Oh, Beans!

A customer at Heckle and Jeckle’s Indigestion Inn looks forward to a bowl of beans “Mexican style” in Blue Plate Symphony (1954).



“Mexican” should have tipped you off. The beans are Mexican jumping beans and jump out of the bowl. The customer gives his head a shake.



The beans turn into a dancing figure then split in half.



The customer gets wise and scoots to the end of the diner counter where he can swallow the beans. In an all-too-predicatable gag, he starts jumping himself, bashing into the ceiling of the diner time and time again in an exterior shot.



If the head shake looks familiar, you would have seen it in a number of early Hanna-Barbera cartoons. It is the work of Carlo Vinci.

The Hat Flip

Jack King wasn’t the Komedy King at Warner Bros. (It was apparently funny at one time to substitute a “K” in words that started with a “C”). He was enticed by Leon Schlesinger to leave Walt Disney in 1933 for a job as the head animator, then ended up directing when Tom Palmer’s cartoons needed major surgery for Warners to accept them for release.

Here’s a gag from Alpine Antics (1935). In this scene, a turtle clacks away in a nice little ice dance, with his reflection on the frozen pond. He skates away but his reflection skates in the opposite direction.



What’s the gag? The turtle’s toque flips over in the air and lands back on his head.



Yeah, that’s the gag.

No storyman is credited. Tom Armstrong was the story director at the studio, but I’m under the impression that everyone contributed gags to the Schlesinger cartoons in those days.

The best part of the cartoon is Billy Bletcher’s villainous laugh and the song “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” by Harry Woods on the soundtrack.

This cartoon stars Beans, as there was a mistaken belief at Warners that a plucky boy cat was what cartoon audiences wanted. Maybe it was, but not in the stories being concocted by the studio. Beans was eclipsed by Porky Pig in 1936, the same year King took his flipping hats back to Disney.

Jack Benny, Official Musician

The Jack Benny radio show had its tiffs with the head of the American Federation of Musicians, James Caesar Petrillo (not pictured to the right), so perhaps it was appropriate that Benny did not become a member of the union until after Petrillo’s ouster. Even then, it was an honorary membership.

But it was certainly well-deserved. Benny travelled all over North America, raising funds for concert halls, symphonies and even musician pension funds. That’s what he was doing in San Francisco in March 1959, and that’s when the federation made him an honorary member.

Jack gave one of his many concerts. They all followed the same format that you should have read about in previous posts. Reviews of Benny’s performance varied. Here’s a story from the Associated Press of March 3, 1959.

Jack Benny Has Musicians Card
SAN FRANCISCO (AP)—Jack Benny has a musicians union card now.
The comedian received an honorary membership card in the American Federation of Musicians Monday night in an appearance as guest violinist with the San Francisco symphony orchestra.
Herman D. Kenin, who recently succeeded James C. Petrillo as president of the AFM, and Charles H. Kennedy, president of San Francisco AFM Local 6, presented the gold card.
Benny's performance with the symphony grossed $51,800 to benefit the orchestra's pension fund. It drew this comment from music critic Alfred Frankenstein of the San Francisco Chronicle:
"Musical criticism flinches, quails and quietly resigns its office when it is faced with an artist of Benny's caliber."
Frankenstein declared that the harmless earthquake here Monday afternoon "was caused by Felix Mendelssohn whirling in his grave while Jack Benny rehearsed his violin concerto . . . in preparation for last night's pension fund concert."
He said that fortunately Mendelssohn was a mild-mannered man.
"If Benny had played the Beethoven Concerto, it would have been 1906 all over again," San Francisco's devastating earthquake was in 1906.

We don’t have the Chronicle’s full review—parts of it were quoted in other newspapers—but we do have a review from a rival newspaper. Here’s what the San Francisco Examiner wrote on March 3rd.

