How To End a Cartoon

Betty Boops’ Museum collapses and superimposed skeletons run for cover.



They beat it into a grave, which covers itself to end the cartoon. The gravestone tells us it’s over.



This fun 1932 short (and the Fleischer cartoons looked so much better than the other New York cartoons of the day) was handled by William Henning’s unit with Reuben Timmins getting an animation credit under his real name.

The Yams Did It

What?! Porky Pig had everything ready for a nice turkey dinner? With ch-chee-chuh-chestnut dressing, too. “Cranberry sauce?” asks Daffy. “And with mashed potatoes and green peas,” assures Porky. “And candied yams?” gulps Daffy. Yes, candied yams.

Alas, the temptation of food turns the good Daffy, who won’t reveal the location of a turkey fit for a dinner, into the bad Daffy. Not only does the halo disappear and angel wings shrink, the colour changes from a heavenly blue to a more subterranean purple (very subterranean).



Cut to Daffy uttering one of his most famous lines: “The yams did it!” he cries, pounding the snowy ground before revealing where the turkey is hiding.

Said E.M. Freiburger of the Paramount Theatre in Dewey, Oklahoma: “This is an excellent color cartoon.” Opined Harland Rankin of the Plaza Theatre in Tilbury, Ontario: “This is a clever cartoon, which seemed to please my patrons.” “Excellent,” rated the Showmen’s Trade Review.

Tom Turk and Daffy was released February 12, 1944.

Ken Harris is the only credited animator, but Ben Washam and Bobe Cannon were in the Chuck Jones unit at the time this cartoon was made.

Jack Benny's 1935 Television Trauma

In 1935, television in North America was still in the test stage. NBC in New York was still four years away from attempting a regular schedule. On the West Coast, W6XAO, the Don Lee station, had been occasionally broadcasting to a handful of sets for a few years. Standards for transmission had still not been fixed. But newspaper stories kept giving the impression that television was not far away (and had been saying that since the late ‘20s). So it was that in 1935, Jack Benny became anxious about television—at least if a story in Hollywood magazine is to be believed.

When network television did finally come along, Benny did extremely well. After a guest appearance on a local station in 1949, Jack began his network TV series in 1950. He finally ended weekly shows in 1965, but wasn’t through with the media. He stayed on the small screen on specials until he died in 1974; in fact, a third “Farewell” special had been written and filming was postponed solely because Jack was ill.

Here’s what Hollywood had to say in its September 1935 edition as it also gave a plug to Jack’s latest film.

Jack Benny’s Television Blues
He Has A Date every Sunday night with five million girls, but this does not make Jack Benny a gay Lothario. He can't see them and he certainly can't count their noses, yet we have it on the authority of NBC studios that Benny is the No. 1 date buster of the nation. When he's on the air the boy friends must shush.
What bothers Jack Benny about all this is not what the impatient boy friends think of their rival, but the fact that it won't be long before those girls will not only hear him, but SEE him.
You guessed it — television is rearing its ugly head in the peace of Benny's existence. He had it on his mind when we went to see him the other day at Metro, where he is in the spotlight as the main attraction of their super-feature, Broadway Melody of 1936.
When Mr. Benny of the Jell-O Benny's is troubled, a few wisps of pepper gray hair stand askew from where he habitually scratches his scalp a little NE of his right ear.
Television is bothering him, no question about it. He's been reading about the three big new television stations now building in Canada, not to mention the stations already going in this country.
"Believe it or not," says Jack, a semi-smile playing over his face, "but this television business has more angles in it than a geometry book. Some of the angles offer a lot of swell possibilities. For instance, there is an excellent chance of improving on radio comedy. Up to now we have had to depend on innate humor and catchy delivery to get the laughs. Pretty soon we will have our faces to help us. At least, we hope they'll be of some help."
● Benny Leans over his chair and scrutinizes himself in a nearby mirror. He shakes his head sadly.
"I dunno," he says, "doesn't seem like my face should do me much good. Unless it comes to making faces. I used to be pretty good at that when I was on the stage."
He glances at the mirror again and makes a couple of experimental stabs at face making. It is quite apparent that our radio hero is rusty along these lines with the sole exception of Face No. 4 which resembles nothing so well as a nicked Idaho potato. This No. 4 face should go well over any medium, but we have a strong suspicion that Mr. Benny's exhibition is strictly a private matter. No. 4 face is probably not destined for radio consumption.



