Dizzy Blonde

Woody Woodpecker is a crazy, reckless driver in The Screwdriver (1941). Some of the gags that prove it are weak, but this is one of the better ones. Woody and a woman driver both signal to turn left at at the corner of Ranch Rd. and Hill Dr. Woody uses the opportunity to spin her around in her convertible.



“That’s the dizziest blonde I ever went around with,” Woody tells us. There are lots of fun mouth shapes here.



The story is typical Bugs Hardaway. Woody disguises himself to fool to already too-dopey cop who he drives insane at the end. Still, for 1941, it was probably considered pretty gag-packed. Jack Cosgriff got a co-writer credit and Alex Lovy and Ralph Somerville were the credited animators. Darrell Calker does a fine job with the score.

Vamoose Moose

Warped gags seems to have abounded at every cartoon studio just after sound came in. The funny thing was the gags didn’t involve sound. They were odd sight gags.

Here’s one from the Terrytoon Indian Pudding (1930). A moose sees a marauding tribe of angry Indians (cats) off-camera. It reacts by using its antlers to fly away.



We know Jerry Shields animated this because of a copy of the studio draft listing the animator for each scene still exists. Jerry Beck supplied it on a blog several years ago. Click to enlarge each page.

Alice of the Hula Hoop

“It was just pure, solid, truthful humor, and I think that explains why it lasted so long.” That’s how Audrey Meadows summed up the enduring popularity of The Honeymooners.

It’s hard to think of Meadows as anybody but Alice Kramden, partly because her characterisation was so strong and partly because she didn’t do much more than guest appearances the rest of her career (yes, she had a regular role years later on Too Close For Comfort, but the show is forgettable at best).

It’s a bit of a surprise to learn that Meadows left show business for a couple of years, but the story is related in this column from the National Enterprise Association feature syndicate. Around the time this story appeared in papers (November 13, 1958), Meadows was in talks to star in My Sister Eileen, which finally came to television in 1960 with Elaine Stritch and Shirley Bonne in the main roles. Meadows never did get her own show like fans had wanted. And, for whatever reason, Jackie Gleason didn’t want her back for his own 1958 variety show comeback—evidently he wanted to showcase only himself to viewers.

TV Looks Prettier Now Since Audrey Meadows Has Returned
By DICK KLEINER
NEW YORK—(NEA)—When the history of television is written, the 58-’59 season may not go down as anything great. But, in a small way, it’s already chalked up one happy historical fact it’s the season when Audrey Meadows came back.
Perhaps you haven’t even missed her. Perhaps you’ve been seeing the filmed reruns of "The Honeymooners" during the past two years, in which she starred starred as Alice Kramden to Jackie Gleason’s Ralph. But those were made before Audrey retired for two years, a period she devoted to a marriage that, unhappily, has since failed.
Now she’s back, live, and it does make the screen seem a prettier sight. This is especially true if you have a color set, because Audrey Meadows is the kind of girl color TV was invented for with her red gold hair, greenish eyes and lovely complexion.
At the moment, she’s confining her TV work to some panel shows—on "Keep Talking" and "Masquerade Party"—plus occasional guest shots.
“When you’re but of the business for two years,” she says, “it isn’t easy to get back. But I thought it would take longer than it has. I think the fact that 'The Honeymooners' is still around has helped.”
She’s too modest. What "really" helped most was the simple truth is that she was missed. She’s a solid actress, first, with the gift of comedy that is all too rare. The fact that she’s also beautiful is just so much gravy.

