Tuesday, 8 November 2016

Betty Boop For President

Betty Boop sings a push for votes in Betty Boop For President (1932). And she does impersonations, too, morphing her appearance. Oddly, she doesn’t turn into F.D.R., who won the election that year.



The stiff collar indicates Betty is doing an impression of President Herbert Hoover.



She’s now Al Smith, who lost the Democratic nomination in 1932 to Roosevelt (after losing the presidential vote four years earlier). Comedians made fun of the fact that Smith insisted on calling a radio a “raddio.” Betty does that, too.



Gag’s over. She pulls down the brim of her hat and becomes Betty again.



Betty wins the White House at the end of the cartoon, thanks no doubt to animal rights activists (cars are stopped to allow cats to cross a city intersection) and supporters of heterosexual conversion therapy (a hard-boiled inmate is effeminised).

Seymour Kneitel and Doc Crandall get the animation credits. Mae Questel is Betty. I don’t know if New York-based radio mimic Johnny Woods supplied the voices of Hoover and Smith; I’d have to listen more carefully to see if it sounds like him.

Monday, 7 November 2016

Blast That Tongue

Tex Avery made several cartoons involving noise and escaping it so someone doesn’t hear it. There’s Rock-a-bye Bear, Deputy Droopy and, in a variation on the theme, The Legend of Rockabye Point. All of them zip along with one gag flowing into the next.

Here’s one from Rock-a-bye Bear. The conniving little dog gets Spike caught in a dining room table. He puts a stick of dynamite on Spike’s tongue. Anyone who knows the format of these cartoons can figure out what happens next. But Tex twists things by adding a piece of action after the tongue zooms back into the house and Spike’s mouth. The tongue slaps Spike across the face.



Both Rich Hogan and Heck Allen get story credits in this 1952 release. As far as I know, Hogan left MGM when Avery took some time off around May 1950 and was replaced by Dick Lundy. So it could be that the story stage of the cartoon was started before Avery left and completed when he came back.

Sunday, 6 November 2016

Jack Benny Visits Texas

A few weeks ago, we posted a review of one of Jack Benny’s seemingly innumerable benefit concerts, this one in Austin, Texas in 1966. Jack’s arrival in Austin was a big deal, and there was a flurry of advance publicity and a number of events once he arrived. The State Senate made him an honorary Texan and gave him an engraved certificate attesting he was officially 39 years old. And there were the interviews.

Jack kept up a very taxing schedule. It’s no wonder he tried to be as comfortable as possible as he met reporters day after day after day. It seems Jack preferred doing interviews in his hotel room while wearing his bathrobe. I’ve found a number of newspaper stories in the ‘60s in that setting.

Here are two from the Austin Statesman, first from February 1, 1966, the other from February 22nd. The second is unbylined, the first is by a reporter who positively gushes over the fact she met Jack Benny. Jack seems a little short-sighted about his comments on rock music; just ask fans of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones or any of the long-time rock acts still touring today. Jack should have remembered people at one time thought Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra were young people’s fads and wouldn’t last, too.

