred, that is. I say, I own five hundred head of fine cattle."
Long after he had said good-bye to the repetitious rancher, Kenny found the Texan's words bouncing around in his brain. It was no time until he was entertaining friends with his impersonation of the rancher, who over the years came to be known as "The Senator". So the Senator, actually, is a Texan, although the Allen script would have you believe that Claghorn is too big for one state and represents the South in general.
Kenny practically grew up in a theatre and as a youngster attended the famous Professional Children's school that numbered such thespian prodigies as Milton Berle and Helen Chandler. As a boy Kenny appeared in D. W. Griffith thrillers filmed by Paramount at Astoria, L. I.
Kenny was forced to drop out of show business in his youth when a run-in with a thug left him with a broken jaw. He went into business with his step-father importing olives. But acting was in his blood and it cropped out at gatherings where he became the life of the party.
In 1935 Kenny broke into radio in New York portraying a twelve-year-old boy. For several years he played uncredited roles in radio on "The Shadow," on "Gangbusters," "March of Time," and other dramatic programs. But Kenny yearned for recognition. Three years ago he gave up his acting roles to become an announcer on the "Hit Parade." Here he was able to get his name mentioned over the air. Also he got his first chance at comedy when he was given the assignment of "warming up" the studio audience before going on the air.
Then he conceived the idea of getting on a show where he could be both announcer and actor. His chance came last summer on the Alan Young show. He announced the show and introduced the Senator as a character by name of "Counsellor Cartonbranch."
About that time, Fred Allen, who was preparing to return to the air after an absence of over a year, learned of Kenny's character through Minerva Pious who plays "Mrs. Nussbaum" on the Allen show. Allen immediately detected possibilities in the character and hired Kenny to announce the show and bring the Senator along as a tenant of Allen's alley.
Although the Senator's patented speech mannerisms originated with Kenny, it was Allen who gave him his fullblown personality as a professional Southerner. Allen also contributed the Allenesque sobriquet of "Claghorn."

Delmar's "Claghorn" is funny, but—like most radio funnymen—is funniest when mouthing the lines of his gag writer. In this case it happens to be the dean of radio gagsters, Comedian Allen himself.
Mrs. Delmar was never very fond of the Senator because she considered him much too noisy. In his day, Kenny broke several leases entertaining friends with his Claghorn impersonations. So when the Senator began paying off, Kenny bought a house on East Seventy-Fifth Street, Manhattan, and presented it to his wife—to atone for the noisy Senator. Noisy, that is.
Kenny, Jr., is quite proud of his busy father. But there is an ironic twist to it. He thinks that Daddy is the tobacco auctioneer on the "Hit Parade," which he announces. Whenever Young Kenny hears the auctioneer go into his chant, there is an immediate demonstration. "That's my Daddy! That's my Daddy!" he shouts for the benefit of all within earshot. To date, no one has been able to convince him otherwise. And the Senator leaves him cold.
Kenny feels there is no reason to get excited about Claghorn as long as neither wife nor son are impressed by the bombastic solon. But there are several millions of Claghorn-conscious radio fans who think that Kenny Delmar is a pretty terrific Southerner—from Boston, that is!

The Jaywalker Backgrounds

UPA’s The Jaywalker (released May 1956) reminds me of something from the National Film Board of Canada. The jazzy xylophone, the flat-voiced narration, the stylised drawings, and the wry little ending.

The cartoon is practically a public service announcement for pedestrian safety. Milton Muffet has some kind of inferiority complex/OCD which makes him jaywalk. It turns out at the end he’s narrating from the dead; evidently a car hit and killed him before the cartoon began.

UPA was quirky with its credits. Who was the background artist in this cartoon? Who’s to say? Jules Engel is credited with “Color” and T. Hee is credited with “Design.” So maybe they’re responsible. Here are some backgrounds.



Abstract shapes are used to symbolise lights on moving cars. There are some in one of the backgrounds, too.



Bobe Cannon directed this cartoon while Billy May provides a nice score.

Three-Headed Goose

Screwy Squirrel sprouted multiple heads in a fear take in Screwball Squirrel and Happy-Go-Nutty (1944). So why can’t Gandy Goose in Who’s Who in the Jungle (1945)? Consecutive drawings.



Screwy’s funnier. But you already knew that.

