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Lem shouldn’t have escaped the third drawing but anything can happen in a cartoon, as Tex Avery reminded us all once.
The credited animators in this cartoon (not one of my Avery favourites) are Ed Love, Walt Clinton, Preston Blair and Ray Abrams.
Tuesday, 5 November 2013
Headchopping the Hick
The bad guy who’s after Lem’s girl tries to chop Lem’s head off in “The Hick Chick” (1946). These are five consecutive drawings; the second one is held for two frames and the rest for one.
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Lem shouldn’t have escaped the third drawing but anything can happen in a cartoon, as Tex Avery reminded us all once.
The credited animators in this cartoon (not one of my Avery favourites) are Ed Love, Walt Clinton, Preston Blair and Ray Abrams.
Lem shouldn’t have escaped the third drawing but anything can happen in a cartoon, as Tex Avery reminded us all once.
The credited animators in this cartoon (not one of my Avery favourites) are Ed Love, Walt Clinton, Preston Blair and Ray Abrams.
Monday, 4 November 2013
The Southern Belle and the Egg
Radio’s most popular Southern Belle is 94 today. She grew up amidst the plantations, mint juleps and boll weevils of that well-known city of the Deep South—Toledo, Ohio. That’s where her family settled not many months after her birth in Poland.
Shirley Mitchell had an incredibly prolific career as a supporting actress on both radio and television. Her best-known role to radio fans is that of Leila Ransome, the widow from Dixie who left the Great Gildersleeve at the altar, then battled for him against Eve Goodwin, played by Bea Benaderet. Mitchell and Benaderet crossed paths several times—they were the CBS phone operators on the later radio editions of the Jack Benny radio show, and Mitchell played Benaderet’s cousin on Petticoat Junction.
Mitchell eventually had so many roles simultaneously, she was featured in a Life magazine spread in 1946 as the “busiest actress in radio.”
Talent-plus-break is the operative equation in radio, and Mitchell got a break in landing the role of Ransome. A 1945 Associated Press story by Rosalind Shaffer revealed star Harold Peary wanted Dinah Shore’s secretary for the part—the article gave sole credit to Peary for developing the show—but since the secretary didn’t want to get into acting, Peary got Dinah’s roommate instead. That was Mitchell, who was very much into acting.
That was in Hollywood. Earlier, Shirley had gone to the huge radio centre of Chicago to make a career of it and was about to quit when a producer hired her for the lead in a serial called “The Living Dead” after hearing her do Katherine Hepburn at an amateur show (according to a story by syndicated columnist George Lilley some years later).
Her career was followed by one of her hometown papers, and radio columnist Mitch Woodbury penned this for the Toledo Blade of September 27, 1943.
Toledo Actress Wins Radio Sobriquet “Radio’s Sweetheart.”
That’s what they’re calling Toledo’s Shirley Mitchell in Hollywood these days. For the comely blonde daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Sam Mitchell, 431 Islington St., very definitely has “arrived” as one of the either waves’ foremost actresses.
Usually cast as the ingénue romantic interest, Shirley is now one of the busiest performers on the west coast. Not only that, she is one of the best liked and best known. Only last week she was the subject of a two-page illustrated spread in the kilocycle publication, Radio Life Weekly. And the article by Coy Williams is very flattering in its praise of the local miss.
“There’s an ever-smilin’ blonde around town who’s gone and built herself the doggonest monopoly we’ve come across,” Mr. Williams writes. “She’s cornered the market on long term romance and won the unique title of ‘Radio’s Sweetheart’.”
Here’s the way he catalogues her accomplishments: “When ‘The Great Gildersleeve’ got himself so tangled up with love that they had to form women’s committees to get him out, who was that lady you heard him out with? The Widow Leila Ransome.
“When Rudy Vallee cooed so romantically, whose pink ear was he breathing into the whole year? Why, a giddy sub-deb named Shirley Ann. When Red Skelton buckled on his shootin’ arns and galloped off in search of western beauty, do you know what cactus-bloom he was seeking? None other than Monotonous Maggie?
“When Groucho Marx wants to borrow a cup of sugar, what loving neighbor always pops in? That flowuh of the south, suh, Cindy Lou! When Fred Brady makes sultry love to a lady taxi driver or a female piano mover or a prison warden on the distaff side, whose pulsing voice answers him across the quivering mike? It’s always Veronica.
“And when William Bendix drops in or Johnny Mercer gets another sweetheart—yep, you guessed it, different voice, same gal.
“All these assorted ladies come to you in one well rounded package,” Mr. Williams, “a good-natured, curvaceous cutie named Shirley Mitchell.”
Shirley began impersonating movie stars when she was 6 years old, her parents tell us. And when she was in the sixth grade at Longfellow School, she sang the leading role in the operetta, “Hiawatha.”
At the age of 13, she made her initial appearance before a microphone. This was on Jules Blair’s “Children’s Hour” via WSPD. She took dramatic training at the University of Toledo, the University of Michigan and the Cleveland Playhouse, appearing in stage productions at all three institutions.
During her stay in Cleveland, she was frequently heard on the air channels and finally won a contest sponsored by a daytime serial emanating from a Chicago studio. She lost out in the sectional finals, however, and this made her so angry with herself she then and there decided to invade the Windy City and make good.
Shirley had the determination and perseverance, and she realized her ambition—as you now well know. But it took a lot of time and effort before she landed on the “First Nighter” program—and remained on its weekly for a full year.
Followed regular roles in such other Chicago shows as “Mary Marlin,” “Road of Life,” “Stepmother” and “Author’s Playhouse.” Then, some 18 months ago, she landed on the Ransom Sherman network program [“Hap Hazard”] pinch hitting for Fibber McGee and Molly. With the Sherman troupe she journeyed to Hollywood and was heard with the show there until it left the air.
Unknown to the H-wood casting heads, however, Shirley found jobs few and far between and was all set to return to Chicago when a part on a sustaining program was offered her. In fact, she already had her ticket purchases for the trip back east at the time.
Shirley canceled her train reservation, took the sustaining assignment and suddenly discovered Lady Luck beaming benignly in her face. The Vallee show role turned up. So did the part of Gildersleeve’s vis-à-vis. Others followed. And with them came fame and the sobriquet—“Radio’s Sweetheart.”
In the aforementioned Radio Weekly story, Mr. Williams describes one of Shirley’s biggest radio thrills—and one of her most praiseworthy achievements.
“Once, in Hollywood,” he says, “she was called at the very last minute to substitute for Katina Paxinou, the great Greek actress, in a Greek War Relief broadcast. She dashed madly to the studio, arriving five minutes before air time without the faintest idea what the script was about. She’d thrown a bandana about her towseled hair, she’d gotten properly dressed only through the grace of God. Star William Gargan pushed a script in her hand, Producer Bob Moss whispered to play it dramatic and in a Greek dialect (she’s never been to Greece, either), and the show was on. Only then did she learn she was subbing for one of the world’s finest actresses, without time even to read the script through once, She went through the half-hour show without a bobble.”
Shirley is said to be a mistress of dialect, a girl who can talk southern, northern, western or Brooklynese upon a moment’s notice. She shares a house in the Hollywood hills, just off Sunset Blvd., with another celebrated lady of the ether channels—Dinah Shore. A year ago, when Toledo’s Helen O’Connell was in the cinema sector making a picture and appearing at the Paladium Ballroom with Jimmy Dorsey’s Orchestra, she became a resident of the same household. This summer, Kitty Katten, Jimmy’s new singer and Helen’s successor, resided with Shirley and Dinah.
It’s been a mighty pleasant summer for Shirley. For her parents have been her guests. They’ve just returned to Toledo from that western sojourn.
When “Fibber McGee and Molly” started losing cast members to military service, the show added a boarder named Alice Darling for weekly appearances for the duration. That was Shirley Mitchell. An A.P. story from June 1944 reveals Mitchell had been averaging $25 a week before almost quitting the business, but was now pulling in $350 to $450. Columnist Lilley, in 1946, put the figure at $900 a week. By then, she was featured on Joan Davis’ show; Davis raved about her timing. She married Dr. Julian Friedan on November 23th that year and moved to New York City. The Blade reported she was giving up radio, but she ended up co-starring on Mutual’s “McGarry and His Mouse” before the couple decided on a move to Beverly Hills in 1948 where Shirley could pick up where she left off on “Gildersleeve.” And I’m not attempting to list her other regular radio work.
Ageing changes one’s roles (well, being able to see someone on TV dictated roles for ex-radio actors, too), and 20 years later, Shirley went from being the romantic interest to the butt-insky neighbour. Here’s a syndicated column which appeared in papers on January 30, 1966.
Actress Shirley Mitchell Only Acts Nosy on Video
HOLLYWOOD — Shirley Mitchell isn't really nosy. She just acts that way.
"I keep playing nosy neighbors," admitted Shirley, who portrays Marge Thornton on "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" Tuesdays. Shirley has made a career out of sticking her neighborly nose into other people's business.
