Porky the Fireman

Today’s cartoon inside jokes come from the Frank Tashlin cartoon “Porky the Fireman” (1938). It features Tashlin’s wide-eyed, squat version of Porky and one of his typical montage sequence toward the end of the cartoon.



Porky’s fire truck rushes past the same wooden buildings four times and comes to a stop. And a fence advertises some cartoons.



Mel Millar wrote the cartoon and his name appears on a couple of stores in the background. Here’s one to the right of another establish run by the illiterate members of Friz Freleng’s family.

The background artists were never credited in the ‘30s. Griff Jay and Art Loomer handled backgrounds for a good part of that decade; these look like BGs from their time a few years earlier.



This is still before 1940 so cartoons don’t have the wild, eyeballs-out-in-two-frames takes that Tex Avery made famous. Tashlin has Porky express surprise by his eyes growing wider (one ones; they take their time). You can see them at their widest above. The eyes kind of grow a second white.

Bob Bentley is the credited animator. I suspect Volney White and possibly Phil Monroe were in Tashlin’s unit at this point.

TV Needs More J.P. Patches

J. P. Patches died today. Whether he knew it or not, he symbolises what’s wrong with television today. And maybe something greater.

J.P. was really a guy named Chris Wedes. For years, he hosted what was supposed to be a children’s show on Seattle television. The smart kids got what was going on. A guy in a ratty clown outfit ad-libbed ridiculous routines and dialogue with the other member of the cast, who was in either bad drag, an animal trainer’s outfit or as a black-hatted bad guy. J.P. would talk to the announcer. J.P. would talk straight into the camera (which went up-and-down or side-to-side, depending on whether the camera was nodding or shaking its head). J.P. would refer to inanimate objects as if they were living characters (a reference to a rubber chicken named Tikey Turkey would result in the sound guy playing the same gobble noise every time).

There was no slow, condescending talk to the young audience. The pies-in-the-face, deliberately bad puns and guffaws from the camera crew at inside or suggestive lines could have been for adults, too. At least ones that were smart enough to figure out the show was about a couple of guys in goofy costumes winging a bunch of business.

And it was all live.

This was in Seattle. Other cities across the U.S. had similar kids’ shows featuring extremely creative people doing incredibly silly and funny things, and not talking to viewers like they’re brain-dead. Some went on to fame outside their own region. Soupy Sales comes to mind. Thanks to the internet, we can learn about Chuck McCann in New York City and similar shows in Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland and so on.

This was all during a time when there were three networks and a few independent TV stations. We have countless more channels today, more than anyone can possibly watch, with a place for every conceivable programming niche. But on no channel will you find anything like the live kids’ shows that one generation grew up with.

What do people laugh at on television today? I shudder to think. Kids can watch modern-day freak shows under the Reality TV banner, where the idea is to laugh at ignorant people inflicting insults on other ignorant people. There are cartoons where the idea is to laugh at rudeness that prides itself in its obviousness.

Where’s the innocent fun?

It could be that audiences today don’t want it. They want gaucheness and cruel ridicule instead. If that’s the case, the problem is far greater than the messenger, television.

Here’s part of a special on J.P. You can watch some bits of it if you want to get a flavour of the show.

What to do with Adolf

Radio programmes, like the rest of the entertainment world, became involved in the war effort during the ’40s. Shows went on location to military bases, war references popped up in the dialogue, Jack Benny even gave up some of his time for a five-minute plug for the U.S.O.

World War Two was pretty black-and-white in everyone’s mind. Hitler and Mussolini were Evil, pure and simple. And I imagine just about everyone in the Allied countries had their personal opinion about what should be done with the pair when our boys marched victorious into Berlin and Rome. Certainly radio stars did.

The National Enterprise Association’s Hollywood columnist put the question to them; no doubt it was one of several questions where the answers could be banked and cobbled together for a subject story during fallow periods of news, like during the Christmas holidays. This one ran in 1943. As you’ll see, some stars treated the question seriously, others cracked jokes. I suspect all of them had answers that would be too blistering for print.

