Bob's Book Revue

Let’s honour Bob Clampett’s 100th birthday with an incredible scene from “Book Revue” (1946) where the action organically flows from Daffy Duck’s scat-singing.

Daffy warns Red Riding Hood the wolf is going to eat her. Then he enacts what the wolf will do by chewing on her elongated leg. The camera pans to the wolf salting Daffy’s elongated leg, ready for meal-time. Red screams and runs.



Daffy stops to think. Then he looks at the wolf.



Then he goes back to take a bite from Red’s leg.



He stops.



He realises.



He looks back at the wolf. Classic animation principles here, but Clampett adds his version of a smear and a bloodshot eyeball take as a capper. Here are all the drawings.



Mel Blanc’s voice work is tremendous here. Clampett’s credited animators were Manny Gould, Rod Scribner, Bill Melendez and Bob McKimson.

I had the pleasure of talking to Clampett on the phone once in 1984. I looked up the number of his studio and called. He answered. I asked for Bob Clampett and was stunned when he said it was him. “I thought you’d have someone to answer your phones,” I blurted out. He laughed and then we talked about doing an interview about his Warners cartoon career. Ever the salesman, Bob said “Don’t forget the Beany and Cecil videos.” Bob was about to begin a PR tour to push the videos so we put off the interview until he got back. He never did. He died of a heart attack in a Detroit hotel room.

In reading accounts about him later, it seems Bob could be an odd man but he was completely outgoing and charming on the phone to me. So here to Bob’s 100th. You can celebrate no better than by watching one of your favourite Bob Clampett cartoo-ooooons.

Run For the Hills

One of the many yell-outside-and-not-disturb gags in “Rock-a-Bye Bear” (released 1952). Animation credited to Mike Lah, Grant Simmons and Walt Clinton.



Heck Allen returned to the studio in time to co-write this. Fred Quimby had fired him likely some time in early 1947, and he toddled off to the Lantz studio.

Before He Tripped on the Ottoman

In television, when your boss publicly gives you a hearty endorsement, it means you can expect to start looking for a new job. And that was the case with Dick Van Dyke.

Before he went on to TV immortality in his ‘60s sitcom, before he danced and sang his way to stardom in “Bye Bye Birdie” on Broadway, Dick Van Dyke was handed his big break in show business—the thankless task of trying to put a dent in the ratings of the “Today Show.”

Tomorrow, May 8th, Van Dyke will be the special guest of Stu Shostak on “Stu’s Show.” You can tune in HERE at 4 p.m. Pacific time and hear it. They’ll be talking about Dick’s early career, before he fell over an ottoman in front of Mary Tyler Moore (or stepped around it, depending on the show). It’s interesting stuff you don’t hear him asked about in interviews and worth a listen. Here’s a little bit of what you may hear about.

Van Dyke had been a radio announcer back home in Danville, Illinois. Legends: Georgians Who Lived Impossible Dreams by Gene Asher reveals Van Dyke and Phil Erickson formed a duo called “The Merry Mutes.” They appeared with Nancy Andrews in at least one club in Los Angeles in 1948 and mimed to 78s. The act migrated to Atlanta at a time that local television needed to fill hours with homegrown talent. Van Dyke and Erickson ended up on Atlanta TV. The act split up in 1954 and Van Dyke moved on to New Orleans on the NBC affiliate where he replaced something called “Maggie & Me” with a ten-minute daily show (the following five minutes were taken up by a puppet called Mr. Bingle). He debuted November 29, 1954. But he wasn’t in New Orleans past June. CBS wanted him. And the network had two instant assignments. One was to guest star on the premiere of “Frankie Laine Time.” The other was to replace Jack Paar on “The Morning Show.”

