George and Gracie and Jack

George Burns wrote a number of very funny books, and spent a good deal of time talking about his late wife Gracie and his late best friend Jack Benny. One was called Living It Up and it was excerpted in newspapers.

These portions were published in the Journal-News of Rockland County, N.Y., on Sept. 19, 1976. Unfortunately, the photocopied scans of the artwork with them isn’t the best. The caricatures are by Louise Zingarelli, who later went into animation layout and design, spending a good deal of time with the 1980s versions of the Chipmunks.

Jack Benny —Long thread of friendship
By GEORGE BURNS
As you go through life, the good things and the bad things have a way of balancing themselves out. But there are times when you get the feeling that the bad things are winning. That’s the way I felt the day my closest friend, Jack Benny, passed away.
Jack was gone and part of me went with him, but a lot of Jack stayed here with me. Not only me — part of him stayed with people all over the world, he was the smartest and moat considerate man I ever knew. Everybody who came in contact with him fell in love with Jack. And the feeling was mutual because Jack loved people.
Sometimes for no reason at all he would stop at a little bakery in Beverly Hills, buy a cake and take it up to his doctor’s office. The receptionist and nurses would make coffee, and they'd sit around and have a little gossip session. Jack didn’t have an appointment with the doctor, he just got a kick out of talking to the girls.

I envied Jack because he enjoyed everything. In all the time I knew him there was just one little thing that always griped him. He could never get what he considered a good cup of coffee. He once said to me, “George, I’ve traveled all over the world. I've been everywhere at least once, and I’ve yet to find a good cup of coffee.”
“Jack,” I said, “if you’ve never tasted a good cup of coffee, how would you know if you got one?”
He gave me one of his scornful looks and said, “George, if that was supposed to be funny, it’s lucky you don’t make your living as a writer,” and walked away. It’s a well-known fact in show business that I could always make Jack Benny laugh. And it was always silly little thing that would do it — things that nobody else would laugh at. During all the years I knew Jack I never told him an out-and-out joke, because that would be the last thing he'd laugh at. He made his living writing comedy, so if you told him a joke, first he'd analyze it, then he’d start to rewrite it.
Now, here’s something I did at a party one night and it made Jack hysterical. It started while we were both standing at the bar having a drink. We were wearing dinner clothes and I noticed that there was a little piece of white thread stuck on the lapel of Jack's coat. I said “Jack, that piece of thread you're wearing on your lapel tonight looks very smart. Do you mind if I borrow it?” Then I took the piece of thread from his lapel and put it on my lapel.
That was it. I’m not sure, but I think during my life in show business I must have thought of a funnier bit — I certainly hope so. But that bit of business took Jack apart, he laughed, he pounded the bar and finally he collapsed on the floor laughing. I must admit I always loved every moment of it. Being able to send this great comedian into spasms of hysterical laughter was good for my ego.
The next day I got a little box, put a piece of white thread in it, and sent it over to Jack’s house with a note that said, “Jack, thanks for letting me wear this last night.”
An hour later I got a phone call from his wife Mary Livingstone. She said “George, that piece of white thread got here an hour ago and Jack still is on the floor. When he stops laughing, I think I’ll leave him.”
You may think I'm exaggerating when I talk about Jack falling on the floor — but it’s true. He’d collapse with laughter and literally fall on the floor. I don’t know what his cleaning bill was, but it must have been tremendous.
This is one anecdote about Jack Benny you may have heard before, but I think it bears repeating. One day he went to his lawyer’s office in Beverly Hills to sign a multi-million-dollar contract I knew that it was a very big deal, so when Jack came into the club that afternoon I said to him “Jack, you must be very excited.”
“I certainly am,” he said. “Do you know after I signed the contract I stopped at a little drugstore and, George, I finally found a place that serves a good cup of coffee.”
That was Jack Benny, my dearest and closest friend. And wherever Jack is I hope the coffee is good.

