Betty Boop Kills Bugs Dead

There’s something about Fred, Betty Boop’s newly-militarised boyfriend, in Something About a Soldier (1934). He’s frightfully dull. The declamatory reading from a book gets stale after a while. Mercifully he appeared in, what, only two cartoons?

And it turns out Fred and his army are at war against—mosquitoes. One of Betty’s finest, this ain’t. Tex Avery did it a lot funnier in those Raid commercials 60 years ago.



A bullet hits its mark. Crash and burn mosquito!



Betty gets an SOS and shows up with a tanker-truck of DDT or some bug spray that probably isn’t environmentally-friendly in our day and age. It wasn’t friendly to the mosquitoes. The gas forms fists and strangles them.



Mosquito carnage. Whoever animated this scene had some experience killing insects. The mosquito on the left in the foreground even shudders a bit after crashing.



No, I don’t know why Betty and Fred are fighting mosquitoes.

Hicks Lokey is animating for Myron Waldman in this cartoon, along with some uncredited Fleischer types.

Tedd and Tom at the Big Game

The anonymous background artist at Leon Schlesinger’s studio in the mid-1930s gave some credit to the anonymous cartoon writers of the day in Along Flirtation Walk.



I couldn’t tell if anyone named Carmichael was at the studio at the time (Jim Carmichael worked for Disney and Columbia/Screen Gems in the ‘40s), so maybe this is a pun on Camel cigarettes.



Ted’s Tamales? Tedd Pierce was writing at Schlesinger’s at the time. I understand the ladies thought he was “red hot.” J.F. Barth’s Frat is heard during this scene. It got a lot of use at the studio for years; the melody was used for the Three Bears’ Father’s Day song (Chuck Jones unit) a number of years later.



Armstrong’s Anchovies. The head of the story department at the time was Tom Armstrong. He left before writers were ever given a credit on Warners’ cartoons.



This looks like Pep’s Tooth Paste. The background song melody is Student Days by Robert B. Brewer.

Copies of this cartoon available are supposed to be in two-tone Technicolor (red/green) but the colour’s really washed out. And the prints are really butchered; surely Warners wouldn’t have released a cartoon with so many glaring edits in the soundtrack and missing action. Fain and Kahal’s Don’t Go on a Diet, Baby is heard when the chickens are dancing in the frat house, John Philip Sousa’s University of Nebraska March is in the background when fans enter the stadium and the crowd plays instruments. Norman Spencer’s score also features Fare Thee Well, Annabelle (Dixon/Wrubel) and Vermont Academy (Clyde Doerr). Paul J. Smith and Bob McKimson receive the animation credits.



That’s all, folks...except, Friz, hurry up and invent Porky Pig so you don’t have to make cartoons like this one any more.

The Night Owl Who Was a Friend to Bass

“Ya gotta start out each day widda song!” Jimmy Durante (“In poy-sun!”) enthusiastically belted out when he made his entrance on his radio show in the 1940s. But it turns out he started out each day with toast. If that.

Audiences loved Durante and Durante loved audiences. In the first four months of 1955, he was alternating with Donald O’Connor on television’s Texaco Star Theater (the better-paid O’Connor was dumped and Durante took over three weeks of the month), took part in a grand opening special (in pre-peacock NBC colour), was a presenter at the Emmys, and attended spring training in Florida with the Brooklyn Dodgers. And when Mario Lanza didn’t appear on opening night for his act at the Venus Room of the Hotel New Frontier in Vegas, Durante—who was in the audience waiting for the show to start!—immediately jumped on stage and ad-libbed a whole act solo. He even found time to perform at a police benefit in Los Angeles, staging a publicity photo for it showing him objecting to a traffic cop writing him a ticket while pulled over in a police cruiser.

The Associated Press caught up with him for this story that appeared in papers starting March 26, 1955. You have to read it in Durante’s verse, uh, voice.