Considering the Paar style people are familiar with today, one wouldn’t think he’d be a good choice for a morning show host. About the only person least likely is Walter Cronkite, and that’s who Paar replaced as the host of the two-hour morning show in August 1954. He didn’t stay long. Toward the end of the following May, Paar heard the network wanted news and kiddie entertainment on his show. He asked CBS bosses if it were true, then asked for his release when he got a “yes.” Paar was moved to a 15-minute afternoon show on July 4th. Taking over that morning was Van Dyke, who was officially handed the job two weeks later. Paar had actually left the show on June 17th; to fill the two-week breach, John Henry Faulk was brought in to host.

Van Dyke got raves—for his work on the Frankie Laine show. Here’s a snippet of a review from INS columnist Jack O’Brian, dated July 18, 1955.

Dick Van Dyke on last night's Godfrey summer sub premiere was a fresh breath of imaginative creativeness in the dull rut of TV comedy . . . Dick uses what you might call comedy of observation, utilizing such targets as new cars and your pet dog to perceptive impressionistic success . . . He's one of the newly-arrived “civilized” comedians, wearing a Brooks suit, a college student’s demeanor and an intelligently lunatic attitude toward modern fuss and foibles . . . As TV entertainment, it was a purely straight variety show whose loose ends tie together tidily but aside from Dick Van Dyke, nary a new nor especially nifty notion in the hour.

As for the “Morning Show,” we’ll let Paul Murphy of the Hutchinson News-Herald sum it up. He wrote on August 10th:

One thing I keep wondering, watching Dick Van Dyke handle the Morning Show on Channel 12.
He keeps grinning all the time. But what's so funny?
It's a shame, really, that friend Van Dyke can't fine more material for hilarity on the early effort, because when he has appeared in more favorable surroundings, he has proved himself a very funny person.
His show continues as a harmless enough thing to have turned on while shaving, especially if you can't see the TV set from the bathroom washstand.
But nothing very exciting ever happens.
Watching the Baird puppets perform Monday night on Studio zone brought back with a wham the realization of just how much better the old, original Morning Show used to be.
While Morning Show may not live up to everything we'd like from it, one would do well to keep in mind that NBC's completing Today, which shows up only on the relatively few UHF-equipped sets receiving channel 16, features a monkey as one of its major stars.
So cheer up — things could be worse.

Van Dyke was in trouble. He had the misfortune of being hired only a few weeks before a new boss was brought in to produce morning programming on CBS—Lou Cowan, the man who created “The $64,000 Question” and eventually took the fall for the network, as president, in the Quiz Show scandal. New management in broadcasting means only one thing. Change. And change is what happened. Robert L. Skolsky’s column of September 29th revealed:

HAVING FAILED in all previous efforts to buck Dave Garroway successfully during early morning hours, the Columbia Broadcasting System, is taking an entirely new approach to the 7 to 9 a.m. viewing period.
Monday, the Morning Show will be revamped once more with the emphasis going back to news, sports and special events. Dick Van Dyke will serve as program host while Walter Cronkite again takes over the news end.
However, the big project is a new kiddie show that will be carried weekdays by the network from 8 to 9 a.m. The program, is titled Captain Kangaroo and it is designed specifically for pre-school-age youngsters.

Cowan wanted instant ratings. He knew that the predecessor to the Captain, “Tinker’s Workshop” on WABC, was doubling the combined ratings of Garroway and the Morning Show.

But if Cowan had decided Van Dyke, the ratings sieve he didn’t hire, was going to be pushed out, he didn’t let on. In fact, he spoke to the Associated Press, forecasting the Captain would be “a very big hit,” then praised his other morning star.

Cowan has high hopes for the morning show conducted by Dick Van Dyke, a young fellow from Danville, Ill., who has been in New York just three months. “Dick sees things with a fresh eye,” Cowan says. “He’s approaching the show with the hope of showing people there are wonderful things in life besides all the disaster news. He says, in effect, on his morning program that this is a new day and each day is different from any other in history.”

