Paul J. Smith and Pat Matthews get the animation credits. Walter Tetley plays Andy and Mousie. Milo is some obscure radio actor who Keith Scott identified but I can’t remember the name.
Friday, 6 December 2013
Milo in a Bottle
Shamus Culhane’s wildly jerky camera is at it again on another series of impact drawings, this time in “Mousie Come Home,” a 1945 Andy Panda cartoon. These are consecutive frames after Mousie puts a funnel into a bottle so Milo the Dog can squeeze into it.
Paul J. Smith and Pat Matthews get the animation credits. Walter Tetley plays Andy and Mousie. Milo is some obscure radio actor who Keith Scott identified but I can’t remember the name.
Paul J. Smith and Pat Matthews get the animation credits. Walter Tetley plays Andy and Mousie. Milo is some obscure radio actor who Keith Scott identified but I can’t remember the name.
Thursday, 5 December 2013
Next Event, Baseball
Here are frames from a 10-second gag from “The Chump Champ” (1950), one of Tex Avery’s Droopy-vs-Spike blackout shorts.
The game is baseball. Pitcher Spike paints a bomb as a baseball and throws it. He doesn’t count on Droopy smacking it on a line-drive right back to him. Explosion. On to the next gag.
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If I had to guess, I’d say this was a Mike Lah scene. Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons also animated on this from a story by Rich Hogan.
The game is baseball. Pitcher Spike paints a bomb as a baseball and throws it. He doesn’t count on Droopy smacking it on a line-drive right back to him. Explosion. On to the next gag.
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If I had to guess, I’d say this was a Mike Lah scene. Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons also animated on this from a story by Rich Hogan.
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
Making Fun of Radio
When did radio start parodying itself? Hard to say. Certainly animated cartoons in the early ‘30s spoofed a “typical broadcast day” and radio celebrities of the era. Jack Benny made fun of Fred Allen’s show a number of times, as well as Bob Hope’s and “Information Please.” Fred Allen and Henry Morgan were a little more vicious in their satirical assessments of certain programmes and formats.
Those, of course, were big network shows. But another, completely forgotten radio parody show was heard on a little one thousand watt daytimer out of Pasadena that generally specialised in community service programmes. It’s where Len Levinson broadcast “The Impossible Hour.”
Levinson was a writer on “The Great Gildersleeve.” By 1947, he was looking at branching out. We’ve blogged here before about his brief foray into the animated cartoon business. And he used a puny Pasadena radio station which signed on July 22, 1947 as a source of free publicity for his yet-to-be-released cartoon series.
Here’s a United Press story that appeared in newspapers that year.
New Radio Show is ‘More So’
By PATRICIA CLARY
HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 13 (UP)—The Impossible Hour, a new radio program, is proving how impossible the rest of the radio programs are. It does just what they do only more so.
Stop the Music gives away $20,000. But the Impossible Hour gives away a million—plus a pound of lamb chops.
Disc jockeys answer requests to play records. The Impossible Hour answers requests not to play records.
Soap operas pester to send you premiums. On this program, you send it the presents.
Commentators soberly analyse the problems that confront the country. The Impossible Hour tackles its greatest concern. It tells you what's going to happen to Dick Tracy.
This program also performs the public service every radio station strives toward. It advises housewives of three-minute music selections so they can time their eggs.
The Impossible Hour, which beat the critics to it by billing itself the worst in the world, flutters out every Saturday evening from a Pasadena station (KAGH) almost impossible to receive on the far side of Hollywood and Vine.
Movietowners hunch over their sets anyway straining to hear what Leonard Levinson, who used to write a lot of their radio shows, is cooking up for himself.
“I got tired of having other people louse up my dialogue,” he said. “I decided to louse it up myself.”
The Impossible emcee is dickering for a deal with a network.
“I want a bigger studio,” he said. “I want enough room to broadcast lying on the floor. A program's gotta sound relaxed.”
Any sponsor in the weeks will be welcome. Listeners are asked each week to send one in, like a boxtop.
“I can help someone with a booming, thriving business,” Levinson said. “I’ll cut down his sales and give him a breather.”
Without a sponsor, Levinson still has commercials. He throws in plugs for the “Jerky Journey” comic shorts he produces for Republic Pictures.
He said he had been swamped with requests not to play records.
“One week we were asked not to play 32 Vaughn Monroe records,” he said. “We didn't have time, so we had to not play 14 the next week.”
Levinson gave away a record and a knitting kit, then invited listeners last week to give him something. He's received 100 used razor blades and the left of a pair of rubbers.
The current impossible contest is to design new paper lamb chop panties. Levinson got tired of looking at the old ones. The prize: $1,000,000, in Chinese money (currently worth eight cents) and the chops.
“So far,” he said, “we have been flooded with 12 entries.”
In the lead is a lady from Weston, Mass., who must have high-powered ears. Her panties are fluted.
A “temporary vegetarian” in San Francisco had another idea. She wished to wrap the million dollars around the lamb-chop.
When Levinson’s show went on and off the air, I haven’t been able to discover. The station itself seems to have lasted only until 1950.
Levinson had the ear of UP’s Patricia Clary as she was back with another interview with him a year later. This time, Levinson was complaining about radio gags—specifically the ones produced in Los Angeles, written in Los Angeles, aired from Los Angeles and full of Los Angeles references. He complained—and I read the same thing in a local radio column years ago—that people didn’t get the references. He provides a list through Clary. Some of them are a little baffling. I don’t understand how people know what the Brown Derby is but not other L.A. landmarks. And if small-towners didn’t know Dizzy Gillespie, that’s their loss.
Levinson’s cartoon career never got terribly far—the late 1940s saw the movie market decreasing for cartoons—and it doesn’t appear he was much of a force in television. He turned to writing and was author of “The Complete Book of Pickles and Relishes.” When he died in Santa Monica, California at the age of 69 in 1974, he was known for his work in the old medium of radio, first with “Fibber McGee and Molly” and then “The Great Gildersleeve.” In fact, his brother told the Los Angeles Times in 1988 that Levinson was responsible for one of the most famous running gags in radio history. It seems his home on Sunset Boulevard had a stuffed closet, and . . . well, you know the rest.
