Give Him Some Tongue

What Makes Cartoons Great No. 276: tongue sandwiches with real tongues singing “I’m Just Wild About Harry.” Like in Bob Clampett’s “Goofy Groceries.”



OK, the gag was first used in that disjointed mess known as “Buddy’s Beer Garden” over seven years earlier. It’s not as good, but you can’t hate tongues that sing “La-la-la!”



It’s quite possible Clampett could be responsible for the gag in the earlier cartoon. He said how he’d offer gag ideas to the directors at Schlesinger before he became a director himself.

40 Isn't Funny

The character traits Jack Benny invented for himself became so well-known, many people feel he had them forever. But there was a time on the radio that Benny didn’t have a butler named Rochester, didn’t drive a Maxwell and wasn’t 39. In fact, Jack’s coming-of-age-39 was a comparatively late development on the show; he hung on to a few younger ages until the late ‘40s. But, as Jack put it, 39 is a funny number, and that’s the one people remember today. Few remember than Jack actually turned 40 on the air.

It’s likely the idea came from Benny’s writers, as news stories can be found during the 1950s where Jack himself resisted the idea of adding another year to his age. But they gave it a try on television in 1958. The fact that people still think of Benny as a perennial 39 shows how successful it was.

Benny’s writers probably could have built a whole show around the age change alone, but they decided to go for another gimmick instead. They brought back a bunch of people who had been associated with Jack over the years on radio. It would have been pure nostalgia in some cases; obscure nostalgia in a few. Likely none of his audience would get the connection between Benny and bandleaders George Olson or Ted Weems. The fact that one news stories had to explain the connection of George Hicks shows how little-known it was.

Let’s go back to February 13, 1958 and the United Press.

Jack Benny To Note “40th” Birthday
By VERNON SCOTT
UP Hollywood Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD (UP)—Jack Benny celebrates his 40th birthday on a TV spectacular tonight—24 years after the fact.
After eight years of being 39, Jack thought there might be a few yaks in his finally reaching 40, an age he doesn’t consider, as funny as 39.
“My real birthday is tomorrow, Valentine’s Day,” Jack said. “And because this show falls so close, I decided to celebrate on the air. Actually, I’ll be 64.”
Benny is as funny as a Kremlin purge offscreen. He seldom cracks a smile, refuses to tell jokes. He has an indifferent attitude that borders on boredom. “I’m only funny when I get paid,” he said.
Lunching in the dining room of the Hillcrest Country Club the comedian blinked his baby-blue eyes at leaden skies and debated as to whether he should play golf or return to his office He mumbled about it half a dozen times during an hour interview.
"This gag about .my age began back in 1944 on a radio show. The script called for Mary (Livingstone) to ask my age. When I said, ‘36,’ it got a big laugh. After that it took me six years to progress to 39. You might say aged gradually.”
In person Benny looks about 50.
As a birthday present to himself the comedian is holding a reunion party with many of the character actors and singers who helped build his show during the last 27 years.
Scheduled to be on hand for the CBS-TV “Shower of Stars” are announcers Paul Douglas and George Hicks, who preceded Don Wilson, Singers Frank Parker, Dennis Day, Larry Stevens and Jo Stafford will be there along with orchestra leaders Bob Crosby, Abe Lyman, Phil Harris, Ted Weems, Don Bestor, Johnny Green and George Olson, Mel Blanc, Andy Devine, the Sportsman Quartette and a score of other Benny regulars, past and present, will help cut the birthday cake.
How long will Jack remain 40?
“I’m not sure,” he said. "It depends on audience reaction. If it’s not funny I may become 41 next year.”
Benny generously credits his treatment of supporting players for much of his success. Through the years his show has been Valhalla to the “Little People” who earn their cakes and ale playing bit parts.
“I’ve always been careful how I handle guest stars and bit players,” Jack said thoughtfully.
“They usually bounce the funny lines off me while I play straight-man.”

But there was a bad omen reported that very same day. What may be remarkable to viewers in reading this today is that Jack’s show was to be done live. Of course, this wasn’t far removed from the network radio days where broadcasts were live for many years.

