Porky Chops

Here are frames from two scenes of another underrated cartoon from Art Davis at Warner Bros., Porky Chops. In a way, this could have been a Fox and Crow cartoon at Columbia (though Davis didn’t work with those characters), except the pace is quicker, the expressions are better and the smart alec squirrel has lippier dialogue (and a few familiar old gags). Carl Stalling’s score is far more subtle than anything Eddie Kilfeather did for Screen Gems.

Porky’s chopping down the tree where the squirrel is resting on a vacation. The squirrel unzips an exit in the tree trunk (an ingenious idea by Lloyd Turner and Bill Scott, helped by Treg Brown’s zipping then opening noise), and grabs the blade off Porky’s axe. I like the expression on the squirrel.



Cut to the next scene. The force from Porky’s axe-handle hitting the tree jerks his body and his hat around, and finally pops out (with a cork-popping sound) of the pig’s tail.



Then the great line. Porky looks at the axe blade and says “Gee, you don’t need to fly off the handle like that.”



Emery Hawkins, Don Williams, Bill Melendez and Basil Davidovich are the credited animators.

Escaping the Bull

The frightened something-or-other-ador turns into a streak of lines as he gets out of the way of a bull he lets into the ring in Señor Droopy (1948). The animator even employs lines around his legs to emphasize the shaking.



Tex Avery had a great crew of animators in this one: Grant Simmons, Walt Clinton, Bobe Cannon, Preston Blair and Mike Lah.

Unpredictable Morgan

Henry Morgan was one of radio’s great satirists. Sometimes, you got the impression he was enjoying making fun of certain ridiculous aspects of his industry, such as his take on the Dr. I.Q. programme. Other times, you were left with the distinct feeling he didn’t have any respect or a lot of time for something—like the way he treated his sponsor’s advertising claims.

Fred Allen always seemed to me to be bitter and unhappy much of the time, but Morgan apparently topped that. His admiring co-workers, like the wonderful Arnold Stang, talked of how he always managed to implode and sabotage his own career. It’s too bad. But Morgan left us with an enjoyable, though brief, take on what he thought a half hour comedy-variety show should contain.

Here’s a piece from the August 1948 edition of Radio Best magazine, a fine publication with oodles of network publicity photos; it’s a shame they’re so low-resolution in the scanned version you see below. It may contain the best analysis of Morgan.

Henry Morgan: He’s So Unpredictable
By JOHN S. GARRISON
THE ONLY excuse I can give for having liked Henry Morgan through about a dozen years of acquaintance is that the guy is funny, even if a bit difficult. Besides, there's something appealing in a fellow who has declared war upon the entire adult human race. You can't help feeling he's a mite heroic — even if he occasionally fires a few barbs of wit at you too. Henry included me in his personal vendetta from the first time we met — but he'd done the same with just about every one of our mutual friends and acquaintances.
On a summer day, back around 1935 or so, I dropped in at the 'Artist's Lounge' of the CBS Philadelphia outlet, WCAU, having just concluded a pleasant conference with the program director. In those days, the WCAU 'Artist's Lounge' was virtual clubroom for many later-famous radio people. Now the comfortable, modern room lies dark and deserted-looking back, so to speak, upon its past glories to some of the brightest names in show business, including a short period of serving as an office for conductor Leopold Stokowski. But in the thirties, it was the favored rendezvous for such (then) hopefuls as Lynn Murray, Charles Stark, Jan Savitt and quite a few others, including the inimitable Morgan.
On that particular day, I found the room relatively quiet and uncrowded. Announcer Mort Lawrence was playing the role of a Gypsy fortune-teller (with a hilarious accent) to Jan Savitt's vocalist. Charlie Stark was discussing the relative merits of his newly grown (and short-lived) mustache with Hugh Walton — an old hand at the hair-on-the-upperlip game. And several young actresses, whose principle activity seemed to be looking red and lovely, were occupied in looking nonchalant.

