Jack Benny at Massey Hall

Jack Benny arrived at Toronto’s Malton Airport where he was to be greeted by 50 children playing “Love in Bloom” on their violins. Instead, the Toronto Star reported the children swarmed around him on the cold tarmac, waving their instruments like baseball bats. Jack then whipped out a 1729 Stradivarius—and serenaded the kids!

He was a busy Benny toward the end of 1957. He was playing a number of charity shows to raise money for the State of Israel, and he and George Burns accompanied the production of “One Foot in the Door” on its pre-Broadway tour; the two had invested money in it. Organisers of the Bond Drive hoped to raise $3,000,000 during the duration of their campaign. His concert at Massey Hall set a world record for a single performance as it brought in $987,000. $300 got you a ticket to the show, $25,000 gave you a chance to meet Benny afterward.

John Kraglund reviewed the November 12, 1957 concert for the Toronto Globe and Mail. Critics of the fine arts can get a little snooty but Kraglund is tongue-in-cheek, having enjoyed the performance. Here’s his column.

Any doubts about Jack Benny’s right to be called a great violinist were completely routed when he made his Canadian debut as a concert artist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Walter Susskind, at Massey Hall, last night. Assisting artist on the program was soprano Mimi Benzell.
As to Mr. Benny’s status as a violinist, what better evidence could there be than the box office sale of $987,700 (in State of Israel Bonds), claimed by the soloist as the “largest gross for any concert in history and I think Heifetz ought to be ashamed of himself.” Furthermore, Mr. Benny has a very fine violin—a Stradivarius—which carried some weight.
These material things aside, there was also his ability to walk on stage like a great artist, even though he forgot his bow the first time; his regal bearing and scant acknowledgement of the thunder of applause that greeted his entrance; his quick show of temperament when irritated by little things like having concertmaster Hyman Goodman take over the solo part in Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen; and his artistic liberty with tempo, dynamics and even melody.
Occasional weaknesses may have been in evidence here and there, but surely the fault must have lain elsewhere. Mr. Benny could scarcely have been to blame because Mr. Susskind and the orchestra could not always keep up with him. Nor should he be criticized for dismissing Mr. Goodman and the other first desk violinist, Isidore Desser, especially when they seemed to do the things Mr. Benny was supposed to do—with less difficulty.
Another dismissal—that of the cymbalist—was certainly appropriate after he drowned out, not only the soloist, but the entire orchestra. There have been occasions when we wished we were in a similar position of authority. And we should have been as startled, and a bit hurt, if a stage hand we had summoned were to pick up our violin, play a few bars on it, and nod his approval—had we not known that he was violinist Anthony Ginter from the second violin section of the orchestra.
Granted, Mr. Benny’s attributes were mostly extraordinary for a violinist—like his changing of the cello section so that beautiful, blond Olga Kwasniak was in the first chair, where he—as concertmaster in Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Capriccio Espagnole—could see her more easily. Such a move could not but endear him to male members of the audience.
Perhaps he was right when, after his performance, he said, “I’ve got a lot of guts, haven’t I?” Certainly he has a great deal of charm and the spontaneous warmth of an entertainer who has been a leading comedian longer than most of us can remember. In addition to donating his services to the cause of the State of Israel Bond Committee, sponsors of the concert, he provided 2,800 persons with a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and suggested to Mr. Susskind that he appear on Mr. Benny’s TV show, because he is a great conductor and “has such great sex appeal.”
The program chosen for the event was an ideal one—light-hearted without being banal—including the first movement of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, Smetana’s overture to The Bartered Bride, Bizet’s L’Arlesienne Suit and the two violin numbers already mentioned.
Miss Benzell, a familiar lady of song, was heard in the Ah, Fors E Lui—Sempre Libera from Verdi’s La Traviata; Una Voce from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville; and the Laughing Song from Strauss’ Die Fledermaus. She has considerable charm and a great deal of flamboyant vitality.
Her performance was notable for the warmth of her middle voice register, the brilliance of some sustained high notes, a fine sense of melodrama which dictated her musical sense and a fascinating right hand—frequently elevated.
But it was Mr. Benny’s evening. We could not say whether Mr. Susskind and the TSO played well, since we, like they, were too broken up by the solo violinist’s performance. And for those who may still be in doubt, we should like to add that Mr. Benny really was playing the violin, not just pretending while someone else made the sounds.

