Christmas in Hollywood 1927

How different was Christmas in Hollywood 90 years ago? Well, for one thing, film fans must have had longer attention spans and better vision. The article below takes up three, 8½-by-11 pages of single-spaced text, so I’m not going to spend time with a long introduction.

In reading the names of the stars, I can’t help but think how many had careers that disappeared after sound came in. Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer had been released a few months earlier. Perhaps remarkable is how many of these names are remembered by film fans today.

Incidentally, Rosalind Shaffer of the Chicago Tribune Press Service wrote a similar column, interviewing many of the same people, though with a bit of different information. She talks about Reginald Denny’s Yule log which is missing in the story below, as are the holiday doings of Charlie Farrell and William S. Hart.

The authoress, to use an old-timey term, was the first President of the Hollywood Women’s Press Club. This appeared in the Boston Globe on Christmas Day 1927.

HOW HOLLYWOOD’S CHILDEN WILL SPEND THE DAY
Jack Gilbert’s Daughter and Children of Jack Holt, Buster Keaton, Dick Barthelmess, Bert Lytell, Will Not Be Forgotten by Santa
By MAYME OBER PEAK
While family parties are gathered around glowing firesides and groaning boards in countless homes today, what are the motion picture stars doing to celebrate Christmas?
How do these year-round entertainers, surrounded by the glamor of the Kleigs, amuse themselves on this day of days in the land-of-make-believe? Are they keeping “open house” in their movie palaces at which enough champagne and egg-nog flows to fill their marble swimming pools? Or do they spend the day even as you and I?
And what are their Christmas presents like? With salaries that would buy anything from imported motors to a railroad, with imaginations that run the artistic gamut, are the gifts they exchange as picturesque as they are priceless?
To answer these questions for local fans, the reporter made a careful poll of filmland’s famous. I found that practically all of the stellar stars, who work harder than the average bricklayer, have the day “off,” it being Sunday as well as Christmas! That the very lucky, “between pictures” at this season, are in New York, and others with a few days holiday are spending it at the California mountain resorts in the snow, or at their beach cottages. Only one I encountered was able to go to Kentucky for a regular “homecoming” Christmas!
As to how the majority will spend the day, Wallace Beery seems to have voiced it:
The Beerys at Home

“I’m going to stay quietly at home. It’s Christmas, isn’t it?” This actor’s idea of a Christmas present for his wife was a diamond necklace of rare craftsmanship. In return Mrs Beery is giving her husband a new hunting and camping outfit—guns, khaki, silk tents and collapsible bunks.
Raymond Hatton, the other member of the Beery-Hatton team, put a little promissory note in his wife’s stocking which read: “Dear Frances: A hope thoughts of your trip to Europe were a merry one.” Having discovered oil on his beach property, Hatton can afford to keep his promise, too! The Hattons, who have no children, have trimmed a tree for the neighbors’ children. They hung up their stockings, declaring, “We hope to the Lord we will never get too old to do that.”
W.C. Fields and Chester Conklin, other two members of the famous comedy quartet, known as “The Four Horsemen of Hilarity,” gave ridiculous gifts in keeping with their calling. One was a year’s shopping order on one of the Los Angeles leader barber shops to a friend who is as bald as an onion!
The Pickfords Gather
Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, dubbed here “the first lady of filmland,” refused to divulge their gifts to each other. They are members of a family house party at the Santa Monica Beach home of Mrs. Pickford Sr. Jack and Lottie are there, and if one of those “unusual rains” isn’t falling, the former expects to take a swim in the Pacific. There is a tree for the only grandchild, Rosemary Rapp, Lottie Pickford’s daughter, who has been adopted by her grandmother and renamed “Mary Pickford.”
As is their usual custom, the Talmadges, Schencks and Keatons are making it strictly a family day, centering around Joseph and Robert, the small sons of Natalie and Buster Keaton, and also around Mrs “Peg” Talmadge, the mother and pal of the famous Talmadge girls.
At the Taylor-Dempsey home will gather all the relatives of the screen star and ex-champion, each of whom have brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews living in Hollywood. Here perhaps the most lavish gifts will be exchanged. Among them is an entire Italian room, which Estelle Taylor had an importer instal on the second floor as her husband’s dressing-sitting room.
His former dressing room, adjoining, has been refitted as his writing room. When I talked to Miss Taylor she told me that every shelf of his wardrobe was filled with packages. One of them contains an accordion which can be played automatically! “The billiard room is full of gifts for me,” she said, “but I don’t know what any of them are except one that must be a music box. For every time anybody comes in Jack takes them upstairs and I can hear music playing!”
Jack as Chef

