A Change For Lucy

Was Lucy being coy?

The impression I get of Lucille Ball is she’d tell you anything straight up whether you wanted to hear it or not. So it seems odd that she’d tell a newspaper syndicate (Jan. 3, 1962) she didn’t want to go into another TV series, then less than eight weeks later, she’d be not only signed to a new show, but it had already been sold (tentatively) to Lever Brothers and General Foods and CBS had announced when it would be on the fall schedule (Variety, Feb. 28, 1962).

Perhaps she didn’t know when she did the interview with the NEA service, but it seems to me events unfolded awfully fast if that were the case. It could simply have been a case of business is business. Big-money talks could have been underway and it wasn’t something to be leaked to the press just yet.

Here’s the NEA feature story. Today, we still think of Lucy and Desi as a couple, so strong was the image on I Love Lucy. It must have been even stronger when this article was written, as reruns were still being seen every morning on CBS, and it was before Lucy had appeared regularly on a show without him.

"Which Husband?" Lucille Ball Asks
By DICK KLEINER
Newspaper Enterprise Assn.
NEW YORK—(NEA)—Lucille Ball's blush clashed frightfully with her orange hair and lavender stretch slacks.
But it was hard for her to keep from blushing after her remark, which is known, technically, as a "boo-boo.
The question had been, "Do you plan to do any work with your husband?"
Lucy sailed right into her answer.
"I don't think so," she said. "You see, nowadays he's move interested in producing and directing and isn't acting as much as he—."
Then she stopped and there was a slightly sick look on her beautiful face.
"Did you mean Desi or Gary?" she asked.
"Gary."
"Oh." The blush started. "I was sure you meant Desi."
* * *
The blush spread. It clashed with her coral lipstick, too. But she recovered beautifully. In fact, she burst out into that wild, ringing laugh which her fans know so well.
"You know," she said, "these things have been happening to me. Three days after Gary and I were married, I was in the elevator here in the apartment. And the operator said, 'How is Mrs. Morton today?' I said, 'Well, you know I don't get to meet many people in the building.' And then I realized he meant me. So I said, 'Oh, I'm fine, thank you.' He gave me the oddest look."
* * *
The blush began to recede. The tall redhead seemed to be part of the interior decoration of her apartment. She was the splash of color the room needed; her walls, carpel, furniture arc all in shades of pale green, and against that wan background her color and costume stood out like a well thumb.
She was eating a bowl of prunes—"I'm on a diet, just grapefruit, prunes, meat and coffee; it makes me tired, but I feel great."
And she was full of plans for her future. She ticked off the movies and TV specials she wants to do, starting with “The Good Years” on CBS-TV on Jan. 12.
"I've had so many offers," she said. "I can do almost anything I want to do and that's a nice feeling. Any TV series or spectacular I want to do. But I don't think I'll do a TV series again. It's too much work."
She says she likes to keep busy, because she's the kind who just can't sit around on her pale green furniture and wither.
"I don't have any plans or desire to retire." she says. "I'm going to die when I'm 69—of a cerebral haemorrhage—and I'll be working right up to then."
One thing she doesn't want to do is go outside her own field. She's had several chances to try straight dramatic parts, but she's turned them all down.
* * *
"I have no desire to do a dramatic part," she says. "That would spoil the magic, and I don't want to do that."
By "spoiling the magic," she meant that she has a place in the hearts of the public with her comedy. It's a place she richly deserves and has long wanted to occupy.
"Even as a kid," she says. "I liked to be funny. At the time, I thought it was because I liked to be funny. But now, after reading all these autobiographies of show people, I realize it was because I was insecure and wanted to be liked. So I tried to make people laugh. It's amazing what a great psychologist I was as a kid."

Lucy made it past 69. She died at age 77. She wanted to be liked. And she was more than liked to millions of fans. After all, you know what her show was called.

How to Hatch a Bull

To the strains of Juventino Rosas’ “Over the Waves” (arranged for marimba), the self-satisfied matador wolf performs a magic trick, making an egg appear from nowhere, then opening it to hatch a bull.



Grant Simmons, Bobe Cannon, Walt Clinton, Preston Blair and Mike Lah are credited with animating Señor Droopy, released April 9, 1949.

Incidentally, Showman's Trade Review of August 6, 1949 reported:

The MGM cartoon department headed by Fred Quimby has made a cooperative ad deal with General Foods, which will issue "flip books" in which the cartoon characters, Tom and Jerry, Barney the Bear and Droopy the Hound come alive as a series of cartoons are flipped through the fingers. The "flip books" will be distributed with Grape Nuts Flakes. Half-page ads in the comic strip pages of Sunday newspapers will be used to promote them.

Falling Farmer

The Bashful Buzzard is one of those cartoons Bob Clampett fans just love with Rod Scribner and Manny Gould going nuts when handed crazy ideas to animate.

Mamma Buzzard (voiced by Sara Berner) has her offspring bring back anything they can capture for dinner. One of them flies home with a cow—still being milked!



The farmer walks away, then realises something is wrong. He’s in mid-air. Here are some of the drawings that follow.



There are scenes wilder than this. In fact, I thought I had posted frames from my favourite perspective scene in this cartoon but can’t find them. A draught post must have been eaten along the way.

Clampett’s love of radio is evident in this cartoon as he rips off the Mortimer Snerd character from the Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy show and gets Kent Rogers to imitate him as the dullard Beaky Buzzard (the last line is a catchphrase from The Great Gildersleeve).

“The Arkansas Traveller” is heard a lot on the soundtrack. Backgrounds are by Dick Thomas.

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.