Monday, 20 February 2012

Three Pigs, Three Gags

Something good came out of the weak Warners musical cartoons around 1934 and 1935, the ones the directors disliked because the music got in the way of developing a plot. One was some of the Warners-owned songs were really great and are classics of popular music today. And the other was young director Friz Freleng learned how to marry animation to specific music, which helped in later years when he was able to use better gags, put on the screen with better animation.

‘Pigs in a Polka’ (1943) is really a funny cartoon. As a kid, I didn’t realise there was some Disney referencing going on. I just thought it was funny. There are three little moments (out of many more) I’d like to pick out.



A great throw-away gag is when the wolf appears on the scene. He’s evil, but law-abiding enough to signal left when he’s turning (even though no traffic is behind him to see the signal). And he doesn’t interrupt his Russian dance while doing it.



Friz’ timing is perfect when the two gullible pigs are lured behind a rock, there’s a fight and they suddenly jump out as grinning, dancing gypsy women. It’s completely unexpected, which makes it all the more funnier. The rassin’-frassin’ Blue Ribbon re-release of the cartoon has divested it of its credits, but I can’t help but think Mike Maltese wrote it. At Warners and even at Hanna-Barbera in Quick Draw McGraw cartoons, he’d have characters jump somewhere and come out with a comic costume change.



And I like the fake snow gag. It’s been done in other cartoons, probably done to death to anyone who has dined on animation for decades, but I don’t think it was done any better than in this one. Give credit to Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn. The pathetic first violin solo really augments the fact the wolf is a complete fraud. It shows you why the Warners cartoons are so great. All the elements—drawing, movement, sound—work together and enhance each other.

Walt Lee’s Reference Guide to Fantastic Films (1974) says Gerry Chiniquy received the animation credit on this short, but the Freleng unit was using the talents of Manny Perez, Dick Bickenbach, Gil Turner and Ken Champin, and occasionally Jack Bradbury, around this time.

Sunday, 19 February 2012

Uncle Miltie, the Crook

So, was Milton Berle’s reputation as the Thief of Bad Gags deserved?

The answer’s “yes,” if you talked to just about anyone, even before Berle was at his peak in the early time of television. John Crosby, syndicated from the New York Herald Tribune, took a stab at the topic in his column of April 9, 1947. But unlike anyone else, he doesn’t blame Berle for doing it.

THERE’S NO MYSTERY IN BERLE’S LIFE OF CRIME
Milton Gayly Continues His Bold Thieving
By JOHN CROSBY
For the last couple of weeks on the new Milton Berle show (NBC 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays), the announcer, man named Gallup, has been introducing, much against the wishes of Berle, a quartet with a high-flown, Russian name. “Stop that noise!” shrieks Berle. “Quiet!” All season long on the Jack Benny show, another announcer named Don Wilson has been bringing in, much against the wishes of Benny, another quartet. “Stop it,” yells Benny. “Stop it.”
Later on the Berle program, the orchestra played a truncated version of “Blue Skies.” “That was ‘Blue Skies,’” announced Berle. “Sort of an eclipse—by Ray Bloch and his orchestra. The only reason they still have their instruments is that Jamaica Park isn’t open yet.”
Well, let’s see now. Way back last fall, if memory serves, Fred Allen interrupted the orchestra with the words: “That was just a smattering of ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’ played by Al Goodman and 25 men who followed him home from Belmont Park last night.”
Jack Benny has for years been kidding his announcer, Don Wilson, about his sumptuous waistline. Berle jibes at his announcer, that man Gallup again, because his waistline is so skinny. A switcheroo, as they call it in radio.
BOTH FUNNY
Then there is a man in the show called Fulton Drew Gilbert “bringing you the news from Washington” and contradicting himself in every sentence. It’s pretty funny and it was pretty funny a couple of weeks ago when Peter Lind Hayes did it on the Dinah Shore show.
And so it goes. If you can find anything on the Milton Berle show, which doesn’t remind you of somebody else’s show, don’t blame Milton. He’s doing his best. Over the years, Berle has built up a towering and quite justifiable reputation as the Raffles of show business and he’s not going to risk it by fooling around with any dangerous originality. Just the same, in spite of all his vigilance, I’ll bet a new idea slips in there some day. A man can’t keep his guard up forever.
Apart from grand larceny, the Berle show is a great improvement over the Rudy Vallee show which it replaced, though that’s not much of a compliment.
GOOD PERFORMER
Berle plays the part of a timid soul who is browbeaten by his announcer, his wife, his child, his sponsor and his advertising agency. Making the star the butt of all jokes is hardly a new idea, but Berle goes considerably further with it than any one else. He is not just insulted; he is lampooned, derided, degraded, starved and all but beaten to death by the people around him. Much of this is funnier than it ought to be because Berle, a man of the old school, is a great performer no matter what you think of his material.
However, I’d like to interject a note of mild protest about the sketches that end the show. The other day Berle did a sketch about a man who drives into a gas station in a hurry for gas. The attendants — stop me if you’ve heard this — clean the windshield, change the oil, pump up the tires, marcel his hair, put on a floor show, do everything, in fact, except give him gas. Well, it had a certain vestigial charm if only as a reminder of the good old days. But isn't there a statute of limitation on these things?
Oh, yes, and there’s a singer on the program named Dick Farney, who sings in a soft, tentative style as if he were afraid of waking the baby. Sometimes I think singing is dying out entirely and perhaps it’s just as well.
Copyright, 1947, for The Tribune


