Any Bonds Today?

Porky Pig may have been the star of the Looney Tunes cartoon series but it’s clear that about a year after being created, Bugs Bunny had become the number one box office attraction from the Leon Schlesinger studio.

Bugs made his debut in “A Wild Hare” in July 1940. 16 months later, he got the only billing and the feature role in Schlesinger’s free gift to the war effort, the short cartoon “Any Bonds Today.”

On the same day as unionised workers at Schlesinger (led by Chuck Jones on the union side) reached a three-year contract with the studio, Daily Variety reported:

Washington, May 27. — Irving Berlin, whose 'God Bless America' has become the ex-officio national anthem, has been enlisted by both the Treasury and War Departments to write patriotic theme for Americanism. He has contributed 'Any Bonds Today' for Secretary Morgenthau's Defense Bond cause and 'Arms for the Love of America' for the Ordnance Department. Both will be handled by the Government as non-profit, non-commercial ballyhoo for a defense pep-up.

It would appear Leon himself came up with the idea to set Berlin’s song to animation. And we know when the film was in production. Variety on November 18th said:

LEON SCHLESINGER'S Cartoon creation, Bugs Bunny, appearing in 'Merrie Melodies' and 'Looney Tunes', will sing the song, 'Any Bonds Today?' in a special one-reel cartoon which the producer is readying as his Christmas donation to the government in the defense savings drive. Schlesinger volunteered to make the short subject to promote holiday sales of defense bonds, and has received acceptance of proffer from Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Calling a halt on all his other activities, Schlesinger has put his entire staff of 200 to work on the Technicolor graphic to insure release before Christmas. Plan is to distribute 7,500 prints to cover entire United States in one week. Vitaphone Recording Orchestra will obbligato.

Then on December 16th, Variety reported:

LEON SCHLESINGER and his staff of 200 cartoonists yesterday finished in record time Schlesinger's contribution to the Defense Savings drive, a short-reeler called 'Any Bonds Today', featuring Bugs Bunny. Special Technicolor cartoon, contributed to the government, was completed in three weeks and prints were speeded to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau for distribution before the Christmas holidays.

The studio had four units but, for reasons lost to time, Bob Clampett’s unit was picked to animate this little cartoon. Clampett had been put in charge of Tex Avery’s old unit about four months earlier after directing black-and-white cartoons for several years with a different team of animators. Bugs’ dance sequence is terrific. High-stepping, hand-wagging, finger-waving, there are some great poses. Here are just some of them. Check out the finger movements. Is this the work of Virgil Ross? Is there a change of animators during the dance?



Bugs is joined by pantsless Porky and Elmer Fudd in the closing. Mel Blanc is both Bugs and Porky, Arthur Q. Bryan is Fudd and the two actors harmonise very well.



Whether the short made it into theatres before Christmas, I don’t know. But the Motion Picture Herald had reaction from two exhibitors in 1942.

ANY BONDS TODAY: Victory Films— Three-minute cartoon furnished free to help sell bonds. It's worth running. — E. M. Freiburger, Paramount Theatre, Dewey, Okla. Small town patronage.

ANY BONDS TODAY: Official U. S. Victory Films — Bugs Bunny sings the song as a plug to sell stamps and bonds. It is good, but disappointing to Bugs Bunny fans, who expect it to be a regular cartoon when it only last two minutes. Best idea is to tack it on to the end of a regular Bugs Bunny release. That's what I would do. — W. Varick Nevins III, Alfred Co-Op Theatre, Alfred, N.Y. Small college town patronage.

Perhaps the short might not have been so short if it had been made after the attack on Pearl Harbor. That horrific event which pushed the U.S. full-throttle into the war inspired Irving Berlin to write additional lyrics which were introduced by Bing Crosby on his Kraft Music Hall show of December 11th:

Bonds for the planes
And bonds for the tanks
And bonds for the ships,
Meaning: “Here Come the Yanks.”
Bonds for the guns.
The shot and the shell,
And bonds to avenge
All the heroes who fell.
They died in the night
With no chance to fight.
But wait 'til the final text—
We’ll wipe Mr. Jap
From the face of the map,
And Germany has to be next.

The cartoon resulted in a letter of commendation from Secretary Morgenthau on August 25, 1942 and Bugs was later made an honorary sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps (Washington Post, Dec. 11, 1942). But it receives jitters and even criticism today. Not because of stereotyped depictions of the enemy; unlike other cartoons, the Allies’ opponants aren’t shown. But because of Al Jolson. Rather Bugs’ impression of him.



I’m not going to get into a long dissertation on the subject of race and popular culture, other than to provide background to readers who don’t know that Jolson was a hugely popular entertainer whose act, in vaudeville and on film, included performing songs while in blackface. I am going to—and this is the purpose of the post in the first place—direct you to a piece on Jerry Beck’s Cartoon Research blog by Christopher P. Lehman, author of The Colored Cartoon. Mr. Lehman republishes a letter he received from Martha Sigall, one of the most delightful and genuine employees of the Schlesinger studio, who worked there when “Any Bonds Today” was in production. Any comments about the studio’s history from the late Mrs. Sigall should be lapped up, and I hope you click on this link and read what she had to say.

