Him Go That Way

Bugs Bunny portraits a native stereotype as he tricks Yosemite Sam to (once again) fall off a diving board in High Diving Hare. Bugs has lots of expressions while Sam looks around, somewhat confused.



Pete Burness worked on this cartoon, along with Friz Freleng’s regular animators of the later ‘40s, Virgil Ross, Manny Perez, Ken Champin and Gerry Chiniquy.

Gritty, Grimey, Greasy Goo

Who else but the writers of Rocky and Bullwinkle would make fun of the Cold War, over-budget movies and TV commercials at the same time?

Boris Badenov comes up with a plan to beam three hours of Pottsylvanian TV commercials to unsuspecting Americans—who will eventually pay millions to get them off the air (once they eventually notice they’re not the Late Movie, Boris adds). He turns on the set.

We’re treated to a duet of Paul Frees and Bill Scott singing these lyrics to the old Pepsi-nickle jingle of Austen Croom-Johnson and Alan Kent...



Itchy dandruff, falling hair,
A dried-up scalp and a dome that’s bare,
Gritty, grimey, greasy goo,
That’s what’s in our new shampoo!

And the gag gets topped by a shot of Cleopatra on the tiger-skin rug, giving her endorsement.



The cartoon series was around the time of Liz Taylor shooting “Cleopatra,” with endless cost over-runs and production problems. Whether a trade ad for the movie showed Taylor in costume on a tiger-skin rug, I don’t know, but judging by the Jay Ward writers’ desire to puncture the excesses of show biz, I wouldn’t be surprised. (An alternate theory is suggested in the comments. My thanks to Keith Scott for fixing the singing voice IDs).

How To Keep Some Silent Cartoons Alive

Not enough do we talk about cartoons in the silent film era on this blog. The best ones—Felix the Cat and Max Fleischer’s Ko-Ko—still stand on their own as entertainment instead of curios. There were many other series as well, emerging from a primordial ooze of John Bray’s patents and comics in newspapers.

I’ve forgotten the estimate of the number of silent films that are considered lost—let’s just say it’s in the majority—so any attempt to rescue and restore the ones that can still be seen is welcome. Thus we’re pleased to report that Tom Stathes, the young New Yorker who has more desire to preserve old silent animation than maybe anyone else alive, is hoping to find like-minded fans and historians with some cash to assist him in his latest endeavour to get a collection of cartoons, some dating back 100 years, in shape and viewable for years to come. You can view details about his project HERE.

Alas, Felix’s name is not on the list of films being made as pristine as possible; I presume copyright has something to do with it. Not all the characters from these ancient trade ads below will be part of the collection, either, but I have these pictures in my computer so this is as good a place as any to display them.

Not Quite Farewell

Ah, if there had only been a third and a twentieth Jack Benny farewell TV special, as a columnist for Newsday once hoped. It was not to be, though a third was in the planning stage before Jack’s health quickly went down hill in late 1974. At least, we’d like to think Jack would be hale and hearty on any future specials, not a sad shell of a funnyman long past his prime. Fortunately, Jack Benny left the world laughing until the end. He never really quit, despite the facetious headline you see below.

This column was published in the Yonkers Herald Statesman, January 21, 1974.