"I played Cara Williams' neighbor on 'Pete and Gladys,'" she elaborated. "I've played lots of neighbors on television and in radio. I can't even estimate the number any more."
Shirley doesn't feel she measures up to her roles — in real life.
"I'm really not a good neighbor, by TV standards," she said.
"I chat with my neighbors, but I don't drop in, unannounced."
Her neighbors, who must appreciate this un-TV-like trait, know her as the wife of Dr. Julian Frieden, a general surgeon in private practice.
The Friedens live in Bel Air, an elegant suburb of Los Angeles, with their daughter, Brooke, 15 and son, Scott, 10.
"I still remember what one of our neighbors did for us when we first moved in," Shirley recalls appreciatively. "She came and offered to throw a welcoming party so the children could meet each other. It was the sweetest thing. I learned how important these gestures are." Shirley, in turn, has made an effort to make newcomers feel welcome, by calling on them. Ask any of her neighbors and they'll tell you there's more to Shirley Mitchell Frieden than her career as an actress.
She's a dedicated worker for SHARE, an organization aimed at helping exceptional (mentally retarded) children.
She has one other great commitment.
"I collect everything I can about John F. Kennedy," she said. "I don't even know whether I should talk about it — but it's true. It started — with the assassination.
I don't know why exactly. Perhaps because the magnetism of the man got to everybody — child and adult alike.
Perhaps because he represents all the feelings we ever had about hope. Perhaps because he aroused in us a feeling that ideals could become realities — that it could be done. Perhaps we're all trying to hold on to that."
These more serious concerns have replaced such lighter pastimes as collecting China animals and music boxes which Shirley gave up years ago because "they were dust collectors."
She likes acting, having acted since she was six years old, and she likes portraying Marge Thornton.
"I like her better than other neighbors I've played," Shirley said. "She's warm whereas most of the others have been kind of giddy. She's more down to earth, the others were kind of duncy."
As for the difference between Marge Thornton and Shirley Mitchell?
Marge is nice, but nosy.
Shirley's nice.
Chances are the neighbors would agree.
Some of you are probably wondering when I’d get to Marion Strong. Shirley played the character a grand total of three times. The part received no attention at the time. But that was before rabid “I Love Lucy” fans turned the show from a TV perennial to an almost holy television monument. She remarked in an interview not long ago that people still come up to her and shout out Lucy Ricardo’s almost-60-year-old line to Marion about waiting ten years for her to lay an egg.
We can safely say in 70-plus years of show business, Shirley Mitchell has laid very few of them.
Mitchell eventually had so many roles simultaneously, she was featured in a Life magazine spread in 1946 as the “busiest actress in radio.”
Talent-plus-break is the operative equation in radio, and Mitchell got a break in landing the role of Ransome. A 1945 Associated Press story by Rosalind Shaffer revealed star Harold Peary wanted Dinah Shore’s secretary for the part—the article gave sole credit to Peary for developing the show—but since the secretary didn’t want to get into acting, Peary got Dinah’s roommate instead. That was Mitchell, who was very much into acting.
That was in Hollywood. Earlier, Shirley had gone to the huge radio centre of Chicago to make a career of it and was about to quit when a producer hired her for the lead in a serial called “The Living Dead” after hearing her do Katherine Hepburn at an amateur show (according to a story by syndicated columnist George Lilley some years later).
Her career was followed by one of her hometown papers, and radio columnist Mitch Woodbury penned this for the Toledo Blade of September 27, 1943.
Toledo Actress Wins Radio Sobriquet “Radio’s Sweetheart.”
That’s what they’re calling Toledo’s Shirley Mitchell in Hollywood these days. For the comely blonde daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Sam Mitchell, 431 Islington St., very definitely has “arrived” as one of the either waves’ foremost actresses.
Usually cast as the ingénue romantic interest, Shirley is now one of the busiest performers on the west coast. Not only that, she is one of the best liked and best known. Only last week she was the subject of a two-page illustrated spread in the kilocycle publication, Radio Life Weekly. And the article by Coy Williams is very flattering in its praise of the local miss.
“There’s an ever-smilin’ blonde around town who’s gone and built herself the doggonest monopoly we’ve come across,” Mr. Williams writes. “She’s cornered the market on long term romance and won the unique title of ‘Radio’s Sweetheart’.”
Here’s the way he catalogues her accomplishments: “When ‘The Great Gildersleeve’ got himself so tangled up with love that they had to form women’s committees to get him out, who was that lady you heard him out with? The Widow Leila Ransome.
“When Rudy Vallee cooed so romantically, whose pink ear was he breathing into the whole year? Why, a giddy sub-deb named Shirley Ann. When Red Skelton buckled on his shootin’ arns and galloped off in search of western beauty, do you know what cactus-bloom he was seeking? None other than Monotonous Maggie?
“When Groucho Marx wants to borrow a cup of sugar, what loving neighbor always pops in? That flowuh of the south, suh, Cindy Lou! When Fred Brady makes sultry love to a lady taxi driver or a female piano mover or a prison warden on the distaff side, whose pulsing voice answers him across the quivering mike? It’s always Veronica.
“And when William Bendix drops in or Johnny Mercer gets another sweetheart—yep, you guessed it, different voice, same gal.
“All these assorted ladies come to you in one well rounded package,” Mr. Williams, “a good-natured, curvaceous cutie named Shirley Mitchell.”
At the age of 13, she made her initial appearance before a microphone. This was on Jules Blair’s “Children’s Hour” via WSPD. She took dramatic training at the University of Toledo, the University of Michigan and the Cleveland Playhouse, appearing in stage productions at all three institutions.
During her stay in Cleveland, she was frequently heard on the air channels and finally won a contest sponsored by a daytime serial emanating from a Chicago studio. She lost out in the sectional finals, however, and this made her so angry with herself she then and there decided to invade the Windy City and make good.
Shirley had the determination and perseverance, and she realized her ambition—as you now well know. But it took a lot of time and effort before she landed on the “First Nighter” program—and remained on its weekly for a full year.
Followed regular roles in such other Chicago shows as “Mary Marlin,” “Road of Life,” “Stepmother” and “Author’s Playhouse.” Then, some 18 months ago, she landed on the Ransom Sherman network program [“Hap Hazard”] pinch hitting for Fibber McGee and Molly. With the Sherman troupe she journeyed to Hollywood and was heard with the show there until it left the air.
Unknown to the H-wood casting heads, however, Shirley found jobs few and far between and was all set to return to Chicago when a part on a sustaining program was offered her. In fact, she already had her ticket purchases for the trip back east at the time.
Shirley canceled her train reservation, took the sustaining assignment and suddenly discovered Lady Luck beaming benignly in her face. The Vallee show role turned up. So did the part of Gildersleeve’s vis-à-vis. Others followed. And with them came fame and the sobriquet—“Radio’s Sweetheart.”
In the aforementioned Radio Weekly story, Mr. Williams describes one of Shirley’s biggest radio thrills—and one of her most praiseworthy achievements.
“Once, in Hollywood,” he says, “she was called at the very last minute to substitute for Katina Paxinou, the great Greek actress, in a Greek War Relief broadcast. She dashed madly to the studio, arriving five minutes before air time without the faintest idea what the script was about. She’d thrown a bandana about her towseled hair, she’d gotten properly dressed only through the grace of God. Star William Gargan pushed a script in her hand, Producer Bob Moss whispered to play it dramatic and in a Greek dialect (she’s never been to Greece, either), and the show was on. Only then did she learn she was subbing for one of the world’s finest actresses, without time even to read the script through once, She went through the half-hour show without a bobble.”
Shirley is said to be a mistress of dialect, a girl who can talk southern, northern, western or Brooklynese upon a moment’s notice. She shares a house in the Hollywood hills, just off Sunset Blvd., with another celebrated lady of the ether channels—Dinah Shore. A year ago, when Toledo’s Helen O’Connell was in the cinema sector making a picture and appearing at the Paladium Ballroom with Jimmy Dorsey’s Orchestra, she became a resident of the same household. This summer, Kitty Katten, Jimmy’s new singer and Helen’s successor, resided with Shirley and Dinah.
It’s been a mighty pleasant summer for Shirley. For her parents have been her guests. They’ve just returned to Toledo from that western sojourn.
When “Fibber McGee and Molly” started losing cast members to military service, the show added a boarder named Alice Darling for weekly appearances for the duration. That was Shirley Mitchell. An A.P. story from June 1944 reveals Mitchell had been averaging $25 a week before almost quitting the business, but was now pulling in $350 to $450. Columnist Lilley, in 1946, put the figure at $900 a week. By then, she was featured on Joan Davis’ show; Davis raved about her timing. She married Dr. Julian Friedan on November 23th that year and moved to New York City. The Blade reported she was giving up radio, but she ended up co-starring on Mutual’s “McGarry and His Mouse” before the couple decided on a move to Beverly Hills in 1948 where Shirley could pick up where she left off on “Gildersleeve.” And I’m not attempting to list her other regular radio work.
