Morning, Noon and Night Club

The cityscapes in “Morning, Noon and Night Club” (1937) don’t have the wonderful everything’s-melted look of Fleischer shorts from a few years earlier, but they’re nice enough nonetheless.

I can’t clip together a long pan without extreme grey-tone changes, so here are a few parts of the opening background (try to ignore Bluto being in the way).



The entrance to the nightclub. There’s a little bit more of the drawing at the right.



And the first interior shot.



As usual, the background artist is unidentified.

How To Deal With Cute Squirrels

“My cartoon would have been cuter,” chirps the coy little squirrel. Beyond a doubt, it certainly would have been. But it wouldn’t have been a Tex Avery cartoon, so Tex, writer Heck Allen, Screwy Squirrel and Meathead take care of that in “Screwball Squirrel.”



Ol’ Tex came to dislike Screwy, even though the cartoons followed the Avery credo of having an opening, a closing and a string of gags in between. This cartoon was Screwy’s first, with animation credited to Preston Blair, Ray Abrams and Ed Love.

Not 12 Empty Ounces

People love happy little songs, even (perhaps especially) when they’re solely designed to sell a product.

When did the first commercial jingle appear? About all anyone knows for sure is it was during the days of radio. But it’s a safe bet the first jingle “hit” was one heard by millions of people, long after it stopped being used as advertising. It starts:

“Pepsi-Cola hits the spot...”

It was penned by a couple of guys who, according to the October 7, 1940 edition of Life Magazine, were responsible for 90% of all musical one-minute ads on the air the previous year. It was around that time they came up with the Pepsi jingle that people still love today.

PM profiled them in its edition of July 5, 1940.



Nickel, Nickel Do-Dee-Da-Da-Da
Pepsi-Cola Hits the Air Spots With a Socko Sales Version of John Peel
Austen Herbert Croom Croom-Johnson is a lean, ginger-haired 31-year-old Englishman who prepped for a radio and song-writing career at at BBC. About nine years ago, John Royal, NBC vice-president, was so impressed, he fetched Croom-Johnson to the United States. Now Croom-Johnson is a Force in American radio. He is the man behind the Pepsi-Cola jingles.
During the past six months, the 15 second Pepsi-Cola ditty has been broadcast about 18,000 times on 200 radio stations. The stations average about 10 Pepsi-Cola broadcasts a week. Johnson and his collaborator, Alan Bradley Kent, have sold jingles to other advertisers: Esso, Flit and NBC (National Biscuit Co.) but the wide spread Pepsi Cola campaign has made them the top team in their league.
Between them, Kent and Croom Croom Johnson, called "Ginger"' to save time, have fewer inhibitions than a fan dancer. Their working hours are joyously spent in unbridled abuse, enthusing over swing records and concocting childish advertising ditties. It was during such a shop-talk three years back that the whole thing started. Kent says all he did was to comment, "Ginger, spot announcements stink." Ginger not only agreed but supported the idea of doing something about it all. The Pepsi-Cola campaign is that "something."
Sing Something Simple
The basic Pepsi Cola song is classicly simple. It is just a swing-out on the old hunting song, John Peel, It opens with a rhythmic “nickel, nickel, nickel” vamp to a four-four count. Then comes the refrain, which, in case you can't read the Tune-Twisters' script above, goes:
Pepsi-Cola hits the spot.
Twelve full ounces, that's a lot,
Twice as much for a nickel, too,
Pepsi Cola is the drink for you.
After several months the jingle was well ground into listeners' ears, so Pepsi-Cola ordered variations on the theme. Some were scored for swing, boogie-woogie and baby-talk. Later the first two lines were rewritten. The last two, which carry the sacred sales message, are never jived up. When still more variations were called for, Kent and Johnson came up with one in the deep-sea basso of Popeye. It shatters a cherished dietary theory:
Pepsi Cola hits the spot
Nuts to spinach, look what I’ve got. . .
Another national hero pressed into the Pepsi-Cola sales army was the Lone Ranger (incognito of course), whose Pepsi-Cola hi-yo goes:
As I ride the range, I sing this song,
When I like my drinks, I like 'em long . . .
In addition to the authorized verses there are any number of unofficial switches. The neatest of these comes from a Brooklyn station, where an announcer sings the jingle in Yiddish-American, like Lou Holst [sic].
Pepsi-Cola's chansonettes were originally sung by "Whispering" Jack Smith. For about five months, now, they've been chanted by the Tune-Twisters trio, who not only sing but make noises like musical instruments. In the picture above. Andrew Jackson Love (left) is emitting the Pepsi-Cola "Pah!" When Love isn't pah-ing or singing, he oomphs like a bull-fiddle. The other contributing "Twisters" are Robert Wacker (center) and the guitar twanger, Gene Lapham.
Kent, Johnson and the Twisters are now at work on a jingle for Wrigley's gum. The theme of that one: "Chew, chew, chew." Meanwhile they want to do one more Pepsi Cola opus, this time in double talk, but Pepsi-Cola has held out firmly against it. Just in case you want to try it on your piano, it goes like this:
Pepsi-Cola minils the spot
Twelve strof brannis, that’s a lot
Twice as gemmer for moolee woo
Pepsi-Cola is the slerm for you.