Jack Benny quits — again
By BILL KAUFMAN
Newsday
Jack Benny, that ageless comedian whose chagrined exclamation of "Weelll," has long been delivered with clockwork precision, is retiring publicly on national television again for the second time. 'It's not that he's insincere about it all, but as Benny explains, "I'm going to keep doing it until I get it right."
Last year he bowed out on TV with a special, and since it went over so big with just about everyone from sponsors and network officials to the Nielsen Hating folks, it's about to happen again.
"JACK BENNY'S Second Farewell Special" is the apt title of the telecast, and it's set for Thursday night on NBC pre-empting "The Flip Wilson Show." According to one Madison Avenue video mogul, "There may be a 3d, 4th, 10th and 20th farewell before Benny gets ready to hang up his violin."
The second farewell stanza will feature one of those rare occasions when Benny and his close friend George Burns will appear together on the tube. They've been chums for 25 years, and for reasons known only to themselves, they've actually worked together very little.
Benny's guest stars this time around, in addition to cigar-chomping and musically vamping Burns, will be Johnny Carson, Redd Foxx and Dinah Shore. The special will also herald the TV debut of a hot new singing group, the DeFranco Family, spotlighting 13-year-old Tony DeFranco. (The Family's latest hit, "Heartbeat, It's a Lovebeat" is soaring on the record rating charts these days). Benny's bash will also include cameo appearances by Dean Martin and the "Dragnet" team, Jack Webb and Harry Morgan.
"SOMETIMES YOU think you've got something going," Benny said in a recent interview. "I wasn't sure about, the show's title, but every time I mentioned it to the audience in (Las) Vegas, they laughed like hell. Now that's a good thing!" Benny quickly added. "I think I can go as far as the third farewell. After that who knows what will happen."
Possibly the most well-worked gimmicks of Benny's career have been his reputation of being a penny pincher and his age. Far from being penurious in real life, Benny has a reputation for philanthropic activities; as for his age, the veteran comic's most recent biography states: "Jack Benny was born 39 years ago in Chicago."
The loquacious performer laughs when questioned about it. admitting that "I've been 39 for almost that many years, if anyone cares. But if you look closely, you'll see that I have the face of a young man. Hey, I can remember not too long ago paying only half-fare on public transportation. Are you going to ask me now if it was horse-drawn?"

BENNY'S LONG relationship with Burns is remarkable both in terms of both show business and just plain comaraderie.
The fact that both senior members of the entertainment fraternity haven't spent that much time together before the public isn't because of a lack of offers. They are constantly besieged with requests to co-star in Las Vegas, and to appear on TV specials and talk shows. It generally hasn't occurred, except for brief cameo spots on each other's programs.
Benny and Burns were asked to replace Walter Matthau and Art Carney in "The Odd Couple" on Broadway, and Neil Simon wanted them originally for his "The Sunshine Boys," which many said would have been a natural for them with its plot about two vaudevillians. But their answer was always no.
BENNY HASN'T a specific reason for the perennial turndowns, except to say, "Come on and watch the farewell show. Burns and I had more fun than we ever did as long as I can remember." Benny said he met Burns back in the 1920s, when Burns was dating Gracie Allen and Benny was dating her roommate, a girl named Mary Kelly. Later on the Burnses were present at Benny's wedding in 1927 to his wife of many years. Mary Livingstone.
The show's cameo appearance by Johnny Carson is more than just another guest shot by the host of the "Tonight Show." Carson is an avid admirer of Benny and always admitted that Benny was his idol. Carson tried to learn from watching Benny perform during his early days and frankly allows that the master provided many pointers that Carson uses in his monologue style, if any comedians today can match Benny's pacing and timing during delivery.
BENNY, WHEN approached with this fact about Carson's career, gives his quizzical look and says, "Weelll, that may be so, but now he's my idol." Dinah Shore was Benny’s first guest on his initial television show in 1950, and her guest appearance enables them to reminisce about the adventure.
The viewing audience will also get a first, of sorts, on the farewell special. The cameras will give them a look at Redd Foxx's real home, not the junk shop that they're used to seeing on "Sanford and Son," and the contrast is great. "Foxx is now quite rich, you know," said Benny, "And we thought it would be interesting for the audience to see how he really lives." Strangely enough, "Sanford and Son" is based on a British series called "Steptoe and Son," and Benny was approached by the producers who originally had an option on it, to play the title role. He turned it down, because he didn't want to do a weekly show anymore.
THE SPECIAL will also feature a musical group headed by Benny and inspired by the success of the Defranco's recordings. But Benny won't divulge the group's name until air time, saying it's "A very lively one, if nothing else." The spot marks the first time Benny has played the violin on television in several seasons.
The violin is one of Benny's great loves—perhaps second in line to his natural penchant for entertaining people with comedy. He's an accomplished musician and has for many years toured, making guest appearances with leading symphony orchestras.
Benny talks enthusiastically about a forthcoming trip to Australia and New Zealand, where he'll appear in concert with each nation's major symphony. "I'm also going to give a concert in Singapore," says Benny with just a hint of pride in his voice. "I hear my old TV shows are being run there, and I'm curious to see how I sound in Singaporese, or whatever you call the language down there."
Benny acknowledges that today there's an entirely new generation—more probably two generations—that don't even know him as the Jack Benny of the radio waves during the 1930s and 1940s. Gone are the wheezing Maxwell Rochester's gruff voice and the longstanding, contrived feud with the late comedy genius, Fred Allen.
One of Benny's early radio appearances was on Ed Sullivan's show in 1932. His first words were, "Hello, folks! This is Jack Benny. There will be a slight pause for everyone to say 'Who cares?' " It turned out that many millions did.

