To Chase a Woodpecker

Outlines and colour streaks make up a good portion of an eight-drawing cycle of Papa Panda chasing Woody Woodpecker around a chimney in Knock Knock (1940).



Alex Lovy and Frank Tipper get the animation credits, though I imagine Les Kline and La Verne Harding worked on this cartoon as well.

Aunty McKassar Goes Far

Before the Jack Bennys and Bob Hopes and Edgar Bergens and Fibber McGees migrated to California to take over the airwaves, radio stations on the West Coast developed their own stars. Unfortunately, once the big names from back East arrived around 1935, there were no more starring shows for them.

Many of them continued to find radio work, though, and some became very much in-demand as top character actors. They moved into television when radio declined. One of them was Elvia Allman.

The first time I recall seeing her was either on The Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction as a snooty busybody. That became her specialty. During the heyday of network radio, she was a man-chasing spinster and appeared regularly on a string of comedies—Burns and Allen, Bob Hope, Abbott and Costello, Blondie, Jimmy Durante. But her West Coast radio career dated back to 1926 when she was hired by the Los Angeles Times to take charge of programming on its station, KHJ. She read stories, she sang, she performed in dramas and comedies, including Elvia Allman’s Surprise Party. She married the station’s organist, Wes Tourtelotte.

Here’s a profile from Broadcast Weekly of April 26, 1931. By then, she was a regular on KHJ’s variety show The Merry Makers.

ELVIA ALLMAN, KHJ’s miss-interpreter of the lighter things in life, began what-a-life in Spencer, North Carolina, September 19, 1905. To save restaurant tablecloths, we figure it out for you. She's 26 years old. From Spencer to Wichita Falls, Texas, is but a leap for a pair of long legs like Elvia's. There to her undying glory, she graduated with honors from the Wichita Falls Dramatic School, and having earned some money teaching the local banker's, minister's, and feed and fuel baron's daughters the art of the drama, forwarded herself to Chicago. At Chicago University further knowledge was acquired and ambition for a career fanned to white heat. The white heat developed enough steam in Elvia's boilers to get her to New York. But she blew up in Hoboken after a few glorious weeks in stock and a trip around the suburbs in "Smiling Through." Came the big chance. Elvia was cast as the maid in the Broadway production of "Flames." She was also understudy for the female lead. This seemed like an excellent opportunity as the lead was subject to fits and starts. But "Flames" turned to ashes the first week. And opportunity knocked but once. At this point in this career, Elvia's mother, who has been dying slowly since the day she was born, wired daughter to come to Los Angeles to spend the last days with her. Elvia hopped the first freight and arrived in time. She reports that her mother gives every indication of continuing to die slowly for the next sixty years. It was five years ago that Miss Allman burst upon radio as the program manager of KHJ. While radio then, wasn't what it is today, Elvia was very hungry and a warm place to sit looked good. When Don Lee bought KHJ it was discovered that Elvia was thrown in with the transmitter to make it a baker's dozen. It should be recorded for historians that Miss Allman's first radio appearance was over the Westinghouse Station in Chicago. She endeavored to entertain with readings from the masters. Although she returned several times, she was never asked to. But—as the count stands today, there isn't a better she-comic on the air than Elvia—nor a more distinguished impersonater—nor a more delightful interpreter of the low-down in popular music—nor a more finished actress in farce comedy. Believe it or not, a large hunk of the radio audience, recognizing her fine intelligence and vital personality, are betting that the bundle of volatile arms, legs, eyes, ears, nose and throat, known as Elvia Allman (alias Aunty McKassar, Malaria, Harriet, etc.) will go as far as radio.

Originally, network programming was piped from New York or Chicago to the west and not the other way around due to A.T. and T’s line configuration. That meant if you wanted to be a success on a network, you had to go east. That’s what Allman did. She left for New York with her characters and music scores in January 1933, started on the NBC Red network on February 27th and was cancelled May 27th. Back to the West Coast she went, claiming she returned because she missed her husband (they divorced the following year). But soon the big radio stars who had signed motion picture contracts followed. Network radio had money. Money talks. And money told A.T. and T to reverse its lines so network radio shows could originate from California. Suddenly there was lucrative work for top secondary and occasional players on these new shows, and that’s where Allman started to audition. She also fit in voice acting on animated cartoons at Disney and Warner Bros.