Attesting to her popularity is her admission that she’s had “hundreds of offers” to do a TV series. “I may do one next year, she says.
“But, really, I don’t feel much like faking on those headaches. I much prefer working for someone else.
“You see, there’s very little I need in the way of tangible things. I do like clothes and I love shoes — but I can buy all I want on what I make now.” She thought for a moment, then added something else, with a little smile.
“There is one thing I’d like to have. If I had my own show, I might buy some trotters. A girl can’t buy a football team or a baseball team, so trotters are the next best thing.”
Meanwhile, she’s happy with her panel shows. Audrey says it takes “a certain type” to play a television game.
“I wish I could name names,” she says. “I’d tell you about some big people who were auditioned and just could not play ‘Masquerade Party.’ ” She says she and her sister, Jayne Meadows (Mrs. Steve Allen), are game players from way back. They’ve played all the parlor games and still like to try new ones. They’ve even sampled the hula hoop.
“I was pretty good,” she admits. “I could walk with it. But I had pains all through my ribs and up and down my back. A doctor friend says hoops are not good for adults. Kids are more supple, but adults shouldn’t try them.”
If the possible series for next season fails to materialize, Audrey may do a Broadway play. She has Broadway experience, so it wouldn’t be to gain it. She’d just simply like to do one, “but it would have to be just right.”
“I read one I liked,” she says, “so I sent it to Jack Benny. He’s a good friend and I respect his opinion so much. He sent it back to me — he said the trouble was it was too easy for me. He said, ‘I could hear you saying every line — you want something that isn’t so much like you.’ ”
Going to Benny with the play is in line with Audrey’s philosophy of going to the best for advice. It started when she was in "Top Banana" with Phil Silvers. She had one song in the show and everybody was happy with the way she was doing it — except Audrey Meadows.
“So I sent Jose Ferrer two tickets, even though I didn’t know him, and asked him to see it and tell me how to do the song better. He did. His advice was that I was trying to make too much of the song. So I took it easier after that, and I liked it better.
“Later, Ferrer sent me a check for the two tickets. He said be enjoyed the show too much not to pay for it. So from then on I’ve always gone to the best people for advice.”
And now some of the best people come to her.

No, He Isn't

The theme song for The Roadrunner Show, which aired starting in 1966 on CBS, always bugged me. For one thing, it didn’t fit the sound of the music of the cartoons, it was some cheesy thing with reverbed singers and a half-bar guitar pluck to try to make it sound rock-ish and, therefore, modern. For another, I (age nine) thought “Who’s Barbara Cameron?” Well, that question we can answer below. All hail studio nepotism!



The most bothersome thing is the line in the song that goes “That coyote is really a crazy clown.” Did Barbara Cameron ever watch a Roadrunner cartoon? (After a while, they all seem like the same cartoon). Wile E. Coyote is not a clown. He’s deadly serious about catching his prey. And he’s not crazy, either. All of his schemes to snare the roadrunner are perfectly logical. They backfire in most cases because of cartoon karma. He’s the bad guy. Therefore, he loses.

Here’s an example from the first cartoon, Fast and Furry-ous. Wile E. employs a boomerang to catch the roadrunner. Nothing crazy there. But the idea fails. Why? Because the roadrunner has his own boomerang. Why? Because the roadrunner is the good guy and therefore must win, even through the most contrived set of circumstances.



And the creative mind of Mike Maltese finishes the scene logically by having the coyote’s boomerang return. It’s guaranteed to do so, just like the package says.



About the only thing crazy in the Roadrunner cartoons was some of the concepts that Maltese came up with for gags. This cartoon features the refrigerator/meat grinder that makes an ice-cube path for the coyote to ski on.

The First Miss Lane

Such is the power of the past that one’s career can begin to flourish 20 years after it ended. That’s what happened to Noel Neill.

She played Lois Lane, first in the movies, then on non-network, black-and-white TV. It was strictly B-list fare, maybe C-list. It doesn’t appear critics took Superman seriously; I can’t find any interviews with Miss Neill about it from the ‘40s or ‘50s, though there are some pin-up shots in newspapers during her time at Paramount from 1941 to 1946 to promote whatever she was appearing in for that studio. But that all changed in the mid-‘70s. Nostaglia was big then. So was Superman. Together they proved an unbeatable combination and, suddenly, Neill’s role as Lois started paying off.

I’ve come across a bunch of wire service/newspaper interviews with her starting in 1975. I’ve picked two at random. The first is from November 7th.

Great Caesar’s Ghost! It’s Lois Lane
By MICHAEL MARZELLA
St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer
Lois Lane didn’t ask to be resurrected. She was yanked from the past by the cresting nostalgia wave and surprised the daylights out of Noel Neill, mild-mannered assistant for a great metropolitan auctioneering firm.
Faster than a speeding bullet, the call came about two years ago from a small upstate New York college. “Noel Neill?” a young voice asked. “The same Noel Neill who played Lois Lane on the ‘Superman’ TV show? We’d like you to come to our college for a personal appearance.”
One thing led to another college date and another and another until Miss Neill suddenly found herself mobbed and loved and most of all REMEMBERED by an entire generation of college students who devoted every juvenile afternoon to “Superman,” dumb Jimmy Olsen, glaring Perry White and lovely Lois Lane.
Now, between college dates, Noel Neill is in St. Petersburg to lend 20-year-old memories to the International Speed, Sport and Custom Auto Show at the Bayfront Center tonight through Saturday.