George Burns and Gracie Allen were one of America’s most beloved husband-and-wife comedy teams for over 10 years. Gracie was the scatterbrain in a permanent state of confusion. George, while tapping his cigar, was the patient straight man who tried to unravel her circuitous logic. In the following excerpt from his book “Living It Up,” George Burns recalls his life with the other half of the Burns and Allen team and the secret to his longevity in show business.

'Gracie Allen was my only love'
By GEORGE BURNS
Getting to be my age didn’t happen overnight. I'm 80-years-old and I had a damned good time getting there.
I run into a lot of people who ask me when I’m going to retire. I think the only reason you should retire is if you can find something you enjoy doing more than what you’re doing now. I happen to be in love with show business, and I can't think of anything I’d enjoy more than that. So I guess I’ve been retired all my life.
I don’t know what age has to do with retirement anyway. I’ve known some young men of 85, and I’ve met some very old men of 40. There isn’t a thing I can’t do now that I did when I was 21 — which gives you an idea of how pathetic I was when I was 21.
But 80 is a beautiful age. The secret of feeling young is to make every day count for something. To me there's no such thing as a day off.
My writer, Elon Packard, and I work in the office from 10 until noon. It’s only two hours but it’s a very concentrated effort. We answer correspondence, update the routines in my stage act, write speeches for testimonial dinners, plan what I'm going to say on talk shows, write copy for various commercials I do.
But at 12 on the nose. I quit and go to Hillcrest Country Club. Hillcrest is like a home to me. I’ve belonged to it for over 40 years.
When I have my lunch there I always sit at the same table. This table is where the action is. There's very little listening but a awful lot of talking, because most of the people who sit there are in show business. Every day the cast changes — you might find Groucho Marx, Danny Thomas, George Jessel, Milton Berle and directors and producers like Eddie Buzzell, Pandro Berman, George Seaton, etc. With that bunch if you want to get a word in edgewise you have to have an appointment.