Here’s a chatty story about Allman from Radio Life magazine of October 15, 1944. A good portion of it focuses on Blanche Stewart, an extremely versatile actress who died on July 24, 1952 at the age of 49. She was injured in a fall in 1942 and never really recovered. Her most famous role was opposite Allman on the Hope show, but she was in Jack Benny’s secondary cast and stage show through much of the 1930s and was Mary Livingstone’s back-up. She had worked in vaudeville but her dancing career ended because of an injury. Allman, judging by the article, had an incredible amount of affection for her.

The Most Insulted Gal in Radio!
By Shirley Gordon
JACK CARSON sneered across the microphone at Elvia Allman. "When you were a girl," he scoffed, "Gravel Gertie was just a pebble!"
"That's the way it goes," said Elvia later, with a philosophical shrug of her shoulders, "I'm the most insulted gal in radio. When I ask a man, 'Would you like a lock of my hair?' he answers, 'You couldn't spare it!'
"My mother—bless her heart—is always saying, 'If they really knew you, they wouldn't say those things!'" smiled Elvia, "but I tell her I don't care what they say, as long as they pay!"
The only thing about her "insult" roles that displeases Elvia herself, is the fact that they seldom allow her any chance to characterize. "They're just caricatures," she frowned. "Seldom do they develop into real characterizations."
Nevertheless, radio-dialers have come to respect the inimitable Miss Allman for her tricky portrayals of lovable comedy characters on Hollywood's top airshows. Listeners love her as "Tootsie Sagwell" of CBS' Burns and Allen show, as Mrs. Dithers" of the "Blondie" cast, as the screeching anathema of the Jack Carson and the Moore-Durante shows, and as "Cobina" of the well-remembered team of Brenda and Cobina.
Brenda Still Ill
"Brenda," Elvia informed us, "is still in the hospital. She's been there almost two years now, with a knee injury that won't heal." Elvia told us that she is hoping the doctor will allow her ex-partner to come home soon under the care of a nurse.
"Then, perhaps, we could work together again, even if it were necessary for Brenda to work from a wheel chair." Elvia went on. "We could clown around and no one would ever know the difference. I know it would do her a world of good."
Elvia is hoping that Brenda (in real life, actress Blanche Stewart) will be allowed to do, at least, some "G.I. Journal" shows for the soldiers, on which Elvia appears regularly.

"Most of the boys who heard us as a team during the many months we were on the Bob Hope show, don't know that Brenda is ill and that the team is temporarily out of existence," explained Elvia. "They'd love to have her back.
"The other night, when I was doing a show at the Canteen," she told us, the boys shouted, 'Where's Brenda?'
"I answered, 'Oh, we went to the beach this afternoon, and somebody covered Brenda with sand.' "
'So what? Why isn't she here now?' the boys wanted to know.
"Welllll," replied Elvia, in the rasping voice of Cobina, "I forgot to mention. The sand was mixed with cement!"
The boys loved the gag, and most of them still don't know about Brenda. They'll just be glad to see her back.
Those that correspond with Elvia regularly, however, have learned the inside story. One of them—a sailor in the South Pacific—has sent Brenda a beautiful robe. "I write to a number of servicemen regularly," Elvia told us, "They're such swell boys, and their letters are so sweet."
In Person
Elvia, in person, is tall, willowy and redheaded. When she talks, she flings her arms about in wild, windmill-like gestures. She is almost always garbed in slacks.
"I like 'em," she explained, "because I can put my feet up. You should have seen us at the Moore-Durante rehearsal this afternoon. We sat around a big, round table, and everybody had their feet up on it—including me.
"In fact," she added, arching her eyebrows and adopting her Cobina-like mannerisms, "mine" were right next to Durante's!"
Returning to serious talk about her career, Elvia expressed her annoyance over being so strictly typed for comedy roles. "I'm a darn good straight character," she declared indignantly, "but nobody will call me for dramatic parts any more.
"In fact," she declared with exaggerated dignity, "I'm the best darn commercial reader in the business!" Then she did a double-take and exclaimed with a twinkle, "Shy little thing, aren't I ?"
Elvia has earnest hopes that a new show she has been auditioning will get a place on the networks. It's based on a character called "Hedy Hearthrob," an old maid with a heart of gold who writes a love-lorn column.
Wide Experience
Elvia Allman's background for her current comedy career has consisted of serious study of piano, singing and dramatics. At eighteen, she was studying the latter in Chicago, after which she played in stock in New York, then came to California. Here, she entered radio, doing everything from sweeping out the studio to writing and reading scripts.
In 1933, she went to New York with her own program, billed as the "California Cocktail Girl." But bad times brought the show to an abrupt halt and Elvia came back to the West Coast.
From Hollywood, she appeared on programs with Ruth Etting and Jimmy Durante, then got her biggest break on the Bob Hope show, becoming a regular member of the cast as "Cobina." Movie work has supplemented her radio roles.
When not working or writing to servicemen, the actress finds enjoyment in playing gin rummy and reading. She likes all kinds of literary matter, from autobiographies and good fiction to "Terry and Pirates" and "Dick Tracy" in the funny papers.
She likes to eat. Asked to name her favorite dish, she replied, "Anything, just so long as it's food!" She told us that if she's not hungry, her mother thinks she's sick.
"But I have such a hearty appetite," Elvia reasoned, "because I'm so long. The food has so far to go."
She expressed a passion for the leisurely life in California, explaining, "because I'm getting old."
Then she laughed, "See, I'm insulted so much, I believe it!"
Has Dreams
Nevertheless, she is looking forward to the day when she can live on a farm. "I'd come into Hollywood just often enough to do a show each week ('Hedy Heartthrob,' I hope!), and maybe, to be insulted for money once in a while.
"There's one other thing, too," she added then, her brown eyes twinkling. "I'm looking for a man! I'd like him to be a farmer that doesn't smell—an unscented one! I'd want him to be modern—a scientific farmer, not a hit-or-miss one—with money as well as a crop! He'd have to be tall, and I'd like him to have at least a little hair. I wouldn't want to have to insult him!
"Let's see now," she rasped then, a la Cobina, "how can you word that so I'll get him?"

