TV Animation, 1961

Theatrical animation in 1961? It was sputtering and wheezing. Television animation in 1961? That was a different story.

Remember this was before the big Saturday morning cartoon industry existed. That was a time period where old cartoons were dumped. TV animation meant syndication and when The Flintstones became a smash in 1960, studios tried to chow down on the prime-time pie. The prime-time animation fad was gone almost after it started as most new shows on the 1961 schedule were failures long before the season ended (but then provided already-produced fodder for Saturday mornings).

Daily Variety kept abreast of the animation industry several times a year. Here’s a story from May 3, 1961 which gives you an idea of the number of cartoons being made, as well as some dollar-figures.

BOOMING YANK ANIMATORS
1961 TOTAL RUNS TO $14,000,000
Hollywood, May 2.
Cartoon an animation biz is zooming. Never as much going on as now, according to Lawrence Kilty, biz rep for Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Union, IATSE local 839. Exec figures $14,000,000 being spent on overall pen sketches production this year. Compared to live action shorts, he realizes, this is puny.
“But there’s more cartoon and animated production going on now than ever before in our history.” Of estimated figure, Kilty sees $12,000,000 being spent on teevee films, as entertainment and commercials.

Format Films, one of the largest, if not most active animated producers, is spending $1,500,000 on its program. Snowball, Inc., with its 85 men working, estimates spending $1,500,000 million too. Hanna-Barbera, has five successful teevee series, and 12 “Loopy de Loop” theatrical shorts being made for Columbia, is going full blast with a staff of 150.
Day of pen-and-inker, whether b. & w. or color, is here. They (he and she) never had it so good. And Kilty insists no other country can do better producing cartoons. If producers think they can make cartoons or animations abroad cheaper and better, union head challenges anyone for proof.
Noted in volume of teevee shorts are 6 to 7 min. subjects, many of which are put together in groups of three for half hour shows. This is particularly true with “Popeye” subjects, “Beany and Cecil,” “Dick Tracy” and “Mr. Magoo.”
Most animations in work have been sold for teeveeing next season, according to studio heads. Pilots on several new series are either in work or fini, with outlook good, according to producers.
Activity and local cartoon and animation studios, including all phases of production, follows:
FORMAT
26 half hour tv “Alvin and the Chipmunks” in production; 26 half hour tv “The Shrimp” preparing; maximum 26, maximum of 32 “Calvin and the Colonel” half hours; “King Leonardo,” 34 half hours in work’ “Fractured Fairy-tales,” 32 6-min. subjects; 27 finished; 26 “Beetle Bailey” 7 ½ min. segs; 28 7 min. “Popeyes”; working on new series “Keemar, Invisible Boy” for tv, three pilots fini; half hour “Sir Loin and the Dragon,” half hour “Cat Tales,” and 7-min. “Shaggy Dog Tales.” In preparation, half dozen theatrical shorts and two features, “Icarus Montgolfier Wright” and “The Illustrated Man” from Ray Bradbury.
HANNA-BARBERA
Five tv weekly shows in production: “Yogi Bear” (26), “Huckleberry Hound” (26), “Quick Draw McGraw” (26), “Flintstones” (30), “Top Cat” (30). Also making 12 “Loopy de Loop” for Columbia, along with feature “Yogi Bear.” Company shoots 4,500 animated feet weekly.
LAWRENCE HARMON
Preparing “Bozo the Clown.” Hopes to make half hour Laurel & Hardy tv cartoons, if copyrights can be cleared.
SNOWBALL
78 “Beany & Cecil” segs for ABC-TV half hour shows, 22 fine.
UPA
(United Productions of Am.)

For tv: “Dick Tracy” (130 5-min. segs), “Mr. Magoo” (104 5-min. segs), GE commercials of 7-10 mins or less. Finished ATT industrial, 18 mins, “Mr. Digit and the Battle of Babbling Brook.” Also producing 3 6-min theatrical shorts for own distribution system.
WALT DISNEY
Feature, “Sword and the Stones” [sic] in preparation, 2 shorts for Buena Vista. Also, 4 ATT series in next 18 months, each at $400,000. Additionally, working on NBC-TV weekly show, come Fall, to be known as “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color” with Pro. Ludvig Von Drake, Donald’s uncle, emceeing opening show. New characters to be introduced from time to time.
WALTER LANTZ
Plans tv and theatricals, 18 of the latter, and “Beary Family” tv series.
WARNER BROS.
20 theatrical shorts. Also “Bugs Bunny” teevee half hour show. No limited sked on latter.

To Smear or Not to Smear

Bobe Cannon’s smear animation pops up in a number of spots in To Duck or Not to Duck, a 1943 Warner Bros. cartoon starring Daffy Duck. But there’s also some graceful animation that you’d expect out of Cannon, too.



