The Comeback of Jack Benny

Newsweek featured a cover story on Jack Benny on March 31, 1947 leaving the reader with the impression he was making some kind of comeback. In a way, it was true, even though Benny didn’t go anywhere; he was still on the radio every week outside the summer replacement season. And his show still had a large audience during that time.

But to my ear—and evidently to those of radio listeners at the time—something went haywire. Since his early days on the air, Benny was fairly heavily formatted. The first half of the show was on-stage banter and the second half was a play parodying something. The format was getting a little worn. The war didn’t help him. Jack broadcast from various locations and the shows were obligated to shoehorn in military or local humour—occasionally with ill-at-ease local dignitaries given speaking roles. And the sponsor change, I don’t believe, helped him either at first. Instead of Don Wilson jovially hawking Jell-O or (and less convincingly) Grape Nut Flakes, the first thing on the show listeners had to sit through was almost two minutes of announcers shouting catchphrases over and over with unintelligible tobacco hawkers giving a demonstration of their chanting skills. Friendly and inviting, it wasn’t.

The cigarette spots didn’t change their style until the ‘50s but the show got a mid-‘40s makeover, as Newsweek noted. New characters were brought in, ones that became loved by Benny fans—the telephone operators, Mr. Kitzel (who got a personality change from the Al Pearce show), Mel Blanc’s train announcer. Frank Nelson got to say “Yehhhhhhhhhs?” a lot more. Rochester started appearing in more places than on the other end of a phone. The writers tried an annual running gag; one year it was Jack Benny’s song. And they started writing more “off-stage” routines. Instead of a radio show, listeners got a radio show about a radio show. And it smoothly moved into TV, where the Benny show was, much of the time, a TV show about a TV show.

I don’t know whether this is the full Newsweek article, but it appeared in the Milwaukee Journal of April 1, 1947.

Jack Benny, King of Laugh Makers
Radio Comedian, Who Isn’t the Tight Fisted Blowhard of Legends, Has Had His Ups and Downs.
Now, at 53, He Is at the Top of His Highly Competitive Profession
From Newsweek
Not even among comedians is there much argument. Right now Jack Benny is the funniest man on radio.
Back in 1945, after Benny had been on the air for 13 rib tickling years, his program abruptly skidded. The comedy became dusty and labored. Listeners demoted him from his customary post among radio’s top four or five shows to twelfth place. The smart alecks whispered that he was finished. But not Benny. The next fall he clamped more tightly on his ever present cigar and paced the floor nervously and the show recaptured some of its old verve.
This week, after exactly 15 years in radio, Jack Benny is back in full strode, as he has been all season. Against the toughest competition of his career, the Jack Benny show has copped the top spot in the bi-monthly Hooperatings twice in six months, and week in week out, gives the Bob Hopes and Fibber McGees a hard, fast run for the win money.
Unlike some of his competition, notably Hope, Benny pulls his radio way almost unaided by outside activities. Of the 15 movies he has made, he has had two real hits. During the war he successfully toured battle zones, but his personal appearances for home front civilians have been few.
The Serious Business of Being Funny
Nevertheless, Benny’s potential draw as a performer on the stage of urban movie houses is such that this May the radio star and a small troupe move into the Roxy in New York for a minimum gross take of $40,000 a week. It is the highest salary ever paid for a theater date.
At 53, Benny, off mike, looks and acts like a successful businessman. He is exactly that—a success at the very serious business of comedy. Unlike the Fred Allens of the trade, Benny has little natural, spontaneous wit. What gags he ad libs on the air are those anyone would soak up after 37 years of hanging around professional funnymen.
In a private gathering of show people Benny is no show-off. He would much rather and usually does sit and listen to others strut their stuff. For them is he a wonderful audience. Even a minor gag can provoke a Benny belly laugh. It is the appreciation of what makes a line laughable that keys his radio program. Benny is the industry leader in the business of manufacturing radio comedy. Like the Henry Fords and the Alfred Sloans, he can’t manufacture his product alone. Hence he has surrounded himself with a production team that clicks like castanets.
Benny gives all the credit for his stature to this outfit. “Where would I be today,” he asks, “without my writers, without Rochester, Dennis Day, Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris and Don Wilson?”
The Radio Benny vs. the Real One
That he himself hand picked both the writers and the cast is something that Benny never admits. He dismisses lightly the fact that he directs his own rehearsals, down to the last, fine reading of a line. Nor will he ever say part of his success stems from his own sense of timing and showmanship.
This belittling is not new. It was evident in the first words that Benny ever spoke on the air. He said: “Hello, folks. This is Jack Benny. There will now be a slight pause for everyone to say, ‘Who cares?’”
That was Mar. 29, 1932. Benny was appearing on Broadway that year in Earl Carroll’s “Vanities.” He was successful graduate of vaudeville and had already hit Hollywood for a couple of movies. Ed Sullivan, the columnist, who then had his own radio program, had invited Benny to try this new medium. Four weeks later, on Monday, May 2, Benny opened his own show over the old NBC Blue network. He has never been without a program or a sponsor since then.
Benny’s first crack in radio may have been characterized by modesty. But it was never to be so again. The Jack Benny of radio is a cheap, tight fisted blowhard who gets knocked down by everyone and comes right back for more. The balding Benny character of the air let his vanity force him into buying a toupee. The character insists Benny is a violinist—though he never gotten through more than a few squeaky, sour bars of “Love in Bloom.” This is the Benny that is a mirror for a million human foibles—the perfect fall guy. Yet all of this is completely manufactured. The radio and stage Jack Benny is the opposite of the private Jack Benny. And it is a difference which Benny has to fight hard to maintain.
When he was still a kid in knickerbockers in Waukegan, Ill., Benny was given a violin by his father. He learned to play it so quickly that he got a job in the pit orchestra of a local theater before he was in long pants. At 17, calling himself by his real name, Benjamin Kubelsky, he went into vaudeville with his violin tucked under his chin. At home Benny still plays his violin, not too badly, for his own amusement and as proof to the skeptics that he can.
Though his hair is gray and thinning, Benny is a long way from being bald. To prove this to the public, Benny rarely wears a hat and never a toupee except on movie sets. But Benny’s worst fears are that people will take him for a genuine skinflint. He estimates conservatively that it costs him an extra $5,000 a year in lavish tipping and the like to disprove the non-existent theory.
Like Thumbing a Family Album
That Benny feels he must disprove his stinginess is, of course, perfect proof of the success of his radio character. That character was born on Benny’s first regular program in 1932.
Looking back over old Benny scripts is like thumbing through a family album. The family group is all there. Don Wilson, the announcer, fills the same foil role once held by an earlier Alois Havrilla. Dennis Day, the timorous tenor, is the successor to a line of timorous tenors which included Frank Parker, James Melton and Kenny Baker. Phil Harris, his bourbon, his consummate ego, and his orchestra, joined Benny in 1936, following Frank Black and Don Bestor. Eddie Anderson, who plays Rochester, was hired for a one shot in 1937 to play a Pullman porter. But the public liked him so much that Benny hastily put him to regular work as his valet.
Last but certainly not least in the Benny corral is Mary Livingstone. Unlike the rest of the cast, Miss Livingstone was not a professional. Benny met her in 1926 when a vaudeville tour took him to Los Angeles. She was then a 17 year old clerk in a department tour. Her name was Sadye Marks—shortly thereafter changed to Mrs. Benny. Five years later on his program Jack needed someone to read a short poem supposedly written by an addled fan named Mary Livingstone. Sadye Marks Benny stepped into the bit role—and stayed on.
So thoroughly are these characters established on Benny’s show that this year two of them—Dennis Day and Phil Harris—got their own programs, playing elaborations of their Benny roles.
In 15 years on the air Benny has had only seven writers. His present staff consists of John Tackaberry, Milt Josefsberg, Sam Perrin and George Balzer.
Benny probably prizes his writers more than any other part of his organization. They are under exclusive contract to him and are among the highest paid in radio, with combined salaries totaling about $5,000 a week. When Benny’s program slipped in 1945, instead of hiring new writers, he held onto his four and trained them even harder in the Benny ways. Now he gives them full credit for pulling the show out of the doldrums.
His writers’ work begins right after each Sunday’s broadcast. With Benny they sit down and work out the situation for the following week. Some of the ideas come from the writers, but more of them are Benny’s. By Thursday the writers have put together the script, which goes to Benny for astute editing. On Saturday there is a cast reading and Sunday morning is spent in loose rehearsal. Benny doesn’t like a final dress rehearsal, saying it spoils the show’s spontaneity.
The most serious criticism of the Benny program has been that his show seldom changes. The comedian violently disputes this idea. True, the basic part of each week’s humor arises out of the well established characters and their well known reactions to given sets of circumstances. But the circumstances, Benny points out, always have an element of surprise. Over the years Benny has resorted to such diversified gimmicks as a polar bear, a talkative parrot, a feud with Fred Allen, a museum relic of an automobile and the gravel voice of Andy Devine, whom Benny once paid $500 just to say “Hi ya, Buck.”
His Lifetime Option on His Half Hour
Out of the fact that the Bennys live next door to the Ronald Colmans in fashionable Beverly Hills, Calif., Benny got one of his funniest situations—the socially correct and veddy British Colmans entertaining the social climbing, inelegant Jack Benny. Last year the comedian brought the names of three small southern California towns into the show. Now the mere mention of Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga brings a laugh. Jack started a national nuisance when he got involved with a character named Kitzel who sold him a hot dog named “peekel een the meedle and the mustard on top.”
This year’s major contribution to the nation’s giggles is Benny’s quartet. He hired it first for laughs and, secondly, to help hurdle that necessary evil, the middle commercial. The quarter, professionally known as the Sportsmen but around the Benny show as “Mmmmmm,” take the middle plug for the sponsor’s product and sing or chant it in ridiculous and clever verse. The commercial is written by Benny with the help of Mahlon Merrick, the show’s musical director.
For as long as Benny cares to stay in radio, listeners can be sure they may tune him in on the 6 p.m. (CST) spot Sundays. In 1941, when it looked as if Benny might move to another network, NBC made the unprecedented move of giving him a life-time option on what is one of radio’s most valuable half hours.
So long as he has a sponsor satisfactory to NBC, Benny can use that half hour as he sees fit. Two weeks ago he was assured of NBC’s satisfaction for three more years, when his fifth and current sponsor renewed the contract through 1950. The terms: $25,000 a week for the packaged program which Benny owns, plus $250,000 a year to advertise and publicize the show.
Benny will earn it.

