A Fish!

Wild takes? Not only in Tex Avery cartoons. Shamus Culhane pulled off a great one in “Fish Fry” (1944).

Andy Panda, carrying his pet fish in a bowl, strolls past a mangy alley cat checking out fish remnants in the garbage for dinner. The cat realises what he just saw. The drawings are on twos, except for the second-last one which is held for four frames.









You’ll notice the fourth drawing has an outline of the cat. Outlines were fairly popular in action sequences in Walter Lantz cartoons about this time.

Emery Hawkins and La Verne Harding get the only animation credits here. I don’t know who else worked on this; Don Williams and Les Kline, perhaps? The cat was designed by Art Heinemann. There’s an even more outrageous (and fluid) take later in the cartoon I’ll post in a few weeks.

Yankee Doodle Mouse

A Happy Fourth of July to our American readers today.



The flag-from-fireworks is from “Yankee Doodle Mouse,” a 1943 Tom and Jerry cartoon. It’s an odd exercise in patriotism in that Jerry is obviously a stand-in for the American soldier in World War Two. Tom’s a symbol for the enemy, even though he’s not really a stand-in for the Nazis or Japanese (the only stereotype he becomes is a minstrel show type).

The animation credits on the re-issue version in circulation go to Irv Spence, George Gordon, Ken Muse and Pete Burness. Thad Komorowski’s blog points out Jack Zander worked on it as well, and the re-issue is missing an entire scene on ration stamps. The experts can tell you if Spence animates the opening scene where Tom gets clobbered by a tomato and eggs (aka “hen grenades”).




There’s an admirable piece of animation of the type MGM loved showing off. Tom’s floating in a barrel. Jerry sinks him with a brick. There’s a huge cascade of water that rises up on impact and then washes back down. Whether Al Grandmain did this in the effects department, I don’t know, but it involves some pretty elaborate drawing.



The short was the first of seven Tom and and Jerrys to win the Oscar, handed to producer Fred Quimby for sitting behind a desk in his office.

It Started With a Football

The Planter’s Bank of Rocky Mount, North Carolina was, in 1952, much like any other company. It held a Christmas party for staff members and their families. 150 showed up. And the entertainment for the evening? The local paper revealed it was put on by “Andy and Barbara Griffith, of Chapel Hill, stars of The Lost Colony pageant. They presented a series of skits.”

Next February, the Rocky Mount Annual Fire Department needed entertainment at its 23rd Annual Banquet and Ladies Night. The paper says “The variety show was staged by Andy and Barbara Griffith of Chapel Hill who were assisted by a ‘vocal quartet.’”

And when the North Carolina Automobile Association met in Pinehurst the following May? I see by the paper “convention features will include a welcome from Governor Umstead, the president’s annual message, a one-act play depicting the industry, and entertainment by Andy and Barbara Griffith, well-known Tar Heel performers.”

Yes, it’s the Andy Griffith. The one who’s passed away at the age of 86.

Remarkably, these small-time events were only a few months before Griffith achieved sudden nation-wide fame. Griffith first rose to success, not through his TV work, not even his earlier film work, but through a comedy record. “What It Was, Was Football” was pressed on the Colonial label. It was only one of three records the company made to that time, but caused such a stir in North Carolina, that Capitol won a bidding war for it. Billboard revealed the company paid $5,000 for the master of the recording on December 9, 1953.

How sudden was success? Here’s the Rocky Mount paper again, on January 17, 1954 (spellings have been left intact).

North Carolina’s Master Of The Monologue Assured Of Fame Following TV Appearance
BY AYCOCK BROWN
MANTEO. N. C.-Andy Griffith, the widely known Sir Walter Raleigh of Paul Green’s internationally famous symphonic drama The Lost Colony which will open for its 14th season in the Waterside Theatre here on Roanoke Island, June 26, is skyrocketing to fame for his hilarious monologues that are becoming best sellers on records. Then on Sunday night he was featured on famous Ed Sullivan’s coast-to-coast “Toast of the Town” television show and a million or so listeners and lookers saw the Mt. Airy-born Griffith demonstrate his talents.
Some who saw the TV-show agreed that while the Lost Colony player was tops, he was still not at his very best, as he was here on the Dare coast last summer when as the Sir Walter-bearded star of his self-directed and produced floor shows at the Dare County Shrine Club. The Shrine Club floor shows were events Griffith staged with members of the Lost Colony cast as an added way to make extra money during the summer seasons, and also another way to improve their acting techniques.
His country-boy’s version of Romeo and Juliet, and his role as the preacher in the “Preacher and the Bear” skits had packed patrons in the Shrine Club as the Scandinavians pack sardines into a can. Likewise, his role as Sir Walter Raleigh in The Lost Colony is one of the most colorful parts of the symphonic drama. Griffith has featured on the cover of Lost Colony’s souvenir program for the past three seasons, first with his wife Barbara (formerly Barbara Edwards of Troy) the first North Carolinian tom play the important feminine lead of the show. The following year he was featured alone in a photograph of the first act and last year in full color he appeared again on the souvenir program cover in the Queen’s Garden Scene and was shown as he presented the Elizabethan monarch with the tobacco plant his explorers led by Admirals Barlow and Amadas had brought back to England from Roanoke Island in the New World.
Talent Is Discovered
The man who more or less discovered Griffith was another Lost Colony player, Ainslie Prior of Raleigh and Hollywood. Pryor had played the role of Father Martin, the Lost Colony priest one year and Governor John White the next. In Raleigh he was director of the state capitol famous Little Theatre. Here on Roanoke Island the Griffiths and the Pryor’s were close friends as the 19952 season of Lost Colony was drawing to a close. Pryer began directing and persuading the Griffiths who at the time were teaching school in Goldsboro during the church off-season, to start a show of their own. This they did and with a success that netted them more than teaching.
In the meantime Pryor had ambitions for himself. He was determined to hit Hollywood and did that very thing. Currently he is playing the prosecutor in “The Caine Mutiny,” one of the most talked about productions of its kind on the road today.
Last season (1953) may the last for Griffith in The Lost Colony, but surely not because he would like it that way. His new contracts with Capitol Records and his manager, Orville Campbell of Chapel Hill, the man responsible for Griffith’s sudden rise to fame may not permit him to return to the drama as an actor.
General Manager Dick Jordan of The Lost Colony, who knows quite a bit about show business and contracts was unable to announce this week whether Griffith will be in the show this year. “I surely hope he will be,” said Jordan.

