Chess Nuts

The 1932 Fleischer cartoon “Chess-Nuts” opens with Betty, Bimbo and the bad guy King popping up from pieces on a chess board (it’s a photo used as a background drawing).

Two old guys are playing chess when the ash from the cigar of one of them falls on the queen.



Betty pops up from the head of the piece and brushes off the ash.



And then Bimbo and the King form.



That’s probably the most imaginative thing in the cartoon. We have things spring to life to cover Betty’s panties (parents of the ‘30s, apparently, weren’t so hung up about banning their kids from seeing something like that), and little else.

James I’m-Not-Shamus-Yet Culhane and William Henning are the animators.

Eyes of Woody

Woody makes a bee-line for an off-screen phone booth in “Chew Chew Baby” (released in 1945). His left foot pokes toward the camera for two frames.



Then Woody makes his exit. Notice how the eyes are held for two frames while the newspapers move.



Grim Natwick and Paul Smith are the only credited animators in this cartoon directed by Shamus Culhane.

Salemaker and Son

It wasn’t uncommon for a radio station in the late ‘40s or early ‘50s to have a cartoon mascot to be used in advertising. Some are very attractive and well designed; for example, the Walt Disney studio was contracted to come up with “King Mike” for KING radio in Seattle.

KRSC radio in Seattle had a cartoon mascot for a while. Two of them, in fact. Seattle is on Puget Sound, so someone felt a sailor character would be appropriate. And the homonyms “sail” and “sale” work well in advertising. So the original character, dating to 1952 at the latest, was “Salemaker.” The attribute of strength can be woven into ad copy easily. But perhaps the station felt a cuter character would sell better, so the unknown artist came up with “Salemaker, Junior.”

Below are four drawings clipped from trade ads.



KRSC wasn’t a large station and had an unfortunate position (1150) on the dial. It was a 1,000 watter next to 50,000 watt, clear-channel KSL in Salt Lake City (1160), and not far from 10,000 watt, clear-channel CKWX (1130) some 140 miles to the north (which had a cartoon mascot with a microphone as a head). It was sold and became KAYO and is still on the air under another name. KRSC also manage to beat the big radio stations and was granted the first TV license in Seattle, which it later sold to KING. It seems King Mike was stronger than brawny Sailmaker.

Jack Benny on Ego

Show folk are modest folk, to hear Jack Benny tell it. Of course, he wasn’t around today to see young stars melt down in public because they don’t have the studio system and friendly gossip columnists to protect them any more.

Here’s a piece that Benny penned for the Screen & Radio Weekly section of the Long Island Sunday Press of February 13, 1938. Perhaps the most interesting part is the little insight Benny gives into himself at the end. Many years later, he admitted he was moody. In 1938, he chalks it up to nervousness.

The picture accompanied the original article.

ACTORS AREN'T EGOTISTICAL
By JACK BENNY
A Radio Comedian Turned Screen Actor Here Gives You His Evaluation of His Co-Workers and, in the Benny Manner, Emerges with All Banners Flying in His Defense of This Maligned Profession.
Jack Benny, as everybody but an unidentified man in French Indo-China knows, appears on radio Sunday nights with his troupe. His next film for Paramount is called "Never Say Die."
HERE is something I've wanted to get off my chest for years. I expect to be given arguments about it. There will be many snorts of "Oh, yeah?" But a Benny never falters for mere snorts. He's faced too many dead-on-their-seats audiences.
I say actors as a class aren't nearly so sold on themselves as non-professionals think. Here's what I mean:
An Irishman named Mike wanted to go for a sleigh ride and he didn't have a sled. His friend Pat did. Mike thought over the situation and he said to his wife:
"Sure it's a fine morning for a sleigh ride. I wish I had a sled."
"Well, Pat has a sled. Why don't you go over and ask him if you can borrow it," said his wife.
"Ah, he'd never let me have it, the tightwad," said Mike.
"Maybe he would. Co ask him, Mike," said his wife.
So Mike started for Pat's house, and all the way he muttered to himself:
"He'll never do it. I don't know why I should be after asking him. Fine friend he is. He wouldn't give me a potato If I was starving."
By the time he reached Pat's house he'd worked himself up into a fury. He pounded on the door and when Pat stuck his head out Mike shouted: "Listen, I don't want your so-and-so sled. You can keep it!"

