The Lieutenant Who Played One on TV

He was Archie Andrews and Superboy, but boomers reading this will likely know him as the suck-up Lieutenant Carpenter on “McHale’s Navy.”

Bob Hastings has passed away at age 89. He had cancer.

Hastings’ career went back before TV. He appeared as Archie on radio, an industry that refused to typecast actors who were equally adept at comedy and drama. Hastings was one of many actors who went from soap opera to soap opera to soap opera. “Pretty Kitty Kelly.” “Hilltop House.” “Nora Drake.” “Pepper Young’s Family.” All were shows where Hastings played a role. He loved radio and made appearances all across North America at gatherings of old-time radio fans, especially in Seattle, as Bob’s daughter Tricia had settled in Ellensburg, Washington.

Besides radio and TV (his first televised soap was “Search for Tomorrow”), Hastings also cut an album of 45 songs for children on the RCA Victor Bluebird label in 1960, and sang on a record of Mother Goose rhymes released in 1944. His role as Superboy was in the Filmation TV cartoon series of the ‘60s; he did other animation work as well. As a kid, it was a little jarring for me to hear Elroy Carpenter’s voice coming out of young Clark Kent.

I was hoping to find a profile of him written in his radio days, where he was known as “Bobby” at the beginning. About all I found was the Sam Berman sketch you see above. “Archie” began on radio as a daily show in 1943; Hastings was playing the title role by 1947 when it was weekly. So, instead, here’s a feature story from the Milwaukee Journal of May 3, 1964.

Binghamton’s Eager Aide
Under the Uniform of Lt. Carpenter is Bob Hastings, Devoted Family Man and Skilled Supporting Actor
By WADE H. MOSBY of The Journal
Bob Hastings had a great career going as a boy soprano until his voice changed while he was singing “That Wonderful Mother of Mine” on the “National Barn Dance” radio show.

“Just like that,” he said. “Hardly any warning, and I was out of work. I was forced to become an actor.”
One thing led to another, and at the moment, Hastings is playing the unctuous, fawning Lt. Elroy Carpenter in ABC-TV’s “McHale’s Navy.” As aide to the dyspeptic Capt. Binghamton (Joe Flynn), Lt. Carpenter is a regulations worshiping sycophant whose eager attention to duty occasionally irks even Binghamton, and makes merely funny situations outright hilarious.
“Carpenter is so. . .prissy—we had another word for it in the service,” said Hastings. “Like, if the captain falls in the mud, Carpenter picks him up and tells him ‘That color is so becoming on you, captain!’”
Hastings was hired to do a bit part in the second episode of the series two years ago. He was the skipper of a PT boat, a sharp, crisply dressed stuffed shirt brought into the script to show up McHale as the slovenly bum that Binghamton thinks he is.
“A couple of weeks later,” said Hastings, “they decided that Binghamton needed someone to talk to, and made me his aide.”
Lt. Carpenter appeared in 27 of the first year’s 39 episodes, and in 32 out of the 33 the second season. Hastings has no idea how many shows Carpenter will be in next year, because he’s the only McHale regular who is not under contract.
“Every Thursday I find out what days I’ll be working the following week,” he said. “I don’t have any agreement about being available for ‘McHale,’ but I feel a moral obligation to Eddie Montaigne, the executive producer. I worked for Eddie on the old ‘Bilko’ show.”
Hastings is the type to take moral obligations seriously. He’s a family man—married 16 years—and deeply concerned about the upbringing of his four children. The little Hastingses are: Patricia, 15; Bobby, 12; Michael, 11, and M.J. (Mary Joan), 8.
He was born and reared a block and a half from Ebbets field in Brooklyn, and, naturally, is fanatical about baseball. He moved to California the same year the Dodgers did, 1959, but not for the same reasons.
“Radio soap operas had about ended, and it seemed to me all the work was out here for an actor,” he said. “I was the oldest unknown in the business.”
Hastings now is 38, but looks much younger. He points out that he played kid roles half his adult life.

