Jasper's Derby

CBS wasn’t among the networks covering the 67th running of the Bluegrass Classic in the George Pal Puppetoon Jasper’s Derby (1946). NBC and Mutual were. The Blue Network was there, too, even though the name had been discontinued on June 15, 1945 by the American Broadcasting Company (which couldn’t use “ABC” for a number of months because a smaller radio chain had that identifier).



The Puppetoons are striking pieces of work, thoughtfully laid out and technically dazzling. Boxoffice magazine reviewed the animated short in its edition of May 18, 1946, about four months before it was released by Paramount

Excellent. Striking Technicolor and skillful manipulation of puppets are combined to make this an outstanding one-reeler. In addition there is the amusing story of the violin-playing Jasper, who discovers that his music can reconvert a retired, broken-down race horse into a Kentucky Derby winner. The horse, Hi-Octane, not only wins the derby, but earns enough money in that race to provide Jasper and himself with a comfortable home and long, cool mint juleps.

Former Disney scribe Webb Smith came up with a fine story which builds nicely to a climax. Jasper’s violin playing becomes so intense, the strings break. But he quickly substitutes the horse’s tail for strings to keep the underdog animal zooming on the track. The race announcer says “But here comes something up from behind running in circles.” The perspective of the scene is from overhead and animator Herbert Johnson uses a cycle of eight drawings to have the old grey horse run around the young competitors. Notice the shadows. An incredible amount of work went into these stop-motion shorts.



The horse may be grey, but he has a stereotyped old Southern black man voice, while Jasper (played by Sara Berner) speaks in dialect as well.

Roughly a year later, Pal stopped making shorts. They became too unprofitable.

The Home Fires Burning

“So long, Betty,” says Betty’s house after Miss Boop and a witchy looking Mother Goose fly out a window. “I’ll keep the home fires burning.” And he does. The house catches fire and burns to the ground.



It’s because of a gag like this that I love the old Fleischer cartoons. Of course, the home is completely intact at the end of the cartoon.

Mother Goose Land’s credited animators are Doc Crandall and Seymour Kneitel.

The Comedians by Walter Winchell

Sorry, but I don’t find jokes about body parts and bodily functions, punctuated by f-bombs, all that funny. Maybe it was my upbringing; my father loved non sequiturs and my uncle revelled in puns, especially ones that involved some thought. Maybe it was because my exposure to humour at a young age was through animated cartoons and TV sitcoms and variety shows in an age when shock or obscene humour couldn’t be broadcast into a home. I prefer to laugh at, or even admire, wordplay, and am bored with tired or obvious attempts to shock me.

Maybe that’s why I like the humour of a bygone age, and enjoy the comedy of radio, movies and television of the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s. I still laugh at Jack Benny and Stan Freberg and Phil Silvers and Carol Burnett, even though their approaches (and humour) are quite different. And it’s nice to know others do, too.

Walter Winchell took time out of his red-baiting and personal grudge-bashing in his syndicated newspaper column of December 19, 1954 (within nine months, he would flame out at ABC and end up at the Mutual network) to let loose with some squibs on people he admired in the radio/TV comedy business. It was subtitled “The Comedians.” I’m not much of a fan of Winchell’s but I liked this column and he picked a pretty good group of people to write about.