Berle jumped into the radio game in 1933 as part of the Fred Waring Show for Old Gold. He starred in his own show in 1939 for Quaker Oats but bounced around from show to show, season to season. Paul Ackerman of Billboard explained why in the April 26, 1947 edition.
Milton Berle, recognized as perhaps the fastest man in night clubs and vaude, has on this NBC series failed to impress as a top radio comedian. Impression one gets is the master of the bistro and boite simply can’t break loose from his script. This is tough, for inasmuch as the script must keep within the radio limits, Berle can’t cash in on what admittedly is one of his strong points—blue stuff. This doesn’t necessarily mean that radio is out of Milton’s reach. It just means that as of now the comedy writers and doctors simply haven’t found a formula. For Berle on the air doesn’t sparkle and crackle with audiences know he does on the boards. It’s all quite discouraging—what with every web and ad agency in the business looking for comics. And it’s not comforting to know that in the past Berle has not been able to do well on the air.
The show for Philip Morris had top writers—Nat Hiken and Aaron Ruben. It was originally intended to be similar to Ozzie and Harriet and included Berle’s wife Joyce and Joe Besser as a stooge but, evidently, changes were made at the last minute. Meanwhile, Berle was about to open at the Copa in New York for $12,500 a week.

Berle’s life changed when his television show debuted for Texaco on September 22, 1948. He didn’t need the blue material that Ackerman talked about. Instead, he dug into his old vaudeville grab bag of broad comedy and mugging and by December, had the biggest audience of any programme in history, including radio, remarkable considering he was only seen in 24 cities. Berle was eventually rewarded with a 30-year contract by NBC before the inevitable (to everyone but NBC) ratings slide. People were tired of the old frantic routines in the calm, suburban ‘50s. But, like when was not A-listing in radio, Berle remained a constant presence on television for years to come, trading on his reputation as show biz’s biggest heister of humour.

Saturday, 18 February 2012

Daffy Dittys

Cartoon fans the world over have heard of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes. They may have heard of Silly Symphonys (I don’t recall ever seeing the name when I was a kid). But you can be sure they haven’t heard of the Daffy Dittys, let alone seen one

There was a time when the big movie studios had full schedules of productions, not only feature films, but a wide variety of shorts—things like news and sports reels, travelogues, musical numbers, two-reel comedies and cartoons. The biggest studios had them because shorts involved a huge cash outlay for very little return; they made money on features but realised a good short could entice people into the theatre—and they all owned theatres. The small studios couldn’t afford it so they stuck with their programme of low-budget features; Monogram and Tiffany never got into the cartoon business. Then there were others in between that were in and out of the shorts business. United Artists was one of them.

U-A had released Walt Disney cartoons from 1932 to 1937 but generally stayed out of the shorts business after that; a two-reel documentary series called ‘The World in Action’ during the war being an exception. But then it decided to get into animation again. Or, more specifically, it decided to release animated shorts produced by someone else. That someone else was John Sutherland and Larry Morey.

The two were employed for Walt Disney but decided to strike out on their own in 1944. They evidently hoped to duplicate the success of George Pal’s stop-motion shorts released by Paramount. Top Cel, the newsletter of the New York local of the Screen Cartoonists Guild, announced in its edition of July 14, 1944.

New method of producing animated cartoons with plastic models and characters will be utilized by Plastic Cartoons, organized by L. Morey, John Sutherland and John Landis in Hollywood. Use of plastic models for animation, combined with color photography, gives third dimensional effect which is not possible generally in the regular cartoons. Plastic process was developed by Lion, and allows for molding characters in large numbers, utilizing one for figure in each frame of film, with change in movement flexible through workability of the plastic material used. Figures are set up from pencil animation, miniature sets are used and cartoons shot in stop motion as is the rule with this type of production. This films will be released by United Artists with whom the outfit has signed a contract. Four pictures will be released each year. The title of the first will be “The Cross-eyed Bull”.

How do you make plastic cartoons? Popular Science devoted space to answering that question in its May 1946 issue, complete with pictures.

Sutherland and Morey had a pretty ambitious schedule. The Motion Picture Herald spoke in 1946 of a 13-picture deal. Only six were made. Boxoffice magazine reveals in its edition of January 25, 1947:

United Artists to Drop Daffy Dittys Shorts
Because of mechanical and labor problems, these are trying times for the independent producers of short subjects, most especially those who use color photography. Resultantly, United Artists is losing another series of briefies, the Daffy Dittys, which have been produced by John Sutherland, whose pact with UA was terminated by mutual consent. Sutherland has one more of the current series to deliver, after which he will devote his time exclusively to commercial and educational films.

There isn’t very much information about the Dittys themselves out there. Boxoffice reviewed a few of them.

The Cross-Eyed Bull. Not reviewed. Released October 21, 1944.

The Flying Jeep. Not reviewed. Released August 20, 1945.

