Wanted: Stars For Leon

If Walt Disney can get ink, Leon Schlesinger must have thought, so can I. By the late ‘30s, he had a PR person named Rose Horsley. But he started getting space in the papers before that.

We’ve posted a 1937 feature story about cartoons that focused on Schlesinger. It may actually have been written the year before and banked since it contains some of the same information in this 1936 story from the Associated Press. I’m unable to find a byline. Fans of old cartoons will recognise the references to Joe Dougherty and Berneice Hansell, though neither is mentioned by name.

Artists Seek New Stars For Cartoon Films
Scratch Heads for Additional Movie Strip Characters Which Would Be Popular
HOLLYWOOD, April 4.—(AP)—In Hollywood, where film factories cry for new faces, there are studios that never send out talent scouts. No actors haunt their gates.
These are the animated cartoon studios. Actors they seek must come from the inspiration of their artists.
Cartoon actors, like their human fellows, must make the grade before they become stars. Like the other Hollywood puppets, they depend on public acclaim for advancement.
“We are always on the alert for characters,” says Leon Schlesinger, producer of “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies.” “A character may make an impression in a minor role, just as a feature picture with living actors, and work up to stardom in the same way,” he says. “Out best example is Porky the Pig, who has become one of our stars—a personality for whom we create vehicles.”
When Schlesinger first begun making cartoons in 1930, he featured Bosko and Honey, a.
“boy and girl” pair. Since then his “stock company” of pen-and-ink people and animals has grown considerably.
Another success of star-building in the cartoons is Walt Disney’s Donald Duck, who used to be merely one of Mickey Mouse’s playmates. Whether Donald stole scenes is not recorded, but he now stars in his own vehicles, with, or without Mickey.
To give a cartoon character “personality” is the task of the animators, who always are striving for individuality. Animators have been known to work with, mirrors, incorporating into their sketches their own facial mannerisms.
In talking cartoons, a character is not complete unless he has a voice. To find a voice that fits the personality is not simple.
Disney keeps secret the names of his “voices,” to preserve the illusion as far as possible. He admits he searched a year for a voice for Snow White, heroine of his cartoon feature.
Rochelle Hudson’s, before she became noted in feature, pictures, was a voice in “Looney Tunes.” Jane Withers came from radio to double vocally for a child character for Schlesinger before any studio gave her a chance on her own.
On the “Merrie Melodies” vocal list is a woman who does no other film work than speaking for Kitty the Kitten. A young extra stutters convincingly as Porky the Pig.
Schlesinger also has access to Warner Bros. record libraries, so today’s stars sometimes speak from cartooned mouths.
Joe E. Brown’s wide-mouthed yell has been heard in cartoons as the roar of a hippotamus [sic]. A John Barrymore dialog record, played in reverse, has served for the gibberish of animal characters.

Withers, by the way, recorded for more than just the Schlesinger studio. We’ll dig up an old newspaper article from the start of her career in a future post.

Meow Wow!

Tex Avery Rule No. 586—animals are fooled by other animals’ really lame disguises.

Actually, the Hanna-Barbera unit at MGM used this rule, too, but Tex did it with more panache. How about the scene in ‘Ventriloquist Cat’ where Spike pretends to be a sex-pot female cat? (Scott Bradley plays “Frankie and Johnny” in the background). Yes, it fools the male cat, who gives us a comparatively small Avery bulge-eyed take (we do get to see the veins in the eyes) before a bit of cycle animation and then a zoom out of the frame.






The scene gets even more ridiculous with the cat wooing Spike using a voice later associated with whiny ducks in Tom and Jerry cartoons (the duck was voiced by Red Coffey but Harry Lang may be the cat in this cartoon).

The animators in this cartoon are Avery’s standard threesome at the time: Walt Clinton, Mike Lah and Grant Simmons.

Ub’s Surprise

Every cartoon studio in the mid-1930s, well, everyone except cheapskate Paul Terry, felt they had to make a special series of knock-off Disney fairy tales, probably to the chagrin of most of the people working on them.

