The Journey of Gene Deitch

Theatrical cartoons are dying, said all kinds of people in the movie business starting in the late ‘40s, but they changed a bit before that happened. And you can partly thank television.

After network TV made its huge expansive leap in 1948, ad agencies moved their money from radio into the new medium. On radio, sponsors could get away with an announcer reading straight copy. TV needed more. And an awful lot of agencies picked animation as the easiest and cheapest way to get their messages across.

But the studios contracted to make the animated commercials for the agencies decided the designs used in theatrical cartoons were all wrong. They went for flatter, stylised characters, just like newspaper comics and magazine panels; the UPA studio was doing the same thing in its theatricals. A lot of the cartoon commercials were clever and entertaining and won awards. And that’s when one old theatrical studio decided it wanted a chunk of all this commercial moolah.

Terrytoons had been run by Paul Terry since its inception in 1929 (though Terry managed to manoeuvre Frank Moser out of a partnership a few years later) until he sold the studio to CBS on January 9, 1956. The network now had a stash of old cartoons it could run, but to grow it had to move into new fields. And because it was looking at advertising, it hired one of the young commercial award-winners praised in the trades—Gene Deitch.

Deitch joined the Jam Handy Organization in Detroit as its chief animator in November 1949. He jumped to UPA in New York and found himself winning awards and in demand. He joined Storyboard Productions as creative director in September 1955, moved to Robert Lawrence Productions the following March and then was hired by CBS to be the creative supervisor at Terrytoons in June, a new post that supposedly made him the creative boss.

One can only imagine the atmosphere at Terrytoons with someone from the outside being brought in. In television, that means change. And Weekly Variety of August 15, 1956 outlined Deitch’s ambitious plan.

CBS Full of Animation, Projecting Terrytoons Into TV Programming
With most of the stock-taking and inventorying how complete since CBS purchased Terrytoons for $5,000,000 at the beginning of the year, the New Rochelle animation plant is swinging into a diversified and fullscale production effort that will embrace television programming, special effects for video, tv animated commercials on a open-to-all basis and continuation of theatrical cartoons for 20th-Fox distribution.
Under exec producer Gene Deitch, former UPA exec who recently took over the creative chores at Terrytoons, the hottest project in the works at the CBS subsid is a new series of children’s cartoons under the title of a new character, “Tom Terrific.” Current plans—project is in the pilot stage—are to produce five four-minute cliff hanger episodes for each story, for initial use on the CBS-TV “Captain Kangaroo” morning kidshow. Under such a formula, the five episodes could then be combined and edited into a 15-minute program for use on other kidshows and eventual syndication through CBS television Film Sales. Number of such 15-minute shows would depend on the reaction to the strip showings on “Kangaroo.” Series is an adventure story, with the title character being a little boy who can turn into anything he wants to be. Allan Swift is doing the voices [note: Lionel Wilson actually provided all the voices on the series].

First evidence of the subsid’s new work for television, however, will be seen next Sunday (19) on the Ed Sullivan show, for which Terrytoons has created eight one-minute animated introductions.
Sullivan has indicated he’d like to experiment some more in this direction. The introes will concern Sullivan’s international search for talent, in keeping with the general theme of Sunday’s show, "Sullivan’s Travels,” but if these click, some more with other themes will be ordered.
On the commercial side, Deitch said Terrytoons would attempt to concentrate on “comedy commercials” a la Bert & Harry commercials for Piel’s Beer, on which Deitch worked while at UPA and which in his opinion proved that comedy can sell goods. There are already a number of clients in the house, and Terrytoons has already developed one new character, “P.J. Tootsie,” described as a hearty, “Eddie Mayehoff type guy who’s dedicated to the making of Tootsie Rolls.” Client is Sweets Co. of America.
In work now are nine Cinema-Scope shorts for theatrical use by 20th-Fox, a continuation of the longtime 20th-Terrytoons relationship. It probably marks the first time a network operation is producing for the theatre in collaboration with a major studio. Deitch said his staff is working on the development of new styles of animation and new characters. One step in the creation of such styles and characters was the hiring this week of Ernie Pintoss [sic] as director of research and development, a new post for Terrytoons and possibly for any syndication house. Pintoss had been working with UPA as director of the new UPA series in production for CBS-TV.