The Lady Said No [Short released April 26, 1946]
UA (Daffy Ditty) 9 Mins.
Excellent. This clever offering bodes well for the new series of Technicolor puppet cartoons produced by Moray and Sutherland. Photography, animation and the characters warrant praise. A gay but naïve caballero courts a provocative senorita who persuades him marriage is the best policy. After a variety of little caballeros have been delivered he realizes the bliss of batcherhood. (Boxoffice, April 27, 1946)

Choo Choo Amigo [released July 5, 1946]
UA (Daffy Ditty) 9 Mins.
Tops. This extremely imaginative and entertaining color cartoon employs model miniatures to excellent advantage. It is the story of a little Mexican locomotive, beloved by the natives for its kindly deeds. After long years of faithful service Choo Choo Amigo, replaced by an ultra-modern super-streamliner, is condemned to be converted into scrap. Its last-minute reprieve is complete with smiles and suspense. Highly recommended. (Boxoffice, July 20, 1946)

Pepito’s Serenade [released August 16, 1946]
United Artists (In Color) 10 Mins.
Excellent. A Latin subject, built into a sock bit of entertainment for all. Deals with a puppet character who, advised to become better perfected as a musician, in order to win his sweetheart, goes through some horrifying experiences with a teacher. Trick lightning, unusual animation help make this a top subject. (Boxoffice, September 14, 1946)

The Fatal Kiss, Not reviewed. Released August 28, 1947.


“The Fatal Kiss” was not stop-motion. It was strictly animation, directed by George Gordon and animated by Pete Burness and Irv Spence, according to the U.S. Government Copyright Catalogue.

One more animated Ditty was begun. The cartoonists union newsletter Top Cel mentioned on August 1, 1946 that “The Fatal Kiss” had been finished and the studio was working on a second animated short, “The Missing Ghost,” with Gordon directing, Burness as the head animator and the Pied Pipers handling the vocal numbers. Gordon copyrighted model sheets for Forelock Bones, Dr. Woof and Professor Sly on November 18, 1946 for “The Case of the Missing Ghost” but how much farther the cartoon went is anyone’s guess. As Boxoffice talked about labour problems, it could be that Burness and Spence left Sutherland while the cartoon was in production.

The Dittys slowly faded away. They were still appearing on screens as late as Christmas 1948.

Sutherland hired first-rate people. One of them was Frank Tashlin after finishing a third go-around at Leon Schlesinger’s studio. The book Frank Tashlin, written by Roger García and Bernard Eisenschitz (published in 1994), reveals:

When Tashlin arrived at Morey and Sutherland in September 1944, planning began for the third Daffy Ditty, The Lady Said No. The next two films, Choo Choo Amigo and Pepito’s Serenade (often mistakenly listed as simply Pepito) are generally attributed to Tashlin although definitive credits and production dates may never be established since the company’s records and many of its films are said to have been destroyed in a fire in the late 1940s.

Top Cel of January 19, 1945 mentioned Ken Darby was handling vocal arrangements for “Choo Choo Amigo. It would seem that the Radio Guide was referring to The King’s Men when it blurbed in a 1945 edition that some vocalists...

have taken night lessons in Spanish and are polishing up a repertoire of Spanish folk songs an ballads which they'll record as background music for a forthcoming Morey and Sutherland Daffy Ditty Cartoon, with locale in Mexico.

A chap named Zon at the Smarter Than The Average blog has cobbled together addition information about the Dittys. You can read about it HERE and HERE. 2025 note: the links are dead. Sorry.

You likely have noticed five of the six Dittys involve characters in Mexico. The studios had a fascination with Latin America during World War Two. The two Walts—Disney and Lantz—made jaunts south of the border (Lantz went “down Mexico way” as the song says) and no doubt cartoon fans know about Disney’s “Saludos Amigos.” MGM produced at least one cartoon for the Latin American market. No doubt this stemmed from U.S. government policies designed to win support for the American Way of Life over Nazism.

The end of the Dittys didn’t end United Artists’ or John Sutherland’s involvement with theatrical cartoons. Sutherland and Morey were still releasing industrial cartoons at the time of the Dittys. Their company changed from “Plastic Productions” to “Morey and Sutherland Productions” by June 1945, and Top Cel mentioned on July 1, 1946 the two had signed six-picture deals with both Harding College and Proctor and Gamble. But Morey decided to go back to Disney. Sutherland struck out on his own, producing a 62-minute feature called “Lady at Midnight” starring radio actor Richard Denning, and carrying on with his industrial business. Several of those cartoons were released theatrically by MGM, starting with “Make Mine Freedom” on March 10, 1948, allowing Fred Quimby to dissolve the Preston Blair-Mike Lah unit and save cash. Model sheets for “The capitalist,” “The farmer,” “John Q. Public,” “The laborer,” “The pitchman” and “The politician” in “Make Mine Freedom” were copyrighted the same day as the ones for the aborted U-A cartoon “The Case of the Missing Ghost.”

