How To Make Your Own Animated Cartoon

Making an animated cartoon is “highly skilled work” that requires “over a hundred people,” but if you want to make one on your own at home, here’s how. That’s the gist of an article in the January 1936 edition of Movie Makers, the magazine of the Amateur Cinema League.

The article was written by Vic McLeod, who knew a little something about cartoons. He was the head writer for Walter Lantz at the time.

McLeod’s stay in animation was reasonably short. He was born Victor Ian McLeod in Nampa, Idaho on August 2, 1903 to John Archie and Myrtle Smith McLeod. His father was a barber, originally from Canada. McLeod was apparently a magazine writer before he landed at Lantz. His first cartoon writing credit was in 1934 (among other things, he wrote the lyrics to “Dunk, Dunk, Dunk,” sung by the squealing Berneice Hansell in the colour short Jolly Little Elves) and his last was in 1939. McLeod moved over to the main lot at Universal where, among other things, he wrote a musical Western for Johnny Mack Brown and the Gang Busters serial.

Radio looked like a better career for McLeod, who was soon writing for Bing Crosby, Edgar Bergen, Dennis Day and Bob Burns. When network television started to bloom in the late ‘40s, McLeod moved to NBC in New York with producer Norm Blackburn. This was the same Blackburn who animated for Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising going back into the 1920s. The two of them (according to Variety, Nov. 5, 1964) had a stage act years earlier, dubbing themselves the Beach Boys. McLeod produced Broadway Open House, the forerunner to the Tonight show, and programmes for Arthur Murray, Robert Ripley and Chevrolet. He headed back to the West Coast where he continued to write and produce; Circus Boy was one of his shows. He was still writing in 1968; he sold a rock-and-roll drama story to Four Leaf Productions. McLeod died in Hollywood on December 12, 1972.

Oddly, for a story man, McLeod doesn’t touch on the story process of making a cartoon. There’s nothing about sound. He talks about drawing and shooting, and a bit on timing; the story seems aimed at amateur filmmakers who wanted to make an animated title sequence. Still, it’s a good insight on how cartoons were made at the Universal studio.

Adapting animation
VICTOR McLEOD
THE creation of a present day animated cartoon is a complicated and tedious process requiring highly skilled work. Some idea of the labor required in producing one of these amusing novelties is realized when it is learned that it takes the combined effort of over a hundred people — writers, artists, assistant artists and technicians — to produce, in three weeks' time, a cartoon of approximately eight hundred feet. These pictures require drawing, inking, painting and photographing between twelve and fifteen thousand drawings.
It is practically impossible for any person to produce successfully a cartoon without a complete and competent staff. There are several novel and entertaining effects, however, that can be animated and produced by the amateur movie maker with a minimum of effort. These can be used to advantage in the production of novelty titles and graphs and in the illustration of points in an industrial reel.
Sketching in titles and drawing pictures under the camera are a novelty to most audiences, and they can be used in many productions. This effect is quite simple and it does not require a great deal of time. The motion picture camera must be equipped with a stop motion device that will enable you to shoot one picture at a time. It must be mounted on a camera stand so that it may be focused on a flat, horizontal camera field. If the stand can be made so that it is possible to truck up and down with the camera, it will be very advantageous for some shots. This is not absolutely essential, however.
Sketch the title lightly with blue pencil on the drawing surface that is used for the background. Over a section of this pattern, draw, with a black pencil, a heavy line from a quarter of an inch to an inch in length. The exact length of this black line will vary according to the speed with which you wish the title to appear. Leave the pencil point at the terminus of the segment of the heavy line and take one exposure. Repeat until the sketch is completed. This can be done equally well with a pen, crayon or brush. The same process is used in drawing a picture. The outline can later be shaded and filled in with a pencil or brush by using, with each exposure, full length shaded strokes of about a quarter of an inch in width.
Another novel effect is writing a title with a pen that seemingly rises unaided from a bottle of ink and, without human aid, proceeds to write or draw upon the drawing surface background. The simplest way to achieve this effect is to secure separate pictures of an ink bottle and a pen. Mount the pictures on heavy cardboard and make cutouts of them. The ink bottle is placed and securely fastened to one side of the drawing paper, but well in the camera field, so that, when a photograph of it is taken, it appears on a background made to look exactly like a drawing easel with the ink bottle resting on the ledge at the bottom of the board. A slit is cut in the top of the ink bottle so that the cutout of the pen can be inserted under the cutout of the ink bottle, causing an effect of the pen being in the bottle.
The pen now is slowly raised from the bottle in half inch moves and one frame is exposed in each position. Continue the motion until the pen has reached the proper position on your drawing board.
The backgrounds can then be changed to eliminate the ink bottle from the picture. This can be done by using a larger pen cutout and a new, plain white background to give the effect of a closer shot or, if your camera stand is movable, this can be accomplished by trucking down to a closer field. A gray shadow cutout of the pen will give the illusion of the pen being in the air; this shadow is moved to a corresponding position with each move of the pen.