Jingles were sung live on the networks (until 1946 when ABC snagged Bing Crosby with the promise he could record his show) but transcribed copies were sent to radio stations across North America to be played whenever the sponsor bought time. So it was that if you tuned in to Matinee With Bob and Ray airing locally on WHBH in the late ‘40s, you’d hear the show interrupted with recordings of Arthur Godfrey warbling about Chesterfields or a quartet crooning about Mission Bell Wine (another Johnson-Kent ditty, written in 1946). Of course, in Bob and Ray’s case, the jingles became part of the show. Bob Elliott would follow Godfrey with a devastating parody of Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, or Ray Goulding would take it upon himself to spout non-sequiturs during the announcer portion of the Mission Hill doughnut (that’s when there’s singing at the beginning and end with an instrumental portion in the middle for the announcer to talk over). Occasionally, Bob and Ray would sing and butcher both jingles themselves to a jaunty organ and piano accompaniment.

(Pepsi, by the way, later sponsored Bob and Ray’s CBS show in the late ‘50s with a different jingle sung by someone who was identified only as Kay. It beats me who she was or if that was her actual name.)

The “Nickle” jingle kind of took on a life of its own. It was parodied and joked about on radio shows. Henry Morgan’s orchestra leader Bernie Green put together a wonderful symphonic version; the straighter it was played, the funnier it got. Dave Barry’s title character in the Columbia cartoon “Topsy Turkey” gives it a whirl with revamped lyrics (standing in front of a radio microphone for added effectiveness). It was retired as network radio died in the ‘50s.

Incidentally, Pepsi had an earlier song. “We Must Have Our Pepsi Cola” was a march/fox trot written by Irving Pletrack in 1939. Morris Perlman penned the melody for “Your Pepsi-Cola and Mine” in 1940. Pepsi held a copyright on a 1941 tune called “Get Hep” by Bissell Palmer and Helmy Kresa. They didn’t have the staying power of commercial songs that went “I’m Chiquita Banana” or “Mm-Mm Good” or “See the USA in Your Chevrolet.” Or a song that rhymed “trickle” and “nickel.”

I Chase Meeces To Pieces

You know how Mr. Jinks used to chase Pixie and Dixie along the same baseboard, past the same light socket 16 times. The bicycling background concept wasn’t something Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera invented, nor was it something they only used in TV cartoons.

Here’s an example from “Dog Trouble,” a 1942 Tom and Jerry cartoon. In a few of the early T&Js, Tom had a run cycle of eight drawings with his front paws sweeping down from above his head and back paws flapping in mid-air. Here are the drawings.



We’ve turned it into an endless run cycle. It’s a little bit slower than in the actual cartoon.



There are no animators credited on the copy of the cartoon on DVD but a full draft from the MGM files listing the animators on each scene still exists. Mark Kausler reveals the animator of this scene in the comments.

A Tweety Question

Can someone explain this? Two cats are fighting over Tweety in a nest atop a pole. The force of the fight causes them to fall to the ground below. Director Bob Clampett (or maybe it was done in layout) changes the perspective of the fall from looking down from the top of the pole.



Suddenly, Tweety appears to yell “Bomb’s away!”



So, since this is shot from the top of the pole, where is Tweety standing? How is he standing?

The cartoon is “A Gruesome Twosome,” animated by Manny Gould, Rod Scribner, Bob McKimson and Basil Davidovich.

Honestly, Fans, I'm Not Cheap

You wouldn’t think a big star would need a warm-up act prior to going on the air in front of a live audience, but I gather that’s pretty much the case.

Sometimes, the act included the star himself. There are copies circulating of “The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show” where Philsey himself is cracking jokes (albeit the same ones before each show). And both Jack Benny and Fred Allen talked to their audiences before their broadcasts, as earlier posts here have shown.

Here’s a story dealing with Jack’s final TV special. If you’ve ever seen it, and wonder if he’s actually in front of an audience, you’ll see the answer is “yes” (though I strongly suspect an augmenting laugh track is employed at certain moments). I’ve mentioned before that Jack seems obsessed that people thought he was actually cheap; he brought it up continually in interviews and he mentions it in this audience warm up.