THAT'S the way people are about actors. Everybody outside of show business thinks everybody inside is egotistical, conceited, egocentric and all the other fine sounding adjectives that mean stuck-on-yourself. An actor is licked before he has a chance to open his mouth to defend himself. People say: "Of course he's conceited. If he weren't he wouldn't be an actor."
Who wants to bet? I've been in show business for more than 20 years and I've known a whale of a lot of actors. I say they're no more in love with themselves than other men and less than some classes of men. High-powered salesmen, for instance, or hotel managers. If an actor talked about his performances at the length to which I've heard salesmen go in describing big deals they've put over single-handed, some listener would get mad and pop him on the nose.
I've found hotel managers who could praise themselves by the hour. When I went to Europe last summer I came home 10 days earlier just so I could drive from Chicago to Los Angeles, taking my time along the way; and it takes a lot of time in that Maxwell of mine. I liked that part of the trip better than anything in Europe, except maybe London. This is a great country to drive over. I remember one night I stopped in a hotel in a fair sized Middle-Western city. After I'd gone to my room the manager sent me a note inviting me to his suite for cocktails. He said his wife and daughter would enjoy meeting me.
I went, of course. It is always flattering when folks say they want to meet you. I expected to be asked a few questions about Hollywood and motion pictures and radio. But from the time I crossed that guy's threshold Jack Benny did a complete fade-out, conversationally. He had me there for the sole purpose of telling me how wonderful he was. He enumerated the hotels he'd put on a big paying basis. It would be no trouble for him to show them how to run the Ritz. Then he started in on what was the matter with the way motion pictures are made and how he could improve them. Pretty soon he was telling me how to run my radio shows.
A couple of times I got as far as "That reminds me," but no further. Finally his daughter said, "Daddy, I wish you'd let Mr. Benny talk a little." It was no use. He was too busy to hear her.
I DON'T know any actors who could get away with a monolog like that. I don't know any actors who would try. Sometimes in a discussion of the self-importance of those in my profession I've asked critics to name six who have gone overboard. They never get beyond two, even in Hollywood, where it is supposed to be a case of dog eat dog.
Take fellows like Bing Crosby. He has earned a race track, a handsome hut in the San Fernando Valley, a ranch at Santa Fe Springs, a yacht and plenty of money to run 'em all, by his own efforts. He has one of the most popular radio programs on the air and his pictures are in greater demand every time a new one is released. Yet Bing will proclaim to anyone who will listen that he knows "from nothing" about acting. One of his favorite occupations is poking fun at himself as an actor.
Nelson Eddy, who is swamped by fan-mail most of which is sweetly scented, loves to tell about the time Woody Van Dyke, the director, met him outside the Chinese Theater after the premiere of "Naughty Marietta." The director asked Nelson how it felt to be a great actor. "But I'm not an actor," said Nelson. "I know that," said Van Dyke, "but how does it feel?"
John Barrymore calls himself a ham.
When actors start talking big, they are scared. They are trying to cover up for the squeamish feeling in the pits of their stomachs.
AN ACTOR'S only asset is himself. No matter how successful he becomes he can't build up anything that will go on after him. There's no business to hand down to his children. And he knows his days as an actor are numbered under the average man's productivity. You're darn tooting he's scared! And he can't conduct himself as an ordinary human being, because like Pat in the story he's taken the count before he begins. Anybody else can pass a friend in the street, and if he's in a hurry and his mind is doing grasshopper jumps with all the things he has to do, he can nod hello to the friend and go on without being blamed for it. An actor doesn't dare. He has to stop and put on an act regardless. If he doesn't the friend says to himself, "Hum—so. The fellow is going high-hat. That's just what I thought all along." And do you know what state a motion picture player is in when he's about to begin a new picture? Let a so-called comedian tell you. He is fit to be tied. I speak feelingly. I'm about to do a piece called "Never Say Die. When the picture gets under way everything will be all right for a while. I'll relax and feel happy about the whole thing. Then as it gets down toward the shank end I know what will happen. The jitters will come back. I'll be in what those who have no sympathy sarcastically call a "mood." Around the set they'll say: "Get a load of Benny. What's he trying to do, give himself airs?" And it will be nothing but fright, plain fright. Don't let anybody tell you old troupers are different. They never get that old. And do you know where I'll be the night the picture is previewed? I'll be at the rights with the shakes and an awful headache, trying to forget it all.