Ageing changes one’s roles (well, being able to see someone on TV dictated roles for ex-radio actors, too), and 20 years later, Shirley went from being the romantic interest to the butt-insky neighbour. Here’s a syndicated column which appeared in papers on January 30, 1966.
Actress Shirley Mitchell Only Acts Nosy on Video
HOLLYWOOD — Shirley Mitchell isn't really nosy. She just acts that way.
"I keep playing nosy neighbors," admitted Shirley, who portrays Marge Thornton on "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" Tuesdays. Shirley has made a career out of sticking her neighborly nose into other people's business.
"I played Cara Williams' neighbor on 'Pete and Gladys,'" she elaborated. "I've played lots of neighbors on television and in radio. I can't even estimate the number any more."
Shirley doesn't feel she measures up to her roles — in real life.
"I'm really not a good neighbor, by TV standards," she said.
"I chat with my neighbors, but I don't drop in, unannounced."
The Friedens live in Bel Air, an elegant suburb of Los Angeles, with their daughter, Brooke, 15 and son, Scott, 10.
"I still remember what one of our neighbors did for us when we first moved in," Shirley recalls appreciatively. "She came and offered to throw a welcoming party so the children could meet each other. It was the sweetest thing. I learned how important these gestures are." Shirley, in turn, has made an effort to make newcomers feel welcome, by calling on them. Ask any of her neighbors and they'll tell you there's more to Shirley Mitchell Frieden than her career as an actress.
She's a dedicated worker for SHARE, an organization aimed at helping exceptional (mentally retarded) children.
She has one other great commitment.
"I collect everything I can about John F. Kennedy," she said. "I don't even know whether I should talk about it — but it's true. It started — with the assassination.
I don't know why exactly. Perhaps because the magnetism of the man got to everybody — child and adult alike.
Perhaps because he represents all the feelings we ever had about hope. Perhaps because he aroused in us a feeling that ideals could become realities — that it could be done. Perhaps we're all trying to hold on to that."
These more serious concerns have replaced such lighter pastimes as collecting China animals and music boxes which Shirley gave up years ago because "they were dust collectors."
She likes acting, having acted since she was six years old, and she likes portraying Marge Thornton.
"I like her better than other neighbors I've played," Shirley said. "She's warm whereas most of the others have been kind of giddy. She's more down to earth, the others were kind of duncy."
As for the difference between Marge Thornton and Shirley Mitchell?
Marge is nice, but nosy.
Shirley's nice.
Chances are the neighbors would agree.
Some of you are probably wondering when I’d get to Marion Strong. Shirley played the character a grand total of three times. The part received no attention at the time. But that was before rabid “I Love Lucy” fans turned the show from a TV perennial to an almost holy television monument. She remarked in an interview not long ago that people still come up to her and shout out Lucy Ricardo’s almost-60-year-old line to Marion about waiting ten years for her to lay an egg.
We can safely say in 70-plus years of show business, Shirley Mitchell has laid very few of them.
Sunday, 3 November 2013
Jack's Jokes
Today, if you want to check out a bunch of quotes, especially from popular culture, you can go to any number of web sites. Back in the 1940s, it wasn’t so easy.
Fans of the Jack Benny got a hand in this matter from syndicated columnist John Crosby in this column that first appeared in newspapers on April 21, 1949. This isn’t a “greatest hits” list; Crosby simply passed on some things he had heard in radio shows over the last little while.
Benny Joke Sets Record For Variety
By JOHN CROSBY
Jack Benny hasn't, as it is sometimes rumored, only one joke on his show. He has quite a few. But the changes run on his No. 1 Joke, the elder statesman of the jokes over there, are miraculously variegated. It seems incredible that one joke could be put in so many different contexts, but the writers manage. I have a little file of jokes on Jack Benny's stinginess that I've collected over the years, and I thought I'd pass them on for the sake of posterity.
Benny: Rochester, maybe you ought to go back to that golf course and look for my ball.
Rochester: Boss, why don't give up? We'll never find it.
Benny: Give up? Rochester, suppose Columbus gave up. He never would have discovered America. Then what would have happened?
Rochester: We'd be looking for that ball in Spain.
Professor: Monsieur Benny, you haven't paid me for your violin lesson.
Benny: How thoughtless of me. Have a chair.
Professor: You gave me a chair last time. Today I want the money.
Jimmy Stewart: No, Jack, I'd feel better if I paid the luncheon tab.
Benny: Well, if your health involved, okay.
Benny: Here's a nickel, Rochester. Telephone Phil Harris for me.
Rochester: Oh, boy! Look at the buffalo gulp for fresh air.
Rochester: Oh, oh. I dropped the nickel Mr. Benny gave me to phone. Doggone it, I can't see it anywhere.
Benny: Here it is. It rolled back to me.
Mary: For heaven's sake, Jack, why should you be worried? You must have millions of dollars down in your vault.
Benny: I know but I don't want to break up the serial numbers.
I've got others but I'd like to hurry along to another standby of the Benny show, the Maxwell joke.
Benny: Rochester, you know that picture of my Maxwell that hangs in the den? That's the first car I ever owned.
Rochester: That's the first car anyone ever owned.
Rochester: Why don't you trade in the old car for a newer model?
Benny: What for? This car takes us where we want to go.
Rochester: I know, but look how much older we are when we get there.
There are other jokes on the Benny program. There are actually three Phil Harris jokes—his illiteracy, his insobriety and his wife. And there's the Dennis Day joke.
Dennis (entering his house): Mother! Oh, Mother!
Voice: Your mother isn't here.
Dennis: Who are you?
Voice: Your Father.
And there are odd jokes on that show, too, jokes that fit into no special category.
Benny: Phil, tell me, what did 10 doctors do about your headaches?
Phil: Plenty. First they gave me a complete physical. Then they gave me all the allergy tests. Then they checked my reflexes. Finally they psychoanalyzed me.
Benny: And did they find out why you have headaches.
Phil: Yeah, my band plays too loud.
Just one more joke, the Benny age joke, and you'd better appreciate it, too. These are $1,000-a-week writers and there are four of them and the above is a two-year collection, representing roughly $160,000 worth of brains.
Benny: Gee, this is a nice picture of me, isn't it? And it's in color.
Rochester: It would be even nicer if your eyelashes weren't gray.
Benny: My lashes aren't gray. It's just that my eyes are so blue they pick up lint.
It's a crime to put these jokes in print. They were written to be spoken with the expert inflections of Benny and the rest of his skillful cast. Still, every year I have to review Benny in some different way and this is the only thing I can think of this year. Reviewing Benny every year is almost as hard as thinking up a new joke about Benny's stinginess.
Fans of the Jack Benny got a hand in this matter from syndicated columnist John Crosby in this column that first appeared in newspapers on April 21, 1949. This isn’t a “greatest hits” list; Crosby simply passed on some things he had heard in radio shows over the last little while.
By JOHN CROSBY
Jack Benny hasn't, as it is sometimes rumored, only one joke on his show. He has quite a few. But the changes run on his No. 1 Joke, the elder statesman of the jokes over there, are miraculously variegated. It seems incredible that one joke could be put in so many different contexts, but the writers manage. I have a little file of jokes on Jack Benny's stinginess that I've collected over the years, and I thought I'd pass them on for the sake of posterity.
Benny: Rochester, maybe you ought to go back to that golf course and look for my ball.
Rochester: Boss, why don't give up? We'll never find it.
Benny: Give up? Rochester, suppose Columbus gave up. He never would have discovered America. Then what would have happened?
Rochester: We'd be looking for that ball in Spain.
Professor: Monsieur Benny, you haven't paid me for your violin lesson.
Benny: How thoughtless of me. Have a chair.
Professor: You gave me a chair last time. Today I want the money.
Jimmy Stewart: No, Jack, I'd feel better if I paid the luncheon tab.
Benny: Well, if your health involved, okay.
Benny: Here's a nickel, Rochester. Telephone Phil Harris for me.
Rochester: Oh, boy! Look at the buffalo gulp for fresh air.
Rochester: Oh, oh. I dropped the nickel Mr. Benny gave me to phone. Doggone it, I can't see it anywhere.
Benny: Here it is. It rolled back to me.
Mary: For heaven's sake, Jack, why should you be worried? You must have millions of dollars down in your vault.
Benny: I know but I don't want to break up the serial numbers.
I've got others but I'd like to hurry along to another standby of the Benny show, the Maxwell joke.
Benny: Rochester, you know that picture of my Maxwell that hangs in the den? That's the first car I ever owned.
Rochester: That's the first car anyone ever owned.
Rochester: Why don't you trade in the old car for a newer model?
Benny: What for? This car takes us where we want to go.
Rochester: I know, but look how much older we are when we get there.
There are other jokes on the Benny program. There are actually three Phil Harris jokes—his illiteracy, his insobriety and his wife. And there's the Dennis Day joke.
Dennis (entering his house): Mother! Oh, Mother!
Voice: Your mother isn't here.
Dennis: Who are you?
Voice: Your Father.
And there are odd jokes on that show, too, jokes that fit into no special category.
Benny: Phil, tell me, what did 10 doctors do about your headaches?
