The Man Who Stopped Being Mr. Dors

It shouldn’t be surprising that on-line chatter about the death of Richard Dawson is focusing on his career as the host of “Family Feud.” It became the number-one game show on television and provided Dawson with a daily visit into people’s living rooms. And this was after Dawson built up a large following on the new version of “The Match Game,” which became more of a party than a game-show.

But something always rankled me about the game-show Dawson. Viewers could sense his immediate disinterest in the Match Game after producers decided to bring in a “star wheel” because contestants virtually always picked Dawson to help them win the big money. The only thing he didn’t appear to do half-heartedly was pick up a pay cheque. And then he decided somewhere early in Feud’s run to start kissing all the female contestants, as if it were a requirement to be on the show. Dawson justified his bursts of ego and lip-locking on the show’s final broadcast after its first cancellation in the ‘80s.

While Dawson showed some great wit on game shows, I prefer to remember his breakout role on “Hogan’s Heroes.” The show would never get made today. Veterans groups and professional complainers would shout it off television before it ever got there. The concept seemed a bit dicey even in 1965; promos (written by Stan Freberg) just before it first aired played up the juxtaposition of comedy and the very unfunny reality of a prisoner-of-war camp. But the characterisations made the show work; even the main German characters weren’t all that evil and seemed reluctant participants in the war. And, of course, our side won in every episode.

Dawson’s fame, up to that time, was that of being Mr. Diana Dors, the former Diana Fluck who had been Britain’s highest-paid entertainer by standing around and looking blonde. He had his own family feud going. His wife filed for divorce January 16, 1964, charging that he threatened to “beat the hell” out of her and made her a virtual prisoner in her own home, as United Press International put it.

His P.R. people got cracking after Heroes went on the air and got him several wire service interviews in 1966. The first one is from March 5th:

‘Corporal’ Richard Dawson Shooting For Top In TV
By JOAN CROSBY
Newspaper Enterprise Assn.
NEW YORK—(NEA)—This is a comparatively exclusive story. Mainly because Richard Dawson hasn’t had any great number of requests for interviews.
"Well," Dawson deadpanned, "I did one press conference with eight other fellows around. We were interviewed by a nice cross-eyed, teen-age girl.
“And one other time I gave an interview to a fellow who came to my door, but he turned out to be delivering a package.”
Dawson, who says his sole purpose in life is to make people laugh (he succeeds admirably), plays Newkirk, the Cockney corporal in CBS-TV’s Hogan’s Heroes. He should be interviewed at least once a day. He’s got enough comedy material to supply every writer in the country.
“In 1961,” he said, “I did a nightly show in Los Angeles. It was 90 minutes long and called The Suing Hour. We papered three walls of the office with writs. We never rounded up an audience. We just kept all the process servers who showed up through the day.
“Then there was the time I got sued by one actress when I called her Loretta Old. Actually, the show was called The Mike Stokey Show but he just showed up to perspire and say ‘Hi, there.’ He even had that printed on an idiot card.”
Richard is a good-looking 32-year-old Briton who has discovered that he must comb his hair forward, the way he wears it on the show, and speak in Newkirk’s Cockney accent to be recognized.
"Fans tell me they love the show,” he said, “then they ask if I’m the producer, if my hair is combed like a reasonable guy of my age who is unemployed. So now I comb my hair forward and do three minutes of Cockney rubbish so they’ll know who I am.”
Dawson, who is married to Diana Dors (they have two young sons), originally was tested for the part of Hogan. But he agrees now that Bob Crane, who plays the role, “has brought much more” to it.
“See,” Dawson said, “I mention Bob Crane and I’ll bet he won’t mention me in an interview. I once asked Werner Klemperer about that and he told me, ‘We do mention you—they just never print it.’”
Dawson began his acting career in British repertory for $9 a week. “Then I read somewhere that comics can go on forever. So I told some of the top agents in England I was a Canadian comic vacationing in England, and I wouldn’t mind some work. They sent me a contract for six weeks work. I went out on the stage with a medley of popular jokes and died.”
There are no second thoughts about the choice of a show business career for Richard Dawson. “In a business where Troy Donahue can be billed above the title of a film I’ve got to wind up King,” he said.

This one appeared thanks to the National Enterprise Association, starting March 9th.

Teen-Age Girls Flooding Dawson With Mash Notes
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD — Teen-age girls are screaming “Yah, yah, yah” when they spot Richard Dawson. They are also flooding Dawson with mash notes in which they compare him to David McCallum and Ringo Starr.
It's Frightening
“It’s frightening when you are 31,” Dawson said on the set of Hogan’s Heroes in which he plays British Airman Newkirk with a Liverpool-style haircut and a Cockney accent.
But about being compared to McCallum and Ringo as a teenage heart throb, he says:
“I don’t know whether that’s better than being a last year’s Robert Vaughn or not. But I’m really not trying to be another Ringo or another anything.
“I had my hair cut this way for Sybil Burton’s wedding. I was a bridesmaid,” he kidded.
"Seriously, we deliberately switched Newkirk’s accent from Liverpool to Cockney to avoid comparison with the Beatles. Everybody seems to be from Liverpool these days. You know something, I do dialects and I don’t even understand some of those characters."
Comedian by Trade
Laughs are the reason for London-born Richard Dawson’s presence in the cast of Hogan’s Heroes. He is a comedian by trade who has worked in night clubs and made guest appearances on TV shows. But until Hogan’s Heroes came along this season, most people had never heard of Richard Dawson. Those who did thought of him as the husband of Diana Dors, the blonde British glamor queen.
Now some people in Hollywood say they are separated.
This he denies, saying Diana is just doing a play in London and that she will eventually return to the Dawson home and brood (two young sons) in Beverly Hills.
Part of Dawson’s night club act includes a big about Boris Karloff showing up on Madison Ave. with an idea for a Dr. Frankenstein series and being turned down “because we’ve had too many doctor series.”
Even funnier, though, is a story he tells about his first appearance on stage with a solo comedy act. Until then he had worked as a big player en the British stage, seldom earning more than $8.40 a week. AFTER deciding to become a comedian, he wrote a letter to a theater manager saying he was a Canadian comic on vacation in England and would like to perform.
Memorized Jokes
When his offer was accepted he memorized a few jokes and went to the theater where they asked him if he wanted a rising mike.
“I said I did, although I didn’t know what they were talking about. When I got on stage and the mike rose out of the floor, I didn’t even see it. All I knew was that something was climbing up inside my pants leg and by the time it reached my knee, I was really fighting the thing. The audience though it was part of the act, but the manager knew better. He fired me after one performance.”

And this one is from July 1st.