Drawing "line daffodils," such as those in Figure 1, is a good approach for a beginner who wishes to learn the fundamental rules of animation. Action of this sort is quite easy to draw and will help to familiarize the animator with movement and timing. The illustrations show the proper action used as a batter swings and connects with a ball. Animation of this kind is the fastest and easiest to do, because it requires inking the drawing again or "opaqueing" it. Each drawing is done on a separate sheet of paper and is photographed separately and in sequence, the white paper acting as the background.
All studios use this method of making tests to photograph the rough action of their characters before going ahead with transferring the drawings to the transparent celluloids. It might be likened to a rehearsal to see if the action is smooth and the timing is correct.



Figure 2 shows a walk of Oswald Rabbit, the new Walter Lantz character for Universal cartoons. Drawings one, five and seven are the extremes. The rough drawings are the "in-b-tweens." The foot is brought up slowly to position five and then down fast to complete the step. This technique is what is meant by timing. There is no set rule for timing animation. Try to have the characters give the illusion of natural action as closely as possible. This can be accomplished only by practice and application. The rough drawings are "cleaned up" after the tests are shot so that they are like the extremes. Notice that the size of head and size of body remain the same; therefore a standard circle can be used and traced each time instead of being drawn free hand. This eliminates any fluctuation in the size of the character and also eliminates a great deal of work. The expression on the face in this sequence remains the same throughout, so again a lot of work is saved merely by tracing the head of the master drawing for each of the following drawings. The character, of course, must be animated along the line of action or it will be too stiff. The dotted line indicates the flow of action. This natural flow of action is a set rule that must be adhered to, if the proper result in animation is to be obtained. Keep in mind the movement of a fish swimming in water or the action of a streamer being pulled through the air. The body always follows in a graceful sweep through the same imaginary path set by the head.
The illustration shows one step of action. The same procedure must be followed with the other foot to get the complete sequence for a walk. By practice, variations of this action can be made into a run of any speed desired. This action can be used for a walk across the camera field or for a walk when the character stays in one place and the background moves behind it. This moving background is a great labor saver and is very essential if much animation is to be produced. The principle may be used in the simplest type of work.
In order to use the moving background, the outline of the action of the characters must be traced in India ink on transparent celluloid sheets, or "cells." This outline is then filled in with opaque water color paint. Different tones and shades, ranging from gray to deep black, are used for filling in. Foto-film color is the best for this purpose.
The celluloid and drawing paper sheets are all punched with two corresponding holes about three inches apart and a half inch from the top edge. These are known as peg holes and they fit snugly over pegs at the top of the drawing board and at the top of the camera field, out of the picture. This insures a perfect register of all tracings and keeps each movement of animation in register with the preceding movement.
The moving background or "sliding pan" is usually from three to six camera fields in length. It must be fastened to the camera stand so that it will move freely to the right or left but so that it will not fluctuate up and down. It can be placed on sliding pegs that are fastened to a sliding panel or it can be taped securely to the panel. Along the panel, there must be some kind of a scale with calibrations marked off in sixteenths of an inch. A flat steel rule securely screwed down will answer the purpose very nicely.
If the peg holes in the paper and "cells" are at the top, then the sliding panel and scale work from the opposite side or on the edge of the camera stand closest to the cameraman. The top edge of the "sliding pan" slides against the top pegs, the ones upon which the celluloid action sheets are fitted.
In animating a character of Oswald walking along a road, we would use a road panorama background, four fields in length, and a complete sequence of a walk, which is fourteen drawings.
These fourteen drawings are all painted in the center of separate and respective "cells," each registered in sequence to the preceding one. There are now fourteen "cells," each with a character in the same position on each "cell," but each succeeding "cell" has a different form of the character. When photographed in sequence one after the other, the result will give the movement of the character walking in one spot. However, when the background is moved in the opposite direction the character appears to be walking forward. Repeat this sequence as often as is necessary to get the character into the next scene or to the desired place on the background.
"Cell" number one is placed over the background with the character at the left end of the background and facing to the right. A picture is taken and the background is moved a sixteenth of an inch to the left with each succeeding change of the "cells." This gives the impression that the character is walking to the right. It is practically the same system as the treadmill with the rotating backdrop that was used in the days of the old melodrama, when the "heavy" chased the heroine across the meadow or down the lane.
With this system, the fourteen "cells" can be used in sequence with many different changes of background. Speed may be obtained by moving the background in longer movements and by lengthening the stride of the character.