Jack's role in The Broadway Melody (1936 version — Time marches on and on in Hollywood) should be convincing proofs that he would be good in television broadcasts. He does a Winchell role in this new film. He reminds you just a little bit of Winchell. You have a hunch that he might have been a newspaper columnist if things had happened differently. Instead, he just play-acts at being a gossip chaser and the result is very pleasant indeed.
Benny's chief business in the film is to take raps at a young Broadway producer, played by Robert Taylor. Verbal raps, of course. Eleanor Powell is the producer's onetime college sweetheart who comes to town and takes advantage of Benny's heckling by pretending to be a famous French dancer that Taylor hasn't been able to locate or sign up. Benny helps her out with frequent remarks about her in his column, and of course things work around to the ultimate clinch between Taylor and Miss Powell.
● It's All Very happy business, and sort of goes to prove that Mr. Benny might have television presence, just as he has had stage presence in the past and radio presence in the present.
At the same time, this radio plus vision business is adding a few gray hairs prematurely to Benny's head.
"When I went from the stage to radio," Jack moans, "I thought I was giving up memorizing of lines forever. Now they're dragging television to the front, and we soon won't be able to read script over the radio.
"And another thing. Think of the costumes we will have to wear. Why, every radio station will have to add a tier of dressing rooms. Instead of being able to toss our manuscripts aside and walk happily off to the night club, we'll "have to fight grease paint and uncomfortable clothes! We'll be back of the footlights again, but without an audience. Gosh — every broadcast will seem like a dress rehearsal. What an inspiration! I think I need an aspirin."
And when television does come along, Hollywood probably will be the radio center and maybe Mr. Benny and a lot of others will have to kiss New York good-by. Mr. Benny, indeed has the television blues!
—Ted Magee.

Farewell For Now, Felix

There’s a pretty distinct line between the stars of silent cartoons and the stars of the sound era. Mickey Mouse, Bosko, Flip the Frog, Tom and Jerry (human and animal), Betty Boop, Scrappy—all gained fame when music, voice and effects was added to a track (or a disc) that came with the film to theatres.

Few characters made the transition to sound. Krazy Kat did, but he wasn’t exactly a huge star in sound cartoons. Oswald may have been the most successful, but he was running out of steam by the mid-‘30s. Koko the Clown became a supporting player at Fleischer’s. The one who may have suffered the biggest fall was Felix the Cat.

The problem wasn’t Felix himself. The problem was the man who owned him, Pat Sullivan. Some producers were skittish about sound. Adding sound was expensive. Sound was unproven. Sound was risky. And Sullivan evidently didn’t want to take the risk. Unfortunately for Sullivan, other producers with new cartoon characters came in to fill the vocal void. Felix had no choice but to jump in—late. Noise was added to some silent Felix cartoons, not exactly the marriage of sound and moving image that enchanted fans of the new Walt Disney cartoons. Before long, Felix was off the screen. Then Sullivan died.

In England, the Guardian reviewed a sound Felix cartoon in its February 22, 1930 edition. The writer seems forlorn about Felix’s fate; that one of the greatest stars of the silent screen had lost it.

FELIX THE CAT RETURNS.
A Famous Film Cartoon Synchronised.
London, Friday
Felix the Cat is the latest star to come back to our screens complete with sound. In a trade show given by Gaumont to-day some of the new cartoons of the most famous of all cartoon animals were shown. They were sandwiched in between some “colour symphonies” evidently designed for children, and the morning’s programme contained only two films of Felix. After so long an absence Felix seems to have lost some of his high spirits. The second film was better than the first, but even that, called “One Good Turn,” did not seem as good as one’s memory had made previous Felix pictures. It dealt with the cat’s rescue from a bear by a fox. In return for this Felix saved the fox from a huntsman by sweeping up his tracks and flinging them up a tree. The hounds ran up the tree, and were carried off by birds nesting in the branches.

