Giant Runs At Audience

A cartoon character running at the camera and swallowing it isn’t much of a gag, but it must have looked great in theatres.

You’d find it in Disney, Harman-Ising and Ub Iwerks cartoons (the studios were all related in a way, anyway). Here’s an Iwerks version in the 1934 ComiColor short “The Valiant Tailor.”



The ComiColor cartoons were Iwerks’ entry in the “let’s-try-to-be-Walt Disney” sweepstakes. The attitude was better artwork equals better cartoons. But other than Disney, the cartoon artists didn’t realise cartoons were about more than art. They’re entertainment. There has to be a story that engages the audience. “The Valiant Tailor” has overlays, muted backgrounds and nice colours, but there’s little except a basic storyline. It took me a while to figure out what the tailor was eating (who eats honey out of a bowl, anyway?) and he was far from valiant; he was in a tree that dropped the bowl of goop on the giant’s head.

Art Turkisher incorporates Schubert’s “The Bee” into the score during scene with the bees. Grim Natwick and Berny Wolf are the credited animators.

An Ub-tastic Cartoon Show

Steve Stanchfield is, well, you don’t need me to tell you yet again what an outstanding job he’s doing ensuring cartoons that might be long forgotten are being restored and exposed to audiences, thanks to his company’s DVD releases. I hope you’ve been following his progress on Jerry Beck’s exemplary web stop, Cartoon Research.

Steve’s made a trip to the West Coast and some of his handiwork will be put on public display. I’m not anywhere near Los Angeles, but would urge anyone who is to go and see this. Here are portions of a news release about the event.

GOLDEN AGE CARTOONS SCREENING
Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood - Sat, June 20, 2015 - 3:00pm.
Film preservationist Steve Stanchfield will turn back the hands of time and present a program of newly restored vintage cartoons on the big screen at the legendary Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Stanchfield is a champion of rare and forgotten animation, and his company, Thunderbean Animation is helping preserve our cartoon heritage, utilizing modern digital technology to return these precious films to their former glory.
Highlights of the program include a newly restored copy of Ub Iwerks' "Hell's Fire", presented uncut and in color for the first time since it debuted in 1934. Felix the Cat, the very first cartoon superstar, will be represented by pristine prints of "Felix the Cat Shatters the Sheik" and "Draggin' the Dragon (1926). There will be rare stop motion puppet films by Lou Bunin, a wartime training film made by Warner Bros that was never released to the troops, and rare films starring the deliciously obscure Mickey wanna-bes, "Cubby Bear" and "Binko the Cub".
ORDER TICKETS ONLINE AT FANDANGO.

The frame you see above from “Hell's Fire” is not a restored version. So anyone going to the show can expect to see something even better.

Want to learn more about Binko? Click HERE and let historian Mike Mallory tell the story.

I don’t plug too many things around here, but looking at the programme being put together, it sounds like a great afternoon, so I thought I’d pass on word of it.

Nose Handshake

Why two native Indians are flying and joyfully rubbing their noses together is just one of many unanswered questions in the strange 1938 Terrytoon “The Last Indian.”



I get the impression the story for this one was invented after a long liquid lunch by the Terrytoons staff. It doesn’t make a lot of sense and there are some gags that are so odd they’re funny. Take this one when the Indians’ noses turn into hands and shake.



For some reason, the native in his roadster starts weaving along country and city streets that are shot in live action footage that’s edited together with no regard for geographic continuity, as Paul Scheib’s saxes toot away. Friz Freleng did the same thing with Porky Pig in “You Ought To Be In Pictures” about two years later, though it’s less zany.

Without Their Advance Knowledge

An intellectual from a respected family couldn’t be a cheater, right?

That attitude was the whole lynch-pin surrounding TVs quiz show scandal. The realisation that an intellectual could be a cheater—and was a cheater—and the fact the intellectual seemed like a nice young man is why viewers were so outraged they had been had. Television still had some self-respect in the ‘50s. Amidst the quiz shows, laugh-track laden sitcoms and strident commercials were documentaries, live drama and Edward R. Murrow. Today, no one cares that reality shows aren’t real. The audience doesn’t expect anything lofty out of television, just entertainment.

