The Legacy of Frank Churchill

The sad irony was not hard to see. The man whose song was used to chase away the blues of the Depression couldn’t chase away his own. A .30 calibre rifle ended the life of Disney composer Frank Churchill.

The animation industry, over the years, has mourned self-inflicted deaths. A list would serve little purpose and so would armchair psychology. So, instead, let’s talk about Churchill’s legacy.

Kansas City theatre organist Carl Stalling had been scoring Walt Disney’s films since the start of the sound era but left the studio in early 1930 for supposedly greener pastures at fellow defector Ub Iwerks. Bert Lewis came in to replace Stalling and then Churchill was brought in before the end of the year. He had been working in a Hollywood orchestra but had movie experience. Photoplay of July 1929 revealed it was Churchill playing the piano for Dick Barthelmess in “Weary River.” At the time, he was still living at home. His parents were Andrew J. and Clara E. Churchill; his father was a chemical engineer. The family was in Los Angeles by 1923.

Music was the raison d’être of just about every cartoon of the early ‘30s. Characters (animated and otherwise) danced, frolicked, played musical instruments, turned animals into musical instruments, with a bare storyline holding things together. This wasn’t good enough for Disney. He wanted better drawing, better stories. As for music, public domain songs were about all Uncle Walt could use unless he bought music rights. Then, someone got a brilliant idea. A Disney cartoon would have a song especially composed just for it. And it was a song co-written by Frank Churchill. The song became a hit, the cartoon became a hit, and pretty soon, everyone wanted to know more about how it came to be. Here’s a column from 1933. While the reporter mentions his own first name, there’s no byline.

Telling on Hollywood
HOLLYWOOD, Nov. 14.—“Believe it or not, Bob, my ‘Three Little Pigs’ have ended the depression,” Walt Disney confided to me yesterday. . . . “The biggest hit of any cartoon comedy ever made . . . if the fact that the picture has cleaned a cool million means anything . . . and it’s good for a half million more.”
Disney submitted the idea to his staff three times before they fell for it ... It went through the inking department in ten days . . . a record in animating when you consider it runs around 750 feet and takes eight minutes to screen. . . . A trio . . . the Rythmettes [sic] . . . did the three little pigs . . . and a member of Disney’s staff was “the big bad wolf.”
Pinto Colvieg . . . former newspaper man and a member of Disney’s staff . . . suggested the bad wolf line . . . and Frank Churchill wrote the music. . . . the “tra la la la la” last line was given to the flute and violin when the author couldn’t make a line fit. . . . And only four characters appear in it.
Incidentally, Walt is making his Silly Symphonies in French and Spanish editions now. . . . And Irving Berlin will publish all of the songs originating in them or the Mickey Mouse cartoonettes. . . . Disney has three music and three picture directors who team in pairs . . . so look for something new from Hollywood.
(Copyright, 1933, Publisher’s Syndicate)

“Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” continued to fascinate people. An Oakland Tribune columnist with the nom-de-plume ‘The Knave’ had this to say in his offering of January 3, 1935.

PIGGIES. Still a bit puzzled over the popularity of his song hit, “Three Little Pigs,” Frank Churchill, Hollywood musical composer, today returned to the studio to start work on the first 6000-foot movie cartoon feature that will take one year to produce.
Churchill, accompanied by Mrs. Churchill, were the New Year’s Day guests of Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Burnham of Richmond.
A Chinese fable provided the inspiration for the great song hit which made him famous, declared Churchill. He is a former medical student at the U. C. L. A., who abandoned his studies for a job as piano player in a Tijuana resort and rose to fame -as a radio pianist and musical director of Walt Disney’s animated cartoons.
Churchill is a constant reader of fables. Most fables had their origin with the Chinese, he asserts.
“Fables, with their musical scores, appeal to the public because of the originality of their treatment,” Churchill declared. “I did not discover this in the beginning. I began writing musical scores for these animated cartoons to get away from the cost of using stock music. Being a reader of fables, they furnish most of the ideas which I put to music.”
“Three Little Pigs” has been a money maker, according to Churchill. Sheet music sales already have reached three quarters of a million, copies, 110,000 phonograph records have been made of the number and piano roll music is now on the market. Success of the number in Europe has been nearly as great as in America, he said.