Campbell, incidentally, was the head of Colonial Records.

Fame put Griffith on the road, entertaining at supper clubs in the South at first. Before one appearance, the Biloxi Daily Herald of June 1, 1954, Griffith’s 28th birthday, explained:

With his wife, Barbara, Andy was entertaining at conventions until late in 1952 with a talking skit. One afternoon, he asked to provide a second show but didn’t have enough material. So while he was driving to the convention hall he hit on the idea of a haywire description of a football game. In 45 minutes, he had written a hit.
The record, which contains no music, regards football as “some kindly of a game.”

The paper compared his act to the long-forgotten Herb Shriner’s but, as Griffith put it “with more fanatical fanaticism.”

Griffith went on to far bigger things, thanks to the enormous influence of television on popular culture. “The Andy Griffith Show” has gone just another popular TV comedy to something of the embodiment of a wistful desire to return to a slow, low-key, small town past.

I never saw that past, and many suggest it never existed. But seeing as how a likeable young man from a small town shot to unexpected fame, and brought the spirit of that town to millions in their living rooms, all because of a football, it might be nice to think it did.

Nancy the American Patriot

Nothing swells one’s breast with nationalistic fervour than the effervescent adventures of that loveable cartoon icon, Nancy.

OK, I’ve never been a fan of Ernie Bushmiller’s inky progeny. But on the eve of Independence Day for those of you reading in the U.S., I would be remiss in not mentioning Nancy’s endeavour to further patriotic aims in the war propaganda cartoon “Doing Their Bit” (1942).

Paul Terry seems have been filled with nationalistic fervour himself when he produced this one. For one thing, the notorious cheapskate actually broke down and paid for the rights to use the character. And he’s given Phil Scheib the time to pen an original song. Scheib isn’t exactly Cole Porter, but his song works well within the context of John Foster’s story.



The short involves Nancy and Sluggo engaging in some fairly shady activities to raise money for the USO, which provided entertainment and recreation centres for soldiers during the war. Nancy’s “lemonade” consists of dipping a tired slice of lemon in water straight from an outdoor tap. And Nancy infests a home with mice (this is a Terrytoon after all) then sells the horrified lady of the house a cat. In real life, war profiteering corporations might have approved the less-than-above-board methods but we suspect the USO wouldn’t.

Surprisingly, this Terrytoon doesn’t feature the Terry Splash™ and Terry Brake Squeal™ so dearly loved by cartoon viewers through endless repetition. But like Terry cartoons dating back to the silent era, there are a bunch of characters marching at an angle toward the camera. And being a Terrytoon, Paul Terry keeps on budget by not having his artists drawing those little nubs of hair all over Nancy’s head, like in the comics. What are those things called anyway?



Director Connie Rasinski tries to vary the look of the cartoon a bit. Here’s a shot at an overhead angle as Nancy and her friends cheer over her plan to help the USO.



And there’s one scene where Rasinski simulates a lighting effect with shadows and silhouettes.



1940s New York urban development isn’t my forte, so I can’t say whether the background drawing below is close to representing accuracy.



And there’s a singing, dancing, flag-waving orgasm of patriotism at the end. That’s what war’s about, you know.



To his credit, Foster avoids ugly Japanese stereotypes in this cartoon. Instead, he has a Sluggo bark at a midway-like target range where people toss balls to break dishes that are “Made in Japan.” The scene would probably get cheers today from those who support trade protectionism.

Izzy Klein apparently got the on-screen animation credit on the pre-reissue version. I haven’t a clue who provided the voices; I suspect someone playing juveniles on radio shows out of New York at the time is doing Sluggo.

Northwest Hounded Backgrounds

Time to check out some of the work of background artist Johnny Johnsen for Tex Avery in “Northwest Hounded Police” (1946).