If it weren’t Christmas the millionaire prizefighter might be standing over a hotel range showing the chef how to fry chicken. According to his wife, that’s what he does on his weekdays now, having taken over the very active management of his Los Angeles hotel during the illness of his brother.
The high spot in the Yuletide of Clara Bow is a new sport roadster with a special-built body, which she will find sitting outside her door on Christmas morning. America’s Queen of Flappers perhaps gave the most picturesque of gifts. Several months before Christmas she placed an order with an old Grand Banks fisherman living in Marthas Vineyard settlement for 10 ship’s models for her closest friends.
Joan Crawford is giving her feminine friends rhinestone garters. In her own stocking Christmas morning she will find a brand new contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer elevating her to stardom. This young woman, who danced her way from a New York night club to film fame in two years, has recently purchased a new home in Beverly Hills. Here she will entertain at dinner some 50 friends, assisted by her mother and young brother, and her house guest, Shirley Dorman.
Clive Brook sent to his native London, and the chef of his own club there, for dozens of rich plum puddings—true to the British tradition. These are his gifts to his friends. With his two lovely children, aged 2 and 4, he and Mrs Brook are making merry today around a beautifully decorated tree which grows, by the way, in their own front yard! Outdoor Christmas trees are one of the season’s high lights in California.
For Bebe Daniels this is the day of days, which she is spending at home with her mother and grandmother. For years her gift list has included hundreds of names. Every person, no matter what their station, who has helped her in one of her pictures during the year, is remembered. The dark-eyed athletic star, called in Hollywood “the female Fairbanks,” had a tree set up in the little yard of her dressing-room bungalow at the Paramount Studio, distributing her gifts from there on Christmas Eve. Among her own presents is a silver tea set of old Spanish make and design from her mother.
A German Christmas

Traditional ceremony will prevail in the household of Emil Jannings, the famous German star, the servants taking part in all the festivities and exchange of gifts. There will be a tremendous tree, containing a gift for the hundreds of friends invited to “drop in”—gifts purchased in the exclusive shops of Berlin. Jannings’ gift to his wife is a sable coat. Her’s is unique among costly gifts. She had printed and bound in hard-tooled leather for her husband a set of volumes dealing with the famous actors of the stage and the characters they have portrayed since the days of the wandering minstrels.
Esther Ralston, the New England star, is giving her husband, George Webb, what thousands of other wives gave—something for their new home—rugs. He, in turn, presented her with a piece of rare old tapestry for the living room wall. Their Christmas holiday will be mostly spent puttering around the house.
Thelma Todd, who was “Miss Massachusetts” in 1925 when she came to Hollywood after winning a beauty contest, draws from her Christmas stocking an important role in “Hell’s Angels,” the $1,000,000 air film being produced for United Artists. “Borrowed” from Famous Players, where she is under contract, originally from Lawrence, where she is known as “Lawrence’s Sweetheart,” is certainly being smiled on by the gods. Her Christmas holiday will mean one day at home.
George Bancroft, the screen’s laughing villain, has purchased for Mrs Bancroft an American care of foremost rating with de luxe fittings. With their little girl, Georgette, the Bancrofts are having a quiet day at home.
Corinne Griffith is having a Christmas tree as usual, but as she is living in a rented house during the building of her Italian villa, says she does not expect to have her big house-warming until next year. Her most important Christmas presents were blankets, collars and water balls for her there dogs, “Ritzy,” “Pal,” and “Rags.”
Dorothy Sebastian went in for perfume burners-made like gazing crystals and suited in color to the individuality of her friends. To Renee Adoree, her chum, she presented a gorgeous drape—a half-circle knitted affair embroidered in wild colors and weird patterns, to be thrown over a couch or piano.
Renee Entertains
Miss Adoree carries out the French custom of entertaining on Christmas Eve, her guests all being from her own country.

