Frank Fontaine wasn’t discovered by Jack Benny, but his career zoomed forward thanks his first exposure on the Benny radio show.
You can say the same thing about Joe Besser.
Besser only appeared on radio three times with Benny over a 12-year period, as well as a number of TV episodes. But his debut routine on the January 17, 1943 radio show got him noticed. It couldn’t be helped. Besser wailed and screamed his catchphrases. The audience busted up.
It’s surprising to read that the ear-ringing Besser on the radio was petrified in real life. He didn’t want to go on the air. Here’s an article about him from the St Louis Star, December 16, 1943.
Besser went on to star in short films for Columbia (including the later Three Stooges shorts), supported Joey Bishop on a sitcom, and voiced animated cartoons for Hanna-Barbera. He was 80 when he died in 1988.
St. Louisan In 'Sons O' Fun' Swings Words Comedian Besser Clicks But, 'Not So Fa-a-a-st, You'
BY WILLIAM INGE.
ONE Sunday night last winter a new character was introduced by a radio comedian on his weekly program. That character, and he is a character, had only a half dozen lines to say during the half-hour program, but the next morning he awoke to find himself the radio hit of the year. His telephone was ringing every five minutes with contract offers from New York and Hollywood, and so confused was he, that he could only crawl back to bed, hide his head under the pillow, and cry out the words that made him famous, "Not so faaaast."
The character, of course, is Joe Besser, one of the star performers with Olsen and Johnson in "Sons O' Fun," currently playing at the American Theater, This is the first visit Joe has made to his home here in eight years, and one of the few visits he has made since 1922 when he became assistant to Thurston the magician. Joe couldn't resist coloring the act with his own coy personality. Thurston's dignity at first may have been outraged by Joe's whimsy, but the audiences approved, so the magician finally dropped his own objections.
Joe's fame fall [fell] on him a little late, but he's reconciled by the old proverb, "Better late than never." He was widely known in vaudeville but when that institution died most of its famous reputations died with it. Before "Sons O' Fun" he had been in only one other Broadway production. That was the Shubert's "Passing Show of 1932," which passed in two weeks and didn't go anywhere.
It was in "Sons o' Fun" that Jack Benny discovered him, and in a way that was a sad day for Joe, for the last thing he wanted in this world was to be discovered, especially for a radio program. He's scared to death of mikes and always has avoided them like plagues, but Benny wouldn't listen to him. Joe said "No" and went home, but there, waiting for him, was his wife, who, although she didn't say anything, says Joe, "looked at me like I was an oyster." So he called Benny and said "Yes." But when it came time to go on, he changed his mind again and said "No." Finally Benny went to his dressing room and dragged him bodily into a cab and took him to the broadcasting station. "Look, Mr. Benny," says Besser, "I gotta bad throat. See, I can't talk. Honest, I can't speak above a whisper, See?" So Benny, who understands mike fright in all forms, pampered him and agreed to cut his part down so he could stick his head into the studio several times, say his line and then run. Joe felt a little better about it then, but he would have preferred to run before saying his line, and he almost did.
AFTER making several appearances with Benny, Joe went over to Fred Allen's program. He had got over a little of his mike fright, but not all of it, and Fred had to continue coddling him. Now Joe doesn't mind it much, but he still wouldn't go on alone. "I know if I'm with a big comic like Jack or Fred that they'll ad lib something clever if I muff a line. But I wouldn't want the responsibility of a show of my own."
Joe's radio success surprised no one more than it did Joe. "Most of my humor is visual," he says, "and I didn't see how it could possibly click on the air." What he perhaps does not realize about himself is that his voice is so full of inflection that it manages to convey the entire man. Hearing him on the radio, one can visualize pretty accurately Joe's jelly-mold physique, his slightly bald head, his cheery smile and blue eyes. When he says, "Shut up, you old cra-zee yieou," one can see the look of pouting indignance come over his face; and when he murmurs "You're cuooet," he obviously has his eyes rolled upward, is wearing his most fetching smile, and is rolling his shoulder against some curvaceous blonde.
What one does miss by not seeing him in the flesh is when, dressed as a buck private, he runs across the stage trailing his gun after him as if it were a scooter, and confronts the top sergeant as though he were the neighborhood bully, slaps his hands and says, "You old cra-zee, I've had enough of your meanness"; and when the sergeant bawls him out for not carrying his gun on his shoulder, he complains, "But it's so hea-vy." Military training has suddenly become just a game among a bunch of big, bad boys ...
