Several years before Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera put the song “Clementine” in the mouth of a televised blue hound inspired by Tex Avery’s Southern wolf, Avery put the song in the mouth of opera singer Poochini (Spike) in the great cartoon Magical Maestro.
Avery’s mastery of timing is in full view in this wonderful short as a revengeful magician, disguised as a conductor, uses his magic wand, disguised as a baton, to transform Spike into all kinds of things in mid-performance on the stage.
In one sequence, Spike is turned into a nasally cowboy singer, whining out “Clementine.” Here are consecutive frames.
Cowboy Spike walks around on the stage as he sings. Evidently, he’s in cowpoke ecstasy as his eyes are closed. Note the high leg kick. These drawings are consecutive but were shot on twos, with the background moved slightly in the second shot.
In mid syllable, Spike realises he’s been transformed. These are consecutive frames. Look how subtle the expressions are. None of these big-eyed takes that Avery was known for. Avery knew they wouldn’t work in this cartoon. All the changes in character/costume had to be organic so as not to interrupt Spike’s performance.
While the main plot is going on, Avery and storyman Rich Hogan toss in a continuing element—the magician’s rabbits keep popping up. And always when you least expect it. Consecutive frames again. You can see from the mouth and body language that Spike’s annoyed his performance keeps getting screwed with.
Spike needs six drawings on twos before he realises the rabbits are back. He tosses them away elegantly, befitting someone in the high-brow profession of opera singer.
Avery and Hogan had to find new ways to get Spike back into his evening clothes after each transformation. They’re all imaginative. Here’s what they did in this scene.
My wild guess is the scene was animated by Grant Simmons. I’ll accept any correction.
I can’t say this is my favourite Avery cartoon but I’ve posted at least a half dozen times about it and there’s always something to admire.
Ben Washam and Lloyd Vaughn are the only credited animators on the Pepe Le Pew cartoon The Cat’s Bah. There are more smears than animators.
As was mentioned in an earlier post, Chuck Jones temporarily split up his unit at the Warner Bros studio some time in 1952 and had his animators work on different cartoons. Dick Thompson and Abe Levitow animated Feline Frame-Up (Production 1278), Ken Harris handled No Barking (Production 1282) while Washam and Vaughn drew The Cats Bah (Production 1285). All were released in 1954.
Was anyone in the 1950s indifferent about Liberace? Women gurgled over him. Men were disgusted by him. Columnists teed off of him in various levels of ridicule.
Liberace was around during World War Two—the ad to the right is from March 1945—and played nightclubs with some success before Don Fedderson of KLAC put him on prime time on January 19, 1952. KLAC’s billings jumped. Fedderson sold Liberace’s shows into syndication for $1,500,000 by year’s end, and the pianist became a national phenomenon.
John Crosby of the Herald Tribune syndicate was a respected columnist. But not to Liberace fans. Crosby had little time for the banal and didn’t mind telling his readers. And then he didn’t mind telling his readers about the avalanche of letters he received from Lee’s overly-ardent admirers (Liberace, in turn, cattily gave his feelings about Crosby’s reviews, both in public and on stage). Newspapers even commented about it in the editorial section. So did Crosby’s fill-in columnists.
Here’s the column that started it all. It appeared on February 13, 1954. Tony Wons, in case you’ve never heard of him, read poetry on the air in the 1930s.
Hard Round Pebbles
By John Crosby
Well, radio had Tony Wons and survived. I confidently predict that television will survive Liberace, too. These are just growing pains, kiddies. Sometimes, a man wonders, though, whether the women of this fair land are people or whether some other designation ought to be given them—say, plips—to distinguish them from the rest of us.
The things women go nuts over resist rational interpretation and way up on the head of the list—strenuously resisting any form of explanation—is Liberace. Still, there’s no arguing that the dames go for this guy. His audience is two-thirds female. (I don’t know how the one-third males got in there. Dragged, I expect. You notice it took two gals to drag each man in.)