Durante, 62 Continues Working at Furious Pace
By BOB THOMAS

HOLLYWOOD—(AP)—How does the Schnoz do it?
Jimmy Durante turned 62 last month, yet he has lost none of his vitality. He continues working at a furious pace. He is doing 20 TV shows this season, all but two of them on a live basis. He'll do 30 shows next season. When he draws a couple of weeks away from TV, he often spends them playing his explosive act in Miami, New York, Reno or Las Vegas night clubs.
This is his off-week on his regular TV show and he's filling the time by appearing on NBC's spectacular to open its 3 1/2-million-dollar color studio in Burbank Sunday.
I tried to learn Jimmy's magic formula for energy over lunch at a Sunset Strip eatery. Lunch for Jimmy was some hot tea and toast. He explained that he had just gotten up and had already eaten a bowl of hot cereal.
"Me, I never feel hungry," he explained. "Eatin' don't mean nuttin' to me. I'll have maybe some cereal and toast for breakfast, and no lunch. For dinner I might have a lamb chop. Or if I don't feel hungry, it might be a bowl of corn flakes or somethin' like that.
"I can't understand it, because my dad was a big eater. He was eatin' the spaghetti until he was 92, washin' it down with wine. When I told him he should drink water, he said, 'water is for washin' the face; wine is to drink.'
"The guys around me, they love to eat. Comes six o'clock and [Eddie] Jackson gotta have dinner, regular as clockwork. If the boys wait for me, they, gonna eat around nine o'clock."
Because of his night club upbringing, Jimmy is a night owl. He prowls around his house until 1 or 2 in the morning, reading letters and studying music. He gets up around 11 or noon.
Exercise? He gets most of his while performing; that's enough activity for any human. He takes a daily dip in his pool—"just enough to kick my feet; in and out."
Perhaps the most important element in Jimmy's well-being is his avoidance of the usual strains of show business life. "Enemies?" he reflected. "I can't think of any."
It works in reverse too. Durante is the only star of whom I have I never heard an ill word said.
"I don't like to have arguments around me," he continued. "I don't want the writers arguin' with me about things. Ninety per cent of the time I take their word for things. Once in a while I override them. If I'm goin' to get killed, I want to do the killin' myself."
Show business comprises almost his whole life, but he does have one hobby. Fishing. He owns a house on Clear Lake in Northern California and he talked longingly of the days be spent there.
"My wife's folks used to own property up there—that's how I heard about it," he said. "I used to spend three months away from a telephone and everythin'. Then I'd go back and open a night club season.
"I used to row out on the lake all alone and fish for bass. They're my favorite. I think they're the prettiest fish and the smartest. Feller wrote a book once called 'My Friend, the Bass.' I absorbed every word of it.
"I haven't been back there in four years. For one thing, I'm too busy. And it's kinds hard to go back. There are too many memories of the happy times I spent there."

Jimmy Durante was a friend to bass, and I suspect they were a friend to him. The rest of the world was.

Noise!!

Tex Avery fans seem to have their own favourite “Noise!” cartoon, where a character shouldn’t be disturbed, while an antagonist character tries to force a third character to make noise to disturb the first character. (You followed that, did you?).

One is Rock-a-Bye Bear, gagged by both Heck Allen and Rich Hogan. Or maybe they just nodded their heads and said “Sounds great, Tex” when he came up with ideas. Regardless, one scene sets up the ending of the cartoon. Spike quickly moves to stop a picture on the wall from falling and making noise. But then he looks at the picture.



There’s plenty of heterosex in Avery’s output at MGM. This time, the action’s muted. Spike whistles gently at the picture of the girl. Avery’s patented overreaction wouldn’t work here. A sedate reaction sets up the violence to follow. Spike even tries to protect himself with the picture frame, to no avail.



The best part is the picture comes back at the end of the cartoon for the antagonist character to make the noise and get bashed by the first character (the bear) to provide a satisfying ending. Justice has prevailed.

Mike Lah, Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons are the animators. Lah liked diamond-shaped teeth and I believe he’s the animator of the above scene

Banquet Busting

Dick Lundy and his animators made some of the nicest-looking cartoons for Walter Lantz in the late ‘40s, and maybe his very best timed the pantomimed action to classical music.

Here are some frames from Banquet Busters. Look at the change from the graceful Woody Woodpecker to the jagged-taking shocked expression when the smell of food stangles him.



The camera pans along with Woody and the odour as the woodpecker acquires a napkin, then grabs a knife and fork from a table to hide inside the covered platter which waiter Wally Walrus is carrying.



Woody has obviously eaten the roast pig (leaving nary a bone). He zips out of the frame to end the scene. I’ll bet you this is all Pat Matthews’ work.



Perhaps it’s all for the best. Wally was trying to serve a roast pig to Mrs. Gloria Van Gutton—who is a pig!

Matthews and Les Kline receive the animation credits, with Jack Cosgriff and Bugs Hardaway getting the story credit on screen.

Toiling on TV Without "Clamor and Castigation"

There were comedians, and there may be some today for all I know, who kept massive joke files. Need a joke about undertakers? Look under “U.”

Jokes or switched jokes (simply changing a name or subject) toured vaudeville circuits as much as the comedians did. When network radio came around, some frowning columnists wrote that gag-lines on several different comedy shows sounded awfully similar.

There was one comedian who none of this affected because he didn’t really tell jokes. He was a character. He was Jack Benny.

Milton Berle or Edgar Bergen couldn’t very well lift a “Well!” or “Now cut that out!” from Benny. Those routines only worked for Jack. There may have been plenty of gag-book cheapskate jokes around, but Benny’s cheap gags were always connected with the plot that was playing out on the air.