Just a few weeks ago, Joe returned from Hollywood, where he made a picture for Columbia called "Hey Rookie." He likes doing films and thinks it's the ideal life for him, so he's going to return in a year or so and maybe settle down in Hollywood. There he can take it a little easier and there's no mike fright or stage fright to upset him. Offstage he is a quiet little fellow who likes to take his time about things and to avoid excitement. He denies having stage fright now, but opening night in St. Louis, just before he went on, he was worrying about his cold. "My throat is sore; my ears are stopped up; I won't hear my cues," he complained. But the other performers paid little attention. One got the idea, somehow, that they had been through this before.
"Not so fa-a-a-st. I can't do tha-a-a-t," he drawls. In other words, that's Joe Besser.
A number of cartoon voice actors are still unknown because even in the 1960s, some producers weren’t putting credits on their animated shorts.
One of them was Johnny Coons, who spent the bulk of his career in radio and television in Chicago. It was there he worked on a cartoon and puppet show called Uncle Mistletoe with a cartoonist named Sam Singer. Coons provided all the voices. Singer would take “Florence the Pen” and sketch two drawings. Two cameras would then switch back and forth between the drawings, making it look like they were moving! No doubt such cheesy, ultra-low budget “animation” inspired Singer when he went to California, set up cartoon operations and produced some of the most deadly bad TV animation in history. Coons hosted several children’s shows in the 1950s, both local and national, from Chicago.
Before we get to Coons’ animation career, let’s give you some of his background. He had been in radio in Chicago for several years when this story was published in the Jackson (Tennessee) Sun on April 4, 1948. There is no byline.
Johnny Coons Plays Clipper King On ‘Sky King’ Show
Although he grew up in a medical atmosphere and his family thought he would be a doctor, Johnny Coons never had any doubts in his mind that he would be anything but an actor. His father is a surgeon in Lebanon, Ind., one brother is an interne and another is completing medical school. Proof that appearing in the colorful make-believe world of stage and radio rather than in the colorless mask and gown of the operating theater was the right choice for Johnny, can be seen by looking through his scrapbook. However. Johnny did not turn his back entirely on the medical profession for he married a nurse.
Since Oct. 28. 1946, he has been portraying Clipper King in WTJS-ABC's juvenile dramatic show. Sky King, heard from 5:30 to 6:00 p.m., on alternate days with Jack Armstrong. His past radio stints have included important roles in Bachelor's Children, Captain Midnight and Vic and Sade in which he had four roles—Marvin Sprawl, Smelly Clark, Orville Wheeney and L. J. Gertner.
This Indiana boy began his professional career after graduating from high school. His family had him enrolled in pre-medical school at Wabash College but he never got there. Instead he went to New York City to Alviene Dramatic Academy for a year. Then he joined a vaudeville outfit as a magician for a year. After one season of touring throughout the Midwest, he returned to Broadway to appear in "Bright Honor" and later in stock companies in Winthrop. Maine, and Bay Shore. Long Island. He was offered a role in the "Dead End" touring company and for half a year was a Dead End Kid. The tour brought him to Los Angeles and he remained there for several years doing movies for Columbia and Selznick International.
From movies Johnny moved into radio and soon was doing dramatic stints on network programs originating in the film capital. Johnny decided to return to the midwest radio capital because he specialized in juvenile roles and parts calling for trick voices. He felt Chicago radio had more to offer him. Now he's content to remain in the Windy City permanently.
The Coons' apartment on the Near North Side is his hobby, he says. He did all the decorating himself and selected the modern furniture for it. "There's alwavs something to be done around the place and I enjoy being my own carpenter-electrician-plumber." Mr. and Mrs. Coons are not night clubbers. They prefer to do their entertaining at home, quietly. Besides, this gives Johnny a chance to demonstrate some of the feats of legerdemain which he performed on the stage. Although he sold his equipment (valued at $5,000) several years ago, he is able to baffle and entertain still without using rabbits, trick tables and hats.