Phil: Plenty. First they gave me a complete physical. Then they gave me all the allergy tests. Then they checked my reflexes. Finally they psychoanalyzed me.
Benny: And did they find out why you have headaches.
Phil: Yeah, my band plays too loud.
Just one more joke, the Benny age joke, and you'd better appreciate it, too. These are $1,000-a-week writers and there are four of them and the above is a two-year collection, representing roughly $160,000 worth of brains.
Benny: Gee, this is a nice picture of me, isn't it? And it's in color.
Rochester: It would be even nicer if your eyelashes weren't gray.
Benny: My lashes aren't gray. It's just that my eyes are so blue they pick up lint.
It's a crime to put these jokes in print. They were written to be spoken with the expert inflections of Benny and the rest of his skillful cast. Still, every year I have to review Benny in some different way and this is the only thing I can think of this year. Reviewing Benny every year is almost as hard as thinking up a new joke about Benny's stinginess.
Saturday, 2 November 2013
The Sunshine Maker
The animated cartoon business in the Golden Age is full of people who should be better known. Ted Eshbaugh is one of them.
Eshbaugh worked on a colour process in the early ‘30s when cartoons were in black and white. He had studios on both the west and east coasts. But his attempts to become another Walt Disney or Leon Schlesinger with a series of cartoons released by a major studio failed. The best he could do was co-direct several cartoons during the waning days of the Van Beuren studio before spending most of the rest of his days in commercial production.
Unfortunately, this post won’t exactly be The Ted Eshbaugh Story but I’ll pass on a couple of newspaper clippings about him. Eshbaugh was born in Des Moines, Iowa on Feb. 4, 1906 to Edwin F. and Zada (Kinear) Eshbaugh. His father sold farm insurance and was transferred to Sioux City when Ted was about two. The Los Angeles City Directory of 1923 lists Ted as an artist living with his widowed mother. The 1940 census shows his brother Jack worked for him at his studio in New York and his other brother Will was a singer on the radio (known as Bill Russell). The two brothers had a beverage distributorship in Los Angeles in the mid to late ‘20s.
The Film Daily of March 8, 1932 reports “The Goofy Goat” had been released and was to be the first of a series; drawings of the character were copyrighted on January 13, 1931. Eshbaugh had a temporary studio in his home on Argyle Avenue in Los Angeles. Perhaps he thought colour would be the gimmick that would get theatres to show Goofy, but he couldn’t really overcome block booking, where a Warners theatre would have to run a Warners cartoon.
Eshbaugh got a lot of attention in 1932. In its January issue, Modern Mechanics profiled his efforts. And here are three newspaper columns which devoted part of their space to Eshbaugh. The first is actually from 1931. It s from the Los Angeles Times. My thanks to Mark Kausler for a copy of this.
CARTOON GANG GETS PAINTED PLAYMAT
A young man, working secretly and unobtrusively for the past two years, has recently emerged with a solution to a problem which has been frustrating the entire business of animated cartoons. His name is Ted Eshbaugh and he has perfected a system of color for these cartoons.
The result of his exhaustive researches will be seen with the imminent release of his own “Goofy Goat” series, complete with sound and color. These shorts are said to be the very first of their kind, no other firm having been able to conquer the color obstacle barring one sequence in color in the Paul Whiteman picture.
Trained for art in Boston, where he won various scholarships, Eshbaugh abandoned the field of portraiture for more lucrative ones. Prey to a desire to combine painting and the screen, he ventured to Hollywood with the intention of evolving some medium of his own.
CONTRACT OFFERED
He made first, an animated cartoon, doing every line of the 15,000 himself. Convinced, then, that he was capable of this rudiment, he continued to odd jobs here and there, learning the trade. It was just when Fox had bought one of his cartoon shorts that the idea for what he wanted to do became clarified. Fox offered him a contract for a series to follow their purchase. The contract was a considerable item for a budding young cartoonist.
But Eshbaugh wanted to make cartoons in color. And to that end, he refused the Fox offer and buried himself in experiment.
For two years, he has been spartanly faithful to research. He has looked at miles of color on film. He has tested the chemicals of every shade and gradation, been defeated countless times by the result shown on the screen, gone back again and stubbornly worked until he discovered what was wrong.
SYSTEM PERFECTED
Now, after two years of engrossed study and concentration, he has literally perfected a color system—a system that is nearly unlimited in the values and tones it encompasses.
And with this has come about the birth of a news little playmate for Mickey Mouse and Pluto the Pup and Bosco of “Looney Tunes” and all the other gay, fantastic little creatures who skip across the screen.
The new member of the “gang” is called “Goofy Goat,” and he puts on side by means of his coat of many colors. Good colors, too. The feeling of picture or vegetable salad is conspicuously missing in these pictures. The colors are true, gentle on the eye and free of that blurred outline which his hitherto distinguished the departure from cinema black and white.
GNASHINGS OF TEETH
A prominent film company’s announcement of its acquisition of this series will shortly be made. And there will be gnashings of teeth in experimental laboratories where vain attempts to solve this same problem have been going on for some time.
The complexities of the process are manifold. Far from a matter of mixing colors, it involves all manner of testing to reproduce those colors photographed on the finished film. The hilation caused by the celluloid on which cartoons are made was only one of the difficulties. Now that the process is perfected and its secrets jealously guarded, young Eshbaugh is assembling an organization of experts to insure his production of a picture a month—one facet of the effort of the animated cartoon profession to supply 20 per cent (which is all that can be managed) of the demand for this lively, highly imaginative entertainment form.
Those who have considered the possibilities color cartoon believe that these might achieve the novelty and variety of the Sunday supplement in the newspaper as compared with the daily comics in black and white.
New elements of beauty might be introduced of, say, the Silly Symphony type, though, as yet, no announcement of color being applied to these has been made.
It would also give more of a third dimensional appearance to the backgrounds in many instances, for color is known to increase the perspective of a scene.
Then, too, in comedies dealing with a variety of animals and birds doing their mirthful stuff, these could be shown in their full spotted and striped panoply, and variegated plumage.
Maybe then, too, even that protean, many-hued Thespian, the chameleon, could be induced to act!
THE FILM SHOP
By Harrison Carroll
King Features Syndicate
Hollywood, Cal., Oct. 13—Names to conjure with by generations of youngsters, the tin woodman and little Dorothy, now are to be heroes in a series of animated cartoons based on the famous Oz stories of Frank L. Baum.
Musicolor fantasies, a new company formed by Ted Eshbaugh, Hollywood artist, and J. R. Booth, Canadian sports man, will produce the pictures using a color process they have perfected after several years of experiment. Releases already are assured both here and abroad and the first or the cartoons has gone into production.
To me it seems altogether a happy idea. I was raised on the Oz stories. So were millions of other youngsters. The proof of it is Frank L. Baum has sold more than 8,000,000 copies of his books.
Backing film companies is a side-line with Mr. Booth. He lives in Ottawa, has vast lumber and paper interests and is a well-known sports man. His sister is married to Prince Erik of Denmark.
Hollywood Screen Life
By HUBBARD KEAVY
HOLLYWOOD, Oct. 31—If Ted Eshbaugh's experiments are successful animated portraits eventually will take the place of animated cartoons.
Eshbaugh, portrait painter, miniature artist and sculptor, now is preparing a series of 13 two-reel animated cartoons in color, the stories being adapted from the famous Wizard of Oz books.
The color process, one Eshbaugh spent 10 years developing, was the first to be applied satisfactorily to cartoons on the screen. Yellow, a color heretofore impossible to reproduce truly, now is as free from halation as red or green.
Realistic Mr. Leo
This 30-year-old artist's hope is to put into motion pictures not merely jerky cartoon characters in simple outline, but backgrounds and characters with reality and artistry of detailed, paintings.
One animated film of this type, in which a lion looks like a painting of a lion instead of a pen-and-ink animal, already has been completed by Eshbaugh.
Eshbaugh, upon graduating from one of Boston's better art schools, where he won a scholarship, went into portrait and miniature work. As a hobby, he took up colored, animated cartoons.
When he announced his intention of giving up his “serious” art in order to come to this scene of film activity to experiment farther, intimated he was prostituting his art by giving his talents to a medium so un-arty as the movies! Ted was kind enough not to remind some of these same gentlemen of their remarks when, a few years later — the depression having been felt un the field of art — they wrote to ask him for jobs as movie illustrators.
Reel Life In Hollywood
[Boston Daily Globe, Nov. 2, 1932]
Does Boston remember Ted Eshbaugh, who won scholarships at the Boston Art Museum and Chicago Art Institute? Some years ago, the young artist came to Hollywood and went quietly above developing a satisfactory color process for animated cartoons. Recently he has come into prominence as head of a newly formed company known as Musicolor Fantasies. As inventor of a new color film process, said to give the truest color values yet produced on the screen, he now heads a staff of 25 of the finest cartoon animators in the country.