There was one last stab at radio stardom. Allman and Bea Benaderet cut an audition record in 1948 for a show called The Simpson Twins. The networks turned it down. Radio was starting its downslide anyway, and Allman moved into television. She continued to find regular work with old friends Burns and Allen, and Joan Davis. I Love Lucy fans know her famous guest appearance on that show. When she finally retired, she devoted her time to charity work with Meals on Wheels and as a member of the Order of the Eastern Star. She was 88 when she died on March 6, 1992.

He Has Nine Gags

How different was Jack Benny on TV than the Jack Benny in real life? Quite a bit, actually. In fact, Jack gave seemingly countless interviews telling that to people.

Here’s one of them from a feature column that appeared in newspapers starting April 20, 1956. Vernon Scott interviewed Jack a number of times during the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. This may be Scott’s first, though he may have written about Jack earlier without a byline, or a search of earlier papers on-line may have been hampered by text that got garbled during scanning.

Benny Confesses His 'Legend' Is a Fraud
By VERNON SCOTT
United Press Staff Writer
Jack Benny admitted this week he's the biggest fraud in show business.
The master comedian says he has based his "on-stage" character on nine gags which, through the years, have become fact to millions of Benny fans.
For instance, few people know that Jack has never worn a toupee. He doesn't need one. But almost everybody he meets inspects his scalp for signs of a dome daily.
"NOT LONG ago I filmed a show with Bing Crosby, George Burns and Rochester," Jack recounted over a highball at Romanoff's. "Suddenly it occurred to me that all three of them wear toupees. But they don't advertise the fact."
Another Benny standby is his ghastly violin-playing. Jack is an accomplished musician who plays the fiddle very much better than he's ever demonstrated on his CBS-TV show.
He never owned a Maxwell nor lived next door to Ronald Colman. Both gimmicks, though, are sure-fire laughs and strictly fiction.
"MY FEUD with Fred Allen was another fraud," Jack admits. "He was one of my closest friends. We started sniping at one another, and when it got laughs we kept it up. That's how all my running gags started.
"Even in vaudeville I never told one-line jokes. I always had a routine and stayed pretty much with one story. But from the beginning, I was the underdog."
Benny's greatest fiction is he's the biggest fraud ms penny-pinching. Actually, his generosity is one of the worst-kept secrets in Hollywood. He never fails to contribute to charitable causes. Yet he tips twice as much as anyone else to avoid being called a skinflint.
His age is another hilarious element of Jack's other Benny.
Jack's gotten more yaks with the 39-year-old routine than any other. Out of character, he doesn't hesitate to talk about his real age, 62.
"One of my funniest gags was the treasurer bit with the Beaver Patrol," Jack grinned. "I don't know why, but people get a terrific kick out of an adult being mean to little kids."
Finally, Jack has drawn hundreds of laughs from boozing band members on his show. None of the musicians, to his knowledge, ever showed up for the program with a load on. Even his standing joke about "The Horn Blows at Midnight" is a phony. The picture made money.
"I'm not a complete fraud," Jack concluded. "Some things are true—like finding Mary (Livingstone) in the May Company.
"It's been fun building up the character I portray, but I've given up trying to convince people it's not the real me."

