Rescuing Paper Lanterns

“A very nice colored cartoon. Different.” Thus spake C.L. Niles of the Niles Theatre in Anamosa, Iowa about a new animated short from the Van Beuren studio.

He was referring to Japanese Lanterns, a 1935 effort that was part of the Rainbow Parade series for release by RKO. It was co-directed by Burt Gillett and Ted Eshbaugh. In essence, it was Gillett trying to imitate Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies.

Like a Disney cartoon, this one has innocent young characters, a comic relief animal, a terrible threat, a happy rescue, and chuckles at the end. Oh, and an original song. It has its charms and I image the colours, even in red/blue Cinecolor, looked very good on the big screen when the cartoon was first released. Winston Sharples’ score is also good.

Film Daily reported on October 3, 1934: “To insure accuracy and add a touch of Oriental splendor, a special staff of Japanese artists has been engaged to work on ‘Japanese Lanterns,’ an original creation and newest Burt Gillett Rainbow Parade all color cartoon new in work at the Van Beuren Studio.”

Van Beuren had a good coterie of young animators in the brief Gillett era, including Carlo Vinci, Jack Zander and Bill Littlejohn, and some of the animation in this short is likeable (and impressive for Van Beuren, considering what the studio was making even three years earlier). Among the scenes I like is one toward the end of the cartoon where the comic relief stork rescues a boy and girl from a windstorm and then gathers up the Japanese lanterns that have been blown away.



The stork has exasperation sweat as it looks at a small lantern.



The stork then makes a turn toward the camera and we get a point-of-view-like shot of the stork heading toward a little twirling lantern. He gives the audience a knowing smile in the process.



Leafing through the trades, Japanese Lanterns got favourable reviews. In just about 12 months, the Van Beuren studio would be dead, thanks to RKO signing a deal with Walt Disney.

I imagine most readers of this blog (at least those who come here for animation posts) are also readers of Jerry Beck’s animation blog “Cartoon Research” and know that Steve Stanchfield and his crew are restoring the Rainbow Parades for home release, including this one which Steve posted. It’s not the best series of cartoons, but it’s good to see it’s getting some attention.

Can You Guess This Pun?

Even if you aren’t a fan of Tex Avery’s Symphony in Slang (1951), you can guess the meaning of this visualised pun.



Tom Oreb designed this limited animation, modern-looking (for 1951) short, written by Rich Hogan.

Hail to The Chief

Ed Platt will always be known as The Chief on Get Smart, for a time one of the most brilliantly written shows of the 1960s, and one that benefited from great casting and chemistry.

Get Smart debuted in the 1965-66 season and was the top TV show of the year on Saturday nights, ranked 12th overall. Platt was vaulted into the spotlight. There were downsides; one newspaper article reveals how “funny” fans would bash into him on the street and say “Sorry about that Chief.” On the other hand, the same story revealed he would be catered to in restaurants, with staff respectfully calling him “Chief.” After all, he was ensuring America’s freedom by helping the government secretly thwart those baddies from KAOS.

Here are a couple of other newspaper stories about Platt from the show’s second season. The first is from February 1, 1967 and talks a bit about how he won the role.