Those, of course, were big network shows. But another, completely forgotten radio parody show was heard on a little one thousand watt daytimer out of Pasadena that generally specialised in community service programmes. It’s where Len Levinson broadcast “The Impossible Hour.”
Levinson was a writer on “The Great Gildersleeve.” By 1947, he was looking at branching out. We’ve blogged here before about his brief foray into the animated cartoon business. And he used a puny Pasadena radio station which signed on July 22, 1947 as a source of free publicity for his yet-to-be-released cartoon series.
Here’s a United Press story that appeared in newspapers that year.
New Radio Show is ‘More So’
By PATRICIA CLARY
HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 13 (UP)—The Impossible Hour, a new radio program, is proving how impossible the rest of the radio programs are. It does just what they do only more so.
Stop the Music gives away $20,000. But the Impossible Hour gives away a million—plus a pound of lamb chops.
Disc jockeys answer requests to play records. The Impossible Hour answers requests not to play records.
Soap operas pester to send you premiums. On this program, you send it the presents.
Commentators soberly analyse the problems that confront the country. The Impossible Hour tackles its greatest concern. It tells you what's going to happen to Dick Tracy.
This program also performs the public service every radio station strives toward. It advises housewives of three-minute music selections so they can time their eggs.
Movietowners hunch over their sets anyway straining to hear what Leonard Levinson, who used to write a lot of their radio shows, is cooking up for himself.
“I got tired of having other people louse up my dialogue,” he said. “I decided to louse it up myself.”
The Impossible emcee is dickering for a deal with a network.
“I want a bigger studio,” he said. “I want enough room to broadcast lying on the floor. A program's gotta sound relaxed.”
Any sponsor in the weeks will be welcome. Listeners are asked each week to send one in, like a boxtop.
“I can help someone with a booming, thriving business,” Levinson said. “I’ll cut down his sales and give him a breather.”
Without a sponsor, Levinson still has commercials. He throws in plugs for the “Jerky Journey” comic shorts he produces for Republic Pictures.
He said he had been swamped with requests not to play records.
“One week we were asked not to play 32 Vaughn Monroe records,” he said. “We didn't have time, so we had to not play 14 the next week.”
Levinson gave away a record and a knitting kit, then invited listeners last week to give him something. He's received 100 used razor blades and the left of a pair of rubbers.
The current impossible contest is to design new paper lamb chop panties. Levinson got tired of looking at the old ones. The prize: $1,000,000, in Chinese money (currently worth eight cents) and the chops.
“So far,” he said, “we have been flooded with 12 entries.”
In the lead is a lady from Weston, Mass., who must have high-powered ears. Her panties are fluted.
A “temporary vegetarian” in San Francisco had another idea. She wished to wrap the million dollars around the lamb-chop.
When Levinson’s show went on and off the air, I haven’t been able to discover. The station itself seems to have lasted only until 1950.
Levinson had the ear of UP’s Patricia Clary as she was back with another interview with him a year later. This time, Levinson was complaining about radio gags—specifically the ones produced in Los Angeles, written in Los Angeles, aired from Los Angeles and full of Los Angeles references. He complained—and I read the same thing in a local radio column years ago—that people didn’t get the references. He provides a list through Clary. Some of them are a little baffling. I don’t understand how people know what the Brown Derby is but not other L.A. landmarks. And if small-towners didn’t know Dizzy Gillespie, that’s their loss.
Hollywood's Local Jokes Full Flat in Hinterland
By PATRICIA CLARY
HOLLYWOOD, Aug. 31 (UP)— A producer has finally taken the trouble to find out that when a jokeman says “Madman Muntz” 75 per cent of the country doesn't know it's a joke.
This will come as a great shock to Hollywood. It's been razzing itself for years secure in the untested conviction that the peasants were rolling in the aisles.
Leonard L. Levinson made the test. The peasants were bored stiff.
Movietown radio studio audiences yak obediently at the mention of The Madman, Honest John, Forest Lawn, Howard Hughes, La Brea tar pits and Pershing square.
East of the county line, listeners wonder what all the fuss is about.
Levinson decided to change all that in the “idiomatic” comic shorts produced by his company, Impossible Pictures.
“I wanted jokes that were funny all over the country,” he said. When his survey results came in, he changed the dialogue to fit.
What Everybody Knows
Everybody, Levinson discovered, knows what you mean by corny, a radio commercial, jive, the Brown Derby, the candid mike radio show, Acres O'Riley and Heels Beals and “stop the music.”
“With $20,000 a week,” Levinson said, “you achieve instant fame.”
Small town fans, Levinson found, don't know Clare Boothe Luce from Elsie the cow. Neither have they heard of torch singers, re-bop band leader Dizzy Gillespie or gag men.
“Sixty per cent of the people,” Levinson advised us, “believe that radio comedians think up their lines as they go along.” They don't. Few outside Chicago, Indianapolis and Los Angeles know that a hot-rod is a hopped-up car, Levinson said. Teen-age columnist Betty Betz is a household word only in Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City. Southerners don't know about Mickey Finns.
Nobody recognizes a movie trailer by that name. Levinson, who burlesques one in an upcoming “Jerky Journey,” now calls it a “preview.” He had to forget about marble gambling machines, because he didn't know what to call them.
Many Different Names
“The survey showed,” he said, “that they were known as ballies in Chicago, flashers and plungers in Texas, pingames in Minneapolis and Nashville, tilters in Arkansas, one-balls and five-balls in Miami and du-wa-ditties in the rest of the south.”
Levinson's first impossible cartoon is “Romantic Rumbolia,” a travelogue about an imaginary island shaped like a set of emerald-green underwear, with the seat-flap flapping. Republic is releasing it in September.
Next in the series of “little known visits to lesser known countries” is “Bungle in the Jungle,” about six people sent to Africa as penalty for missing a question on a quizz program.
The most impossible thing about Impossible Pictures is Producer Levinson's car. He drives a 1929 Ford.
By PATRICIA CLARY
HOLLYWOOD, Aug. 31 (UP)— A producer has finally taken the trouble to find out that when a jokeman says “Madman Muntz” 75 per cent of the country doesn't know it's a joke.