Rochester Fine After Collapse
HOLLYWOOD, Feb. 13 (AP) — Eddie Anderson, better known to Jack Benny fans as Rochester, collapsed during a television rehearsal Wednesday night.
A doctor said Anderson had suffered a stomach upset.
“He’s talking and he says he’s feeling fine,” the doctor reported after examining the 52-year-old actor.
Anderson fainted while rehearsing for a show he and Benny are scheduled to appear on tonight.

So, the 40th birthday party went on without Rochester. The New York Times wasn’t impressed with the whole proceedings. Here’s a review published the following day.

TV: Unhappy Birthday; Jack Benny, Finally at '40,' Worthy of More Fitting Party Than He Received
By JACK GOULD
JACK BENNY, who is 64 years old today, observed his “fortieth birthday” last night on the "Shower of Stars" program over Channel 2. The man who made a career of always being 39 on radio and television deserved a much more fitting party than he received.
Apart from the idea of having Mr. Benny age a year, the producers of the program were at a loss for anything to do. There were some nostalgic moments as colleagues of the comedian appeared briefly before the cameras, but there was no serious effort to organize any entertainment. The quips were labored, and on the home screen the element of sincerity seemed contrived and rehearsed.
At the instant when Mr. Benny started to respond to a mass singing of “Happy Birthday” he was cut off for a commercial. Rochester, Jack’s aide, was sick and unable to appear. Andy Devine did his best as a replacement. What so easily could have been a first-rate show was just uninspired television.

Whether Jack continued to try to pass himself off as 40 after this, or pretended that it never happened and went back to 39, I don’t know. I’m not familiar with the intricacies of his TV work. But, suffice it to say, the memory of it never stuck. Everyone thinks of Jack Benny as 39; his obituaries in 1974 all mentioned it and UPI’s wire story even deadpan-joked about it. Jack was right. The idea of a vain, aging man sticking to an age that he’s obviously passed long ago is good comedy. 39 is funny.

Disney Hates TV

One generation grew up with “The Mickey Mouse Club” and the “Wonderful World of Color.” Another did the same with “The Disney Afternoon.” And, of course, today we have The Disney Channel, Disney Junior and Disney XD (né Toon Disney). So it’s odd that Uncle Walt himself thought the idea of getting into television would be a terrible and costly one.

Of course, some context helps to explain Disney’s feelings. He expressed them in 1952, a time when panicky movie studios were selling off their back catalogues of films to the highest bidder, who’d shop them around to television; after all, studios made movies, they weren’t in the TV syndication business. That’s what Disney had in mind when he made his comments about TV to the United Press’ Hollywood correspondent. When Disney went into television, he did it differently, keeping his old films and reworking them into something completely different. Eventually, Walt would eventually become a recognisable TV star in his own right, introducing snippets of this and that, or introducing Ludwig Von Drake introducing snippets of this and that, cobbled together in an almost-seamless hour-long show.

But let’s go back 60 years to see what Disney had to say about the Box That Berle Came In.

