Alley in Manhattan

“Mouse in Manhattan” (1945) is a charming solo cartoon for Jerry Mouse (Tom appears only at the beginning and end), who braves the skyscrapers and the gutters of New York City.

One scene features Jerry in a dimly-lit alley that echoes with his sneeze. Suddenly, eyes start appearing, beginning in the distance and moving toward the foreground.



Jerry steps toward the left of the scene. A vicious cat creeps out of a garbage can.



And Jerry is scared back to the rural outer environs and home with Tom.

The usual crew of Ken Muse, Ray Patterson, Ed Barge and Irv Spence are the credited animators but Thad Komorowski tells me that Pete Burness animated this scene. Louis Alter’s “Manhattan Serenade” gets a lot of play in Scott Bradley’s enjoyable score.

Mr. Harris, Your Contract is Up

Would you accept a $50,000-a-year contract for ten years? And then barely have to work during that time?

That’s what Phil Harris did. At least, that was the sum being bandied about by columnists.

NBC decided to sew up its remaining big comedy talent in 1949 when Bill Paley opened his Jack Benny-sized vault and attracted Benny and other stars over to CBS. Harris and wife Alice Faye inked a new NBC contract (the New York Times reported on December 25, 1948 a deal with CBS had fallen through). And then a couple of years later he signed a long-term deal, with the network no doubt thinking it could transfer his radio show to television. But it never happened, despite continued rumblings. Harris told United Press in 1953 that Faye would rather stay home with the kids and TV was too hectic. Philsie seemed to agree after a bit and spent more of his time golfing, fishing and relaxing in Palm Springs than anywhere near a TV studio.

Slowly but surely, his nice little contract ran out. And that brings us to this story from UPI that appeared in newspapers around August 25, 1962. The columnist didn’t even broach the subject of an eventual weekly series featuring Phil and Alice, let alone bringing back their old sitcom. Or maybe he did and Phil’s answer wasn’t printable. But it’s more than likely that idea was in their distant past, much like radio itself was considered something of an era long departed.

NBC CONTRACT RUNS OUT
Phil Harris Is Free To Work With Pals
By JOSEPH FINNIGAN
HOLLYWOOD (UPI)—Phil Harris, a comedian who sings at racehorse speed about things like blackeyed peas and fried chicken, is available for work with such old pals as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Jack Benny and Red Skelton.
That wasn’t always so. For the past 10 years, NBC-TV has had a contract with Harris which restricted the personable star to the network’s shows.
On NBC, Harris worked mostly with Bob Hope and Perry Como, but the opportunity to appear with other performers of such stature was rare. Many of them were on CBS or ABC.
However, Harris’ NBC pact is running out and the taboo against other webs bidding for his services will also end.
Harris’ first non-NBC appearance will be with Red Skelton, a long time CBS favorite.
Harris, Skelton Rehearse
The two funnymen swapped jokes in a rehearsal hall at that network’s television city in Hollywood when they got together for their first show.
During a rehearsal break, Harris said: “I’m getting a kick out of this. Red and I have been friends for years and never worked together before.
“I have always been a great admirer of Red. We were born within 30 miles of each other. He was born in Vincennes, Indiana, and I was born in Linton. There were about 4,000 people there when the Ringling Bros. Circus came to town.”
Harris recalled that an uncle occasionally look him to Skelton's home town “to get a catfish sandwich.”
Harris, who worked for 16 years with Jack Benny, has been with NBC 32 years on radio and television. The only time he performed on another network was when NBC allowed him to be a guest at Benny’s CBS birthday party.
NBC Restricts Comedian
“Under my contract with NBC, I was to do five guest appearances a year during the first five years,” Harris said. “In the second five years I was to do two appearances a year. And I couldn’t do anything on television or radio other than NBC.
“It was a wonderful contract and I’m very grateful for it. I’m not complaining, but it kept me from working with Bing on ABC, Benny and several of my other friends who are top notch performers. They all wanted me but couldn’t get me.
“I’d give anything in the world to work with Bing. I’ve never been on a radio or television show with Bing or Sinatra.”
Harris, married to actress Alice Faye, didn’t waste time lining up television appearances with other networks once he became his own boss. He’s set for another Skelton program, this time with Miss Faye, and a Pat Boone show.

The story isn’t altogether correct. Harris appeared on a CBS TV special with Jackie Gleason called “The Big Sell Revue” in 1960. Judging by at least one review, it was likely best forgotten, though I suspect anyone remotely familiar with either gentleman can picture the booze jokes that were likely in the script.

It’s not a surprise Harris didn’t guest star with several big names back in the radio days. For one thing, he was still pretty much considered an adjunct of the Benny show until he and Faye got their own starring programme. For another, he was still leading a band at the Wiltshire Bowl for a period of time which precluded extra-curricular radio activity. And Sinatra pretty much stuck to himself on his 15-minute shows. Harris did drop in to visit Eddie Cantor, Dinah Shore, Fred Allen and Al Jolson over the years on radio, and he and Alice starred in an episode of “Suspense” in 1951 (produced by Elliott Lewis, who appeared on his show as Frank Remley).