This will come as a great shock to Hollywood. It's been razzing itself for years secure in the untested conviction that the peasants were rolling in the aisles.
Leonard L. Levinson made the test. The peasants were bored stiff.
Movietown radio studio audiences yak obediently at the mention of The Madman, Honest John, Forest Lawn, Howard Hughes, La Brea tar pits and Pershing square.
East of the county line, listeners wonder what all the fuss is about.
Levinson decided to change all that in the “idiomatic” comic shorts produced by his company, Impossible Pictures.
“I wanted jokes that were funny all over the country,” he said. When his survey results came in, he changed the dialogue to fit.
What Everybody Knows
“With $20,000 a week,” Levinson said, “you achieve instant fame.”
Small town fans, Levinson found, don't know Clare Boothe Luce from Elsie the cow. Neither have they heard of torch singers, re-bop band leader Dizzy Gillespie or gag men.
“Sixty per cent of the people,” Levinson advised us, “believe that radio comedians think up their lines as they go along.” They don't. Few outside Chicago, Indianapolis and Los Angeles know that a hot-rod is a hopped-up car, Levinson said. Teen-age columnist Betty Betz is a household word only in Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City. Southerners don't know about Mickey Finns.
Nobody recognizes a movie trailer by that name. Levinson, who burlesques one in an upcoming “Jerky Journey,” now calls it a “preview.” He had to forget about marble gambling machines, because he didn't know what to call them.
Many Different Names
“The survey showed,” he said, “that they were known as ballies in Chicago, flashers and plungers in Texas, pingames in Minneapolis and Nashville, tilters in Arkansas, one-balls and five-balls in Miami and du-wa-ditties in the rest of the south.”
Levinson's first impossible cartoon is “Romantic Rumbolia,” a travelogue about an imaginary island shaped like a set of emerald-green underwear, with the seat-flap flapping. Republic is releasing it in September.
Next in the series of “little known visits to lesser known countries” is “Bungle in the Jungle,” about six people sent to Africa as penalty for missing a question on a quizz program.
The most impossible thing about Impossible Pictures is Producer Levinson's car. He drives a 1929 Ford.
Levinson’s cartoon career never got terribly far—the late 1940s saw the movie market decreasing for cartoons—and it doesn’t appear he was much of a force in television. He turned to writing and was author of “The Complete Book of Pickles and Relishes.” When he died in Santa Monica, California at the age of 69 in 1974, he was known for his work in the old medium of radio, first with “Fibber McGee and Molly” and then “The Great Gildersleeve.” In fact, his brother told the Los Angeles Times in 1988 that Levinson was responsible for one of the most famous running gags in radio history. It seems his home on Sunset Boulevard had a stuffed closet, and . . . well, you know the rest.
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
Kitten Smears
Chuck Jones’ cartoons had smear animation right from the start. Here are a few examples from the first cartoon he directed, “The Night Watchman” (1938).
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Ken Harris has the animation credit on this cartoon; I suspect he’s responsible for the smears, but someone can correct me on that. Phil Monroe and Bob McKimson were animating in Jones’ unit.
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Ken Harris has the animation credit on this cartoon; I suspect he’s responsible for the smears, but someone can correct me on that. Phil Monroe and Bob McKimson were animating in Jones’ unit.
Monday, 2 December 2013
Smokey and the Boy Backgrounds
Here are some cartoon backgrounds from 1960 you probably haven’t seen before.
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They’re from a short film called “Smokey and the Little Boy” and were prepared for the U.S. Department of Agriculture for rental by schools, church groups and so on, about forest fire prevention. The cartoon is fully animated, though there are lots of pan shots across the backgrounds which, of course, saves the cost of animation. Here are a few backgrounds that were panned.
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Who’s the artist? I wish I knew. But here’s a bit of background.
The cartoon was made by ERA Productions. The company was founded in 1953 (source, International Motion Picture Almanac, 1962 edn.) by Brice Mack and the production manager was Milt Schaffer, both former Disney story men. Among the artists at ERA were Ed Aardal, Brad Case and Clarke Mallery, all ex-Disneyites. By the time this cartoon was made, the company had a studio at 3459 Cahuenga Blvd. West. It was one of many industrial firms of the era; its animated commercial client list included Shinola, Manor House Coffee and Chuckles.
Washed out prints of this have been on the internet for some time, but the U.S. National Archives recently posted a fine version with all the brilliant colours showing. Here are some more backgrounds. The fire you see in several of these screen grabs (in red) is animated. So is the stream below.
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The short is narrated by Paul Frees. The music sounds very UPA-esque but I won’t guess at a composer.
If anyone has more information about the studio and whoever may have worked on this (made by cobbling together some 60-second public service annnouncements), please post a response.
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They’re from a short film called “Smokey and the Little Boy” and were prepared for the U.S. Department of Agriculture for rental by schools, church groups and so on, about forest fire prevention. The cartoon is fully animated, though there are lots of pan shots across the backgrounds which, of course, saves the cost of animation. Here are a few backgrounds that were panned.
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Who’s the artist? I wish I knew. But here’s a bit of background.
The cartoon was made by ERA Productions. The company was founded in 1953 (source, International Motion Picture Almanac, 1962 edn.) by Brice Mack and the production manager was Milt Schaffer, both former Disney story men. Among the artists at ERA were Ed Aardal, Brad Case and Clarke Mallery, all ex-Disneyites. By the time this cartoon was made, the company had a studio at 3459 Cahuenga Blvd. West. It was one of many industrial firms of the era; its animated commercial client list included Shinola, Manor House Coffee and Chuckles.
Washed out prints of this have been on the internet for some time, but the U.S. National Archives recently posted a fine version with all the brilliant colours showing. Here are some more backgrounds. The fire you see in several of these screen grabs (in red) is animated. So is the stream below.
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The short is narrated by Paul Frees. The music sounds very UPA-esque but I won’t guess at a composer.
If anyone has more information about the studio and whoever may have worked on this (made by cobbling together some 60-second public service annnouncements), please post a response.
Sunday, 1 December 2013
What's on Your Head
What was the first running gag on the Jack Benny show? The broken-down Maxwell? Jack being 39 years old? His underground vault? No, not any of those.
