Angry South Seas God

I couldn’t tell you who was responsible for effects animation at the Walter Lantz studio in the ‘50s, but he did a nice job in Alley to Bali, a 1954 cartoon which showed the directorial merits of Don Patterson.

In this scene, an unidentified volcanic deity spews fire when native princess Babalu gives it a sacrifice of gas-inducing vegetables. Patterson has the cameraman darken the scene and then the camera shakes when some lightning drawings are shot.



Babalu then retreats (her mouth movements don’t quite match Grace Stafford’s dialogue) to find the human, er, woodpecker and buzzard, sacrifice the god demands.



Somehow, I can hear Happy Homer Brightman in the story meeting cutting up at the thought of naming the native princess “Babalu” (“Just like Ricky Ricardo! Babalu! Get it?! ‘Hey Luuuuucy! Get me a long pig!’ Ha, ha, ha!”).

The Lantz cartoons always seem to be suffering from one problem or another, usually in story or direction. Here, the cartoon slowly moves along, there’s a far-too-quick climax (and a pretty weak one), then the short just kind of ends. Patterson seems to have done the best with what he was given, though I can picture Tex Avery would have really punched up the bar-dance scenes.

Ken Southworth, Ray Abrams and Herman Cohen are the credited animators.

Toenails

Lulu Belle’s kisses excite a suitor cat (played by Billy Murray) so much that his toenails grow!



Never mind. A mouse pops up to take care of the problem then leaves for the rest of the cartoon.



The short is a 1931 Screen Song Any Little Girl That’s a Nice Little Girl, animated by Seymour Kneitel. The best scene is the hair-pulling match involving candlestick phones. There’s loads of imagination in these early Fleischer sound cartoons.

Dotto Schmidlapps

Who pays attention to incidental music during game shows? Besides fans and maybe musicians, I mean.

Well, columnist John Crosby, for one. He wrote a column about it that began appearing in print on August 22, 1958. Back then, mainly due to union rules I suspect, the music was live on at least some game shows. You can hear Jack Meakin’s orchestra on You Bet Your Life. Paul Taubman’s little combo chugged away on Concentration into the ‘60s. As time progressed (and Cesar Petrillo of the AFM died), live music was replaced by recordings. Thus you had several dozen electronic music cues pop up on the 1970s, post-Bill Cullen version of The Price is Right.

In this story, Crosby interviews Hank Sylvern. Like Taubman, he had been an organist on radio shows before making the leap into television. He died in 1964. His most interesting revelation in the story has nothing to do with game shows. He wrote the “Be Sociable, Have a Pepsi” jingle that was heard on recorded commercials starring “Kay” and “Charlie,” the Sociables. I’ve heard the spots on the Bob and Ray radio shows on CBS. I’ve always wondered who played the parts; “Charlie” was a New York-area freelance announcer because I’ve heard him on other commercials from that era. I’ve read plenty about the jingles and Pepsi’s saturated radio ad campaign but nothing about the long-forgotten Kay or Charlie. Sylvern had been the organist for George Olsen in the ‘30s. As you can see, he got caught in the quiz show scandal fallout. He survived the rest of his days running a singing jingle company called Signature Music and being involved with several professional associations in New York.

