Walter Lantz, Jitterbugs and Old Drawings

Today, the idea of tossing out animation art makes fans (and collectors) cringe, but if you want an idea about little anyone thought of the drawings at one time, just ask Walter Lantz. A United Press reporter did in 1938.

The story starts off talking about the short “I’m Just a Jitterbug,” which had yet to be released. It then talks about Lantz’s writers. By this time, the writing department seems to have consisted of Victor McLeod and James Miele. Finally, Lantz tells you how much you need to spend to get an Oswald drawing. The story is from December 1, 1938.

Jitterbugs in the Films
Movie Producer Insults 10,000,000
By FREDERICK C. OTHMAN
HOLLYWOOD — (U.P.) — Walter Lantz, who never has been noted for respectful treatment of things artistic, has completed a movie cartoon about jitterbugs — and never have we seen 10,000,000 people more thoroughly insulted.
Producers at Universal studios, it developed, were making a picture called “Swing, Sister, Swing,” for which they hired a dozen of America’s best jitterbugs. Lantz stumbled across these folks dancing like mad in a soundproof stage and that gave him an idea.
He sneaked in a movie camera to record their gyrations for his own nefarious purposes. He developed the film and had his 125 artists reproduce with line drawings each picture in the reel. Then he photographed the drawings in sequence and that gave him a moving cartoon of jitterbugs dancing. That was funny enough, but as insulting as Lantz intended.
Back to the Artists
He sent his cartoon film back to his artists and they turned the jitterbugs into bugs. The men became grasshoppers, the women lady bugs, and the members of the band, crickets. Then Lantz photographed these sequences, too, and he had a picture showing real bugs dancing exactly like jitterbugs. The result was precisely what Lantz wanted. It’s funny, all right, but not to a jitterbug. If the estimated 10,000,000 jitterbugs in the world don’t make him eat the whole reel, without catsup, they’re gluttons for punishment.
Lantz, whose hair is beginning to gray after 24 years in the cartoon business, said he feared no normal man ever could make a success of it.
“We’re all crazy,” he said, frankly. “If we weren’t, we’d never concoct our ideas. A mind has got to be more than just peculiar to do it.
“Craziest, of course, are our writers. They can’t write. They wouldn’t be any good if they could. They’ve got to be men who can express their ideas in pictures. So they think up their gags and draw pictures of ‘em. Usually a man who can express himself in words can’t do it in pictures.”
Writerless Writers
Lantz pays his writerless writers $125 a week, but when he finds a particularly crazy one, he shells out $150. His cartoons cost around $15,000 to produce and always return a nice profit.
Through the years his drawings have been piling up at the rate of several million a year. Lantz was considering burning the whole works, so he could get more space, when he discovered he was about to destroy a valuable asset.
“We found out there was a market for these drawings,” he said. “People would buy them to decorate their bar rooms and their nurseries and would pay $3 and $4 each for them. So now we’ve got an art dealer — imagine that! — selling original drawings of Oswald the Rabbit, Clock Gobble, Henrietta Hen, and Gladys Goose and whatnot and sometimes I wake up at night and laugh.”

The cartoon being discussed was written by Victor McLeod and owes a little bit to the Warner Bros. cartoons where books come to life in a store after closing and engage in musical gags. In this case, the story is set in a cartoon studio, and there’s live action footage of animators running out the door at closing time (sped up like in a Warners’ Christmas gag reel of the late ‘30s).

It looks like Jerry Beck posted it on line so you can watch it (with a re-issue opening title) below.

Bugs as Groucho Smear

The mid-‘40s seems to have been the era of smear animation at Warners. It was one way to get characters to move quicker. Bobe Cannon did smear drawings for the Chuck Jones unit and Virgil Ross did it in the Friz Freleng unit (with the help of their assistants).

Here’s a set of consecutive drawings from “Slick Hare” (1947), a cartoon with all kinds of stuff going on, some of it having nothing to do with the plot. It takes place amongst the stars in West Hollywood’s Mocrumbo restaurant. At one point to hide from Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny dresses up as Groucho. But when the rabbit realises Elmer’s onto him and coming after him from behind, he turns his Groucho lope into a run. These are five consecutive drawings.







Freleng’s usual mid-‘40s coterie of animators is here—Ross, Ken Champin, Gerry Chiniquy (with another dance sequence) and Manny Perez.

Excited City Wolf

There’s great animation from start to finish in “Little Rural Riding Hood,” Tex Avery’s last attempt to put his sexual desire spin on the old tale. It starts out with a rubbery Red loping down the path, twisting her feet in the air as she talks to the audience. And it ends with yet another one of those great sequences where Avery tries to keep topping himself.

After the country wolf (Pinto Colvig) goes through typical Avery takes watching a city Red Riding Hood in a nightclub, ending with him being pushed like a wheelbarrow by his icy city cousin (Daws Butler), who takes him back to the country in his limo.



Then we get a look at the country Red Riding Hood (Colleen Collins).



Now it’s the city wolf’s turn to get turned on. His top hat grows, his head bursts through it and the top hat goes up and down his elongated neck.