Jack Benny Gags Up Fiddle in Pension Benefit
By ALEXANDER FRIED
PEOPLE LAUGHED when the silly chap in a dress suit had the nerve to bring his violin out in front of the great San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
Jack Benny, I mean.
They laughed even harder when he discovered he had forgotten his bow, and had to dash backstage to get it. Then the question arose: Wouldn't it have been better if he had left the bow outside after all?
But this problem like wise resolved itself into laughter as the one and only Benny—fiddler extraordinary and popular comedian—gave his services last night to an Opera House benefit concert that fetched several tens of thousands of dollars into the symphony Pension Fund.
Believe it or not, Jack can play the violin. With his free bow arm and lively left hand fingers, maybe he made nearly as much effort to produce his funny sour notes as he did to produce his good tones. The real Strad that he had in hand did its bit for the latter The whole show—a travesty of symphony solo fiddling—was a stunt in typical Jack Benny understatement. He didn't wear baggy pants or make loud noises or break a fiddle over anyone's head.
Instead, he could tickle his audience by a priceless little glance of smug pride when he thought he had handled a violin flourish particularly well.
And there was subtle stagecraft in his slight look of hurt when the concert master—during Sarasate's "Gypsy Airs" and the first movement of the Mendelssohn Concerto—took the play away from Jack by standing up behind his back and performing his fancy cadenzas for him.
Two successive concert masters, as a result, were banished from the stage, at Jack's indignant whispered request to Conductor Enrique Jorda. And a cymbal player also was chased in disgrace for banging his brass plates loudly in what the honored solo violinist considered to be the wrong musical sport.
In addition, Jack won genial applause by a typical monologue at the microphone; by inserting the palpitating ballad tune of "Love In Bloom" into his Sarasate, and by sitting down as a concert master himself to meddle in an orchestral performance of Rimsky-Korsakoff's "Spanish Caprice."
For serious business, he introduced the truly great violinist, Nathan Milstein, who was present because he's going to be this week's regular symphony soloist. And Herman Kenin, successor to James Petrillo as president of the American Federation of Musicians, came to the stage to hand Jack a life membership card in the Musicians' Union. Jack showed particular joy on learning the card will always be dues free.
For good measure. Jack offered imitations of four famed violinists—Stern, Milstein, Heifetz and Szgeti—in their various personal throes of musical performance. He played as encore Rimsky's "Flight of the Bumble Bee."
At a top price of $30 a seat, the hall was pretty full, though not entirely so. The concert started with Jorda's orchestral performances of Rossini's "Barber" Overture, Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony, some Stravinsky "Petrouchka" music and Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings."
If these performances weren't as polished as they might have been, remember the concert was an extra event in a busy week, and rehearsal time for its orchestral selections had to be closely rationed.

How well Jack Benny played may not really be all that relevant. The main thing was audiences enjoyed his performances and he raised millions upon millions of dollars to preserve the fine arts.

The Non-Animated Bugs

It’s really tempting to make assumptions because it saves a lot of work. But you can get burned. To the right, you see a 1916 photo from the Louisville Courier Journal of Bugs Hardaway. It must be THE Bugs Hardaway, cartoon director/writer/bunny namesake, right? After all, how many of them could there be?

It turns out there were two of them. This one, as further leafing through old editions of the Courier Journal revealed, was actually named Earl Hardaway. Our Bugs was Joseph Benson Hardaway.

J.B. was probably more famous after he died than when he was living. His name appeared in the trade papers on occasion, even as the creator of Bugs Bunny, as was stated in the November 5, 1945 edition of Boxoffice magazine. I suspect it was the surfacing of a Charlie Thorson model sheet of “Bug’s Bunny” and the nasty tiff in the 1970s over who really created the character that brought Hardaway’s name to the forefront.

The Los Angeles Times felt Hardaway was important enough to write an obituary story. It appeared on February 6, 1957.

