Phone-y Disguise

Ten-Pin Terrors (1953) features some good animation (the bulldog bowling at the start, Jeckle tapping his fingers against the bathtub at the end), nice backgrounds and a solid story.

One gag I particularly like is when the magpies disguise themselves as candlestick phones in a phone booth to get away from the angry dog. Here are some frames as the dog answers each phone (the third one is a real one; the operator tells him his two minutes are up).



Incidentally, an in-house paper called 20th Century Dynamo of April 18, 1953 not only announced Ten-Pin Terrors and other coming releases but also talked about bonuses given to branches in Canada and the U.S. that booked Terrytoons. The article is a wonderful piece of spin, saying how revenue for Terrytoons in the first quarter was below that of the previous quarter (and 1.6% from the previous year) and only 11 of 38 booking departments qualified for bonuses but things were looking up! Canadians evidently loved Terrytoons, as Vancouver, St. John, New Brunswick and Calgary all finished in the top ten.

The Art of Bugs and Elmer

“Did you notice,” reader Steve Bailey remarked, “the caricatures in the background of Yankee Doodle Daffy?”

No, I don’t think I have. It’s never been among my favourite Daffy/Porky outings to begin with. But behold! Porky’s office has portraits of Warners’ beloved stars on the wall. Porky, evidently, has stolen someone’s Oscar, too.



A famous cartoon director sends his love.



Too bad we can’t see the full drawing in the frame below. It’s not the same as Friz above. I love the fish statuette.



Unfortunately, the pictures below are tough to see.



And there may be an inside joke. I can’t discover whose phone number this was when the cartoon was released in 1943. There definitely was a WYoming exchange in the Los Angeles area at the time, with four numerals after the prefix.



So who was the portrait artist? There’s no credit on screen, of course. Paul Julian left the Jones unit for Freleng in February 1941 (according to Mike Barrier’s book Hollywood Cartoons), but he left the studio for the forerunner of UPA soon after, then returned. When? I don’t know. Lenard Kester was painting backgrounds for Freleng in the interim.

A Day in the Navy

Dennis Day may not have been the best singer on the Jack Benny show, but he was arguably the best cast member out of the vocalists who were hired. He had a penchant, the writers eventually discovered, for broad dialects and could do some impressions well enough for comedy purposes.

Day joined the show at the start of the 1939-40 season then left for almost two years starting in April 1944 for service with the U.S. Navy. He parlayed the Benny job into his own radio and TV series, a record deal, as well as nightclub gigs in Las Vegas. Day did pretty well by Jack Benny. But, of course, he had to have the talent first.

Screenland magazine’s October 1944 devoted space to Day’s career. It’s a familiar tale to those of you who are long-time Jack Benny fans. And there are a couple of personal pieces at the end.

"YES, PLEASE?"
A million times yes, Dennis Day! Two big contracts are held in abeyance for you until the war is over — radio AND pictures
MAYBE this story should be called "My Day, by Jack Benny." For Dennis Day's been Benny's boy to the last naive wisecrack, the final bright, agreeable "Yes, please?"
By Constance Palmer
But he's in the Navy now. Two contracts are being held in abeyance for him until the war is over. One is with National Broadcasting Company, holding his spot in the Jack Benny show and the other is with RKO for pictures.
He's finished making "Music In Manhattan," with Anne Shirley and Phil Terry. In his first picture, "Buck Benny Rides Again," they made him a cowboy in a blond wig and allowed him one song. RKO, however, has shown more discernment. This time he is playing his own black-haired, dancing-eyed Irish self and is given full scope for his particular brand of pixie comedy.
Reports on the picture and Dennis' performance are enthusiastic, but not all the fun went on the screen. Gifted with the keen ear of the singer and the lively humor of the Irish, he can be at will Jap, Swede, Greek, Cockney or lazy Mexican peon.
One morning, to the astonishment of the executives, he turned up in the day's rushes as Hitler, bellowing in low-German accent, "Dey vill nefer bomb Chermany!" Then, after a sheepish pause. "Veil, maybe a leedle — "