Ramon Navarro is celebrating in real Mexican style, with his large family of eight brothers and sisters. In the afternoon there will be a Christmas play in the little theatre in his home—a perfectly equipped theatre which is the workshop of this musician-actor.
His private productions, written and acted by Navarro himself, are very charming—always in Spanish, so that only Spanish and Mexican people attend.
Jean Hersholt will have a “get together” day of all the Danish actors, directors, and writers in Hollywood. It will consist of a tree trimmed with Danish toys, a dinner of Danish dishes, and all their traditional games and dances.
Colleen Moore is following her custom of celebrating Christmas at home with her family, including this year not only her producer-husband, John McCormick, but her parents, Mr and Mrs Charles Morrison, and her brother, Cleve Moore. The guest of honour is her 85-year-old grandmother, Mrs Mary Kelly, who accompanied Colleen from Chicago to California years ago. It is planned to run on Miss Moore’s projection machine the first picture she ever made—“The Bad Boy,” directed by D.W. Griffith.v Billy Dove, and her director-husband, Irvin Willatt, are spending the day “right at home” with relatives and intimate friends around them. “Home is the place for Christmas celebrations,” Miss Dove said, “and this year thanks to the radio and things of that sort, one’s own hearthside is especially nice to enjoy the holiday!”
Lon Chaney, man of mystery, is seeking solitude in a mountain cabin. Reginald Denny is giving a big house party in his cabin in the San Bernadino mountains, where a huge tree is set up in the living room. After dinner there will be a snow carnival, with skiing, tobogganing, and old-fashioned snow battles.
A White Christmas
Others seeking a “white Christmas,” are Eddie Philips, Universal star, who with his wife is at Big Bear. Norma Shearer, a native Canadian, who has never become accustomed to tropical Christmases, is spending the holidays with her new husband, Irving Thalberg, at Lake Arrowhead where she is hoping for a grand snow storm! Nils Asther will be there, too, if he isn’t working, as he is anxious to renew his acquaintance with skis. If that plan falls through he will give a Swedish dinner to members of “The Blue Danube” cast.
Helen Foster is at Lake Arrowhead, too. And Mary Philbin will be hostess at a big Christmas dinner at fashionable Palm Springs Hotel, on the edge of the Mojave Desert.
Laura LaPlante, another busy Universal star, expected to finish her present picture, “Home James,” in time to put it into real effect, and with her husband, William Seiter, spend the day with her mother in Hollywood.
Mary Astor, who says that her family still considers her “a 12-year-old girl on Christmas Day,” is the life of a big party today including three generations. After dinner, they plan to take a long auto ride and probably spend the night at a mountain inn.
Marian Nixon has gone all the way to Louisville for an “Old Kentucky Home” Christmas. And Lillian Gish, May McAvoy and Barbara Kent are in New York. For the latter, it is her first visit.

Louise Fazenda and her new husband, Hal Wallis, are keeping open house, having dinner for their respective parents. Another bride receiving Christmas guests for the first time is Helene Costello, who recently married her old school friend, Jack Regan. Dolores and her mother will assist. Sadly enough, Maurice Costello, that fine old trouper of stage and screen, will be missing from the family group, having been divorced from his wife a few months ago.
Dick and Mary
Monte Blue, his wife and 2-year-old Barbara Ann, will have a Christmas at home all to themselves. So will Richard Barthelmess and his adorable little daughter, Mary Hay, whose mutual devotion is one of the beautiful traditions in Hollywood.
Christmas will be a quiet holiday for Milton Sills and his wife, Doris Kenyon, who will only have a few friends and relatives for dinner at their wonderful new estate near Santa Monica. As this is the first Christmas in the life of their son, Kenyon Sills, the day will center around the child.
Eleanor Boardman and King Vidor have a tree and numerous toys for their little daughter, both a month ago. As the baby won’t exactly know what it’s all about, their Christmas celebration is really just an alibi for a kid holiday—the old gag of taking the children to the circus when you’re dying to go yourself!
It will be “Children’s Day” at the Jack Holt home, where Tim and Betty are the delight of their famous father; at the H.B. Warner’s, with three children’s stockings to fill; at Zazu Pitts, wife of Tom Gallery, who has a little daughter of her own and also adopted Barbara LaMar’s foster son Donald; at Bryant Washburn’s, where there are two sturdy boys; at Claire Windsor’s, divorced wife of Bert Lytell, whose son Billy is “goin’ on six”; at Leatrice Joy’s, where her 3-year-old daughter is expecting a visit from Daddy Jack Gilbert; at the Mix mansion, where Thomasina will require all day to open the presents bought for her while her mother was in Europe last Summer, and at the Harold Lloyd’s where 4-year-old Gloria rules her doting father. Among this young lady’s marvelous gifts is a miniature home of her own built on the summit of Lloyd’s 16-acre estate. It is a child’s fairyland, a dream come true, consisting of a 4-room miniature Old English house, with a stable for her pony and cart, a realistic water trough and pump, a wishing well, and fully equipped playground with sand pile, slide and acrobatic devices.

Alias St. Nick

Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising’s Toyland Broadcast was released at Christmas time in 1934 but it really wasn’t a holiday-themed cartoon. The first Christmas cartoon the two produced for MGM was the following year with Alias St. Nick, where a cynical mouse discovers Santa is really a hungry cat when the menace’s stomach is accidentally revealed to be a balloon.

The mouse goes in for a closer look. All these expressions are by Bob Allen.



A toy train goes under the cat, pushing the balloon/stomach above him. The shocked cat shoves it back down and pretends everything is normal. Cynical mouse ain’t buying it. Allen’s expressions are good, but there are so many as the cat keeps looking around the cartoon just slowwwwwws down. Of course, it’s 1935, where cartoons didn’t exact chug along with exaggerated speed.

