










Here’s “your car’s best friend,” the dealer. Note the stretches.










Designs are by Tony Rivera. Emery Hawkins, Gerard Baldwin and Ed De Mattia are the credited animators, directed by Irv Spence and Carl Urbano.
Calvin Workshop FilmsCalvin died in Kansas City in 1963, Sherwood in 1968, and the company shut down in 1982. Not only did they produce the films listed above, Calvin was responsible for “Freeze,” starring Judy Carne and Arte Johnson in a low-budget, “Laugh-In”-like sales pitch for refrigerators. And many Calvinites worked on that 1956 camp classic “Corn’s a Poppin’,” a 1956 country-western musical starring Jerry Wallace and featuring some really stiff and grade-school-level acting.
Calvin Productions, Inc., 1105 Truman Road, Kansas City 6, Missouri, has a number of Workshop films available for loan. Four of the more popular subjects—all in 16mm—are described below. The subjects are also available for sale, and the prices of each are also included here. The prices include reel, can and Peerless treatment of the film—all f.o.b., Kansas City, Mo.
“The Vicious Circle”—Satirical handling of the subject of film production approval. Depicts woes of producer who attempts to satisfy the script preferences of individual department heads in a large corporation, rather than calling for the necessary, all-inclusive, production conference before attempting a detailed treatment and script. Running time approximately 15 minutes. Price, $100.00.
“The Your Name Here Story”—The first realization of a truly all-purpose film. Created to meet the demands of film buyers for specially tailored motion pictures, without the often difficult-to-explain costs of creative writing and personalized production. Visualizes how stock footage and sound can be edited to realize a “quickie-cheapie” of considerable magnitude. Running time, approximately 10 minutes. Price, $75.00.
“Over And Outs”—The title pretty well says it. A collection of culls, N.G. takes, and scraps from the cutting room floor (many of them carefully staged) that proves absolutely nothing. General spoof of the industry. Running time, approximately 11 minutes. Price, $100.00.
“Check And Let Me Know”—Goes to painful extremes to depict the confusion and wheel-spinning that results when a mish-mash of pre-occupied people try to communicate with each other on a specific, but not too well defined, subject. Satire. Running time, approximately 11 minutes. Price, $100.00.
Don Wilson Going Strong at 75Sadly, Don did retire the same year he gave this interview. He and Lois left KMIR-TV and spent six months on KPLM-TV doing the same interview show. And that was it. A local newspaper writer in 1978 cryptically put it: “The Wilsons no longer do the television show.”
By CHARLES HILLINGER
Los Angeles Times
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — The same rotund, jovial announcer of Jack Benny radio and television days for 35 years running is a big name in television in this desert resort.
Don Wilson's Town Talk each afternoon from 5:30 to 6 over KMIR-Palm Springs has been a daily feature since Oct. 26, 1968.
It's a talk show produced by Don's wife, radio and Broadway actress Lois Corbet, featuring celebrities from all walks of life vacationing or living in the Palm Springs area.
Wilson is 75 and looks and acts like 50. The weight on his 6 foot 2 inch frame — “the same as it has been the last 40 years” — is 233 pounds.
“Jack had me built up fat as Andy Devine," said Wilson with a convulsive laugh that turned back the pages of time. "He had everybody believing I weighed at least 300.”
Wilson has guests from time to time who had never appeared on a previous talk show — like Alice Faye.
“I've had many scoops out here in our little valley,” he said.
“It’s strictly a local show reaching a 180,000-population market area. People from Beaumont to Bombay Beach on the eastern shores of the Salton Sea catch KMIR’s signal.”
That’s a slice of desert stretching 100 miles and 30 miles across between the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains to the west and the Little San Bernadino and Chocolate mountains to the East.
Wilson and his wife have been married 25 years. They worked together in radio and on stage for years before they were married.
Mrs. Wilson played many familiar radio roles — Mummy on Fanny Brice's Baby Snooks show; the mother on Date with Judy and the Corliss Archer programs and appeared as a regular on the Alice Faye-Phil Harris shows.
As for Don, his career over the airways began in the days of crystal sets over KFEL in Denver, in 1923.
“I started as a singer,” recalled Wilson.
By 1929 he was head of the announcers department at KFI in Los Angeles. Then he became a sports announcer.
Ted Husing and Don Wilson were the top sports announcers in the country from 1929 to 1933 on coast-to-coast radio.
“I did the play-by-play sportcasting of '31, '32 and '33 Rose Bowl games,” Wilson said.
“In the spring of 1933 I really got lucky. Jack Benny selected me to be his announcer.”
The relationship with Benny continued through 1968, first on radio, later on television.
“Mary was with Jack in the beginning, of course. Frank Parker was his original singer and Don Bestor the bandleader. We recorded the show in New York until 1936 when we moved to Hollywood.”
Dennis Day and Rochester joined the show after Wilson.
When the regular Benny show closed out, Wilson and his wife moved to Palm Springs.
“We had been raising championship poodles and thought of devoting full time to that,” Mrs. Wilson continued.
“But John Conte, a friend from radio days and an announcer as well, owned KMIR here in Palm Springs. He asked Don to join the staff as assistant to the president.”
Wilson agreed and it wasn't long after that his daily Town Talk show was on the air.
Guest performers have included Benny, Fred Waring, Tim Conway, Ginger Rogers, Dinah Shore, Bill Holden and most of the movie and TV colony in Palm Springs. Wilson has interviewed top business and political leaders, famous chefs, authors and opera stars and just plain people from Palm Springs.
“I’ve had about everybody and everything on the show, including horses, cows, dogs and elephants,” said Wilson as ripples of laughter rolled down his face. “We were worried about the elephants. We were scared to death they would trumpet and knock us off the air. Luckily they let out a blast just as the program ended.”
In his office is one of those famous sketches of Benny playing his violin signed: “To Don and Lois. All my love, Jack.”
There's a photo of Wilson with Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson on a Palm Springs golf course.
“Johnson was President then,” explained Wilson. “And Eisenhower had just made a hole in one. Ike was elated over that hole in one.”
Had he ever thought of retiring?
“I'd go stir crazy,” said Wilson.