The end of his NBC contact did allow him to make a few appearances he might not have otherwise—a 1964 guest host role on “The Hollywood Palace” for one. But it likely didn’t make much of a difference. It doesn’t seem Phil Harris needed the money, and television with its commuting and rehearsals took away time from his real interests, like swinging a 9-iron or hooking a trout. Not a bad life. Even if you’re not getting $50,000 a year for it.

Gee, Her Old LaSalle Ran Great

For a few years, “All in the Family” was the most brilliant show on television. Anyone who thought it was about racial/ethnic insults and tasteless toilet flushing was watching superficially. It was pure political satire of The America of The Day, taking shots at the left and right (and displeasing radicals on both sides of the debate who only wanted the other side skewered). Its characters were far from one-dimensional and became more and more fleshed out with time, making television history in the process.

The writing was a key, of course, but so was the acting. It’s impossible to think anyone other than Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton could have been any better as Archie and Edith Bunker. The characters and tone of the show evolved over time. Not all the decisions pleased me as a viewer, but one of the good ones was making Edith a far more meatier character than the somewhat cuckolded housewife she was in the beginning. And Stapleton was an actress more than up to the challenge of expanding her character’s traits.

As is usual with monster television hits, one’s previous roles—especially ones that don’t involve stardom—are suppressed in the collective memory of the audience and a person becomes known for only one character. So was the fate of Jean Stapleton. She told one Hollywood wire service reporter soon after “All in the Family” became a hit she got a kick out of being stopped on the street by fans. But then the novelty wears off and the actor feels trapped in, and by, their role. Stapleton finally bade farewell to Edith and left the show, but she never did in the minds of fans. That’s why Jean Stapleton’s death is being mourned today. She used her incredible talent to bring to life someone who is beloved even 40-plus years later and broke ground in television in the process. It’s quite a legacy for any actor; one accomplished by few.

Here are two feature stories by New York Tribune Syndicate writer Marilyn Beck, interviewing Stapleton about her famous character. The first is dated September 6, 1974 and the second is from September 17, 1979, close to five years later. It’s a little disheartening reading the second column, where Stapleton makes it appear she was merely going through the motions, even as whole stories were focusing on her character. But if you read between the lines of the first column, you’ll see Stapleton’s continued presence on “All in the Family” was not because she loved the role, though she likely did. It was contractual.

Jean Stapleton: Her Own Women
By MARILYN BECK
“Me leave All In The Family?” That’s funny,” laughed Jean Stapleton. It was the tone of voice Edith Bunker might employ responding to a statement by her husband—which even she found too outlandish to buy.
The situation wasn’t all that funny, considering Carroll O’Connor’s suit against his All in the Family bosses. Considering the admission of supporting player Michael Evans that he would like to leave the show. Considering that it took a $10 million lawsuit slapped by Tandem against Redd Foxx to get that wayward actor back to his Sanford and Son post.
“Why so funny?” Disastisfaction with series seemed to be a common denominator among her fellow Tandem Production performers.
“I consider a contract as meaning something,” Jean said. Her facial expressions were still much like Edith, the long-suffering All in the Family wife. But her words contained none of the Edith Bunker whine. Jean Stapleton was obviously was woman with savvy things on her mind, and the ability to express them well.
“There are many things I’d like to do in the future,” she said. “Eventually I’d like to leave the series, and concentrate on theatre again, to move seriously into musical comedy. But, well, I still have three more years to go on my Tandem Productions contract. I can’t consider anything else until that has run its course.”
Her difference from her colleagues in such attitudes is obvious the moment one meets Jean Stapleton. Particularly if that meeting takes place in the CBS dressing room which bears her name. About the size of an oversized closet—it doesn’t contain any closet space, much less a window. To other Tandem Production stars it would represent an excuse to stage a walkout from work. To Jean the quarters provides “Really all I need—a nice, cozy little spot to rest.”
She is by no means a woman who doesn’t make demands. However, the demands she makes appear to be upon herself.
“I was raised that way,” she said. “I was taught by example that one must grow and learn to do for oneself. My mother was a concert and opera singer, and thus there was never the message implanted with me that a woman’s role is simply to find a man and marry.”
She was born in New York City, a product of a family whose fortunes were never recouped after the depression of the ‘30s. She went to work right out of high school and supported herself with clerical employment while she secured on-the-job dramatic training in off-Broadway theatre and the American Theatre Wing.
She dug her heels so totally into the demands of career that it wasn’t until her early 30’s when, as she puts it, “I looked around and began to be aware of the void in my personal life. And then along came marriage.”
Marriage came to producer William H. Putch in 1957, after much soul-searching on Jean’s part.
“I thought about it carefully,” she said. “Many young adults today don’t regard marriage as a necessary step. Well, I don’t either. But companionship is something we all long for, and marriage seemed to be the right solution for Bill and myself.”
Jean’s career had, by that time, reached a point where, “My drive had lessened a bit and I could willingly give up some of my time and independence.”
She would remain at heart an independent, liberated woman, because she was blessed by marriage to a liberated man. “That’s the key to women’s lib,” she laughed.
Motherhood, she told me candidly during a taping break of All In The Family, was something she didn’t plan and didn’t want. “I’m glad I have my son and daughter. Pam is 15 now, John is 13, and they’re beautiful and wonderful—and have certainly expanded me a lot as a woman. But at the time I married, I simply had never been acquainted with that many children and could never picture myself in the role of a mother.”
She has, over the years, been able to divide her times effectively into many roles.
In the early period of their marriage, the Putch’s remained New York City residents, where Jean did early-day live television and appeared in numerous Broadway productions. Then, 13 years ago, they moved to the foothills of the Alleghenies near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where Bill became owner-producer-director of The Totem Pole Playhouse, and Jean became the resident leading lady.
When All in the Family stardom beckoned, it meant a change in lifestyles for the family; half of the year spent in Los Angeles, the remainder of the time devoted to involvement in the Totem Pole Playhouse, where Jean still manages to perform in several productions a season.
“I wouldn’t have taken the part in the series if Bill hadn’t wanted me to,” she made it clear. “No, it wouldn’t have been a sacrifice. A sacrifice is only something one only does against her will.”
She brushed aside talk of the terrible time six years ago when her husband learned he had cancer of the lymph system and said simply, “Bill’s fine now, really. Medication and treatment cured him.”
It was apparent she would prefer talking about more upbeat subjects—like her future, like her plans to play Eleanor Roosevelt for the screen.
The project will be filmed during an All in the Family hiatus, and for months Jean has been reading research books that can provide added insight into the life of the late First Lady, whose qualities she so admires.
“Her metamorphosis from a shy, introverted woman, self-conscious about her plainness into a brilliant public speaker and humanitarian fascinates me,” said the outgoing, articulate Jean Stapleton.
We chatted for a moment about reports that knowledge of F.D.R.’s extramarital affair had served as a catalyst to make Eleanor Roosevelt decide she must become her own person, and Jean commented. “What a marvelous focal point that would be for the film. How women of today would relate to that, now with all the growing realization that women need more than to be in the shadows of a man.”

