Joint Wipers

Horse-drawn wagons and water towers on top of apartment buildings. That’s part of the urban landscape in the Tom and Jerry cartoon Joint Wipers, released by Van Beuren in 1932.

Our heroes are plumbers who can’t stop an expanding series of leaks in the building. They finally go up to the roof and try to repair the tower, the pace quickening. They fail. The tower bursts. I like how Tom and Jerry are turned into a bunch of lines, and have Xs for eyes like you used to see in comic strips way back when.



John Foster and George Stallings get the “by” credit. The score is once again supplied by Gene Rodemich. If anyone can name any of the tunes here, or let me know if the plumbers song (“We’re glad that we are plumbers”) is a novelty tune of the era, please comment.

The Glacier Cracks! No Escape!

Daffy Duck concocts a growing tale of disaster (thanks to the writing of Warren Foster) that he relates to the standard Bob McKimson dog in Daffy Duck Hunt (1947).

About all you need to know is Porky keeps putting the presumably dead duck in the home freezer to keep him fresh until dinner. That’s why Daffy is wearing gloves and a scarf (it’s cold in there). The duck jumps out and spins a story about mushing through an arctic blizzard and being stopped by a falling glacier.

Here are some of Daffy’s expressions as he plays toward the camera. Note how the in-betweener calms down the duck into his normal proportions at the end.



Manny Gould, Phil De Lara, Chuck McKimson and Jack Carey get the animation credits.

Cutting Off Ed Murrow

Before Edward R. Murrow became an unassailable symbol of truth, honesty and integrity, he was a mere mortal, a man who became a broadcast journalist when the need arose. Murrow made his name with his riveting, on-scene descriptions of the Battle of Britain, and then sealed his reputation in his clash against demagoguery cloaked in the form of an overly-ambitious junior Senator.

No one today gives a thought about reporters being heard and seen live from anywhere in the world or newsmakers appearing electronically. Around the outset of World War Two, it was a very different situation. Newscasts consisted of a newscaster reading. That’s it. No sound of people in the news, no cutaways to reporters on the scene. The technology didn’t really exist to do it otherwise.

War changed that. CBS instituted a World News Roundup in 1938 where correspondents from various parts of the world joined anchor Bob Trout via shortwave to forecast more gathering war clouds. When the war began, the sounds of the Battle of Britain were brought into living rooms by Murrow, eloquently and descriptively, never a word wasted. And it was live.

Here’s an example of Murrow’s mastery of the English language, transcribed in the progressive newspaper PM in its October 21, 1940. Today, it’s astonishing to think someone with the stature of The Great Murrow would be chopped off the air. But, rightfully, he was treated no differently than any other CBS correspondent. He was allotted ‘X’ amount of time on the air and then it was another newsman’s turn.

Columnist John McManus adds something about a Mutual Broadcasting news report by Sigrid Schultz, one of the few women reporters working on an international level at the time.