Figures 3 and 4 on page 12 give an idea of the proper construction of your backgrounds. The spot where the character works must, at all times, be kept very much lighter in tone or color so that it will not conflict with the action and so that none of the action will be lost by blending into the background.



A simple pencil background, such as Figure 5 on page 13, can be made easily by anybody with artistic ability. This can be lengthened into a four field panorama if desired. A water color wash background (Figure 6 on page 14) is a bit more difficult to make. However, any artist can make backgrounds such as this at a reasonable cost, and it will add a lot to the appearance of the animation.
Enlargements of regular photographic negatives can also be used as backgrounds. Novel "gags" can be produced by enlarging frames from regular motion picture film and using these as backgrounds for animated characters. Cut the animated sequence back into the picture and the characters will appear to be photographed with the rest of the reel.

Extra "cells" or "X cells" are great labor savers in making animated cartoons. The illustration (Figures 7, 8 and 9 on page 14) of "Elmer The Great Dane," taken from the Walter Lantz cartoon, Monkey Wretches, shows what is meant by this process. The run of the dog is animated on one set of "cells." The monkey is animated on another set of "cells" and matched to appear to be perched astride the back of the dog. In this manner, the run of the dog can be used again in some other sequence, where the monkey is not required.
This method can also be used when a character moves his arms or legs while the rest of the body is held. The body of the character is held on one "cell" and the animated part put on a series of "X cells," so that the entire character does not have to be painted and inked more than once. Care must be taken, however, to have the "X cells" matched perfectly at the point of contact between the animated parts and the "held" drawing.
A third dimension effect can be obtained by the use of a sliding overlay celluloid on all "pan" shots. This is a transparent "cell" with a border of trees, cattails, flowers or foreground sets, such as steeples, poles, etc., that occasionally move across the scene and in front of the action. It is used over the top of the entire sequence. It is moved at the same rate of speed as your regular "sliding pan" background. The design on it is painted very dark gray or solid black so that it appears to be directly in front of the camera lens.

Anopheles Annie

The U.S. Army knows how to take care of malaria-bearing mosquitoes, and that’s bad for Anopheles Annie in “It’s Murder She Says...”, one of the Snafu cartoons made by Warner Bros. during World War Two.

There’s limited animation in parts of this cartoon directed by Chuck Jones but there’s also a wonderful bit of personality animation of Annie at the start. Her character evokes a lady of the evening who has fallen on hard times, spending her life in the bar. Annie gulps down some cheap rot-gut and shakes her head in reaction to how bad it is. Then she blows her drooping antenna back up. Is this Bobe Cannon’s work? Ken Harris? (Late note: Thad Komorowski, who helped restore these cartoons for Thunderbean, says it was Ben Washam).



Bob Bruce is the narrator in this short, but I have no idea who’s playing Annie. Sara Berner supplies some incidental voices. Carl Stalling opens the soundtrack with “Chloe.”

I'm A-Dyin', Rabbit

Gerry Chiniquy helps Yosemite Sam through a dying scene after thinking he’s been shot in “Hare Trigger” (1945). Bugs Bunny has poured red ink on the criminal cowpoke, who thinks it’s blood.



I don’t know who was assisting Chiniquy when this cartoon came out. Sam Nicholson and John Kennedy were part of Friz Freleng’s unit at the time, I believe, and it could have been one of them. Virgil Ross, Manny Perez and Ken Champin were the other animators. Mike Maltese wrote the story.

The Problem with Radio Comedy

Old time radio comedy shows are loved by many people today, but Fred Allen didn’t have much good to say about them. He knew what the problem was with them. The problem was everybody else.