Never A Star
By Erskine Johnson
Of TV Scout
HOLLYWOOD (NEA) — After 27 years as an actor, after 50 movies and 150 television shows, Ed Platt finally has a name.
The name is Ed Platt.
"I was one of those actors people recognized." he grins, "but when they asked me for my autograph I always caught them sneaking a quick peek at mv signature because they didn't really know my name."
As everyone knows by now, deep-voiced, 51-year-old Ed Platt plays the long-suffering Chief of CONTROL, boss of Don Adams, on NRG-TV's hit comedy series Get Smart.
Ed may suffer in the role, but:
"Really, I'm a fat cat. Every character actor in town envies me and it takes me half an hour every day to count my blessings."
Until Get Smart went on the air, Ed's acting world ranged from western heavies to liveable old fathers, from loveable doctors to fiery district attorneys and stern judges. He was always acting but he was never a star.
Winning a name via Get Smart he admits "is great for the ego but I'm even more delighted about the comedy facets to the role. I had never played comedy before. It's a crazy business but delightful.
"I guess my children are the happiest about Get Smart. There are three of them — 11, 10 and 8 — who until recently found it difficult explaining to young friends about their daddy's job. Now they just say he's the Chief on Get Smart and as the 11-year-old said to me recently,
" 'Dad, we're famous.' "
How Ed won the role of chief reflects Ed's own words about the crazy business he's in. He was called in to play a test scene with Don Adams just two days before filming of the series began. Before doing the test, he commented to his agent, "It can't be much of a role otherwise they would have cast it weeks ago.' "
When he later mentioned this to his friend, Howard Morris, who directed the pilot, Morris laughed and said:
"You don't know the whole story, Ed. We've been testing actors for this part for six weeks. I believe you were the 86th."
The combination of creator Buck Henry, producer Leonard Stern and Don Adams is the reason for the show's big success, Ed believes. "Henry and Stern are perfectionists and Don really surprised me. He's unerring in his judgment about what will be funny to other people and it's all because of his long career as a night club comedian."
Early in his career Staten Island-born Ed sang for two years with Paul Whiteman's band, then moved into acting via New York radio dramas and such Broadway shows as "The Shrike" and "Stalag 17."

This unbylined syndicated story showed up in papers starting July 21, 1967. This version was found in the Argus of Fremont, California, and talks about an actor dealing with fame and social responsibility. The photo accompanied the article in a number of papers.

Ed Platt—A Profile Learn To Live With Fame
Special to The Argus
HOLLYWOOD—Fame makes many changes in a man's life.
"For one thing my children now know what I do for a living," said Ed Platt.
The actor has become famous as The Chief on the spy-spoofing series, "Get Smart," starting its third successful year this coming fall on NBC Saturdays.
"NOW, WHEN I go anywhere, like New York, everything I do is watched and noticed," said Platt. "With fame, you give up a certain amount of privacy. You're well compensated for this, or course, but you'd still like to have a certain amount of anonymity. I would miss it, though, if people didn't pay attention."
Platt has become aware of the potential power that has suddenly been thrust upon him.
"I HAVE STRONG opinions on various matters, including the way to run the world," he said. "Three or four years ago people would have asked. 'Who is Ed Platt?' Now, I am asked for all kinds of opinions. I find it wrong to give opinions on subjects on which one is not qualified. In this position one's influence is too great. It's a terrible thing to have your own personal opinions accepted and tested on a large scale."

Platt is particularly conscious of this when he is asked to address youngsters.
"I HAVE BEEN asked to talk to 500 youngsters," he said. "Suddenly a strange set of events and circumstances is much public attention making me, Ed Platt, important enough to talk to them about their future career. I will just say 'platitudes' to them, and that's not a pun."
He gave an example.
“I usually tell them first thing, ‘If you depend on the word of an actor you’re in a lot of trouble.’ Naturally, I am flattered to be asked for advice, but I hope I will not be influential beyond advising them ‘to thine own self be true.’ This seems like a platitude, but when you think about it and when you’ve experienced it, it is really profoundly true.”
Platt has become more introspective as a result of so much public attention.
"It still seems indecent to me to be interviewed for hours by highly intelligent people and talk about myself all that time," he said. "Usually we go through life with our own private hells and heavens, but when you have to dredge your life and make it interesting to others you be come more introspective, you try to find out what you and your life are all about."
Platt has found the experience valuable.
"I am thrilled to have achieved this fame of sorts and this chance at greater introspection," he said. "I've tried to use this experience to help me build some of the qualities that should have been built within oneself early in life. As I build them in myself, I will build them hopefully, too, in my children. It gives you such a personal glow," he said.
Platt has seen some evidence of this and he is pleased.
"The other day my daughter wrote a 'Grace.' I was surprised to discover that her feelings went so deep."

The show eventually became stale and petered out at the end of the 1969-70 season after a change in networks. Platt didn’t have much time to enjoy any residuals from reruns. He died in 1974.

The Ward on Christmas

Happy children joyously greet the gifts they’re receiving from Santa.



No, it’s Santa stealing the gifts!



Where have I heard that voice before?



Santa and his elves divide up the haul. The elves aren’t happy.