If women vote for Liberace as a piano player—and they sure do—it raises grave questions about their competence to vote for anything. I’m not suggesting that we repeal the Nineteenth Amendment, exactly, just that maybe we think about it a little bit.
Liberace—his dimples, his flowing curls, his flashing teeth, and (only incidentally) his piano—are now on 134 television stations, delighting heaven knows how many elderly and teen-age plips and infuriating heaven knows how many men. The program opens with Liberace banging away on his piano in almost total darkness; then the lights come up gradually and there is Liberace, bathed in illumination like a minor revelation. If you think he can play the piano any better with the lights on than with them off, you’re kidding yourself, chum. He does just as well in the dark as he does in the daylight which is to say not very well.
The Liberace repertoire deserves special mention of its own. It isn’t true, as an embittered friend of mine once said, that Liberace just plays “Lady of Spain” over and over again in different keys. He has lots of other numbers, most of them “The Warsaw Concerto.” He plays them heavily with little theatrical flourishes and rills and usually ending with one finger scampering the length of the keyboard.
Bless my soul, if it didn’t bring back memories of a dear departed auntie of mine who played that way. Auntie had almost as much hair as Liberace but no dimples and she died, unfortunately, before television was invented. Auntie would have loved Liberace.
While he’s playing other dim figures float around him—a girl with a tambourine, or men with violins, or what have you. Liberace’s counterpoint to an electric guitar reminds me of a statement Joseph Conrad made about another piano player in “Victory” who, he said, rained notes like hard round pebbles on the defenseless skulls of the onlookers.
Once in awhile, Liberace raises his lungs—he has a voice like an unsuccessful contestant on the Amateur Hour—in song and on these occasions you are thankful that nobody has written words to “The Warsaw Concerto.” He does comedy numbers, too, horrible enough to drive Victor Borge right back to serious music and in these he is likely to do great violence to some of the finest music Wagner ever wrote by affixing silly lyrics to them.
Still, he’s on 134 television stations as millions of plips swoon from New York to Amarillo. Just after he faded back into the darkness singing that he’d be seeing me when the night is new (Like fudge he will!), I got out some of the records of Buddy Weed, a pianist who has more talent in his index finger than Liberace in all ten, and played them. They were wonderfully soothing.
In came the letters. A week later, Crosby was out with another column.
Fans Stand By Liberace
By JOHN CROSBY
I don’t usually pay much attention to letters. The letter writers, it is my considered opinion, wield entirely too much influence in our fear-ridden society already. This is the age of letter-writing. Never before in recorded history have so many people leapt to their escritoires to pen a missive to someone they don’t know, expressing an opinion on the letter receiver’s act at the Palace or his yesterday’s column in The Daily Bladder or his appearance on the Milton Berle show.
The world, I’ve arbitrarily decided, is divided into two classes of people—those who write letters and those who receive them. If you have a column or a television show, you receive letters. If you haven’t, you write ‘em.
I’M A LETTER receiver and we letter receivers get to loathe mail, even the nice mail, simply because there’s so much of it. How do so many people have so much time? Every time Arthur Godfrey opens his mouth 30,000 letters pour in. Just think of the man-hours—or more probably woman-hours.
Of course, there is a good deal of polite lying about the amount of mail anyone receives. If an entertainer says he gets 10,000 letters a week, you may assume that on a good week, he gets maybe 2,000.
The letters fall into two categories. Category 1: You are a prince among men. Category 2: You are a louse. Both opinions are wildly exaggerated. The general idea of the game is to keep category 1 well ahead of category 2. This isn't hard. When I first started this column about eight years ago, I kept a count of the mail and it ran anywhere from 5 to 1 to 8 to 1 in my favor. I haven’t done that in some time, but I should guess that ratio hasn’t changed much.
That is, until I wrote a column about Liberace. Then the roof fell in. Brother, there hasn’t been vituperation like that since Cicero delivered the Philippics in the fifth century B.C. The nicer letters started out: “Drop dead.” The not-so-nice ones—well, never mind.