CONCERT: Benny, Symphony Feb. 22
By KAY POWERS

Special Writer
Beg—borrow—go into hock if you have to—but get yourself the best seat possible for the Feb. 22 Jack Benny Benefit Concert with the Austin Symphony Orchestra. The man is terrific. Warmly human, wonderfully witty and absolutely amazing.
All this became apparent in a Houston hotel suite Sunday afternoon while Irving Fein, Jack Benny’s long-time manager and friend, was talking over concert details with Mr. and Mrs. Dick brown and another Austin couple. Brown, chairman of the committee which is going all out to make the Benny benefit a smashing success, was giving Fein the latest information on concert plans.
A door opened quietly and in wandered Jack Benny in a somewhat crumpled navy-and-white silk dressing gown—with nothing showing ‘twixt it and the floor except two typically male legs and a pair of black socks!
It wasn’t a gag. It wasn’t an act. It was Jack Benny being himself—and there is nothing more delightful than Jack Benny being himself, we learned in the next 90 minutes.
Despite the fact that not one penny of the receipts on the Austin concert will go to the Benny vaults, he was eager to hear how ticket sales are going. “In San Diego last Sunday—in Orlando Tuesday night and in Tampa Thursday night—a whole lot of people paid $100 apiece for the concerts. Not just to hear me play, mind you, but for charity . . . my favorite charity, which happens to be good music.”
“Pictures? Sure you can make pictures. Anybody who files from Austin to Houston just to work on plans for a symphony benefit with us is entitled to pictures,” Benny smiles, and shortly thereafter he disappeared in the bedroom.
But it wasn’t a change of attire he had in mind, because the plink-plink-plink of a violin being tuned came floating from the room and back came Jack Benny with his Stradivarius tucked under his chin. It did contrast rather strangely with the dressing gown and black socks.
He didn’t play “Love In Bloom.” Instead, he backgrounded our small talk with some agile arpeggios and several double-stopped passages that bespoke hours of practice and considerable skill.
“I knew you had to be a real musician,” exclaimed Dick Brown. “Nobody who isn’t a musician could make it sound so bad so consistently.”
“No, I’m not,” Jack insisted. “Honestly, I play as good as I can when I’m up there in front of a symphony orchestra—it just comes out lousy, that’s all.” At any rate, his hands are definitely those of an artist, and he punctuates his remarks with them freely. Although he was to have dinner with all the Astronauts this evening, he regaled us for an hour and a half with lively anecdotes from his several decades in showbiz. His memory is fantastic and his appearance amazingly youthful.
Learning that Brown hails from Corsicana, he remembered a week’s stand there on the old Interstate vaudeville circuit back in the mid-twenties. For just a moment, he seemed annoyed that he couldn’t recall the last name of a Texan he had known years ago.
“You know, Irv, I really must be getting old,” he remarked. It could have been a real scoop for us—except Jack Benny’s delightful humor, quit wit and warm personality will always be 39 years young, and everyone knows it who comes in contact with him.
Austinites will have several opportunities to rub elbows with this famous comedian-fiddler-philanthropist when he comes into town this month. The really Big Spenders (those seeing the concert via seats in the front rows with $100 donations to the cause) will enjoy a dinner with Jack on Monday night.
Tickets for the concert, which promises to be one of the season’s most glittering social events as well as a bonanza of fun and music, are now on sale at Dillard’s of Austin, Hemphills and J.R. Reed Music Co. They range in price from $3.50 to $100 . . . and the top-bracket ones ($50 and $100) carry the privilege of meeting Mr. Benny after the concert at a gala champagne reception “on stage.”
Invitations for the Monday night dinner and the Tuesday night reception are being handled by a special committee which may be contacted through the Austin Symphony Office.


Benny the Fiddler To Faddle Tonight
Crank up the Maxwell, Rochester, it’s almost time to go hear Jack Benny.
That’s what hundreds of Austinites will be saying shortly before 8 p.m. Tuesday.
Benny will join the Austin Symphony Orchestra for a benefit concert in Municipal Auditorium.
Although a near-capacity crowd is expected, seats in nearly all price ranges will be available at the auditorium box office until curtain time. Only the $100 seats are already sold out.
Benny arrived at Municipal Airport shortly after noon Monday. He came here from Corpus Christi, where he performed Sunday night.
As the plane rolled up to the airport gate, Vincent DiNiro was leading the Longhorn Band through a deliberately off-key version of “Love in Bloom,” the familiar Benny theme.
On hand to greet the visiting comedian-musician were Austin Symphony maestro Ezra Rachlin, benefit concert chairman Richard F. Brown and other civic officials.
Mayor Lester Palmer showed Benny the street marker that changed Congress Avenue to Jack Benny Avenue for the comedian’s visit.
Texas Ranger Captain Clint Peoples stepped up to present Benny the traditional 10-gallon hat. Later at a press conference at the Crest Hotel, Benny fielded a wide variety of questions candidly and cheerfully. Among the subjects and responses:
On traveling with two violins: “I travel like a real fine violinist. I’ve got all the equipment, but it’s all in the case.”
On his musical talent: “I’m probably the worst violinist giving concerts. In fact, I wouldn’t be permitted to give concerts if I didn’t have something else to do as part of it. When I make mistakes, people think I’m doing it purposefully. But I can be quite modest and say my concerts are delightful.”
On his leisurely manner of speech: “People think my timing is good because I talk slow. When Milton Berle does 10 minutes, it would last me an entire season.”
On today’s pop music: “Rock ‘n’ roll is fine—if everybody likes it. But I think people will get tired of it. I can only compare it to, say, jungle drums, though. Of course, I’ve got the Righteous Brothers to work with me soon in Lake Tahoe. If people don’t want to see me, they can see them. I’m only interested in doing business. I don’t care who does it.”