Jean Stapleton Leaves Edith Bunker Behind
By MARILYN BECK
If you happen to pass Jean Stapleton on the street, don’t hail her as “Edith.” Not unless you want her to stop and remind you she’s divorced herself from Archie Bunker—and that she has never been anyone but an actress playing a role.
“I’ve made it my mission to educate people about the difference between me and my character ever since All in the Family began in 1971,” she explains with a smile.
“When someone stops me in a store, for instance, and addresses me as ‘Edith,’ I’ll very politely correct them—and try to explain that it is an actress’ function to play many roles, and that Edith Bunker was just one of many roles I intend to play.”
A desire to move on to new roles what what led to Jean’s resignation from All in the Family this season—and the retitling of the show to Archie’s Place.
Outlining the reasons for her action, she says, “The way I’m constituted, I just can’t invest my life on one portrayal. I need more variety. The last few seasons, I began to feel like a pit musician in a long-running Broadway show, who works on a crossword puzzle between cues, then picks up his instrument and plays the same notes he played the night before. It becomes less than a stimulating experience.”
Jean did consent to return to Archie’s side this summer long enough to tape an All in the Family Thanksgiving reunion special (which will also feature now long-departed Family members Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers), plus three segments of Archie’s Place which will explain her future absence by having her going to work—in a mental institution.
And after that? Well, Jean will be busy establishing an Edith-less image. And she’s already taken some impressive strides in that direction.
She’ll be seen this fall as “Aunt Mary”—based on the true story of a Baltimore woman who ignored several physical handicaps to become a sandlot baseball coach—which will be aired on CBS as a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation.
She’s heavy into rehearsals for Daisy Mayme, a stage comedy about an extroverted, independent woman, which her husband, Bill Putch, will direct and which both will tour with from October through February.
And she’s scheduled to star as Eleanor Roosevelt in a two-part TV presentation being produced by Norman Lear.
Sandwiched between all this will be ongoing activities for the ERA, a movement which Jean has been a leader in recent years—and which has helped her make subtle, yet positive changes in the personality of Edith Bunker. “For two or three years, I was pressing to have things on the show that would dramatize the issue of equal rights,” she reveals. “And then in 1976, I served on the National Committee for the Observance of International Women’s Year—and I was able to provide our writers with research material that enabled them to write scripts along that level.”
One segment she’s particularly proud of dealt with credit discrimination toward Edith when that long-suffering heroine attempted to cash a cheque.
“We got a lot of mail response to that one,” she reports with a smile that grows broader when she adds, “a mostly positive response, I’m happy to say.”
It also seems ironic, after all these seasons in which Jean Stapleton has has docily sat back while Carroll O’Connor has made his periodic threats to leave, that it should be she who has found the courage to free herself from series security. Leaving Carroll in a house in which the other Family members have already left.
Thinking back to those earlier times—and to one particular time when Carroll was engaging in a lengthy walkout from the show, and CBS and Tandem Productions were considering revamping the series so it would revolve around a widowed Edith—she smiles softly and says, “It just proves nothing in life is ever fixed, ever definite.”
The only definite with Jean Stapleton now, is that she feels no regret or insecurity about having left Archie—and Edith.