Dawson Enjoys A New Identity
By VERNON SCOTT
UPI Hollywood Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD (UPI) — Richard Dawson, one of the comic prisoners in “Hogan’s Heroes,” enjoys considerably better company offscreen at home with his wife—who happens to be Diana Dors.
Fittingly enough, Dawson plays the English sergeant in the CBS situation comedy. He was born on the south coast of England and came to Hollywood in 1962. His British accent is for real and so is his devotion to the good life.
He and the blonde Diana have been married since 1958. They have two sons, Mark, 6, and Gary, 4.
“Mark’s an Englishman, born in London,” Dawson points out, “but Gary’s a Yank.”
The Dawsons bought Julie Bishop’s Beverly Hills home five years ago. It’s a ranch style house with a 60 x 25-foot living room with great expanses of glass overlooking more than an acre of manicured grounds.
There are five bedrooms, one of which has been converted by Dick into an antique poolroom with an ancient pool table he acquired from actor Tommy Noonan. Dawson spends many an hour shooting pool but not, he vows, hustling his friends.
Diana has decorated the home with modern, comfortable furniture but nothing fancy.
“You can’t keep things ship-shape with two young sons scampering about with a 140-pound Great Dane,” Dawson grins. “That dog — we call him Taurus because he looks like a bull — gets me up every morning at quarter to five to go for a walk.
“He’s very gentle, but sometimes I suspect he buries human beings in the yard.”
Dawson’s brisk 15-minute walk with Taurus sets him up for a day that begins at 7 a.m. at Desilu studios and seldom finds him home before 7 in the evening.
The children are tended by an English nanny who was Dawson’s housekeeper in Blighty during the actor’s bachelor days. They also have a lady who comes in to clean every day, another woman comes in to cook whenever the Dawsons entertain.
This same domestic arrives every afternoon at 3 p.m. to prepare dinner because Diana refuses to cook.
“I’m a good cook,” Dawson boasts. “I was away from home in the merchant marine at 14.
I worked as a waiter, and after opening a thousand cans of beans you begin to take an interest in the culinary arts in self defense. As a waiter I made friends with the chefs and learned some of their tricks.”
The sea still holds an interest for the easy-going Englishman who owns a 24-foot cabin cruiser anchored at Marina del Rey, a half-hour drive from the house by English sports car.
Dawson does some fishing from the boat, but his principal hobby is taking 16 mm. movies of the children, usually built around a little story of his own devising. For Mark’s last birthday the entire cast of “Hogan’s Heroes” appeared to take part.
The family pool is spacious and Dawson manages a swim six days a week in foul weather
and fair. Both boys have been swimming since they were six months old.
Because Dawson bad a bit of a rough go as a youngster, inheriting his clothes from an older brother, he has become something of a dandy now that he can afford a wardrobe.
“I’m very extravagant about clothes,” he admits cheerfully. “I pay about $250 for my suits and I have dozens of them and sports jackets and slacks as well. But I've been building my wardrobe over the years.”
Dawson, who appeared in character roles in movies and television before “Hogan’s Heroes,” is delighted with the show’s success — especially since he is being recognized on his own now and no longer identified as Diana Dors’ husband.

He wasn’t Mr. Dors for much longer. She dumped him and her kids and headed back to England where she remarried in 1968. She died, still being compared to Marilyn Monroe, and not for any acting ability. Their life was dramatised in a British mini-series, “The Blonde Bombshell” (1998)

Dawson, meanwhile, carved himself a little niche in daytime TV history. Fans ignored his self-professed arrogance and played along with a simple game that blended instant thought, suspense and curiosity (about how well the viewer guessed the right answer). And comic stupidity if you were lucky. If 100 people were surveyed about the best game-show hosts of the 1970s, Richard Dawson’s name would have to be in the top answers.

Swoongoons for Dennis

The main players on the Jack Benny Show are well-known today because they all stuck with Jack for a very long time. Phil Harris was the only one who didn’t move to television with him, being tied up with a big contract on another network (Phil’s replacement, the affable undistinguished Bob Crosby, did).

Dennis Day was the last of the main cast members to join the show. He started as a clone of the previous tenor, Kenny Baker, but as time progressed, and running gags settled in for the long haul toward the end of the ‘40s, Dennis proved far more versatile and, frankly, better at dialogue. His character was so ingrained with Benny’s audience, he was able to carry it off on television when he was obviously older than what his character should have been.

So convincing were the Benny characters that newspaper stories invariably explained to readers the people really weren’t what they were like on the radio. Seemingly endless stories about Jack felt the need to inform people he really wasn’t cheap. And profiles of Dennis threw in that he wasn’t a sheltered mama’s boy. Here’s an Associated Press story from 1948.

Dennis Day Guided by Pure Irish Luck
By GENE HANDSAKER
HOLLYWOOD. March 13. The luck of the Irish has been guiding Dennis Day, both of whose, parents were born in Erin.
Take the time he was 6 months old, and nursing his bottle: The carriage toppled over and dumped Dennis into Hughes Ave., the Bronx. The bottle broke and gashed his nose so deeply that he lost nearly all his blood. The doctor filled out a death certificate and said Dennis couldn’t last the night. But the saints were watching over him—though the long scar is still noticeable.
Even a later appendectomy was pure luck. The operation kept him from enrolling in law at Columbia for a semester. To kill time, he began knocking around radio stations as an occasional singer. When Jack Benny needed a tenor in May, 1939, Dennis’ auditions record was one of 500. Luck again—Mary Livingstone heard it and liked it.
That emergency operation turned him toward a still-expanding career as vocalist, impersonator, comedian, recording artist and music publisher. Soon he’ll act in a movie, “Babes in Toyland,” and he’s preparing to get into television.
Black-haired, sharp-nosed and slender, Dennis is shyer and smarter than the naive youth he plays on the air. He was born Eugene Dennis McNulty 27 years ago in the Bronx. When announcers mispronounced his name “McNoolty” and “McNalty” he borrowed part of his grandmother’s name, O'Day, for professional use.
He lives in a Spanish-style stucco house with his pretty 23-year-old bride, the former Peggy Almquist, a U. S. C. student until their marriage last Jan. 29. Several bobby-soxed young residents of the neighborhood had been walking or bicycling by during my visit, and when I left there was a scrawled note in the mailbox: “Dear Dennis Day—We are the fans of you. We are what you call swoongoons over you. We want your autograph.”

It always seems odd to me that girls would be hot for Dennis Day. Irish tenors strike me as appealing to the more matronly type. Well, maybe grandmatronly. Before the turn of the last century, large waves of Irish immigrants arrived in the eastern U.S., bringing music with them. The direct-from-the-Auld Sod population aged and shrank as time progressed. People born afterward found their own culture and music.