U-A started releasing Lantz’ cartoons in 1947 after a hastily-constructed deal which resulted in the Lantz studio closing temporarily within two years and it getting out of the animation business for awhile. U-A had its greatest success with cartoons in the dying days of the Golden Age of Animation when it released what some consider the most entertaining shorts of the ‘60s—the Pink Panther series. By then, the Daffy Ditties were long forgotten.

Friday, 17 February 2012

Bad Luck Blackie Whitewash

Another take from one of Tex Avery’s greatest cartoons, “Bad Luck Blackie.” This is when the white cat realises he’s no longer black and his power to inflict bad luck is gone. Seven drawings on ones. It goes by so fast, you don’t notice the cat is doing a little dance step.









Grant Simmons, Louie Schmitt, Preston Blair and Grant Simmons are your animators. I’d sure like to know who the assistants were in his unit at the time.

Why, oh why, aren’t Avery’s cartoons on DVD?

Thursday, 16 February 2012

Flying Chicken Leg in Perspective

Cartoon directors seem to have given in to the tempation of animating little bits in perspective just for the hell of it. Bob McKimson did. He’d have characters run toward and away from the camera whether it added anything to the cartoon or not. And Rudy Ising once said Hugh Harman was “a nut” which it came to perspective animation.

The motivation in some cases might have been simply to break up the monotony of the look of the cartoons. Maybe that’s the case in Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera’s “Part Time Pal” (1947). It’s not a great cartoon—Barbera seemed to think just the idea of Tom being drunk could carry a whole short—but we get a flying chicken leg animated in perspective. Tom swats it out of Jerry’s hand.








The credited animators are Mike Lah, Ed Barge and Ken Muse. I’m not sure if this is Lah’s work here; it looks a lot more like Lah at the end of the cartoon when Tom’s banging the umbrella and climbing the stairs. A shame Irv Spence isn’t here; he would have done a great job in the scene with Tom tripping over the milk bottles.

Wednesday, 15 February 2012

The Inexhaustible Bob Hope

People want to see the stars. If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be a plethora of gossip web sites and TV shows shoving people from Show Biz Land in your face, drowning us all with the minutest insignificances about their lives.

Such would seem to be an obvious fact. But it seems to have shocked radio writer John Crosby that fans would actually want to watch a radio and movie star in the flesh. Maybe he forgot that vaudeville houses were once packed for that very same reason. Or why film and radio-dom’s elite visited military bases during World War Two.

In reading Crosby’s column of March 2, 1949, I couldn’t help but think of Dave Thomas, a noted Hope impersonator among many things, meeting Old Ski Nose for the first time and how, after some pleasantries, Hope asked him bottom-line questions about SCTV’s production. Thomas realised he wasn’t talking to Bob Hope, star, but Bob Hope, president of Hope Enterprises. And, as Crosby reveals, Hope had the bottom line squarely in his sights when he embarked on a jaunt across the U.S. (I have some reason to suspect the “Crosby” referred to in the column is not “John.”)

Radio In Review
BY JOHN CROSBY
Gold In The Hinterlands
BOB HOPE, the distinguished financier of the films and radio, has just discovered a new method for turning a fast buck.
He appears before people in the flesh! Hope’s 33-day touring vaudeville show took $612,000 off the hands of some 300,000 people. Never before has he earned that much money that rapidly.
“You can’t make money like that on Broadway. You can’t make Crosby money like that anywhere,” Hope declared in a telephone interview from Palm Springs. “I was offered so much money to appear at the Capitol in New York I’m ashamed to tell you the figure.”
Yet the comedian said it was chickenfeed next to the grosses piled up on his tour.
THE HOPE TROUPE—40 persons in all—avoided theaters, the avarice of theater owners being what it is, and played stadiums and auditoriums where Hope Enterprises took 75 percent of the gate.
People paid as high as $6.10 a seat to see a two-and-a-half-hour show which is little more than an extension of Hope’s radio show.
When the comedian returned to Hollywood, his pockets bulging with large denominations, a great many intellectuals said: “Well!” They were too flabbergasted to get much beyond that word.
There has been a deeply entrenched suspicion in Hollywood that the big money lay in the mass media—the movies or radio—where you don’t get the live actor, but you can spread him among an awful lot of people.
Then Mr. Hope revived the ancient one-night stand and, brother, how the money rolls in.
ALREADY THIS has led to real restlessness among the other actors.
“I’ve talked to Jack Benny and Al Jolson,” Hope said, “and they’re all fired up to do the same thing.
“We’re going to hit the road again ourselves — probably in April. I want to keep that Providence date. (Fog grounded the troupe in Pittsburgh, causing cancellation of the Rhode Island stop-over.) We also plan to go to Rochester, Syracuse, Erie and Toronto and, of course, a lot of other places.
“I think the success of this tour proves the people want to see the actors. It shows what a great thing television is going to be.
HOPE ALSO thinks it proves the road is anything but dead, that people in the hinterlands are starved for live entertainment. Virtually everywhere he went he approached or smashed house records.
Hope played 38 performances in 34 cities in 33 days. In addition he gave his radio shows in four of the cities, and this involved rehearsals.
It sounds grueling, but, as Hope pointed out, the troupe had only one performance a day—with the exception of one day when it gave a matinee and an evening performance—whereas in a theater it would have been required to give five or six.
“You never get tired unless you stop and take time for it,” he explained. Hope never has taken time for it, and as a shrewd observer once said, he works better under almost continuous pressure.
A COUPLE OF YEARS ago Bing Crosby told me he had dug out of the Bible a quote that fits Hope perfectly: “For wherever two or three are gathered together . . . there I am in the midst of them.”
He certainly is. Hope starts to entertain automatically whenever a crowd—and three or four makes a crowd—surrounds him. They supplement each other — Hope and the crowds. The bigger the crowd, the better is Hope. The better is Hope, the bigger the crowd.
On this trip, the news that he was flying in his rented DC-6 attracted throngs to the airport. Hope usually threw in a 15-minute show free at the air terminals—unwilling to let a crowd escape without flinging a couple of jokes at it.
TEN YEARS AGO Jimmy Cagney observed, unsagely: “Bob Hope is going to kill himself with these personal appearance tours.”
This could go down along with the prediction of Thomas E. Dewey’s election as one of the worst bits of crystal-gazing of modern times.
There is a tale, probably apocryphal, that an eastern potentate once took over the upbringing of 300 babies; he ordered they be given the utmost care but that not a word be spoken to them.
The potentate wanted to know what language they’d talk when and if.
According to legend, the babies all died within six months for want of affection.
Seems to me if Hope were deprived of an audience for six months he’d die of starvation.
(Copyright, 1949, New York Tribune)