“I was playing 15 year old boys when I was 30,” he said. “I was a high school boy on NBC radio’s ‘Archie Andrews’ show until I was married and had three kids.”
Hastings enlisted in the army air corps in World War II, became a flying cadet and finally a B-29 navigator. The war ended just as he was about to leave for Okinawa, however, and 2nd Lt. Hastings didn’t get into combat.
On the screen, Hastings appears to be a tall, somewhat burly fellow, because he usually is standing respectfully next to Joe Flynn, who is short and slight. Actually, Hastings is about 5 feet 10 tall and weighs about 170 pounds.
He keeps in good physical condition by playing touch football with the neighboring kids in Burbank. Not that he’s overly palsy-walsy with his offspring.
“I’m a very old fashioned guy,” he said. “I believe that a man is the head of the house, and should make the basic decisions. I believe that I must bring up my children with great respect for their parents, and I want to be able to send them to college.
“My wife, Joan, was a singer. We used to sing duets together—we still do, now and then. We intend to stay married for keeps. Look at another girl? I couldn’t afford to buy another girl a cup of coffee!”
The Hastingses don’t cluster, family style, around the TV set to watch “McHale’s Navy.” For the children, it’s either bedtime or study time. And those things come first.

Bob Hastings had experience with a second Archie years later. One named Bunker. He was Kelsey, the publican who eventually sold his bar and allowed Carroll O’Connor to rejig “All in the Family” into a far lesser show.

Hastings was the third of four boys born in New York to Charles and Hazel Hastings. His father was a salesman for a dairy company; younger brother Don went into acting.

By all accounts, he and his wife lived quiet lives. She sang in the church choir. He took whatever work he could get. He was never bothered that he was not a huge star. “I’ve been a journeyman actor, and lucky that I’ve been able to work all the time,” he told a columnist in 1982. “Maybe that’s because I’ve always believed the most important thing to me is my four children—not my ego.” To another columnist the same year, he mused: “I fell into acting and have spent my life doing something I love.”

We should all be as fortunate.

Read more about his life here.

A De Gardo Painting

How’d you like a genuine De Gardo in your home, signed by the artist? This guy has.



This is one of the background drawings in “Kiss Me Cat,” released by Warner Bros. in 1953. The background artist is Phil De Guard, who decided to use a pen name (a brush name?) as an inside joke. I can’t read the first name on the painting.

Here are a few other backgrounds.



Layouts are by Maurice Noble.

The Ducks Call Back

“A duck will always answer to a duck call,” says the narrator in Tex Avery’s “Field and Scream.” And they do. They go from regular-looking ducks to silly-looking ones in a matter of a couple of seconds.



Grant Simmons, Walt Clinton and Mike Lah are the credited animators. I have no idea who the narrator is.

Racing With Rochester

Eddie Anderson was more than an actor. He had a wide number of interests, only one of which was ever mentioned on the Jack Benny radio show. Anderson had a horse in the 1943 Kentucky Derby. The situation got so much publicity at the time, Bill Morrow and Ed Beloin felt compelled to plunk it in two of the scripts, managing to contrive a reason why an impoverished butler to a miser would have the money to own a thoroughbred.

Anderson’s numerous sports interests were outlined in ‘Wendell Smith’s Sports Beat’ column in the Pittsburgh Courier of April 21, 1951.

“Rochester” Has an Expensive Hobby . . .
One of the reasons Eddie (Rochester) Anderson is famous is because for the past fourteen years he has driving, via radio on Sunday nights, Jack Benny's broken-down Maxwell, a dilapidated, tempermental jalopy.
The fact Benny has refused to trade the hack in since he purchased it back in 1927 is evidence enough that Rochester is a leading candidate for a degree in master mechanics. He has kept the lizzy going down through the years and has driven his “boss” to fame and fortune.
Everybody knows about that and acknowledges the fact that without Rochester the famous comedian couldn't possibly have zoomed along the road of success as swiftly and smoothly as he has.
The Maxwell is so incompetent, in fact, that it has driven Rochester to distraction and, also, into the intricate field of automobile designing.
Last week, for instance, he exhibited his latest creation at a sports car show in Chicago. It was one of the most popular exhibits on display and Rochester was there in person to explain how and why he adopted such a unique hobby. He has always been a great sports enthusiast, but few people knew that his interests had invaded such an exacting field.
“I've always been mechanically-minded,” he explained to us, “and always been interested in custom built sports cars. Last summer I was in Europe with Jack Benny and saw so many of them, I decided I'd get one.
“But they couldn't deliver one to me for at least eight months, so I decided I'd design and build one myself.”
* * *
He Once Had a Horse In the Derby . . .