Joseph Hardaway, Bugs Bunny Originator, Dies
Animated Cartoon Story Man, Pioneer in His Field, Also Worked in Television
Joseph Benson (Bugs) Hardaway, 66, animated cartoon story man who was instrumental in originating Bugs Bunny, died of a heart attack Monday night at his home, 11211 Kling St., North Hollywood.
Mr. Hardaway, onetime cartoonist for the Kansas City Post, served as Capt. Harry S. Truman's top sergeant in the 129th Field Artillery during World War I. Early in Animation Field.
He was one of the early arrivals in Hollywood's animation field. He was a story man for Leon Schlesinger, Warner Bros. cartoons, from 1933 to 1939. His own nickname was adopted from the subsequently famous rabbit character.
In 1940 he went to work for Walter Lantz, aiding in the development of Woody Woodpecker. Recently he had been doing stories for Tempe-Toons Productions for television.
Member of Guild.
He was a longtime member of the Screen Cartoonists Guild. He leaves his widow Hazel; a son, Robert, of 1907 N. Highland Ave.; a daughter, Mrs. Virginia Kirby, of Lafayette, Cal.; a brother, Frank, of San Francisco; and three sisters, Mrs. Ella Mitchell, of Bronson, Mo.; Mrs. Louise Vogel, of Fresno, and Mrs. Elizabeth Killinger, of Visalia.
Funeral arrangements are pending with Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

Below is a 1944 photo of Bugs with his military mates.



Hardaway was born in Belton, Missouri on May 21, 1895 to Nathaniel Richard Hardaway and Mary Hamilton; his father died of malaria when Bugs was 2. The city directory for Kansas City lists his early employment; his name is variously “J Benjamin,” “Benson,” and “J.B.”

1913 Pehl Metal Products Co. draftsman
1914 college; agent, National Life and Accident Co.
1915 artist, Kansas City Post
1916 cartoonist, Kansas City Post
1917 artist, National Film Publishing Co.

He is not listed in 1918 and 1919 for good reason. He was in the military, enlisting on June 4, 1917 and discharged on May 14, 1919. He rose to the rank of Sergeant Major of the 129th Field Artillery, 35th Division. He left Brest, France on April 9, 1919 and arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey 11 days later. On returning to Kansas City, he resumed his employment.

1920 artist, Kansas City Post
1921 artist, 404 Jenkins Bldg
1922 cartoonist
1923-24-25 artist, United Film Ad Service
1926 copy writer, United Film Ad Service
1927 adv [no employer listed]

He vanishes from Kansas City and turns up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with his wife Hazel where the city directories reveal:

1928 mgr, Mil Film Ad Service Inc
1929 mgr, United Film Adv. Service Inc.
1930 br mgr, United Film Adv. Service Inc.
1931 adv selr [no employer listed]

Now it was on to the West Coast. Michael Barrier’s Hollywood Cartoons states Hardaway worked briefly as a writer for Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney about 1932, then became a writer at Leon Schlesinger’s studio in the second half of 1933; a Film Daily story of June 24, 1933 still has him as Iwerks’ story director. Tom Klein in Jerry Beck’s fine Cartoon Research blog revealed in a 2016 post that Hardaway and animator Grim Natwick would pitch horseshoes during the noon-hour break at Iwerks.

Schlesinger’s new studio went through early director turmoil. Tom Palmer was fired and crossed the country to work at Van Beuren. Earl Duvall was fired; the story is he got into a drunken argument with Schlesinger. To fill the breach, Hardaway and animator Jack King were promoted along with Friz Freleng. Hardaway’s tenure lasted less than a year for whatever reason. He went back to writing, even getting a story credit on two of Tex Avery’s cartoons when writers finally started getting a mention on screen.

When Friz Freleng left Warners in 1937 to work for MGM, Schlesinger had to find another director. Hardaway had directed before, so now he was directing again. His first cartoon was Porky’s Hare Hunt (1938), where he told painter Martha Goldman he was going to put a rabbit suit on Daffy Duck (early, insane version) and had Thorson design him. Studio publicity material called this character “Bugs Bunny” even though he wasn’t close in design or character to the measured foil of Elmer Fudd he became under director Tex Avery, writer Rich Hogan and designer Bob Givens in 1940.