Time for a typical Avery wide-eyed take. Two drawings alternate to give a throbbing effect for a few frames, then Avery widens the eyes some more.



Next the eyes are round and extend out. When they contract back into the head, ghosts of the whites and pupils are left behind.



The body flies apart. There are two drawings alternated of the body, but the top hat turns clockwise in mid-air.



The wolf jumps out of the car (note the speed lines).



He rips off his jacket and throws it away.



More rubber legs as the city wolf starts to run (in place). The casual country cousin (I love the bent fingers) reaches to hold the city wolf’s suspenders and put a huge mallet in them.



The mallet goes flying in the air, leaving ghost mallets behind.



The mallet bops the city wolf on the head, unconscious and cross-eyed.



The country cousin wheels him away, just like the city wolf did to him in the previous scene. The roles are reversed and the excited country wolf drives his cousin back to the city, presumably to begin the second cycle of a never-ending chain of sexual desire of Riding Hoods and interfering denial. Truly a great cartoon, one of Avery’s best.

The credited animators are Grant Simmons, Walt Clinton, Mike Lah and Bobe Cannon.

Jim Backus, Radio and Recovery

Network radio allowed performers to be versatile. In television today, could you picture an actor intoning about the latest war news on one show, and chatting with Ambrose the Talking Horse on another? It happened on radio in 1942.

And the actor in question was Jim Backus. Granted, on “This Nation at War” on the Blue Network, he used the moniker James G. Backus. He was plain old Jim Backus on his self-titled comedy/variety show the same year. And as strange as it seems, considering Backus became famous for his funny stuff, the quasi-documentary show stayed on the air longer than the other one.

Today, Backus is known either from his work as animated filmdom’s Mr. Magoo, or as the filthy-rich Thurston Howell III on “Gilligan’s Island.” But he made his name in radio, though not without some struggles, and ones that can’t compare with the ones he went through after Gilligan.

The earliest mention I can find of Backus in radio isn’t on a radio show. It’s in a 1940 print ad for bourbon. Backus is billed merely as “radio announcer” and his home address in Cleveland is listed, making it appear like an endorsement from an ordinary guy. He soon headed to New York and by February 1942, he was stooging on Kay Thompson’s show on CBS. (Note: Please see Sam Irvin’s insight about this in the comment section). ‘42 looked to be his year. On May 26, he landed the narrator role on “This Nation at War” (one story announcing the gig pointed out he had written for Dinah Shore), then on June 18, he got his own show featuring Jeff Alexander and his Ragtime band, vocalist Mary Small, the Eight Balls of Fire chorus, announcer Frank Gallop, regulars Carl Eastman, Eddie O'Shea and Hope Emerson, and the aforementioned Ambrose. Oh, and a young man named Art Carney. It flopped. Big time. The NBC show lasted three weeks and was pulled off the air.

July 7, 1943: Backus landed another starring role, this time in the crime drama “Flashgun Casey” on CBS. For some reason, Backus was replaced by the end of August and the show went on to a long run under the name “Casey, Crime Photographer.”

Backus, in his autobiography Rocks on the Roof, practically laughs about his next failures. Beatrice Kaye got him hired to play her love interest in a comedy/variety show called “Gaslight Gaieties,” sponsored by Teel Dentifrice. It debuted November 11, 1944. The love interest had the upper-crust Eastern seaboard voice that Backus gave to Thurston Howell III. What worked on “Gilligan’s Island” didn’t work for liquid tooth goo. Said Backus, “This job lasted a grand total of three weeks before some obscure vice-president heard the show and decided my new voice had homosexual overtones.” He related how he got a call a week later to be on Milton Berle’s new show; “Let Yourself Go” had changed networks and debuted on NBC on January 3, 1945. But Backus said he never appeared during the 13-week gig because the hammy Berle kept running so long they never got to his part. No matter. By May, the people running Alan Young’s radio show on ABC figured Backus’ snooty-rich character voice would be perfect to put in Young’s rival, and thus Hubert Updyke III was born and went on for a four-year run. One of the writers was a chap named Sherwood Schwartz, who created “Gilligan’s Island” and, well, you can put the pieces together.

By December, Backus was heard on “The Danny Kaye Show” as Mr. Singleton, the sponsor. His radio career was finally moving ahead.

Everything I’ve read suggests Backus was pretty funny when he wasn’t on the air. This syndicated newspaper story from 1947—when Backus was getting a credit at the end of every Alan Young show—reveals he was into puns.