Among the millions of Americans fooled by the performance of Charles Van Doren (photo to right) on “Twenty One” was noted critic John Crosby. Crosby was not one to admire quiz shows—he was scathing against “Stop the Music” and even “To Tell The Truth”—but “Twenty One” was, well, intellectual, so it had to be good. One can’t blame Crosby, though. An intellectual from a respected family couldn’t be a cheater, right?

John Crosby’s Television & Radio
If you have to watch giveaways—and these days you have to turn the set off—I can only recommend “Twenty-One”, the only wheel in town that reminds me of the big table at Cannes. That is, the contestants stand to lose big dough as well as win it. Of course, they’re losing house money—but still it’s money that would otherwise be in the bank—and they’re matched evenly against another contestant rather than playing against the house which adds a certain morbid, and altogether fascinating allure to the proceedings.
The current winner is Charles Van Doren, the son of Mark Van Doren, the author, who has run up his score to $99,000. Young Van Doren, an English instructor at Columbia University, may reopen the whole argument about progressive schools which I thought we had safely behind us. He is a product of progressive schools, having attended City and Country School and St. John’s College before taking his Ph.D at Columbia. However, the very breadth and variety of his interests, which have been fair awe-inspiring, are the result, teammates say, not so much of formal schooling as the fact that he is Mark Van Doren’s son and was reared in a family of lively intellectual curiosity whose members were incessantly running to the encyclopedia to make sure they had it exactly right.
“Twenty-One” demands wide general knowledge, not specialized information, as do most of the others. The emcee, Jack Barry, simply throws a category at the contestants without their advance knowledge or consent and consequently Mr. Van Doren has had to be very nimble-witted about the United States government past and present, Shakespeare, kings and queens, the Air Force, the theater, opera and heaven knows what else.
On “Twenty-One”, two contestants are acoustically sealed off from one another in isolation booths, the manufacture of which must be one of the growing industries of our hemisphere, and are asked to pick a number from one to eleven, the size of the number determining the difficulty of the question. Frequently they pick either ten or eleven and consequently the two contestants get the same questions on, say Lincoln. There are two sets of questions and you can, if you’re bright enough, win twenty-one points which are paid off per point at a rate which jumps $50 every time a contestant surmounts each set. Everyone straight on that?
Well, whether you are or not, Van Doren last session was playing for $2,000 a point against a rival, Miss Ruth Miller, who had already got her twenty-one points. Consequently, Van Doren stood to lose $40,000 of the $46,000 he had built up over the weeks and the tension as he hesitated over Lincoln’s two Secretarys of War and two Vice Presidents was something terrible. Still, he got it right and went on to demolish Miss Miller on a question pertaining two World War II and run his winnings up to $99,000.
Miss Miller had to walk off with a mere $2,500 and she looked as if a two-mile race, not only beaten but exhausted. I learned at my grandpa’s knee that in gambling there had to be a loser as well as a winner — but this is the only TV giveaway that plays quite like that. Of course, I suppose the sponsor would be horrified to hear it called gambling but that’s what it is — except that the house gives you the chips to play with originally. After you’ve played a week or so, though, it’s your money and I suppose losing it is as painful as any other kind of losing.
NBC seems confident enough of its entry to throw it up against the perennial champion “I Love Lucy” (9 p.m. EST Monday’s) and it may put a dent in the ratings.

Crosby’s column is from January 11, 1957. The scandal claimed “Twenty One” on October 17, 1958. Crosby was livid when he realised he had been duped. He put his anger in print. “The moral squalor of the quiz mess reaches through the whole industry,” he wrote in November 1959. He opened that column with “Charles Van Doren may go down as the Shoeless Joe Jackson of his age. ‘Say it ain’t so, Joe,’ is the plea on the lips of a million true believers—and the answer is silence.”

Van Doren wasn’t silent more than 50 years later. You can read his story to The New Yorker here.

Something's Wrong Here

The first directors of sound cartoons grew up in the age of silent film, and the best of them could express their stories and gags without dialogue.

