The Missing Bone

A swirl of dogs fights for a bone they stole from Droopy in Out-Foxed.



The swirl stops. The dogs look around. Droopy demands to know which one has his bone. Each shakes his head (to a solo violin). The camera pans to one dog that obviously has it in his mouth. Oh, and no one realises Reginald Fox has put a stick of dynamite inside the bone, until...



Walt Clinton, Bobe Cannon, Mike Lah and Grant Simmons are the animators in this 1949 cartoon by the Tex Avery unit.

Tongue of the Duck

Rod Scribner (and an in-betweener) get Daffy’s tongue a-flopping in Fool Coverage, a 1952 cartoon from the Bob McKimson unit.



This is one of a number of cartoons where Daffy plays a salesman.

Phil De Lara, Herman Cohen, Chuck McKimson and an uncredited Keith Darling animated this cartoon.

The tune over the opening credits is Myrow and Rhythm’s “Keep Cool Fool.”

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: Killjoy Was Here

Not all animated cartoons for the military were as funny and entertaining as the Snafu shorts made at Warner Bros. But they didn’t have to be. All they had to do was get their message across.

The U.S. Air Force Air Photographic and Charting Service commissioned a cartoon called Killjoy Was Here which, basically, told airmen not to be a jerk. The title, of course, is a play on the “Kilroy was here” graffiti in World War Two. The 12-minute short released in 1956 won’t be mistaken for a Warner Bros. cartoon. It’s chock-full of limited animation, even more than in your average Hanna-Barbera cartoon; a parachuting airman is on a cel that is turned in different directions to simulate movement.

If anything, this cartoon may remind you of something from Famous Studios. Not only is Jackson Beck voicing Killjoy, but some of the characters have that slow, mechanical walk cycle that you’ll find in late-’50s Paramount cartoons.

This cartoon was produced by Cineffects, Inc., one of many companies in New York City to take advantage of the boom in animated commercials in the 1950s. A Billboard article in November 25, 1957, gives a bit of a profile:

Should you turn on your TV set to a picture of a woman walking down a street, split in half, with both halves walking, don't be alarmed— it's not another "horror" picture just a commercial produced by Cineffects to advertise deodorant. Cineffects, Inc., of New York City, claims to be the oldest film service organization in the city. Established in 1939 by President Nathan Sobel, it has departments devoted to animation, lettering and backgrounds, camera technique and optical effects. The studio also boasts a time and labor-saving method for use with Oxberry animation equipment. This method provides the effects of products floating through the air without support, lines or shadows.

A Billboard story from the previous year reveals Phil Klein was a director at the studio while Bert Freund was a designer. Broadcasting magazine revealed several years earlier that Joe Stultz, who had been a writer at Famous/Fleischer, was an employee. But I can find very little about the studio’s staff. It was a union shop.

The year before Killjoy Was Here was released, Cineffects animated a TV spot for Schaefer Brewing that appeared on Brooklyn Dodgers games. It featured a character named Thirsty who parachuted onto Ebbets Field (Cineffects apparently had the parachuting cel idea down pat).

With that brief introduction, here is the cartoon. I don’t know who the narrator is, nor the name of the music library heard in the background.

The Goose Grease Violinist

Concert-goers either enjoyed or tolerated Jack Benny’s violin playing when he appeared at charity event. Musicians found interesting ways to find euphemisms for “he’s not very good.” But Benny raised great amounts of money and no doubt saved orchestras and concert halls from certain death.

Not many of Benny’s non-televised performances warranted mention in the national press, but one in Los Angeles on April 23, 1957 did, likely because the city was filled with entertainment columnists for newspaper syndicates and wire services, and they needed to write something.

Here’s an Associated Press story that appeared in papers the next day.