Dennis commented about that to the North American News Agency in this column of March 5, 1960. He was still part of the Benny TV family, albeit occasionally.

Dennis Day—Last Irish Tenor
By DONALD FREEMAN
LAS VEGAS (NANA)—“I’m the last of the Irish tenors,” sighed Dennis Day, speaking in his normal voice, which isn’t at all high-pitched. “We’re the whooping cranes of show business. We’re practically extinct. Phil Regan’s out of the business now. Morton Downey’s retired. The old generation’s dying and no new tenors are coming up.
“Perhaps it’s just as well when you consider what’s happening to the good old Irish songs. On a jukebox the other day I heard a rock ‘n’ roll version of—hold your hats?—‘Danny Boy.’ Imagine that! What’ll they think of next—‘Mother Machree Cha Cha Cha’?”
Such worries to one side, Dennis has been headlining the show at the Riviera Hotel here where he concludes his act with—what else?—a medley of Irish tunes. Offstage, he is small, compact, unassuming and serious. His expression rarely changes except for the sudden flashes of wit.
Then you see the humor coming alive in his eyes, which are dark brown and very guileless. He started life, incidentally, as Owen Patrick Eugene Dennis McNulty. However, when announcers insisted on calling him “McNutley,” he became Dennis Day, his grandmother’s name having been O’Day.
We talked about his long-flourishing association with Jack Benny, now in its 21st year. “It’s the luckiest thing that ever happened,” Day said. “Kenny Baker has just left the Benny show. I auditioned for Jack and I got hired—me, a kid fresh out of Manhattan College, starting out on radio’s top show. What could be better?”
Day added: “Like all native New Yorkers, I was the world’s biggest hick. I’d never been north of Yonkers in my life. Being so green, so provincial, I had no trouble stepping into Kenny Baker’s role of the silly kid singer.
But how was he able to play the silly kid singer all these years? Day smiled and said: “The credit goes to Jack Benny because he’s the one who creates the illusion. I sure don’t look like a kid, silly or otherwise. I’ll be 42 this year. I’ve got wrinkles—and seven children at home. But on Jack’s show, somehow, people believe it, like they believe, well, sort of believe—that Jack is 39 and drives a Maxwell.
“The interesting thing is that I can only play the silly tenor on Jack’s show. But when I do a guest appearance elsewhere the writers take the easy way out and make me say things like ‘Yes, please?’ It never works. Without Jack Benny, there’s no illusion to make it funny.
People have asked me if I ever resent being toed to Jack Benny. How could I resent it? I’ve made a fine living with Jack. I’ve worked with fine people. And I’ve learned comedy timing from the master.”
Several years ago, Day starred in his own ill-fated show, which NBC pitted against “I Love Lucy,” then at the crest of its popularity. Cliff Arquette, as Charley Weaver, was featured on that particular series.
“In fact, we wrote the show around Charley,” Day recalled. “He was just as funny then as he was now. But nobody saw him. In those days, everybody was watching ‘Lucy.’”

Cynics might accuse Dennis Day of maintaining fame through nostalgia—nostalgia for the old Benny show, nostalgia for old Irish songs, nostalgia for the old movie stars he impersonated. If so, he wouldn’t have been the first and he won’t be the last. But he had to have something to get there in the first place and give the girls something to go swoongoons over many years ago.

Cartoons Without Tails

The 1950s were the era of the novelty record and one man turned it into a jillion-dollar franchise that’s still paying off today.

Songwriter Ross Bagdasarian came up with a silly-talk number-one hit in summer 1958 called “Witch Doctor.” Bagdasarian did the verses straight, but the harmonic voices in the chorus were sped-up, sounding like chipmunks on Warners and Disney cartoons.

Chipmunks. Hmmm.

Bagdasarian followed with “The Chipmunk Song” just in time for Christmas and won two Grammys for it in 1959. How to top that?

Chipmunks. Cartoons. Hmmm.

Combining cartoons, songs and chipmunks was a brilliant idea, at least as Bagdasarian envisioned it. If his cartoon chipmunks sang Bagdasarian’s new songs, they could create hits—along with the bucks to Bagdasarian to go with them.

If nothing else, the Chipmunks have had staying power. They’re still hugely popular, with new generations getting new spins on them and subsequent movies. But the new versions still don’t beat the simple, original cartoons that were produced in conjunction with Format Films in 1961. They were packaged into that season’s craze, the prime-time animated half-hour, and given a great opening. Lead chipmunk Alvin was a jerk and insufferable to me as a kid viewer, but I sure liked Clyde Crashcup and Leonardo.

Here’s a syndicated columnist from October 23, 1961 giving space to Bagdasarian’s story.

His Chipmunks Have No Tails
Grape Grower Turns to Song Writing
By CHARLES WITBECK
HOLLYWOOD—In 1959 singing chipmunks were the rage on record row. Now they’ve invaded TV-land and can be seen Wednesday nights, 6:30 p.m., in animated cartoon form on CBS’ “The Alvin Show.”
The stars are three chipmunks without tails—Alvin the ringleader; Theodore, the fat one who loves to eat, and brother Simon, tall, thin and studious.
The chipmunks share billing with song writer David Seville, pen name for Ross Bagdasarian, the Armenian who wrote “Come On-A My House” with first cousin William Saroyan, in addition to the big selling “Chipmunk Song.” David, or Ross, will have new lyrics for the youngsters and, naturally, he wants another record hit to come out of the show.
“This is a variety show,” says Ross, while he offered a cluster of big, green grapes grown on his ranch. Eating grapes gives Ross inspiration.
“We’re not following any other cartoon show format. We have segments on the chipmunks, then we’ll go into a musical bit—say, music of other countries. From there we’ll look in on Clyde Crasscup [sic], an inventor who dreams of the obvious. This man even invents baseball.
“After a musical bridge come the animal characters. There’s Stanley the Eagle who doesn’t know how to fly, an ostrich who sits on sports car, and lots of others.
“WE HAVE zany ideas—way out and way in.”
Mr. Ross, his chipmunks, music and delicious grapes are being backed up by a skillful group of cartoonists, many of whom worked on TV’s first animated half-hour programs, the “Gerald McBoing-Boing Show,” which cost CBS a small fortune and lasted one season, but was the forerunner to “Huckleberry Hound,” “Flintstones” and all the other animated programs on this year.
The point is, “The Alvin Show” is going to get good art work, and it should have imaginative story lines which might amuse adults if they can stand singing chipmunks here and there. These chipmunks really look like kids. They stay out of trees, wear pants and pester David Seville.
Naturally, Ross and CBS are counting on those 12 million fans who bought chipmunk records to form a base. Ross figures he’s really pre-sold and that he comes on the air with an edge. “We didn’t even have to make a pilot to sell Alvin,” he said. “We just showed sponsors our story boards on the chipmunks, Clyde Crasscup and, snap, we were booked.”
THE SPONSORS were also probably snowed by Bagdasarian’s persuasiveness and charm. He’s short, dark, bouncy and energetic. The talk flows and he becomes more excited.
Ross grew up in Fresno, California, the Armenian and raisin belt in the golden poppy state made famous by cousin William Saroyan’s stories. Like his father, Ross was expected to become a raisin farmer, but Saroyan’s influence was too strong. Dreams of the big town sent Ross to New York where, through
nepotism, he played the pinball player in Saroyan’s Broadway play, “The Time of Your Life.”
Bagdasarian proved he had talent when he and Saroyan wrote “Come On-A My House.” Before Rosemary Clooney’s version turned that into a best-seller, Ross had returned to Fresno and raisins. In 1949 he culled a bumper crop only to see the bottom drop out of the raisin market.
This loss made the song writing business look very tempting, and Mr. Ross took the giant step, loaded his wife and two kids into the car and came to Hollywood to peddle “Come On-A My House.”
Mr. Bagdasarian is not just a two song man. He’s also turned out “Hey Brother, Pour The Wine,” “Witch Doctor,” and “What’s The Use,” among others.
Ross even has one about his name which nobody can spell or pronounce. “When the kids went to school, I gave them a little song to sing, telling the teacher how to spell our name,” said Ross. “After the song neither the kids nor the teachers had any trouble. It worked so well we’re putting it in the show credits. Then everybody can sing it.”