Nothing says “Ho! Ho! Ho!” better than Rocky and Bullwinkle, still one of the funniest series ever put on television.

Producer Jay Ward was probably even more irreverent off the screen than his cartoons were on it. He celebrated the Christmas season with a gag. Here’s one recorded for posterity by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune of December 20, 1961. Come to think of it, Rocky’s bankroller, General Mills, is based in Minneapolis.

Passing Fancy
By Will Jones
The mailings from Jay Ward Productions, producers of "The Bullwinkle Show," continue to be funnier than the show itself.
This week's mail brought an Office Christmas Party Kit, including a paper wassail cup to be cut out and assembled, a paper Santa hat with ersatz mistletoe instead of a fuzzy ball on top, do-it-yourself confetti ("Cut along dotted lines, then toss gaily in air!"), some tiny gift-wrap paper ("for small expensive gift to secret love"), a cut-out Santa beard, and an official office-party roadblock pass that reads as follows (written in a drunken scrawl):
Roadblock Pass
To the Officer in Charge:
The bearer of this card is a personal friend of the Mayor, and you will be back walking a beat if you give him trouble!
Jay Ward
Footnote instructions for use of the pass include these: 1. If detained at police roadblock, present pass with driver's license & $5.00. 2. Do not offer officer a drink or refer to him as "dirty flatfoot."

The incorrect-aspect ratio frames in this post come from the Riki-Tiki adventure, where Boris plots to make the tropical island the new North Pole. This is the one where Bill Conrad takes over as the voice of Sam the Native halfway through it. Someone has posted part of it on-line and you can watch a good hour’s worth of Rocky and Bullwinkle below. It’s the kind of Christmas gift Boris Badenov would never give you.

Bedtime For Sniffles

Sniffles tries to stay awake to meet Santa Claus in Chuck Jones’ non-Grinch Christmas opus Bedtime for Sniffles. Alas, he fails.



Sniffles tries to read a magazine. It hints of sleep (the camera goes out of focus to show Sniffles is nodding off). He looks over the magazine and sees his bed in the distance.



He sees the bed in the mirror.



He sees the bed reflected on the wall.



He sees the bed while looking through a transparent wash basin. Wait! Why is there a Sniffles in the bed?



Oh, it’s a spirit Sniffles enticing him to bed. Jones has the camera pan back and forth from the imaginary Sniffles to the real one, whose resistance wears down and he finally, in an almost airborne walk sequence, floats into bed.



Jones interrupts this whimsy and sentiment with humour by having the spirit Sniffles suddenly blow out the candle.



Here comes Santa, Sniffles. You just missed him. The usual-late 1930s male chorus heard in Warners cartoons sings “Joy to the World” in the background.



Rich Hogan got the story credit, Bobe Cannon the animation credit (Phil Monroe worked on this cartoon as well, and I suspect Ken Harris did, too. Did Bob McKimson do the close-ups?). I’m pretty certain Paul Julian provided the excellent background art.

I really don’t like Sniffles but you can’t help but be touched a bit by this cartoon, especially during the Yuletide season.

Christmas Cards With the Stars

You’re an entertainment reporter. What do you do around the Christmas holidays when there generally isn’t a lot of show biz news or gossip? You fall on old, annual stand-bys.

Columnists filled space every year with stories about what the stars were buying for Christmas, what the stars bought for Christmas, where the stars were going for Christmas, where the stars weren’t going for Christmas, that sort of thing. Publicists were prepared as it seems columnists somehow all discovered the same information.

Here are two columns from 55 years ago dealing with another of the December perennial subjects—what cards are the stars sending this Yuletide season? The first is from the Associated Press, published on Christmas Day 1963, the other next is from United Press International, which appeared in papers two days before.