Jesters have gifted civilization with laughter—a precious possession that provides temporary refuge against the terror of a world crisis or a dreary daily existence. Looming among the titans of buffoonery is Jimmy Durante, a remarkable performer, full of contradictory characteristics. He is the nightclub comic with high comedy attacks of apoplexy who rasps: “Dere goes a load of ice wid three olives. Twelve-fifty! Somebody gotta pay for the cocktail room.” He is the anguished man who was extremely sensitive about the size of his schnoz for many years. But he made it the badge of success. He is the piano-flogging fool, inka-dinka-doodling, who was gripped by melancholy and almost quit when his friend and advisor, Lou Clayton, passed. “Without Lou,” he mourned, “it was like losing my arms and legs.”
He retains his passion for Broadway's electric excitement and always occupies a hotel room offering the best view of the shimmering graph. But Jimmy also cherishes nature's solitude despite occasional irreverence for its primary assets. During a fishing trip some years ago through the woods he conked every tree with a stick, bellowing: “When Durante’s up—no boid sleeps!”
Groucho Marx's sunny mischief has extended beyond his professional chores. A genuine wit. he reserves some of his sharpest jollies for dignified occasions. . . . He once attended a PTA meeting and almost caused a riot with nonsensical queries. When a Latin-American president welcomed him publicly and announced intentions to see him again the following day. Groucho cracked: “How do you know you'll be president tomorrow?”
Not even the solemnity of his initial marriage ceremony could deflate the jaunty attitude, his son's biog avers. When the minister intoned: “We are gathered here to join this couple in holy matrimony,” Groucho interrupted with: “It may be holy to you, but we have other ideas.” And when the minister enquired: “Do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?” he Groucho'd: “Well, we've gone this far, we might as well go through with it.”
W. C. Fields’ personality was more bizarre than any ludicrous character he portrayed. The early days of his career were bleak and tortuous. He was frequently bruised by hunger and disappointment. Consequently, Fields remained fearful and insecure as long as he lived. When he began climbing he distributed his coin at literally thousands of banks. Gene Fowler has noted that he had safe deposit vaults in countless U.S. cities as well as Europe, Australia and Africa. The rampant insecurity and the inevitable suspicion constantly haunted him. He concealed microphones in his Hollywood mansion—checking his servants “plotting” against him. Nightmares involving famine were incessant. The result was insomnia, fatigue, despair. The zany who made millions laugh and became a millionaire—was an emotional cripple who required an alcoholic crutch.
During his final days a friend inquired: “If you had your life to live again, what would you like to change?” His response was wistful and tragic: “I'd like to see how I would have made out without liquor.”
Vaudeville was the incubator and the crucible for many of our leading ragamuffins, of course. The struggle was a rugged one—as Bob Hope has recalled: “Bookings were often scarce. Before long, I was four thousand dollars in debt. I had holes in my shoes. I was eating doughnuts and coffee and when I met a friend one day who bought me luncheon featuring beefsteak. I had forgotten whether you cut steak with a knife or drink it out of a spoon.”
Wit frequently has a scornful quality that demolishes the absurdities of life and the vanities of individuals. Among the deftest practitioners of satirical thrusts is Fred Allen. For example, his classic: “California is a wonderful place—if you are an orange.” His barbed size-up: “Hollywood is a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for stars.”
After quitting radio he wryly commented: “It's wonderful this freedom. You can live on the money you save on aspirin” . . . His quipper-snapper about following the bangtails is typically scornful: “Horseplaying doesn't make sense. The jockeys get the ride, the horse gets the exercise, the bookmakers get the money and the horse-players get the headaches.”
His well-known knack for bright gloom inspired the legend that he once snatched a youngster from the path of s speeding truck. Then he growled: “What's the matter, kid? Don't you want to grow up and have troubles?”
Ed Wynn once noted that “the true comedian makes you laugh, but you hardly know why—at least the reason is not as obvious as the point of the gag. That's a gift, completely. Either you've got it, or you haven't.”
The source of laughter (and its motivations) has been analysed in several scholarly tomes. The average comic, however, is not as concerned with cause as he is with effect . . . Some years ago Jack Benny was dining at a Hollywood eatery when he heard the loud laughter of a lady at another table. Jack promptly approached the table and seriously questioned her escort: “Pardon me, but what did you say that made her laugh like that?”
He is constantly beset by the same impossible challenge that taunts many clicks in show biz: The compulsion to make the next show superior to the last. You become your own toughest competition—for success deprives you of the luxury of even a minor failure. This anxiety helps explain why Mrs. Benny has declared that Jack “lives on a steady diet of fingernails and coffee.”
Milton Berle is another perfectionist. He may rehearse five hours to polish a five-minute bit. In brief, being a comic is no fun. It's hard work. A clown’s desire to revel in tragedy is an ancient lure. Fannie Brice once succumbed to it and starred in a serious drama produced by David Belasco. The reviews were so-so. That ended Fannie’s flirtation with serious drama. Incidentally, she bobbed her nose for the straight acting role.
The ability to inspire thoughtful laughter demands superior intelligence combined with a sharpshooter's accuracy. Will Rogers was a master of this form of wit. He wore the cap-and-bells like a crown . . . He could puncture the pompous delusions of politicians with a single stinging line. However, he was not content to merely ridicule. Will's flippancies were cushioned with wisdom. Consequently, he could gain the affection of the public and retain the respect of his targets. He could laugh at politicians and make them laugh with him.
Rogers’ wit was like this . . . When doing a daily “box” of comments on the news for the N.Y. Times, he wrote a gag which offended some readers . . . The newspaper spanked Rogers for it in a short editorial next day. He countered: “It ain't easy being comical in the paper when you get competition on the editorial page.”