CBS announced the show in late March 1961 and it debuted October 4th. What did the critics think? I’ve only found one review, one the next day at the end of Fred Danzig’s TV column for United Press International.

SOMETHING'S NUTTY in a house where the child has to go upstairs to do homework while his old man sits down to watch a cartoon show about three chipmunks and an eagle that won't fly. And to compound this felony, I found myself enjoying "The Alvin Show."
The new CBS-TV cartoon thing displayed an inventive use of music, some cute characters and sprightly situations. Once I got used to the ruptured voices on the sound-track, I found the half-hour to be lively inconsequential fun.
OF COURSE, the cartoon segments merge into the cartoon commercial segments and it's sometimes hard to know where one leaves off and the other begins. And a few of the little stories just seemed to trail off without an ending. The orchestrations, for which Johnny Mann and the "Alvin" creator, Ross Bagdasarian get the credit, make the show different enough from its predecessors to be welcome.

“The Alvin Show” did about as well as could be expected against the number one show that season, “Wagon Train.” It was cancelled. And like almost every cancelled prime time cartoon show, it was moved to Saturday mornings the following season, and later into syndication. And the Bagdasarian family continued to milk the cash cow, er, rodent. The Chipmunk Punk album in 1981 was a surprise success and that begat third-rate cartoons with some unnecessary “chipettes” and then a hoodied, attitudinal Alvin in the 2000s, something the original show would have rightly ridiculed.

Here’s a muddy, black-and-white upload of the show’s closing credits, complete with the cute little jingle for the sponsor that went back to the Jack Benny show in the 1930s. If you’re familiar with classic animation, you’ll see some familiar names from Warner Bros. and UPA cartoons in the roll.


The Alvin Show end credits

Woody’s Lantz-formation

Parodies of radio and TV shows in cartoons don’t stand up if the parodies do little more than make fun of the source material. If you’re not familiar with the originals being parodied, you’re sunk because there’s nothing else left.

Don Patterson directed a cartoon at the Walter Lantz studio called “Under the Counter Spy” that started out and finished as a “Dragnet” parody but the rest of it went off in its own direction. And if you’ve never seen “Dragnet,” you won’t get the hammer gag at the end because it’s not all that funny on its own. (Before that, Homer Brightman comes up with an ending that has no logic).

Maybe the best little bit is when Woody unwittingly drinks a secret formula and transforms from a tired weakling into an indestructible crime-fighter. Patterson uses colour throughout the cartoon to indicate Weak Woody vs Strong Woody and during the transformation scene. Some drawings are on twos, others are held just long enough to establish and in-betweens are on ones.






Something else that’s cute is an inside joke when the detectives (They’re named after days of the week. Get it?! Hyuk, hyuk) rummage through a filing cabinet to find their suspect.



Bill Garrity was the production supervisor. Joe Voght (note the spelling) was an assistant animator for seemingly ages at Lantz. Mickey Batchelder was the studio cameraman and Paul J. Smith was a cornball director (Herman Cohen seems to have become “Herbert” in the drawing). Garity also makes an appearance in the wretched “Fat in the Saddle” (1968), along with Lantz employees Floyd Brooks, Al Glenn and Bob Miller.

The backgrounds and layout were by Art Landy and Ray Jacobs, while the credited animators were Ray Abrams, Ken Southworth and Cohen.

This Stuff’s Been Cut

“The Shooting of Dan McGoo” is full of Tex Avery’s trademarks—narrative puns he treats literally, signs commenting on the action, eyeballs and bodies reacting uncontrollably at the sight of a dancing girl, things behaving as if they’re at a traffic light, and even the word “Doc.” This was released in 1945 and Avery’s pacing is far faster than what he pulled off at Warners, making some of the same gags he used there at least twice as funny.

Fans of freeze-framing will enjoy the scene when the wolf gulps down a shot of Old Block Buster. His body reacts, with a few drawings held for two frames, but most of them on ones. Some of the body movement is slow, then a new pose with a different perspective will appear on the next frame.

Here are some of the drawings.








The wolf zooms, butt first, to the ceiling, zips around the rafters for a bit (with a slide whistle sound effect), then crash-lands.







Finally, he moves in a quick diagonal to the bartender and says “This stuff’s been cut!”



Ed Love, Ray Abrams and Preston Blair are the credited animators. Did Love do this scene? I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. Frank Graham provides the wolf’s voice and the backgrounds are by Johnny Johnsen.

The Fall of Sara Berner

She had appeared in films (animated and otherwise), on radio, and had made the transition into television. By 1952, Sara Berner was pretty well-established. Still, she wasn’t a huge star, so she seems to have been an unusual choice to be profiled by Ralph Edwards’ emotional-ambush show “This is Your Life.”

Actually, it may have been because Berner was an easy subject for Edwards and his researchers. Edwards knew her personally. She appeared as a regular on a completely forgotten afternoon TV show that he hosted three times a week on NBC beginning January 14, 1952. And it may have been a case of Ralph Edwards knowing something that others didn’t.

Berner’s appearance popped up on December 10, 1952. Herald-Tribune Syndicate writer John Crosby had something to say about it in his column within five days. Here’s how a jaded reporter reviews what he thinks is a cynical show.