But even this was unimaginative; the incidents could as well have been done by trick photography, and owed nothing to the fact that they were drawn. In this Felix perhaps gains; he does not enter into competition with Mickey Mouse, or the Silly Symphonies of Ub Iwerks. Felix is literal; the only use made of the pencil is that things become things—they never take on the imaginative quality of the transformations of Mickey’s world. There is the same use made of the tail—it becomes a flute or a violin bow,—and the cat’s face turns into the dial of a clock, but these are for mundane purposes. There is little fantasy, and this fact is emphasised by the attachment of sound.
There is not the same blending of sound and sight as in the later cartoons which have cropped during the retirement of Felix; the sound merely accompanies the actions, and it is undistinguished sound. Great opportunities have been missed in the vocalising of what is, after all, a cat, one of the most vocal of all animals, and Felix seems to have lost the expressiveness of his youth. Whether he has aged or not it is hard to say after only two films; perhaps he is as good as ever. He certainly does all that one remembered and expected of him, but there is something missing. His is not the rich world of inventiveness and wit in which Mickey moves, and the truth probably is that while the cat has been away the mice have learnt to play too well for him to regain his old sway over us. R.H.

Still, there was always a chance for a comeback. Van Beuren made some Felix cartoons shortly before the studio shut down in 1936. It wasn’t until the late 1950s that Felix returned in a series for children on television that had little of the imagination of the silent days, and less of the animation, but entertained youngsters nonetheless.

Reckless Eyes

“Hey, copper, take a look,” says Woody Woodpecker to Wally Walrus, who just happens to be in mid-air after Woody’s makeshift airplane bammed into Wally’s door. Wally nods his head—then realises where he is. Here’s the take.



I will bet you the multiple eyes are courtesy of Don Williams, who made the same kind of drawings when he moved over to Warner Bros. from Lantz.

This is from the 1946 cartoon, The Reckless Driver, which gives animation credit on screen to Les Kline and Grim Natwick.

Crazy, Darn Fool Duck

When Daffy Duck first appeared in Tex Avery’s Porky's Duck Hunt in 1937, he was silly but wily. But when Bob Clampett used the character, at least for the first little while, he was just mentally out of it. Clampett loved cross-eyed crazy characters, and that’s what Daffy became.

Here’s an example from Porky’s Last Stand (1940). Daffy is drying dishes with his butt. He then tosses them into the air and they come crashing down on him. He doesn’t care. He’s unbalanced.



Fortunately, Daffy soon acquired some depth as a character. By the end of the ‘40s, he was more like Avery’s duck, but with some wit and a little less batty. Then the ‘50s rolled around and he was turned into a jealous, incompetent foil. Oh, well.

As for this cartoon, Izzy Ellis is the credited animator. I imagine Norm McCabe, Vive Risto and John Carey worked on it as well.

Buddies With Bilko

What was it like on the set of the old Bilko show? Thanks to a frustrated actor, we have an idea.

Herb Kamm (far right) was a newspaperman for the New York World Telegram. But he wanted to do more than write. He wanted to act. And Phil Silvers gave him an opportunity.

Here’s his story published in the TV Radio Mirror of January 1959. This was Bilko’s last season.

