Casper the Grouchy Caveman

Chuck Jones was hopelessly enamoured with cuteness in his early cartoons, so it’s somewhat startling to find him not only trying for comedy in one of them, but a Tex Avery-style take as well.



As much as the drawing style may look like something from a late ‘30s Fleischer cartoon, this is actually from ‘Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur’ (1939). This animation credit is given to Ace Gamer, but Jones had stalwarts like Ken Harris and Phil Monroe already in his unit at the time.

Ace was born Adolph Charles Gamer on May 13, 1897 in Chicago. He got his nickname because he was a World War One flyer, arriving home from overseas in 1919. He was living in St. Louis in 1930 and six years later was employed in Los Angeles at Leon Schlesinger Productions. Ace eventually became head of the special effects department but left the studio by 1949 to open Animated Video Films, Inc. with Dick Huemer. In the mid-‘40s, he was president of the Screen Animators Guild. Ace died on June 9, 1964 in Los Angeles.

The voice of Casper Caveman belongs to Jack Lescoulie doing what was supposed to pass for a Jack Benny impression of the day. Lescoulie was in demand for it. He was hired to do Benny on Joe Penner’s show in November 1937, Eddie Cantor’s the following month, and even showed up on Benny’s own show to play him in a ‘tenth anniversary in radio’ sketch on May 11, 1941. He later appeared as a cartoon Benny stand-in in ‘Malibu Beach Party’ (1940) and ‘It Happened to Crusoe’ (Columbia, 1941).

Lescoulie is probably best known for being the original stooge on ‘The Today Show’ and as Jackie Gleason’s announcer before Johnny Olson. His New York Times obit doesn’t mention impressions, cartoons, or his early radio career, which has several connections to this cartoon.

John Pierre Lescoulie was named for his grandfather, a Frenchman who settled in California. His parents, John Marie Lescoulie and Daisy Alice (Teazle) Lescoulie were married January 17, 1912. Time was of the essence as Jack was born May 17. The family had artistic talent. After arriving in Los Angeles, Jack’s father was a carpenter for one of the movie studios, his sister was a dance teacher and his brother was a musician. Jack became an announcer at KFWB, the Warner Bros. radio station on the same lot as a certain cartoon studio. An unbylined United Press story datelined Hollywood, July 8, 1939 talks about Lescoulie’s big break. After talking about two other talents to watch for in Hollywood, namely George Parrish and Keye Luke, it says:

Finally we have 27-year-old Lescoulie, who earned $30 a week three years ago as an early-up radio announcer.
One morning Lescoulie got tired of his fake cheer. He said he felt lousy and that he’d play their records for ‘em and even give the folks time signals, but he wasn’t going to be in a good humor. He was on the verge of getting fired, when the letters began to come in by the hundreds, from radio fans who said they surely did appreciate an announcer who was human enough to be grouchy on the morning after the night before.
So that started the grouch club, a radio favorite, now running coast-to-coast under auspices of Lescoulie and his writing partner, 24-year-old Nat Hiken. The radio listeners liked the grouches so much and sent them so much mail detailing their own grouchers, that the partners began making movies on the subject for Warner Brothers.
They've made five, so far, in the Warner Brooklyn studios and have signed contracts for the production here of 13 more two-reelers about the things that make people grouchy.

‘The Grouch Club’ started as a local show on KFWB, then a regional one, and became a network offering April 16, 1939, as a lead-in to (surprise) Jack Benny. It expanded beyond Lescoulie griping. Cast members were added, including Arthur Q. Bryan, Phil Kramer and Walter Tetley, all of whom lent their voices to animated cartoons. Bryan became the voice of Elmer Fudd and Kramer appeared on ‘Hamateur Night’ (1939). It’s not inconceivable that the Warners cartoon writers were fans of ‘The Grouch Club’ and thought a cranky Jack Benny would make a funny idea for a cartoon. Lescoulie was cranky, Lescoulie played Benny and Lescoulie worked not far down the lot. It’s quite possible that was the spark behind this cartoon and Lescoulie’s hiring.

Casper Caveman never appeared in another cartoon but Lescoulie and Hiken (Fred Allen radio show, ‘Bilko’) both went on to bigger things. Jack Lescoulie died July 22, 1987.

The Man Who Thought He Made Jack Benny

Put Larry Olivier or Maurice Evans on stage doing Shakespeare and you’ll have a happy audience. Put me on stage doing it and you’ll have an empty theatre before Act One is over. That’s because as much as words are important, they mean nothing unless the person performing them connects with the audience.

There once was a chap named Harry Wagner Conn who seemed to feel the performers were interchangeable, that anyone could get a laugh with the right words. His words. He set out to prove it, and ended up proving otherwise.