This unbylined feature appeared in newspapers on January 20, 1974. The photo appeared in one paper along with the story, though I believe it’s from 1968 and was pulled from the paper’s photo archive.

Jack Benny And The Audience Warm Up To Each Other
There will be lots of laughs for viewers of the upcoming Jack Benny special. And there were lots of laughs that will never get on the air.
These are the laughs that occurred when the star faced the audience during the taping of “RCA Presents Jack Benny’s Second Farewell Special,” to be colorcast on the NBC Television Network, airing Thursday, Jan. 24 at 8 p.m.
First, announcer Bill Baldwin introduced Benny to the audience and then informed the star that there was a lady in the audience celebrating her 84th birthday. “I’m breathing right down your neck,” Benny told the woman.
Since he had a few more minutes before taping the first number, Benny discussed his stinginess.
"I’m supposed to be stingy but, honestly, I’m not,” he told the audience. “I really tip very big, especially cab drivers and waiters.”
He proceeded to discuss an incident recently in Las Vegas to make the point.
“I hate to take a cab in Vegas and go just a short distance,” he said. “When I do, I usually tip very big. Well, I took a cab from the Sahara to the Riviera. Now, when I do that, I get embarrassed. The fare was $1.10 so I gave the driver $3 and told him to keep the change.”
The cabbie thanked the star but, as Benny tells it, said, “I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“Why?” asked Benny.
“Because,” said the cabbie. “I wanted to go home and tell my wife what a cheapskate you are.”
“You can still do that,” said Benny. “Give me back my tip.”
The audience wanted to know about Jack’s violin playing.
“I get $100 a ticket for concerts because I play lousy,” Benny explained. If I played well, I wouldn’t be able to get $2.”
Benny indicated that he does not collect a dime from these concerts — they are all benefits.
What about his wife Mary?
“On January 14 we will have been married 47 years,” said Benny. “That just shows you it can happen even in Hollywood. If I told you we never had an argument, I would be lying. But we never had an argument where the word ‘divorce’ was used. ‘Murder’ yes!”
“One minute to show time,” the stage manager announced.
“This is the moment that scares the hell out of me,” said Benny.
Benny walks out, throws the audience a kiss.
“May we start once again,” the director interrupts. “The lights weren’t on.”
Benny’s look breaks up the audience.
“Can you imagine a mistake happening that soon?” he asks. “I didn’t even start the show. For goodness sake, when we have to do things over, just remember where you laughed!”

A Bloody Lantz Cartoon

Walter Lantz should have been a happy man in 1952. He announced in August he was doubling his staff and boosting his output from six to 13 cartoons for the coming season. His characters were making appearances in comic books. He had a division that made TV commercials (in March, Variety reported he had hired Homer Brightman, Phil Eastman and Bill Scott; the latter two likely didn’t stay long). A deal for a Woody Woodpecker book series had been signed with Simon and Schuster in March. The next year, he’d add Mike Maltese and Tex Avery to his staff and Bill Garity would develop a 3-D process for him (which was used in one cartoon, the Don Patterson-directed “Hypnotic Hick.”

Lantz happened to be in New York in December 1952, closing a deal with Coca-Cola for a series of commercials to run in theatres. Lantz was pretty publicity conscious and he sat down for a softball interview with a syndicated columnist named Alice Hughes. Not everything in her story is quite correct, but at least it doesn’t mention to bogus “honeymoon” story about Woody Woodpecker’s creation. Lantz comes across as an unassuming guy who likes cartoons, which is the impression he left a few years later as the somewhat stiff co-host of the Woody Woodpecker cartoon series for Kellogg’s.