Here are some poses from “The Counterfeit Cat,” a 1949 Tex Avery cartoon co-written by Heck Allen and Jack Cosgriff. All you need to know is a cat is after a bird and unwittingly steps on the dog’s head when he sneaks into the house. The poses do the rest, assisted by Scott Bradley’s score and Jim Faris’ sound effects.



Mike Lah, Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons are the animators.

From Log To Log

Warren Foster could be cynically funny at times. One of my favourite Foster commentaries on the idiocy of the world is in the Goofy Gopher cartoon “Lumber Jerks” (1955).

The gophers (and audience) look on as a log is ground up into sawdust, mixed with glue and turned back into a log. It’s all done without words. “Scrumptious! Simply scrumptious,” as one of the gophers might say.



Manny Perez, Artie Davis and Virgil Ross animated this cartoon.

Jack Benny Fan Fiction, 1935 Style

Today, we have fans inspired by their favourite characters to write their own stories or scripts of TV shows or movies (some not exactly fit for family consumption). Way back when we had fans inspired to write their own scripts of radio shows. Well, we had at least one.

This was published in the Shortsville Enterprise, January 24, 1935. It reads more like an actual Benny script than a parody of one. For you casual fans of Benny, Frank Parker was Jack’s vocalist in the days before Dennis Day when the show was based in New York. Don Bestor was two orchestra leaders before Phil Harris. The Mysterious Voice was semi-regular routine on the show around 1934, played (I think) by William Edmunds, a former vaudevillian who specialised in Italian roles. Mary Livingstone milked the “O Labor Day” poem routine for much of one of the seasons.

For the record, the show never featured a version of “I’ll be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You” (too bad) and “Alice in Wonderland” was never tried as a second-half sketch.

At the time, Benny’s show was written Harry Conn, who walked out in an ultimately failed bid to show he was the brains it all. The future bore out that he was mistaken, as Benny sailed along regularly on radio and TV for about 30 years without him.

MAIN STREET
By Don C. Perry
Script for Mr. Benny
(Dear Jack Benny:—This script, inspired by your Jello program, is coming to you through the courtesy of Main Street and its six delicious flavors of which the raspberry is most popular.)
Jack Benny—Jello, folks! We are bringing you this evening another of our famous one-act plays. Tonight's masterpiece will be that great children's drama, Benny in Wonderland. Mary Livingston will do her hair up in a ribbon and play the part of Alice. I will be the rabbit who hops along—
Frank Parker—Ah, drunk again, Jack?
Benny—So it's you, Parker. I thought I combed you out when I brushed my hair before coming into the studio. And I want you to understand that a couple of hops don’t make a glass of beer.
Frank—Yeah, but a couple of glasses of beer make you hop.
Mary—What's the difference as long as he's healthy?
Jack—As I was saying, folks, I will be the rabbit, Maestro Don Bestor will be the Dormouse (the rat!), Frank Parker will play the Duchess, and announcer Don Wilson will take the part of the Mad Hatter, which should come natural from him, as he is nuts, anyway.
Don Wilson—That's right, Jack. I'm nuts about Jello with its six delicious flavors which taste twice as good as ever before.
Jack—Don Bester and his Mousetraps will play "I’ll be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal You."
Mysterious Voice (knocks on door)—Remember me, Mr. Benny?
Jack—No!
M. V.—Do you want to buy a lettuce leaf?
Jack—No!
M. V.—If you were really a rabbit, would you want to buy a lettuce leaf?
Jack—No!
M. V.—Okay, Mr. Benny.
Jack—Play, Don!
(Musical Interlude)
Jack—The scene, opens with Mary (Alice in Wonderland) Livingston asleep and dreaming that she is shrinking and falling down a long, black elevator shaft.
Mary—O! deary me, O! lackaday, O! Labor Day, O! Labor Day, when firecrackers boometh and skyrockets zizzeth—Say, where am I? In the zoo?
Jack—No, Alice, you are in Wonderland. I am the rabbit and I am late for an appointment to get my whiskers marcelled.
Mary—Take off those long ears, Jack, I know you.
Jack—But, Alice, those are my real ears.
Mary—Then all I've got to say is that this rabbit part must come natural for you.
Frank—Hello, Alice, I'm the Duchess.
Mary—I don't care what nationality you are. What is Bestor doing asleep in a cup of coffee? Who does he think he is, Eddie Cantor? This is the Jello program.
Jack—Don is playing the part of the Dormouse, the big cheese.
Don Wilson—And cheese makes a delightful accompaniment for Jello, bringing out the full piquancy of its six delicious flavors.
Mary—Oh, hello, Wilson. Have they got you in a padded cell, too?
Wilson—I am the Mad Hatter.
Mary—What's he mad about, Jack? There, there, Don, don't feel bad.
Jack—Come on, Parker, what about reading your script?
Frank (in a startled voice)—Off with her head; off with her head!
Mary—So you want to start something, eh?
(There is a sound of scuffling, blows and grunts.)
Frank—Oh, my eye!
Jack—Is this my head or a stratosphere balloon?
Mary—What's the difference as long as you're healthy?
Mysterious Voice—Don’t you want to buy a lettuce leaf, Mr. Benny? Jack—No!
M. V.—Well, would you like to buy an aspirin tablet?
Jack—Yes!
M. V.—Okay, Mr. Benny!
Jack—Play, Don!