Woody Woodpecker Arrives on TV

Imagine having something old and unwanted sitting around the house and suddenly discovering people will pay good money for it. No, this has nothing to do with eBay. Our story goes back to the 1950s, and involves old animated cartoons.

Hundreds upon hundreds of cartoons were produced for theatres. They were disposable. Run ‘em for a little while, then send them back to the exchange for new ones. Eventually, studios decided they could save money by re-releasing some of the cartoons and then put them back on the shelf for good. Those shelves started piling up with what, at the time, were worthless pieces of film.

But then came television. And television wanted cartoons, no matter how old and how used. One man who had cartoons was Walter Lantz, all kinds of them making nary a penny. Now they were worth something again. So he sold the TV rights to 179 of them to Motion Pictures for Television in November 1954. Then he landed a big deal, one that seems to have come out of nowhere.

Billboard revealed on May 27, 1957 a deal was in the works to bring 50 Woody cartoons to TV. Two days later, Variety reported that Kellogg’s had bought the 5 to 5:30 p.m. half hour on ABC for $7,000,000 to run a different show every weekday aimed at kids, and that Thursdays would feature Woody Woodpecker. Weekly Variety blurbed on June 19th that Lantz would emcee the show. Some 35 years earlier, Lantz had appeared on camera with his silent theatrical cartoon characters. Due to the cheapness of TV, Lantz and Woody wouldn’t share the screen simultaneously in this new programme. But those segments are fondly remembered by those who saw them, especially the portions where Lantz showed how animated cartoons were made.

Woody made his network TV premiere on October 3, 1957; the Los Angeles Times reported Who’s Cookin’ Who aired. Other than CBS’ high-cost failure, The Boing Boing Show and the crude NBC Comics show in 1950, there hadn’t been cartoons on network television until Kellogg’s put Woody on the air. That made it news. Lantz always seemed to find a way to get quoted, and he managed to get an interview with King Features Syndicate’s TV Key daily newspaper column to talk about his new show. This appeared in papers on October 31, 1957. You’ll note this version of the Woody origin story doesn’t involve a honeymoon with Grace; to be honest, I haven’t found out when that became the version that Lantz and his wife would tell every interviewer. There’s still no mention of Bugs Hardaway, who had died earlier in the year, and who came up with a Woody-ish rabbit for Leon Schlesinger in the late ‘30s. Surely he must have played the major role in the woodpecker’s creation after he arrived on Lantz’s doorstep.

Nuisance Spawned Woodpecker
By STEVEN H. SCHEUER
TV Key Staff Writer
"A real homey show with no tricks," says cartoonist Walter Lantz about his Thursday afternoon ABC Woody Woodpecker series, which comes on before the Mickey Mouse Club.
Walter's old fashioned about his cartoons. He was doing film cartoons at the very beginning, 1918, when they flashed balloons over characters' heads to insert dialogue. "My theory has always been to make cartoons like real people. I don't go for two eyes on one side of the head. For the art set, yes, but not for the theatrical audience."
Woody Woodpecker, with that incredible laugh or trumpeting, is Walter's most famous character and he's the result of a continuing nuisance back in 1941. Walter was busy at his drawing desk while a woodpecker outside was drilling away on a tree. The incessant noise got on Walter's nerves, and then suddenly the idea of using a woodpecker as a cartoon character flashed across his mind.
"Woody was a hit the first time on the screen," said Walter. "When we recorded the show I asked Mel Blanc (one of Jack Benny's TV regulars), who was to do Woody's voice, to think up some kind of a laugh for more character. Mel tried a few versions and then came up with his distinguished contribution."