WOODY WOODPECKER TAPS FOR RED CROSS BLOOD DONORS
New York, Dec. 29—Don’t know what the town of New Rochelle, a few miles off New York city limits, has that nourishes top cartoonists. But I do know that two of the best movie cartoon animators were born and brought up there. One is Paul Terry, widely known for Terry Tunes on film and for a huge circulation of comic books whose characters are always birds and animals, never people. Then there is Walter Lantz with whom I spent an hour while he was in New York en route for a vacation in Mexico. Lantz was apprenticed in 1916 as cartoonist under the late Gregory La Cava, animating others’ characters such as Katzenjammer Kids, Happy Hooligan and Krazy Kat. Soon, however, he created his own Pete the Pup, Dinky Doodle and others. Finally Oswald the Rabbit landed him a fancy contract with Universal Films in 1928.
Seven years later Lantz fell in love with a panda at a Chicago zoo, and thus Andy the Panda was born and is to this day his second most-profitmaking cartoon character. First is Woody Woodpecker, a real-life carpenter bird who annoyed artist Lantz by tapping a $200 hole in the roof of a California house Lantz and his former-actress wife, Grace Stafford, occupied.
The tap-tap peck and the cartoon character it inspired have since parlayed that $200 into $2,000,000 plus much fame and acclaim. Woody the Woodpecker became a song on the Hit Parade. Boys and girls formed clubs called by its name. It became a symbol for saving forestry and today Walter Lantz is enjoying the proudest moment of his life. Woody has gone into a minute-and-a-half film cartoon urging birds of all kinds to donate blood for Red Cross war-time blood-banks. Lantz gifted the Red Cross with this finished film.
The red-tipped woodpecker urges all his feathered friends to give blood. When it comes hit turn, the cartoon shows his crimson crew-cut dim into pale pink as his blood drains into the bloodbank. There are many laughs, yet also a strong encouragement to people to go and do likewise. You’ll be seeing this animated short in all movie theaters and on TV, and shortly afterward Walter Lantz will do another cartoon with his bird and beast characters exhorting the public to give blood for the purpose of obtaining the gamma globulin injection, an accepted preventive for polio.
“Are comic books harmful for children?” I asked. “Not the way we draw them,” said Lantz. “The Association of Animated Cartoon Producers, of which I am president, never has trouble with censorship. As we know our efforts are seen and heard by millions of children all over the world, we observe the strictest rules of taste and decency. We’re not even permitted to draw udders on cows, and Walt Disney, Paul Terry and I—four of the seven members of the Animated Cartoon Producers —often laugh at how school-teacherish we are at our work. But we realize that this profession has at traction for many young artists, and highest standards are necessary.
“It takes a good 10 years of experience before an artist can become a good cartoon animator. Besides a good background in art knowledge and drawing, he has to have a sense of timing like an actor, sensitivity of facial expression like a sculptor and the patience of a saint to make the 7000 drawings necessary for a 6-minute film. Each slightest movement of a bird or animal requires a separate drawing and the animators need two assistants to carry on their work. I employ 60 artists to make 19 films a year, including seven Woody Woodpecker pictures and others such as Andy Panda, Buzz Buzzard, Wally Walrus, also comic books and quite a few commercial films for big industrial firms. We work in our own Walter Lantz Bldg., in 17,000 square feet of space, where we do a full-scale production of animated cartoons and TV films.”
Walter Lantz is 50-ish, gray-haired, blue-eyed, not tall, very friendly homespun in manner and with a refreshing modesty for a movie producer. He earns ten times as much as his brother Michael Lantz, a sculptor, who is conceded by Walter to be ten times better than Walt himself as an artist. Exciting outlook for 1953 is his new series of Foolish Fables, which are animated movie cartoons burlesqued from well-known fairy tales, in modern dress and modern situations. Lantz-film cartoons are dubbed into seven different foreign languages for children all over the world to enjoy.

The Planet Moo

UPA cartoons became pretty much all about design, so let’s look at some designs from “Gerald McBoing! Boing! On Planet Moo.” First some backgrounds.



And character designs.



I still don’t understand why it’s called the planet Moo. The characters there don’t say “moo.” Shouldn’t they? (The King is voiced by Marvin Miller like something out of Amos ‘n’ Andy).

Lew Keller was the designer.

The Journey of a Cocoanut

The Half-Pint Pygmy (from the 1948 cartoon of the same name) tries to bop his hunters with a cocoanut he’s hoisted into a very tall tree. And it works.



But that sets off a string of gags as the cocoanut continues on its merry way after conking George and Junior on the head.



It klumps into a zebra, making the animal’s stripes drop off.



An ostrich shrinks.



In one kangaroo’s pouch and out the others. The kangaroos have Avery-type mouse ears.



The spots fall off a leopard.



A turtle is knocked out of its shell.



The neck on a giraffe contracts while a nearby hippo’s simultaneously grows.



A long-neck crane shrinks to the ground.



My favourite gag. The cocoanut goes over a goal post like a football, to the cheers of a crowd. Tex Avery and Heck Allen have a string of animal gags, so the football one comes out of nowhere.



The plates on a rhino fall off, revealing an emaciated creature (that pays no attention to what’s just happened).



The cocoanut bounces off each hump of a camel, sending them from the top of the animal’s body to the underside.



Finally, the cocoanut returns whence it came and crashes down on the pygmy.

Louie Schmitt, Walt Clinton, Grant Simmons and Bill Shull are the credited animators.