One of those studios was run by Ub Iwerks, the animator enticed by Disney’s former distributor Pat Powers in 1930 to walk away from that nasty old Uncle Walt and make his own cartoons that Powers would gladly rent to theatres through M-G-M.

Like many studios, Iwerks started with a knock-off Mickey Mouse (his version was Flip the Frog) and tried to impress theatre patrons with dazzling colour a little over three years later. The ComiColor cartoons didn’t impress M-G-M; Powers had to distribute them to theatres through his own company, meaning he was lucky to get into the big theatres, which were all sewed up by the major studios.

The ComiColors were processed in Cinecolor and the colours looked pretty good. Too bad the cartoon’s stories and gags weren’t as good. The design of the characters in The Brementown Musicians (1935) look like something out of the Paul Terry studio from the late ‘20s. And Iwerks had this obsession about radiating lines from characters to indicate shock, fear, surprise, whatever, something that should have gone out with silent films. The Flip series used the effect but so did the ComiColors.


ALI BABA, 1936


SINBAD THE SAILOR, 1935

You have to wonder if Grim Natwick, the man responsible for Betty Boop at Fleischer’s, animated the imaginary hula girls. The only people to get credit on these cartoons was Iwerks, Powers and musical director Carl Stalling (one wonders if Stalling’s was contractual).

The ComiColor series ended in 1936 and Iwerks’ studio struggled along for a couple of more years. Soon, the other knock-offs—the Rainbow Parades, the Color Rhapsodies, the Happy Harmonies and so on—came to an end as well. You see, another of the knock-offs, the Merrie Melodies over at Leon Schlesinger found something other than colour and fairy tales. They found humour. They even made fun of all those colour fairy tale Disney knock-offs, something that carried on into the television animation age.

Marvin Miller’s Millions

The idea that “radio people can’t act on camera” is ludicrous, considering how many radio people made the jump (not that they had much choice) to television. But that was in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s. Before then, there was a bias about rolling film on a radio actor/actress, as studios feared they weren’t adept unless a script was in their hands.

So was the situation with Marvin Miller, a wonderful voice man who was featured on cartoons for John Sutherland and UPA, children’s records (“Fox in Socks” is a personal favourite) and countless radio roles. Despite Louella Parsons whining at him by name at the start of her broadcasts for at least a season, television brought him the fame radio never quite did, thanks to ‘The Millionaire,’ but at least one columnist wrote about him in the pre-television era.

Here’s a United Press column from 1945 that gives you an idea how insanely busy Miller was. As if he needed the work in films.

IN HOLLYWOOD
Radio Actor and Announcer Making Good in Movie-town
By VIRGINIA MACPHERSON
Hollywood, Oct. 23. (BUP)—Let’s consider the case of Marvin Miller, a roly-poly young actor who got to the top in radio because he could do so many different things with his voice.
Now he’s branched out into the movies where he has to use his face. He’s doing all right there, too.
You probably haven’t heard much about Mr. Miller yet, but you will, because right at the moment he’s one of the hottest new character actors in town.
A dozen producers have parts they want him for. A dozen more are looking for pictures they can use him in. All of which leaves him gleefully chortling at those know-it-alls who once turned him down for the screen just because he was a radio man.
“They said a radio performer could never change his spots and become a successful movie actor,” he grinned.
Miller is a native of St. Louis, Mo., where he started out in radio 15 years ago. He’s 32 now, but as far as the air waves are concerned he’s an old veteran.
If you’re a radio fan you know him as the Coronet Story Teller; the announcer of Frank Sinatra’s show, and the Whistler.
He’s still doing those shows, too, along with roles in Blood on the Sun, A Night in Paradise, Johnny Angel, and Deadline at Dawn. A busy schedule for some guys, but not for Miller.
45 Different Shows a Week
“When I was on the air in Chicago,” he explained, “I was either announcing or acting on 45 different shows a week. I’d work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day, except Sunday. On that day I got off at 6 p.m.”
A movie agent heard his dialect stuff and asked him if he’d be interested in making movies. Miller said sure. Then came the problem of getting the studios interested
“We couldn’t,” Miller grinned. “They said they thought I was terrific on the air. But they were not taking any chances on signing me up for the movies. Said once a radio actor never a screen actor. How if I’d get a little experience on Broadway, they said, they might change their minds.”
But Miller wasn’t any more interested in Broadway than Hollywood was in Miller. So he kept up his Chicago pace for a few more years and then brought three of his shows to Hollywood with him—for a rest.
And first thing he knew there were the studios knocking on his door with contracts and fountain pens. Miller still hasn’t any idea what made them change their minds.