In Hollywood
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
Staff Correspondent.
HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 17.—(NEA)—You’ve never heard the Backus Banter? Probably not. You’ve probably never even heard of Backus — first name Jim.
Jim Backus is a radio comedian who has appeared on as many as 15 radio programs a week, under the names of the characters he creates for specific shows.
He's probably better known as Hubert Updyke, of the Alan Young show, than he is as Jim Backus.
Anyway, Jim has come up with a new parlor game for Hollywood. Here’s a typical story, titled Travelogue or Inside Backus, in Backus Banter fashion:
“Just before we were to set sail, my wife had a Preminger that something would happen, but I assured her that everything would be all right. The ship’s whistle gave three short Janet Blairs and we cast off for unknown waters. That night a storm beset us, and, while I weathered it, Virginia Van Upped twice.
“I gave her a Seymour Nebenzal tablet and she was soon calm. The wind was to the Louis Hayward, and sent us off course somewhat to the south. The following morning, the lookout sighted something off the starboard bow, and the next thing we knew the first mate had Harpoed a Marx. Presently we sailed into enchanting Turhan Bey and anchored for the right.
“At dawn the next morning, the natives awoke us with cries of Za-Nuck, Za-Nuck, and we cast off in our dinghies. I was brought to the native chieftain who was wearing a Deanna Durban. He placed a native conveyance at my disposal, a Deborah Kerr, with which we went into the interior, molested only by British soldiers armed with Martha Vickers. At a native market, I saw a pocketbook that I wanted for my wife, and since the exchange was down I purchased it for three Hume Cronyns.
“I watched the native sport, which is racing Audrey Totters and watched the native women make sweaters from the wool of Lanaturners. Finally, I returned to the ship. Imagine my Cyd Charisse when I noted I had lost my wallet. Some; unfriendly bartender must have slipped me a Mickey Rooney.
“With this note, we slipped out of the lagoon of Turhan Bey, never more to return. The drowsy natives were softly humming a native chant, titled Helmut Dantine, which means ‘There’s gum on your hat’.”
That’s the way it goes, says Backus.
But it’s easy to stuff your ears with Joe Cotten.

Radio careers morphed into television careers (for some), and we’ve discussed Backus on television in the pre-Gilligan days HERE. His post-Gilligan career was touched with sadness, coupled with hope.

Vernon Scott of United Press International interviewed Backus several times over his career. You can sense some discomfort in this story, reported on June 8, 1984.

Comedian Jim Backus recovering from mysterious six-year illness
By Vernon Scott
United Press International
HOLLYWOOD – Jim Backus, the voice of cartoon character “Mr. Magoo,” is fighting for a new life after six years of paralyzing illness, a heart-breaking, career-destroying case of extreme hypochondria.
A series of psychosomatic illnesses made him almost a total recluse, convinced that he was suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
He appeared to have all the symptoms. A phalanx of doctors told him the disease could not be diagnosed, only evaluated.
Backus’ mind began playing tricks on him. He found himself incapable of leaving his luxurious Bel Air home for months at a time, refusing to see old friends, afraid to go to restaurants, terrified of working in front of a camera.
A former scratch golfer, he refused to touch a club. The author, with his wife Henny, of two uproarious books — “Rocks on the Roof” and “What Are You Doing After the Orgy?” — he could not force himself to write.
He became paranoid, convinced he was doomed. The more he was examined by doctors, psychiatrists, hypnotists and a scattering of frauds, the worse he grew, sure he was a goner.
His half-dozen years of nightmare challenges anything in Kafka.
Backus, again with the help of Henny, has set the whole eerie story down with frightening and funny details in his new book, “Backus Strikes Back.”
The other day Backus sat in a chair in his home, a frightened, insecure man, contrasting tragically with the raucous, extroverted Backus of old, needing reassurances he wasn’t, indeed, in the clutches of a life-threatening disease. His eyes pleaded for optimistic opinions of his appearance.
As a matter of fact, he did look healthy, perhaps even robust except for the haunted shadows in his eyes.
“Part of Jim’s trouble is the misevaluation of a disease that is hard to diagnose — Parkinson’s,” Henny said as Jim nodded agreement.
“Jim was so frightened it caused him to suffer a complete crackup. He’s only 80 percent well right now and doing very well, but it has been a very rough go. Our book isn’t sad. It’s funny and it has an hilarious foreward [sic] by George Burns.”
Jim, his voice as strong and raspy as it ever was, said, “My problem was a long time in coming. I was working terribly hard. I did 13,000 radio commercials. It’s in the Guinness Book of Records.
“I was going full barrel and I was suffering the classic overwork symptoms of dizziness, light-headedness, irascibility, the usual. Then I started to faint and fall down a lot. They put me in the hospital and gave me the works and evaluated it as Parkinson’s.”
“Jim’s an actor and the minute they said Parkinson’s he went right into the act because he knew a lot about the disease,” Henny said. “He’s been a life-long hypochondriac. He was psychologically duplicating what he heard about the disease.”
Henny turned to Jim and said, “Once you learned we suspected you had Parkinson's you went out and read everything on the disease and convinced yourself you had it.”
“Psychosomatic is an over-used word,” Jim countered. “To me the physical problems were very real and still are. There is still no accurate evaluation of what I have.”
“Of course, he didn’t have Parkinson’s,” Henny said. “He had perfectly normal days. What the doctors did find is a basic 1 percent basal ganglion, which is a mild disease neither of us understands.
“What he really suffers from is what 15 percent of this country suffers—total panic, stress, anxiety. And I hope the book helps people as fans have helped us with their letters of encouragement.”
“I haven’t been out of this house for almost six years,” Backus said. “I was terrified when the doorbell rang. I’d run and hide. I’m trying to get over acute panic right now as we talk.”
Backus grinned engagingly and popped a few wisecracks exactly as he did a decade ago. But when he stood up, his posture was that of an invalid. His steps were the shuffle of an old man—which Backus is not.
“Your mind can do this to you,” Backus said. “You know it’s doing it to you but you’re powerless to stop it. I’ve tried. I’ve gone to the best shrinks, yoga, hypnosis and even had a layer-on of hands who set fire to my hair.
“It’s a matter of mind over matter and I’m determined to get well. The book was therapy and inspired by Norman Cousins’ book, ‘Anatomy of an Illness.’ In the final analysis the only way out is laughter.”