That vote of confidence was given on December 9th. Exactly one month later, the “fresh eye” became a black one. The New York Times announced the one-two punch that Will Rogers, Jr. was being hired to host a revamped-once-more morning programme. Van Dyke, said the paper, “is expected to be retained by CBS for another program now under development.” Cowan bubbled over about Rogers, who had filled in for a vacationing Garroway a year earlier, to the United Press on January 19th:

“I think he is one of the coming personalities of TV,” said Cowan. “He has a very human quality. He has done a couple of movies and a little television, before this. “What I like best about him, I think, is the live, warm interest he has in people. He’s not going to be a performer, he’s going to be himself.”

What about Van Dyke? Nary a mention of him in the story. That’s broadcasting, Dick.

Rogers officially replaced him on February 20, 1956. The network found work for Van Dyke, though. Perhaps someone discovered he had hosted a kids show in Atlanta. The New York Times reported on May 11, 1956 that Van Dyke would host “Cartoon Theatre” on Wednesday nights from 7:30 to 8 p.m. starting June 13th. The idea looked perfect on paper. CBS had just bought Terrytoons and needed to do something with the 1,100 animated films it now owned. Cartoons equalled big money; syndicators were rolling in cash after selling old animated shorts to stations. The idea of combining live action and animation on TV was novel. But it just didn’t work. Charlotte Summers of Billboard panned the show in the magazine’s June 30th issue:

“CBS Cartoon Theater,” which spotlights Paul Terry’s cartoons, may appeal to some children, but it’s questionable whether parents will consider it good fare for their young’uns. Featuring Heckle and Jeckle (magpies), Gandy Goose, Dinky Duck and Little Roquefort (a mouse), all who sound delightful enough, writer Bill Gammie involved them in situations which, in addition to being unimaginative, called for padded cells, gory doctors, Charlie Addams sets and Frankenstein characters. Violence of one sort or another seemed to be the keynote of “Cartoon Theater’s” second show.
Since CBS is obviously going after its opposition’s audience (Disneyland), it might be wiser to take a closer look at the audience composition figures when selecting the cartoons and come up with a basic formula for a better balanced show. Another problem is Dick Van Dyke, a personable enough young man perhaps for other emsee chores, but certainly not for this one. Van Dyke is ill at ease, strained and appeared to be thoroly [sic] uncomfortable. A personality like Fran Allison’s is needed here with more play between the animated stars and the emsee to establish identification. In short, the show needs lots of work to make the grade.

“Cartoon Theatre” ended September 5th. Van Dyke puttered around guest starring before an O’Brian story on November 30 revealed he would be one of four panellists on a new “give away” show by replacing Herb Shriner. It was called “Nothing But the Truth.” The debut show was set for December 18, 1956. The following week, the show changed its name to “To Tell the Truth.” Van Dyke appeared on seven shows before being replaced by Hy Gardner. If it was any consolation to him, Hildy Parks was gone the same day (her spot was taken a few shows later by Kitty Carlisle). Van Dyke packed up and left CBS for ABC where he entertained moms on a live, half-hour daytime show called “Mother’s Day” starting October 13, 1958. He rung in the New Year and then found himself without a show after January 2nd. The boyish Van Dyke was replaced with the boyish Merv Griffin and a game that launched Griffin’s TV empire: “Play Your Hunch.”

TV success seemed to elude Van Dyke, so off he went to Broadway. And he found it there, with a smash performance in “Bye-Bye Birdie,” starting in 1960. That led to another shot at the small screen in a starring vehicle that’s still considered one of the best TV comedies of all time.

You’ve no doubt seen Van Dyke’s sitcom. But you may not have seen him on “To Tell the Truth.” Here he is in the pilot episode of “Nothing But the Truth.” The announcer is Bern Bennett and the theme song is Dolf Van der Linden’s “Peter Pan,” both of which were kept when the show changed names after one week. But the host isn’t Bud Collyer. It’s someone who also went on to much bigger things.