Miller was profiled in one of those TV magazine supplements you (used to?) get with newspapers. This is from August 9, 1959 and featured a drawing of him on the front page.

Marvin Miller: Aide to A Whimsical Midas
“Some people,” says Marvin Miller, “are jacks of all trades. In what is a very pleasant switch, you might say my job is to supply jack to all trades.”
As Michael Anthony, executive secretary to John Beresford Tipton, eccentric tycoon of CBS-TV’s “The Millionaire” series, it has been Miller’s job for almost four years to bestow sudden wealth upon unsuspecting beneficiaries. And this for an actor who began his career with a job that paid five dollars a week.
If his television capers are unusual, they are in keeping with a history of extraordinary events which rank Miller as one of video’s most versatile personalities.
Noted as an announcer, newscaster, linguist and dialectician, Miller is also a vocalist, recording artist, playwright, poet, painter, photographer and gourmet of repute, who has written for national magazines on the subject of fine liqueurs and foods.
Many Hobbies
And the above docs not even include the dozen or more hobbies which occupy his spare time. His name is listed in the pages of “Who’s Who” and the “Biographical Dictionary of Poets.”
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Miller attended Washington University there, paying his way through the school by working on a local radio station. His first job consisted of writing a dramatic show and playing all the roles called for in the script.
In a typical program he appeared as two Englishmen, two Negroes, an Italian, Frenchman, American gangster and straight man. For this effort as a one-man repertory company, for playing eight different parts, he received a weekly stipend which amounted to 63 cents a role.
By the time Miller obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree from the university, he had scaled the radio heights of the Mound City. He had a reputation as St. Louis’ leading announcer and newscaster, and was recognized as the foremost music commentator on local airwaves, a talent that was to stand him in good stead in later years.
Success Repeated
Moving to Chicago, Miller repeated his successes and was soon starring in dozens of network shows. By 1944 he was appearing on a minimum of 45 broadcasts a week and the show business bible, “Variety,” clubbed him “Chicago’s one-man radio industry.”
Then Hollywood beckoned and the film capital became the scene of new Miller triumphs. In fact, the first week in town saw him handling announcing chores on Frank Sinatra’s show. Motion picture roles followed and his histrionic abilities received recognition when he was cast in roles opposite top name stars.
His distinctive voice also has been employed in recordings of great works of literature. Among them is “The Talking Bible,” which contains more than a million words and requires more than a week to play in its entirety. It was a year arid a half in the making and pioneers the field of 16 2-3" records.
Impressive in appearance, Miller stands five-feet, ten inches and weighs 195. He has dark brown hair and brown eyes.
He is married to the former Elizabeth Dawson, an artist and writer. They have two children, Tony, 19, and Mellissa, 7.
Actor, announcer, writer, a man of many facets, Miller says his current assignment as aide to a whimsical Midas is his most interesting role.

There were game shows in the 1950s (since The Scandal, no one calls them “quiz shows” any more) that gave away nice chunks of money but nothing close to a million dollars until Regis Philbin showed up a few decades later. So fans of big, big money had to content themselves with Marvin Miller’s unreality show, showing the same curiosity as fans of today’s reality shows about just what happens to someone put in an unpredictable situation.