He Overcame the Comb

You may be hard-pressed to finish the sentence “Remember the scene where Efrem Zimbalist Junior...”

Zimbalist, who died this past week at age 95, starred in two TV series. His last one, “The FBI,” is known more for Hank Simms’ intoning introductions (“A Quinn Martin Production!!”) than anything captured by the camera. But don’t blame Zimbalist. Lawrence Laurent of the Washington Post observed in a 1973 column: “He plays the role of Erskine with a restraint that can only be called wooden. He plays the role exactly the way that executive producer Quinn Martin and the FBI advisors wish to have the role played. It may not be much of a challenge to actor Zimbalist, but the pay is good and the hours are hard to beat.”

Zimbalist was one of many actors swallowed up by Warner Bros. as contract players for television, where the company was churning out detective shows and westerns in the late 1950s. And he may have been the first star whose show got unexpectedly sidetracked. Zimbalist was signed to star in “77 Sunset Strip.”

Zimbalist, Jr. Wants Neither Hit Or Flop
By BOB THOMAS
AP Movie-TV Writer
HOLLYWOOD (AP)—Efrem Zimbalist Jr. is a TV star in a dilemma. He doesn't want a flop, but he doesn't want a hit either.
Zimbalist is the suave private eye who matches wits with Hollywood's underworld on 77 Sunset Strip for ABC Friday nights. The son of the famed musician is also making a name for himself in theatrical films; he scored as Jean Simmons' sympathetic friend in "Home Before Dark."
Therein lies his dilemma.
"I think it's good for me to be doing a TV series now that film production is so low," said the Warner Brothers player. "If I didn't have this, I'd be off salary.

"Naturally, I hope the series is a success. But the thought of my being in it for five to seven years frightens me. I think I'd shoot myself first."
It looks as though he may be in for trouble. Because "77" has been doing very well in the ratings these Friday nights, and the sponsors seem content. Zimbalist could be in for a long run.
When I saw him between scenes, he was wolfing down a sandwich, which comprised his lunch.
"We've been working steadily since the season began," he explained, "and we're still not ahead. We couldn't get any backlog. Sponsor money was tight this year, so we didn't know if we were sold until the last moment. And Warners wasn't willing to shoot more than the pilot until the sale was made."
The studio pulled the wily stunt of making the first show 90 minutes long. Thus, if it didn't sell for TV, it could be sold to theaters. TV claimed it first, and the show won much attention for the novel opener.
The films are made in days, which is pretty speedy going for an hour show. Before Zimbalist hurried back into the scene, I asked him if he was one of the happy Warners TV stars or unhappy ones.
“Happy,” he said. “I don’t mind working this hard if the scripts are good, and some have been excellent.
I’ll check with him later.

Indeed, Thomas did check with him later. And we’ll check in with Thomas later. But first, let’s check in with syndicated columnist Steven H. Scheuer. He wrote a piece on Zimbalist published December 26, 1958. We’ll skip the biographical part, and just reprint the part dealing with “77 Sunset Strip.”

Zimbalist Plays Polished Role
By STEVEN H. SCHEUER
In an effort to duplicate the success of Maverick's pair of fast-talking gamblers, Warner Bros., on Friday nights, have two smooth private detective kiss girls, solve murders and sip drinks between courses at Dino's Hollywood Restaurant in the hour ABC mystery series, "77 Sunset Strip."
The series began with a 90-minute show by writer Marion Hargrove. It was to be a full-length movie, but TV sponsors like it, and the show was cut down. The idea, of course, is to show the jazzy aspect of Hollywood and slip in a juicy case of murder.
Warners made a deal with Dean Martin to use a replica of his restaurant, signed Efrem Zimbalist Jr., who had been playing character parts on Maverick, Cheyenne and Conflict, and added unknown Roger Smith to complete the staff of Bailey and Spencer, the kissing private eyes.
Ingredients for a hit series are there, and if Marion Hargrove could write all the scripts. "77 Sunset Strip" might be farther along than it is today.
One thing is has done, though, is give Efrem Zimbalist Jr. a leading role. His characterization of Dandy Jim Buckley, a charming thief, gave Maverick a lift and furnished a brainy foil for Jim (Bret Maverick) Garner to play against.