Now, if Leon had his staff animate to the song We’ve Got to Slap the Dirty Little Jap...

Hypnotic Hick

3-D was, for a number of months in 1953, deemed a possible saviour of the film industry from that dastardly, spreading electronic weed—television. It was doomed to failure. People got quickly bored with the gimmick.

But for a very brief time, cartoon studios were pretty much forced to get into the 3-D business. Disney, Famous (Paramount), Warner Bros. and Walter Lantz all released cartoons with an extra dimension (MGM, interestingly, did not). Lantz assigned his best director, Don Patterson, to helm Hypnotic Hick, which was scheduled to go out with a 3-D Universal feature Wings of the Hawk. Lantz reportedly spent $60,000 on it and the cartoon was rented to theatres on a percentage basis instead of a flat rate to try to make back the negative cost.

Bill Garity, formerly with Disney, came up with the technology Lantz employed to make the cartoon and received a screen credit for it.

Patterson came up with some creative ideas to take advantage of the format. New opening titles were designed with wood chips spelling “Woody Woodpecker” and then the title character himself coming toward the audience.



The opening titles were creative, too. Patterson came up with excellent angular layouts to maximise the 3-D effect, with the cartoon’s name spelled out in letters that come closer to the viewers.



Lantz abandoned 3-D after the one cartoon, along with the rest of the film industry. The extra cost involved in colour stock simply wasn’t work the money spent.

Not only did 3-D disappear, so did Patterson out of the director’s chair. He was replaced several months later with Tex Avery and went back to animating.

Son of a...

No, Porky Pig saying “Son of a (you know what)” didn’t appear in a theatrical cartoon. It was in a gag reel for studio eyes only.

You no doubt have seen at least part of the 54-second famous cartoon somewhere. Porky bangs his thumb. There are several “takes” for the cartoon with Mel Blanc’s Porky saying “Son of a bih-bih, son of a bih-bih, son of a bih-bih-gun” a couple of times.



Finally, he turns to the audience and says the “b” word.



I've read conflicting reports about which unit animated this.

Also Appearing During the Golden Age of Radio

When you think of radio in the 1940s, you think of NBC, CBS, ABC, Mutual and all the big network shows. But what about stations that weren’t on a network?

Little local stations used 78s, syndicated programmes that came on transcription discs, local singers, musicians and such. But if you were in a big city, how could you compete with Jack Benny, Lux Radio Theatre and Superman on the other stations?

You used your ingenuity.

That’s what WNEW had to do. And it was successful. At one time, it was the highest-billing independent station in North America.

Radio columnist John Crosby lambasted many a network show during that venerated Golden Age of Radio as being trite, unoriginal, ridiculous, hokey or insulting to one’s intelligence. He despised the bureaucracy of censors, sponsor approval and network executives with their little bailiwicks. So did WNEW. Is it any wonder Crosby greeted the independent station with his approval, despite some rather unorthodox management methods (“unorthodox” was also something positive in Crosby’s view).

Here’s his column that was published on March 8, 1949. I like the ideas of parodies on network programmes. I don’t think I’d be crazy about a programme director calling me in the middle of the night at home for her own amusement.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By John Crosby
INDEPENDENT INDEPENDENCE
WNEW, the New York independent at 1130 on your dial, is the Peck's Bad Boy of radio. The procedure over there is by network standards outrageously amateurish and at the same time strikingly successful making it even more exasperating to its competitors. It has an impish disregard for all the competition, especially the big stations.
In the early '30s, NBC had bought exclusive rights to a big fight in the Madison Square Garden Bowl at Long Island city. WNEW blithely ignored the network contract, sent an announcer to the roof of the nearest apartment building overlooking the bowl, and broadcast the fight from there sponsored by a shoe company. NBC almost blew a gasket, but there wasn't much it could do about it.
Bernice Judis, station manager and vice-president of the station, loves to needle the big networks, has a phobia against putting anything on WNEW that remotely resembles a network show, and is, in a rather curious way, one of the severest critics of what might be referred to as big radio.
Now and then WNEW, just for the hell of it, likes to satirize its great big colleagues. Several years ago, for example, WNEW broadcast a one-minute soap opera from 3:14 to 3:15 complete with cliff-hanging broken romances, everything.
When the network stations ran hogwild over the husband and wife breakfast programs, WNEW slyly ran a program called "Cocktails and Cookies with Jack and Jill," featuring the ad lib conversation oi a couple of five-year-olds, which wasn't any less intelligent than that of some of their elders on the breakfast programs. More recently the station poked fun at giveaway programs on a program in which the listeners gave things to the station.