It was “hair.”
The routine involved Jack saying “Hair. Hair! What’s on your head” and one of the stooges coming back with a wisecrack. It lasted from mid-1934 through mid-1935 before falling out of favour. However, hair remained an important part of the Benny comedy arsenal. Better make that “lack of it.” For years, the Benny radio show included variations on the “Jack’s toupee” gag which became so familiar, the word “toupee” didn’t have to be uttered after a while; the audience knew exactly what was being talked about (and it was funnier that way).
Jack had real hair until the day he died, though it was, um, “enhanced,” shall we say, for some of his movies. Regardless, he considered it a source of comedy, and not only on his radio show. Witness this column supposedly written by him that appeared in newspapers on May 18, 1935. The funny thing is I can picture him on stage doing this as a monologue.
The picture accompanying this post accompanied the column. Scarbo drew the caricatures. It seems to me we briefly talked about him in the early days of the blog.
By the way, the Benny show was still based out of New York when this 1935 column was written, but he was in Hollywood making, I think, “It’s in the Air,” released that October.
It was “hair.”
The routine involved Jack saying “Hair. Hair! What’s on your head” and one of the stooges coming back with a wisecrack. It lasted from mid-1934 through mid-1935 before falling out of favour. However, hair remained an important part of the Benny comedy arsenal. Better make that “lack of it.” For years, the Benny radio show included variations on the “Jack’s toupee” gag which became so familiar, the word “toupee” didn’t have to be uttered after a while; the audience knew exactly what was being talked about (and it was funnier that way).
Jack had real hair until the day he died, though it was, um, “enhanced,” shall we say, for some of his movies. Regardless, he considered it a source of comedy, and not only on his radio show. Witness this column supposedly written by him that appeared in newspapers on May 18, 1935. The funny thing is I can picture him on stage doing this as a monologue.
The picture accompanying this post accompanied the column. Scarbo drew the caricatures. It seems to me we briefly talked about him in the early days of the blog.
By the way, the Benny show was still based out of New York when this 1935 column was written, but he was in Hollywood making, I think, “It’s in the Air,” released that October.
CLOSE-UP and COMEDY
By DAN THOMAS and GEORGE SCARBO
That bright new star you see over the Hollywood horizon is Jack Benny, the comedian, who has wowed them on Broadway for many years and now threatens to throw movie fans off their seats. To introduce him to you, it would be a good idea to have him tell you about himself. And so here he is, Jack Benny, “guest conductor” of the daily column of Hollywood News and Gossip.
BY JACK BENNY
After being on the air for a while, an actor, in my opinion, has to learn the other branches of show business all over again. For instance, when I was with Earl Carroll's Vanities or playing in the music halls (vaudeville to you—and me, too, for that matter). 1 would come to the theater at least an hour ahead of time and put on a nice grease paint makeup and a freshly pressed suit of clothes, and make myself generally presentable for the eye of the public.
But radio acting does not require this. On the radio you play to the ear and imagination, and most radio actors take advantage of this situation, and I don’t mean by not washing their ears.
We let our appearance run down and our heels with them; we start to live a free and easy life, paying no attention to the top button of our shirt, or our cravat or maybe our waistcoat, and we make the barber wait till the second or third day to shave us.
Ah, it’s the life, folks, but here’s where the trouble comes in.
"What’s on Your Head?"
You get an offer to make a picture. That’s where the trouble starts. First you find that you are 10 pounds overweight and you start dieting. (You can’t fool a closeup or your tailor.)
Then for the first time you find that you haven’t as much hair as you used to have. Radio comedians get rid of hair quicker than sailors spend their pay checks.
In my case, I share my hair losses with my writer, Harry W. Conn. We both worry. He has been with me for three years and we have a standing bet of $100— the first one who gets bald wins. So far, I’m three up on him.
I haven’t lost much hair, but anyway, it’s hair that will never come back, and to a screen star each hair counts, since a high forehead is an intellectual asset an actor can’t afford.
Has Two Worries
I have also noticed in my screen test, which I saw yesterday, that I have a few wrinkles in my brow. I don't know whether to credit that to radio or golf. Both worry me, so perhaps they are combination radio and golf wrinkles—you know, the birdies I didn’t get in golf, and the birds I did get on the radio.
Golf, by the way, is my main diversion, although it is a very expensive recreation. By this I don’t mean the green and caddie fees. What I mean is the little wagering that goes on in the foursomes I have been playing with.
When I shoot a 90 my playmates shoot an 80; when I shoot an 84 they shoot 75.
They don’t play any harder than they have to. They always give me a half stroke a hole to make me feel that I’m getting something, and I am, but I have a tender neck and 1 can’t take it always.
They are all nice boys, but they have been cutting production costs so much I'm afraid—just afraid no accusations mind you—that they have been doing the same with their golf scores. The trouble is they don’t cut mine, too.
Let’s See the Picture
But, getting back to the picture business, I’m glad I’m in Hollywood to make a picture. I would be glad to be in Hollywood with out making a picture, but— who am I to argue?
After all what’s Gable got that I haven’t — no, I’m picking the wrong person. What’s Montgomery got that I — ? No, I’d better leave him out of this, too.
But what’s—? I think I’d better wait and see how the picture turns out.
By DAN THOMAS and GEORGE SCARBO
That bright new star you see over the Hollywood horizon is Jack Benny, the comedian, who has wowed them on Broadway for many years and now threatens to throw movie fans off their seats. To introduce him to you, it would be a good idea to have him tell you about himself. And so here he is, Jack Benny, “guest conductor” of the daily column of Hollywood News and Gossip.
BY JACK BENNY
After being on the air for a while, an actor, in my opinion, has to learn the other branches of show business all over again. For instance, when I was with Earl Carroll's Vanities or playing in the music halls (vaudeville to you—and me, too, for that matter). 1 would come to the theater at least an hour ahead of time and put on a nice grease paint makeup and a freshly pressed suit of clothes, and make myself generally presentable for the eye of the public.
But radio acting does not require this. On the radio you play to the ear and imagination, and most radio actors take advantage of this situation, and I don’t mean by not washing their ears.