John Crosby of the New York Herald Tribune gave over his column of September 10, 1947 to Allen, who proceeded to find fault with the state of radio comedy everywhere, sparing only the little tubes and tuning dial on the radio set itself.

Reading the column, it’s hard to determine where the truth ended and the satire began. Allen had little time for censors or network executives. He wasn’t enamoured of the idea of guest stars, something his sponsor insisted upon. But was he honestly dismissive of his writer Nat Hiken or supporting players like Minerva Pious and Kenny Delmar?

This version of the story was lifted from the Ottawa Journal, so you’ll noticed the mixed American and British spelling, a peculiar trait of Canadian print media.

RADIO IN REVIEW
A Kind Word for the Comedian
By FRED ALLEN
The comedian is the whipping boy of the radio industry. He is the object of critics’ scorn and a target for freelance derision. The comedian's jokes are ridiculed by intellectual and cretin alike. Listeners in mansion and motel agree that the comedian is a no-talent lout whose sense of humor is non-existent. At women's clubs, on dank afternoons, polls are regularly taken. The results, invariably released for publication, tend to show that radio comedy is in a state of galloping disintegration. National magazines take turns in printing semi-erudite post-mortems on the radio funster and his wares. "Variety", the "National Geographic" of the honky tonk, annually runs its hackneyed headline "Which came first—The Egg or the Radio Comedian?"
Since radio first began, no convert has deserted the ranks of the scoffers to champion the cause of the radio comedian. No defender has attempted to kindle a mighty hotfoot that will cause humanity to yelp and raise its heel from the comedian's throat. The "voice in the wilderness" has not cried out in his behalf. Truly the radio comedian has been abandoned by all mankind.
Before he becomes extinct before he is naught but a petrified memory whose tracks are found by scientists retreating down the corridor to oblivion, I would like to say kind word for the radio comedian. His artistic life is a bedlam. Many hazards confront him on his way to the microphone each week. Multiple forces conspire to thwart him at every turn.
A list of aggravations would include . . .
THE WRITER: The average radio writer is an ulcer with a pencil. His rancid expression leads one to assume that his mother had an acid condition and the writer was weaned on sour milk. The weight of the writer's head causes his buggywhip backbone to bend forward, giving the impression that the writer is concealing a boomerang in the back of his coat. The writer instinctively dislikes the comedian who employs him. The writer is always about to write a smash play, sign with a picture company or assemble his own package show. The comedian is paying the writer a large salary which stop the writer from leaving radio to do big things. The writer is so busy bewailing his upholstered fate that he has scant time to work on the comedian's scripts. When the stale jokes he has contrived fall flat the writer blames the comedian. When the comedian's contract is finally cancelled, the writer packs his files and his benzedrine and goes to work to undermine another comedian. Most of the comedy the writer turns out for the comedian is not to be laughed at.
THE CENSOR: The censor is the house detective of the radio network. The censor is usually a man with no sense of humor who is so narrow-minded he thinks in strips. He comes to his job equipped with nothing but a blue pencil and the right-of-way. The censor can find dirt in an infant’s glance. The height of a censor’s ambition is to delete everything in a comedian’s script. The censor would like to hear the comedian at the microphone reading nothing but punctuation.
THE STOOGE: The stooge is the unhappiest character in radio. He knows that he is funnier than the comedian. His wife is forever reminding him. The stooge is always stalking the comedian demanding bigger billing more money or funnier lines. Utopia will strive when the stooge has his own program and the comedian is working for him.
THE SPONSOR: The comedian's sponsor is cannon happy. The sponsor was the first man to shoot a rice grain, out of a cannon. Every employee in the sponsor's factory has been shot out of a cannon. The sponsor himself has been shot but of a cannon. The sponsor's new breakfast food is called "Bang!" Bang not only sparkles, snaps and crackles, as it is being eaten, Bang explodes in babies' mouths. The sponsor wants these startling facts brought out in the commercials. The Bang commercials get longer and longer. The comedian doesn't dare complain. The comedian knows that the sponsor doesn't have to put him in a cannon to fire him.