Radio And Television
By JOHN CROSBY
The Laugh, Clown, Laugh Girl
Pathos always sold well on radio, largely dished out on soap opera. The future of the soaps on television is still pretty uncertain but the pathos vein is being worked over extensively.
I suppose the leading contender in this line of work is “Strike It Rich,” where they dig up the victims of the most heart-rending current sob stories, splash them with sympathy and load them down with money.
Close behind “Strike It Rich” in the pathos department is “This is Your Life” which is presided over by Ralph Edwards. Edwards is described at the outset of the program as “your warm-hearted host.”
Well, he’s that all right, a warm-hearted host with a keen sense of double entry bookkeeping. Early in the television sweepstakes Edwards came out with a TV version of his renowned radio show “Truth Or Consequences” where audience participants underwent the most surprising humiliations with great good nature.
THIS SORT of thing apparently either baffled or outraged the television audience, however, and “Truth Or Consequences” fell by the wayside, one of the happiest casualties in my memory.
Mr. Edwards turned to the pathos dodge. “This Is Your Life” reconstructs somebody’s life from front to back. By some manic ingenuity, Mr. Edwards lures on stage an individual who has no idea what is in store.
Let’s say the individual is (as it was last week) Sara Berner, the girl who plays most of the dialect parts on radio. Miss Berner had been enticed down there ostensibly to take part in some monkeyshines about a commercial for Hazel Bishop lipstick.
To be specific, she smothered Mr. Edwards in kisses to demonstrate that Hazel Bishop doesn’t smear. (It doesn’t.)
THAT PART of Miss Berner’s career out of the way, Mr. Edwards told her it was her life that was on the fire that night. She was, to put it mildly, overcome.
“This is a story of courage and comedy, and the tears behind that comedy,” trumpeted Mr. Edwards, overflowing with warm-heartedness. “How many of your really know Sara Berner — the ‘Laugh, Clown, Laugh’ girl — the girl who dreamed of stardom but settled for supporting roles?”
In the heartbreak department, Miss Berner’s career which was then unfolded backwards, didn’t live up to its advance billing. It seemed in retrospect a very pleasant succession of minor triumphs, marred by occasional tragedy (the death of her mother and her first husband).
Mr. Edwards, whose staff is a wizard at collecting friends and relatives of his lifers, trotted out Miss Berner’s present husband who said that “marriage is the one place where Sara is the star.” Spike Jones, with whom she recorded, her dramatic teacher in Tulsa and an old girl friend, June Robbins, whom she hadn’t seen in 10 years.
JACK BENNY — Miss Berner plays the Brooklyn telephone operator from time to time on his show — called to say how much he admired her.
Miss Berner dabbed away at her eyes during all this, exclaiming at one point: “This doesn’t happen until — God forbid — you pass on.”
The freshets of tears grew stronger as the incidents and people dredged up by Edwards receded in time, receded way back to her childhood when she was winning auditions to appear on Major Bowes amateur hour.
At the end. Mr. Edwards in his own words took her “through the archway of your life” into a replica of the kitchen of her Oklahoma home where Mr. Edwards had given refuge to Miss Berner’s brothers and sister and father who fell on her with happy cries.
“The girl that made millions laugh while she was crying,” declared Mr. Edwards.
I don't quite dig this statement, since Miss Berner hadn’t appeared to have done much crying until she got on this show where she did plenty.
ACTUALLY, Sara Berner is an awfully cute trick, a born comic, and a girl who seems to have had a heck of a good time out of this vale of tears. But the customers want pathos and Mr. Edwards, I suppose, has to manufacture it.
“The program,” says a press release, “has substantiated Edwards’ belief that truth is not only stranger but also vastly more powerful than fiction.”
Well, anyhow — it sells Hazel Bishop lipstick.
If you’re a great one for family reunions, this is your dish of tea. It isn’t mine.

But it turns out Ralph Edwards didn’t have to manufacture pathos in Sara Berner’s life. There was enough of it that was eventually played out in the public.

Sara vanished from the Jack Benny show in 1954 and her role as a phone operator opposite Bea Benaderet was taken for more than a full year by Shirley Mitchell. One might think Berner was too busy with television with its memory-work and long rehearsals, but she couldn’t have been busier than Benaderet, who still appeared with Benny while a regular on the Burns and Allen TV show. Erskine Johnson’s Hollywood column in NEA-subscribing newspapers revealed on June 22, 1955:

Jack Benny and Sara Berner, the original Mabel, the telephone operator of his shows, patched up the misunderstanding that’s existed between them for the last year and a half. She returns to the Benny show in a telefilm rolling this month.

What happened? Johnson didn’t say. And, of course, Benny never would have. But there was stuff going on in Sara’s personal life in 1954 that, to jump to conclusions, may have had something to do with it. This appeared in newspapers four years later.

Comedienne Sara Berner Is Granted Divorce
LOS ANGELES, May 8 (AP) — Mrs. Lillian H. Rosner, known professionally as comedienne Sara Berner and as Jack Benny's radio show telephone operator, “Mabel Flapsaddle,” has obtained a divorce.
She charged Milton Rosner, 36, talent agent, with cruelty, namely criticizing and dominating her. They were married at Las Vegas, Nev., in 1951 and separated March 30, 1954.
Mrs. Rosner was given custody of their daughter, Eugenie, 5, $150 a month child support and $150 a month alimony for one year.

Not only was Rosner a talent agent, he was Berner’s talent agent, before and during their separation.

But the story gets sadder, sadder than anything that Ralph Edwards would have dared to broadcast to a television audience. The wire services picked up a story from the Van Nuys News of December 27, 1959.

Actress Pleads Innocent to Endangering Daughter
Actress Sara Berner, who plays a telephone operator on the Jack Benny Show, yesterday pleaded innocent to a charge of endangering the life of her 7-year-old daughter.
A jury trial was scheduled for Jan. 25.
Miss Berner, 47, of 5448 Murietta Ave., Van Nuys, appeared before Municipal Judge William H. Rosenthal, who ordered her returned to Lincoln Heights Jail in lieu of $525 bail.
Phoned Police
Officers E.C. Hayes and George Betsworth received a call on Christmas eve to go to the Murietta Ave. address to check “unknown trouble.”
They were told Mrs. Berner had phoned the Van Nuys Police Station several times earlier asking police protection, claiming her ex-husband, Milton Rosner, 37, was on the way to kill her.
Hayes and Betsworth said they were met at the door by her daughter Eugenia.
They asked for her mother and Mrs. Berner then called from the bedroom for the officers to come in there.
They said Mrs. Berner was in her nightgown and the bedroom was littered with papers, clothing and cigarette butts.
She demanded police protection, insisting her husband was on the way to kill her.
Woman Handcuffed
When the officers tried to reason with her, she became abusive and started screaming.
The officers said it was necessary to handcuff her to restrain her as she allegedly tried to attack them.
The daughter was taken to Juvenile Hall, then turned over to her father.