Psst! Wanna Buy A Cartoon?

Crowd-funding is a way for modern-day cartoonists to get money to finance their films. But the idea isn’t really new. The same sort of thing was tried almost 60 years to create one of most disreputable TV cartoon series ever made—Spunky and Tadpole.

In the 1950s, movie studios didn’t see any value in their old theatrical cartoons, so they sold their television rights to distribution companies who proceeded to make fortunes from stations eager to fill kiddie programme time. But there were only so many old theatricals to go around, and parents groups were already beginning to complain about the violence in them. So new producers climbed out of the woodwork to figure out a way to make cartoons specifically for TV that allowed them to turn a profit. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera did it by going into hock, climbing in bed with Columbia Pictures and quickly started minting cash with Ruff and Reddy and Huckleberry Hound. But a chap named Ed Janis decided to go a different route.

In 1957, Janis formed a company named Beverly Hills Productions. The company doesn’t appear to have any money for its own. Instead, it advertised on TV for people to buy stock in its cartoon venture. Variety reported how it worked in its August 2, 1957 issue.

RAISE TV PROD'N COIN VIA SPOTS

Reportedly the first time it's been done on tv, a BevHills brokerage house offer of stock in a telefilm cartoon venture, made during past two weeks on KTTV, has been completely subscribed to tune of $125,000.
Principals in experiment are Beverly Hills Productions, cartoon firm headed by Edward Janis, with Corinne Calvet and husband Jeffrey Stone as veepees, and Howard Bierman as secretary-treasurer; and brokerage house of H. Carroll & Co.
Reports attorney Ralph Frank, of law firm of LeMaire & Frank, repping Carroll firm, on the tv stock sale: "We've had fantastic results. To sell a similar issue (by more conventional means) in three months wouldn't be unusual."
Calif. State Commissioner of Corporations has issued Carroll firm a permit to sell the shares. Since this is an offer only in this state, to bonafide residents. SEC jurisdiction has been almost entirely eliminated.
Actually, offer on KTTV was only an offer to send a prospectus. However, Frank states, California law holds that this is really a stock offer. Carroll firm already has contracted for a schedule of further spots on Tom Duggan's KCOP show and KTTV, and finds itself in pleasant position of continuing with stock already completely subscribed. However, since it's likely that about 10% of subscribers won't redeem pledges (a normal depreciation, Frank holds), Duggan spots will probably be used to clean up $125,000 offer.
Spots were started last week, and by early this week, $82,000 was subscribed. Rest of issue was subscribed by yesterday, at $1 par and same cash value. In one case, a client came to Carroll office as result of teleblurbs, with $1,000 in hand. He left after reading prospectus, with $3,000 order.
Actually, $125,000 offer represents 50% of available stock. Other 50% still resides in BevHills Productions firm.
Janis, formerly with 20th-Fox, has plans to package five-minute color cartoons, approximately 50 in number, for a daily telepix strip. However, he was unavailable for comment on actual production start.
But successful result of BevHills Productions issue has aroused enthusiasm of Carroll house in further use of tv spots to sell stock, in both entertainment and other ventures. Already on the drawing boards are plans to sell stock in "one or two" feature pictures, and firm has been approached to finance a Broadway show in a similar manner.