Harry Conn was a former vaudevillian who got into the writing game in the late ‘20s, penning short films and stage plays. Then he hooked up with Jack Benny and began writing his radio show. By November 3, 1935, Conn had written 196 Benny shows and was reportedly making $1,000 a week. But Conn became unhappy in April 1936. Jack was writing his own shows because Conn was, as he told his audience, “ill.” In May, Conn signed a contract to write for Jack Oakie, claiming his time with Benny was “too long for a gag writer.”

But there was something else in Conn’s mind, too. Jack had paid Conn well, even gave him credit on some broadcasts, something no other writer got. As a result, newspapers wrote about him. And Harry Conn started believing the columnists who, basically, said he was the man responsible for Jack Benny being Number One, that it was all in his scripts. So Conn convinced CBS to give him his own show. He’d get all the laughs. He’d show the world.

This column from the NEA syndicate sums it up.

You'll Laugh at Dialects, Hotel Scenes And Class Room Gags, Says Harry Conn
THOSE ARE SURE-FIRE GIGGLE GETTERS, ACCORDING TO FAMED QUIPSTER WHO HAS BECOME HIS OWN GAG MAN ON AIR
By NORMAN SIEGEL
NEW YORK, Dec. 25 [1937]—For years Harry Conn has been the “Cyrano de Bergerac” of radio. Many of the airwave’s brightest personalities wooed fame and fortune with his words.
Jack Benny, Joe Penner and Walter O’Keefe got laughs with Conn’s quips. When Gary Cooper and Mae West made vaudeville appearances, they spoke what Conn wrote for them. As a script writer, Conn was tops. Now he has decided to talk for himself on the new Columbia variety program known as “Earaches of 1938.” Instead of appearing by proxy on this show, Conn steps out in front of the microphones to speak his own gags.
We found him backstage after one of his first broadcasts—a small, businessman-type in his early forties, calmly puffing on one of those large aromatic cigars that have become one of the hallmarks of the radio comedian. Although the role of broadcaster was a comparatively new one to him, he wasn’t a bit nervous, as his background includes ten years before the footlights as a hoofer and a number of A.E.F. performances in France.
Just Tired of Silence.
What we wanted to know was why Conn, after having written the Jack Benny scripts for five years should want to give up a distinguished writing career for a new one which is already crowded and extremely hazardous.
“I was tired of leading a behind-the-microphone existence,” he said. “I got lonely back there without a gag to call my own. So I decided eliminate the middleman, come out in front, and be my own comedian.”
Harry is responsible for many of the devices of modern radio comedy, especially the “group” technique, which enlists the entire cast for comic spots. He believes that it is a lot easier for five or six people to be funny than just one or two. So he makes comedians out of singers, announcers and orchestra leaders. This theory is practiced on his new program, in which he even makes a comic out of the script writer—himself.
Three Sure-Fire Laughs.
He contends that a gag writer has three sure-fire laugh-getters, all of which he’ll use on the new program. One of the best of these old standbys is the dialect actor.
“You can always get a laugh with dialect,” Conn said. “In fact, you can get a double laugh, one for what the dialectician says and one for the way he says it. Dialects are a typically American form of humor, because we are one of the few people on earth who not only tolerate the mutilation of our language, but love it.
“Another laugh standby is the hotel scene. The discomforts of small hotels are always good for laughs and all the numerous complaints, funny guests, bell boys knocking on the doors, elevators breaking down and you have one of the richest settings for humor.
“Then there’s the third old-faithful: the classroom scene where the children give gag answers to the teacher’s questions. This is the best sort of stooge scene possible, since the teacher is the most logical stooge in the world.”

“Earaches of 1938” featured vocalists Beatrice Kay and Barry Wood, and comedians Charlie Cantor (who later became Finnegan on ‘Duffy’s Tavern) and Mary Kelly, the ex girl-friend of one Jack Benny. The orchestra was conducted by Mark Warnow (Raymond Scott’s brother) and the announcer was 22-year-old Bert Parks. Conn played himself as the ill-fated producer of a musical comedy show and featured the backstage life of his company played by his supporting cast. Conn was ill-fated in more ways than one. And he didn’t realise the irony in the title he picked. It seems to describe how listeners, what few there were, felt about the programme. It debuted Sunday, November 28, 1937 at 8:30 p.m., opposite (on the East Coast) the second half of ‘The Chase and Sanborn Hour’ with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy and a symphony recital on the two NBC networks. “Earaches” struggled on with its outdated sure-fire giggle getters for 13 weeks until it was replaced on February 27 by ‘The Lyn Murray Musical Gazette’ with absolutely no fanfare.

Even though Conn left the Benny show, Jack was still paying him because he “occasionally uses—sometimes in revised form—some of the material written by Conn several seasons ago.” The Berkeley Daily Gazette of September 21, 1937 also revealed Conn owned the character of Schlepperman, so Jack had to pay Conn to use it. That still didn’t satisfy Conn, who sued Jack in August 1939 for $65,500 for continued use of his characters and situations (it was settled out of court).