THE STUDIO AUDIENCE: The studio audience is a mass of negative flotsam. Open the door of a radio studio at any hour of the day or night and a faceless group will flock inside to participate in quiz programs, community sings or to laugh and applaud as directed. Where they come from, where they go, nobody knows. Rumor hath it that most studio audiences are cannibals. They eat masters of ceremonies, they trap behind washing machines, electric stoves and other quiz bait. The studio audience is the bane of the comedian's existence. While he is trying to please the listeners at home he has to indulge in some low comedy to entertain his studio audience. The comedian knows that any joke an inch off the ground will be over the studio audience's head.
THE AGENCY EXECUTIVE: The agency executive is a man who has read "The Hucksters" and passed the Gardenia Test (The Gardenia Test is used by all reputable advertising agencies. The potential executive is seated at a desk. A gardenia is pinned to his lapel. If he has sufficient strength to rise to his feet bearing the weight of the gardenia, the applicant is dubbed executive, fitted for a swivel and welcomed into the agency fold.) The agency man must be able to drink cocktails at lunch and annoy the radio comedian at rehearsal by not laughing at his gags. The agency executive has his finger on the pulse of the nation, when he removes the finger from the pulse of the nation, the comedian has something to worry about.
THE GUEST STAR: The guest star is generally a temperamental Hollywood glamor girl. When the script is finished she insists that most of the jokes be rewritten. Her agent demands that the guest star's last three pictures, "Zombie in the Oven", "Chuck Wagon Clarisse" and "She Couldn't Say Maybe", be mentioned in the dialogue. When the program is over; the comedian hears one laugh. It is the guest star as she takes her cheque.
THE CRITIC: The radio critic is allergic to the comedian. When the comedian's gags are funny the critic prints them to save writing a column. When the comedian's gags are bad the critic prints them to show how lousy they are. This also saves the critic the trouble of writing a column. The comedian, like the other piece of bread in a three-decker sandwich, is always in the middle.
THE SURVEY: The radio survey determines the comedian's popularity. In the United States there are sixty million radio sets in operation. Nobody knows now many people listen to each set. On the basis of a few hundred phone calls, made each month, the survey arrives at a mythical figure which supposedly is the approximate number of alleged listeners tuning in the comedian's program. The comedian has his ups and downs on the survey. The lowest rating the comedian ever had was minus ten. This meant that not only nobody was listening to the program but ten people who were going to buy radios didn’t because the comedian was on the air.
FAN MAIL, FRIENDS, etc: Fan mail and friends are sources of annoyance. Each week the comedian receives hundreds of postcards and letters. His fans want photographs, autographs, tickets for his program, copies of old scripts, money and advice. The comedian is bounded to appear at every benefit from the biggest affair at Madison-Square Garden down to a testimonial dinner being given in a decompression chamber for some sandhog. The comedian's friends are always dropping in to remind him that Jack Benny and Bob Hope had great programs earlier in the week, and that Lum 'n Abner have just passed him on the Hooper. After a few years in radio the comedian shudders at the approach of two people— the mailman and a friend.
THE INCOME TAX: When the comedian comes to the end of his fiscal year, he finds that he has to pay out from 60 to 80 per cent of his income in taxes. The rest of his money he has paid to his agent for commission, mailed to indigent relatives for their support and loaned to old actors who knew him when. After working like the proverbial mongrel all on the comedian finds that he has no money, he has made a million enemies and be has had use of the welkin.
EPILOGUE: The next time you join a crowd and radio comedian's name comes up—don't join the great majority—say a kind word. The memory of your kind word is probably all the comedian will have when his career is ended.