We let our appearance run down and our heels with them; we start to live a free and easy life, paying no attention to the top button of our shirt, or our cravat or maybe our waistcoat, and we make the barber wait till the second or third day to shave us.
Ah, it’s the life, folks, but here’s where the trouble comes in.
"What’s on Your Head?"
Then for the first time you find that you haven’t as much hair as you used to have. Radio comedians get rid of hair quicker than sailors spend their pay checks.
In my case, I share my hair losses with my writer, Harry W. Conn. We both worry. He has been with me for three years and we have a standing bet of $100— the first one who gets bald wins. So far, I’m three up on him.
I haven’t lost much hair, but anyway, it’s hair that will never come back, and to a screen star each hair counts, since a high forehead is an intellectual asset an actor can’t afford.
Has Two Worries
I have also noticed in my screen test, which I saw yesterday, that I have a few wrinkles in my brow. I don't know whether to credit that to radio or golf. Both worry me, so perhaps they are combination radio and golf wrinkles—you know, the birdies I didn’t get in golf, and the birds I did get on the radio.
Golf, by the way, is my main diversion, although it is a very expensive recreation. By this I don’t mean the green and caddie fees. What I mean is the little wagering that goes on in the foursomes I have been playing with.
When I shoot a 90 my playmates shoot an 80; when I shoot an 84 they shoot 75.
They don’t play any harder than they have to. They always give me a half stroke a hole to make me feel that I’m getting something, and I am, but I have a tender neck and 1 can’t take it always.
They are all nice boys, but they have been cutting production costs so much I'm afraid—just afraid no accusations mind you—that they have been doing the same with their golf scores. The trouble is they don’t cut mine, too.
Let’s See the Picture
But, getting back to the picture business, I’m glad I’m in Hollywood to make a picture. I would be glad to be in Hollywood with out making a picture, but— who am I to argue?
After all what’s Gable got that I haven’t — no, I’m picking the wrong person. What’s Montgomery got that I — ? No, I’d better leave him out of this, too.
But what’s—? I think I’d better wait and see how the picture turns out.
Saturday, 30 November 2013
Joe De Nat
It’s hard to believe watching today’s animated TV shows, with talk, talk and more talk, that when sound was added to cartoons over 80 years ago, dialogue was pretty minimal. Music and lyrics filled the soundtrack, not chatter, as composers and arrangers worked to fit their melodies to the sight gags.
It’s a shame, considering how important music was (and remained) to theatrical cartoons, how little is known about most of the people responsible for the scores. Carl Stalling at Warners has received his due and, to a lesser extent, so has Scott Bradley at MGM. But what of David Broekman or Art Turkisher or Joe De Nat?
De Nat was the Charles Mintz’ studio’s composer/arranger from the time sound came in to when Mintz’ studio underwent a house cleaning by Columbia a number of months after Mintz’ death just before 1940. De Nat’s pretty much forgotten, much like the cartoons he worked on. This post won’t try to analyse his style—I’m no musicologist—but his early stuff owes a lot to accompanists of silent films who’d mix in public domain tunes with their own themes to match the mood and action (Evidently, Columbia paid for tunes on occasion. De Nat managed to fit in a Dixieland-ish version of “Darktown Strutters Ball” in the 1931 Scrappy cartoon “Showing Off”). Instead, I’ll just post some biographical stuff I’ve stumbled over on the internet because there really isn’t much information about him.
De Nat was born in Manhattan on October 2, 1898 to Raphael and Hannah De Nat. His parents were from England, his grandparents from Holland. His father was a cigar manufacturer. The 1915 Census already states he was a "musician" as does his World War One draft card to the right, though the 1920 U.S. Census states he was a salesman in a store. Whether he served overseas is unclear. I’ve also been unable to find where he received his musical training, but he was a published composer. He co-wrote “Just a Little Song For You,” copyrighted October 6, 1923. He fronted his own orchestra; I’ve found one appearance in 1927 on WBOQ radio, a part-time station that shared airtime and studio space with the much bigger WABC. The same year, Variety's Cabaret listings have his orchestra at the Beaux Arts, 60 West 40th Street. In 1929, the Mintz studio started adding sound to its cartoons. Rosario Bourdon scored the first cartoon, “Ratskin,” released August 15th. However, The Film Daily reported on July 22, 1929:
De Nat to Handle Scoring for Krazy Kat Cartoons
Charles B. Mintz, president of Winkler Film Corp., producers of Krazy Kat cartoons, has arranged with Joe DeNat, composer and orchestra leader, to take charge of synchronization and scoring of Krazy Kat cartoons. With installation of this department, DeNat will write a special score for every instrument to be used in the final synchronization so that the scoring will be done simultaneously with the production of each picture. The music and effects are to be written before the cartoons are made so that at the completion of the picture there will be a co-ordination between it and the musical score. DeNat has just returned from a six months sojourn in Hollywood where he made a study of sound.
The synchronized Krazy Kat cartoons will be distributed by Columbia Pictures.
The studio used a sound-on-disc process. The discs were recorded by Victor and you can read the list of De Nat’s early work on this web site. Incidentally, the site credits the musical direction in the second Mintz cartoon, “Canned Music,” to LeRoy Shields.
In February 1930, De Nat packed up his wife Ida (née Karbowitz) and headed for California with other selected members of the Mintz studio, where he remained for about another ten years. He directed a ten-piece orchestra in the cartoons. Variety of April 16, 1936 stated he had written and directed scores for 166 shorts and features. Eddie Kilfeather began work on the studio’s cartoons in 1937 but De Nat remained. Variety reported on October 12th, 1942 that Kilfeather had been made musical director of the studio. De Nat is listed simply as a “salesman” in the 1942 Los Angeles City Directory, but the following January, the Philadelphia Enquirer discovered he was the new pianist in Bill Artzt’s Orchestra on the Blondie radio show. Also in 1943, Variety revealed he was the front man for the house orchestra at Earl Carroll’s Vanities in Los Angeles. In 1949, 1950 and early 1951, he was musical director and pianist for a road company edition of a touring ice stage show, "Icelandia." He remained a member of the American Society of Music Arrangers. Other familiar members to cartoon fans were Darrell Calker, Clarence Wheeler, Win Sharples, Milt Franklyn and Bill Lava.