Jack simply hired new writers, created a string of new personalities (Rochester, Dennis Day, the Sheldon Leonard tout, Frank Nelson’s “yes” floorwalker, etc.), new running gags (“Anaheim, Azusa and Cuc......a monga!” the Maxwell sounds from Mel Blanc, etc.) and carried on to continued fame in radio and then television. He didn’t miss Harry W. Conn in the slightest. As for Conn, his high-priced radio and movie-writing contracts fizzled and columnist Dorothy Kilgallen found him in late 1958, working at the door of a Broadway theatre, dreaming of a comeback and perhaps realising that words alone don’t make the performance.

Steak?

A great example of Tex Avery’s humour can be found in the climax of the plot of ‘Out-Foxed’ (released November 5, 1949) The antagonist in the cartoon is an English fox with a Ronald Colman voice who is completely cool and calm. Until Droopy mentions the word “steak.” Then the fox instantly, and unexpectedly, goes nuts in several static drawings over the sound of a siren before suddenly resuming his casual attitude.




The credited animators in this cartoon are Walt Clinton, Grant Simmons, Bobe Cannon and Mike Lah, a quartet credited on several cartoons released in 1949. Had Preston Blair left the studio?

The fox’s voice is provided by Daws Butler in his first MGM cartoon work. He used the Colman voice in ‘Little Rural Riding Hood’, which was released before this cartoon but put into production later.

Remember Andy Rooney

Who once said “There is no virgin land in California. It has all been slept on.”? Or “There is plenty of water in California, it’s just not where people want it.”?

If you said Harry Reasoner, you’d be right (and you’d have peeked at the internet to find out). But Reasoner didn’t write those words. Andy Rooney did, on ABC in 1971 during an era when all the networks were suddenly imbued with the idea of broadcasting whimsical documentaries.

Andy Rooney was television’s on-camera grump for so long, there’s at least one generation that can’t conceive of him as anything else. But his career went through several distinct phases. He was the humour writer for the Colgate University newspaper. Then the War got in the way and Rooney found himself overseas as both a sports and combat reporter for the daily Stars and Stripes. After the war, someone in Hollywood thought the story of the newspaper itself would make a good movie, and Rooney was hired to write the screenplay. Television came along and Rooney found himself writing for Arthur Godfrey and Garry Moore. In the ‘60s, he teamed up with CBS’s Harry Reasoner for a number of documentaries (and won an Emmy in 1968 for ‘Of Black America’) and the two of them remained paired up when the network debuted ’60 Minutes,’ with Rooney still behind the scenes. His countenance showed up in living rooms thanks to PBS on an early ‘70s show called ‘The Great American Dream Machine’ (evidently, his contract permitted him to work on non-commercial television).

Despite all this, 40 years ago, he was still considered an unknown. And United Press International’s television writer decided to do something about it in a column on April 25, 1972. Reasoner had jumped to ABC by then and took his writer with him.

By RICK DU BROW
HOLLYWOOD (UPI)—There are several words I’d like to say to you today, and they are: Andrew Rooney. Let me repeat that: Andrew Rooney.
You see, it’s like this: Mr. Andrew A. Rooney for years has been writing some of the wittiest, most delightful television essays around. Monday night, for instance, he produced and wrote a charming ABC-TV half-hour called “An Essay on Churches.”
But do you think that most viewers of the show are going to go out today and say, “Did you see Andy Rooney’s program on television?”
No—what they will say, if they say anything of the kind, is: “Did you see Harry Reasoner’s show about churches?”
Well, that’s the way it is for most writers in movies and television. You write the words, but everybody remembers the star if the show is good. If it isn’t, of course, you can always blame it on the writer.
Anyway, the show Monday night was good, and I think we can thank both the writer and the star, for by this time they have become one of video’s established standards of excellence, a happy blend of teamwork.
As I recall, they have done television essays on subjects ranging from doors to women (there’s a connection there somewhere), and Monday night’s half-hour was about church architecture, not religion.
Mr. Reasoner is surely one of the most popular television newsmen around, and one of my favorites, too, because of his perspective that leads to droll commentaries that are pungent because of their careful understatement.
This quality of drollness matches perfectly with Mr. Rooney’s writing, and the delivery to the audience goes down as smooth as a good Mexican beer.
“An Essay on Churches” looked at some beautiful structures and some awful ones, and, with sophistication, commented briefly on related matters such as public attendance (diminishing) and abandoned edifices.
It didn't go very deeply into matters like church tax exemption, which was handled a while back in an hour CBS-TV documentary, and even better in a book, “The Religion Business,” by my old college pal, Al Balk.
But “An Essay on Churches” was not in this very serious vein. Rather, it held quite nicely to the style we have come to expect from the Rooney-Reasoner tandem. The tipoff was when we heard the opening music: “Winchester Cathedral.” It was an inspired mood-setter.
Rooney’s words were also on target, as usual. Referring to the simple New England churches, he observed that their builders seemed less frantic to impress God than did those who constructed more ornate houses of worship. Of the New England churches, he also noted:
“There is a becoming sincerity to their simplicity, and you can’t help thinking that a down-to-earth God might prefer one of these to some of the stone monuments created in his honor elsewhere.”
Among other Rooney-Reasoner observations during the program was this: “In Peabody, Mass., a Carmelite order rented space for a chapel in a shopping center. The faithful can now add prayer to their grocery list. The operation was so successful that the monks have opened a branch in Paramus, N.J.”
Anyway, let’s remember the name Andrew Rooney. Harry Reasoner doesn’t need the publicity.