Something about this was skunky, not Spunky, to the Better Business Bureau. It decided to look into the “TV pitch for production coin.” Variety did its own investigation, too. In its August 6th edition, after noting a similarly-funded stage musical several years earlier had seen more than $165,000 in investments disappear, reported:

An analysis of the company's figures, as presented in the brochure, indicates an ignorance or at least an unfamiliarity with the field in which they seek to raise money, unless the firm has a secret formula which it isn't mentioning.

The Bureau told Variety it was trying to “develop information on the firm and its principals.” Variety did some digging and the results weren’t all that complimentary.

President of Beverly Hills Productions is Edward Janis, 35, one time staff cartoonist for 20th-Fox who "entered the television field in 1953." DAILY VARIETY has found no record of any credit for Janis in the tv field during the last four years and Attorney Ralph Frank, representing the firm, said he "didn't think" Janis had any. Actress Corinne Calvet and her husband, actor Jeff Stone, are vice-presidents of the firm, the only members of the outfit's top quintet whose names are familiar to show business. Secretary is Howard Bierman, a commercial artist and the treasurer is Emil Gillman, who last year sold his share of a family furniture business and "entered the television industry, utilizing his business knowledge and administration (sic) ability in the production of telefilms." DAILY VARIETY has found no credits for Gillman, either.

Trying to find biographical information about Janis today is a little difficult even today, at least using on-line sources. Janis could have been born in 1922 according to the Variety story. FamilySearch.org has records which show an Edward L. Janis was born on January 26, 1922 in Chicago, Illinois to Jack and Rose Janofsky. He had legally changed his name to Janis by 1946 when he married a Lillian Snyder in Los Angeles. At the time, he was unemployed. Whether he worked at Terrytoons or was a publicity artist at Fox is unknown.

As for the cartoons themselves, the brochure from Beverly Hills Productions outlined their financing. Bear in mind that Hanna-Barbera’s first Ruff and Reddy cartoon had a budget of $2,700.

Firm estimates $100 per film each for director, writer, narrator, voice, background artists, inkers and painters, and $200 per film for animators—and reports that it can turn out each five-minute color cartoon for $1,850. Salaries quoted are, in the main, below minimum scales, at a time when, the Screen Cartoonists Guild reports, there is a labor shortage in the trade and most people are drawing more than scale pay for their work. As to the total cost, one veteran teleblurb producer estimates that using slide animation (the cheapest form), a five-minute cartoon would cost at least $3,000 in color—at the going commercial rates; for full animation the cost would be around $18,000. Another reported that for limited animation, the cheapest possible price is around $1,000 per minute; full animation, $5,000-$8,000 per minute.

The trade paper also reported Janis would get one free share for each share sold to the public, meaning he didn’t need to put up a cent.

It seems Variety and the Better Business Bureau weren’t the only ones having suspicions about the financing of Beverly Hills Productions. So were some of the principals. From the December 16, 1957 issue of Variety

Calvet Jeff Stone Wash Hands Of TV Cartoonery Using Names To Sell Stock
Corinne Calvet and Jeff Stone, the pic couple who were v.p.’s of Beverly Hills Productions cartoonery, over the weekend resigned their posts and informed Calif. Commissioner of Corporations they did so because they were denied info on the firm's financial dealings.
Beverly Hills Productions recently came under fire, including investigation by the Better Business Bureau and the LA. Police Bunco Squad, following DAILY VARIETY story disclosing inconsistencies in group's brochure accompanying public sale of stock.
Via pitches, mainly over tv, group sold nearly $100,000 in stock to the public. Labor and other estimated costs listed in brochure were considerably below established scales in the cartooning field. Consensus of expert opinion from reputable firms in held was that Beverly Hills Productions couldn't deliver proposed color cartoon strips at prices quoted.
In their letter to the Corporations Commissioner, Miss Calvet and Stone admitted they knew that their names would be used in stock solicitations. However, " . . . we feel it imperative that our names not be used for any purpose which may in any way affect our reputation.
At the time, we permitted the use of our names because representations were made to us that the corporation's purposes . . . warranted our support, and we were guaranteed we would be active in the company's affairs, so we would be aware of how monies collected as a result of stock sales would be used . . ." Letter asserts that when the couple requested such info last week, firm's directorate not only refused it, but voted them out of office.