Eshbaugh kept trying. The Film Daily of August 29, 1933 revealed he was producing three-colour “Musicolor Fantasies,” with the first being “The Snow Man.” That may have been his last west coast effort. By 1934, he was in New York. The Van Beuren short “The Sunshine Makers” he co-directed with Burt Gillett was copyrighted on January 11, 1935. How much Eshbaugh was responsible for it isn’t clear, but it’s notable the cartoon was a commercial effort for Borden’s Dairy Products. Eshbaugh seemed to concentrate most of his future efforts in the commercial and industrial animation areas. Contemporary trade publications talk of “Mr. Peanut and His Family Tree” in 1939 (and murals painted on the Planters exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair), a dental hygiene film in 1944 and “The Pied Piper of Chiclet Town” in 1948, the same year he made a short on the Declaration of Independence in three-colour Ansco Color. The Library of Congress has a sample reel of Eshbaugh’s TV commercial work, including ads for Aunt Jemima Devil's Food Cake Ready Mix, Hinds Hand Cream, Camel Cigarettes, Chase and Sanborn Coffee and White Rock Sparkling Water. But he still apparently had a dream about a theatrical series; a New York Sun clipping dated July 25, 1938 reads: “Ted Eshbaugh Studios, in New York, are producing a series of animated cartoons called “Peter Panda,” inspired by the national popularity of the panda.” No, Walter Lantz wasn’t the first cartoon producer to come up with the idea of a panda (“Like Begins For Andy Panda” wasn’t released until October 9th the following year). But Lantz did make a cartoon and comic book series out of it.
The growth of television starting in the late ‘40s seems to have attracted Eshbaugh as well. Broadcasting magazine of September 18, 1950 reports: “TED ESHBAUGH STUDIOS Inc., N. Y., introduces new TV film comedy Bumps O'Dazy, starring Billy Gilbert. Initial film is in color.” Eshbaugh was a member of the National Television Film Council at the time. And Eshbaugh seems to have tried to make a series of TV cartoons out of a character called “Daffy Doodles.” He copyrighted a song with that name in 1955; you see a 1959 trade ad to the right. Animation history Jerry Beck has remarked to me he doesn’t think the cartoons were ever produced. And Broadcasting revealed in its issue of October 12, 1959: “Sterling Television Co., New York, has released 150 fully animated color cartoons, each of which is introduced and hosted by a character named "Capt'n Sailor Bird," also the title of package. Episodes are in "cliff hanger" form—providing a carryover from one chapter to the next. The series was created for tv by Ted Eshbaugh Studios, New York. Sales of the package have been concluded with WGN -TV Chicago and WGR -TV Buffalo, Sterling reported.”
The U.S Death Index gives Eshbaugh’s death as of July, 1969. An on-line site states it happened on July 4th. I have not been able to find an obituary.
A web search can easily come up with web sites to watch “Goofy Goat,” “The Snow Man,” “The Wizard of Oz” and “Cap’n Cub,” which Eshbaugh himself screened on WBNT-TV in New York in 1946. I’d like to link to something of his, so here is “The Sunshine Makers” from a great-looking print from the Steve Stanchfield collection. Steve’s company has been responsible for restoring all kinds of obscure cartoons, making it a lot easier to appreciate them. Check out his site HERE.
And, just because it’s so strange, here’s “Goofy Goat.”
Unfortunately, this post won’t exactly be The Ted Eshbaugh Story but I’ll pass on a couple of newspaper clippings about him. Eshbaugh was born in Des Moines, Iowa on Feb. 4, 1906 to Edwin F. and Zada (Kinear) Eshbaugh. His father sold farm insurance and was transferred to Sioux City when Ted was about two. The Los Angeles City Directory of 1923 lists Ted as an artist living with his widowed mother. The 1940 census shows his brother Jack worked for him at his studio in New York and his other brother Will was a singer on the radio (known as Bill Russell). The two brothers had a beverage distributorship in Los Angeles in the mid to late ‘20s.
The Film Daily of March 8, 1932 reports “The Goofy Goat” had been released and was to be the first of a series; drawings of the character were copyrighted on January 13, 1931. Eshbaugh had a temporary studio in his home on Argyle Avenue in Los Angeles. Perhaps he thought colour would be the gimmick that would get theatres to show Goofy, but he couldn’t really overcome block booking, where a Warners theatre would have to run a Warners cartoon.
Eshbaugh got a lot of attention in 1932. In its January issue, Modern Mechanics profiled his efforts. And here are three newspaper columns which devoted part of their space to Eshbaugh. The first is actually from 1931. It s from the Los Angeles Times. My thanks to Mark Kausler for a copy of this.
CARTOON GANG GETS PAINTED PLAYMAT
A young man, working secretly and unobtrusively for the past two years, has recently emerged with a solution to a problem which has been frustrating the entire business of animated cartoons. His name is Ted Eshbaugh and he has perfected a system of color for these cartoons.
The result of his exhaustive researches will be seen with the imminent release of his own “Goofy Goat” series, complete with sound and color. These shorts are said to be the very first of their kind, no other firm having been able to conquer the color obstacle barring one sequence in color in the Paul Whiteman picture.
Trained for art in Boston, where he won various scholarships, Eshbaugh abandoned the field of portraiture for more lucrative ones. Prey to a desire to combine painting and the screen, he ventured to Hollywood with the intention of evolving some medium of his own.
CONTRACT OFFERED
He made first, an animated cartoon, doing every line of the 15,000 himself. Convinced, then, that he was capable of this rudiment, he continued to odd jobs here and there, learning the trade. It was just when Fox had bought one of his cartoon shorts that the idea for what he wanted to do became clarified. Fox offered him a contract for a series to follow their purchase. The contract was a considerable item for a budding young cartoonist.
But Eshbaugh wanted to make cartoons in color. And to that end, he refused the Fox offer and buried himself in experiment.
For two years, he has been spartanly faithful to research. He has looked at miles of color on film. He has tested the chemicals of every shade and gradation, been defeated countless times by the result shown on the screen, gone back again and stubbornly worked until he discovered what was wrong.
SYSTEM PERFECTED
Now, after two years of engrossed study and concentration, he has literally perfected a color system—a system that is nearly unlimited in the values and tones it encompasses.
And with this has come about the birth of a news little playmate for Mickey Mouse and Pluto the Pup and Bosco of “Looney Tunes” and all the other gay, fantastic little creatures who skip across the screen.
The new member of the “gang” is called “Goofy Goat,” and he puts on side by means of his coat of many colors. Good colors, too. The feeling of picture or vegetable salad is conspicuously missing in these pictures. The colors are true, gentle on the eye and free of that blurred outline which his hitherto distinguished the departure from cinema black and white.
GNASHINGS OF TEETH
A prominent film company’s announcement of its acquisition of this series will shortly be made. And there will be gnashings of teeth in experimental laboratories where vain attempts to solve this same problem have been going on for some time.
The complexities of the process are manifold. Far from a matter of mixing colors, it involves all manner of testing to reproduce those colors photographed on the finished film. The hilation caused by the celluloid on which cartoons are made was only one of the difficulties. Now that the process is perfected and its secrets jealously guarded, young Eshbaugh is assembling an organization of experts to insure his production of a picture a month—one facet of the effort of the animated cartoon profession to supply 20 per cent (which is all that can be managed) of the demand for this lively, highly imaginative entertainment form.
Those who have considered the possibilities color cartoon believe that these might achieve the novelty and variety of the Sunday supplement in the newspaper as compared with the daily comics in black and white.
New elements of beauty might be introduced of, say, the Silly Symphony type, though, as yet, no announcement of color being applied to these has been made.
It would also give more of a third dimensional appearance to the backgrounds in many instances, for color is known to increase the perspective of a scene.
Then, too, in comedies dealing with a variety of animals and birds doing their mirthful stuff, these could be shown in their full spotted and striped panoply, and variegated plumage.
Maybe then, too, even that protean, many-hued Thespian, the chameleon, could be induced to act!
THE FILM SHOP
By Harrison Carroll
King Features Syndicate
Hollywood, Cal., Oct. 13—Names to conjure with by generations of youngsters, the tin woodman and little Dorothy, now are to be heroes in a series of animated cartoons based on the famous Oz stories of Frank L. Baum.
Musicolor fantasies, a new company formed by Ted Eshbaugh, Hollywood artist, and J. R. Booth, Canadian sports man, will produce the pictures using a color process they have perfected after several years of experiment. Releases already are assured both here and abroad and the first or the cartoons has gone into production.
To me it seems altogether a happy idea. I was raised on the Oz stories. So were millions of other youngsters. The proof of it is Frank L. Baum has sold more than 8,000,000 copies of his books.
Backing film companies is a side-line with Mr. Booth. He lives in Ottawa, has vast lumber and paper interests and is a well-known sports man. His sister is married to Prince Erik of Denmark.
Hollywood Screen Life
By HUBBARD KEAVY
HOLLYWOOD, Oct. 31—If Ted Eshbaugh's experiments are successful animated portraits eventually will take the place of animated cartoons.