Land of the Coyote

Before Maurice Noble stylised settings for the Chuck Jones unit, audiences were treated to the work of Bob Gribbroek. He retired to New Mexico where he had spent some of his younger years so perhaps he had an affinity for constructing the southwestern playground of Wile E. Coyote.

Gribbroek was the layout artist on “Operation: Rabbit” (released 1951) with Phil De Guard creating the backgrounds from his work. Here are a few shots in the opening minute.

Carnegie Benny

He had a reputation as the cheapest guy in the world, but it’s impossible to say how much Jack Benny helped raise for charity through his numerous violin concerts all over North America.

The calculation was $2,000,000 when he was honoured in a TV special in 1961—and many more years of recitals (Jack would like that word) followed. TV Radio Mirror gave what amounted to a two-page publicity spread for the special, with one page taken up with a photo of Jack in action on stage as a serious musician. The story was as follows:

JACK BENNY
A fiddle player who's cutting the deficits without cutting the comedy
by BILL KELSAY
September 27, CBS telecasts the Carnegie Hall tribute to Jack Benny—complete with such ranking members of the musical elite as Isaac Stern, Van Cliburn, Roberta Peters, the Benny Goodman Sextet, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra . . . pretty heady company for a performer whose violin has been little more than a prop for a running joke on TV! Actually, the tribute—and the awards given Benny for his symphonic efforts—have not been in recognition of a great musical talent . . . but because Jack has turned his other talents to the practical side of the preservation of good music. In more than a score of benefit concerts—New York to Honolulu, Toronto to New Orleans—he's raised in excess of two million dollars for charity and various orchestra funds.
"It all started with one of my regular television shows," says Jack. "I was supposed to have had a big fight with my sponsor. I went home mad and said, 'I should have stuck with the violin!' Then I fell asleep and had this dream where I was the guest soloist with the Los Angeles Symphony. ... In a situation like this, you cannot play badly to get laughs. The fact is, you surprise your audience by being able to get through Mendelssohn. The humor comes from small, annoying things that happen or through other musicians trying to take the play away from you. ... I hadn't really played the violin for years. So, for a month before this show, I had to practice several hours a day. Let's face it—I'm not thirty-nine anymore and my fingers weren't supple and I had lost the touch."

Meanwhile, in New York, Carnegie Hall was about to be torn down and a committee had been formed to save it. They asked Jack to help raise funds by appearing as guest soloist with the Philharmonic in an act similar to the one on TV. . . . Jack was in Houston attending the convention of the Retarded Children's Society, of which he was honorary president. There, a leading citizen from Oklahoma suggested he break in the concert act with the Oklahoma City Symphony to raise money for the society. The pattern for Jack's concert appearances was first set in Oklahoma City: The comedy involves primarily the concertmaster, assistant concertmaster and cymbalist, and reflects the same type of humor Jack has perfected in radio and TV. He is "the fall guy" trying to live up to an image he has of himself and never quite succeeding.
"The big job in these concerts is preparation," says Irving Fein, president of Jack's production company. "For most of the people we are working with, it is their first experience with this sort of thing. I begin with letters telling them how to sell tickets, what to use for advertising, how to set up committees. After all, they want to make money for their particular cause, and there's no point in having Jack play to a half-empty house. . . . We arrive in town at least a day or two before the concert. We have our first rehearsal with the key men involved, in Jack's suite, so that, when we get on the stage, their parts are perfect and we don't spend the entire symphony's time. This way, we work no more than two hours with the full orchestra. Then it's done. No problems.
"We have been a little concerned that we might run into a conductor who thought comedy was unprofessional and not suitable for the concert stage. Last year, we were worried about George Szell, who has built the Cleveland Orchestra into one of the five greatest of the world. He is a great, dedicated, and demanding conductor. . . . He couldn't have been more charming! He laughed and said to Jack, I want to rehearse this again—you know comedy, I don't.' He is a perfectionist in his field, and recognized that Jack was also a perfectionist in his."
Unfortunately, there's only one Jack Benny—and several hundred symphony orchestras. There are some four hundred requests. Jack would like to do them all but, obviously, this is out of the question. There is one in particular he would like to do. About two years ago, it looked as though he'd be able to play with the Salt Lake City orchestra. But, when he was available, their schedule was inflexible. Ever since, wherever he makes a concert appearance, he receives a telegram: "Hope you are wonderful tonight. Wish you were here!"