I Was "Drafted" Into Bilko's Army
Writer turned actor — for two whole days of shooting — know now why Phil Silvers' men willingly follow their sergeant in his zany battles
By HERBERT KAMM
AT LONG LAST, I have inflicted revenge on the myopic grade-school teacher who once told me I couldn't act and the draft officer who cavalierly rejected me for service in the Army of the United States. In a single masterful stroke, some weeks ago, I became an actor and a soldier, filling both roles under the greatest military figure of our electronic time, Sergeant Ernie Bilko.
The failure of the theatrical and military worlds to recognize my supreme talents had rankled in my breast for years. Being a writer is a rewarding enough profession, but it has never nourished the hunger for power— the power of spellbinding an audience, of being a fighting man.
Unable to endure the privation any longer, I took matters into my own hands, one bright day, and confessed my frustration to Phil Silvers. "Write me into one of the scripts of the Bilko television series," I pleaded. "I will be able to triple in brass as an actor, soldier and writer. More, I will be able to go out and tell the world of the behind-the-scenes magic of your show."
It was that last statement that made his eyebrows arch over the horizon of his glasses. "A capital idea!" he cried.
The script writers of The Phil Silvers Show, "You'll Never Get Rich," were hastily summoned and told of the conspiracy. It just so happened that the script for Program No. 113 — the show is now in its fourth straight year — was being completed. Titled "Bilko, the Potato Sack King," the installment contained several parts which had not yet been filled. One was the role of an Army recruit who would appear in one scene and utter fourteen deathless, uninterrupted words. This was me.
I filled out a three-page contract in triplicate with the Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., a federal withholding-tax form and a New York State non-resident tax form. I was in.
Two teams of two writers each are assigned to the Silvers show. Each tandem turns in a script of some sixty pages on alternate weeks. While one team actually is writing, the other is sweating out an idea. It's hard work.
Once the script is completed, it takes five days to get the filmed portrayal of it "in the can," as we actors say, for showing on television at a later date. The first day is devoted merely to a reading of the lines against a stopwatch.
Silvers, producer Ed Montagne, director Aaron Ruben and the other members of the company obviously were confident of my ability and my dedication to show-must-go-on tradition, for they excused me from attending the reading.
The following day, at one P.M. sharp, I reported to rehearsal on the sixth floor of Steinway Hall in midtown Manhattan. The rehearsal studio is a large room with a stage at one end; the other walls are rimmed with ballet bars. Except for a few chairs and tables, no props are used in the run-throughs.
The script girl, Gertrude Black, pointed to my line on Page 29 and smiled benignly. Other members of the cast, whom I readily recognized as the assorted heroes of Sergeant Bilko's platoon, were scattered about the room, chatting, reading newspapers or staring off into space.
Paul Ford, who plays Bilko's commanding officer. Colonel Hall, sat off in a corner mouthing his lines. In contrast with most of the others, who wore sport clothes, he was dressed in a business suit. After all, he's a colonel. Silvers, wearing a brown suit, a striped sports shirt buttoned at the neck and a gray hat shoved back on his head, sat reading his script listlessly.
Silvers called me over and patted my knee. "You'll have to forgive me," he said. "I'm not myself today. I've had some kind of a bug for the last couple of days."
"You look pretty good to me, Sarge," I said. I had been "drafted" only two days, but it doesn't take a soldier long to recognize authority, by golly.



Maurice Gosfield, the squat, screw-faced pixie who plays Doberman, wandered over to pay his respects. "I lost fourteen pounds," he said, holding his trousers away from his midriff. "Look, you could put a baby kangaroo in there. Clean living is what does it."
"You look more like you got caught in a revolving door," said Silvers. That took care of Private Doberman.
The scenes of the show are not rehearsed in regular sequence, so it was some time before Silvers and I — get that, Silvers and I — were called by director Ruben. Formerly a writer for the show, Ruben has been its director the last two years.
"Directing is wonderful," he told me. "It's taught me more about this business in a couple of years than I could learn in maybe fifty years of writing. But it's still the script that counts. If you haven't got the words, you're dead."
My scene finds Bilko being re-issued to the Army after a brief and disastrous foray into the business world as the $20,000-a-year executive of a firm manufacturing burlap potato sacks. As he is being handed his new gear, I march in with five other recruits to receive mine. Awed by the pile of clothing handed me, I exclaim: "Wow, I never had so many clothes in my life — two hundred dollars' worth!"
Maybe Shakespeare did write better stuff, but he could hardly top that line, and I must say I delivered it with convincing gusto. Having said, I looked up at Silvers for approval.
He peered down at me and smirked, "All right, now get the hell out of here."
"Hey, that's not in the script," I protested.
"If you're not careful, you won't be, either," he barked.
Under the ministrations of Ruben, we went through the scene several times. It got better each time, thanks to Silvers. Bug or no bug, he quickly warmed up to the flavor of the scene, lifting the spirits of the other players as he did.
"The guy is so terrific," Ruben said later, "that we never stop running the cameras when we shoot his scenes, because you never know when he's going to throw in something priceless — an extra word, an extra gesture."
It is worth mentioning, too, that Silvers pretty much knows his lines after a single reading. He is quickly transformed from Phil Silvers to Ernie Bilko.
The second day's rehearsal was much like the first, except that more action was thrown into it. It was apparent, too, that the pressure and tension of acting had begun to set in. But Silvers, though still a bit under the weather, was alive with animation and good humor and drew laughter frequently to ease the strain.
"You never get tired of this guy," said Harvey Lembeck, who plays Rocco. "Everything he ever learned in show business is put into his work here. He's terrific, and you can't help but do well, working with him. That's why this cast has stuck together so long. You won't find a happier bunch in the business."
Thus inspired, I went home to study my line and to act it out in front of a mirror. The youngest of my three sons caught me at it and ran crying to his mother. She put him to bed with a sedative, but even now he avoids me.