TV Handles Christmas Reverently
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
AP Television-Radio Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — A few years ago Christmas was considered by many an occasion for funny cards. Now it once again is being handled reverently.
Typical of cards sent this year by television performers are those from the David Janssens, the Robert Goulets (Carol Lawrence) and the Merv Griffins: color reproductions of art classics by Rembrandt, Filippino Lippi and Botticelli.
Loretta Young’s card shows the Wise Men and the star with a tree, like one of the twisted pines of the Pacific Coast, in the foreground. The Perry Comos’ is a reproduction of a modern painting of Madonna and Child. Alice and George Gobel’s handsome card depicts the Wise Men bearing gifts for the Mother and Child.
Some, like Bea Benaderet and Robert Merrill, suggest their occupations in light-hearted cards. Bea’s is the shape of a little red locomotive—a piece of machinery which is a real character in her “Petticoat Junction” comedy series. Singer Merrill’s announces a Christmas concert by ‘‘one of the leading singing groups in the country today” — himself, his wife, their two children and dog—all shown in silhouette.
Joan Crawford, as usual, took time to write a personal letter of greetings.

Finnigan's Hollywood
By JOSEPH FINNIGAN
HOLLYWOOD (UPI) — Movie and television stars sent out Christmas cards this year just like the rest of you folks, spelling out the holiday spirit in a religious or festive vein.
Pianist Liberace is winner again in the color derby. His card this year shows him posing in a gold jacket backed up with a lace shirt, black tie, gold buttons and two sparkling rings. He's standing next to a pair of Christmas trees.
Rock Hudson's card was red and gold with raised letters that spell out "Merry Christmas."
Edie Adams Kovacs sent a photograph of herself and her three children.
Ronnie Reagan's red and gold card shows a Christmas tree on the front.
Small Cutouts
Bea Benaderet mailed small cutouts of a red and white railroad engine, the background of her "Petticoat Junction" series.
The Carol and Dwane Hickman greeting showed a drawing of three kings playing homage to the Christ child in a crib under a palm tree, a star shining overhead.

Lawrence Welk's card shows the maestro standing with Santa Claus in front of a stage. The card converts to a calendar which perpetuates the greeting all during 1964.
Robert Taylor, an avid out-doorsman, sent out a winter scene showing two deer beside a pond.
Donna Reed mailed her season's greetings in several languages. The card's face features a modernistic painting of a shepherd. It's dedicated to the United Nations Children's Fund.
Paul Burke mailed a gold and blue card which simply says: "Season's Greetings."
Santa Plays Fiddle
Musician Roger Williams sent his best wishes on a card which shows Santa Claus playing a fiddle. Santa's beard provides the fiddle strings.
Steve McQueen's greeting depicted the Christ Child and Mary His mother. It's a modern painting printed in Spain.
Loretta Young's card shows Joseph leading a donkey carrying Mary and the infant Jesus.
Steve Forrest featured a bird sitting on a limb. "A partridge in a pear tree," the card says.
Elvis Presley, and his manager, Col. Tom Paker, sent out one of the most beautiful cards. It shows Mary, the Christ Child and a host of angels. Inger Stevens sent a drawing by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo of the Holy Family.
London City Scene
Alice and George Gobel's shows the three kings riding camels and carrying gifts of homage.
Eve Arden's greeting came from London where she is currently living. It shows a London city scene, double-decker bus and colorfully garbed English guardsmen. David Janssen sent a beautiful gold card on the face of which is detail painting of two children. It's entitled "Heads of Angels" and was done by Filippino Lippi.
Dan Duryea's greeting is in a comical vein. It shows a beardless Santa Claus bouncing off the edge of a chimney. He missed the entrance.
Raymond Burr notified his friends that a contribution in their name has been sent to CARE to help needy people overseas.

Generous Jack

When you think of the generosity of Christmas-time, you naturally think of a guy who locked all his money in a steel box underground, guarded by an old man and alligators in a moat.

Mind you, the guy was really two guys. There was Jack Benny, the radio and TV character who wouldn’t spend a dime if he could avoid it, and Jack Benny, the real life radio and TV star who was a pleasant and giving man.

Syndicated columnist Margaret McManus chatted with Jack and her column was published just days before Christmas 1960. The column has nothing to do with Christmas. McManus simply used the season of giving as a jumping off point, kind of like I’ve just done, talking about a variety of things, including money, comedy’s new talents and his work on television.