Film Daily reported 200 theatres had been booked the cartoon over Christmas. It played with The Man Whe Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo starring Ronald Colman in at the Four Star theatre in Los Angeles and Ah Wilderness at Loew’s in Toronto. Loew’s in Washington, D.C. held a Christmas Toy Matinee that also included Mickey’s Service Station, What, No Spinach?, Robber Kitten and Arthur Godfrey conducting a community sing. In New York, it was paired with a different feature (see right).

Fairy Godmother Blows It

The fairy godmother has everything in place to magically create Cinderella’s coach and horses, just like in the book.



Except it doesn’t turn out like in the book. Instead of a coach and horses, Santa and his reindeer fade in. Carl Stalling’s soundtrack plays “Jingle Bells” before they even arrive.



These are two consecutive frames. The action doesn’t match when director Tex Avery cuts to a close-up.



The fairy godmother tries again. Out fades Santa. In fades a stagecoach and horses, as Stalling plays “Cheyenne.” “Hmm,” thinks F.G. “Well, I guess it will have to do.”



The most casual gag in Cinderella Meets Fella is by Stalling. When the wicked step-sisters close the door and quickly open it again, not only do they shout radio gossiper Jimmy Fidler’s “And I do mean you!” catchphrase, Stalling tells you it’s a radio reference by playing the NBC chimes on a xylophone in the background.

Tedd Pierce wrote a fine story here; you can hear him as a prince exclaiming “Baby!” when Cinderella walks into the ball. “Outstanding cartoon,” cried the Motion Picture Herald. “Plenty of laughs,” rated The Film Daily. “Clever,” declared Showman’s Trade Review. “Excellent,” “Very entertaining,” said two theatre managers. For 1938, it was miles above what Warners was putting on the screen just three years earlier.

Nothing For Benny

Jack Benny pretty much put the town of Waukegan, Illinois in the national consciousness during his radio and TV career. For years, his show made names of the little towns of Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga on a rail line that was purely imaginary (Anaheim is somewhat larger these days).

When Jack went on location to do broadcasts, he tried to get laughs from the local audiences by making some kind of local references. During his show broadcast from San Francisco on March 30, 1947, one of his routines referred to the restful little bayside community of Sausalito. Benny’s writers focused on the restfulness.

Local businesses reacted. They showed a lot of creativity and humour that, I would hope, Benny would appreciate. Here’s the story from the Sausalito News of April 3, 1947.

NOTHING MAKES SAUSALITO WELL-KNOWN; UNPERTURBED, C. OF C. TAKES STEPS
The late Wm. Shakespeare had quite a bit to say in his play, “Much Ado About Nothing.”
And as paradoxical as it may it seem, “nothing” has become quite something for Sausalito—and all because that comic of radio, Jack Benny, added his bit last Sunday to put Sausalito on the national map.
If you didn’t hear the program, the repartee went something like this:
Benny: Hello.
Rochester: Hello.
Benny: Who is it?
Rochester: Your favorite brunette.
Benny: Rochester! Where are you?
Rochester: I’m in Sausalito.
Benny: Sausalito? What are you doing there?
Rochester: Nothing.
Benny: Nothing!
Rochester: Nothing. That’s the main industry here.
Benny: What?
Rochester: They’ve got so much of it, they export it.
Benny: You mean things are kind of quiet over there?
Rochester: Quiet! Over here they think Nora Prentiss is a blabbermouth! (Editor: Ads for the movie, “Nora Prentiss,” say, “She wouldn’t talk.”)
Benny: Listen, Rochester, I didn't give you permission to go over there.
Rochester: I know, boss, but t had a couple of spare hours on my hands and I was lonesome and—well, I remembered I knew a girl over here so, well . . .
Benny: What happened?
Rochester: The main industry— Nothing! (Much laughter and applause.)
While the program writers probably expected a storm of criticism from the good residents of Sausalito and the Chamber of Commerce, quite the opposite was the result.
In spite of considerable joshing among the merchants Monday morning, the Chamber of Commerce went into immediate action.
Seizing on the word “NOTHING” as the key word to a continuing controversy, a heavy wooden box was prepared for shipment by Chamber of Commerce officials. Inside was placed a single sheet of paper bearing the printed word NOTHING . In addition, a sticker was inserted stating. “This is a partial shipment.
Unfortunately, we are unable to fill your entire order, but will do so as additional supplies are received.” The box, with its notes, were properly labeled and expressed to Jack Benny in Hollywood.
Simultaneously, a telegram was sent reading as follows:
“Jack Benny,
National Broadcasting Co.,
Hollywood, Calif.
“In recognition of the nationwide publicity given Sausalito through your program yesterday we are forwarding by express prepaid a gift as a token of our appreciation.
"The citizens of this community have often dreamed of attaining prominence, but did not expect to reach it by falling into the class of Waukeegan, Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga. “Since you have discovered the secret of our prominence we suggest that your gag be changed to read: ‘Cucamonga, Sausalito and Waukeegan, thereby showing no regional favoritism.
“On your next visit please accept our invitation to enjoy the fine quality of our product here at your leisure.
“Sincerely, Sausalito Chamber of Commerce.”
With the telegram duly dispatched, the box was delivered to the express office. And would you believe it, the express company was in some doubt as to the sanity of the party delivering the box, when, asked as to the contents, he replied, “NOTHING.”
Even at the cost of giving free publicity, we suggest you listen to Jack Benny, at 4 o'clock, KPO, next Sunday. Perhaps Sausalito will get nothing in return for its efforts —and then, again, the City might even get something—for nothing.
Anyway, the studio publicity department advised the Chamber that Benny will be presented with the box on Saturday when the show has its final rehearsal.