Eshbaugh, portrait painter, miniature artist and sculptor, now is preparing a series of 13 two-reel animated cartoons in color, the stories being adapted from the famous Wizard of Oz books.
The color process, one Eshbaugh spent 10 years developing, was the first to be applied satisfactorily to cartoons on the screen. Yellow, a color heretofore impossible to reproduce truly, now is as free from halation as red or green.
Realistic Mr. Leo
This 30-year-old artist's hope is to put into motion pictures not merely jerky cartoon characters in simple outline, but backgrounds and characters with reality and artistry of detailed, paintings.
One animated film of this type, in which a lion looks like a painting of a lion instead of a pen-and-ink animal, already has been completed by Eshbaugh.
Eshbaugh, upon graduating from one of Boston's better art schools, where he won a scholarship, went into portrait and miniature work. As a hobby, he took up colored, animated cartoons.
When he announced his intention of giving up his “serious” art in order to come to this scene of film activity to experiment farther, intimated he was prostituting his art by giving his talents to a medium so un-arty as the movies! Ted was kind enough not to remind some of these same gentlemen of their remarks when, a few years later — the depression having been felt un the field of art — they wrote to ask him for jobs as movie illustrators.
Reel Life In Hollywood
[Boston Daily Globe, Nov. 2, 1932]
Does Boston remember Ted Eshbaugh, who won scholarships at the Boston Art Museum and Chicago Art Institute? Some years ago, the young artist came to Hollywood and went quietly above developing a satisfactory color process for animated cartoons. Recently he has come into prominence as head of a newly formed company known as Musicolor Fantasies. As inventor of a new color film process, said to give the truest color values yet produced on the screen, he now heads a staff of 25 of the finest cartoon animators in the country.
Eshbaugh kept trying. The Film Daily of August 29, 1933 revealed he was producing three-colour “Musicolor Fantasies,” with the first being “The Snow Man.” That may have been his last west coast effort. By 1934, he was in New York. The Van Beuren short “The Sunshine Makers” he co-directed with Burt Gillett was copyrighted on January 11, 1935. How much Eshbaugh was responsible for it isn’t clear, but it’s notable the cartoon was a commercial effort for Borden’s Dairy Products. Eshbaugh seemed to concentrate most of his future efforts in the commercial and industrial animation areas. Contemporary trade publications talk of “Mr. Peanut and His Family Tree” in 1939 (and murals painted on the Planters exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair), a dental hygiene film in 1944 and “The Pied Piper of Chiclet Town” in 1948, the same year he made a short on the Declaration of Independence in three-colour Ansco Color. The Library of Congress has a sample reel of Eshbaugh’s TV commercial work, including ads for Aunt Jemima Devil's Food Cake Ready Mix, Hinds Hand Cream, Camel Cigarettes, Chase and Sanborn Coffee and White Rock Sparkling Water. But he still apparently had a dream about a theatrical series; a New York Sun clipping dated July 25, 1938 reads: “Ted Eshbaugh Studios, in New York, are producing a series of animated cartoons called “Peter Panda,” inspired by the national popularity of the panda.” No, Walter Lantz wasn’t the first cartoon producer to come up with the idea of a panda (“Like Begins For Andy Panda” wasn’t released until October 9th the following year). But Lantz did make a cartoon and comic book series out of it.
The U.S Death Index gives Eshbaugh’s death as of July, 1969. An on-line site states it happened on July 4th. I have not been able to find an obituary.
A web search can easily come up with web sites to watch “Goofy Goat,” “The Snow Man,” “The Wizard of Oz” and “Cap’n Cub,” which Eshbaugh himself screened on WBNT-TV in New York in 1946. I’d like to link to something of his, so here is “The Sunshine Makers” from a great-looking print from the Steve Stanchfield collection. Steve’s company has been responsible for restoring all kinds of obscure cartoons, making it a lot easier to appreciate them. Check out his site HERE.
And, just because it’s so strange, here’s “Goofy Goat.”
Friday, 1 November 2013
Lightning Man
Popeye’s bothered by lightning bolts in the opening scene of “I Yam What I Yam” (1933). No matter. He gathers them into a bunch and punches them into the ocean.
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The topper of the gag is the lightning figure becomes human and yells for help as it bobs in the water. It sounds like Gus Wicke in falsetto.
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Seymour Kneitel and William Henning receive animation credits.
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The topper of the gag is the lightning figure becomes human and yells for help as it bobs in the water. It sounds like Gus Wicke in falsetto.
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Seymour Kneitel and William Henning receive animation credits.
Thursday, 31 October 2013
Crap-py Skeletons
Skeletons seemed to abound in cartoons for a couple of years after the release of Disney’s “The Skeleton Dance” (1929), especially on the East Coast. I haven’t tried to count how often a skeleton appeared in the Don and Waffles and earliest Tom and Jerry cartoons made at the Van Beuren studio, but it seems like they were in a lot of cartoons.
One is “Wot a Night” (1931), the first in the Tom and Jerry series. Skeletons take up a good portion of the second half of short. We’ve posted on the blog from one scene of a skeleton in a bathtub. It’s followed by a scene of a skeleton painting a piano keyboard and playing it.
The next scene features Jerry happily playing an umbrella like an accordion while Tom stands in fright. Something singing slowly appears in the darkness.
Jerry pulls on a light cord and we see four skeletons in blackface singing James S. Putnam’s 1882 spiritual “I’ll Be Ready When the Great Day Comes.” Singing quartets were a staple in Van Beuren cartoons.
Jerry tosses a pair of dice. The skeletons jump on it and the collision breaks them apart into a boney heap. Our heroes can now make their escape.
Harry Bailey and John Foster get a “by” credit on this cartoon. There’s no animation credit.
One is “Wot a Night” (1931), the first in the Tom and Jerry series. Skeletons take up a good portion of the second half of short. We’ve posted on the blog from one scene of a skeleton in a bathtub. It’s followed by a scene of a skeleton painting a piano keyboard and playing it.
The next scene features Jerry happily playing an umbrella like an accordion while Tom stands in fright. Something singing slowly appears in the darkness.
Jerry pulls on a light cord and we see four skeletons in blackface singing James S. Putnam’s 1882 spiritual “I’ll Be Ready When the Great Day Comes.” Singing quartets were a staple in Van Beuren cartoons.
Jerry tosses a pair of dice. The skeletons jump on it and the collision breaks them apart into a boney heap. Our heroes can now make their escape.
Harry Bailey and John Foster get a “by” credit on this cartoon. There’s no animation credit.
Wednesday, 30 October 2013
Is That a Martian?
The two most famous radio broadcasts of the 1930s—and, arguably, in radio history—are Herbert Morrison relating the crash of the dirigible Hindenburg in 1937 and the Mercury Players’ dramatization of “The War of the Worlds” 75 years ago today.
Orson Welles once claimed “The War of the Worlds” catapulted him to Hollywood. It certainly didn’t catapult him to fame. Welles had been known for his broadcasts as The Shadow not too much earlier. But inducing fright didn’t exactly make him anonymous.
His ersatz Martian invasion proved the power of radio—and of the imagination. Front pages of newspapers all across North America told of the concern and panic across the continent of people who thought it all was real. We’re not talking a handful of crackpots. So many calls were made to newspapers that the Associated Press took the unusual step of sending out this advisory at 8:48 p.m. that evening: “Note to editors: Queries to newspapers from radio listeners throughout the United States tonight, regarding a reported meteor fall which killed a number of New Jerseyites, are the result of a studio dramatization. The A.P.”
There are a multitude of newspaper stories to pick from to give you an indication of what the atmosphere was like that evening. But here’s an A.P. dispatch as printed on the front page of the Montreal Gazette the next morning. A snippet from the Utica Daily Press has been added.
Afterwards, CBS apologised. Welles apologised. One Louisiana Democrat said he’d introduce a bill to control “just such abuses as was heard over the radio tonight.” The FCC vowed the next morning to do something. And the Harvard Astronomical Observatory issued a statement assuring people there was no life on Mars.
Not everyone was afraid. The New York Post related how hundreds of people jammed roads around Princeton as they tried to find the meteor to ogle it for themselves.
The following morning, CBS station WABC in New York, which had scheduled “Spooks Inc.,” for a midnight broadcast the next night, cancelled it and substituted a program of dance music which couldn’t scare anybody. And CBS rejected requests from people to rebroadcast the show. New Yorkers had to content themselves with a truncated transcript in the Post. But a line-check must have been made that evening as there are various places you can go on-line to listen to it.
Radio recovered from the controversy. It carried on, bringing World War Two into living rooms, along with comedy, music and even Orson Welles. Then came television. Today, radio brings loud-mouthed talk show hosts, auto-tuned singers and commercial after commercial after commercial. I’ll take a little panic instead, thanks.
His ersatz Martian invasion proved the power of radio—and of the imagination. Front pages of newspapers all across North America told of the concern and panic across the continent of people who thought it all was real. We’re not talking a handful of crackpots. So many calls were made to newspapers that the Associated Press took the unusual step of sending out this advisory at 8:48 p.m. that evening: “Note to editors: Queries to newspapers from radio listeners throughout the United States tonight, regarding a reported meteor fall which killed a number of New Jerseyites, are the result of a studio dramatization. The A.P.”