Jack Benny Plays Classics (They Lost)
By BOB THOMAS

LOS ANGELES (AP)— The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra may never be the same.
Jack Benny, 39-year-old violinist of Waukegan, Ill., made a guest appearance last night at Philharmonic Auditorium. He played sections from Sarasate, Mendelssohn and Rimsky-Korsakoff. All three composers lost.
Such music lovers as Frank Sinatra, James Stewart, Claudette Colbert, Dana Wynter, Clifton Webb, Gregory Peck, Ann Miller and Sam Goldwyn paid $100 a seat to hear Mr. Benny’s West Coast debut as a concert artist. The event was for the benefit of Cedars of Lebanon Hospital.
Charity netted a reported $100,000. What happened to music is another matter.
Immaculate in white tie and tails, the violinist played vigorously while carrying on a running feud with the concertmaster. The latter interrupted with violin solos and was removed from the stage at the request of Mr. Benny.
The comedian’s stares were more eloquent than his cadenzas. But here and there was evidence that he might have gone farther with the fiddle if he had applied himself more back in Waukegan.
Between numbers he confessed to the audience that he had the feeling of not being needed by the orchestra—“like being stranded on a desert isle with Jayne Mansfield—and her boy friend.”
Albert Goldberg, the Los Angeles Times music critic, had this to say about Benny's playing:
“. . . As a violinist Mr. Benny has a small but offensive tone, and he apparently uses goose grease instead of resin on his bow.”

What did the Times writer have to say? Glad you asked. Here’s the answer:

Jack Benny Fiddles Around for Charity
BY ALBERT GOLDBERG
“The Jack Benny Show” was the legend on the marquee of Philharmonic Auditorium last night and it was indeed Mr. Benny’s show, although Dorothy Kirsten, soprano, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Alfred Wallenstein’s direction likewise contributed prominently to this $100-a-seat benefit sponsored by the Women’s Guild of Cedars of Lebanon Hospital for the free bed program. The audience was large and a personnel list would read like a Who’s Who in Hollywood.
Mr. Benny, in case you don’t know, is a violinist—and it is one way to make a living. He confessed to being nervous: “It’s like being on an island with Jayne Mansfield and her boy friend,” he said. “You have a feeling you’re not needed.”
Critical Note
But nerves or not, Mr. Benny was undeterred in attacking several of the more difficult items of the virtuoso repertoire. Since this is supposed to be a critical review we might as well note now that as a violinist Mr. Benny has a small but offensive tone and that he apparently uses goose grease instead of resin on his bow.
He came on to play Sarasate’s “Gypsy Airs” without his bow and had to send off for it. David Frisina, the orchestra’s concertmaster, obligingly filled in with the first cadenza when things began to look bad for Mr. Benny, an assist that the soloist apparently did not appreciate, for, after a whispered conference with Mr. Wallenstein, the concertmaster was asked to leave the stage, shortly to be followed by an industrious cymbal player who had likewise cramped Mr. Benny’s style. Mr. Benny celebrated his victory by adding “Love in Bloom” to the Sarasate piece without any great harm being done, and to everyone’s surprise he and the orchestra ended together.
Twinges of Conscience
The first movement of Mendelssohn’s E Minor Concerto was next served up for slaughter, but conscience first impelled Mr. Benny to send off for the music—“It’s a little hazardous,” he explained—and the stagehand who brought it also obligingly tuned Mr. Benny’s violin for him.
Aside from having to be reminded to come in with the second theme, Mr. Benny worked diligently with his task with what might be called an ocean wave technique, and when Heimann Weinstine, who had taken Mr. Frisina’s place, volunteered to help with the cadenza, he met with the same ingratitude as his predecessor. But by skipping the cadenza altogether Mr. Benny made it, by golly.
Since there were no more concertmasters left to banish Mr. Benny took the first chair for the second section of Rimsky-Korsakoff’s “Capriccio Espagnol.” This also contains a violin cadenza that enabled Mr. Benny to demonstrate his technique with merciless clarity, and except for having to caution Mr. Wallenstein to go slower he again emerged victorious.
The more serious part of the program had Miss Kirsten singing “Un bel di” from “Madame Butterfly” and “Depuis le jour” from “Louise” with her usual grace and soaring voice, and Mr. Wallenstein conducted the overture to Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride,” the suite from Strauss’ “Der Rosenlavalier” and the overture to Von Suppe’s “Poet and Peasant” in brilliant fashion.