The Krazy Kat Came Back

There’s something nice about seeing old cartoon characters revived, provided the revivals are done well.

Revivals are really nothing new. Let’s take Krazy Kat, for example. George Herriman invented the character and her unique, cross-hatched little world in 1913 for the Hearst papers. Hearst’s International Film Service released animated Krazy Kats beginning February 18, 1916. Donald Crafton’s fine book Before Mickey explains the studio died by 1918 but Bill Nolan revived Krazy in 1925 for the Mintz studio for release by Columbia. Krazy made the transition to sound before the series died in 1940, not resembling Herriman’s newspaper cartoons in the slightest.

When television expanded and needed animated cartoons to fill endless hours of kids programming, Columbia was ready. The studio sold the TV distribution rights to the sound Krazys to Hygo Corp. in October 1954 (Variety, Dec. 1, 1954) but got them back when it bought Hygo two years later (Variety, Dec. 2, 1956).

King Features Syndicate, the comic strip arm of Hearst, still owned the character. No doubt buoyed by the tremendous success of the TV Popeye cartoons it ordered for production in 1960, it delved into other properties it could turn into similar gold mines. So it was the Krazy Kat was revived, except this time for the small screen.

Here’s a little time-line of how Krazy returned.

Paramount Cartoon Studios, at 35 West 45th Street, JU 2-4500, a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures, is currently embarking on the most important theatrical and commercial production program in its history.
Howard Minsky, the executive in charge of the cartoon studio and Paramount Pictures’ assistant general sales manager, said, “Our current production program is a far cry from the years when we turned out not only 20 theatrical cartoons annually. We are not only increasing our theatrical output with the introduction of new series and “specials,” but also producing a wide variety of subjects for television, commercials, and the government.”
Mr. Minsky added that Paramount Cartoons have completely updated the plant with the most modern cameras and machines. The program is under the direction of Manager Abe Goodman, with a staff of about seventy people headed by Seymour Kneitel and Music Director Winston Sharples who are responsible for creative planning.
Mr. Goodman emphasized the fact that Paramount is capable of competitive bidding in all fields of animation, but at no time would they sacrifice quality in the end product. The standards which Paramount adheres to, are such that only “...a good product ...a quality product,” is turned out at the studio.
The studio, one of the largest in the East, is currently releasing a new series featuring Cliff Arquette’s “Charlie Weaver”, the popular comic strips, “Barney Google,” “Krazy Kat” and “Beetle Bailey” as well as Jackie Gleason’s television characters, “Reggie Van Gleason” and “The Poor Soul”. Just completed for release is a two-reel color cartoon “Abner the Baseball” with music and narration by Eddie (“The Old Philosopher”) Lawrence. In advance the studio is producing 62 films for King Features, in the “Popeye” series, and a new series for television called “The Kid From Mars.” (Back Stage, May 19, 1961).

