The Almost Prime-Time Pickle

You have to feel bad for producers who juuuust miss getting their show on the schedule for the fall TV season.

I was doing a bit of animation research through Variety when an article about potential line-ups for the 1967-68 fall schedule caught my eye. There were two comedies potentially slotted on ABC that I had never heard of. Evidently, the network had either bought them or the trade paper thought the producers and network were close to a deal. Whatever the case, they never became a series.

In puttering around, I spotted a third potential comedy that also never managed to get past the pilot stage. All were from the same production team.

Dee Caruso and Gerald Gardner became hot, thanks to their work on The Monkees TV series. They took advantage of it by pitching other series ideas. They caught some interest. And they got a good push in Jack Hellman’s column of January 19, 1967.

INTO THIS "FIFTH CARBON TOWN" (THE APPELLATION IS theirs) bounded two comedy writers, Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso, to take up their trade. They were first heard from a year ago as writers in N.Y. of "That Was the Week That Was." When New Yorkers started packing everything they owned on the Chief for the promised land of swimming pools and penthouses, they were to be counted among them. To become oriented to the west they needed only typewriters and an imagination that flew off in all directions. "The Monkees" may not be your dish but it was theirs and 26 segments bore their names. From the looks of the ratings they've got the wacky show off to what should be a second season and not the half-way ABC kind. They wanted to avoid their own descriptive of Hollywood as a dim carbon of successes so they conceived their own formula—wild and reckless but never bland. If "The Pickle Brothers" sounds like something that should be put back in the brine the reckoning is not shared by Four Star, ABC or Bill Friedkin, who'll direct under the production wing of Gardner and Caruso. If it has any resemblance to the Marx Bros, it is strictly intentional. The three "Pickles," formerly a nitery act billed in Greenwich as "The Uncalled For Three," comprise Ron Prince, a nephew of William Morris' Abe Lastfogel (they're not Morris clients), Peter Lee and Mike Mislove. What's wilder than wild? That's the step they'll take and they exude a confidence that brooks no fumbling.
Phil Cowan, who is more than a p.r. man for the team, has seen comica come and go for all of tv’s years and likes the odds they'll wing it into safe Nielsen country. What makes him so positive? "They'll get the writing and Friedkin's direction, a winning combination in any time spot." Friedkin, who has had his share of glory, was so won over to the kids that he gave up 15 days and nights to rehearse them. Gardner and Caruso have been writing comedy, both brash and brittle, for 10 years and they have rarely deviated from thin pattern. Behind them are scripts for "Get Smart" and "Monkees" and "Pickles" is just one entry in their future book. Screen Gems' Harry Ackerman, whose record for comedy hits is unmatched, took an immediate liking to their created "Tay-Gar of the Jungle" and is now being edited for the client scramble. Their "Mauley and the Mob," starring Paul Lynde as a dilettante detective, will be wilder than a March hare and as frantic as "The Pickles."

Where did they get much a corny title? Says Caruso, who claims kinship to the great Enrico (his father was a second cousin) but can’t sing a note, recalled that "mother used to regale us youngsters with stories of Ickle, Mickle and Pickle." Gardner's six-year-old, Lindsay, has also contributed a new generation touch to some of the situations. It would be interesting to both to see the reaction of Groucho Marx to the pilot. "If he thought he and his brothers were wild, wait till he gets a load of this." ABC's program board, leapt of the comedy-conscious judges, think well enough of what they've seen of the Gardner-Caruso works to call them in for development deals on three pilots. If the kids from Hofstra college in N.Y., who are the "Pickles," can laugh off the competition next season it'll be the crowning point of the Gardner-Caruso career. It's their first very own, from creation, writing and production even though they blandly (they hate the word) confess it's a direct steal from the Marx Bros.

ABC president Tom Moore was quoted in the Los Angeles Times of February 27, 1967 that the Pickle Brothers was under consideration to fill one of the remaining network slots for September. The show was screened for network executives in New York in early March—and that appears to have been the end of it. At least as a series.

Prince, Lee and Mislove continued to perform as the Pickles in clubs and on television through the balance of the 1960s. They did get a TV show—they were signed by WPIX-TV to do a local Saturday night show starting September 28, 1968 (Variety, Sept. 25, 1968). Perhaps the most interesting aspect of their career is when the ABC radio network split into four networks in January 1968. They were picked by the network to do a five minute satire on the news for the Contemporary Network, then survived a disastrous first week after which most feature programming was cancelled (Variety, Jan. 17, 1968). Director Friedkin went on to other things. Something about boys in a band or a French connection or an exorcist or something.