Backus evidently overcame his fear. He went out and plugged his book, even making an appearance on ‘The Today Show.’ Psychosomatic or not, anyone who saw Backus on TV the last few years of his life could see he didn’t look well. He died of pneumonia on July 3, 1989. At a memorial service, Milton Berle recalled how he visited Backus in hospital for two hours and, as he turned to leave, said “I hope you get better.” Backus’ response: “You, too.”

Even Uncle Miltie couldn’t top that exit line. Jim Backus was funny to the end.

The Loose Nut Explosion

Shamus Culhane goes for a couple of interesting impact effects in “The Loose Nut” (1945), starring his anti-social version of Woody Woodpecker. One scene has Woody in a steamroller chasing after a construction worker. Woody crashes through the door of the shack where the guy is hiding. Then the impact.

Culhane and his background artist, Terry Lind, came up with a long, bizarre drawing with squiggles and Saturn. Culhane panned left to right along the drawing, frame by frame, cutting away to blank cards of different colours, close-ups of different parts of the steam-roller, or explosion-looking drawings.

I haven’t clipped together the whole background because it’s really long, but this is about 2/3rds of it. You can click to enlarge it.



Here are some of the other drawings that were in the sequence. One close-up of the construction worker is turned to emphasise the impact.





Culhane does it again in the climax of the cartoon, minus the Saturn and squiggles, but using blank colour cards, character drawings and explosion drawings, and re-using the character drawings with different solid-colour backgrounds.

Wacky Blackout Title Drawings

The best gag in Bob Clampett’s wartime spot-gag cartoon “Wacky Blackout” (1942) is in the opening.titles.

In the first shot, a civil defence worker enforcing blackout rules spots a stretching or dancing woman who’s disobeying the blackout.

In the second shot, he’s not enforcing the blackout. Instead, everyone’s checking out the babe, including a curious neighbourhood dog, cat and mouse.




I’ve removed the credits in the second frame so you can see the drawing better.

The stick-figure idea’s pretty cute, too. Virtually the whole cartoon’s pretty weak.

I haven’t any idea who drew the title cards for Clampett’s unit, which he had just taken over from Tex Avery. Sid Sutherland gets the animation credit here, but you can’t miss Rod Scribner. I suspect Bob McKimson and Virgil Ross are here, too.

An Oscar-Winning Boy Scout

What actor appeared in “Hamlet,” “The Glass Menagerie” and “Harvey” (opposite Jean Stapleton)?

The correct answer is Ernest Borgnine, though you likely never saw him in any of those performances.

While the obits you’ve read today about him talk about his Oscar win as Marty and his adventures on and off the PT-73 on “McHale’s Navy,” likely precious few delve into his stage career after World War Two. Borgnine was part of a repertory company based out of Abingdon, Virginia called the Barter Players. It had three units, the Red, White and (predictably) Blue Companies, the latter of which toured the U.S. while the others were regional. Borgnine was in one of the first two.

The Charleston Gazette of October 23, 1948, wrote a little profile of Borgnine’s career to date. The paper was sponsoring the performance he was in; tickets went from 79 cents to $1.75.

Borgnine, Now a Star, Started in Scout Play
Few stage careers have sprung from such colorful origins as that of the vary colorful Ernest Borgnine who appears here with the famous Barter Theater in the delightful comedy “Pursuit of Happiness”, at the Municipal auditorium next Wednesday.
Borgnine, right, who can look back on a diversified career in which he played everything from a spear carrier in “Trojan Women” to Father Time in Maeterlinck’s “Blue Bird”, remembers vividly a day back in 1934 when he did his first command performance.
Borgnine was about 16 years old at the time and he was called on to perform as a clown in a Boy Scout circus. His performance almost disrupted the ceremonies but he did manage to get the “star’s” dressing room and top billing. That incident was enough to whet his appetite for show business.
This is his third year with Robert Porterfield’s nationally known Barter Players in which he scored a notable success in the summer season as the Gentleman Caller in the Barter Theater production of “The Glass Menagerie”.
In the “Pursuit of Happiness” which is appearing here under sponsorship of The Gazette. Borgnine plays the comical sheriff, Thad Jennings.