A Model King

For years, Hugh Harman dreamed dreams that never came to be. One of them was a feature-length film based on the King Arthur legend. He never made it. But he kept re-announcing it in the trade press for years.

Perhaps the most attention he got with it was in 1942, the year after he left MGM and opened his own studio. Harman came up with a gimmick. Technicolor film stock was in short supply because the elements were needed for military use. Harman found something else.

The story below was written in the October 3, 1942 edition of Showman’s Trade Review. That’s where the photo of Harman comes from. The other picture comes from the Motion Picture Herald published a week later.



Clay Models Replace Drawings, Save Film
Moulding clay has come to the rescue of Hollywood's movie cartoon makers today, pulling them out of a materials-shortage which eventually might put world-famous animated characters off the screen for the duration.
Producers of animated pictorial subjects so far have acquired large stocks of materials — most of it raw film — to perfect the myriad bits of pen-drawn action of their characters. This has been mainly a trial-and-error business in an attempt to smooth out life-like capers with thousands of separate drawings required in perfecting correct perspective of each movement. With a pinch on material, the animation chiefs have been busy figuring out a way to keep their characters on the screens of the world in the face of government pruning.
Hugh Harman, pioneer in the animation field and responsible for bringing the first sound voice to cartoon character, not only has solved the problem for the present batch of characters but has perfected a clay-moulding method that will make possible production of "King Arthur's Knights," full-length animated movie to be done in color.
Staff members of Harman's organization — Charles McGirl, Melvin Shaw and Max Ising — shaped in miniature all the characters of the new project: knights on horseback. Sir Lancelot, Guinevere, Sir Modred and all the other people of the famous story. These were completely "wardrobed" in colored paint, then photographed with a special camera from every possible angle.
These photographs are being used by the animation artists to get their perspective exactly and quickly instead of making thousands of trial drawings which would have to be photographed via the motion picture camera.
Experimental work with the new system already has shown a 50 per cent saving in film stock, Harman disclosed. First screening of the method will be embraced in the short subject, "We Can Lose," now under way at the Harman Beverly Hills Studio with the cooperation of the Academy and Office of War Information.
Ninety-eight clay models will be required for the King Arthur project. With the war subject and the longer knight story as proof of the method, Harman is certain that animation producers will be able to weather the materials shortage without curtailment of their instructive and entertainment output.

“We Can Lose” was the first in a series of 12 cartoons called “History in the Making” that was to be released by United Artists. I’ve found nothing to show it any of these cartoons appeared in theatres.



Harman’s glory days were behind him after leaving MGM. He reunited with Rudy Ising after the war to make industrials and commercials but Harman-Ising is never mentioned in trade stories about the studios racking up loads of business in animated TV ads. As for King Arthur, here is the trail of stories through the pages of Variety about his efforts to make the feature.

Dec. 10, 1941
Tennyson's old English sagas of chivalrous rough stuff will be fashioned into a Technicolor cartoon. "King Arthur Knights," to be filmed by Hugh Harman Productions, Inc. It is the first independent production by Harman, who recently left Metro to go out on his own.

Oct. 11, 1944
Hugh Harman Productions will discontinue all short subjects, and confine its activities to feature-length films in Technicolor. W. K. Shafer, general manager, announced. Policy switch takes, place upon the completion of the current program of shorts for the Government, and postwar plans call for stressing a new animation process.
Two stories are now in preparation, "King Arthur" and "Hollywood Merry-Go-Round," with the first slated for only 10% animation, and this in fantasy sequences.

Feb. 2, 1945
Hugh Harman will make no more 35mm. films after studio winds up its governmental films. He will shift to 16mm. for all others, with budgets to range from $1,500,000 to $2,000,000 for Animaction [stop-motion] features. This decision was reached yesterday at an executive meeting, studio announced. First feature in 16mm. will be "King Arthur," to start around July 1.