The mere thought of Woody and "that terrible noise" gives many grownups the shudders, but the laugh has always been a favorite with the kids. So, when Kellogg's, the sponsors, were looking for a TV cartoon series, Woody seemed a logical bet. However, they also wanted Woody's creator, Walter Lantz, on the series.
"I'm no actor," he said when approached. He thought about it for a while and said he'd do it if he could tell the kids how animated cartoons are made. Sponsors said fine and Lantz went to work.
Luckily they were ahead on theater shorts so he could put the whole shop (52) to work. Each week on the show Walter shows a different segment, the cutters, the animators, the story boards, etc. He even does a little drawing himself.
What stuns him is what it would cost him today, starting from scratch, to make the present series. "I couldn't do it for less than $225,000," says Walter. Today it costs $35,000 to make a six-minute movie cartoon. Another $10,000 for printing and distribution costs. Then cartoonists have to wait about four years to get their money back, get it in driblets." This has sounded a death knell to the theater cartoon industry. Disney has abandoned movie cartoons for full-length features. MGM's Tom and Jerry is no more.
"Warner's Bugs Bunny, me, UP, Terry Tunes [sic] and Paramount in the East are the only survivors," says Lantz. "If only the distributors would give us a tiny bit more we might have a chance.
Walter keeps going with re-issue of cartoons, comic magazines and now the TV show. After 40 years in a topsy-turvy business Walter looks in good shape, financially and otherwise. His secret? Walter's blue eyes twinkled. "I never worry," he said.

The reference to Mel Blanc is interesting; the story leaves the impression that Mel was still the voice of Woody Woodpecker, which he hadn’t been since the early ‘40s (there’s no mention of anyone else, including Mrs. Walter Lantz). Toward the end of the decade Blanc sued Lantz for using his Woody laugh and lost, but Lantz settled with him out of court before an appeal could be heard. Blanc then proceeded to play Woody on records, on a radio show broadcast on the Mutual network, and used the voice for several years on the aforementioned Benny show.

Woody was a hit, more so than even Superman, which Kellogg’s had sponsored on a different day in the time slot. Here’s Lantz again to Billboard, December 23, 1957.

Lantz on Cartoons: Put Some $$ in ‘Em
Walter Lantz states the formula for successful cartoon programming: "Make them non-seasonal, uncontroversial and musical, and above all, put some money into them.

The producer-emsee of "Woody Woodpecker," which is drawing a 15.3 rating (American Research Bureau) in a 5 p.m. slot to top all network daytime figures, deplores slapped-together shorts passed off as "new TV shows." He attributes "Woody's" healthy debut to the format evolved by Lantz and Universal Pictures, which includes five minutes of live action on film to blend the cartoons and explain the animation processes.
"We've shot 9,000 new feet and developed new characters like Chilly Willy the penguin to avoid that stale look," says Lantz. "Mail indicates that our pantomime-to-classical-music cartoons are big favorites, so we've scheduled one in each show in a center spot. When you’re doing a new series, you make changes like that. When you're unloading old product, you never tinker with the form.
After 41 years in the business, Lantz was "forced" into TV because "cartoons for theaters will soon be extinct. Costs have gone up 165 per cent in 10 years, booking fees only 15 per cent. Video is the answer, Lantz feels, tho “There's nothing wrong with theatrical exhibitors that a buck won’t cure.” Once in, he and Universal (for whom this is a first TV series, too) labeled the “Woody Woodpecker” backlog not as the finished vidfilm product but a starting point for activity which is currently keeping a staff of 55 busy in Hollywood.
“Long animated commercials are coming,” predicts the veteran animator. “Too many which should be live now use animation. Once they clear out, there’ll be room for cartoon spectaculars among commercials. Cartooning is to TV what comics are to newspapers, supplying space and variety of style.”
“Woody” is the hero of the Kellogg-ABC-TV “Fun at Five” strip, the other four entries averaging an ARB rating of 8.4 on reruns. Its Thursday telecast has climbed from 101 to 166 stations since the show’s premier in October, with Kellogg holding an exclusive for 104 weeks. It’s finally been revealed, incidentally, that the voice of “Woody” belongs to actress Grace Stafford, Mrs. Lantz.

Woody’s appearance on network TV was short-lived, but through no fault of his cartoons. Ad agencies representing local stations eyed all that money Kellogg’s was paying to ABC. In June 1958, they proposed Kellogg’s move the half-hour ABC strip from the network to individual stations, who would be willing to drop their rates by 20 to 30 per cent depending on how many days a week Kellogg’s bought. For a time, the idea was floated to go to NBC, still another proposal would have seen a half-hour of Tom and Jerry cartoons replace one of the five shows. Broadcasting magazine’s weekly issues of June 1956 can be found on-line for anyone wanting to read the minutia. By month’s end, Kellogg’s and its agency Leo Burnett rejected counter-offers from ABC and began to sell a revised line-up of shows to stations in 171 markets. One of the new shows became a quick favourite. It starred Huckleberry Hound. Woody made the cut and remained part of the Kellogg’s “network” until January 1961, when the old Lantz cartoons were replaced with fresh ones from Hanna-Barbera in a half-hour series starring Yogi Bear.