Ub Avery

Some of the things Tex Avery’s known and lauded for were invented before Avery ever became a cartoon director. But, if I may venture an opinion, he perfected them.

In the Ub Iwerks cartoons “Movie Mad” (1931), a Western bad guy’s eyes pop out. Not as exaggerated as Avery took it, but the concept had to start somewhere. This would have been pretty far out for 1931.



There were a couple of cartoons where Avery had his characters running in and out of doors on the left and right sides of the frame. The idea may have come from a French bedroom farce on stage for all I know, but Iwerks uses it in this cartoon. It’s not at the blinding speed as in Avery’s “Little Rural Riding Hood” (released in 1949) but this may be the first time it was used in a cartoon. To watch Flip take his time and then bother to close the door behind him is a little painful, it’s so slow.



No one other than Iwerks is credited on the cartoon.

A Beautiful Curve Ball

“Here comes McGrip’s beautiful curve,” says the announcer in Tex Avery’s Batty Baseball. And a beauty it is. The fans in the stands appreciate it. Note the war-time salute.



Ray Abrams, Ed Love and Preston Blair are the animators. John Wald is the announcer. It sounds like Pinto Colvig got in one line as McGrip but was replaced later in the cartoon with Kent Rogers. And the growly ball player who stopped the action in the cartoon’s best gag? I think it’s Harry Lang. I can’t get some of the growly voices in Avery’s Metro cartoons straight, but it sounds like the same guy who was the black cat in Bad Luck Blackie.

Advice From Don Wilson

Don Wilson was an integral part of Jack Benny’s cast (1938 photo to the right) and it’s difficult to imagine Benny carrying on for years with Howard Claney or Alois Havrilla as his announcer; both had been with the show before Wilson.

Wilson’s hiring for the Benny show was as fortuitous as it was improbable. Wilson was a play-by-play football broadcaster who had started in radio as a singer with a trio. Those aren’t exactly credentials for a comedy/variety show. But it proved to be a stroke of genius. Wilson and the rest of the cast interacted beautifully. And who better to sell food than a happy fat guy? Then when American Tobacco took over sponsorship and handed Wilson’s commercial spots at the start and close of the show to a bevy of others, the writers found ways to keep Donzie as a relevant and vital part of the show.

Wilson was incredibly popular and, season after season, in market after market, topped listener polls for favourite announcer. He bested some greats. Harry Von Zell, Ken Carpenter and Harlow Wilcox were beautiful foils on their shows; Carpenter was a Wilson protégé at KFI while Von Zell was signed by Columbia to star in a series of shorts.

Here’s an article about Don from Radio Life, a terrific Los Angeles-based publication, from March 30, 1947 (the photos accompanying this post are from elsewhere). Those of you familiar with his wife Lois Corbet from TV and radio may be puzzled by the reference to Marusia Rudunska. Before Lois, Wilson didn’t have the best luck with wives. He divorced two of them; reading between the lines of stories at the time, one was left with the impression that Donzie hooked up with some drama queens. Wilson filed for divorce from Marusia in June 1949, citing cruelty. The divorce was granted on June 19, 1950. He married Lois four days later in Santa Barbara. Four days?! We’ll avoid editorial comment.



Don Wilson
They Call Him “Jovial, Genial, Chubby,” but We Call Him a Distinguished Veteran Who’s Seen Radio Change for the Better
By Lillian Kramer
DON WILSON, rotund winner of Radio Life's 1946-47 Distinguished Achievement Award for the Most Enjoyable Commercial, has been "at it" for twenty-four years now, and that's a long time. Don has seen radio change from a frail to a giant industry. When he started dabbling in radio back in 1924 they weren't as fussy about production, sound and timing as they are now.
"Before commercial radio, it didn't make much difference if we ran over a minute or two," Don recalls.
"As a matter of fact, if we didn't have anything to put on the air—or if someone failed to show up for a broadcast—the station just signed off for a while."
A bit more informal than things are today!
Don confesses there wasn't much money then in radio, "but it was a lot of fun and we learned as we went along".
Most people got into early radio because they were musically inclined, either instrumentally or vocally, since most radio programs consisted solely of music. Don started out as a singer over a Denver transmitter. It was several years before he took up sportscasting and then announcing.
Our chubby voice of experience says that announcers, along with technique, have changed for the better since those early days.
"Announcers today have finer diction and a much greater command of the language.
"They must have more than a good voice and a knowledge of pronunciation, however. They have to be able to project a 'selling' voice over the microphone and to have an acceptable radio personality at the same time", he points out.
According to Don, the radio microphone is the daddy of the lie detector.
"The mike is the greatest detector of insincerity, and by the same token it reflects honesty and sincerity in an announcer's voice", he claims.
His Advice
Every week Don receives countless letters from would-be announcers seeking advice on how to succeed in radio. He answers them all:
"Be yourself. Don't try to mimic someone else. Your own personality is your greatest asset.
"Have an honest enthusiasm about the product you're selling and your voice will register successfully."
He certainly knows whereof he speaks. The Radio Life citation is the latest in a ten-year-long string of firsts in popularity polls which have picked him as favorite announcer.
Don has been with Jack Benny for thirteen years. Besides his Sunday stints for Benny, the Wilson verve also adds lift to Ginny Simms' Friday night airers, the Victor Borge-Benny Goodman show, and Kenny Baker's five-times-weekly early morning broadcasts.
Most of his fans write about his infectious laugh. Those background chuckles are not prop laughs. Don doesn't laugh at a joke because there's a paycheck in the shadows. He really enjoys a funny line and it's second nature for him to boom out with the hearty ho-hos.
After all those references to Don as a "Hemo Boy," comparisons to Mt. Wilson, and what not, the popular conception is a Don Wilson weighing in the neighborhood of 400 pounds, more or less.
Actually, Don weighs a trim 230—not bad for his six feet, two.
Ginny's warm-up shows make a lot over Don's avoirdupois. A make-believe storm at sea calls for a line like "Make Wilson stay in the middle of the ship—it's listing!"
Pounds don't worry Don, and he claims he diets only when he's asleep. His favorite midnight snack 1s a bowl of graham crackers and milk.
Wilson is married to Marusia Rudunska, a refugee Polish countess and a very talented dress designer. A couple of weeks ago Marusia had her new spring opening in Beverly Hills. Hollywood stars and Beverly Hills society were well represented.
Ginny was one of the hostesses at the opening, which was emceed, as you might guess, by Don Wilson. Marusia modeled her creations herself and caused quite a flurry.
Don is very proud of Marusia's success. He likes to talk about her workshop in downtown Los Angeles, about the clever things she does with fabrics, and about the gowns she whips up for Esther Williams and other stars.
"They call her the Valentina of Beverly Hills", he says gleefully.
The Wilsons have just moved into a new apartment in Beverly Hills and are now in the happy throes of decorating. They used to live on a ranch in the Valley, but their busy careers made town living more to be desired.
Besides his multitudinous radio assignments, Don finds time to be President of Acro-Speed, Incorporated, an automotive tune-up equipment plant located in Pasadena—and to be radio's number one gin-rummy addict.