Putting the Magoo in Christmas

As much as A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas are loved and seen every Yuletide season on TV (and whenever people want on DVD), they weren’t the first animated Christmas specials on the tube.

The honour goes to Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, which appeared for the first time 55 years ago today. In Canada, that is. The CBC aired the special two days before NBC back in a day when Canadian television broadcast American shows before American TV did so Canadians would tune into Canadian channels.

Unlike the other two, which were annual events in our home (along with a few later seasonal offerings), I couldn’t be bothered watching Magoo. I had seen the TV Magoo cartoons and all they did was make me angry. It was the same annoying old thing, cartoon after cartoon after cartoon. Magoo misread a sign. Magoo mistook something for something else. Magoo would get into trouble without knowing it and someone would rescue him, with Magoo none the wiser. And why was that Chinese guy saying “Magloo” anyway? Who talks like that?

To be honest, I don’t even recall the special being on. That could be because it originally aired on network TV only from 1962 to 1967.

However, I was a minority. Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol received good ratings on NBC and there was much critical acclaim after the first broadcast. And there was a good deal of fanfare just prior to the airing. UPA may have cheapened out on the TV Magoo and Dick Tracy cartoons but it spent $300,000 on this hour-long special, ponying up for six original songs from the composers of Funny Girl on Broadway and a good voice cast, led by the great Jim Backus as Magoo/Scrooge.

Here’s a story that I suspect originated from a news release by the publicity department at UPA. It’s unbylined and appeared in the Salamanca Republican-Press of December 12, 1962. Backus comes up with some funny quotes. I’d love to hear Backus as Ethel Merman. Backus skips a story he told columnist Hal Humphrey while plugging the special in the Los Angeles Times. Backus claimed he had become the highest-paid actor per second in Hollywood, getting $3500 (plus residuals) for five minutes of work for saying “little old wine maker, ME!” in an Italian Swiss Colony wine spot (he needed two takes). He said a commercial producer had rejected him for a job and wanted a cheaper Backus imitator, but then heard the wine spot, and demanded his agency hire the voice to be his replacement Backus. Ol’ Jim seems to have relished the shock the guy had when he discovered who it was.

By the way, this may be one of the few times the lacklustre Spunky and Tadpole got mentioned in a newspaper article.

TV Finds a New Scrooge in 'Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol'
A Christmas tradition during the high-riding days of radio was Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" with the late Lionel Barrymore in the tragicomedy role of Ebenezer Scrooge.
No actor since has quite been able to fill Mr. Barrymore's shoes when it came to portraying the grasping miser who turns philanthropist after a series of ghostly visions of the past, present and future.
On Tuesday evening, Dec. 18, over NBC-TV, a new Scrooge will be unveiled to millions of television viewers — and he will look mighty familiar. An hour-long musical adaptation of Dickens' classic in color and in animation will star the near-sighted Mr. Magoo in a special holiday show, "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol."
Veteran movie and TV actor Jim Backus will provide the rasping voice for Mr. Magoo, as he has done for more than 500 cartoons in which the irascible little man blinkingly blunders his way through life.
The musical score will be provided by Jule Styne with lyrics Robert Merrill. UPA, producers of the show, hope the program will become a Christmas perennial along with "The Wizard of Oz" and "Amahl and the Night Visitors."
Backus, who created Magoo a number of years ago, said the show hewed closely to the original novella by the famed English writer who penned it almost a century ago. "One doesn't tamper with a classic of this stature," he added. "Mobs of howling Dickens fans would rise up in rebellion throughout the country. We would all be swinging from yardarms."