Dennis' father and mother came from Ireland. They established a home in New York, where Eugene Dennis McNulty was born on May 21, 1917. He is the third son of a large and lively family to go into the Navy. Another brother is a priest and a sister goes to college. He, himself, went to Cathedral High School and studied law at Manhattan College, where he won the Mayor's Scholarship. However, he didn't take his bar examination because graduation and the depression were simultaneous.
"It was a choice of clerking in a store or driving a truck or — the radio," he said. "And, since I'd always been singing — in church and school and at home — I chose the radio."
After some months of sustaining spots on small New York stations, he heard that Jack Benny was looking for a singer to replace Kenny Baker, who had left the program. On the slim chance of being considered, Dennis sent a recording of his voice over to NBC.
"I didn't have much hope of ever reaching Mr. Benny," he explained. "I'd heard they'd auditioned more than 530 people already. But Mary Livingstone listened to the record and took it to Chicago, where they were broadcasting that week. I was called there and sang for them for an hour and a half, so scared I hardly knew what I was doing. Then they told me I could stop and rest."
He turned to ask his accompanist how the songs had sounded just as someone in the control-booth called, "Oh, Dennis — "
"I answered 'Yes, please?' just the way I always answer whenever I'm called," he continued. "Later, Mr. Benny told me that 'Yes, please?' had sold me more than the hour-and-a-half's singing!"
He was given a round-trip ticket to Los Angeles and put up at the Hollywood Athletic Club, with instructions not to talk to anyone.
"They meant, of course, not to discuss the program or the character. Then, if I were selected, the announcement would come as a surprise," Dennis explained. "But I took them literally and for three weeks didn't speak to a single soul. I just walked up and down Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards and all the side-streets north and south and didn't say a word to anybody. I've never been so lonesome in my life!"
After he was chosen for the program and the contract signed, he brought his father and mother to Hollywood and bought a house for them. He moved in with them and they took up again the home-life they'd always had before he left New York. It's a merry menage, full of Irish wit and laughter. Mrs. McNulty isn't at all like the character who is Dennis' mother on the radio. She is warm and friendly, drawing people to her by kindness and happiness. It's a typical evening to find the rugs rolled up and eight or ten in the midst of a lively Irish jig.
Dennis, too, has a deeply religious side to his nature, and, besides his cleverness and quickness of mind, he is a hard and earnest worker. He doesn't talk too readily; he studies his vis-a-vis thoroughly and steadily first with unswerving black eyes.
He likes the ceremony and pageantry of British public life and came away from his recent trip to Canada imbued with the sense of its dignity and beauty.



While he was still in school, he and his sister made a vacation trip to Ireland to visit their grandparents. He bought a little donkey and cart and went jogging up and down the lanes of the lush green countryside.
"The Irish are a poor people but they have a wonderful time," he said. "And my cute little grandmother can dance a jig with the best of them!"
He likes the girls — all of them. But when he settles down to one, he wants to marry a fine woman who will be satisfied and happy with a home and children. He doesn't believe in career-girls or war marriages.
As a child he was unlucky in accidents. When he was six months old, he fell out of his carriage and cut himself so badly that, because of loss of blood, he didn't walk until he was five years old. Later, at the family's summer cottage on City Island, he cut a tendon in his bare foot on broken glass. He hobbled the two miles back home, spouting gore at every painful step. On another disastrous occasion, a playmate pushed him onto the stone steps of the schoolhouse and split his forehead open. Accidents happened so often that my mother made a habit of watching out the window for me every day. When she saw me dripping blood, she'd just reach calmly for the telephone," he said. "The Fordham Hospital ambulance made regular round trips, practically on schedule!"
He enters the Navy with the rank of ensign, but doesn't know yet to which branch of the service he will be attached. His particular fitness will be found out in the two months' intensive training he will have at the University of Arizona at Tucson.
He loves the Navy and is proud to be a part of it. He is entering earnestly and sincerely, just like hundreds of thousands of other boys. Here's good luck to him — and welcome home when he gets back!

Party With Jay Ward

If you had a chance to party with Jay Ward, Bill Scott, Hans Conried and June Foray at one of Ward’s wacky promotional events, wouldn’t you go? I would. And it appears an entertainment writer with the Philadelphia Inquirer agreed with me.

The Ward studio made some of the fastest and funniest cartoons ever put on television. But until I read Keith Scott’s great book The Moose That Roared (if you don’t have a copy, why don’t you?), I had no idea of the outrageous publicity campaigns that Ward and his PR people invented for their cartoons. Maybe the era was just insanely creative. Media promotions in the 1960s always seemed to be hilariously over-the-top.

Keith related the tale of the Bullwinkle “premiere” in his book. Here’s a first-hand account from a reporter who doesn’t seem to know what to make of it. It was published September 6, 1961.

(The photos that accompany this post are random).

