The Perturbation of Jack Benny

It seems impossible there could be an interview with Jack Benny that didn’t talk about being cheap, bad violin playing, age 39, driving a Maxwell or Mary Livingstone. But all of this was an invention (over time) of Jack and his radio writers, starting in 1932. Jack had a fairly lengthy career in vaudeville prior to that and none of this was part of his persona. He was thought of an easy-going stand-up comedian by the end of the 1920s.

That’s how we find him in a rare interview in 1930 by a writer for the National Enterprise Association, a feature service for small newspapers. I don’t know whether he was interviewed any earlier. Broadway columns (and those out of Hollywood) generally consisted of little squibs about people and places, not a profile of one individual. But here’s one.

IT’S EASIER TO AMUSE WOMEN
Jack Benny, Talkie Comedian, Thinks an Audience of Men Is the Coldest Proposition in the World
By DON ROBERTS
HOLLYWOOD, March 31 — Women are easier to please than men —particularly from a comedian’s standpoint.
This is the theory of Jack Benny, for years one of vaudeville’s best known comedians, who now is making a name for himself in this audible picture racket.
“If I had my way about it, I never would play before anything but a mixed audience.” Benny declared. “But if I had to choose between masculine and feminine, I would take the women every time. There is no audience in the world tougher than a strictly stag aggregation.”
As a rule Jack is just as funny off the stage as he is on—maybe a little funnier. But he wasn’t yesterday as we sat in the Brown Derby. He was perturbed, trying to make up his mind whether to accept a vaudeville engagement in New York or to stay here for a legitimate show and take his chances on getting a picture at the same time. Now that he has gotten a pretty good start in pictures, he doesn’t like to get 3,000 miles from the center of things.
Getting the Gags
“I wish I could just press a button and make myself funny,” Benny remarked. “But I can’t. I’m not in the right mood I couldn’t pull the funniest gag in the world so that it would get a laugh.”
“Where do you get the gags for your monologue, Jack?” we inquired.
“I write most of them myself,” replied the actor. “Occasionally I get some from a man with a really good sense of humor. I think most of my own gags are pretty terrible so when I do write one that sounds good to me I generally can depend upon it going over. Once in New York I bought 15 joke books, hoping to get something new for my routine but I didn’t find a single gag I could use.
“Naturally all comedians can’t use the same type of material. A gag with which someone else could make an audience howl would fall absolutely flat if I tried to use it.”
Benny came out here under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to act as one of the masters of ceremonies in “The Hollywood Revue.” Following that he made “Chasing the Rainbow” [sic] with Bessie Love and Charles King. That was the first picture in which he really played a part, his role in it being that of a wise-cracking stage manager. Now he is free lancing, which is the reason for his perturbation. When he gets two offers simultaneously he never can make up his mind which to accept. And that worries him.

His comedy philosophy here is interesting, considering how his career developed. His feeling that certain routines work for certain people likely prompted him to craft his character on his radio show. And his assessment proved to be correct. There are things that Jack Benny came to do that no other comedian would have been able to get a laugh with. In a way, that was a hindrance to his movie career, as audiences expected to see something akin to his Benny character on the screen.

Of course, it never hurt his overall career. In 1965, people knew who Jack Benny was. Charles King wasn’t so lucky.

Trigger Joe

You can probably divide the cartoons of the Golden Age of Animation into two categories—theatrical and non-theatrical. Theatricals are, of course, Looney Tunes, Mickey Mouse, Woody Woodpecker, Popeye and so on, seen on TV by several generations. Non-theatricals are more obscure because, conversely, they have never been seen on TV by several generations. Some are industrial films, like some of the lovely and amusing cartoons from the John Sutherland studio paid for by companies or institutions to push their particular point of view. And then there are cartoons designed strictly for military use, especially during World War Two.

The ‘Snafu’ series is probably the best-known, brought to light by fans of the great Warner Bros. cartoons who wanted to see how their favourite directors and animators handled instructional subjects for a military audience. But there were others, some of which were made by the military itself in the First Motion Picture Unit studio at the old Hal Roach studio.

One series of these starred Mel Blanc as “Trigger Joe”. At least some were directed by Frank Thomas of the Disney studio and the animation staff included John Hubley, Bill Hurtz and Willis Pyle. Hurtz describes Joe as “kind of based on Bill Bendix, a heavy Brooklyn type” (Enchanted Drawings, Charles Solomon); Bendix was best known as the star of “Life of Riley” on radio.