“When I stepped out on that stage the first time,” she says, “it was a thrill that I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think they would remember me or be so enthusiastic. But one student said to me, ‘Remember, we grew up with you.’ I thought ‘What can I do that students would be interested in.’ I don’t sing or dance and I hadn’t thought about the show in years.”
What she does is help us remember all the “Superman” afternoons and youth and innocence when we believed George Reeves could really, truly fly instead of figuring out he was supported by a metal plate contoured to his body. She helps us remember things we never knew: that “Superman” was a low-budget show paying her $200 per and shooting two episodes a week for six years; that after Reeves died in a puzzling suicide in 1959, Jack Larson was offered a pittance to star in a “Jimmy Olsen” series, a deal that turned him sour on Hollywood; that Superman once got an arm and a leg stuck in a wall while the cameras recorded the embarrass[ment] but it was never printed as a blooper film; that 54 episodes were filmed in color, revealing for the first time the true identity of Lois Lane’s hair, red.
“It was hard to be so nasty to George,” she says. “I’d look up at that cute face and I just couldn’t be mean to him. Lois was supposed to be aggressive and I found it hard to do, so we made her more human. I hadn’t thought about it, but when a student asked me, ‘Weren’t you a libber?’ I said I guess I was. I was working on my own, but there was much complaining and groaning during those long hours on the set.”
New-kindled fame is admittedly an ego trip for Miss Neil, who protects her age as Clark Kent did his secret identity, but finally admits to 54 years of living without looking it in face or figure, or those always shining eyes.
“College students are the best audiences because they remember, but some of the questions they ask are surprising. One wanted to know if Superman was making it with Lois Lane. We were very real to them on television. A student told me he used to rush home after school and crawl under the television to try to look up my dress.”

This fine piece appeared in papers on various dates; this one is from February 23th.

Students welcome Superman Star
By TOM SHALES
Washington Post Service
WASHINGTON, D-C—Noel Neill wasn't the first actress to play Lois Lane, star reporter for the Daily Planet, on the "Superman" TV series of the '50s, but she is the one most people remember in the role.
And the people remembering best are probably the students on college campuses currently packing auditoriums whenever Miss Neill appears with a night of illustrated reminiscence.
She’s proven a top draw, which is a surprise to her. When she first went on the college circuit, and first heard roars of applause for her and Louis, she was dumbfounded.
“I just stood there crying,” she said. “I was so thrilled they remembered.”
Miss Neill was paid a piddling $200 per episode when she made the "Superman" shows from 1953 through '57, and the residuals ran out in 1960, but she now picks up $1,000 a night for her in-person appearances.
She was in Washington recently for the National Entertainment Conference, which helps decide who gets booked into college halls. So far, Miss Neill has played more than 30 schools, a hit at all of them.
The "Superman" show is more than a memory as well. In Washington, it has returned to the air and it is also being revived in other cities. In the first 26 episodes, however, Lois Lane is not played by Noel Neill.
"Do I have to tell you who the other actress was?" asks Miss Neill jokingly. "Okay. It was Phyllis Coates, but don't give her any publicity."
Miss Coates is now retired, said Miss Neill, who went on to play Lois in the succeeding 78 episodes.
And what of the other "Superman" regulars? George Reeves, who played Superman, shot himself with a pistol in 1959, three days before he was to be married. Miss Neill said he had been scheduled to make 26 more "Superman" shows.
"George was such a wonderful person," said Miss Neill. "They tried to keep it very quiet when he committed suicide. For the good of the show. They didn't want children running around asking, 'How can Superman be dead?'