As in every group there is usually one person who takes charge. At our table it’s George Jessel. He knows all the jokes, he’s a great storyteller and very funny. But he does one thing that drives me up the wall. Whenever he’s scheduled to do an eulogy at someone’s funeral, he tries it out on us. Did you ever try eating lunch and listening to an eulogy at the same time? Jessel is the only one I know who can turn matzos, eggs and onions into the Last Supper.
Lunch usually takes an hour or so, and then I’m off to the card room for my favorite recreation — playing bridge. I love the game.
Sometimes I’ve watched some of the great bridge players play, and it’s always so quiet. We argue, we fight and the language we use didn’t come out of “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.” But there’s a reason why we carry on like this — all the men that I play bridge with are practically my age or even older; sometimes I’m the youngest at the table. So we holler and shout to make sure the other members of the club know that we’re still living. The only time we get quiet is when Georgie Jessel comes over to kibitz. It makes us very nervous because we know he’s got four eulogies in his pocket.
Sometimes in the evening I have a date. I usually take her to dinner at a nice restaurant. I like the company of young girls, and young girls seem to like to go out with me. It’s because I don’t rush them — there’s no pressure on them. When I take them to Chasen’s for dinner, in between courses they have time to do their homework.
On occasion if I'm in a romantic mood, I invite the young lady back to my place. And at the end of the evening she won't be disappointed. We have a little brandy. I turn the lights down low, and when I think the moment is just right — I send for my piano player. I sing her four or five songs and go upstairs and go to bed. My piano player takes her home. I’ve out lived four of my piano players.
But the only love in my life was Gracie and I was happily married to her for 38 years. Now don’t get me wrong, we had arguments, but not like other couples had. When we had a disagreement, it had to do with show business.
Looking back, I really don’t know why Gracie married me. I certainly know I wanted to marry her. She was a living Irish doll, such a dainty little thing, only 102 pounds, with long, blue-black hair and sparkling eyes; so full of life and with an infectious laugh that made her fun to be around. Besides all that she was a big talent. She could sing, she was a great dancer, and a fine actress with a marvelous flair for comedy.
But why did she marry me? I was nothing. I was already starting to lose my hair, I had a voice like a frog, I stuttered and stammered, and I was a bad, small-time vaudeville actor and I was broke. I guess she must have felt sorry for me.
I'm glad she did.
As time went on I got better onstage. I had to. For me there was no way to go but up. I finally got so good that nobody knew I was there.
Gracie: On my way in, a man stopped me at the stage door and said, “Hiya, cutie how about a bite tonight after the show?”
George: And you said?
Gracie: I said, “I’ll be busy after the show but I'm not doing anything now,” so I bit him.
George: Gracie, let me ask you something. Did the nurse ever happen to drop you on your head when you were a baby?
Gracie: Oh, no, we couldn't afford a nurse, my mother had to do it.
George: Is there anybody in the family as smart as you?
Gracie: My sister Hazel is even smarter. If it wasn’t for her, our canary would never have hatched that ostrich egg.
George: A canary hatched an ostrich egg?
Gracie: Yeah, but the canary was too small to cover that big egg.
George: So?
Gracie: Hazel sat on the egg and held the canary in her lap.
George: Gracie, this family of yours do you all live together?
Gracie: Oh, sure. My father, my brother, my uncle, my cousin, and my nephew all sleep in one bed and...
George: In one bed? I’m surprised your grandfather doesn’t sleep with them.
Gracie: Oh, he did, but he died, so they made him get up.
On Aug. 27, 1964, Gracie passed away. I was terribly shocked. The period of adjustment to such a loss took time. Gracie had been such an all-important part of my life that everywhere I looked, everywhere I went, the feeling of her was still there.
The most difficult time was at night. It was hard for me to go to sleep, and when I did doze off I’d soon wake with a start and look over, expecting Gracie to be there in her bed beside me.
This went on for about six months, then one night I did something, and to this day I can’t explain why. I was all ready to get into bed, and then for some reason I pulled the covers down on Gracie’s bed and got into it.
I don’t know if it made me feel closer to her, but for the first time since Gracie had gone I got a good night’s sleep. I never did go back to my bed —

What Price Giddy Glory?

Bugs Bunny’s first cartoon, A Wild Hare, was nominated for an Oscar after being released in 1940. It didn’t win. None of the tremendously funny Bugs shorts—and we all have our favourites—made in the ‘40s won. Nor in the early ‘50s. It wasn’t until Knighty Knight Bugs came along in 1958 that Bugs became “that Oscar-winning rabbit” that Dick Tufeld used to introduce on the Bugs Bunny prime-time TV show.

The length of time wasn’t altogether Bugs’ fault. MGM had more votes at the Academy of Motion Pictures. To no great surprise, they voted for Tom and Jerry cartoons.

The North American Newspaper Alliance took note of Bugs’ victory and featured it in its Hollywood column of April 18, 1959. The Oscar ceremony had been held less than two weeks earlier.