Zimbalist and Smith were the stars of the show. But things suddenly developed quite differently. If “77 Sunset Strip” is remembered today, it’s because of guy and his comb, neither of which are mentioned in Scheuer’s story. Edd “Kookie” Byrnes was supposed to play a one-shot, hair-combing Bad Boy killer in the opening show. But something changed before it aired. An epilogue on the episode told viewers he’d be a loveable hipster associate to the main cast members starting next week. Within a few months, Byrnes was getting a thousand fan letters a week (a number that grew) and teenagers were sending him combs in the mail. Warner Bros. improbably released a Christmas album of its TV stars in 1958 that included Zimbalist (his mother was Alma Gluck, the top female recording vocalist of the early 20th century) but it was Connie Stevens’ “Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb” that climbed the charts the following year.

How did this sit with the Yale-educated Zimbalist? The answer can be inferred by a wire service column of July 13, 1963. That’s when Bob Thomas checked in to report the combs and their owner were back on a shelf.

Sunset Strip Looks Brighter to Zimbalist
By BOB THOMAS
Hollywood (AP)—Efrem Zimbalist Jr., bereft of his buddies and even his office, was starting the sixth season of 77 Sunset Strip, a series for which he has expressed distaste.
Yet he seemed genuinely delighted with his lot, which happens to be Warner Brothers.
“I couldn't be happier,” he remarked.
The cause of his happiness appears to be Warner's Man Friday, Jack Webb. Chosen new head of television programming, Webb worked fast to save 77 Sunset Strip, which had been marked for extinction. Webb's ideas for altering the series won a reprieve.
The plan was bold. Swept out were all the regulars except Zimbalist — partner Roger Smith, teen favorite Edd Byrnes, comic Louis Quinn, receptionist Jacqueline Beer, cop Byron Keith.
Even the detective agency office next to Dino's Restaurant lapsed into limbo. “I now operate out of an office downtown,” said Zimbalist.
“But the biggest change has been in the scripts,” he added. “And that is why I am delighted with the new setup. The scripts we did during the first five years were garbage. They were simply awful. We would have shows with Louie holding up people with guns and solving mysteries. Louie is a good comedian, but that kind of plot was utterly ridiculous.
“Now we are getting first-class scripts and subjects that mean something. This one we're doing, for example, is about a colored girl, played by Elizabeth Montgomery, who passes for white. It's a touchy subject right now, and I've got to hand it to Webb for standing up to the network's doubts.”
Zimbalist is also pleased with the guest stars, who have included names like Joseph Cotton and Jo Van Fleet. There are indications that the series will be going on locations, instead of being bound to the Burbank studio.
“Sure, I'm going to be working hard,” Zimbalist said. “But an actor never complains about overwork as long as he has good material. And I'm not I complaining.”

Webb’s hard-boiled changes didn’t work. The revamped show was stripped off the schedule and replaced on February 14, 1964 with “Destry.”

Zimbalist went on to something that may have been even less popular in Hollywood—openly campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater (along with Walter Brennan). He then passed an FBI background check to star in the series about the agency for nine seasons. Almost 20 years after that, Zimbalist launched a new career in animation voice work where he’s best known by those in the under-40 crowd.

A steady and lengthy body of work is what Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. has left behind. And though he may have been “wooden” in his biggest on-camera role, he had to have been good to avoid his career being derailed forever by a brief, teenager-loving fad. He overcame the comb.

TV Animation, 1960

The Golden Age of Prime Time Animation, if there was such a thing, was awfully short. But it received a steady build-up.

Through the 1950s, a stream of old theatrical cartoons flowed onto TV screens. Then Hanna-Barbera showed, thanks to Huckleberry Hound and Quick Draw McGraw, that half-hour made-for-TV cartoon shows could be lucrative. Animated commercials showed cartoons were an effective sales tool. So, what was the next logical step?