I said hello to the gang and gravitated to a spot next in line to have my future mapped out in dialect, when I became aware of a youthful, leering face off in a corner. He was about my own age, which is why his cynical expression interested me all the more. I moved around beside Mort Lawrence and nudged him to attract his attention.
"What is it, Infant? asked Mort.
"Who's the sulky-looking character?" I whispered.
"He's a new junior announcer the network sent us," replied Lawrence. "Name is Henry Morgan."
With mixed feelings, I studied the newcomer. Finally deciding I was pleased at finding a fellow juvenile in that hot-bed of sophistication, I gradually worked my way and the room until I found myself seated in the chair adjoining Henry's. After some minutes, he turned heavy-lidded eyes upon me-looking like a dissipated child-prodigy. Suddenly, he snapped, "What do you do?"
Being young, I was easily flustered.
"Why . . I . . well . . write script" Then, by way of reconciliation — "I'm probably not very good at it, though."
"If you can't write," sneered Morgan. "why do you?"
"Became I'm not stupid enough to he an 'announcer'," I replied with growing warmth. Henry's eyes lit up with the joy of a battle.
"Do much reading?" he asked, paternally. "Have you studied the classics? Do you read contemporary plays and stories?"

Although I was beginning to simmer, I tried not to show it. "I never read," I parried. "I write!"
Henry started to smile, caught himself, then launched into a long dissertation on the craft of writing, meanwhile outlining an impressive course of supplementary reading. At least it impressed me (it still impresses me). After a while, I realized that Henry wasn't only addressing his remarks to me. From time to time, he looked around to one if anyone else were listening — but apparently they weren't. Like a Tropical dawn, a great light broke upon me. Henry was just another kid like myself, and it was his way of trying to win acceptance. After about twenty minutes of addressing an audience of one (the room had slowly emptied) he gave up. We talked a while longer, slowly becoming friendly, and I ended by inviting him to go sailing with me my new boat. Henry smiled graciously and accepted.
"I'm so crazy about boats," he confided, "that I go riding back and forth on the Philadelphia-Camden Ferry boats."
Unfortunately, we never did keep that date. Henry was assigned to the night-time schedule, while I was busy days. I saw him occasionally, usually for only a few minutes at time, then came in one day to find Henry gone. He had gotten weary of the night-work and inserted the station manager's name in the regular, nightly missing persons broadcast! As he'd expected — it got quick action in relieving his late hours.
Henry had gone to New York, and from time to time, I heard about his escapades from mutual friends, or read about them in the trade press.
There was the time he worked for WOR and John Hays, the assistant program director, needed a fifteen-minute program for Saturday morning, but found he had no money in the budget for that purpose. Mitchell Benson, then the stations commercial program manager, was already a Morgan fan and urged him upon Hays. So Here's Morgan was born.
Like other radio people, I listened to the program every chance I got. As a matter of fact, from the first day it was heard, Here's Morgan was so popular with insiders; gag writers, engineers, executives and their secretaries, that Henry's program became one of the most talked about in the trade. He became a favorite of many radio listeners also, and the process began which has snowballed Henry Morgan into one of present-day radio's top comedians. It was on this program, that Henry pulled his classic gag. After a row with the execs of WOR (which he gleefully related in detail to his radio audience) he 'auctioned' off the entire network on the air, station by station, vice-president — president by vice-president, for $83 — including good will.

There were other evidences of the bad-little-boy technique — of straining like anything to be un-predictable. Lunching one day with several old acquaintances, Henry suddenly noticed that his watch had stopped running. "Well, what do ya know," he said, "the doggone thing's stopped." Ripping it off his wrist, he slang it across the restaurant floor and left it there!
When he left WOR for the Army, the first inkling the station had was his announcement over the air on his last broadcast before reporting for induction.
. . . And before the Army got him, there were his famous weather reports which almost made him a marked man with Uncle Sam. Samples: "High winds followed by high skirts, followed by me. Hail — followed by fellows well met. Squalls — followed by quickly changing mothers." When weather reports were restricted by the War Department, Henry still tried to sneak them in and didn't stop until he found himself threatened by serious trouble.
So you see, anything can happen with the guy — which is why I wondered if it would be wise to interview Henry in order to do a feature story.
Ordinarily, an interview is just a pleasant way of getting up-to-the-minute information for story, but the prospect of a formal interview with Henry gave me a pause. Henry can be quite difficult with reporters. If you pry, he bristles with wit and enjoys making up a story. One of his accounts once started off: "I was born of mixed parentage — man and woman — on the day before April Fool's day, 1915. That's Taurus — under the sign of the Bull. I had breakfast immediately ... "
No! I definitely wasn't going to expose myself to that sort of thing. I went into my editor's office. "Look, boss," I began. "About that Henry Morgan story ... "
"Now that's what I call good work," my editor beamed. "I only assigned the story a half hour ago, and you have it done."
"Uh ... not quite," I mumbled. "I was wondering whether I ought to interview him."
I was treated to a fishy stare. "You act as if you're afraid of Morgan."
"Well, frankly," I said, "I am. If I see him around and ask him one or two questions, he sometimes gives me straight answers. But a formal interview would be asking for trouble."
"Make it informal, then," growled the boss. "Make a date with him for lunch."