Paramount Pic[t]ures and King Features Syndicate have entered into a co-production deal on three cartoon properties out of King Features' comic strip stable. Novel part of the deal is that it calls for both theatrical and tv release of [t]he animated cartoons, with Paramount handling theatrical and KFS handling tv distribution.
The three properties are "Beetle Bailey," "Barney Google and Snuffy Smith," and "Krazy Kat."
Al Brodax, director of tv for King Features, began developing these three strips for tv over a year ago, and signed a Coast animation plant to produce a pilot subject of each. When Paramount, which has had a long and close relationship with King, found out about the project, it became enamored with the project and decided to go theatrical with them. Hence. Paramount's cartoon studios in N.Y. will produce a dozen subjects spread over the three properties. Paramount plans to start theatrical distribution of the first of these this spring.
Meanwhile, Brodax this week, returns from the Coast where he completed work on the third of the pilot films, "Beetle Bailey." For tv, Brodax is planning to offer the three properties in an "omnibus" half-hour with appropriate bridges, or he may go for a half-hour show of any one of the three properties. Voice of Private Bailey is being done by Howard Morris, of the old "Sid Caesar Show." Allen Melvin, who played Corporal Henshaw in the old "Bilko" show, voices the role of Sergeant Snorkel in "Beetle Bailey."
The Paramount-King Features relationship goes back to 1932, the year that Paramount made the first "Popeye" cartoon. When Bordax [sic] set up the KFS tv division two years ago, he signed the Paramount cartoon s[t]udio to make a large part of the 220 new "Popeye" cartoons that King is producing specifically for tv. (Weekly Variety, Feb. 7, 1962)

King Features' Al Brodax has commissioned Creston Studios to turn out a pilot based on the comic strip, "Beetle Bailey". (Weekly Variety, Feb. 28, 1962)

Two-media cartoon deal ■ Paramount Pictures and King Features Syndicate announce a co- production agreement on three of King's comic strip properties for both theatrical and tv release. Paramount will handle theatrical and King will handle tv distribution of the three animated cartoon series: Beetle Bailey, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and Krazy Kat. Al Brodax, director of the KFS tv division, announced that pilots have been completed, and the film shorts will be offered to tv as an "omnibus" half-hour show of any one of the three properties. (Broadcasting, March 12, 1962)

KFS' trio ■ King Features Syndicate-Tv is starting to sell three new cartoon series, Beetle Bailey, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and Krazy Kat, but they will not be available for tv showing before the fall of 1963. KFS-Tv will produce 50 episodes in each of the three series, with each segment 5 ½ minutes long, except for nine longer subjects (8½ minutes) that will be released theatrically over the next year. (Broadcasting, Nov. 26, 1962)

Cleffers Jay Livingston and Redd Evans were signed this week to writ the music for the sound track of 50 new Krazy Kat TV cartoons which are being put into production by King Features Syndicate. The cartoons are part of a package of 150 which includes 50 Beetle Bailey shows and 50 Barney Google stanzas. The series will go on the air in the fall of 1963. TV stations are being set up across the nation. New York outlet will be WPIX. (Billboard, Dec. 1, 1962)

Nearly nine months in advance of its debut, King Features Syndicate has lined up Ideal Toy and Kenner Products to buy participations in a roster of markets in KFS' new cartoons, "Beetle Bailey," "Barney Google an' Snuffy Smith," and "Krazy Kat."
Inking of the two toy companies for participations in particular markets, the number of which is sizeable, is a feather in the cap for Al Brodax, KFS tv director, and a big sales plus for the 150 cartoons in this series. Cartoons, being done in color, are of five-and-a-half-minutes in length and are all based on King Features comic strips.
Ideal, through Grey, has signed for more than 50 markets. Kenner, in its participation commitment, has signed for upwards of 25 markets. According to Brodax, a couple of other national advertisers are now registering interest for similar participation deals.
Stations that have signed so far include WPIX, N.Y.; KTLA, Los Angeles; CKLW-TV, Detroit; WTAE, Pittsburgh; WEWS-TV, Cleveland; WTCN-TV, Minneapolis. All of these stations will be included in the participation buys of Ideal and Kenner.
Before even beginning its syndication selling, KFS screened the upcoming cartoons with potential advertisers. In the case of toy companies, KFS has been talking merchandising possibilities, although no licensing of properties has begun as yet. (Weekly Variety, Jan. 23, 1963)