How To Treat A Guest Star

Television was new and scary for many of the big stars in Hollywood who weren’t contractually banned from the small screen. They were used to the comparatively leisurely pace that film work offered, but also concerned about the future of the studios with people simply staying home to watch entertainment. They didn’t want to make a false step.

The Jack Benny Program may have been the best outlet for them. For one thing, Jack made sure the guest stars got the laughs. For another, some had already been on his radio show, so they were familiar with how he worked. And for another, he had a big audience and large exposure didn’t hurt.

The Los Angeles Times talked to Jack about his use of guest stars in a story published Dec. 20, 1953. The article has an answer for something I wondered about. I’ve heard the radio show on October 10, 1948 where Jack announced at the end that the Colmans didn’t appear that night “due to unforseen commitments” but would be on in a couple of weeks. He never gave a reason on the air but this story explains it.

Benny and his writers used the Colmans so well. Even when they weren’t on, the script would refer to them and they’d still get laughs. Occasionally, the Colman’s butler Sherwood (usually played by Eric Snowden) would appear on the show, making it seem to the listeners that the Colmans were right there when, of course, they weren’t.

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall gave a very funny performance on Benny’s radio show. As for the television show mentioned in the article, not all the critics were kind. For one thing, the picture died on the coaxial cable so easterners only got sound. The West Coast edition of Variety opined “It was not one of Benny’s better shows.” Variety editor Abel Green and Jack Gould of the New York Times disliked the fact the show’s sketch portion featured Bogie plugging the sponsor’s product. Donald Kirkley of the Baltimore Sun was even more disdainful, sniffing “Mr. Bogart was so much dead wood, sullen, unfunny, and out of his element.”

Benny Demands Parts Fitted to Guest Stars
BY WALTER AMES
When Jack Benny first became a top figure in the entertainment field as a radio comic he established his own creed that could serve well as a pattern to other producers in the interest of better televiewing.
“Fit the star to the part, not the part to the star.”
That’s all it says. But its meaning is so powerful it has helped establish Jack as the man to be seen with on television these days.
Top Stars Appear
Among the top names in the entertainment industry who consented to appear before the video cameras first with the Waukegan comic are Claudette Colbert, Ben Hogan, Barbara Stanwyck, Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Stewart, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart and Isaac Stern.
There may be more but at lunch the other noon Benny managed to recall these as definite “firsts” on his TV shows during the last three years.
“I have to have an idea before I even think about trying to get a guest star for my show,” Benny began. “This way they are protected by a script and I’m protecting my own show at the same time.”
Wrong Way Around
“Most producers get into trouble by hiring name stars for shows and then finding they have no material with which to exploit their talents. It isn’t fair to the viewers and it certainly isn’t doing a performer’s career any good to have to stumble through a weak situation.
“Why one time I was offered Clark Gable free by his studio for a guest spot. The only requirement was that we plug his new picture. It was a great chance but I turned it down because I had no script ready that would put Gable at ease on the show. Imagine, me, tightwad Benny turning down Gable for free. People said I should have my head examined. Maybe I should have.
Bogart Much Sought
It is a well known fact around Hollywood that both Ed Sullivan and Milton Berle were hot on the trail of Bogart for his TV debut. He was a valuable piece of property and both Easterners had the bulging checkbooks out and in working order.
But Bogey decided he wanted to play it safe in television. He put all his eggs in one basket with Benny for his TV debut and the reviews more than justified his faith in the old maestro.
It has been the same situation with the other stars who chose the Benny routines for breaking into TV. All said they felt at ease with Jack and knew he would give them more than an even break in material.

In the early days of his radio career, Benny had his writers bring Rochester on for one broadcast. That was when Benny was moving his family and radio show to California. Rochester was supposed to be a Pullman porter on the train. It was the luckiest day of Rochester’s career because the public clamored for more and Benny solved the problem by hiring him as his valet.
A situation arose where an English-speaking couple could be used in the script. Benny asked Ronald Colman and his wife, Benita, if they would do the part.
Material Changed
“Ronnie had just come off a guest spot with adverse reports,” recalled Jack. “He did not want to do my show but I persuaded him to try it. I guess he has been one of my most faithful guesters ever since. He knows now that I’ll never call him unless the part is right for him.
Once he advertised the Colmans as his Sunday guests but at the Saturday rehearsals Jack had a feeling that something was wrong with the script. He couldn’t put his finger on the trouble and finally suggested that Ronnie and Benita take a raincheck. They agreed and that night an entire new story line was written without the Colemans. Jack finally solved the problem, corrected the trouble and two weeks later the Coleman’s [sic] were back on the show.
“My show is built around characters who have become so well established that the audiences look forward to hearing them again and again,” Jack pointed out.
“If they don’t show up on one show, people tune in again to hear them on the following show. But there’s always a familiar voice around to satisfy the audience while they’re waiting.”
Mary Severe Critic
Jack confided that he doesn’t expect his wife, Mary, to do very much more radio with him.