You want to see more? This blog maintained by Brandon Lyon has saved me the work of snipping together some pans.

Doris Singleton

There are few people who appeared in adult roles on the Jack Benny radio show still with us, and Doris Singleton was one until this past week. She died at the age of 92.

Doris picked up the role of Pauline, Mary’s maid, when the Benny show decided to bring it back on February 15, 1948. The character had an interesting evolution. Butterfly McQueen had played Butterfly, Mary’s maid. Columnist Leonard Lyons reported on July 31, 1944:

Butterfly McQueen, the film actress who has been appearing on Jack Benny’s program, will not return to the show next season. Miss McQueen likes working for Benny, receives high pay and says that her experiences with the show have been pleasant ones. She isn’t returning because she refuses to play the role of a maid, feeling that this is a reflection upon her race.

The following season, a new maid named Pauline appeared, portrayed by Pauline Drake (later one of umpteen Miss Duffys on “Duffy’s Tavern;” thanks to Keith Scott for the identification), but she disappeared after a few scattered episodes. Why Benny decided to bring her back more than two years later is a mystery, as is why the audience would believe that Mary could afford a maid if the stingy Benny character grossly underpaid her.

Pauline didn’t stay around long again, but it’s not like Singleton needed the work. She had regular comedy roles on radio with Jack Paar, Alan Young (moving with the show to television) and on “December Bride” (not moving with the show to television). And, on TV, her list of credits is long, appearing with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Eddie Cantor. Of course, her most famous recurring role was Carolyn Appleby, the competitive, somewhat stuck-up neighbour on “I Love Lucy.”

Doris was quite different than a lot of the women regularly working in supporting roles on network radio comedy. Her characters generally weren’t over the top, not like characters played by the likes of Sara Berner, Elvia Allman or Bea Benaderet. She seemed to get a lot of straight parts and, like most people in radio, moved between drama and comedy (she sang as well).

Profiles of non-starring actors were rare in newspapers, but Doris rated one, a syndicated piece dated June 24, 1952.

Doris Singleton Has Never Repeated 1942 Radio Fluff
By TOM E. DANSON
HOLLYWOOD. Doris Singleton, well known radio actress, and more recently heard on the CBS “December Bride” series, will never forget her radio debut as an actress back in October 1942. Doris told me about the embarrassing incident the other day during a rehearsal. It happened when she was reading a commercial on the [Lux] Radio Theater series. She was to have said: “My very dear friend, Somerset Maugham, says . . .” The actress, with a good case of “jitters,” fouled her line and said: “Monerset Saum”—and then, on her second try, blurted out “Monerham Set!”
Amid the hilarious laughter of the studio audience, William Keighley, the “Radio Theater” producer, answered: “Yes, he must be a VERY dear friend of yours!”
In the years that have gone by since this gigantic "fluff," years in which the actress has appeared on hundreds of coast-to-coast radio programs, Doris has “wood-shedded” diligently, (a term actors use for studying their roles), to make sure that she’d never again duplicate that “Radio Theater” performance!
Doris is a native of Buffalo, N. Y., but has lived most of her life here in Southern California, a graduate of New York City’s American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the actress prepared during 1940-42 for her eventful appearances on "Radio Theater" working as a vocalist with Art Jarrett's orchestra. Having studied classical dancing, Doris made solo appearances with the Ballet Theater Co. in New York and Philadelphia, in addition to somehow working in a season of summer stock in Massachusetts. “Those two years,” Doris told me, “found me doing everything but running a newspaper route!”
She is married to radio writer-producer Charles Isaacs, who for the last season has been handling the Jimmy Durante writing chores. Doris says Charlie is her favorite hobby.

Here’s another column from 1952 where Doris gets a brief mention.

SEVERAL SUFFER PAINFUL OR EMBARRASSING INJURIES
TV Getting Downright Perilous For Comedians
By VIRGINIA MACPHERSON
United Press Hollywood Writer
HOLLYWOOD, Jan. 4 —Ask any top comedian, the television racket is getting downright dangerous.
The customers aren’t throwing tomatoes—yet—but in the past few weeks Ed Wynn. Allan Young [sic], Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante, Martha Raye and Milton Berle have all suffered what turned out to be painful injuries...or some that were so embarrassing it was just as bad.
And the sponsors are getting worried. In the movies they hire stunt men to do the rough stuff for the $5,000-a-week big shots. But in TV the celebrities have to do it themselves.
Want Gags On Film
That’s why everybody's hollering for a chance to put their gags on film.
Charles Issacs and Jack Elinson, two boys who dream up funny things for Jimmy Durante to do on TV, think it’s the only way to keep alive what good comedians there are left. “Jimmy used one gag in a show that scared us stiff,” Isaacs said. “He climbed on a fence, tied a knot in some long underwear and slid down it.
Taped Him Up
“Now, Jimmy’s no Boy Scout. He can’t even tie a very good knot. We begged him to drop the whole thing...but not him. Soooo...he swung out like a sailor, fell six feet and bruised his hip and arm. We had to tape him up for the show.”
On another program the “Schnozz” went long-hair on his fans with a pair of crashing cymbals. Only his aim wasn’t very good. He crashed himself instead. Time out while they stitched up his thumb.
Ed Wynn tried to play “Samson” to Dorothy Lamour’s “Delilah” in a TV skit a while back, stumbled over scenery and broke two bones in his foot.
Bob Hope took on Jack Dempsey for one round of prize-fighting and wound up so winded he couldn’t crack a joke for almost a full minute.
But Allan Young’s really the hard-luck kid of TV. He threw himself into a hot love scene with Doris Singleton during a rehearsal and sprained his neck.
“My own wife,” Isaacs grinned. “But Allan managed to make the show that night. And halfway through the script he fell through a wall and sprained his ankle!”
Breaks Shoulder Strap
Martha Raye was doing pratfalls one night when her shoulder strap broke. She did the rest of her act clutching her neckline.
And last week Berle got squirted with whipped cream and a sack of flour, a gag that turned mighty un-funny when the flour got in his eye and closed it up tight.
“Being hilarious is a terrific risk sometimes,” Elinson says. “And you can’t do a letter-perfect five show anyway. It ought be all on film. . .then for the dangerous stunts you can hire doubles and keep your actors alive for the laughs.”