“All in the Family” is the kind of programme that probably should be on the air today but would probably never get made as noisy claques are noisier than they were in 1971. (Can you picture a comedy built around a Tea Partying, NRA-supporting, “entitlement”-hating bigot? I would like to.) And producers would have to find the actors that could pull off the roles. Would any of them have been better as an awakened “dingbat” than Jean Stapleton? Probably not.

Here’s one of my favourite Edith moments. Like all of Edith’s stories or explanations, they’re perfectly logical. But there’s something odd as they unfold.

I'm Winfield the Sailor Man

There was a time only someone paying really close attention to cartoon credits would have known who Jack Mercer was. And they still, at least in the 1960s, wouldn’t have known he was the voice of Popeye.

The folks at the Fleischer studio saw no need to credit any voice actors on its shorts. Neither did their successors when the Fleischer brothers were unceremoniously tossed out in 1942. So, for years, kids watched Popeye in the theatres and then on TV not having any idea who voiced the sailor man. And for most of his career, it was former assistant animator Mercer, who was moved into the story department and got his screen credit there.

Mercer became more than Popeye. He provided all kinds of incidental voices in various series produced by Fleischer and Famous (later Paramount) cartoon studios and was the entire voice cast for the Trans-Lux “bag of tricks” TV version of Felix the Cat. But his pre-Popeye career is blown off in a few sentences if you go hunting for information. If you believe some places on the internet, he was born Jack Mercer in New York City—neither of which is true. You’ll read of vaudevillian parents but they are not identified. So let’s dig through some official records and newspaper clippings and find out a few things.

Our starting point is Mercer’s marriage license given to him before he tied the knot with Margie Hines. Margie replaced Mae Questel as the voice of Olive Oyl when Mercer and the Fleischer studio packed up for Miami, leaving Questel to continue her acting career in New York. It reveals Mercer’s actual given name, though his WW2 enlistment papers have his name as “Jack.”



Knowing his name was really “Winfield” made it much easier to find him in census records and they show he was not born in New York at all but in Indiana. The 1910 Census has him, age two months, living with grandmother Maggie and a number of adult Mercers, including a Kilburn B. [sic] and Nola Mercer in Worthington. In 1920, he was with another grandmother, Bertha Allen, in Trenton, New Jersey. The only other Mercer in the census is named Bennett and we also find a Nola St. Claire and her younger sister Winifred. It turns out Bennett Kelburn Mercer and Nola St. Claire were Jack’s parents. And the story is true. For a time, they were in vaudeville together. In fact, his parents were married on stage, as the July 30, 1908 edition of the Decatur, Indiana newspaper reveals; they were in a company run by Bennett’s younger brother Charles. Bennett gave up show business by World War One—his enlistment papers reveal he was a mechanic at a Nash dealership—but Nola went to appear on Broadway and on the prestigious Keith circuit. She and Bennett divorced in 1922. He moved back to Indiana, remarried, and worked as a janitor. She and her mother packed up young Winfield and were living in Manhattan in 1930, with Bertha running a boarding house.

We’ll let Mercer himself pick up the story. The revelation of Mercer as the voice of Popeye made print on rare occasion during the theatrical days—mainly when he married “Olive Oyl”—but that changed when Hanna-Barbera decided to make new, toned down Popeye cartoons in 1978. As incredible as it may seem, the studio actually had Mercer audition for the role he began playing in 1934. Word that the long-time voice of Popeye would be returning potentially made good copy, especially since he played a character long used by you-must-think-as-we-do groups to pressure networks to emasculate Saturday morning cartoons.

Here are two of the wire service stories, the first by the National Enterprise Association that appeared in papers around August 13, 1978 and the other from United Press International.