Nov. 6, 1946
New system of establishing a "beat" by means of discs to assist film cartoonists in working motion and rhythm into drawings has been devised by Eccles Recorders. It's being tested by three producers on forthcoming cartoon shorts and features. Idea is a time saving device that eliminates metronomes and assists in "acting out" usually necessary of artists before sketching to get feeling of action wanted in drawings.
Eccles has recorded "beats" that run entire gamut employed in cartoon studios. Platters are being made that run even numbers on one side and odd numbers on reverse sides, taking in eight, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 24 frame beats, and nine, 11, 13, 15 and half beats or other multiples of 24th of a second on reverse sides.
SPECIAL PLATTERS
Special platters containing musical beats such as waltz, rhumba, samba, etc., also are being cut. "Beats" help artists accent action without resorting to mechanical or other on-spot means. The step standardizes means for all artists. Discs will eliminate recalibrating of metronomes sometimes used and replace constant running-off of accompanying sound tracks to get overall timing desired. It will end practice of perforating old film for purposes of creating a timed reel by means of holes punched setting up spaced clicking as reels are run.
Idea is an offshoot of Eccles recently tested plan to assist animators in catching mood and feel of action by dubbing dialogue from film to discs. Instead of running sound tracks over and over on movieolas, artists are better able to synchronize action with sound by listening to recording whose playing is less complicated, saves time and wear and tear on film.
John Sutherland is testing "beat" platters on "Fatal Kiss" he's making for United Artists release. Harmonizing Productions (Hugh Harmon) will use it on feature length color cartoon, "King Arthur and Knights of Round Table," and on "Little Prince." Deal is also being talked to producer Herb Lamb.

July 10, 1947
H-I also have releasing deal with UA, and currently are busy on "Little Prince." Company expects to get going on another feature this year, but property isn't definite. Followup to "Prince" may be "King Arthur."

May 21, 1958
Harman-Ising Pictures, vet Hollywood animation outfit, has closed deal with Toei Motion Picture Co. Ltd., of Tokyo and Kyoto, in first East-West co-production deal for a program of feature-length cartoons. Toei, one of the largest film companies of the Orient, will provide major financing as well as artistic talent, including animation...
Initial films will be "King Arthur," "Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves" and "Joy to the World." Actual production is expected to start in Japan around September. Budgets look to be between $1,500,000 and $1,800,000, according to Hugh Harman, prexy of H-I.

November 3, 1959
Warner Bros, will release "King Arthur," first of Harman-Ising Pictures' animated features to be made in Japan in coproduction with Toei Motion Picture Co. Ltd. of Tokyo and Kyoto.
H-I is also planning other animated productions—among them "Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves" and "Joy to the World"—to be created by Japanese animators under American supervision at Toei.

Harman did eventually work on a film that included King Arthur—part of an educational short made in the early 1960s for Coronet, known more behavioural films for children and teenagers. It was a big comedown, and a tacky-looking cartoon as well, especially for someone who fiercely pushed to be better than Disney in the late ‘30s.

He was fortunate enough to be alive when a huge adult fan-base for old cartoons rose up, appreciating and historically examining his work with Disney in the ‘20s and for Leon Schlesinger in the early ‘30s. Variety gave him more than a passing mention when he died in 1982. Bob Clampett told the Associated Press: “He was one of the truly great pioneers of animation.” Perhaps that’s the best way to remember him, instead of the man who dreamed dreams of animation that never quite came to pass.

Mohawk Moose

Tex Avery’s sense of humour and sharp timing shine through in that great Western cartoon Homesteader Droopy.

Here’s a great little sequence where many of the gags are familiar but Avery strings them together perfectly. It starts with a gun battle between the cattle baron wolf and Droopy. The bullets from Droopy’s gun shave the wolf’s hair into a Mohawk.



The wolf retaliates but misses Droopy. Instead, his bullets give a Mohawk to a moose head on Droopy’s cabin wall.



Avery holds the shot of the moose. He waits just long enough to surprise his audience by having the moose demonstrate he’s alive. The timing couldn’t be better.



The moose gallops off, seeking revenge.



The wolf reacts. Avery makes the reaction more effective by moving the cel of the wolf around the background for a bunch of frames.