Friz soon had enough of the politics at Metro. The Exposure Sheet, the Schlesinger studio’s in-house newsletter, revealed Freleng was coming back to direct in mid-April 1939 and Hardaway would return to being a writer. Did that not sit well with Hardaway? The last reference to him at Schlesinger’s in The Exposure Sheet was February 12, 1940. Walter Lantz was revamping his story department and that’s where Hardaway went. His first writing credit was on Recruiting Daze, released October 28, 1940, before he put Daffy Duck in a woodpecker suit and created Woody Woodpecker, even borrowing the ending from his own Daffy Duck and Egghead (1938).

In the mind of Walter Lantz, there was no question who created Woody—he did. I have yet to find an interview with Lantz about Woody where Hardaway is even mentioned. It’s pretty clear from the lineage that Hardaway was directly responsible.

Hardaway eventually had a bigger connection with Woody. Daily Variety reported on January 24, 1944 that Hardaway had taken over Woody’s voice from Kent Rogers, who had gone into training for the war.

Hardaway was no Kent Rogers, let alone Mel Blanc, who originally voiced Woody. His voice was flat and almost expressionless. Woody would have been a much richer and funnier character in the ‘40s if Lantz had paid a radio actor to do the character. He employed Lionel Stander (a wonderfully menacing Buzz Buzzard), Walter Tetley, Jack Mather and Hans Conried. Hardaway must have known his limitations; the Andy Panda cartoons he wrote have far more dialogue than his Woodys.

The Lantz studio should have been reaching a peak in the late ‘40s. It was announced on March 7, 1947 that it had signed a five-year releasing deal with United Artists. Lantz’s cartoons never looked better. But U-A didn’t bring in enough money to keep the studio viable. On December 20, 1948, Lantz finished his final cartoons for the distributor, and shut down. Hardaway didn’t wait. In the December 1948 issue of Warner Club News, it was revealed Hardaway had been signed by Warner Bros. to write for Friz Freleng. The only cartoon with Hardaway’s name on it is A Bone For a Bone, released in 1951 but notice of copyright was made in 1949.

What Hardaway did during most of the 1950s is unclear. He didn’t return to the Lantz studio when it re-opened and was looking for writers. Tempe-toons mentioned in his obituary was run by Sam Singer and produced “Pow-Wow the Indian Boy” cartoons. Singer worked out a deal in January 1957 to have them air on CBS’ Captain Kangaroo Show, except in 11 Western states where Screen Gems would syndicate them. Hardaway couldn’t have worked on them long as he died the following month. (A side note about Tempe-toons comes from the San Bernadino Sun of Feb. 26, 1956 stating Russell Garcia had scored 13 colour cartoons).

It’s a shame not too much is known about Bugs Hardaway, considering his influence in the first two decades of sound animation. We hope more research can be done to unearth facts and not assumptions.

Avery Self-Censors

A “Censored” sign doesn’t really censor the gag in Tex Avery’s Slap Happy Lion. We know what the mouse is going to do.



It’s hard to catch in this fuzzy screen grab but light flashes on the safety pin for added emphasis.



Here are a few frames from the take. Avery doesn’t waste time at MGM. There are 15 drawings, one frame each, going from a lion sitting in a normal position to hunching down in anticipation, then rising up flapping his tongue before shooting out of the water. That’s less than a second. Then it’s on to the next gag.



Ray Abrams, Walt Clinton and Bob Bentley animated this 1947 release. Irv Spence did the model sheets as far back as July 1945.

By the way, I’ve just noticed that the late Ronnie Scheib’s essay on Avery in the Peary book The American Animated Cartoon (1980) has been republished on line. If you haven’t read it, you should. It is on this web page.

Thumbing the Goat

Pat Powers pushed the Ub Iwerks’ ComiColor cartoons by telling theatres they were a) in colour, and b) featured fairy tales beloved by all children.

He didn’t advertise their humour because, to be honest, there wasn’t a lot. In Tom Thumb (1936), the title character is swallowed by a goat and goes down a rainbow-coloured esophagus (if a rainbow were brown). He bumps against a detour sign. I think this is supposed to be a gag.