Thursday was my big day. The filming is done in CBS Studio A. It's a large building in a rather dingy neighborhood on Manhattan's West Side, but it was on this same site that Adolph Zukor started his Famous Players long before the advent of talkies. The schedule called for shooting to start at nine A.M., but, after a fitful night, I arrived fifteen minutes early.
The floor was cluttered with sets, cameras, actors, technicians and a score of other supernumeraries, but it was orderly confusion. Ruben and Al DeCaprio, camera director, supervised the arranging of props and worked out camera positions, marking them on the floor with masking tape.
Here again, the scenes were not taken in sequence, and mine was the second on the roster. I spent the preliminary time looking over my set — an Army supply room with a counter and eight steel shelves on which were piled canteens, mess kits, ammo belts, shirts, pants, sweaters, coats and helmets. A sign on the wall read- "No Alterations. If It Don't Fit MAKE IT!" Truly inspiring, I thought.
Suddenly we were called into action. My finest hour had come.
I had been told to wear casual clothes — "Remember, you're being inducted into the Army, not the Chase National Bank" — but it was a keen disappointment when the makeup man passed me by. "Can't do much with that kisser," he said.
We walked through the action twice, and then came the heart-palpitating command: "All right, everybody, this is a take. Quiet! Quiet on the floor! Cameras ready? Okay, roll it!"
As I marched in behind another recruit, my mouth went dry, and my Adam's apple played tennis with my ears. But, when my cue came, I uttered my fourteen words loud and clear. I was nothing less than superb.
Still, the standards of the people who turn out the Silvers show are such that they never settle for anything less than perfection. So the scene was filmed three times before Messrs. Ruben and DeCaprio, obviously unworried over the chances of my suffering a heart attack, were satisfied with it. But I must admit: We were better each time.
When it was over, Ruben gave me the double-O sign, and Silvers pinched my cheek. "See?" he said, turning to the others. "Everybody was worried about this guy's line. "This guy said his line better than anybody."
The flattery drooled over me like honey over a bun.
"You'd be surprised," Silvers said seriously, "at how many times an actor with one line will fluff it. Sometimes they just freeze up."
Later he told me: "Let's face it. This is work I love it, but it's work. People watch the show and say, 'That must be easy. Everybody has a ball.' Well, we do have a ball, but no matter how long you're in the business, you feel the tension, and you always wonder if maybe you couldn't have made it a little better."
I came away from the experience with a profound respect for every person who had even the smallest part in it. There was not a single untoward incident; only a complete dedication on the part of everyone, from script girl to star — that, and a feeling of deep pride.
Sure, it was a lark for me. And, when I viewed the edited film at a private showing, my ego went into orbit. My wife now treats me with a respect commensurate with my new stature as an actor; the stigma of having been classified 4-F during World War II has been expunged, and I've got a thing or two to tell that grade-school teacher.
But, more than anything else, I've acquired fresh esteem for television and the people who labor in its tangled, cabled vineyards.