The wolf tries to escape. Avery surprises us again. Not only does the wolf not go into the barn, he folds up the doors like a piece of paper after the moose runs inside.



A great satisfied look.



Before the audience has a chance to think, the doors unfold and the moose emerges like he’s coming up from a cellar. He and/or his layout artist (Ed Benedict perhaps) give the moose a great pissed off look.



We all know what’s going to happen next, so Avery gets laughs by pausing on the pose of the mangled moose antlers.



The moose, having done his animated duty, disappears from the cartoon as the wolf flies into the next gag sequence.



Bob Bentley joins Grant Simmons, Mike Lah and Walt Clinton in animating this cartoon.

Golfing With a Cat

Let’s see. In The Invisible Mouse (1947), Tom hurts Jerry by clobbering him with a book. That’s it. Jerry hurts Tom by, well, all kinds of ways. Most of them happen because the home they live in happens to have a chemical set resting on a countertop (doesn’t every home?) that Jerry uses to turn himself invisible.

The cartoon has a series of golf club gags at the end. The invisible mouse bashes Tom in the you-know-where (Joe Barbera loved butt-hurt gags), then crunks a bulldog on the head, who grabs the club and takes it from there.



The cartoon ends with Jerry becoming visible again by drinking chocolate milk.



I don’t know where Ken Muse was, but he’s not credited on this cartoon. Ed Barge and Irv Spence are, along with Bick Bickenbach and Don Patterson, Ray’s brother.

Here's Morgan

Henry Morgan loved insulting radio advertising. Especially his sponsor’s advertising. He scoffed at anything that slightly smelled of an outrageous or silly claim. And audiences loved it.

There were actually three Henry Morgans. The first one had a 15-minute radio show that consisted of him grumbling about assorted subjects in an almost stream-of-conscious way; he was guided by his own scribbles about what he noticed that day. Then he graduated into full variety show mode, with stooges, an orchestra and an announcer, where he could aim his displeasure through dialogues and sketches. And then there was the TV panellist Morgan who occasionally looked happy to be there. But the satire was gone, replaced with a kind of lack of interest.

Here’s a profile of Morgan from the New York-based radio magazine, Tune In. It was published in the August 1946 issue, before Morgan was signed for his variety series on ABC that began in September for Eversharp. He was still doing musings and quasi-editorals at the time over the ABC flagship, WJZ, where he landed after leaving Mutual the previous year. If you’ve never heard Morgan’s shows—and you should take a listen to them—this gives you an idea of his jaded sense of humour.

Here’s Morgan
RADIO'S BAD BOY MAKES SPONSOR-SPOOFING COMMERCIALS PAY OFF
By GORDON D. BUSHELL
HISTORY three times has known the name of Morgan—Morgan the pirate, Morgan the financier, Morgan the sponsor-baiter. The pirate and the financier are of yesterday. Today's Morgan is in 100,000 ears, poking 100,000 ribs and sending cash over 100,000 counters.
For Morgan's faithful listening audience, 6:45 p. m. EST, is the most refreshing radio-time of the day. Before Morgan went to war, his program was on at 5:45. Now he has a better spot, when most families are at their evening meal.
Probably the most popular lines Morgan's broadcasts are those in which he ribs his sponsors. He is a pleasant relief from the usual commercial harangue to hear Morgan make light of his products and gibe at his sponsors. People enjoy the unusual in his humor and gasp at his daring.
For example, he played a commercial recording for a wine company. During the playing he kept up an uncomplimentary commentary. At the conclusion he asked, "Now where do they expect to get with that? It might sell one bottle—in forty years, Why don't they let me do it my way? But no, some agency sold them that, so they think it's good."
Morgan's system is very effective. His commercials are never tuned out. They're too funny to be missed. They come in unexpectedly. They are never long. They do their job because they get the product into the consciousness of the listener by tickling his funnybone. There's good will for Morgan's products because of Morgan's wit.