Hope once talked about his money with that aw-shucks intellectual, Dick Cavett. Considering that Hope’s TV specials degraded into a melange of cue cards, marching bands and breasts, it’s nice to see him in the stripped-down, relaxed atmosphere of the Cavett show. Take a look.

Tuesday, 14 February 2012

A Lotta Actors Were Outta Woik

Warren Foster wrote a life story for Bugs Bunny and Bob McKimson filmed it in “What's Up Doc?” There are some sequences I really like, and a great one is when Bugs is on a park bench with other unemployed vaudevillians, hoping to get a break from the shining star of the big time, Elmer Fudd.



The caricatures of Al Jolson, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor and Bing Crosby couldn’t be much better, and the animation of them auditioning for Fudd is perfect. I especially love Jolson. Whoever did this scene captured him beautifully (see the comments for the answer). You have to watch how he turns and looks pleadingly desperate as the snobbish Fudd passes by him. And Bing’s mouth movements singing “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” are fun.

The kicker is Fudd’s line: “Bugs Bunny! What are you hanging around with these guys? They’ll never amount to anything!” Of course, the joke is that they did. They had been stars for more than 20 years by the time the cartoon was released. And they were really stars until the day they died; all but Cantor were still working.

Jolson’s voice in the cartoon is provided by Dave Barry, who worked on the Jolson radio show.

Animators came and went in McKimson’s unit. Credited on this one are Bill Melendez, Chuck McKimson, Phil De Lara and Pete Burness, the last time his name appears on a Warners cartoon. Jack Carey and Emery Hawkins had been doing work in the McKimson unit but went from director to director, wherever needed. The background is by Dick Thomas.

Monday, 13 February 2012

Bully For Multiples

“Bully For Bugs” contains the kind of stop-and-let-the-drawing-sink-in posing Chuck Jones is noted for, but it also a couple of scenes where you can find head multiples, as a character moves from one pose to the next.

This is after the bull enters and stops after running in perspective to the camera.





And here’s where Bugs says “pardon me” while standing behind the bull.







It appears different artists in the Jones unit had different ways of moving characters. If you watch “Long-Haired Hare” (1949), for example, you’ll notice smear drawings, where an arm is moved from top to bottom of the frame by, in essence, connecting the two positions together into one long, wide arm. On the other hand, “Rabbit Seasoning” (1952) has odd multiples. I’ll put some up in a future post.

Sunday, 12 February 2012

Jack Benny on the 38th

Nostalgia tells us World War Two was a fun time in Hollywood. The stars were entertaining “our boys” overseas, with a happy collective camaraderie as they jaunted from place to place around the globe. The exuberance of patriotism to help win that clear-cut fight with the Nazis (never the ‘Germans’) and the Japs (always the people and not their government).

Korea was a lot different. The world was still worn out from the last war. And it was a war that was more ideological than personal. Sure, the entertainers made their trips to brighten the lives of “our boys” but it seems to have been done out of a sense of obligation than anything else.

Jack Benny toured overseas during World War Two. He kept a little diary and while there’s a sense of weariness at times, the entries leave you with the impression he was enjoying himself some of the time. You don’t get that sense from his trip to Korea, certainly not from this United Press column which appeared in newspapers starting September 14, 1951.