I went back to my desk and sat staring at my telephone for a long time, unable to decide whether to call Morgan. I didn't need to interview him, I argued with myself. I knew plenty about him. I knew he was born the son of a New York banker named Von Ost, got his early schooling in Manhattan, then two lonely, bitter years at Harrisburg Academy — where he made no friends. I knew Henry was mighty unhappy guy and had been all his life. Why interview him and call up tattered ghosts, old, wanted memories of how his parents had separated - or the recent hurt of seeing his own marriage follow a similar pattern? One of the reasons I'd always felt soft toward him was because I knew he was one of the loneliest persons I'd over encountered.
What could be added to the remembrance of him at the age of eighteen. making $19 a week as the youngest announcer in town? Wasn't it partly those days as young, underpaid staff member, virtually ignored by older radio folks, living in a strange city, that so greatly flavored his present defensive attitude? Now thirty-three, earning over a thousand a week, much sought-after and flattered, Henry still couldn't shake off an attitude of suspicion. That sharp, satirical wit is just a brave front to cover his immature sensitivity — a subject I had discussed with many mutual friends, including such perceptive artists as Norman Corwin and Fred Allen. How get anything more from a interview? Morgan would either off a few dozen jokes or, if he felt self-conscious, start his 'dutch uncle' routine.
Finally, I sighed and reached for the telephone.
When I met him at the restaurant, Henry was reading a borrowed copy of the trade-paper "Variety." Morgan explained that he read it in self-defense, because there was sure to be something in it that people would ask him about later in the day. We went in to eat and talk, and Henry got a fast start and spent almost the entire hour advising me on how to behave and write my features. I clearly remember only nice thing he said (I should remember, he repeated it about five times!) "Don't make enemies of the right people." The rest of the time he devoted to 'bon mots' such as — "Jack Eigen is the greatest no-talent in radio."

Just as in the first time we met, Henry seemed to he addressing a larger audience than his companion looking about from time to time. I didn't get a single thing worth quoting, but I didn't mind that so much. After all, it was not entirely unexpected. Morgan has dedicated himself to the task of contradicting people — if he can't surprise them, That's why he has fostered a reputation for 'being unpredictable.'
But he doesn't fool people who know him well. The interview turned out pretty much as expected. What really got my goat, was that the restaurant features buffet-style luncheons and Henry only went up for one helping! Not wanting to appear rude, I didn't go back for a 'second' and was hungry all afternoon.... So not only do I get an expected earbeating, but I suffer the pangs of hunger — all to interview a personality about whom I could write a book. And just because he wants to be known as 'unpredictable.'
As friend Arnold Stang would say (in his role as Gerard) — "Huh! What's not to predict?"

Splitting Heads

The Gooney Bird was intended as a recurring character at the Walter Lantz studio, but he only appeared in one cartoon, Fair Weather Fiends (1946).

Director Shamus Culhane pulls a Chuck Jones here. The gooney bird is given held poses to allow his expression to sink in. A wolf and Woody Woodpecker burrow underground to sneak up on him. The bird tries to catch both in the act, but they duck down in time. The bird then stares at us, stares where the wolf was, stares where Woody was, then stares at us again.



Then the multiple head take (a la Tex Avery) before the wolf and Woody zip back into the ground.



La Verne Harding and Sidney Pillet are the only animators who get credit. Some Pillet background: Sidney Auguste Pillet was born in the parish of St. Anne, Westminster, England on November 20, 1904 to Alexis Anselm and Adelaide Emma (Wright) Pillet. They arrived in the U.S. on September 3, 1923. His father became head waiter at the Ritz, then opened his own restaurant, Pirolle’s. In 1930, Pillet was working in New York repairing radios. Ten years later, he was animating for the Fleischers in Miami, having been employed by them prior to the strike against the studio in New York. In September 1944, he was animating special effects for MGM when he was loaned to Walter Lantz to work on Enemy Bacteria. He died on May 12, 1962 in Los Angeles.