The fog-voiced radio star then turned and ran his hand over the sleek, cream-colored specially built car he was exhibiting. It is a luxury sports job with a Cadillac V-8 motor. Rochester designed the entire car and practically constructed it himself. The total expenditure amounted to more than $20,000.
“This car,” he said proudly, “is complete in every detail. It took eight months to finish it and now it’s ready to compete in any sports car race in the country. Its top speed will be about 150 miles per hour, which is fast enough for me.”
There were sixty-five custom and hot rod cars on exhibition for the auto fanatics who like models constructed on extreme lines.
Rochester's was the most popular of them all. Thousands of people stood around each day gasping at his “dream car.”
Rochester's interests are diversified, running from the automobile to the horse. The mention of the impending Kentucky Derby, for instance, made his familar eyes pop. A few years ago he has a horse that ran in the Derby by the name of “Burnt Cork.”
The nag's only distinction was that Rochester owned and nursed it. It lacked two tremendously important essentials, speed and the will to win.
Recalling “Burnt Cork's” efforts in the Derby, Rochester said: "I though the horse might get off and go places in the Derby, but that was just an idle dream. I don't even remember how he finished in the race because I couldn't wait around until he came in. When the first five horses finished, I looked around the track for “Burnt Cork” but he was so far behind I couldn't see him. I couldn't wait around all day, so I got up and went home. I understand, however, that he came in sometime before night fall. I guess he got hungry.”
“Burnt Cork” passed into the Great Beyond in 1944.
Rochester has four other horses in his stable now, the best of which is “Coloradito.”
“His name means ‘Little Red’,” Benny's favorite stooge said, “and he's a pretty good horse. He started nine times last year and finished in the money eight. He's too old for the Derby, but he's not too old to make a little money. He's seven years old.”
Rochester has always been an avid sports fan, and his favorite athlete is Billy Anderson, his 22-year-old son, who is now in uniform and stationed near the vault where they keep the gold at Fort Knox.
“He had a great future,” Rochester admitted modestly, “until Uncle Sam came along and grabbed him. He was a great halfback at Compton Junior College in California and held two junior college records in the high and low hurdles.
“If he could have continued, he probably would have been playing football and running on the track at either UCLA or Southern California. Maybe when he gets out of the Army he’ll still be young enough to resume his athletic career.”
* * *
His Fighter Looked Good . . . Outside the Ring
Rochester has never confined his sports interests to any single field. He is now interested in sports cars and horses. He was once a baseball fanatic and a manager of fighters.
“The fighters,” he said, “never went very far. They all looked good when I first signed them. They were tough and strong. They were rugged and sturdy. But that was outside the ring. When they got in the ring and faced an opponent, they were just the opposite. They were weak and feeble. After the bell rang I never watched the fight itself. I simply fixed my eyes on the canvas because that is where they usually ended up.”
His sports car hobby can be developed into a lucrative business. If he gets enough offers he plans to put the “Rochester Special” into full production and on the market. They will cost approximately $5,000.
“Right now, this is not a poor man's sport,” he said, “but the fad is becoming more popular all the time. When we can produce these cars on a mass production basis, they will go down in price and be available to almost everyone.”
He ran his hand over the car and smiled. “There's quite a difference between this and that Maxwell I have to haul Benny around in, isn't there?” he said. “But, if it weren't for that Maxwell, I wouldn't be the owner of a Rochester Special.”