Last summer Johnny had reason to be grateful that he was surrounded by members of the medical profession. He fractured a wrist on a picnic and had a local doctor take care of it. Weeks later it was found that the bone had been incorrectly set. Johnny returned home to his father who removed part of the bone and reset it. Johnny's nurse-wife took care of him and the arm afterwards, changing the dressings and tending it for the next several weeks.
There is only one aversion which this actor admits having. He hates to wear ties. He favors casual clothes and except on strictly formal occasions is never seen wearing a tie. He would like to operate a men's haberdashery store but says that as long as he's in radio he wouldn't have the time. With the
experience and background this Coons lad has. it is doubtful if radio will ever give him the opportunity of opening his store.
Coons left Chicago for Hollywood in late 1959. He worked on a number of cartoon series. Larry Wolters reported in the Chicago Tribune of October 1, 1960 that “Mister Magoo, voiced by Jim Backus, has added some new voices. Johnny Coons of Chicago TV has become the voice of Presley, and James Nugent is Beatnik Magoo.” Coons was represented by Charles Stern, the agent for June Foray and Paul Frees among others, and made money in the mid-‘60s voicing national commercials. He also hosted a couple of different children’s shows on KHJ-TV before returning to Chicago in 1969.
Another endeavour of Coons’ involved a toy for young children. He was interviewed by a number of newspapers about it, and his opinion of the fantasy/adventure cartoons on Saturday mornings at the time. The interviews also revealed another UPA cartoon he voiced. This is from the Baltimore Sun, October 29, 1968.
Supplies Voices Comments For Little Hen
By SHERBOURNE EVERETT
REMEMBER the role of Clipper in the radio show, “Sky King”? Or the character Panhandle Pete in a children's television show? Or Mumbles in the televised cartoon Dick Tracy or the Italian baby in a spaghetti commercial?
These are only a few of the several hundred characters that owe their voices to Johnny Coons, voice impersonator. And for about 30 years Mr. Coons, has portrayed old men, young boys, cartoon personalities and others in radio soap operas and dramas, children's shows, movies, television series and commercials. Talking Puzzle
More recently Mr. Coons is projecting his voice into a talking puzzle for children 3 to 7 years old in the roles of a tugboat, a fire chief, an air-plane, Humpty Dumpty and some farm animals, and it is an undertaking that he is very enthusiastic about.
Mr. Coons' career began in New York city theater and then skipped across country to the West Coast and radio in the Thirties. When television started becoming popular, Mr. Coons went on the air with a puppet show. “There were fifteen characters that I provided voices for,” he said. “And since many of them were on stage at the same time, they were difficult to keep track of. I used a lot of colored pencils in those days.” Stood On Table
Then Mr. Coons appeared in front of the camera instead of behind it for a change. Panhandle Pete was the character he portrayed—in miniature. Through trick photography Mr. Coons was made Lilliputian in size, and he stood on a table to talk to Jennifer, the other half of the cast. Still appearing as himself, Mr. Coons emceed the “Uncle Johnny Coons Show,” in which, wearing a derby, he entertained children for several years.
“Anything with children is great,” Mr. Coons remarked. “But I think they are missing the boat on children's shows today. It's not comedy; it's high adventure, if you will, violent adventure.” Strictly Americana
Having been in the children's field for about 25 years, Mr. Coons feels he knows what youngsters would like—and he has an idea for a show that is "stri[c]tly Americana."
“There is a lot to see and learn about in this country, because every state is interested. We could photograph some of these really interesting places, and if the program was presented in the right way and at the right level . . .” he proposed.
And even in this age when children are said to grow up faster than they did a decade or so ago, Mr. Coons believes that a show like this could succeed.
“I think very young children, say 3 to 8 years old, haven’t changed in that they could be led the same route as we were. Let them learn about the birds and bees as birds and bees in the sense of nature,” he added.
He would also like to see the return of the emcee as a personal character, a role that is missing on most children's programs today.
In the talking puzzles, Mr. Coons provides the role of the “missing emcee.” Each puzzle begins with a short introduction and then the tugboat (fire, chief, airplane, etc.) describes its job—Mr. Coon's voice in both cases. “It's a simple, basic thing that children have liked for years,” he stated, perhaps even giving some philos[o]phy on his ambitions.
Coons died in 1975; sadly, his son died two days later in his father’s home after flying from Hawaii for his father’s funeral.
In you’re wondering what Coons sounded like, listen to this children’s record. The voice should sound somewhat familiar.