Millions of Mr. Magoo fans will be pleased to note also that Backus has not changed his creation's belligerent manner of speaking.
"Usually the voice of cartoon characters are pretty anonymous and really not memorable," he added "but Magoo is Magoo and we couldn't change his bellow for all the money in the world. He may not be as old as Scrooge, but he has a pretty large following, too."
Other actors and actresses who give life to the animated characters and whose faces would be more familiar to audiences than their voices, are Morey Amsterdam of "The Dick Van Dyke Show"; Royal Dano, well known character actor who has played Abraham Lincoln on TV; singer Jean Kean [sic], who recently appeared in "Carnival" on Broadway, and Jack Cassidy, well-known Broadway and recording star, who portrays Bob Crachit.
Multi-voiced actress Joan Gardner will play several roles in the cartoon feature — Tiny Tim, Ghost of Christmas Past, as well as a little boy and a charwoman. Miss Gardner, who specializes in little boy roles, recently completed the voice role of Spunky in the syndicated series, "Spunky and Tadpole."
The Ghost of Christmas Present will be handled by actor Les Tremayne, the first time he has done a cartoon voice. A veteran of radio's "The First Nighter" for ten years, he has appeared in numerous TV series as a character actor.
The real star of the show is, of course, Mr. Magoo himself and even his creator does not take this away from him. "If Magoo creates enough interest for the kids to have them read the original story that will be reward enough for me," Backus said.
"Magoo was born as the result of my frequent train travel," Backus said. "He was the prototype of many men I had occasion to watch on the club car. He was bombastic and rude, a regular American 'Colonel Blimp.' He wasn't nearsighted when he was first drawn up at UPA. He just got that way, I guess, by trying to peer into other people's business."
A veteran of two other series in addition to his "Mr. Magoo" features, Backus was recently in formed that his 117 episodes opposite the late Joan Davis in "I Married Joan" had been seen by more human beings than any other TV show in the world due to its global syndication.
"Unfortunately I did this show before anyone knew about re-run money," he grinned. "So I got paid off in suits of clothes, funnily enough. I got a tremendous wardrobe and when I had to fork out some money for something I paid off in suits."
Backus said he has often been approached to do another television series and admits he has been considering the proposition with some interest.
"Doing a television series is like childbirth," he said. "You know, a woman has a hard time and says 'Never again. No more children.' Two years later she's back in the hospital having another child. Television is like that. You forget about the long hours and the hard work. Yeah, I guess I would do another show if the right thing came along."
Backus admits that he is not a "Man of a Thousand Voices" like some of his colleagues in the cartoons.
"The only imitations I can do are Ethel Merman and the principal of the high school I attended. I don't think I'm turning into a Magoo type, but I'm afraid I'm getting to look like him.
Director Abe Levitow, in charge of the production, said 10,000 drawings were made by UPA artists for "Mr. Magoo's Christens Carol" and that the hour-long show contains 300 backgrounds, some 600 scenes, 2,000 different shades of paint to get the proper colors and more than 200 sound tracks were employed to get the "right" voices.
"It took a week to record the speaking parts and we used an orchestra of 31 men, directed by Walter Scharf. Some 30 technicians worked full time on all production phases for more than a year, Levitow said.
Producer Lee Orgel said the biggest problem faced on the show — aside from technical ones — was licking Dickens.
"He had so much great dialogue in his book that we hesitated to tamper with it," he added. "Most of it was very subtle. But we got around it. With one song, 'Winter Was Warm,' for instance, we tell a portion of the story in 107 seconds that Dickens used 40 pages to tell."
Henry G. Sapersten, [sic] president of UPA, said "We think we have created something that will be shown every Christmas for years to come. We hope we have contributed something to the holiday spirit and feeling of good will that the season engenders."

You remember Jack Gould, TV critic for the New York Times, and how he ended up with pterodactyl egg on his face for decreeing in 1960 that The Flintstones was “an inked disaster.” And, once again, he proves to be (to mix seasonal special metaphors) a Grinch by putting coal in Magoo’s Christmas stocking. His review read:

“Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol,” seen over N.B.C., was an attempt to cast a near-sighted cartoon character in a liberal variation on the Charles Dickens classic. Mr. Magoo, of course, was cast as Scrooge, with Jim Backus as the voice. Unfortunately, the Magoo Scrooge was neither particularly amusing nor was his meanness convincing. For fleeting moments there was a delicate and haunted touch through the proceedings, but on the whole the program was much too labored and, in the introductory sequence, a shade course.

Oh, (Ma)Gould, you’ve done it again! Audiences disagreed with his Flintstones assessment, and they did when it came to the Magoo special. A.C. Neilsen reported it ranked 19th in its first broadcast and then ninth a year later (Variety, May 27, 1964). It hit for ratings in the high 20s and shares in the upper 30s in its first four years (Variety, April 20, 1966). But Timex apparently decided Magoo was taking a licking and the special was abandoned to keep on ticking elsewhere. Its 1967 numbers were a 20.2 rating and a 32 share, compared with a 34.3 rating and 51 share for A Charlie Brown Christmas (Variety, April 17, 1968). Another factor may have been the length; buying an hour of network prime time must have been extremely expensive. In 1970, Christmas Carol was paired with Mr. Magoo’s Little Snow White and shown in theatres on weekend matinees, and to decent audiences.