How to Score A TV Quiz Show
By JOHN CROSBY
NEW YORK, Aug. 22. YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED that all those money quiz shows are orchestrated to a fare-thee-well, with a blast of specially-arranged music every time the contestant furrows his brow. Privately, I have always called it isolation-booth music, but actually it is much more complex and far-flung than that. You may not know it but the quizzes now have "cross-over" music, played while contestant crosses the stage to Mr. Emcee. There is, of course, "challenger" music, "think" music and of course, those triumphant chords or "Hey, Ma, I won" music.
My authority for all this is Hank Sylvern, who was musical director of the now defunct "Dotto." Sylvern is an old pro at the broadcast music dodge. He has been writing "stings" since he was 13, and has worked for everyone from Arthur Godfrey to Bob Hawk. He also writes scores for commercials. His recent ones include the new Pepsi-Cola commercial ("It was like writing a new 'Star Spangled Banner'") and the Helene Curtiss commercial (I'm the only one writing a cosmetic score who doesn't use a harp. I’m proud of that").
"When the quiz show begins, the first thing you have to do is announce it. That is 'attention-getting' music. We usually open with the tympani banging out two or three heart-beats and then we go into the 'look, who's here' music. This announces the host and contestant. Then there's the commercial music and then we go into 'challenger's' music.
"'Challenger's' music is especially designed to arouse suspense and yet to put the new challenger at ease. He is usually at the point where he isn't smiling with his eyes yet. This gets him to have confidence in himself. When a buzzer rings, this means the contestant is going to answer the final question. This is 'point-of-no-return' music. It has the essence of suspense in it. There's no retreating here.
"If the contestant is wrong, we, of course, have 'he's wrong' music. Otherwise, we have, 'he's right' music. Along the way we have 'think' music, 'champion' music, 'underlining' music and lots of schmidlapps. A schmidlapp is just a fill-in of two syllables oo-be-oo-be. See?
"I also have music with two eyes for a title. That means—watch the time. On 'Dotto' we even have different kinds of 'dot' music. We have music for five dots—quick music, get-on-with-the-game music. Then we have 10-dot music full of sharp-tongued flutes, still quick music but more triumphant in tone.
All this sound came out of a fairly small but versatile orchestra which Sylvern ruled with an iron hand. "I signal with all the intensity of a general giving a signal to fire on the enemy. I wear earphones to keep in touch with the control room, but I also keep a close eye on the host (Jack Narz) and the contestants. I have the winner's music in one hand and the loser's music in the other just so I'm ready for anything. All my men are marvelous musicians, highly trained and virtuosos on more than one instrument. We can make a lot of sound for so small a band."
Sylvern points out that you may not think you hear the music in a quiz program, but it's very important. In fact, you get the impression Sylvern thinks it is the most important part of the show, certainly the one with the most to say.
"The only music that should be played for these shows is live music. It is the only music that can get the right effect at the right time and get off at the right time. Recorded music can't think. For instance, I did the music for the famous Orson Welles 'War of the Worlds' broadcast (which scared the bejabbers out of half the country). The music had to begin on the instant and end on the instant; one half-note or quarter-note longer and the theme would have been killed.
"The same goes for quiz shows. You have to play 'stings' (accents) where they belong, gentle music where it belongs, or you kill the feeling. We even had an arrangement so that 'Dotto' could get off the air right on the beat, which is a good trick musically."
With "Dotto" off the air, Mr. Sylvern is at liberty again in case you're looking for a musical director for a quiz show. You couldn't find a better man. His "schmidlapps" are handled with care, his "stings" with genuine affection.

Sliding Off the Film

Some amazing speed cuts highlight Dumb-Hounded (1943) but perhaps the best gag is the one that proves that the characters exist in a cartoon. The wolf (Frank Graham) is running so quickly to escape Droopy that his momentum carries him right off the film and past the sprockets. He recovers enough to jump back into the scene.



John Canemaker’s book credits the animation in this cartoon to Preston Blair, Ed Love, Ray Abrams and Irv Spence, with the story by Rich Hogan.

Baseball Bugs Scores a Run

How does Bugs Bunny score a run against the invincible Gas House Gorillas? Distract them with cheesecake.



The Gorilla bounces into the distance in ecstasy. Bugs crosses the plate. He scores. The Gorilla doesn’t.



Another fine scene from Friz Freleng’s Baseball Bugs (1946). Gerry Chiniquy, Virgil Ross, Ken Champin and Manny Perez are the credited animators.

To the Front of the Line

Likely there are few people reading this post who saw Jack Benny live in person. He’s been dead for 43 years after all (or maybe that should be 39). But I imagine they probably saw him in a concert setting or at a fair, certainly not like in the situation below.