While fans of old radio shows will recognise the stars, though Alan Reed’s name is butchered, the person mentioned at the start of the story may be unfamiliar. Marshal Badoglio conquered Ethiopia for Mussolini in 1936 but soured on Fascism and replaced Il Duce as Prime Minister in 1943, then signed Italy’s unconditional surrender. He died in 1956. His obit warranted only two lines in the U.S. military paper Pacific Stars and Stripes. The war was behind everyone by then.

Hollywood On The Loose...
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
NEA Staff Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 18.—Marshall Pietro Badoglio has an idea on what ought to be done with Hitler and Mussolini after the war. He thinks the Allies should put them both in a cage and exhibit them throughout Europe.
Famous stage and screen comedians have some ideas, too:
George Jessel: “When everything else is done to Hitler and Mussolini that everybody thinks they deserve, I suggest they be put in a small theater, chain them to their seats and have me sing 200 choruses of ‘My Mother’s Eyes’ in a key much too high for me and I should have a cold yet besides.”
* * *
Jack Oakie: “Turn ‘em loose on the field between innings of a Brooklyn-St. Louis baseball game. Instead of pop bottles, supply the Brooklyn fans with hand grenades.”
* * *
NBC’s Fibber McGee and Molly: “Mussolini should be chained on a balcony overlooking a cemetery with nothing for company except copies of his speeches. Hitler should be chained under a loudspeaker playing over and over a Lou Holtz record of ‘Mein Kampf’ in Jewish dialect.”
* * *
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello: “Put Hitler in the Abbott and Costello torture chamber — a room with walls lined with copies of ‘Mein Kampf.’ At intervals, levels behind the books would shoot them out at him. Feed him only leaves from the books.”
* * *
Edgar Bergen: “Hitler and Mussolini should be given parachutes and taken up in an airplane. Hitler should be dropped off over Warsaw and Mussolini over Addis Ababa. Both gentlemen should have free choice as to whether they wanted to open the parachute.”
* * *
Harvey Fischman, 13-year-old Quiz Kid: “I suggest that they be catapulted from a cruiser. But before that I’d like to shave off Hitler’s mustache on a moving train.”
* * *
Bob Hope: “Make ‘em run around a race track for the rest of their lives under Bing Crosby’s colors. They’re taking a beating now but nothing compared to what would happen to ‘em if they ran under Bing’s colors.
* * *
Fred Allen: “Make ‘em listen to Jack Benny’s radio show for the rest of their lives.”
Jack Benny: “I would lock ‘em both in a projection room and make them look at Fred Allen’s movies for 12 hours a day. No—that would be inhuman. Only 11 hours a day.”
* * *
Bob Burns: “Let me serenade ‘em with my bazooka and then eliminate ‘em with a bazooka gun.”
* * *
Cecil Kellaway: “Exhibit ‘em in a cage. Then, at night, give ‘em benzedrine and continuously play a recording of ‘Pistol Packin’ Mama.’”
* * *
Allen Reid [sic], rhyming Falstaff of Fred Allen’s radio show:
“Fetter the international crooks,
“So they cannot get away.
“Then make ‘em listen
“To Baby Snooks from dusk till
break of day.”

Disney and his Big Bad Wolf

The drawing you see above comes from a feature story published December 23, 1933 in the Charleston Daily Mail. Alice D. Tildesley, syndicated from the Public Ledger, generally wrote enterprise stories on women’s issues, but she delved into animation on rare occasion. The other photos in this post were with the same story.

Tildesley’s feature sums up the making of Walt Disney’s biggest success to date, “The Three Little Pigs” and how the studio operated. It’s interesting the only other name besides Disney’s mentioned here is Frank Churchill’s (unless you count The Rhythmettes).