This meant Jack’s gag writers really weren’t gag writers. They had to write for situations, somehow finding a way to incorporate all the catchphrases and many supporting characters that were specific to the Benny show without overusing them. No wonder when Jack found writers who could do that, he hung onto them.

(As a side note, when Benny appeared on other radio shows, he didn’t always seem quite right. Sometimes he was too cheap. Other times he came across as kind of nasty).

Here’s Jack talking about his writers and writing for his show to the International News Service in a story first published March 22, 1957. Ironically, Milt Josefsberg had quit the Benny show at the end of the 1954-55 season to join the production staff at NBC (he was purged in May 1957). Tackaberry left at the same time, apparently to freelance; for the next year he worked on Chrysler’s Showers of Stars (which sometimes featured Benny) and Ford Star Jubilee.

Also noted is the decreased use of his regular supporting cast from the later part of his radio days. In some cases it was understandable. Phil Harris left before the radio show went off. Dennis Day was working nightclubs and on his own TV show for a while. Bea Benaderet was tied up with Burns and Allen on TV, Verna Felton was a regular on December Bride. Personally-troubled Sara Berner fell into disfavour; TV Guide claimed it was over money. Sheldon Leonard went into producing, while Artie Auerbach died during the course of the show. So it was that people like Richard Deacon, Rolfe Sedan and Maudie Prickett began to appear on camera in incidental roles. As good as they were, they didn’t stand out like the actors on radio.

Benny Never Changes His Age or His Staff
By CHARLES DENTON
HOLLYWOOD, April 27 (INS)—One of the great oddities of the entertainment industry, where employment is about as stable as a jar of nitroglycerin, is that the least-erased payroll belongs to the world's foremost tightwad.
Year after year, Jack Benny manages to cruise along at the top of the ratings with the same crew of aides while other comedians are changing writers and supporting players as often as they change their moods.
Among those who depend for their livelihood upon their ability to gauge the temper of stars and behave accordingly, Mr. Benny's record of employe-relations is a thing to be wondered at as much as admired.
Two of the blue-eyed buffoon's writers, Sam Perrin and George Balzer, have toiled with Mr. Benny through radio and television for 14 years. The other two, Al Gordon and Hal Goodman, are relative newcomers, with seven years' seniority each.
● ● ●
FOR OTHER COMEDIANS to keep the same writers around for two years running is considered a touching tribute to their talents.
Mr. Benny has been even more constant to his cast Don Wilson has been announcing his shows and trading jibes with Jack for 23 years—since the comedian's second year on radio.
Eddie (Rochester) Anderson was hired to do one radio show with Mr. Benny almost 20 years ago. He got a few laughs and stayed, for the simple reason that Mr. Benny's business is provoking laughter, and he isn't particular who pulls the punch lines.
Dennis Day, now an “irregular regular” in the Benny stable, Mr. Kitzel and others of Jack's cohorts all have similar records of longevity.
Mr. Benny's secret for maintaining his key personnel and keeping them on the ball is obvious. He pays them well, and treats them right.
● ● ●

ALL OF HIS AIDES are among the most highly-paid workmen in their particular divisions of show business. Few of them need outside work to keep the money rolling in at a gratifying rate, and there are no outbursts of star-temperament to make their lives miserable.
“I use some of my people more sparingly now,” Mr. Benny explained. “I used them more on radio, but they're still good, and I still use them.
“Writers? Well, if they got stale, that would be something else. But they don't. By their writing they keep up with the times. They stay fresh. If I got new writers, they'd probably be writing things I did years ago, thinking they knew my character.”
It would seem that in the mad scramble for good comedy writers in TV these days. Jack would be hard-pressed to hang onto his favorite authors. But he has had little trouble with would-be pirates.
“See, so much of the stuff we do wouldn't be suited to anyone else,” he says. “It's character stuff. My boys never look at anything else. As a matter of fact, they don't even want to see any other material—just write it.”
Nor is Jack outraged if his people want to wander outside the fold to pick up some extra money occasionally.
● ● ●
“At one time I used to think it was important that they didn't,” he says with the case of a man who understands his trade inside out. “But I've found out it doesn't make much difference.
“They've all had time to work outside, too, if they wanted to. I'm the one who has to worry about their material. All they have to do is come in and read it, which is actually a pretty easy job.”
The soothing effect of working with Benny, as compared with most other comedians, is apparent during rehearsals for his CBS-TV shows. They are subdued, generally light-hearted sessions with none of the clamor and castigation usually associated with a television rehearsal.

Leon in Vancouver

I love Leon Schlesinger.

Yeah, he may have been a little boorish and tacky, but he seemed to have a sense of humour about himself, hung out bowling with his staff and, best of all, hired some great cartoon directors and (for the most part) only demanded they make funny cartoons for the amount of money Warner Bros. was providing.