Borgnine appeared as a hospital orderly in the 1950 road show version of “Harvey” before heading to Hollywood for a movie career. A whole generation grew up with him on reruns of “McHale’s Navy,” which was kind of a “Bilko Light.” Borgnine’s Quentin McHale wasn’t as fast talking as Phil Silvers’ Ernie Bilko, but the similarities are inescapable. Surprisingly, the show wasn’t originally planned that way. The tone was quite different. This review came from United Press International’s venerable Hollywood columnist, dated April 12, 1962.

By VERNON SCOTT
HOLLYWOOD (UPI)—Ernest Borgnine has two things in common with President John F. Kennedy—both were navy men and now big Ernie has become a PT boatskipper.
Borgnine’s prospects of reaching the White House, however, are as slim as its present occupant taking up an acting career.
The heavyset Oscar winner has thrown caution and movies to the wind to star in a new television series, “Machale’s Seven,” [sic] in which he plays a hard nosed lieutenant commander.
He should live so long.
When Ernie was a navy man he attained the rank of petty officer first class — strictly an enlisted man.
“That’s a big jump into the officer class,” Borgnine grinned. “And the pay is real good too. Better than a navy officer gets. I also own part of the company.”
Men Under Pressure
Televiewers had a preview of Ernie’s new show last week on ABC-TV’s Alcoa Premiere show. It was called a “Spinoff” in video patois.
“The series is the story of a World War II PT boat based in the South Pacific,” the big guy explained. “I call it a ‘Wagon Train’ on water. It’s not so much a war story as it is a study of personalities under pressure.
“I think this is the first World War II series television has tried. But it isn’t all grim drama. There's plenty of humor, too. It’s kind of a combination of ‘Mr. Roberts,’ ‘Teahouse of the August Moon’ and ‘Victory at Sea’.”
Ernie was asked why he has finally decided on a video series after spending the past seven years in movies.
“Well, when they offered me this show I took a good look around at the number of pictures being made in Hollywood and at how many good scripts I’d seen in the past two years,” he said.
“Then I thought about how many pictures will be made in the next five years and the future didn’t look too bright.
“This show has plenty of guts, and I spent 10 years as a gunners mate in the navy. It all added up to a chance to earn some good money and to have some fun at the same time.”
Tired of Travel
Additionally, Ernie is tired of globe-trotting. He and his wife, Katy Jurado, have had only a few weeks together in their Beverly Hills home in the past two years.
“Why knock your head against a wall looking for good pictures,” he said. “If you want to work steady in movies you have to travel all over the world these days.
“Now that I'm doing a series I’ll have eight months of steady work right here in Hollywood and four months off to make a movie or relax and enjoy myself.
“Besides, PT boats are very fashionable these days. They’ve got good connections, if you know what I mean.”

The show was less about McHale, though the character held the show together and drove the plot, and even less about his Navy (Gavin McLeod, having really nothing to do, left the show after the first season), and more about comic relief—Tim Conway and Joe Flynn, who got their first real national exposure on the show. There wasn’t a lot of mental heavy lifting for viewers. And, unlike any other situation comedy at the time I can think of, it spun off a couple of feature films; one wonders if that was part of the original deal to get the show on TV.

After an inexplicable change of setting to Italy killed “McHale’s Navy,” Borgnine carried on in the film world. He explained to Scott of UPI in a later interview that he, Peter Falk and Cloris Leachman could (unlike Carroll O’Connor) move between films and TV because people didn’t associate them with one particular character or type of role.

I suppose it’s true. People are remembering him today for his work in television comedy and film drama. Borgnine had proved his versatility in a long-forgotten road company years before.

Jack Benny and Gracie Allen

It goes without saying that timing is almost everything in comedy. The gag has to hit just right or it can fall flat and die right there on the stage—along with the comedian.

For years, Jack Benny’s timing was lauded by everyone in the comedy business, both of radio and then on television. Jack was helped by a live audience. He fed off the response of the people. You can hear on some of the later filmed TV shows that the canned laughter just doesn’t fit.

But who did Jack admire when it came to timing? The answer shouldn’t be a surprise.

George Burns and Gracie Allen were Jack’s closest friends. George could make Jack gasp for air with laughter and didn’t even need to say anything funny. Gracie’s delivery in front of an audience won Jack’s admiration.

Here’s an Associated Press story from August 20, 1963. He might have loved Gracie, but he wasn’t happy with the below-Paley echelon in CBS executive suite.

