Oh, no, Lumbago!

The words “favourite Paul J. Smith cartoon” usually don’t fit together in a sentence. Smith had the misfortune to become a director after theatrical cartoons peaked and his became more pale and pointless as the years wore on.

But picking a personal favourite out of his work is pretty easy. It’s “Real Gone Woody” (1954), and I prefer to give writer Mike Maltese more credit than Smith for its success. Maltese dumps Woody, Buzz Buzzard and a girl in a light satire of the world of ‘50s high school sock-hops. They all fit in very nicely.

The gag I like the most might get lost on kids today. Buzz puts money in a juke box and then stops and cringes when he hears a hokey version of ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ “Oh, no! Lumbago!” he cries. It’s a play on Guy Lombardo, whose saccharine saxes were considered old-fashioned well before 1950. Lombardo’s biggest claim to fame—and he was still doing it in the mid 1970s—was ringing in the new year from New York with his Royal Canadians groaning out ‘Auld Lang Syne.’

If anyone was considered square, it was Guy Lombardo. Cut to a shot of the record in the juke box. It’s square shaped.



Musical director Clarence Wheeler sets it up nicely by having the record wow, like the vinyl is warped.

And, to top the gag, Maltese has invented a little gadget that breaks the hokey record, sweeps away the remnants and then puts a new platter on the turntable.

The animation in the cartoon is credited to Gil Turner, La Verne Harding and Bob Bentley.

Mr Jinks Pretzel

The Hanna-Barbera TV cartoon studio will never be accused of fluid animation. But when the studio opened in 1957, it had the most elaborate for-TV animation seen to date. And there were some funny poses, too, at least for a few years after ‘The Huckleberry Hound Show’ made its debut the following year.

Huck had three main animators—Ken Muse, Lew Marshall and Carlo Vinci, who had all been in the Hanna-Barbera unit at MGM. But some of the earliest cartoons on the show (which also featured Yogi Bear and Pixie and Dixie), Mike Lah took care of maybe a minute’s worth of footage. Lah’s drawings don’t look all that polished; odd considering he went from Disney to MGM. But he seems to have been given some of the funniest poses to do.

Lah takes care of some of the action in ‘Judo Jack’ (1958), including a scene where the stereotype Japanese mouse puts Mr. Jinks in an airplane spin. Lah has a couple of swirl drawings shot on twos and then the gag pose.




The credited animator is Muse.

Lah was working at Quartet Films, a commercial house, at the time, so I can only presume he was freelancing at Hanna-Barbera. He animated a couple of cartoons on his own with his distinctive drawing style. It’s a shame he didn’t stay longer.

Jack Benny, 39 (1939, That Is)

Could Jack Benny’s character on radio somehow get snookered by a conman, then end up on the losing end as a result? Anyone familiar with the Benny show would say “sure.” And that’s probably why Jack emerged with no permanent damage to his reputation when it happened in real life.

Jack was fined $10,000 and given a dressing-down by the judge after being indicted in January 1939 and pleading guilty the following April in a case that was front-page news. (Who says being obsessed with celebrity court cases is new?)

In the middle of it all, the National Enterprise Association did a profile on Jack and made a reference to the smuggling case. The story didn’t seem to take it all that seriously and, ultimately, neither did radio fans. This version was published February 2, 1939. The photo came with the story.