The wife of one of Jack’s old friends, Mervyn LeRoy, organised the charity concert, while Mrs. David May II was in charge of a supper-dance that followed at the Beverly Hills Hotel (note to our younger readers that there was once a custom that, when formally referring to a wife, the husband’s given name was used instead of the woman’s).

The concert was a success, at least from a charitable standpoint. The Times reported in a sidebar story that $100,000 was raised. Goose grease notwithstanding, Jack Benny had contributed to society yet again.

Lost Cartoon: Family Jubilee

Okay, the title of this post may be a little misleading. Family Jubilee may not actually be lost. A print may be in a canister buried on a shelf somewhere for decades. But it’s a safe guess nobody reading this has seen it before.

We’ve talked about industrial cartoons here before, films funded by corporations for a variety of reasons. Some were used internally. Others were distributed to church and community groups. A number of them appeared on television as ads disguised as institutional/educational films. And a handful showed up in theatres, like some of the shorts produced by John Sutherland.

There seems to have been quite a number of industrial/commercial film outfits. Some specialised in animation. Others would accept contracts for an animated film and then sub-contract a studio to do the work. One of these companies was Wilding Picture Productions, which mainly focused on live action films and film-strips.

Industrial animation historian Jonathan Boschen points out Wilding’s best-known animated film was Big Tim, which was contracted out to UPA in 1949. It was also responsible for a half-hour cartoon movie called The Legend of Dan and Gus, produced for Columbia Gas System in 1952. It tells of the careers of two brothers and the firms they founded—Dan’s Doorknob Co. and Gus’ Gas Co.

We’ve spotted another Wilding-led animation effort while leafing through Business Screen magazine: a 1954 short called Family Jubilee for New York Life Insurance Company. The company debuted it January 12th at a meeting of 4,500 agents from its 160 branches. (Ah, yes, a big audience for a cartoon, isn’t it!?). Business Screen gives us a little taste of the cartoon:

In case any of the “Show Me!” agents thought the hoopla was more of the same old stuff, the company had on hand as a first order of the day’s business a new film, Family Jubilee, which couldn’t have kidded New York Life more effectively if it had been made by a group of competitors. ...
Family Jubilee turned out to be a color cartoon analogy of New York Life, with a family of beavers—ma, pa and the little eager beavers—who run a hotel. In a hilarious lampoon of itself, New York Life showed that when customers of the hotel’s restaurant couldn’t get enough variety of food (policies), they’d go to another restaurant (Met, Pru, John Hancock, etc.). Likening Nylic’s assets and surplus to the hotel’s safe, the film showed it guarded in the 5th sub-basement vaults.

Business Screen printed some frames from the cartoon. Interestingly, they were in colour; generally frame grabs or drawings that appeared in the publication, ads excepted, were in black and white.

The cartoon was 13 minutes long and printed on Kodachrome in 16 millimetre. It was copyrighted on January 15, 1954. While Big Tim may have been animated for Wilding at UPA, the designs from Family Jubilee hardly look like anything from that studio. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to discover who made it.

Wilding was based out of Chicago and had some heavyweight clients in 1954, including the Ford Motor Company which paid for a 35 mm live-action short in CinemaScope. But this appears to have been the only animated film produced by the company that year.

It’s a shame there are so many industrial cartoons from the 1940s and ‘50s that haven’t been exposed to viewers for years. Perhaps more of them will come to light.

Ragtime Bear Jump

The Ragtime Bear tries sneaking across the room but hears the sleeping Mr. Magoo stir. He jumps into the air and pretends to be a bear rug. Here are the drawings.



UPA hadn’t outlawed squash and stretch when this cartoon was released in 1949.

Pat Matthews apparently did this scene. Willie Pyle, Rudy Larriva and Art Babbitt are the other credited animators.

Not Quite a Turkey Trot

The turkey of Tex Avery’s Jerky Turkey isn’t as maliciously crazy as Screwy Squirrel, but he’s a quick, fun, one-shot character.