Saturday, 5 November 2016

It All Started With Box Tops

About the only thing I wondered when I first saw The Bullwinkle Show in 1961 is why they changed the name of the show (Rocky’s name had been in the title prior to this). What I wonder today is why didn’t NBC, the sponsor’s ad agency, and others just leave Jay Ward alone to make cartoons.

Keith Scott’s indispensable book The Moose That Roared chronicles a number of cases where Jay Ward and Bill Scott had to endure ridiculous interference. Somehow, they overcame it all to make some extremely funny cartoons. A few of the stories got into the popular press as Scott or Ward groused to reporters or columnists about what was happening to them. Erskine Johnson’s column for the National Enterprise Association was one of them. This appeared in papers on November 8, 1961. See how petty you think some of these things are.
Hollywood—(NEA)—Show business has its "cold" wars, too, and the one going on in television between Jay Ward Productions and the combined forces of network, sponsor and agency is the kind you can't hardly find no more.
The deck is stacked against Ward, he admits, but he's still in there fighting.
It all started with box tops and went on from there to involve a spy on a U. S. Army base, a "belt in the mouth" and a hand puppet known this season as Bullwinkle, the moose.
A way-out sense of humor which Jay Ward and Company put into their animated cartoon, "Rocky and His Friends," led to an arch fiend in the series undermining the world's economy, not by devaluating the gold standard, but by counterfeiting box tops and cornering the world market.
The sponsor let Ward know in a hurry that box tops ARE the basis of his economy and the arch fiend had to go. In the same show a few months later, a spy at an army base stole a general's uniform. That was okay until Ward put a sign on the general's office reading:
"Out to lunch. I shall return."
"MacArthur," groaned the sponsor. "You can't kid the Army, Navy, Marines, box tops, or any racial, cultural or religious group."
THE DEBUT OF "The Bullwinkle Show" this season brought Ward a new battle and a new opponent, the National Broadcasting Company. In cartoon form in a 20-second promotional film advertising the show, Ward had a husband and wife talking about television. They wound up in an argument about a moose being called a Bullwinkle. Hubby had the last words:
"How would you like a belt in the month?"
It was funny—but not to NBC "because it smacks of violence."
While the network had Ward on the phone, advising him the 20-second plug for the show would not be shown, he was also asked to please kill a funny take-off on NBC's living color peacock.
AS YOU CAN SEE, if it isn't one thing it's another at Ward Prods. The first show in the Bullwinkle series had the moose puppet telling the audience that the knobs on their TV sets were removable. The set would stay tuned to the same channel for next week's show.
Once again NBC became "Nothing But Chaos." People were telephoning the network to complain that their offspring had pulled off the TV set knobs. Would Ward do something, please?
"How about this?" suggested Ward. "Next week we can have the puppet advising the kids to glue the knobs back on—using plenty of glue—so the set would be permanently tuned to NBC."
NBC was happy he mentioned it "because you can't do that—the FCC will have us on the carpet."
FORTUNATELY, NETWORK and agency executives now are aware of Jay Ward's zany approach to his animated TV cartoons and look the other way when he refuses to take himself seriously. Asked on a radio interview who wrote the "Bullwinkle" show, Ward dead-panned:
"We have two peasants whom we keep bound in the basement. Every once in a while we drag them out and beat them. They come up with very funny material." Maybe there should be an Emmy, or at least a box top, in Ward's name for putting a little life into the dreary TV season.
Bullwinkle went into reruns in the fall of 1964, with some elements of the show being rerun during the new Hoppity Hooper series. One of Hoppity’s sponsors was Topper Toys, which was pushing a seven-in-one gun. You can picture what Bullwinkle could have done with an animated version of that, klutzily blowing up an NBC building by accident—and then Ward being told the routine was being censored by the humourless network.