Mike Kazaleh was nice enough to dig up pictures of Rochester’s car. Yes, it doesn’t quite look like the Maxwell.

Drooping Cigars and a Throwaway Dime

“Subtle humorist” is not how many would view Paul Terry. What’s subtle about Mighty Mouse? Or Heckle and Jeckle? But when someone is 82 years old, you cut them a bit of slack. Thus the Yonkers Herald Statesman bestowed that moniker on Terry in a profile published March 19, 1969.

Terry survived being cut adrift by Amadee Van Beuren at the advent of sound cartoons in 1929. He formed his own studio and survived into the era of network television via coaxial cable in the early 1950s. Along the way, he produced cartoons that paled in comparison to what was being put on screens by every other studio, even as his staff duplicated some of their ideas. Yet Terry had no pretentions and that somehow was reflected in his films, to their benefit. And some of today’s fans, perhaps tired of the bashing that Terrytoons have received in some quarters, point out the merits of the work of the individuals who worked on them, such as Jim Tyer, Carlo Vinci and Art Bartsch.

So let’s turn our attention to the aforementioned newspaper feature story. A comment about the Terry studio “infrequently working around the clock” doesn’t make sense in context of the point the author is making. And there’s a glaring composition error that, somehow, seems appropriate to a story on Terry.

Paul Terry, At 82, Still Calls The Toon
By CARMEL MARCHIONNI
The antics of “Little Herman” which originated in animated cartoon more than a half century ago, were the brainchild of a subtle humorist from Westchester County.
A struggling pioneer in his field in 1915, Paul Terry is the originator of the rib–tickling Terrytoons. He sold his first cartoon for $1.35 a foot . . . today it is not unusual to get anywhere between $100 and $165 a foot.
At 82, Mr. Terry attributes his success to simplicity in everything he undertakes. He has been living at the Westchester Country Club in Harrison since 1942. His daughter, Pat Leighton, lives in Yonkers.
Considering photography as an experimental media, he started his career as a cameraman handling a flash powder type instrument which more often than not would explode in someone’s face.
He worked on and off for the San Francisco Examiner until he became interested in pursuing his family art background only to choose cartooning as his particular delight.
The most vivid recollection of his early days was the taking of a picture of a murderer in an Oakland, Calif., courtroom and being threatened with jail by the presiding judge.
In another incident, a black-faced woman chased him a few blocks after he took a flash picture of her.
Mr. Terry recalls with pleasure the time he shared a studio at 50th Street in New York City with Robert Ripley of “Believe It Or Not” fame. His greatest problem in the past was the tremendous amount of talent stolen from him. As soon as he trained a good animator, someone would come along and “raid” him. This left him with his cigar pointing downwards, “a sure sign of trouble” as far as his employes were concerned. The cigar served as a barometer for his moods.
One of his particular brainstorms Mr. Terry claims was stolen from him by contemporary humorists, was the saying . . . “When I feel like exercising
I lay down ‘til the feeling wears off.”

This was factualized by his staff who always saw him rush into his office in the morning and quickly close the door behind him. He would impress upon them the idea of an idea in evolution while, in reality, he claims originality with the psychiatrist’s couch . . . napping for hours on end in his office.
Mr. Terry produced about 52 cartoons a year and possibly produced more pictures on film than any other man in the country. He worked his studio a seven-day week simply by not worrying about daylight.
He shut the drapes on his windows and infrequently worked around the clock.
Mr. Terry’s talent came naturally — his mother was an accomplished sculptress, his brother was an artist and he had two sisters who enjoyed working on silver and sculpting.
The cartoonist lost his wife, Erma Heimlich Terry, last Jan. 7, ending 45 years of marriage.
Mrs. Terry was originally an artist employed by Paul Terry’s brother, John.
She quit and went to work for the man who was to become her husband and, according to Mr.
She quit and went to work for her.
The 1929 stock market crash found him in the middle of a party he had been throwing. Mr. Terry said nothing to his guests who continued to dance. He later took a walk along the Hudson River line in the Bronx and threw his last dime away in order “to start from scratch.”
He came to 115 Beech Ave., Larchmont, in 1925, and later set up a studio at 271 North Ave. in New Rochelle. In 1947 he moved to 38 Center Ave. in New Rochelle, the old Knights of Columbus building which is now the Terrytoon Division of CBS, to whom he sold out 12 years ago.
Mr. Terry holds membership in the Hook and Ladder Co. of the Larchmont Fire Department and often produces shows for senior citizens’ groups. He serves on the board of trustees at the Industrial Arts School in New York City.
Off on a five-week motor trip to California with his lifetime friend, Bill Hillicher, Mr. Terry is taking the jaunt for a change of pace and to “get the hell out of here.”