No matter to Walter Lantz. He still kept pumping out cartoons for theatres (and still complained about how long it took them to turn a profit), while new syndication deals kept Woody on the small screen for many years. The woodpecker even appeared in new made-for-TV cartoons starting in 1999.

Not bad for someone who had a bunch of unwanted old short films.

A Bite of Beary

Oh, that wacky, loveable Beary Family! Bursting at the seams with comedy in every cartoon.

Recently, due to a bout of masochism, I tuned in the 1971 Beary cartoon “Moochin Pooch” and spotted an extreme like Tex Avery used almost 20 years earlier at the Lantz studio. Here’s the ever-hilarious Charlie with a dog. The animation is limited but the expressions are still effective. The third and fourth drawings are on threes, while the wide-open mouth drawing is held for eight frames.



Al Coe (assisted by Joe Voght) and Virgil Ross (assisted by Tom Byrne) are the animators. I’m not sure if Virgil left Filmation, worked for Lantz, then went back to Filmation, but his career really wasn’t the same after leaving Warner Bros.

P.S.: Sorry for the TV bug in these frames.

Fishy Bubbles

Another Disney camera pull-back opens the Silly Symphony Frolicking Fish (1930). The purpose of the cartoon seems to have been to impress people with how many bubbles could be animated. They’re all over the place in this cartoon. The camera finally reveals the bubbles are coming from a happy fish, who eventually turns and swims out of the cartoon.



Disneyshort.org says ten animators worked on this. With all those bubbles, it’s no wonder.

Television Needs Fixing

Quiz shows were the reality shows of the 1950s. They featured real people, using real brains to win really big money.

They (well, some of them) turned out be as real as today’s reality shows. They were fixed to build phoney tension to make sure the audience came back week after week so the sponsor could push his wares.

Today, would anyone care if a show is faked? If they’re entertained enough, probably not. After all, it’s just a TV show. How much less cynical we were in the 1950s.

The quiz show scandals caused all kinds of moral outrage—especially among U.S. Congressmen who (oh, here’s that cynicism again) saw a chance to score points with voters by staging an “investigation” to get to the bottom of it all.

Herald Tribune syndicate columnist John Crosby weighed in. Crosby had spent 13 years at this point ridiculing the banality on television. The quiz show scandal gave him a chance to rip virtually the entire industry, including the F.C.C. His comments resonanted. Portions of the column were widely quoted. Let’s bring you the whole column. It was apparently first published on October 16, 1959.