You may know a little bit about Leon’s background. Before hiring Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising in 1930 to make cartoons for him, he was the head of Pacific Art and Title in Hollywood. Prior to that, he had worked in theatres in Philadelphia (Arch, 1906) and Chicago (Colonial, 1907), where he married Ray Katz’ sister in 1909 (Katz later managed for him at the cartoon studio).

But something I didn’t know about Schlesinger was his career in Canada. I’ve never seen it in any biographical material, but spotted a reference to it in Boxoffice magazine of April 8, 1963, years after Schlesinger’s death. In a story about the opening of a new Odeon theatre in Vancouver, there’s a reference to a man who had owned a long-departed theatre called the Globe, which opened in 1913. The story adds:

The Globe was managed by Leon Schlesinger, who later went to Hollywood and gained a measure of fame producing Porky (Thh-aa-tss All Folks) Pig cartoons.

Could it be true?

I dug around in some copies of various publications. Aha! Motion Picture News of February 27, 1917, wrote about Schlesinger’s latest venture, a new kind of movie screen. It stated:

Starting with the old Charles E. Blaney forces, in Philadelphia, Mr. Schlesinger followed the old-line theatrical business for a number of years before entering the motion picture field as an exhibitor. Because of his activities in and around Chicago, throughout the Middle West, in Canada, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast, and in and around New York City, Mr. Schlesinger is known to scores of exhibitors who are now purchasers of Radium Gold Fibre screens and whom he is able to approach as a friend of long standing.

So, yes, it was true.

Contemporary publications revealed he was managing the Orpheum in Jersey City in January 1913 and the Central Opera House in New York City in February 1913.

The Grand Opening of the Globe was Wednesday, March 19, 1913. Few of Vancouver’s old newspapers are available to search on-line and OCR errors make the situation worse. But there’s one interesting little piece I spotted in the Vancouver World of November 18, 1913:

Crackers Nearly Succeeded
An unsuccessful attempt is said to have been made to rob the safe of the Globe Theatre, situated at 851 Granville street on Saturday night. It is not known how entrance was gained, but it is thought that the would-be burglars paid the admission fee and concealed themselves in the theatre until the house was closed for the night. The outer door of the safe was found open in the morning by Mr. Leon Schlesinger, manager of the theatre, and the inner door partly drilled. It is thought that the safecrackers were frightened away when their task was nearly completed. There was $50 in the safe. The manager's desk was broken into and $1.60 stolen. The police are making investigations.

He can be found in the Vancouver City Directory for 1914 (meaning listings were compiled in 1913) . It gave his work address as 845 Granville and that he lived in the Grosvenor Hotel at 840 Howe Street, a block from Theatre Row (in thinking about it, the Grosvenor and the theatre would have shared the same back lane).

Leon was gone from Vancouver in 1914. It would appear he crossed Canada as the Toronto Daily Star of the day revealed he was managing the Strand theatre there. Moving Picture World reported on August 7, 1915, he had been hired to manage the Palace theatre in Buffalo. So ended Leon Schlesinger’s Canadian sojourn. In 1917, he was sales manager for Inter-Ocean Film in New York City, and in 1920 was managing the Joe Miles Film Service Bureau. It was in that capacity that Schlesinger worked out a deal in May 1921 to acquire negatives of the films of Georges Méliès, which were donated to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences after his death on December 25, 1949.

I wish I could tell you more but, th-th-that’s ... oh, you know the line.

Ub's Creepy Aliens

There is nothing like a creepy alien, and Ub Iwerks’ Stratos-Fear (1933) has a bunch of them. Willie Whopper floats toward a weird planet where a scientist with a ray gun turns a cow (with a broom for a tail?!) into dairy and leather products.



A pig becomes ham and pigskins.



Here’s another one who’s a voyeur. His eye is a telescope. He ejaculates smoke from his head when he becomes excited (and the lower part of his body rises up). Could this be any more Freudian?



The other characters use his ears to see through his telescopic eye.



Alas, the ending is a cop-out. It’s all a dream. I thought the idea behind Willie Whopper was he was supposed to make up stories that he insisted actually happened to him.

The music’s good but there’s no music credit.

A-Peel-ing Dance

A mouse dancing with a banana peel? Sounds like something from an early ‘30s cartoon where everything inanimate came to life. But it’s not. It’s from the 1956 Cinemascope cartoon Muscle Beach Tom. There’s no reason for the peel to be dancing, which is fine by me. The animation’s pretty attractive.



On the other hand, we have 1940s incidental character meeting 1950s incidental character. The designs for Butch and the girl cat don’t seem like they belong in the same cartoon.



Ray Patterson has his own animation studio now, so Lew Marshall has replaced him in the Hanna-Barbera unit, along with Irv Spence, Ed Barge and Ken Muse.