There are a multitude of newspaper stories to pick from to give you an indication of what the atmosphere was like that evening. But here’s an A.P. dispatch as printed on the front page of the Montreal Gazette the next morning. A snippet from the Utica Daily Press has been added.
New York, Oct. 30 —(AP)— Hysteria among radio listeners throughout the nation and actual panicky evacuations from sections of the metropolitan area resulted from a too-realistic radio broadcast last night describing a fictitious and devastating visitation of strange men from Mars.
Excited and weeping persons all over the country swamped newspaper and police telephone switchboards with, the question: “Is it true?”
It was purely a figment of H. G. Wells’ imagination with some extra flourishes of radio dramatization by Orson Welles. It was broadcast by the Columbia Broadcasting System.
But the anxiety was immeasurable.
The broadcast was an adaptation of Wells’ “War of the Worlds”, in which meteors and gas from Mars menace the earth.
New York police were unable to contact the CBS studios by telephone, so swamped was its switchboard, and a radio car was sent there for information.
A woman ran into a church in Indianapolis, screaming: “New York destroyed; it’s the end of the world. You might as well go home to die. I just heard it on the radio.” Services were dismissed immediately.
Five boys at Brevard (N.C.) college fainted and panic gripped the campus for a half hour with many students fighting for telephones to inform their parents to come and get them.
In Utica, scores of persons called The Press asking “Is it true?” what they said about New Jersey. There were sighs of relief when they were assured it wasn’t so.
One man prevailed upon the management of a local theater to page his wife so he could tell her about the “catastrophe” which had struck New Jersey where all her relatives live.
At Fayetteville, N. C, people with relatives in the section of New Jersey where the mythical visitation had its locale, went to a newspaper office in tears seeking information.
A message from Providence, R. I., said:
“Weeping and hysterical women swamped the switch-board of the Providence Journal for details of the massacre and destruction at New York and officials of the electric company received scores of calls urging them to turn off all lights so that the city would be safe from the enemy.”
The New York bureau of The Canadian Press received queries relayed from Canadian listeners who wondered what it was all about.
In various parts of the United States mass hysteria mounted so high in some cases that people told police and newspapers they “saw” the invasion.
The Boston Globe told of one woman who “claimed she could “see the fire” and said she and many others in her neighborhood were “getting out of here.”
Minneapolis and St. Paul police switchboards were deluged with calls.
In Atlanta, there was worry that “the end of the world” had arrived.
It finally got so bad in New Jersey that the state police put reassuring messages on the state teletype, instructing their officers what it was all about.
And all this despite the fact that the radio play was interrupted four times for the announcement: “This is purely a fictional play.”
Newspaper switchboard operators quit saying, “hello.” They merely plugged in and said: “It’s just a radio show.”
The Times-Dispatch in Richmond, Va., reported some of their calls came from people who said they were “praying.”
The Kansas City bureau of the Associated Press received queries on the “meteors” from Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Beaumont, Tex., and St. Joseph, Mo., in addition to having its local switchboard flooded with calls.
One telephone informant said he had loaded all his children into his car, had filled it with gasoline, and was going somewhere.
“Where is it safe?” he wanted to know.
Residents of Jersey City, N. J., telephoned their police frantically, asking where they could get gas masks. In both Jersey City and Newark, hundreds of citizens ran out into the streets.
Atlanta reported that listeners throughout the Southeast “had it that a planet struck in New Jersey, with monsters and almost everything, and anywhere from 40 to 7,000 people reported killed.” Editors said responsible people, known to them, were among the anxious information seekers.
In Birmingham, Ala., people gathered in groups and prayed, and Memphis had its full quota of weeping women calling in to learn the facts.
After an introductory explanation by Welles at 8 p. m., (EST), an announcer gave a commonplace weather forecast. Then, in standard fashion, came the words: “We take you to the ____ hotel where we will hear the music of, etc.”
After a few bars of dance music there came “a bulletin from the International Radio News Bureau” saying there had been a gas explosion in New Jersey.
After that the bulletins came more and more rapidly with “Professor Pierson,” played by Welles, explaining about the attack by Mars and the little men who were pouring out of their meteor-like airplanes.
For some time Mars warriors drove everything before them. Mere armies and navies were wiped out right and left and the real radio audience was as frightened at the actors pretended to be. But then the little men acquired a lot of germs to which we men-of-the-world are virtually impervious. So the little men died and everybody lived happily ever after.
In later broadcasts, the Columbia system announced:
“For the listeners who tuned in to Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater of the Air broadcast from 8 to 9 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, tonight, and did not realize that the programme was merely a radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ famous novel ‘The War of the Worlds,’ we are repeating the fact, made clear four times on the programme, that the entire content of the play was entirely fictitious.”
The Columbia System later issued a formal statement which said in part:
“Naturally, it was neither Columbia nor the Mercury Theater’s intention to mislead anyone, and when it became evident that part of the audience had been disturbed by the performance, five announcements were made over the network later in the evening to reassure those listeners.”
The action revolved around what might happen if monsters from Mars boarded flying machines which resembled meteors and called upon the earth with malice aforethought.
The whole thing was done realistically and in present tense. Before it reached its climax, late tuner-inners were pretty upset.
Right in the centre of the warfare—with every trunkline on the switchboard lighted—sat L.W. Smith and S.M. Zimmerman of the Fire and Police Dispatchers’ Office, Trenton, Mercer County, N.J.
They were answering all kinds of calls, local and long distance, assuring everybody concerned that Trenton was as calm as could be expected. It seems that the first arrivals from Mars had just landed at a hypothetical city called Grover’s Mill which sounded to listeners like Groveville, another community in Mercer County.
Excited and weeping persons all over the country swamped newspaper and police telephone switchboards with, the question: “Is it true?”
It was purely a figment of H. G. Wells’ imagination with some extra flourishes of radio dramatization by Orson Welles. It was broadcast by the Columbia Broadcasting System.
But the anxiety was immeasurable.
The broadcast was an adaptation of Wells’ “War of the Worlds”, in which meteors and gas from Mars menace the earth.
New York police were unable to contact the CBS studios by telephone, so swamped was its switchboard, and a radio car was sent there for information.
A woman ran into a church in Indianapolis, screaming: “New York destroyed; it’s the end of the world. You might as well go home to die. I just heard it on the radio.” Services were dismissed immediately.
Five boys at Brevard (N.C.) college fainted and panic gripped the campus for a half hour with many students fighting for telephones to inform their parents to come and get them.
In Utica, scores of persons called The Press asking “Is it true?” what they said about New Jersey. There were sighs of relief when they were assured it wasn’t so.
One man prevailed upon the management of a local theater to page his wife so he could tell her about the “catastrophe” which had struck New Jersey where all her relatives live.
At Fayetteville, N. C, people with relatives in the section of New Jersey where the mythical visitation had its locale, went to a newspaper office in tears seeking information.
A message from Providence, R. I., said:
“Weeping and hysterical women swamped the switch-board of the Providence Journal for details of the massacre and destruction at New York and officials of the electric company received scores of calls urging them to turn off all lights so that the city would be safe from the enemy.”
The New York bureau of The Canadian Press received queries relayed from Canadian listeners who wondered what it was all about.
In various parts of the United States mass hysteria mounted so high in some cases that people told police and newspapers they “saw” the invasion.
The Boston Globe told of one woman who “claimed she could “see the fire” and said she and many others in her neighborhood were “getting out of here.”
Minneapolis and St. Paul police switchboards were deluged with calls.
In Atlanta, there was worry that “the end of the world” had arrived.
It finally got so bad in New Jersey that the state police put reassuring messages on the state teletype, instructing their officers what it was all about.
And all this despite the fact that the radio play was interrupted four times for the announcement: “This is purely a fictional play.”
Newspaper switchboard operators quit saying, “hello.” They merely plugged in and said: “It’s just a radio show.”
The Times-Dispatch in Richmond, Va., reported some of their calls came from people who said they were “praying.”
One telephone informant said he had loaded all his children into his car, had filled it with gasoline, and was going somewhere.
“Where is it safe?” he wanted to know.
Residents of Jersey City, N. J., telephoned their police frantically, asking where they could get gas masks. In both Jersey City and Newark, hundreds of citizens ran out into the streets.
Atlanta reported that listeners throughout the Southeast “had it that a planet struck in New Jersey, with monsters and almost everything, and anywhere from 40 to 7,000 people reported killed.” Editors said responsible people, known to them, were among the anxious information seekers.
In Birmingham, Ala., people gathered in groups and prayed, and Memphis had its full quota of weeping women calling in to learn the facts.
After an introductory explanation by Welles at 8 p. m., (EST), an announcer gave a commonplace weather forecast. Then, in standard fashion, came the words: “We take you to the ____ hotel where we will hear the music of, etc.”
After a few bars of dance music there came “a bulletin from the International Radio News Bureau” saying there had been a gas explosion in New Jersey.