Doris recorded a three-hour interview about her career with the Archive of American Television. You can watch her talk about her radio career below and check out all six parts.

UPA Clipping File

When was it the critics began raving about cartoons made by UPA, and bestowing on them the mantle of The New Disney? Perhaps the most important, and widely-circulated, hosanna came from the The New York Times on December 21, 1952, when another newspaper’s editorial column noted:

Bosley Crowther, New York Times motion picture critic, recently credited UPA, headed by 41-year-old Steve Bosustow, with “Imposing what amounts to the spirit and style of modern art upon the traditionally romantic and restricted area of the movie cartoon.”

Crowther, though, wasn’t the first one.

Stories in the popular press about the studio were understandably few when Bosustow worked out a commercial release for the company’s cartoons. Hedda Hopper had these words about UPA in her column of December 5, 1950.

James Thurber’s cartoons and short stories will be brought to the screen by United Productions of America in a full-length picture with John Houseman producing and John Hubley as supervising director. The picture will be partly live action and partly cartoon. The animation characters will include Thurber’s famous seal and bloodhound. Stories under consideration are “You Can Look It Up,” “The Unicorn in the Garden,” “The Topaz Cuff Links Mystery” and “Mr. Preble Murders His Wife.”

“Unicorn” was the only one made, and then as a short. Perhaps the studio’s perennial money troubles quashed any other plans.

By the time of Heppa’s little blurb, UPA had released the first Mr. Magoo cartoon, “Ragtime Bear.” Yet it wasn’t until “Gerald McBoing Boing”—and its Oscar nomination—that critics and columnists noticed what UPA was doing and started dragging out the Disney comparisons. We reprinted Aline Mosby’s United Press column of February 22, 1951 HERE. And you can read Gilbert Seldes’ review in the Saturday Review from May 31, 1952 by going HERE. As you might expect if you know Seldes’ reputation, he delights in a bunch of the studio’s releases to date.

Just as Mickey Mouse’s popularity gave birth to stories about the man who put him on the screen, so reporters became curious about the head of the UPA studio once little Gerald won his Academy Award. Here are a couple of stories about Steve Bosustow. First, from the Associated Press of October 12, 1952.

Hollywood
By GENE HANDSAKER
HOLLYWOOD — A mild-mannered, slender man with brown eyes, heavy black brows, and the unpronounceable-looking name of Stephen Bosustow has quietly upset the movie-cartoon business.
Most film funnies are still content to involve mice, cats, dogs, and birds in frantic battles and chases. (And who's complaining? Not us fans.) But Bosustow (bo-SUSS-toe) has given cartoons a new concept, new technique, new story-ideas.
His “Gerald McBoing-Boing,” about a little boy who spoke in sound effects, won an Academy award. Another favorite character from his drawing-boards is “Mr. Magoo,” a near-sighted, potato-nosed little man who always comes out on top but never knows how close he has come to disaster.
His techniques are suggestive of some modernistic works of art. Backgrounds contain only the bare minimum of props and scenery. A sidewalk crowd of people is drawn in outlines only, with just the central character — and the ladies’ handbags!—filled in.
“We caricature human situations rather than try to be realistic about them,” Bosustow says. “First we reduce a chancier to the simplest form, and then the action. You get your point over faster, funnier, and with greater impact.”
His firm, United Productions of America, occupies a modest, modernistic building in Burbank. Bosustow, 40, a one-time trap-drummer, poster artist, and Disney animator, employs six units artists, each headed by a director. Six to 15 artists work in each unit.
The place is thriving, with sketches of cartoon projects thumbtacked to walls, and Bosustow’s stable of ink characters is growing. His “Jolly Frolics” series, six a year, deals humorously with such subjects as rivalry between a brother and sister and parental over-protection.
Another project for UPA is the preparation of cartoon sequences inserted in other studios' live-action feature films. Eight sequences link the episodic action in “The Four Poster,” which, stars Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer. In a Dan Dailey-June Haver film, a Bosustow cartoon will depict a small boy’s dream.
Bosustow wants to produce a feature-length film himself, possibly Don Quixote or a James Thurber story. He says: “We’ve brought into the industry a modern approach to art and have proven that cartoons can be made for adults. The cartoon field is in its infancy.”