If you’re Ollie Treyz at ABC-TV, you know what the answer is. Treyz was an aggressive and savvy programmer. He was also at last-place ABC, so he had nothing to lose. Treyz built his network amidst the sneers of some critics by airing non-highbrow canned programming produced by film studios—westerns and crime shows, mainly. So why not gamble on animation in prime time, something that his old buddy John Mitchell at Columbia’s Screen Gems—the bankrollers of Hanna-Barbera—wanted to try?

So it was that the talk of the trades in the early part of 1960 was about TV animation. Hanna-Barbera’s success with Huck and Quick Draw suddenly inspired the set-up of new limited animation studios that hired old-time animators churning out new product for sale. And Hanna-Barbera’s success in 1960 with “The Flintstones” suddenly inspired the creation of other prime-time animation shows. They all failed. By the end of 1961, it was evident the boom had gone bust. Joe Barbera felt the problem was prime time on Mondays through Thursdays was not the time for animation, and there simply weren’t enough good animators and cartoon writers at the time (see Weekly Variety, December 20, 1961, pg. 25).

But let’s turn back the clock a bit to this interesting analysis in Sponsor magazine from June 30, 1960. Perhaps the most interesting part of the story is the references to cartoon series that were never aired. Were episodes ever made? If so, what happened to the artwork or films? And what was the cartoon series from Warner Bros. that ABC planned to air in addition to “The Bugs Bunny Show”? Animation archaeologists reading here may know.

There are three series that the story doesn’t mention. One was “Q.T. Hush.” Ads for it had been placed by M. and A. Alexander Productions in Sponsor, which also reported on January 30, 1960 that 20 episodes had been completed, ten episodes of 3½ minute cartoons comprising one story. And Sponsor reported on May 7, 1960 that “Affiliated Television Productions has obtained tv rights to ‘There Oughta Be A Law’ from McClure Newspaper Syndicate for cartoon production; Affiliated is also producing The Goofs, a 130-episode five minute adult cartoon.” Who knows their fate?

Incidentally, the lack of a mention in the story of “The Rocky Show” is puzzling; it had debuted in 1959.

The story discusses animated TV commercials as well. Fortunately, some are available to view today on video web sites. The Ajax elves and the Jell-O “Chinese Baby” commercial, which ran for a number of years, may be familiar.

ANIMATION SCORES A BREAKTHROUGH
^ ABC TV will venture three nighttime animated shows this fall, including one aimed at adult audience
^ New animation production for syndication will soon rival or replace old theatrical libraries on tv