A Silly Symphony Becomes America’s Slogan
Three Little Pigs Change the Psychology of the Nation—Walt Disney Tells How He Makes Animated CartoonsBy Alice L. Tildesley“WHO’S afraid of the big bad wolf?” We all could be singing this popular ditty with conviction if we had the confidence of Walt Disney, who has found the answer to this wolf-at-the-door menace.
The answer, according to Disney, is: Invent your own job; take such an interest in it that you eat sleep, dream, walk, talk and live nothing but your work until you succeed. Then you may take on a hobby or two if you feel so inclined.
The creator of the increasingly famous Three Little Pigs started out in business in his father’s garage, his equipment an old still camera and a supply of pens, ink and paper. Now he has his own studio, his own story and music departments, complete equipment and 135 employes on his staff.
The earnings from the eight-minute Silly Symphony in which the pigs get the best of the big, bad wolf have been variously estimated as anywhere from $1,000,000 to $2,000000, but this, alas! like the picture, is just a fairy story.
“All this talk about my making a lot of money is bunk,” declares Disney. “After ten years of pretty tough sledding I am now making a moderate profit on my products, but every dime I take in is immediately put back into the business. I’m building for the future
And my goal isn’t millions; it’s better pictures.
“I’m not interested in money, except for what I can do with it to advance my work. The idea of piling up a fortune for the sake of wealth seems silly to me. Work is the real adventure in life. Money is merely a means to make more work possible.
What They Cost
THE average cost of a cartoon in black and white is $18,000. In color this runs to about $20,000. These figures represent only the actual production cost and don’t include cost of prints—usually 250 prints a picture, but 330 for the pigs—cost of distribution, advertising, foreign taxes, duties, etc.
“It takes a Mickey Mouse comedy twelve months to pay for itself, while the average Silly Symphony doesn’t crawl out of the red for eighteen months.
“On the other hand, these cartoon comedies last for a long time. They are still showing the first Mickey Mouse comedy after nine years. Maybe ten years from now the big, bad wolf will still be huffing and puffing before the door to the house of bricks.”
Certainly the Three Little Pigs should “crawl out of the red” soon, for it’s breaking records everywhere and has been recalled as many as seven times to some theatres. America resounds to “Who’s Afraid?”—not such a bad slogan for any country!—sung over the radio, played by orchestras and whistled by schoolboys.
Yet, if you can believe it, when Disney suggested the idea for the symphony to his staff some nine months ago, the twelve men who compose the story department remained unimpressed.
“It’s lousy! Why don’t you get a real idea?” they chorused.
You see, Disney surrounds himself with good “no” men. Every one of these 135 who work at the one-story building called “Walt Disney Studios” is a member of a co-operating organization. They are not expected to say “yes” when they mean “no,” and nothing is done without a majority opinion in favor of it.
“I think the reason they didn’t like the idea was that at that time the thing wasn’t very clear in my own mind,” confesses Disney frankly. “I withdrew it and tried to forget it, but the pigs and the wolf and the little house kept haunting me. I thought about them until I saw the story clearly, and then I proposed it again. This time they liked it.
“I don’t mean they threw up their hats or that even I thought it would be a tremendous hit. We considered it a typical Silly Symphony.”
If Disney were running any other kind of studio, the proper procedure after deciding on an idea would be to write the story, cast the parts, engage a director and composer, if it were to be a musical, and build some sets.
You can’t do it that way at Disney’s.
First, a one-page story is outlined and read to the dozen members of the story department. Two weeks later this staff must turn in ideas that could be used in the tale, gags that might be included and drawings of their individual conceptions of the characters.
Origin of the La La
FOR the Three Little Pigs, for example, one man may have turned in the gag wherein the pig with the house of straw opens his frail door and pulls in the mat with “Welcome” on it when he sees the wolf come bounding toward it. Another may have suggested that the wolf grab hold of the little pigs’ tails as they flee to safety in the house of bricks.
One wall of the conference room was covered with twelve or more versions of how the four characters looked and sketches of their dwellings. From these selection was made by vote of all present and the animators provided with models of the selections.
In an ordinary picture there is opportunity to rehearse the characters, try things several different ways and select the best “take” for the final product. But in a cartoon comedy, composed of from 10,000 to 15,000 drawings, the director must visualize his action, plan his entire continuity, entrances, exits, dissolves and cuts; in fact editing before a single picture is drawn.
An artist-animator can, with diligence, produce only five feet of action every eight hours, so it is necessary to conserve his time by giving him the kind of work he does best. Some artists are excellent at producing scenes, others can create animated action.