“New styles of animation and new characters” meant the old styles and characters were o-w-t OUT (that includes old gags like the one you just read). Deitch’s approach to commercials was modern. Terrytoons’ theatrical shorts were anything but. The cartoons of 1955 looked and sounded like the cartoons of 1940 and had become repetitious; if you’d seen one Mighty Mouse/Oil Can Harry operetta, you’d pretty much seen them all. But many people like staying in their comfort zones and don’t like “new” or “different.” Deitch may have been the “creative boss” but he soon became the subject of office politics, which included a lack of support from the people above him. By early June 1958, Deitch found himself o-w-t, and corralled a job as consulting art director with Robert Davis Productions before forming his own company.

An improbable adventure began for Deitch in October 1959. He was hired by Rembrandt Films’ William L. Snyder for what was supposed to be a 10-day job examining operations at a cartoon studio in Prague, Czechoslovakia. In the meantime, Snyder jumped in bed (figuratively) with Al Brodax of King Features, who was looking to put the company’s characters in cut-rate cartoons on TV. It was looking to air a half-hour show called Cartoon Omnibus, to be emceed by The Little King, who never talked in the newspaper comics. Here’s what Weekly Variety had to say about the show on July 6, 1960:

A Two-Continent Cartoonery
Upsurge of cartoon production for tv has necessitated a two-continent cartoonery operation, according to William L. Snyder, prez of Rembrandt Films. Rembrandt has a deal with King Features for the production of new “Popeye” cartoons and an original, titled “Sampson Scrap and Delilah.” The two Continent operation finds Rembrandt doing the storyboards and soundtrack in the U.S. and animation and shooting in Europe.
Snyder said that doing the animation and shooting in Europe initially was motivated by cost savings. But it’s no longer less expensive, he stated, adding that there just isn’t enough cartoon art talent around in the U.S. to meet the demand and even the European pool is being severely taxed. Rembrandt has ties in Zurich, Switzerland, and Milan. Snyder left at the weekend for London, where he hopes to establish additional production facilities.
He also will visit Zurich to oversee production there. “Sampson Scrap” was created by Gene Deitch, formerly with UPA and Terrytoons, and Allen Swift, emcee of “Popeye” show on WPIX, N. Y. Deitch directs and Swift does all the voices. “Sampson” will be one of the strips in a half-hour show, the others being “Barney Google and Snuffy Smith” and “Krazy Kat.”
King Features, under its “Popeye” program, has a policy of parcelling out production. Rembrandt will do 16 episodes, with episodes due to coming in starting next month. “Sampson” footage will be coming off the beltline in the fall.

Sampson, apparently correctly spelled as “Samson Scrap,” never made it into a series. You can read more about the cartoon on Jerry Beck’s Cartoon Research web site. Format Films, incidentally, won the contract to product the other elements of the Omnibus pilot.

Then Daily Variety announced on March 9, 1961 that Snyder had secretly inked a deal with MGM six months earlier to revive Tom and Jerry cartoons for theatres, and they were already in production, with the first one scheduled for release on May 3rd. While all this was going on, Deitch had teamed with Jules Feiffer and Al Kouzel to win an Oscar in April 1961 for the animated short “Munro.”

MGM decided to hand the Tom and Jerry contract to Walter Bien and Chuck Jones in August 1963. Deitch continued animating in Prague, winning esteem for his work on children’s stories, and being featured in retrospectives of his work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and by ASIFA in Los Angeles.

Here’s a United Press International story from June 22, 1974 where Deitch is interviewed about his career to date.

Cartoon Director Gives Short Subjects ‘Tender Loving Care’
By RICHARD C. LONGWORTH
PRAGUE (UPI) – Gene Deitch probably is the most prominent non-Communist American living permanently in Eastern Europe, which is quite a switch for a man who used to direct Terrytoons cartoons.
When he first came to work in Prague, he had never been in Europe, was “completely confused” and held a contract that allowed him to go home to New York any time he wanted.
That was 15 years ago. The Oscar-winning American cartoon director is still here—living in a modern flat beside the Moldau River with his Czech wife and happily making “polished little gems” for American schools.
“Sometimes it takes us one year to make a six-minute film,” the Chicago-born, California-reared Deitch said. “You can’t do that in America. Nobody can afford to put the time into little things.
“At my stage, I’m not trying to win any more Oscars. Instead we give each cartoon tender loving care. “The luxury of living in Europe is that I don’t have to make so much money. I’m earning a lot less than in New York, but I have a lot more in the bank.
“And I can believe in the films I’m making now,” said the man who used to turn out commercials and “Popeye” cartoons by the dozen. “That’s the key to my own happiness.”
Deitch, 49, began his unique odyssey in 1959. when he was 34 and had his own firm in New York. He had been creative director with Terrytoons, had made the Bert and Harry Piel beer commercials for television, had a wife, three children, a big house in the suburbs and a high salary.
“I was headed for a heart attack,” he says now.