Bullwinkle Premiere Is Completely Mad...Even for Hollywood
By HARRY HARRIS

WE SAW only about 20-odd (very odd) minutes of television during our week-long sojourn in Hollywood, but those few minutes—from an upcoming cartoon series, "The Bullwinkle Show"—were accorded the kind of Hollywood premiere raztma-tazz usually reserved for star-stuffed epics. (In fact, Rock Huston's "Come September" opened the same night, and all reports indicated a resounding hoopla victory for moose over man.)
There were klieg lights and red carpets and traffic-directing policemen and gaping Sunset Strip fans. As members of the press arrived, they were greeted with bursts of canned applause and hustled to the microphone while the usual recipients of premiere-fussing — people like ex-"Maverick" star James Garner, "Angel's" Marshal Thompson, "Rescue 8's Jim Davis — were most enthusiastically ignored.
Each arrival was welcomed by "Bullwinkle's" papas, Jay Ward and Bill Scott, the former nattily attired in top hat, white tie and tails — plus white Bermuda shorts and sneakers.
Guests were crowned with antler-bearing beanies, handed helium balloons proclaiming, "You're a little old for this sort of thing" and "You look silly holding a balloon at your age" (before the evening was over, dozens had soared ceiling-ward), and propelled toward a well-stocked bar.
Lobby displays included Yul Brynner's pocket comb — sans teeth — and a pile of unsold Jay Ward pilot films, including "Adventures of John Birch," "The Charles Van Doren Show" and "Sing Along with Conrad Nagel."
The showing of sample "Bullwinkle" segments was preceded by remarks from Bullwinkle J. Moose himself, self-proclaimed "singing, dancing, poetry-reciting fool, the Sammy Davis with antlers," who noted that he was "available for wakes, weddings and bar mitzvahs.
THE request of network, sponsor and just about everybody else, bellowed Bullwinkle, none of the show's commercials had been included in the evening's entertainment. To make up for this viewer-disturbing omission, sample sales spiels were performed onstage at intervals by Hans Conried, Paul Frees and June Foray.
They turned out to be no-holds-barred lampoons. One unctuous voice advertised "the home of low, low prices, made possible by a revolutionary new technique—child labor!"
"What," asked an impeccably clad Conried, "do eight out of 19 doctors do for relief of stomach distress? BELCH!"
Miss Foray, her back to the audience, wielded a comb. "Does she or doesn't she?" asked an unseen announcer. "Only her hairdresser knows for sure." Whereupon she turned, revealing a full beard.
A beatnik sang the praises of a new smoking sensation — "pot." "Smoke Western," he urged. "It's the only way to fly!"
And, asked why she always appeared in television commercials gaily smiling, "America's favorite homemaker," Betty Crocker, hiccupped that she was a crocked Crocker.
Similar commercial-clobbering blackouts popped up in "Parade," a sprightly revue we attended a few nights later. The familiar ode to the number of coffee beans in every cup of a particular brand of java was graphically demonstrated by a performer who took a sip and ejected a cascade of beans, and a touching family portrait, with two males cuddling an infant, was accompanied by the stirring strains of "They said it couldn't be done!"

Here’s another report on the event, this one from United Press International. It hit the wire September 25th. (**Late note: Historian Harry McCracken tells me this was a different event altogether. His research is this describes a Bullwinkle Block Party at the studio on September 20th).

AT STREET SOIREE
Hollywood Meets a Moose
By JOSEPH FINNIGAN
UPI Hollywood Correspondent