(As a side note, while the Toronto Globe and Mail liked Magoo [see above left], not all Canadian reviewers did. Les Wedman of the Vancouver Sun decided “Mr. Magoo and Charles Dickens just don’t mix,” that for children “it was an hour of waiting for Mr. Magoo to be funny,” for grown-ups Magoo “lacked any of the believability” that Lionel Barrymore, Basil Rathbone or Seymour Hicks had as Scrooge and declared the whole programme “humbug.”)

Today we have the internet and people uploading all kinds of video, copyright and public domain, on various sites so you can, no doubt, watch Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol if you don’t have it on DVD. And, better still, director Darrell Van Citters realised someone had to write the definitive history of TV’s first animated Christmas special—so he did it, thanks to an enormous amount of careful research. The book is sold out but you can find out more about the special on Darrell’s web site and even more on his blog.

Sylvester Meets Santa

A lovebird trying to commit suicide-by-cat pretends to be Santa in the Oscar-nominated Life With Feathers (released 1945). Sylvester is, naturally, completely fooled into thinking the beardless bird is the real St. Nick. He slobbers all over the place and leaps up and down. Here are some drawings.



These are consecutive frames. The action doesn’t match.



Virgil Ross gets the animation credit on this cartoon, with Tedd Pierce writing the story for the Friz Freleng unit.

Stars of Christmas

Stars swirl around a fir tree and pop to form Christmas decorations at the end of the Popeye outing Seasin’s Greetinks! (1933). The stars are formed after Popeye punches Bluto twice, the first time uncasing him from the snow that’s turned him into a snowman.



Seymour Kneitel and Doc Crandall are the credited animators. Mae Questel isn’t playing Olive.

Too Much Christmas On The Air

“Who wants to hear Christmas music so soon? It gets earlier every year.” No doubt you’ve heard somebody, somewhere, saying that, as if this is all something new.

Well, I hate to tell you ...

Shall we go back 60, even 70 years when people were saying the same thing?

Let’s.

Here are a couple of columns from John Crosby of the Herald Tribune syndicate. The first one is from December 23, 1947. We’ve edited out the second half that has nothing to do with the festive season. I must admit I like the idea of the stooges knocking on Fred Allen’s door, but there was already a radio show that had been doing it for years called “Fibber McGee and Molly.”

Christmas Rushed by Air Comics
By JOHN CROSBY

In a letter to the editors of “Newsweek” magazine, a man from Hollywood complains about the encroachment of Christmas on Thanksgiving. The film colony, this man reports, staged a huge Christmas parade on Thanksgiving eve which, this man feels, was a little premature and rude to the Pilgrims.
This has bothered me quite lot lately too. Radio in this case is no more guilty than anyone else, but it is playing along the same direction. The pre-Christmas celebration started in radio around the middle of November. Christmas jokes have been flying around like raindrops since the last week in November. Ozzie has already Harriet's Christmas present and Phil bought Alice's on December 13. All the male barytones and many of the female barytones limbered up on "White Christmas" a month ago. All or most of the orchestral programs with choruses attached have sprung "Silent Night." Fred Allen, who way ahead of the crowd, got New Year's Eve jokes out of his system on December 13.
As this being written, Christmas is still a week off and the subject is close to exhaustion. What is the hurry, anyhow? The man from Hollywood implies the whole thing is a commercial plot staged by the storekeepers to ring up a few extra sales. This theory doesn't hold water in the case of radio. No one gives Rinso or Tenderleaf Tea for Christmas. No, the reason lies elsewhere. My theory is that there aren't enough holidays to keep the comedians gainfully employed. There's a long barren stretch between the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving when the comedians have to fall back on their jokes about high prices and Harry Truman's piano.
I suggest we have another holiday just for radio comedians, a sort of All-Clowns Day, scheduled for around October 1 and designed to tide the boys over. On this date all the comedians would be permitted to do what they never got away with the rest of the year. Every one would be kind to Jack Benny, even his music teacher. Bergen would top all of McCarthy's gags. Mrs. Nussbaum would pound on Fred Allen's door for a change. Princess Elizabeth would return the compliment and drop in on Bob Hope's program. Duffy would show up at Duffy's Tavern.
In this way we could postpone Christmas until December 25, put Thanksgiving back in the calendar and get back to normal.