After that the bulletins came more and more rapidly with “Professor Pierson,” played by Welles, explaining about the attack by Mars and the little men who were pouring out of their meteor-like airplanes.
For some time Mars warriors drove everything before them. Mere armies and navies were wiped out right and left and the real radio audience was as frightened at the actors pretended to be. But then the little men acquired a lot of germs to which we men-of-the-world are virtually impervious. So the little men died and everybody lived happily ever after.
In later broadcasts, the Columbia system announced:
“For the listeners who tuned in to Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater of the Air broadcast from 8 to 9 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, tonight, and did not realize that the programme was merely a radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ famous novel ‘The War of the Worlds,’ we are repeating the fact, made clear four times on the programme, that the entire content of the play was entirely fictitious.”
The Columbia System later issued a formal statement which said in part:
“Naturally, it was neither Columbia nor the Mercury Theater’s intention to mislead anyone, and when it became evident that part of the audience had been disturbed by the performance, five announcements were made over the network later in the evening to reassure those listeners.”
The action revolved around what might happen if monsters from Mars boarded flying machines which resembled meteors and called upon the earth with malice aforethought.
The whole thing was done realistically and in present tense. Before it reached its climax, late tuner-inners were pretty upset.
Right in the centre of the warfare—with every trunkline on the switchboard lighted—sat L.W. Smith and S.M. Zimmerman of the Fire and Police Dispatchers’ Office, Trenton, Mercer County, N.J.
They were answering all kinds of calls, local and long distance, assuring everybody concerned that Trenton was as calm as could be expected. It seems that the first arrivals from Mars had just landed at a hypothetical city called Grover’s Mill which sounded to listeners like Groveville, another community in Mercer County.
Afterwards, CBS apologised. Welles apologised. One Louisiana Democrat said he’d introduce a bill to control “just such abuses as was heard over the radio tonight.” The FCC vowed the next morning to do something. And the Harvard Astronomical Observatory issued a statement assuring people there was no life on Mars.
Not everyone was afraid. The New York Post related how hundreds of people jammed roads around Princeton as they tried to find the meteor to ogle it for themselves.
The following morning, CBS station WABC in New York, which had scheduled “Spooks Inc.,” for a midnight broadcast the next night, cancelled it and substituted a program of dance music which couldn’t scare anybody. And CBS rejected requests from people to rebroadcast the show. New Yorkers had to content themselves with a truncated transcript in the Post. But a line-check must have been made that evening as there are various places you can go on-line to listen to it.
Radio recovered from the controversy. It carried on, bringing World War Two into living rooms, along with comedy, music and even Orson Welles. Then came television. Today, radio brings loud-mouthed talk show hosts, auto-tuned singers and commercial after commercial after commercial. I’ll take a little panic instead, thanks.
Pop Culture Caught in a Dragnet
There’s a difference between a satire of a TV show and a send-up of its theme song. But bandleader Ray Anthony doesn’t appear to have understood that.
“Dragnet” began on TV the same year as “I Love Lucy” and both have probably never left the tube since then. “Lucy” had a huge audience, but “Dragnet” must beat it when it comes to parodies and rip-offs. Jack Webb’s monotone style delivery of abrupt lines and the show’s theme have been imitated countless times for laughs. And I suspect the first person to see the lampooning value in Webb’s cop show was the master satirist Stan Freberg, who scored a huge hit with “St. George and the Dragonet” on Capitol records. He and the great writer and voice actor Daws Butler took the “Dragnet” concept, theme and all, and plunked it in mediaeval times.
Meanwhile, others thought the theme itself could be a money-maker. And that’s where Anthony comes in. But he griped to Associated Press reporter Bob Thomas about Freberg. Neither seems to have understood “St. George” wasn’t competing with anyone; it wasn’t as if someone was going to decide between buying Freberg’s parody of Webb’s show and a jazzed-up version of the show’s theme.
This is from 1953.
'Dragnet' Music and Takeoffs Score Huge Success
By BOB THOMAS
HOLLYWOOD, Oct. 8—(AP)—Dumm da dum dummm.
The opening theme of "Dragnet," the cops-and-hudlums TV show on NBC tonight, has become the most famous four notes in America today. They have eclipsed "Da da da dum"—the start of Beethoven's fifth symphony that was the victory symbol in World War II.
Reports Variety: "No show biz phenomenon has captured public interest as much as the musical theme of 'Dragnet' since the pioneer radio catchphrase days of 'Voss you dere, Sharlie?' 'Wanna buy a duck?' . . ."
Everywhere you go, it's "Dumm da dum dummm." It blares from juke boxes and radios. TV comics use it as a punch line. My five-year-old even brought it home from kindergarten the other day.
The craze was set off by Ray Anthony's hardrocking disc of the "Dragnet" theme. Now it is reaching a frenzied climax with a runaway record seller called "St. George and the Dragonet." Heaven knows where it will all end.
I sat down with bandleader Anthony to find out how it all happened. The suave musician, who looks like a trumpet playing Cary Grant, said it started over a year ago.
"My manager, Fred Benson, thought it would be a good idea to get out a record on the 'Dragnet' theme," he explained. "We asked one of my arrangers to whip up a treatment. Every month or so, I would ask him how he was coming. He'd say, 'Man, I can't get with it.'
"So we let it slide. There was some doubt whether Jack Webb would release the rights to the music for records.
"When we were in New York last summer, we heard that Buddy Morrow's band was coming out with a 'Dragnet' side on Victor. So I ordered a couple of arrangements in a hurry—one playing it straight and the other in boogie.
"We sat down to the recording date and played both versions. Neither of them sounded right. So we combined them and added some new touches. Four hours later, we came off with the finished product."
Capitol records put a hurry order on the disc and beat Victor to the market. Anthony's version began telling like hot dogs at a world series, it was by far the biggest seller his band ever had.
Then came "St. George and the Dragonet." A hilarious satire of Webb's underplaying, repetitive style, it was whipped up by two "Time for Beany" creators, Stan Freberg and Daws Butler, plus Walter Schumann, who composed the original "Dragnet" music.
The record is one of the fastest stellers in history, reaching 900,000 and still climbing. It has naturally cut into Anthony's sales. Why would his own company bring out a competing record?
"That's what I'd like to know," replies Anthony, who is slightly indignant about it. But he added that his sales are beginning to build up steam again. The latest figure is 700,000.
Many people have wondered how Webb feels about the jazzing up and lampooning of his TV show. He appears to favor the Anthony version and tolerate "St. George." But he has frowned on Spike Jones' record and some others.
"It's the small, commercial outfits which never bothered to secure clearance, that we're out to stop," he said.
The big question about 'Dragnet' is whether the show's theme will make the Hit Parade, which is sponsored by a rival cigaret firm. So far it hasn't made the grade among the top seven tunes. Yet it appears in the top three of most record sales, radio and juke box lists. How now, Hit Parade?
Here’s the Anthony version of the “Dragnet” theme.
And here’s a hissy version of Freberg’s great single featuring him, Daws Butler and June Foray with Hy Averback intoning the opening lines much like George Fenneman did on the TV show.
Tuesday, 29 October 2013
Gone With the Wand
Tex Avery and Heck Allen comment on their own gag in “Swing Shift Cinderella” (released 1945). The fairy godmother hears there’s an available wolf at Red Riding Hood’s. She whips out here wand, turns her barstool into a car and speeds off. That results in one of Tex’s famous sign gags.
A visual commentary on the sign follows.
The credited animators are Ray Abrams, Preston Blair and Ed Love.
A visual commentary on the sign follows.
The credited animators are Ray Abrams, Preston Blair and Ed Love.
Monday, 28 October 2013
The City!
Charlie Dog’s most famous moment in Warner Bros. cartoon history came during his “towers” speech in “Often an Orphan” (released in 1949). You know the one. Charlie goes into a panicked monologue describing being sent back to the claustrophobic city and ends as he imagines some skyscrapers falling.
Everyone talks about the “towers” part but I really like the animation at the very start of Charlie’s ersatz paranoia. Here’s a smear from one pose to the next.
Then Charlie drops down to a crazy-eyed look. The eyes poke out to the right; Jones used this effect in other cartoons.
Now, Charlie swoops into the next pose.
Lloyd Vaughn, Ken Harris, Phil Monroe and Ben Washam get on-screen animation credits (in that order). The animation is fairly intricate. There are times in this scene when there’s just a slight snout or nose movement on Charlie so the character isn’t static.
Everyone talks about the “towers” part but I really like the animation at the very start of Charlie’s ersatz paranoia. Here’s a smear from one pose to the next.
Then Charlie drops down to a crazy-eyed look. The eyes poke out to the right; Jones used this effect in other cartoons.
Now, Charlie swoops into the next pose.
Lloyd Vaughn, Ken Harris, Phil Monroe and Ben Washam get on-screen animation credits (in that order). The animation is fairly intricate. There are times in this scene when there’s just a slight snout or nose movement on Charlie so the character isn’t static.
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