Interestingly, “Trigger Joe” was featured in the Hollywood column in papers subscribing to the National Enterprise Association. It was a bit of wartime propaganda itself, with a message to people who felt that if you weren’t a G.I., you were an unpatriotic slacker.

In Hollywood
By Erskine Johnson
(NEA Staff Corespondent)
Hollywood—The screen has a new feminine star—a streamlined, glamorous lady called the B-29.
We’ve just seen her first starring picture, “Target Tokyo,” and she’s a killer-diller.
You fly with her on the world’s longest bombing mission — 10,000 miles—from Grand Island, Neb., to Tokyo. You see how men are trained to fly her and to man her guns.
No other wartime motion picture has seen quite as exciting, or timely, with wonderful scenes of these giant Superfortresses in formation flight, landing on Saipan’s airstrip, flying over Iwo Jima and dropping bombs on the heart of Tokyo.
History of the first B-29 group to bomb the Jap capital, the film is another Army Air Force documentary filmed in the manner of “The Memphis Belle.” Eight Army cameramen and two writers made the 10,000-mile trip to get the celluloid story, which you’ll be seeing soon in your neighborhood theater.
We saw the picture after signing our life away at a guarded gate and putting on a big “VISITOR” badge at the 18th Army Air Forces Base Unit (Motion Picture Unit) at Culver City, Calif.
Comedy Center
Before the war this base unit was the Hal Roach studio, home of slapstick comedy. Last time we sat in a projection room there we saw Stan Laurel throwing a custard pie at Oliver Hardy. There were photographs of girls in bathing suits on office walls and members of the “Our Gang” comedy studied in a little red schoolhouse next to Stage 3.
Now the Army boys there have produced 230 training and documentary pictures since October of 1942—more than any other Hollywood studio. The bathing suit photographs on office walls have been replaced with photographs of guys wearing oxygen suits and of airplane wings and motors and machine guns.
The B-29 is the current big star of the lot. She just completed another role in a movie a half hour longer than “Gone With the Wind.” You will never see it, though. It’s a maintenance-instruction film for B-29 mechanics and crew members only. There’s so much to learn from the picture that it is being shown as a six-part serial.
But speaking of stars, the studio boys won’t let you overlook “Trigger Joe,” an animated cartoon character dreamed up by the studio for “position firing” training films. “Position Firing” is the latest wrinkle in air combat, but it is so intricate that Army instructors were taking 14 days to teach its finer points.
Time Slashed
The Air Corps brass hats said this was much too slow, so the Motion Picture Unit dreamed up “Trigger Joe” and starred him in a 12-minute instruction film. What took 14 days to learn is now learned in 12 minutes.
Naturally, most of the work done by the Motion Picture Unit is secret. Some of the Hollywood lads have taken a ribbing for fighting the war on a sound stage in Culver City. But brother, when a little thing like “Trigger Joe” can cut a training schedule from 14 days to 12 minutes, the boys behind the camera are helping win the war, too.

We can’t postulate how entertaining Joe was, but he certainly was effective. A study was done in 1947 comparing instruction using the Trigger Joe cartoon, a 50-page pocket-sized manual and a half-hour lecture with 19 slides made from illustrations in the manual. Tests on cadets showed Trigger Joe was far superior in teaching position firing than the other two media. And, to quote one source:

Amusingly enough, when Trigger Joe was put in the ten-cent viewing machines in the Fort Meyers commissary, soldiers preferred watching it to the Dinah Shore films that were also available.

A shame it isn’t readily available for animation fans to see.

Tex Avery Lion Roars

Tex Avery’s love of crazy takes may have reached its peak in “Slap Happy Lion,” released in Seotember 1947. It features three of Avery’s typical themes—a role-reversal at the end, the tormented can’t escape his tormenter, and toothy wide-open mouths with jagged tongues expressing fear or horror.

In this cartoon, there are takes everywhere, starting with the lion, then reactions to him, then the lion reacting to the mouse. I didn’t even try counting them at the end because there’s one after another after another that kind of numb your mind after awhile. Too many to post. But what you see below is from the second scene, where Avery comes up with different after-effects for each lion roar (followed by some kind of take and gag by other animals in reaction). The inside-out lion and the lion-as-a-ball go together.