The Making of Mr. Bug

Critics and apologists have come up with all kinds of reasons the second and last Fleischer feature Mr. Bug Goes To Town was a failure (Variety used the terms “mediocre” and “meagre” to describe the film’s weekly take figures). Some blame the release coming around Pearl Harbor Day. Others say an unfair comparison to Disney influenced movie goers. Still others say it just wasn’t very entertaining.

Whatever the reason, Variety announced on January 23, 1942 the Fleischer Studio would no more make feature films. And, as fans of old cartoons likely know, Paramount soon swooped in and took over the studio.

The feature seems to have received an extensive PR build-up. Here’s a newspaper column from the National Enterprise Association. The film was completed on November 6, 1941. Within two weeks, Dave Fleischer was in Hollywood, allegedly scouting talent but likely looking for work (he was in charge of the cartoon department at Columbia five months later).

This was originally posted at the Golden Age Cartoon forums with better versions of the pictures. I no longer have them and could only find these weak copies.

500 Glamor Girls Required to Make Film Star at Miami
Oldest Cartoon Studio Is Bughouse These Days During $1,000,000 Production of ‘Mr. Bug Goes to Town’ To Be Released Near Christmas
By JONATHAN KILBOURN
(NEA Service Staff Correspondent)
MIAMI, Aug. 8—In Hollywood it takes one glamor girl to make a picture star. Here in Miami it takes 500.
The 500 girls are artists who draw cartoon characters — “stars” — stars for the Fleischer Studio, oldest movie cartoon makers and, next, to Disney, the biggest. And the fact that it takes 500 girls to create a character of only one of a multitude of differences between the set-up in a West Coast studio and the situation here.
For one thing, the Fleischer company is the only major movie concern to be established successfully outside the Hollywood area. It moved here in 1938, after 22 years in New York. For another, it manages to do business without any of Hollywood’s hullabaloo. Although it has one of Florida’s largest payrolls, most Miamians don’t even know of its existence.
The company, under the leadership of Dave and Max Fleischer, now has under way its second full-length production (first was “Gulliver’s Travels”), the biggest project in its history. Titled “Mr. Bug Goes to Town” and costing over $1,000,000, it may prove a minor milestone in the progress of movie cartooning. It is the first all-cartoon feature-length picture with a non-fantasy plot—production officials describe it as a “modern romantic comedy-drama”—and instead of human actors it has insects.
Most Artists Have Two Jobs
These insect actors are, in a sense, among the highest paid in the business. Hoppity, the Jimmy Stewart-type grasshopper hero, draws $5000 a week, and Honey Bee, who reminds you of a Deanna Durbin heroine, gets $3750. C. Bagley Beetle, the insect menace, makes $1750. At least, it’s fair to set down those sums as salaries, because that is what the artists who create these characters are paid for the time Hoppity, Honey and Mr. Beetle are actually “in production.”
As in Hollywood, 55 per cent of the Fleischer feature’s budget is earmarked for “talent.” But instead of going into the pockets of five or six big-name stars, the $550,000 is divided among the 700 artists, including 500 girls, who create, animate, ink and color the make-believe movie stars feature players and extras, as well as design the “sets,” which are painted backgrounds.
Most of the girl artists are “inkers,” whose precision work consists of inking in the outlines of the penciled sketches created by the top artists and animators. Their average age is only 23, and they’re the prettiest bevy of beauties that never saw the screen.
Few of them, however, have Hollywood ambitions. They like Miami and the studio, and they want to stay here.
Hardly a soul at the studio holds down less than two jobs. Artists suggest story ideas, gagmen do art work, every one gets his or her chance to become the “voice” of a cartoon character.