Old Pro Benny Says Gracie’s Timing Best
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
AP television-Radio Writer
HOLLYWOOD (AP) — Jack Benny, the acknowledged master of timing, insists that the performer without peer in this subtle art is Gracie Allen.
Timing is the ability to do the right thing at the right moment, the quality that tells Benny, for example, exactly how long to pause before turning an exasperated face to the audience and exclaiming, “Well!”
Tough Job
Gracie Allen has retired but those old Burns and Allen television shows are still around and Benny is their ardent fan.
“Nobody has Gracie’s timing,” Benny said, “and when I see those shows today I’m constantly more amazed by it. Remember, she had one of the toughest jobs in the world, doing non-sequitur lines. They came right out of the blue, and there was nothing in the feed lines that could cue her responses. They just didn’t make sense. It was a terrible job to handle them. But she’d Ooh and Ah around and come up with them exactly right.”
Loses Good Time
Jack is deep in plans for his 14th season in network television, dismayed but not downhearted because of a CBS decision to separate him from “The Red Skelton Show,” which has preceded him in recent years. This year, “Petticoat Junction,” a new comedy series, will be slipped between the established Tuesday night shows.
“I don’t understand it,” Benny complained. “It was a good setup and we helped each other. But all they seem to care about today is insuring the success of new shows. Now I’m opposite the last part of two hour-long shows and in back of an untried one.”
Never Boring
Isn’t he tired of playing the same vain, miserly character?
“Oh, it never gets boring,” he protested. “The character is a composite of faults you’ll find in everybody—or at least in everybody’s family.
“And besides,” he added, “there's no limit to the cheap jokes. And we can do stingy jokes without “even gag lines, because the character has been established for so long.”

Jack lasted at CBS one more season; whether it was his decision to leave or network president Jim Aubrey’s depends on the source. He was back at NBC for one more season starting in fall 1964. Before returning, he and George mourned the death of Gracie Allen. Jack broke down twice during his eulogy. The Queen of Timing passed away August 27th that year.

I’ll Have the Mashed Potatoes De Guard

Phil De Guard will probably always be associated with the Chuck Jones unit at Warner Bros. as its background artist. Golden Age cartoon fans will likely know De Guard came to Warners from the Walter Lantz studio where he did some fine background work in conjunction with layout man Art Heinemann and director Shamus Culhane. But there doesn’t appear to be a lot of information out there about him. So let’s see what I’ve been able to cobble together from sources on-line.

The California Death Index reveals Philip Joseph De Guard was born on February 10, 1910 in New York and died November 20, 1982 in Los Angeles. Whether he was born with the last name “De Guard” is open to question. A match of names of De Guard’s mother and siblings in Census records state the family name was “Devardi” in 1910, “De Guard” in 1915 and “Degarda” in 1920. Both of De Guard’s parents were, if any of the Census returns are correct, born in Italy.

His obituary in Variety (edition of December 8, 1982), states he studied art and journalism at NYU and Columbia University, and then began his professional career as an art director at an ad agency. A story in the New York Herald Tribune mentions he was formerly with the La Rose Publishing Company. He married Marie Jacoby in 1930—they celebrated over 50 years of marriage—and became entangled with her family in a unique journey across the U.S. that began the following year. The Salt Lake Tribune wrote about it on August 31, 1932.

Arriving in Salt Lake Tuesday for a week’s stay, as a part of a 28,000-mile “traveling college” tour of the United States, Charles “Pop” Jacoby of New York City and. his wife and eight children are the originators of one of the most unusual training schools yet seen in this section.
Having obtained permission from New York school authorities to keep his children out of school for a year while giving them first-hand geographic knowledge of cities, rivers and mountains, Mr. Jacoby left New York July 5 in a special car and trailer. The last stop was for two weeks in Yellowstone national park.
The eight children, happy to have their schooling, which also includes reading, writing and arithmetic, made such a pleasure, are Mrs. Marie Jacoby De Guard, and her husband
Philip De Guard, a New York newspaper correspondent, and William, 19; Harry, 17; Ralph, 15; Bobbie, 13; Charles Jr.; 11; Gertrude, 6, and Jim, 4.
The party plans to be on the road 14 months, visiting 15 of the 16 national parks west o£ the Mississippi river, traveling approximately 2000 miles each month. Mr. Jacoby formerly was employed by the Guaranty Trust company of New York.
As guests of Salt Lake City camp grounds, the Jacobys visit points of interest around the city, a “school” being conducted by the father at each place. Besides being “whizzes” at American geography, the children are apt musicians and can play a variety of musical instruments.
They will leave late this week for Idaho and the northwest along the Columbia river highway, then down to Mexico via the Pacific Coast, and then back to New York by way of the southern route.

Variety reported he painted murals for the Pasadena Board of Education that were spotted by someone connected with the Charles Mintz studio. He began work there in 1936, drawing layouts and painting backgrounds for Scrappy and Krazy Kat cartoons. He then moved over to MGM and worked on Tom and Jerry shorts under Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera before moving over to the Walter Lantz studio, where his first screen credit was in 1944 for “The Greatest Man in Siam”. He also did war work for the U.S government under Universal. He jumped to Warner Bros. in 1946 where he worked, for the most part, in the Chuck Jones unit. He and Jones were reunited in the 1960s at MGM where, again, De Guard worked with Tom and Jerry.

De Guard has some work on the side. He wrote a syndicated column called “In Hollywood With Philip De Guard” syndicated column (also known as “Intimately Speaking” and “On the Sets”). It appeared in more than 100 papers. The U.S Government Copyright catalogue of 1944 lists “The De Guard News Service” and I’ve stumbled across a couple of his star interviews from that period.