"George had a fine sense of humor when he was doing his Clark Kent thing, but when he'd get into his union suit his eyes seemed kinda glazed over, as if he were hoping he was somewhere else. He was such a good actor, I think it was like being with the Royal Ballet and coming out to do a Charleston for him to play Superman."
John Hamilton, who played Perry ("Great Caesar's ghost!") White is also dead; but Jack Larsen, once Jimmy Olson, cub reporter, is now prospering, said Miss Neill, as a writer.
Miss Neill was leading a little noticed life in Santa Monica when she got the call for her first college appearance.
“I said, ‘Gee, do you think anybody’ll want to see me?’ and they said, ‘Oh yes, they will, they will.’ And they did.”
Now 54, Neill seems to mean it when she speaks with affection of the college audiences.
"Bless their little hearts," she said tenderly. “They'll say anything that comes into their heads. They’re usually expecting a little old lady with gray hair, not a redhead, and they’ll say things like, ‘Gee, you look great!’ and ‘Hey, you still got great legs!’ It’s really fun, and I guess it’s a kind of ego trip, too.
"Most students know more about the darn show than I do. And the questions! Like there was one show where Jimmy inherits a million dollars, and of course he and I end up doused and sopping Noel Neill wet and left to die in a basement somewhere. So we decide to send up a smoke signal — but what was there to burn? So we start burning up the money. Now one of the college kids asked me, 'Why didn't you burn up that crummy old suit you always wore?' " She laughs.
"Well, I got the producer on the phone the next day and said, 'See! I told you you should have bought me a new suit!'"
Students also want to know why Lois, who had a 78-week crush on old Mr. Mighty, never even kissed him.
"Kellogg's wouldn't like it," Miss Neill explained. The sponsor held firm control over the show and reviewed all scripts. "They were very, very careful about violence," said Miss Neill, and about sex, too.
Miss Neill was scratched from a proposed cereal commercial featuring the show's characters because, she said, "Kellogg's thought it would just be wrong for us to be sitting at a table eating breakfast together. I was so unhappy about that because I’d thought, ‘Oh, wow, gee, a little extra money!’"
Miss Neill obviously relishes her newly reactivated career—certainly more than she liked the real estate business, which she tried for a while after “Superman” expired.
“It was office work, but I did get to go to auctions and auctioneer,” she said. “And that’s almost show biz.”
Some of Miss Neill’s mainly minor movie roles occasionally come up. She played a stuffy snap in “An American in Paris” and also appeared in one of Hollywood’s goofiest films, “Invasion USA,” an Albert Aubsmith fantasy produced during the height of McCarthyism.
In the film, Communists take over the United States by sneaking in through Canada.
“It was so long ago, I don’t remember it,” said Miss Neill.
“I’ve been told I played a travel agent in one scene and that when two people come up and ask for tickets to Denver, I tell them Denver isn’t there any more.” But it is “Superman” that the kids want to hear about. “They don’t hesitate to ask whatever they want. Sometimes they’ll say, ‘Some of those shows were so dumb, they were just terrible. How could you read those lines?’ and I tell them, ‘Well, we thought of payday, and we just did it.”

The name of the first person to appear on screen as Lois Lane has been added to the list of the far-too-many people in the entertainment business who have passed away this year. What strikes me about those like Noel Neill, or Janet Waldo, or Bill Schallert, is that they may never had had their name over the title, but all of them are remembered by their peers as hard-working and skilled actors who were also nice people. Conversely, today’s over-exposed show biz folk are viewed in many cases as tawdry, rude and self-indulgent. Is it any wonder people want to look back?

Coping With the Storm

Gags within gags in a sequence of Doggone Tired, a 1949 Tex Avery cartoon about a rabbit trying to keep a hunting dog awake so he’ll be too tired to hunt rabbits.

In one portion of the cartoon, the wily rabbit creates a phoney and noisy storm.



Cotton in the ears doesn’t drown out the noise.



Neither do toilet plungers.



But a pillow works.



The rabbit has to do something.



So he swipes the pillow. That works. Avery provides us with a cycle of takes to end the scene.



Bobe Cannon, Mike Lah, Grant Simmons and Walt Clinton are the animators. Character designs by Louis Schmitt.

Unbothered Benny

To hear the fan magazines talk, Jack Benny lived a pretty unexciting life. Sure, he had huge house parties with the stars milling about. Sure, he travelled all over, giving benefit shows during the war and benefit concerts afterwards. Sure, he had more money than he knew what to do with (though his wife had a few ideas). But, no, there were no huge scandals (other than buying into a con man’s smuggling scheme in the late ‘30s), no stories in the papers about unseemly behavior, no tell-all gossip by Hollywood insiders or biographers, and no serious marriage woes. Jack got along with his in-laws (Mrs. Esther Marks is with him in the photo to the right).