It is difficult for any artist to change his individual style and adopt a standard style for the benefit of the cartoon, so that the little pig drawn by one can’t be distinguished from the little pig drawn by the other. For this reason Disney maintains a group of apprentice artists and trains them in the art of animation. They attend art classes at the studio. Their apprenticeship lasts six months, never less, and sometimes longer, and they are paid as they learn.
A good animator should be a good actor also, for he must, know what, is dramatic, what is comic and what is pathetic.
“We have three musical directors who compose the music, or adapt it, for our pictures,” explained Disney. “Our three picture directors each has a film to direct , and each works with his own musical director
“The music must fit the mood of the story; it should enhance the action, and care must be taken that it does not instead detract from the picture or annoy the audience.
“At first we tried to have the action follow the melody, but we soon saw that wouldn’t do. The musical .score must correspond to the rhythm of the action following the beat of the music.
The problem is simply one of resolving all musical tempos in terms of the standard speed and of making a consecutive series of drawings to fit this tempo. Certain basic tempos, multiples of the frame speed of the film, have been established. The fastest tempo employed is one brat every six frames amounting to four beats a second. The total range is from this to one beat every twenty frames, or one beat every five-sixths of a second.”
In the case of the pigs, one of the staff during the first conference suggested the line, “Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?” Whereupon, Frank Churchill, music composer, sat down and wrote the jingly tune in five minutes, after which, the lyric was composed by two of the young men on the staff.
Originally the words appeared like this:
Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?
The big, bad wolf, the big, bad wolf?
Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?
He don't know from nothing.
But that last line refused to fit, and the boys toiled for some time trying to find a rhyme for “wolf.” At length one said in despair, “Let’s just let the flute take it!” And the well-known “tra la la la la!" was slipped in to finish the first hit melody furnished by a cartoon studio.
The music having been decided upon, the scenic department artists prepare the backgrounds to be used in the action of the film, just as scene painters prepare stage sets or set designers prepare screen sets. The action of the picture moves against these backgrounds, just as it does in an ordinary talking picture.
For the pigs, these backgrounds were the three little houses, from varied angles, exterior and interior. The action of course, was that of the ancient fairy tale, the big, bad wolf who came huffing and puffing to blow the little houses down. The four characters must be opaque figures, so that when placed against the background the scene will not show through.
When the director and musician have settled story, music, situations, gags and approximate footage of film, a layout sheet is made for the guidance of animators. It looks like something prepared by Einstein, but from it the gifted musician is able to prepare a complete music score with all the beats coming at the precise moment the cartoon figure needs them. When a dancing pig puts his plump foot on the ground, the music will keep time, and it will accent his movements when he plays the piano, skips under the bed or shuts his door in the wolf’s face.
The projection schedule, another Einsteinian blueprint, is handed to each animator. From this he discovers that he is to do scenes 25, 26, 27, the footage of each one marked and a description given.
A third cryptic sheet, called the exposure sheet, instructs the animator on the nature of the scene and the tempo of the music.
Completing the Job
THE twenty-five or thirty animators who are to work on the picture have desks, not unlike the desks seen in schoolrooms, the tops being illuminated drawing boards, the light shining through from below, so that pictures may be sketched against their backgrounds, and the next picture in a sequence may be sketched on a transparent sheet just above the first, so that there may be the right amount of difference between the two to give the illusion of action when reeled through the projection machine.
After the drawings of a sequence are completed, they are turned over to the inking and painting department, which traces and inks or paints them onto celluloid sheets, these celluloids then being photographed on their appropriate backgrounds by a camera suspended above an illuminated drawing board.
Approximately 100 hours arc required to photograph a cartoon subject that averages 600 feet of film. The Pigs was considerably longer than this and was composed of 15.000 separate drawings.
While the animators are doing their stuff, the studio orchestra records the musical score. A trio known as the rhythmettes sang the words of the lyric in the Pigs, and a member of the studio staff impersonated the wolf. The sound film resulting is then synchronized with the completed cartoon and the Silly Symphony is ready for release.
“The secret of success, if there is any, is liking what you do. I like my work better than my play. I play polo, when I have time, and I enjoy it, but it can’t equal work!” says Disney.
Oh yes, indeed—who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf? And why?