Jack Mercer Resurrects ‘Popeye’ Cartoon Voice
By DICK KLEINER
HOLLYWOOD—After 44 years and more than 700 shorts, the voice of Popeye and Betty Boop and dozens of other cartoon characters is finally working in Hollywood.
His name is Jack Mercer and he is a shy, retiring and very modest man who just happens to have a tremendous range of voices at his beck and sound.
Now he’s working here, at the Hanna-Barbera Studio, where they have resurrected Popeye for a new series of Saturday morning cartoon shows. CBS will begin telecasting the new ones this coming fall.
It has been 18 years since any new “Popeye” shows were made, Mercer says. But he still can talk like the old sailor man that millions of us have heard.
It all began, for Jack Mercer, in New York in the early ‘30s. He has been born in Indiana to a family that had a traveling repertory company, the Winifred St. Clair Company. Miss St. Clair was an aunt.
The whole family was involved with the company. As a small boy, he went on whenever there was a play that called for a small boy. “Despite that,” he says, “my folks didn’t want me to go into show business. I did, but I had to get in through a back door because of my parents’ disapproval. I was good at art, so that was my entry into show biz.”
He went to New York and got a job in the Max Fleischer Studio as an “opaquer,” a lowly person who does some of the backgrounds on animated cartoons. He worked his way up to “inker,” then “in-betweener,” both somewhat higher up the animation ladder.
At the time he started with Fleischer, the “Betty Boop” cartoons were the studio’s big thing. Then they added “Popeye,” and the first voice of the sailor man belonged to a singer named Red Pepper Sam Costello. He made the first six or so.
Jack Mercer, who always had a gift for mimicry, began imitating Red Pepper Sam’s Popeye voice. When the studio, for reasons Mercer never did know, decided to switch to a new voice, they heard Mercer and had him do it.

‘Popeye’ comeback slated with new cartoons next fall
By VERNON SCOTT
HOLLYWOOD, June 19 (UPI) — Popeye, the runty, one-eyed sailorman, is making a comeback next television season with 48 new cartoons for Saturday morning viewing.
The spinach-gobbling old tar will be less violent than in the old days, but he will look and sound the same as he did in 454 previous cartoons.
Popeye’s voice for the past 44 years has been Jack Mercer, a meek, mild-mannered New Yorker who would seem to have more in common with J. Wellington Wimpy than the scrappy little sailor. Mercer, in fact, also provided Wimpy’s voice in the old TV and movie cartoons.
AS CLOSELY associated with Popeye as he is, Mercer was not the original voice of the sailorman. In the beginning the raspy vocalizations were done by an odd-ball singer named “Red Pepper Sam” Costello.
Actually, Popeye’s voice was a switchover from Costello’s voice for Gus Gorilla on the “Betty Boop” radio show.
Costello passed up the Popeye vocals in 1933 due to a conflict in schedules and Mercer took over.
IN THE EARLY 1930s Mercer was a cartoonist working for the Max Fleisher Studio in New York, which was later bought out by Paramount. He was assigned to coloring and drawing Popeye panels for the movie cartoons.
“I began mimicking Popeye’s voice when I was in the inking department just to amuse my fellow cartoonists and to break up the monotony,” Mercer recalled.
“When Costello quit, the producers grabbed me and I’ve been doing Popeye ever since. But I also did the voice for 240 ‘Felix The Cat’ cartoons. I did the two other major characters in Felix films, too — the Professor and Rock Bottom, the villain.”
THE LAST Popeye cartoon was done 16 years ago, but Mercer kept his voice limber and his pocketbook heavy by doing Popeye’s voice for television commercials and on records.
When Hanna-Barbera, the world’s largest cartoon producers, bought rights to Popeye, auditions were held for the voices of Popeye, Olive Oyl, Wimpy and the others. Mercer came to Hollywood for the first time in his life earlier this year to give it a try.
“I’M THE ONLY returning voice,” he said, grinning. “Marilyn Schreffler will do Olive and Allen Melvin is doing the voice of Bluto, who used to be called Brutus. Daws Butler will provide a new voice and character for Wimpy.
“Alice the Goon, the Jeep, Sweetpea and the other characters will all be back for the new shows.”
In addition to 48 6½ minute shows, Hanna-Barbera will produce 16 11-minute cartoons for CBS-TV Saturday morning programming.
“MY VOICE work for the new cartoons is more or less a sideline right now,” Mercer said. “My main job is writing the scripts and doing the story boards for the shows.
“The difficulty is cutting down on the violence. Popeye never did hurt anyone unless it was absolutely necessary. But the silly part of it is, the old violent shows are still being seen on TV all over the country and nobody objects. It doesn’t make sense to impose different rules on the new ones.
“I’ve re-recorded the opening song for the new shows. And instead of using the old boat whistle to punctuate ‘I’m Popeye The Sailorman Toot-Toot’ I do the whistle myself.
“THE CARTOONS are more difficult to do these days for the people providing the voices. In the old days we were given the drawings first and then recorded our voices for the sound track.
“These days we record the dialogue first. It’s harder to do the ad libs and make the funny little asides and mumblings that are so very much a part of the Popeye character before you saw in the pictures.
“We don’t have as much time to rehearse as we used to. There’s less time to familiarize yourself with the script and to work out something appropriate and funny for the ad libs.”
MERCER IS convinced Popeye is a universal hero, the underdog who finally tires of being pushed around and asserts himself. With the help of a can of spinach, of course.
"Popeye is a basic American character,” said Mercer. “He has high moral standards. He tries to talk the villain out of his evil ways before belting him out. And he is forever defending Olive Oyl’s virtue.
“The popularity of Popeye reruns over the years is responsible for all the new shows. Both the movie cartoons and the cartoons made for television are still being shown on the tube.
“THERE WERE 234 theatrical segments made for theaters and 220 episodes made for television by King Features. As I recall, the first ones done in color were in 1936.
“I’m sure millions of dollars will be made on merchandising deals that will go along with the new cartoons. I’m not a big collector of Popeye memorabilia, but I do have some Popeye greeting cards, posters and dolls back in my New York home. I imagine I’ll be adding to my collection in the next few years.”