This story from the King Features Syndicate only cursorily deals with Jack Benny. It’s about seeing top entertainers as part of a tour package. It’s certainly different than just walking up to a window and buying a ticket.

I found this in a newspaper dated March 6, 1959. The picture of Gisele MacKenzie with a kind of pensive Jack comes from a fan magazine around that time.

TV KEYNOTES
Miami Night Tour Can Be Cheap
By HARVEY PACK
While I was vacationing in Miami, Jack Benny and Gisele MacKenzie were booked into Miami Beach's swankiest hotel for a one-week stand. Neither of these stars can be classified as night-club performers. Benny has been tops in radio and TV for about 39 years, and Miss MacKenzie is strictly a TV graduate. An evening for two in this hotel's night-club costs about 40 bucks and that's a lot of cash to lay out to see entertainers that come into the living room free.
As stars of mass medium, however, the Benny-MacKenzie combo was a must to the tourist vacationer. But for a budget-minded guy to spend 40 clams just for one quick evening is a rough order. Even when she shows up at his hotel he's-competing with the regular night-club patron who's willing to toss the captain a 20 to help locate a "reserved" table. Our tourist friend finds himself behind a pole in the back of the room wondering why he let the old lady con him into springing for this show.

In Miami things have changed, however, and the tourist is beating the sharpie to the good shows, thanks to a small group of promoters who have organized tours. For $22 a couple, you are picked up by a bus, taken to one night club where you are permitted one drink plus the show, then on to a second spot for a chicken sandwich and the show, finally, a third joint for dessert and another show and back to your hotel on the bus.
Super-Duper Party
The night Benny opened, I signed on for this super-duper excursion into the saloon world. Along with 44 strangers hailing from about 25 assorted states, and dressed all the way from casual to formal, my wife and I piled into the streamlined bus.
As we headed out of our low-rent district and toward the more fashionable beachfront palaces, the guide instructed us in tour rules. Our gratuities are already paid, but if we wish something not included in the package—like extra drinks—we are to take care of the waiters ourselves. We all sit together at one table, and leave as a unit.
I checked the baggage rack but my barracks bag was not there. It was on a civilian tour.
Benny's hotel was a madhouse. Every important member of Miami Beach's cafe set was there for the premiere. As our bus pulled up in front of the joint, we noticed about a dozen more buses dislodging assorted cargoes of tour customers. Our sergeants, I mean guides, lined us up and led us into the hotel lobby. Through the magnificent lobby, we trotted, advancing on the night club.
You could hear fee desperate screams of the sharpies as you approached the club's entrance. "OK, Eddie, what do you want for a table?" "Remember me, Eddie, I'm a friend of Anastasia." "One hundred bucks for a table—please take my dough." Everybody who was anybody had to be seen at that opening and these men knew it. Failure meant exile.
Suddenly above the din the voice of our guide cried out, "Make way for the tour! Make way for the tour!" Even Eddie responded and, as if by magic, the sharpies were pushed aside to permit us to get through. Once our beachhead was established, it was easy. We all sat at a long table, watched the show and left. Even as we made a sharp "column right" and headed back to our chariot the desperate were still pleading for attention." Here's fifty, Eddie, let me in so people can see me leaving. That might fool them."
One of our gang, a very pleasant TV fan from upstate New York, turned to the big spender and really summed up Miami Beach night life under the delightful, all-inclusive tour system when be said, "Why don't you join us, sir? We've just caught Benny and now we're en route to Betty Grable's show. It's easy when you know the right people."

Pat Sullivan Reveals How to Make Cartoons

Felix the Cat was at the height of his career in 1928. Then, something happened.

Sound.

Mickey Mouse’s Steamboat Willie debuted at the Colony Theatre in New York City on November 18, 1928. It wasn’t the first sound cartoon but its adept marriage of image and sound was greeted with enthusiasm by theatre-goers, and the ensuing publicity had other cartoon studios quickly incorporating sound into their cartoons.

Except the studio that made Felix the Cat. Educational Pictures dropped distribution. By the time Felix studio owner Pat Sullivan realised his mistake, it was too late. The major studios weren’t interested in the cat any more and a small company named Copley Pictures tried to find theatres willing to play new Felix cartoons.