Music was central in the Disney cartoons in the early ‘30s and when Walt Disney decided he had no choice put to go into features. Music held together the story. Just like the jingle-esque “Big Bad Wolf,” Churchill co-wrote singable, memorable tunes for “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Although others contended Churchill a little bit of extra help. Cue the lawyers! First, from 1938.

Song in ‘Snow White’ Pirated, Music Publisher Charges
New York, Oct. 15.— AP— Music Publisher Thornton W. Allen filed in federal court today a copyright infringement action charging that the song “Some Day I’ll Find My Love” in the motion picture production of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was a “deliberate piracy” of a college march titled “Old Eli,” written by Wadsworth Doster, Yale ‘09, to which Allen’s firm holds the rights.
Allen named Irving Berlin, Inc., publishers of Snow White’s song, credited to Larry Morey and Frank Churchill; Walt Disney Productions, Ltd., RKO Pictures, Inc., and Walt Disney Enterprises in his application for a temporary injunction to restrain use of the song pending a ruling on a permanent injunction and an accounting of unspecified damages.

The Oakland Tribune of April 12, 1939 reveals:

Exits and Entrances
Another plagiarism suit is on file. This time Modest Altschuler wants a quarter of a million from Walt Disney, Irving Berlin, Radio, and Frank Churchill because “Whistle While You Work” is like his “Russian Soldier’s Song.”

And while the newspapers seem to be silent on the outcome of those cases, it did report the ending of another, also in 1939.

‘Dwarf’ Suit, Old As Hills, Out of Court
HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 20—(UP)—The $50,000 suit of Reynard Fraunfelder, a Swiss who said he put the yodels into the motion picture “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” was thrown out of court today. .
Superior Judge Frank Swain upheld the defense contention that yodelling is “as old as the Swiss hills” and that the Swiss acted only as an adviser for Walt Disney studios for which he was amply paid.
Fraunfelder had sued Disney, Radio Pictures, RCA manufacturing Co., and Frank Churchill, composer.



Churchill’s work wasn’t restricted to Disney. He came out with some songs for 11-year-old Bobby Breen and his co-stars in the musical-romance “Breaking the Ice” (1938). And there was a brief period at Walter Lantz’ studio; Boxoffice of December 11, 1937 reports he was hired as a composer at the same time Frank Marsales was hired as an arranger and Nat Shilkret as a conductor and musical advisor. But he carried on composing for Walt’s features until his sudden end in 1942.

COMPOSER OF SONG HIT FATALLY SHOT
Death of Frank Churchill, Who Wrote “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” Termed Suicide.
Newhall, Calif., May 14.—(AP)—Frank Churchill, composer of the song hit, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"—the tune with which America laughed itself out of the depression—was shot and fatally wounded today on his ranch near Newhall. Deputy Sheriff John Morrell said the death was a suicide.
The composer, 40 years old, long had been employed at the Walt Disney studios in Hollywood. He returned here only yesterday for a rest.
Morrell said he left a note to his wife, reading:
“Dear Carolyn: My nerves have completely left me. Please forgive me for this awful act. It seems the only way I can cure myself.”
The composer’s "Big Bad Wolf" was from Disney’s “The Three Little Pigs.” His most recent tunes are in the Disney films, “Dumbo” and “Bambi,” the latter not yet released.
Churchill wrote the songs for “Snow White,” including the memorable “Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho” and “Whistle While You Work.”
Studio associates said his last composition probably was his greatest. It is called “Love is a Song That Never Ends,” and was written for Bambi. He was ranked among the highest paid members of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
Morrell said Mrs. Churchill, aroused by a shot, asked Don Dernford, a hired man, to investigate.
He found Churchill, a bullet wound through his heart and a rifle lying beside him. Beneath his body was a rosary.
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Churchill quoted him. “Put me to bed.”
He was dead when Dr. E. C. Innis reached the ranch from here.
Studio associates said his health had long been poor, and he spent much time on his ranch.