Walt Disney Spurning $8 Million in TV Offers
By VIRGINIA MacPHERSON
HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 18 (U.P.) — Walt Disney, who’s turned down a reported $8 million in TV often, said today he did it because he doesn’t want to go into competition with himself.
“I still have confidence in the movie business,” the cartoon genius explained quietly. “I happen to think it’ll still be around for a few more years.”
And as long as it is, Disney’s a cinch to keep raking in the dough. Any time he feels he could use another old million or two, he just re-releases one of his full-length cartoons.
“The television people want to buy my films,” he shrugged. “But I’m not selling. Why should I? They’re still good for movie theaters. And, because they’re timeless, they always will be.”
Which is why he can’t see any sense in selling “Alice in Wonderland” or “Cinderella” or “Bambi” to the co-axial cable gents. He can make more dough putting ‘em in the vault for a year or two and then slamming ‘em out again.
But Disney makes one concession every Christmas. He puts on an hour-long TV show for the kids. This year his fantasy on CBS-TV will give ‘em a peek into “Peter Pan” and “Snow White,” which’ll be making the rounds again by Easter.
“But I insisted on one thing,” he added. “And the sponsors agreed with me. No commercials. All we do is tell you the name of the sponsor . . . and that’s that.
“My big beef with television is the stupid commercials. They’re in bad taste. And there are too many of ‘em. Why, I’ve watched shows that have been interrupted six times in 30 minutes to plug a product.
“This is bad showmanship. It’s hurting television.”
It could even be another reason why he turned down that $8 million. Disney makes cartoons because he loves ‘em. So do the 600 people who work for him.
Disney makes sure of this with a concentrated “love-thy-job” campaign. The commissary serves rare roast beef at half what it costs him. There’s even beer on ice. . . . The only studio in town that lets the bars down this far.
“Why not?” the boss shrugs. “This way they’re a lot more apt to have one beer and get back to work on time. If I didn’t sell it here they could go off the lot and maybe have a coupla martinis and never get back.”
He has a good way of keeping ‘em on their toes on the job, too. He shows ‘em what the competition’s turning out.
“Only the best ones,” he added. “I never show a bad cartoon from another studio. That tends to make everybody here get fat and lazy and smug.
“But when they see a good one somebody else has made they charge out and work twice as hard.”

Walt is still passing himself off at the benevolent employer, kindly supplying food and drink to his hard-working (and anonymous) crew. Reporter MacPherson apparently didn’t contact Art Babbitt for reaction.

Disney also apparently didn’t really mind commercials too much—so long as they were made by his studio for a profit or, better still, were infomercials plugging his latest ventures.

Fortunately, Disney had the foresight to find a way to put his old material on television in a way that he wasn’t re-releasing it to theatres. He not only provided memories for today’s geezers—even I tuned in occasionally on afternoons to watch some great opening animation ending with Donald Duck banging a gong—he introduced people on Sunday evening to some of the fun sound shorts of the late ‘20s and early ‘30s. And unlike Warner Bros., whose cartoons were making money for AAP and Sunset and everyone but Warner Bros., Disney kept reaping the financial benefits that allowed him to move into the future. It all happened because Walt Disney finally gave television a try.

(Above right: Big Bad Wolf, voiced by Billy Bletcher, getting pounded in “The Three Little Wolves”).

If You're Ever Down in Texas

One of my favourite pieces of animation in a Tom and Jerry cartoon is in “Texas Tom” (1950) when the cat goes all western and serenades a girl kitty.

Tom strolls out, jingle-jangle-jingling in his cowboy garb. He ever-so-casually flicks up his hat to the lady (where did he suddenly develop such skill?)



Then he rolls his own cigarette and blows smoke into the air. The smoke forms an introduction.



Next, he pulls a guitar out of nowhere and inherits Ken Darby’s voice as he sings “If You’re Ever Down in Texas (Look Me Up).” He even steals a stretchy kiss.



And, as a silly bonus, Joe Barbera’s story unexpectedly tosses in a chorus of cows for a couple of bars. First, the moms, then a pan over to the calves.



Jerry, of course, moves in to gum up things.

The usual MGM Hanna-Barbera crew worked on this one—Ken Muse, Ray Patterson, Ed Barge and Irv Spence.

Outlining Woody

“The Screwdriver” is as about appropriate as you can get for the title of a cartoon about the early version of Woody Woodpecker being a menace on the road. This is the wonderful wide-legged, Mel Blanc-voiced version of Woody who drove someone insane at the end of a cartoon (writer Bugs Hardaway brought the plot device over with him from Warner Bros.).

Woody occasionally popped from pose to pose in 1941, but his body parts were never stretched in between poses. Instead, the animators (or their assistants) used lines or outlines to show Woody’s movement. Here are a few examples at the outset of “The Screwdriver.”



