The Other Jolson

When Al Jolson died on October 23, 1950, he was known as “The World’s Greatest Entertainer.” He’ll never be considered that ever again, unless blackface becomes acceptable once more.

Jolson was already famous when he was catapulted into the entertainment stratosphere with the release of the historic picture “The Jazz Singer.” His popularity waned until he was propelled into the spotlight again with the the release of “The Jolson Story” (1946, full release in January 1947). And he stayed there until his death. Anguish and memorials filled the entertainment and editorial pages to mark his passing; Jack Benny wanted to cancel his TV show to go to Jolson’s memorial service (he was finally convinced not to).

There’s another Jolson story, and we don’t mean the movie sequel “Jolson Sings Again” (1949). It’s the one given to the Associated Press’ Hollywood reporter not many days after Asa passed away.

Harry Jolson had the unkind fate of being an entertainer who was completely overshadowed by his younger brother. He was a veteran entertainer and, even in vaudeville, unable to handle what life dealt the Jolson brothers. The Troy Times of September 9, 1921 sniffed that Harry’s act would be far better if he stopped sarcastically yelling “I’m Al’s brother” during his performance (which was greeted by the audience sitting on its hands). And if he wanted to stop the comparisons, it didn’t help that he also worked in blackface (in one 1916 ad, he was billed in terms that would be grossly offensive today).

The bitterness remained after his brother’s death. At least, that’s what I take away from his interview with the AP. That’s even though Al finally put him on his payroll; whether he performed any duties is unclear. The column appeared in papers beginning November 3, 1950.

Al Jolson's Brother Tells Of Family Feuds
By BOB THOMAS
HOLLYWOOD—(AP)—When Al Jolson died, many people learned for the first time that he had a brother.
But to the people in show business, the story of Al and Harry Jolson is a legend. I called on Harry at his comfortable home in the Hollywood hills to hear about the long and stormy association of the Jolson brothers.
“People are surprised to learn about me, because I wasn’t in the Jolson pictures,” said Harry, who bears a resemblance to the late star. “I always tell them that while Al and my mother were playing their scenes in our dining room, I was out in the kitchen washing the dishes.”
Also not shown in the film biographies were the two Jolson sisters, now dead. Harry corrected other misconceptions in the pictures.
“That stuff about Al going to a Catholic school,” Harry cited. “Al was only there a few days.”
FILM NOT CORRECT
He added that the film version of how Al entered show business was incorrect. “I got Al into show business,” said Harry. "Since we were rabbi cantor’s sons, we sang in the choir and were used to appearing before the public. I was older than Al and I was the black sheep. I was always getting singing jobs at the burlesque show, singing and selling stuff between acts.
“Like all kid brothers, Al followed my example and I helped him get started. When I ran away with a show, he got the same idea.”
Al, who had a “beautiful little soprano,” returned home when his voice changed, Harry related. The older brother, who was doing well in vaudeville, suggested they team in an act.
“But I can’t sing; my voice is changing,” protested Al. “You can whistle, can’t you?” Harry replied. And so the team of Jolson and Jolson began. Later they wore joined by an older vaudevillian named Joe Palmer. Harry showed me some yellowed theater programs billing “Jolson, Palmer and Jolson” in the early 1900s.
TRIED BLACKFACE

“It was Palmer who suggested Al try blackface,” Harry said. “Since Al was from the south (Washington, D.C.), he talked with a southern accent. Palmer thought he’d get more laughs if he blacked up.”
When Harry fell ill in New Orleans, Al deserted with Palmer, Harry said. That was the end of the brother act. Harry went on as a single act and was successful, especially in England. But he was always in the shadow of his younger brother’s fame.
When Al made a hit in the talkies, Harry was signed by Universal. But he never made a picture. Harry believes that Al’s movie boss convinced Universal that it would have trouble finding theaters for films starring another Jolson.
When vaudeville started to die, Harry’s singing career faded. He became an actor’s agent and handled Al and Ruby Keeler for seven years.
“Then Al walked out on me,” he recalled. “My friends persuaded me to bring a lawsuit for the money he owed me, but later I dropped it.”
BUSINESS FOLDED
His agency business folded and he turned to selling insurance. During the war he was a timekeeper at aircraft plants here. Recently he had been on salary at Al’s office. From the estate of millions, Harry received $10,000.
“Some people say he should have left me more,” sighed Harry, “But Al was like that. I am not going to worry about it. I have my health, my house is paid for, and somehow I will find a way to take care of my wife and her two children. I don’t want millions. I don’t want to be the richest man in the casket.”
Harry cleared up the matter of Al’s age, which was listed in the obits from 62 (as Al claimed) to 69. “He was three years younger,” said Harry. “I am 68, He was 65.”