The Sad End of Frank Graham

Almost every cartoon voice actor in the ‘40s who didn’t have the name “Mel Blanc” performed their tasks anonymously to the movie-going public. At least on screen. Sara Berner worked at a bunch of studios and received one credit on the first Chilly Willy cartoon for Walter Lantz. You won’t find Billy Bletcher’s name on any Warners cartoons. Nor Kent Rogers’. Nor Bea Benaderet’s. And you won’t find Frank Graham’s, either.

Frank Lee Graham was a radio actor who played both the Fox and Crow at Columbia. Tex Avery used him as the voice of the wolf in the first Red cartoon and in other MGM shorts, like “House of Tomorrow.” He popped up at Warner Bros. in a number of the Snafu cartoons and in theatricals as well—he’s the narrator of “Horton Hatches the Egg,” to give you one example.

Frank Graham was also dead at the age of 35 by his own hand.

The Los Angeles Times published a full story on September 4, 1950.

RADIO STAR GRAHAM COMMITS SUICIDE.
Actor Known as the Man With 1000 Voices Found in His Auto With Engine Running Radio
Actor Frank Graham, 35, known as the man of 1000 voices and radio’s one-man theater, was found dead in his automobile in the carport of his Hollywood Hills home, 9115 Wonderland Ave.
Police said Graham had committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. His body was found about 1 p.m. Saturday by friends. He was slumped in the front seat of his expensive convertible.
Engine Was Running.
The engine of the automobile was running. A section of vacuum cleaner hose had been attached to the car’s exhaust pipe and brought under the cloth to carry the poisonous gas to the car.
Near Graham’s hand on the front seat of the car was the photograph of a handsome brunet woman, identified by police as Miss Mildred Rossi. Associates said that until recent weeks Miss Rossi had been Graham’s constant companion. She was not present at the time the tragedy was discovered and she could not be reached for comment.
Telephone Call.
At 9:10 p m. Saturday Graham telephoned Jack and Virginia Shallow, 2707 Castle Heights Ave. “He told us to come to his house and pick up something from the front seat of his car,” Shallow told police. They said they arrived about 10 o’clock and pulled Graham’s body from the car and applied artificial respiration. He was already dead. They called police.
Officers Ted Morton Jr. and J W. Hodson said that two notes were found in the living room of Graham’s home. They were neither dated nor signed. Both were addressed to Radio Producer and Announcer Van Des Autels. One read, “Please get keys of the house and car from Mildred. I don’t want her to have time to disturb anything here.” The other, “Although the attached note says – owes me $600, he actually only owes me $400. It’s to become part of the estate.”
No Cause Learned.
Morton said Graham was dressed in blue denim trousers and a T-shirt. No cause for the suicide was immediately learned by police.
Associates at the Columbia Broadcasting Co. said Graham was at the peak of his career. He was star of the Jeff Regan Show. He had just completed a summer announcing the highly successful dramatic program, Satan’s Waitin’, which he and Des Autels had developed and which they owned.
He was the star of Night Car Yarns over CBS from 1938 through 1942 and was the announcer of dozens of programs, including the Ginny Simms, Rudy Vallee and Nelson Eddy shows.
Graham was born to show business. His mother was Ethel Briggs Graham, concert and opera singer. He grew up in dozens of cities and attended numbers of schools while traveling the concert circuit with his mother. At the age of 2 he knew the backstage odors of grease paint and dress rooms well.
Attended UCO.
He attended the University of California for one year and left to begin his acting career in Seattle, both on the stage and in radio. He was brought to Hollywood in 1937 to join the CBS-KNX. He had been married two years before to the former Dorothy Jack of Seattle. They were later divorced. In addition to his radio roles, Graham's voice was well-known to motion-picture fans. He created the voices of numbers of cartoon characters in animated films for Walt Disney, MGM and Warner Bros. studios.
Services Tomorrow.
He leaves his mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Frank L. Graham of San Francisco, a brother Jack and a sister, Mrs. Janet Downs, both of Seattle. Funeral services will be conducted at 3 p.m. Tuesday in the chapel of Will A. Reynolds Mortuary, West Hollywood. Burial will be private.