The United Press of June 3, 1942 had this post-script with further indication Churchill’s home life was troubled:

The will of the late Frank E. Churchill, composer for the Walt Disney studios, was filed for probate Tuesday, disclosing he left his daughter, Corrine, 20, only $1 because she “refused to accept any educational advantages or moral guidance” from her father.

Is there more to the story? Could be. This news site story from Santa Clarita, California leaves questions hanging for the reader to decide on their own.

Churchill isn’t as well known as his predecessor at Disney, Carl Stalling, because of the enormous popularity-—and endless rerunning on television—of the Warner Bros. cartoons that Stalling went on to score. But Churchill ultimately had more influence. He was responsible for Disney’s first hit song. Considering all the fortune-making musical features the Disney people have had over the years, they owe a great deal to Frank Edwin Churchill.

Stop Staring!

The early Fleischer cartoons are great fun. Lots of crazy gags as just about anything comes to live. Then there are the weird background characters that just stand or sit there because they’re on a drawing. Like these ones in ‘Betty Boop’s Ker-Choo’ (1933).



The background people weren’t credited at Fleisher’s for years. The animators on this one are Seymour Kneitel and Bernie Wolf.

Ub’s Classroom

Whoever did the backgrounds at the Ub Iwerks studio loved settings with curves and warps in them. They found their way into the ComiColor cartoons, but they’re more effective in black and white. Here are some from “Mary’s Little Lamb.”







None of the artists are credited so I haven’t any idea who might have drawn these. The school teacher in this one is a standard old crone design used at the studio.

Jack Mather

Researchers have to be careful in making assumptions. There’s an awful lot of sloppy research when it comes to classic cartoons. Some people simply go on the internet and make guesses, and treat them as indisputable truth. If they do any research, they simply go on the internet and read other people’s guesses and accept them as fact. All you need is one person with screwy information and it can be perpetuated on the web forever. Or in the popular press, in the case of all those stories claiming the late Dick Beals was the voice of Gumby.

Here’s a good example of where one has to do their research. Jack Mather was a radio actor and on a growing list of people who provided voices in animated cartoons without any credit at the time, mainly at the Walter Lantz studio. In trying to do some biographical work on him, I went through census information and a number of newspaper stories on radio and started compiling information. But, after awhile, something didn’t add up. It took a little more digging before I realised what the situation was. There were TWO Jack Mathers who acted in the 1940s on radio, one from Canada and the other from the U.S. And the Canadian one ended up in the Los Angeles where, of course, the American one had been living and working.

With rare exception, Mel Blanc was the only voice actor getting any on-screen credit for cartoon work in the ‘40s. Newspapers and trade papers are a little more forthcoming about others. But all I can find about Mather’s animation career is this squib from February 11, 1945.

NARRATES PUPPETOON
Jack Mather of the Bob Hope radio show, is the narrator for George Pal’s latest Puppetoon for Paramount release titled “Hat Full of Dreams.” Technicolor short introduces a new Pal character “Punchy A. Judy.”

Mather was on Bob Hope? That may be news to fans of old-time radio. Supporting players, especially in comedy and comedy/variety formats, almost never got credit at the end of a broadcast, even the ones most in demand. Old Time Radio encyclopedias written years ago and fan-generated OTR web sites are woefully incomplete. Mather is known for the starring role in the ‘The Cisco Kid’ but he had other radio work as well. Here’s a story from the San Antonio Express of March 12, 1943 that gives a little bit on Mather’s history, probably from a network bio.