Du Brow uses the term “Rooney-Reasoner.” He wasn’t the only one. It appears CBS did so in what we can only imagine was an endless stream of publicity releases which inspired the muse of colleague Charles Kuralt, who penned this marvelous piece of verse published in a 1967 TV column:

The world runs, I admit, on Socony-Mobil gas
And Chase-Manhattan money, and Anchor-Hocking glass;
Wears a Franklin-Simon dress and a Cluett-Peabody shirt
And peruses Krafft-Ebbing when life begins to hurt.
And Rooney-Reasoner shows are fine, and Reasoner-Rooney wit,
And the kind of looney reason behind each Rooney-Reasoner hit.
But in the name of all that’s holy, I am warning you —
Something there is that doesn’t love a Reasoner-Rooney view.

Half of us were nurtured in a Sears-Roebuck crib.
And grew up devoted readers of the old Herald-Trib.
We followed Merrill-Lynch through all its downs and ups.
And drank our Coca-Cola from Lily-Tulip cups.
And painted our houses with Sherwin-Williams paints.
And made of Huntley-Brinkley communications saints.
And went to Baldwin-Wallace and Hardin-Simmons U. . . .
But we never thought we’d live to see a Reasoner-Rooney view.

We used Sperry-Rand machines and followed Harvard-Yale athletics.
And kept ourselves smelling good with Chesebrough-Pond cosmetics.
And voted for Johnson-Humphrey, and never quite got sated
Of a world so di-vi-ded, so over-hyphenated.
But bear in mind the fate of the Aero-Willys Motor Car,
Your present hyphenation really goes too far.
Collaborate blithely on, my friends, but let me tell you true—
The world will never-never buy a Reasoner-Rooney view.

Andy Rooney died last night at age 92. Were he still with us, he would no doubt be complaining Kuralt’s articulate humour is nowhere to be found on television today. And he’d know the reason why. Right below his obituary on my news feed is something deemed by news agencies to be a story—a girlish-looking boy denying he got a not-quite-as-girlish-looking woman pregnant. No doubt Rooney would be complaining about the news feed, too. And he’d have a point. Like he always did.

Forgotten Animator Carl Lederer

There was commercial television before Ed Sullivan and Milton Berle debuted on it in 1948, radio networks were regularly operating before NBC started in 1927 and there were animated cartoons in theatres before Felix the Cat became popular in the early ‘20s. In all cases, little is known about the pioneering eras and many people involved in them are long forgotten because of the overshadowing events that came later.

I know next to nothing about animation in the 1910s so every little discovery is something new. Newspapers of the era around World War One speak mostly of Bray Pictographs or Mutt and Jeff but there were other cartoons that only few today must know about.

You see an ad for one of them to the right. It is from 1915 and the cartoon is ‘Bunny in Bunnyland.’ What’s baffling is in my limited research, the only reference I can find is to a touring stage show with that name by early screen comedian John Bunny. In ‘Personality Comedians as Genre’, author Wes D. Gehring explains:

Bunny in Funnyland was a compendium of the comedian’s entertainment career. Supported by a cast of 50, from midgets to a chorus of beautiful girls, Bunny was always a prominent feature in this sprawling three-hour musical comedy. It showcased a singing and dancing Bunny little known to his film fans. A key segment of Funnyland was a minstrel show that critics said showed “the strength of the entire company.”

The tour ended when the precarious state of Bunny’s kidneys killed him but the cartoon lived on after him. It was copyright on May 1, 1915 by Carl Lederer and released through Vitagraph, which also released Bunny’s comedy shorts. One review called the cartoon “a side-splitting concocton [sic] of fun and imaginary doings of the well known and celebrated apostle of mirth.”