Then entered William L. Snyder, an American cartoon entrepreneur who had bought films for years from a top-flight Prague studio and now wanted the Czechs to make films for the U.S. market from American children’s books. Snyder needed an American director in Prague to give the films the zip and pace American audiences demand and to act as liason with the Czechs. He asked Deitch to take the job.
“It was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Deitch said. “But I had barely heard of Czechoslovakia and the contract I signed gave me every kind of out.”
When he arrived, Zdenka, the young Czech woman in charge of Snyder’s films, was so hurt at the outside interference that she refused to meet him at the airport.
“But I felt I had as much to learn from her as she did from me. And after the first week Zdenka said to me, ‘If you like going shopping, I go with you.’
“The next Wednesday night we had dinner and fell in love. We were both married, and this really opened up a great set of problems for both of us.” Deitch also had fallen in love with dark, romantic old Prague.
He and Snyder signed a seven-year contract, enabling him to stay in Prague to make “Tom and Jerry” and “Popeye” cartoons. He and Zdenka married in 1964.
Deitch, a trim, excitable man with thinning brown hair and steel-rimmed glasses, let the Snyder contract lapse and now works mostly on contract from Weston Woods Studios of Weston, Conn., directing cartoons—largely adapted from children’s books—for American schools.
He is employed by his American clients, not by the Czechs.
“Zdenka and I have some fiery battles at the studio. She’s the boss—the production manager. I’m her client. It’s her duty to stick to the contract and to keep me in line. It’s my job to get as much for my client’s money as possible.”
A small flat beside the Charles Bridge has been Deitch’s home for seven years. It is jammed with sound equipment, children’s books and many of the awards his 1,000 plus films have won. The couple also has a country house, which they are renovating with tools Deitch won by entering a design for hollow chopsticks—“for sucking up wonton soup”—in a British inventors’ contest.
Despite his success and stability here, “I can’t get over a temporary feeling,” Deitch said.
“The key to my success here is that I do my work and cause no trouble. I have my opinions but I don’t noise them around. They know I’m not a Communist, but they also know I’m not a troublemaker.
“I’m an American, but it’s not incumbent on me to write an expose of life in Czechoslavakia. We’ve got Watergate. Who am I to write about what’s wrong here. I’m a guest in their country.
“There’s a lot of things we have that they don’t,” he said, looking out of his window, across the old roofs and quiet courtyards towards the medieval alchemist’s tower beside the Moldau. “I get very confused now about which is the best way of life. The line is not so easy to draw any more.”

Deitch’s 10-day journey to Prague in 1959 continues to this day. It is there he is celebrating his 91st birthday today as cartoon fans look back at his accomplishments. For someone who became part of a dying industry years ago, he’s accomplished a lot.

Bluto Baloney

The end gag of “We Aim To Please” (1934) sees Popeye’s spinach-fueled punch turn Bluto into a baloney.



Willard Bowsky and Dave Tendlar receive screen credits. The best part of the cartoon is Sammy Timberg’s title song with lyrics by Jack Scholl. Timberg wrote some great music for the Fleischer cartoons and deserves more recognition.

Hungry For Horse

The Southern Wolf tries to get rid of the insatiably-hungry Billy Boy by putting him on a horse and sending him on his way. Billy eats the horse’s fur. Turnabout follows.



Ray Patterson and Bob Bentley work with Tex Avery regulars Grant Simmons, Mike Lah and Walt Clinton as animators on this one. Designs by Ed Benedict.

The Tonight Show That Died

The word “failure” was never associated with the brief, Conan O’Brien version of the Tonight Show. Pundits and fans were, instead, chirping about whether Jay Leno somehow forced O’Brien off the show and himself back on it. It became a debate about personalities, not ratings or content.

No, if you want to apply “failure” to any Tonight Show, it unquestionably describes a version that you likely never saw—the seven-month-long fiasco that was Tonight!—America After Dark.