Cartoon Trilogy, Beetle Bailey, Barney Google an' Snuffy Smith and Krazy Kat (King Features Synd.): Sold to Triangle Publications for WFIL-TV Philadelphia, WFBG-TV Altoona and WLYH-TV Lebanon, all Pennsylvania; WNBF-TV Binghamton, N. Y.; WNHC-TV New Haven and KERE-TV Fresno. Also sold to WTTV (TV) Indianapolis-Bloomington; KIRO-TV Seattle and KSL-TV Salt Lake City. (Broadcasting, Feb. 3, 1963)

King Features Syndicate is offering its stations the concept and wherewithal for a local wraparound format that will give its three new cartoon series national identification while preserving local promotional values. The format, called "Operation Hangout," features an odd-ball ice cream parlor called The Hangout. The emcee is the soda jerk.
In addition, there are other features to KFS' expensive layout, all aimed at preserving the identity of the KFS cartoons, "Beetle Bailey," "Barney Google an' Snuffy Smith," and Krazy Kat." (Weekly Variety, March 27, 1963)

King Features Syndicate has concluded property merchandising arrangements with 20 manufacturers for three of its cartoon series—Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, Beetle Bailey, and Krazy Kat. Ideal Toy and Kenner Products, two of the principal licensees, will have extensive spot schedules on local telecasts of the cartoon series. Among the other licensees are Milton Bradley Co., Golden Records, Multiple Productions, Colorforms, Sawyer's, Barzim, Phoenix Candy, Four Star Candy, Ben Cooper, Collegeville, Western Printing and Louis Marx. Products licensed by the companies include dolls, paint sets, jig saw puzzles, games and records. (Broadcasting, July 15, 1963)

Stay tuned ■ King Features Syndicate, to promote its three new TV cartoon series, "Beetle Bailey," "Barney Google" and "Krazy Kat," is sending customer stations a 16-inch double-faced disc with comic audio promos by the cartoon stars. The 35 spots include 10-second, 20-second and stay-tuned announcements. Also on the disc is an open-end comedy routine in which the local MC's can talk by phone with four of the "Beetle Bailey" principals, right on camera. The cartoons will premiere on most stations in early September. (Broadcasting, Sept. 9, 1963)

Barney Google will get a show of his own in New York, with Ideal Toy sponsoring.
WPIX is spinning off the Google cartoons from the rest of the new King Features Syndicate package to set up the half-hour per week stanza. "The Barney Google Show" had its debut Saturday (7), 6 to 6:30 p.m., with the station's Jack McCarthy emceeing.
The rest of the new KFS cartoons, "Beetle Bailey" and "Krazy Kat," will play on WPIX's new "Chuck McCann Show," 5 to 6 p.m., across the board. In other major markets, Ideal, through Grey Advertising, has bought participations on the KFS cartoons running across the board in early evening periods. (Weekly Variety, Sept. 11, 1963)

Jack...Mendelson is one of the industry’s business TV-cartoon writers, having written more than half of the current Krazy Kat and Beetle Bailey episodes for King Features Syndicate. (Back Stage, Sept. 20, 1963).

Perhaps sales weren’t what King Features hoped, or the syndicate felt it had enough cartoons that it could broker with the idea the kid TV audience would change every few years. Whatever the reason, it decided not to expand.

King Features Syndicate: The company has presently in distribution 370 segments of color cartoons, including 220 Popeye episodes and 50 each of Beatle Bailey, [sic] Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and Krazy Kat. For the moment, a spokesman said, KFS is not planning new production in color for syndication. (Broadcasting, September 20, 1965).