Jack Benny Finally Is Feeling His Age
By VIRGINIA MacPHERSON
U. P. Hollywood Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD, (UP) — Jack Benny confessed today he’s about through telling people he’s 39. That last trip to Korea made him feel every day of his 58 years.
“I came home completely worn out,” the comedian said. “And it kinda scared me. That was my fifth trip to the wars—and I think it was my last.”
Feeling 58 came as something of a shock to Benny, who doesn’t think he looks it. (He’s right. He doesn’t.)
“Mentally, you feel the same at 58 as you do at 39,” he said grinning. “But after weeks of slogging through that Korean mud and sleeping only four hours a night I couldn't kid myself any more.
“From here on in I’m gonna have to let the younger kids entertain the troops. There’ve been a few other signs that made me think I’m not 39 any more, but Korea convinced me.”
Benny starts his 20th year in radio day after tomorrow. And all the old gang’s back with him. The only one who gave any trouble was his own wife.
“Mary wants to quit,” he said. “She doesn't like show business and we have a heck of a time signing her up every year.
“She refused to do any television with me. Doesn’t think she’s any good. But, although she does less comedy than anybody on the show, she’s one of the top favorites with the fans.”
So Benny backed her into a corner, shoved a pen in her hand, and made her sign on the dotted line. She still isn’t happy about it, though.
Jack doesn't blame her. He’d like to retire himself.
“I’ve been at this for 40 years,” he said, gazing at the shimmering swimming pool two decades of gags have paid for. “But I know I could never quit show business for good.
“I’d like to semi-retire. Do maybe 13 weeks of radio and six weeks of TV and then play theaters in England and Australia. I could squeeze long vacations in between each of these.
“I’d like to do a Broadway play, too, but I can’t. I’m stuck.”
The only reason Benny’s “stuck” is that he’s too good. He has a big staff that earns fabulous dough helping him be funny every Sunday night. And if he quits now, he said, they’ll have to hunt for new jobs. Some of them after 18 years with him.
“But if there's any quitting,” he said, chuckling, “I want to do it myself. I don’t wanta hang around until they fire me.”


“Our boys” may have had more fun that Jack did. When he arrived for his first show on the front line on July 4, he was greeted with a huge, red-lettered sign that read “Welcome, Fred Allen.” He left California at 2 a.m. on June 27 for a five-week tour, along with Errol Flynn, Benay Venuta and Marjorie Reynolds, stopping at the Travis Air Force base in California and several bases in Hawaii before heading to Korea.

MacPherson’s column touches on two other things. Evidently, it wasn’t commonly known at the time that Mary wanted off the show. Anyone who has listened to the Benny show realises quickly her own assessment of her ability was wrong. But perhaps hanging around Hollywood’s elite all those years gave her a feeling of inferiority.

And while Jack wearied of the show-biz grind, he kept himself interested by doing different things. He had moved from vaudeville to radio to television (with some slight overlapping). Then he did Vegas shows. And then switched his focus altogether by taking part in charity symphony performances. And, had he lived longer, he might have revived his dormant movie career, having been cast in “The Sunshine Boys” (today, six sequels would have been planned before shooting even began). Show business never fired him. And he never quit. He was there until the very end.

Saturday, 11 February 2012

G-E-C

“The internet,” said a greying philosopher, “is a land where people go to have their idiosyncrasies validated.” Buried beneath the porn and advertising (which can be the same thing) are virtual oases which cater to every conceivable arcane interest. And where one learns that, yes, someone else delights in the same arcane interest, too.

There isn’t just one, but several web sites devoted to a familiar sound on radio and television for decades—the NBC chimes. During my boyhood, they accompanied the network’s letters slithering into formation on the screen. A generation earlier, they ended every radio broadcast. In fact, they were even parodied in animated cartoons going back to the early ‘30s.

There’s likely more esoterica about the chimes on the internet than you’d probably want to know. But allow me to add some more.

Out of curiosity, I decided to hunt through some old newspapers to find the earliest reference to the notes that ended each NBC network programme. So here are some clippings.

Winnipeg Free Press, Jan. 4, 1930
B.C.L. writes in the Milwaukee Journal:
“You listeners-in must have noticed the chimes now being used by the NBC for station identification. It’s a great relief from the old hackneyed “A brief pause for station announcement” but it’s rather wearing on the announcers. For these individuals the musical notes mean GET IN FRONT OF THAT ‘MIKE.’ Wherever they go chimes are sure to ring out. One announcer recently attended a formal dinner and the hall clock chimed the hour. The announcer is said to have revived some 15 minutes from the fit of coughing which overtook him as he almost swallowed his soup spoon when the chimes startled him.
Imagine the embarrassment of an announcer in church when the chimes ring out, wake him from a half slumber and he suddenly rises from his seat and delivers the station call letters.”


San Antonio Express, Nov. 16, 1930
...one day when the hammer that is used to sound those terrible NBC chimes which mark the 15-minute periods was mislaid, [Neel B.] Enslen grabbed a pipe out of Ed (Engineer) Knapf’s mouth and boomed away . . . said Announcer Enslen as he returned the improvised hammer . . . “that was a pipe.” . . . O-w-w-w-w-.


Tralfaz says: Enslen had been at NBC since 1929. He had been a baritone with the American Opera Company. He committed suicide, age 38, on May 22, 1938, sticking his head in a gas oven. He had been battling alcoholism and had returned to work after four months off dealing with it. With that pleasant report, let us continue.

Wisconsin State Journal, Dec. 14, 1930
The chimes used by the National Broadcasting company every 15 minutes as cues for network stations to make their local announcements, are heard on an average of 141 times a day. There are 143 synchronizations each weekday and 128 on Sunday.