Friday, 4 November 2016

Don Foster Sighting

Another inside reference in a Warner Bros. cartoon, the one in Mouse-Placed Kitten (1958). Don Foster was responsible for title cards at the studio in the later years. He later worked for Chuck Jones at MGM. This cartoon was directed by Bob McKimson.



Here’s the title card for this cartoon.



And here’s the establishing shot. Background painting by Bill Butler, Layout by Bob Gribbroek.

Thursday, 3 November 2016

I'll Get By With a Twinkle in My Eye

Margie Hines voiced Betty Boop before signing an exclusive deal with Van Beuren to provide Boop-like voices for its cartoons. She appears as a tightrope walker singing “I’ll Get By With A Twinkle in My Eye,” written by J. Fred Coots and Roy Turk, and recorded by a number of artists in 1932.

The uncredited animator twirls her around the rope, has her do the splits and then brings on Tom and Jerry with their ubiquitous piano to help finish the vocals on the song. Here are some of the poses.



Most of the animation is on ones, though the cartoonist occasionally holds a drawing for a frame while the background drawing is moved, making it appear the girl is sliding on the rope.

This is from the 1933 cartoon Tight Rope Tricks. Gene Rodemich provides another great score, with “East Side, West Side” appearing on the soundtrack, along with a Circus Day song I can’t identify that’s sung over the opening credits. Some of the animation is re-used from Circus Capers (1930) and Animal Fair (1931).

Hear Margie here, along with more bars of the song during the next scenes where a lion roars and decides to take revenge on Tom and Jerry.

Wednesday, 2 November 2016

In Hollywood, If At First You Don't Succeed

There was no bigger failure in television in the 1960s than Jerry Van Dyke.

Time after time, he was handed a new series only to fail yet again. After a while, viewers may have been left with the impression the only reason he was on TV at all was because he had a really, really successful brother. After all, why give someone that many chances after blowing it over and over?

Jerry Van Dyke eventually showed audiences he could be a success and did have talent, thanks to his years as a supporting player in the long-running sitcom Coach. But before that? Hoo, boy.

He also had the misfortune of being cast in possibly the most ridiculed TV show of the ‘60s—My Mother the Car. I liked antique cars, so I watched the show. I was 8. It turns out my demographic may have been the only one watching it, at least the way Van Dyke tells it. And, let’s face it, mom didn’t have much of a personality. She was a voice followed by a laugh track. Mel Blanc as Jack Benny’s Maxwell was far funnier than Ann Sothern’s Porter, but you wouldn’t have been able to build a half-hour show around it. (Oh, wait. Hanna-Barbera tried. Remember something called Speed Buggy?)

There was plenty of public-relations optimism before each Van Dyke debut. Let’s wander through the newspaper clipping file to show you. First off is this story that appeared in papers starting July 7, 1963.