More brown shades inside the stomach.



I guess Iwerks’ idea of funny was “look at the silly expressions the goat makes.” I like the design and the animation (some drawings seem to be reused) but I’m not laughing.



In fairness, the ComiColors were invented to compete against Disney’s Silly Symphonies, which weren’t designed to be amusing, either.

Carl Stalling’s semi dance-band music just bops along not really emphasizing or counterpointing any of the action.

No animators are credited.

From Broadway to a Chimp

Why do actors sign up for obvious turkeys?

Let’s get an answer from Anita Gillette, who went from being a rising star on Broadway to Me and the Chimp in ten years. Who, in their right mind, would star opposite a short simian and Ted Bessell, who showed about as limited a range as anyone on a TV comedy in the ‘60s?

I like Anita Gillette. I think of her mainly of her appearances on the syndicated version of What’s My Line? in the ‘70s with Soupy Sales. She was pleasant, upbeat and had a sense of humour, the kind of person you’d like to talk with. Little did I know at the time about her breakthrough on the Great White Way. In fact, I didn’t know about it until I started working on this post. Here’s an Associated Press wire story from 1961 which sums up what happened and her rather short career to that point.

Anna Maria's Understudy Deplores Producer's Praise
Anita Gillette Says Statement She Was Better Than Star Was 'a Little Unprofessional'
By THEO WILSON
Chicago Tribune Press Service
NEW YORK. Aug. 9—Surrounded by her 10-month-old son, Timothy, her dachshund dog and her Siamese cat, pint-sized Anita Gillette said today she was "on a cloud" after her smash performance the past two nights as Anna Maria Alberghetti's understudy in the Broadway musical. "Carnival."
But the hazel-eyed actress, who took the star's role because Anna Maria is in the hospital, said she thought it was "unnecessary and a little unprofessional" for Producer David Merrick to tell the press that he wished he had been "clairvoyant enough to know at the beginning that she was that much better than Miss Alberghetti."
In the living room of the ground-floor Manhattan apartment, where she lives with her husband, William Gillette, 31, a research physiologist in New York Hospital. Anita said:
"Thought He Was Kidding"
"I thought he (Mr. Merrick) was just kidding when he told me that during the performance. Then, when he said it for the press (after the show) I thought maybe he had had an argument with Miss Alberghetti. . . . He could say something like that to me but to say it to the press was something else."
Anita, who is under 5 foot 1, weighs 102 pounds, and who will be 24 next week, played the taxing role to an enthusiastic, standing-room-only audience at the Monday night performance.
"Miss Alberghetti does a marvelous job." Anita continued. "I do different things than she, and maybe Merrick liked my interpretation better. It's not a carbon copy of what she does.
"Last night I was in such a state of nerves I didn't even hear the applause after the first act. The show people said it was tremendous.
"I was very nervous . . . scared to death and I kept picking away at the sides of my fingernails," Anita said.
"Scared to Death"
At the close of the show, she received a telephone call from Anna Maria, who entered LeRoy, Sanitarium Sunday night for an abdominal disorder.
They spoke about 10 minutes and "the only thing she said was that she felt someone was frying to start a feud between us. She sent her congratulations, and she also sent me flowers and a telegram," Anita added.
Anita has been in an off-Broadway show, understudied in "Gypsy." had the lead in 1959 in the St. Louis Municipal Opera production of "Babes in Toyland," and in 1960 won a Daniel Blum Theater World Award.

Anita racked up some nice Broadway credits in the ‘60s and did some television. She gave it all up to move to Hollywood and work with a chimp. (I believe my reaction to the show, reading about it at the time, was “they’ve got to be kidding.”)

Why did she do it?

She explains in Richard Shull’s “Inside TV” column in Florida Today, published January 22, 1972.