There was a string of stories about Miller and ‘The Millionaire’ a few couple of years after the show became a hit. This is from The Blytheville Courier, March 22, 1957.

Secret Life of Michael Anthony
Gives Away $1 Million Per Week
HOLLYWOOD — (Special)— Michael Anthony, private secretary to multi-billionaire John Beresford Tipton, is something of an enigma to his fans. It seems that although they watch him at his extraordinary chores over the CBS-TV Network every Wednesday night at 8 'o’clock CST, they haven’t been able to find out enough about his “private life.”
Is Michael Anthony married they ask? If he is, how does his wife feel when he calls to say, “I won’t be home for dinner, dear, I have to deliver a million-dollar check to a chap in Hawaii”?
If her reaction to this is slightly negative, what happens when she asks, “Who gets the check this week?” and is told, “It’s a secret, you know that . . . ” A great many viewers are concerned about the family complications created by a job like Michael Anthony’s.
What does he do on his “day off”? Do the Anthony’s have any children? Do they all plan to be millionaires when they grow up? Do they live on the fabulous, 60-acre estate called “Silverstone!” And if they do — have they ever seen the eccentric philanthropist?
Several people have even asked how Anthony got into this line of business anyway — what qualifications must you have to get a position as a million-dollar messenger (It seems a lot of people have them, no matter what they are)?
* * *
THESE ARE JUST a few of the questions that have been hurled at MARVIN MILLER the real-life Michael Anthony. Marvin is at a loss to describe the Anthony domestic scene. He says the best he can offer his television fans are some the facts about the Miller menage.
He is married to Elizabeth Dawson, an artist and writer and they have two children, a son Tony who is 16 and Melinda, who is five.
“Silverstone” may be in the neighborhood, but they live in their own home in West Los Angeles, California. The children have suggested a number of possible careers for themselves, but have not as yet, aspired to be millionaires.
* * *
HOW MARVIN MILLER got into this business of playing Michael Anthony is a story that began while he was an undergraduate at Washington University in his native St. Louis. He worked his way through college by writing and acting in radio dramas. He was neither thinking of, nor dealing with, “millions” in those days.
As a matter of fact, he did the script and as many as eight different characters for about five dollars a week. By the time he received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University he was known as one of St. Louis’ leading announcers and newscasters.
Miller repeated this success in Chicago where he starred in dozens of network shows. By 1945 he was appearing on as many as 45 broadcasts a week. No wonder “Variety” dubbed him “Chicago’s one-man radio industry.”
When Hollywood beckoned, he wasn’t in town a week when he was the announcer on the Frank Sinatra Show. Since he has been living on the West Coast he has done radio, television and motion picture work.
* * *
RECENTLY, he entered the recording world and completed “The Talking Bible,” which was more than a year and a half in the making. It contains more than a million words and requires more than a week to play.
Miller has no idea what Michael Anthony does on his “day off” (Marvin suggests, “He probably browses in the local banks — talking ‘shop’ with the tellers.”) but his own leisure-time is seldom wasted. A man with more than 12 hobbies doesn’t have time to waste.
He collects antique Chinese furniture, records and menus; he is a photographer, gourmet, poet, book binder and woodworker. He may give away millions at work, but after hours he is strictly do-it-yourself.
Now playing his third season as Michael Anthony, Marvin has been stopped all over the world with the question, “Have you got my million-dollar check with you, Mr Anthony?”
* * *
THE FINAL WORD of advice to those applying for his job — You need perserverance and a sense of humor. Marvin says it takes a lot of persistance to locate the about-to-be-millionaires and more of the same to get them to accept the check.
Strange as it may seem, people are very wary of special secretaries who walk about handing out million-dollar checks. His sense of humor carries him through when he is told the lady of the house doesn't want “any.”
He has come to believe it may be easier (and safer) to make money than to give it away.