Harry Jolson died on April 26, 1953. The AP ran the story four days later; I’ve found a newspaper that devoted one line to it. That was it. Al Jolson had topped his unfortunate brother one final time.

Take That, You Rat

“Take that, you rat!” yells a voice behind the police chief’s closed door. Fade into the police chief and a real rat being fed cheese.



Tex Avery was known for his quick gags at MGM, but this scene in “Thugs With Dirty Mugs” at Warners takes up only 13 seconds then it’s one to the next bit.

Son of Beauty and The Beast

Some character designs from the Fractured Fairy Tale “Son of Beauty and the Beast.” The tall woman in the fourth drawing below looks a little related to Mr. Magoo.



And there’s nothing like a camera error. The cop’s mouth vanishes for two frames.

Jack Benny's History of Comedy

Jack Benny’s name appeared in guest columns from time-to-time, especially after he moved to the West Coast. The major columnists, and a few on the lower rungs, occasionally got mentions on his radio show; Louella Parsons appeared at least twice.

Benny expert Laura Leff speculates many of these guest columns were ghosted by Benny’s writers. That’s likely the case in this column from 1936. It appeared in the Albany Evening News on May 11, 1936. The paper’s radio columnist had been getting correspondence from Harry Conn, Benny’s writer, and it seems quite probably Conn wrote this piece. Incidentally, this same column appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of September 16th that year.

Conn helped come up with some of the characterisations which made the Benny show so popular, though they were refined by other writers—with input from Jack Benny—to become what we remember today. Some critics say that epitomises the Benny broadcasts written by Conn—that he served up corn that other people eventually turned into a meal. While the assessment isn’t altogether fair—radio humour was something new and it was still evolving while Conn worked for Benny—one can’t help but read the following column and be struck by its hokum.

COMEDIAN HAS HIS SAY ON JOKESTERS
By THE LISTENER
LET GEORGE do it.
Or, in this case, let Jack do it. We sour-minded radio critics have had so much to say about the staleness of the jokes our comedians use and call "scripts"; we have sneered in type and "Hee-hawed" in print at their lack of novelty in material, that it is time one of them was permitted to have his say about fun and where you find it.
"I've taken my fun where I found it" said Kipling, and most of us seem to think that the radio comedians find their fun in the dust of an old, deserted garret.
So here goes ole Jack Benny, who needs much less defense than the rest of his guild, but who wants to have his say.
By JACK BENNY
AFTER 34 years of passing out what in some lucky instances get by as laughs, I have come to the definite conclusion that there is no such thing as a new joke and I'm not kidding. There are a few basic quips that have lasted through the centuries and with mighty few exceptions all the gags we hear today are variations on an original theme. Every once in a while a comedian gets off what he honestly believes to be a brand new one. But the wind is taken out of his sails immediately after the broadcast when some well-wisher comes up and says.
"Jack, that was a swell joke. But I liked it when I heard Tommy Harrington, the old New England wit, spring it 25 years ago."
Of course the basic wisecracks, thought up for the first time anywhere between 250 and 3,000 years ago. were very good. They had to be able to stand the rough treatment they have received since from alleged rib-ticklers like myself. After considerable ransacking. I found that about a dozen jokes form the basis for the 5,000,000,000 that crawl out of loudspeakers, jump at us from the screen and are hurled across the footlights at us nowdays. To illustrate this essay, I shall use six of these gems, giving full credit to their original sources.
One of the earliest funsters was a fellow named Samson. He is responsible for this pearl—I copied it right out of his script:
Samson: "A person I've known for 10 years cut me this morning."
John: "Well, that's strange. Who was it?"
Samson: "My barber."
We leave Samson and his barber, and investigate the Golden Age of Greece. It was during this period that a lad by the name of Socrates was flourishing on the Acropolis Circuit. He is reputed to have originated the one-line joke, as contrasted to the "he said" then "she said" variety of humor. The records show that Socrates used to slay them with this one:
"I met a man last night who was so mean that when his wife asked to see the world he gave her a map."
Not so very far away from Greece, what we how know as Ancient Rome was Beginning to grow up. It to Julius Caesar and one of his consuls (classic name for stooges) who will go down in history as the progenitors of this honey:
Consul: "It's no use getting sore at me. I take orders from no man."
J. Caesar: "That's what I noticed when you were working for me."
Everyone knows how Mr. Caesar ended his days. He was the first jokester taken for a ride by his rivals. They knifed him as he was going to the studios on the Ides of March for a political broadcast.
STRINGING along with those noble Romans for a while we find that the one and only Nero was instrumental in producing one Of the most heavily-leaned-on standbys. Everyone says that I stole my violin act from him. You know—people burned while he fiddled To get back to the point. Nero was sitting in a box at the Coliseum watching some of the local lads mangle each other. This brilliant piece of dialogue soon ensued:
Nero: 'You shouldn't hit your opponent when he's down."
First Gladiator: "What do you think I got him down for?"
For that bit of rugged individualism the gladiator got thumbs down from Nero, but the expression has lived on and in its various disguises is frequently heard on our best comedy programs.
Neither the Middle Ages, Renaissance nor Reformation Periods contributed much of lasting nature when it came to jokes. However, with the entry of America into world history the humorous vein comes to light again. Leif Erickson, who inaugurated the transatlantic boat service, thought up this one while fishing off the coast of Maine:
Sailor: "I'm going down for the second time."
Leif: "Well, have a look at my bait and see if it's still on the hook."
Another wit, apparently influenced by being in the vicinity of what later became these United States, was the blood-thirsty pirate. Sir Henry Morgan. He used to cruise off Florida, taking in Cuba. Bermuda and Nassau. Sir Henry endowed posterity with this piece of sure-fire radio material:
First Mate: "Where did you get those swell boots?"
Morgan: "At a store."
First Mate: "How much?"
Morgan: "I don't know. The owner had gone home for the night."
OF COURSE, if all these fellows were alive today it would be a little embarrassing for the comedians. There would probably be a Society of Comedy Writers and announcers would be required to state" at the end of broadcasts something like this: "The three jokes heard on this program are by "Socrates" or whoever the author was. As it is, about all these lads can do is collect imaginary royalties.
Once in a while somebody comes along with a gag that has all the ear-marks of being pretty original. For example, my friend Colonel Stoopnagle told me the other day that he had been trying to sell some funny stuff to the movies. He apparently had been having a pretty tough time of it.
"I submitted a script to Warner Brothers, but it was so bad, they had to re-write it before tearing it up," he said. There is a possibility that the Colonel lifted it from Pericles or Herodotus, but I never came across it as I was giving my scissors a work-out.