Ten Years on Broadway 'Prepare' Anita Gillette for 'Chimp' Series
One thing and another and Broadway star Anita Gillette wound up 3,300 miles from home co-starring with a Hollywood actor-type, a chimpanzee and two child actors in a funky new midseason TV show.
She laughs about it, but at times her laughter has a hysterical edge to it.
The pert brunette Is a part of the new CBS cultural offering, "Me and the Chimp." The show originally was titled "The Chimp and I," but its star, Ted Bessell, insisted on the title change, even at the expense of grammar, to give his character precedence. That's indicative of something.

Anita takes the present turn in her career philosophically. "I thought I knew good plays, and you wouldn't believe the flops I was In," she said. "And I know nothing about television, so I won't attempt to say anything.
"Let's face it, no television is Shakespeare. The public makes the hits. I go to work and I do my job," she said.
But please, Anita, you must admit "Me and the Chimp" isn't the sort of title to inspire confidence.
"There's no way you can explain the show," she said. "Of course, well get clobbered by the press with this. The name invites it. But you know our motto in the theater 'Illegitimus non carborundum.' Don't let the —— wear you down."
She gave the impression she still was a bit dazed at the idea of playing a mother role in a TV situation comedy, especially one in which the family included a chimpanzee.
As she explained it, after 10 years on Broadway as star or leading lady of 15 shows, she went to Hollywood to try for a role with Darrln McGavin in a pilot film for a proposed series for next season. Barbara Feldon got the part.
"My agent urged me to take this. He pointed out that not one in 25 of the pilot films ever get to be a series, but this was a series definitely committed to be on a network.
"When he told me the title, I said, 'I spent 10 years setting ready for this!' Then I read the script and I found It was funny. "So instead of two weeks, It looks as if I'm in Hollywood forever. I still go home to New York on weekends. I left my kids in school there. (She's divorced with sons 7 and 11.) I've never been away from them before," Anita said.
So, how does she manage in Hollywood alone?
Well, she explained, she has a little apartment at the Sunset-Martini Apartments, a haven for dislocated New York actors who are la Hollywood - based series. Jack Klugman of "The Odd Couple" and Florence Henderson of "The Brady Bunch" are among the tenants who also commute home to New York.
"I break my back pulling the bed out every night. And I'm all alone, so I take lots of baths and read Agatha Christie novels," she said. "It ain't home, baby."
According to the story premise, Anita and the two children on the show adopt a stray chimp against the wishes of Bessell, who plays the father.

On April 3, 1972, CBS announced its new fall line-up. The Glen Campbell Show didn’t make the cut. Neither did Arnie, which starred Herschel “Charlie the Tuna” Bernardi. And neither did Me and the Chimp. Instead CBS announced it was scheduling some new comedies called M*A*S*H and Cousin Maude and one with Bob Newhart. They all did slightly better than a sitcom with a chimp and Ted Bessell, which was pulled after 13 weeks.

If you wonder why Bessell did the show, he told Gannett News Service’s Tom Green in 1972 “‘It's crazy,’ I said. ‘I'm not going to do a show with a monkey.’ Well, my manager read it and said it was good. Then I read it and I thought it was funny.” Gillette’s memory of the show wasn’t fun to Gannett’s Mike Hughes in 1985. She said “Working with the chimps wasn’t as bad as working with Ted Bessell. I think he was having a nervous breakdown.” (Bessell denied having a breakdown but admitted “I don’t think I was in terrific condition at the time”).

Whether Gillette or Bessell got new managers with better advice is unknown, but Bessell moved into directing while Gillette continued to appear on the stage and in television. In fact, Gillette is still working today and you can find out what she’s up to on her web site.

I'm A-Steppin'

Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. Their earliest cartoons were flat-out funny. If I had to pick a favourite, it might be Bugs Bunny Rides Again, but High Diving Hare (1949) would be up there, too. Director Friz Freleng’s timing of Tedd Pierce’s gags couldn’t be better.

The premise is simple. Bugs keeps tricking the combustible Sam into dropping off a high diving platform. One scene has the old “I dare you to step across this line” routine. You know what’ll happen. But Pierce throws in a little post-script where Sam zips back up to Bugs, says “I hate you!” and then resumes his inevitable plummet.