The Associated Press story on the same incident revealed one other thing—there were bottles strewn over the floor. We’re left to assume they weren’t from soft drinks.

What happened next? From the News of January 26, 1960.

Valley Actress Forfeits Bail
Actress Sara Berner’s bail of $525 was forfeited when she failed to appear in Los Angeles Municipal Court for trial on a charge of endangering the life of her 7-year-old daughter.
Judge Gerald C. Kepple was informed Miss Berner, 47, who played the telephone operator on the Jack Benny show, has been committed to a hospital in San Mateo County.
The actress, of 5448 Murietta Ave., Van Nuys, was arrested Christmas Eve when officers went to her home after she telephoned the Van Nuys station and said her ex-husband was on the way to kill her.
The daughter Eugenia Rosner was taken to Juvenile Hall and later turned over to her father, Milton Rosner, 37.

How long she was in hospital and even why is not known. She likely was moved to the Bay area because she had a sister living in Hillsborough.

Sara’s career through the 1960s was virtually non-existent, at least by a glance of available TV listings. She got good reviews in 1961 as the comic relief, hired as a last-minute emergency fill-in, on the Grammys (the telecast of which, in those days, was way down on the food chain of awards shows), appeared in a dramatic role on “CBS Playhouse” in January 1967 and likely promoted it a month earlier when she dropped in on Gypsy Rose Lee’s daytime show. But that’s all I’ve been able to find.

The News of September 7, 1969 reports Sara in fair condition at Community Hospital of North Hollywood but her father wouldn’t tell the newspaper why, though he mentioned she suffered from arthritis. The News did a follow-up on October 14th.

‘NUMBER, PLEEZE?’
Sara's Mabel Flapsaddle Bedded by Own Phone
By ALICE MORSE
The story was of actress Sara Berner and it ran in a series of supporting players. It was on Page 43 and the magazine was the old Radio Life, now Radio-TV Life. The year was 1943. And of the publication, there’s no one in the world who could top Sara’s quip that this radio actor’s bible “sold at the time for 3 cents.”
Of course this would be if Sara felt up to any kind of gag concerning the old mike days or even the present nonradio nowadays.
For Sara, known to million of both radio and television listeners in those nostalgic days as Mabel Flapsaddle, feels little inclination now to very funny about anything.
Questions Answered
The versatile little actress, whose home is Van Nuys, today is confined to a convalescent home following major surgery. It’s not as funny a place as Jack Benny’s studio where Sara not only convulsed the “39-year-old” comedian at the microphone, but all who worked on the set as well. Sara’s Mabel Flapsaddle had ‘em in the aisles both on and off the air.
And this tribute to the spunky little trouper is in part an answer to uncounted queries as to her present whereabouts and “when is she going to be heard again?”
Sara’s address is Jefferson Convalescent Home, 5240 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City. The telephone, just waiting to ring, is 391-7263.
Sara, as the oldtimers will remember, is the girl who made hash out of Benny’s attempts to get the right telephone number. As the operator who tangled, literally, with more wires than are pulled by politicians, the actress gave new, electronic meaning to the word “boner” and had fan clubs coming out of the mike.
Now Convalescing
As dialectician par excellence, the little gal from Oklahoma did her stuff regularly on all the top shows and gave 20 of the best years to Benny and Miss Flapsaddle.
She’s now giving a few to herself and the goal is good health again and then, back to work. As for Mabel and her tangled prefixes and loused-up connections, she will never be forgotten. The same goes for Sara.

But she was forgotten. Berner died on December 19th, according to on-line death records, but the wire services never reported it. Her family placed a memorial in the News the following November. And then there was this ad placed in November 1972:



One can only imagine what John Crosby would have thought.

Well, I can’t end this post on a downer. I’ve always been a big fan of Sara’s work in cartoons and on Jack Benny’s show. Here she is in a TV broadcast from October 25, 1951 as Slim-Finger Sara. Her scene starts just after the 13:30 mark.

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When Mickey Was Fun

Mickey Mouse had birthday parties on screen in 1931 and 1942. The animation, as you might expect, was far better in the latter version, but I like the earlier one a lot more. Maybe it’s the attitude. The characters have that great early ‘30s look, there’s a lot of singing and dancing (mainly Dick Lundy at work), and things come to life. Like piano stools that play their pianos, animated by Jack Cutting.



The second half is lots of fun. The writers found different musical gags as Mickey plays a xylophone (with his butt, in one piece of footage) and then the instrument takes on a life of its own, in animation by Ben Sharpsteen.



And there’s a funny Fleischer-esque gag involving cats (with Fleischer-esque belly buttons) dancing on a fish bowl while fish swim inside. The cats fall in the bowl, and the impact shoots the fish to the rim outside. The fish start dancing while the cats swim, in a scene by Johnny Cannon.



Walt Disney sprung for the rights to use songs. “Darktown Strutters Ball” surfaced a decade later in Tom and Jerry cartoons at MGM and the short opens with “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby.”

If you’re looking for plot, you won’t find it here. But if you’re looking for an upbeat 7½ minutes, this cartoon’s as good as any.

Touché and Go

Pepé Le Pew devolved in a few short years from an Oscar winner to a cliché. Or perhaps that should be “Le Cliché.” By the late ‘50s, his cartoons are indistinguishable from each other. A cat accidentally gets a white stripe of paint down its back. The cat runs away, stopping to catch her breath with the words “Les Pant.” Pepé talks and talks and talks. And hearts find their way into the design. In every single cartoon. Sometimes they’re trails of smoke, sometimes they’re bubbles, other times they’re in Maurice Noble’s backgrounds. Jones loved gags coming out of the artwork. Here’s an example in “Touché and Go” (1957).



Not knowing my French geography, I’m not sure where this is supposed to take place (do they have cliffs near the French-Italian border?) but here are more of Noble’s backgrounds.






Do they have volcanic islands in the Mediterreanean?

Noble has a number of underwater backgrounds as well, as Jones quickly cuts from one to the next while Pepé is in a scuba mask.

Phil De Guard did his usual fine job constructing these.

The New Writer

This past week, the last of Jack Benny’s radio writers passed away. You can read a nice little profile of Al Gordon HERE. (The story has Gordon and Hal Goldman misidentified in its accompanying photo, judging by the 1960 photo caption to the right and another newspaper photo from the same year).