I've Seen This Before

Director Mike Lah borrows the try-to-break-down-door joke from The Three Little Pups (1953) for his cartoon Blackboard Jumble (1956).



It appears he borrowed more than just the gag.



It’s a shame Lah didn’t borrow some of the stronger gags from Avery’s original.

Billy Boy Backgrounds

The 1950s brought different ways of drawing characters and settings in animated cartoons, and the major theatrical studios and commercial houses started stylising their art.

For years, Tex Avery’s background artist was Johnny Johnsen, who went with him from Warner Bros. to MGM. His style was very traditional, quite different than what you find in Avery’s Billy Boy, released in 1954.



By the way, if you look closely, you’ll notice the day/night shots of the farm are not the same. Same with the day/night artwork of the railway tracks.



The style—note the flat table against the wall—is very similar to what you’d find in some of the early Hanna-Barbera TV cartoons.



So was Johnson responsible for these, merely following Ed Benedict’s layouts? Johnson painted the backgrounds for Drag-a-long Droopy (Prod. 271), the cartoon which went into production immediately before this one. But neither Billy Boy (Prod. 272) nor Avery’s next cartoon, TV of Tomorrow (Prod. 274), have a background artist credit. Johnsen worked on the next cartoon, Homesteader Droopy (Prod. 276), but then Joe Montell’s name shows up on the next Avery production, the stylised Farm of Tomorrow (Prod. 278).

Is it possible Montell was at the studio and worked uncredited? Could it be Vera Ohman, whose name starts appearing around this time? Or was it someone else never credited at MGM? It’s hard to say, but my bet is that Montell is responsible for the backgrounds in this cartoon. He later moved on to the John Sutherland studio, then went to Hanna-Barbera before moving to Mexico to work on cartoons for Jay Ward Productions.

Answering the Phone on the Radio

A wonderful cast of secondary players populated the Jack Benny radio show, ones who weren’t part of the opening credits. In the post-war years, Mel Blanc was at the top of the list. Jack loved his work so much that Mel would be referred to be name in a number of the shows and he pretty much appeared every week for the last several years.

A few of them, besides Blanc, had several roles on the show, and they included Bea Benaderet and Sara Berner. They became telephone operators at the start of the 1945-46 season. Benaderet stayed until the end, Berner was replaced by Shirley Mitchell in early 1953 in what TV Guide said was a dispute over money.

Their characters moved from NBC to CBS along with the radio show. I don’t recall a reference on the show to their move, though there were some jokes about Bill Paley inducing all kinds of people to switch networks.

Radio Life wrote about them in its issue of November 9, 1947. It doesn’t really say all that much, other than give a few radio credits.