Both De Nat and Mintz were members of the 223 Club in Hollywood, a club restricted to Freemasons who were in the stage, film and radio industries. One newspaper clipping from the mid-1930s reveals De Nat supplied music for the Third Degree ceremony, which leans toward the dramatic in most of the United States.
The Los Angeles Daily News reports De Nat got into a bit of trouble. The July 18, 1951 edition reports he was released on $500 bail on a charge of participating in an indecent show. He was playing piano at a stag in a Los Angeles café where a young lady performed a strip show.
He was dead less than a month later, on August 13, 1951 at the age of 52, in Manhattan. De Nat was buried at the Acacia Cemetery in Queens. Possibly he had returned to New York City. De Nat and his wife divorced a month before his death and newspaper reports say she spent the next seven years in court fruitlessly trying to get her hands on less than $400 worth of bonds that she claimed belonged to her (a judge finally ruled in favour of De Nat’s estate). They left no children.
It’s a shame, considering how important music was (and remained) to theatrical cartoons, how little is known about most of the people responsible for the scores. Carl Stalling at Warners has received his due and, to a lesser extent, so has Scott Bradley at MGM. But what of David Broekman or Art Turkisher or Joe De Nat?
De Nat was the Charles Mintz’ studio’s composer/arranger from the time sound came in to when Mintz’ studio underwent a house cleaning by Columbia a number of months after Mintz’ death just before 1940. De Nat’s pretty much forgotten, much like the cartoons he worked on. This post won’t try to analyse his style—I’m no musicologist—but his early stuff owes a lot to accompanists of silent films who’d mix in public domain tunes with their own themes to match the mood and action (Evidently, Columbia paid for tunes on occasion. De Nat managed to fit in a Dixieland-ish version of “Darktown Strutters Ball” in the 1931 Scrappy cartoon “Showing Off”). Instead, I’ll just post some biographical stuff I’ve stumbled over on the internet because there really isn’t much information about him.
De Nat was born in Manhattan on October 2, 1898 to Raphael and Hannah De Nat. His parents were from England, his grandparents from Holland. His father was a cigar manufacturer. The 1915 Census already states he was a "musician" as does his World War One draft card to the right, though the 1920 U.S. Census states he was a salesman in a store. Whether he served overseas is unclear. I’ve also been unable to find where he received his musical training, but he was a published composer. He co-wrote “Just a Little Song For You,” copyrighted October 6, 1923. He fronted his own orchestra; I’ve found one appearance in 1927 on WBOQ radio, a part-time station that shared airtime and studio space with the much bigger WABC. The same year, Variety's Cabaret listings have his orchestra at the Beaux Arts, 60 West 40th Street. In 1929, the Mintz studio started adding sound to its cartoons. Rosario Bourdon scored the first cartoon, “Ratskin,” released August 15th. However, The Film Daily reported on July 22, 1929:
De Nat to Handle Scoring for Krazy Kat Cartoons
Charles B. Mintz, president of Winkler Film Corp., producers of Krazy Kat cartoons, has arranged with Joe DeNat, composer and orchestra leader, to take charge of synchronization and scoring of Krazy Kat cartoons. With installation of this department, DeNat will write a special score for every instrument to be used in the final synchronization so that the scoring will be done simultaneously with the production of each picture. The music and effects are to be written before the cartoons are made so that at the completion of the picture there will be a co-ordination between it and the musical score. DeNat has just returned from a six months sojourn in Hollywood where he made a study of sound.
The synchronized Krazy Kat cartoons will be distributed by Columbia Pictures.
The studio used a sound-on-disc process. The discs were recorded by Victor and you can read the list of De Nat’s early work on this web site. Incidentally, the site credits the musical direction in the second Mintz cartoon, “Canned Music,” to LeRoy Shields.
In February 1930, De Nat packed up his wife Ida (née Karbowitz) and headed for California with other selected members of the Mintz studio, where he remained for about another ten years. He directed a ten-piece orchestra in the cartoons. Variety of April 16, 1936 stated he had written and directed scores for 166 shorts and features. Eddie Kilfeather began work on the studio’s cartoons in 1937 but De Nat remained. Variety reported on October 12th, 1942 that Kilfeather had been made musical director of the studio. De Nat is listed simply as a “salesman” in the 1942 Los Angeles City Directory, but the following January, the Philadelphia Enquirer discovered he was the new pianist in Bill Artzt’s Orchestra on the Blondie radio show. Also in 1943, Variety revealed he was the front man for the house orchestra at Earl Carroll’s Vanities in Los Angeles. In 1949, 1950 and early 1951, he was musical director and pianist for a road company edition of a touring ice stage show, "Icelandia." He remained a member of the American Society of Music Arrangers. Other familiar members to cartoon fans were Darrell Calker, Clarence Wheeler, Win Sharples, Milt Franklyn and Bill Lava.
Both De Nat and Mintz were members of the 223 Club in Hollywood, a club restricted to Freemasons who were in the stage, film and radio industries. One newspaper clipping from the mid-1930s reveals De Nat supplied music for the Third Degree ceremony, which leans toward the dramatic in most of the United States.
The Los Angeles Daily News reports De Nat got into a bit of trouble. The July 18, 1951 edition reports he was released on $500 bail on a charge of participating in an indecent show. He was playing piano at a stag in a Los Angeles café where a young lady performed a strip show.
He was dead less than a month later, on August 13, 1951 at the age of 52, in Manhattan. De Nat was buried at the Acacia Cemetery in Queens. Possibly he had returned to New York City. De Nat and his wife divorced a month before his death and newspaper reports say she spent the next seven years in court fruitlessly trying to get her hands on less than $400 worth of bonds that she claimed belonged to her (a judge finally ruled in favour of De Nat’s estate). They left no children.
Friday, 29 November 2013
The Headline Behind the Headline
Real newspapers made their way into Warner Bros. cartoons on occasion. One example is in the Bob Clampett cartoon “Tortoise Wins By a Hare,” released February 20, 1943.