People buy what he sells even if they don't need it. One New Jersey man, after listening to Morgan's program for a week, went out and bought eighteen of Morgan-advertised razor blades, this though he uses an electric razor. His wife, a dignified middle-aged woman, has become a confirmed after meal gum chewer, During last year's basketball season, an average height player asked in a shoe store if Morgan's "Old Man" Adler sold elevator gym shoes.
Though Morgan is tremendously popular with his listeners, he is in constant trouble with his sponsors, naturally. They vacillate between fear of what his gibes may do to sales and knowledge of what they've done in the past. They resent his occasionally almost forgetting to mention a product he's paid to discuss for one minute. Some quit him. Some quit and return. Adler shoes quit twice. Now they are a Morgan steady—and there are no more complaints.
Morgan used to listen to sponsor's complaints, then go right on in his own way—now he doesn't even listen. He has devised a fool-proof system of avoiding angry sponsors. He moved, keeping his new address and phone number a secret. The only way a sponsor can get a message to Morgan is to call their agency, which in turn calls the network, which in turn calls the only person who knows Morgan's number.
She then calls Morgan, if the complaint hasn't died out, and relates the sad story to his unsympathetic ear.
Morgan has his own philosophy about radio commercials. "What do people care about where and how a product is made?" he asks, "They just want to know if its good. My stuff is good, so I tell them that—that's all." Morgan continues, "The trouble with the average sponsor is that he is just average, I know more about radio advertising than the guys in the business." The fact that Morgan's line was taken on, copied by other announcers during his absence in the army proves that there are those who agree that his style is effective.

Complaints about Morgan, who is known as radio's bad boy, also comes from another quarter—the network officials. Morgan takes them collectively and individually over the coals on the air—next day reports their protests to the public. His remarks about public characters or American institutions bring floods of boiling letters to harassed officials, often threatening suit. Angry listeners, never able to locate Morgan, barge in and berate officials.
Morgan does not bring on these complaints intentionally or out of sheer perversity—he's just himself, unpredictable. His humor is not restricted to the commercials. From the moment he comes on the air, the zany is in order. He may introduce his program by blowing into the mike, or by announcing a campaign which he is backing—"Equality Week—a week when men must be considered equal to women." He urges women during this week to remove their hats in elevators, to offer cigarettes to men, to give up their seats to men in subways, to blame all auto accidents on men drivers.
Inane records have an important place on "Here's Morgan." They are played at any point in the program for no reason at all. He has the most unique collection of records in the world, and he conducts a never ending search for new ones. But, he never plays a record through because whole records bore him.
It is not unusual for fans to send him crazy records. Recently he received an Arabic record from a G.I. who heard he was back on the air. Morgan, himself, doesn't know what this one is all about. "It might be a couple of foreigners swearing at each other for all I know," he says.
Morgan has originated a hundred different days, weeks, towns, products and schools. On one program he introduced "Unknown Mother of Her Country Day"—the day they take nylons and make coal out of them. He is the discoverer of the town of More. "There are only two housewives in that town so when you see an advertisement that says 'More housewives recommend—,' you know it's these two women who live in More, Nebraska."

Morgan started a school for doctors who don't practice medicine—they just pose for ads. "Incidentally," says Morgan, "one of my doctors has invented Gonfalon's Enormous Liver Pills, because he discovered that there are some large livers—they're not all little."
Occasionally Morgan entitles his program "Time Marches Sideways." That night is devoted to reading and "analyzing" newspaper clippings which completely contradict each other. He also has "political night" and "Children's Advisory Service" night. Once Morgan told all frustrated children to bang their heads against the wall.
One night as Morgan read fan mail, a P.S. on a fan letter said "Please excuse pencil, but they don't allow any sharp instruments around here." A few months later (Morgan's always late with mail) he wrote back "Please excuse typewriter, I just ran out of blood."
Another time a listener sent in a petition to Morgan asking him to have it signed by all the people he knew in order to have Avenue of the Americas changed back to 6th Avenue. Over the air Morgan explained, "I dragged your petition to various saloons around town and everybody I talked to said "Oh, for Pete's sake! Then we'd have another beer. Well, you know how it is."
Henry Morgan is not strictly a gag man; a fact which causes his employers to have graying hair. It is not unusual for him to discuss some very ticklish subject. Officials tell him to layoff, but Morgan is seriously concerned about current happenings, so occasionally he sneaks a little philosophy into his humor.
He attacks the army for commissioning incompetent men, he urges that Brotherhood Week be a year-around enterprise, he suggests that people try to understand Russia and work toward international cooperation. This last has lost him some listeners—people immediately accused him of being a communist. "Today you're either a communist or a fascist," sighs Morgan. But he shrugs it off and goes on advocating what he believes is right. While he discusses the 10-cent subway fare and labor problems, his mail proves that his audience listens to his humorous philosophy.
Henry Morgan was born in New York City in 1915 of mixed parentage—man and woman. His radio career started at 17 when he was hired as a pageboy by WMCA at $8 a week. In a few months he applied for a job as announcer. "Much to my surprise they hired me." At seventeen and a half he became the youngest announcer in radio. He received $18 a week.
Shortly, he was engaged as a network newscaster, but was fired within five weeks because he could never reach a broadcast on time. From then on Morgan covered many radio jobs in many cities. His innate humor, his free lancing at the mike drew the attention of New York officials who decided to try his line out at nothing a week on part of Superman's time. Morgan had three nights and Superman had three nights a week. "Imagine me with that big lug" he groans. When Superman moved to an earlier hour Morgan took over the full six nights, acquired sponsors, and began to draw money—$100 a week. At this point, war and the army broke in.
"Here's Morgan" returned to the air less than a year ago, after over two years' absence. Currently on the air five nights a week at 6:45 with two shots on Thursday (the second at 10:30 p.m.), he makes considerably more money than he used to—"not yet a $1000 a week."
Morgan's script, if it can be called that, is written by Morgan about four hours before he goes on the air. It is always two pages in length. Sometimes he finds himself a few minutes short, or a few minutes over his allotted 15 minutes. This always confuses him. "Getting off the air is the toughest thing I have to do. When people ask me how I do it, I answer, I don't know—they think I'm kidding."
Most of Morgan's scripts are merely a series of notes and reminders, but his interviews are carefully written out. Interviews require a good deal of precision and I haven't time to pause to think of questions and answers." So when Morgan interviews Negative Sam, the Realty Man, or the housewife who is worried because her husband does come home early, it's thoroughly rehearsed.