Jerry Van Dyke, Dick's Brother, Spices 'Picture This' by Mugging
By CHARLES WITBECK

HOLLYWOOD — Jack Benny's summer replacement on CBS is the New York based game show, "Picture This," hosted by Dick Van Dyke's comical brother, Jerry, which premiered earlier this summer.
"Picture This" has contestants drawing pictures from clues supplied by guest celebrities who act as partners. The original picture is seen by everyone except the contestants, and the laughs, of course, come from the absurd versions. Emcee Van Dyke spices the game up with ad-libs, mugging (which he does at the drop of a hat), plus short take-offs on the subject up for amateur re-production. It's for game-show fanatics.
Jerry Van Dyke was chosen, he says, because the producers wanted a guy who was not a professional emcee, but one who could ad-lib with ease. He's been under contract to CBS for a year after filming two shows with his brother Dick and, so far, the network has been unable to come up with a series for him. To get Jerry's face back on the screen before fans forget him is the main factor.
"The network has treated me very well," says Jerry. "But the scripts that come along just weren't right for me. Besides, I'm down the list — expert comics like Cara Williams are ahead of me. They've been trying to find the right show for her for over a year." The younger crew-cut Van Dyke has been working steadily as a folksy, broad comic who plunks a banjo on the night club circuit. Then, a year ago March, brother Dick cast Jerry as a sleepwalker in two shows. "I'm going to use my brother to get ahead," said Jerry at the time, wearing a big, oafish grin.
Jerry was a big hit and the network quickly signed him before anyone else got a crack at the man. "Suddenly, I was in demand," said Jerry. "It was wonderful."
Jerry made three movies in a row, beginning with "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" which is now out, then was cast with John Wayne in "McClintock" and finished out in Warner Bros.' "Palm Springs Weekend" with Troy Donahue. "They let me go in the last one," says Jerry. "I also did a True-TV show that came out sort of watered down.
"It was a big year, but now I'm back to night clubs. I'll tape 'Picture This' in New York once a week and then fly out for my club dates."
According to the Van Dyke parents who have moved from Danville, Illinois, to the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles, son Jerry is an authentic sleepwalker. The two episodes on the Dick Van Dyke series were based on fact.
"I think Dick is double jointed," his mother says. "He would lie down and read with his head propped up on an imaginary pillow. I used to ask him to get a pillow, thinking the stunt would hurt his head, but Dick always refused. He liked to read that way. Perhaps you've seen his act where standing with his back to the audience, his head disappears completely. I think that came from lying down with his head in that strange position."
Whether the Van Dyke brothers are double-jointed, or touched with sleep-walking, both seem to be giving fans a good deal of pleasure. "I worry about the pressure on the boys," says Mrs. Van Dyke. "Sometimes it all doesn't seem worth it, but both eat it up.
"We can't even turn the lights on the driveway," says Mr. Van Dyke, "without Jerry taking a bow."


Two years later, Jerry Van Dyke landed a role on what should have been a hit. Sitcoms centred around the impossible were big in 1965. Allan Burns and Chris Hayward created the show. James L. Brooks, Phil Davis, Arnold Margolin, Frank Fox and Tom Koch were among the writers. But My Mother the Car was a train wreck. Or should that be a car crash? I guess that’s what happens when someone is cast—even though the guy who cast him didn’t like his last performance.

This story appeared in papers starting August 9, 1965. Next to Bea Benaderet, Ann Sothern must have had the most misspelled name in 1960s television. And I liked the anti-freeze gag in the pilot—that is, when it appeared in the Uniblab episode of the Jetsons a few years earlier.