Because the war is on, the cartoon has war references aplenty (ration cards, the draft). The turkey actually runs a black market meat store, and he manages to fast-talk his way into selling himself to a bulbous-nosed pilgrim. Note the brushwork as he zooms out of the scene to wrap himself at the meat counter.



Claude Smith supplied the character designs. No, Bill Thompson and Daws Butler are not heard in this cartoon; both were in the military and nowhere near California when Avery made this short. Incidentally, it was not released anywhere near Thanksgiving; the official release date was April 7, 1945, though we’ve found a newspaper ad from April 3rd stating it was “now playing” at the Capitol Theatre in Rome, New York (along with National Velvet). The Motion Picture Herald of May 20, 1944 and Independent Film Journal of May 27, 1944 published almost identical releases (the following is from the latter):

MGM’s CartoonSked For Coming Season
With the completion of MGM’s 1943-44 cartoon schedule in sight, producer Fred Quimby is laying the groundwork for next season’s program to be released in October.
Already in animation are five Tom and Jerry cartoons, including "Tee for Two,” "Love Boids,” [re-named “Flirty Birdy”] "Quiet Please,” "Springtime for Thomas,” and "House in Manhattan.” [sic] William Hanna and Joseph Barbera are co-directors. In the Skrewy Squirrel series are "Wild and Wolfy,” "Jerky Turkey” and "Sue Steps Out,” directed by Tex Avery.
Supplementing the foregoing group will be an additional eight subjects to complete the customary output of 16, all of which are in Technicolor. Production to meet the U. S. Army and Navy commitments will continue for the duration.

However, we did find the Town Hall Theatre in Cazenovia, New York ran it over the Thanksgiving holiday in 1945 along with God is My Co-Pilot.

Early Kovacs

Perhaps excepting Fred Allen, no one worked harder or more devotedly at his craft than Ernie Kovacs, wrote reporter Hal Humphrey after Kovacs’ stunning death in a car accident in January 1962.

Much was written at the time about him and his innovative approach to television comedy. Much was written later about where television comedy might have gone had he lived. But like many in TV, Kovacs had come out of radio and moved into the new medium with everyone else. He began in his hometown of Trenton, New Jersey in the 1940s then landed on television on an NBC affiliate in Philadelphia—doing a morning wake-up show. He was silly, irreverent and imaginative. His show wasn’t for everyone, but the TV critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer loved him.

And maybe was inspired by him. I love the critic’s the-hell-with-it attitude and turned what was supposed to be a review of the Doodles Weaver Show into another look at Kovacs, who had been handed a night-time show called “Ernie in Kovacs Land” on the local station.

We’ll get to that in a moment. First, his column on April 17, 1951 dealing with Kovacs’ morning show. It gives you a good idea of what he was doing on the air at the time.

'Early Birds' Fly to Dials For Kovacs' Video Show
By Merrill Panitt
Somewhere between 35,000 and 60,000 television sets in the Philadelphia area flip on about 7:30 in the morning these weekdays to catch a program on WPTZ entitled, "Three to Get Ready."
This proves that either some people are so anxious to watch TV that they'll get up out of a sound sleep to turn on their receivers, or that the program is really worth watching. In either case, this early bird TV viewing has been going on since last November, and a whole flock of sponsors apparently agree with WPTZ that before, during and after-breakfast television has a future.
FORMER ANNOUNCER
The rather odd character who runs this show is Ernie Kovacs, a 32-year-old former radio announcer from Trenton. Kovacs stands 6 feet 2 1/2 inches in his stocking feet—and you're just as liable to see him in his stocking feet as not on the show. He weighs about 230, has a black pencil-line moustache and a shock of wavy black hair, and is only slightly less inhibited than a bunch of 3-year-olds let loose in a candy factory.
Often as not, the program opens with a shot of Kovacs walking up 17th st. on his way to the studio, for which a camera points out the window and follows Ernie as he stops to buy a paper, have his shoes shined, or complete whatever other delaying action suits his mood of the moment.

