Jack Benny on the Humour of Jack Benny

What made Jack Benny funny?

That question was asked, analysed, and answered over the years, including by Benny himself. One place where he gave his insights was in the April 1937 edition of Motion Picture Insider magazine.

Today, Benny is considered a master of television and radio but his film career is pretty much dismissed. That’s even though he was employed by several studios simultaneously at one point, and his movies in the ‘30s were hits at the box office. They just aren’t very memorable today, with few exceptions.

So it was that the movie magazines wrote about Benny and his radio cast, and therefore we find the article below. I don’t know if Jack would have used the word “withal” in a conversation, but it’s there. He also mentions Al Boasberg, who might have been a regular member of his writing staff if he hadn’t died in 1937. The stock photos accompanied the article.

LAUGHING STOCK
An exclusive interview with JACK BENNY who expounds his theory of comedy for the benefit of the laugh-conscious. There are surprises in his story for those who believe that the jokes which amuse an entire continent are simple to deliver so that they are funny. Humor is a complicated art, and JACK BENNY herein explains its many facets.
THE world loves to laugh at a man in trouble, providing the trouble is embarrassing but not too serious.
This was the philosophy expressed by Jack Benny, leading radio, screen and stage star, when asked to discuss the psychology upon which his humor is based.
“To illustrate, what is funnier than a man slipping on a banana peel and his resulting gyrations as he tries to maintain his balance, or a man who accidentally rips an essential part of his clothing at a crucial moment, both painful to the victim perhaps, but extremely funny withal.
“I don’t believe that this proves that the human race is essentially cruel, but I believe that laughs are born partly from a certain primitive sense of superiority over the victim. At the same time, while we laugh at them, we feel sorry for them and are in sympathy with them. I know this is getting kind of involved, so we won’t pursue the quest into the realm of psychology much further. But I do know that all great comedians of our time have pursued that method. They have become involved in embarrassing situations, thus arousing the risibilities of the audience.

“Take for example the man I feel is the greatest comedian of our day, Charlie Chaplin. His whole career was built on getting into and out of just such situations. He illustrates perfectly what I mean. We would split our sides at his antics, but always there was something just a bit pathetic about him. He captured and portrayed the true spirit of clean comedy and his psychology was basic.
“Others who have employed the same, with their own variations and methods are Will Rogers, Harold Lloyd, Ed Wynn; I could go on and enumerate all great comedians. This proves, I believe, that you must have comic situations, not just gag lines. And that is what we strive for in our radio program. Mere cracking of jokes back and forth gives no flavor that lingers, nothing that people can talk about the next day.
“Early in my own career I discovered that in order to be successful I would have to be in trouble, and I have been in hot water ever since! In my on-stage moments, I mean. To give you a pertinent incident or two, consider my consistently getting the worst of it in my fights with Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris, Kenny Baker, and now lately, with Fred Allen.
“Always it must be the lead, the star, who is the goat, in order to get that favorable public reaction. I could not pick on anybody else all the time without my listeners feeling too sorry for him, and being angry with me. However, it is perfectly all right for all the rest of them to pick on me.”

Mr. Benny went further in outlining this. He pointed out that each actor on his program was chosen to depict a certain phase of humor. That a line would bring a laugh when spoken by Andy Devine but fall flat perhaps when read by Kenny Baker. Each of them of course could embarrass the star but each also had to do so in his own way.
“Situations have to have a certain continuity,” Mr. Benny continued, “in order to maintain that week to week interest, like our ‘Buck Benny Rides Again’ series which we recently concluded. Listening audiences wait for each new adventure and thus we maintain a continuity of interest that is so essential for a successful series.”
Bit by bit Mr. Benny analyzed the component parts which make for continued success in the comedy world, proving himself a keen student of mass psychology, as well as a philosopher.
Because it has taken both study and work to bring him from his early beginnings as a fiddler in Waukegan, Illinois, to where he is today, voted by more than four hundred critics the most popular purveyor of humor on the air.