The accompanying photo has become tinted with age. Odd for something that is likely only 39 years old.

How to Meow in Cartoons

Photoplay magazine didn’t devote very much space to animated cartoons, what with all those stories it had to fit in about the “real” life of Hollywood’s stars. But I came across this one-page piece in the September 1930 edition. It doesn’t say an awful lot; the best part is the sixteen drawings of Krazy Kat that make up one foot of film. And no one familiar with old cartoon studios will be surprised to read Phil Scheib of Terry Toons talking about cost.



Watch ‘Em Move
A Short Biography of Krazy Kat and Some of His Goofy Friends
By Frances Kish
HAVEN'T you sat, fascinated, for the seven or eight minutes of an animated cartoon, wondering what makes the drawings move? And when talkies came along, weren't you surprised when they sang and played musical instruments, and out from the screen came the squeaky voice of Krazy Kat or the piping song of Mickey Mouse?
Most cartoons are planned out before ever pencil is put to paper. Let's sit in on a couple of conferences at the Winkler Pictures studios, where work is about to begin on a new adventure in the life of Krazy Kat.
The entire studio staff is present. Somebody has what he thinks is a clever idea. Changes and additions are suggested. Discussion is fast and furious. And a complete story is worked out.
Later, there is a “gag” conference. Perhaps there's a sequence in a subterranean room, down a long flight of stairs. “Well, stairs when picked up and juggled back and forth between the hands make a perfectly grand accordion,” suggests someone. And thus a gag is born. The musicians determine the type of music for each gag — whether the mood calls for “Hearts and Flowers,” jazz, a march or a swaying waltz. Tempo is measured accurately with a metronome, and exact length timed with a split-second watch.
The major animator begins the work. The thin white paper he uses for his drawings has holes punched at the top, like pages for a loose-leaf note-book. These holes fit over pegs, holding the paper firmly in position. Drawing is done on slanted glass boards, under which is an electric light bulb that shines through glass and paper and makes tracing easy.
The figures are about three inches high. Progressive drawings, each on a separate sheet, move the action slightly forward, backward, up, down or around.
Each drawing is traced with India ink on a piece of celluloid punched like the paper. Celluloid is used for the final drawings because of its lustre and transparency.
The drawings are photographed, one at a time, with a regular motion picture camera equipped with “stop motion.” The camera is suspended over a table, with special lamps to center the light on the celluloids.
Sixteen “frames”—sixteen separate exposures—make one foot of film.
Out at the studio where Terry-Toons are made I learned some of the troubles of a musical director of sound cartoons. Old, familiar tunes are frequently found to be all tied up with the red tape of the copyright law. Foreign rights are especially difficult to obtain. Fees paid for the use of musical compositions, often just a few bars at a time, run into enormous sums.
There are the most amusing “sound props.” At the proper moment in the recording, a resined string is pulled from a small, drum-like contraption, and the resulting sound is like the bark of a lusty dog. A big, bucket-like affair, on the same principle, produces a lion's roar.
WHEN the rooster crows, it's because someone blew into a thing that looks like a small watering can. A big wooden affair, notched like a modern skyscraper, makes a train whistle. There are ratchets that sound like the beat of tom-toms, wind whistles, etc.
One of the executives of the Terry-Toon Company is an expert “meower” and his services are much in demand on the days when recording is done!
There's a tremendous amount of labor and care involved in making animated sound cartoons. Thousands of drawings are made for one film—generally from five to seven or eight thousand separate drawings. And that means the same number of tracings, and the same number of photographic exposures, to say nothing of the intricate musical and sound score.
But don't get the idea that cartoon studios are stodgy places where laughter is a mere commercial commodity to be turned out by the foot. I found them so jolly and fascinating that I wanted to stay and join the gang. But I changed my mind when I learned that it takes about two years to develop a good animator, no matter how much talent and artistic training he has at the beginning.
So I decided to stick to reporting, where all one has to do is ask hard-working artists a lot of questions and then write down the answers.