The best part of the cartoon is the side commentary from the dog who isn’t named Larrimore.

Tedd Pierce gets the story credit.

It's Never Too Late for Cubby!

In one frame, here’s why I like the Van Beuren cartoons.



In Love's Labor Won (1933), Cubby treats a wiener dog as a jumping rope and an accordion, dances with some sunflowers and then skips into his girl-friend’s house where a stuffed chair and a tiger rug happily sing the cartoon’s main theme as a parrot jumps around.

It’s like a Fleischer cartoon that’s not gagged or animated as well, but it’s still enjoyable. Gene Rodemich always fills the soundtrack with great music. Three fine contemporary songs are heard in this cartoon including “Get Yourself a Girl (and Fall in Love),” a 1932 tune by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel popularised by Eddie Cantor.

Margie Hines plays Cubby’s girl-friend and taps on some bullrushes like the NBC chimes. Cubby is played an unidentified singer.

Poor Cubby petered out as a star in 1934 as a changing of the guard put Burt Gillett in charge with marching orders to make the cartoons better.

Morgan's One-Week Failure

Not too many people can say their TV show was cancelled after one broadcast. Henry Morgan could.

Morgan was a caustic wit who didn’t put up with a lot of stupidity. Unfortunately broadcasting is sometimes loaded with stupidity and Morgan found himself bouncing around a lot before being plunked into the panel of the quiz show I’ve Got a Secret. Morgan had some brief TV ventures but none so brief as his job hosting “So You Think You Know Music.”

The show was the brainchild of Ted Cott, an executive with the Du Mont network before moving over the NBC TV. He created it on radio for CBS in 1939. Early network TV grabbed all kinds of ideas from radio and “So You Think You Know Music” was one of them. In 1951, Morgan had his troubles on the tube. His Great Talent Hunt, a sarcastic send-up of various amateur hours, was taken off the air. He was then given a format similar to his former network radio with satire and sketches. It was cancelled. Then he had to deal with being listed in Red Channels, the book that enumerated Communists in the media based on its author’s whims and guesses.

That being out of the way, Morgan was signed to host “So You Think You Know Music” on New York’s local NBC station. It debuted September 20, 1951. It was cancelled almost instantly and replaced the following week by an old Bruce Cabot movie.

The TV columnist of the Brooklyn Eagle mused amusingly on what must have happened to bring about its demise. And, yes, the Steve Krantz being “quoted” is the same one whose name you see on the 1967 Spider-Man TV cartoons and various features directed by Ralph Bakshi. At the time, he was a producer at WNBT, where he moved up to programme manager in May 1953. This story appeared on September 28, 1951

Bob Lanigan's TV Review
One week ago yesterday, at 10:30 p.m., a show called "So You Think You Know Music" was seen on WNBT for the first time.
I wasn't present when a group of NBC vice presidents filed out of the conference room after having decided that this show was "In." Nor was I lurking about the corridors, eavesdropping, when one of these vice presidents fell out of line and entered a door marked "Steve Krantz, Producer." Nevertheless, I imagine the following conversation ensued between the anonymous vice president and Producer Krantz:
Vice Pres.: Steve, the boys decided that you will produce our new show.
Krantz: (Innocently.) What boys?
Vice Pres.: (Angrily.) You know dam well what boys.
Five vice presidents and me—er, I mean I. That's WHAT boys!
Krantz: I was only clowning.
Vice Pres.: Well, save your comedy for NBC-TV's "Show of Shows" 9:30 p.m. Saturdays. No, that's Max Liebman's baby. Forget it. and try to concentrate on what I'm saying, will you, Steve?
Krantz: Sure, boss; shoot.
Vice Pres.: Steve, this show we want you to produce is different, and we think if you give it some of your deft touches, it will be dynamite.
Krantz: That's what you always say—and look what happens.
Vice Pres.: (Sternly) Watch that, Krantz! Now listen closely, Steve, and I'll give you the format. This is a panel quiz — all about music, and is designed to put music lovers on their mettle. There are a lot of them, you know.
Krantz: Mettles?
Vice Pres.: I'll ignore that. Now to go on. For a moderator we have Henry Morgan.
Krantz: What does Morgan know about music?
Vice Pres.: Nothing — he can't even carry a tune! We'll give him cards with all the answers. Steve, with your deft touches, and Henry Morgan, this show can't miss.
Krantz: What if Morgan misses the cards. He's very absent-minded, you know.
Vice Pres.: Stop worrying, and start thinking about a sponsor. We've got to put this show over with a bang.
(Slaps closed fist into open palm, indicating bang.)
Krantz: What about the panel?
Vice Pres.: So far, we've got Ezio Pinza's daughter, Emily, or some name like that. Then there's some Italian soprano who got off the boat yesterday. She doesn't speak much English but you've got to agree it adds an international flavor. Right?
Krantz: (Enthusiastically.) Sure! And I think we can get Skitch Henderson. He wasn't doing anything a little while ago when I saw him downstairs in the Cromwell Pharmacy ordering a malted milk with an egg. A fried egg.
Vice Pres.: Good boy! Now you're in the spirit of this thing, Steve. For a fourth member, we'll grab some George Spelvin out of the audience.
Krantz: Fine. But what about the questions on music?
Vice Pres.: (Laughing.) Steve, I got to hand it to you. You think of everything. Smart as you are, we beat you to it this time. (He motions Steve closer and whispers behind his hand.) The questions we dreamed up about music are all authentic, but so difficult no one but Toscanini will know the answers—and he'll be in bed.
Krantz: Yeah—but—
Vice Pres: If no one knows the answer?, no one can show their ignorance by criticizing the show. Get it?
Krantz: (Makes circle with thumb and forefinger of right hand, and winks.) Got it.
FINIS
Editor's Note: "So You Think You Know Music," starring Henry Morgan, and produced by Steve Krantz, was not repeated on WNBT at 10:30 p.m. last night.