OUT IN INDIANA, The Indianapolis News printed the Liberace column on page 1 and then sat back to await the storm. It struck. The News switchboard was inundated with calls from infuriated women and the letters started arriving the next day. (“John Crosby is the most terrible writer I have ever read. He is rotten, disgusting.” That’s one of the more restrained letters.)
The Indianapolis ladies dug up the telephone number of a local resident who was unfortunate enough to be named John Crosby and his telephone rang through the night with calls from irate Liberace fans. (From the New York John Crosby to the Indianapolis John Crosby, a heartfelt apology.)
Last night The South Bend Tribune—the Indiana girls seem to be madder than the others, though they’re pretty mad even in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love—called long distance to say the tempest had engulfed them, too.
WHAT’S WITH these girls anyhow? It isn’t just the quantity of indignation (which is prodigious), but the intensity of it which bemuses me. You can't tell me that many women get that furious over a matter of disagreement as to the merits of a piano player, any piano player. (In that regard, I still think Liberace plays piano as if he were wearing boxing gloves. I could phone local 802 of the musicians’ union and dig up 100 piano players I’d rather listen to.)
YOU THINK MAYBE it’s the maternal instinct this man arouses? I give up. I just think it’s news that a piano player—any piano player and especially THIS piano player—can evoke such a furious defense.
You suppose maybe in 10 or 15 years, I could venture into Indiana without being torn to pieces? I like Indiana.
The brutal criticism Liberace received in the press never affected his popularity. He connected with, and pandered to, his audience, through careful choreography. Boy bands today do the same thing to girls, who become as ridiculously and irrationally vitriolic as Liberace’s fans 60 years ago if you stoop to ridicule their fantasy lads. Lee moved from syndicated TV to Las Vegas where audiences added to his incredible wealth. Indeed, there’s still a fascination about him. In the end, people (critics notwithstanding) found nothing wrong with his combination of classics, camp and corn, and discovered it could even be entertaining.
Everyone associates big-eye takes with Tex Avery. He didn’t invent them, but he mastered them after he arrived at MGM from Warners in 1941. And others borrowed from him.
Here are some examples from Dog Trouble, a 1942 Tom and Jerry cartoon directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. The cartoon features great expressions that run the gamut of emotions, which is no doubt part of the reason the series was so popular. Here are some of the wilder takes.
These next five drawings are consecutive, drawn by Irv Spence and his assistant (John Liggera?). The cross-eyed drawing seems to have been a popular choice with Spence; he used it at Warners under Avery.
Incidentally, this cartoon was started before Avery arrived at MGM.
Tex Avery’s influence wasn’t far away in Mike Lah’s Oscar-nominated One Droopy Knight (1957). It owes a lot to Señor Droopy (1949), and the climax gag is partly lifted from Homesteader Droopy (1954) and partly from other Avery cartoons where a character cracks up into pieces.
A dragon draws a moustache on a picture of Droopy’s beloved princess. “That makes me mad,” exclaims our hero, who proceeds to beat up the dragon. Finally, he snaps off the dragon’s tail (it is hollow) and bashes him with it. These frames tell the story.
For ripping off Avery, Homer Brightman gets a story credit. The animators credited are Irv Spence, Bill Schipek, Herman Cohen and Ken Southworth, with Ed Benedict designing a great-looking dragon.
The question every radio star faced in the late 1940s was not whether they were going to get into television but when. Granted, there were a few exceptions (Jim and Marian Jordan, Phil Harris), but everyone in the radio industry saw more and more sponsor money being drained and moved into quickly-growing network TV.
Entertainment reporters kept asking Jack Benny when he’d make the jump. In interviews, he never seemed sure. But obviously talks were going on behind the scenes with CBS, American Tobacco (his sponsor) and his handlers to make it happen.