Animation for tv is on the verge of mulitple major breakthroughs.
During the 1960-61 season, animation will take important first steps in getting into several areas from which it was previously excluded.
ABC TV, first of all, has three nighttime animated half hours on its fall schedule—the first animated shows ever to earn nighttime network slots. Bugs Bunny is set for Tuesday and another series is set for Friday; both will go in at 7:30 p.m. and will be produced by Warner Bros.
But there's much more in the implications behind ABC TV's The Flintstones, produced by Screen Gems' Hanna-Barbera Productions and sold to Miles and R. J. Reynolds for 8 :30 p.m. Friday. This animated series is—as the names of the advertisers indicate—definitely for an adult audience.
You can be sure that other networks will be watching the ABC TV animation venture closely and won't be very far behind in scheduling nighttime animated series of their own if the new trend clicks.
Behind ABC TV's buy of The Flintstones is the success of Screen Gems’ Hanna-Barbera Productions with its two other national animated shows, Huckleberry Hound and Quick Draw McGraw, both in national spot and sold to Kellogg's, the former (a 1960 Emmy winner) now renewed for a third season, and the latter for its second.
The new scope of national animation programing may be seen in this one fact: Come fall, Screen Gems will have four national animated shows on television—the three shows listed sponsor above plus Ruff & Reddy on NBC TV.
A second animation development of major proportions will hit the syndication field in 1960-61. Up to now, virtually all animated programs in syndication were produced for theaters and later released for tv: such as Looney Tunes, Popeye, and Bugs Bunny, to mention but a few. Produced-for-tv animations were rarer: Crusader Rabbit. Felix the Cat, plus several shows produced for network, such as Mr. Magoo and Gumby, which were later put in syndication. But the new syndication season will see an animation production effort of unprecedented proportions.
At least half a dozen syndicators will bring out new animated series. Trans-Lux Tv will follow up its success with Felix the Cat by bringing out Rube Goldberg and one other program. CBS Films and Terrytoons have already started selling Deputy Dawg and are ready with a second series, Fearless Fosdick. ZIV-UA, a major distributor of theatrical cartoons, will produce its first animated series for tv : Mell-O-Tunes. Hank Saperstein will produce an animated version of "Dick Tracy." Flamingo will enter cartoon production with Nutty Squirrels. CNP has brought out a stop-motion series, Henry and His Claymates, and also has an animated Bob and Ray Show, and Paramount will make new Popeye cartoons.
There'll probably be more made-for-tv animation programing placed in syndication during the 1960-61 season than in all previous seasons combined. Two forces are shaping syndication’s new enthusiasm for animation: the time period situation and animation's good rerun performance.
Since the networks have taken control of more and more time periods after 7:30 p.m., the syndicators have replied by producing the kind of show largely designed to go into an early evening slot. Also, animated reruns held up better than live action shows. Main repeat runs are possible with relatively little loss of ratings appeal. Thus a show like CBS Films’ Fearless Fosdick, with an estimated half hour cost of $75,000, could eventually earn more than an action-adventure show budgeted at $32,000.

Animation in syndication will also get a boost from post-‘48 theatrical product, although some of these packages will find their way to network before they go into syndication. ABC TV’s Bugs Bunny, for example, will consist mostly of Warner Bros, theatricals of recent vintage.
A third animation breakthrough appears ready to take place on the technological front. One producer, Westworld Artists Productions, is keeping under wraps a new automation process which, if applied to animation, is said to be able to crack open the present high cost price structure. The new process, Animascope, is understood to be increasingly economical the larger the production unit. While it might not accomplish major savings on a 60-second commercial, it is said to bring half hour production costs down to $45,000 and full-length feature costs down to $1 million. The new technique utilizes live action photography for analysis of motion: these images are transformed into lines by special photographic processing and some details are added by conventional animation.
Other technological developments in animation which may well affect tv production within the next few seasons involve adaptation of stop-motion, slide-motion, and other camera techniques. Some of these innovations carry along with them unusual economies as well as novel effects. HFH Productions, for example, eliminated cels in producing a special one-use network program opening, photographing objects which were placed directly on the camera stand. The result, which ran for slightly over one minute, cost $1,800, compared to the usual $5,000-6,000 for one minute of animation.
A fourth aspect of animation worth watching is tv commercials. The trade estimate, that one-fourth of all tv commercials work is in animation, based on the volume of the past several seasons, will continue to be a useful rule-of-thumb. Robert Lawrence Productions’ analysis of 1960 business so far reveals that ll% of its volume is in all-animation commercials and that 26% is in commercials using some animation. There is no significant change in these figures when they are compared to last year. While no changes in the total amount of animation work in commercials is expected for 1960-61, some new creative tendencies have been predicted.
There is both an optimistic and a pessimistic side to the question of animation creativity in commercials. One producer felt that animation people would play an increasingly important role in commercials planning from the beginning, especially since agencymen whose background is chiefly live action may not also have sufficient understanding of the specialized capabilities of animation. In this view, a golden age of animation creativity in commercials was imminent in the coming season.
But another producer took a gloomier view of the subject. So many fresh developments have taken place in animated commercials in the past two seasons, this producer felt that the creative cycle was moving back from a phase of exploration to a new phase of imitation. Squeeze-motion was a new commercials style utilizing animation of the past two seasons, but no other new contribution to animation style could be seen on the commercials horizon.
The performance of commercials containing animation is a continuing subject of debate. A recent Schwerin study discovered that hybrid commercials—using both animation and live action—performed better than those using either all animation or all live action alone. In the recent First American Tv Commercials Festival and Forum, the proportion of commercials containing animation which won first prizes was considerably higher than the proportion which was considered. Animated entries constituted approximately one out of five of the 250 semi-finalists, but commercials containing animation walked away with one out of three of the 37 first prizes.
These top winners included Minneapolis Gas (Knox-Reeves) made by Grantray-Lawrence and Playhouse Pictures; Fresh (Daniel & Charles) by Elliott, Unger & Elliot; American Dairy ice cream (Campbell-Mithun) by TV Spots, Inc.; Ernie Ford program opening (J. Walter Thompson) by Playhouse Pictures; Union Oil (EWRR) by Playhouse Pictures; two commercials by Lestoil (Jackson) by Robert Lawrence Animation; United Cerebral Palsy by Newsfilm Productions; King Cotton Sausage (Rosengarten & Steinke) by Fred Niles; Kaiser foil (Y&R) by Freberg with Playhouse; Johnson & Johnson Strip, Patch & Spot (Y&R) by Elektra, and Seven-Up (J. Walter Thompson) by Ray Patin.
The commercials festival also served as a reminder of memorability of animated commercials. Nine of the spot shows in the Commercials Classics of past seasons contained animation. They were: Ajax (Sherman & Marquette) by Shamus Culhane: Muriel (Lennen & Newell) by Shamus Culhane; Hamm's (Campbell-Mithun) by Swift-Chaplin: Bardahl (Miller, Mackay, Hoeck, Hartung) by Ray Patin; Alka Seltzer (Wade) by Swift-Chaplin; Jello (Y&R) by UPA and Swift-Chaplin; Paypo (FRC&H) by Storyboard; Phil Silvers Camels openings (Esty) by Pelican; and Butternut (Buchanan-Thomas) by Freberg/Fine Arts.