Jack Benny, Gentle Man Of Kind, Generous Spirit
By MARGARET McMANUS
NEW YORK—The week before Christmas is the right time of year for a visit with Jack Benny. He is a kind man, and a gentle man, no matter whether you spell this as one word, or two.
He has had success beyond most men's dreams; he has had troubles, as do all men. From his vantage point at the top of the ladder, he has had a good look at the panorama of human weaknesses and human glory in the worldly battle, yet he has not lost his instinctive generosity of spirit and good will.
Jack Benny, who has made millions of dollars on his reputation as a penny-pinching skinflint, will actually not even discuss the subject of money, with either sponsors or networks.
As a matter of fact, he is almost the only one of the top echelon CBS television stars who, in the final stages of contract negotiations, does not sit down with the lawyers and accountants and agents, and participate, at least in some degree, in the final bickerings.
Says He's Terrible Businessman
"I will not get into the money business," said Benny. "I never have and I never will. In the first place, I'd louse it up. I'm a terrible businessman. I have enough trouble with the jokes, without getting into the other side."
However, there are stars who seem to enjoy the battle of the dollar. It is rumored, for instance, that Jackie Gleason is an artist in this aspect of his business. And a prominent newscaster once said to me:
“I don't want an agent to negotiate for me. There's nothing I like better than sitting down with those guys and getting an extra buck out of them.”
Jack Benny dislikes the very mention of negotiations.
"I hate business," he said. “I don’t understand it. If you don't swim, you stay out of the water."
His Timing Slow and Easy
The comedian was in his suite at the Sherry Netherlands here. It was close to noon on this blustery winter's day and he was about to walk to the Lambs Club for lunch. But he seemed in no hurry. Although he is always in constant motion, he never appears frantic or breathless or pushed for time. In action, as in speech, his timing is slow and easy.
Perhaps this perspective, this sense of balance and timing, is somewhat responsible for the security which contributes to Benny's generosity of spirit. A frightened man is wary and suspicious. He dare not help a possible competitor.
Jack Benny not only laughs out loud and in public at other comedians. He praises them in print and helps them in many practical ways. Over and again, he has said he thinks Joey Bishop is the brightest of the newer-comers and Bishop, in turn, says nobody has helped him more in his career than Benny.
Benny is also a fan of Bob Newhart and of Nichols and May.
“If you can use the word ‘genius’ to apply to a performer, I think Nichols and May are geniuses," he said. “I’ve been to the theater three times since I’ve been in New York, twice to see Nichols and May. What a future they have.”
Happy With New Schedule
Now on regularly every week, 9:30 P.M. Sundays, CBS-TV, Benny said he is satisfied and happy with his new schedule.
"Nobody likes to work as much as I do,” he said. “I guess Bob Hope and I are the most complete hams of all time. Of course, I believe it's better to be on every week. If sometimes you have to do a fair show instead of a great show it's still better to be on every week. It cements the watching habit."
Benny said he could never dream of retiring, not even when he's 40, not even to have the time to spend playing his violin all day, every day. Anyway, he couldn’t afford it.
"Mary and I spend too much money,” he said. “We go overboard. If I retired, I’m sure we couldn't live on the scale we do now. I don't know which is worse, spending too much money, or spending too little. Of the two evils, I guess I'd rather spend too much."
On[e] Hour Special in February
He may as well keep on spending because obviously he is going to keep on working. Besides his weekly Sunday show, Benny will star as the host of a one-hour special on Thursday, February 9, NBC-TV.
It is a musical variety program called “Remember How Great,” highlighting the all-time popular hit songs of the past few decades and featuring Juliet Prowse, Connie Francis, Andy Williams, and Harry James. The sponsor is the American Tobacco Company which was Benny's sponsor for so many years on the radio.
“I really didn't want to do this one,” he said. “It’s a lot to take on with the weekly show, but I couldn’t refuse my old sponsor. It’s the first time in all these years they ever asked me for a favor. Not that they aren’t paying me a lot of money, but it’s still a favor and I couldn’t say no to them.” Saying yes comes easier to the generous than saying no.

The First Christmas Cartoon

What was the first animated Christmas cartoon? I’m not an expert on the subject, so about the best I can do is guess.