Jack Benny Has Lots of Luck—But It’s Bad Most of the Time
By PAUL HARRISON
(NEA Service)
HOLLYWOOD— Jack Benny usually is a fall-guy—on or off the screen, on or off the air, in or out of court. He accepted his indictment on charges of buying smuggled jewelry with about the same spirit that he displays when somebody gives him the hotfoot, and with the same remark: “That’s VERY funny.”
Unhappy things are always happening to Mr. Benny, who is Hollywood’s champion worrier and deadest-pan comedian when he isn’t performing. He is dead-pan because he actually does not see or hear what is going on about him. He just stalks around, rolling his cigar in his mouth and worrying about some imminent crisis which may be nothing more than a 30-second scene in “Man About Town.” Not even an appearance in federal court can be more terrifying to Mr. Benny than those first few moments when he faces a camera or a microphone.
Pants in Flames
In spite of the actor’s preoccupation and grim mien, nobody takes him very seriously. While he was wearing cowboy costume during the filming of his last picture, someone set fire to his chaps. When he was being lowered from a window, a costly watch dropped from a pocket and was smashed to bits. He has a large entourage of stooges who by all the Hollywood rules should behave in an obsequious manner and say, “Yes, Mr. Benny.” Instead, they argue with him until, exhausted, he sits down in a chair that has been fixed to collapse.
When such things happen, Benny says, “That's VERY funny.” Occasionally there is the ghost of a smile behind his cigar.
There are some who say that Benny is a thrifty man who will go out of his way to save a dollar here and there, but his closer friends declare this idea is engendered by the ribbings he gives himself on the radio. Last year, on the first day of his return from New York after an absence of months, Benny was touched for $1,200 by numerous needy pals. He is a generous player of benefits. He and Mary Livingstone entertain handsomely in a large house in Beverly Hills, and their swimming pool is so big that it has a skiff on it. Benny and his wife have large wardrobes, and he undoubtedly is the world's best dressed comedian.
Jokes are Cash to Him
Whether pinch-penny or prodigal, he is no waster of gags. A joke is the most precious thing in the world to a man in Benny’s business, and he almost never says anything funny in informal conversation. His companion in smuggling trouble, George Burns, lets quips fall where they may. But Benny mumbles through a newspaper like a small boy in juvenile court.
When Benny is not working in a picture, and has time to go to private parties or his golf club, he is almost as gay as anybody. During picture production, though, he works all the time. Two gag writers. Eddie Beloin and Bill Morrow, and Secretary Harry Baldwin are always with him at the studio. During every spare minute they work on the radio program for the following Sunday.
Benny never appears in the Paramount cafe; he has gags and coffee in his dressing room. The three employes all talk at once. Benny sits back and listens. Occasionally he seizes a suggestion and rises and paces as he elaborates on it. He never petulantly says that a lousy idea is lousy; he says, “Maybe we could switch it around like this—” His writers believe that he is the most kindly fellow who ever lived.
He’s Good, That’s All
Beloin and Morrow are on his personal payroll, and he often uses them on movie dialogue. “That doesn’t play right,” he’ll say, tossing away a few pages of script. He and his writers then will work out some new lines. The result always is an improvement, or he would not be allowed such liberties.
His perpetual cigar is not a posed trademark: he smokes about 15 25-centers a day. Never smoked in his life until 10 years ago when he took a part in Earl Carroll’s “Vanities” which required him to puff stogies.
His devotion to Miss Livingstone (who was Sadye Marks) and their 5-year-old adopted daughter Joan is one of Hollywood’s special prides.
He and his wife call each other “Doll.” Benny never has attended a preview of one of his pictures. He goes to boxing matches, if there are any, and is on tenterhooks until Miss Livingstone finds him and says that the picture was a success.
And They Still Speak
Besides golf, Benny likes bridge but is poor at poker. He owns a race horse, Buck Benny, bought at a Saratoga auction. Before Buck Benny’s first race under his new colors, the actor gave Hillard Marks, his brother-in-law, $300 to bet on the nag across the board. Marks didn’t know how to bet and couldn’t find a bookie anyway, so he held the money. Buck Benny won, paid a big price, and cost its owner some $7,000 by the unplaced wager.
Marks remains one of Benny’s closest cohorts. Another is Harry Lee, his former Broadway manager, who now is his stand-in although he has to wear 4-inch cork stilts.

Much has been written about the smuggling case. Even portions of the FBI files on it are even on-line. However, we’ll try to give you a contemporary look at it in a future post.

Random Cartoon News, 1945

Old editions of entertainment trade publications are wonderful sources of forgotten information so it’s a shame few of them are available on-line. You’ve seen this blog quote from Billboard, which is available for free and searchable through Google Books. Another long-established media publication on-line is Boxoffice which, unfortunately, doesn’t have a searchable archives. But it’s worthwhile to leaf through it for something to do and make little discoveries by accident (I wish I could find the story again about Bob Clampett going into business with Don Messick about 1956).