Sorting out Sullivan’s involvement has been messy over the years with experts claiming he didn’t even create the character in 1919. It’s conceded Sullivan had next to nothing to do with the animation, he had a good staff which included Bill Nolan (who rounded Felix’s design), George Cannata, Al Eugster, pioneer Raoul Barré and Otto Messmer, who receives most of the credit for Felix these days. Sullivan showed up when the media came sniffing around for an interview.

Thus it is Sullivan was ready to take credit when Amateur Movie Makers magazine did a story on how to make an animated (silent) cartoon. The story was published in its January 1928 issue with poses aplenty of the world’s most famous animated cat.

Animated MOVIE MAKING for AMATEURS
By Marguerite Tazelaar
Illustrated by
PAT SULLIVAN STUDIOS
ACCORDING to Pat Sullivan, creator of Felix the Cat cartoons, the amateur can make animated movies by providing himself with proper equipment, and by choosing the right kind of scenario or story.
While it is necessary to recognize certain limitations in making animated pictures, they may, on the other hand, serve as a vehicle for particular types of entertainment which nothing else suits so well.
The amateur, Mr. Sullivan believes, should choose at the outset either a comic strip or a mechanical device for his animation. The comic strip, such as Felix represents, hinges on burlesque or take-off for its effect, and often achieves a sharpness and satire in which living actors fail. For purely educational purposes the animation of complex or detailed types of machinery serves as no other medium can. It shows step by step the details of a machine and the way it works.

Most of the equipment the amateur needs he can make himself. He must have, first of all, a camera that will enable him to expose one frame at a time, because when he comes to photograph his drawings, he will need for each change one or more single exposures according to the action. For instance, a man rubbing his head necessitates a single exposure, then double, then single again, in order to get the movement smooth and life-like. Felix, walking normally across the screen, takes two exposures for each drawing.
If too many drawings are made, the picture lags; if too few, the picture is jerky and stiff. To hit upon the right amount is an art, gained only from experience. A good plan is to make a short film for the first attempt, judging as best one can the requirements of the drawings. When this is screened the amateur will find many points where he can correct his faults and thus build up his films, by degrees, to perfect animation.
The first step is the making of an animating stand on which to place the drawings as they are being made. This is simply a wooden frame, rather like a triangular box on which the cover is at a slanting angle to the base. In the centre of the cover a hole is cut, about 12 by 9 inches in which a piece of glass is inserted. Beneath it is an electric bulb. The paper or celluloid upon which the drawing is to be made is now placed over the glass and attached to the frame by brass pins. The animating stand will have, of course, the same dimensions as the title stand. After the electric light has been switched on in the animating stand, the amateur is ready to begin his drawings, which he will later place on his title stand to be photographed. Next, the camera or title stand must be obtained. This may be horizontal or vertical, as shown in an accompanying photograph. In the vertical stand, the camera is supported above the drawings (see "Animation Data," Amateur Movie Makers, August, 1927, page 35). The drawings are placed in a frame similar to the animating stand already described, with the exception that the frame is perfectly flat, so that it will lie parallel to the camera lens. A horizontal stand may be used if it is more convenient. The basis of construction is the same, the only difference being that the camera is placed at one end of a base board and the stand to hold the drawings parallel to it at the other end. The size of the stand and distance of drawings from the camera are governed by the type of camera the amateur uses and the distance he must place the lens from the drawings to insure proper size and focus on the film.