Kaye Ballard

Kaye Ballard was loud. Kaye Ballard was animated. That helped make her hysterically funny.

Ballard’s best known for a TV show that was often neither hysterical nor funny. The Mothers-In-Law debuted in 1967 and basically relied on Ballard’s banter with Eve Arden to put it over. But she was around long before that.

We’ll honour her passing yesterday with a couple of old clippings. Here’s a guest column from June 11, 1954 where she talks about her career to that point.

Voice of Broadway
You know how it feels when you play a 20-to-1 shot and it comes in; when that long-awaited legacy arrives; when you meet the man-of-your-dreams. In one of my night club sketches, I do a girl who has inherited $47 million and all she can say is "Yeeoow." That's the way I really feel—YEEOOW!
For 10 years, I knocked hopefully on doors that are only now opening. Many times I thought I should never have left home—home being Cleveland, Ohio. Broadway seemed so far away and unobtainable. But now I can look back on those years and realize that they were just dress rehearsals for the big moment the night "The Golden Apple" opened at the Phoenix Theater on Second Avenue. And thanks to the faith of producers T. Edward Hambleton and Norris Houghton, composer Jerome Moross and lyricist John La Touche, I became a part of that great triumph when an off-Broadway show so captivated the critics and the audiences that it not only moved uptown to the Alvin Theater but won the Drama Critics' Award as the best musical of the season. And it's a wonderful sensation to know that the critics approved of my portrayal of an American type Helen of Troy, circa 1900, for it is a part I love in a musical I adore.
MY FRIENDS thought I was a bit mad to pin my hopes on an off-Broadway production with a limited engagement of only six weeks. They couldn't understand why I would want to give up a sizable weekly income from the night clubs for the off-Broadway pay of $100 per. But I wanted that part—and worked for it harder than I have ever worked in my life.
I suppose it would make the Cinderella legend complete if I could say that as soon as I auditioned for Helen, everyone shrieked "Hallelujah." On the contrary, the producers were looking for a more glamorous Helen and I knew one thing— I'm not the glamorous type. (I actually became a comedienne when I realized in high school my looks were never going to command attention so I might as well be funny and laugh it off.) However, if I couldn't be glamorous, I could surround myself with the glamour fur— mink. And at each of my subsequent auditions, I borrowed various mink gadgets from more affluent friends and paraded forth in either a mink coat, stole, cape or jacket. With all that mink I certainly didn't look as if I needed the job which I felt was smart psychology to use on not-completely-convinced producers. I'm sure they're still wondering who took back all that mink for there's been no sign of any since I got the part. But if they're patient, "The Golden Apple" will help me to buy one— and I'll gladly lend it to any young lady who needs it for that difficult audition.
THE AUDACITY of innocence is one of my favorite themes. The nerve of young people has always been a great source of wonder and delight to me. When I review my first years in show business, I can only be grateful that I started so young for I never could do now the things I did then. While still in West Technical High School, I started ushering at the Palace Theater in Cleveland and from watching the great acts there. I put together an act of my own— mostly stolen. Unfortunately, I was fired from my usherette job when the manager caught me escorting people down the aisle imitating Bette Davis, et al. He didn't know, and neither did I, that two years later I'd be back again—on stage.