A LOOK INTO MOVIELAND
Bugs Bunny's Aplomb Unchanged By Oscar
By HAROLD HEFFERNAN
HOLLYWOOD—The giddy glory of Oscar ownership is not going to shatter the aplomb of at least one jubilant Academy winner—boisterous, insouciant Bugs Bunny, bucktoothed, jug-eared rabbit of film cartoon renown.
The madcap animated hare with the Brooklyn accent—a creature originated by Warner Bros, cartoon division—walked off with his first glittering statuette after a fabulous 18 years of wacky and audacious adventures.
In every laughter-loving country in the world, except Russia, where he is not yet entitled to scamper the carrot-cruncher has fast become one of filmland's best-loved characters. This was evidenced by the crescendo of applause welling up from the audience at the Academy presentation when Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh made the formal announcement. Bugs matched the decibel level of plaudits accorded many of the flesh-and-blood stars.
Gets Own Fan Mail
Such is Bugs' amazing popularity, according to John W. Burton, Warners' executive cartoon producer, that almost every mail delivery brings him his own batch of fan letters.
Although Oscar was late in coming, the bustling bunny had not gone without recognition from other sources. For 14 consecutive years exhibitors of America, in their annual poll, have voted him top favorite in the short subject group.
Bugs Bunny's distinctive voice, from the time he first appeared on the drawing boards, has been that of noted character actor and radio-TV personality, Mel Blanc, often seen as Prof. Le Blanc, the music teacher, on the Jack Benny show.
'What's Up, Doc?'
In his screen bow the rabbit was given a line of dialogue which since has been repeated at least once in each succeeding episode, one that was quickly mimicked over and over by untold millions of youngsters—"What's up, Doc?" delivered with irreverence and mocking derision.
Just as he is the Bugs Bunny voice, Blanc also produces the eloquent crunching as the hare devours a carrot. Blanc says he is unable to estimate the hundreds of pounds of the vegetable root he has chomped in this segment of his performance.
Through long and intimate association with the rabbit, producer Burton has come to know him almost as a real-life friend. He speaks of him with reverence. "If you'll notice," he says, "Bugs is never the one to start trouble. He suffers in silence—up to a point. Then he explodes into action — and usually comes out ahead."
Audience Reaction
This is the behavior wherein audiences of every age find personal identification, Burton believes, and which may largely be responsible for the genuine warmth with which Bugs is greeted whenever his wide-cheeked countenance flashes on the screen.
Each cartoon episode is one reel in length, with a running time of seven minutes. Eight episodes are released each year, meaning that to date Bugs has made almost 150 separate performances. Each segment requires approximately 15,000 individual drawings.

Bugs is strictly hep, always in tune with the times. For example, in the Oscar-winning entry, "Knighty Knight Bugs," directed by Friz Freleng, there is a scene in which he traps his familiar adversary, Yosemite Sam, a desperado of unsavory reputation, in a silolike tower used to cache dynamite.
The explosives are set off by Bugs, and Yosemite Sam rides the runaway silo on a trip all the way to the moon, which means that the rabbit has already beaten the boys at Cape Canaveral at their own game.
For Bugs, according to his legion of admirers, that's no more than par.

Getting Clean, Getting Dirty

Miners going into Betty Boop’s Tavern shower off the coal dust first. Then, when they leave, they shower the dust back onto them.



I Heard (1933) is full of animal characters bopping to the beat and a fast stream of gags. Willard Bowsky and Myron Waldman are the credited animators. There’s live action footage of Don Redman and his orchestra at the beginning.

Shake Your Rabbit Tail

There’s something creepy about rabbits with slanted, almond-shaped eyes. The Warners’ cartoons used the design in a few cartoons in the mid-‘30s, including Shake Your Powder Puff, a 1934 effort by Friz Freleng, with Bob Clampett and Bob McKimson as the credited animators.



The rabbits’ tails are the powder puffs.



Cartoon ducks in sailor suits? Nah, it’ll never work.



The audience likes it, judging by this endless cycle of 12 drawings.



The title song was originally heard in the Warners feature Upperworld, also released in 1934.

Maxwell Smart Before Maxwell Smart

Before there was Maxwell Smart, Don Adams got a lot of mileage out of his Maxwell Smart voice. In fact, he used it in two TV series in 1963. One was on Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales on Saturday mornings on CBS. The other was the lesser-known The Bill Dana Show on Sunday evenings.

Tennessee had a reasonably long life. It was repackaged and syndicated for years until enough newer cartoons came along. The Dana show lasted two seasons. Dana attempted to take a sketch comedy character with a catchphrase or two and stretch it into a half-hour. I’ve never understood why anyone thought Jose Jimenez was screamingly funny to begin with, but Dana sold a lot of comedy records doing him.

Dana was more than a comedian. He was a writer, too, and he basically wrote Maxwell Smart into existence. Adams supplied the voice and delivery, then took it to Mel Brooks and Buck Henry in 1965 and — would you believe? — turned him into a huge hit.