As for the other shows, Variety reported on December 2, 1966, then the following week:

Mike Henry, one of the many who played role of Tarzan in a feature film (an MGM-TV series is now being produced by Sy Weintraub for NBC), was signed yesterday to star in Screen Gems' "Tay-Gar Of The Jungle," a Tarzan spoof. It's a pilot being planned for next season, rolls Tuesday, at the Columbia Ranch.
George Kirby previously was set for a leading role. Bob Claver is the producer, Harry Ackerman exec producer. Dee Caruso and Gerald Gardner scripted the pilot. (2)

Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso will set up offices at MGM Dec 19 for production of "The Pickle Brothers" pilot for ABC-TV. Director and supporting cast not yet set for pilot, which stars The Uncalled For Three, for Sullivan Productions.
Gardner and Caruso, story editors and chief writers for "The Monkees" series, have a second pilot, "Manley And The Mob,” to begin shooting Jan. 3 at Four Star, with Fred de Cordova producing and Paul Lynde and Nehemiah Persoff starring.
A third Gardner-Caruso pilot, "Tay-Gar Of The Jungle," starring Mike Henry, George Kirby and Kit Smythe, is now rolling at Screen Gems. Harry Ackerman is executive producer. (9)

The pilot was shot January 18, 1967.

“Sullivan” means “Ed Sullivan.” His son-in-law, Bob Precht, oversaw the potential series. In fact, the Brothers appeared on the Sullivan Show (frame grab to the right). And you’ll recognise Fred de Cordova as Johnny Carson’s long-time producer. De Cordova was also saddled with directing the pilot for I Married a Bear, a football comedy written by Al Burns and Chris Hayward and bankrolled by General Foods (Variety, Oct. 26, 1966). Hmmm. Wasn’t a football comedy tried in animation not too many seasons later?

Taygar was perhaps up against too much competition. At the same time, Desilu was working on Alfred of the Amazon starring Wally Cox and produced by Get Smart’s Arnie Rosen, and Universal had Walter of the Jungle, starring Jonathan Daly, with Rose Marie and Nipsey Russell. The jungle spoof which did air that season wasn’t in prime time. It was the cartoon series George of the Jungle from the Jay Ward studios.

There seem to have been high hopes for Manley. Elliott Gould, George Carlin, John Barbour, Robert Strauss, Anthony Caruso and Mike Wagner had all been tested for the lead (Variety, Oct. 26, 1966). Dick Sargent was, too (Variety, Oct. 28, 1966) before Lynde was signed (Variety, Dec. 19, 1966). Barbour and Hope Holiday were signed as well (Variety, Dec. 30, 1966). Perhaps what happened during shooting of the pilot should have been an omen it would be a disaster. De Cordova required 60 stitches after pressure built up in a prop milk can and it exploded (Variety, Jan. 11, 1967, pg. 1). No more was heard of the show.

Reading about pilots is fascinating to me. There are always some interesting concepts and shows where star-power wasn’t enough to get them on the air. Broadcasting magazine used to do a round-up of them every year. You can read about the potential fall shows for 1967-68 in this edition, starting on page 27.

Late note: in hunting around for photos for this post, I came across the Pickle Brothers pilot and discovered a book had been written about their career. See the pilot below. The music, incidentally, isn’t by the Monkees. Caruso and Gardner got Quincy Jones.

Mel-O-Hood

Perhaps the most interesting-looking cartoons on TV in the early 1960s were the Mel-O-Toons, produced by Art Scott before he went to work for Bob Clampett on Beany and Cecil.

Scott got the rights to put visuals behind old children’s records. The visuals included extremely limited animation. But they had very stylised backgrounds that looked like nothing else on television. Here are some examples from Robin Hood, a 45 rpm record on RCA’s Bluebird label and narrated by John Rust.



A couple of examples of Sherwood Forest.



There are portions of the cartoon where characters stand around behind painted colours like what you see below. I don’t know how they got the effect. Of course, they would have been seen in black-and-white originally.



Some character designs.



Scott used cel overlays in a couple of spots at the beginning to make things look a little less static.

You can read about the Mel-O-Toons in this post and this one.

Daffy Gets the Girl

The anarchic version of Daffy Duck horns in on a movie love scene by kissing the girl. Then he tells us about it. “Wow! What a kiss! I think I’ll do it again.” And he does.