We mentioned Coons played Presley on the TV Magoo cartoons. He used a W.C. Fields voice but you can recognise it as Coons. You needn’t sit through the full cartoon.
What else did he voice?
Well, there are no voice credits but it would seem he was Bozo the Clown for Larry Harmon Productions. You can hear him starting at the 0:20 mark. The introduction is from the throat of the mighty Paul Frees. Again, feel free not to subject yourself to the entire cartoon.
And, finally, one more.
Sam Singer apparently hired his old co-worker from Chicago to voice Salty the Parrot in the first go-around of the Sinbad, Jr. cartoons. (Evidently Singer had some problems and production was taken over by Hanna-Barbera who re-cast all the parts). It sure sounds like Coons doing an old-timer voice. The dialogue starts at the 0:38 mark. Compare it to the way he sounds on the children’s record and see what you think.
Miss Prissy’s son bites Foghorn Leghorn in A Broken Leghorn. Here are some of the drawings, including some in-betweens.
The take is actually the third frame. Director Bob McKimson had six drawings on twos as Foggy slightly scrunches his head before bursting up for the scream. It emphasises the big eyes and small pupils.
Warren Batchelder and Tom Ray join Ted Bonnicksen and George Grandpré in animating this one. It either had a long gestation period or sat on a shelf. The other cartoons that went into production around the same time were released in 1956. This was released in 1959. McKimson’s cartoons before and after this one began production had Russ Dyson as an animator; he died on September 29, 1956.
You know how some Hollywood musicals just scream to a stop for an uninteresting singing number? That’s what happens in Bob Clampett’s, go-through-the-motions, Porky Pig cartoon Naughty Neighbors (1939).
The cartoon stops for a pretty much gag-less musical number, as Mel Blanc as Porky and some woman ridiculously sped up as Petunia croon “Would You Like to Take a Walk.” Writer Warren Foster doesn’t even bother trying to imbue this with a sense of parody of musicals which halt everything because stars are expected to sing in a musical.
Instead, let’s look at frames of some of the backgrounds. There’s a pan near the start of the cartoon where we get a rural scene with a pun.
The pan comes to a stop here.
A nice farm country road.
I like the layout of this one. Porky and Petunia are still walking and singing in the distance.
There’s no doubt the backgrounds are by Dick Thomas. A few of them have the same scratchy grass that he painted in his cartoons at Hanna-Barbera in the early ‘60s.
The start of this cartoon is butchered in the recent Porky Pig DVD but I don’t want to beat that dead horse other than to say it spoiled Clampett’s opening gag.
Yes, she was known for cartoons. And, yes, she was known for being Talky Tina. And, yes, she appeared on records and radio with Stan Freberg. But June Foray did so much more than this during her career.
June’s vocal qualities were in demand to loop dialogue. In other words, after a film was completed, June would be called in to dub over the voice of someone on screen for whatever reason.
Here’s a syndicated newspaper column that began appearing around November 20, 1959 that talked about her dubbing work.
Rigging Isn't Just for the Quiz Shows Body is the Body Of the TV Star ... But Her Voice is the Voice of 'Ghost' By HAL HUMPHRIES
HOLLYWOOD Since the national sport at the moment is exposing everything on TV which isn't strictly on the up-and-up, you may as well have the facts about some of those sexy starlets emoting on your home screen.
Male viewers, especially, must have noticed that these young glamor queens usually possess soft, sultry voices.
As an example, in a recent Laramie episode a well-upholstered heroine looked into a cowpoke's eye and purred, "You've got to take me with you," with a come-hither voice Mae West would envy.
In real life, as it happens, this particular damsel's vocal chords sound like the starter on an old Essex.
THE DULCET TONES you heard were those of a diminutive ex-radio actress by the name of June Foray.
Miss Foray is a voice bootlegger. And she is so busy dubbing her repertoire of voices for TV "actresses" that she has difficulty finding time for her stock in trade TV and radio commercials.
During the past year the vari-voiced Miss Foray has been used to cover up vocal deficiencies in just about every Western on TV, besides some of the top adventure shows, including 77 Sunset Strip.
ONE OF HER MOST recent jobs was "looping" (dubbing) all of the dialogue for a heroine on CBS' Rawhide. The gal in the role had a shape like Marilyn Monroe, but she talked with a Brooklyn accent thicker than Mabel Flapsaddle's.