Then the mouse scares the lion. Here are a couple of reaction drawings on ones. The second one is an in-between as the lion raises his head before a cut to a body shot and a scream take.




The animators credited on the cartoon are Bob Bentley, Walt Clinton and Ray Abrams. The character models (the lion’s apparently named ‘Flagada’) were by the great Irv Spence, drawn in July 1945, giving you an idea how long it took the cartoon to be released.

Bugs Bunny, Rah, Rah, Rah!

Stretch in-betweens are one of several things that was under experimentation in the Chuck Jones unit at Warner Bros. before 1945. “The Dover Boys” (1942) has the best-known examples but they crop up in other cartoons. You can spot them in three scenes in “Super Rabbit” (1943), twice very quickly and then near the end of the cartoon in the cheerleading scene. Here are some consecutive frames as Bugs moves from one side of the screen to the other.











Ken Harris gets the animation credit on this cartoon, and he used stretch in-betweens a number of years later in “No Barking,” but it’s felt by some that Bobe Cannon was exclusively drawing them in the Jones unit at this period.

A Career Mashed By a Monster

Dear Aspiring Actors,

Please do not become famous and then complain how you’re tired of your role, or fed up with being typecast. It is an occupational hazard. And a pretty common one.

You become famous and popular because people like seeing you as the character you are performing. And they want to see more of it. Over and over and over until they get tired of it and want someone new. That’s an occupational hazard, too.

Just about every famous film actor has been typecast. All you have to do is say their name and an image pops into your head. John Wayne. Clint Eastwood. Cary Grant. Edward G. Robinson. You don’t picture any of them as “The Disorderly Orderly,” do you?

And what about Boris Karloff? Just like all great actors, he could have played a variety of roles but people remember him for one (well, maybe two, but only when cartoons are on around Christmas). And when the genre he was typecast in died away, pickings became pretty slim (at least he didn’t end up starring in movies about plans from outer space). But he became philosophical about it, as this Associated Press interview from 1949 showed:

HOLLYWOOD, Feb. 21.—(AP)—The ghost of Frankenstein’s monster still hovers over Boris Karloff.
The noted actor is back to playing a boogyman, this time with Abbott and Costello in “A. and C. Meet the Killers.” “But I think they’ll probably scare me more than I will them,” he remarked.
No matter where Karloff’s acting career takes him, he always seems to return to the spine-tinglers. He has tried Broadway plays. One lasted five performances. Another folded last month after six tries.
It’s ironic that his only Broadway success was in “Arsenic and Old Lace,” in which he played a madman with a haunting resemblance to the movie actor, Boris Karloff.
Last year he had a run as Indian chief in the movies “Tap Roots” and “Unconquered.” (Actually, his tanned face resembles an Indian more than the English gentleman he is.) He had other offers to play redskins, but turned them down to avoid being typed.
Karloff used to turn down horror roles, too, but he told me he has a new philosophy.
“I have refused many roles in the past two years because I didn’t think they were good enough,” he said. “I think now that was a mistake. From now on I shall take everything that comes along. Out of all that, something ought to turn out to be outstanding.”
The actor hasn’t played Frankenstein’s monster in 15 years, but the shade of the satchel-footed dim-wit still follows him around. He still gets fan mail about it.
When he was in New York, kids asked him for his autograph and said how much they liked him in “Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein.” (Glenn Strange played the role.)
Actually, he doesn’t resent the monster.
“It’s good for an actor to have a role in which he can make a name for himself,” he said.
“I’ve been pretty lucky. I haven’t played the monster in 15 years, and yet I’ve managed to keep working.” He tapped the nearest piece of wood.

That’s Why They Call it A Drooler's Delight

Let other sites intellectualise about the use and effect of female impersonation in animation. I’d rather just post consecutive frames from one of Woody Woodpecker’s drag acts from “Drooler's Delight” (1949). The gag’s pretty self-explanatory.




The credits say Ed Love animated this cartoon himself. The director was Dick Lundy, who employs a lot of camera movement in the short. He moves in on a closer shot of the bear-trap in the gag above. Lionel Stander plays Buzz Buzzard to perfection. Bugs Hardaway, who I really dislike as Woody, turns in a decent performance. I don’t know who the mock NBC announcer (we hear three chimes before he speaks) is at the start.

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.

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.

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.

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?