California state records say that Frank Lee Graham was born in Detroit on November 22, 1914, though the 1940 Variety Radio Directory has him older, saying he was born on the same date in 1911. It lists him at 5-foot-7 and 125 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes. An Associated Press story said his father was an inventor. His mother was related to the Briggs who built Briggs Stadium in Detroit. The family had moved to Seattle by 1920. Graham’s first radio appearance was in 1931, when the repertory company with which he was acting was contracted for several regional network commercials. He started as an announcer at KHQ-KGA, Spokane, in 1935, where he and his wife founded founded the Rockcliff School of Theatre and Radio. She was from Sedro-Woolley, about an hour north of Seattle. The Variety profile lists a decent-sized body of radio work by 1940, mainly on CBS, and reveals he appeared in film shorts but doesn’t list any titles.

Mildred Rossi had been employed at the Disney studio. The Associated Press followed up on the story:

Unusual Will Fills Gaps in Mystery of Graham’s Death
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 19. (AP)—Missing gaps in the last few hours of radio producer Frank Lee Graham’s life were filled in when his unusual will was filed for probate yesterday.
Graham’s body was found in his convertible at his Hollywood Hills home about 10 p.m. September 2 by two friends, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Shallow, whom he had telephoned an hour before asking them to come over.
The automobile engine was running. A hose led from the exhaust into the tonneau. Friends said the 35-year-old radioman was at the peak of his career.
On the seat of the car was a picture of a brunette woman, identified by police as Miss Mildred Rossi. Radio associates said she and Graham had been close friends.
One paragraph of the will said: “To Mildred, I leave absolutely nothing except the pleasure she will have knowing that now she won’t have to decide whether I am good enough for her or not.” A postscript said: “Gee, I wish Mildred had called me back yesterday morning.” The document didn’t further identify “Mildred.”
Ex-Wife Gets Share
It bequeathed to Graham’s divorced wife, Mrs. Dorothy Jack Graham, insurance policies, an automobile, half interest in two radio shows, “Satan’s Waitin’,” and “Sing for Your Supper,” and said of her “Believe me, she struggled and worked harder for them than I did.”
Graham left the other half interest in the shows to Shallow. He directed that the remainder of “all my earthly possessions (and they’re certainly not much)” be divided among his father, Frank Graham, San Francisco; his sister, Mrs. Janet Downs, and his brother Jack, both of Seattle.
The probate petition valued the estate simply as in excess of $10,000.

How ironic that Graham’s best-remembered role in cartoons was that of a Hollywood wolf.

Mammy Moo Cow

On today’s edition of old Public Domain Cartoons, we take you back to exciting days in old New York, where the Fleischer studio had Betty Boop and the Van Beuren studio responded with its own female character.

Yes, Molly Moo Cow.

Molly, in her four pictures, just wanted to be loved. Instead, she was callously shoved off the screen in 1936 because the people at RKO, for some reason, decided they’d rather release cartoons with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy than a child-like cow. The Van Beuren studio closed forever. Fortunately, some of its artists jumped ship before that happened. One of them was Joe Barbera, whose autobiography reveals what it was like to work with dear old Molly:

The model sheet, which establishes the look, shape and even dimensions for each character, and which is so essential to professional animation, was unknown at Van Beuren.
This meant that even a simplistic, homely character like Gillette’s real winner, Molly Moo Cow, given to thirteen animators, would emerge as thirteen different cows. Rubber- legged and amorphous to begin with, Molly would go through a most disquieting process of metamorphosis when the work of these thirteen animators was cut together into what was supposedly a single five-minute cartoon. … With a staff of about 150, the organizational chaos at Van Beuren was a serious problem, but the worse fault was exemplified by the very idea of Molly Moo Cow herself. This was the best character they could come up with? I mean, what can you do with a cow? It isn't intelligent. It certainly isn't beautiful — except to a farmer or a bull. It is sedentary rather than lively, and, even with rubber legs, it doesn’t move in interesting ways or in a way that allows much range or variety of action. As animated characters, cows do not work.

One has to wonder how accurate Barbera’s memory was. Model sheets certainly were known at Van Beuren at that time and several have been reproduced in books. Furthermore, models of Molly and her co-stars were registered with the U.S. Government Copyright Office on October 19, 1935.

It may seem odd to compare Van Beuren of 1936 to the acclaimed UPA studio 20 years later but they had something in common—both seemed to feel art was the only thing that counted. Story? Who cares! And that’s the problem with Molly. Director Burt Gillett was probably delighted that Molly could twist and turn and frown at the command of Carlo Vinci’s pencil—and could point to the fact that the animation at the studio got better after he took charge. But the audience doesn’t care if Molly can do a 180 on screen better than Cubby Bear a few years earlier. They want to be engaged with the characters and that simply doesn’t happen. All they’re seeing is personality animation with no personality.

Molly’s final adventure was “Molly Moo Cow and Robinson Crusoe.” Gillett and Tom Palmer inject a song and Win Sharples provides a nice score but there’s no point to most of the cartoon and the main characters simply aren’t likeable.

And then there’s the problem of cannibals. You just can’t show them in cartoons any more.



Oh, and the cartoon ends with Molly in blackface imitating Al Jolson and Robinson calls her “Friday.” Jolson was acclaimed as the world’s greatest entertainer in his day. Molly was not.



The death of the Van Beuren studio didn’t really kill Molly. Her films were seen on television in the early ‘50s before being shoved aside by better old theatricals and then TV cartoons—including some made by a chap named Barbera. But when television didn’t want her, public domain video tapes and DVDs did. The copies of the prints aren’t that great, but the curious can still see Van Beuren’s female star in action.

He’s Krazy

It’s been a little while since we posted some Krazy Kat trade ads from The Film Daily, so let’s put up a few more. These appeared in the latter half of 1928.

Bravo to the studio for giving credit to Ben Harrison and Manny Gould on these. Gould toiled at Columbia for years, moved over to Warner Bros. and finally allowed his creativity to shine, with some great, outrageous animation under director Bob Clampett—who, I think, was still in high school when these ads were published.










The “Salt and Pepper of Any Program” is a parody of Educational Pictures’ slogan “The Spice of the Program.” Educational was releasing Aesop’s Fables cartoons at the time.