Miss Foray sat in a projection room, adjusted a pair of earphones on her, then waited for each of Miss Glamour's scenes to be repeated on the screen. Cue lines were marked on the film, and as each one came up, Miss Foray read aloud each line of dialogue.
It is a tricky process, because Miss Foray must "lip-sync" her words to match the lip movements of the girl on the screen. Her voice is then duly recorded on tape and later inserted into the film.
NOW I CAN HEAR someone out there in the audience asking, "Why did they hire this dame with the Brooklyn accent in the first place?"
That, dear viewers, must be answered very delicately. There are cases where the fresh young starlet is a "close friend" of eomeone who pulls a lot of weight on the show.
In other cases, Miss Glamour has a voice like a fishwife's but has other talents, as noted, which compensate for that shortcoming.
THERE ARE TIMES, too, when a voice deficiency is not noticed until too late. Perhaps Miss Glamour has a leaky lisp, which is not detected until the first "dailies" or "rushes" are run off. Production can't be held up while a new girl is cast, so Miss Glamour lisps her way through the show.
An emergency call is put in for Miss Foray or one of the other half-dozen other good voice-dubbers in Hollywood, and Miss Glamour is given a siren's voice to match the rest of her equipment.
MISS FORAY charges $150 for the first two hours of her services! $350 for an eight-hour day.
At this rate she frequently makes more money than the sex-wagon who is borrowing her voice.
NO ONE ELSE doing this work has the range of Miss Foray. For an episode of "The Deputy" she recently dubbed the voice of a small boy, who during rehearsal had picked up his mother's dialect as she coached him in his lines.
Stan Freberg uses Miss Foray for many of the characters in his records and commercials.
"I used to eat my heart out, want to be an actress that people could see," she says, "but now I'm happy just going to the bank."
WITH TV'S SUDDEN passion for doing nothing to deceive its audience, I'm sure that Miss Foray will soon be getting billing at least "Body by Simone LaRue; Voice by June Foray."
Fake French was pretty much mandatory in Pepe Le Pew cartoons, and we get a pile (un pile) at the start of Past Perfumance (1955). It’s set in a Paris movie studio in 1913.
Thus we get Rin Tin Tin (a play on “n’est-ce pas” is on the left).
Clara Bow.
Mack Sennett. (The “Quiet” sign, I presume, is a bit of intentional irony).
David Butler was a Warner Bros. director at the time this cartoon came out. He left to become an independent producer by 1956.
“Chimps Elysees” is today’s groaner from writer Mike Maltese.
The movie sets are fairly stylised. Phil De Guard painted the backgrounds from Bob Givens’ layouts. Maurice Noble was still at John Sutherland Productions when this cartoon was made.
The characters are a mix of stylised (you see some above) and standard designs (Pepé, the cat).
The people in Hicksville are so ignorant, they don’t know anything about the star they are welcoming to their town. That’s revealed at the end of Tex Avery’s Page Miss Glory.
Look at the straw hat guy on the far left. He makes a motion with his hands outlining the figure of a curvaceous beauty. It seems everyone in Hicksville thinks Miss Glory is some kind of Jean Harlow-like knock-out.
This is reinforced in the Art Moderne dream sequence.
The payoff is it turns out Miss Glory is a child star with a squealy Berneice Hansell voice and a Jack Benny catchphrase. Play Don!
As you likely know, the art for the dream sequence was dreamed up by Leadora Congdon. You can read more about her in this post.
Jack Benny would try to accomplish a simple task but get hamstrung by waitresses, store clerks, cab drivers and all manner of people. That was the fake Benny on his radio and TV show.
Actually, it happened to the real Benny, too.
Here’s a newspaper column from October 8, 1947. All Jack was doing was trying to have a peaceful lunch and conduct an interview. But he ended up with nothing but headaches. To be honest, some of the things here could have been incorporated into a radio script. You have to feel sorry for him.
In Hollywood
By ERSKINE JOHNSON NEA Staff Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD, Oct. 18. — Jack Benny was taking a beating.
You expect it on his radio show and in his movies but it was rather surprising to find Jack squirming in the No. 1 booth at Mike Romanoff's (where three tiny pieces of Irish stew meat, an onion the size of a grape and a potato the size of a marble cost $2—coffee 25 cents.)