Jerry Van Dyke Has Own Series
By CHARLES WITBECK

HOLLYWOOD — Jerry Van Dyke, the bumbling banjo playing brother of the famous and almost perfect Dick Van Dyke. is about to be known as the man whose mother is a 1928 Porter automobile, when he stars in NBC's new color half-hour Tuesday night comedy this fall, "My Mother, the Car."
Ann Southern plays the voice of Mother in a dream job. She comes in every couple of weeks to read her lines and then takes off. Hero Van Dyke has only seen Miss Southern once, when they made the pilot months ago.
Of course when people hear the premise for the show, sneers and snickers and raised eye-brows are all over the place. "Just like 'Mr. Ed,' the talking horse," is the comment.
"We'll be compared to 'Mr. Ed' until we get on the air," said Jerry at the Sam Goldwyn Studio. "Then I think fans will change their minds." Which way he doesn't say.
Jerry plays Dave Crabtree, a small town lawyer, married to Barbara (Maggie Pierce), father of two kids, Cindy and Randy. One day Dave goes to a used car lot intending to buy an old station wagon. But the lawyer begins prowling about this 1928 red Porter. He turns on the radio and out comes the voice of Mother (Miss Southern). She has come back to help her son get ahead.
Crabtree, the honest God-fearing lawyer, immediately buy other and drives her home. Now comes the problem of explaining to wife Barbara that the old car is Crabtree's mother. No one else can hear Mother except son, so he is considered off his rocker.
"This is the story about a guy and his car," explained Jerry. "The car is the reason for all the trouble. Mother gets me in trouble and I have to straighten things out."
Anti Freeze For Mom
Lawyer Crabtree fixes Mother up and talks to her while driving about town. He even drives up in the hills and is forced to put in anti freeze causing Mom to get looped.
To add more conflict, Avery Schreiber, a comic from Chicago's "Second City" group, is cast as Capt. Manzini, a rich Italian antique car lover who wants desperately to own the Porter, and never gives up trying a new subterfuge to nab the pink slip.
Night club comedian Van Dyke has had his ups and downs on television. He starred in a funny "True" episode a few years ago about a lethargic G.I., and easily carried the show. Next brother Dick put him in two Van Dyke stories, casting him as G.I. who comes to visit and has trouble with his sleep-walking, a former habit of Jerry's.
Brother Jerry more than held his own, and soon he signed to emcee a silly summer show, and then appeared as Judy Garland's companion on her ill-fated blowout. Somehow, no one knew how to write for Jerry, and he came off as an oaf, a smart aleck, and a baffled soul. It was a big defeat, but out of it came "My Mother, the Car."
Producer Rod Amateau, who wears two hats this fall as executive producer also of "O.K. Crackerby," caught Jerry on "The Garland Show," and didn't like him, but felt he saw the real Van Dyke underneath, and sent him the "Car" script.
Jerry's Opinion of Talent
The real Jerry may be in this way-out auto series. "I don't believe I'm a character actor," said Jerry. "I have to play my self and that's what I'm doing as Dave Crabtree, small town lawyer. I won't bumble and stutter as much as I did on brother Dick's show, but I may do a little of it, since I used to stutter a bit when I was excited."
Since the Garland debacle, which also became the Van Dyke mistake, Jerry has been on the night club circuit, twanging his banjo, telling corny jokes, using his stutter and delightful phrasing. He also made two more Dick Van Dyke episodes as G.I. who falls in love with a girl by writing letters for his Army buddy, stealing the idea from Cyrano de Bergerac. Both of these shows are in summer reruns, so fans can become acquainted with Jerry before the new series debuts.
Maybe "My Mother, the Car" isn't the greatest idea to come along, but its success would be a splendid present for Jerry. He's been known as Dick's brother long enough, and this hasn't hurt his career any.
"At times it's bugged me," says Jerry. "That's human nature. Now I'd like to make it on my own."


Two years later (notice how these shows all debuted in odd-numbered years), Van Dyke tried it again. All I remember about Accidental Family was it had a barn and seemed to be postponed an awful lot for specials. To show you how much I was paying attention, I thought the show was called Accidental Farmhouse, a title which may be funnier (how about Ann Sothern as a talking house?). The man behind it was Sheldon Leonard, who saved The Dick Van Dyke Show from cancellation by personally appealing to its sponsors. Dick’s show was then able to find an audience, and became a hit as well as one of the best-loved comedies in TV history. Leonard wasn’t as fortunate with Accidental Family.