Gordon and writing partner Goldman joined the Benny show in 1950. You’d think the job would be cinch. By then, Jack, his cast and his secondary players had all settled into tried-and-tested characterisations and routines. It would seem that all the writers had to do was pick a few of them from the buffet, slap them together in a show, then pick a few different ones next week and do it all over again. It wasn’t quite that easy.

Newspaper syndicate writer Charles Witbeck did a couple of feature stories in 1960 about Gordon and Benny’s other writers in the television era. (One wonders if Witbeck simply had plenty of material so he banked some of it for use during a fallow period). Perhaps the most interesting thing is Benny trusted his writers’ judgement over his own, at least a lot of the time.

This story appeared in papers starting January 5.

Jack Benny’s Writers Live ‘In A Happy Rut’
By CHARLES WITBECK
“The happy rut” is what four well-paid writers call working for Jack Benny.
Working for Benny is a career, a lifetime job, or so it would seem by Hollywood writing standards. Two writers, Sam Perrin and George Balzer, have been making up lines on Jack’s stinginess for 17 years. Hal Goldman and Al Gordon are the youngsters who say they’re “carrying the old men” with 11 years of service.
Perrin, Balzer, Gordon and Goldman have been with Benny so long they think like him. They should by now. Furthermore, they know each other so well, one writer often will say word for word what another is thinking of. Generally all four are talking at once, and there are continual interruptions.
In a Beverly Hills office that Goldman describes as turning a dark shade of red, the four sit and dream up Benny half-hour shows and his hour specials. This is done by dictating to a secretary.
“She’s the real writer,” says Sam Perrin.
“She picks out what she likes best,” said Hal Goldman.
How can she tell what to use when all are talking at once?
“Whatever comes in clearest,” answered Balzer. “She can tell by the tone of something thrown whether it should be ignored or not, and by our attitude.”
Always Interrupting
“If after three words a guy isn’t interrupted, it’s OK,” was Perrin’s definition.
Since the men are so used to interrupting, they feel ill at ease when there is silence and often three will let one writer go on and on until he pleads for help.
It takes from seven to nine days for the four to do a half-hour TV show and they put in a regular eight-hour, five-day schedule. There are days when nothing much happens and the men are stuck with a problem of coming up with the right material, say, for a guest.
These days of famine, seen in another light, are called “the will to play golf” by elder statesman Perrin, who in his 17 years with Benny has never been out a day.
No Panic
Failure to solve a problem doesn’t bring panic. The men feel if you don’t do it today, you'll get it tomorrow. They go home to their wives and swimming pools (one, Al Gordon, doesn’t own a pool the others claim he sells pool water to them), and don’t fret. “But I think at home, not at the office,” said Gordon.
“For instance, we had Jack Paar as a guest not long ago.” Balzer said. “We were into eleven pages of a sketch with Paar and it wasn't right for him. So we took it 'and found it would fit George Burns perfectly. We never throw anything away.”
Benny Judges
Noawadays four men do most of the writing and then Benny comes in to listen and judge. In the beginning during the early radio days, Jack sat in with the men. Now he trusts them. Jack knows what he wants and all four respect his good ear. They also need him in any arguments over material. Any side that Jack goes to wins.
“We retain privileges,” said Goldman, “you tell Jack why you like a joke and sometimes that convinces him.
“And there are lines that you put in the script because you know in reading Jack will pencil out. so you just throw the line at him. If he likes it he will use it.”
Probably the best thing about Benny and his writers, besides the fact all like each other, is that Jack doesn’t keep score on who suggests what. He doesn’t care. This eliminates rivalry.
After finishing a script, the men know what will get laughs and what should get laughs and they’re seldom wrong. When a laugh doesn’t come over as expected, they have a way out. “Anything that lays dead is an ad lib,” is their alibi.
Their knowledge of what strikes the public’s funny bone has to be fairly accurate. “Otherwise we’d lose our annuities,” said Al Gordon.
With that announcement, seniority leader Sam Perrin looked at his watch, borrowed a couple of pills from the group doctor, Hal Goldman, and then led the three boys back to the office where they would be locked up for the afternoon. There was no “will to play golf” in evidence.

This is from the Modesto Bee, November 21, 1960.

Jack Benny, Writers Have Chuckles While Rehearsing Television Show
On Monday mornings at 10 o’clock in Beverly Hills, Jack Benny, announcer Don Wilson, four writers, singers and guest actors hold a reading for taping the following Sunday Benny show.
The reading takes all of 35 minutes interspersed with the loudest laughs from portly Don Wilson, followed by Benny’s chuckles and then the writers’. Benny is known to be a great audience and lives up to it during a reading.
The weekly session is mere routine to the whole group which has been with Benny so long. In a sense they're all company men. Don Wilson is on his 27th year with Jack; Rochester has been around since 1937, and writers Sam Perrin and George Balzer began 18, years ago. The other two writers, Hal Goldman and Al Gordon, are the newcomers, with only 11 years to their credit.
A few minutes after 10 o’clock recently, after the men had settled down, Jack began reading his opening monologue. He added pauses and it sounded as if he were on stage or doing a radio show. At the end he said, “It isn’t long enough.”
Writer Sam Perrin nodded, and said they’d fix that up and Benny continued. Dennis Day began reading about how he thought this was the opening show for the season. Jack explained that he had already done the opening. Then Dennis read: “Well, I’ve got to hand it to you, you’ve sure got a lot of guts,” referring to the fact that Benny had the gall to do an opening without Dennis.
Benny almost fell out of his chair laughing at this line. The others joined in, but Benny’s guffaw was the biggest. The reading went on with the writers and Don Wilson laughing here and there.
When they came to a commercial involving a bagpiper dressed in kilts, Benny questioned a line about the raising of kilts. Jack wondered whether it was in good taste and the writers offered substitutes. It wasn’t decided what would be done.
“We’ll fool around with this later,” said Sam Perrin. Jack nodded and then decided to kid Perrin. “Let’s fool around with it now. It’s my show.” There was more laughter and the reading continued.
At 10:35 o’clock Jack read the last line on page 33 and then got up and walked around. “This is a very good show roughly,” he said. “It’s too long but all our shows are too long at the reading.” While others were talking and he was thinking, Jack pulled a few dollar bills from his pocket. He counted them, put them back in his pocket, said a few words and went into his office.
Sitting behind his desk in an office covered with plaques, Jack talked about guests like Arthur Godfrey, Joey Bishop, the James Stewarts and Dan Duryea.
“We’re also going to do a show about Fatso (Don Wilson) since he’s been with me for 27 years and I think it’s very funny.”
Jack was going to have his wife Mary Livingston on the opening program, but Mary was very nervous about it, and finally Jack told her she didn’t have to do it. It was a huge relief to Mary who never does a live show, or a taped one for that matter, so it is doubtful if fans will see Mary at all this season.
Switching over from a twice-a-month show to a weekly series isn’t bothering Benny a bit. “We have 11 shows in the can already,” he said, “and we’re not panicky.” Jack will even do three concerts in Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Cleveland. While talking about the concerts, Jack suddenly got an idea and rushed out of the room. He wanted to make sure plugs for the concerts would be put in the shows the week before.
Idea First
“I’m glad I thought of that,” he said, re-entering the room. He sat down and leaned back. “Care for a cigar?”
I shook my head and Jack continued.
“You know my writers prefer doing a weekly show. It keeps their hand in. The reason isn’t financial. They’re paid the same amount regardless.
“Also this year we’re not doing any specials. Those took a lot of time."
Asked if the Marquis Chimps would be back, Benny smiled. “Maybe, if we can get the right approach. You know the good thing about that show, the one with the chimps, was that the rest of the show was good. If only the monkey had been good we would have had a lousy show.
“Our problem as always is to find the right thing for the guest. If we can’t, we don’t do it. With those writers the idea comes first and then the guests.”
The company men are working harder this year, but they don’t show it. Benny says he isn’t running any faster this season than last.
“I still get out to play golf,” he says. “If I can keep those guys off my neck.”