Jack was trying to tell me about his summer vacation motor trips, but Mary Livingstone kept butting in.
Mary wasn't there. She was home and Jack was trying to get her on the telephone. Three times he got up and called and always the line was busy.
Jack was boiling. "I can never get my house," he whimpered. "Mary is always talking on the phone. She talks for hours. Sometimes it's Gary Cooper's wife. Or Mrs. William Goetz. Or Claudette Colbert. Mary talked to Mrs. Goetz in New York once for two hours and 20 minutes."
BUT NO AUTOGRAPHS
THEN there was Simpson.
I didn't catch his first name, but Simpson was wearing short trousers and a bored expression and looked to be about 10 years old. Mike himself brought him to the table, so Simpson must have been important. Mike hardly ever speaks to people unless they make $5000 a week or more.
Mike introduced Simpson to Jack and said:
"He's from England. He's heard you on the air." "Oh," said Jack. "So you're a fan of mine? Well, well, WELL."
Simpson continued to look bored and said: "I find you rawther amusing."
Jack squirmed behind a $3 plate of something or other.
"RAWTHER, amusing?" his voice cracked.
"Yes," said Simpson, who just stood there, not asking for an autograph, or anything.
"Well, well, WELL," said Jack. "I guess I better telephone Mary again." Jack went past Simpson like a hot rod.
Simpson stood there for a moment and then Mike led him away. Later, I saw Mawster Simpson toying with a double chocolate ice cream sundae with the same wild abandon with which he greeted Jack.
LINE IS BU-U-USY
JACK came back and said, dejectedly:
"She's STILL talking."
Jack looked relieved, though, at the absence of Mawster Simpson.
He told me about driving to Chicago and up to Canada this summer with Frank Remley, the guitar player with Phil Harris' band. Remley is Jack's favorite traveling companion—"Mary wouldn't drive from this booth to the next one."
Jack and Frank stayed overnight in little towns and talked to little people and ate breakfast at 6:30 one morning at the home of a small town newspaper reporter in Utah and had a whale of a good time.
Maybe he'll make another movie, Jack said.
"When I find the right story. Studios keep sending me scripts about beaten down characters but they never seem to be my type. They're for Dennis Day—not me."
Jack got up to telephone Mary again. She was still talking.
Bill Nolan was an animation pioneer who, among other things, is credited with inventing the long background that could be slid under animation, and redesigning Felix the Cat to make him rounder and, presumably, easier to animate.
He’s also a bit of an enigma. He was directing for Walter Lantz until 1934 and then he left in October for what Variety termed “a nervous condition.” He surfaced at the Charles Mintz studio in April 1936, was the head animator for Mayfair Productions, which completed the first Skippy cartoon for United Artists by July 1937, was signed by Oct. 2, 1937 by the brand-new MGM studio to work on “The Captain and the Kids” series before moving to Florida to work for the Fleischers in 1939.
There are a few newspaper clippings out there about him that fill in a bit of his background. First this story from the Long Branch Daily Record of February 27, 1917.
LOCAL CARTOONIST IS WINNING PROMINENCE
William C. Nolan, a nephew of Kerin J. Nolan, one of the youngest cartoon artists doing newspaper and magazine work, who is well known in this city, where he has resided for two or three years at the Nolan cottage in Garfield avenue, is fast winning recognition among the older workers in comic art.
Mr. Nolan, who is 23 years old, is a New London, Conn., youth. His first published cartoon appeared in the Waterbury Herald and dealt with license conditions in the town of Plainfield, where he at one time resided. His anti-booze-cartoon attracted the attention of the Connecticut State police and officials of Plainfield, and as a result the town received the greatest shake-up in its history.
His next effort was a series of the means of breaking up school board graft in Plainfield. It meant the abolishment of graft and placing the schools on a higher plane. It was at this time that young Nolan saw the possibilities offered by comic art, and he left a good position to start work with Barre, the celebrated International cartoonist, who was then doing work for the Edison Company in animated cartoons.
Later Mr. Nolan joined the International film service to animate Powers' famous Joys and Glooms, and Krazy Kat, originated by George Herrimen. [sic] He is now animating the great Mutt and Jeff series. Besides this work, Mr. Nolan has done considerable magazine and newspaper work. The Waterbury Herald, in its editorial section of February 18, publishes a double column half-tone cut of Mr. Nolan, together with a brief history of his young career.