The Associated Press story below, which appears in papers starting August 7, 1967, refers to yet another Van Dyke failure—My Boy Goggle. Filmways and James Garner’s JLK Productions signed a deal in April 1963 for Bob Cummings to star in it. Filmways had two other TV comedies in the hopper that year; one was My Son, the Witch Doctor with Marie Wilson and Arte Johnson. The other was originally titled Addams and Evil. I wonder what became of that?

Jerry Van Dyke Makes New Bid for TV Success
By CYNTHIA LOWRY

AP Television-Radio Writer
HOLLYWOOD (AP) — Jerry Van Dyke has his troubles even before the public sees his new series. "Every time I talk to some one from the newspapers," he complained, "the story comes out with the headline, 'Dick's Brother Tries Again.'"
This is a hard problem to lick. Jerry is indeed Dick Van Dyke's younger brother and Jerry's television career to date has been pretty much confined to a few successful guest shots on the old "Dick Van Dyke Show"—playing the star's brother—and regular employment in three of the worst disasters in TV history.
CBS, seeing him in his brother's show, put him under contract on the theory that two Van Dykes were better than one, and then put him to work as host in what is still remembered as an all-time low in game shows, "Picture This."
Next came an even more spectacular fizzle: "The Judy Garland Show."
"I never knew what I was doing there," Van Dyke says now. "But the first lines I had in the opening show were to ask her, 'What's a nice little old lady like you doing on television?'
Fought, But Lost
"I hated them. I thought they were rude, not funny and made me look bad and I fought them all the way up to the head man. I lost but I was right."
Then came along a pilot show, "My Boy Goggle"—"They ran it this summer and it was pretty bad."
"My Mother, the Car" rolled along during the recent fantasy fad and still holds the distinction of being used almost universally by critics of television to demonstrate the depths to which programming can sink. "Kids like it," said Jerry, "but instead of being a show about a guy with a special problem it was a series of gimmicks."
Performers, however, are not often given so many chances unless they have some sort of special quality or talent. This season, with Jerry back playing in NBC's "Accidental Family," his luck may change.
The half hour comedy is the first series developed by Sheldon Leonard under his recent NBC production deal. Leonard, in partnership, with Danny Thomas, was involved in that string of comedy success that ranged from "The Andy Griffith Show" to "The Dick Van Dyke Show."
Playing Himself
"For the first time I'm playing a character that is more or less myself," he said. "And if this doesn't go, I can't blame anyone else."
The format has Jerry, a Las Vegas nightclub performer, commuting from a farm where he is trying to raise his son. Originally Jerry was supposed to be divorced, but sponsors wouldn't touch the show until fantasy they changed him into a widower. However, the pretty girl who runs the farm, played by Lois Nettleton, was permitted by the sponsor to be a divorcee with one child.
Anyway, there's a mixture of glamor, innocent romance, cute kids, comedy — mixed by Leonard's adroit hand. So maybe Dick's kid brother's career may finally get off the launch pad.


Van Dyke picked himself up from another failure and found another job the following season, this time as a supporting player. But even the star power of Andy Griffith (paired with his old producer Dick Linke) couldn’t get people to tune in to Headmaster. Van Dyke satisfied himself with gigs in the clubs in Nevada resorts until Coach came along in 1989. Four Emmy nominations followed. Today, he’s enjoying the fruits of his labours by relaxing on a huge ranch (no doubt with a non-accidental farmhouse) in Arkansas. The people who had confidence that Jerry Van Dyke could be a TV success story were right all along.

Tuesday, 1 November 2016

Screwy Swirls

MGM’s ink and paint department triumphs again with brushwork swirls in Screwball Squirrel (1944).

Screwy yells to Meathead that he’ll save him (after being responsible for his drop from a sawed-off tree branch in the first place) but pulls away the net at the last minute.



“Toooo bad. Just missed him.”



Screwy laughs. More brushwork. A kiss, more swirls, and they’re on their way to the next scene.



Ray Abrams, Preston Blair and Ed Love animated this wonderful, gag-packed, fast-flowing cartoon.