So just who was Carl Francis Lederer? The same review above calls him a “noted cartoonist.” Web pages keep regurgitating (word for word) the same two pieces of information about him: he worked at the Raoul Barré studio and got into a copyright flap with J.R. Bray; in fact, he seems to have been more interested in the technical side of animation than drawing. He copyrighted only a handful of cartoons. The others were ‘When They Were Twenty-One’ (Vitagraph, May 27, 1915), ‘Ping Pong Woo’ (Lubin, June 26, 1915) and ‘Wandering Bill’ (Lubin, Sept. 7, 1915).

Census records show he was born in April 1893 to Ludwig and Mary F. Lederer, who settled in Rochester, New York after arriving from Germany in 1886. Internet sources that claim he was born in 1894 and died in 1980 have a different Carl Lederer who was born in Slovakia. He married Frances Sullivan in December 1916. The late Dick Huemer worked with him at the Barré studio and suggests he died young:

Carl Lederer also had the dream of making a serious, well-drawn semi-feature cartoon about Cinderella. I can still picture this nice-looking earnest young artist hunched over his animation board, plugging away, eternally puffing on an old pipe, never skylarking or kidding around the way the rest of us did. But pneumonia cut short his dreams of something a little better in the animation game.

Huemer also mentions Lederer managed to simulate a multi-plane effect in films with backgrounds moving at different speeds; you see a similar depth effect in some of Tex Avery’s Warner cartoons where something in the foreground moves at a different speed than the panned background. Lederer applied for the patent in 1918 and it was granted three years later. You can read the patent application (which always makes for an entertaining afternoon) here.

Much is forgotten about the pioneers of television, radio and motion pictures but we can remember a little bit about one of them in this post.

Mr Allen and Mr Television

Fred Allen never had a very high opinion of several things—network executives, game shows and television. Allen’s best known observation about TV, and I’m paraphrasing, is that “television is called a medium because it’s never well done, or rarely is.”

Allen explained why he felt that way in the July 4, 1949 edition of Life Magazine (click on the link to read it). Certainly TV was in a nascent stage then, but his complaints aren’t much different than criticism of it today. Television, like radio, was too banal for Allen who felt it couldn’t be otherwise because of the huge amount of fresh material the networks needed every week. One doesn’t need to guess hard at what Allen would have thought of today’s “reality” programming.

Humour unfortunately degraded to bitterness, it seems, in some of Allen’s commentary. And it certainly did in this article. While everyone on network radio used to take swipes at Milton Berle’s theft of material, they were of the gentle kind, where even Uncle Milty could laugh along (and enjoy the attention showered on him). But Allen wasn’t kidding in Life. “Look at Milton Berle,” he said. “He’s already scraping the bottom of the barrel. He’s using up those old routines he stole from Ed Wynn and Olsen and Johnson.”

You don’t have to guess hard about what Berle thought about Allen’s interview. He talked to the Associated Press about it only days later.

By BOB THOMAS
AP Movies Writer
HOLLYWOOD, July 8.—Here’s Milton Berle’s answer to an attack by Fred Allen:
“Allen still has the first penny ever thrown at him.”
“Mr. Television” was ired by the Boston comic’s words in Life magazine. Allen remarked “Berle is something America has to go through.”
Commenting on Berle’s top TV rating, Allen added: “You can go so long when you get your laughs by running out in front of an audience wearing a pair of lady’s drawers.”
BERLE ADDED another quip: “Allen has money with Julius Caesar’s face printed on it.” More seriously, he replied:
“Mr. Allen is a very wealthy and successful comedian. I think he makes himself look bad by knocking another member of the profession. What is he trying to prove?”
Berle has been attacked by other comedians, including Ed Wynn, who claimed Berle stole his life’s work.
“That’s very interesting,” said Berle. “Last year Ed followed me at the Carnival Night Club in New York after I had played 46 weeks there (at about $10,000 a week). I was there every night and went backstage to help Ed in any way I could.
“Now he says I stole his material. I ask you—do I work like Wynn?”
ALL THE ATTACKS stem from jealousy, he declared.
“Anyone who gets on top becomes a target, whether it be FDR or Sinatra. You should have heard the things they said about Bob Hope when he first came out here.
“And Joe DiMaggio. He was a bum when he was hurt. Then he goes back and slugs four homers in three games—so he’s a hero again. Was he any different before?”
I told the comic about visiting Bob Hope’s new office and seeing the vault where the Hope gags are filed. “Let Berle try to get in here,” Hope remarked.
“I’ll bet I got a bigger gag file than Hope,” Berle answered.
“Back in New York I’ve 850,000 gags indexed and cross-indexed.”
I suggested Berle would be getting more competition in the Video field, from Jack Benny and others planning to get into it.
“Jack tells me he isn’t going to start it yet,” he answered. “But we would welcome the competition. Television needs more competition.”
Asked for any advice to his colleagues, he replied: “Television takes brains, brawn and a background of having flopped in Steubenville. It’s like putting on Broadway show every week—without a try-out in New Haven.”
BERLE REPORTS BACK to his TV show Sept. 20 and his radio program Sept. 23. Although he says he should be taking a rest from the 78-show yearly grind, he is making a movie here.
“It’s called “Always Leave Them Laughing,” and that’s what he did. A studio messenger reported with new pages of script and asked, “Are you Milton Berle?”
“If I’m not, I’ve sure been having a lot of fun with his wife,” was the answer.