By the way, Edwin Schallert’s column in the Los Angeles Times of May 29, 1945 mentions that Lantz picked the name “Gooney Gus” for the character out of 200 submissions.

Bee is for Cat

Jerry shoves a bee hive on Tom’s head in Tee for Two (1945). Tom checks it out. The bees form an Abe Lincoln beard around the cat. He reacts.



Tom leaps up.



Besides Irv Spence, Ray Patterson, Ken Muse and Pete Burness get the screen credit for animation.

He Liked Asparagus With Mustard

Jack Benny had his quirks. And with that statement, we proceed to learn about none of them. What we do get in the January 1934 edition of Radioland magazine is a nuts-and-bolts account of the highlights of Benny’s career, touching only when necessary on his personal life.

I’m presuming the author is the same Cedric Adams whose career at WCCO in Minneapolis spanned the Golden Age of Radio and into television. The tone of the article is pretty newsy and matter-of-fact, not filled with the hyperbole and coziness you find in fan magazines of the day. Benny’s comments about hanging gags around a situation equalling success proved to be quite true. Hardly quirky at all.

A Benny for Your Thoughts
Jack Benny Started in Vaudeville as a fiddler and Became a Star Radio Comedian
By Cedric Adams
WHEN a man's favorite dish is cold asparagus and mustard sauce you may expect here and there in his background a curious trait, a peculiar circumstance. Some people call them quirks. Jack Benny, former star of the famous Canada Dry (a nickel back on the large bottle) program, and principal attraction on the new Chevrolet series of weekly broadcasts, has his quirks.
Examining the Benny beginnings, it is apparent that he's entitled to them. He got a break the day he was born. He was a Valentine's present to his mother and father on February 14, 1894. The Kubelsky family (Jack's father and mother) lived in Waukegan, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. Jack's mother thought it would be better if the Benny heir were born in a larger city than Waukegan. It would be simpler for the child later on in life when people asked where it was born for it to say Chicago rather than Waukegan. That's why the event took place in the metropolis.
Mr. Kubelsky ran a haberdashery business. When Jack was old enough to start making a living the business of selling shirts, socks and neckties didn't have much appeal. With the clothing business definitely out, Jack cast about for a means of making a living. As a child he had taken a few lessons on the fiddle and became fairly proficient at playing the popular tunes of the early 1900's. After finishing high school he organized a dance band, and played at the various Waukegan dances. The violin he played with the orchestra was an Amati, an expensive make. It proved a good investment, however, for it was the same violin that was to land him at the top of the nation's professional entertainers.
Benny's entrance into the theatrical business was a curious thing. His first job in show business. was doorman in a Waukegan theater. It was that job that started him definitely on a theatrical career. The property man in the theater quit and Benny took the job. While he was handling the props in the theater, the yen for the fiddle came back. A year later he was playing in the pit orchestra.

Show business changes come rapidly. The Waukegan house closed and sent Fiddler Benny into a twenty-year stretch of vaudeville. His first act was a violín-piano act, vastly different from the calm, ironic, succinct humor of the Benny shows today.
In 1918 Jack started as a single entertainer.
With him went his fiddle. There were not very many performances, however, before the violin pieces shrunk and the jokes increased. It was adding gags to this act that launched Benny on a career as one of the originators of what we know today as a Master of Ceremonies.
Out of vaudeville into the revues was a short jump. His first "big-time" came in a Shubert show at the Winter Garden in Great Temptations. Jack re-entered vaudeville in 1926 at the Palace in Chicago as Master of Ceremonies. This tour landed him at the Orpheum in Los Angeles. In one of his audiences one night sat several motion picture moguls. They watched the smoothness of his work, recognized in him picture possibilities.
WITH the expiration of his vaudeville contract he signed for his first big picture, The Hollywood Revue. There is nothing quite so pleasant to the movie executives as the clicking of the turnstiles and Benny twirled them. After the success of this picture, Jack Benny made two more films for Hollywood. In 1930 Earl Carroll selected Benny for the big spot in his Vanities. The show played in Gotham for a year and toured another year as a road show. Jack's start in radio was another irregularity in the comedian's life. A New York newspaper columnist was planning a broadcast over one of the New York stations. To give a little variety to the program he solicited the aid of the Benny fellow.
Jack dashed off his script in a couple of hours, went down to the station with no more than his customary urge to entertain. Something about his presentation, his radio audience appeal created a stir in listening circles. The next morning radio critics on the New York papers had paragraphs on the new radio find. Among the tuners-in that night also were members of the advertising agency who were handling the account of Canada Dry. A week later Benny was signed for his first long-time radio contract. Subsequent weeks built Mr. Benny into what many consider the highest paid radio entertainer in the world. Jack doesn't like to discuss openly the figures of his new Chevrolet contract. He did say, however, that he'll probably make more in one half hour program than he would have made all year in the haberdashery business in Waukegan.
A story heard commonly about radio comedians is that they buy all their material from a syndicate of joke writers or dig through old files of joke magazines. Benny's method is neither of these.