Undaunted, I knocked on the door of a very genial agent named Dick Jackson, barged in, told him I was a comedienne and went into my borrowed act with no invitation. Dick, very gently, went to work coaching me, and put me into Chin's Chinese restaurant at a fat $40 a week. He kept me there until I learned to walk on and off stage and then sent me on vaudeville tour of the South. Incidentally, Dick, who has always been my guiding angel, came in from Cleveland to see "The Golden Apple" and I waited breathlessly for his comment. He said it all right—he hated the way I took my bows and promptly showed me how to do it properly.
Then bedlam came into my life. Spike Jones heard about me and told me to look him up in California if I ever wanted a job with his band. A year later, feeling I was getting nowhere fast, I bought a one-way plane ticket to Hollywood and prayed Spike would remember me. Fortunately he did and hired me as a comic tuba player with his band. I toured the country for a year and a half with Spike, playing every major vaudeville house in the U. S. I was quite a sight dressed in an ancient bathing suit, faking the mad sounds that came out of the tuba. But Spike also gave me a featured spot and my singing and comedy routines developed under his expert tutelage. Would I dare do anything like that now? Of course not—a million doubts would be in my mind before I invested all my savings on a wild goose chase because someone told me to look him up. But when you're young in heart, and an eager beaver, thank heavens, you blithely go ahead and take life as it presents itself without too much hesitation.
When the band played the Strand Theater in New York. I knew that this was my town and didn't want to leave it. All I needed was that wonderful man, John Murray Anderson, my first friend in the legitimate theater, to urge me to go out as a single— and I handed in my notice. With Murray to recommend me. The Blue Angel took a chance and my two-week engagement ran into 16. In fact, I parlayed that original stint into a record 66 weeks at the Blue Angel during the last few years.
AND IT was beloved Murray who started me off in the theater, putting me into the national company of "Three To Make Ready." Starring Ray Bolger, we toured the country for 10 months and I continued to learn. Many things I remember about Murray— his patience, his nicknames, his know-how, and, above all, his great sense of humor. It was a sad thing on the opening night of "The Golden Apple" to know that he wouldn't be coming back to my dressing room after the performance to shout, in that inimitable way of his, "Kimmer, you never should have left those cowbells," which is what he always said when he was particularly proud of something I had done. As a matter of fact, I was dressing to go to Murray's funeral when the producers called me for a third "Golden Apple" audition. I hesitated a minute, realized Murray would say "Kimmer, don't you dare come to my funeral when you have a chance to get a job," grabbed a mink coat that had the name "Rose Tobias" in the lining and rushed to the Phoenix. And now through this wonderful musical and those beautiful notices, I've been given a two-year Decca recording contract; just signed an exclusive five-year NBC radio and television deal, and my picture has appeared on the cover of Life Magazine. I don't have a moment to myself and I love it, I'm excited— and proud— and ever so grateful all at the same time.

Here’s a feature story from North American Newspaper Alliance, dated September 9, 1961.

Kaye Is Enchanting Buffoon
By WARD MOREHOUSE
New York— (NANA)— EVER HEAR of Katrina Balotta? Probably not, for she became Kaye Ballard, singer, nightclub entertainer. actress— and clown. You'll find her, if you're lucky enough to get tickets, at the Imperial Theater in the biggest hit of her career, the sensation called "Carnival."
Kaye is lively, quick-witted and altogether delightful. She has performed for England's royal family, been kissed (on the forehead) by Clark Gable, and made frequent contributions to the general lunacy of the Jack Paar show.
"I'M ITALIAN all the way down the line," she said at Downey's the other afternoon. "There's not a trace of any thing else. One of my grandmothers was named Ballardo and I just chopped off the last letter. My family comes from southern Italy, so I speak Italian with a southern accent.
"All of my first cousins and an aunt live in Rome and met them when I went over there. They're beautiful people, but they got hysterical when I spoke Italian. I had to get hotel clerk to translate for me I said, 'Tell them I love them.' Can you imagine?" Kaye's brief encounter with Gable, to get to that quickly, took place at the Trocadero in Hollywood while she was appearing with the noisy Spike Jones band. She gets a dazed look when she speaks of it.
"I did an imitation of Judy Garland singing 'Dear Mr. Gable' and he was sitting right there. He invited me over to his table, kissed me on the forehead, and introduced me all around. He should never have died. It made me furious. He should have lived forever."
I remarked that the Trocadero closed some time ago. And she said:
"I've closed several places. I was in the last picture ever made at RKO, 'The Girl Most Likely.' I was on the cover of Life with no story inside. I've had almost luck."