We Won't Do That Again

UPA was known for stylised animation, not wild Tex Avery-style takes. There’s a lot of the former in The Miner’s Daughter (1950), but there’s one of the latter, too. Not as exaggerated as Avery but something that UPA avoided in future cartoons.



Pete Burness, Pat Matthews (he drew telescope eye-takes at Lantz), Bill Melendez, Willie Pyle and Paul J. Smith animated this from a story by Bill Scott, Phil Eastman and Bob Russell. Jim Backus lends his Hubert J. Updyke/Thurston Howell III voice to the effort.

Becoming, Isn't it Girls?

Feminising men is a guaranteed laugh in old cartoons. Take, for example, Tex Avery’s Big Heel-Watha, where the title character (with Bill Thompson’s Droopy voice) is hunting for Screwy Squirrel, who quickly pulls a home permanent gag on him.



Cut to the next scene, where Heel-Watha gets the permanent contraption off his head. As Scott Bradley plays “I Dream of Jeannie” in the background, the native’s pupils look up at the hair, he strikes a coy pose and says to the theatre audience “Becoming, isn’t it girls?”



The animation in the second scene is by Ed Love. He uses the same mouth movements and teeth positions on Heel-Watha in the cartoon that you can spot in his work at Hanna-Barbera in the late ‘50s. Preston Blair and Ray Abrams also received animation credits. Heck Allen wrote the story and Johnny Johnsen did another fine job painting scenic forest backgrounds. Thompson, Wally Maher, Frank Graham and Sara Berner supply the voices.

Questions to Benny

When Jack Benny signed off on May 22, 1955, he didn’t realise his radio series was finally coming to an end. A columnist in Variety reported on March 31th that Benny had a deal with American Tobacco for another radio season featuring more repeat shows. But something happened. When Jack returned in April from a meeting with company president Paul Hahn in New York, sponsoring the Benny radio show had been dropped in favour of pumping money into spot ads. Sponsor magazine also reported on May 1st that another sponsor had an option on the Benny show for the 1955-56.

It was not to be. Variety reported on August 19th that Jack was giving up radio, and:

It had been planned to use the old Benny tapes with occasional live leads and integrations, but Benny's unwillingness to continue on radio together with the lack of sponsor interest caused CBS to abandon the program.

But a deal was eventually worked out and Benny returned to CBS on Sunday nights at 7 in the East and 6:30 in the West starting October 28, 1956. But they were all reruns. There were no new Benny radio shows.

It would appear Benny’s management came up with a news release that was sent to papers to publish as a story. This unbylined piece appeared in the Buffalo Courier-Express of March 24, 1957.