Wisconsin State Journal, Dec. 20, 1930
Following a recent argument in the Chicago NBC studios, Walter Lanterman, studio engineer, made a rather interesting discovery about the four-note chimes now being used between programs in national broadcasts. By mathematical computation, he has found that 87,296 different combinations are possible with the chimes now in use.
It is improbable that NBC will experiment with all the possible combinations, for it would take a man more than a week to try them all out, allowing five seconds for each combination.
If NBC ever did desire to use sufficient chimes every day, however, the possible combinations would be sufficient, to last for more than 200 years without repetition.


Peter Dixon, Beacon Syndicate, Nov. 1, 1931
It remained for Ray Perkins to stage the best gag around the NBC chimes. In a recent program Perkins built up a very “English” atmosphere and then said:
“In a moment you will hear the sound so dear to every Englishman, the chimes of Big Ben.”
And then the NBC chimes rang out.


Tralfaz says: Perkins emceed an amateur show on CBS through the ‘30s, became a reserve in the Army Intelligence Service, moved to Denver where he worked in radio, then TV. He’s noted for the words “In case of a tie, duplicate judges will be awarded.”

Associated Press, July 22, 1932
By C.E. BUTTERFIELD
New York, July 22—(AP)— The day of the announcer-operated chimes on the networks may soon be at an end. An electrical device has been designed to do the job.
At the same time there will be eliminated the “sour” notes that often materialized when the announcer failed to hit the three-note xylophones used to produce the chimes in the proper sequence or with the right force.
The new device is a development of Capt. R. H. Ranger, radio engineer, noted for his work on the electric organ and in facsimile radio transmission.
All the announcer need do is press a small button. That not only “rings” the chimes but cuts them into the proper network.


Oakland Tribune, Nov. 4, 1934
The old tradition of the theater, “The show must go on,” holds good in radio, too. On a recent Friday night the “One Man’s Family” episode was one long agony for Minetta Ellen, who has the role of Mrs. Barbour, gentle voiced, kindly mother in the Carlton E. Morse serial of American family life.
Although she was suffering from a severe case of ptomaine poisoning, she went through with her part. She collapsed as Announcer William Andrews was striking the NBC chimes at the end of the drama. She was taken to the hospital and on the following night, when the serial went on the air for Eastern ears, Verna Felton doubled for her.

Syracuse Herald, March 9, 1936
To countless listeners all over the world, the NBC chimes are three melodious notes heard before local station identification. To operators at NBC associated stations they are the unerring signal to announce identifying call letters and to the telephone repeater station operators to break down existing network set-ups and reestablish new connections.
To the engineering and musical experts who designed them, however, they are not chimes at all, but electrically and musically perfect tines which vibrate at the touch of a button on an announcer’s studio panel.
It has been four years since the old hand-struck chimes were used. They varied too greatly in volume. If the announcer struck them too lustily with his padded hammer, the sound would blast annoyingly through loudspeakers and sometimes circuit breakers would snap out. If they were sounded softly, operators at relay points along interconnecting lines might miss the cue to throw switches for local announcements and network realignment.
To thrust such irregularities definitely into the past, the NBC engineering department, under the supervision of O. B. Hanson, chief engineer, and Capt. R. H. Ranger, inventor, designed and created the mechanism now relied upon for its smooth and constant volume.
When the announcer touches the button on his panel in a studio, a relay clicks floors away and the chimes machinery starts, A motor turns and two second after the button is pushed, the first gong sounds. The two other follow at one second intervals.
The metal tines which produce the chime tones are not struck. They are plucked by pins on a motor-driven drum. That particular part of the chimes operation suggests the workings of an old-fashioned music box.
What listeners believe they hear when each of these notes is struck is a melodious tone like that of a perfectly tuned bell. What they actually hear for each is the harmony of eight of these metal tongues, plucked in union by pins on the revolving drum.
The first of each series of tongues is the fundamental. The other seven are harmonics which give the richness to the tones. The fundamentals sound in order. G below middle C; E above middle C, and middle C. Considerable tuning and balancing of the harmonics was required before the chimes could be brought to their full richness.
When these series of tunes are struck, they are barely audible to the ear. The vibrations are fed into the circuit by utilization of the electro-static principle. Close to each tuned tine is an untuned tine. As the tuned tines vibrate, the electrical capacity between it and the untuned tine varies, thus inducing electric vibrations which finally are translated by the listener’s receiver into a musical tone.