Music by Screwy Squirrel

Screwy Squirrel cartoons are lots of fun. The only thing wrong with them is Screwy. You can like the gags he pulls but you can’t really like him. And I think that’s the way Tex Avery wanted it. The gags are the real stars in the Screwy cartoons.

Tex came up with great routines where the business of filmmaking actually appears during the cartoon; he did it at Warners then carried on doing it at MGM. In Screwball Squirrel (released April 1, 1944), Screwy is even responsible for some of the sound in his own cartoon. During one chase scene, the William Tell Overture blares in the background. Suddenly, a portion of the music keeps repeating, like a stuck record. The action on the screen repeats with it. Screwy steps out of the action, walks over to a record player, fixes the skipping record, then the chase resumes (passing behind the record player and on to the next gag). It’s a great little routine that comes out of nowhere.



But the best musical gag comes along later in the cartoon. Meathead the dog is in a barrel, rolling down a steep hill. Musical director Scott Bradley has a drum roll on the soundtrack.



Cut to a shot at the bottom of the hill. It turns out that Screwy is playing the snare drum. Not only that, he provides musical sound effects. When the barrel hits a tree, Screwy bashes a bass drum. Meathead flies up into the air and down. Screwy plays a slide whistle to accompany the action. When Meathead lands, Screwy bashes the bass drum again, then finishes up with a bird twitter as Meathead lays on the ground, dazed.







Only Avery would try a sequence of gags like this. Better still, he doesn’t let the audience rest. The short zooms along from one routine to the next once it gets past the deliberately syrupy opening with the overly-cute, frolicking Sammy Squirrel (who Screwy beats the crap out of behind a tree. Take that, Harman and Ising).

The credited animators are Preston Blair, Ed Love and Ray Abrams. The backgrounds (note the house on stilts) are by Johnny Johnsen. Claude Smith designed the characters; the first model sheet is dated December 1942.

San Francisco, Giddyap Style

It’s true. UPA didn’t make funny animal cartoons. The proof is “Giddyap,” which is an unfunny animal cartoon.

Well, maybe that’s being a bit harsh. The horse is just “meh,” as the kids say today. It took three people to come up with a story about how it’s 1950 but ice is still being delivered all over San Francisco, and how a man and a little girl want to get rid of a horse that’s willing to give them all his loot. If the horse had any. And he gets some in the end, as the animated former vaudeville star follows the path of many real-life former vaudeville stars and ends up on early television.

As usual, the stars of this UPA cartoon are the designs (by Bill Hurtz) and colour choices (by Herb Klynn and Jules Engle). Some of the buildings, cars and clouds are simply outlines. There are lots of shades of green and they mesh very well. There’s a bit of red to add variation. And the San Francisco topography allows the layouts to be drawn so the point of view is looking up or down at the action some of the time.










The flashback scene that takes place on New York City’s Broadway uses different colours than the rest of the cartoon—blacks and blues, with outlines in lighter colours. It change works very well. I may post scenes from it later.

The characters aren’t all outlines like you’ll find in other UPA cartoons. They’re coloured in. I suppose Engle and Klynn (or maybe director Art Babbitt) wanted to make it clear that the horse had an audience on the street for his act, and did that by making the people stand out.