Being the fun, earliest version of Daffy, he woo-woos, jumps around, turns somersaults in the air before finally leaping out of the scene.



Virgil Ross is the credited animator, while Dave Monahan gets the story credit. Daffy Duck in Hollywood was released at the end of 1938.

Wedlocked to Jack Benny and Jack Pearl

Hugh Wedlock, Jr. and Howard Snyder wrote for Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In but, at the time, they were hardly young hip writers. They had been around about 35 years, going to the early days of radio comedy/variety.

Among the people who employed the two was Jack Benny. They never received credit on his radio show, but apparently filled part of the breach in 1936 when Harry Conn quit/was fired and Ed Beloin and Bill Morrow were hired. Despite that, Benny must have liked them as they co-wrote his last four TV specials.

Here’s Wedlock talking about his career to date to the Long Island Daily Press of November 26, 1938. The photo of Wedlock accompanied the article. Wedlock died in 1993 at the age of 85.

Former Wall St. Runner Now Gagman
Radio Satire His One Ambition
"We work together on every word," the stout man says as he looks to his partner for confirmation.
"Yes, that's the way we work," the man with glasses affirms. "And let me tell you, we fight over every word before a script is finished. Why the two of us are covered with bruises when we have completed a script.
"And one of our difficulties is that we can't tell who hits the hardest. So we shall probably continue writing and fighting for quite some time."
The partners are Hugh Wedlock Jr., and Howard Snyder, script writers who have written gags for Jack Oakie, Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny and Jack Haley.
And six years ago they were making $12.50 as page boys at the Curb Exchange in Manhattan.
Good Old Depression
"We would probably be there yet, writing gags as a hobby," Wedlock laughs. "But we were fired when the depression made itself felt and we decided to write for a living instead of a hobby."
When he is in New York, Wedlock lives at 105-13 84th street, Ozone Park, His parents and brother have been living there for the past 10 years.
"To explain how we got started as gag writers," Wedlock, says. "Howard and myself had been sending gags and ideas for humorous situations to various columnists on the Manhattan papers as well as the humor magazines.
"Then we took our courage in both hands and wrote a script which we submitted to Jack Pearl, who was running his Baron Munchausen series at that time. He used the script but through a misunderstanding we were never paid for it. Shortly after that we lost our jobs at the Curb.
"We thought if we could turn out a script Jack Pearl could use, we must be pretty good. So we decided to really go to work. We heard at the time that Georgie Price was dissatisfied with his gag man and we submitted a script. He liked it and we went to work."
Worked for Benny
After that they did some work for the Mark Hellinger vaudeville show until they had a chance to go to California to work with Jack Benny. They worked with the comedian on his "Buck Benny Rides Again" series and then went with 20th Century Fox to do work on pictures.

"We worked on several pictures," Wedlock says. "But it is hard to give you an idea of just what part of our work went into the finished picture. At a story conference in a movie studio there is a whole staff of writers and each man contributes an idea which is discussed and then either rejected or kept for further inspection.
"Some of our ideas were used in the picture 'Sally, Irene and Mary' but don't ask me which were ours. Sometimes they take a suggestion and let another man work on it. He embroiders it with his own style and the resulting piece of business is often unrecognizable to the man who suggested the idea in the first place."
At present Hugh Wedlock and his partner Howard Snyder, are in Chicago working with Billy House on a forthcoming radio program, the Laugh Liner. House is a vaudeville comedian who is making his radio debut with the program.
Not Bad Money
When Wedlock and Snyder started writing radio scripts they were paid $100 per script. But now they receive $1,000 per script and are known as the highest paid gag writers in the business.
"How do we work?" Wedlock chuckles. "That's a laugh in itself. We usually start about six in the evening and work through until about six the following morning. After a stormy session Snyder and I are not on speaking terms until the middle of the afternoon but somehow we finish our work and it is usually funny."
The scripts are rewritten word by word many times before the laugh team submits the finished product to the radio comedian. After preliminary rehearsals the show is previewed before an audience.
"Sometimes that means an entirely new script," Wedlock laments. "A gag which went over big in rehearsal may fall flat—in other words it has no audience appeal. Those gags must be ironed out before the program goes on the air."
One of Wedlock's favorite jokes is one of the cracks he was forced to eliminate from a script because it didn't get laughs from the preview audience.
"It's in the form of a classified advertisement," Wedlock says. "It goes like this:
"Couple wants to go to California. Will share expenses with a refined gypsy family.
'Oh well. I thought it was funny when I wrote it."
What was the hardest job the team has worked on?
"The present job is always the hardest," Wedlock declares. "When we are working on a job, we have to have our style fit the personality and manner of delivery of the comedian. It is obvious that Jack Benny and Jack Oakie, for instance, do not work in the same manner. But we turned out scripts for both men and had to please them or else."
Everybody's O. K.
"Who did we like to write for?" Wedlock hesitates for a moment.
"That puts me on the spot. I liked to work for all of them but it was easiest to work with Jack Benny. I'll put it that way. Benny does not expect a laugh in every line. He is content with a handful of really good gags."
Wedlock and Snyder have one overpowering ambition. They want to write a play for Broadway production.
"It will be a satire on the radio industry," Wedlock says. "There isn't a line on paper yet but we want it to be different. We are going to avoid the idea of panning the sponsor who wants to have his finger in every part of the radio program. That angle has been overworked. No, I can't say what we will feature in this satire, we change our mind too often for that. But it will be good, if we ever get around to writing it."
Wedlock and Snyder offer a study in contrast. They are about the same height but Wedlock is easily 50 pounds heavier. Snyder is the irrepressible member of the team while Wedlock is more restrained and is not so enthusiastic in his speech or actions.
Snyder is single while Wedlock takes his wife Margaret with him on tour.
"Just wait until next month when the Laugh Liner comes on the air," Wedlock promises. "It will be better than good."