Finally, by August 1950, they were ready. Almost. Variety reported on the 21st that Benny would be on the air for Lucky Strike every eight weeks on a Sunday night, beginning October 29th. Eddie Anderson’s Rochester was speculated to be a full cast member; American Tobacco had scuttled a Rochester daytime radio show only months before. Guest stars would be part of it and the format would be a cross between the Benny radio and stage shows. The first problem was all the air time on CBS was booked. American Tobacco had a half-hour from 7:30 to 8 on Sunday it could pre-empt but Benny insisted on doing a 45-minute show and refused to go a half-hour or an hour. The other problem was CBS discovered it didn’t have Benny sewn up for television. Amazingly, the contract with the huge bucks the network poured into the Benny vault to take him away from NBC in late 1948 didn’t have a clause including television. And NBC had been talking to Benny for months about doing a TV show on Chime Time (Variety, October 4).
The problems were all solved. CBS worked out a new Benny deal including television. American Tobacco bought 45 minutes of time on Saturday night that Anheuser-Busch owned for the Ken Murray Show (Variety, Oct. 11); Murray made an appearance on the Benny show as part of the deal.
Jack prepared for his TV show by sitting in as a producer on the Wiere Brothers’ TV show on CBS; Benny had convinced CBS president Bill Paley and underling Harry Ackerman to sign the Wieres (Variety, Sept. 18).
Critics were generally pleased with the Benny premiere though several, including Jack Gould of The New York Times and Joe Csida of Billboard, complained there was too much old radio and not enough television (Gould wrote two reviews, one for the Sunday magazine edition). But Benny must have known his audience tuned in to his radio show because of familiarity and that’s what he was going to give them on TV; John Crosby of the New York Herald-Tribune admitted that approach made the most sense (you can read Crosby’s review HERE).
Here’s what Weekly Variety had to say about the show in its November 1, 1950 edition.
JACK BENNY SHOW
With Jack Benny, Eddie (Rochester) Anderson, Don Wilson, Sportsmen Quartet, Artie (“Mr. Kitzel”) Auerbach, Mel Blanc; music conductor, Mahlon Merrick; guests, Dinah Shore, Ken Murray
Producer: Hilliard Marks
Director: Dick Linkroum
Writers: Sam Perrin, Milt Josefsberg, George Balzer, John Tackaberry
45 Mins.; Sat., 8 p.m.
AMERICAN TOBACCO CO.
CBS-TV, from New York
(BBD&O)
No question about it — Jack Benny is as big a video click as he has been on top of the radio heap for so many years. With that conclusion established unequivocally, the rest of his CBSTV premiere is a matter of degree. (Actually this is not his video debut, Benny having done an al fresco stint on the Coast last year on KTTV and at the time it was far from a signal bow through faulty makeup and a general haphazard production technique; or rather lack of it).
For CBS-TV, under his Fort Knox deal, Benny proved himself a very worthy asset. He has poise, pace and polish. His debut vehicle of what was announced a once-every-eight-weeks’ series was insured by his writers through reincorporating the trademarked Bennyisms — the close-student-of-the-dollar guy, including all the props that ran the gamut from 8c for an autograph (bus-fare type joke) to the coin phone, Bendix laundromat and coin-vending cigarette machine in the parlor. Not forgetting the garrulous polly who snitches on Rochester; the latter’s references to his boss’ asthmatic motor vehicle; the goodlooking vis-a-vis who dates Eddie Anderson via a phone bit. The Ameche is again well utilized for a telephonic “audition” by Dinah Shore of “I’m Yours.” The songstress took her camera angles very flatteringly throughout “Tess’ Torch Song” and her finale duet with Benny, “I Oughta Know More About You”; per usual, of course, she handled her vocal chores in big league manner.
The cohesiveness which usually distinguishes Benny's AM shows came through on his TV debut with an ear-pulling bit for the LSMFT commercial (first with Don Wilson, on cue, and later as a more affectionate bit with Miss Shore); the Sportsmen Quartet’s outlandish parody rhapsodizing of the commercials (“No Business Like Show Business,” and later, in tails, with Miss Shore in “Ought Know More About You”).