Selig released Doc Yak’s Christmas on December 26, 1913, in which he met up with Jolly Old St. Nick. It must have been a success for on Christmas Day the next year, the studio released Doc Yak and Santa Claus.

The Doc Yak series began on July 8, 1913 and petered out within a couple of years. The cartoons no longer exist. However, a publicity shot from the Santa Claus cartoon (right) was made available for publications, and I’ve spotted it in a couple of places.

Motography magazine of December 26, 1914 even reviewed the latter short. Doc Yak was generally a split reeler, that is it was on the same reel as another short. This time, though, it took up the full 1,000 feet of film.

Doc Yak and Santa Claus — Selig — December 25. — One of the most interesting, entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable Christmas offerings that the Selig Company has ever released, is this full reel cartoon comedy by Sidney Smith. Doc Yak, the famous cartoon creation of the illustrator is seen writing a letter to Santa Claus, and later receiving the gift which Santa Claus brings him. In addition to all of the humor and originality for which the Selig Doc Yak pictures are famous, a Christmas touch is given this one, by adding a realistic snow storm scene during the greater part of its length. All exhibitors will, undoubtedly, mark this release A-1 on their booking sheets. N.G.C.

The Motion Picture News of the same date liked the cartoon, too.

"Doc Yak and Santa Claus." (Selig. Fri., December 25). — Sidney Smith, the Chicago Tribune's cartoonist, devotes a whole reel to the ridiculously funny escapades of Doc Yak and Santa Claus. Doc has an interesting scrap with Jack-in-the-Box which Santa and his reindeer have brought him by the approved chimney route. Very clever and exceptionally well done.

The Chicago Tribune’s Kitty Kelly also reviewed it in her December 24, 1914 Filmland column.

“DOC YAK AND SANTA CLAUS.”
Selig.
Doc Yak .... Himself
Santa Claus ... Himself
The Fairy ... Herself

For holiday amusement Sydney Smith and the Selig people have prepared a whole reel full of funny Doc Yakisms, appropriate to the occasion. There is Doc Yak, himself, having a fairy and a Santa Claus and a regular Christmas of the most exciting kind, and there is Santa Claus himself, and the cute little house he lives in and the shop where he keeps his supplies and his flying team of fleet reindeers, and there is likewise a fairy that appears and disappears and an animated jack-in-the-box and other Christmasy things galore.
Snow has been cleverly devised to descend and there is a charming silhouette reindeer effect in addition to the mirth-provoking facial agility of Doc Yak and his associates. There is the requisite “punch” that acts Doc Yak into the midst of a dramatic climax.
It is altogether a very fascinating thing, and funny as only an animated cartoon—one of the funniest things there is—and a Sydney Smith cartoon—one of the other funniest things there is—in conjunction—which means a double degree of funniness—could be.

Since we can’t link to non-existent animated cartoons, instead we’ll post the Doc Yak comic that appeared in the Tribune at Christmastime in 1914 (December 20th). Also below are Everett Lowry’s Mr. Bones, Penny Ross’ Mamma’s Angel Child and Rudolph Dirks’ Hans and Fritz from the same paper.

Is There Snow Saving Jerry?

A snowstorm and the fact it’s the Yuletide season weighs on Tom’s conscience in The Night Before Christmas (1941). For the first time in the characters’ history (short as it was at this point), they show that, deep down, they care about each other. It adds depth to them.

Tom, you see, was smugly satisfied he tricked Jerry out of the house. But the sound of a snowy windstorm makes him concerned for the mouse’s fate. He gently allows a way for him to get back into the warm home. There’s a brilliant use of non-sound here. There’s a brief period of silence to emphasize the fact that nothing is happening; Jerry is not coming back inside. It signals something is wrong.



Tom investigates. He does a head-shake shock take. Jerry has become a mouse-cream bar. Look at how well Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera use colour. Scott Bradley plays a reedy version of “Silent Night” in the background.



Tom shakes the snow of Jerry and, like a rotisserie, warms him up. Check out the shading here. Again, a marvellous use of colour.



Of course, Jerry is going to be okay and the two become friends for Christmas.

This is a wonderfully expressive cartoon from start to finish. The watercoloured backgrounds are terrific. Quite rightfully, this short was nominated for an Oscar.