The October 13, 1945 edition has, besides the usual release schedule of short subjects, some brief notes about cartoons. The Walter Lantz Studio seems to have planted items in Boxoffice when necessary, but other cartoon producers in the ‘40s did, too. Disney even bought advertising space. So while Uncle Walt was plugging a re-release of ‘Pinocchio’ in a two-pager on October 13th, there were a few cartoon items I found interesting.

Columbia
HENRY BINDER, recently released from the navy animation unit after three years of service, joins Screen Gems as assistant general manager.

Metro
As a sequel to "Peace on Earth," cartoon preachment against war which was released in 1939, "The Truce Hurts,” will go into immediate production. To be produced by FRED QUIMBY and co-directed by WILLIAM HANNA and JOSEPH BARBERA, film is aimed at setting an example for world peace.

RKO
Edgar Bergen and his pair of almost human props, Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, have been signed by Walt Disney to appear in a newcomer to Disney's rapidly-expanding production slate. Disney concluded a deal with Bergen and his two partners to star in a screen version of "Jack and the Beanstalk." The picture will be done in a combination of live-action and cartoon techniques. Luana Patten, the seven-year-old child discovery Disney is featuring in "Uncle Remus" will, according to present plans, be teamed with Charlie and Mortimer.

The Binder blurb is notable in that Henry Binder was Leon Schlesinger’s right-hand man. Leon gave his brother-in-law, Ray Katz, a nice, cushy executive job in the studio. Leon sold out in 1944 to Warner Bros. and retired from producing. Eddie Selzer was brought in to run the studio by Warners and Katz either jumped, or was pushed, to the Columbia studio. The impression I’d been left with was Binder was fired from Warners but, if that was the case, it was a mere technicality, as the Boxoffice story shows he went from Schlesinger in 1942 to the Navy in Washington D.C. and then to Columbia. Katz and Binder’s fate after they left Columbia within a couple of years is unknown.

The Disney feature with Bergen and McCarthy was scaled down and became part of ‘Fun and Fancy Free’ (released 1947). It could have made a nice stand-alone feature but Disney’s money troubles pretty much made that an impossibility.

M-G-M released a cartoon called “The Truce Hurts,” (1948) but it bears little resemblance to Hugh Harman’s drama. It was a Tom and Jerry comedy, where the cat, mouse and Butch the dog sign a peace treaty only to tear it up by cartoon’s end after a fight over a steak. It can hardly be called a sequel. One wonders how the original concept got so corrupted.

At least it didn’t suffer the fate of the next cartoon the studio announced, in the October 20th edition. And, no, I don’t know where the name “Wally” came from.

Metro
"Our Vine Street Has Tender Wolves," Technicolor cartoon travesty starring animation stars, Red Hot Riding Hood and Wally Wolf, will be directed by TEX AVERY for FRED QUIMBY, producer.

A number of Avery’s pictures were assigned production numbers then abandoned, but it doesn’t even look like this one got that far. It’ll have to go down as another Avery cartoon-that-might-have-been, alive only in the pages of old trade publications. And blogs.

Crocheting a Bathtub

One of Bugs Hardaway’s oddest non-sequiturs can be heard in “The Hams That Couldn’t Be Cured,” a 1942 Walter Lantz effort. It’s one of a number of ‘40s cartoons where the Wolf tells what “really” happened during a well-known fairy tale. Friz Freleng did it the year before in “The Trial of Mr. Wolf” with the story of Red Riding Hood.

In this one, the trial is finished before the cartoon starts. The Wolf is about to hang for his crimes against the Three Little Pigs. But then he tells the “real” story where the pigs blew down his house with big band music (including a tuba that sounds like a bassoon and a harp that sounds like a piano).

The Wolf’s non sequitur is just before the pigs arrive: “As I was busy crocheting a new bathtub...” Not only do we have an innocent looking lamb, but the Lantz checker didn’t notice the faucet kept appearing and disappearing in the cycle animation.




Lowell Elliot gets a co-story credit. Alex Lovy and Ralph Somerville get animation credits here. La Verne Harding and Les Kline were still at the studio, weren’t they? And the voices are provided by Dick Nelson (the sheriff) and Kent Rogers (likely everyone else). Rogers shows off his great ability at impressions, making all the more regretful he died as a young man while training during the War.