Adams talks a bit about his Dana version in this syndicated newspaper column of September 17, 1964. At the time, he was also doing some of his stand-up routines on another show. Adams apparently hated stand-up and preferred to spend his time at the race track instead of on stage or in front of TV cameras. Word is the track ended up with a whole pile of money Adams earned on Get Smart.

You Really Know How to Hurt a Guy, Don't You?
By HARVEY PACK
NEW YORK — Don Adams, who plays Inspector Glick the ineffective house detective on NBC’s “Bill Dana Show,” arrived early for our interview . . . one full day early. Apparently Adams, in typical Glick fashion, had the wrong date for the appointment and he spent the better part of an hour checking the faces on the restaurant’s customers hoping to find somebody who might be the reporter sent to interview him.
By the time we got together the following day Don had worked the entire incident into a routine and — typical of Don Adams — it was quite funny. When he’s not Inspector Glick, Adams is an “In” comic with a loyal cult of followers including ex-comedy writer Bill Dana.
This reporter has been a member of the Adams cult for years and I was delighted when he cropped up last season on a few episodes of the “Bill Dana Show.” His first appearance when, as Glick, he gave Jose’s hotel maximum security and inadvertently robbed a bank on behalf of some larcenous guests was easily the best of the Jose Jimenez adventures and won Don critical plaudits as well as a spot in the future plans of producer Sheldon Leonard and star Bill Dana.
In New Time Slot
When the show squeaked through and was given a new life and a better time slot (Sundays 8:30-9:00 p.m. beginning this week), Don Adams and Inspector Glick were signed on as regulars.
Although he will be seen on eight of the first 13 shows, Don still lives in New York and fills in his time with six appearances on ABC’s “Jimmy Dean Show.” I asked him why he feels the need to do the Dean show which probably does not have an audience geared for his type of comedy.
“I have a lot of fun doing it and It’s giving me a chance to get some sort of identity,” he explained. “Wherever I go, people come up to me and say I’m very funny and then ask my name. Outside of a small handful of fans . . . like Johnny Carson who shares a frequency with me and has been a great help with guest spots . . . nobody knows who I am.
“But on the Dean show I’m given a free rein and I’ve been able to use one of my favorite expressions . . . ’You really know how to hurt a guy’ ... so often that Jimmy's audience knows when it’s going to be a punch line and laughs before I deliver it. When they can identify you by a phrase or an expression they don’t forget your name.”
Loves Glick Character

As far as his own series goes, Don has been offered many of them but he loves the character of Inspector Glick and he's quite pleased at the way things are working out with Bill Dana.
“I go back a long way with Bill Dana,” said Adams. “I think I had one routine and a lot of ambition when I first met him. He liked me and wrote most of the material I used in my act.
“Now, on his program, I know I’m working with an ace comedy writer, I’ve done a lot of writing myself, Sheldon Leonard knows comedy, most of our directors are experts and this means that even a weak script can be sharpened before we film it. I like those odds.”
Adams’ three best routines are the locker room pep talk (“A good shortstop and a good second baseman go hand in hand, men. But not off the diamond.”), the hilarious re-creation of the confrontation scene from the old "Thin Man” movies where the hero locks the suspects in one room and solves the crime, and his courtroom bit where the defense attorney tries to win the case for his very guilty client. The latter routine has been incorporated into an upcoming “Bill Dana Show” episode.
Why He Became Comedian
Don became a comedian be cause he didn’t think he had the physical attributes necessary for success as a straight actor. Now that he’s made the complete circle and is an actor he’s turning down as many nightclub jobs as possible.
“I've spent a lot of years in clubs and I want out,” he said. “I don’t mind doing an occasional one-nighter, but I'd like to try my hand at directing — which I hope to do this season—and continue as a comedy character actor.”
Just before the interview ended Don confided to us that if he ever left show business he could easily make a living by betting at the racetrack since he’s one of the finest handicappers in the world. We didn't argue with him at the time, but the following Saturday at Aqueduct we wandered around the clubhouse until we found a dejected Inspector Glick staring mournfully at a pile of losing tickets.
We then asked him if this was how he was going to earn his bread and he looked us right in the eye and said, “You really know how to hurt a guy, don’t you?”