Did Quizlings Outdo Chicago's Black Sox?
By JOHN CROSBY
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.
But the trouble is I can’t quite cast these quizlings in the role of the Black Sox players of 1919. Shoeless Joe Jackson was an authentic genius. There was an air of papier mache about all the quiz heroes—that shoemaker with the appealing face, the taxi driver who used to answer the questions before they were asked.
I AM SHOCKED not so much by the fact that these have proved to be false gods as by the fact that they got to be gods in the first place. There is not the slightest question but they were gods all right. Why? Because they were intellectuals and knew the gestation period of elephants (one of the questions asked potential candidates?) I doubt it.
I think mostly because they were little people being propelled to fame and fortune overnight. They were each a little Cinderella story and it’s hard to say which was the greater lure, the fame or the fortune. The money was good but I think maybe the fame was even more enticing in our fame-hungry world.
BUT THEREIN LIES the fraud on the populace. If they didn’t truly possess this outlandish information, the public would never have made these shows so wildly popular and, if they weren’t so wildly popular, they never would have been worth millions to the Lou Cowans who owned “$64,000 Question” and “$64,000 Challenge,” and Barry and Enright who owned “21” which they sold for millions of dollars. As usual, it is not the guy in the ring who makes the killing. It is the fixer outside.
The moral squalor of the quiz mess reaches clear through the whole industry and I do not see why Congress shouldn’t pursue its investigation a little further. If it did, Congressmen would discover that nothing is what it seems in television. Well, nothing apart from its news and public events shows.
No scandal has ever touched the honest and hard-working news men who are competent and incorruptible. Why are they so exceptional? Well, largely because each news operation is network-owned and operated and the ad agencies kept strictly out of the office. This has given them an esprit de corps denied all the others. (The situation isn’t perfect. The news guys would like far more voice than they have, more time, more money, more everything but they’re proud of what they get on the air).
BUT IN EVERYTHING ELSE the heavy hand of the advertiser suffocates truth, corrupts men and women. Rod Serling, one of TV’s noted dramatists and author of “Requiem for a Heavyweight,” tells of doing a TV play based on the Till case, the Mississippi lynching. Somehow the victim became a foreigner from an undesignated country; the scene shifted to New England, last place in the world it could happen, and the diatribe was directed at some vague, formless injustice that didn’t merit the shouting. The script, in short, became a lie. Rigged TV drama, rigged quiz shows.
People in the business say: “Yeah, but that’s the way things are. Why fight City Hall?” The feeling of high purpose, of manifest destiny that lit the industry when it was young, when the Ed Murrows and Fred Coes and Pat Weavers ran the place, when talent was all over the place, is long gone. The money changers are in the temple and the place has reeked of corruption for a long time.
THERE IS A FEELING that corruption reaches into the highest echelons, into the trafficking for frequencies itself, and this has helped weaken the moral fibres in the lower echelons. Why fight City Hall? The Federal Communications Commission has been touched with scandal in the granting of a license in Miami and certainly it cannot be accused of being either energetic or notoriously interested in the honesty of quiz shows or anything else. The whole industry—who’s in, who’« out, who’s rich, who’s poor—rests insecurely on a rating system that is trusted by no one and is misused by every one.
The worst crumbs in the business are now in the saddle and the best and most idealistic and creative men in the business either can’t get work or they quit in disgust and go on to better things in the movies or the theater. Perhaps the quiz mess is the Black Sox scandal of television and maybe it could be used to clean up the rest of the mess.

Here we are more than 65 years later. Did television change for the better?

Hello, I Wish to Report a Jerry Beck Sighting

Is anyone reading this near Hunt Valley, Maryland? How would you like to go to Hunt Valley, Maryland? There’s a reason you should. It’s the home of this year’s



Reader Roger Scales sent me a note about it. The convention features a whole bunch of women who showed off their breasts on the big screen in the ‘60s. But that isn’t why you want to go. You want to go to see their:

GUEST OF HONOR
JERRY BECK



Sayeth the news release in my inbox:

If you bought the POPEYE, THE SAILOR, WOODY WOODPECKER or LOONEY TUNES cartoon DVDs, you probably heard Beck supplying audio commentary. Early in his career, Beck collaborated with film historian Leonard Maltin on his book OF MICE AND MAGIC (1980), organized animation festivals in Los Angeles, and was instrumental in founding the international publication ANIMATION MAGAZINE. Jerry is among the guest of honors at this year's convention and will be providing a fascinating history of BETTY BOOP and another on POPEYE, THE SAILOR, at the convention this September. Bring your books and DVDs and ask Jerry to sign them for you! Jerry also has a superb blog found here

You can see breasts any time, right? Just look them up on the internet, or go to the beach if you want to ogle some in person. But how many times, dear readers near Hunt Valley, Maryland, can you see Jerry Beck?

The event is September 17 to 19, at the Hunt Valley Wyndham, Maryland. And although the news release I got involves the aforementioned ‘60s cult film actresses, who I bet will have some great stories about their careers, I have just checked out the convention’s web site and see the guest star list includes Angela Cartwright, Jon Provost and Lee Majors. And Terry Moore. What? Seminars on Al Jolson and KNX disc jockey Bob Crane (I believe he was in a TV show, too. Something about a POW camp). And David Pollock will be there to talk about Bob and Ray!?! This looks like a really fun event. The convention has a Facebook page and their web site is HERE.

Warning: Beware of imposters engaging in Jerry Beck cosplay.

Chasing a King-Size Canary

Who has time to open doors or go through windows when you’re a gigantic cat chasing a king-sized canary? That was Tex Avery’s philosophy in “King-Size Canary.” The chase inside the house goes so quickly, Avery accommodates it simply by changing the background during the chase.



Johnny Johnson was the background artist.