This story comes from the Oakland Tribune, Saturday, May 22, 1954.

Movie Cartoon Expert Predicts Rosy Future
By THERESA LOEB CONE
“The time isn't far off when theaters will show as many full-length animated movies as those with live actors,” says Stephen Bosustow. If anyone can make this rather startling prediction, that man is Bosustow. He’s the organizer and president of United Productions of America (UPA) and he has advanced cartoons in a spectacular fashion these past few years.
As a matter of fact, UPA has plans in the hopper for several feature-length cartoons right now. They've completed George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” hope to do Milne’s “Winnie, the Pooh,” some of the Thurber yarns, Gordon Jenkins’ “Seven Dreams,” and a musical comedy, for starters.
Speaking in San Francisco’s Museum of Art Thursday night on the “Revolution in the Animated Film,” the tall, dark and very handsome Mr. Bosustow also presented a program of 10 UPA cartoons, many of which have the power of enticing audiences into movie houses where the feature offering might not be so attractive.
TREMENDOUS APPEAL
Some of the program’s items were “Gerald McBoing-Boing,” “Christopher Crumpet,” “Unicorn in the Garden,” “The 51st Dragon,” “Rootie-Toot-Toot” and “Madeline,” all fairly familiar to moviegoers as typical UPA fare—vastly amusing in an adult fashion, yet having at the same time tremendous appeal for children. Not shown was an even more familiar UPA character, “The Great Magoo,” presently being afforded festival treatment at Oakland’s Globe Theater.
Bosustow, who has made such strides in his field, is still in his early forties but has behind him over 20 years of movie making experience. He has tried his hand at all phases of movie production—writing, cutting, music, etc. But principally he is known as an artist who abandoned what is known as a “serious” art career long ago in the understandable interest of wishing to eat regularly and be housed satisfactorily.
Canadian-born but transplanted with his family to Los Angeles when he was 11, Bosustow was an art major, got a job with the old U.B. Iwerks’ studio working on “Flip the Frog” cartoons in the 1930’s. Next he was on the Universal lot with Walter Lantz. Then on the list of Bosustow’s bosses was the king-of-cartoons, Walt Disney.
WORKED FOR DISNEY
Bosustow (it’s pronounced just like it’s spelled, if that’s any help) stayed with Disney for seven years, writing scripts, doing story sketches, helping with the first animation on “Snow White” and providing most of the story adaptation on “Bambi” and “Fantasia.”
But in 1941 he was a victim of a Disney Studio payroll slash and went to work for the production illustration department at Hughes Aircraft. He was also teaching industrial art at the same time. His drawings attracted the attention of Frank Capra and children's story writer Ted Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss.
The up and coming cartoonist then did Army and Navy training films. By war’s end he launched UPA on the way to fame, fortune and Academy Awards.
100 ON PAYROLL
The original organization boasted eight on the staff of a payroll that now has reached 100 They have two studios, one in Hollywood, one m New York, do not confine themselves to theater shorts or full lengths, for that matter.
They’re doing TV commercials, and documentaries for industrial firms. Heywood Broun’s story “The 51st Dragon,” by the way, was the first cartoon written assignment for TV, was originally shown on the Ford Foundation’s Omnibus program.
Bosustow’s talk was the seventh in the “Arts in Cinema” series which will take a break for the summer, will be resumed in September.

And here’s Bosustow again, in a TV column by the Associated Press dated December 15, 1956, on his major TV endeavour that ended in an unfortunate failure.

‘Boing Boing’ Show Features All Cartoons
By BOB THOMAS
HOLLYWOOD (AP)—A new kind of show debuts on TV Sunday afternoon. It is all-cartoon, unsponsored and simply wonderful.
The name of it is “The Boing Boing Show” on CBS. Do you remember the little boy in the Oscar winning cartoon short who spoke only in sound effects like “boing” and “ah-ooga”?
Well, Gerald is the emcee of the show, and his noises are interpreted by Bill Goodwin. Together they introduce a variety of subjects. On the first show are Gerald’s own story, a treatment of the life of the French artist Dufy and two songs done in hilarious style.
Sold On Project
The series has been put together by United Productions of America Pictures, Inc.
CBS is so sold on the project that it is putting the show on without a sponsor. It shouldn’t be sponsorless long.
The guiding force behind the show is U.P.A. President Stephen Bosustow, whose imaginative ideas have revolutionized first the cartoon industry and then TV commercials.
The U.P.A. technique of wacky immobile characters against impressionist backgrounds was born of necessity, he told me.
“When we started out with the company in 1943 we couldn’t afford the expense of trying to make cartoons look like live action,” he said. “We had to invent new methods that were cheaper. What we developed wasn’t new; it had been done for years in magazines and by cartoonists like Virgil Partch.
Native Of Canada
Bosustow was born on Victoria, B.C., and sought his fortune in Hollywood as a musician and cartoonist. Laid off at Disney’s in the movie depression of 1941 he was unable to find work at other studios. So he deeded to start his own. Two years later, his dream came true.
U.P.A. struggled along making training films and cartoon shorts, then burst into prominence with characters like Boing Boing and Mr. Magoo. It has since helped bring with and imagination to TV commercials.
“About 40 per cent of the work in our studios here and in New York and London is in commercials,” said Bosustow, a tall, good-looking man with a dark mustache. "With this as a basis, we have been able to branch out into other fields such as the CBS show. Our next plan is to make all-cartoon features.”