The woes weren’t over for Ed Janis. A piece in Variety of March 19, 1958 reveals Janis, basically, sold a cartoon idea to himself before he decided to sell shares in a company that gave him free shares.

Janis, Prod'n Firm Over 'Fish & Chips'
Suit asking $66,250 assertedly due him from a deal with Edward Janis was filed yesterday in Superior Court by Philip Nasser against Janis and Beverly Hills Productions. Nasser charged that he and Janis had entered into an agreement whereby he was to devise and work on an idea for a tv cartoon series originated by Janis in November, 1956, "Fish and Chips," in which they were to split 50-50 on all proceeds.
However, he claimed, he was excluded when Janis sold rights to the idea in February, 1957, to Beverly Hills Productions for 125,000 shares of stock, at $1 per share, in corporation, plus $7,500 per year. Two defendants, according to complaint, "conspired to exclude Nasser from deal."

What were “Fish and Chips”? Beats me. Janis is on record as copyrighting, on February 27, 1957, artwork for something called “Storybook Adventures,” including a walrus, a goofy bear and a German scientist. This could have been S & P; at the end of each cartoon, the narrator urged kid viewers to join Spunky and Tadpole next time “in storybook adventures.” However, the current Copyright Catalog on-line reveals that all Spunky and Tadpole cartoons were copyrighted on July 15, 1956—even though it’s clear the cartoons hadn’t been finished by that date. The trades began talking about the series of June 19, 1958, when Janis managed to finalise a distribution deal for the cartoons, which were already in production, with Guild Films.

Guild was set up in 1952 (around May) by Reub Kaufman, the former owner of a Chicago-based ad agency, to cash in on the growing need for low-cost syndicated programming. His first distribution efforts were “Lash of the West” starring Lash LaRue and “Beam It Up” with Chick Chandler, but then he hit the jackpot in February 1953 by offering to stations a show featuring a Los Angeles lounge act pianist named Liberace. More to the point, Guild had some success with animation, acquiring the TV rights in February 1955 to 191 black-and-white Warner Bros. cartoons. Variety gave a progress report on June 27th.

New Cartoon Deal For Janis, Guild
Beverly Hills Productions, which last week inked a $125,000 deal with Guild Films for distribution of its new "Adventures of Spunky and Tadpole" cartoons, is now negotiating a new deal with Guild which calls for production of 150 of the three-and-a-half-minute shorts, according to Beverly Hills prexy Edward Janis.
New deal, which would supersede the first, would also give Guild options on 350 more of the color cartoons under a long-term lease arrangement involving flat payment of $4,000 per subject plus a participation in merchandising rights. New pictures would be budgeted at $2,500 each, as compared with the $1,850 per-pic budget which pertains on the 50 Guild has already purchased.
Beverly Hills, which was launched last summer via a $125,000 public stock issue, got back just that amount via its initial Guild deal, which called for a guarantee of $2,500 per pic for the 50 cartoons. Janis has 40 of the 60 in the can and is wrapping up the rest.
He started production on the cartoons last November, and without a studio himself, has sub-contracted the various animation and recording elements while retaining production control. Films, which can be combined into 15 and 30-minute packages, are done in limited-animation style.