In excellent composure, Benny attacked the new medium with such kidding-on-the-square asides as “I’d give a million to know how I look” and “I wasn’t nervous; it was just that my sponsor didn’t have the nerve.” His monolog, as he pondered the pattern of his new adventure into TV, accented “I’m not stingy,” and from there on the bits and scenes gave lie to the premise by continuing his trademarked radio characterization, such as checking up on Rochester’s banana-swiping, and the rest.
While this first show was essentially a transmutation of his AM format into TV, there's a funny bit with Mel Blanc, as the video technician who came onstage to expose some of the back-of-the-camera stuff. The mike boom was utilized as a conveyor for a prop pack of Luckies for the Don Wilson commercial which the rotund announcer handled well. It was here that Benny reprised another radio-familiar running gag — the Warners and “Horn Blows At Midnight.” Rochester’s scene was a good pace-changer for a song-and-dance to “Blue Heaven,” and the “Mr. Kitzel” bit, well foiled by Artie Auerbach, likewise proved a solid interlude.
Ken Murray and Anheuser-Busch, his beer sponsor, who relinquished this Saturday-at-8 slot got a commercial credit, and Murray came on for an effective comedy bit, including what probably was a genuine cue that time was running out. As it developed, Benny could have done the full hour solidly but for some reason the comedian picked on a compromise 45 minutes as more “right” for him on TV. That's fielder’s choice although, from the network’s viewpoint, it permitted Sam Levenson to hitch-hike importantly for that comedian’s own 15-minute premiere.
For the finale Benny pompously essayed “Love In Bloom” on the fiddle to a walkout audience and the usual finaleing commercials.
One salient emerges from the Benny show. It is common to all the topflight comedy programs—and that is the necessity for instantaneity of telecast. This may not militate as much as it sounds, against the video prognosticators that film, eventually, will constitute the bulk of TV programs because there are many voids and off-hours to be filled. But for the top shows, particularly' the comedy, variety and revue shows, the knowledgeability [sic] that all the obvious little nervousness habits, the fluffs, and the uncertainties of coming out on the button, makes for an important common denominator in the audience reflex. It’s like seeing Saturday gridcasts as they’re happening, or the Friday night fights—after you know the winnah the film versions are relatively road companies of the original cast. If you know the score there's something lacking; and while we've gotten to accept taped AM shows, somehow for a long time TV had better adhere to the live technique in order to preserve that human equation of maybe the jokes won't come out as scripted. But when they do it’s that much more boffo.
The back-of-the-camera credits are generously apportioned to all. Mahlon Merrick did a good music accomp but what is there about video bands, when they get their innings, they want to make sure they’re heard? It’s probably more the director's fault in not using the music fader to maintain volume balance with the dialog. In short, the ear is attuned to the comedy but give the average TV orchestra half a chance and they go into high and blast the looker’s eardrums. This has been a noticeable shortcoming on almost all networks, and usually with comedy programs, as if the maestros resent having been held in check as mere musical accompaniment.
But Benny won’t blast anybody away from the video screen. If New York is such a magnet to the comedian he’s a cinch to accelerate that once-in-eight-weeks’ schedule. He should. Benny is bigtime looker-innering. Abel
The choices of guests were interesting. Dinah Shore was about to open at the Palladium in London with Benny. A half-hour Kitzel radio show was for sale and Artie Auerbach (photo left, with Jack) had already cut a pilot. Mel Blanc was one of Jack’s close friends who had gone from occasional appearances to being on the radio show almost every week in a variety of one-shot and regular roles. And judging by Jack’s respect for Eddie Anderson (who always rated highly with the Benny audience), I’m sure he wanted to showcase him with the dance number, though there was so much living room furniture in the way, he didn’t get a chance to cut loose.