During his vaudeville and stage career he wrote every line of his comedy himself. The demands of a twice-weekly broadcast were a little too heavy. One man could not possibly supply sufficient material to lend variety to a series of programs. For years Jack had been an intimate friend of Harry Conn, famed Broadway wit. Arrangements were made for Harry and Jack to collaborate on their radio programs. Today Jack gives Mr. Conn a great deal of credit and praise for the success they have achieved over the air.
THE Bennys have a serious eye on the future. Jack, for instance, believes now that the straight gagging, joking, punning radio comic is on the way out. "When the entire field of humor can be reduced to six or seven basic gags," he says, "there can't be much variation. The modified versions of the original jokes are pretty well shopworn right now. The situation comedy, the type I've used in my three series of commercial programs, has years to go before it will become tedious to the listener."
If you can't step up in front of a microphone and make good, if you can't please the audience there's something more to blame than the fact that you might have whistled in the dressing room before he took the air. And when you're wowing them you can whistle all day and it won't break them." In January 1927, Jack married Sayde Marks who is the Mary Livingstone you've heard over the air with him. His pet name for her is Doll. Her pet name for him is Doll. Their married life is exemplified by their roles in the programs. They laugh themselves through life, enjoy each other thoroughly.

The Evolution of Tom and Jerry

They won seven Oscars. But did anyone notice. Or care?

Tom and Jerry came along in 1940. In the 1930s, critics fell all over themselves praising the Walt Disney cartoon shorts. Other cartoon studios made imitation versions of them. Then came Snow White in 1937. Everyone stopped talking about cartoon shorts and heaped praise and attention on Walt Disney’s features through the 1940s. So, Tom and Jerry, despite all the Academy Awards and a rather impression body of work, were comparatively flying below the radar.

To be honest, Tom and Jerry got more publicity after the MGM cartoon studio was closed than when it was open. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera moved from theatrical to TV animation, and the unexpected hit of The Huckleberry Hound Show brought a wealth of publicity for the Hanna-Barbera studio. Bill and Joe never let an interview pass without a reminder that they weren’t running some kind of rinky-drink, cut-rate operation. After all, they were the guys responsible for seven Oscar-winning cartoons. And they reminded people of that in interview after interview after interview for years.

In-depth newspaper features on Tom and Jerry prior to 1957 seem few and far between. But we’ve come across this one from January 24, 1956 in the Christian Science Monitor. It mentions Hanna and Barbera but quotes from Hal Elias, who seems to have been the main lot’s eyes, ears and nose on the cartoon division after Fred Quimby retired. My educated guess is that it was Elias who was “the accountant” Joe Barbera once said was the one who got the initial word the cartoon studio was closing. And, for whatever reason, the last paragraph that refers to the short Good Will To Men omits the fact the cartoon was a rehash of a 1939 MGM cartoon made by Hugh Harman.

Cat and Mouse Win Oscars
By RICHARD DYER MacCANN
Hollywood
The greatest stars in Hollywood today—by Oscar-reckoning—are two masters of make-believe mayhem known as Tom and Jerry.
Nobody knows how many times this durable cat and irrepressible mouse have flattened each other by means of some device that would dismember anybody else.
And hardly anybody, even in Hollywood, realizes that they have won seven Oscars. This makes them supreme, not only in the cartoon world, but in the whole wide world of Hollywood performers.
If stars are rated by the number of their Academy Awards, Tom and Jerry have a right to look down on Spencer Tracy and Fredric March. Two Oscars look pretty sparse compared to seven—or even three and a half.
As for all those statuettes in Walt Disney’s outer office, Hal Elias, manager of M-G-M’s short subjects department, gently but firmly explains that “no other cartoon character has won more than one award—not even Donald Duck.”
Meanwhile Tom and Jerry just go on forever—propelling each other from frying pans into fires, out of windows, through walls.