Music For Cat and Monkey

Corporate symbols don’t turn animals into musical instruments. It’s fortunate, then, that Mickey Mouse wasn’t a corporate symbol yet when he did it back in the 1920s.

Here he is in “Jungle Rhythm.” It’s a typical 1929 cartoon—lots of dancing and noise to the beat of the music. A leopard is minding its own business when Mickey grabs him, hooks up his whiskers and starts playing a public domain tune on him like a harp.



Mickey bashed out “Turkey in the Straw” on various animals in “Steamboat Willie” a year earlier. He does it again here, pounding on heads like drums, pulling tails and clunking on a cow skeleton (in the jungle?) like it’s a xylophone.



Next he shoves in the stomachs of innocent tigers to get them to yowl “Yankee Doodle.”



Finally, he hops over to a lion and finishes “Yankee Doodle” by stretching the animal’s tongue and using it as a Jew’s harp.



The jungle throng generally likes the performance (in reused animation). Even the palm tree applauds.



Much like live action films of the late ‘20s, Disney’s cartoons soon evolved past this kind of non-plot. But these kinds of cartoons are fun to watch in little batches.

Day-Night Fight

How did the Jay Ward production crew fill seven seconds of screen time with just six drawings? Let Mr. Peabody provide the answer.

During the climax, if you want to call it that, of “The First Indian-Head Nickel,” engraver Talbot Heffelfinger fights a bear. The fight consists of three drawings of clouds, stars and fists, shots over and over again (two frames per drawing). They’re used over two background drawings, one depicting day, and the other night. The camera simply fades one background over the other, making day become night and night become day. Peabody and Sherman are on a separate cel that simply stays put.3 + 2 + 1 = 6 drawings.



By the way, “Improbable History” is putting it mildly. The Peabody cartoons are based on historical figures—but not this one. The Indian Head nickel was designed by James Earle Fraser and not by some guy named Heffelfinger. And it was done after the turn of the century, not 1869 like in the cartoon. We await a huge outcry on the internet about the lack of factuality just like that which greeted the Disney-P.L. Travers movie.

Enough of the Hi-Ho

Louis Nye was among many actors who learned there was a big difference between the way your career was affected by television than it was by radio. In radio, you could be versatile, playing comedy and drama without anyone really noticing. In television, the viewer could see you and henceforth would only accept you in the kind of role they saw. Television equalled typecasting. It was the price of fame. And if you had a character that caught on with the public, especially one with a catchphrase, you were forced to ride it out until you, through no fault of your own, wore out your welcome.

Nye was one of those radio actors who got huge exposure only after Steve Allen hired him as a sketch player and then found the audience decided to adopt him as his characterisation of the Madison Avenue phoney, Gordon Hathaway. It finally got to where Nye refused to do Hathaway in his nightclub act in the ‘60s in an attempt to escape the role, one of many in Nye’s repertoire, though paying patrons no doubt anxiously awaited witnessing him say “Hi-Ho, Steverino” in the flesh.

Syndicated entertainment columnists gave Nye a fair bit of attention in the late ‘50s and through the ‘60s; at least, I found more interviews with Nye than I thought I would. Here’s one from the National Enterprise Association dated July 26, 1957 that gives readers some background about his career.