You’ve no doubt heard stories of the frightening number of people who watch TV soap operas and think they’re real, as if they’re watching some kind of live documentary. Marvin Miller dealt with the same kind of thing from viewers of his show. This column in the Oakland Tribune of April 25, 1958 makes light of the blurring of reality but it’s sad to know there were desperate or deranged, or perhaps downright greedy, people who couldn’t comprehend they were watching a drama.

THESE TV PEOPLE
The Best Things In Life Are Free
By BILL FISET
You’d think that Marvin Miller would be a reasonable man.
After all, as Michael Anthony on television’s “The Millionaire,” he spends all his time finding people to give $1,000,000 to, and tax free.
But no. Apparently he has a heart of stone. We met in San Francisco last night.
“Marvin,” I said, to him in my most confidential tone, “I know the source of your money is virtually unlimited, and actually I don’t need a whole million. If you could just let me have, say, $100,000...”
He laughed, in a coarse sort of way that reminded you of all those old movies in which he always played the villain. “Our TV program,” he said, “is supposed to show that money won’t cure all ills. The money is a symbol of security. It solves the biggest problem—meals and rent—but it doesn’t bring happiness.”
“It’d help, Marvin. Now as I say, all I need is a paltry $50,000 . . .”
“Our show’s now in its fourth year and people seem to like it,” Miller said. “You know, everyone always says what they’d do if they had a million. Well, of course nowadays a million won’t go very far, but even so, people like to daydream.”
“A check for $25,000, Marvin, would do an awful lot...”
“Daydreaming is a fine thing,” Miller said, as if he hadn’t heard me. “There’s nothing harmful in that. But the terrible thing is when people BELIEVE the show, and when they write and ask for money. They’ve divorced themselves from the harmless daydream and from reality.”
“But, Marvin, I always thought...”
“About one viewer in 50, as near as we can figure, believes there's actually a John Beresford Tipton, a billionaire who gives away money. The letters these people write are pathetic and heart-rending. When the letters are addressed to me at the studio, I answer them all personally. I try to break it to them gently that our show is fiction. I tell them the worthwhile things are those they must work hard for. They seem to accept that.”
“Actually, Marvin, even $10,000 would be nice. If you’d just explain to Mr. Tipton ...”
“I remember,” said Miller, “a letter from a boy in Toronto, written in French. He explained his parents both had to work to keep him in school. He said he didn’t want an outright gift. He wanted just a loan of $1,000. He said I should send it to his mother, without saying he’d asked for it, and that he’d repay me when he grew up. Then on his letter he put a postscript, saying, “If you can't afford $1,000, $500 would help.”
“Well, Marvin,” I said, “if you think my asking $10,000 is too much, I’d be happy to take less. I’d ...”
“The letter from that young boy touched me deeply,” Miller went on. “I wrote him a nice reply and sent him one of my special checks, and I guess that made him happy.”
“Your SPECIAL CHECKS, Marvin? Then you do give checks to people outside your TV show?”
“Eh? Why certainly,” said Miller. “I’ve given away over 5,000 checks to people I’ve met personally since the show started. That’s aside from all the checks I’ve given away for Mr. Tipton on the show. The checks seem to make people happy.”
I rubbed my hands together. “Certainly they would. Could you . . . uh ... have you a check book with you, Marvin?”
He looked at me and smiled. In his eyes was a glimmer of the old Marvin Miller. (In one old movie he played Ghengis Khan and murdered countless thousands. In another he was a villainous sea captain who sank his own ship to kill his crew. He’s worked over actors such as Humphrey Bogart and George Raft with a blackjack, but he insists this isn’t the real Marvin Miller. In real life he’s a happily married man who’s never so much as been in a fist fight. Not even with his wife.)
He was still smiling as he said, “Of course I have my check book with me, my boy.” He whipped it out and wrote out a check. He ripped the check from the book and handed it to me. I felt like all those recipients on “The Millionaire.”
“Thank you, thank you,” I babbled. Imagine! I was rich. Luxury. I could take a trip around the world. Also, I could tell my editors where to go, too.
But then I looked at the check. It was for a million, all right. “One million dollars worth of good luck,” and drawn on the “International Bank of Goodwill.”
Marvin Miller is an unreasonable man, indeed.