With reference to the plan of his drawings, Mr. Sullivan says, that, first of all, the characters must be determined upon. He has found after years of experiment that a small, doll-like figure is best for an animal character. He should have a head about the size of a nickel, a pear-shaped body about the size of a dime, legs and feet that resemble rubber hose, squatty, thick, and stubby. He should be black in color for black gives solidity, other characters will vary.
Having figured out a character, it is now necessary to plan a story for him. Felix is motivated always by his desire for food and comfort. He is the most ingenious cat in the world when it comes to finding means to these ends. He can make a black-jack out of his tail, or a fiddle, or an airplane. He can pull lanterns, sealing-wax or kettles out of his pockets, but never food; for this he must always forage.
It is better, according to Mr. Sullivan, to use an animal as a central character or hero, for this gives him the power to do things people can't do. and to burlesque the human race, generally. Such a hero can go to Mars in the twinkling of an eye, or tunnel through the earth to China, at the drop of a hat.
If mechanical type of animation is to be made, such as the inside of an engine or a piston, there is no story, of course. Drawings need simply to be made of each movement of the mechanism.
Now comes the actual work of making the drawings. The amateur must decide first which portions are to be stationary, that is, to be used for backgrounds, or scenery, and which are to be straight action drawings. Of course, the action drawings will always be those in which movement is shown, which means generally, the action of the central figure across the screen. The stationary drawings, making up the backgrounds, must be drawn on celluloid. They should also be drawn high on the screen so that the central character can pass below or above them.
For instance, when Felix walks over a bridge in front of a schoolhouse, the schoolhouse is drawn on a celluloid screen, and is drawn high on the screen, leaving the lower portions of it empty, unless a few scattered objects are put at the extreme lower edge, such ac- stones or a bit of shrubbery. In this case Felix will pass between the schoolhouse and the shrubbery as he walks over the bridge.
The straight action drawings, that is the movements of the central figure, are always made on paper, and for each movement a separate drawing is made. Therefore Felix walking across the bridge will mean a set of drawings, each showing progress in his movement, and all made on paper.
All drawings should be made in black ink, and it is better, as was noted before, to make the central character in solid black. When other figures are used (this will make the picture more complicated for the amateur) the same rule will be followed as that already laid down stationary figures or objects, must be made on celluloid, and moving figures must be made on paper.



In the illustration showing Felix reading about card tricks, the head is drawn on paper and the eyes, hands and book on celluloid, because in this closeup his head remains in the same position throughout the scene while his eyes rove up and down the pages and the book changes positions. Much labor in drawing is saved in this way.
Sometimes two celluloids need to be used in making up backgrounds. Two may be used, but never three or four because of the difference in the density between the celluloids and the paper drawing when the two are being photographed on the title stand.

Mr. Sullivan estimates that an interesting animated story could be told in about 75 feet of 16 mm. film. This footage should be divided into approximately twenty scenes, which means the average scene would be about three and one half feet. To give an idea of the amount of work which this will involve it should be remembered that there are forty frames to a foot of 16 mm. film, so each average scene would require about 140 exposures, although this does not mean there must necessarily be 140 different drawings or parts of drawings, as has been pointed out above. For such a seventy-five foot story the total number of exposures required would be 3,000. This program can, of course, be varied with the individual plan. In beginning it would be quite sufficient to animate one scene only, splicing this short piece of film into any reel for convenience in projection.
Mr. Sullivan advises against over production for the amateur. He says, the motive or skeleton of plot should always be in mind before work on the picture starts. The location should be decided upon, and the whole thing written out for clarity.
The animated movie has become possible only during the last decade. It was Mr. Sullivan, in fact, who perfected it and made Felix famous in the animated field. It is still difficult to secure experts in this work. The amateur experimenting with animated cartoons may eventually find rich awards awaiting him, should he switch over into the professional ranks, and especially if he should hit upon a character whose antics take the public's fancy.

My Mouth's Bigger Than Your Mouth

Chuck Jones was influenced by silent films and that seems evident considering how often he made cartoons that either lacked dialogue or had scenes without it. Of course, the cartoons weren’t altogether silent. Carl Stalling provided appropriate background music and Treg Brown included sounds when needed.

In The Aristo-Cat (1943), Hubie and Bertie convince the ignorant spoiled housecat that a dog is actually a mouse, the kind cats eat. There’s a scene where the bulldog realises the annoying cat wants to eat him. These are consecutive frames.