Veteran Fleischer employee Mike Meyer [photo to the right], for example, is the voice of a popular comic strip character as well as of Smack, the “dead-end” mosquito in “Mr. Bug Goes to Town.” But he’s also an idea man who creates stories and gags and sketches characters.
Teamwork keynotes studio activity. Conferences are constantly being held—not the fabled, interminable conferences West Coast movie magnates are forever holding, but short staff meetings for the making of decisions and interchanging of opinions.
Unlike Hollywood, a cartoon studio can’t afford retakes; each foot of cartoon film requires weeks, even months of work. So changes must be made before work begins on the “shooting script.”
Planning and producing a Fleischer cartoon is an elaborate process—“Mr. Bug Goes to Town” has been in production for over a year, although it won’t be released until Christmas time. Over a month was spent deciding on the general outline the story should follow, then three months creating characters, which means perfecting their appearances, action, voices.
A cartoon studio doesn't need to hunt for talent as Selznick did for “Gone With the Wind” and Paramount is now doing for “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” If it wants a certain type of actor for a particular role, it just draws him.
When the story outline is complete, Dave Fleischer, this studio’s producer and director, puts the pencil sketches in his “moviola”—a device of his own invention which rapidly turns the sheets of drawing paper, gives the effect of motion. Thus he can tell, how nearly the preliminary sketches come to the desired effect.
Revisions then are made, details added to the script, backgrounds designed and colors selected. All the speaking parts are filled and voices recorded, for animators use the sound to visualize action.
Then the animating side of movie cartoon-making really begins to move. Pencil drawings are made, 24 per second for each character. There are 24 “frames,” or squares of film, shown on the screen each second, so for every second a moving character is on the screen, 24 pencil drawings must be made. Girl inkers place transparent celluloids over the drawings, trace the lines in ink. Others, called “opaquers,” color these outlined characters. The present Fleischer feature is in that status now “Mr. Bug Goes to Town," when it gets there, will have used up six tons of specially-mixed paint, including 1500 colors and three times that number of shades.
Film Uses 600,000 Pictures
The various characters, inked and colored on celluloid, are then placed against the color backgrounds and photographed, frame by frame, onto film. An hour-long motion picture contains 86,400 frames, and “Mr. Bug Goes to Town” will contain slightly over 100,000—average for a feature-length picture. But into this will have gone close to 600,000 separate celluloid action pictures, 650 separate backgrounds. In all, including working sketches, more than 1,000,000 drawings will have been made.
Final process in movie cartoon-making includes transferring the pictures, dialogue, music, other noises, all of which are on different films, to one film. After this is done, cutting and editing ready the film for release.
That’s when beaming, bespectacled Dave Fleischer, who has his finger in every studio pie, breathes a sigh of relief and takes a plane to New York, where he was born 47 years ago. It’s characteristic of him that when he arrives he stays quietly at the same small Broadway hotel he lived at in less lush days.
It is largely because of Fleischer’s unassuming qualities that his studio lacks Hollywood atmosphere. But he says it is due to the studio’s location. “You get a chance to be natural here and to forget the picture business,” he says.