Alex Lovy and Ralph Somerville are the credited animators. Ralph Jay Somerville was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa on December 6, 1905 (at ten pounds) to Rev. Jay Wilbur and Jessie Meredith (Burdick) Somerville. His father and maternal grandfather were both ministers in the Methodist Episcopal Church, his mother died about two months shy of her 101st birthday. The family moved to Bloomington, Ill. in 1907; Wichita, Kansas in 1910 and were in Fulton, New York by 1920. Somerville graduated from high school in Warrensburg, N.Y. in 1923, went to work at the Fleischer Studio in New York City by 1930 and was in Los Angeles by 1935. Around the time this cartoon was made, he was pulling down $3120 a year at Lantz. Somerville was also married to the former Xenia Beckwith as of May 27, 1938. The two divorced on June 7, 1943 (Somerville was a sergeant with the U.S. Army Air Forces in the China-Burma-India theatre) during the war) and Xenia went on to marry Lantz animator Ed de Mattia (who also saw military service) on April 5, 1945. That marriage ended in divorce. All three worked at the Hanna-Barbera studio in the early ‘60s. Somerville later spent time at Filmation and was one of many old-timers who animated the stiff Spider-Man series for Grantray-Lawrence. He retired to Weed, California in 1974 and died on February 13, 2000.

The Quintessence of Nothing

Was there a radio star more quoted than Fred Allen?

It’s hard to pin down Allen as a cynic, pessimist or a realist. Perhaps he was a bit of all three, judging by what he had to say about the entertainment industry of his day and California, a particular topic of dislike. Many of his observations have been preserved and requoted, but some are buried in old newspaper columns that we have endeavoured to pull from dusty archives and bring to you.

Buried amongst Fred’s disappointments and annoyances are some cute one-liners that he would have used on his radio show—if he had a radio show. At the time of this column, December 19, 1951, he barely had a TV show. He, Jerry Lester and Bob Hope were appearing on a rotational basis as the hosts of “Sound Off Time,” a live Sunday night variety show that petered out in early 1952. At least one TV failure awaited him before he found a modest level of comfort (and he decidely looks uncomfortable on certain broadcasts) as a panelist on “What’s My Line.”

Fred Allen Raps Favorite Targets
BY BOB THOMAS 
HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 19.— (AP)—Sour-faced comedian Fred Allen, here for a movie stint, paused long enough to level a blast at his favorite target—vice presidents. Allen has long been a critic of the executive mind, particularly in the air networks and advertising agencies. He blames such bigwigs for television’s failings, including his own.
“My shows have been pretty bad,” he admitted openly, “except the last one. The reason is that until now I had been doing what everybody else said I was supposed to do. But on the last one, I disregarded their advice and did the kind of show I wanted. The sponsor was dropping the series anyway, so what, did I have to lose?
Many Screwy Notions.
“These executives have a lot of screwy, notions about TV. They say everything has to have movement. Even if you’re standing still and doing a monologue, there has to be two guys running around behind you.
“After all, entertainment is entertainment, whether you’re running a race or standing still. But you can't convince executives of that. I’ve always thought that the meeting of executive minds produced the quintessence of nothing.”
The Boston comic has had many a run-in with executives. It started back with his first air show. The wife of one of the sponsors liked organ music.
“We were trying to put on a snappy show,” recalled Allen, “but we had to stop in the middle of it to switch to the New York Paramount for two minutes of organ music.”
Influence Rapped.
He believes that the advertiser’s influence in TV produced a bad effect, “just as it did in radio.”
“The TV performer has the same importance as the label on a can,” he argued. “The show itself is not important; it’s whether the show can sell the product. “I think it’s bad in any medium when the entertainment quality is not the important thing. A discriminating audience has certainly helped the movie business. Pictures had to get better, because people found out they could eat popcorn right out in the open; they didn’t have to go in darkened theaters to do it.”
Allen is here to play a TV performer in a sequence of “We’re Not Married.” I asked him if he planned any more pictures.
“No,” he replied. “I was never any good in pictures, and I never really had pictures written for me. I did my first one because they couldn’t get Ned Sparks. I did another because they liked the first one. Then, I did one with Jack Benny because we were supposed to be fighting on the radio.
“Besides, I’m tied down to an exclusive deal with NBC. They won’t let me work for any other network. Even when I’m not working, I’m not working for NBC.”
I remarked that he was looking amazingly well for Allen. Even the bags under his eyes were small valises.
“I’ve been on a diet for two years because of my high blood pressure,” he explained. “I can’t eat anything with salt. In fact, I can’t even return to New York by way of Salt Lake City when I go back; that's how strict it is.
“I had to give up drinking and smoking, too. At my age (57), I’m not allowed any pleasures. Why do I work? Just for the convenience of the treasury department.”