San Mateo News Leader, Dec. 2, 1937
Temperament gum-shoed its ugly way into the joint and everything went to blazes! Last Thursday night a great and glorious tradition crashed ‘round the heads of Bing Crosby and Bob Burns when, at the halfway mark in the broadcast, Ken Carpenter refused to ring the NBC chimes.
This coming on the heels of guest star Chester Morris’ remark that above and beyond Bing’s singing and Bob’s bazooka-ing, he enjoyed the way Ken rang the bells, was a rude awakening indeed for Music Hall veterans.
While stooge and star alike stood agape and a shocked nation refused to believe what it all too plainly heard, Ken, in tones flat with despair, said, “I just don’t feel like it tonight. I’m not in the mood.”
And there just weren’t any bells!
Obviously, this can’t go on. Bing’s Music Hall must have bells ringing somewhere along the halfway mark.
Will this Carpenter lethargy linger? Did Chester Morris’ praise too much for Carpenter, the artist. If so, will a committee have to be appointed to wait upon Mr. Carpenter and coddle him into a bell-ringing mood?
Whatever has to be done, must be done. Bing, you’ve got to see to it. It’s your hall, they’re your bells and Ken’s being paid good money to ring ‘em.
We’ve grown mighty attached to their merry little pong! pong! pong! We wait impatiently each week for Ken’s masterful rendition. In fact, we’re inclined to agree with Chester Morris that it’s the best part of the show.
Yes, this Ken guy has sure got a touch!
While the spotlight of attention flickers with a questioning light on the moody Carpenter, Edward Arnold and Barbara Weeks, both from the screen, and Joseph Knitzer, American violinist, will rally ‘round to lend moral support to a nervous and over-anxious cast.
Ken’s just got to ring them bells! (KPO, 7 p. m.)

Connesville Daily Courier, August 18-19 1938
By JOE CARSON
You’ll soon be able to compete with KEN CARPENTER, chime-ringer extraordinary for the Bing Crosby show, right in your own home. Ken has created such hullabaloo over chimes in the last few months that now NBC has arranged a tie-up with a bell manufacturer to put a set of standard NBC chimes on the market. It’s all part of a deep dark plan to make America chime-conscious . . . Why? I don’t know.
More about chimes tomorrow!
* * *
The NBC chimes, most-famous of musical trade marks, will begin sounding the hour for the thousands of New Yorkers and out-of-town visitors who daily pass through Radio City and the adjacent plaza and walks of Rockefeller Center.
Synchronized with one of the large ornamental clocks overlooking the Sunken Plaza, the familiar chimes which have identified the two networks of NBC for more than a decade, will mark each hour between 8 A. M. and 1 A. M. for all in the vicinity of Radio City.
Only recently extended to use outside radio, the chimes have already been adopted by three large American railroads. For several weeks travelers on the Baltimore & Ohio and Alton systems have been called to meals in the dining cars by the sound of the melodious chimes. This week they were adopted by the New York Central Railroad for the same purpose, and 150 sets of hand operated chimes are now being placed in. service on that road.
To make the chimes sound in the streets about Radio City, a system has been set up including a loud speaker, three small clocks, and the large ornamental clock in the south facade of the International Building.

Madison Capital Times, June 30, 1940
The dedication of a new, six-foot square, three-quarter-ton, NBC-chimed clock and the broadcasting of the first sounding of the chimes which are expected to become as familiar to visitors o£ Chicago’s Loop as Big Ben’s chimes are to Londoners will be presented as part of the Merchandise Mart's Tenth Anniversary celebration during the National Farm and Home Hour program at 10:30 Monday morning over Station WIBA.
The celebration will open with “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” current theme tune of the National Farm and Home Hour, followed by “Over the Waves,” which was the theme 10 years ago when the Farm and Home Hour moved into new studios in the penthouse of the Mart, world’s largest building. A dramatic review of the history of- the building will serve as an introduction to the presentation of the clock. The ceremonies will be broadcast from the North Bank Drive entrance way of the building.
During the presentation, Frederick D. Corley, president of Marshall Field & Co., and Edward J. Kelly, mayor of Chicago, will speak, and the noon chimes, and the striking of the clock, will, be heard.
The unit, of the clock which regulates the NBC chimes was made especially by NBC engineers and will be housed in a special studio on the fourth floor of the Merchandise Mart.


Associated Press, Jan. 22, 1944
By C.E. BUTTERFIELD
NEW YORK, Jan. 22 (AP)—Three notes of the NBC chimes—G E and C—have now acquired voice and have joined the fourth War Loan campaign. They say: “Buy War Bonds.”
The chimes, which signal time or station breaks on the network, have “learned” to talk or rather sing, with the aid of three notes struck on an organ, a feminine voice and a device known as a sonovox. The engineers describe the effect as “voice modulated tones.” It is this same equipment which makes trains, musical instruments or other gadgets talk, and has come into wide use for radio sound effect purposes.

Associated Press, Dec. 11, 1945
By C.E. BUTTERFIELD
New York, Dec. 11 (AP)—Those chimes in Walter Winchell’s latest ABC broadcast—and they were NBC chimes by the way—didn’t bong on purpose. It was just one of those odd studio incidents that occur on occasion. The ringing did blot out item a twenty-seven word brief about a marriage.
ABC leases studios from NBC. The panel which announcers for both networks use has a pushbutton which automatically operates the three-note chimes NBC rings at station breaks but ABC does not. It was this button that announcer Ben Grauer accidentally hit shortly after the broadcast started.




After Bill Paley’s talent raids in 1948 netted him Amos ‘n’ Andy and Jack Benny, Broadway columnist Earl Wilson joked in print that the NBC chimes weren’t going to be changing networks.

There’s oodles of information about the chimes at THIS web site, and you can hear the famous radio version of them, circa 1949, by clicking on the button below. And we have more clippings about this chime here.