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Just as some people gripe that Christmas comes too early, some complain it stays too late. Never mind that there are twelve days of Christmas and they start on December 25th, there are those who want the festive season to be done after they’ve finished their Boxing Day shopping. Here’s Crosby again on December 30, 1957. The irony of course, is the column appears five days after Christmas Day. But he’s grumbing about TV shows talking about Christmas after the 25th. Crosby focuses on two interesting individuals. Arthur Godfrey came across as the most casual guy on morning radio, Dave Garroway the same on morning TV. Godfrey, you well know, was exposed as a callous tyrant to his night-time TV “family,” while Garroway suffered from depression (he needed medical “assistance” to deal with the early rising for the Today show for a time) and ended his own life in 1982. I’ve seen the quote Crosby claims was Ed Wynn’s attribued to Stoopnagle and Budd.

Too Much Christmas
By JOHN CROSBY
Every year, it seems to me Christmas starts earlier and runs longer, especially, on television. It seems almost like last Christmas when George Gobel was making a joke about the latest toys. ("Now they've got a “Send Your Sister to the Moon' kit that comes complete with launching pad, a can of kerosene and a match.”) It seems I heard that in June some time—but it couldn't be.

Christmas isn’t over yet. Arthur Godfrey’s annual Christmas talent scouts show [photo right] will be held tonight, having been pre-empted by President Eisenhower last Monday. (Yes, Junior, the President outranks Arthur Godfrey.) This year, besides starting earlier, the TV personalities wouldn't let go. Tennessee Ernie devoted his entire program the day after Christmas to talking about what happened the day before. ("It's kind of wonderful watching the kids ignore all those expensive presents you bought, playing over in the corner—with the boxes.")
Of the Christmas dramas, I was especially intrigued by one on Douglas Fairbanks' show. The scene is a little church, high in the Austrian Alps. “Two days before Christmas, and the organ is broken,” says the pastor in despair. “We must have a proper Christmas service. We need something simple—a melody the choir can learn in a few hours.”
“But where would we find it?”
“Let's write it ourselves.”
So one man starts pecking away on the harpsichord while the other muses over a pencil, working on the words. "Here what do you think of this—Sacred night, holy night—no?"
"How about Silent Night" suggests the other one.
"That's good," agrees the one. "Now all together..."
But that wasn't the end of it. Years later one of the authors the song is marooned in a blizzard on his Pennsylvania farm. Food is running low and the supply train seems to have been lost in the blizzard. He and his wife sing “Silent Night” to boost their morale and in a matter of moments, the door bursts open and in comes the guy with the supplies. "I made it! I made it! Heard singing and it guided me through the storm better than an Indian scout."

“The Dave Garroways At Home” was an interesting experiment in Christmas Eve programming. It opened with Dave Garroway discovered on a stepladder (where he advised us all to do our Christmas shopping late and avoid the crowds) in his Manhattan house.
Present was his wife Pamela, his son, Mike, and a couple of friends, Jack Haskell and Barbara Carroll. It was a very simple and informal show. Miss Carroll sang a song: "Christmas Is a Time," which was written for the Garroway At Large program. Garroway and his wife reminisced about places they'd spent Christmas Eve. (She'd spent one in the Tunisian desert. He'd spent one on a minesweeper.) Garroway volunteered the information that New York had contributed its share to Christmas customs. "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (" 'Twas the Night Before Christmas") was written here and New Yorkers claim to have originated Christmas cards. Mrs. Garroway read that old chestnut "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus," which isn't as sticky on Christmas Eve as you might think.
Garroway then demonstrated some dippy Christmas presents—a silent alarm clock for people who like to sleep late, a cork anchor for drifters, even an eleven-foot pole for guy you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. (Shades of Ed Wynn.) The show closed with a reading of the birth of Christ from the Bible. The reason I go into such detail is that this is the sort of simple show that used to come out of Chicago back in the days when television had no money to speak of but lots of brains and enthusiasm.
At the opposite extreme was Kraft's production of "The Story of the Other Wise Man," Henry Van Dyke’s modern classic. With Richard Kiley in the role of the young priest whose search for his Saviour is constantly interrupted by good works for just plain people, this was a heavily bearded and costumed and weighty sort of religious drama. I found it oppressive and dusty and archaic for an occasion so joyful as Christmas day but maybe by then I'd had too much Christmas—especially on TV.

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As you might gather from today’s offering, this is the start of our annual Christmas season posts, though we’ll take a little break on the weekend. We’ll continue for a bit after Christmas Day. John Crosby is no longer around to disapprove, as he’s been dead since 1991. As dead as a door-nail. I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. And ... oh, I’m sure you know how the rest of this goes. Watch Alastair Sim’s greatest film role if you don’t. Even if Christmas is a humbug, you can never get too much of Sim as Scrooge.