HOLLYWOOD – Only in Hollywood would you get a crowd, estimated in the thousands, to attend a street dance honoring a make-believe moose.
That’s what happened the other night when Jay Ward and Bill Scott, a couple of cartoon show producers, introduced “Bullwinkle,” star of their NBC-TV series.
Part of Sunset Boulevard and an adjacent street were roped off for the festivities which included dancing to an 18-piece orchestra and community singing. Crowds of unemployed actors, residents of the neighborhood and curious passerbys [sic] flocked to the party, hoping for a glance at Bullwinkle, a perfect stranger to many guests.
Bull was undoubtedly the evening’s reigning star, but he shared his spotlight for a few moments with Jayne Mansfield. The shapely actress pulled a cord which unveiled the 18-foot high Bullwinkle statue.
As often happens at unveiling ceremonies, things went wrong and Miss Mansfield required assistance when the rope didn’t work.
Ward and Scott took over a glamorized hotdog stand for their party and also rented an adjacent parking lot to seat the overflow.
The street was decorated with signs, one of which said “Watching the Bullwinkle Show helps fight Communism.” Another shouted, “Bullwinkle si, tractors, no.”
Host Ward, attired in a baseball uniform, personally greeted many guests. Scott, dressed to look like Teddy Roosevelt, stumped the area plugging the “Bullmoose Party.”
More than a dozen police were on hand to control the crowd, which included some of the weirdest people in a town where being weird is often commonplace. One fellow strolled around without his shoes.
A bearded chap sat on the ground and serenaded himself with a rendition of “Melancholy Baby.” He had a right to. Community singing was the evening’s sport. Song books were passed out to guests who crooned such melodies as “Matt and Kitty,” “The Clan Song,” “Give My Regards to Fay Wray,” and “The Price is Fright.”
Ward said guests consumed about 3,000 bags of popcorn, 10,000 cups of soft drinks and hundreds of gallons of coffee. They blew up 4,000 balloons and sported 1,000 party hats. Everything was on the house.
The invited guest list read like a Movieland star director, including such names as Marlon Brando, Bobby Darin, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra, Sophia Loren and Jack Paar.
Ward admitted none of them showed up. But prominent persons who accepted invitations included Bog Freen, Ortin Freenie, Mel Turgle, Lilla Munch, Martha Spink, Zelda Borg, Claude Fritzell and Clodd Hopper, all known only to Ward and Scott.

Ward and Scott continually complained that NBC never publicised the show; perhaps that was part of the motivation behind stunts like you’ve just read. But perhaps it’s no wonder. The network tried to push Bullwinkle during a segment of one of its daytime shows, but Ward and Scott turned it into a shambles. It sounds funny, though, and that’s all that mattered to Ward and Scott. This is from the Los Angeles edition of Variety from May 29, 1962.

Here's Hollywood
(Mon., 2:30-3:00 p.m., KRCA-NBC)
The question: "Where did you get the idea for 'Bullwinkle'?"
The answer: "We stole it from several other cartoon producers."
Thus transpired a typical exchange in Helen O'Connell's courageous but hapless attempt to obtain inside information from cartoonsmiths Jay Ward and Bill Scott on the NBC-TV edition of "Here's Hollywood," a madcap session that might aptly be subtitled "Fractured Interviews."
Nary a serious answer marked the 15-minute televisit to the forecourt of Ward's Sunset Strip studios, during which Miss O'Connell elbowed her way into wet cement, engaged in duets from "Sing Along With Bullwinkle" in company with the star, and made with the ill-fated queries as champagne glasses tinkled and a five-piece orch tootled in the forecourt background.
At face value, this was undoubtedly the most devastatingly fruitless interview since Burt Lancaster put the skids under Mike Wallace on "PM East" two weeks ago. Yet, as Ward chuckled and Scott dead-panned, and both tried perhaps a little too hard to prove there's madness in their method, the Ward-Scott nothing sacred attitude of enterprising irreverence managed to surface through the chaos, making it a novel, disarming and almost rewarding oasis in the electronic desert of daytime television.
Tube.

Before the first season was over, NBC screwed around with the show. The network decided to move it for the 1962-62 season from 7 p.m. Sundays to 5:30 p.m.—then attempted to charge more for it. A bit of bargaining worked for Bullwinkle’s sponsors; the show had an offer from CBS to come on over and fill the Sunday 6:30 p.m. slot before Twentieth Century (Variety, April 25, 1962). The Ward studio was busy with things other than Bullwinkle that season; it set up a commercial production department under Pete Burness (Variety, July 23, 1962). It was a long-term deal with Quaker Oats to animate Cap’n Crunch spots that kept the studio running for years, not TV cartoons, no matter how funny they were.

Cow Puncher

“Why haven’t you written about Molly Moo Cow lately?” asked absolutely no one. Well, is there anything more to be said?

Molly had the benefit of animators Jack Zander, Bill Littlejohn, Alex Lovy, Dan Gordon and Carlo Vinci, story guy Joe Barbera, and music by Winston Sharples—but her cartoons still smelled like cow pies.

How’s this for a gag? In Molly Moo Cow and Robinson Crusoe, the ocean wave (from the song of the same subject) has fingers—which pick up the beached Molly and then punch her out of the scene. It’s a cow puncher! Get it?



Molly fan(s), now is your time to comment and defend her!

Molly was Van Beuren’s last attempt at creating a starring character. The studio bought the rights to Felix the Cat and the Toonerville Trolley and put them in the Rainbow Parade cartoons until RKO decided to distribute animated shorts from a studio it didn’t part-own (Disney) and Van Beuren shut down in 1936. Molly seems to have sauntered along with some of the Van Beuren animators to Terrytoons as a cow that suspiciously looks like her soon turns up in two shorts there.