“She’s my greatest critic but she just doesn’t care about doing any acting,” he said. “If I want to know whether a show has been good or bad, I just have to talk to Mary for a few seconds. She puts me straight. She’s real tough and certainly knows all there is to know about show business.”
Just to prove that the Benny influence works both ways, guess who will be Bing Crosby’s guest when Crosby makes his first filmed solo appearance on television Jan. 3? None other than Jack himself. Crosby could have had his pick of guest performers but he came up with the old master. To borrow a phrase from a Crosby competitor, “Bing could be sure with Benny.”
Benny does his next television show next Sunday. He’ll feature his usual New Year’s Eve type show on KNXT (2) at 7 p.m. He’s also set to make an appearance at the Times’ National Sports Award Dinner Dec. 28 in the Cocoanut Grove. Who knows, maybe he’ll bring a real surprise guest with him.

Making Cartoons is Fun

1961 was the great boom-and-bust year for prime-time animated cartoons. The success of The Flintstones, which had debuted on ABC the previous year, had the networks playing copy-cat. CBS aired The Alvin Show, while ABC added Top Cat and Calvin and the Colonel to the line-up. All were brand-new. All became a night-time bust. As for NBC, it decided to repackage an old ABC non-prime time show with some new elements. So it was the network broadcast The Bullwinkle Show.

Bullwinkle’s slot wasn’t really prime-time, or at least certainly be considered that today. It was 7 p.m. on Sundays, opposite the second half of Maverick and the first half of Lassie. The people at Neilsen reported by season end that families preferred the real dog over the cartoon moose. It was their loss.

Keith Scott’s essential book The Moose That Roared chronicles how NBC simply couldn’t be bothered promoting the show. So producers Jay Ward and Bill Scott plugged it themselves, and probably more creatively than anyone at the network could. With Ward’s contention that television was “just one big hunk of blandness” (Variety, Aug. 2, 1961), they sent out comedy mailers and flyers under the irreverent “Operation Loudmouth,” unveiled a Bullwinkle statue on Sunset Boulevard with ridiculous pomp and hit the newspaper interview circuit.

Here’s a feature story from the King Features Syndicate’s TV Key service. The most interesting comment is at the end, where Scott decrees that Jay Ward Productions was keeping out of the animated commercial business. That didn’t last. In fact, their long campaign making Cap’n Crunch spots pretty much kept the company afloat.

Subliminal Show Moose Is Cartoon Star Now
By CHARLES WITBECK
Preceding the Walt Disney color show on Sunday nights at 7:00 p.m. in the fall over NBC will be a new color animated cartoon series, the Bullwinkle Show. Bullwinkle is a moose, a character from ABC's afternoon cartoon series, Rocky And his Friends, a flip and rather sophisticated show nobody saw except kids who apparently liked the animal characters very much.
Jay Ward and Bill Scott, producers of Rocky, called it their "subliminal show." It was on the air, but no one seemed to know about it. Rocky was just below the TV threshold of consciousness. A Des Moines TV reviewer caught the show once by accident at 5:30 p.m. and labelled it "a delightful surprise."
Scott and Ward can now put away the "subliminal" label, because grownups as well as kids will look in on Bullwinkle while waiting for the Disney hour, and the waiting will no doubt become a habit. The two young producers are confident. "We know we're funny," says Scott. "The problem has been to get air time when someone can see us."
The two men take the blame for not getting an animated cartoon show on TV earlier. "We didn't make a major sales effort," says Scott. "We didn't go around banging doors and pushing. We were too busy making shows. Suddenly we learned there is a tremendous difference between sales acceptance and public acceptance."
It appears sponsors and ad men still don't think too much about the sales power of animated cartoons. Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear helped break down their resistance. "It was a touchy area," said Scott. "No one in the agency world knew a good animated cartoon from a bad one. There was no reference point. Now they're getting educated."
The high cost of animated cartoons was another point. But Scott and Ward have figured out a way to get around that. They have a tie-up with a Mexican firm where costs are 25 per cent cheaper and most of their animation is done south of the border.
"They're turning out a show and a half a week. Our efficiency is up," says Scott. "There are only ten or twelve Americans in the whole operation down there."