CLUTTERED DESK
Once in the studio, Kovacs sits behind a cluttered desk and makes like a disc jockey. At all times during the show a clock is superimposed over the lower left quarter of the picture. A sign on the desk gives the weather forecast and the temperature. As records are played, the name of the song and star are on a piece of paper hanging at the right lower quarter of the picture. Above this mass of information Kovacs capers.
If he feels like it, he'll pantomime the song. Sometimes he'll get out some puppets and have them act out the number. He's got a big stuffed dummy of a little girl with whom he argues—the girl being the recorded voice of Bugs Bunny or whoever else happens to be in the transcription file.
FIGHT COWBOY BADDIES
Sometimes Kovacs will get himself into an argument with cowboy baddies. The screen will show film of baddies riding over a hill, and Ernie will pick them off, one by one, with his cap pistol. You see baddies riding, then Ernie shooting, then baddies falling. Sometimes they shoot back at him, but so far he's escaped serious injury.
It was touch and go one morning when Ernie had a big fight with the lady dummy. They fought all over the studio, up into the catwalks, high above the cameras. Ernie finally won, and he threw the lady down to the studio floor, 20 feet below. She survived.
ENJOYED BY HOUSEWIVES
They say kids love Kovacs, and housewives think he's wonderful. Some people who used to wake up with a growl say Kovacs is as good as that first cup of coffee for setting them right.
It's kind of a strange show. I'd like to review it some time, but who can tell whether it's good or bad so early in the morning?

In 1951, television copied radio in that the big shows had summer replacement series. Sid Caesar did was one. So Doodles Weaver was brought in to fill June-July-August with a variety show put together on the cheap. He was no Sid Caesar and he was no Ernie Kovacs, as this column of July 12, 1951 attests.

Doodles Weaver Show Rapped as Amateurish
By Merrill Panitt
This was originally intended to be a review of the Doodles Weaver Show. Unfortunately, all I can think to say about the thing is that NBC ought to be ashamed of itself for putting on such a hodgepodge.
A great big network like that must have a carload of bright, new ideas in its files and shouldn't have to stoop to such a hodge-podge of amateurish blackouts many of which I've seen performed more capably by Boy Scouts around a camp-fire and so-so variety acts.
COULD BLAME IT ON HEAT
The only possible excuses for the Doodles Weaver Show are the heat, the absence on vacation of most of the network's big brains, or the work of the master salesman who must have peddled the thing. I've seen test patterns that were more entertaining than the Doodles Weaver Show.
Ernie Kovacs, despite the number of interruptions forced on him, is running a right amusing program these evenings at seven, the half hour has been split into two segments, and each segment has an opening, two breaks for commercials, and a closing. In between the segments there's a station break.
INGENUITY DISPLAYED

Anyone else beset by such obstacles (Jack E. Leonard has four breaks an hour on Broadway Open House and he weeps bitterly when he speaks of them) would give up any hope of having continuity. Before each break Ernie has a man sneaking on to yell, "Don't Nobody Move!" and everyone freezes. After the commercials the cameras return, and with a shout of "Reeeezoom" the action goes on. It almost makes the commercials (and WPTZ has a real, honest-to-gosh paid one coming up next week) part of the program.
It's pretty hard to describe what Ernie actually does. He may haul a cow into the studio and demonstrate cuts of meat. He may go into dialect, or put on a Private Eye Mystery to end all such P.E.M.'s, or toss firecrackers at the Tony DiSamone Trio. The important thing is the general effect of a pleasant half hour guaranteed to produce a few chuckles and maybe even a belly-laugh from time to time.
COOPERATION ACCLAIMED
There's a lot of by-play with cameras, and often there are tricks the cameramen must spend hours working up. It's good to see a show that succeeds because of the cooperation between performer and technicians, and Ernie's the first to give credit to the men who work with him.
This esprit de corps is evident to an even greater extent during his early morning Three to Get Ready program. As an example, sound man Bill Hoffman has lifted the phrase, "I wouldn't say that," from a Bugs Bunny record and it.
He also has records of Ernie saying, "Think of me, I need the money."
So while Ernie is delivering a commercial in the morning, he may praise a sponsor's pineapple juice to the sky, only to hear Bugs Bunny interrupt with, "I wouldn't say that." Or if Ernie extolls the virtues of a vacuum cleaner and is being unus-all-y sincere, he's liable to hear his own voice saying, "Think of me, I need the money."
"Hoffman sits there like a fiend," Ernie says, "and I never know what he'll do to me next."
As I said earlier, this was supposed to be a review of the Doodles Weaver show, but we got off on this subject of Ernie Kovacs. He's good, Kovacs, that is. And even though he's looking forward to the return of Kukla, Fran and Ollie, and a chance to play some golf again, I rather hope the network gives him a regular evening spot without all those interruptions come fall.