Blunderland

Albert in Blunderland was the fourth John Sutherland cartoon released by MGM, warning theatre-goers about the dangers of America being under government control (ie, like those Godless Commies in Russia).

Even public transit is bad—if it’s run by the government (money was pumped into this cartoon by a foundation operated by Alfred P. Sloan, former chairman of General Motors. You think he liked streetcars?).



This cartoon is more strident than the one which preceded it, Why Play Leapfrog?, also released in 1950. I do like the futuristic backgrounds. Note the leaders of Antrolia (ie. Russia) commune by the signs of the zodiac (ie. not they’re not Judeo-Christian).



Unfortunately, no screen credits were given on this short. Presumably, George Gordon and Carl Urbano were involved as they were long-time Sutherland directors. Sutherland had a stock voice cast, it seems. Herb Vigran plays Albert, Joe Kearns is the ant, Frank Nelson is the radio speaker promoting Communism, Bud Hiestand is heard as well.

Pantsless Pig 1, Unmighty Mouse 0

For some reason, Warner Bros. cartoons in the mid-‘30s loved having hick characters or characters named Elmer. We get both in Friz Freleng’s The Country Mouse (1935). The farmboy mouse is named Elmer.

The mouse fancies himself a fighter but gets clobbered by the champ. Mighty Mouse, he’s not. In one of the better gags of the cartoon, a pig corner-man (without pants, just like Porky) is cooling Elmer down with a towel between rounds. Suddenly, Elmer gets up and starts throwing punches, including some straight toward the camera. The pig isn’t pleased his work has been interrupted, so he socks Elmer and resumes his towel waving.



Earlier in the year, there was a Friz Freleng cartoon named The Country Boy. There’s also a Friz cartoon of the same year called My Green Fedora with a baby rabbit named Elmer. Of course, the most famous Elmer we all know at Warner Bros. was a human who evolved from Tex Avery’s Egghead character.

The music credit is given to Bernie Brown, though the soundtrack features a Norman Spencer original named for the cartoon title; it may be the theme that Elmer sings and turns into a double-time version later in the cartoon. The music features that clip-clop, off-beat rhythm heard in a bunch of the Spencer scores. It sounds like Tedd Pierce plays the ring announcer.

A Bone!

Spike sees a bone in Counterfeit Cat. Some of the drawings from the take.



Mike Lah, Grant Simmons and Walt Clinton animated this cartoon for Tex Avery, which would make more sense if it was called Counterfeit Dog, because the cat is pretending to be the pooch next door.

Holy Scrawny Guy, Batman!

How could Batman be played by a 59-year-old, 135-pound man?

Quite easily. When Batman is an animated cartoon.

So it was that Olan Soule became the Caped Crusader. At least his voice did.

If you watched a lot of TV in the ‘60s like I did, you would have recognised Soule’s voice. He worked a lot, generally playing mild characters, though it seems to me he was a bad guy on one Perry Mason episode. He even appeared on the Adam West Batman series as a TV news reader, though I’ve found a news clipping that the two never worked on set together until they guest starred on The Big Valley.

Soule’s acting career began long before television. It started in Des Moines, Iowa. We know he moved there by 1918 because, at age 9, he penned this letter to the editor of the children’s section of the Des Moines Herald newspaper. It was published June 27th. It’s hard not to feel sorry for him a bit.

Dear Cousin Eleanor,
I wish to join the Kiddie Klub. Enclosed find six coupons tor a Kiddie Klub pin. I am new in Des Moines and so I hope some of the kiddies will write to me. I have just been out of the hospital at Kirksville, Mo., about four weeks. We just moved here from Kirksville, Mo. I hope my letter will be in print. I would like to have my pin as soon as possible. Guess I will close.
Olan Soule,
3519 University Ave., City

Young Olan was musically inclined. He was playing second violin for the Des Moines YMCA Boys Orchestra in 1923 and joined the Boy Scouts that March. He also began acting. In September 1925, he was studying dramatics under Mrs. Ada Heist Oberman and had been on a state tour with her. A month later he was elected Treasurer of the Roosevelt High School Dramatic Guild. That led to a job later that month with the Princess Stock Company at the Princess Theater in Des Moines. Salary: $1 a show. Billboard followed his early career. He was in the Jack and Maude Brooks Stock Company in 1927 touring several Midwest states, was a member of the Gifford Players the following year, spent 1929 as a member of the Lane Shankland Stock Company, playing juveniles and drums and even writing a mystery play, before playing with a road company in the east. Meanwhile, Soule and his classmates produced the first motion picture made by high school students in the U.S. Soule drew the title cards and acted as emcee when Framed was shown before 2,000 people.