A contest follows where each animal opens its mouth wider and wider. No dialogue. Just Stalling’s building music.



A smear drawing.



The cat gets confirmation, then slowly closes the dog’s mouth. Some fine expressive work.



This cartoon is mainly known for the patterned backgrounds (zigzags, mosaics and so on) but there are good gags and expressions like you’ll find in the best of Jones’ work at Warners.

Martian Schlepperman

Al Rose promises “a new kind of insane surrealism” in Krazy’s Race of Time (1937) but, instead, has a story that’s all over the place.

The first half is a March of Time parody with Billy Bletcher narrating. It starts off with gags about traffic jams, quickly moving into a futuristic scenario of 1999. Then the second half starts with Krazy Kat mixing formulas, then being shoved into a rocket for Mars, and after coping with a giant there, races (presumably) back to Earth and the cartoon ends.

One scene that’s imaginative is a greeting by two Martians, but even it begins safely with a Schlepperman parody, as one says to the other “Hi, Stranger!” (Schlepperman’s catchphrase on the Jack Benny radio show and elsewhere). One removes his hat to the other, but the hat goes into a hole in his head. Then they greet each other by putting a foot in the mouth while the other slaps it. The scene is capped by the two going through each other and on their way out of the cartoon.



Harry Love gets an animation credit (on the Samba re-issue) with Joe De Nat supplying the score. There is no director credit.

Whatever Happened To ... That Announcer Guy

The demise of network radio didn’t just claim the careers of hundreds of actors, it didn’t help the livelihoods of announcers, either. The networks continued to need (generally anonymous) staff announcers, but freelancers who announced on the big network shows that started disappearing in the ‘50s had to find work. Del Sharbutt and Tony Marvin ended up reading news on Mutual. Others got out of the business altogether.

Ah, but radio seems to have a kind of magic that draws people back—so long as someone wants to hire them. And that was the case of Tobe Reed.

When you think of the announcers on the Burns and Allen Show, you probably think of Harry Von Zell (in the television years) or Bill Goodwin (during the latter radio days). You likely don’t think of poor Tobe. When Goodwin graduated from the announcer to announcer-as-a-character, Tobe was brought in to announce and help out on the end commercial. Unfortunately, if Tobe had any comedic abilities, he never displayed them with George and Gracie that I recall (nor did he interact with them). He was a little formal sounding. But he was in demand. In fact, his “Scrap Book” show aired on ABC opposite Burns and Allen.

Reed won a full-time announcing job at KFRC in San Francisco in July 1936 when he replaced someone on the staff named Ralph Edwards. He left for Hollywood in June 1940 and was soon replacing Henry M. Neely on the Fitch Bandwagon. (Reed recalled he was replaced on KFRC by future game show mogul Mark Goodson. Trade papers at the time say it was KYA’s Bob Forward).

I was all set to post an article from after he got out of radio but, on a whim, I thought I’d check that wonderful old magazine Radio Life, which seems to have profiled everyone in radio in Los Angeles in the ‘40s. Sure enough, here’s an article from the edition of June 24, 1944.