With more big advertisers acquiring their own tv shows, a new firm has been formed to handle distribution of such properties, plug all the fringe merchandising possibilities that go with them, such as trade or character-marked kids' clothes, toys and comic books. The new firm is Media/Syndication Systems and its first client is Quaker Oats.
Latter has picked up four cartoon series from King Features that will be bartered on a straight product-for-time basis, there being, it is understood, no Quaker spots spliced in with the cartoons. Stations taking Quaker up on the deal will reportedly have rights to the animated product for three years, to run whenever and as often as they choose.
The films are "Krazy Kat", "Barney Google an' Snuffy Smith", "Beetle Bailey" and "Cool McCool", latter just off the NBC Saturday kidvid strip.
M/SS is headed by Lawrence P. O'Daly, prez, and Roger Hudson, v.p. O'Daly is ex-ad manager for Ideal Toys, and Hudson was an account exec for WPIX.
Besides its four new cartoon series, Quaker is underwriting film versions of popular moppet books to be produced by David Wolper Productions. (Weekly Variety, Sept. 17, 1969)

I don’t know when these TV versions of Krazy Kat stopped airing but I’ve found a trade ad from 1993 offering them to stations wanting them.

Herriman’s quirky comic strip has been rediscovered a number of the times over the years and Herriman lauded as a genius. I doubt the same has been said for the TV cartoons.

Bosko’s Radio References

The MGM cartoon Hey-Hey Fever (1935) looks like a tarted up Warner Bros. cartoon. It has that two-tone Technicolor and Bosko design you see in Warners shorts. It even sounds like one. It includes Billy Bletcher (as Mother Hubbard’s dog, a black kid and Old King Cole) and that female chorus Leon Schlesinger used. Perhaps that’s not a surprise as Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising had been at Schlesinger’s less than a year earlier.

There are a few differences. There are overlays in the middle ground, perspective animation of characters walking past the camera, and animation in the background as well as the foreground. Oh, and Bosko doesn’t talk in a falsetto (though he does emit a Mickey Mouse-like nervous giggle).

Cartoons around the mid-‘30s had at least one of two things—radio references and/or celebrity caricatures. This one has the former.



The old woman who lived in a shoe has so many children who yell “We want candy!” This is a takeoff on the “We want Cantor!” shout on Eddie Cantor’s show.



Later in the cartoon, Bosko climbs a knoll and shouts “It’s only the beginning, folks! Only the beginning!” That comes from Captain Henry, played by Charlie Winninger, on the Maxwell House Show Boat.



Finally, as the starving folk of Mother Goose Land are about to enjoy the bounty of food they’ve grown themselves, in kind of an analogy to ending the Depression, Bosko strolls into the foreground and shouts “Is everybody happy?” It was the catchphrase of Ted Lewis, known perhaps more for his band-leading than radio (Lewis became a nostalgia act in Vegas in the ‘50s and ‘60s).

The cartoon is an operetta of sorts as much of the rhyming dialogue is sung or sung/spoken. One exchange:

Bosko: Are you the Farmer in the Dell?
Farmer: Yeah, my farm is shot to ——.

I don’t know if the title song is from an MGM musical. If anyone knows, please post a note.

A Fishy Talkartoon

If there was a series of sound cartoons without the name “Tex Avery” that I’d love to see restored, it’d be the Fleischer Talkartoons. They’re full of surreal morphing and odd gags.

In Twenty Legs Under The Sea (released June 6, 1931), an eel becomes a stripe on a barber pole (and a barber’s chair sprouts up from the sea bed), the faces of two fish separate to eat the little turtles in front of them, falsetto singing fish (accompanied by clams) swim into a barrel of rum, and weird creatures march, one of which only has a head and two legs.

The weirdest gag is when a large fish swims past a weed growing in the water and turns into a school of fish, with the last one turning and smiling for the camera. Why? Because, that’s why.



It’s a shame the versions of this cartoon on-line are ultra low resolution. It’d be great to see this in pristine condition.

The cartoon has a couple of songs in it. One, “We’re Going Over to Maggie’s,” sounds like an old drinking song.

Willard Bowsky and Tom Bonfiglio are the credited animators.

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.