Our story begins in 1956. Steve Allen had been not only hosting Tonight, but was warring (on and off camera) with Ed Sullivan on a Sunday night show for NBC. He was spelled off by Ernie Kovacs on Monday and Tuesday nights as of October 1st. But the following month, the trades announced Allen was leaving and Kovacs would be dropped if a new format met with sponsor approval. (Something was found for Ernie. In a truly misguided attempt all around, NBC slated Jerry Lewis for a 90-minute show the following January. Lewis refused to work more than an hour so Kovacs was shoved in to fill the remaining 30 minutes. Someone decided there would be no dialogue for the entire Kovacs show. It wasn’t well received).

The new format wasn’t really new at all. It was what NBC programming chief Pat Weaver had envisioned for the Today Show when it began in 1952—cut-ins in from anywhere and everywhere, about anything and everything, anchored by a “communicator.” That’s what the network decided to try in late night. And as the host, the job was handed to Jack Lescoulie who, no doubt, was anxious to get out of the shadow of Today “communicator” Dave Garroway and be the number-one guy.

The format was aptly described in this TV column from The Knickerbocker News of January 26, 1957.

Gala Sendoff Planned For the New ‘Tonight’
National Broadcasting Company's answer to the popularity of top feature films on Late Theaters in key markets all over the nation will be unfolded Monday when Tonight takes on its new "America After Dark" look. Jack Lescoulie and a battery of leading newspaper columnists will take over from Steve Allen and Ernie Kovacs as Tonight reshuffles its format completely in an effort to regain its once lofty ratings.
A three-city party — in New York, Chicago and Hollywood — will be held in honor of the new Monday-through-Friday show and televised as a portion of the premiere program.
Actress Jayne Mansfield will join in the celebration from Hollywood where Paul Coates, columnist for the Los Angeles Mirror-News and Vernon Scott of the United Press will play hosts to many film stars at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
Singer Roberta Sherwood will participate from Chicago where Irv Kupicnet, Chicago Sun-Times columnist, will host activities at the famous Pump Room, Comedian George Gobel will be seen from New York's Harwyn Club where celebrities will be greeted by columnist Hy Gardner of the N. Y. Herald Tribune and Earl Wilson of the New York Post, in addition, Bob Considine, sixth man of the team of columnists will report from Topeka, where Kansas’ 96th anniversary celebration will be in progress. Former Presidential Candidate Alfred M. Landon will be Considine’s guest.

Tonight cameras also will invade the Mount Sinai Hospital maternity ward in New York City on the opening snow, as well as dropping in at the Argonne National Atomic Laboratories in Chicago and the poker houses on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
Norman Frank, one of the original producers of Wide Wide World, will use many of the techniques of NBC's alternate Sunday show in his new assignment. Frank said the “main concentration” will be to capture the tempo and pacing of nightlife throughout the country.
“The format will remain flexible enough to allow our cameras to go anywhere for live coverage of newsworthy events and specialties dealing with ‘Nighttime USA’,” Frank said.
"We will make backstage visits to theaters and nightclubs to talk with top personalities. We'll showcase new talent, attend parties and venture into any phase of nighttime activity that is technically feasible”.
Lescoulie will go from one extreme to another as host of the new program. For the past five years, Lescoulie has been leaving his bed at 3:43 a. m, to be in time for his duties as Dave Garroway's right-hand man on the Today show. In his new schedule, Lescoulie will not get up until 11 a. m.



Thus the new Tonight Show premiered on January 28, 1957. Critics hated it. Perhaps the best part of the show was something that would never, ever happen in the all-too-thoroughly screened late night talk shows of today—the unexpected, courtesy of Dean Martin. This column from the Philadelphia Inquirer was published January 30, 1957.