Kovacs’ sojourn in Philadelphia was reasonably short. In 1952, he was off to New York and, eventually, network stardom and an Emmy in 1962 that he never lived to collect.

Goodbye to the 67-Year-Old Teen Idol

Watching The Partridge Family week after week, there was one question that always popped into my mind.

How does David Cassidy get his hair to do that?

You see, I had hair that, like Cassidy’s, curled up on one side at the shoulder. But the other side just hung straight down. Nothing I did could change that. Mind you, I wasn’t a huge, wealthy star with a hairdresser at the studio, I was just a kid in junior high. (Today, I would settle for hair that stays on my head).

Cassidy is being remembered by 60-year-old teenage girls today, their first crush, someone who sold zillions of copies of 16 and Tiger Beat. They probably don’t know that all came about because Screen Gems was willing to take a huge gamble on him.

Television in the late ‘60s and into the ‘70s wanted to attract young viewers. One way to do that was through music. But there had to be a very careful balancing act. On one hand, the music had to sound like it belonged on a Top 40 station, not some cheap knock-off, for young people to accept it. On the other hand, it couldn’t be that hippie pinko music that turned off “America-love-it-or-leave-it” parents. But a combination musical-group/tv series could be a gold mine for anyone who could pull it off. Columbia Pictures decided to take the chance. They borrowed a sure-fire winner from real-life. The Cowsills were a musical group of well-groomed youngsters and their mother. If the idea worked in real life, it could work on TV. And the studio pinned its hopes on 36-year-old Oscar-winner Shirley Jones, known more for her role as Marian the Librarian in The Music Man, and a virtual unknown who just turned 20.

Columbia’s TV subsidiary was Screen Gems. The company had acquired Bell Records in 1969. They joined together in a huge push of The Partridge Family before the show had even aired. Here’s Back Stage magazine’s version of events from its issue of June 26, 1970.

$100,000 Promo Campaign to Push Series
A special campaign to help pre-sell a new tv series was announced by Bell Records.
Larry Uttal, President of Bell, said that he will spend more than $100,000 for the initial release of a single and an LP for The Partridge Family, starts of the new Screen Gems “Partridge Family” show, debuting on ABC-TV this fall.
A situation comedy series with music, dealing with the adventures of a mother and her family of five children who become recording starts, it will star Shirley Jones and David Cassidy.
Not since the days of the “Monkees” has any company invested so heavily in such a comprehensive promotion and advertising campaign involving a television series and recordings.
Bell Records has engaged the public relations firm of Bernie Ilson, Inc., specialists in television and record publicity, to create and coordinate the entire campaign on their behalf. Ilson and his staff will work with ABC-TV and Screen Gems publicity and advertising departments (who are sharing the costs of the campaign) and Dick Gersh Associates, Bell’s corporate P.R. film, in the execution of the entire campaign.

David Cassidy had been doing guest-starring roles on a few TV dramas at the time he auditioned for The Partridge Family, though “starring” is a bit of a stretch. Audiences wouldn’t have known who he was. After winning the Keith Partridge audition, he and Jones hit the promo circuit in August. Most newspaper stories I’ve spotted are interviews with Jones in the “look what movie actress is doing television now” vein. The series was designed around her. But the Atlanta Journal Constitution talked to Cassidy. He’s careful to leave the impression with those Southern parents reading that he’s not into that anti-war music like those un-American kids. He’s safe and benign, he’s telling them.