Miller passed away February 8, 1985 at age 71. Whether after all that work, he socked away a few million dollars of his own, I can’t say. But he sure had a million-dollar voice.

A Tail Sandwich Tale

Tom’s tail gets abused several times in ‘The Mouse Comes to Dinner’ (1945). The best scene is when Jerry puts it into a candle-holder and lights it. But twice before that, Jerry gets Tom to eat it, the second time as a pineapple ice-cream dessert but first in a sandwich.

Here’s Tom’s reaction before he skyrockets into the air.





The credited animators in this short, besides Irv Spence, are Ken Muse, Ray Patterson and Pete Burness.

Acme Bat-Man

Here’s why you should never stare at the camera while you’re in mid-air.




Was there ever a cartoon character more aware of his audience than Wile E. Coyote? Was there ever a cartoon where he didn’t stare at the camera at least once?

This is from Chuck Jones’ ‘Gee Whiz-z-z’ (with a few more z’s on the title card) with animation by Abe Levitow, Dick Thompson, Ken Harris and Ben Washam.

For the record, Wile E. is wearing “One Acme Bat-Man’s Outfit Reg. Size.” Bats, at least in some parts of the world in 1956, must have been green.

Durante’s Schnozz at 30

“Never changes his act,” is how an angry comic once berated Hearst columnist Jack O’Brian about Jimmy Durante. Mind you, O’Brian realised he couldn’t take the complaint seriously when it began with a praise of Milton Berle’s talents only to end with same comedian ripping into Berle for his lack of talent.

O’Brian’s column came out in June 1946, the same month when Durante was marking his show biz anniversary. Well, actually, it wasn’t really quite his idea, as you’ll see.

Newspaper columnists always seem to have written Durante quotes in dialect. Anyone who knows Durante can hear him speak the lines.

Jimmy Durante Celebrating
By BOB THOMAS
HOLLYWOOD, May 30.—Cucumber-nose Jimmy Durante is celebrating his 30th year in show business and everybody is getting into the act.
“I yam touched,” said the Schnoz. “People are sayin’ such nice t’ings about me. They’re even takin’ out ads in da trade papers.”
I found Jimmy in the madhouse which he calls a home. He said that next Wednesday will mark the 30th anniversary of his debut at the piano of a Harlem dive. Of course, had been playing at Coney Island and elsewhere before that time, but MGM “rearranged” the anniversary to coincide with the release of Jimmy's latest, “Two Sisters From Boston.”
Response to the stunt will be enthusiastic; Jimmy is one of the best-loved characters in the business.
“Dis is da most wonderful t’ing that has ever happened to me,” Jimmy confided. "When 1 think of it, I git goose pimples all over.”
The celebration will be climaxed by a violent night at what used to be the Silver Slipper in New York. There Jimmy and his partners, Eddie Jackson and Lou Clayton will put on an all-night show, just as they did in prohibition days. The management should be warned that the boys are going to do the “wood” number for the first time since 1931. The routine extols the virtues of wood with practical illustrations, such as matches, pianos, ladders, etc.
“We’ll tear da jernt apart,” Jimmy vowed.

Here’s what the United Press had to say on June 6th, the day after the big soirée.