He was Popeye?

Jack Mercer was the long-time voice of Popeye in animated cartoons, both for movies and radio. A couple of others played the role but it’s generally conceded that the first voice of Popeye in 1933 was by William Costello.

But here’s a newspaper obit from 1960 that claims otherwise.

This could simply be a case of mangled facts. For example, I’ve found a number of newspaper clippings stating Red Coffee/Coffey was the voice of Huckleberry Hound. Well, he wasn’t. He played a duck who appeared on Yogi Bear cartoons on the Huckleberry Hound Show. Someone simplified the lineage. That may be the case in the story below. The man may have been in a vocal group or was a soloist who sang in Popeye or other Fleischer studio cartoons. Singers tended to lend their voices to characters made in cartoon studios in New York City in the early ‘30s.

And it’s pretty obvious a man never played Betty Boop.

Wallace Clark, Popeye's Film Voice, Dies
OLD LYME, Conn., Aug. 24 (AP)—Wallace Vincent Clark, 63, who was the original cartoon voice of Popeye the Sailor and Betty Boop, died early today at the Veterans Hospital, Rocky Hill.
Cause of death was not given.
CLARK,a native of Middletown, entered vaudeville after World War I naval service. He also was employed for a time by the National Broadcasting Co.
A member of the Debonair quartet, Clark did most of the Popeye and Betty Boop sound tracks himself, calling on other members of the quartet when additional voices were needed. He also was the voice on the old "Bouncing Ball" community sings in motion pictures.
* * *
CLARK retired from vaudeville in 1935 and came to Old Lyme in 1954. He operated a real estate business here.
Clark is survived by his widow, the former Francine Wouters, a son, John Wallace Clark II, and a sister, Mrs. Homer Grandbois of New Haven.
Burial will be tomorrow at the Sacred Heart cemetery, Meriden.