Madison Avenue Laughing Boy
By DICK KLEINER
NEW YORK —(NEA)—Critics frequently charge that television doesn't breed its own stars. But nobody can deny that it develops amazingly talented "second bananas" — men like Sid Caesar's Carl Reiner and Jackie Gleason's Art Carney.
And now you can add Steve Allen's Louis Nye. His most frequent character — the Madison Avenue laughing boy Gordon Hathaway — is a small gem. And Nye does so many other characters on the Allen show, many of them under heavy makeup, that chances are you don't recognize him half the time he's on.
This, of course, is a tribute to his own acting skill. Reiner is always Reiner and even Carney is easily spotted. But Louis Nye's face and voice and even his carriage change with each of his portrayals. He is, first and foremost, a highly talented actor.
This comedy streak in him is a late-flowering facet of the man. He was, for many years, a radio actor. He called himself "an emotional juvenile," and generally played highly-charged roles. He was also a competent "double," a radio term meaning that he could and did play two parts on the same show.
Felt He Was Funny

"All this time," he says. "I had a feeling, inside, that I was funny. To myself, thought that I was a funny guy. So what I'd do would be to play benefits. I'd do monologs, whatever came into my head.
"One time, I did one of these monologs and a Broadway columnist was there. He wrote me up for a whole column. I was so scared somebody would offer me a job as comedian that I ran home and hid." Nye, during this period, had no confidence in himself as a funny man. There was something inside him, wanting to come out, but he would have died of fright on a nightclub floor. It's a strange situation, one he won't go into very deeply, but one that is happily over.
"Now," he says, "I could do a nightclub. But there's no longer the great need there once was. Before, I wanted to, but I couldn't. Absolutely could not face it."
Changed in Army
What changed him, more than anything else, was the Army. He began to do little things in the recreation hall at Camp Crowder, Mo. He did sad monologs and funny monologs and patriotic monologs. (At one time, he had a partner for some of these—Carl Reiner.)
He came out and went into Broadway shows, like "Inside U.S.A." and the sensational flop, "Flahooley." And then he began to do some TV work. About five years ago, he worked an ABC-TV show called "Talk Of The Town." At the same time, Steve Allen was doing the old amateur songwriter show, "Songs For Sale."
Allen and Nye exchanged fan letters. Then they met on an elevator and Steve said, "You'll be hearing from me." As soon as Allen got his "Tonight" show, he kept his word. He and Nye have been working together, off and on, ever since.
Nye comes from Hartford, Conn., where, as a kid, he says he had to play a part.
Skinny and Weak
"You know how kids are," he says. "Every kid has a certain role in life to play. There's the tough kid and the cry-baby kid and the best ball-player kid. I was kind of skinny and weak and I didn't have a part. So I began to do imitations of the neighbors and then I had a part—the funny kid." At 18, he was working on a Hartford radio station for $2.50 a broadcast. He's been working pretty steadily since then.
All these years, he's been observing people. He has a great gift for mimicry. With a gesture, a facial expression, a tone of voice, he can capture a personality type. His Gordon Hathaway is that sort of characterization; it is nothing like Nye himself.
They're Opposites
Where Hathaway is hail-fellow-well-met, Nye is quiet. Hathaway has a ridiculous expression, Nye is serious. Hathaway thinks of himself as quite a wit, Nye seldom says anything funny. Hathaway is dapper dresser, Nye is a sober dresser. They are opposites, in every sense.
Nye is married to Anita Leonard, the songwriter who composed "Sunday Kind of Love" and the hit, "Graduation Ring." They have a 3 1/2-year-old son. While Nye leads a comfortable life, he admits to the urge to have his own show, "provided I find something that I would fit into." Meanwhile, he goes on with Steve Allen. The strange thing is that there is no contract. He waits until Allen calls him, otherwise he doesn't go on (and doesn't get paid). The best second banana currently working, in other words, is up for grabs.