Nelson Hughes has passed on this note:

The fifth trade ad uses the image from THE STORK EXCHANGE ('27) which was also released by Paramount.

We’ll have more in a future post.

Up Jumps the Devil

Andy Panda isn’t really the type of animated character I’m into, but there’s sure some great work by the Walter Lantz staff in his cartoons of the later ‘40s.

“Apple Andy” (1945) features the old good/bad conscience routine. The good and bad sides of Andy (dressed as an angel and a devil, of course) try to dictate to young Mr. Panda what to do about some winesap apples he’s not supposed to pick. At one point, the devil Andy clobbers the angel Andy. The pious look of the angel, the crazed look of the devil, and the mallet (with a head that expands before impact) are lots of fun.



Dick Lundy’s the director and he has a weird cut as the devil ducks behind the real Andy. It works okay on screen.



Emery Hawkins handles the scene. Here’s another great pose from him.



Hawkins and La Verne Harding are the only credited animators. Walter Tetley plays Andy and the devil Andy is Will Wright, who also voiced the wolf in the Woody Woodpecker cartoon “Fair Weather Fiends.” It sounds like Sara Berner is the good Andy. And the cartoon features a song and another of Darrell Calker’s swinging scores.

Censoring the Aspiring Censors

The other day, we referred in our Jack Benny post to the unusual demise of one of the shows that appeared in Jack’s TV time-slot when Jack didn’t—the forgotten “This is Show Business.” Its crime was an incident I hadn’t heard about until researching the post. One of America’s great 20th Century playwrights, George S. Kaufman, was a panellist on the show. By December 21, 1952, he had had enough of hearing Christmas carols on commercials and blurted out on the programme “Let’s make this one program on which no one sings ‘Silent Night’.”

Kaufman expressed a pro-religious sentiment. He wanted a carol to be held in higher esteem than for commercial purposes. But that didn’t sink into the heads of pro-religious viewers who bleated that Kaufman was being anti-religious, and then engaged in pressure tactics that resulted in Kaufman being fired from the programme (Merry Christmas, George). He was reinstated several days later but if it was a victory, it was hollow as the show was leaving the air.

I wondered if one of the era’s most perceptive TV critics, John Crosby of the Herald-Tribune syndicate, had anything to say about it. Sure enough, he did. In fact, he was so annoyed at what happened he wrote two columns. Crosby’s words remain as important today as they did when they were published almost 60 years ago. There still are people and groups who want the media to reflect only their particular tastes and bias because they insist only their opinions are morally correct. They want others to behave as they do.

Both columns are from early 1953.

Silent Kaufman
By JOHN CROSBY
NEW YORK, Jan. 3 — 1 have never fully understood what constituted irreverence In this country. Practically anything, I guess. Just try uttering a deprecatory remark about Kate Smith and you’ll find yourself accused of being unpatriotic, anti-religious and probably subversive.
The latest man to run afoul of the letter writers was George S. Kaufman, one of the few genuine wits ever to find his way on to television. Mr. Kaufman, one of the original panel members of “This Is Show Business,” happened to remark a couple of weeks ago: “Let’s make this one program on which no one sings ‘Silent Night.’” Along with several million other people, Mr. Kaufman was fed up with “Silent Night” when used—as it is used—to sell toothpaste before Christmas.
Four or five hundred protesting letters poured in to the Columbia Broadcasting System, and Mr. Kaufman was fired from “This Is Show Business.” Why? Was it because of the religious implications of the remark? No, junior, it wasn’t. It was because the letter writers threatened not to buy any more of the sponsor’s products.
Which brings us back to the question: what constitutes Irreverence? Irreverence, according to this interpretation, is tied inextricably to the sales chart. If sales drop, it’s irreverent. If they rise, It’s sacred. It’s all right to commercialize one of the world’s best-loved hymns to sell products. It’s not all right to make wisecracks about it. That leads us with acute intellectual discomfort to consider whom we are supposed to pay reverance so—a commercial company?
The commercialization of Christmas has upset a great many genuinely religious people besides Mr. Kaufman. It’s ridiculous to call the remark—as so many of the letter writers did — anti-religious. “Silent Night” is dinned into our cars much too much on both radio and television. Out of deference to the Christmas carol it ought to be held down to some decent limits. In any case, Mr. Kaufman’s remark was a mild enough one and also one that I heard in several homes by people who were not at all anti-religious, who were merely sick and tired of “Silent Night.”
What’s the matter with people that they get so easily upset these days? Least upset of all is George Kaufman who calls the whole thing “a tempest in a teevee.”
“That’s the kind of business it is,” he remarked sourly. “It shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s a fear-ridden industry, and that’s the way it’s ruled. When they get some letters, they’re afraid not to fire somebody and then they’re afraid to hire him back. I have no complaint. After all, I didn’t have to get into television. It’s bad news for the dramatic critics, though. It means I have to go back to show business.”
Kaufman, one of the country’s most distinguished playwrights with two Pulitzer Prizes to his credit, had been on the panel of “Show Business” since it started Nov. 2, 1949. He confessed that he’d been wanting to quit for some time because “I had said nothing in as many ways as know how to say nothing.”
He had lacked the courage because the program was such an easy way to make a living. “This has given me strength,” he added.
“This Is Show Business” is going off the air in a couple of weeks anyhow and whether it ever gets back again is problematical. Without Kaufman, whose acid wit and basic common sense were the bulwarks of an essentially phony idea, it won’t be much of a show.
So the affair Kaufman be comes largely a matter of principle. How innocuous does television have to be? And who runs it—the letter writers or the broadcasters? If the audience is going to have the last say let’s poll a few more than four or five hundred of the millions who listened to “This Is Show Business.” “Silent Night” is a perfectly splendid title for this particular issue. We’re all perforce becoming silenter silenter about everything.