Yes, the paper has been doctored for the Bugs-Cecil story (and for the prescient headline about Hitler killing himself) but it actually is from Sunday, November 1, 1942. It’s really tough to read but if you blow up the picture enough, you can tell the story sub-headed “MacArthur’s Flyers Damage Second Warship” matches the copy of an AP story of the date. And, yes, there was an AP story of that date datelined Pearl Harbour, H.I., reporting the Chaplain who said “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition” had been found (he wasn’t actually missing; his ID was revealed as Lt. Howell Forgy, a former football player).
This same newspaper, doctored differently, but still with the same phoney Hitler headline, opened the Private Snafu cartoon “Fighting Tools” (released October 13, 1943).
And, yes, this actually is a Chicago Tribune newspaper. The proof is in the story in the left-hand column about capturing 40 seats. The writer was Arthur Sears Henning. Not only was he on the Trib staff, he was the reporter who told his editors on Election Night in 1948 that Thomas Dewey couldn’t lose to Harry Truman, prompting the infamous front-page headline in the Tribune on November 3, 1948: “Dewey Beats Truman.”
At least the Bugs headline was accurate.
Yes, the paper has been doctored for the Bugs-Cecil story (and for the prescient headline about Hitler killing himself) but it actually is from Sunday, November 1, 1942. It’s really tough to read but if you blow up the picture enough, you can tell the story sub-headed “MacArthur’s Flyers Damage Second Warship” matches the copy of an AP story of the date. And, yes, there was an AP story of that date datelined Pearl Harbour, H.I., reporting the Chaplain who said “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition” had been found (he wasn’t actually missing; his ID was revealed as Lt. Howell Forgy, a former football player).
This same newspaper, doctored differently, but still with the same phoney Hitler headline, opened the Private Snafu cartoon “Fighting Tools” (released October 13, 1943).
And, yes, this actually is a Chicago Tribune newspaper. The proof is in the story in the left-hand column about capturing 40 seats. The writer was Arthur Sears Henning. Not only was he on the Trib staff, he was the reporter who told his editors on Election Night in 1948 that Thomas Dewey couldn’t lose to Harry Truman, prompting the infamous front-page headline in the Tribune on November 3, 1948: “Dewey Beats Truman.”
At least the Bugs headline was accurate.
Thursday, 28 November 2013
A Columbia What?!
Cartoon fans lament that Blue Ribbons have replaced original title cards on Schlesinger/Warner Bros. shorts and Fleischer cartoons exist without the Paramount footage at the opening. Happiness abounds when discoveries are made of the titles that once appeared at the start of MGM cartoons.
Yet nothing is said about the generic drawings that took the place of the originals that opened cartoons released by the Columbia Screen Gems studio. Where is the outcry?
There isn’t one because the term “Columbia Favorite” seen on one of these reissue title cards is a contradiction in term for most old-time cartoon lovers.
So which of these Columbia characters are your favourites? Can you even name them?
Actually, my favourite Columbia is represented here. On the bottom left corner you’ll notice the dog and cat from “Flora” (1948). Gerald Mohr does a great job narrating a story where the words have a different context than what’s appearing on the screen. In the other corner are the duck and hunter from “Wacky Quacky” (1947). There’s a gag I really like where the hunter rests up from the chase while the duck runs around, then resumes the chase on his own while the duck catches his breath. Just above the ersatz Elmer Fudd are the moose, turkey and native from “Topsy Turkey” (1948). I think. To the left of the Indian is one of the stars of “Lo, the Poor Buffal” (1948). Your guess is as good as mine who the pig and rooster (is the rooster wearing spurs?) are, as well as the mouse in the basket at the bottom. Any Columbia experts out there? Please weigh in on the IDs.
Columbia’s Screen Gems studio seems to have been in constant upheaval and the cartoons it made in the last few years before it closed are awkward to describe. They’re pretending to be Warner Bros. and Tex Avery cartoons (even down to character design) but don’t quite make it. Some gags just come out of nowhere, like a kangaroo eating the main characters in “Kongo-Roo” (1946) who have shrunk themselves to bug size through willpower.
Mike Barrier has found a story announcing in the closure in Variety of May 28, 1947. Cartoons in the can continued to be released until 1949 until a ten-year marriage with UPA.
Here’s one that probably owes the most to other studios. A cat that looks like Sylvester engages in festivities that you may recognise from elsewhere (like the multiple door gag that Tex Avery liked to use). And because it’s a “Columbia Favorite,” you wouldn’t know Sid Marcus directed this cartoon because the credits have been taken off.
Yet nothing is said about the generic drawings that took the place of the originals that opened cartoons released by the Columbia Screen Gems studio. Where is the outcry?
There isn’t one because the term “Columbia Favorite” seen on one of these reissue title cards is a contradiction in term for most old-time cartoon lovers.
So which of these Columbia characters are your favourites? Can you even name them?
Actually, my favourite Columbia is represented here. On the bottom left corner you’ll notice the dog and cat from “Flora” (1948). Gerald Mohr does a great job narrating a story where the words have a different context than what’s appearing on the screen. In the other corner are the duck and hunter from “Wacky Quacky” (1947). There’s a gag I really like where the hunter rests up from the chase while the duck runs around, then resumes the chase on his own while the duck catches his breath. Just above the ersatz Elmer Fudd are the moose, turkey and native from “Topsy Turkey” (1948). I think. To the left of the Indian is one of the stars of “Lo, the Poor Buffal” (1948). Your guess is as good as mine who the pig and rooster (is the rooster wearing spurs?) are, as well as the mouse in the basket at the bottom. Any Columbia experts out there? Please weigh in on the IDs.
Columbia’s Screen Gems studio seems to have been in constant upheaval and the cartoons it made in the last few years before it closed are awkward to describe. They’re pretending to be Warner Bros. and Tex Avery cartoons (even down to character design) but don’t quite make it. Some gags just come out of nowhere, like a kangaroo eating the main characters in “Kongo-Roo” (1946) who have shrunk themselves to bug size through willpower.
Mike Barrier has found a story announcing in the closure in Variety of May 28, 1947. Cartoons in the can continued to be released until 1949 until a ten-year marriage with UPA.