Benny Herewith Answers 5 Most Asked Questions
There are five questions most frequently asked by newspaper and magazine writers, says Jack Benny.
Benny says the most frequent question is "Why did you decide to go back into radio?" With some pleasure, he answers, "When I left CBS Radio for television in 1954, I thought I'd never be I missed. But not so. Everywhere I went, people kept telling me that they missed the Sunday night spot. CBS executives heard the same thing. They called me for a little talk, and here I am back on the air each week. And believe me, it's a pleasure."
Another staple in the interviewer's kit is the question: "When was your first radio appearance?" Benny has the facts handy. "It was with Ed Sullivan in 1932. I'd known Ed for a long time, and as I was doing a vaudeville show in New York, he asked me to be a guest on his radio show. An agency heard me and signed me forthwith for 39 weeks."
Benny's habit of integrating commercials into his show is a frequent question subject. He answers that he was the first to do so, doing a light satire on the product. "At first the sponsor didn't like it," he says, "but then he got a flood of mail approving the stunt, and we stayed right with it."
"What is your approach to humor and the thing you try hardest for on your program?" is a frequently asked question. "We concentrate on building up characters that people like," Benny answers. "The audience wants to feel friendly toward you, and to be able to know the traits of the people in the show. You don't have to knock yourself out every week trying to come up with a blockbuster show. If people like you, they will stick with you, because they recognize the people in the show as friends."
Editing Most Important
Finally, the inevitable question, says Benny, is "What's the most important element in producing your show?" His answer is ready. "It's editing. This is the most important thing in show business, as well as in politics. In making a speech, or in any communications project. We go over our script and lines and keep changing and improving them right up to show time. And then if something good occurs to us during the program, we'll edit right on the spot."
Benny's radio show can be heard at 7 tonight on WBEN. His TV show will be carried at 7:30 tonight on Ch. 4

The recorded Jack Benny took the summer off in 1957, replaced on July 14th by the Henry Morgan quiz show Sez Who! (and not by Stan Freberg as is commonly thought). He returned on September 29th and bade farewell to radio again on June 29, 1958. John Dehner in Frontier Gentleman was moved into his slot. Benny was about to open at the Flamingo in Las Vegas, was performing benefit concerts and was still busy with television (and looking for a new director as Ralph Levy had quit). Whether Jack mourned the loss of his radio show is doubtful, considering he told interviewers a number of years later he was tired of being asked about it.

Despite that, the Benny radio show is still loved today. It’s not just the echoing voice of nostalgia that’s responsible. A whole new audience, albeit in smaller numbers, who didn’t grow up with the show, have heard it on the internet or “old time radio” shows broadcast by their local stations. They appreciate the humour and the characters, just as people did in the Benny heyday. CBS radio may have cancelled the show but, in one way or another, it’s never really left us.

Snickelgrass and the Stars

You’ve seen Smokey Bear, McGruff the Crime Dog and Vince and Larry, the crash dummies. They’re among the stars of TV public service announcements presented by the Ad Council.

For years, the Council has also provided radio stations in the U.S. with 30 and 60-second PSAs. Originally, the Council supplied print ads starting in 1941. You can read the Council’s history in brief HERE.

The Council first got into television in 1949, not long after the networks finally began offering a full prime-time schedule on weeknights. Its initial TV PSA was packed with stars—in caricature form. The cartoon wasn’t fully animated. I haven’t seen it, but I suspect it was the same as contemporary shows such as Tele-Comics, which featured drawings held for a period of time, with only a slight change in the next drawing. However, Broadcasting magazine of August 15, 1949 published the storyline and some of the frames of the cartoon, which we reprint below. The PSA had a message that is far too timely today.

Snickelgrass Saga...
SAD STORY of Sidney S. Snickelgrass Jr., who got his wish that all Americans of foreign descent "be sent right back where they came from," has been made into a one-minute musical cartoon sequence by the Advertising Council and will be distributed to all U. S. TV stations before the end of the month.
The film short, first venture into video by the council, was announced by Lee H. Bristol, president of Bristol-Myers Co. and coordinator of the United America campaign to combat religious and racial discrimination.
The pictures, drawn in crisp black and white against a gray background, are semi-animated by a technique that provides adequate motion without undue expense. A guitar-strumming vocalist sings the story in ballad fashion.
The TV spot opens with Snickelgrass rubbing a magic lamp [top photo] and telling the genie who appears that he'd like all people of foreign heritage sent back home. The genie explains that if that wish is granted "... all exiles may take what they've created."
"I don't care what they take. You just do what I stated," answers Snickelgrass. But his hat flies off and his jaw drops in amazement [second photo] as he watched huge ships loaded with:
"Roads built by Slovaks and farms plowed by Swedes [third photo], mills run by workers of hundreds of creeds.
"Skyscraper cities were loaded and stored [fourth photo] as Protestants, Catholics and Jews climbed aboard."
Frank Sinatra, Marian Anderson, The Marx Brothers, Jimmy Durante and Jack Benny wave goodbye [fifth photo] and poor Snickelgrass finds himself alone on the empty shore [bottom photo].
Even . .
"The genie was doing what Snicklegrass bade.
Like the rest of the foreigners, he'd gone back to Bagdad."
The story material was developed by Lynn Rhodes, copywriter, with Milton Krentz and Leonard Weil of the American Jewish Committee as programming consultants. Fred Arnott provided the art. Oscar Bryant arranged and sang the ballad. Edward Royal of the Advertising Council directed and produced the one-minute sequence.