Happy Nude Year from Elmer Fudd

Bugs Bunny pulls the phoney New Year’s bit on Elmer Fudd in “The Wabbit Who Came to Supper” (1942) in a funny scene animated by Dick Bickenbach. Here he is about to get away when Elmer realises he’s been had.



The oddest thing in the cartoon isn’t the gag. It’s Elmer’s house. He has a women’s powder room, a pink bottle of “Sissy Stuff Petunia” in the bathroom and female nude portraits on the wall. Here are a couple.





And, for some reason, he has kind of a topographical map on another wall.



The cartoon was directed by Friz Freleng and anyone familiar with his unit knows that Paul Julian spent a number of years as his background painter. But Graham Webb’s Animated Film Encyclopedia says the backgrounds were done by Lenard Kester from layouts by Owen Fitzgerald. Julian left Jones’ unit in February 1941 but apparently didn’t join the Freleng unit right away. In 1942, he was creating murals for public buildings under a WPA programme.

Kester was born in New York City on May 10, 1917, grew up near the East River, studied at Cooper Union, then got a job at the Fleischer Studio in New York and went with it to Miami. In 1939, he took a vacation to Los Angeles and decided to stay. The Film Daily Year Book of 1941 lists him as an art director at Schlesinger’s (along with Johnny Johnsen and John McGrew). He then worked for Walt Disney, but I have no information about when he changed studios. So it could very well be Kester’s work on this cartoon.

Assorted Swell Stuff

Tex Avery never lets up. He starts a routine and then keeps going and going with different variations on a gag.

Here’s an example from “The Screwy Truant” (1945), where Screwy pulls stunt after stunt on the truant officer dog (with an interruption for a fairy tale). He just happens to find a convenient chest.



So, he uses it. But the gag is more than Screwy hitting the dog with one thing after another.



The dog keeps sprouting a different kind of hat every time he’s clobbered—including a top hat, a witch’s pointed hat, a crown and one of those Napoleon hats (with an ‘n’). Someone will have to explain to me the derivation of crazy-guy-thinks-he’s-Napoleon came from (it made it into a Winsor McCay comic so it goes back a way).

Heck Allen gets the story credit on this one, but some Avery gag favourites (including an anvil) make an appearance.

On Censorship, Dimes and Maxwells

Jack Benny did not slow down until the very end. He died on Boxing Day 1974 at the age of 80 and spent much of the year busy every day either with television, concerts, interviews or preparing for The Sunshine Boys, the movie he never starred in.

We’ve posted several of Jack’s print interviews from that year here on the blog. Here’s another one from Family Weekly, a weekend newspaper magazine supplement. It was published February 24th. Jack is asked about censorship, interesting in light of rigid inspection from the Hays/Breen office that films went through when he was making them. And he talks about why some of his long-running routines were retired and stopped appearing on his TV specials. His “Second Farewell Special” aired a month before this interview saw print..