Mercer wasn’t the only voice of Popeye after he took over from Costello. He enlisted in the military on July 13, 1943 (stating he had completed two years of high school) and spent two years overseas. Naturally, he couldn’t exactly fly back to New York for voice sessions so Harry Welch performed Popeye’s role (Mae Questel claimed she had as well). But there was someone else. Ferman Wilson’s column in the Miami News of June 11, 1939 quoted Pinto Colvig, then a writer and actor at Fleischer’s:

“By the way,” he added, “did Hamp Howard tell you how they got him to talk for Popeye in the last release, as a sub for Jack Mercer? Did a good job, too, but he hasn’t paid me my 10 per cent commission yet.” It was Hamp’s first effort as a star.

Hampton W. Howard and his wife Edna were both in public relations and had an apartment at 277 Park Avenue in Manhattan in 1940. How long he was in Florida is unknown but he had spent some of his teenaged years in Georgia. The reference to him voicing Popeye is puzzling in that the “last release” was “Wotta Nitemare” (in theatres by May 19, 1939) and it sounds like Mercer in the role. But as Mercer and Hines were married the previous March 3rd, he may have been occupied with something other than studio business for a bit.

Mercer and Hines divorced (they were still married in March 1944 as a newspaper story refers to Mrs. Mercer working on the Grumman assembly line) and Margie disappeared from the animation scene. Thanks mainly to his work at Hanna-Barbera years later, Mercer enjoyed the spotlight until his death at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York on December 4, 1984 at age 74.

Incidentally, our Winfield B. Mercer doesn’t appear to be related to former major league pitcher Winfield B. Mercer who killed himself in a San Francisco hotel in 1903, leaving behind a note warning his friends to “Beware of women and a game of chance.” In fact, his name wasn’t Winfield Mercer at all; he was born George Barclay Mercer but went by “Win.” It seems Jack né Win balanced the scales a bit.

The Twirling Pants of Fear

Last week, we featured an Avery-like eye-bulge take from the Art Davis unit at Warners in “Porky Chops.” Here are some drawings from an even wilder take of the heckling squirrel when he sees and angry bear galloping toward him. Notice how the squirrel’s pants twirl in fear.



Larry Trembley has identified the animator as Bill Melendez, yes, the one who brought you the kind, gentle, almost immobile Peanuts characters on TV. Emery Hawkins, Don Williams and Basil Davidovich were also credited as animators.

This cartoon shows Davis and his writers Bill Scott and Lloyd Turner had the Warners style down pat. Puns, takes, silly dialogue, lippy antagonists from New York who called people names, characters zipping from one place to the next. And Davis carries it off with a one-shot character who doesn’t have audience familiarity going for him. Great stuff.

Cock-a-Doodle In-Between

Here’s an in-between drawing from Tex Avery’s Cock-a-Doodle Dog (1951). The obsessively crowing rooster keeps running from his chicken coop to a post, crows, then runs back.



Mike Lah, Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons are the animators in this one.

Since I haven’t mentioned it before, someone has been putting together animated GIF files of moments in Avery cartoons and posting them on Tumblr. Hooray for whoever it is. Here’s the scene from the cartoon above.



You can go the site by clicking on the URL on the sidebar or going to http://veryaverygifs.tumblr.com/

Tarring Bob Hope With the Red Brush

In this day of “The Daily Show”, Stephen Colbert and late night talk show monologues, it’s hard to think anyone believed political humour would be too sensitive a subject for comedians. But that appears to have been the case in 1958, a time of stand-up yucks about mothers-in-law, women drivers and suburbia.

When you think of Bob Hope, a multitude of things come to mind. Road pictures with Bing Crosby. “Thanks for the Memories.” Old Ski Nose. Endless sojourns to entertain “the boys.” And, at the end, an old guy staring at corny jokes on cue cards during TV specials larded with marching bands, football teams and breasty women. But in his radio variety days, Hope tossed in one-line zingers at political figures. And like any good comedian, he picked on the foible, not the political party.

Leslie Townes Hope would be 110 today. Here’s a column from the Associated Press about how Hope learned that partisan political types take the attitude “If you ain’t for us, you’re against us.”