Now Warming Up

“Uh, oh, it looks like they’re going to warm up the new pitcher,” says narrator John Wald in Tex Avery’s Batty Baseball.



And they do. Scott Bradley plays “Running Wild” in the background.



Avery and his gag writer(s) kept this scene short. There’s no wolfie-like reaction (Red Hot Riding Hood) from the pitcher, which would have made it funnier. Ed Love, Preston Blair and Ray Abrams are the credited animators.

Woody and the Wolf

Consecutive frames from a fight scene in Who's Cookin Who, directed by Shamus Culhane. Woody Woodpecker was into eating wolves in a few of his cartoons of the mid-‘40s.



Les Kline and Grim Natwick are the only credited animators. Will Wright plays the wolf.

Bugs Bunny Wins Over JFK

I’m not a fan of web site databases and encyclopaedia where anyone can go on and write whatever they want, such as Walt Disney being born on the planet Wtsrpphg (incidentally, he wasn’t). I’ve yowped in anger at some of the misinformation in animation entries.

One of the readers on my neglected Twitter feed is named IBCF. A tweet came through from that account quoting a Wikipedia entry regarding John Daly, the former CBS news correspondent best known for hosting What’s My Line? who was also the news vice-president and main anchor at ABC. I was stunned at the Wikiquote, which is:

Daly resigned from ABC on November 16, 1960[14] after the network preempted the first hour of 1960 presidential election night coverage to show Bugs Bunny cartoons and The Rifleman from 7:30 to 8:30 pm while CBS and NBC were covering returns from the Kennedy–Nixon presidential election and other major races.

I’ve read a fair chunk on Daly, and I’ve read contemporary reports of his departure from what they used to call “the third network.” All the news stories I’ve read gave the same reason for his resignation. The footnote 14 above refers to a New York Times article of the following day. Allow me to quote it:

Mr. Daly’s resignation was submitted on Monday night after he learned that Mr. Goldenson [the head of the network] had hired Time, Inc., to become co-producer of four one-hour documentary programs for the “Close-up” series sponsored by the Bell & Howell camera company. Heretofore the series had been produced exclusively by Mr. Daly and his staff. Mr. Daly said Mr. Goldenson had violated the “traditional policy” that all news and public affairs programs be prepared entirely by the network and not by outsiders.

Nary a word about Bugs Bunny. (Incidentally “Monday night” was the 14th, not the 16th). Obviously, another made up entry by somebody on Wikipedia, right?

Not so fast.

I leafed through copies of a number of the New York newspapers immediately after the vote on November 8th to see what they wrote about ABC’s coverage. Surely news columnists would wag their finger and chastise a network if it postponed coverage of the story of the year for Yosemite Sam getting blown up on a ship. Remarkably (at least to me), at first glance there was nothing about cartoons. The columnists were falling all over themselves discussing the computers each network used to tabulate the votes. UPI declared ABC had the best screen arrangement for charts.

But there was one columnist who noted something else. Barbara Delatiner of Newsday mentioned on November 10th that Bugs had been on the air at 7:30 p.m. instead of Daly, reporter Don Goddard and tabulator Univac (perhaps it would have been appropriate, given the situation, to have employed Uniblab from The Jetsons, but I digress).

As it turns out, keeping Bugs and Chuck Connors on the schedule was not a last-minute decision. Newspaper TV listings in New York and Chicago for November 8th show ABC cutting away from its coverage of the vote to run the cartoon show, and editors would have needed time to get that information in print. And WABC-TV in New York even bought an ad in the Times promoting The Rifleman.



What of John Daly? Buried in the 11th paragraph of an Associated Press story of November 17th, was a reference to Daly’s annoyance about something other than outside producers infringing on his territory. The Wall Street Journal of the same date wrote its own story and included a quote.