The terrible cat and the impudent mouse have changed somewhat since they won their first Oscar in 1943. (That was for “Yankee Doodle Mouse,” in which a Fourth of July them was carried out by having Jerry fly through the air in an egg crate labeled “hen grenades.”) For one they, they have slimmed down a little. That’s to be expected, considering what they go through.
They have also become more cultured, which you wouldn’t expect at all. Tom, besides graduating early to hind-leg locomotion, has played, with aplomb, the role of a concert pianist. Jerry, bright boy that he is, has taken to speaking French.
The inordinate and inexplicable enthusiasm which spread through theater audiences in response to this new wrinkle in Jerry’s vocabulary has meant that “Two Mousekeeters” was followed by “Touché Pussycat,” “Tom and Cherie” (cartoonists never could resist an irresistible title), and sooner or later, “Toujours Pussycat.” Public approval is not the only reason, by the way, for rushing out mousketeer sequels. The six-year-old mademoiselle from France who actually speaks Jerry’s lines is rapidly losing not only her youth but her accent.
* * *
Other global adventures have been given a boost by these Gallic successes. “Neapolitan Mouse” was made some time ago. “Mucho Mouse” will no doubt meet a bill in Madrid. It should be further noted—in some awe—that the basic pantomime of Tom and Jerry cartoons can be seen in the theaters of 58 countries of the free world.
I thought maybe if I brushed up on my “bon jours” I could weather an interview with their genial, bloodthirsty pair. But I was resolutely shielded from any direct encounter. Mr. Elias indicated that I would emerge with more information—and possibly with more breath—if I had a quiet talk with the men who do the drawing.
Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbera both started out in life to do something else. Mr. Barbera was comfortably installed in the Irving Trust Company on Wall Street, taking care of income tax returns for 1,6000 trust accounts. He was doing freelance magazine cartoons, however, “on the side.” Somebody once suggested that he look into an animated film company in New York, and shortly afterward he was lost to the banking business.
Mr. Hanna graduated from the University of Southern California with a minor in journalism and a major in engineering. While he was acting as a structural engineer for the Pantages Theater building (now the scene of Academy ceremonies), he fell off the girders a couple of times, and got less and less excited about a construction career. Somebody suggested animated films, and he signed up for art school. He also got a job washing “cells” (individual cartoon frames) for Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising, known as the “Harman-Ising” cartoonists.
After Mr. Barbera joined this melodious group and began working with Mr. Hanna, their division of labor worked out handily. The journalist-engineer now plans story outlines in detail and uses his slide-rule on the timing of sequences and music. The artist and tax expert takes major responsibility for roughing out the basic sketch-book, and incidentally keeps an eye on the expense of designing backgrounds.
This year they are expanding. Now that CinemaScope is firmly established, Metro has announced the addition of a second unit in the cartoon department [headed by Mike Lah, Hanna’s brother-in-law]. Last year there were only 12 new cartoons and 14 reissues. This year there will be 16 new ones, as in the past, and 24 are in preparation for the season to follow (8 of them remakes of old successes), all in CinemaScope.
* * *

Tom and Jerry, incidentally, are developing a new and friendly sense of buddy responsibility. In “Busy Buddies” they take care of a baby who has been left to the tender mercies of a telephone-happy teen-age baby sitter; they rescue the tiny explorer from many a perilous adventure. “Spike and Tyke” (bulldogs large and small) are moving out of the series to start one of their own.
There will be no riding to glory on an Oscar this year. Mr. Elias and his staff have surprised everybody by choosing for Academy exhibition an unusual “message cartoon.” Produced by the former head of the shorts department, Fred Quimby, it shows post-atomic mice singing Christmas songs in a ruined chapel. An elderly organist, leading the mouse choir rehearsal with his sensitive tail, stops long enough to try to describe to the little ones how “men” extinguished one another. Flashbacks of war contrast grimly with passages he points out in “their” Bible. “Too bad,” he sighs, “that they didn’t pay more attention.”