Tobe Reed Refuses to Take Life Seriously, Relates Tales of His Radio and Reporting Success With Tongue-in-Cheek Chuckles
I NEVER TAKE myself seriously," tall, sandy-haired, bushy-browed Tobe Reed chuckled. "I often look like I'm frowning because I'm near-sighted, and I make enemies because I can't remember names. A lot of people have me libelled as a guy with 'the wrong attitude'."
Actually, Tobe Reed, genial mike-man of suet) popular airshows as "Don't You Believe It", "Three of a Kind", "Duffy's Tavern" and "The Star and the Story", is a chap with a terrific sense of humor. Take, for instance, his answers to a CBS biographical questionnaire:
Question: Where would you prefer to live?
Tobe: Indoors.
Question: Any preference in clothes?
Tobe: Men's.
Question: Any serious illnesses?
Tobe: Normal mentality.
Question: What are your convictions regarding show business?
Tobe: I'm convinced that radio is better than working.
Trying to tie Tobe Reed down to a sober discussion of his' life and career IS fairly an impossibility. He's too full of fun. With typical humor, he tells how he bluffed his way into radio.
He had read once that the sound of a fire was produced over the air by crackling cellophane in to the microphone. So when he filed an application for radio work, and was asked to give his previous experience, he stated smugly that he was the man who thought of crackling cellophane into a mike to make the sound of a fire!
Newspaper Bluff
Before radio, Tobe continued with a laugh, he blithely bluffed his way into a newspaper reporter's job. He didn't know anything at all about being a reporter; he couldn't even type. So, unbeknown to the editor who hired him, he persuaded someone else to give him stories which he simply (so he says!) "colored" up a bit. The person who supplied him with the ready-made skeleton stories was none other than a reporter on a rival paper!
Reed maintains that his childhood ambition was "to become a man", but later, in college, his earnest ambition was to become a lawyer. He majored in philosophy, with the thought of taking an extensive sixteen-year law course that probably would have qualified him for no less than the Supreme Court. He entered college when still less than sixteen years old, and at seventeen, he was studiously assisting a learned psychiatrist.
But "things happened", as Reed himself puts it, and when he left the University of Washington, he became a reporter on the San Francisco Chronicle. During his four-year stint with the "press ", he had many memorable experiences.
At this point in his story he became serious for a moment to tell us of the times he interviewed prisoners at San Quentin. One afternoon he had occasion to spend several hours in "Death Row", the block of cells in which are interned the men who are condemned to die.
"The silence," related Reed with a grimace, "was ominous and overpowering. But as I stood there, I was startled to hear one of those stone-faced condemned men suddenly start to whistle the most cheerful tune in the world! It was the only sound he made before going to his death."
Some day, Tobe declared, he would like to do a series of broadcasts based on the simplicity and drama of such sounds as that convict's whistling. His chief desire concerning radio is to spin yarns, and he has an extensive supply of story ideas on which to base his narrations.
His First Broadcast
Resuming the story of his radio career, Reed laughed heartily and related this tale of his first big broadcast. Having made an inconspicuous debut on the airlanes as an announcer giving station identification, he was elated to be suddenly sent out to do a remote broadcast. Chuckling, Tobe commented at this point that, being new to radio, he thought 'doing a remote' meant some magnificent deed. "I contemplated getting a medal for it," he smilingly maintained. Actually, the "remote" turned out to be a pick-up broadcast from a big night -spot, with Reed emceeing a coast network show. It was his big moment! But two minutes before air-time, he accidentally locked himself in the men's room! A key couldn't be located in time, so the microphone was inserted through the transom' and, according to the fun-loving Mr. Reed, he started his radio career there, amid such unglorified surroundings!
Tobe Reed declared with a resigned smile that, after a three-year stint on the Fitch Bandwagon (during which time he travelled by plane some 200,000 miles!), radio listeners still associate him almost solely with that show.
In spite of his years as an outstandingly successful "driver" of the Bandwagon, however, Tobe confesses that he prefers classical music.

It was the strain of so much travelling that forced him eventually to forsake his emceeing spot on the Bandwagon show, and shortly after his departure, Uncle Sam called him to the colors. "I was in the Army just five days," he informed us, "then was given a medical discharge because of a bad heart."
Tired of living out of his suitcase, Reed came to California to settle down. He hopes some day to buy a house "on the highest hill".
"Right now," he frowned, "we live in a house that's just on a little knoll."
Married a Reed
Tobe is married to Bette Reed, a Beverly Hills girl whom he met during his Bandwagon travels. Because their names were the same, they found themselves continually being introduced to everyone as Mr. and Mrs. Reed. "We were practically married before we met, it seems," smiled Tobe. Last January they made the Mr. and Mrs. an actuality.
"Butch" is the ruler of the Reed domicile. He's a little five-year-old wire-haired terrier that Tobe maintains should really be named "Me too!" because that's the expression he always has on his face.
"Bette and I," smiled Tobe, "have decided that 'Butch' was meant to be a human, but just happened to turn out as a dog."
After so much night-life in his work, Reed prefers staying at home most of the time, but on their nights out, the young Reeds find fun at good stage shows and nice night spots. Tobe enjoys the "atmosphere "; he doesn't like to dance, and will seldom do so with anyone but his wife.
The ex-Bandwagon driver's favorite band now, we would say, is the plain gold wedding band he wears, with an inscription from his wife engraved on the inside. She wears a duplicate, and neither has removed the ring from his or her finger since the day they were married.
Tobe mentioned then that, although they have just been wed five months, it is coming close to the second anniversary of their first meeting. At the comment that he was starting married life off the right way, remembering such an important anniversary, Reed grinned and quipped, "Well, when you get hit by a truck, you're bound to remember it!"