The stylised design of the ice truck is pretty cool.

Unless I’m mistaken, Stan Freberg is the voice of the horse.

The One Failure of Arnold Stang

Network radio comedy and comedy/variety shows were filled with all kinds of really talented secondary players, many of whom were in great demand. Yet so few of them broke out of their “also appearing tonight” role and moved into stardom. Even the great Mel Blanc failed in a sitcom supposedly tailored for his talents.

New York Herald-Tribune critic John Crosby probably elucidated the reason the best. Radio sitcoms were, by and large, corny, obvious and trite. And while some secondary players were extremely versatile, they were suddenly called upon to change roles when given their own shows. They had to be the funny straight man around whom a half hour of plot revolved instead of someone who came on, did a couple of minutes of schtick, and was quickly replaced by the next routine. A couple of minutes of Mr. Kitzel on the Benny show is funny. A half-hour of Kitzel is painful (as anyone who heard the failed Kitzel radio pilot can attest). It’s too bad, because the actors themselves were more than capable on air.

That brings us to Arnold Stang, who had a fine career in cartoons (mainly in New York) and was screamingly funny taking the wind of Milton Berle on radio and television. Stang was great with Henry Morgan on radio. He was given a chance at radio stardom, too. The results were predictable. Here’s Crosby from July 15, 1948.

Radio In Review
By JOHN CROSBY.
Stooges And Superstition
A STOOGE, according to Webster’s International Dictionary, is “a foil.”
Webster’s in this case is giving us the runaround, keeping the franchise without being very helpful.
Anyway, I chased over to “foil” and found a number of interesting but not very enlightening definitions. The only one that seemed at all probable was something that “enhances or sets off by contrast”.
That isn't a bad description of a stooge though it’s by no means exhaustive. The reason I undertook all this research—all of a minute or so—was to find some hint as to why stooges when divorced from their comedians do so badly.
The definition goes a long way toward explaining it. A stooge is ornamental, a bit of fancy ironwork around the balcony but not the main support. After all, a man can’t very well enhance or provide contrast to himself.
ALL OF WHICH is a longwinded introduction to Arnold Stang’s new show, “It’s Always Albert” (CBS 8:30 p. m. Fridays). Stang, Henry Morgan’s man in the regular season, is a rather different stooge whose special qualities resist the printed word. His grunts and ejaculations—eh, yeah, neyah—are a sort of an articulate East Side New York commentary on this and that.
“How do you like Hollywood?” Morgan asked him once.
“Eh!” said Stang, summing it all up briefly and bitterly.
I like it but I realize a lot of people find Mr. Stang’s language a little too close to that of the gibbon for comfort.
HOWEVER, I CAN’T say I’m at all happy with Stang as a featured comedian. In this vehicle, he plays a harebrained and impoverished composer, a characterization I find wholly credible.
He is called on to be stupid, inept and recalcitrant—all qualities which I think miss the essence of the Stang character about a mile. As a composer he is harassed by his brother and sister-in-law, who bounce insults off his head from all angles, into selling his music and raising little dough for the family.
This falls into the familiar dull routines of trying to interest millionaires or movie producers and then upsetting the soup over them.
The jokes are long, painful and so carefully telegraphed that you find yourself wincing, waiting for the blow to fall. The brother is played with demonic energy by Jan Murray, a former night club entertainer, and the sister-in-law is Pert Kelton, who isn’t bad though her material isn’t of much help.
Also, I’m afraid Stang’s stylized mannerisms get awfully wearisome in half an hour. I’m sorry about the whole thing.

Stang’s only other starring roles came in cartoons and in each case (Herman the Mouse, Top Cat), his character was far removed from what fans expected him to portray on radio and television.

“It’s Always Albert” is long-forgotten and was hardly a setback to his career. Stang seems to have preferred not being a star and he left behind a great body of work. You can read a little more about him on the Yowp blog, though it focuses a lot on his work at Hanna-Barbera.