Kaye was born in Cleveland where most of her close relatives still live. She attended West Technical High School there and says she got her dramatic training in art class. "I'd finish my sketch in about twenty minutes, then I'd perform." She appeared in vaudeville in Cleveland and in night clubs and at the Hanna Theater.
HER FATHER, Vincent Balotta, came to New York to see her in "Carnival." It was his first visit here since 1919. "But he said the place hadn't changed much. Everybody asked him how he liked me in the show but my family's very modest about me. He said, 'I liked the whole show.' 'I'm very close to my grand mother, Gabriella Nacarato, who is 85, and who lived with us. She and my mother are coming here as soon as I can get them tickets for the show. I have a brother and two sisters and they have thousands of children."
Kaye got the role of "Carnival" because director Gower Champion wanted her for it. He knew her in Hollywood.
"I sang for David Merrick (producer) and Bob Merrill (composer-lyricist), but never had to read for the part. It was quite different from 'The Golden Apple.' I had to do seven auditions before I got the part in that show. Each time I wore a different fur piece that I borrowed from friends— a full length mink, a mink stole and so on. I wanted them to think I didn't really need the job. After the show opened they never saw me in anything but a cloth coat."
IT WAS while she was appearing in London in Touch and Go" that she did two command performances for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, now Queen Mother. "When I was introduced to Princess Margaret I didn't know what to say to her so I just said, 'I'm crazy about your mother and father.' "
Kaye said she spends all her money on cabs and on paintings for her Ninth Street apartment. "I have some really good paintings. Care to see them sometime? I certainly I would.

Ballard’s life was chronicled in a documentary recently that will be making the rounds of festivals. Despite poor health, she got a chance to see it and was mobbed by fans afterwards. Time and illness took away the “loud” and “animated” part, but Kaye Ballard was still loved and appreciated at age 93.

Deadeye Droopy

The bad-guy cattle rancher in Drag-a-Long Droopy (1954) is a dead shot. Watch that buzzard.



Droopy, of course, is better. Watch those ducks.



Heck Allen provided the story for the short with animation by Grant Simmons, Mike Lah, Bob Bentley and Walt Clinton, plus Ray Patterson on loan from the Hanna-Barbera unit.

Paul Julian's Palace

Animation fans should have no trouble discerning which studio was responsible for this recreated pan background.



It’s from UPA’s The Emperor’s New Clothes (1953). Julian’s best known for his great background work at the Warner Bros. studio. He left it for UPA in 1950. Julian was responsible for design and backgrounds of this short.

Julian’s daughter Alison told UPA chronicler Adam Abraham that the head of the studio, Stephen Bosustow, considered sending Julian and director Ted Parmelee to Hans Christian Andersen’s home country of Denmark to do research for this cartoon, but it turned out not to be so practical.

Julian’s last theatrical credit at UPA was as the director of Baby Boogie, released in 1955.

If you want to view lots of Julian’s work at Warners, go to this great blog. Read a short biography at this site, and check out some of his book illustrations on Michael Sporn’s blog.

No Luckies, No Autobiography

Vancouver and Jack Benny seem to have met up every few years. In a way it was odd, because no Vancouver radio station broadcast Jack’s show after he changed sponsors to American Tobacco.

At the tail end of the 1953-54 season, Jack made mention on one of his shows that he would be making a personal appearance during the summer break in several cities, including Vancouver. The Vancouver print media was quite happy to interview him about it. And on more than one occasion. The two major dailies sent columnists travel down to Portland, Oregon in advance of the Benny show in Vancouver to talk to him. The papers talked to Benny again when he arrived in Canada.

Jack Wasserman was the Sun’s nightlife columnist for years. He enjoyed partaking of the city’s nightlife, too, as did a number of newspaper reporters whose livers somehow survived the concept of “last call” being a mere suggestion to be ignored. Wasserman collapsed and died while in the middle of telling a joke at a roast in 1977. He was 50. Wedman was the Province’s entertainment editor who concentrated on movies in later years. He died several years ago at age 94.

Both these stories are from July 2, 1954. (Note: the third Vancouver daily paper of the era is not on line to check on its coverage of Benny’s 1954 stop).

COMIC APPEARS HERE WEDNESDAY
Jack Benny to Turn 40; It'll Be National Event
By JACK WASSERMAN
Sun Staff Reporter
PORTLAND, July 2.—Stop the presses. Hold the phone. Flash. Jack Benny is going to turn 40.
The bespectacled radio comic, who turned "39" into a million laughs, made the confession here in Portland where he is appearing with his variety review which opens in Vancouver Wednesday.
"I'll probably be 40 some time next year," he said amiably. "We'll make it a national event."
Although his writers will have to burn the midnight oil to get Benny over this chronological hump, the comedian has actually had plenty of experience in the birthday department. He's had 60 of them, the most recent a few months ago. But you couldn't tell it to look at him.
LOOKS YOUNG
Even without makeup, sitting across a gin rummy table (he massacred me) Benny looks like a man of possibly 45. No lines are visible, no crows-feet around his eyes. His blue eyes sparkle youthfully behind his horn-rimmed specs (when you play gin rummy with him, there's a different kind of sparkle).
During those three-score years Benny has covered a lot of ground, including Vancouver where he played the Orpheum circuit and met Mary Livingstone when she was a 12-year-old heckler.
Several years later, Jack claims, he had a date with Norah Bayes, but she was sick and so he went on a blind date with a gal who worked behind the hosiery counter of the May Company. Mary again, or as she was known then, Sayde Marks.
RELAXING HERE