Here’s a feature story from one of those fan mags, Radio Stars, from its June 1936 edition. At that point in Jack’s career, he had pretty much decided to use Hollywood as his base of operations instead of New York. And while the story puts on a faux mantle of investigative journalism, the responses are pretty milquetoast. Not all of them are candid. The story leaves the impression that Jack was all lovey-dovey with his writer, Harry Conn, when Conn would walk out on him a few months later. And Jack did have trouble with sponsors; Canada Dry tried interfering with Benny’s writing and a “he-goes-or-I-go” ultimatum ended with the soft drink company cancelling the show. And then there was Chevrolet, with a company boss who wanted symphonic music instead of a, ugh, comedian. Even Benny’s switch was General Tire to General Foods was a little unusual.

However, these are all minor things. It’s interesting to read Jack’s sole annoyance was listener complaints that were ridiculous. He might be pleased to know that hasn’t changed in 80 years.

The RCMP show referred to in the story can be found on-line. It aired February 9, 1936.

NOTHING EVER HAPPENS
Everything's all right with Jack Benny! Maybe he just doesn't know trouble
By JACK HANLEY
WHEN the listening public, made up of a vast number of differing individuals, gets together and agrees on one performer as the top in his field, that, dear radio friends, is something. And when radio critics across the country pool their likes and dislikes and rate a performer first place, that, again, is something. But when critics and lay public together, with remarkable unanimity, place a well-sponsored laurel wreath on the same program—that program has an odd way of turning out to be Jack Benny's.
You probably are aware by now that this is the third consecutive year Jack Benny has won first place in the National Radio Editors' Poll, as a comedian. And it's the second consecutive year the Jello program has won first place, as a whole.
In the Crosley Poll—which is a canvass of listeners—the Benny program took first place among half–hour shows, first place among comedy shows and second place in the whole radio field. After five years in radio that's not only reaching the top, hut, what is more important, staying there.
Looking closely at the Benny brow, there are no evident signs or scratches visible from the laurels that have been heaped thereon. His hats, too, I believe, still fit. "Naturally," Jack Benny says, "it's gratifying to come out first on the poll. It's nice to feel that the critics agree on you and your show as the leader. But what we're most interested in is not so much winning the poll as in staying among the top few. And that's pretty tough."
Saying so, Jack didn't look particularly dismayed at the prospect. "With several comedy shows running close together, just one slip, one performance a little under par, puts you second. And that's bound to happen occasionally. And then, if at the same time your show slips a little, another program improves, you're third. So we don't worry about trying to keep in first place; we try to keep the general level high enough to see that we're included in the leading three or four."
Jack shook his head. "I feel terrible," he said with the same calm, affability you hear on the radio. He says practically everything that way. My guess is that if the building were on fire Jack Benny would greet the fire department with the same blend amiability, saving : "Jell-O folks—come right in and bring your hose," and make his quiet exit, first, of course, seeing that Mary—Mrs. Benny—and their beloved baby Joan, were safe.
"You have a cold?" I suggested shrewdly.
He nodded. "I was wondering whether I ought to go out tonight or not. We've got tickets for the theatre and Mary was sort of figuring on going."