Jimmy Durante Celebrates Anniversary of His Nose
By JACK GAVER
NEW YORK. — (U.P.) — Jimmy Durante took a fanfare in stride as his just due, measured off two paces from the microphone to give himself nose room, looked around at the freeloaders and passed a hand ruefully across his sparsely inhabited scalp.
“There’s not much there,” he commented. One of those meaningful Durante pauses, then
the explosive kicker: “But every strand has a muscle.”
Back Where He Started.
And Jimmy was off to the races. Not the Jimmie of the movies or the radio, but Jimmy the well-dressed man, the guy Broadway can’t do without, the slambang, piano-wrecking Jimmy of the night clubs celebrating his 30th year in show business.
“After workin’ hard fer 30 years,” he said, “I wind up where I started from—workin’ fer nuttin’!”
The affair was in a basement room now called the Golden Slipper dance hall. But 18 years ago it was the Silver Slipper, one of the real hot spots of the prohibition era which employed the great comedy team of Clayton, Jackson and Durante. Last night it bore the temporary name of Club Durante and Lou Clayton, the former dancer, and Eddie Jackson, the strutting singer, were back with the master.
“I been lucky to havee a manager like Lou Clayton,” Jimmy said. “But tell me, folks, how much is 300 per cent?
“The Club Durante! What a joint! Why, I looked into a cuppa cawfee a while ago, and what ya t’ink I found? Cawfee!”
Back in prohibition days coffee cups were a disguise for more potent potions.
"Folks, I’m really an imposter, Jimmy confessed. “This is actually the anniversary of my nose. It was born first. I came along two weeks later. My father said when he saw me that he didn’t mind the country havin’ an eagle fer an emblem, but that didn’t mean he had to raise one.”
Big Names Present.
Clayton did some fast stepping and Durante commented: “Look at him! Hasn’t danced in 20 years and he still wears taps on his shoes. I have to do 12 guest shows a year to keep that Clayton in golf balls. Ah, this reminds me of the old days of the club Durant. The four of us—Clayton, Jackson and Durante—and an interpreter!”
There’s no use trying to name the people who attended the party for which M-G-M, Jimmy’s movie employer, picked up the check. Every big name along Broadway was there. Mayor William O’Dwyer showed up for a few minutes and slipped out a side entrance. Pretty soon a man who was stumbling over the 600 jampacked well-wishers collared a fellow who had a straw skimmer in custody under one arm. “The mayor wants his hat,” he said. "He’s up in the street.” The two of them escorted the headgear to his honor.

A vaudeville comedian was staying at a small-town boarding house where meals were included. “What are you serving tonight?” he asked. “Nothing but ham and corn,” said the owner. Replied the vaudevillian: “That’s funny, I serve the same thing.”

Durante could be accused of dishing out from the same menu. But he was such genuine, unassuming guy on stage, radio and, finally, TV that everybody loved him to the end.

Ernie Pyle on Disney

Death ensured Ernie Pyle became the most famous newspaper correspondent of World War Two, if he wasn’t already. Pyle built his reputation on war stories that weren’t those of the war itself; they were the first-hand stories of the soldiers overseas caught up in the fighting, and life around them.

But his byline was familiar before that. Pyle had a distinctive daily column for the Scripps-Howard news service through most of the ‘30s. He covered whatever struck his fancy. And, one day, he decided to cover the making of animated cartoons.

This story is from 1938. What’s notable, besides Pyle’s “guess what I learned” writing style, is it’s not a puff piece for Walt Disney. There are no pontifications from Disney himself, no plugging of movies with dwarves. Pyle sticks to revealing to his readers the basic process of animation.

And I like the irony how Pyle has no qualms about using the word “hell” in print, something no Disney character would ever say on screen.