It’s somewhat ironic Berle talks about Jack Benny, because Benny proves Allen’s point. Audiences tired of Berle’s antics after only a few years and the King of Television was reduced to hosting ‘Jackpot Bowling.’ Benny, meanwhile, carried on entertaining audiences on their screens with a modified version of his well-honed radio show into the mid 1960s.

Berle doesn’t seem to grasp that Allen’s criticism wasn’t due to envy. Allen had no reason to be envious of Milton Berle. Allen was commenting on the quality of Berle’s material, and Allen obviously wasn’t envious of that, either.

But Allen misses a point as well. What’s really wrong with old Olsen and Johnson routines? If they’re entertaining someone, isn’t that good enough? And if that’s true, can’t the same argument be made for television programming today, no matter how egregiously inane it might be?

Eat My Bees

Tom screams in pain when Jerry directs a swarm of bees into the cat’s mouth via a hollow reed in the climax gag of ‘Tee For Two’ (1945). Thought you could escape violence by hiding in a lake, eh, Tom? Not in a Hanna and Barbera cartoon.



This is one of three cycle drawings on ones. Tom’s disclosure is set up really well by Scott Bradley’s tympani roll.

The credited animators are Ray Patterson, Ken Muse, Irv Spence and Pete (né Wilson David) Burness. This was the last time Burness’ name appeared on an MGM cartoon; he moved to the John Sutherland studio. Replacing him from the disbanded George Gordon crew was Ed Barge, giving the unit its best-known configuration.

Anyone have an idea what the theme is over the opening titles? Or who supplied the muted background colours?

Edward Selzer

What was Warner Bros. cartoon producer Eddie Selzer really like? Well, just about every cartoon fan has heard the stories from his former directors—he reportedly didn’t want cartoons pairing Tweety with Sylvester (more on that in a moment), or with Tazmanian Devils, or bulls fighting Bugs Bunny or camels jockeyed by Yosemite Sam.

But it appears Selzer had some successful directing experience himself, albeit limited. It’s revealed in this amusing wire service column of June 8, 1942.

Around Hollywood
By ERNEST FOSTER
United Press Staff Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD —Edmund Goulding, the movie director, admits he doesn’t think much of Edmund Goulding, the movie actor.
Goulding, the actor, had just ruined a simple scene three times by missing his timing and forgetting his dialog lines.
“If I could just show him how it is done, like I do Charles Boyer, Joan Fontaine and my other players,” complained Goulding, the director, “he might snap out of it and do all right.”
But despite director Goulding’s best efforts, actor Goulding just didn’t get it. He went right back to blowing his lines once he got within staring distance of the camera lens.
In a Trailer Film
Goulding, the director, and Goulding, the actor, were having their bout on a Warner Bros.
sound stage. They wore one suit of clothes, one makeup and looked like the same individual. They were, however, two separate personalities.
Confusing as all this sounds, it was simple compared with the way the man in the neatly pressed blue serge suit and the camera makeup felt. The director had been called back from a Palm Springs vacation to act in a special trailer for his new picture, “The Constant Nymph.”
For the first time in his career Goulding found himself before the camera, taking direction, instead of behind the camera giving it. Edward Selzer, head of the studio trailer department, was giving the directions, but they didn’t get results.
Finally Goulding figured it out.
Learns His Lesson
“If I can get rid of this guy Goulding, the director, I’ll be all right,” he told Selzer. “I’ve been trying to watch my timing and listen to my lines as though I were guiding someone else. From now on I’m in your hands.”
Then Goulding the actor breezed through the scene with assurance. Two takes, two okays, a couple of closeups, and the crew was ready for another setup.
“Goulding,” said Goulding, “let that be a lesson. If you’re directing, you don’t want Goulding in one of your pictures. If you’re acting, you don’t want Goulding as your director.”

Not a lot seems to be out there about Eddie. As a young man, he was an amateur boxer—New York State champ in the 108-pound class in 1915. The following March, he was a sports writer for Associated Newspapers out of New York City. By 1932, he was working for Warner Bros. in their Flatbush studio, became the head of Warners studio publicity on the West Coast the following year, then was made general assistant to Bryan Foy at the same studio in 1937. Eventually, he was promoted to head of the trailer department, then installed as a cartoon producer when Leon Schlesinger sold his studio to Warners in July 1944. Daily Variety announced his retirement on March 1, 1958 after 28 years with the company. While Selzer’s directors told stories that summed up their opinion of his personality, perhaps we should let Eddie speak for himself.