1949 rolled around and Fred Allen and Edgar Bergen announced they were quitting broadcasting. Tobe got out, too. But not for long (I suppose the same could be said for Allen and Bergen). Here’s a National Enterprise Association column that appeared in newspapers on May 3, 1958. Poor Tobe must have had his first name misspelled more often than anyone on radio or TV. Even newspaper ads for Top Dollar placed by the network got it wrong.

Top $ Tops to Toby Reed
By DICK KLEINER
NEW YORK — (NEA) — Stories about the demise of CBS-TV's "Top Dollar," which only started recently, are news to MC Toby Reed. In fact, he's inclined to doubt them, or, at least, call them excessively premature.
Reed says the sponsor and the network and the public all seem happy, so far, and he figures it'll catch on more and more as the weeks go by.
One of the most interesting features of the show is Reed, himself. He's an old-timer in radio—for five years, he MCd the old Fitch Band Wagon, when it was a Sunday night mainstay between Edgar Bergen and Jack Benny—but this is his very first TV.
He quit radio in 1949, investing in a successful West Coast plastics company. In 1951, he and his family moved East, "to show the kids some other kind of weather." They've all turned into rabid ski enthusiasts, and, for seven years he worked at his plastic business with very few thoughts about show business. But, inside, he was getting anxious to get back. So when his old friend, Hal March, brought up his name as a possible MC for "Top Dollar," he was happy to accept. And he loves being back.
"I'm in show business now," he says, "up to my hips. I guess I'm really a ham all the way."
Even though the public never knew his face, he finds that most people over 25 will remember his name and his voice. He's had a lot of "Where've you been?" letters, and he's loving every minute of his new, second career. He still has his plastics investment, but is now more or less the silent partner.
Two new pilot films of two potential TV shows are in the can—Marie Wilson's "Ernestine" and Hermione Gingold's "Theodora."
They keep turning out pilot films left and right, pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into these test runs—most of which never get on the air. Marie says, "What TV needs is an automatic pilot film."

Reed was at the centre of a bizarre situation when a Top Dollar contestant suddenly refused to carry on. Alice Young had been told prior to the show that, for reasons not explained in Variety, the rules dictated she could not use the letter ‘J’ in trying to come up with the winning word. Reed told her as much on TV. She protested and finally, on camera, announced she would not play the game any more and walked out on the show.

That was the least of Reed’s problems. Kleiner’s report of rumours of the demise Top Dollar were true, thanks to the Quiz Show Scandal which brought down money programmes one after the next, whether they were rigged or not. Dotto was suddenly pulled from the CBS schedule in 1958—a stand-by contestant had complained to the FCC about answers given to someone prior to broadcast—and a daytime version of Top Dollar was quickly shoved in its place on August 18th. For whatever reason, Reed didn’t host the daytimer; Warren Hull did. Reed’s nighttime version of Top Dollar then was bounced from the air on August 30th.

Reed seemingly vanished from television at this time and he eventually was hired by the San Francisco Chronicle to write a column which, presumably, spelled his name correctly.

Reed died March 3, 1988—the same day as the wife of another former KFRC’er named Don Wilson—having retired to Bermuda Dunes, not too far from the Wilsons’ home in Palm Springs.