Radio Tuners Hear London Guns, Air-Raid Sirens in Switzerland
Murrow Reports Raid From London Roof Top . . . Sigrid Schultz Tells of Nazi Invasion Plans, as Air Raid Sirens Wail
By JOHN T. McMANUS
America perched on a London rooftop last night and witnessed, with its own ears and the reliable reporting eyes of CBS's radio correspondent, Ed Murrow, the far-off thud-thud of cannon fire and the indistinct roar of Nazi bombers as London weathered one of the most savage night attacks of the war.
Then, later in the evening, as eerie background for a broadcast from Berne, Switzerland, by the Chicago Tribune’s Berlin correspondent, Sigrid Schultz, over WOR-Mutual, this country heard the sustained shriek of an air-raid siren in full cry for nearly five minutes before it finally growled to silence. Miss Schultz did not mention the siren during her talk, which she was apparently reading from a script timed to the second. But during the talk she told of previous air-raid alarms last night in Berne, “but the fog was so thick we could not tell whose planes were overhead.”
Plan for Conquest
Miss Schultz's broadcast concerned mainly a plan discussed in German newspapers for an immediate invasion of England with the German fleet covering a mass speedboat crossing which could be accomplished in 30 minutes.
The success of the plan, despite the admittedly inferior German fleet, depended on the necessity of the British fleet's being forced to scatter to attempt to cover landing places. This, according to Miss Schultz's sources, was calculated to “disturb, but not prevent” the success of the venture. The cross-Channel invasion would be aided by parachutists landing at strategic points, to hold those points until 1000 great Junkers 52s, each carrying 20 fully equipped infantrymen, landed whole battalions to take over. Miss Schultz made the interesting observation that Germany now has “parachute veterans” who know their way around from experience in previous parachute occupations.
The admitted bug in the whole plan, she quoted, was the inability to hind equipment such as tanks and heavy artillery, both vital to the success of a modern invasion.
Miss Schultz also reported that Germany, in disarming the peoples of the countries “she has occupied or taken under her protection,” had relieved the Norwegians of their beloved fowling pieces and other sport guns.
(The Chicago Tribune bureau in New York explained that Miss Schultz was in Berne at the start of a “leave of absence” from her post in Berlin, during which she intended to go to England. The tone of her broadcast was guarded, indicating that she expects to return to Berlin.)
Thud . . . Thud . . . Thud
Mr. Murrow's broadcast from the London rooftop was cut off by CBS here to bring in correspondents from other points abroad. Here is the text of his broadcast: “It's dark up here, almost impossible to see my own feet. I have no light and no watch, so I’ll just have to ask my colleagues in New York to terminate this broadcast at the end of its allotted period, or when they get tired of it. But the German attack developed tonight with great fury, particularly during the first two hours. Most of the bombing was ‘stick’ bombing rather than salvos, and stick bombing means really that they were coming down in a string of one. two, three, four, falling sometimes about a blink apart, as distinct from the salvo bombing when they all come down in a section.
"There is a bit of haze hanging over London tonight and I can see the cars passing by on the streets below just as two faint eyes that they use for headlights—very small dim lights moving slowly down the street. At the moment, as you can hear, everything is quiet. If that's disappointing to you, certainly it isn't to me. We've had a sufficient amount of noise up here earlier this evening. It's a strange feeling, standing on a rooftop in London tonight. One has the sensation of being suspended in mid-air. That haze down in the street seems like rivers of white smoke flowing down these crooked streets.
“A little earlier in the evening I saw a white ambulance pass by down below and I felt that sometime we would wake from a dream and find that the ambulance had been just a station wagon bringing someone back from a pleasant week end in the country, and when a fire engine went by with its clanging, urgent bell one had the feeling that somehow that maybe it's just a butcher wagon in a country village.
“There’s a little gunfire off to the west. One can see the flash of the guns, but it's too far away to hear them distinctly. You may be able to hear just a dull, thumping noise like someone kicking a tub. (Sound of thudding.) You can hear them very faintly. I can hear a plane moving in on my right now.”
At this point CBS cut Mr. Murrow off to bring in correspondents from elsewhere in Europe.

A Bad Luck Demonstration

A black cat is bad luck when it crosses your path. That’s the premise behind Tex Avery’s Bad Luck Blackie, which combines the idea with the “if you ever need me, just whistle” routine.

In this cartoon, a black cat takes pity on an abused white kitten and provides him with a demonstration of how the combination works. The whistle is blown, the cat trots, skips, swims, dances, etc. in front of the bullying bulldog. Something falls from somewhere up high and clobbers the dog.



Here are the consecutive frames. The dog is on a four-drawing cycle. Note how little time Tex uses to have the flower pot drop into the scene.



Rich Hogan is the story man in this masterpiece cartoon, with animation by Walt Clinton, Grant Simmons, Preston Blair and Louie Schmitt.

Birds of the Radio

Network radio quickly became part of popular culture in the early 1930s and radio stars were parodied or caricatured everywhere—in feature films, on stage, in newspapers and magazines (the great Al Hirschfeld comes to mind) and even on radio itself. There seemed to be a number of mimics in the dying days of vaudeville appearing in theatres and trying to wow an audience with their approximations of Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Ed Wynn, Jimmy Durante, Eddie Cantor and so on. The Brown Derby had drawings of the stars on its walls.