However, radio beckoned. He returned to Des Moines and found a job on KSO, then made his way in 1933 to WGN in Chicago, a bustling hub for the networks in the 1930s, especially when it came to soaps. Among the Chicago radio acting population, by the way, was Marvin Miller, who was also a super hero in a Filmation cartoon series (Aquaman) and Jane Webb, who later fought Soule’s Batman as Catwoman. The list of radio shows he appeared in is insanely long. By 1935, he was starring in The Couple Next Door, narrating Grand Stand Thrills and had originated the role of Sam Ryder in Bachelor’s Children (yes, that one was a soap, live from WGN Studio II)—and was appearing elsewhere. His best-known radio job was co-starring with Barbara Luddy on The First Nighter after Les Tremayne quit in March 1943 to go to Hollywood. Despite the opening which proclaimed listeners were being transported to “the little theatre off Times Square,” the show originated in the studios of WGN until October 1947 when it moved to Columbia Square at 6121 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

Television was growing in Los Angeles at the time. And television wouldn’t provide leading man parts to the mousey Soule. He was signed for a family comedy on KNBH in 1949 but it appears his first starring TV roles were local shows on KTTV in 1950—The Home Magazine of the Air and Home Shop Show, where Soule demonstrated how small power tools were used. His big television break came in 1954 with a regular role on Captain Midnight and a recurring role on Dragnet. Lots of other appearances as desk clerks and so on followed, but Soule made his money in commercials—he was pulling in six figures by 1967, according to a Los Angeles Times piece that year.

This brings us to the Filmation version of Batman. Soule was actually interviewed about it. This was published in the Niagara Falls Gazette of July 14, 1968. Interestingly, the Times ran a story with some of these paragraphs, almost word-for-word, under a different byline about two weeks later.

Olan Soule, A Batman You’ll Never Believe
By STAN MAAYS
HOLLYWOOD — There was a moment of indecision at Filmation recently. The company that produces animated films was without a voice, for a superhero.
Filmation is making the new Batman cartoon strip for CBS-TV in the fall, starting Sept. 14.
It wasn't revealed whether Filmation attempted to get the services of Adam West, who popularized the longjohns-clad warrior on ABC-TV the past couple of seasons. Anyway, just doing a voice-over might damage his TV image.
So, producer Norman Prescott put in a hurried call to the Jack Wormser Agency, specialists in supplying commercial talent, and they sent over one of the best-known voices of radio's golden era.
"I heard it was an audition for what I thought might be a narration," said Olan Soule, veteran of over 7,000 shows in 25 years. "And I never dreamed I'd get the lead voice for Batman. I’ve only done voice-over for what they call soft-sell spots in commercials.”
Adding to Soule’s perplexed state is the incongruity of his new position. Soule is a man in his late ‘50s completely devoid of the physical characteristics found in heroes. Smallish of stature, he has never weighed over 135, and has always worn glasses. But a voice that can sound authoritative does wonders for the imagination.
"The closest thing I've ever had to playing a dynamic character before was when I did coach Hardy in the Jack Armstrong show," laughs Soule, who also revealed this is the first time in his 42 years in show business that he's done an animated show.
The TV commercial field has proven a boom to ex-radio performers like Soule. Their ability to sight-read with cultivated voices is an essential commodity to sponsors and agencies desirous of getting their messages across clearly and concisely within 30-60 seconds.
Soule grinned recalling when he joined the Wormser agency 10 years ago: "On some of those first interviews a producer would hand me a script and ask if I wanted to go out in the reception room and study it a while. They were always dumbfounded when I'd ask how they wanted it read, then I'd do it right on the spot."

The Batman/Superman Hour lasted one season but Soule continued to pop up as the voice of the animated Batman through the early ‘80s.

Soule had another interesting accomplishment. He created a TV show. He came up with the idea of a series about a disabled veterinarian and took it to his Dragnet boss, Jack Webb. Noah’s Ark aired on NBC in the 1956-57 season. He was the associate producer of the pilot, according to Variety at the time.