Arnott semi-animated several other PSAs for the American Jewish Committee within the next few years. “Baseball,” “Sweet ‘n’ Sour” and “Three-Ring Circus” were all part of the AJC’s campaign promoting racial and religious diversity as part of a strong America, and available in 16 millimetre for free. They aired on 77 stations.

Arnott was born in New Jersey in January 1920 and went to Northwestern University where he was the staff newspaper cartoonist in 1942. Within a few years was working as an illustrator in Chicago. He later went to work for Bob Clampett on the Beany and Cecil cartoon series before returning to New Jersey where he taught art in middle and high school. Arnott told a Kiwanis meeting in Bernardsville in 1952 that four minutes of semi-animation cost $1,500. He died on November 20, 1998.

This is post is brought to you as a public service by this station and the Ad Council.

Knighty Knight Bugs Opening

A pan shot opens the Oscar-winning cartoon Knighty Knight Bugs. You can click on it to make it bigger.



The wall and shields are on an overlay being panned at a different rate than the stone-walled rooms in the background, giving a nice 3-D effect that Warners used for more than 20 years. Tom O’Loughlin is the background artist for the Friz Freleng unit at this point. O’Loughlin was a painter prior to joining Warner Bros. in the late ‘50s; one of his exhibits received an announcement in December 1951 in the Los Angeles Times (along with UPA’s Herb Klynn).

The Cave Man

Willie Whopper cartoons aren’t funny. But you’re really missing out if you don’t get your hands on Thunderbean’s Willie Whopper Blu-Ray/DVD release.

The cartoons, as you may know, were made in 1933-34 by Ub Iwerks for Pat Powers’ Celebrity Pictures for release by MGM. There are some wonderfully off-beat character and background designs and some of the shorts have a peppy little orchestra toot-toot-tooting along as the action proceeds. And Thunderbean has pulled off another of their incomparable and loving restoration jobs on these B-list cartoons. The company deserves the support of anyone who loves animation from the Golden Age of theatricals (and commercials/industrials, for that matter).

Here are some background frames from The Cave Man (1934). Like most interiors in an Iwerks cartoon, things are broken, run-down, misshapen. These are from Mary’s thatched hut.



Here are some of the muted backgrounds. Ignore the characters that get in the way. I’d love to know who painted these and if it was the same person who did Porky in Wackyland for Bob Clampett a few years later (Clampett inherited some of the Iwerks staff).



Note how the distance is out-of-focus. It reminds me of a Fleischer cartoon, not surprising considering Grim Natwick, Berny Wolf (who get the animation credits) and others who worked at Iwerks had come from Fleischer.



There’s no music credit on this short. I don’t know if someone went to a record store, bought a 78 and had it played in the background, but it’s a hopping little tune.

Oh, and for character designs....



P.S.: I get nothing for the above plug for Thunderbean other than the satisfaction that it may help them carry on with their restoration of neglected old cartoons.

Voice Acting Tips From Mel Blanc

Mel Blanc needs no introduction, does he?

Here he is talking to the King Features Syndicate in a column published starting July 7, 1960. You’ll have to forgive the writer misspelling “Daws Butler” and “Paul Frees.”