Mr. Daly indicated there were other reasons for his resignation. He said he was unhappy about one aspect of ABC’s election night coverage. He opposed the network’s showing a “Bugs Bunny” film and “Rifleman” between 7:30 and 8:30 EST election night, thereby breaking into the election news, which had begun at 7 that night. “If you begin the coverage, you don’t leave it,” Mr. Daly said.

So, to sum up, is Wikipedia correct? Did veteran and respected newsman John Daly quit a cushy TV network anchor job because of Bugs Bunny? The answer—partly.

Bugs and his sponsors weren’t strong enough to keep him on the air on the West Coast (in Los Angeles, KABC coverage cut away at 4:30 for American Bandstand and Rin Tin Tin), but there was at least one other cartoon show that didn’t get the boot in favour of Kennedy and Nixon (or Huntley and Brinkley). Independent station KTTV in Los Angeles continued with its regular evening programming, meaning anyone not interested in Don Goddard and Univac could switch channels and watch a full half hour of The Huckleberry Hound Show. As Huck might say “Right smart little programming move there.”

Naps and Trains and Jack Benny

Train stations were the bane of Jack Benny’s existence, at least on the radio. He ran into abusive ticket sellers, blubbering cab drivers, announcers calling for passengers on trains on track five that no one wanted to ride and, occasionally, a tout giving him a tip on a magazine or a candy bar. In real life, Jack liked trains, and not just because of all the comedy inspiration they gave his writers.

Here’s a short newspaper story, from an unidentified syndicate, dated February 18, 1969. In a way, it’s sad. Jack talks about regular medical check-ups. Despite that, doctors didn’t detect his cancer until it was too late.

At 74, Jack Benny Is a Master At Using 'Visual Vocabulary'
By FRANK LANGLEY
NEW YORK—“Why don’t you go inside and take a nap,” the young man said with the paternal air of a doting father. He was answered with a glare of utter disdain, perhaps the most famous facial expression in America.
When Jack Benny glares at you, he is using a visual vocabulary that may be saying, “You must be out of your mind.” Or, “Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing you ever heard?”
In this case, the glare he gave his young agent seemed to say, “Who do you think you’re talking to, a seven-year-old?”
The agent was well aware that he was talking in seven year-old terms to a 74 year-old man. He also knew that despite the glare, his client would retire for a short nap, in the manner of a seven-year-old.
If you watched Jack Benny on his Birthday Special last night you, like everyone else in the audience could easily be convinced that 60 would be a closer age approximation for Jack. It’s no trick of make up.
Jack has a fine baby-like skin that is almost free of lines. His eyes, like his brain, are alert.
Jack keeps a vigorous schedule that he is able to maintain by both taking good care of himself and taking good advice.
“I’m on a very busy schedule right now,” he said. The comedian was in New York for a hectic three days of interviews, business meetings and theater parties. “But I’m well rested and I feel fine. Want to know how I rested myself? I took the train from California instead of flying.
“Of course, not everyone can take a train. Imagine Bob Hope, for instance. The only thing that could get him on a train would be if there were 800 soldiers on board. He'd do a show from coast-to-coast.”
Jack paused, his gaze drifting to the ceiling for a moment. “You know,” he said, “I was just thinking about Bob and our health and how some of us can take care of ourselves and some of us just have to keep going and going. Bob takes good care of himself when he can, but he moves around so much that that has been seldom.
“I talked to him a few days ago and I told him he is crazy if he goes right back to work after having so much trouble with his eyes. Who needs it? Why kill himself?”
The world’s oldest, or perhaps youngest, seven-year-old then leaped forward, crooked a famous finger, palm up, and said, “Anyone can live to a ripe and happy old age if he just gets regular examinations, takes care of and paces himself.”
Then he sat back and stared his famous stare of futile wonderment, saying, “Isn’t it stupid, that so few of us do?”