Despite being the head of the cartoon division, Selzer was never credited on a single cartoon. The honour went to Warner Bros. itself. But Selzer picked up all four Oscars the studio won while he was in charge, including the first one for ‘Tweety Pie,’ featuring the first pairing of Sylvester and Tweety—something that Selzer actually forbade until director Friz Freleng walked out on him and the producer had to renege the next day. Deep within an Associated Press story on the Oscar ceremony (I have not found a byline) of March 22, 1948, is Selzer’s reaction to his studio’s first Academy Award. His boys beat Disney and beat MGM with their bigger budgets. What did he think?

A small party followed at the home of Edward Selzer, who produced the winning cartoon, “Tweetie Pie.” He said, “I’m afraid my family was more excited about it than I was.”

Selzer began a family in New York City in May 1928 when his wife Laura gave birth to daughter Phyllis. In fact, it’s on the subject of marriage that I’m been able to find Eddie the most loquacious. This is from a column in the women’s page of Hamilton Daily News of Hamilton, Ohio, December 9, 1925.

We Women
By BETTY BRAINERD
Edward Selzer is an energetic young newspaper man of my acquaintance. Before he entered the newspaper field he was a good boxer, so good that he was ameteur [sic] champion of his class in New York state. He has the quality which most newspaper men lack, that is sound business sense. This quality makes him the sort of man who should be the head of a family and for a long time I have been curious as to why he is not married. I finally persuaded him to tell me.
“Why I’m not married?
“Well I guess it is because I think so much of my mother. My dad died when I was twelve years old, leaving my mother with nothing but three young healthy sons. She refused repeated offers to marry again, not wishing to give her children a stepfather. She worked hard to give us a good education. The sacrifices she made for us has made my affection for her so great that it doesn’t seem possible for any girl to make an impression upon me.
“Of course I like girls and have been very fond of your sex. But somehow or other none of them have been able to come up to my ideal of a wife. No doubt they suffer from comparison with my mother. And to be honest with you, for what I am and what I have I expect too much.
“My mother wants me to marry. But was there ever a mother who didn’t think her son too good for any girl?
“I have numerous friends who are happily married and some others who are not, but there isn’t one of them who hasn’t envied me my single bliss. If I want to go anywhere I can do it and there is and one to say me nay. A mother doesn’t mind staying home. In fact it is difficult for her to get out. When you are married, things are different.
“Perhaps I’m a moral coward.”
Marriage seems so sacred to me. The best wouldn’t be good enough for any girl I thought enough of to marry. Yet the thought of marrying a girl and then finding out we were not gaited the game way makes me afraid to take the plunge.
“Consequently I have refused to permit myself to fall in love.”

And, evidently, he could have added “with cartoons” at the end of the last sentence.

Your Mother Rides a Vacuum Cleaner

Witches are supposed to be scary. But Witch Hazel at Warner Bros. isn’t, despite her evil intention to turn Hansel and Gretel into waif waffles in ‘Bewitched Bunny.’ She talks to the audience, she cracks up at her own jokes like Phyllis Diller (the similarity doesn’t end there) and—my favourite thing when I was a kid—she leaves bobby pins in the air when she zips off camera.



A lot is made of Maurice Noble’s backgrounds that emphasize Witch Hazel lives in a world of corrupted reality but there are great bits of animation here, too. I love Ken Harris’ skipping cycle with the witch and the two kids. Ben Washam apparently is responsible for the scene when the witch answers the door and twiddles her crooked fingers in all directions when talking with Bugs Bunny.



And we have some smears, too.




Chuck Jones’ unit was down to three animators at this point (the cartoon was produced in 1952). Lloyd Vaughan was the third.

Bea Benaderet, and not June Foray, provides Witch Hazel’s voice in this cartoon. Bea left the studio for reasons we may never know, and June took over all her roles; her first cartoon at Warner’s was released in 1955 (‘This is a Life?’). Those who presume June played every single female role at Warners are quite mistaken. Even more forgotten than Bea is Marian Richman, who toiled without credit on a number of Warners cartoons (mostly for Jones) in the ‘50s before June arrived.

Go West, Young Jack

On April 7, 1935, Jack Benny and his cast performed two half-hour radio shows (one live for each coast) in New York City. The following week, they were in California. And that became their home base, though they don’t seem to have known it at the time.

Probably with good reason, too. For one thing, New York City was the seat of vaudeville, the pinnacle of which Jack had reached not too many years before. And that’s where the radio networks were based. Some programming did come from Chicago but the bulk of it was originated from New York for technical reasons. Phone lines went east to west and to reverse them was extremely costly. But that eventually changed. And you can blame Hollywood.