Long after Nolan’s death, the Asbury Park Press of March 7, 1971 profiled him in its series on New Jersey pioneers. It goes more deeply into his background, but glosses over the portion after he left Universal. It also skips the “Bill Nolan Newslaffs” series he made for F.B.O. starting in 1927.
Bill Nolan (William C.) was not only the first Monmouth County resident to become an animator of movie cartoons, he was one of the first in that industry's history.
Best known for his famous film feline, "Krazy Kat," Mr. Nolan was to animate during his 50-year career Mutt and Jeff, Felix the Cat, Francis the Mule and nearly every other comic strip character that moved from newspaper to movieland exposure.
It was at Long Branch that Mr. Nolan was introduced to the idea of becoming an animator and for 15 years he produced the drawings for "Krazy Kat" there.
Bill Noland [sic] was born in Connecticut in June 1894, but was raised and educated in Providence, R.I. He was to relate later with a wry grin that "one of the most dreaded periods in school was that devoted to art."
"I could not draw a line until I was out of high school."
Curiously, his first job after he was graduated from high school was in the art department of a Providence department store. One day, while killing time, he started to copy a poster in the store. An artist passing through was startled by the youth's native talent and urged young Nolan to study art seriously.
So Bill enrolled in a Providence art school which prepared him for a job with a N. Y. newspaper as a sports cartoonist. While working on the paper he continued to study art. His heavy schedule impaired his health and he was finally forced to stop work for awhile to go away for a rest.
All during his boyhood Mr. Nolan had spent summer vacations with his grandmother, Mrs. Mary Nolan, at her home in Long Branch. Therefore, it was there he went for his health. In the year that he moved permanently to the Shore (1914), he met a summer visitor at the beachfront, Raoul Barre, inventor of animated cartoons. Mr. Barre persuaded the young artist to enter the animation field.
Mr. Nolan turned to the new medium with enthusiasm and for the next 15 years was to draw "Krazy Kat" at Long Branch. The only interruption was during World War I when he served with the Navy.
After the war Hollywood emerged as world capital of the movie industry. There is where careers were made and already established careers were furthered. So in 1929 Mr. Nolan went to the West Coast to work for Universal Studios for whom he drew "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit."
From then until his death in 1954 Mr. Nolan worked as animator and creator of cartoons. During these 50 years he drew his famous cartoon characters more than 7 million times, he estimated shortly before his death.
He once explained that an animated cartoon of average length generally ran to 500 feet of film. To have the animation run smoothly required 16 drawings for each foot of film.
Not long before his death Mr. Nolan said "Movie cartoons are still tops, having completely put the old movie-comedy out of business. But I will not hazard a guess as to how long they will last."
It was not long after that that TV began to run the neighborhood movie theater out of business. But since then TV has attracted large audiences for the animated cartoon with its children's programs. Undoubtedly Mr. Nolan would be delighted to see his creations being rerun for a new generation.
In 1915, at Long Branch, Bill Nolan met Miss Viola Golden, a resident of the city, whom he married. They had two sons – William C. Jr., now an advertising executive in San Francisco, and Thomas, a physician in Greenboro, N.C.
Mrs. Nolan returned from California after her husband’s death and now lives in Long Branch.
Francis the Mule, you’re asking. Yes. Let’s give you a bit of insight into it from this portion of a story in the Wisconsin State Journal of February 16, 1958. It actually deals with a local industrial filmmaker who worked with Nolan in Hollywood and reveals Nolan and (I guess) George Nicholas opened an industrial company after World War Two which seems to have closed around Nolan’s death.
Cartoon Man Likes It Here
By DONALD DAVIES (State Journal Staff Writer)
Bill Williams is an aeronautical engineer turned cartoonist, brick-maker turned talent scout, and former neighbor of Clark Gable, turned resident of Madison.
He's also practically turned the Williams' home at 3422 Lake Mendota dr. into a small film studio and his family into a most loyal movie-making unit.
Williams is a producer of animated commercial films—"cartoons that tell or sell"— and lives in Shorewood on the shore of Mendota in preference to Hollywood, mecca of most producers of animated films.