Sorry, Walt, You Can't Air That

Miss X’s cartoon career was very short through no fault of her own.

Walter Lantz basically took Tex Avery’s singing/dancing Red character, added some exotic settings, and put her on the screen. (The far-too-unsung Pat Matthews was responsible for much of her animation). But theatrical censors came down on Lantz because her movements were apparently too suggestive for youngsters. Miss X disappeared for good after only two cartoons in 1944.

If Lantz thought the Production Code Administration was tough, he wasn’t prepared for people who were more skittish and paranoid—television executives and sponsors.

People in charge of radio networks and ad agencies went to ridiculous lengths to avoid offending anyone listening, and when television came along, so did the same attitude. When Lantz signed a deal with Kellogg’s and ad agency Leo Burnett in 1957 to put the half-hour Woody Woodpecker Show on ABC, he was told to start clipping things out of cartoons that had, years earlier, passed muster with bluenose theatrical censors. Here’s what he told United Press International in a column published September 24, 1958; to be honest, he had made some of the same complaints (ie. banning cow udders) about theatrical censors.

Lots of Vice on TV, But Comic Characters Are Real Puritans
By VERNON SCOTT
UPI Hollywood Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD (UPI)— Real actors can swear, get drunk, beat women and commit murder before the TV cameras, but cartoon characters— innocent little rabbits, birds and dogs— are the most strictly censored performers in history.
Walter Lantz, creator of Woody Woodpecker and a dozen other cartoons, has daily battles with the blue pencil boys to prevent Woody from corrupting the morals of youthful televiewers.
“It’s getting worse every year,” says the mild-mannered cartoonist. “Violence is the basis of cartoon humor, now they're cutting it out.
“The same audience that watches our Woody show 10 tunes in on ‘Wyatt Earp’ and other westerns and horror shows. The heroes can drink redeye whiskey, but Woody isn't allowed to drink cider.
“And that’s not all. We can’t show a cow’s udders. All dialects are censored and that old standby, the navel, is taboo.
“Most of the films on our show were seen in theaters years ago. But they are strictly censored for TV.

“For instance, one of our six-minute cartoons depicted a grasshopper chewing tobacco and spitting. Network censors said it was bad for kids, so we were forced to hack out six scenes showing the spitting grasshopper.
“In other shows characters spit in one another’s faces.”
Lantz was chastized by the state department for showing Mexican cartoon characters without shoes.
“I painted their feet black and called ‘em shoes and we managed to get by,” he grinned.
“There is no written code for cartoon censorship, so you can never tell what will upset the censors. It’s all right for Woody to kiss another woodpecker, but he’s not allowed to kiss a girl. Sexy scenes are absolutely out, naturally.