Jack Benny 80 Talks About Jack Benny 39
By Peer J. Oppenheimer
The last time I saw Jack Benny was in his beautifully furnished, immaculate Beverly Hills mansion. This time I faced him across his cluttered desk in his Beverly Hills office. He turned 80 on Valentine’s Day, and we began talking about his proposed retirement.
FAMILY WEEKLY: Tell the truth now—could you ever think of yourself as not working?
BENNY: Let me put it this way. I could retire up to a certain point. And I’ll tell you what that point is. If I made a business of my concerts—and you know I give concerts for charity all the time—if I could do enough throughout the year, then I could probably retire. You see, I LOVE to play the violin. But I also love to get laughs. And I love to talk. So when I give a concert, I can do everything I do in Las Vegas. The difference is, the people who come to concerts are pretty sophisticated—the same people who maybe come to hear Isaac Stern, or Heifetz. In fact, Isaac Stern acts as an agent for me because he tells me where they need the money. I always say he gets ten percent of nothing.
FW: What do you think of today's permissiveness—particularly in movies?
BENNY: It's too bad. Producers are taking the easy way out. And the fact that the films are rated means nothing to me. I mean, either a picture should be permitted to be shown, or not, and not have an X rating or a G rating, or however they rate them.
FW: During the last election there was a Proposition 18 in California that, if passed, would have prohibited the showing of a lot of films. What did you think of that?
BENNY: I voted no because while don’t like obscene films, I don’t want censorship. Of any kind, anywhere. Otherwise someone can suddenly say, “Well, we don’t want this Jewish joke!” or “We don't want this Italian joke.” If a proposition like that went through, there's no telling how far censorship would go!
FW: As you grow older, are you growing more conservative?
BENNY: Not if conservative means stingy, careful with money. This I have never been. Neither has my wife. If I had, I should be the richest actor in show business. But politically—well, I am not a party man. I've never been a Democrat or a Republican. I don’t want to get hooked, I guess—I just want to vote for who is right.
FW: You say you aren't stingy. How did that joke start?
BENNY: By accident. In one of my old shows there were a couple of jokes about my being stingy. The audience laughed. A little later, when I did a weekly show, we used the same gag and it worked again. All of a sudden I became a stingy character. And then I realized how humorous it was, an element that is easy to laugh at. It’s easy to relate to.
FW: Has this ever gotten out of hand?
BENNY: Sometimes when I do guest shots, they plan on doing too much, and I’ll say, “Hey, wait a minute, fellas! I can’t be stingy throughout the entire show! There must be other things to do.” I’m so identified with it now that I don’t have to spell it out anymore.
For instance, on the Dean Martin show I walk into a restaurant and a reporter comes out and says there’s a big comet in the air and it’s going to hit the earth in about five minutes and the earth will be destroyed. I don’t say a word, but I go to the phone, and I say to the operator, “Who do I see? I just put a dime in the phone box . . . .” I don’t have to go any further. Just my going to the phone gets the laugh.
FW: Did anyone ever take your stinginess seriously?
BENNY: No. Everybody seems to know it’s a joke. But in order to compensate, it costs me a bloody fortune! Even with charities. I’m forced into giving a lot more than I can afford sometimes.
FW: How about your insistence that you are 39 years old? How did that get started?
BENNY: I kept the year 37 for a couple of years. When I was 38, I kept that up for about another three years. Then when I got to be 39, for some reason or other we thought 39 was a funny number. Also, a lot of little kids think that when you are 40, you are an old man. And who wants to be old?
FW: Did anyone ever object to your growing older than 39?
BENNY: Well, once we decided, for the publicity, to have a big 40th birthday. You can’t imagine the letters I received, including one from The Christian Science Monitor, begging me not to do it. The Monitor’s letter wasn’t humorously written, it was serious. They said that most people know my right age [Jack was born Benny Kubelsky on February 14, 1894]; but the people say, “Well, if Benny stays 39 and keeps working, I can keep on working, too!” So I stayed 39. But we don’t play that bit much anymore. Or the Maxwell car joke. That’s old stuff now—it's become corny.
FW: You don't look much older now than you did 20 years ago. How do you manage to stay in such good shape?
BENNY: Luckily I don't care much about eating. I love breakfast, but after that I can go on practically nothing. And I play golf—not as much or as well as I used to. But 1 think the most important thing is to do things mentally. I love to work.
FW: You once told me that one of the reasons you stayed young was because your grandchildren kept you young. Is that still the case?
BENNY: Maybe that was right at the time, but today I feel it’s my work that keeps me young. I like practically everything I do, and I don’t delve into myself. I don’t give a hoot how much people liked me on radio or in vaudeville. That’s gone. And when somebody asks me, “What did you like best, radio or television?” I say, “When I was in radio, I liked radio. But I couldn’t wait to get into television. If there is something after television, that’s what I will like!" You don’t live for yesterday or even today. You live for tomorrow.
FW: Did the fact that you and Mary worked together for such a long time help your marriage?
BENNY: Yes. But you know, it was quite by accident that we became a team. When I met her she was selling ladies’ hosiery at the May Company. In those days a lot of comedians would bring a girl out onstage to work for them. They were supposed to be dumb girls. All the comedians had dumb girls. Well, one day the one working for me became ill and Mary knew the part, and I said, "You know, you could do this beautifully!" And she did.
FW: After that, did you teach her a lot about the business?
BENNY: Mary’s knowledge about show business is absolutely amazing. She claims she learned certain things from me, which she probably did, but there are certain things that you instinctively have to do correctly to succeed. Like she would know enough not to try hard for jokes, that if it was written correctly on paper all she had to do was read it. That’s why Ronald Colman and his wife were great on my show. They were dramatic actors, but all they did was read the comedy lines exactly as they were written.