Miss Judis is outspoken in her criticism of big radio, which, she feels, suffers equally from hardening of the arteries and red tape. Some years ago a network executive, after watching a WNEW engineer trying to repair one of the station's ancient microphones, sent her a wire which read: "Understand you have rare old microphones. Would like to purchase them for museum of radio antiquities." She fired a wire right back: "Will give you our antique equipment provided you display it next to your antique programs."
WNEW's operation is, to put it mildly, as flexible as possible. Ideas are batted around at a daily coffee-and-talk conferences with promotion manager and station her salesmen, program director, press agent and, once Miss Judis approves. are put into effect with the speed of light.
All-night operation, which has turned out to be extremely lucrative, was simply an idea that shot through her mind at one of these conferences, and was put into effect that night. A couple of days later one of the owners of the station called up. "I don't mind a bit," he said apologetically, "But why didn't someone tell me we were operating 24 hours a day?"
Make Believe Ballroom, perhaps the most successful program WNEW has, is a three-and-a-half-hour disk jockey show run by Martin Block. WNEW's contribution was simply the pretense that there were live bands playing in a fabulous array of ballrooms. So insidious is this idea put across that thousands of listeners believe Martin Block actually is in a Crystal Studio with Benny Goodman right in front of him. Dozens of other independents across the country have borrowed the idea.
Milkman's Matinee, a very popular disk jockey show that runs from midnight to 6 a. m., flashed through Miss Judis' mind one day and was on the air in two hours. It is this sort of informality which WNEW an interesting though nerve-wracking place to work.
Like its boss, WNEW is an extremely feminine station, largely furnished in blond wood with turquoise and lime walls. (Its rate cards used to be shocking pink, one of her favorite colors). Miss Judis is on wisecracking terms with virtually everyone there, her interest in their employees extending even to their clothes, which she criticizes candidly. She is not, however, a person any one can relax with easily and the presence of such a feminine ball of fire around the premises is not altogether soothing.
One rather bitter ex-employe swears that when he worked for WNEW every employe in the place was being psychoanalyzed--all by the same man at cut rates. "I think the station had some sort of deal with him." There is some exaggeration in this statement but it is fairly illustrative. Miss Judis' concern for her employes is profound and maternal, but it is also a little feudal. Occasionally when she is bored she may phone and summon some of the field hands to her apartment to amuse her.
The process is getting hired at WNEW is something no one easily forgets. The prospect is plunked down at a coffee-and-talk conference of executives and asked the most searching questions, one of which—from Miss Judis—is: "Why do you want to work here? Take away the salary and what have you got?"
The executives not only fire questions at the prospect, but talk about him as it he weren't there. Finally, if the decision is favorable, Miss Judis turns to the executive in whose department the job lies: "Well, Ira, you want him, you got him."

“Make Believe Ballroom” was certainly a success for Martin Block, who had been selling razor blades before he knocked on Judis’ door. She hired him in 1934 for $25 a week. Eventually, he parlayed the show into a $200,000-a-year gig, though he insisted he had no idea Al Jarvis was doing the same kind of show in Los Angeles when he started. “Milkman’s Matinee” made a celebrity of Stan Shaw, the young announcer who became “Stay-Up Stan, the All-Night Man.” A song was written about him. And at the time this column was printed, the co-host of the WNEW morning show was Gene Rayburn. But they all eventually left for the “big radio” that Judis despised.

And what of the unorthodox Bernice Judis? Ownership of the station changed in 1954. You know the old saying about a new broom. She and her second husband, WNEW sales chief Ira Herbert, were bought out and tossed out. In 1960, they bought three stations in the U.S. South. Judis died in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in late May 1983 at the age of 83. In the meantime, the new ownership of WNEW did quite well. Broadcasting magazine reported sales figures for 1955 were 32% higher than 1953. And dismantling and replacing Judis’ programming schedule brought about ratings increases as higher as 29% to 125% for certain shows and total listening up by 70%. It’s all the more amazing considering radio was losing oceans of ad dollars to television.

It seems Miss Judis’ antipathy for network-type radio was all for nought.

No Good Humor

“Dixieland Droopy” (released 1954) is a typical Tex Avery cartoon. He and writer Heck Allen set up a premise then pull of a string of gag variations on it.

In this cartoon, Droopy wants to “conduct” a record of Dixieland music, so he keeps substituting sedate music for his screeching LP.

One gag features a Good Rumor truck with its usual tinkling music inviting kiddies to come and buy some of its cool wares. Droopy switches the little bell-like tones playing “Sing a Song of Sixpence” for his swinging jazz. The truck reacts. The Ed Benedict-designed driver reacts to the reaction. Avery’s timed the scene so the background continues to pan. There’s one in-between, an extreme is held for four frames, then another in-between for a frame, another four-frame extreme and so on.



The truck races off screen into a brick wall. The driver kicks Droopy out of the scene and it’s on to the next gag.



Walt Clinton, Grant Simmons and Mike Lah are the animators in this cartoon, with backgrounds by Joe Montell.