“When we played an old rerun of ‘Three Blind Mice’ we had to leave out dialogue about the mice being blind. Another time we had to delete a scene showing hospital attendants in white coats.”
Lantz argues that children watch “adult” shows on TV regularly, including programs in which glamour girls appear wearing next to nothing.
“We aren’t allowed to show a cartoon character in a bare midriff costume,” he laughed, “navel or no navel.
“Maybe we’ve brought this censorship on ourselves. In the ‘30s we went hog wild while feature pictures were tightly restricted. Now the pendulum has swung the other way.
“Our program reaches 187 stations. It’s the top-rated daytime show.
“We know we have a tremendous number of kid viewers, and I’m sure we would exercise good judgment and good taste without such stringent censorship. So far, nobody’s willing to give us a chance to prove it.”

Lantz groused about the same thing to The Hollywood Reporter in 1957, explaining he had to cut scenes from the Oscar-nominated Musical Moments From Chopin (1947) because it showed a horse with a keg of cider.

The folks at Leo Burnett also told him the Swing Symphony cartoons with black characters were verboten. “We never offended or degraded the colored race and they were all top musical cartoons, too,” Lantz said at the time though, even in 1957, thick-lipped, watermelon-eating stereotypes could hardly be deemed acceptable. “The agency reasoning,” Lantz went on, “was that if there was a question at all on a scene, why leave it in?”

The shorts may have been cut for television but we’re fortunate much of what Lantz produced from 1940 to when Woody first appeared on TV are on home video and uncut. Kids in 1957 may not have been able to see Miss X or a tobacco-spitting grasshopper, but we can today.

Grand Slam Tennis

Jerry lofts a tennis ball high into the sky. Both Tom and Butch run to return it over the net.



Jerry knows what’s going to happen. You do, too. Let’s see how it was animated. Here are four consecutive frames. The last three are cycled as the background and effects change.



They turn into one cat.



Tennis Chumps was in production by late 1947, released in late 1949 and re-issued in February 1957. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera’s usual group of animators is credited—Ray Patterson, Ken Muse, Ed Barge and Irv Spence.

Stabbing Snafu by Amos Quito

A malaria mosquito on a reconnaissance flight has discovered how the allies can be attacked—Private Snafu has been careless and has a hole in his mosquito netting.

The mosquitos set out on their mission—infect Snafu.



Here are some of the drawings after the swarm jabs Snafu en masse.



Mission accomplished!

Target Snafu, a little satire on basic training from the enemy side, was animated by the Friz Freleng unit. It was part of the Army Screen Magazine of October 1944.

Bill Frawley's Just Desserts

The word “irascible” must come up in every newspaper story about Bill Frawley.

It describes the characters he played on TV and, from what I gather, pretty much describes him.

If you really want to feel old, consider that Frawley would have turned 132 today if he were alive. And he’d be complaining about something, I’ll bet.

Here are a couple of stories after he joined the cast of My Three Sons in 1960, a show that did nothing for me. In the first, from October 3, 1960, Frawley tells United Press International he’s not going to learn how to cook. In the second, from May 28, 1961, it appears he did.

MAN'S MAN WEARS APRON
Don't Call Him ‘Sissy’
By VERNON SCOTT
HOLLYWOOD (UPI)—It takes a man’s man to wear an apron and play housekeeper in a television series, and the sissy who's doing it is William Frawley.
Frawley, you will recall, played the irascible Fred Mertz in “I Love Lucy.”
And he'd better not hear me or anyone else calling him a sissy.
Bill does wear an apron and does play “house mother” in the new Fred MacMurray show “My Three Sons.” The comedy role calls for him to shepherd three rambunctious kids around, too.
But don't think old Fred Mertz, er . . . Bill Frawley . . . has gone soft. He's still the same cantankerous, crusty codger he always was.
“I'M BOSSY AND MEAN as ever,” he grinned over a martini on the rocks, “but I'm loved, too. Those three boys—Tim Considine, Don Grady and Stanley Livingston—are my buddies. We got along just fine.”
Does Bill miss Vivian Vance, who played his wife, Ethel, on the “Lucy” series?
“Only because I don't have a nagging wife to bounce the comedy off of,” he growled. “There's nothing better than a battle-ax as a foil for laughs.
“As it is, I berate the kids and a dog named ‘Tramp’ in the new show. That dog is really funny; a big sloppy, good-natured slob who takes two or three steps and lies down right in front of me.
“I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and cleaning up the house.
“I can't fry an egg in real life. But on the show I turn out layer cakes and prune whip. I also sweep the dust under the rugs.”
FRAWLEY'S ONLY COMPLAINT about the ABC-TV program is the lack of females in the format. “So far the only girls who have shown up are romantic interest for MacMurray,” he explained. “There aren't any girl friends written into the script for me, though.
“Maybe it's just as well. I might wind up with another old crow-type. On the other hand, it wouldn't be bad if they brought in some young chick for me to chase around the set,” said the 67-year-old campaigner.
Frawley admits his role of ‘Bub,’ father-in-law to widower MacMurray and grandfather to the three boys, is similar to the Mertz part.
“So far it's been a lot of fun?” he concluded. “But I'll tell you one thing, I'm not learning to cook.”