Bosustow did move into features. One of them, anyway. A Middle Eastern version of Mr. Magoo was somewhat shoved aside in a story surrounding Aladdin, a princess and a Wicked Wazir in “1000 Arabian Nights” (1959). But it was the studio’s real last hurrah. Director Pete Burness left unhappily during the feature’s production and perennial money troubles finally resulted in UPA being sold to Hank Saperstein. By then, the giddy critics at the beginning of the decade had long let the bandwagon play on without them.

Truce Toothbrush

There isn’t a lot of outrageous animation in “The Truce Hurts” (1948), a cartoon by the Hanna-Barbera unit for MGM. Well, not counting a blackface gag. The stretchy-est piece comes in some cycle animation of Tom brushing Jerry’s teeth.

It reminds me a lot of Irv Spence’s work at Warner Bros. before he went to MGM. He did kind of a face stretch like the one on Jerry in “Little Red Walking Hood” and seems to me Spence animated characters who were cross-eyed and with an overbite.





We get multiples of Jerry as he dashes off camera for breakfast.



The credited animators on the reissue print are Spence, Ken Muse, Ray Patterson and Ed Barge.

How Do I Know It's Friz

Popular books, popular products, they all came to life in Warner Bros. cartoons. They all had a sameness. Books or products would sing and dance, some evil force would sneak in (generally to kidnap a female character) only to be vanquished by the joint action of the singers and dancers. Iris out. “That’s all, folks!” If you were lucky, you’d see some celebrity caricatures as a bonus.

Many of those cartoons had something else in common—inside references to members of the studio’s staff. They’d be on spines of books or in names of products, placed there by background artists. Until home video came along, no one noticed (except maybe Jerry Beck when he wrote his book on the cartoons in 1981). Now, viewers can sit at home, freeze frames of cartoon DVDs and see for themselves.

Amongst parodies of real products (including Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Flit Bug Spray and Uneeda Biscuits) are a bunch named after Scheslinger studio staffers in the Friz Freleng cartoon “How Do I Know It’s Sunday” (1934). Let’s see what we can find.



Ray Katz, Leon Schlesinger’s brother-in-law, was kind of a studio manager. It also appears he made refrigerators on the side.



An Eskimo boy who is the hero of the picture leaps to grab a roll of paper towels. You can see he passes Pratt’s Dog Biscuits. Whether Hawley Pratt was briefly at Schlesinger’s at this time isn’t known. He started at Disney in 1933 if he wasn’t working for Leon, people who did would have known him.



As the boy drops, he passes a box of Friz’s Shredded Coconut. The first reference to Friz Freleng, the cartoon’s director.



The evil flies in the cartoon are going right for the Russian rye bread and avoiding Friz’s Salad Dressing. “Lofa Bread” is probably the funniest bad pun in the whole cartoon.



We get two of them in this frame. Armstrong’s Prune Cider Winegar is named for Tom Armstrong, who was in charge of the studio’s story department in the mid-‘30s. Norm’s Soda Crackers could be for musical composer Norman Spencer. I think animator Norm Blackburn had left for the Iwerks studio by the time this cartoon was made. Note: the consensus in the comment section is that it’s Norm McCabe, who I didn’t realise was at the studio that early.



The General Store in this cartoon is also a convenience store. Friz’s Pretzels are right next to Ben’s Brew, named for Ben Hardaway, who ended up directing cartoon after Tom Palmer was fired in 1933 and before Tex Avery was hired two years later.

So who is the background artist? No one ever talked about the background people in the Warners’ cartoons before the late-‘30s other than Chuck Jones and he blew them off as no-talents. Art Loomer was in charge of the background department at one time and former Kansas City and Los Angeles newspaper cartoonist Griff Jay worked under him. It’s possible one of them worked on this cartoon and provided enjoyable little in-jokes throughout the mid-‘30s, but we may never know.

There He Is

Game show emcee Tom Kennedy once called him “the guy that taught all of us about this business of hosting.” Kennedy made the statement in 1983 but by that time, it had been about two decades since any TV giveaway quiz had been hosted by the man he was talking about, Bert Parks.