It seems to be a case of “If you can’t beat them...” for movie companies during the Depression. They had a new—and free—competitor in radio. So the studios simply started hiring the big names of radio and plunking them in films, hoping to attract the radio audience to theatres, and the radio shows moved west with them. These sojourns to the West Coast were viewed as temporary by the radio stars, including Jack.

But a story in the Bismarck Tribune, dated June 8, 1935, hinted what was ahead.

Full-Fledged Movies Star May Never Return to Gotham Permanently
Jack Benny is likely to become a permanent Hollywood resident if the handwriting on the wall speaks the truth.
While his Sunday night NBC shows now are originating on the west coast the jester airways has regarded Radio City as his home studio and the majority of his programs have come from New York.
An analysis of the present situation makes it appear highly probable however that from now on his microphoning will take place in Hollywood as a regular thing because of his motion picture work. Broadcasts from the East will be the exception.
Jack now is under contract to M-G-M. The film on which he is working tentatively titled ‘Broadway Melody of 1935’ is classed as one of the half-dozen specials the company is turning out this year. That means that the radio comedian is ranked as a full-fledged star and not just as a featured player. If options are taken up Jack will make one and possibly two more full-length films before the end of the year.
While the rather quiet and simple life that Jack and Many live in New York is infinitely more pleasing to the modest taste of the Bennys. Jack is not opposed to setting down in Hollywood.
If he decides to cast his lot with the films Benny will find little leisure time on his hands. With the exception of Fridays when he works on his radio scripts with Harry Conn and Sundays when he tries to squeeze in some relaxation between rehearsals and two broadcasts he puts thirteen-and-a-half hours every day on the movie lot.

And Lolly pretty well confirmed it less than two weeks later in her lead item.

Jack Benny Gets Hand in Movies
Will Do Another Picture After Musicale
By Louella O. Parsons
Copyright 1935 U. S.
LOS ANGELES. June 19.—(US)—Jack Benny seems pretty well set in the movies. He had expected to return to New York when he finished “Broadway Melody of 1935” but now he is to do another picture “In the Bag” immediately with Chuck Reisner directing.
“In the Bag” is based on an original by Byron Morgan and Lew Lipton and it’s all about a Broadway chiseler. Benny, we hear, has the same personality on the screen that he has on the air and that is considerable.

“In the Bag” changed titles to “It’s in the Air.” And even thought “Broadway Melody of 1935” was released in 1935, its title changed, too. Here’s a marvellous ad for it.



Jack’s move to the West Coast resulted in a couple of casualties. Orchestra leader Don Bestor elected to return east and was replaced by pianist and composer Johnny Green. And Benny lost his vocalist. Radio columnist Paul K. Damai of the Hammond Times, explained on July 3, 1935.

FIVE AND TENORS
After grabbing off top honors in a few polls as radio’s top tenor Frank Parker went to the coast with Jack Benny and fully intended to play in Jack’s picture. Mr. Metro, or Goldwyn, or Mayer, decided against it. “We got to change the tenor of our ways,” said Metro, or etc. “Besides, Benny owes me a tenner since last year at Agua, and if he thinks he can pass a counterfeit like you on me. . . .”
But Frank wasn’t discouraged. He was still on the gelatine program, lending a seventh delicious flavor, so he considered himself fortunate. As a matter of fact (if you like facts—we eat them shredded for breakfast), Parker doesn’t know the half of it. If he hadn’t had the Benny program as a vehicle, he certainly would not have triumphed in all those polls. For years he sang on the Gypsy grocery hour during which he was just another tenor. Now, singing one song a week (stooging more than singing), he is voted over such warblers as John MacCormack, James Melton, Benjamino Gigli, Frank Munn, and Martinelli—all five of which are as good, or better.
Now it has developed that Carl Laemmle of Universal has signed him for a picture to be made in New York. To do such a thing, Frank has to dessert the Jello hour (good joke, hah?). At first, when Laemmle approached him, Parker was skeptical. “Laemmle alone!” he exclaimed. “Shucks, all I do is run back and forth across a continent after mirage contracts.”
But Laemmle let Frank taste the contract one day (shredded for breakfast) and it sounded real enough (it gave him indigestion).
What we’re trying to tell you is that Frank Parker will be absent from the Jack Benny program for some time, because he is going to make a picture tentatively title “Romance Unlimited,” in the Long Island studios of Universal Pictures, Inc.

Parker signed the contract with Universal on June 29, the day before his last Benny broadcast (there was no singer the following week and Mary Livingstone sung on the final week of the season). By July 25, it was being reported Parker wouldn’t be back at all. Wood Soanes of the Oakland Tribune speculated Peter Higgins would become the singer. Instead, Michael Bartlett appeared on a total of five broadcasts before bolting for a movie career of his own. Parker bounced around for a bit, finally making a comeback on TV with Arthur Godfrey in the ‘50s. Bartlett never achieved fame. Jack simply hired a likeable fellow named Kenny Baker and carried on.