CAN'T COOK A PRUNE!
Frawley's Recipes
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
Associated Press TV-Radio Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — William Frawley, once of "I Love Lucy" and currently of "My Three Sons" (Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.), has been a railroad hand, chorus singer, vaudeville song-and-dance man, dramatic actor and comedian. But now, in some quarters, he is considered an authority on cooking and other aspects of domestic science.
"It's pretty funny," confessed the stocky actor with the prize-fighter's nose and the buzz-saw voice. "I don't even know how to cook a prune. But all these letters come in asking me for my recipes."
Frawley's emergence as a pseudo home economist is the result of his part as "Bub." housekeeper, cook and dishwasher-in-chief of the Douglas household. Fred MacMurray plays a widowed father with three boys, and "Bub" is his father-in-law.
Frawley, in New York for a brief vacation before going back to start on next season's quota of "My Three Sons" episodes this week, was at first confounded when feminine viewers started asking him to share his cooking secrets.

"It started, I think, in an early episode when I yelled to the kids to come and get their mulligan stew," he said. "There's about a million things in a stew and I didn't know one of them. But I got hold of a recipe from a restaurant and sent it along."
Since then, Frawley—who keeps an eye on his waistline—has been forced to do some research on such unlikely subjects as pecan pie and caramal whip. Recently, the ladias have been sending recipes to him.
"One was pretty good," he said. "It was a dessert—they always are sending in dessert recipes—made of custard with cocoanut and stuff like that." Frawley, determinedly undomesticated and grass widower for many years, admits he's been having a perfectly horrible time trying to simulate convincingly the fine art of housewifery.
"I always eat in restaurants," he growled over a breakfast consisting of a whisky sour made healthful by extra orange juice, a cranshaw melon and black coffee. "I've lived in the El Royale Apartments for years, and there is maid service. One of the things that I have the worst time with is a vacuum cleaner. Every time I have to use one of the con founded things, my respect for women already high goes way up."
Pressed, non-cooking Bill Frawley admits he does rustle up his own breakfast. "I'm crazy about prunes," he said, "so I get three or four jars of them at a time and put them in the refrigerator. For breakfast, I have a few prunes, instant coffee and a few of those little wheat crackers that are shaped like triangles.” Frawley says it seems to him that he always has to be ironing something in the show.
"And I'm always doing it wrong," he said. "I just can't get the hang of it. Except for that I how to iron a shirt—I learned that from my mother a hundred years ago.”
* * *
THE 68-YEAR-OLD performer is one of the very few who have moved from one successful TV series to another. For years, Frawley played irascible Fred Mertz. who with Vivian Vance as Ethel, his wife, were the neighbors and pals of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in "I Love Lucy."
When Bill was in New York, he went to see Lucy Ball, whom he loves dearly, in "Wildcat." Lucy, at the end of the show, introduced him from the audience, and the reception was so warm Bill's gravelly, gruff voice actually became soft and sentimental just recalling it.
"My Three Sons" turned out to be one of the past season's hit shows. Frawley had little time for his favorite pastimes—baseball-watching and golf-playing. At one time Frawley was one of the owners of the minor league Los Angeles baseball club and he has won cups for his golf.
Although he has been in the theater almost 50 years, Frawley comes from Iowa parents so far removed from show business that his interest in the entertainment world puzzled and worried them.
He started work at 19. as a clerk in an Omaha railroad office, but quit after two years and went to Chicago to try his luck in the theater. But his two brothers hauled him back to Iowa.
Eventually he talked his younger brother into joining him in a vaudeville comedy and song act. Bill later played vaudeville houses up and down the Pacific Coast for several years, went into motion pictures, returned to vaudeville and ultimately — in 1927 — hit Broadway in musical shows. Hollywood called in 1939, and he built a reputation as a crusty character actor. With "I Love Lucy" he became nationally known.
"It has been interesting," Frawley said. "And I've enjoyed life. I still do. I don't know what you think success is, but I think it's working steady and making money. I'm doing both those things, and I like it fine."