"If she knew you didn't feel well," I said, as much like the Voice of Experience as possible, "she probably wouldn't want to go."
"That's just it. She won't let me go if she knows. And then suppose want to go after all?" He grinned disarmingly with unaffected naïveté. As a matter of fact Jack Benny is the only celebrity I can think of who could truly be called boyish without its sounding sickening.
"We get to see so few shows," he explained, "being out on the Coast so much, we like to take in as many possible when we're in New York."
"By the way," I asked, "how do you like the Coast?”
"Fine," Benny nodded. "We're very happy out the ... like it fine."
"Of course," I suggested. "you had the usual trouble in Hollywood. . . ."
"Trouble?" Jack looked blank.
"The exasperations everyone meets making pictures ... you know ... Once in a Lifetime...." Jack being fresh from Hollywood, thought your reporter, here was a chance to get an earful of new horrible movie adventure.
"No, we didn't have any trouble out there."
"You mean you like Hollywood?"
"Sure. Making pictures is all right."
And there's one of the outstanding features of the Benny makeup. Practically everything is all right with Jack. Without being a rubber-stamp or a yes-man, Jack Benny hasn't a mad on with anything in the world.
"You know, there's so much money tied up in the picture business," he said, "and so many variables involved, they can't do things very differently. They work under terrific pressure, paying enormous salaries and overhead. Personally, I think they do a pretty good job, all considered."
Another dream shattered. Another illusion gone! I tried a flank attack.
"You were about the first radio comedian really to `kid' your sponsor," I said. "I suppose you had plenty of sponsor trouble." Show me a radio artist who hasn't ! Benny did show me.
"Well—just a little, at first," he admitted. "But as soon as they saw it wasn't a bad idea they were swell about it. On the whole, I'd say we've never had any sponsor trouble." What can you do with a guy like that? There was no use talking about comedy material difficulties. tarry Conn has been writing the Benny shows for five years, in collaboration with Jack, and Jack not only admits it, but paid him tribute over the air the night he was awarded first place the radio poll.
He pays his writer perhaps a bigger salary than any other comedian on the air and is a firm believer in the fact that the success of a comedy show depends upon a close collaboration between writer and comedian.
"I don't care if George Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind and a dozen others write a show," Jack says, "it still won't be right unless the writer and comedian build it together. We're lucky in that our comedy is more a matter of personalities than just gags. I've found that the listeners like built-up characters and that one funny line, in character, is worth a dozen planted gags."
Jack Benny can call it luck. The record shows, however, that he has been one of the few headline acts to encourage the build-up of other characters on his show. Frank Parker, Don Bestor, Don Wilson and many others have had their chances at being comedians as well as doing their own specialties. And I don't think it's "luck" that makes personality the main ingredient of Benny's program. Jack's personality is definitely his own; he sounds friendly, unassuming, bland and affable. As a matter of fact, he is the same way off-mike. It's not something he adopts for the air. Jack Benny was doing just the same type of comedy, in the same style, when he was playing vaudeville with his fiddle under his arm and when he was a featured comedian in Broadway revues.
But drama? Where was the drama—the fierce struggle for a place in the radio firmament? The battle for recognition?
"Tell me about the time you first started in radio," I suggested. "You were out of the Vanities—with no job—determined to make a place for yourself on the air ..." Jack grinned apologetically as he rejected my prompting.
"Well," he said, "it wasn't just that way. I left the show with twenty weeks still to go."
"But wasn't it a zero hour for you? Didn't you stake everything on the hope of landing a radio spot?"
"Uh ... well ... you see I was getting $1,500.00 a week with Vanities," he amended regretfully. "I had appeared on Ed Sullivan's show one night as a guest performer. And I figured there was no reason why I shouldn't do all right on the air. We went down to Florida for a couple of weeks and thought it over When we came back we signed up with Canada Dry. No drama again. That doesn't mean of course, that Jack Benny just walked into things, always. The real reason is that his rise to fame was no overnight sensation. It was built upon years of work in the theatre. As Jack puts it: "After you've been playing around for twenty-odd years, you've got a certain feeling of security." And a well-earned sense of security too. It's true that Benny wasn't facing starvation when he left a $1,500 job to try for the radio. It's also true that without the gradual and steady upward climb of those twenty-four years he probably would have gone the way of most overnight successes—a skyrocket rise and fall. I gave up in despair. "Hasn't anything exciting ever happened to you?"
He shook his head, mildly sorrowful. "I've had less excitement than anybody in show business," he confessed. "It's been a steady pull. When we went on the air (He almost always says "we", even if Mary Livingstone wasn't then with him in the show). "When we went on the air, at first nobody paid very much attention to us. We went right along, sneaking up gradually. But nothing much happens."
"There must be some things that get your goat."