Trying to track Clark involves making some assumptions. Weekly Variety of March 3, 1927 mentions a Wallace Clark forming a vaudeville act with Bernice Mason. The trade paper has a Wallace Clark Co. on bills starting in 1917; he was working the Orpheum circuit on the West Coast in 1920 and touring Australia and New Zealand in 1926. Clark definitely appeared on radio. He had his own 20-minute evening programme of “hits, old and new” on WLWL in New York (a station connected to the Catholic Church) in 1930. There was also a Wallace Clark who appeared in the 1932 Paramount feature “Madame Butterfly” and the 1933 Universal film “Private Jones” (neither of which included singing), but whether it’s the same man, I don’t know.

The Little Flame

A little flame jaunts from one side of the screen to the other after each failed attempt to capture him in Tex Avery’s “Red Hot Rangers.”



Ed Love, Preston Blair, Ray Abrams and Walt Clinton are the animators. Irv Spence designed the model sheets. I wonder if Gene Hazelton did the layouts.

The (Cartoon) Voice

Have you ever heard of Arthur Kay? He was the voice of Gandy Goose and Sourpuss. And a number of Bert Lahr-sounding lions and wolves that spoke like George Givot in Terrytoons cartoons of the 1930s and ‘40s. But you’d never know it watching the cartoons themselves.

One of the real crimes of the Golden Age of theatrical cartoons is the lack of screen credit for actors/actresses who supplied the voices for the characters. Mel Blanc’s name, of course, eventually appeared on a title card, but he needed a contract to do it (either in exchange for a raise or exclusivity, depending on which version you want to believe). But he was an exception to the rule. It was years before anyone else got their name on a Warners cartoon. The Walter Lantz and UPA studios started adding actors’ names to its opening credits in the ‘50s. People who voiced at other studios were pretty much out of luck.

Fans know Kay’s name because it was revealed in Leonard Maltin’s history-making historical overview of Golden Age studios, Of Mice And Magic (The book doesn’t reveal Kay’s fate or any biographical information; I presume Kay was a stage name). No doubt Maltin found it in the off-screen places where names of voice actors were bandied about—the trade or popular press. Perhaps the first time voice actors were revealed was during coverage of Helen Kane’s lawsuit in the early ‘30s against the Fleischer studio for appropriating her act and installing it in Betty Boop. Photos of Mae Questel, Margie Hines and others who played Betty appeared in newspapers, yet Questel never was credited on screen in a Paramount cartoon.

People who grew up watching all the old cartoons on TV no doubt love the voices and have their favourites. I’m not much on “Best of” and “Top Eleventy-Two” lists when it comes to animation, but I am interested in one that’ll be coming soon on Mark Evanier’s blog. If I had to pick any one person’s judgment about voice acting, it’d be Mark’s. As you may know, he’s been voice directing and casting for cartoons for years. He plans on a pre-1968 list and I’m anxious to see whom he chooses.

Some of the picks, I suspect, would be on anyone’s list, names known even if they didn’t appear on screen. Were I to prognosticate, I imagine they would include Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, Jack Mercer, Paul Frees, Bill Scott and, of course, June Foray (you’ll notice four of the six just named were employed by Jay Ward).

After that, I’d like to see who Mark picks. Sara Berner came out of a Major Bowes amateur show to become one of the top dialecticians on radio and she had a comparatively short career at Warners. Don Messick was Hanna-Barbera’s workhorse for years, playing title roles, sidekicks, incidental characters and wheezily laughing for a variety of animals. Hal Smith accepted work all over the place when television rolled around; you can hear him on such forgettable series as “Rod Rocket” and “The Funny Company” in addition to Hanna-Barbera cartoons. And a case could be made for one Walter Elias Disney, at least when it comes to influence. If his Mickey Mouse hadn’t have spoken in a falsetto, would other studios have been rife with falsetto cats, dogs, foxes, pigs, gila monsters, etc. in the early ‘30s?

I have my own personal favourites. Frank Graham, whose life ended in suicide, played both lead characters in Columbia’s “Fox and Crow” series in the ‘40s and was employed at MGM (“House of Tomorrow”) and Warners (“Horton Hatches the Egg”). Kent Rogers’ career was cut short at a young age by a training exercise accident during World War Two; he was one of the voices of Woody Woodpecker and you can hear him on Warners and MGM cartoons of the early ‘40s. I like Bea Benaderet; I still laugh at her screaming “The 5 O’Clock Whistle” in “Little Red Riding Rabbit.” And I love Hans Conried because he’s Hans Conried.

