Hiding Bull

Tex Avery made several cartoons where the bad-guy wolf character couldn’t shake Droopy. No matter what he did or where he went, Droopy was always there.

The same thing happens in Señor Droopy (1949), except the difference is a bull is always there.



Avery now builds up to the surprise by holding a drawing for 18 frames. Then...



The bull quickly pops out. Note that the fear take isn’t as outrageous as Avery got in earlier cartoons, like Northwest Hounded Police.



There he is again.



I haven’t bothered checking, but it seems the wolf had more screen time without Droopy than with him.

Grant Simmons, Bobe Cannon, Walt Clinton, Preston Blair and Mike Lah receive the animation credit.

Dancing Stove

Ho hum. Another Harman-Ising character does the slide-step dance. The same squealing female voice says “You hoo” and “Ain’t he cute?” As usual, there are cuspidors for humour. Once again, there’s a lot of dancing and instrument playing with no gags. Oh, and there’s a villain harassing the girl in the final half of the cartoon vanquished by the good guys who join together and then shake hands as the iris closes.

What’s different about Moonlight For Two (1932) is that the hero is a stove that’s come to life, inspired by Joe Burke and Irving Kahal’s title song (all the rest of the music, other than the theme, is public domain).



Mr. Stove needs a little nourishment before carrying on with his dance. Nice finger snap, Stovie.



Hey, Harman-Ising writers! Don’t forget the Black Bottom that you over-use in cartoons.



The stove isn’t finished yet. He returns later in the cartoon to dance with Goopy Geer who helps him, uh, drop stuff out of his bottom.



Uh, oh. The bad guy is after Goopy. Quick, Harman-Ising writers, dredge up your usual butt-pain joke. (This actually happens twice because that makes it twice as funny).



Goopy turns the stove into a fiery machine gun that sends the villain running toward the moon in the distance to Frank Marsales’ peppy score.



So long, folks! New cartoon, same jokes next month.

Friz Freleng and Larry Martin are the credited animators.

Busy Benny

When Jack Benny started his radio variety show in May 1932, he was on the air not once, but twice a week. It wasn’t until Chevrolet took over sponsorship in March the following year (after a respite of several weeks caused by being fired by Canada Day) that he hit the airwaves once a week. That’s how things stayed when his radio show ended in 1955.

When Jack added television to the mix in fall 1950, he originally appeared only monthly. Part of it was because he had to fly to New York City to do TV; a trans-continental cable didn’t exist at the time. Another reason he gave at the time was concern about over-exposure; once a week on radio was one thing, but once a week on television might, he thought, lead to audience burn-out.

Eventually, the show appeared every other week (though Benny also simultaneously hosted a number of episodes of Shower of Stars for several seasons). Finally, in the 1960-61 season, he consented to broadcast over CBS-TV every week.

Why the change? Jack sort of explained it in this feature story which appeared in the Albany Times-Union edition of Christmas Day 1960. It ends with a capsule biography. Whether Benny was actually interviewed by the paper or whether this story was put together from a network/producer/sponsor PR sheet is unclear.