Gordon wrote jokes for Benny, but Benny had a little joke about him. He dubbed Gordon and partner Hal Goldman “the new writers”, and still called them that even 20 years later when they were writing Jack’s TV specials.

Goldman died in 2001. As for the “old” writers, George Balzer passed away in 2006 and Sam Perrin in 1998. They had written the radio show with John Tackaberry, who died in 1969, and Milt Josefsberg, who passed away in 1987. Gordon’s death this week, in a way, marks the end of an era for Benny’s still large fan-base, and reminds us that character-based comedy can stand the test of time, even from that brief period known as the Golden Age of Radio.

Keeshan and Cartoons

As someone who parked himself in front of the TV mornings and afternoons throughout the 1960s, Captain Kangaroo wasn’t really my style, even as a young child. Too low-key. Not funny like Brakeman Bill and Crazy Donkey playing old cartoons and kibbitzing on Channel 11. The Captain didn’t keep my attention but, being a cartoon fan, I’d watch Tom Terrific.

Sure, Tom didn’t have the smart ass-ery of a Bugs Bunny. But the imaginative transformations and uses of Tom’s funnel hat (reminiscent of the silent Felix the Cat changing his tail into something else) and the irony of having a laconic “Wonder Dog” was enough for me to tune in. And Crabby Appleton’s a clever name for a villain; I appreciated clever writing even then.

So what did the Captain think of all those cartoons on kids shows on the other channels? This syndicated newspaper story of November 19, 1961 may give you an idea. As a background note, the prime-time line-up that September/October saw the debut of three animated shows—‘The Alvin Show,’ ‘The Captain and the Colonel’ and ‘Top Cat.’

Captain Kangaroo Deplores Lack Of Good TV
By HARVEY PACK
Bob Keeshan is responsible for 312 hours of children’s programming a year. As Captain Kangaroo he is perhaps the only performer in TV who complains bitterly that he has no competition.
“A few years ago my show was hanging by a thread, but the parents came to our rescue and we were renewed. Now we're loaded with sponsors, tops in our time slot and pointed at with pride, but we’re still alone in our field. It’s frightening to realize that American children are being abandoned by network TV to cartoons, westerns and violence.”
Off screen Bob runs a rather large organization known as Keeshan Enterprises which is dedicated, in addition to making money, to the type of programming that Captain Kangaroo personifies. They endorse products, make records, book concert tours for the Captain and prepare the daily adventures in the Treasure House.
“The show is actually run by the parents,” Bob said. “If the mail indicates that something is particularly well–received we try and give it more time on the show. As far as endorsing products goes, that's a delicate matter.”
I asked Bob how he feels about the flood of cartoon shows now dominating the so-called adult-kiddy market. “I love cartoons and I think it’s an unexplored field as far as TV is concerned. My only regret is that a few of the current films will set TV cartooning back ten years. After all, this is a commercial business, and the success of ‘Flintstones’ started the cartoon gold rush and when all the new ones fail. . .it’ll be almost impossible to sell a cartoon to TV.”
Keeshan was one of the first to develop a cartoon for TV. His ‘Tom Terrific,’ made in association with Terrytoons, has been a Treasure House standby for years. In a few months he intends to introduce “Lariat Sam,” a Western satire which the kids will laugh at and understand.
All the publicity for the very successful cartoon shows claims that their secret is that the kids are excited while the grown-ups laugh at the comedy,” Keeshan said.
“Perhaps that’s why they’re all failing this year. A cartoon should be designed for either adults or youngsters and not for both.
“If you ask me, our youngsters are being exposed to too much ‘adult’ TV. All day, while the preschool child is sitting in front of the set waiting for mommy to finish her chores. TV feeds him a steady diet of reruns. When they grow up their idea of marriage will be ‘I Love Lucy,’ which is great for laughs but hardly a true picture of life.
“As far as the westerns go they teach the kids that there is only right and wrong. . .no middle ground or compromise . . .and most problems can be worked out by a six shooter.”
About four years ago CBS cut Captain Kangaroo down to 45 minutes and filled the time with a world news program. This season the network finally realized that preschool youngsters would rather have another 15 minutes with the Captain so the quarter hour was returned to them.
“We try and present the show to entertain the older children before they leave for school as well as their younger sisters and brothers,” explained Bob. “It’s really quite simple. If we have something on science or serious music we always use it early in the show while the older youngsters are still with us.”
Now in his eighth year as the Captain, Bob fully expects to be the Captain for the children of his present fans. New, ready-made audiences are being created for him by the ever-increasing birth rate, and all of his plans center around the children.
“All I want to do is continue what I’m doing to the best of my ability,” Bob said. “And all I ask of television is not to let me do it alone. The networks owe it to the American people to provide decent, planned entertainment for children during the 5-7 time period when there’s nothing on but cartoons and two-reel comedies. TV’s potential for reaching children must be explored, not exploited.”

One wonders if Keeshan truly believed people would grow up to believe Lucy Ricardo was the epitome of American motherhood (still, she was never a neglectful or harmful mother, was she?) or that they can’t discern the difference between television westerns and reality. And “cartoons, westerns and violence” were kids’ programming long before television; they were all featured in Saturday matinees at local theatres.

Keeshan, like many others, believed television should be a medium of information and education. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately, many believe that’s all it should be. Kids, like adults, need fun escape, too. Just as there was a place for ‘Playhouse 90’ and ‘Gilligan’s Island’ on TV, so there was a place for ‘Tom Terrific’ and ‘The Jetsons.’ And there still is today.