The Bullwinkle characters will sound familiar because people like Edward Everett Horton, Hans Conried, radio Gunsmoke's Marshal Dillon (Bill Conrad) and Paul Frees do many of the voices.
"We go for actors," says Bill Scott, who is the voice of Dudley DoRight, the noble mounted policeman. "It's like picking out the fish for your guppy tank. What we look for is a community fish to join our group."
Like Rocky and His Friends, the Bullwinkle Show will use a narrator, so the stories and action can jump around easily. "If the narrator is up in the recording session, everything falls into place," says Ward. "If not, we have a hard night. If the actors are down, we just turn out the lights and go home."
Scott and Ward record at night so they can make use of busy actors. "We seem to use short ones," says Scott. "A magnificent golden backwash of people who can't do anything else because of their height." These are veteran radio actors, who wanted to be actors, but were too small. Radio was the only place where they could make a living.
"From 1947 to 1953, things were really tough on the radio voice people who were having trouble in their own industry and could no longer count on the movie cartoon business which went down the sink," says Scott. Residuals on commercials saved them, and now the voice people are in great demand, and reaping the dividends. People like Dawes Butler [sic], Paul Frees, Mel Blanc and June Foray find gold in their mailbox most mornings.
To Scott and Ward, the main fun is making cartoons. They bumbled along with people they liked, avoiding the commerce of commercials. "They're extremely lucrative," says Scott. "That's why we don't do them."
Scott used to write a few and that was enough for him. Now with a Sunday night time spot, both men can put their minds back on their animals. Sales resistance, imagery and other double talk can be a part of the past maybe.

A Contract With Warner Bros.

“And I am an actor!” proclaims Daffy Duck in Duck Soup to Nuts. Note the expression of thespian superiority.



“I have a contract with Warner Bros.,” he informs Porky Pig. And he whips it out. Note the position of the hands (well, if a duck had hands).



Boxoffice magazine reviewed the cartoon in its issue of May 27, 1944:

Amusing. Erratic Daffy Duck completely confuses Porky Pig when it appears that Daffy will decorate Porky’s table as the result of a duck hunt. Pleading for his life, Daffy exhibits his histrionic talents, but Porky is unimpressed. The story idea and the dialog are the high points in this reel, with modern slang bringing forth much laughter.

Any cartoon with an erratic Daffy Duck is a funny cartoon. Tedd Pierce was responsible for the story, with Dick Bickenbach getting the animation credit (Manny Perez, Gerry Chiniquy, Virgil Ross, Ken Champin and Jack Bradbury were also animating for Friz Freleng around this time).

Fish Fry Fun

Shamus Culhane didn’t worry too much about matching shots at times during his directorial stint at the Walter Lantz studio. Here are a couple of cases from Fish Fry, released in 1944 and nominated for an Oscar.

These are two consecutive frames. The action isn’t even close.



For some reason, Culhane decides to cut to a closer shot when the cat realises he’s about to club a bulldog. These consecutive frames look like they were done by two different animators. Darrell Calker’s soundtrack doesn’t emphasize the switch, the music just toodles along, which makes the change even more abrupt.



Emery Hawkins really does a great job in this cartoon. Here is his work (and his in-betweener, I imagine) earlier in the cartoon when the cat gets frustrated that he can’t trick Andy into giving him the goldfish. Lionel Stander does a terrific job voicing the cat.



Fish Fry lost to the Tom and Jerry cartoon Mouse Trouble. The other nominees: Swooner Crooner (Warners); How to Play Football (Disney); And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street (George Pal); Dog, Cat and Canary (Columbia) and My Boy Johnny (Terrytoons).

Daily Variety reported on December 8th, 1943 that Lantz had put the cartoon into production along with a Woody Woodpecker short called Snow Bird. My guess is it became Ski For Two.

She Always Knew It Was Comedy

Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In was pretty much an overnight success after NBC plopped it into its schedule on Monday, January 22, 1968. The show’s supporting cast was considered an overnight success, too, (“Yesterday, they were unknown,” read a Boston Globe story) but they had all paid their dues in show biz for a number of years.