Parks made his name in radio in New York, as did people like Bill Cullen, Gene Rayburn, Bud Collyer and Art Fleming. And while all of them had high-profile game show gigs in the 1960s—along with others such as Allen Ludden, Merv Griffin and Peter Marshall—Parks wasn’t among them. Even Dennis James, another pioneer from late ‘40s television, still appeared on camera to give away an Amana Radarange to some lucky contestant. Parks, instead, settled for the job that brought him his biggest fame—hosting the Miss America pageant. His somewhat flamboyant emceeing mien was a natural fit for something based on fashion, musical numbers and fake royalty (until he was fired after 1979). For viewers, once a year of that was fine. But five times a week? Evidently the 1965 audience had seen and heard enough of his somewhat overwrought and campy manner to hosting.

But Parks was a fixture on 1950s television sets at various times of the day. And before that on radio, he used his dramatic build-up style of announcing to pull away Fred Allen’s audience on “Stop the Music.” Let’s pass on a couple of pieces on Mr. Parks. First, let’s go to July 1, 1951, when Parks’ career was at its peak. This is from The American Weekly, a Sunday newspaper magazine supplement.

How Bert Parks Got Into Television
TWENTY years ago people were saying commercial radio was in its infancy, and so was Bert Parks, practically. He was 16 when he won a radio singing contest in his home town, Atlanta, Ga., and landed a job announcing, at $7 a week, at station [W]GST.
When he was 18 he heard that Columbia Broadcasting System was preparing to audition announcers in New York. Applicants were supposed to be over 21, have two years of college to their credit and a fair knowledge of foreign languages.
“My score was zero minus on all counts,” he recalled the other day. “But, I went to New York, lost out on the audition test, went back to Atlanta $50 a week. Seems like I’ve been talking into microphones and telephones ever since.”
THERE was one interlude, however, that kept Bert Parks quiet. He joined the Army in World War II, rose to the rank of captain on Gen. Joseph Stilwell’s staff and was sent behind the Japanese lines with a wire recorder as his chief weapon.
“I wasn’t to be seen or heard for three weeks,” Parks said. “I made up my mind that if and when I got back to New York I’d make up for it.”
A few months after his discharge he did start making up for his enforced silence.
Bud Collyer, an announcer friend, persuaded the producer of a new quiz show, “Break the Bank,” to let Bert act as master of ceremonies for one performance. After that one trial, Bert Parks had a steady job on the show.
When “Stop the Music” went on the air over the American Broadcasting Company chain three years ago, it seemed only natural for Parks to take over the MC and telephoning chores there, too, and he has been with the sensationally successful program since.
Came television and Parks was ready and equipped. He had good looks, a good voice and poise along with experience gained by acting as straight man and singer on Eddie Cantor’s radio show and master of ceremonies for Xavier Cugat.
The young man who had been muted for three weeks in the Pacific during the war found himself one of the busiest talkers in the world.
He had his “Stop the Music” radio show Sunday nights, sponsored by Old Gold Cigarettes and Admiral Corp., over ABC, and the same sponsors kept him busy Thursday nights over ABC-TV.
“Two years ago,” Parks said, “when ‘Stop the Music’ first went on television, we tried to telecast the regular radio program but it didn’t work. You can’t sacrifice sound for sight on radio so we started separate shows.
“At first, on TV, to introduce a song having to do with bubbles, for example, we’d blow bubbles from a clay pipe. Then we hired writers to think up sketches that would integrate our songs. They gave me more things to do, like clowning, dancing and comedy. Then the ham in me came out.”
“Those two hour-long shows should have kept the average young man busy, but Bert Parks proved he wasn’t average.
His first big radio program, the quiz show called, “Break the Bank,” had convinced observers that he would be the perfect MC for the NBC-TV version of the show on Wednesday nights. With his thick black, glossy hair and a white-tooth smile, he was a living, breathing and talking advertisement for Ipana toothpaste and Vitalis hair tonic, products of Bristol-Myers, sponsor of “Break the Bank.”
The program still left him with some idle hours during the daytime, he thought, and when General Foods decided, he should have his own daytime program he agreed wholeheartedly. And so The Bert Parks Show was staged over NBC-TV three afternoons a week; 30 minutes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On this one he didn’t have to give anything away, except his energy, his singing, talking and dancing talents.
Bert Parks has given away more than $2,500,000 in cash and merchandise on his quiz shows, radio and TV, to people who have been able to recognize and identify mystery melodies and answer other questions. But the only thing he ever won for himself was the singing contest in Atlanta at 16.
HE CAME close, however, last year when he went to a charity ball where an expensive automobile was raffled off. Instead of tickets, keys were sold at the door; the winner to be the holder of the key that unlocked the car. Parks was approaching the auto with his own key when a lady said:
“Try my key, for luck.”
She won.
Parks was thinking about the incident the other evening while driving from New York to his home in Greenwich, Conn., where he gets to spend two days a week with Mrs. Annette Parks, the pretty wife; two-year-old Annette Parks, equally pretty, and twin sons, Jeffrey and Joel, five years old.
A motorcycle cop drew alongside, motioned him to the curb and wrote out a summons for speeding. Then the policeman wanted to know what Parks did.
“I’m in radio and television,” Parks said.
“That so?” the cop asked, remounting his motorcycle. “Selling many?”
When he got home Bert Parks was still talking (to himself), saying something to the effect that he had given away more radio and television sets than the cop had ever seen.