The (Cartoon) Sky is Falling!

On July 23, 1962, after being on an unpaid leave of absence for several weeks, Chuck Jones signed an agreement ending his career at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio.

If you were wondering where Jones was part of that time, wonder no longer.

Jones took a trip all the way across the country to Cape Cod. Who Jones knew there, if anyone, I don’t know. But I do know he somehow ended up being interviewed by the Boston Globe.

Jones may have been the most quoted director in Warner Bros. cartoon history. He wrote two books, a third was published featuring conversations with him and he was interviewed (quite willingly) by animation historians when that particular breed started surfacing in the late 1960s. Jones also outlived all the other major Warners directors, passing away in 2002.

This Globe piece may be the earliest one-on-one interview he gave. It was published July 14, 1962. The reference to Tom and Jerry is interesting in light of his being hired in August 1963 to direct new Tom and Jerry cartoons for MGM release. The last sentence of the story no doubt is one of Jones’ philosophical musings which the writer didn’t have the space or inclination to examine further. Jones, however, completely misses the reason for the demise of the theatrical cartoon, one Walter Lantz had been pointing out since the 1940s—money. Producers didn’t get make a profit on any cartoons for several years because theatres didn’t make any money showing them, and didn’t need to show them anyway.

Bugs Bunny’s Grandpa Fears Cartoons’ Death
By FRANK FALACCI
Even the faint possibility that quality cartoons might be faced with oblivion leaves you pale and shaking, as if you heard that someone was going to tear down the flag and step on it.
Cartoons are a part of America, like crackerjacks, ball games, home and family. Bugs Bunny is Uncle Sam’s nephew and the Roadrunner and Coyotte [sic] are like the neighbors. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are like . . . well if they go it’s like burying real people.
For Charles M. (Chuck) Jones, vacationing in Cotuit, it would be especially painful. He’s the creator of such characters as Pepe Le Pew, the romantic skunk; Roadrunner and the Coyote and has developed familiar fellows like Bugs Bunny, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam and Porky Pig. Bugs, by the way, is 24 years old. It was Jones who ventured the idea that the classic cartoons as we know them now may someday disappear. He is concerned with the current vacuum of new cartoonists.

“There are no good, young animators getting into the business,” Jones said. “I doubt if there are a hundred animators in the country today.
“When Walt Disney first started, there were dozens of young cartoonists, me included, eager to start off too. Of course Disney was the first to succeed and then, one by one we followed along to our varying degrees of success.
“But what happens when there is no longer any Disney nor the other animators who came along with him if there is no new blood to replace them?
“Tom and Jerry are already gone. Who can forget the hit and go of Tom the Cat and Jerry the Mouse?”
Here Jones introduced a second threat to theater cartoons—television. It seems the creators of Tom and Jerry and other first-class animators have decided to forsake the painstaking art of animated cartoons for the easier, simpler Tv funnies.
For instance, by taking short cuts you can turn out 150 times more TV cartoon work than you can the theater type, where there is more depth, more motion, expression and far more action.
Of course, TV Networks also show many re-runs of the dated animated theater cartoons. The better known TV-born characters include the Flintstones, Quick Draw McGraw, Deputy Dawg, Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Mr. Peabody.
“I hope,” Jones added, “that as television matures it will create a bigger demand for the theater animated cartoon. Once it does, I’m sure there will be numerous young fellows jumping into the field.”
Jones jumped into the profession 30 years ago with Warner Bros. as an in-betweener (the beginner who draws in between movements of cartoons characters while the chief cartoonist draws the main action).
He later became a top-flight animator and today produces, writes and directs his own cartoons. His wife, Dorothy, helps in the writing department.
Ten of Chuck’s cartoons have been nominated for Academy Awards, and he has won two Oscars. He worked with Friz Freleng in developing Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck and others. He is presently doing a full-length feature, “Gay Purr-ee,” about French cats.
When we left, Bugs Bunny wasn’t a rabbit, he was a little boy who likes carrots!