Benny, arguably, had the best timing in show business, but his timing was way off on his TV show. 45 minutes was too short. A duet with Dinah Shore wraps up far too quickly. The last gag (the audience walking out) doesn’t play out; it’s cut off. Director Linkroum cuts to Dorothy Collins who doesn’t seem to notice she’s been cued to sing the cigarette jingle. In fact, that wasn’t supposed to be the ending at all. Benny was annoyed with what happened but he really only had himself to blame. He could have, and should have, taken the full hour (Wildroot bought the last 15 minutes for Sam Levenson). Variety of November 1st reveals:
Luckies’ Comm’l Must Go On, Vexes Benny As TV Finale Is Scissored
Jack Benny was irked at Lucky Strike sacrificing what he thought was more important—an inaugural first show—in order to get in a finale commercial by The Sportsmen Quartet with Dinah Shore. The comedian said so in an afterpiece which included Miss Shore singing another song, the comedian telling some off-beat stories which went so well that he observed “television would be a cinch if I could use this kind of material,” and a personal by film star George Montgomery.
Montgomery is Miss Shore’s husband, and the surprise topper was to have been Montgomery’s appearance on the show, chiding Benny for trying to date his wife (Miss Shore), who had just done a double-vocal with Benny, “I Oughta Know More About You.”
The Bennys (Mary Livingstone) and the Montgomerys flew back to the Coast Sunday night (29) to tape a few more shows before Benny and Miss Shore fly to London for the Variety Artists Federation “Command Performance” Nov. 13. He does his next TV show from New York on Dec. 11, this time cutting down to 30 minutes and preempting the 7:30-8 period currently occupied by the Lucky Strike-sponsored “This Is Show Business.” Thereafter he’s slated to fly to Korea to entertain the GIs around the Xmas holidays.
This was post was supposed to be a lead-in to a video site link to view the actual show. I had never seen it until this week. But, silly me, I’ve discovered it was shared on the public International Jack Benny Fan Club Facebook group. If you’re on Facebook, you can see it there. The chemistry between Jack and Miss Shore in the song is great, Mel Blanc is always funny, there’s a singing pumpkin and people in weird Hallowe’en costumes in the far-too-long opening commercial (I didn’t realise until now that Snooky Lanson sounds like Kay Kyser), and Artie Auerbach shows off some subtle TV acting. The show was off to a good start. If you’re not on Facebook, content yourself with viewing my favourite Benny TV show: Jack trying to win money from guest star Groucho Marx on guest show “You Bet Your Life.”
In attempting not to be Walt Disney, Steve Bosustow became Roy Disney instead.
Walt was the creative guy, involving himself in the writing and animating of the cartoons his company made. Roy was the behind-the-scenes guy, making the deals to keep the money flowing so the cartoons could be made. That’s more or less the role that Bosustow ended up playing in his company he co-founded, UPA.
Furthermore, he was the opposite of Walt in that he doesn’t seem to have played any creative role in his studio’s output. Indeed, when you think of the people responsible for UPA cartoons, you think of John Hubley, Bobe Cannon and maybe Pete Burness. The reason why is buried in the final paragraph on an article on the studio published by the Brooklyn Eagle on June 7, 1953.
The Eagle was a little late to the game. Bosley Crowther had filled a magazine feature column in the New York Times the previous December about the wonders of UPA. Other critical praises poured in in the wake of the success of Gerald McBoing-Boing, released in late 1950. By April 1951, it had raked in $100,000 in rentals (and cost $30,000 to make, said Variety on April 25, 1951) and won the Oscar for Best Animated Short. UPA resisted any attempts to make McBoing-Boing a series, instead satisfying exhibitors with Mr. Magoo.
‘Gerald McBoing’ Creators Hold a Cartoon Preview
By JULIAN FOX
Several years ago a new group of animated-cartoonists introduced fresh air into the animated cartoon field with their imaginative, impressionistic “Gerald McBoing-Boing.”