Cartoons got in on the fun, too. One rarely-seen example is The Big Birdcast, a 1938 Color Rhapsody released by Columbia. The impressions aren’t exactly the greatest at times but there are enough catchphrases and screen references that just about anyone watching the cartoon back then would get the references.

The cartoon opens with the song “Sing, Baby, Sing,” and cuts to a short of a canary (?) boo-boo-boo-ing the lyrics. Who else could it be but Bing Crosby? Suddenly, a rooster pops up and screeches out a scat to the melody. If you didn’t get it from the vocalisation, he leans into the camera and squawks “Hi-ya, Buck!” Yes, it’s Andy Devine. In 1938, he was best known for greeting Jack Benny the same way before taking part in a Buck Benny Western parody sketch. Devine, by the way, actually did squeal Sing, Baby, Sing on the Benny radio show.



Rudy Vallee’s hair and megaphone are recognisable in the next scene. The megaphone gets a solo.



Violin? Town Hall? Yes, it can only be a send-up of the Jack Benny/Fred Allen feud (Allen’s show at the time was called Town Hall Tonight). Composer Joe De Nat tosses in a joke of his own when the soundtrack plays the Jell-O signature when the Benny bird is introduced (Benny was sponsored by Jell-O then), followed by a scratchy version of Love in Bloom, Benny’s theme song. Says the Allen worm: “One more lesson and I’ll play The Bee.” The radio feud began over a 10-year-old violinist’s performance of that composition by Schubert, followed by a crack by Allen about Benny’s musicianship. The worm then launches into the composition after splitting up into, well, bees. The Benny bird escapes into a hollow tree and emerges in a cowboy costume as “Buck.”



The other radio feud—Ben Bernie (“the old maestro and all the lads”) and gossip columnist Walter Winchell (“this is Mrs. Finchell’s boy Walter” “with lotions of love”—Winchell was sponsored by Jergen’s Lotion).



Eddie Cantor (the bird version fits in a reference to Ida and that putt-putt-putt noise the real Cantor used to make on the air). The large bird with the tuba has a Greek accent, meaning he’s Parkyakarkus, a character on Cantor’s show played by Harry Einstein (I’m presuming the talking microphone is supposed to be Cantor’s announcer, Jimmy Wallington, though it doesn’t sound anything like him).



Ed Wynn, Joe Penner (with Goo Goo the duck), and the NBC chimes all make appearances with some more obscure parody caricatures.

Danny Webb shows up on Columbia’s doorstep to do the same Penner impression you hear in Warner Bros. cartoons. He does a number of the other voices as well. Manny Gould receives the sole animation credits.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre – Your Blue Chip Market

Several companies used the name “Criterion Films.” One was set up by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in 1935. We suspect the company responsible for the following commercial film was the Criterion Films started in Seattle in 1949. Ex Disney employee Vern Witt was hired as a cameraman at that time, as was Curt Roberts of KING to handle scripts and promotions.

Standard Oil bankrolled a picture in 1951 showing the sights of Seattle. This one from 1954 touts the wonders of Los Angeles. The only credit on it belongs to Robert Tobey, a union film photographer starting in 1928 who originally worked for Technicolor in Boston before moving to Hollywood. He died in 1973. But you should recognise the uncredited narrator on this as the glorious Marvin Miller.

The film was made for the Los Angeles Herald-Express. “On the way home in the late afternoon, people have the leisure to buy and read their favourite evening paper, the Herald-Express,” Marvin tells us. Alas, television would soon make the evening paper as obsolete as the streetcars you can also see in this film.

Unless you’re a fan of Marvin’s—and he employs a nice bubbly read in this—or scenes of 1950s Los Angeles, I doubt you’ll be able to watch the whole thing.

It's TV Day

The big money in radio was gone in 1951. No one knew better than Dennis Day.

Day had been axed by NBC in July because he wouldn’t reduce his demand for $11,500 a week for his radio package. The same thing happened to Judy Canova, who was let go making $8,500 a week but told she could come back for $5,000. The big sponsorship money to pay the stars was moving faster and faster from radio into television. (Day, by the way, was getting $12,500 a week to sing in Las Vegas).