New 'Tonight!' No Fun After Dark
By HARRY HARRIS
ON MONDAY at 11:15 P.M., NBC's "Tonight" acquired an exclamation point. It also acquired some new features that rated a /*%/ to go with the !
To replace the civilized fun of Steve Allen and Ernie Kovacs, the network shoveled together a bewildering assortment of stuff culled from “Today,” “Wide Wide World” and “Stork Club.”
Most of these items were repeated, a couple of minutes at a gulp, three or four times during the 105-minute duration of the East Coast telecast. This mineing of material was obviously intended to impress anybody who tuned in, however briefly, with the fact that the show's six newspaper columnist cohosts were widely scattered.
The only trouble is that zero divided by three or four is still zero, and that constant repetition of "Let's go to Hollywood" and "Let's go to Chicago" quickly suggested a better idea: "Let's go to sleep." Despite this inclination, we stayed with it to the last dismaying moment.
WITH Jack Lescoulie watching the store while his newsmen colleagues were digging up stories and Constance Moore along for no perceptible reason except to keep Lescoulie company, the program kept bouncing in and out of New York like a rubber ball attached to a paddle board.
At dull-looking parties in New York, Chicago, Beverly Hills and Topeka, enough names were dropped to stock a suburban telephone book.
Even for television, the small talk was almost unbelievably small. Jayne Mansfield, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Joan Crawford, Roberta Sherwood, Marion Marlowe, Alf Landon and a trio of mayors were among the burblers.
Dean Martin's talk was small, too, but in a different way. Asked to discuss a magazine article by his ex-partner, Jerry Lewis. Martin lashed out with snarling comments like these:
“Everything was full of lies but one thing. He wrote it . . . I could do a write-up on Jerry, but not even ‘Confidential’ would print it . . . Get back together with him? Ha! Not even in the same country! They'll put him away for a while, but he'll get out.”
It was a shocking exhibition of no fun after dark, but it served one devastating purpose. It had the harsh sound of truth, and exposed most of the program’s conversation for the contrived oohing and ahing it was.
THERE were some interesting sequences—robot-manipulators of radioactive materials in action; a California “poker club,” where in effect the gamblers rent the premises; Dr. Karl Meninger opining, in a discussion of don't-give-a-damn pills, “I'm not so sure tranquillity is the aim of life; maybe we need some do-give-a-damn pills.” But these were given relatively short shrift and added up to mighty few nuggets amid all that garbage.
Of the six newspapermen involved, only two—Paul Coates, in Los Angeles, and Irv Kupcinet, in Chicago—displayed any authority before the camera. Hy Gardner, an old hand at local telecasting, looked up from his notes long enough to take exception to Edward G. Robinson's comment, “You're not going Mike Wallace on me.” “I gave Mike Wallace lessons in this,” Gardner said sharply.
The other newsmen participating were Vernon Scott, Earl Wilson and Bob Considine.
"Entertainment" during the 105 minutes consisted of a few pallid gags by George Gobel, a "reading" by Robinson, a song by Miss Sherwood.
Of course, it was a premiere, and so ambitious a project deserves time to iron out the bugs. But “Tonight!”—complete with exclamation point—is as buggy as they come.

At the risk of being repetitious, let’s pass on the opinion of Herald-Tribune syndicate columnist John Crosby, published February 2nd.

Top Columnists Present Pretty Terrible TV Show
From Beverly Hills by long distance telephone came the menacing voice of an actor I know. “We're all waiting, Crosby,” he snarled, “to see whether you're going to be as rough on these newspapermen as you'd be on us actors if we had stunk up the air the way they did.” There was no point in asking him which program he meant. There could only be one—the new “Tonight” or, as it's subtitled, “America After Dark.”
There are a whole mess of newspaper columnists involved in this terrible enterprise—Earl Wilson and Hy Gardner of New York; Irv Kupcinet of Chicago; Paul Coates and Vernon Scott of Hollywood, and Bob Considine who I guess, represents America at large—and the kindest thing I can say about them is that they would be among the first to denounce the program if they weren't on it.
Rather Horrifying
I've seen two “Tonights” and I can best describe them by picking out a few highlights. On the first one, Dean Martin was persuaded to talk about an article written about his former partner Jerry Lewis: “That article is full of lies. Only one thing true about it and that is that he wrote it.” There was lots more, all rather horrifying. In Kansas, Alf M. Landon told Bob Considine of the Democrats who finally elected a governor in Kansas: “Well, they're eating pretty high off the hog now but by 1958 they'll be up salt creek.”
In Hollywood, Jayne Mansfield, in a sepulchral whisper that may have been her dying breath or may on the other hand have been the way she thinks busty blondes have to talk, confided to Scott that she was going to build a heart-shaped house and a heart-shaped pool and a heart-shaped bathtub for two. Kupcinet broke in from Chicago to ask about her weight-lifting and what it did for her. “It's brought out quite a few of my finer points,” murmured Miss Jayne. “It straightens things and puts things in the right places.”
In New York, a baby was born within camera range of Hy Gardner. The baby sensibly clammed up but Gardner didn't. “You've certainly proved one thing, that certain people do get born in New York,” cried Gardner. “And now back to Jack Lescoulie.”
All They Did Was Drink