HE'S NO LOAFER
Jack Benny Goes for Broke
By ED MISURELL
At an age where many men are thinking of retiring on their Social Security and savings and doing a bit of hard-earned loafing, millionaire Jack Benny has doubled his work load. The 66-year-old comedian has stepped up his video schedule, for the first time in 11 seasons on television, to weekly appearances. His decision to do a show every Sunday, night on CBS-TV has puzzled show business veterans. What made him take on this rigorous routine that has toppled such younger and famed funnymen as Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, Red Buttons and George Goble.
Now well into his present season, Benny offered a number of reasons for jumping in where others have drowned in a flood of poor ratings. "The idea came at the end of last season," he explained during a recent visit to New York. "My wife, Mary, and I were discussing whether I should continue doing shows on a bi-weekly basis as I had been doing or do just so many specials a year.
LESS TENSION
"Mary pointed out that I had appeared in specials alone for a number of seasons and said that I would hate to go back to working under the pressure that such shows bring about — further agreed that the bi-weekly programs had taken on the aspects of small specials, with pressures still present to a certain degree." Straightening an ascot scarf tucked into the smoking jacket he was wearing, Benny continued, "Talking over the possibilities of doing a weekly show, I came to the concession that the problems which might arise could be solved quickly with little or no tension involved. And after reaching that conclusion, I went to my writers and asked them how they felt about the idea.
"They were all for it even though it would mean more work and no more money. You see, they are paid on a yearly basis, no matter how many shows we do a season. They told me they had been talking about the coming season and had intended asking me whether I would consent to stepping up the schedule.
"Well," he went on, "since we did we have learned that with the weekly, half-hour format, you get into a groove that keeps you keyed up. Viewers know you're on each week and form the habit of looking forward to seeing you. Each show you do does not have to be a great one. If you miss now and then, it is not a tragedy. The viewer who watches you every week seems to understand this. If it were a special and it didn't come, off. he'd be ready to clobber you for letting him down."
WORKS ON 'IMAGE'

If he were a standup comedian doing monologues and gags on a weekly program, Benny pointed out, the job would be herculean. But since most of his humor springs from the legendary image the public has of him — a tightwad, coward and a poseur who thinks he is, but isn't, a great violinist and lover — many situations can be developed that play up these traits without undue strain on Jack or his writers.
Another important fact in reducing pressure is the long association Benny has had with his professional "family." Announcer and performer Don Wilson has been with him 27 years, his "valet," Rochester Anderson joined him back in 1937. Writers Sam Perrin and George Balzer and Hal Goldman and Al Gordon have been members of the organization for 18 or 12 years respectively.
"It's a great organization," said Benny. "We work hard but we have a great amount of fun, too. We each have respect for one another's judgment and that goes a long way toward eliminating any tension that might arise."
This video season, Benny said, marked his fiftieth year in show business. Born in Chicago in February, 1894, he grew up in nearby Waukegan, where his father ran a small clothing store. As a child, he began taking violin lessons and soon became quite an expert player.
During high school he doubled between the Barrison pit and the school band. At 16, he teamed up with Cora Salisbury, the Barrison pianist, as a vaudeville duo. When she left the act, he joined talents with Lyman Woods in tours of the circuits.
HOW CAREER BEGAN
When World War I came along, Benny went into the Navy and soon found himself in the Great Lakes Revue, a unit which raised relief funds. One night during a performance, the lights failed. To keep the crowd from getting restless. Jack began to swap chatter with pianist Zez Confrey. The audience roared with laughter and Benny's career as a comedian began.
After the war he climbed to stardom in vaudeville and musical comedy. During the Los Angeles engagement of a Shubert musical, Jack met Mary Livingston and they were married in 1927 on St. Valentine's Day, his birthday.
Jack broke into the electronic medium of radio back in 1932 when he appeared on an Ed Sullivan show with the words: "Hello, folks. This is Jack Benny. There will be a slight pause for everyone to say 'Who cares?'"
Apparently, enough people (and sponsors) cared, for Jack was launched on a long career which made him a familiar voice to millions of listeners and, beginning in 1950, a familiar figure to millions of viewers.

Jack left CBS in 1964 after becoming angry with the network changing its lead-in to his show from Red Skelton to Petticoat Junction. As it was, network president Jim Aubrey didn’t want him any more anyway. Benny’s weekly visits into homes lasted one more season on NBC before he was dropped from the schedule. No matter. He merely went back to occasional shows and even had a script and shooting schedule ready for another special when he died in December 1974. Jack still had drawing power until he could, physically, draw no more.