Jack Mather passed a new milestone in a varied career when he joined the “Tommy Riggs and Betty Lou” show as an announcer. In his time as an actor, a race driver, pro footballer, poet, etc., this is his first assignment as a sponsor’s spieler. Born on a farm near Chicago 30-odd years ago, he has always wanted to own one himself and raise blooded Angus cattle. At 12 he ran away from home and joined a circus to earn the money. The next few years saw him all over the country as an auto race driver then as a pro football player, wrestler and construction worker. He donned white collar briefly to become a junior trader on the Chicago Stock Exchange, and, somewhere in between all these activities, he joined the staff of a Chicago radio station as half of a music team, singing ballads to his partner’s piano accompaniment. In 1929 he joined N.B.C. in Chicago and moved to Hollywood in 1934. Besides maintaining a heavy radio and movie schedule, Jack is a member of the Sherman Oaks auxiliary police and is a Government farm employe. Mather also finds time to pursue his hobbies, painting and writing. He has had several poems and plays published.

At the time, “Tommy Riggs and Betty Lou” had a supporting cast of people who also found their way into animation—Mel Blanc, Bea Benaderet, Wally Maher (the voice of Screwy Squirrel at MGM) and Verna Felton. Broadcasting magazine of November 16, 1942 reported he had replaced Frank Graham as the announcer (Graham voiced cartoons at Columbia, Warners, MGM and Disney). A newspaper story two months later mentions Mather was in the cast of Groucho Marx’ “Blue Ribbon Town.”

John E. Mather was born on September 21, 1907 to John A. and Ella Mather. He was the third of seven children. After he started in radio, he married Rosalie Encell of Oak Park, Illinois, who had been a student at the Goodman Theatre of the Chicago Art Institute and was in a singing trio with her sisters. Despite the story above, a local newspaper clipping still has him at NBC in Chicago at Christmas-time 1935. In fact, Billboard of December 7, 1935 reveals he left in mid-programme one afternoon, went to a hospital by taxi to donate a quart of blood, then returned to the studio to finish the show. Variety has conflicting information in 1936-37 about his air work; in September 1936, a John Mather was in the cast of Irvin S. Cobb’s “Paducah Plantation” radio show for Oldsmobile which originated on the West Coast (the publication still has him in Chicago on “Little Orphan Annie” the following January).

The family eventually settled in Northridge, California, where Mather was made the honorary mayor, a title bestowed by various communities outside Los Angeles on celebrities (Andy Devine was honorary mayor of Van Nuys, for example). A story in the Van Nuys News of September 13, 1948 tells that Rosalie worked on radio as well on “First Nighter,” “Grand Hotel,” “Myrt and Marge” and “Welcome Valley.” Mather was in the cast of the Charlotte Greenwood summer show in 1943 but the most interesting thing about him was the revelation in several trade papers that he was a government milker during the war, working seven days a week from 5 to 9 a.m. at a Los Angeles Dairy (Broadcasting, Nov. 23, 1942).

In February 1946, Mather became Cisco when the show was revived and produced at the Mutual-Don Lee studios at KHJ for airing on the West Coast. The show was owned by Frederick Ziv Transcriptions, which decided in September 1949 to move it into television. Mather was up for the television role, but the syndicator decided to go with Duncan Renaldo, who had been playing the character in the movie serials. Mather carried on in the twice-weekly radio broadcasts, which seem to have petered out in Los Angeles and Chicago by February 1956. He played some bit roles in television but never starred again. Mather died on August 16, 1966.