Way stations along that arduous route include being an entertainer at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station during the war years, the regular vaudeville stage, a motion picture career that started with the “Hollywood Review of 1929” for M-G-M and a radio debut dating back but four short years.

He was married in 1927 to Sadye Marks, who is today known on the air as Mary Livingstone. She made her start in radio one night when one of the regular players failed to appear. Her part was only two lines. The next week she appeared on the air again and then left the program. After waiting two weeks, Benny’s radio audience became impatient and bombarded him with letters demanding that Mary return. She has never missed a program, since.
We also exemplify Benny’s basic psychology of humor in that listeners enjoy tremendously Mary’s putting him “on the spot”.
Mr. Benny is even more charming if that is possible, to meet personally than he is to listen to over the air or see on the screen. Perfectly poised, with a resonant voice, excellent diction, and an agile, keen mind. He is at home on any subject. Modest and unassuming, he gives much of the credit for his success to his co-workers, and his authors, Bill Morrow, Ed Beloin and Al Boasberg. His conversation is constantly interlarded with praise for others who have helped him achieve the success he now enjoys. While he is admittedly “tops” in his chosen field, one has only to meet the man to feel that his efforts and personality would have won for him success in any other type of endeavor.

Horizons of Hope

There’s an animated cartoon funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation which received a great deal of attention, including a write-up in Life magazine when it was released, but is forgotten today.

When it comes to animation, the Foundation is known for funding a number of pro-big business “educational” shorts that ended up on theatre screens. The first ones were animated by John Sutherland Productions and a later trio was made and released by Warner Bros. But Horizons of Hope is overlooked today, likely because it’s not available for free viewing on the internet like other Sutherland shorts.

The short was praised in 1954 because it tackled the subject of misconceptions about cancer, though Sutherland dealt with the same subject in a 1946 animated short called The Traitor Within for the American Cancer Society. As odd as it sounds to us today, people didn’t talk about cancer then; it was something shameful. Alfred P. Sloan helped set up the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in 1945 through the Sloan Foundation. With that in mind, a Sloan-funded animated short educating America about cancer was a given.

The Foundation’s report for 1955 states:

Shortly after its release, the film was chosen by the American Film Assembly of the Film Council of America as the best 16mm non-theatrical motion picture which had been produced in America in 1954 in the field of hygiene and public-health education. In recognition of its selection it was given the Film Council's Golden Reel Award. Subsequently the film received other awards, including one from the Film Council of Greater Boston and one from the Film Council of Greater Columbus.

The Sloan Foundation was subsidizing a Sunday afternoon show on NBC-TV called American Inventory. The two-reel Horizons of Hope was perfect fodder for it, and aired (along with a panel discussion) on December 5, 1954; the Life article was, more or less, a free plug for the show.

Business Screen magazine, that fine chronicler of industrial and commercial films, devoted space in its February 1955 issue to the film. It had one little black-and-white frame from the short, but Life wonderfully published the colour frames which you see in this post.

Sloan Foundation Tells Cancer Research Progress
Sponsor: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Title: Horizons of Hope. 25 min., color, produced by John Sutherland Productions.
Unlike other films on the subject of cancer, which have generally been technical subject for professional groups, or "warning" films for lay audiences, encouraging early detection of the disease, Horizons of Hope is a document of the progress in cancer cure, and a delineation of the possible steps science may take in the future to eliminate cancer. It incorporates a vast amount of highly complex and technical information into a creative pattern that will be clear to lay audiences and yet valuable and acceptable to researchers, doctors and other technical personnel in the cancer field.
Follows Year of Research
Research by writers John Sutherland, Bill Scott and True Boardman, under the direction of Dr. Cornelius Rhoads and his staff of the Sloan-Kettering Institute, began almost a year before the film actually went into production. It was decided that the story could best be told in a combination of live action and animation techniques.
Live action is effective in illustrating the actual physical complexity of the "machine for mankind" that is the Sloan-Kettering Institute, where literally millions of dollars in highly specialized equipment is being skillfully operated by hundreds of men and women who have dedicated their lives to the single purpose of first controlling, and ultimately eradicating cancer.