The present trip into the Pacific Northwest is in the nature of relaxation for Benny, who has a winter ahead of him that includes his regular weekly radio shows and 16 television shows. Although none of his radio cast is with him, Mary will join Jack next week to visit relatives in Vancouver and Seattle.
For the tour Benny is still the radio character he's been making a household word since 1932, the perennial fall guy, the smart Alec, the guy who has trouble finding a girl friend.
Aiding and abetting this characterization is a high-powered supporting cast that includes Canadian star Gisele Mackenzie and Sammy Davis Jr., and four more acts who could all get by without Benny on the bill except that the star is so great himself.
Gisele, who, like Benny, once had visions of being a concert violinist, plays a pair of gag duets with the maestro that knock the customers off their seats. MORE THAN HUMOR
The violin incidentally is more than just a source of humor for the one-time Waukegan, Ill., wit who got thrown out of high school because he fiddled around so much, but who never became famous until he stopped playing and started talking.
He still practises several hours a day because its necessary "even to play lousy." In fact, he admits, sometimes when he sounds worst it's because he's trying to sound good.
"It's just like anything on a show. You don't start out to make mistakes. They happen easily enough without half trying."
CHANCE FEUD
The feud with Fred Allen also started by accident, with a chance wisecrack by Allen. Six months passed before the two comedians got together to discuss their publicity gold mine.
Unlike Bob Hope, who "is always on" and wisecracking all the time, Benny is a serious humorist. In casual conversation he talks about his golf (a 13 handicap but he usually only plays nine holes ("and sometimes I'm absolutely lousy"), or travelling, which he often does with guitar player Frankie Femley [sic], who is actually an existing person.
Before the show Benny is strictly a professional and, again unlike Hope, who hit Vancouver and played golf before arriving at show time, he carefully rehearses his cast on the pitfalls of each new theatre after going over the house himself.
WANTS GOOD SHOW
"All I try to do is to have a good show," he explains. "The important thing is not to stink."
That's been the idea ever since Benny first appeared as a guest on Ed Sullivan's radio show in 1932 and said "Hello, folks, this is Jack Benny. There will be a slight pause for everyone to say 'Who cares?'"
Apparently somebody did, because a short time later Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky) received an offer from a sponsor and the rest, the succession of sponsors, the fantastic price paid by CBS to get Benny to jump from NBC, where he had lifetime rights to the Sunday night 7-7:30 time, is history.
Although he likes television better than radio (right now, anyhow), Benny foresees some dangers in the new medium and quotes his close friend, George Burns (of Burns and Allen) on the subject.
CAN'T BE LOUSY
"The trouble with show business is that there's no place for a guy to be lousy.
"If an entertainer gets on television and has a bad night everyone sees it. In the old days on the circuit, when he played a split week between Calgary and Edmonton, you had time to improve before you got to Vancouver.
Benny isn't worried about the show he's got with him this time, though. After opening in San Francisco, the troupe played to all-time record crowds in Dallas, Texas, before hitting the northwest.