15,000 Drawings For Short Film Make Mickey Mouse Move
It’s All So Simple, But Ernie Almost Tangles Himself; The Animated-Cartoon Idea Flies Apart Like a Bomb To All Parts of the Studio
By ERNIE PYLE
Scripps-Howard Roving Reporter
HOLLYWOOD, March 3.—After they’ve finally decided to put a Disney animated-cartoon idea into production, the thing sort of flies apart like a bomb and goes to all parts of the studio.
First to the music and voice departments which immediately start writing the music and recording the dialogue of the speaking characters. That’s an odd thing, too.
The whole movie is done in sound first, and then the artists have to draw the pictures to fit the music and dialogue.
There are four composers in the music department. They sit at pianos in small rooms and make up the fanciful little times we hear in the Silly Symphonies.
The sound (or casting) department is a weird one. It has to think up all kinds of silly noises. And incidentally only four of the Disney cartoon voices are actually on the payroll. The others are called in when needed.
The four are: Disney himself, as Mickey Mouse; Stuart Buchanan, head of the casting department, as Goofy; Donald Duck’s “voice” takes visitors through the studio when he isn’t quacking; and I forget the fourth one.
MICKEY DOES ALL THE RUNNING AROUND
NEXT to leap on the picture is the layout department. The head layout man takes the script and lays out the whole picture into sequences and scenes, each with its background. I had always supposed that an artist who drew the, say 150 pictures it takes to make Mickey Mouse walk a few feet in the forest and look up a tree, had to draw the whole forest into every picture.
But that isn’t so. The forest is drawn by one man, and only one forest drawing is needed. When it comes to the final photographing, they just superimpose the scores of drawings of Mickey in action, one at a time, on top of that one forest scene.
It is in the layout department that those magnificently colored scenes which Disney pictures have featured for several years are created. There are about 25 artists here, including some of the finest in the country. Men who regularly exhibit in the Los Angeles galleries, for instance.
IT’S SO SIMPLE BUT—AW, NERTS!
LAST, the director gets started. He is in charge of the 250 artists who actually make; the Disney characters move around. So here’s how:
You all remember the children’s “flip books,” where you take your thumb and flip the whole book through in a couple of seconds, and you can see the characters move as you go along, because on each page they’ve drawn in a slightly different position.
Animated cartoons are nothing more than that. Just a lot of pictures, with each succeeding one a little further along in the action than the preceding one, And when you run them through fast enough, as in a movie film, the tiny lapses between movements can’t be caught by the eye, and the whole thing appears as continuous motion.
It takes about 15,000 pictures to make a Mickey Mouse short, which runs only seven or eight minutes.
From one drawing to the next the artists can move their characters anywhere from a 64th of an inch up to an inch and a half, depending on the type of action. This scale is on their drawing paper.
In a series where Mickey is moved an inch and a half forward in each picture, he would simply be a streak crossing the screen, going so fast you could barely recognize him. It would take only about 10 drawings to get him across.
But where the interval is a 64th of an inch it would lake him nearly a minute to walk across the screen, and would require hundreds of pictures. This very fine interval is used only for very slow body movement, or for a close-up change of facial expression.
If the cartoon character were a soldier, walking in regular march time, it would take 12 pictures to make him take one step.
Now do you understand? Aw, to hell with it.

Giraffe of Tomorrow

Tex Avery had different kinds of gags he’d pour into a cartoon and that’s one of the many reasons he stood out as a director. His cartoons weren’t just a bunch out outrageous takes. They weren’t just a bunch of punny sight-gags. Or self-references. They were all of those tossed together. And, occasionally, Tex would add some nonsense from out of nowhere.

He did that in Car of Tomorrow (1951). The cartoon barrels along with all kinds of visual puns based on car design, then he gives us six seconds of a new model rolling down the street:

Narrator: Here’s a handy little model that comes with a hole in the top, for all those people who have pet giraffes.



The conjoined eyes of the giraffe look like something Mike Lah would draw. Lah, Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons get the animation credits. I can’t tell you who designed the cars but Johnny Johnsen handled the backgrounds. Gil Warren is the narrator and you can’t miss June Foray as the woman driver.

Baby Bottleneck Boom

There’s a lot of warped stuff going on in “Baby Bottleneck.” It’s a Bob Clampett cartoon, so what do you expect?

There’s a fun little scene that dashes along. A hyper, big-eyed dog gives Porky a demonstration of his rocket. I like the way he handsprings into the scene. Here are the drawings.



He lights the rocket and...



Animation credits go to Rod Scribner, Manny Gould, Bill Melendez and Izzy Ellis.