Besides a newspaper man and artist, De Guard was also a photographer and an inventor. He got screwed on his invention, though. The Los Angeles Times of November 30, 1958 reports (my thanks to Mark Kausler for the clipping):

LIVE AND LEARN — Philip DeGuard of North Hollywood is holding the bag — two bags in fact. They are just like the one he says he designed and described in a letter to a national appliance company suggesting their manufacture.
The bag is a plastic shoulder gadget used as a marketing gimmick to help sell photographic flash bulbs. He says the firm liked his idea and sent him a waiver to sign, which he did.
That was a mistake, he thinks. The later sent him a carton of flash-bulbs and two bags. But no money.
DeGuard feels that somehow his big chance got away from him.

Well, you can add one more thing to the list: square dancer. De Guard was one of the many Warner Bros. artists induced by animator Phil Monroe into lunch-hour square dancing in the basement of the Warners’ studio in the late ‘40s. The Van Nuys News of September 13, 1951 mentions Monroe and De Guard as members of the Valley Do C Do Square Dance Club; it was that discovery that prompted this post.

In Robert J. McKinnon’s biography of Maurice Noble, Jones’ much-heralded layout man through the bulk of the ‘50s, Noble describes De Guard as a “very private guy...very sensitive, and he’d had some rough experiences in his background.” Noble relates how De Guard always carried his camera with him and won awards for his candid shots. The Los Angeles Times of June 27, 1963 mentions De Guard being honoured by the California Press Photographers Association for one of his shots called “Helping Hand.” Noble praises De Guard’s painting technique but in his mind, his background artist was not “a very adventurous soul” and, for the most part, followed Noble’s instructions verbatim about colour selection and so on. In an interview with Mike Barrier, Roger Armstrong said of De Guard when the two worked for Walter Lantz: “They called him ‘Mashed Potatoes,’ because he had almost a nowhere personality.”

Still, if that’s the worst anyone can say about you, you’re doing well. De Guard’s artistry was admired, by all accounts—his work with Heinemann in Lantz’ “Swing Symphonies” can be a real joy. We’ll leave the last word about De Guard to Chuck Jones from his first autobiography.

Phil was a quiet and gentle man: talent, technique, creativity and honesty were all his, without the necessity for comment. He was without doubt among the finest of my contemporaries in filmmaking, a man devoted to the common good. I would have been lost without him.

William Schallert

Bill Schallert turns 90 today. He’s been one of Hollywood’s busiest character actors for decades, playing easy-going, warm guys in comedies and conscienceless, nasty ones in dramas. But he almost never became a ubiquitous face in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s because of real-life conscienceless, nasty people.

Schallert is a favourite with many TV audiences in many genres but he wasn’t a favourite with the American Legion in the Blacklist Era. In the early ‘50s, he signed a petition protesting the bullies on the House Un-American Activities Committee coldly destroying the lives of the Hollywood Ten through fear-mongering. Schallert told EqualityOnTrial that the Legion therefore considered him a “red” and threatened MGM with picketing every film he was credited in, even though he was only a day-player.

I once tried to get into a picture called “The Egyptian” where I would play a significant role, and I had contact with a guy who said he’d make a call for me to see if they would test me. And I remember sitting in his office and he mentioned me, and then he stopped and turned to me and says ‘I’m sorry. They say you’re not employable.’...That was like being shot. Apparently that only applied in the case of a couple of the studios and it only applied if I was trying to get a large part.

Fortunately, Schallert continued with stage work and as the red-baiting died, he found more and more work on television. As a regular weekly character, too. He went from four seasons on “Dobie Gillis” into three seasons on “The Patty Duke Show.” He almost had a couple of other series at the same time. His live action/animated comedy “Philbert” never aired, and a sitcom version of “Archie” didn’t ring up a sale. Pilots of both were made.

In honour of Bill’s birthday, let’s give you a couple of newspaper clippings about him. First, a feature piece from the Milwaukee Sentinel of January 3, 1960. Oddly, there’s no mention of Dobie Gillis, unless Schallert thinks of Mr. Pomfitt as “acidulous.”