Symphony in Slang Opening

‘Symphony in Slang’ demonstrates a perfect use of the “modern” cartoon design emerging in the early 1950s. It wasn’t there for the sake of being there. It had a purpose.

Tex Avery wanted to create a world where a character was completely out of place in the standard world of the MGM cartoon—a world of rounded characters, full animation and pastelled, soft backgrounds popularised by Disney. So he had Tom Oreb come up with a flat 1951 hipster character, living in a flat 1951 hipster world with limited animation. The contrast when the hipster arrives in the Disney-esque Heaven where the characters are puzzled by his modernism is deliberate and damned clever.

There’s no animation in the opening, too, as Avery has the camera move over two backgrounds before getting to any character movement.




Johnny Johnsen was Avery’s background man at the time. While Oreb is giving credit for the designs, notes on finished sketches show notes from Avery to Johnsen, so he worked on the cartoon as well. I wouldn’t be surprise if the opening was entrusted to him.

Fooey on Oogie

Most actors can only dream of steady work so it’s a little surprising to see that Dick Crenna is one who toiled non-stop for decades, both in front of, and behind, the camera and the microphone. Surprising, because Crenna wasn’t a megastar. His best-known radio role was Walter Denton on “Our Miss Brooks,” one of the best of the sitcoms, and he finally left behind his teen years on television in the late ‘50s when he appeared as Luke McCoy on “The Real McCoys” with Kathy Nolan and the wonderful Walter Brennan.

Crenna once told the Archive of American Television the worst review he ever got was by esteemed New York Herald-Tribune columnist John Crosby, who took aim at all the annoying, voice-cracking teenagers he played on radio. I’ve found the column. Actually, Crenna only played one of the characters under discussion—Oogie Pringle on “A Date With Judy,” but they’re basically the same type. “Our Miss Brooks” had only been on the air a couple of months when Crosby’s column came out on November 22, 1948, so young Mr. Denton gets a pass.

Crosby took aim at banality on radio, and there was lots of it. But he’s set up an unfair fight in this column, though I suspect he knew it and used a Mark Twain comparison for humour’s sake. Twain published books in the laconic 19th century. If words offended someone, too bad, they had to suck it up. 20th century network radio was a different world. Just like television today, the radio networks/sponsors/agencies took supreme pains not to offend anybody, including self-appointed watchdogs and malcontents. If Mark Twain had anti-social kids, that was life. If network radio even remotely featured a child with a hint of anti-social behaviour, (s)he was to be punished if (s)he was to appear at all, lest anyone complain. So it was that radio, like TV today, went to ridiculous lengths not to offend anyone (or, more correctly, during certain portions of the broadcast day. Therefore, “South Park” is okay. A fraction of a second of a nipple in a Super Bowl halftime show is a national calamity). Thus radio’s teenagers were annoying but innocuous.

Here’s what Crosby had to say.