It’s interesting there’s no reference to The Flintstones. I don’t know when the interview was conducted but Variety reported in May that Mel was working on the series. By November, he and Johnny Burton had joined together to form IDs Inc. to work with ad agencies on commercials.

The giraffe story he tells isn’t verbatim dialogue from the Benny radio show, but the gag’s the same.

Hear Voices? Fire a Blanc
By CHARLES WITBECK
Special Press Writer
IN HOLLYWOOD the mailman is known as the “residual man” to the big four in the voice business: Mel Blanc, Jim Backus, Dawes Butler and Paul Freeze.
Hardly a day goes by that Mel, who is best known as the voice of Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker, doesn't get a residual check in the mail. Backus and Blanc also survive visually in the trade, with Jim playing in pictures and on TV, and Blanc appearing at least once a month on the Sunday night Jack Benny show.
Residuals come from radio and TV commercials of all sorts; for instance, Mel will open envelopes with checks in payment for his voice doing the “Piggy back refill” bit, or plugging tamales, cookies and other tidbits in various accents.
He does so well that he is constantly plagiarized by others. When calls go out for voices the question is usually, “Do you want a Mel Blanc voice?”
There is nothing Mel can do about this. We have no legislation protecting original voices and characters, but Mel survives nicely.
The good thing about it, is that others try to do a Mel Blanc type voice and they miss, so Mel is called in to redo it. Blanc first made his name in Hollywood with his animal voices. He's won five Oscars for being Bugs Bunny, Speedy Gonzales, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam.
He says his Woody Woodpecker is understood everywhere, and as for Bugs, “why others may come and go, but Bugs will be around forever.”
This fall Mel, as the voice of Bugs, will be bucking Wagon Train, and Mel thinks it will be a walkaway in the ratings for the cocky rabbit. He's also going to do voices for The Three Stooges show, which will have a weekly five minute animation sequence, besides his Jack Benny Show.
When Mel joined Benny he was known only for his animal sounds. He was hired to play Carmichael the boar, and just growl. This went on for some time and finally, Mel pleaded, “All I do is growl, Jack. Give me a couple of lines.”
Benny agreed and Blanc began playing idiot professors, carpenters and insulting salesmen.
He had Benny on the floor with his version of a giraffe.
Not a sound came out of Blanc because giraffes don't have any vocal chords. "What are you doing?" asked straight man Benny. “I'm making a noise like a giraffe,” said Blanc.

To be a good voice man means that you have to have a good ear and you have to listen.
For example, Blanc says he's a big star in China for his Chinese characters. “They can't understand what I'm saying, but they laugh at the voice,” he says. To pick up the right sounds, Blanc took his shirts to a Chinese laundryman and listened to him jabber.
The character Speedy Gonzales came from a Mexican who was building a house nearby. Mel sat around and listened to his rhythm and then went home and practiced. “All you need is a start,” he says. “This aptitude isn't inherited. You listen, then hear it in your head, and then hear yourself doing it.”
To make the dialects funny, Mel, once he has the general ring of it, will sacrifice the dialect to bring a point across, and this is where he gets his laughs. All this sounds fairly simple, but there are only a few besides the big four who do make a good living using just their voices.
Many actors have tried the voice business, but they are not successful. Maybe they don't spend enough time practicing after listening.
To give enthusiasts further incentive, Blanc's workweek should be described. He's at some studio three or four days a week on an average. There he puts in maybe four hours, which is a big day.
Ten years ago it used to take a day and a half for the present four-hour stint. Equipment and Blanc are just that much better now.
For instance; in making The Three Stooges pilot, which contains five minutes of animation, using the Blanc method, Mel, the Stooges and the crew were finished in just half the time expected.
“We just took one line at a time,” said Mel. “We'd say it until we got the right emphasis on a word and then go on. This was brand new to the comics, but they got the idea. We breezed through it.”
Blanc has one other claim to notoriety. He's the new mayor of Pacific Palisades, a suburban community near Los Angeles, and this job is hard on him because he has to make speeches. “I prefer to listen says Blanc, a new type of politician.”