"Well—we had a touch of annoyance with listeners who resent perfectly harmless gags. There was the time a girl sang : 'Canada be the spring . . .' you know, to the tune of Love in Bloom. Well, several Canadians wrote in, objecting to it. Lord knows why! So, not long ago, we were going to do a travesty bit on the Northwest Mounted Police. We were afraid that would bring some more 'resenting' letters in. So we worked it out to let Mary apparently be writing the script, right while we were doing it."
You've probably heard it . . . the type-writer would tap, and then they would play a five -minute scene Mary had "written" in half a minute.
"To make doubly sure, we set the scene in Alaska, instead of Canada, and put in a line to cover it. I said to Mary: ‘There aren't any Mounties in Alaska!’ And Mary said: ‘I know—but it's colder there!’"
"Did it spoil the scene ?" I asked hopefully. Jack grinned.
"No . . . it was done to prevent any squawks, but it turned out funnier that way than it would have been otherwise."
"Then there's nothing," I sighed, "that you have to complain about?"
"Well," he said, grinning again, "back in the old days, in the theatre, when you made two thousand a week it was your’s."
But he didn't look very upset about it. And there you have Jack Benny—the man to whom nothing ever happens, except a steady climb to success, a busy life, a happy home and an adopted daughter he's quite screwy about. Their best friends are Burns and Allen. When the Bennys are in New York they live at the Burns and Allen apartment, and use the Burns and Allen car. And George and Gracie use the Benny car, out in Los Angeles. I didn't go into what happens when both couples are at the same place.
Mary and Gracie get together and swap stories about their babies and make gifts to the youngsters; gifts that are much alike, as each of them have the same toys."
Jack likes New York, he likes Los Angeles, he likes stage and screen and radio work. He likes playing to a studio audience and figures it helps a comedy show. But he'd give it up if the other comedians did. He likes being head man in comedy, but he'd be satisfied if he were second or third. He's easy -going, pleasant and affable as he sounds. It's not very thrilling, but what can you do about it?
Well, you can listen to his show and laugh at his comedy and like him.
It isn't difficult.

Alvin Might Have Been a Rabbit

If it weren’t for Herb Klynn, we might only know the Chipmunks today as novelty characters in an old gimmick record heard around Christmas time.

Klynn was the owner of Format Films and worked out a deal in 1961 to put the Chipmunks in an animated cartoon series. The Alvin Show may have lasted only one season in prime time, but it showed the characters were valuable as animated properties and that eventually led to today’s Chipmunk empire.

Not bad for taking someone’s voice and speeding it up electronically.

The voice in question didn’t belong to Klynn or anyone on his studio’s staff; their involvement ended after producing the original cartoon series (the characters were designed by Bob Kurtz). It belonged to Ross Bagdasarian, who was not only an actor and songwriter but proved to be a pretty canny businessman. He wasn’t content with making a quick buck by jumping on the silly record bandwagon. He knew he had something bigger, and he (and after his death, his family) ran with it and built it, step by step.

Prime time animated shows were the hot thing in 1961, thanks to the success of The Flintstones. Networks wanted them. Producers and animation studios sprung into action. Thus, The Alvin Show was born. There was some irony in this—the series came after the creation of a syndicated cartoon show starring the Nutty Squirrels. The Squirrels were a sped-up voice novelty record group invented after the first Chipmunks LP. Do you follow all that?

There was plenty of publicity at the start of the fall 1961 TV season for the various cartoon shows that made it to air. Here’s what is supposed to be a publicity piece for The Alvin Show in the October 1961 edition of TV Radio Mirror magazine. But it reads more like a publicity piece for Ross Bagdasarian himself. Still, he tells the story of the non-simultaneous invention of David Seville and of the Chipmunks.