There are so many others who worked in cartoons. Jackson Beck. Jim Backus. Billy Bletcher. Danny Webb. Walter Tetley. Marian Richman. Jack Mather. Colleen Collins. Jerry Hausner. Cecil Roy. Pat McGeehan. Elvia Allman. Arthur Q. Bryan. Sid Raymond. Dayton Allen. Wally Maher. The squeally Berneice Hansell. Well, you get the idea.

These names are just off the top of my head. I really don’t want you to debate them. Wait to see what Mark has to say. Read his blog’s other great animation and comic-related posts in the meantime.

Unfortunately, voice actors suffer the exact opposite of the problem they had in the ‘40s. They now get too much credit; that is, they’re credited for cartoons they never appeared in. Well-meaning but tin-eared fans come to their own conclusions about who is voicing something and splatter the information all over the internet without so much as a smidgeon of basic research. Thus people like Bill Thompson and Daws Butler were, if you want to believe make-up-the-facts websites, employed at studios when they were thousands of miles away from them. Others somehow voiced cartoons after they were dead. I’m sure Mark Evanier would love that kind of thing to be true, because then he could bring back Daws. Regardless, he’ll come up with a great and thoughtful list. And if he could tell me whatever happened to Arthur Kay, I’ll be happy about that, too.

Gilligan, Danny Clover and the Dinosaur

There were seven stranded castaways on “Gilligan’s Island” who appeared every week. But there was one semi-regular who never credited at the end of the show along with the guest stars. That was the voice of the news announcer that came through the portable radio. It was Larry Thor.

There can’t be terribly many people in show biz who were exports from Manitoba. Monty Hall was one. So were Neil Young and Gisele MacKenzie. Oh, and David Steinberg. Larry Thor was another.

Thor has the distinction, back in the Golden Days, of being the star of a dramatic radio show despite no training as a dramatic actor. In fact, he only spoke Icelandic until he was seven.

Thor turned his career to academics after his acting career ended. But he also was an accomplished writer of children’s songs. Here’s a story from the Winnipeg Free Press of August 7, 1965 that goes over his whole career, “Gilligan” excepted.

Larry Thor Rides High On Dinosaur
GALLOPING On My Dinosaur is the title of a new exciting album of children’s songs by former Winnipegger Larry Thor. The album is issued by the Harmony label of Columbia Records.
Writing the music and lyrics to the dozens of songs he signs on the record is a new medium for Mr. Thor who, for many years, has been a working actor in Hollywood on radio, movies and television. Mr. Thor can be seen on television as a regular on Mr. Novak in which he plays the role of Mr. Hendricks, one of the Jefferson High faculty.
Larry Thor has created one of those rare items—a group of children’s songs that adults will not only tolerate but enjoy. Mr. Thor puts the blame for the whole thing on his own children, having turned their problems, philosophies and play into original songs.
As Mr. Thor points out, one day he posed a question to his four-year-old son, Cameron:
“What are you going to be when you grow up?”
Came Cameron’s reply:
“You’ll see.”
“That’s really a multi-barrelled proposition, innocent, yet loaded,” explained Mr. Thor. “I gave me the idea for a song.”
The song appears on the record as Answer Every Question.
The title song, Galloping On My Dinosaur, again was the happiest result of childish imagination, a phenomenon that never ceases to amaze Larry Thor and a precious possession that most of us seem to submerge in the unimaginative reality of living. Mr. Thor, it seems, is one of the privileged few permitted to retain the happy imagination of childhood. With him it is as clear and untarnished as it was some 40-odd years ago in Lundar, Manitoba, where Arnleifer Lawrence Thorsteinson was born.
Mr. Thor’s father, Gudmundur Thorsteinson, was a school principal and schooling for him and his brothers and sisters was wherever father was principal. As a teenager in times when money seemed precariously scarce, Mr. Thor earned his first dollars farming, ranching and swinging a pick and shovel around Hudson Bay territory. Then he spent three years in the Lord Strathcona’s Horse and three more with the Princess Pats.
His first introduction to a microphone came at station CFAR in Flin Flon. Here, for the munificent sum of $17.50 weekly Mr. Thor served as the station’s entire writing staff as well as substitute announcer and featured vocalist.