Jo Anne Worley had been a regular on a few TV shows after starting out in a Billy Barnes revue in the late ‘50s. It played 48 weeks in Los Angeles before jaunting to New York. She was a player in Merv Griffin’s cast in one of his talk show efforts, got a part in Bill Dana’s ill-fated Las Vegas talk show on Ollie Treye’s “fourth network,” and had appeared on one of Joey Bishop’s sitcoms. Of course, none of them had the impact of Laugh-In.

The press had a few stories on Worley from before she hit it big; some were in the Indianapolis Star, as she was from Indiana. That’s where this first story comes from, in the issue of December 4, 1966.

LONG WAY FROM LOWELL
By FRED D. CAVENDISH
SINCE JO ANNE WORLEY packed her dreams and left Lowell, Ind., the town has never had it so good.
Miss Worley, through her zany, nostalgic comedy, has put Lowell on national television alongside Mount Idy and Waukegan, into night clubs from coast to coast and into the columns of major newspapers. Through it all, Lowell, as Jo Anne might wryly remark, has maintained its bucolic lackluster.
Not so Miss Worley. She has changed from the young woman who cried herself to sleep during her first two months of "show biz" into a confident, long-lashed bouffanted performer who out-brasses New Yorkers. She has changed from a girl as unknown as Lowell itself, to a Broadway personality, recognized on the street, met by fans in the dressing room and toasted as a member of Merv Griffin's TV family.
Hometown Recognition
Even the folks in Lowell (southern Lake County) are awakening to the harangue of Jo Anne's husky voice and are commenting by mail (some of which may find its way into Worley routines).
"I get back to Lowell seldom, usually only when I go coast to coast or when I work Chicago," says Jo Anne.
Her family still lives in Lowell. Otherwise, there's little reason to return.
Jo Anne never captured a part in a Lowell High School play, although she appeared in some all-school skits. Yet, ironically, Lowell High has presented a Jo Anne Worley drama award since 1964.
"I was thrown out of Glee Club for being too gleeful," Jo Anne recalls.
She was chosen Comedienne of her freshman class, but the honor went to others thereafter.
During her Lowell years, Jo Anne was quiet about show business dreams, alluding vaguely to nursing and teaching and other unflamboyant careers.
"I always knew," she says, "but in Lowell you don't say that. Even my folks didn't know. But I always knew it was comedy."
And so it is.
In the cast of the off-Broadway Mad Show, Jo Anne romps through charades on the human parade based on Mad Magazine, frantic enough to make Alfred E. Neumann himself ask: "Who, me?"
To audiences at Upstairs at the Duplex, a darkly painted club in Greenwich Village which she calls "this darling dark cradle," she offers samplings of her wit, complete with a foot-square cigarette lighter, a four-foot strand of red glass beads and a copy of the Lowell Tribune. She may tell them about her Lowell farmer boy friend, who picked her up in a McCormick Reaper, wore white overalls and was known as Lawrence of Lowell.
"The World's Greatest"
She tapes Merv Griffin shows before an audience which usually contains a delegation of her fan club, holding aloft signs proclaiming: "Jo Anne Worley, the world's greatest."
In her spare time, she auditions for Broadway plays: "It's a big battle," she quips. "I want to do the part they don't want me to do it ... "
She has cut two major records. One is the score of the Mad Show, and the other is Our Wedding Album, a satire of the recent Washington nuptials which brought dry comment from the White House.
She does TV commercials, most of which have appeared only in the New York area. For six months she was Carol Channing's stand-by for Hello, Dolly.
For change of pace, she takes routines as brassy as New York and as folksy as Lowell into Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Bermuda, and she has gone on the road in summer stock with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Moat Happy Fella, Wonderful Town, Naughty Marietta, and Mikado.
The Hometown Scene
Meanwhile, back in Lowell, her father, Joseph Worley, calmly continues painting houses, as he has for years. Her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Worley, who just celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary, probably are better known around town than Jo Anne. For years they operated the Little Store, a tiny candy shop a block from the grade school where kids came for penny treats.
"You know," Jo Anne recalls, "We used to get all the stale candy. To this day I can't stand those peanut butter sticks."
But there were better days 'ahead. Jo Anne worked at Roberts Cafe, a truck stop southwest of Lowell, and saved her money to try show business. When the time came, she entered summer stock because, although she was set on a stage career, she knew absolutely nothing about stage procedure.
A Frightening World
At Nyack, N.Y., she found the show business world so frightening she cried herself to sleep nightly for two months. But there she met a professor from Midwestern University, Wichita Falls, Tex., who offered her a drama scholarship.
After two years of study, she moved to the Pasadena Playhouse theater-school and eventually to Hollywood and the Jerry Lewis Comedy Workshop. "That was a big deal, because he was my idol," she says.
Although destined for comedy, Jo Anne's first stage role was in The Robe. Even more unexpectedly, she successfully auditioned for a singing role as a joke. Never having sung professionally (and without the training of the Lowell Glee Club) she landed the part of Ruth in Wonderful Town. After that came Katishaw, another singing part in Mikado. Then came a year of voice lessons.
Trouble In Gotham
Jo Anne hit New York in a Billy Barnes revue which bombed.
"On opening night in the summertime, the electricity failed," Jo Anne explains. "The circuits were out all over. We held the audience two hours and, of course, the air conditioning was out, too." The show ran a week.
With the National Touring Company of Carnival, Jo Anne replaced Kaye Ballard, who she resembles, in the role of Rosalie. After 1 1/2 years she returned to New York as Carol Channing’s stand-by.
As last Christmas approached, Larry Siegel and Stan Hart, both regular contributors to Mad Magazine, conceived and wrote a tour de farce based on the magazine, with the intention of playing it before college students home for the holidays.
A Long "Short Run"
"Most everybody took the parts because it would be a short run," says Jo Anne.
But as the Mad Show shaped up, backers decided to expand it and try for a regular run. The show opened last January, still is going strong and, according to one New York critic, the Mad Show could run forever."
The revue has bizarre chatter, unbelievable costumes and such catchy tunes as Eccch, and Hate Song. Jo Anne has the stage alone for the vocal, The Gift of Maggie, in which she finds that a zealous relative sent her as a Christmas gift a religious book cover with a sex novel inside.
The show warns you to Beware of Hoof and Mouth Disease, points out that J. Edgar Hoover Sleeps with a Night Light, and pleads to Stamp Out Bennett Cerf.
Lowell In The Spotlight
For her club appearances, Jo Anne writes her own equally wild material, often referring to Lowell: "I was the only person who ever left Lowell—voluntarily." She once hired a writer who, for $500, turned out only one line she used: "Lowell was very small and quiet. We were cut off by a snowstorm for a week—and nobody realized it."
"Now I write my own stuff," says Jo Anne. This includes song parodies and material for giving familiar tunes a twist. "Try to remember," she begins singing, and forgets all the words.
She may go on making Lowell famous, but it's doubtful the town ever will get her back.
"Show business is my life," she declares. "It gets to the point where you can't turn it off. It's impossible."