The Saturday Matinee

The movies ripped me off as a kid.

Saturday matinées where I grew up consisted of a Disney live-action feature and a really bad Woody Woodpecker cartoon. No wonder the only local theatre was torn down and turned into a parking lot (and remains one, more than 45 years later, as the photo to the right attests). But the 1940s were different. Kids could go to the movies and spend their afternoon enjoying a whole pile of cartoons and maybe some one or two-reel comedies.

Theatres advertised in the papers back then, nice big ads with drawings. Here are some random ads for different cartoon compilations.



This one’s from 1945. You’ve got to love the dog-looking Tom and the pig/bear in a civil defence helmet. And I don’t think there was a cartoon called “Confusions of Nutsy Squirrel,” though if Tex Avery made one called that, I’d watch it (I guess they mean the Norm McCabe-directed “Confusions of a Nutsy Spy”).



Four big cartoons and none of them are Woody Woodpecker titles. And kids got “Popeye’s Pappy” (1951), a cartoon where Popeye dresses up as a woman to lure his own father. Now that’s entertainment!



Someone better tell the Madison that “Jolly Frolics” is the name of a series, not a cartoon. At least the characters are more on-model in this one.



From August 1950. I’d go to a theatre today if they showed this line-up. “Three Bears in a Boat” starring Animal? Who know the Muppets were around back then (there was a Paramount short subject of that name in 1943; that could be it).



Not just cartoons, but Laurel and Hardy and the Stooges. Looks like the paper used studio publicity art.



“12 Big Units”? I thought they were showing cartoons, not big units.
I realised Beaky Buzzard had a Goofy-sounding voice, but apparently one theatre has mistaken the two characters in its ad for “Strife With Father.” And you all remember “Google Fishing Beer,” where Barney drinks then goes surfing the internet. Champion wasn’t a character, it was the name of the series of Paramount re-releases (just as MGM had the Gold Medal Reprints and Warners had the Blue Ribbons). The Edgar Kennedy two-reeler was the last one of the 1946-47 season. Plot: Edgar builds his own TV set to save money. Didn’t this get re-made into one of those hilarious Beary Family cartoons?



What better Christmas present than two hours of cartoons? This is from 1950, but “Jolly Little Elves” was released by Lantz in 1934 (it was his first colour cartoon). The Lum and Abner feature is from 1943.

Theatrical cartoon compilations like this proved one thing—kids will watch a show of old cartoons. It seems early television programmers made a note of that.

P.S.: In the comments, Mark Kausler noted the “Tom and Jerry Festival of Fun.” It seems to have been a durable compilation. I’ve found ads for it from 1962 to 1965. As the heydey of movie business was gone, few ads featured drawings of the characters, but here’s one that’s not very readable. It appeared on the bill with things like “Flipper” and a re-issue of “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.”