He came to Madison for the first time in August, 1934, to direct an industrial film for Gisholt Machine Co. It was to take four or five months, so he decided to bring his family with him and temporarily close his Hollywood animated film studio.
The Williams family has been back in California only about three months in the past three years.
"Each year in the spring we go back to Hollywood to visit relatives and friends," Williams said "In about a month, we've had our fill of the hustle and bustle of Hollywood and are happy to come back to our home here.
"To give you an idea of what I mean," he said, "it used to take about 20 minutes to drive the 14 miles from our home in Encino to the studio in Hollywood. There was one stoplight.
"Today it takes 75 minutes and stoplights are all over the place. It gets ridiculous. It takes all day to get a suit to the cleaners."
And cartoonists—who most times sit within arm's reach of 130 to 200 bottles of paint—worry about things like that.
Williams, a native of Kansas City who dropped into the cartoon business purely by accident, said that his youthful ambition was to become an aeronautical engineer—so he did. He graduated from Curtiss Wright Technical of Aeronautics in Glendale, Calif., now California Aeronautical Institute, worked for Lockheed aircraft industries, and then went with Timm Aircraft in 1941 to help design Navy trainers.
"The Navy needed illustrated handbooks to go with the aircraft for training purposes," he explained. "I had drawing experience and liked the work, so I was given the job of hiring a group and getting handbook production under way."
As the war knocked the movie cartoon industry out of business because of film priority, Williams was able to hire four or five cartoonists to illustrate the booklets. One of these was Bill Nolan, former head of Universal International's cartoon studio and pioneer in the cartoon business. He created the old-time, cartoon favorite, Oswald the Rabbit, and the fabulous Walt Disney worked for him once.
Another was Cliff Arquette, who today is the homespun Charlie Weaver of radio and television fame who recently scored a big hit on Jack Paar's "Tonight" television show.
"Those two years were the greatest," Williams said. "We talked cartoons most of the time. This was my education and there was no course or school that could have given me the same basis in animation."
Engineering gave way to cartooning and film work in Williams' life. In 1944 with the training manuals completed, he went into the Navy to help produce visual education movies and service films, using much of what he had learned about animation.
After discharge in 1946—"wanting to do nothing but loaf for a year"—Williams decided he'd like to design and build his own home—"and have a big happy time doing it," he added.
[deleted portion of story]
At the same time, television had created a big demand for commercial cartoons and animated films. In 1949, Williams, Bill Nolan, and Nick Nic[h]olas formed Williams-Nic[h]olas Animated Productions in Hollywood, which closed in 1954 when Williams came to Madison and brought key personnel with him.
During these years, the firm did some work for the movies. Nolan became technical director on the series of "Francis" movies, about a talking mule, and the show, "Rhubarb," about a cat which inherited a baseball team. Nolan was the person responsible for making Francis talk.
Nolan died during a stay at the Sawtelle V.A. Hospital in North Hollywood on December 6, 1954. He was 60.
Note: My thanks to Devon Baxter for discovering the middle clipping and making it available.
Oswald the Rabbit Foxy deals with a recalcitrant cow and a runaway streetcar in Trolley TroublesSmile, Darn Ya, Smile!.
Yeah, there are some similarities between this 1931 Merrie Melodies short and the Disney cartoon made four years before. The one big difference is sound, and the peppy theme song by Charles O’Flynn, Jack Meskill and Max Rich. Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! was published by De Sylva, Brown and Henderson at the same time as the hits Just a Gigolo and Walkin’ My Baby Back Home. It was doing well in sheet music sales in May 1931, according to Variety, so this cartoon would have lent an extra push.
Another big difference between this and the silent Oswald cartoon is the cop-out ending. It turns out Foxy is only dreaming he’s in an out-of-control streetcar, and falls out of bed. His radio serenades him with the theme song, arms out like Al Jolson. His reaction? He kills it with a bedpost and laughs as the iris closes.
Yeah, as if your dream is the radio’s fault.
So long, folks! Well, not quite. There were two more Foxy cartoons before he vanished for good.
Abe Lyman’s Brunswick Recording orchestra apparently recorded the music track. I wonder when and where he did it. He wasn’t spending a lot of time in Los Angeles in 1931. At the time of the cartoon’s release, he was on the bill at the Palace in New York and had begun broadcasting over CBS via WABC.