Radio In Review
By JOHN CROSBY
What Ever Happened To The Bad Boy?
THE closest thing we have around to Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer — and it;s pretty distant — is Henry Aldrich and Homer. Which proves how boyhood has degenerated since I was a boy.
Boyhood—let’s face it squarely—has been going downhill for years, but it’s come to a pretty pass when its archetypes are Henry and Homer and Oogie Pringle and Archie Andrews.
When I was young, roughly around the 12th century, the blueprint of my deportment was drawn to scale by Huck and Tom and Penrod and the hero of “The Story of a Bad Boy”, whose name I’ve forgotten. (I missed “Peck’s Bad Boy” entirely. Different generation, I guess).
Those three provided an outline of general Cain raise that any boy could be proud of.
JUDGING FROM the radio, the lads still get into mischief (a word we wouldn’t be caught dead with) but they never get into it deliberately.
The difference is one of intent---and that’s where a boy’s character is formed, which is why I think the education of our sons is in incapable hands. When Huck and Tom ran away from home, when the Bad Boy (what was that kid’s name anyway?) blew up the village cannon, they knew what they were doing.
In both cases there were unexpected circumstances, but the sense of wrongdoing was present from the outset. They were active little fiends, destined to become captains of industry when they grew up.
FOR HOMER and Henry and Oogie and Archie I see no hope whatever of future brilliance. Week after week they get into one jam after another, always by accident, never by design.
The trouble they see is a censored, respectable, passive trouble. They’re the victims. In Huck’s day somebody else was the victim.
Modern boys—and I’m judging Oogie and company—and a bunch of namby pambies. They never try to get into trouble. They try to stay out of it. But, with the best intentions in the world, they stick their elbows through windows, they fall flat on their faces in front of their best girls.
Always they’re crossed by circumstances or the idiosyncrasies of adults. What I object to is that they’re trying so hard to be good. And they generally are foiled by their own stupidity.
WHAT SORT of example is that to hold up before a young boy? Penrod and Huck and Tom slipped once in awhile in the mires of boyhood, but they never were stupid.
They didn’t put their feet in their mouths with such monotonous regularity. Their parents worried about them. Henry and Homer and Oogie and Archie worry about their parents.
Also, the modern girl has got out of hand. There was a place in Penrod’s life and in Tom Sawyer’s life for girls, but there also was a place where girls weren’t allowed. The modern boy seems to have girls on the brain all day long.
I DUNNO. These adenoidal infants they got on the air don’t sound quite bright or quite virile.
Of course, you might argue that all these kids—Archie and Henry and Homer and Oogie—belong in the category of Tarkington’s “Seventeen” rather than in the company of Huck Finn, but they’re the nearest thing we have to Huck.
There aren’t any Huck Finns in radio, the influence probably of mothers craving respectability.
I’m against it. A couple of Huck Finns would be a lot better for the kids than Capt. Midnight, Superman or Tom Mix.
There wasn’t any real harm in Huck and Tom. They were just harum scarum.

Before UPA Came Willoughby Wren

If there was ever a cartoon studio that had more disjointed, half-baked shorts than Screen Gems, aka Columbia, then I’ve never heard of it.

Screen Gems were usually anything but. The studio went from the remnants of the Charles Mintz studio, to attempts at artsy-fartsiness, to second-rate versions of Warners and Tex Avery cartoons, to closure, all within about 10 years. A lot of the people who worked there were talented, some of the animation was pretty good, but Columbia came up with a frightening number of cartoons are mouth-gapingly bizarre.

‘Willoughby’s Magic Hat’ (1943) is one of them. It features gobs of limited animation that would have made the accountants at Filmation happy, UPA-style background art (pre-UPA) designed to draw attention to itself, a plot that somehow combines a robot Frankenstein with a Pearl White melodrama and John Ployardt’s too-overly-affected narration. Oh, and a guy with the name of a bird. It’s not a happy mix. But for you fans of stylised backgrounds, here are a few, designed by Zack Schwartz, which are probably the only reason anyone talks about this cartoon at all.

Snafu Has Gas

Like all studios during World War Two, Leon Schlesinger/Warner Bros. made cartoons directly strictly at G-Is. The Snafu cartoons are little Looney Tunes. They feature Mel Blanc’s voice, Carl Stalling’s music and your favourite animators and directors, though none of them are credited.

There’s some great design and animation in the Snafus. One of the most enjoyable pieces of animation is a huge, gas cloud that comes to life to kill Snafu, who has thrown away his too-inconvenient gas mask. The fat cloud continually and fluidly changes shape and even gives off little wisps of clouds. ‘Gas’ (1943) was directed by Chuck Jones, and the cloud drawings below are apparently the work of Bobe Cannon (and assistant). In case you’re wondering, the cloud’s eyes are turning into binoculars in the final frame below.






Billy Bletcher provides the voice of the cloud and Blanc is, of course, Snafu. Read more about the Snafu series HERE.

Writing the Jack Benny Show

There were occasions on the old network comedy/variety shows that the script would get tossed away for a while amidst a flurry of ad-libs but, generally, each week’s shown was carefully honed, even to the point of violent disagreement among the honers.