I like some of the poses, too.



Pete Burness was apparently responsible for this animation. The usuals in Friz’s unit at the time—Gerry Chiniquy (he loved drawing Bugs cross-eyed with a stretched face), Manny Perez, Ken Champin and the graceful Virgil Ross animated other scenes.

Fighting With Shadows

Don Patterson tries a silhouette scene in the Woody Woodpecker cartoon Socko in Morocco (1954). Our hero is a member of the Foreign Legion tasked with protecting the Princess Salami from Sheik El Rancid (played by Buzz Buzzard). The stealthy sheik makes his move.



The sheik is frightened.



Patterson and writer Homer Brightman turn the silhouettes into a gag.



Patterson was a good director. There must be a story behind why his directing stint at Lantz was so short. I detect some Patterson animation in this cartoon. Herman Cohen, Ray Abrams and Ken Southworth receive animation credits.

Wonga and Wife

The Jack Benny show was dismantled piece-by-piece as the 1950s wore on. Mary Livingstone somehow had a cold or something and then eventually pre-recorded what shows she appeared on. Dennis Day was occupied with television and shows in Vegas so there were weeks when he was absent. But the biggest blow was the loss of Phil Harris, who left at the end of the 1951-52 season amidst conflicting explanations.

Harris was a one-of-a-kind character (though Dean Martin’s TV persona borrowed parts of the Harris personality) and larger-than-life. He was impossible to replace. It’d be tough to pick who got the most laughs—Harris or Eddie Anderson.

The Benny show was a launching pad for Harris’ own comedy programme with his wife, Alice Faye, first on “The Fitch Bandwagon” in 1946 and then on their own radio show from 1948 to 1954. They were married for 54 years.

Harris and Faye didn’t move their show over to television, even though he had a long-term contract with NBC. They seem to have preferred enjoying their wealth by relaxing in Palm Springs.

It’s been a while since we posted some clippings about Wonga Philip Harris and his lovely wife. Let’s rectify that. Our first piece is from 1947, the second from 1963.

Phil, the Kids, Radio Concern To Alice Faye
The Movie Folks Wish She Hadn't Gone Away
By RALPH DIGHTON
Hollywood, April 12 (AP)—A gal who can walk away and leave you wishing she hadn't—that's Alice Faye.
After all these years and two babies, the lovely Alice is as lovely as ever. Still possessor of the best figure in Hollywood—broad-shouldered, slim-hipped and full-bosomed—Alice lives on a hillside at nearby Encino with none to appreciate her beauty but her bandsman-cut-up husband, Phil Harris.
TCF Wishes She'd Return
Twentieth Century-Fox, to whom Alice owes two movies, thinks she ought to get back in pictures. Twentieth is so certain the public would like to see Alice again it is re-releasing Alexander's Ragtime Band. But Alice can't quite make up her mind.
The money no longer is important. She made quite a chunk in the movies, and kept it. Phil is one of Jack Benny's headliners (at about $80,000 a year), and Phil and Alice have their own radio program.
The Faye-Harris show, less than a year old, enjoys a Hooperating around 20.4, compared with Jack Benny's 29 and Edgar Bergen's 24.6. Some critics wonder, however, if the rating would be so high if the Faye-Harris show were not sandwiched in between Benny and Bergen — one of radio's best Sunday spots.
Even so, Alice is not satisfied with the rating, but she isn't unduly concerned. Her greatest interest these days is her family—five-year-old Alice, Jr. and three-year-old Phyllis—and "just keeping Phil (an ex-man-about-town) happy."
Phil, apparently, is happy. His home life bears about as much resemblance to his hard-drinking, lame-brain radio roles as a quart of milk does to a fifth of bourbon.
During his spare time, Harris is a pretty fair amateur gardener. Every tree and shrub on his once-barren eight acres was planted by the maestro himself. The Harrises currently are having swimming pool trouble. Somehow or other, one of the drain pipes clogged.
"Now we gotta drill down through three feet of concrete," moans Harris, "and listen to them guys chutta-chutta-chutting with drills and swinging picks all day long."
Phil will do anything for a laugh. He's been that way ever since he was a drummer in Nashville, Tenn., in the early '20s. It was this love for a gag that first put him out in front of a band doing "variety" numbers. Over the years Phil has developed a terrifically rapid delivery. He's one of the fastest men with a gag in radio. Alice says that's the one thing she dislikes about their own show.
“I can't keep up with the guy,” she says. “Nobody could.
“When we first started, he used to bawl me out good for flupping my lines. Now I'm beginning to get the hang of it. But every Sunday I wonder whether I'm going to get a pat or a push.”
Second Marriage for Each
Alice, 32, and Phil, 41, have been married six years. Each has a divorce in the past. She once was married to Tony Martin; Phil to an Australian actress, Marcia Ralston. Their friends think this marriage has as good a chance as the next one. Two beautiful blonde children (Alice Jr. is as pretty as her mother and almost as good an actress) would seem to cinch the matter.
"I like a drink now and then as much as anybody," says Harris. "We have our moments, but never in front of the kids. That's the main thing. You got to be careful with kids."
You also have to be careful, Phil says, with the public. His booze-hound characterization on Benny's show is beginning to backfire. He refuses to have his picture taken with anything resembling liquor around.
"It's just a gag," says Phil, sounding puzzled and hurt, "but them people are really getting down on me."