Jack Benny wasn’t a cheapskate like he played on the radio and Day wasn’t a naïve kid he portrayed. He proceeded to do what his mentor Benny had done several years earlier—played NBC and CBS off each other to land a new contract. He finally signed with the former, reported Variety on October 31, 1951. It was a TV-radio deal sponsored by NBC’s parent company, RCA. Not only did the contract let NBC plug its TV sets on the Day programme, it plugged Dennis’ records, which happened to be on the RCA label.

As the ink on the signed agreement dried, Day hit the promo circuit to push his coming TV show and fit in a mention for his new movie while he was at it. Hence this column by the Associated Press found in papers starting November 26, 1951 which also focused on Day’s savviness.

Dennis Day Prepares for Video Debut
By BOB THOMAS
HOLLYWOOD, Nov. 27. — (AP) — Eugene Denis McNulty [sic], better known as Dennis Day, portrays a dim-witted character on The Jack Benny radio show. If Day is dumb, many another show business personality would like to have the same brand of ignorance.
Here are some examples of Day's dumbness.
1. After years of biding his time, he landed himself a fat movie contract with Twentieth-Fox.
2. He is the only Fox player who has television rights.
3. He just signed a TV contract with NBC after weeks of bidding by that network and CBS.

Day, who talks like a normal human being and not the breathless, half-baked character he plays on the radio, indicated that he doesn't believe in rushing into things. He has had many movie offers but not until a couple of years ago did he sign up for one picture a year at Fox. The deal kept him a free agent for TV, while most other movie contract players were prohibited from the new medium.
The tenor is presently working in "The Girl Next Door" and will play a whimsical ax murderer in his next film. He has another film to follow that one, and so his TV show may not debut until the fall of 1952.
"They wanted me to start in January," he said. "But since I'm virtually doing three pictures a year instead of one, I may have to put the TV show off. Anyway, I'm in no hurry to get started. I've seen too many performers jump into TV before they were ready. Now the public is getting tired of them."
A few weeks ago, Day was in the enviable position of being wooed by the networks. Each day, top emissaries from NBC and CBS would visit him at the studio. Each call hiked the bidding price up a notch. Finally he accepted NBC's offer.
"It will be a variety show format," he said. "I made pilot films of both kinds—variety show and situation comedy along the lines of my air show. The situation comedy show turned out to be deadly. It just doesn't seem adaptable to TV."
Day indicated that he would concentrate on getting good writing for his show, "That is the most important element in a show's success," he said. "The trouble with a lot of the writing on TV today is that the writers are still thinking in terms of radio technique. They concentrate on gags. Fortunately there are a lot of new young writers coming who realize that TV depends on sight, not gags."
Day's own radio program is off the air and he said he might be giving up radio altogether.
"Jack (Benny) may drop his air show after this season," he reported. "Jack was very happy with his last TV show and thinks he has found the format that will work for him in TV. And I think he's right. He was playing the real Jack Benny and people loved him."
With Benny and others threatening to desert it, what will happen to radio?
"I guess it will be limited to recorded shows and music," Day observed. "Daytime radio will still be the same, but all the big nighttime shows will be dropping off. There's no money in radio any more."

Day’s variety show debuted (or is that day-buted?) on February 8th, alternating weekly with Ezio Pinza. He tried to go the sitcom/songs route he had trod successfully on radio, with Verna Felton, Hanley Stafford and Kathy Phillips slotted as regulars. Day wasn’t so successful this time. On the East Coast, the premiere was opposite CBS’ Mama, which had a 40 share. Directors came and went. Writer Parke Levy bolted in late March; his final episode didn’t air in the East because of a blizzard in the Denver area cutting the NBC circuit. A show doctor was hired in May. The programme was replaced by a dramatic show in June and re-worked during the summer hiatus, returning in the fall.

Incidentally, the “ax murderer” movie role mentioned in the story never materialised and I have not been able to find out what it was supposed to be. However, Variety reported on March 13, 1952 that a deal was set for Day to play one of the leads in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Not only did it not happen, but a lead in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes announced in the Hollywood Reporter a year and three days later didn’t come to pass. In fact, Day never made another movie. Of course, mentor Benny had been out of the movie business by that time, too. Sticking to the small screen never hurt either of them.