Comedians hiring gag-writers wasn’t anything new. It was common in vaudeville. Writers didn’t care if they got credit. They wanted the money. Besides, whoever heard of stopping a vaudeville show to read credits? Thus gag-writers were hired when vaudeville’s comedians moved into radio in the early ‘30s. The writers weren’t always anonymous; Jack Benny credited his even in the mid-‘30s. But the anonymity chafed. Radio brought huge national fame to comedians, the kind vaudeville rarely did. It brought big exposure, big salaries and big motion picture contracts. Benny’s writer wanted that kind of action for himself, so he rebelled. You can read more about it HERE.

That seems to have prompted this weekend feature story syndicated by King Features on September 24, 1939. Oddly, Edward Misurell goes on and on about “ghost” writers, yet spends half the story outlining how Jack Benny co-wrote his own weekly show. Benny, the story doesn’t tell you, was one of the best editors in the radio comedy business and while the writers may have come up with ideas and dialogue, Benny stood over the whole process to make sure it worked.

GAGGING GHOSTS WHO MAKE YOU Laugh
Why the Joke-Writer’s Suit Against Jack Benny Is No Joke to the Radio Comedians
By Edwin Misurell
RADIO’S top-flight comedians are looking over their shoulders these days with apprehension. They’re being haunted by “ghosts” and they don’t like it a bit. Yet, paradoxically, the nation’s funny men can’t get along without them for even a single program nor can they get along with them on the whole for more than one radio season.
The “ghosts” are the writers who pound out the mirth-provoking scripts for the big-time comics you hear over the national networks; they're the idea men behind the entertaining continuities “brought to you each week through the courtesy” of so-and-so coffee, tea, shaving cream, face powder, etc.
The comedians are more than annoyed over the way the “ghosts” have been “coming to life” lately. Prompting their uneasiness is the $65,500 breach of contract suit filed by writer Harry Conn against Jack Benny.
Conn charges that Benny has continued to use the characters and dramatic situations devised by him in 1935 when he put fun in Benny’s funny business. He further claims that they were to be used for only 39 weeks; the length of term of his contract. He added that he was to be paid 6% of the comic’s earnings during the time the material was used. He makes the latter the basis of his claim.
Benny holds the Conn charges amount to overcharges, and his friends point to the fact that Benny achieved top-ranking in radio polls after Conn had ceased writing material for the Benny Sunday evening broadcasts. (The Benny “ghosts” now are Bill Morrow and Ed Beloin.)
Nevertheless the suit serves to bring public notice to the little known and virtually unsung crew of men who actually develop the situations and think up or refurbish the jokes with which comedians tickle the risibilities of the nation’s broadcast listeners, and suggests that if other radio “ghosts” decide to follow in Conn’s legal footsteps, the courts would be busy for years to come. For the only well known comic who writes his own scripts and gags is Fred Allen, and the list of “ghosts” who help to keep other comedians high in Crosley rating is long. Among the most important, besides Morrow and Beloin, are:
Hal Raynor—Joe Penner.
John P. Medbury, Bill Burns, Harvey Helm—Burns and Allen.
Ed Gardner — Ken Murray and Ned Sparks program.
Gill and Demling—Joe E. Brown program.
Don Quinn—“Fibber McGee.”
Phil Rapp, Maury Amsterdam and Sam Moore — Good News program. (Irving Hoffman has also written Baby Snooks sayings for Fannie Brice.)
Carroll Carroll — Bing Crosby-Bob Burns program.
Paul Rhymer—Vic and Sade.
Monroe Upton—Al Pearce and Gang program.
Edna Stillwell—Avalon Time.
Dick Mack and Ed Rice—Charlie McCarthy program.
Milt Josephberg, Mel Shavelson, Al Schwartz, Carl Manning, Bob Philips, and Jack Huston—Bob Hope-Jerry Colonna program.
Surprisingly enough, radio “ghosts” are the poorest paid workers in the entertainment field. Usually they receive an average of 1 or 1½% of the entire cost of the program. Writers in show business receive about 6% of the money spent in putting on a play or a musical, while book authors earn about 15% of the profits taken in by the publisher of his work.
Then, too, the airwave script fashioners are always the “nearest to the door” of all the persons who put together radio shows. The moment a program begins to lose its popularity, the “ghosts” are the first persons to be fired. Generally the comedians feel: “I’m an established star—it must be the material that is bad.” Since most comics hire their own writers, they can hand out “pink slips” with a minimum of ease.