David Cassidy Seems on Way As the Next Teen-Age Idol
By SUZANNE MOORE
David Cassidy may be on his way to becoming the country’s next teen-age idol. The combination is right—his interests are music and acting, and he gets a chance to combine them on his forthcoming series for television, “The Partridge Family.”
But even before his series or record albums have hit the airwaves, David is already being hounded by telephone calls from ardent female admirers. So much so, in fact, that he was forced to halt incoming calls on his recent eight-city promotional tour, which, last week, included Atlanta.
The 20-year-old son of actor Jack Cassidy is not disturbed by the prospect of stardom. “I’m digging it,” he said. “I don’t mind if they (fans) hang an image on me. I don’t think it will be hard to live with because, after all, it’s just an image—not really me.”
David admits that he is one of those persons who always has wanted to become a performer. “I saw my father on stage when I was three years old,” he said, “and I really liked it. There is nothing else I want to do.”
David has appeared in one Broadway musical, Allan Sherman’s “The Fig Leaves are Falling,” and several TV series: “Ironsides,” [sic] “Medical Center,” “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” and “Mod Squad.”

In the new series, David shares the spotlight with his stepmother, actress Shirley Jones.
David says that the series was not created especially for him and Miss Jones. “I was just one of many people trying out for the part,” he said. “And I didn’t know Shirley was going to be in it until just before we started shooting.”
However, the two seem to have formed something of a dynamic duo, at least musically. “The show is about a family that forms a rock group,” he said. “Shirley and I do all the vocals for the show and for the two albums—to be released after the show premieres Sept. 25.”
David describes the music as a “light rock sound. It’s happy music, meant strictly to entertain.”
That type of music fits David’s tastes. “I really dig listening to music,” he said. “But when I listen to it, I want to be able to enjoy it for what it is. I don’t want it to tell me what is right or wrong with this country.”
David thinks too many people try to read things into music, especially the type of music written by the Beatles and Bob Dylan. “You don’t have to rip it apart, and analyze every theme,” he said. “It’s all right there. You should take it like it is and enjoy it.”
Portraying a teen-aged rock band leader has taught the young actor one thing about television. “They don’t know how to write for teenagers,” he said. “They don’t know how to integrate them into the comedy routine, so they give them honky [sic] things to say like ‘gee Mom.’”
Despite a very hip appearance, David describes himself as a “middle-of-the-roader.” He is not in sympathy with student activists. And he is not particularly turned-on by youth-oriented entertainment, such as the Broadway musical “Hair.”
His most challenging work, thus far, has been dramatic roles for television.
“Serious acting requires more study, but it’s more rewarding . . . and I would rather watch myself doing that.”
David sees the new television series as a “fantastic opportunity—the fulfillment of a long-awaited dream come true.
“Right now, show business is the thing. I see no other way for me.”

“That type of music fits David’s tastes?” All PR flackery, despite the fact the Partridges’ first hit, I Think I Love You, jumped to No. 1. By the time Cassidy wanted off the series in 1973, he told United Features writer Barbara Lewis: “I was given material to do that I would not have selected myself.” And he did mind what image the fans hung on him. They were hanging on every word in the teen rags, of which Cassidy told Lewis: “They were always writing things about me that were not true.”

He eventually saw his teen idol mantle fall upon singing stepbrother Shaun. As life rolled on, he wrote a book, toured, traded off on nostalgia for the series he had wanted to quit, and had mounting issues that seem to befall too many people in show biz. Then his health did him in at a far-too-young age.

Cassidy will always be remembered for his part in a TV show with some pretty well-put together elements: comic by-play (thanks to Danny Bonaduce and Dave Madden), eye candy for boys and girls, unassuming bubblegum music. He never seems to have generated the disdain and ridicule that some current teen idols have received. Notwithstanding some personal problems later in life, Columbia’s gamble paid off for David Cassidy.

Skelet-me-close-the-door

An eerie figure is silhouetted in the window of an old house during a lightning storm in the Flip the Frog cartoon Spooks (1932).



It turns out to be a skele-butler, who disappears. Flip runs out of the scene.



Ub Iwerks is the only person credited on the cartoon.