His ancestors had come to North America on the Mayflower, but he told radio historian Chuck Schaden his name of Olan Evart Soule had nothing to do with that. His mother and father were Worthy Matron and Worthy Patron of a local chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star when he was born in 1909. His name was picked to give him the initials O.E.S. Soule apparently joined the Masonic-sponsored Alderson Chapter, Order of DeMolay, as Broadcasting magazine reported in June 16, 1941 that he was the first radio actor to receive the Order’s Legion of Honour. The second, incidentally, was another chap out of Chicago radio named Marvin Miller. He later became a Mason. Radio Daily of May 5, 1943 mentions he, Sam Ryder of "Bachelor's Children" and Ed Prentiss and Dwight Kramer of "The Right To Happiness" were candidates for the 32nd degree.

Another note: Soule was a published author. A poem of his was published by the Des Moines Tribune on August 22, 1921. Can you say the same thing about any other Batman?

A BOY'S TROUBLES
OLAN E. SOULE, 7-B. KIRKWOOD [Elementary School].

A boy has pecks of troubles.
Even bushels, so they say.
They shovel walks and dishes wash.
And never a cent of pay.

He rocks the baby and soothes him
When mother has gone to the club.
And then he gets the dickens
If he's not every second with Bub.

There's never a time in this world for play.
And that is no kind of a joke.
While sis is taking in movie shows.
He stays at home 'cause he's broke.

And he must earn enough money
To buy him clothes to wear.
While sis simply goes to father
She has ne'er a worry nor care.

And the boys that carry papers.
In the early, early morn
Never get more than a wink o' sleep,
It's no wonder they look worn.

And so many more troubles the boys have
That I cannot name them all here.
For if I should ever attempt it
I'd be writing this time next year.

Soule died in Los Angeles on February 5, 1994, 24 years ago today. Batman lives on. Just not quite the way Soule played him. In fact, I’ll bet that ridiculous batsuit they use in the movies now weighs almost as much as he did.

Big Time Vaudeville Nostalgia

Jack Benny and George Burns were friends virtually their whole adult lives, and it would appear Jack was close to, or at least friendly with, other ex-vaudevillians he knew back in New York in the 1920s. They appeared with him on his radio show—Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Georgie Jessel and former headliner Benny Rubin. The last two were pall bearers at Jack’s funeral in 1974 (the other two were dead long before then).

Raising money for the State of Israel was a cause for many show biz oldtimers in the 1950s. Benny emceed a testimonial dinner for Jessel in February 1959. Cantor and Burns were there; columnist Army Archerd called Cantor’s donation “embarrassing.” Roastmaster Benny remarked: “Cantor and Jessel have been friends ever since they learned to speak English. They went through show biz with the same disappointment — they both wanted to be Jolson.” Jolson had been dead since 1950 but not forgotten.

Benny, Burns, Cantor and Jessel did a variety special together in late 1959; the Life magazine photo above came from it. It was sponsored by the Lincoln-Mercury division of Ford; Jack was no longer on Shower of Stars sponsored by Chrysler, so there was no conflict for him. Benny’s usual staff wasn’t involved at all. The special was produced and co-written by Hub Robinson, with Mac Benoff and directed by Dick Darley, with Jeff Alexander’s orchestra. A selling point, besides a trip down Nostalgia Lane, was the fact the show was broadcast in colour.

Here’s a United Press International story from November 3rd that year, two weeks before it aired.

Elder Statesmen On Show Together
By VERNON SCOTT
UPI Hollywood Writer
HOLLYWOOD (UPI)—The four elder statesmen of show business, representing more than 200 years of movie, radio, television and vaudeville entertainment, band together for the first time Tuesday for a TV show.
George Burns, who has not not fully recovered from Gracie Allen's retirement, has taped his initial program of the year with Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor and George. Originally titled "A Night at the Palace," the show will appear as "the Big Time"—a flight to nostalgia and the old vaudeville days.
"All four of us have taken portions of our acts and revamped them," Burns said, pacing his office floor. He was rakishly attired in sports clothes, including a blue beret.
"It begins with Cantor and Jessel when they were breaking records at the Palace Theater in 1927. Then we move to Benny at the Poli Theater in Wilkes-Barre the first time he performed without his violin."
Modestly, George said he would sing some of the songs he made famous.
Then he had the gall to ask how anyone could forget such all time greats as "I'm Tying the Leaves So They Won't Fall Down," "Oh What a Wonderful Winter, "The Boys Are All Back Home" and "Tiger Girl."