To those who thought that Walt Disney was more or less repeating himself, U. P. A.—the United Production of America—had picked up where the old master had become a victim of his own cliches.
Last week, U. P. A. showed a sample of their latest work, four cartoons, all original and mature. One was in the Magoo series—the near-sighted little man who is always getting into situations on account of his near-blindness. Another was about a willful brat who turns literally into a chicken when he can't get his way.
The other two were based on two widely contrasted short stories — Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart” and James Thurber’s “The Unicorn in the Garden.
“The Tell Tale Heart” is the first cartoon short to deal with a somber, serious subject such as a psychological horror story. To get the proper ghoulish effect, the animators have drawn characters and settings reminiscent of Charles Addams’ macabre work.
In adapting the Thurber story, the U. P. A. cartoonists drew light and gay people and scenes in a style almost exactly like Thurber’s. In fact, the Thurber downtrodden male and predatory female could hardly be distinguished from the characters drawn in “The Unicorn in the Garden.”
U. P. A., which was organized five years ago, first came into prominence in 1950 when it produced “Gerald McBoing-Boing,” the cartoon about the little boy who became famous for speaking sound effects rather than words.
Its next important production was “Rooty Toot Toot,” an adaptation of the Frankie and Johnny legend, where for the first time an animated cartoon dealt with such heretofore taboo subjects as sex, lust and murder.
Another milestone was their adaptation of Ludwig Bemelmans’ “Madeline,” the story of the 12 Parisian schoolgirls who do everything, as if they were one. When one comes down with appendicitis, the others all want it also, so that they all can continue, to lead identical lives.
Here, for the first time, the animators consciously imitated a writer-artist’s style, so that the cartoon looked as if it had actually been drawn by Bemelmans in his own unique manner. The success they had with “Madeline” led them to try the same thing with Thurber in “The Unicorn in the Garden.”
The man behind U. P. A. is Stephen Bosustow, a 41-year-old artist, born in Victoria, British Columbia. He won his first prize in a school art contest when he was 11.
He began his “animated” career as a painter with a small company and worked up to a job under Ub Iwerks on M-G-M’s “Flip the Frog” series. Later, he worked for Walter Lantz at Universal and spent seven years at the Disney studios, where he became a writer and story sketcher, working on the first animation of “Snow White” and doing much of the story on “Bambi” and “Fantasia.”
When he left Disney in 1941, he became a production illustrator for Hughes Aircraft, turning out illustrations for work guides for personnel who were unfamiliar with blueprints.
After producing slide films for a shipyard, Bosustow formed the Industrial Films and Poster Service, which made animated films for the armed services, Government departments and business firms.
In 1945 he founded U. P. A. with a staff of six and continued to make animated training films for the armed services and numerous business organizations.
In 1948, Bosustow’s studio made a deal by which Columbia agreed to distribute U. P. A.’s entertainment products. With an assured outlet, U. P. A. began to produce the cartoon shorts that have made it famous.
Much of U. P. A.’s success from Bosustow’s policy of allowing great freedom of creative expression, which has drawn to the studio many of the leading animation artists. Those in charge of the company’s units have complete freedom to experiment with and develop new techniques.
Unfortunately, all that creative freedom turned out to bite the studio. After the initial praise from critics as tired of Disney and Bugs Bunny as the UPA artists were, everyone went back to not caring about theatrical cartoons. Bosustow agreed with Warners’ Ed Selzer who told the Motion Picture Herald that exhibitors were only interested in a saleable name and doubted they ever looked at the cartoons. Aside from their creators, UPA’s experiments in art and design appealed to few. They ate up all the money the studio made on Magoos and TV commercials. The prime-time Boing Boing Show on CBS went alarmingly over budget and was too precious to keep the interest of kids who, the ratings kept showing, wanted Bugs Bunny. Within a few years Bosustow was bought out and shoved aside. In a perverse and unfortunate way, he really did succeed in not being Walt Disney.