The Customer Isn’t Always Right
By JOHN CROSBY
NEW YORK, Jan. 9—Completely apart from the principle, the affair George Kaufman ought to act as some sort of useful guide to sponsors’ conduct in future occurrences of this sort which are bound to take place. It ought to but it probably won’t.
The principle involved the original ousting of Mr. Kaufman, who has sensibly been reinstated by the Columbia Broadcasting System, is a very simple one. But it is, I think, dangerously wrong not only on moral grounds but also on practical ones. It is that a sponsor is trying to sell his product to all the people and cannot afford to offend any of them. Therefore any program or personality which offends any minority must go. Now that, from a businessman’s point of view, is very sound doctrine—if it works.
But in radio or television broadcasting it very conspicuously hasn’t worked. There’s hardly a radio on television program that doesn’t offend SOMEBODY. But the reactions vary. Some people just turn the darn thing off. The more militant ones write or phone. This is usually a fairly small group of malcontents but a highly aggressive and sometimes highly organized group. While it is as entitled to protest as anyone, this group is hardly qualified to act as arbiter of taste for all of us. Their private discontents are not necessarily the discontents of those quieter members of the community who don’t rush to the telephone or to the writing desk the moment their sensibilities are ruffled.
However, purely as a practical matter, there is another graver objection to this way of doing business. Every time one of those cause celebres has arisen, whether it be Jean Muir or Philip Loeb or George Kaufman, there has been an uproar in the press. Two or three hundred people get upset about something—and let’s not, for the moment, worry about what upsets them—and so the sponsor either cancels a program or fires an entertainer.
Then the uproar begins. The original handful of protesters is now joined by hundreds of thousands of others, most of whom will take sides one way or another. I didn’t hear Mr. Kaufman make his now celebrated remark about “Silent Night.” I read about it. So did thousands of others who would never have heard about it if Kaufman hadn’t been fired. A very tiny tempest suddenly blew up into a great big one. If the idea is to keep out of trouble with the customers, this is one hell of a way to do it.
Messes of this sort spring up, it seems to me, because of that old precept that the customer is always right. This philosophy works very well in a department store where each man’s problems are dealt with separately. It doesn’t work at all on radio or television where millions of people, with conflicting opinions and tastes, are in the front row. You can’t just fire the saleslady this case. If you do, you mollify one customer and outrage a hundred others.
In other words, the idea yielding to every small bleat of anguish from the listeners is not only morally indefensible but practically unworkable. No one was appeased by the Kaufman ousting and his subsequent re-hiring. Far from solving the problem, the timidity simply created one. I bring it all up at this late date because this sort of thing has cropped up time after time and, sure as God made little apples, it’ll happen again.
The most hardheaded way to settle the next batch of letters that comes in is to throw them in the wastebasket and settle the issue on its merits. Sooner or later popular opinion will force the sponsor to do this, anyhow.

Hare Do Smears

There are three spots with smear animation in the Friz Freleng cartoon “Hare Do.” I’ll post two. Here’s the first, after Bugs lures Elmer over a cliff.



And now Elmer weaches for his wifle, uh, reaches for his rifle.



The animation crew of Gerry Chiniquy, Virgil Ross, Manny Perez and Ken Champin worked on this one, with Pete Burness getting credit with his name hidden in the background.

Squirrel Swirl

Tex Avery specialised in crazy takes, and you can find some in “Lonesome Lenny” (released in 1946). But there’s a neat little piece of animation where Screwy Squirrel jumps out of Lenny’s hands, swirls in the air, then lands on him. Here are 12 consecutive frames after some anticipatory drawings of Screwy.



Avery’s early team works on this one—Ray Abrams, Ed Love, Preston Blair and Walt Clinton. Mark Kausler, who knows these things, reports the scene is by Love. Backgrounds are by Johnny Johnsen.

Regurgitated Benny

There’s an irony in John Crosby’s syndicated newspaper column of October 12, 1952. It’s about how Jack Benny thrives using the same old routines. Crosby felt he couldn’t make his point using the same old writing. He came up with a new gimmick.

The 1952-53 season was Jack’s third. In a way. His first year on television, he appeared only four times, then six the following season. He expanded to eight in 1952-53. It’s a far cry from 39 weeks of radio every year. Once a month, he spelled off Clinton Fadiman’s panel This is Show Business and then Ann Sothern’s Private Secretary. Fadiman’s show suffered irreparable damage after panelist George S. Kaufman had the audacity on the December 21st broadcast to criticise the ubiquitousness of Christmas music.

The Benny broadcast discussed in the column aired October 5th.

Jack Benny, Second-Hand
By JOHN CROSBY
I’ve been a devotee of Jack Benny and a scholar of his methods for so many years that I don’t really have to see him on television. As a matter of fact, I didn’t see the first Benny show. I was wrestling with a writer at the time trying to find an adjective to fit another comedian, a man who strenuously resists description.
So I called Operative A I, explained that I was delayed at the office and couldn’t get to a set and asked her if she’d look in and report. She did. It is a mark of Benny’s genius that his first show was hilariously funny even second-hand.
Of course, I’m a pushover for Benny, anyhow. A I explained “It was the same old stuff, but it was awfully funny. He started out talking about his trip to England, and right away he got into that tight routine. They wouldn’t let him take the money out, he said, so he buried it in Westminster Abbey. He figured there’d always be an England.
“Then there was this sketch with Bob Crosby. Crosby wanted to be paid $500 a week and Benny wanted to get him for $50. So Benny and Rochester pulled an old trick on him which had succeeded in holding down the salaries of Phil Harris, Dennis Day and even Rochester. They put old ragged curtains on the windows, pulled the springs out of the sofa and made the place look wormeaten. The funniest sight gag of all was a portrait of Benny. One side of the portrait showed a prosperous looking Benny. They it over. On the back was another painting of Benny, his coat collar turned up, a harassed look in his face looking like a refugee from a Bowery park bench.
“Crosby was quite impressed by evidences of poverty. But he had his own. After negotiations had gone on for awhile, the door opened and in walked one of Crosby’s five children. He was in rags. ‘When do we eat, Daddy?’ he asked. Well, that pushed Crosby’s salary up another $50. Then two more Crosby boys came in. They were even more ragged than the first one. The salary jumped some more. When the last Crosby boy in tatters came in, Benny looked at him and said: ‘Where’s your other shoe?’
“‘I ate it,’ said the boy.
“So Crosby got his asking price. The sketch ended with Mrs. Crosby coming in to collect the kids. She was covered with mink and loaded down with diamonds.”
Well, it’s a switch on a gag that has been going on for 20 years or so on the Benny show. The triumphant thing about it is that after all these years it is still funny—even in a reprint, which is how I got it. I can just see Benny’s expression when the first boy came in. I can hear his voice when he asked the boy where his other shoe was.
Benny is like everyone’s Aunt Minnie. You just start to talk about Aunt Minnie’s eccentricities and the family shouts with laughter before you finish the sentence. That’s Benny. He’s everyone’s Aunt Minnie, his nephews and nieces stretching from coast to coast through thousands of hamlets and towns. He grasps a dollar with magnificent tenacity and (and somehow gets parted from it, anyhow).
He’s sort of prissy in his habits. At the start of the show, for instance, he came in and announced that television certainly took it out of him. He needed a drink. So he poured out a jigger of Coca Cola and dashed it down like a real he-man. Everyone bullies him. He tries to bully other people and—apart from Dennis Day—never succeeds.
His charm surpasseth understanding. One of the wonders of the world is his acceptance abroad. This summer, one reviewer in Manchester declared: “There’s no doubt that as a great clown, Mr. Benny, like Charles Chaplin. speaks volumes with the shrug of a shoulder, a whimsical bored smile or his petulant biting of the lips!”
Another one wrote: “The trouble, Mr Benny, is that you are too perfect a comedian. Your timing is worked out to the last decimal of a second. You remained inhumanly brilliant all through.” Said another breathless with admiration: “No audience the world over could miss a single laugh.”