Guild started aggressively advertising the cartoons in the trades. When “Spunky and Tadpole” first appeared on TV is almost impossible to say but the series had been sold to KHJ-TV by September and was picked up by 20 stations by the end of November. And Beverly Hills Productions started paying dividends to shareholders. But things weren’t altogether rosy. On May 5, 1960, it was reported Janis was no longer the company president. Official Films took over distribution from Guild in August, the same month Herts-Lion International struck a deal for a 30-day option to buy Bev Hills (“Spunky and Tadpole” was now airing on 37 stations). On October 7, Janis resigned from the company altogether. Beverly Hills Productions hung around until June 5, 1964 when it was purchased by Beverly Hills Film Co. Its only asset was “Spunky and Tadpole;” Janis had copyrighted, on March 28, 1960, something called “The Genius”—cartoon characters included characters named Homer, Wentworth and Bingo—but the series was never developed. He also developed a character named Don Coyote, apparently in 1962; it was signed over to UPA in 1988. Ownership of “Spunky and Tadpole” changed hands at least twice more in the ‘60s. Eventually, they ended up in the hands of Ziv International, which sold home video rights to Media Home Entertainment (1981) and All-Seasons Entertainment (1984). In 1992, the 150 cartoons were swallowed up by Time-Warner.

I suspect that’s more than you’ll ever want to know about the series’ back story. Let’s give you a bit of information about the cartoons. If IMDB is correct, the animation was done by Arthur Moore Studios. Moore had worked at Disney from 1939-41 after a career drawing for the Los Angeles Examiner. After serving in the war, he opened a studio called Royal Titles with two ex-Disney buddies. Moore died in 2005. Moore is credited as “director.” No animators are credited. The only other artist’s name is Bob Caples, who was responsible for backgrounds. He, too, worked for Disney in the late ‘30s after graduating from Chouinard. A bio at CalArt.com says he painted backgrounds for Warner Bros. in the 1950s (was he ever credited?) and then worked at Hanna-Barbera; Jonny Quest was among his shows. He died in Mesa, Arizona, in September 1996.

Music was provided from a stock library. The main theme is “La Vitrine Aux Jouets” (“The Toy Shop Window”) by the prolific Roger Roger, who seems to have composed for at least a half dozen libraries. It was released in England in the Chappell library and in the U.S. by Sam Fox.

The series’ main voices are by Janis himself, along with Joan Gardner and Don Messick. Both Gardner and Messick had worked in the 1950s for Bob Clampett, providing voices on his puppet shows. Messick apparently didn’t stay for all 150 episodes; word is Janis took over his roles. Janis and Gardner also married in Nevada on December 8, 1960. They went into production of live action films, most famously working on that underfunded 1965 cult classic “The Beach Girls and the Monster.” In 1973, Janis (with Gardner writing) proposed a movie called “Scavenger’s Gold,” to be shot in Oregon. It was funded by selling 350 units in a limited partnership (sound familiar?). But—oops!—the Bend Bulletin reported on December 3 that shooting had been delayed. Janis hadn’t convinced enough Oregonians to pony up $1,000 for a unit.

Janis survived Gardner. When she died in 1992, her career was written up in the Los Angeles Times. When he died in Los Angeles on August 19, 2000, there was no lengthy celebrity obit. He had drifted off into obscurity, much like his cartoon creations.

Warners Gags Travel East

You know how Wile E. Coyote used to draw a tunnel or a landscape, the Road Runner would zip into the picture as if it were real, but when the coyote did it... well, sure, you’ve seen it countless times.

I’m too lazy to look up when Wile E. did it for the first time, but I know his debut cartoon was in 1949. But three years earlier, the same gag was used in the Terrytoon “The Tortoise Wins Again.”



And you’ll remember the closing gag in Tex Avery’s “Tortoise Beats Hare” (1941). It’s classic Avery; he used it at the end of “The Blitz Wolf” at MGM. Bugs contemplates whether he’s been tricked by the turtle. A gaggle of turtles pop up and chime the Mr. Kitzel catchphrase “Mmmmm...it’s a possibility!” The same thing happens in this cartoon, except the turtles use Kitzel’s other catchphrase “Mmmmmm...could be!”



John Foster received the mandatory story credit.

Octopus Olive

Olive Oyl’s spaghetti arms multiply in “The Spinach Roadster” (1938).



Willard Bowsky and George Germanetti get the animation credits.