William Schallert. . .
He Acts His Age—at Last!
“THIS IS MY first time around as a law officer,” says William Schallert, who plays Police Lt. Manny Harris on the Philip Marlowe series (8:30 p.m. Tuesday, WISN-TV).
“I’ve been the victim and the murderer many times but never a police lieutenant. This is more fun,” he declares. “I don’t get eliminated in the first episode and I’ve got a steady job. That’s pretty important when you have a wife and three children.”
Older Roles
For Schallert, 34, the role affords another change of pace. He is playing his own age. An actor since 1947, he has been cast innumerable times in parts which ranged from 50 to 90 years of age. The first time he stepped on-stage as a student at UCLA in 1942, Schallert played Corbaccio, the 85-year-old miser in “Volpone.” “That’s probably what got me started in the oldsters’ direction,” he said, “but it wasn’t too hard to take when I wound up some years later playing the Rev. Davidson opposite June Havoc in ‘Rain’ and Sir Peter Teazle with Marie Windsor in ‘School for Scandal.’”
Started in Stock
A native son of a native son of Los Angeles (Edwin Schallert, the respected, recently-retired drama editor of the Los Angeles Times), young Schallert was graduated from UCLA in 1946. He started acting in the Los Angeles Circle Theater and subsequently appeared in West Coast stock companies and the national company of “The Cocktail Party.” Then he spent a year in England on a Fulbright fellowship to study directing and theater management at the Old Vic, Stratford, and at various repertory theaters throughout the country.
According to Schallert, who is currently seen in the movies “Pillow Talk,” “The Gallant Hours” and “Some Came Running,” this is the heyday of the character actor. “The variety of television parts available is fantastic,” he says. “In the past year, for instance, I have appeared as: An old feuding hillbilly; a vicious prosecuting attorney; an intelligent psychiatrist; a submarine commander; a blind ex-tennis player; a priest; a bartender; a hard-bitten Civil War major; an acidulous high-school teacher; a bowerty bum and now Police Lt. Manny Harris.”
Likes TV
Schallert has a few words for the actors who lament the good old days of stock or vaudeville.
“Television is really better in every way except one,” he said. “First, you are better paid. Working conditions and hours are much improved. You have more time to prepare for your part so you can do a better job and you have the advantage of seeing what you have done. The only lack is the live audience. This is why actors return to the stage as often as possible. It’s like getting a blood transfusion.
Regarding his family and his career, Schallert, who has been married for 10 years, said: “Unlike many actors, I have never worked at anything else even when things were very rough financially. I hated to get distracted . . . Fortunately my wife, Lia Waggner, is an actress, so she went along with the idea . . . And our three boys, aged 9, 7 and 5, had to go along . . . whether they liked it or not.

And here’s un an unbylined interview picked up by the Sandusky Register for its edition of October 28, 1963.

TV Is Not Bill Schallert’s Only Talent; There’s More
There is a man of many talents starring alongside of Patty Duke in ABC-TV’s new comedy, “The Patty Duke Show.” His name is William Schallert and he is seen regularly as the constantly bedeviled father of Patty, Martin Lane.
Bill, along with being recognized as a “solid pro” by those inside the acting profession, is a serious composer, a professional singer, a concert pianist, directs, produces, has lectured on theatre at Oxford University and was a fighter pilot during World War II.
“I guess you might say I’ve never been afraid to take a chance," says Bill when queried about his full life. “But then if I didn't have the right attitude how could I be a freelancer in this uncertain business?”
Bill has been following the road of the free-lance artist since 1951. His credits include featured roles in most of television’s outstanding dramatic programs; co-starring roles in ABC-TV’s “Philip Marlowe,” and “Dobie Gillis;” featured roles in motion pictures and a long list of credits on the legitimate stage.
“When I started UCLA I thought I wanted to be a composer,” Schallert recalls, “but after a bit I suddenly had a sneaking suspicion that I wasn’t really cut out for it. Then I took a crack at singing and playing the piano. They were all fun, but my first role in a campus production of “Volpone” made up my mind for me."
Choosing acting as his profession did not stop Schallert from graduating from UCLA with a B.A.; composing music for a number of professional stage productions; singing professionally with the Roger Wagner Chorale; folk-singing or playing the piano seriously, as he still does when he has the chance.
“At the beginning of my acting career I always felt more comfortable hiding behind elaborate characterizations,” Bill went on. "I did so many old men that I got into the bad habit of clutching at my clothes and pulling my mouth down. I must say it was nice when I finally came complete circle and started playing roles calling for men my own age.
“I’m delighted with my role in the series. It not only gave me a chance to come East, but to work in comedy. Ever since I was a kid I have enjoyed making people laugh. And working with Patty is a ball. She's so charming and such a fine comedienne. Sometimes during a take it's all I can do to keep from laughing on camera."
Schallert, according to Patty, is also no slouch at breaking people up, on or off camera.
“There’s also one more hidden benefit in the role that I’ve refrained from mentioning,” concluded a smiling Schallert. “With four boys at home, it’s quite a treat being father to a daughter. Never know when the extra experience will come in handy.”

Bill Schallert is still working today. He landed a role on “True Blood” and appeared in the mini-series “Bag of Bones.” Read this story from the Los Angeles Times marking his birthday last year.

What’s my favourite Schallert role? Probably as the voice of Milton the Toaster, who sold ‘Pop Tarts’ in the ‘70s. His most interesting may be in the “Philbert” pilot, produced by Warner Bros. Television. ABC picked it up in February 1962 and Variety reported that month that ad agencies had already pencilled it in for broadcast that fall on Sunday nights at 7. But something happened. Schallert explained to the L.A. Times on April 5, 1966:

I did come close to a lead one, though. This was a pilot I made for a series called Filbert [sic]. I played a cartoonist whose little character comes to life and sort of takes over guiding my destinies. The people who created that great
animation for ‘The Pink Panther’ were behind the idea.
However, when they figured production costs would be $75,000 per episode, they decided a top name was needed to assure success. So they gave up the project. For me, it was a hard pill to swallow.

Warners got some use out of it, releasing it to theatres about April 1963 as a featurette. You can watch part of it below and wish a happy birthday to a fine actor.



My thanks to Mark Kausler for getting me the Philbert story.