An Inkwell Debuts and Other 1918 Cartoons

While Felix the Cat was, arguably, the most popular cartoon star of the silent film age (he’s certainly my favourite), the animation industry was bustling before the Felix “Master Tom” prototype appeared on screens in 1919. Take, for example, May 1918. Paramount was releasing the Bray-Pictographs, Fox had Mutt and Jeff half-reelers, a company called Sterling was releasing 500-foot animated comedies, Universal had an animated weekly with cartoons by Hy Mayer and Educational was distributing the Katzenjammer Kids, made by Hearst’s International Film Service and drawn by Greg LaCava, and Happy Hooligan. In addition of these regularly scheduled releases, Winsor McCay’s “The Sinking of the Luisitania” was being shown in theatres.

Bray-Pictograph No. 123 featured a pen drawing called “Out of the Inkwell” by one Max Fleischer. It was previewed in New York City on the week of June 2nd and given a full release on June 10th. The Pictographs had animation done on a rotational basis—Earl Hurd made a cartoon one week, Wallace Carlson the next, then the Bray Studio the next (E. Dean Parmalee also made animated technical cartoons for the Pictograph).

The Moving Picture World, a weekly trade paper out of New York City, brought readers the developments in the short subject world (shorts vastly outnumbered features) and even summaries of some of these early cartoons. So let’s delve through issues of May and June 1918. Unfortunately, there are no drawings accompanying these stories. Again, this will likely make dry reading to people who haven’t seen the cartoons, but it gives you an idea of what was being produced. I’ve omitted some articles about release rights and schedules. The summaries are all rah-rah pieces, so don’t expect biting commentary.

The Katzenjammer series is somewhat baffling. Donald Crafton’s book Before Mickey states that International Film Service’s first Katzenjammer cartoon was released in January 1917, but the World talks about a “first” release in May 1918. Perhaps the distributor changed.

Sterling’s titles listed in the period included “Slick and Tricky,” “Doctor Bunny’s Zoo,” “The Old Forty-Niner,” “Mr. Coon,” “Mose Is Cured,” “Zippy’s Insurance,” “Zippy’s Pets” and “The Unknown.” None are reviewed.

May 4, 1918
Katzenjammers in Camouflage Comedy.
The first of the International Film Service "Katzenjammer Kids" cartoons, released this week through the Educational Films Corporation of America, is said to be an unqualified success as a laugh provoker.
The title is "Vanity and Vengeance" and the action deals with a dog in a fox's skin, a cat in a muff, and the Katzenjammer family in church.
Unfortunately the fox's skin, which the Kids annexed to camouflage their dog, happened to be Mamma Katzenjammer's neckpiece, and the muff in which they hid the cat was Mamma's muff, and Mamma, being late for church and not as discerning as usual, placed the neckpiece and the muff in their customary positions without noticing the presence of the household pets. Apparently this particular dog and cat were not in the habit of attending church and a discordant note was in the atmosphere. The dog had been eyeing the cat with a not too friendly gaze, and when she lifted her voice in song it was too much to expect any self-respecting dog to stand, and a fight ensued. The congregation looked upon the dog as a wild animal and stampeded for the doors, windows and other means of egress, climbing over benches, on the roof, and even to the steeple's top, in their fright. The climax shows the Kids hiding under a seat, the organist playing a hymn and the Captain exercising his authority in time with the music.

Bairnsfather's Cartoons Make a Hit.
The most lucrative one-reel subjects ever put on the British market have been Captain Bruce Bairnsfather's film cartoons.
With an eye for the humorous amid the bloody strife on the Western front the artist created a couple of delightful characters—Ole Bill and Alf. These two have created more genuine amusement than any other characters evolved from the titanic struggle. As drawings the artist's work first appeared in The Bystander, and created a record for popularity.
The appearance of the film cartoons was the signal for an unprecedented rush of business. One London contract alone was for $16,000, and the provincial bookings were proportionately good. Where Great Britain did so well there is abundant opportunity in the United States to do better. The Cartoon Film Company, Ltd., 76 and 78 Wardour street, London, England, are prepared to sell the exclusive United States rights.

Raemaeker's Cartoons Offered to Americans
IT may not be amiss to say that Louis Raemaeker's cartoons first opened the eyes of the British public to the full reality and horror of the war. Before the war he was a landscape painter and an illustrator of books, but henceforth he will be known only for his cartoons.
The work of this distinguished Dutch cartoonist received a tremendous impetus when filmed, and the exhibition of the cartoons throughout Great Britain has been extraordinarily successful. The exclusive rights for the film cartoons throughout the United States and Canada are now offered by the Cartoon Film Company, Ltd., 76 and 78 Wardour street, London. England. These wonderful cartoons prove that there are few if any living artists with Raemaeker's power of depicting the very soul of an episode, and be combines with this a keen wit, so that the cartoons are often the most biting satire imaginable. It is a significant fact that the great cartoonist of the war is a neutral, and the American and Canadian public will see that these cartoons form a historical document, the value of which can hardly be over-estimated. British exhibitors did exceedingly good business with the films, and on this side there is opportunity for even larger business. Film presentation of Raemaeker's cartoons will be of immense assistance in fortifying public opinion in a vigorous prosecution of the war.

Fox Film Corporation.
THE FREIGHT INVESTIGATION (Mutt and Jeff Comedies, Fox Company), April 7.—There is no audience outside of a melancholia ward that will not peal with laughter at this cartoon of Mutt and Jeff trying to score with the Government by investigating the congestion on the docks.

May 11, 1918
Educational Films Corporation.
THE TWINS (Educational).—One of the "Original Katzenjammer Kids" cartoons in which these mischievous youngsters make a gorilla drunk and dress him to impersonate a female cousin who is coming to visit. Old man Katzenjammer, in full dress for the occasion, makes love to the creature, which fails to remove its head gear, and is only made wise to the trick when the animal strikes him a blow over the head. Quite amusing.
DOING HIS BIT (Educational).—One of the "Happy Hooligan" cartoons, which is exceptionally funny. Hooligan, after a series of uncomfortable happenings, finally is placed on guard at a German post. He makes his escape by painting his Shadow in black on the wall, so that the officer in command, and who is flirting with a German girl, is satisfied at a glance that Hooligan is still there. Finally he succeeds in dropping a bomb on the Kaiser.

May 18, 1918
"Mutt and Jeff" at the Front
Capt. Bruce Bairnsfather is to have something: of a rival on the western front, says the London Kinematograph. Bud Fisher, the famous cartoonist, who invented our amusing friends of the film — Mutt and Jeff—has enlisted in the United States army and will be stationed "somewhere in France." Mr. Fisher is reported to have reached an understanding with army superiors, whereby he will be permitted to send his cartoons regularly from the front, and we may look forward with confidence to seeing on the screen comedies with such amusing possibilities as “How Mutt and Jeff Beat the Kaiser." Mr. Fisher has completed arrangements with William Fox whereby the Fox Film Corporation will take over the distribution of these animated cartoons, but the production will be under the same direction as it has been for the past two years. I can imagine Mutt and Jeff getting fun even out of the big offensive.

"SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA."
McCay's Vivid Illustration of German Atrocity Presents Cartoon Tragedy of Uncommon Merits.
Reviewed by Margaret I. MacDonald.
IN this latest animated cartoon which was exhibited at the Strand theater, New York City, during the week of April 25, Windsor McCay [sic] has surpassed in tragic realism anything of the kind that has vet been attempted. In fact we believe that "The Sinking of the Lusitania" is the first tragic subject that has been presented by means of animated "drawing. Its sole purpose, apart from artistic effort, is evidently to instill patriotism in the hearts of spectators and further hatred, if possible, for the German perpetrators of frightfulness. It is tremendously realistic, even the fantastic coils of smoke writhing about the doomed vessel reflecting the terror and agitation of the moment. It tells its story clearly, recalling effectively those first bitter moments of America's sorrow and resentment toward the common enemy.
The cartoon represents 25,000 drawings on separate sheets of celluloid, which it is said to have taken McCay two years to complete. It took eight days to photograph the drawings one at a time. Each detail from the sighting of the Lusitania by the German submarine to the actual sinking of the ship is shown. The lowering of the life boats, the tilting of the vessel bow first, the leaping into the sea of the terrified victims, and all the other pitiable sights that the situation presented are vividly shown in the picture.

May 25, 1918
A Hit in the Cartoon World
Paramount-Bray's 119th Release of Pictograph Has Unusually Amusing Animated Drawing.
MOST of our readers know something about the Bobby Bumps animated cartoons, which appear from time to time on the end of the Paramount-Bray Pictograph. These funny little comedies, in which Bobby and his dog Fido are the central figures, are made by Earl Hurd, and are among the cleanest and most pleasing cartoons for children's programs, as well as being delightful to the adult audience. The particular number to which we refer at this writing appears in the 119th issue of the Pictograph, and is entitled "Bobby Bumps Caught in the Jam."
The trouble starts when Fido tries to catch the cat off her guard so that he can steal her saucer of milk at dinner time, and with the aid of a tiny mouse accomplishes his object. The plan, which the mouse and Fido work out between them, involves the luring of the cat from the saucer by the mouse while Fido takes a few laps and the duplicating of Fido for the mouse while the latter satisfies her thirst. This plan repeated in connection with a jar of jam at a later date fails to arrive at a successful culmination, for while the cook is on the trail of Bobby Fido gets his head caught in the jar, a fact that ends disastrously for all concerned. This is one of the funniest yet.

Fox Names Two Final May Fisher Cartoons
THE next two Bud Fisher animated cartoons that William Fox will release will be "Superintendents" and "Tonsorial Artists," in both of which Mutt and Jeff pen-and-ink their way to triumph as janitors and then as barbers.
"Superintendents," released May 19, shows the trials of Mutt and Jeff in trying to quiet a noisy pianola pumped incessantly by a woman of generous proportions, but with a small ear for music. She has one roll that she plays half the day to the annoyance of all the other tenants, Mutt and Jeff, in their capacity as joint-janitors, go upstairs to stop this. Mutt comes down quickly via the dumbwaiter shaft. Jeff proves more diplomatic, and the means he uses to win victory are said to provoke many laughs.
"Tonsorial Artists" will be the last Mutt and Jeff issue in May, and treats of the tribulations that the partners have when they buy a barber shop in a district "where the only residents are inmates of the old sailors' home. There whiskers are an institution in themselves. The men have no use for barbers, and Mutt and Jeff decoy them to the shop by installing a blonde manicurist. While the latter does a rushing business the barber chair sill remains empty, but a great idea results in its being filled.

June 1, 1918
Three "Mutt and Jeffs" Released During June
ANNOUNCEMENT from the Fox Film Corporation offices is that three Mutt and Jeff animated cartoons will be released during June. The releases are "The Tale of a Pig," "Hospital Orderlies" and "Life Savers."
In "The Tale of a Pig" Mutt and Jeff, moved by the spirit of patriotism, start a pig farm. Mutt sends Jeff for a flock of pigs, and he starts back with one big hog with a curly tail. He meets with several accidents and is finally brought home by a man in a flivver. When he opens the door of the machine, out comes a group of little pigs, all with curly tails. A farmer, in a joshing- spirit, tells Mutt and Jeff that curly tailed pigs are not good, so Jeff gets a box of starch and a flatiron and irons out the tail of each pig. Then he hangs all the pigs on a clothesline. What these little pigs do after their tails are starched out forms a climax which is described as being a riot.
Mutt and Jeff as hospital orderlies are intrusted with the care of a crazy patient. The physician, when leaving the hospital, instructs them to give the patient a soothing hypodermic injection. Instead they load him up with pep, with the result that some wild times follow. The patient mistakes everything for a pill, and promptly swallows it. This mistake, however, comes in handy and through a novel way relieves Jeff of his embarrassment in trying to quiet a bunch of squalling infants in the baby ward.
Mutt and Jeff in "Life Savers" tell a story of sad sea waves.

"The Black Mit" a Katzenjammer Comedy.
"Wrestling" with the intricacies of an income tax report is not ordinarily the occasion for much mirth, but in a current release of the Educational Films Corporation of America of an International Film Service black and white cartoon comedy, featuring the Katzenjammer Kids laughter from audiences is greeting Captain Katzenjammer's efforts to figure how much he owes Uncle Sam and the manner in which the Kids "help" him.
“The Black Mit” is the name of the comedy and in it these famous little comedians, through the aid of divers animals, black hands and bombs, succeed in putting the captain through some very lively paces and end, as usual, by securing their just reward.

TWO FOX COMIC OFFERINGS
"Fisherless Cartoon" Will Compel Laughter and "A Neighbor's Keyhole" Is Funny. Reviewed by Hanford C. Judson.
THE now Fisherless cartoon, released by the Fox Film Corporation, is one of the best Mutt and Jeff comics in some time. We see Lieutenant Fisher at work on a picture with Jeff still unfinished. The telephone rings and the soldier is called to arms, leaving poor Jeff with only a leg to stand on. Mutt rises to the occasion and supplies the missing member and then orders poor Jeff to draw the thousands of pictures needed to complete the story which Mutt has written. The "grinds" on the motion picture business are fresh and good. They are such as will be readily understood by everybody, and the picture, written by Mutt and finished, even to the photography by Jeff, is a sure winner.

A FISHERLESS CARTOON (Fox), May 5.—One of the best Mutt and Jeff comedies in some time, Lieut. Fisher being called in arms has to leave Jeff with only one leg, so Mutt not only supplies him with the missing member, but writes a scenario and has Jeff working till it is on the screen, They finally try to sell it to the Rialto, and, discouraged with its reception, send a S O S to Fisher for help.