Worley had garnered enough attention in 1966 to be cast as the star of a TV pilot called Who’s On First about a lady baseball manager (it didn’t sell).

Laugh-In wore out its welcome after a couple of seasons but staggered on with new cast members and a war between Dan Rowan and executive producer George Schlatter (Schlatter lost). This Associated Press stories appeared in papers on May 17, 1970. Worley had decided to quit after three seasons.


Exit ‘Laugh-In,’ but Jo Anne Worley’s Still Laughing
By GENE HANDSAKER
Associated Press Writer
HOLLYWOOD (AP) - Jo Anne Worley, the big, boisterous, good-looking loudmouth on "Laugh-In," is the latest drop out from the Rowan & Martin television series.
Emulating Goldie Hawn, who won an Oscar for a supporting role in her first movie, "Cactus Flower," and England's Judy Carne, the sock-it-to-me girl who has returned to the stage, Miss Worley reasons: “The show has been so good to me and for me, that I’m now in a position to do other things.”
Her own TV series is being planned at Warner Bros. for next year, she'll guest star on Andy Williams’ shows and others, match wits regularly on “Hollywood Squares” and this fall appear with Woody Allen, Tom Smothers and Jonathan Winters on an NBC Saturday children’s series, “Hot Dog.”
For the month of July the singer-comedienne is booked at the Sands Hotel, Las Vegas. She has had movie offers "but so far nothing really yummy." She may make a return appearance or two on "Laugh-In" next season "like visiting the family."
Besides general clowning at full vocal throttle on "Laugh In", Miss Worley has been its specialist in “chicken jokes.” She thinks calling hogs, cows and chickens as an Indiana farm girl helped develop her powerful voice.
Besides—"When you're out on a farm you don't have neighbors, right? So when you're growing up your parents aren't always going ‘Sh! Sh! Quiet!’ You can go out and scream and holler and yell as much as you want to. And if you want to call somebody you really have to project. My whole family screams."