J. E. Mather, ‘Cisco Kid,’ Dies at 58
WAUCONDA, Ill. (AP)—John E. (Jack) Mather, 58, known to millions for his starring role in the radio show, “The Cisco Kid,” died Tuesday in this Chicago suburb of a heart attack, it was learned Saturday.
His body was cremated in accordance with his wishes the he died and the ashes were sprinkled near Libertyville, Ill. where he grew up.
Mather was a master of 21 dialects, but he was most famous for the Mexican accent he developed for the Cisco Kid, which ran from 1947 to 1959.
Mather started as half of a musical team on a Chicago radio program. He then moved to Hollywood, where he had roles in numerous films, among them “The Bravadoes”, “This Earth Is Mine”, “Jungle Book”, and “Some Like It Hot”.
He also performed on television in episodes of “Bonanza,” “Dragnet,” “Death Valley Days” and “M Squad.”
Mather’s son, Greg, a former football star for the Navy Academy, won All-America honors in 1960 and 1962.
Mather is also survived by his wife, Rosalie, and another son Robert, who manages a cattle ranch in Clear Lakes, Calif.
Mather and his wife were staying with friends at Wauconda when he died.

One show Mather didn’t appear on was ‘Howdy Doody.’ That was the Canadian Jack Mather, appearing on the Canadian version of the show. Don’t let phoney internet research tell you otherwise.

A late P.S.: Variety not only mentioned the Pal squib above but also made someone other references to his cartoon work, as follows:

Walter Lantz has signed Jack Mather as the voice of Wally Walrus, new cartoon character to make debut in 'Beach Nut,' (November 24th, 1943).
And over at Walt Lantz cartoonery, Hans Conreid and Jack Mather will speak for "Woody Woodpecker." (May 3, 1944).
George Pal yesterday signed Jack Mather, screen and radio thespian of many voices, to perform trick vocals for one of the series of Technicolor industrial shorts now in production for Shell Oil Co. (April 7, 1947).

The Lonesome Mouse

Tom and Jerry talk in “The Lonesome Mouse” (1943), which has always bothered me. They’re not supposed to talk.

The concept driving the plot (Jerry getting Tom to agree to a fake fight in the house so the cat can ultimately move back in) could have been handled in pantomime after the narrator sets up Jerry’s thoughts. And if the woman of the house has kicked out Tom for good, why does she think the cat’s going to be able to get back in the house merely by screaming for him?

Well, instead of focusing on this, let’s look at some brushwork. Tom has a run cycle in some of the cartoons where all his legs are off the ground at the same time and at the same height. It’s in eight drawings on ones. One of the drawings has the legs merely as a blur of brush strokes.



The brush is used to a nice effect later in the cartoon when Tom is clobbered. He remains on twos, while the brush lines expand on ones. This is the second drawing.



Oh, and it’s an MGM cartoon, meaning Tom running past the camera in perspective.



Scott Bradley’s score (pts. 2, 8, 10) are copyright May 10, 1943. He mixes classical music with a jazz interlude, tunes in the MGM catalogue and ‘Ach Du Lieber Augustin’, the standard melody whenever there’s a Hitler gag. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera get the only credits, so the experts can weigh in if Ken Muse, Irv Spence, Jack Zander and Pete Burness animated this one. And I don’t have any idea who is talking for Tom and Jerry.

Bugs Bunny Emotes Again

One of the best Warners cartoons of all time is “Bugs Bunny Rides Again.” There are lots of great bits of acting, like Yosemite Sam looking shocked when he suddenly notices Bugs has turned his guns on him, or the matching expressions Sam and his horse have when chasing Bugs and his horse (who also have matching expressions).

The plot suddenly makes a switch at the end when Bugs and Sam notice a railcar full of bathing beauties on their way to Florida (a Tedd Pierce idea, I’ll bet). Bugs goes through a pile of different expressions to keep Sam out of the train so he can get the women to himself.


GOOFINESS


SURPRISE


EVIL


DISGUST


GRACEFULNESS


ANGER


VICTORIOUSNESS


JOY

Manny Perez, Ken Champin, Gerry Chiniquy and Virgil Ross are the credited animators for Friz Freleng in this one, released in 1948.

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.