June 8, 1918
Bud Fisher Puts Over Novelty in a Cartoon
The greatest success that has attended the release of any of Bud Fisher's animated Mutt and Jeff cartoons thus far, according to a statement by an official of the Fox Film Corporation, through whose changes they are now being distributed, it that scored by "A Fisherless Cartoon," issued a fortnight ago. The picture is "a cartoon within a cartoon" and recites in clever pen-and-ink drawings the efforts of the genial Mutt and Jeff to make a cartoon without the aid of their creator, Bud Fisher.
The statement says that the contract department at the Fox headquarters has received many letters and telegrams from exhibitors complimenting the Fox offices on the novelty and the originality of the subject and appreciating the extra footage that the film carries.
The picture, it is explained, runs about 650 feet — 150 feet longer than the usual Mutt and Jeff. It had drawn extraordinary attention from the public and the exhibitor because it is believed to be the first that has shown the difficulties with which an artist making animated cartoons has to contend.
The artist's troubles are dealt with in humorous vein, of course, but the seriousness of the problem is there, nevertheless. Few persons realize that it requires thousands of individual sketches for the material from which an animated cartoon is derived.
“Not the least of the several good twists in ‘A Fisherless Cartoon,’” the statement continues, “is the effect that is obtained when the cartoon that Mutt and Jeff have drawn is shown on the screen—all within the cartoon.
“When Mr. Fox took over the releasing of the Bud Fisher's work, he promised that the pictures would be funnier than ever. That is a promise that has been kept faithfully—and the cartoons for June are the most enjoyable group we have had for any month. We are particularly gratified to find, upon examination of our contracts, that the cartoons are being booked equally by the large downtown theater and the small neighborhood house.”

Cartoons and Ditmars Subject on Same Reel
THE title of the latest Katzenjammer Kid animated cartoon offering of the International Film Service, released by Educational Films Corporation is "Fishermen's Luck," and, as the name implies, the theme is "fish."
The Captain and the Professor are supposed to do the fishing and while the Professor makes a very successful "catch," the Captain, thanks to the Kids, only catches a cold. With the aid of a trained Suck to steal his bait, a dead whale with a live cat and a bulldog inserted as its respiratory organs, and a stovepipe camouflage as a periscope, the rejuvenated sea monster makes the captain's life a miserable one. But he who laughs last has the of the argument, and the Captain's tormentors are far from the laughing when the Captain invokes the aid of an octopus to administer punishment to Kids.

Educational Films Corporation.
FISHERMAN'S LUCK (Educational).—.Katzenjammer number in which the elder Katzenjammer goes fishing. He watches his neighbor having the most wonderful luck while he not only catches nothing but loses his bait. Needless to say the youngsters are on the job, using a duck to steal the bait. An imitation fish containing the Katzenjammer cat and dog which Pa finally succeeds in landing with difficulty proves to be the last straw and earn the youngsters the usual spanking.
UP IN THE AIR (Educational).—One of the Katzenjammer comic cartoons in which the youngsters take advantage of Pa Katzenjammer having the toothache to play a practical joke. They together impersonate the dentist camouflaged by a linen duster, and give him gas which inflates him to such an extent that he serve the youngsters as a balloon to which they attach themselves for a ride through the air. Taken for a hostile aeroplane the outfit is bombarded and finally landed. Very funny.

Fox Film Corporation.
OCCULTISM (Mutt and Jeff Cartoon), May 12.—Jeff learns how to send his astral body out. Mutt finds the body and has the undertakers come. Jeff's astral body floats around the weeping Mutt and has fun with him, then scares him to death by coming to. It's a good picture.
SUPERINTENDENTS (Mutt and Jeff Cartoon), May 19.—Mutt is in charge of an apartment house and goes upstairs to talk with the woman who will play music and wants the other tenants to chase themselves. He has an awful time and comes down all battered. Jeff goes up and comes down outside to the sidewalk. To be kicked out peeves him and he takes off his coat. When he comes down this time it is by the stairs, and he carries the piano with the woman tied to it. Plenty of action; good stuff.

June 22, 1918
Progress in Animated Drawing
Max Fleischer of Bray Studios Gives Startling Demonstration of Pen Plus Screen.
ONE of the most remarkable evidences of what the animated drawing has to offer in the way of realism is demonstrated in a simple bit of pen work by Max Fleischer in the Paramount-Bray Pictograph No. 123 [released June 10, 1918]. This work is entitled, "Out of the Inkwell," and is nothing more than a pen drawing of a clown performing some funny stunts; but the animation of said drawing is so remarkable that the movements of the figure are as smooth and easy as those of the human body. In a fade-out which finishes the cartoon the clown continues to wave his farewell until only the tips of his fingers are visible.
We would judge that one of the secrets of the realism of this work is a matter of a greater number of drawings to the foot of film than usual. After witnessing such an exhibition of artistic ingenuity it is hard to predict just what splendid future is in store for the animated drawing. Considerable has been accomplished already in an educational way with the animated drawing, and who knows to what instructional uses it may yet be put.

"Swat the Fly" Uninterrupted Scream.
In the current Katzenjammer Kids cartoon comedy, "Swat the Fly," a fly annoys the Captain's wife, and a colony of bees attack the Captain. The subtitle of "Swat the Fly" is "The Birth of a Nuisance." Yes, Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" is kidded just a little bit. The novelty of the bee attack is in the fact that the Kids collect millions of them by means of a vacuum cleaner and discharge them in "gas attacks" on the unhappy parents. In the pre-release at the New York Rivoli, "Swat the Fly" was one uninterrupted scream. It has been one of the funniest cartoon comedies released.

June 29, 1918
"Throwing The Bull" and "Wild Babies" Share Reel
A COMBINATION of amusing zoological fact and cartoon comedy is effected in the latest fifteen-minute picture issued by the Educational Films Corporation of America. This reel comprises an International black and white comedy entitled "Throwing the Bull" and a Ditmar's "Living Book of Nature" offering entitled "Wild Babies."
In the cartoon comedy, Happy Hooligan is the principal comedian, and the story centers around a cow yielding condensed milk. Happy as the custodian is inveigled from his job by the wiles of a Spanish girl, and the cow is stolen for the purpose of fortifying the depleted ranks of a number of fighting bulls against which a company of matadors is to battle. Many things happen to the cow and to Happy in his endeavors to effect its return to the more peaceful pursuit.

Fox Film Corporation.
THE TONSORIAL ARTISTS (Mutt and Jeff Cartoon), May 26.—The adventures of the two pen made picture comedians in making a barbershop near nothing but an old sailors' home have some very laughable situations. It is noticed more at length on another page of this issue.
HOSPITAL, ORDERLIES (Mutt and Jeff Cartoon), June 9.—Mutt and Jeff are left in charge of a ward by the doctor, and their troubles begin. It has much good comic matter, and will make laughter. For longer notice see another page of this issue.

I like the way how the article implies that Bud Fisher is somewhere on the front line in France with his light board and drawing animated cartoons.

If any of the cartoons mentioned here are hiding around on-line, I can't find them. So here's a different Mutt and Jeff from the 1920s.