The middle of five children—her parents are now divorced and remarried—Jo Anne Worley ("rhymes with whirly") grew up on a farm near Lowell, Ind. She earned Christmas money by scavenging corn missed by the mechanical harvester, and selling the ears to a granary.
In high school she saved tips and pay earned as a truck stop waitress near her home to enroll, after graduation, at a summer theater in Nyack, N.Y. She'd seen the ad in Theater Arts Magazine in the school library.
"My father said, 'You're going to pay THEM?' I had no training but a lot of guts. I wanted to see what show business was. I was an apprentice, paid them for room and board. I swept, painted scenery, made props and played one of the men in 'Mr. Roberts' and one of the teachers in 'Picnic.'"
The experience brought her a drama scholarship to Midwestern University, Wichita Falls, Tex. Afterward came the Pasadena Playhouse, the Billy Barnes Revue, night clubs, TV guest spots and, three years ago, an audition for the then a-borning “Laugh-In.”
Jo Anne wasn’t always brash.
“As a little girl I was very introverted. I read a lot of books and things. But in adolescence I broke out. In high school I was voted the school comedienne. “I’d gotten my first laugh in the fifth grade in our two-room grade school. The teacher was calling down a boy, ‘Don’t you get smart.’ I said, ‘Isn’t that why we come to school—to get smart?’ That was the first time I felt the thrill of laughter.
The corn-fed girl grew into a big woman, now early-thirtyish, brunette, with dark chocolate eyes. "I'm 5-feet-8½, but with hair and heels a good 6 feet. I'm 135 pounds and 40-28-40. Big but well-proportioned."
Still unmarried, Miss Worley says: "I keep trying. I think it's the business I’m in, show business. I don't meet eligible men. They're either already married—somebody's already glommed 'em off—or they'd like to do my hair.
"The only eligible men left are divorced men, and they're usually burned and bitter."
“Then there are the divine sick-o’s. Egomaniacs, in show business, who can’t see anyone but themselves.”
She has a current steady date, “a divine gentleman,” actor and composer Roger Perry, but she says there are no immediate prospects of marriage.
She enjoys cooking—"being from a farm, very basic things like bread, cookies, pies, meat and potatoes. And fudge. We made fudge every day."
And buying clothes. "Bargains that I love. Things I enjoy wearing, that turn me on."
She thinks her progress in show business since leaving the farm is partly from not telling, her friends then that she wanted to be a star.
"If you vocalize you let it go the energy that is needed to do something. If you hang in there for a while you're bound to have some ability. You learn your craft."
Back in Lowell High School she was “thrown out of the glee club for being too gleeful. I was always cutting up.”
Now, she is pleased to reflect, there is the Jo Anne Worley Drama Award, given regularly at Lowell High.


Worley appeared periodically on TV after jumping off the sinking S.S. Laugh-In but found herself performing more and more in front of live audiences on the musical stage. She was still performing about a year ago and spending time helping animals in distress. Laugh-In was a lesser show after she left and television is lesser, too, without her on it.

Milking the Milk Bottle Gag

Tex Avery made a few “don’t-make-noise” cartoons but Deputy Droopy was a little different than the rest because he had two guys trying to avoid being loud, so he could milk his gags longer. One guy is the centre of the gag, then the next guy follows.

You know how this works. The sheriff is having a nap in his office. The bad guys want to rob his safe. Droopy tries to get the bad guys to make noise to wake him. In this sequence, Droopy places a lobster (convenient, isn’t it) on the chair of one of the bad guys. The other bad guy captures the noise in a milk bottle and lets it loose on a nearby knoll.



Gag’s not done, son. The second bad guy shows up to milk it.



Walt Clinton from Avery’s unit animated this, along with the Hanna-Barbera unit (Ed Barge, Ray Patterson, Ken Muse and Lew Marshall). No doubt this was the result of Avery’s unit being laid off in March 1953. Tex stayed behind for a bit to finish up what cartoons he had in production.