Phil and Alice Won't Sing Duets
By VERNON SCOTT
UP-International
Hollywood, Jan. 18—Alice Faye and husband Phil Harris will appear together on television next week for the first time in seven years.
The gorgeous blonde and her Southern Fried husband, however, still refuse to sing a duet.
"Look," said Phil during a rehearsal break for the Red Skelton show, "everybody does duets, and they do 'em pretty good. Alice and I have never done a number together and when we do I think it should be something outstanding."
Alice nodded agreement. So the Harris family will be winging their own numbers individually on the Skelton Show Tuesday at 8:30 p. m.
The arrival of the couple in Hollywood always causes something of a stir. They were among the first movietown celebrities to move to Palm Springs permanently, and since then other stars have followed, including Skelton.
"It's an entirely different way of life down at the Springs," Alice said. "We do all our own cooking. And we go to bed early and get up early. Phil's a wonderful chef."
"I've been cooking most of my life," the comedian agreed. "I specialize in all them Southern dishes, especially cornbread. If I don't have cornbread at least twice a week I'm a miserable man."

Because Palm Springs temperatures rise to 115 degrees in the summer and rarely fall below 100 for months on end, the Harrises were asked how they stood the gaff.
"It's not as bad as it sounds," said Harris. "I play golf almost every day of my life out there. The humidity is real low."
"Almost every house is equipped with air conditioning and a swimming pool," Alice went on. "And you get accustomed to the heat."
"We do a lot of traveling during the summer anyhow," Phil put in. "I'm crazy about hunting so I head up to Colorado or northern California on hunting trips during the hot season."
Among other stars with homes in the famed resort are Debbie Reynolds, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, the Marx Brothers and Lucille Ball. Even Ex-President Eisenhower makes a yearly pilgrimage there.
"We moved to the Springs 11 years ago," Harris said, "and were among the original members to build the Thunderbird golf course. It was the second golf club in Palm Springs. Now there are 19 courses in the area."
"And Phil's played all of them," Alice said.
Both members of the Harris family said they'd like to become more active in show biz, now that their two daughters have left the nest.
"Word got out that I didn't want to work," Phil said unhappily. "That's not true. I want to get back in action, but doing worthwhile things. There's no point in getting into a situation comedy where I lock myself in a closet and someone pours a bucket of water on my head.
"All that has been done before by funnier people than me."
Alice, too, would like to try her hand at some guest shots in TV drama—even if it does mean leaving Palm Springs sunshine for Hollywood's smog.