DAVID SEVILLE: Brings Alvin to TV
By ENID FIFE
"Anyone who thinks my songs are nuts," says David Seville (in real life, Ross Bagdasarian), "is only half right. Raisins had just as much to do with the success of my musical concoctions." In these words, the composer of such weirdies as "Witch Doctor" and "The Chipmunk Song" refers to the fact that he was born January 27, 1919, in the grape (and raisin) country of Fresno, California. His father was in the vineyard business and, for a while, it looked as though Ross would follow in his dad's footsteps.
Two things saved him for show business: The first, of course, is talent. The second, being the cousin of playwright William Saroyan. "Through Bill, I got to play the pinball maniac (type casting, if there ever was any) in his 'Time of Your Life' hit on Broadway. Then came the war."
After four years in the Air Corps, Ross returned to Fresno, met a local lovely named Armen, and settled down to raising a family and grapes—with the customary by-products of wine and raisins. He had three lean years, then, in 1949, produced a real bumper crop. Alas, it was then he discovered the bottom had fallen out of the grape market. "That's when I decided grapes were for the birds. I took my wife, two children, $200 and an unpublished song, 'Come On-A-My House,' and headed for Hollywood."
Ross had composed this song almost ten years before, with the help of cousin Saroyan, when they were driving from New York to Fresno after the closing of Bill's play. Both had forgotten about it until Ross came across the manuscript while packing. Columbia Records decided it was right for Rosemary Clooney. It was a smash hit.
"But you don't get rich on one song, so I kept acting," Ross explains. His movie parts got bigger, better. He appeared in "The Proud and the Profane," Hitchcock's "Rear Window," and "The Deep Six." He kept writing songs, too—among them, "Hey, Brother, Pour the Wine," "What's the Use" and "Gotta Get to Your House." In 1956, he decided to record some of his own work under another name. Listening to his version of "Armen's Theme" (written for his wife), the name David Seville simply popped into his head. "It seemed to fit the mood," he recalls.
For some time, he had been casting about for a wacky novelty number. One afternoon in January, 1958, he glanced up from his desk and saw a book entitled "Duel with the Witch Doctor." Ross says. "Since many of the top records at that time had the craziest sort of lyrics. I figured it might be fun to have the Witch Doctor give advice to the lovelorn in his own gibberish." Having recorded the orchestra track, he spent two months trying to get a "witch doctor's voice." One day, he sang the words at half-speed into his tape-recorder, then played it back at normal speed. Before the first "wallah-wallah-bing" had sounded. Armen and children were in the room, fascinated and tickled. Ross knew he'd struck gold. At Liberty Records, president Si Waronker flipped over the piece. It sold close to two million.

No story about Seville-Bagdasarian can be complete without some mention of the chipmunks. Trying for a Christmas novelty, Ross was whistling melodies into his tape recorder (his method of remembering tunes, since he can neither read nor write music). His idea was to depict the ringers as animals or insects, "just to be different." Finally, he taped a song, the introduction in his normal speed voice, and the rest in his half-speed "little voices." His "little voices" came out, he thought, like mice or rabbits, but his children disagreed. They heard them as chipmunks.
Still, something was missing for a real click. He spent months searching for the answer. Finally, Si Waronker and Al Bennett of Liberty, along with Mark McIntyre, a long-time friend, suggested his having an argument with the chipmunks. Thus, Simon (after Waronker), Theodore (after engineer Ted Keep) and Alvin (after Bennett) came to fame and fortune. Moreover, they've become such hams, they have insisted on squealing and squawking through several new songs and now will be seen over CBS-TV every Wednesday night in The Alvin Show.
Ross, who signs fan mail and pictures as David Seville, lives in Beverly Hills with Armen and their three children, Carol, 14; Ross Jr., 12; and Adam, 7.

Bagdasarian must have realised what a goldmine the cartoon series could be if it took off. Not only did he get paid for voicing the characters, and not only did he get paid for the theme song (which, at the end, spelled out his name musically), but he could use the show to cross-promote other Chipmunks records he was making for Liberty. Things didn’t quite work out that way. CBS announced the cancellation of the series by January 31, 1962, less than four months after it debuted. But since the network had rights to rerun the show, it moved Alvin to the Sunday ratings wasteland where it wouldn’t eat up valuable prime time air.

Format Films went on to other projects; among other things, it received a contract to make Roadrunner cartoons for Warners theatrical release. And, as we know today, the Chipmunks carried on, too.

Wayward Pups Backgrounds

Furious movement highlights the MGM cartoon The Wayward Pups (1937). There are perspective drawings, too (it is a Harman-Ising cartoon, after all), though the cat at the centre of the story has a neck that’s way too long at times and a voice that sounds like Donald Duck.

It also has some very nice and effective backgrounds. Here are some from the night scenes in the second half of the cartoon where the guilt-ridden cat goes looking for the title characters and eventually protects them from a pack of vicious dogs.



Was this the work of Bob Gentle? It could be. He was at Harman-Ising at the time. Unfortunately, none of the artists are credited, other than Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising. Gentle’s the only person I can identify in a list of H-I employees for 1937 as a background artist. He deserted the studio that year when Fred Quimby decided to open up his own animation operation on the MGM lot.