Hot Spot Backgrounds

Tex Avery had a great influence on the theatrical animation business, but it seems the first thing he did that everyone copied was phoney travelogues. A lot of them, even by Avery himself, weren’t that hot.

Even the war-time Snafu series for the Army-Navy Screen Magazine used the travelogue format once, in “Hot Spots” (1945). The backgrounds look like the work of Paul Julian and, judging by this post at Thad Komorowski’s web site, the layouts are by Hawley Pratt.







Even the final gag owes something to Avery’s “Land of the Midnight Fun” polar bear bit. The gags actually don’t centre around Snafu at all, and maybe that’s why this cartoon isn’t as enjoyable as the others in the series.

If the voice of the Devil isn’t Hal Peary, it’s the best impression of Peary this side of Willard Waterman (and it doesn’t sound like Dick Nelson’s impression of Peary to me).

Balloon Land

Ub Iwerks’ “Balloon Land” (1935) is almost the quintessential early ‘30s cartoon. It has:

● Squash and stretch (the cartoon stars balloons, after all),
● Singing and dancing (and a Carl Stalling original song),
● Billy Bletcher as a bad guy,
● Pointless celebrity caricatures (and a Joe Penner “You nasty man!” reference),
● The camera coming in for a close-up of wide-open mouths,
● Characters using whatever is at hand to violently attack and vanquish the bad guy.

Being an Iwerks cartoon, it’s also odd and confusing in places, but you kind of give that a pass because, well, it’s an Iwerks cartoon.

Maybe the best part about this cartoon is the designs. I have no idea who is responsible but the balloon-shaped homes, trees (with faces on them) and characters are a lot of fun. And so are the gratuitous appearances of Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin, doing a flop-footed dance.




And the Pincushion Man has a truly imaginative design. Compare this with what you see on the screen in those crappy Buddy cartoons Warners released at the same time.



Iwerks cartoons, especially toward the mid-‘30s, weren’t exactly known for their gags, but there’s a really good one with a row of babies marked “Alarm.” Take the milk bottles out of their mouths and they start crying, like an alarm. And, being a cartoon of the ’30s, the camera zooms in to the open mouths.



I only have a version of this cartoon from those cheap collections of public domain cartoons so the screen grabs aren't pristine. But you get the idea.

Fred Allen Talks Television

Fred Allen once remarked (and I’m paraphrasing from an appearance on “The Big Show”) that television was called a medium because “nothing is well done, or very rarely.”

Allen spent years complaining about network radio, but then when television started killing the medium he complained about, he complained about that, too.

TV and Allen didn’t mix, though it wasn’t for a lack of trying from those broadcasting executives that Allen constantly ridiculed. They gave him a variety show. It worked for him in radio, but not television. They gave him a Groucho-like quiz show where he could ad-lib with ordinary people. It worked for him in radio, but not television. Finally, they put him on the panel of “What’s My Line” where, again, he could ad-lib. It worked for him as best as it could. But Allen’s reputation for ad-libbing completely overshadowed the fact his radio show was carefully scripted, much of it by Allen himself, week after week. Ad-libs were only the icing on the dessert, not the main course. That was all lost when he went to television. He simply couldn’t be the same one-man band he was in radio.

Allen harangued about television to anyone who would listen, and New York Herald-Tribune columnist John Crosby, who shared with Allen intolerance for the mundane and inane, gave him a chance to make fun of TV in some one-liners. The column is from May 9, 1950, when Allen was still appearing on “The Big Show” with Tallulah Bankhead on NBC. To give you a bit of background, Douglas MacArthur was fired by President Truman on April 11. CBS and RCA both developed different colour TV transmission processes; RCA’s was compatible with black and white TV sets. Televised broadcasts of major league baseball were given as one reason for the decline in minor league baseball in the ‘50s as league after league folded. And as for which Ralph Edwards show is being referred to, it’s your guess. “This is Your Life” wasn’t on TV at that point, I’m presuming it’s “Truth or Consequences,” which opened with loud shrieks of laughs from the studio audience being panned by the camera.