Jack Benny Penny-Pinching Role Strictly For Radio, TV Audiences
By LES WEDMAN
PORTLAND—"Do you want a drink?" was the first thing Jack Benny asked after we shook hands.
He took his half-finished Scotch and soda from his lips and passed it over. "I don't want more," he explained.
That sounds a bit like the penny-pincher who makes Dennis Day mow his lawn, pays his valet Rochester starvation wages and rides around in a broken-down Maxwell, though he has more money in an underground vault than Fort Knox has gold.
But Benny is no cheapskate away from radio microphones and TV cameras.
Courtesy of the comedian, who's coming to Vancouver next Wednesday to Saturday, I have a cigar (never smoked before), not much appetite (thanks to a lavish dinner for which he picked up the check) and a headache (from Scotch refills) to prove it.
LUXURY SUITE
There is further evidence. The man who supposedly stays in a subterranean cellar of a hotel when he's in New York greeted reporters in a two-bedroom, spare telephone next-to-the-toilet Governor's suite in the Multnomah Hotel.
He also put in a phone call from the drawing room to wife Mary Livingstone and he didn't even ask the operator to reverse the charges. "This is Jack Benny speaking. I want to talk to Mrs. Jack Benny in Beverly Hills," he began and it al[l] sounded like a radio show, because the voice was so similar if deeper. He hung up.
"The operator says it will be a minute but if I know Mary, she'll be talking to Claudette Colbert or Barbara Stanwyck. Don't ask me what they have to talk about so long, but they do. Only a minute, she says. Oops." The phone rang and it was Mary.
"Hello, baby," said Benny and before he rang off with a "good-bye, doll," he'd sung happy birthday to a nephew and talked to Mary's mother and father who were celebrating their wedding anniversary.
NO TOUPEE
Benny's an average height. He wears horn-rimmed glasses, without which he's in a haze. He does not wear a toupee though there is a bald spot showing through the back. But he has enough hair on his chest and back to hook a bear rug.
He also is a serious comedian. He doesn't throw jokes around in any extroverted attempt to be funny. He talks sensibly and intelligently and sandwiches his humor, dry and clean, into the conversation.
"Comedians don't live a crazy kind of life," he explained. "They're always thinking," he said, referring to suggestions that he follow Bob Hope and Bmg Crosby and write the story of his life "as told to" someone.
NO AUTOBIOGRAPHY
"If could write a book, I'd really to write a book . . . a novel. Let someone else write the life of Jack Benny. I can't write."
His Columbia Broadcasting System radio press agent, Irving Fein, interrupted. "I thought you wrote Caine Mutiny?" he joked, "No," said Benny, without change of pace. "That was Herman Wouk. I wrote 'From Here to Eternity.' James Jones, that's my pen-name."
Benny remembers Vancouver as the spot where he first met Mary Livingstone. She was 12 and he couldn't have been much older because he said he will celebrate his fortieth birthday this year. He have himself away moments later when explained his first date with Mary, years later when she was behind the stocking counter at Macy's. [sic]
MEETS MARY
"I was supposed to go out with Nora Bayes but she was sick. So Mary's sister brought her along for a foursome," he'd said. Benny really is 60 though he doesn't look it despite his 22 years on radio and one on TV. "No ulcers, either. If radio and TV haven't given me ulcers, food won't."
Mary Livingstone may come along to Vancouver to see an uncle, Harry Wagner, but she won't be in Benny's All-Star Revue at The Auditorium. And she'll only be on the radio "once in a while" next year.
Benny said "Mary wanted to quit years ago but I wouldn't let her. She hates acting for herself."
UNREQUESTED SOLO
Later at dinner, an organist played "Love in Bloom", for Benny. He didn't request it or the amateur joke-teller who bored guests silly.
"Mr. Benny didn't even smile," complained the fellow.
Getting into the harassed manner of his radio character, Benny charged "you said that was a true story. My writers told it to me 10 years ago."
He pointed with his cigar, the third he puffed on during the meal despite the the packs of free Lucky Strike cigarets distributed around the table. Here's why: Benny never smokes Luckies—or cigarets—of any kind.

Cartoon Commies

Was Walt Disney being a public spirited citizen trying to preserve American freedom, or was he getting revenge because of the bitter strike at his studio in 1941?

Disney appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, testifying about/against Herb Sorrell, the Hollywood labour organiser who helped lead the strike. Reams have been written about the strike and its aftermath, but I came across a blistering editorial criticising Disney’s testimony I’d like to share.

Before that, let’s go back and read what Disney said. This story is from the Associated Press wire service. A portion not relevant to Disney has been omitted and replaced with an ellipsis.

Women Voters' League Red, Walt Disney Says
WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 (AP)—Walt Disney told congressional investigators today that Hollywood Labor Leader Herbert K. Sorrell, whom he "believes" to be a Communist, had boasted of using the national labor relations board "as it suited him."
The daddy of "Donald Duck" and "Mickey Mouse" movies testified at hearings on Communism in Hollywood by the house committee on un-American activities. Disney sent a gasp through the audience when he included the League of Women Voters among Communist front organizations.
Oliver Carlson, who said he was once was a Communist and now teaches in the University of California Extension Division, testified [...] Sorrell is on the board of directors of the Communist school and has been "in long and close association" with Reds.
Sorrell, head of the Conference of Studio Unions, has denied being a Communist.
Disney said he considered Sorrell one at the time of a strike which he said was Red-instigated and which resulted, he testified, in the Communists taking over his artists. He didn't say, and wasn't asked, when the strike was pulled. But he said he still "believes'' Sorrell is a Red.
The man who makes world-famous animated cartoons said he suggested to Sorrell that a collective bargaining election be held under terms of the Wagner labor relations law. He said Sorrell objected and claimed "he used the labor board as it suited him."
Disney said Sorrell threatened to "smear" him and "make a dust bowl" of his studio if he did not give in to union demands.
There was no way to fight back, the producer said, when Sorrell called a strike and, he continued, Communists and Communist groups began a smear campaign. The attackers, he said, included the League of Women Voters and what he called "PM magazine".
The only real grievance, Disney said, was between Sorrell and his employes over an election to determine who should represent the workers in collective bargaining.
Sorrell once asked him, Disney said:
"So you think I'm a Communist?"
He said the labor leader laughed and went on to say: "I used their money to finance my strike in 1937."
There was no further explanation of that point.
Tagging the Communist Party an "un-American thing," Disney said it ought to be "smoked out and shown for what it is." Then, he said, "real liberal groups" can operate free of suspicion.
The only one of his productions that has been shown in Russia, Disney said, is "The Three Little Pigs." Asked why his cartoons are shown all over the world but not in the Soviet Union, the witness said:
"You can't do business with them."