For a while, it looked like Nye could be a first banana. Interstate TV signed him in September 1957 for a series called “Fancy Dan.” Shooting was supposed to begin the following January. Whether a pilot was ever made is unclear. Nye eventually abandoned the project and stuck with Allen and the typecasting Hathaway brought him. Eventually, like other stars in the same predicament, Nye accepted the fact people loved his character like an old friend. So after being banished for part of the mid-‘60s, Gordon Hathaway began to periodically appear on television again.

Hathaway wasn’t Nye’s only problem. Here are some of his travails which probably weren’t funny at the time but are pretty easy to imagine just from the description. This is from the Long Island Star Journal of August 25, 1964.

Louis Nye’s Fans Aren’t So Funny
By BOB ELLISON (Special to Star-Journal)
Comedians, like most of their jokes, seem to be in public domain. For some unfathomable reason, people often take liberties with comics that only friends and family would put up with. Frequently, fans miss the thin line between admiration and abuse.
For some, it is even difficult to greet a funnyman with a simple "Hello." More often than not, the fan opens with a challenge, thus: "Say something funny!"
• • •
"WHY?" retorts Jack E. Leonard. "So you can repeat it!"
"Actually, though," said Louis Nye, "Those aren’t the worse kind of fans." Nye, who rose to fame doing the Gordon Hathaway character on Steve Allen’s old Sunday night TV show, should know. Recently, Louis took time out from his busy schedule to discuss fun and games with fans.
• • •

"COMEDIANS," he said, "are always running into guys who wanna stop them on the street and tell you a joke. Just last week it happened again. I thanked him for his joke and excused myself.
"He followed me right along anyway, all the way to the end of the block, 10 jokes later. And the jokes—" Louis shook his head sadly. "How did you get away from him?" someone asked.
• • •
"CAB," he said. "Hail a cab. Sometimes you’re just going a block, or two, so you ride around until it’s safe to get out."
But there are times when a cab can’t be hailed.
"Not long ago," Louis continued, "a guy breaks into my dressing room to tell me how much he likes me. I said, ‘Thank you, it’s been great meeting you,’ and I shook his hand.
• • •
"FINALLY, I had to go on, so I locked up the dressing room. He went out into the club to find his table and, of course, his seat had been taken. I go on now and while I’m trying to do my act, he’s yelling at the head waiter that he wants to sit down. It goes like that for half of my act.
"Another time," Nye went on, "a fellow stops me on the street. He wants to tell me some jokes. I said, ‘please, sir, I just want to walk by myself.’ But you can’t tell them that. He says, ‘Oh-h-h! If it wasn’t for people like me . . . It’s people like me, we made you a star!’ "He was yelling now and he started to run after me. There were two women passing by then, and one of them said to the other, ‘There’s Louis Nye.’ So I tipped my hat to them. The guy is running. Now they turn around and start following me.
• • •
"ONE of the women says, ‘I’ll bet you miss New York.’ Then the other one says, ‘I’ll bet you miss the good restaurants.’ They were very pleasant, very casual.
"And the whole time this guy is swearing at me, a crowd is gathering and they’re completely oblivious to it. Martial law is about to be declared, and they’re not even aware of it."
"Louis," someone said, "how’d you resolve the situation?"
"Cab," he said. "I got a cab."

Much was made of Betty White’s career revival in her late 80s, but doing it before her was Louis Nye. He reached a whole new generation of TV fans who wouldn’t know Sonny Drysdale from Don Drysdale when he appeared on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” while he was in his late 80s. Nye died at the age of 92 in 2005. By then, he had long hung up his hi-ho.

Smearing Bugs Exit

No, the gremlin isn’t stretching Bugs Bunny’s body beyond recognition. It’s, I suspect, Virgil Ross animating the rabbit in “Falling Hare.”



Rod Scribner and Bob McKimson were the only animators who got their names in the credit rotation in the Bob Clampett unit at the time. Bill Melendez once told how this was the first cartoon where he worked as a full animator.

Map of the Wolf

Tex Avery and background artist Johnny Johnsen supply maps to help us follow the wolf's escape from Droopy in “Dumb-Hounded” (1943).