Introducing the Two Very Adept Actresses Who Are Jack's "Number Plee-yuz" Problem
By Judy Maguire
(BUZZERS LOUD, AS IN A SWITCHBOARD)
Bea: Oh, Mabel.
Sara: What is it, Gertrude?
Bea: Your outside line is flashing.
Sara: You get it, will you?
Bea: Okay. (SOUND, CLICK OF PLUG). National Broadcasting Company. Oh, hello. What? Just a minute, I'll connect you. (SOUND, CLICK OF PLUG). Oh, Mabel, it's Mr. Benny.
Sara: I wonder what Spam-face wants now.
Rea: He wants me to connect him with the mimeograph department, because they haven’t delivered his scripts yet.
Sara: Scripts? Well, how do you like that? And he palms himself off as an ad-lib comedian.
Rea: Yeah. He couldn't ad-lib a click if he had false teeth.
Sara: Ain't it the truth.
Bea: But I don't care if he can ad-lib or not. I think he's cute.
Sara: Why should you think he's cute? He's gone out with me more times than he has with you.
Bea: He has not.
Sara: He has too.
Bea: Oh Mabel, let's not argue. When we look like we do we should be happy we've got each other.
Brooklynesing this dialogue for the past three seasons as the sassy PBXers who make Jack Benny's life an open book are two of radio's most adroit character experts. Bea Benaderet, who's "Gertrude Gearshift," and Sara Berner, who's "Mabel Flapsaddle," started as a one-time-only comedy spot with Jack, have been on the show ever since.
Neither of them, incidentally, could operate a switchboard if she tried. NBC knows, because the girls did try, when they took over the station's Hollywood board for some publicity pictures. Bea was pregnant at the time. Photographers, regular operators and press agents had to work around her. In the confusion, cords flew, dialers yelped, ousted "help" tried to save what calls they could, Sara and Bea wailed "What'll we do now?" and one important coast-to-coast executive cooled his heels on a call for a fine ten minutes.
The place has never been the same since, declares NBC's head operator, Billie Clevenger, who is nonetheless the girls' most loyal fan. Coincidentally, another Gertrude (Smith) regularly works the Hollywood Vine and Sunset board right next to Billie.
Not Likes
But, while they're identically gum-popping, short-skirted and flip-commented on the program, Bea and Sara could hardly be paired as like types away from the studio.
Bea, who has just had her hair pouf-cut and dyed a soft feathery red (from its previous long page-boy black) is a swinging, adjusted soul who effects a "gosh, don't mind me" congeniality. She is the very happy wife of Jim Bannon, announcer and actor, and the mother of seven-year-old Jack and five-month-old Maggie. Professionally, she is: "Eve Goodwin" on the "Great Gildersleeve" show; "Mrs. Anderson," henpecker of Dink Trout, on the Dennis Day show; "Mrs. Carstairs" on "Fibber and Molly"; and "Gloria" on "Ozzie and Harriet", as well as one of Benny's switchboard sweeties. She's more interested in her family, she admits, than anything else.
Whereas, little, quiet, big-brown-eyed Sara Berner, by contrast, is absorbed in her career of mimicry. "Sara's a real ham," says Bea with affection. And gentle, soft-voiced Sara will indeed exert any effort to achieve an impersonation of character which has intrigued her.
"I've often wanted to be a telephone operator," she offers with enthusiasm, "so I could listen to all those wonderful people who call in!" Sara spent four years in vaudeville with her "impressions" and traveled the country during the war with them. She's "Little Jasper" on the "Puppetoons." She's the animated mouse who said "Lookit me, I'm dancin' " in "Anchors Aweigh.' She was one of the two talking camels on "The Road to Morocco." And you ought to hear her get going on her take-offs of Edna Mae Oliver, Bette Davis, Mrs. Roosevelt, Una Merkel, Fannie Brice, Gracie Allen! On the air, she plays both Ida and daughter Marilyn Cantor; a complete assortment of colored characters for "Amos 'n' Andy"; Jack Benny's girlfriend "Gladys Zybisco" (in addition to switchboarder "Mabel") ; dramatics and dialects on call.
Sara, who went with the Benny troupe on its tour to Canada, knows a story of the trip that few have heard. On the way out of Corvallis, Oregon, the plane (a giant DC-3) hit a thunderhead, went up 2000 feet, down 2000 feet and finally the pilot turned the ship back.
When they landed again in Corvallis, the entire company piled shiveringly into the town's hotel. "And there in the lobby," relates Sara, "were a whole lot of people sitting around an old radio listening !o the Jack Benny rebroadcast. You can imagine what happened when Jack himself walked in. Nothing in the place was too good for him!
"We all crowded into Jack's room then ... the cast, WAC's and generals from the nearby army camp and folks from all over the town ... for a big party that lasted all night. Wonderful ad-libs! Phil said to Rochester, 'Boy, you look like a bottle of Adohr Milk,' and Roch said, 'Me? No mo' airplane rides fo' me, I'm goin' home by ox.' We blamed the plane trouble on Don . . . he'd just dropped off to sleep in the ship's tail.
"What a night! What a party!" enthuses the little veteran actress who loves every inch of her career. "It was just like being born again!"

Bea Benadaret appeared regularly on television until cancer spread; she died in 1968. Sara Berner did not. She had personal and health issues that made her appearances a rarity; she passed away in 1969.