Wait a minute, Uncle Walt. The League of Women Voters a “Communist group”? The League yelped at Disney’s mischaractisation. Walt backtracked. And not very well.

This prompted the Kingsport Times to publish an editorial on November 13, 1947, under the headline “Cartoon Commies.” It spanked Disney in print, and then turned its eye on the Committee and its grandstanding politicians.

Fantasia
The great Investigation of Hollywood produced so much marvelously dizzy testimony that it gave color to the theory that the artistic temperament is allergic to logic, and the mental processes of an artist travel strange paths. The beautiful way these gentlemen felt the inner conviction that so-and-so was a Communist, without bothering with such trifles as evidence, and the calm assumption that their word would be taken for it when they made unsupported statements; this was wonderful to see.
But the dizziest of all was offered by that master of the fantastic—Mr. Walt Disney. Mr. Disney is a genius, and we take off our hats to him. He has made the new art—the animated cartoon—and his work ranges from the childish to the incredibly beautiful. But we must limit our admiration for Mr. Disney to his status of artist. He should stick to the world of fantasy and not descend to the common place level of facts.

In his testimony, Mr. Disney characterized the League of Women Voters as a "Communist front" organization. That was really news, and naturally made good copy. But shortly after he was out of the witness chair, Mr. Disney was asked for the details that made it possible for him to make such a charge. (Somehow or other, the committee didn't think it necessary to get that question in while he was on the stand.) Then it seemed that Mr. Disney was thinking of something a couple of ladies who claimed to be members of the League had said to him back in 1941, and explained that he had no intention of criticizing the League of Women Voters "as of now." Then, after some further thought on the subject, Mr. Disney searched his files, and comes forth with the following explanation, written to the committee: "Since returning to my office, I have reviewed my files, and can now definitely state that while testifying "I was confused by a similarity of names. I intended to refer to the League of Women Shoppers."
There was more language by way of apology, but the end of it is to leave Mr. Disney a laughing stock. We don't know whether he has heard the last of this or not. We do not know anything about the League of Women Shoppers at all, but we have a hunch that the creator of fantasy may be hearing further from that outfit. It may be a Red outfit, but we would want the word of somebody more reliable than Mr. Disney before we would say so. It may be that he is making another little mistake. It may turn out to be the League of Women Flag Pole Sitters he meant.
Unfortunately, Mr. Disney has done more than make himself ridiculous. He has made it clear that it was possible for a committee of the United States Congress engaged in the serious business of investigating subversive political activity to allow irresponsible people to make statements charging others with evil actions, without being required to give one iota of factual evidence to support the charges. We see a picture of this committee of Congress, calmly accepting statements that would destroy the good name of individuals or organizations, knowing full well that the statements would be broadcast to the world. How can sober citizens put any value in the work of such a committee?
Some of those whose names were used may be Reds. But how can we tell what is fact and what is fancy? How can we sift the sheep from the goats, when it is possible for a man or a woman to denounce people without providing evidence? The Committee on Un-American Activities was set up for a good purpose. We believe it would be fine if as a result of its work we can see who is working against the democratic way of life and how they are doing it. But all we have had is confusion worse confounded. The net result of the committee hearings is suspicion and distrust, some of which may be entirely unfair and undeserved and have nothing behind it but the personal grudge of temperamental people of the theatre.
Something needs to be done about the Committee on Un-American Activities. Something needs to be done to put it in the hands of men who have calm judgment and who will keep its work from being a theatrical performance. It doesn't have to be what it has been, and it is handicapped in its real work by being operated as it is.

Unfortunately, the Committee carried on into the 1950s, ruining lives. Walt Disney carried on as well, enriching lives with some enjoyable feature cartoons. And, no doubt, still nursing a grudge against those responsible for pulling his employees onto a picket line.

Bear in Underwear

Oswald is chased into a cave by a vicious bear in Tall Timber (1928).



The fight!



Uh, oh. It seems the bear has a fetish.



Oswald cartoons weren’t in colour in 1928 so the bear has to register embarrassment by its face alternating between black and white.



The bear runs away in that low-kneed stomp that appears in these and some early Harman-Ising cartoons.



Triumphant! Oswald has a fur coat.



Film Daily’s review of this Walt Disney cartoon from June 24, 1928 reads, in part “Oswald the rabbit goes out into the open spaces for a day's sport, and all kinds of queer things happen to him...” I’m sure the pun is unintentional.