END OF POLITICAL HUMOR?
By BOB THOMAS
HOLLYWOOD, Oct. 23 (AP) – Is Bob Hope the only one left who can kid presidents?
This question arose again this week when old ski nose told political jokes at a luncheon for President Eisenhower during the latter’s political visit here. There was much laughter over Bob’s pointed political barbs. Many observers feel he is the only comic who can get away with it anymore.
These lamenters feel the age of political satire is past, that there are too many sacred cows now. You often hear the claim: Will Rogers couldn’t conduct his spoofing of politicos if he were alive today.
“Nonsense,” says Hope. I see no reason why Rogers couldn’t be doing his act today. One you build up certain trade marks, you can get away with more than the newcomer can. People expect me to kid politics; they’d be disappointed if I didn’t.”
But he admitted that political satire is increasingly hazardous.
“I guess it wouldn’t be wise for me to play Little Rock right now,” he sighed during a lunch break of “Alias Jesse James.” “I’ve been getting mail from Arkansas calling me all kinds of names.”
The reason was the Hope-ism: “President Eisenhower wanted to send the first man into space, but he couldn’t get Governor Faubus to make the trip.”
Hope recalled the time when he threw some quips in the direction of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The comedian drew a letter from a Wisconsin judge accusing him of being a Communist. Confirmed capitalist Hope set him straight in a return letter.
Hope knows his way around Washington, and so he can step on some friendly toes when he tosses out his witticisms. Richard Nixon’s “Checkers” speech was too fertile territory for him to resist, so he made some cracks about it.
“Wow, the mail I got from that!” he recalled. “I was worried, because Nixon is a good friend of mine. I sent him the letters and my explanation, just so he’d hear about it from me first.” During his summer run in “Roberta” in St. Louis, Hope cracked: “President Eisenhower is getting more distance out of his golf drivers now that he’s got Sherman Adams’ picture on the ball.”
Hope rattled it off for a quick laugh, but it was picked up by a national magazine. He felt bad about it, since Adams was a friend, too.
Unlike Rogers, who was an avowed partisan (“I don’t belong to an organized party—I’m a Democrat”), Hope has steered clear of active politicking. “I don’t think it’s fair to your sponsor,” he explained.
To prove his impartiality, he can cite the times he entertained before Presidents Roosevelt and Truman. He recalled with fondness a Washington dinner in 1944. Hope commented on the meeting of Roosevelt and Churchill to plan allied strategy:
“They didn’t discuss where we were going to attack or when. It was: How can we keep Eleanor out of the crossfire?”
Hope remembered that FDR lifted his cigarette holder into the air, threw back his head and laughed heartily. To a comedian, such a reaction is worth all the slings and arrows of outraged citizens.

Buccaneer Woodpecker

Buzz Buzzard’s panicked escape in “Buccaneer Woodpecker” (1953) reminds me of a scene in “Alley to Bali” the following year. Body parts stretch, and multiples and brush strokes are used to indicate speed. Here’s a good example.



Both this cartoon and “Bali” were directed by Don Patterson with his only credited animators being LaVerne Harding and Ray Abrams. I suspect he was doing some animation as well as directing. His cartoons featured stretchy characters.



And multiple pointed telescopic eyes.



Patterson directed until, for reasons that aren’t known, Lantz farmed out two cartoons to his brother’s studio, Grantray-Lawrence. Then Tex Avery arrived to direct his unit. Patterson never got it back when Avery left and he left Lantz by 1959 without directing another cartoon.

MGM’s Other Tom Cat

We all know about Tom and Jerry, the cat and mouse who won a bundle of Oscars for Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera at MGM. Their first cartoon was “Puss Gets the Boot,” released in 1940, although the cat wasn’t named Tom until the duo’s second cartoon, “The Midnight Snack,” released July 19, 1941.

However, there was another Tom Cat in development at the studio. Here’s a model sheet, dated October 3, 1940.



This was for Production 99, supposedly “Baby Puss,” a 1943 Tom and Jerry cartoon. But that’s decidedly not the T and J Tom, and the female cat on the sheet doesn’t appear in that cartoon. No, the sheet looks like it’s for “The Alley Cat,” a cartoon from the Hugh Harman unit with a release date two weeks before “The Midnight Snack.”

I can’t find any of the great poses in the model sheet in that cartoon, but here’s a frame of Tom Alley Cat.



It’s far from the cutsey woodland creature cartoons you think of when you hear Harman’s name. For one thing, it’s full of speed effects and comes to a violently loud ending. There’s perspective animation and interesting layouts that Harman loved. Here are two shots from opposing points of view, not only high and low, but poor side of town vs gleaming, modern art deco apartment tower.



The name “Moreno” on the model sheet, I’m presuming, belongs to Manuel Moreno. He was one of Walter Lantz’s top animators from about 1930 to 1937 and I had no idea he ended up at MGM.



Manuel M. Moreno was born in Mexico on August 30, 1908, the oldest of three children. The family moved to California in 1920. By 1940, Manuel was pulling down $4800 a year at MGM, had a nice home in North Hollywood, two daughters, a son and a housekeeper (not named Two-Shoes). His grandson wrote in the Los Angeles Times on May 16, 1998:

Manuel Moreno worked at Universal with Walter Lantz during the "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" years. He animated and directed at other studios, earned a solid reputation, and could have easily moved into a position at the studio of his choice. Instead, he fulfilled his dream to return to his native Mexico and launch a studio to make animated films in Spanish. Between 1943 and 1946, Caricolor Films made a few shorts--one in Technicolor with stereo sound, called "Me Voy de Caceria"--featuring his character Pelon. Stanford University now holds most of Moreno's notes, papers, photos and home movies, but the films made in Mexico have never resurfaced, since they were lost while searching for a distributor in Hollywood.