Johnny Jet's Parentage

One of the unanswered questions of cartoons is—if Little Johnny Jet’s mother and father are propeller planes, how did his mother give birth to a jet?



Tex Avery’s animators in this one are Walt Clinton, Grant Simmons, Mike Lah and Bob Bentley, with Ray Patterson borrowed from the Hanna-Barbera unit.

Interestingly, the picture on the cereal box in the frame above is reminiscent of the background drawing of “silver spoon” kid in Avery’s earlier “Symphony in Slang,” which was designed by Tom Oreb, though Johnny Johnsen would have done the backgrounds in both.

Hot Dog

Cartoon studios of the late ‘20s and early ‘30s seemed to love hot dogs that were alive. Mickey Mouse coped with some in 1929’s “The Karnival Kid,” among others. Felix the Cat dealt with some in “April Maze” the following year. And Oswald the Rabbit has one in a scene in “Sky Scrappers” (1928), a silent made by Walt Disney.

The weiner comes alive and bathes its butt in mustard. The gag was re-used by Hugh Harman in “Ups 'N Downs,” a 1931 Bosko cartoon.



Then it curls the top of the bun on top of it and Oswald eats it. The fact it was living mere moments earlier doesn’t faze him.



No animators are credited.

More Great Old Cartoons Can Be Yours

Steve Stanchfield has done a great service for old cartoon fans through his Thunderbean Animation, finding the best prints of public domain obscurities and working technical magic to make them available on DVD to fans. The Snafu series his company released a few years ago is stunningly restored and historically important. His Van Beuren collections are appreciated by New York C-list studio fans everywhere and look pretty good, too.

Steve’s latest release features the work of Walter Lantz, both commercial and theatrical.

I’m a sucker for late ‘20s/early ‘30s shorts with characters that stretch all over the place, exchange body parts, turn into musical instruments and don’t have an awful lot of story to get in the way of the strangeness. The few early Lantz sound cartoons I’ve seen are a lot of fun. Steve’s managed to corral some of them and put them on DVD, along with some of Lantz’ silent efforts (Walter Lantz began his career in animation as a cel washer in 1916) and some of the commercials his studio made in the ‘50s.

Thunderbean has worked with Del Walker’s Retroflections on this over the last six years.

If you want to learn more, check out Steve’s post at the IAD Forum.

No, I am not Steve’s agent. I pass on the news simply as a fan of old cartoons and Thunderbean’s high-quality work.

Hans, Hitler and Ham

Many actors have been masters of accents but none gave more enthusiastic performances than Hans Conried.

Hans was no ham thespian, though. He may have been over the top when spouting silliness on radio or TV in one of many dialects, or as the declamatory Snidely Whiplash in cartoons, but he could easily tone it down in dramatic performances on shows like “Suspense” and “Lux Radio Theatre.” Conried performed Shakespeare on stage as well. But accomplished actor as he was, he ended up building his reputation with comedy. A lot of situation comedy in the glory days of radio makes me roll my eyes, but Hans Conried can always make me laugh emoting with some foreign tongue saying something ridiculous.

Hans was profiled in the entertainment column in the National Enterprise Association in 1960. It doesn’t mention his work at Disney (“Peter Pan”). Forgotten, and perhaps rightfully, is his starring role in “The Twonky,” which would have been a fine social satire if it had fired on all cylinders. This story appeared in papers starting January 3, 1960.