Radio and Television
By FRED ALLEN
John Crosby is in Europe on vacation. In his absence his column will be written by friends.

Television is here to stay—and so is General MacArthur.
In the beginning, God worked six days and created the Earth. Today, 1 director, 1 scenic designer, 8 writers, 4 painters, 6 carpenters, 5 wardrobe women, 4 cameramen, 4 assistants, 2 floor managers, 8 chorus girls, 10 actors, 6 electricians, 18 stagehands and 20 musicians work six days and create a mediocre television show.
* * *
In Chicago, during 1950, a crime was committed every 12 ½ minutes.
(Criminals on TV crime shows claim they could have beaten this record if they didn’t have to stop for commercials.)
* * *
The Western Union Telegraph Company has formed a subsidiary to install and service television receivers.
(If you come home some night and see a messenger boy on your roof—there is no reason to stop drinking.)
* * *
The National Credit Office, Inc., reports that 70 percent of consumer purchases of television receivers are on an installment basis.
(The size of a TV actor’s audience has nothing to do with his ability—it is determined by the Finance Company’s collections.)
* * *
To cover the recent demonstration for General MacArthur the various networks had more than 500 technicians and $2,500,000 worth of TV equipment in the streets.
(Many radio actors wish the networks would leave them there).
* * *
The Supreme Court will shortly rule on whether the CBS or RCA system will be used for color television.
(Meantime, both TV networks will operate in one color—red.)
* * *
According to a survey, conducted by a Northwestern University professor, teen-age youths are reading less because of television.
(In most American homes the 20-inch screen is replacing the five-foot shelf.)
* * *
The newspaper critic’s scathing review of a TV show is hate’s labor lost.
(The minute a program is finished the viewer at home forms his opinion of the actors and their wares. The critic’s pernicious monograph, appearing in the paper the following morning, is too late to serve a purpose. It is merely the obituary of a departed charade.)
* * *
Television is keeping so many baseball fans away from one minor league park that the teams are only playing with seven men.
(The other two players sit in the stands so there will be somebody to watch the games.)
* * *
A Boston incident. Excited by something it saw on a television program, a Doberman-Pinscher bit his six-year-old master.
(It’s logical—the dog couldn’t turn the set off—it did the next best thing.)
* * *
A special committee of the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters reports it will attempt to raise necklines in television.
(Faye Emerson is sure going to look incognito in a turtle-neck evening gown.)
* * *
One columnist wonders why most TV directors have those short haircuts.
(TV directors wear crew cuts to keep the actors from getting in their hair.)
* * *
There are so many college men working in television any office door can be opened with a fraternity key.
* * *
A Cleveland Transit System board member blames television for trolley line’s deficit.
(Television may be going places but the people who are looking at it aren’t).
* * *
One TV survey outfit has a new electro-mechanical system that eliminates calling viewers by phone.
(Today there are so many surveys calling set owners that the set owners are starting to call the surveys — and what they are calling them threatens to reach a new high in sulphurous invective. Some of the phrases contain so much sulphur if they are rubbed on a hard surface the words will give off a dull blue flame.)
* * *
In South Bend, a TV antenna fell across a 27,000-volt power line with some amazing results. Balls of fire bounced up and down on the roof with thunderous explosions; the telephone burned out; a glove lying in the yard burst into flames; the plumbing began throwing off sparks and pipes melted around the kitchen sink.
(The family was not alarmed. They thought it was the Ralph Edwards’ TV show starting.)

I’d like to think if Fred Allen had lived longer—he died in 1956—the right venue on the tube could have been found for him. But he never looked comfortable on camera. Some radio people are meant for radio. Allen always wanted to be a writer and, considering the calibre of two autobiographies he put together in the ‘50s, his right venue may have been a publisher’s doorstep.