Animation Clarifies Story
Animation was used in the larger part of the picture to simplify and clarify highly technical aspects of the whole cancer control problem.
In structure, the animation portion of the picture ultimately developed as what might be called the autobiography of a cancer cell.
While it is true that on a limited scale photographs of actual cancer cells have been made by the electron microscope, it was photographically impossible at the present stage of technical development to show the actual life cycle of cells, and the action by chemical agents upon both normal and cancer cells in live action.
On the other hand, vivid demonstration of the attack upon cancer cells in animation was possible: possible, it should be added, but by no means simple, because in the animation form there is often a predisposition on the part of an audience to humor, and of course the nature of the subject matter made seriousness of approach in this case vitally important.
Initially, the picture demonstrates the nature of a normal body cell and then shows the (still mysterious and unexplained) genesis of the abnormal cancer cell within the same body.
From this point forward, the animation portion of the picture constantly refers to the basic premise of Sloan-Kettering's research operations, which is that there are basic differences between normal and cancer cells, and that by continuing study of those differences and constructive application of facts learned about those differences, control and or cure of cancer can be achieved.

Despite this emphasis on contrast, the villainous protagonist continues to be the cancer cell, and the film shows how he is affected first by the study of his appetites to find out what food he requires and therefore can be starved by absence of and secondly by what foods he can be poisoned, either chemically or radioactively.
Another approach is the analysis of the effect of virus upon cancer cells and the search for a virus which will selectively destroy cancer cells while not harming normal cells.
Still another general category is the study of antibodies which will seek out and destroy cancer cells.
While these three major lines of research are the primary activities at Sloan-Kettering, additional important work is being done in hormones, and extensive study is being done on the effect of the hormone balance to cancer incidence. This too was incorporated into the picture.
Horizons of Hope will be available from offices of Movies U.S.A., 729 Seventh Ave., New York City.

Ah, if we could still order a copy from Movies U.S.A.!

Yes, the Bill Scott mentioned in the article is the same Bill Scott who developed the Rocky and Bullwinkle series and wrote for the Art Davis unit at Warners, then jumped to UPA where he was fired in the Red Scare. The fact a fairly right-wing producer like Sutherland would hire Scott shows you what he thought of scaremongering by Joe McCarthy, Red Channels, et al. He ignored it. (Scott was caught in the blacklist fallout. He was fired at UPA because his writing partner was fired for leftist activities).

Unfortunately, because this cartoon is hiding in some film canister, other credits are not available, though an internet search reveals Gene Poddany wrote the score. We can make somewhat educated guesses, though. George Gordon and Carl Urbano were directing for Sutherland at the time. Bill Melendez was animating at the studio and Emery Hawkins and Bill Higgins were on the animation staff about this time. Maurice Noble was designing for Sutherland.

(Update from 2022: Scholastic Teacher magazine of May 10, 1956 gives the following credits: Producer, John Sutherland; Animation Director, George Gordon; Live Action Director, True Boardman; Script, John Sutherland and William J. Scott; Editor, Charles Boardwell; Animation, William Melendez; Cameraman, William Miller; Art Director, Maurice Noble; Original Music, Eugene Poddany; Narration, John Hiestand).

Sutherland copyrighted a pile of character designs on February 25, 1954, including the ones for Horizons of Hope, which was Production No. 1422. (For the record, also copyrighted on that date were designs for It’s Everybody’s Business, Prod. No. 1417; Dear Uncle, Prod. No. 1439; The Atom Goes to Sea, Prod. 1441; and Prod. Nos. 1200, 1447 and 1450. Unfortunately, I cannot determine the titles of these and there were additional unknown animated Sutherland films with 1955 copyright dates).

The Sutherland studio’s work was always top notch and I hope a copy of this film will eventually be located for people to see.

Now if we can only find a print of that 13½-minute cartoon tribute to push-button cleaning, Sutherland’s The Spray’s the Thing

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.