Morgan is often asked where be gets his interviewees and how large a staff of actors he employs. His stock answer is "I have a staff of 20, each of whom gets $100 a week."' Actually he has no staff; does all the voices himself.
Morgan claims that no one except kids will admit to listening to his program. Adults when asked usually pass the buck, "My little boy listens and of course I heard some of what you say." But an examination of Morgan's mail reveals dentists, doctors, lawyers, engineers and business executives as well as kids among his listeners.
When not criticizing or praising, fans ask Morgan what be looks like and "do you act like that off the air?" Some express a desire to see Morgan in television. To this Morgan grimly shakes his head. "I want television the other way 'round. I'd like to see my listeners in action; batting their kids around, chewing gum, or shining their boots with a polish I plug."
Morgan is good looking, of average height and weight, and is abounding in restless energy. He doesn't sit still two minutes consecutively. An intense person, Morgan works hard on his program. He never permits a studio audience. The few times he did allow this, he felt that it hurt his show—he just couldn't let go and be himself.
A meticulous dresser, Morgan goes daily to the Astor barber shop. There he has corralled the only silent barber in the business, John Hindenberger. "He talks German and I don't," says Morgan explaining the blissful barber shop silence. "Furthermore, I like the er on his name. If he ever drops it, I'll quit him."
Morgan has a girl friend, "the ninth most beautiful girl in New York," but she's smart so they argue too much. "That's the trouble with getting married. If they're smart you argue; if they're dumb you can't stand them. I guess I'll I stay a bachelor," he explains.
But this Morgan, Henry Morgan, sponsor baiter, is entrenched in the ears of his listeners—he makes them laugh and he makes them buy. He is a hair raising, nerve wracking, indispensible boon to his sponsors, who have found that there's good will for Morgan's products because of Morgan's wit. So everybody's happy over Henry Morgan—even the sponsors.

From the Mountains To the Desert

The Woody Woodpecker cartoon “Round Trip to Mars” (1957) opens with a couple of transitional backgrounds by Art Landy. With a quick pan, the scene goes from a city to a mountain, and then from a mountain to a desert.

I tried snipping the frame grabs together to give you a panorama, but it won’t work. So here are some of the frames from the second transition.



No layout artist is credited.

Shamus Sighting

Willie Whopper’s Spite Flight borrows a lot from Willie Whopper’s The Air Race (both 1933) . But the premise of the later cartoon revolves around Willie winning an air race to get money to pay Mary’s mortgage.

With the help of a large swarm of bees, Willie wins and vanquishes the villain.



Let’s get a closer look at who signed the mortgage.



Culhane? Hmm. I wonder who that could be.

Well, it’s one way to get your name in a cartoon when it’s not in the credits.