Mr. Thor was blessed with a hearty, pleasing, full-voiced delivery. Quick to recognize the money-making power of speech he moved to CKGB in Timmins, Ontario, then to Toronto where he was turned down by the CBC when he applied for an announcing job. The CBC thought he sounded “too American” although he had never even been introduced to an American.
A short stint at CKCL in Toronto led to an opportunity to replace the late Christopher Ellis on a nightly sponsored newscast from Montreal’s CFCF which attracted the largest consistent listening audience of any program of its kind in the region. He became of one of Montreal’s favorite newscasters and interpreted Canadian and world happenings for an audience of many millions through the shortwave facilities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s international service. Mr. Thor’s voice and individual style became a trademark and listeners throughout Canada remember his comprehensive on-the-spot coverage of such front-page events as the Roosevelt-Churchill meetings in Quebec.
After six years in Montreal, the lure of Hollywood drew Mr. Thor to the U.S. Although he arrived in California without any connections he was taken on staff at KFAC, a 24-hour outlet devoted entirely to classical music. From there he moved quickly to KMPC where he quickly became one of the area’s most heard radio reporters.
“My main reason for going on my own was a desire to concentrate on dramatic work rather than stereotyped sales talk for pills and laxatives,” he said. He found that he had made a good move for almost immediately he won the lead role in a new series originating from CBS.
Mr. Thor recalled how one day he received a call from Harry Ackerman, CBS vice-president and director of network programs, for an audition. He arrived the next morning expecting to be one of a group of contenders for an announcing job. He was handed a script and read the lines ascribed to a tough, hard-hitting realistic Broadway cop. And that was that. When the program Broadway Is My Beat made its debut three weeks later, Larry Thor was in the starring role of Detective Danny Clover.
Mr. Ackerman had been looking for certain voice qualities to fill this choice of dramatic role. During one of Mr. Thor’s newscasts he decided he had found his man. As it proved, the choice was a good one for the show ran for five years and was considered one of the best of its kind. Its format led to a host of similar shows.
From radio it was inevitable that Mr. Thor would make the transition to television and movies. His list of credits reads like a listing of the shows from the TV Guide.
Announcing included such radio and television shows as the Carnation Hour, Clyde Beatty Show, Commander Performance, Columbia Workshop, Rockey Jordan [sic] and Steve Allen shows.
While it nets him no publicity and does little to forward his acting aspirations, Mr. Thor accepts considerable work at motion picture studios as the background voice in trailers of coming attractions. He narrated the trailers for Cyrano de Bergerac, The Steel Helmet, The Second Woman and many others. Mr. Thor attributes his apparently limitless energy and drive to inherent stubbornness. “Most Icelanders have trouble making a living off the farm,” he said. “This made me all the more determined to make my own way.”
Mr. Thor can be seen as a regular in the Mr. Novak TV series with James Fransiscus [sic]. When time permits he can be found in his Malibu Beach home swimming in the ocean or generally puttering around. His wife, actress Jean Howell, will probably be with him is she is not looking after Leifer, 2, Cameron, 4, or Kristina, 6. There are four other children by a previous marriage—Raymond, Kenneth, David and Lauren.

Thor and Jean Howell were married on October 1, 1955. It, perhaps, was a rocky affair. Here’s a short newspaper story from July 6, 1956.

TV Actress Granted California Divorce
Los Angeles (AP) — Television actress Jean Howell, 28, has won a divorce from Larry Thor, 39, actor-announcer, on the assertion that he was seldom sober during their four-month marriage.
She testified yesterday in Superior Court that Thor, among other things, went to sleep on the floor while dinner guests were at their Malibu home, went to sleep under a neighbor’s piano, and took a monkey to a bar and to work with him.

The two evidently reconciled, only to divorce in October 1975. Thor didn’t last much longer after that. CBS producer Bill Froug, who was involved in “Gilligan’s Island,” revealed in his autobiography that Thor’s alcoholism killed him. Thor died in a Los Angeles hospital on March 15, 1976. He was 69.

The S.S. Leon

Frank Tashlin and his unknown writer pull off an inside reference that turns out to close to the truth in “Porky’s Railroad” (1937). Porky and his train head over the bow of the S.S. Leon and come away with one of the ship’s life preservers.



“Leon,” of course, refers to studio head Leon Schlesinger, who was a recreational boatsman. Daily Variety of May 28, 1937 reveals “The Leon Schlesingers pull out today for Coronado.” And the trade paper flashed on April 13, 1939 “Now it's Skipper Leon Schlesinger. Cartoon producer has bought Richard Arlen's yacht, Dijo, and rechristened it The Merrie Melody.”

Woody the Lady Killer

Woody Woodpecker’s reaction to what’s on the eyeball of a sleeping giant in “Woody the Giant Killer” (1947).



Eventually, the girl slaps him.



La Verne Harding and Ed Love are the only two to get animation credits.