There were a number of ads for cartoon series in the various editions of Sponsor in the first half of 1960. The MGM ad above (with a surprising reference to Tex Avery) is one of them. Below are a few more. The most intriguing of the bunch is the two-pager for Willie McBean. Obviously, producers were serious about it because a good chunk of cash must have been spent on the ad. Yet the show never aired. In 1965, Rankin-Bass turned Willie McBean into a stop-motion feature.

UAA was United Artists Associated. In 1958, it had worked out a deal to buy Associated Artists Productions, Elliot Hyman’s company which had bought the rights to Popeye and Warner Bros. theatrical cartoons in 1958 and blanketed North American stations with them.

Fearful Felix and the Jint

Felix encounters a giant when he rides a smoke ring to the clouds in “Land O’Fancy” (1926). The giant isn’t happy Felix has stolen his bottle of milk. Being a silent film, he can express his words only one way. They have to appear on the screen.



Felix indulges in that great trick of silent animation. Two drawings are alternated to express fear, one with the setting in wavy lines. Carlo Vinci was still doing this at Hanna-Barbera in the early ‘60s.



There are no credits on the cartoon, except for studio owner Pat Sullivan. Who animated this is up for speculation.

Dance With Bull

The wolf matador uses his red cape to get a ferocious bull to wear himself out in a dance to a solo conga drum in Tex Avery’s “Señor Droopy” (released 1948). Here are some of the drawings.



Avery’s animators in this cartoon are Bobe Cannon, Walt Clinton, Preston Blair, Mike Lah and Grant Simmons.

TV Firsts

Ah, TV trivia! Where would we be without it?

Perhaps the first concerted effort to keep track of TV trivia in the modern age (1948 and later) was on page 39 of Weekly Variety of July 26, 1950. The cockeyed information caught the eye of syndicated columnist John Crosby, who took it easy in his August 1st newspaper piece and simply summarised what he read in Variety. That may have been a first, too.

One of the things mentioned in the Variety column that the writer felt would make a nice surprise in a refrigerator commercial would be “Ed Sullivan frozen in a block of ice.” I couldn’t help but think of the 1961 Paramount cartoon “Cool Cat Blues,” featuring an ersatz Sullivan frozen in a block of ice. Did the great Irv Spector, who wrote the cartoon, see the Variety piece and file it in the back of his head for future use?