Moreno died in the Los Angeles area on January 8, 1992.

The design of Tom Alley Cat in this cartoon was borrowed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera for Butch who, as mentioned, appeared in “Baby Puss” and a number of other Tom and Jerrys. The girl cat was also borrowed by Hanna and Barbera and redesigned a bit for “Springtime For Thomas” (1946). Could it be they borrowed the name “Tom” from the Harman unit as well?

My thanks to Mark Sonntag for passing on word about the model sheet.

Screw-ups and Sportsmen

Inside jokes got on the air periodically on the Jack Benny radio show. Some are decipherable; laughter from the band greeted Jack reading a fairy tale featuring a character named “Bertram Scott,” who was Jack’s business secretary. But others are a little more arcane.

On the April 16, 1950 show, one of Jack’s jokes bombed. He then ad-libbed “My writers own an oil well. I can’t do anything with them.” Jack ad-libbed the oil well reference a few more times when the show started dying.

I’ve tried in vain to find a contemporary reference to any of the writers owning an oil well. But I did find a newspaper column that mentioned the Sportsmen Quartet owned one.

The Sportsmen had been around since the 1930s. They had their own 15-minute show for a time, appeared on Rudy Vallee’s and Judy Canova’s programmes and even provided songs for animated cartoons. They had even done some anonymous work on The Jack Benny Program before “officially” becoming part of it in the 1946-47 season, originally playing off the notorious Benny cheapness. Eventually, the Quartet did an excellent and memorable job crooning parody versions of songs that incorporated sales pitches and stock phrases for Lucky Strike cigarettes, cleverly arranged by Mahlon Merrick.

Little was written about the Quartet during their heyday, but the United Press came out with this story in 1953. About the time it was published, the Quartet were touring with Bob Crosby and had stopped in Vancouver with Canadian-born Gisele Mackenzie to raise money to pay for the British Empire Games the following year.

Singers of Commercials Branch Into Own Show
By ALINE MOSBY
United Press Hollywood Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD, May 27. — The “Four Sportsmen” quartet which parlayed a “Hmm” into fame and fortune on Jack Benny’s radio program, said today they're branching into their own show so they can really sing.
The four male crooners thank Benny hourly for giving them overnight success on his CBS program. But, they sighed, they can only give out with a cigaret commercial and “hmmm” that's a running joke on the show.
Like Phil Harris, Dennis Day and other Benny alumni, they’re taking the plunge on their own.
Two Singers
“Bob Crosby sings on the show and so does Dennis Day, so they don’t need us for regular songs,” explained Gurney Bell, Bill Days, Jay Meyer and Marty Sperzel—only not all at once.
“We’ll still stay with Benny, but we have our own transcribed radio show now so we can really sing songs.”
The hit they made as Benny’s foils have brought them a string of other sideline businesses, too.
The Sportsmen incorporated themselves and invested in a housing project, an oil well, a company in the Philippines, a helicopter and a play that flopped.
They’ve scored success on personal appearance tours, after a battle to convince booking agents they could do something besides a musical “hmmmm.” They also plan a series of television films.
“We went into these businesses together on our motto, ‘United we sing, divided we fall,’” quipped Days.
The “Hmm” on the Benny show started a joke.
“Don Wilson, the announcer, was to do the commercial and rather than make it a stereotyped thing, they decided to have a quartet do a hum. Then Benny could say, ‘For this I pay $500?’ and faint,” said Meyer.
Backing
The Sportsmen already were singing as “backing” for such name chirpers as Ginny Sims and Dinah Shore. The unknown quartet was hired for the Benny show. They were such a hit that Benny kept them on. On one program Benny threatened to sell them to rival Fred Allen, and CBS was flooded with irate letters defending the quartet.
One member of the combination has a pitchpipe to give the quartet their cue for the “Hmmm.”
“Once we missed the note, so on the next show Benny locked us in the closet and made us say the commercial 500 times,” grinned Sperzel.

Sperzel’s reference is well-known to fans of the Benny radio show. The broadcast of January 8, 1950 was a complete shambles—except to the audience, who love the spontaneity of mistakes. It started when award-winning announcer Don Wilson spoonerised columnist Drew Pearson’s name into “Drear Pooson.” The sketch which took up the second half of the show had Mary bollix a line. And then the Sportsmen missed a singing cue, with only a couple of them (sounding off-mike) delivering their lyrics. The following weeks, Jack used it as a running gag which Sperzel explained the interview.

For whatever reason, Sperzel became less talkative years later. Non-talkative is, perhaps, a better term. He flatly told people he didn’t want to talk about his career. He died in 2011 at 98, the last surviving member of the post-1943 version of the Quartet.