Here’s one that probably owes the most to other studios. A cat that looks like Sylvester engages in festivities that you may recognise from elsewhere (like the multiple door gag that Tex Avery liked to use). And because it’s a “Columbia Favorite,” you wouldn’t know Sid Marcus directed this cartoon because the credits have been taken off.
Wednesday, 27 November 2013
More George and Gracie
There were a few changes when the show became visual. Harry Von Zell replaced announcer Bill Goodwin, son Ronnie played a role, and George chatted with the audience as if he were on a stage with his “life” going on in the background. But the show still focused on Gracie’s mangling of logic as the characters around her—as well as the audience—stopped to think “What did she just say?”
Syndicated columnist John Crosby had a look at the TV show—and he wasn’t all that happy with it. Then he took another look and felt a little better about it.
The first story appeared in newspapers on November 3, 1950.
More In Sorrow Than In Anger
Television makes me nervous from time to time and, in trying to track down this particular neurosis, I have reached something approximating a conclusion.
At least this is as close to a conclusion as I ever get. I get particularly jumpy when the old entertainers approach television for the first time. I sit there, palm sweating, hoping they’ll be good.
I consider this an imposition on my good nature. It’s really none of my business whether the old entertainers, the ones who were world famous in radio, are worth their salt (a word meaning $7,000) in television. Still checking around my small circle of friends, I find they do this too.
Radio is such an intimate medium that these performers become friends of the family. When they embark on TV, you feel pretty much as if they were your small son undertaking the Gettysburg address at commencement.
You hope to God he remembers his lines, that he doesn’t fiddle with his necktie and that he doesn’t fall flat on his face when he makes his exit.
I was struck with this nervousness particularly sharply by the Burns and Allen television debut. Now, George Burns, despite all evidence to the contrary, is one of Hollywood’s wittiest citizens.
Their opening show, I’m told, was three months in preparation. And I can’t understand what happened to all that time and all that intelligence. Not that it was a bad show.
In fact, it was a pretty good one. But it didn’t seem up to all that travail. The jokes were all on what you might call the middle level, as if Mr. Burns was afraid of going over our heads.
They were also, I’m afraid, familiar jokes, and here again I got the feeling that this was deliberate, as if Mr. B. felt that old jokes are soothing to old customers, that a new joke might upset our digestions.
If this is the approach Mr. Burns is using, I would like to register strong disapproval.
I feel affronted when I am treated like a backward child, and I have a hunch other listeners do too. The Burns and Allen television show is a carefully done replica of the Burns and Allen radio show.
In fact, the Burns and Allen radio program has been treated with a reverence generally accorded only to the restoration of public buildings.
As a gesture toward the visible aspects of television, the Burns had fragmentary settings of their house and the house of their next door neighbors who were, and always have been, important parts of the Burns and Allen plots.
However, the goings-on in these houses are exactly as they were in the old days. Gracie still befuddles door-to-door salesmen with her terrible innocence of all matters practical. George’s badinage with his announcer, Bill Goodwin, has not changed a syllable.
A lot of it was very amusing, but none of it seemed to belong on television.
One thing I’ve noticed about virtually all the old radio comics, newly transferred to television. They all talk too much. George Burns even acts as narrator on his show.
Well, of course, one had to have a narrator on radio to inform us that Gracie had just got back from the grocery store. But on TV, we more or less assume that Gracie has been shopping when she walks into the living room with a bagful of groceries.
Still, George insisted on telling us these plainly visible things. The only explanation I have for this strange behavior if that George Burns doesn’t really believe that television actually exists, that he doesn’t believe a picture is being transmitted, that he thinks the whole thing, in short, is a monumental hoax.
I say all this more in sorrow than in anger because I think Burns and Allen are two very gifted and charming comedians. And anyone who has ever talked to George Burns for 10 minutes will tell you that he is a very funny fellow.
I just wish he wouldn’t supress his wit so skillfully on the air.
And this is Crosby revisiting the show. The column is from May 8, 1951.
Small Apology And A Few Posies
I took a pretty dim view of the original Burns and Allen television show. Now I’m prepared to take it back. Well, some of it anyhow.
It struck me originally that Mr. Burns and Miss Allen showed entirely too much reverence for their radio show. In fact their TV show departed not at all from the old formula which the Burnses have lived on successfully for so many years.
These complains still are entirely valid. The Burns and Allen show (CBS-TV 7 p.m. alternate Thursdays) still resembles their radio show to a remarkable degree.
But I’m afraid it works rather well, much as I hate to admit it. George still opens the show with a bit of narration, setting the scene, as it were, just as if it were a radio show despite the fact that the scene is all set for him.
Still, he’s a pretty funny monologist and this little patch of radio is not at all hard to take.
Miss Allen always has been a favorite of mine because of her social and magnificent gift for feminine irrelevance.
Irrelevance, of course, is not confined entirely to Miss Allen, all women being pretty gifted in this direction. But Miss Allen is especially comforting to male listeners who have been driven nuts from time to time by their wives’ habit of wandering about a mile away from the point.
After listening to Gracie for a bit, you breathe a sigh of relief and reflect that the old girl isn’t THAT bad.
Most of Gracie’s gags are as visual as possible on the TV show.
Gracie, for example, reading a cookbook: “For best results, frankfurters should not be cooked long.” So she chops them up short.
Gracie is a menace whenever she dips her nose into a cookbook. Once she read that fairly familiar line: “Roll in cracker crumbs.” She rolled in them.
What, what can you expect from a girl who drives with the emergency brake on so as to be ready for any emergency? Or one who says: “Oh, that’s too bad. I hope he didn’t die of anything serious.”
Of course, a good deal of Gracie’s nonsense comes perilously close to horse sense. Gracie, for example, bedeviling a tax expert: “Where does the money go?”
“Well, for example, it helps pay your congressman.”
“Why not just list him as a dependent? You mean Republicans help pay Truman’s salary?”
“Yes, they do.”
“That’s certainly rubbing it in, isn’t it?”
Louella Parsons broke the story on February 19, 1958 that Gracie was retiring at the end of the TV season. Burns went it alone for a year with a revised situation. A heart attack claimed Gracie Allen six years later. Her humour still holds up, and will so long as you can turnaround words in the English language.
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