TV’s grumpiest columnist found Parks an easy target, stating that the Parks daytime show was a perfect example of what was wrong with television. But even he couldn’t dislike the man. This is from September 25, 1951.

Radio In Review
By JOHN CROSBY
The Expansive Bert Parks
I can spot a trend as well as the next fellow, I keep telling myself, and the trend I have spotted—stand back, men, this is dynamite—is Bert Parks.
Bert Parks on Stop The Music. Bert Parks on Break The Bank. Bert Parks on a thrice-weekly afternoon show which is aptly named the Bert Parks show.
Some years ago the trend was Arthur Godfrey. Arthur Godfrey Time. Arthur Godfrey and His Friends. Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. Fears were expressed, during this phase of Mr. Godfrey’s expanding economy, that he eventually would engulf all the Columbia Broadcasting System.
I was looking forward with some alarm to reviewing Young Dr. Godfrey, Our Gal Godfrey, Godfrey Goes A-Shopping and the rest of them. But the Godfrey expansion was finally halted conceivably by the antitrust laws. Now we have the Bert Parks menace.
This has got to be stopped. I can’t be looking at Bert Parks all the time. My blood pressure is high enough as it is. Where Mr. Godfrey confines himself to one network, Mr. Parks is generously distributed over two, NBC and ABC.
This seems only fair. Mr. Parks, who also emcees the Macy parade from time to time just to keep from perishing of inactivity, is a personable, high-voltage operator with a grin you can read by.
He originally sprang into prominence by giving away Cadillacs, mink coats and a 12 year's supplies of shaving cream on Stop The Music.
You might think this is easy, but it isn’t. Parks can give away $20,000 with a flourish that no one else has ever quite matched. It's too bad, I keep thinking, that Parks wasn’t born a Rockefeller. Then all those millions could have been distributed in full sight of all of us on television.
Parks would have passed the moola around in bundles of $1,000 bills while buzzers sounded, lights flashed and Betty Ann Grove sang Millionaires Are Hard to Find in the background.
But let's stop woolgathering. Somewhere during his charitable activities, it was discovered that Parks had a distinct flair for comedy, a passable voice and, after taxes, a $40,000 personality, which is quite a lot of personality in the surtax brackets.
This led to the afternoon show, an enterprise in which Parks doesn’t give away so much as a can of sardines. His hand wanders absently to his pockets now and then, but then he remembers and gets back to business.
THE AFTERNOON show is a very pleasant half-hour, and certainly an ambitious one for afternoon TV. It is awash with gimmicks and elaborate song cues. And it is so strikingly informal that, as a gesture of respect, you ought to remove your shoes while watching it.
In the middle of a song, We Joined The Navy To See The World, Parks and his sidekick, Bobby Sherwood, a reformed band-leader, will arrange to have a near-sighted admiral walk overboard—“We lose more admirals”—and then go right on with the song.
It’s a prank, really, rather than comedy but then TV comedy is getting awfully prankish.
On the Parks show, they play the pranks on one another, Parks shooting arrows at Sherwood, Sherwood shooting them back. One of the chief victims is Betty Ann Grove, one of the fairly permanent members of Parks’ entourage, who has been asked to do everything except ride elephants to put a song across.
She’s a remarkably good-natured and terribly agile girl and so far has escaped serious injury, though I wouldn’t gamble a farthing on her if I were an insurance company.
Like Parks, she is talented in all directions—songs, dances, gags—and, I expect, she could run the roulette tables in an emergency, too.
My only complaint about Parks—and, for that matter, about his show—is that he is occasionally overwhelmed by his own cuteness.
Come to think of it, the whole industry is obsessed with that word “cute”—everything’s got to be cute now—and I wish they’d cut it out and grow up.
After all, television is five years old now. It’s a big boy.

A dozen years later, columnist Jay Fredericks bemoaned Parks’ demeanour on audience participation shows “in which fat ladies from Brooklyn or Cedar Rapids, Iowa, take part.” But he announced he was tearing up his membership in his self-instituted “Keep Bert Parks Off Television” club because “on the Johnny Carson show, Bert Parks served as a master of ceremonies on what must have been one of the wildest, most confused and unintentionally funniest half-hour segments ever seen on television — the premiere of the multi-million-dollar extravaganza ‘Cleopatra.’”

Perhaps it’s no surprise then that Carson publicly urged his audience to demand Parks’ reinstatement after sponsors got him fired from the Miss America pageant.

It can be argued Parks made the pageant what it was, and that it was never really the same when he left. It was first televised in 1954 on ABC, then the way-behind-in-third-place network (out of four). The hosts were Bess Meyerson and network news vice-president John Daly, also the host of “What’s My Line.” One can’t picture anything but a polite, demure broadcast from the two of them. Parks was added the following year as a master of ceremonies, bringing his overly-earnest, somewhat campy attitude to the mix. Until the day he died, virtually every news story about the pageant telecast included a chunk of space about Parks, even during his years of exile.

Bert Parks may have taught some game-show legends about hosting, but when the giveaway programme industry moved onward and left him behind, he became a TV icon instead.