Alas, the frozen Sullivan (how would anyone know he wasn’t?) suggestion didn’t make the cut in Crosby’s column. Neither did something Variety recorded that was on television at the time—the TV camera that drank a glass of Schaefer beer between innings of the Brooklyn Dodger games. I’d like to have seen that commercial.

Radio In Review
BY JOHN CROSBY
Variety Salutes Television
VARIETY'S current issue contains its annual salute to television, roughly 14 pages of complaints, criticisms, predictions and assorted laments about TV contributed by the deep thinkers of the R.C.A. building and Hollywood. I hurriedly skip over the large-scale observations, which are too sweeping for my small-scale intellect, and pass along to some of the more minute perceptions.
H. Allen Smith, for example, reports that he has watched 3,212 icebox doors open, only 3,210 of which were subsequently closed. Two were left standing open. Mr. Smith suggests that they get a little suspense into it. When a door swings, there should be some sort of surprise—a copperhead poised for the kill or Groucho Marx leering from behind a beer bottle.
THIS IS such a fine suggestion I'm afraid it will be adopted. Not the copperhead, though. There will be four bottles of beer there, singing that old folk song, "Piel's Light Beer of Broadway Fame" at you. Then a can of Hunt's Tomato Sauce, doing a soft-shoe dance in the deep-freeze unit, will tell you what it does to a flounder. The possibilities are endless.
Some one score years ago, George Bernard Shaw used to complain that about two-thirds of the average movie consisted of opening and bedroom doors. But the movies matured. The actors graduated from the boudoir and began opening and closing taxi doors, shouting "Follow that cab!" Now, we are in the icebox door age, but already there are rumblings of change. The automobile door is getting the play. ("Notice the easy finger-tip action, the vibromatic swing of this fine, all-steel hydro-active door, exclusive with the Blodgett.")
For my money, the best door-opener in the business is Miss Betty Furness, the Westinghouse Girl. When she opens a frigerator, she gets her whole body into it, not just her wrist. She's also the most polished oven-door opener now operating. Another year and she'll be ready for a Cadillac door.
ANOTHER Variety essayist, Hal Kanter, of Hollywood, scripted a little ode to television's unsung pioneers. Milton Berle, Mr. Kanter points out, is the first man—Hey Nonny, Nonny—to kiss his own hand in front of a television camera. Mr. Berle is also credited by Mr. Kanter with launching the "Check your brains and we'll start even" joke on TV, a notable first.

Ed Sullivan, says Mr. Kanter, blazed another trail when he showed the industry "you can entertain an audience at home by photographing audiences in a theatre. Mr. Kanter, a diligent historian, also salutes the first technician to walk in of a camera at the most dramatic moment of the play; the dress designer who designed the TV neckline, thus adding a new dimension to the industry; and the first English film, "Tiffin on the Thames," to be seen on TV. This picture, he pointed out, may be seen tonight on Channel 2, the following night on Channel 6 and twice on Sunday on Channel 11.
Another noted Hollywood scholar, Manny Mannheim, contributed easily the most exhaustive paper yet written on the subject of scratching and shaking on TV; (Mr. Mannheim first won renown with his searching study of cigarette choreography on TV.) Ken Murray, Mr. Manheim points out, is a top-of-the-head scratcher, an action that comes just before the straight line and just after Mr. Murray has flicked his cigar.
WHENEVER Ed Sullivan is momentarily at a loss, (Mr. Mannheim continues) he scratches his right eyebrow. Mr. Sullivan, he notes, is a switch scratcher. Equally adept with either right or left hand. Milton Berle is another eyebrow scratcher, but a delicate one, just a flick of the finger. Mr. Berle is also a back-of-the-neck man. Bob Hope,a television novice, seems to be troubled in the same areas as Mr. Berle--back of the neck and eyebrow, whereas Ed Wynn, the itchiest man on TV, is an all-over man. Close behind Mr. Wynn comes Abe Burrows, who scratches his forehead, top-of-the-head and back-of-the-neck.
As for handshakers, Berle, Mr. Mannheim notes, is the warmest host. He shakes hands both before and after the girl sings a song. Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Murray shake hands only afterward. They're all put in the shade, says Mr. M., by a Chicago m.c. who shakes hands before and after, pummels the guest in the intervals and occasionally kisses them.