All Entertainment Media Is Home For Hans Conried
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
NEA Staff Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD—(NEA)—When two generations of fans think of Hans Conried, the wild-haired, owlish-eyed fellow who looks like two profiles pasted together, chances are they will laugh over some unexpected grimaces or a wayout dialect—or both.
Radio fans remember Hans as Schultz on “Life With Luigi” and as Professor Kropotkin in “My Friend Irma.”
Movie fans recall him in “Bus Stop” and “Never Too Young.” Broadway stage fans remember him as the wacky Bulgarian sculptor in “Can Can” and the college professor in “Tall Story.”
TV fans know him as Uncle Tonoose on the Danny Thomas show, for his slick acting in all kinds of roles on other shows, and as himself, contributing to the nation's humor and insomnia, as a frequent Jack Paar guest.
But an old friend from his early (1936) days as a Hollywood radio actor remembers him for a quite different reason.
Mel Blanc, the actor with the trick voice (Bugs Bunny, Jack Benny's parrot) remembers him as an intense, dedicated Shakespearean actor. “Hans was so serious about acting,” says Mel, “that he cracked me up. I thought he was the funniest man I had ever met.”
Mel said the words when Hans, as a radio actor, was playing so many Nazi “heavies,” between Shakespearean chores, that Hans still laughs, “Hitler kept me alive until Uncle Sam put me in uniform and started feeding me.”
Well, when friend Mel Blanc found himself starred in a radio series after the war, he called in just-out-of-the-service Hans and have him the humorous character of a fellow who operated a Mr. Fix-it shop. That was the beginning of Hans Conried's fortune as a dialectian, and as stooge for every famous comedian on radio, as he rushed to and from as many as 20 different radio shows in one week.
Today Hans is still rushing — between Hollywood and New York for stage and TV appearances and telefilms — to recording studios for platter gems like “Peter Meets the Wolf in Dixieland”—to the St. Louis Municipal Opera stage in the summer for such musical dramas as “Lady In the Dark,” “Rosalinda,” and “Song of Norway.”
Home today for Hans Conried, a Baltimore, Md., lad, is a big Spanish stucco mansion on a hilltop overlooking Lake Hollywood where there is a Mrs. Conried, four little Conrieds and a rare collection of Oriental art objects. But he is home, with that rare flair for off-and on-beat comedy characters, in all entertainment mediums.
There's always talk of Hans Conried having a TV show of his own.
Fox has an option on his services in the series, “Mr. Belvedere,” when and if it is sold.
“But,” says Hans, “I'm not sure I want a show of my own. I'm the happiest when I'm doing something different every week.”
There's a strange oddity about Hans. He was never given a typical Hollywood publicity build-up and he hasn't ever sought the spotlight to become what Hollywood likes to call a “personality.”
But since his many TV panel-show appearances in New York and his stardom there in two Broadway shows, the usual Hollywood-New York pattern of fame has been reversed for him.
“Here in Hollywood,” he says, “I'm known as an actor. In New York—and I must say I blush about it—I'm considered to be a personality. But really, in 25 years of acting I've never worried much about whether I was known as an actor or as a personality. I just want to stay alive.”
One movie, “The 5,000 Fingers of Doctor T,” gave Hans his only starring film role. But today he can still laugh about the film. "It was the outstanding money-loser of all time.
“One critic called it the worst waste of film in history. But at the same time the film made the ‘current & choice’ list in a national magazine. It was a strange movie—a fantasy—but no one ever saw it.”
Of course, Hans Conried is his real name.
“I would have changed it to Hans Conried?” he deadpans.

This story came out a year and a bit before Hans was hired by Jay Ward to channel John Barrymore (who could register high on the ham meter) as Snidely Whiplash. Ward later put him on camera as the host of “Fractured Flickers,” a short-lived syndicated show from 1963 featuring satiric voice tracks played over top of old silent films and bogus interviews with guests. Here’s one with the lovely Barbara Eden. The laughter and applause is more intrusive than helpful, but the premise is clever.