When a writer is signed to do scripts for a popular comic he usually finds that he’s tied himself up “body, soul and brain” until the contract expires. He must be on call at all time for any rewriting, patching, or complete changing of a contemplated program.
Typical of the amount of work they must do before they receive the weekly pay-check is the routine followed by Bill Morrow and Ed Beloin in readying the scripts for the Benny program.
As soon as one show is over, and the studio has been cleared of autograph seekers and others, Benny, Beloin and Morrow go into a huddle on the studio stage. Each of the trio suggests his ideas for the show to be broadcast the following week. Some times the ideas flow fast and on other occasions they come hard. Often they battle back and forth for a good while before they decide which ideas are worth developing into a script.
The following day, Monday, Beloin and Morrow work out the gaga and situations they spoke about the night before. They spend a full day on this job. On Tuesday they have a rough draft ready which they take to Benny.
The comedian and his “ghosts” then spend Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday working over this original draft. They polish it, change it, cut it, or build it up into a working rehearsal script. There is no set period on how long they work. They may spend eight hours a day on the job or even as long as 18 hours in actual labor. It all depends on whether or not their minds are clicking right.
On Friday the trio rest as best they can. In all probability, they constantly think up means of improving the work they've already spent so much time on up to that point.
When Saturday comes the entire cast is brought together. It may be in Benny’s home or the studio. He then reads the script to them. Any comments that Andy Devine, Phil Harris, Mary Livingstone, Kenny Baker, Don Wilson, or “Rochester” have to make on their own lines are noted. Occasionally, with these comments in mind, revisions are made. Phil Harris, the orchestra conductor, may feel that he can’t say a certain line right that Beloin and Morrow have written for him. He might have an idea that improves the line. The whole cast may feel that some of their lines ought to be changed. Benny and the writers have the final word in the matter.
Then the group goes over the script once again. This time, however, every member of the cast reads the lines written expressly for them. Usually there are further changes after this reading. They read it time and again until they feel the script is perfect.
After the rehearsal, the cast is dismissed, but Benny, Beloin, Morrow, and the producer for the advertising agency that handles the show, confer on changes. They may talk and make changes in the script for hours and have little sleep before final rehearsals start at 10 a. m. Sunday morning, to continue until the program goes on the air. For their labor Benny pays the writers each $500 a week out of the $10,000 a week he gets from his sponsor.
Conn became Benny’s principal gag-writer in 1932 and stayed in his employ for about four and a half years, which is an unusually long period for such associations to last.
It was during this time, Conn claims, that he devised the characters and situations
he says Benny is still using over the air. In his deposition the writer states that he has been paid nothing for the use of this material since 1936, while the comedian has earned $1,170,000 from radio work and $140,000 from motion pictures.
Benny is not the first comedian to get into legal difficulties with “ghosts.” As a result of similar legal difficulties between Eddie Cantor and his “ghost,” the late David Freedman, it is said that Cantor is unable to sell his autobiography, My Life Is in Your Hands, on which Freedman collaborated, for a proposed movie production.
Freedman brought suit against Cantor for $250,000, declaring he and the comedian had made an oral agreement in 1931 whereby Cantor was to pay him 10 per cent of his earnings. He stated that at the time the agreement was made Cantor was earning $2,000 a week, which amount subsequently rose to $10,000 a week, and that his gags were responsible for the rise in the comedian’s salary.
Cantor denied there was such an agreement, oral or otherwise, and declared he had paid Freedman well, sometimes more than 10 per cent, during their association. A mistrial was declared in the suit when Freedman died one day after the trial began.
In spite of such “hauntings,” however, the comedians continue to employ ghost-writers. They just can’t get along without them.

Jack Benny carried on quite well without Harry Conn’s inventions—dumping both the ditzy version of Mary Livingstone and angry version of Phil Harris, and adding Rochester and a pile of funny, continuing ancillary characters that Benny fans love today. With the help of his new writers, of course.