Symbolic Animation From Eastern Europe

In the U.S., animated cartoons from the 1910s into the succeeding decades were used as a form of entertainment (almost always comedy), advertising or propaganda. The majority of the American animation that appeared in theatres or on television came from commercial studios. Walt Disney pretty much set the standard in terms of design and movement (and in some cases, through much of the ‘30s, story) but, eventually, artists wanted to try new things and express themselves differently. UPA gets the lion’s share of attention for this kind of thing. Elsewhere around the world, things were different, possibly because studios were not bound by commercial considerations. The National Film Board of Canada released interesting and iconoclastic cartoons. And in Europe, there were experiments taking place as well.

The 1962 book “Design in Motion” by Halas and Manvell looks at the broadening of subjects for animation and various forms of artistic vision around the world. It is enlivened with drawings in numerous styles. Some that struck me as very bold are from a cartoon produced in then-Yugoslavia, Piccolo. See them below.



My knowledge of overseas animation is really poor, but the internet has come to the rescue with a book called Animation: A World History: Volume 2 by Giannalberto Bendazzi, published in 2016 by CRC Press. There is an excellent and well-researched précis on Zagreb Film as well as the creator of this short, Dušan Vukotić. As quoting even an extract from the book apparently violates copyright laws, I’ll have to paraphrase and you can click on the link above to read the relevant chapter with its analysis in full.

Vukotić was from Montenegro and made his way to Zagreb in Croatia to study architecture. Along the way, he drew and published cartoons and caricatures, and then took part in the start-up of Zagreb Film. His first animated short was Nestašni Robot (The Playful Robot, 1956).

Piccolo was completed in 1959. Bendazzi postulates that this film had its genesis in Norman McLaren’s Cold War allegory Neighbours (Canada, 1952). Piccolo is symbolic of the escalation of the arms race where two friendly men living under the same roof suddenly try to start outdoing each other when one buys a piccolo and begins playing it. The instruments get larger and louder until their house collapses. (As a side note, some have read the same meaning into Tex Avery’s 1949 cartoon Bad Luck Blackie. I really doubt Avery was that political; he merely wanted to make people laugh).

Unfortunately, Piccolo is not available for free on any of the video sharing websites. However, Rembrandt Films (yes, the same company which hired Gene Deitch as a director in the ‘60s) has Vukotić’s works for sale on DVD. You can look here on the Rembrandt site.

Super Chicken Transforms

My five favourite Jay Ward cartoons, in no order, are Rocky and Bullwinkle, George of the Jungle, Super Chicken, Fractured Fairy Tales and Dudley Do-Right. You can argue amongst yourself which is number one. In the meantime, I’ll post some scenes from Super Chicken.

As you all know, simple, unassuming Henry Cabot Henhouse III transformed into that heroic doer of good things, Super Chicken, after drinking the Super Sauce mixed by faithful companion Fred. The Ward animators had fun with the transformation drawings in a few of the cartoons. In the one featuring Shrimp Chop Fooey (aka The Laundryman), here’s what happens.



The series had gang credits listing the animators, who included Rod Scribner, Rudy Zamora, Phil Duncan and Herman R. Cohen.

The Worm and the Egg

George spends a lot of time in costume in the MGM cartoon Henpecked Hoboes (1946), where he and Junior attempt to catch a chicken for dinner.

Tex Avery and writer Heck Allen work up a gag where George pretends to be a worm to get the chicken to chase him. The chicken is supposed to clobbered by Junior, who botches things again. George/Worm realises the chicken’s still on the loose and after him.



The hen has him trapped. A cry of help to the dullard Junior yields no results. I love the crazed look on the chicken. It reminds me of the dog-in-a-box in Avery’s Bad Luck Blackie (1949). Walt Clinton animated on both.



Cut to Junior, who sees the smiling hen with an after-meal toothpick! (Yes, hens don’t have teeth). He pulls open the chicken’s mouth and confirms George is in her stomach. He gets him out—when the chicken lays an egg with George inside it.



Avery never lets the pace slow down so you can think about the gag before you see it.

Ray Abrams, Preston Blair and Ed Love are the other credited animators.