The “And now we take you to” bit was heard again and again and again. They took us to Chicago and to Kansas City and Hollywood to the Harwyn, the Beverly Hilton, to Radio City, to a maternity ward while Lescoulie burbled “Exciting things are happening” and “It's all live and it's all happening on Tonight!” The trouble is that nothing special was happening, at least not on the show. There were parties in three cities but apart from making singularly ill-advised remarks, the people did nothing but drink. And while I'm well aware that vicarious pleasures are among television's chief attractions, I don't think vicarious drinking is going to catch on. You got to do your own.
The second night of “excitement and gayety and glamour” (Mr. Lescoulie's words, not mine) was not quite so dull and tasteless and pointless as the first night, largely because it just wasn't possible. Lescoulie interviewed Eli Wallach about movie acting and this was interesting and could have gone on longer. Later, Wallach did a reading about the joys and torments of acting and this was offbeat and absorbing, Kupcinet landed on the Merchandise Mart in Chicago in a helicopter and we learned a little about Chicago's growing helicopter taxi service.
‘Those Bloody Parties’
But then we got back into one of those bloody parties from Hollywood. Among the glamorous, gay, exciting people there were Jolie Gabor, Linda Darnell and Ann Miller, and mostly they all talked at once. This was a lucky thing because the few coherent lines that emerged from the babble will not be quoted in all the anthologies. This bit closed with a lecture on what every young mother should know from Mama Gabor which was totally unintelligible and may conceivably have been delivered in Hungarian.
The best part of the two nights was a visit with Paul Coates to a legal gambling joint in California where bored housewives play poker. I didn't know such joints existed and Coates, an old pro at this sort of thing, brought out the salient features of the place and the people who run it and inhabit it. But then just as my spirits started to lift, we were wafted back to New York and George Gobel asking Joan Crawford if she slept in pajamas. And the next night, Earl Wilson got his hair dyed red in a beauty parlor, setting back journalism 200 years.

NBC knew it had a disaster. Executive Producer Dick Linkroum told Variety in a story dated February 4th that format changes were coming and that it would take about two months to iron out the show. The first thing he did was dump producer Norman Frank (the press was told he’d be gone on another assignment for six weeks; he never returned) and took the job himself. Whatever changes he made didn’t work. The network’s brass met in mid-May and decided to keep Tonight but with some undisclosed format changes. Within days, Earl Wilson resigned and it was announced Lescoulie would be returning to the second banana’s job on the Today Show. On June 5, 1957 Variety announced the new format—a variety show starring Jack Paar with “a 12-piece orchestra, three guest stars nightly, an additional recording star and a comedy panel.” Gardner, Scott, Coates and Kupcinet were fired. (NBC had planned to use the 11:15 to 11:30 p.m. slot as a news commentary lead-in, but affiliates rejected the idea and it never happened).

Paar hadn’t done an awful lot since Jack Benny plucked him from nowhere and decreed Paar to be his summer replacement on radio in 1947. His radio variety show fizzled, there was a stint as a game show host, a failed morning show on CBS, a failed daytime show on CBS, and a fill-in job for Ed Sullivan which resulted in the lowest ratings of the season. In fact, Paar was announced in June 1956 as Allen’s permanent Monday-Tuesday replacement on Tonight but, for some reason, Linkroum decided instead to go with rotating hosts, including Paar, until Kovacs was hired. By June 1957, Paar was languishing in what was left of network radio, over at ABC doing a late morning show.

The seemingly out-of-nowhere Tonight job was an incredible break for Paar, and turned out to be a brilliant decision by NBC, even though some affiliates initially dropped his show in favour of movies. He debuted July 29th. The Station Relations department somehow convinced stations in Nashville, Boston and St. Louis to carry Paar. More affiliates followed. So did advertisers. By the end of October, the Paar show brought in close to one million dollars in new business for the network. On November 8th, Tonight piled up $4,200,000 in gross new business, a single-day record for NBC. Paar was a hero. Paar saved the day. And Tonight.

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.