"When I get through with those numbers I sing some of the real old tunes," he beamed.
George's three guests on the spectacular (Nov. 17, NBC-TV) all were famous before Burns himself hit the bigtime. He struggled along as a second-rater until he joined forces with Gracie.
"I knew Cantor all my life." he said. "But he didn't know me. He didn't want to know me. He only started talking to me when I was 27 years old — after I met Gracie. Jack Benny has been my closest friend for 36 years. Jessel and I have known one another lot about 35 years.
"This is the first time the four of us have worked together. In the old days we couldn't have afforded to appear in a group."
Burns struck a pose as he explained that he was a cut above his pals.
"They are essentially comedians," he said. "I am a singer. No, no, don't laugh. When I went to parties in the past I'd jump up and sing for nothing. But now that I have a night club act and sing on records I wait to be asked to sing. Trouble is, nobody asks."

Box Score
George Burns, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor and George Jessel will be appearing together Tuesday for the first time, but they've been mightily close many times before:
—Each has been in show business for 50 years.
—Each started as a youngster.
—Each was a vaudeville headliner at the same theater.
—Each had his own radio network show.
—Each has starred in movies.
—Each has had his own TV show.
—Each lives in the same part of Los Angeles.
—Each has worked on stage with two of the other three.

Reviews were generally favourable, especially for Burns who, as one critic pointed out, needed to recover from a disastrous, Gracie-less sitcom from the previous season. Variety wasn’t impressed with the writing, called a Jessel-Cantor-Benny dressing room sketch an “embarrassment,” and felt Jack’s turn “was something less than inspirational.”

Here’s a post mortem from one of the syndicated columnists.

The Good Old Days—For a Night
By WALTER HAWVER
It was a great idea to have George Burns, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor and George Jessel combine forces and relive the good old vaudeville days.
And while these venerable gentlemen of show business were on camera, last night's Startime presentation, "George Burns in The Big Time," was jolly good nostalgic fun.
Not the lump-in-the-throat kind of nostalgia, mind you. If there was a wet eye in the audience, it was from laughing too lustily.
Burns had top billing, and there was perhaps too much of Georgie and too little of the others. But the hardest thing to comprehend was the addition of The Kingston Trio and Bobby Darin. They are out of another era and about as incompatible with vaudeville and nostalgia as you can get.
Looking at the bright side of things, Jack Benny proved anew he is one of the funniest men alive, though he performed less than 10 minutes.

He recalled the night he stepped on the stage for the first time without his props, a violin or a bow. He didn't know what to do with his hands. And what he did with them was a riot, as he placed them behind his head, on his hips, tucked them into his belt, waved them aimlessly, cracked his knuckles; all the time doing a monologue nobody could hear for the merriment.
The biggest chuckle of the night also was Jack's doing. When Eddie Cantor asked him if he was getting paid for doing the show, Jack's indignant frown spoke comical volumes.
Cantor, who has been slowed down by illness, romped through a reprise of "Pals" with Jessel. This was a routine they did together in 1929 at the Palace Theater in New York. It is probably only coincidence, but the theater closed two weeks later, and vaudeville died.
And, of course, there was Burns, Gracie-less and still a bit lost as a single, but a good guy to have around for a show like this one. Nobody could believe a fellow who sings as badly as Burns actually ever made the big time as a singer. And George didn't. When Gracie was his partner, he never finished a number. Last night, he didn't finish many either, but he sang a lot of them—forgotten (and they deserve to be) melodies like 'Red Rose Rag," "Don't Take Me Home" and "Tiger Girl."
George also did a sand dance (with Darin) and a bit of soft shoe with a bevy of chorus girls. In between, he reminisced. The jokes were older than he is, but they belonged in this hour and so did George.
The same can't be said for Darin or the Kingston Trio. Bobby mercifully didn't sing "Mack the Knife" again but his "Clementine" didn't sound much different. The trio, a competent group of clean-cut singers with clean-cut sounds, is welcome on most any show but one of this sort. Somebody evidently decided the good old days should be counterbalanced by good young talent. Television will never let well enough alone.

Jack Hellman’s Variety column of November 30th had a post-script:

Howard Blake got off this howler. A table of Chasen regulars fell to discussing the recent George Burns special, which numbered among his guests Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor and George Jessel. One of them wanted to know “why no Jolson?” Replied another, “oh, we tried but he looked at the script and said, ‘I’m not getting up for that one’.”

There are a couple of murky kinescope snippets of this special on the internet. Here’s the portion with Cantor (who was a lot slower due to illness), Jessel, Benny and a laugh track.