Stars, Stripes, and a Pig With a Tuba

Farm animals play musical instruments in a stretch of The Delivery Boy, a 1931 Mickey Mouse cartoon. That’s the gag. A Fleischer cartoon would have something odd coming out of nowhere, but not Uncle Walt.

It starts with the old caterpillar-breaks-up-into-pieces-and-comes-back-together gag.



The animals are playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” which was royalty-free (Walt loved those public domain tunes, but let’s not have Mickey fall into the public domain!) and, as the cartoon was released on June 15th, it could have been patriotically playing around the 4th of July.

Television Not For Jack Benny

Considering the long success Jack Benny had on television, it seems odd that he would once say that he didn’t think he would be as successful on TV as he was on radio. (Benny’s tele-shows began in 1950 and he was in the midst of putting together a special when he died in 1974). But that’s what he told New York Daily News columnist Ben Gross.

In a piece published May 25, 1947, Jack also dissected radio comedy, including his own, and guessed what jokes had got the biggest audience response (on radio) up until that time.

BENNY REVEALS SECRET; WHAT A COMEDIAN NEEDS; NAMES FAVORITE COMIC
Mr. Benny Talks Comedy . . . That nasal-voiced, baggy-eyed pride of Boston—Fred Allen—is, as you may have long suspected, Jack Benny's favorite comedian. "Allen is not only a great performer, but also a great writer."
We were discussing the dolorous art of winning laughs over the radio. The scene was in Jack's dressing room, backstage of the Roxy Theatre, where the Waukegan fiddler has been making box office history. His silver gray hair reflecting shadows from his flamboyant dressing gown, Benny, after five shows that day, was in a mellow, contemplative mood. "Do you know what is the best-written comedy show on the air?" he continued. "It's Amos 'n' Andy.' Bob Hope is superlative in the field of gag. And for comedy delivery and timing, one of the very best is Bing Crosby."
Your Reporter—"Jack, you are by now an American tradition. You get $25,000 a week for your NBC show. So, like a successful man, how about pontificating a bit on your art? In other words, what is the secret of successful radio comedy?"
Benny—"I'm not so hot as a pontificator, Ben. But, in my opinion, a great comedian must have, in addition to personality, delivery and timing, a sense of humility. Also, a certain amount of pathos and, of course, he must create a character.
"Every great comic of history had some or all of these elements. I'm not egotistical enough to call myself 'great,' but, thank heaven, I am successful. And I attribute this, in good part, to the fact that I have created a consistent, likable, easily recognizable microphone character."
Y.R.—"And also your broadcasts feature a story line, situations rather than mere gags."
Benny—"I've been in show business for 36 years, 15 of them in radio. (He's 53). And even before I knew why I did it, I always was partial to situation comedy. As a vaudeville monologue man, my jokes were strung on a story thread. Then, as an emcee, I always made myself, during the performance, the victim of a series of embarrassing circumstances. So you might say I hit on the format of my radio show more than 30 years ago."
Y.R.—"What is the chief defect of radio comedy today?"
Benny—"It's the sameness of most programs. But with so many comedians on the air, this can hardly be avoided."
Y.R.—"How can radio comedy be improved?"
Benny—"You've got me there. Honestly, I don't know.
Y.R.—"Some comedians think they're more important than their writers. How about you?"
Benny—"I'm not that kind of a fool. The writers are just as vital as the comedian. They must work as a team. I have four great script men Sam Perrin, Milt Josefsberg, George Balzer and John Tackaberry. (Note—Rumor says they split around $4,000 a week between themselves.) In order to get the best out of them, however, I have found it necessary to become an editor, a supervisor and a co-author. We all contribute ideas. For example, those long-running situations—'The I Can't Stand Jack Benny Contest' and The Male Quartet—were created by my writers. And I myself thought of having the Ronald Colmans as visitors."
Y.R.—"Do you see any new trend in radio comedy?"
Benny—"No, I don't. But I say this: our laugh programs can now afford to become more adult, more sophisticated. There is no such a thing as a 'hick' audience anymore. The small towners are just as smart as the New Yorkers."
Y.R.—"Do you think your radio show would be equally successful in television?"
Benny—"I don't think so. I'd be afraid to try it. We'd have to alter our format radically. In my opinion, the comedy of television will be the comedy of the legitimate stage and of vaudeville.
Y.R.—"I don't agree with you Jack. I believe your show could be easily adapted to the camera. Want to bet? . . . Okay, then changing the subject: What were your biggest laughs in your 15 years of broadcasting?"
Benny—"The first time the listeners heard the sound of the opening of my safety vault. Also when Ronald Colman asked his wife: 'Have you ever seen Phil Harris' musicians?' and she answered: 'Please, honey, I'm eating!' . . . On both occasions, the studio audience roared for 38 seconds . . . and if you'll count 'em you'll realize that's a long, long time for laughs."

James Dietrich

If you’re going to make sound cartoons, as animation studios realised in 1929, you’re going to have to have music. If you’re going to have music, you’ve got to have a composer. So the studios set out to find one. Walt Disney settled on Carl Stalling, Harman-Ising picked Frank Marsales, Paul Terry hired Phil Scheib, and Walter Lantz used Jimmie Dietrich.

Bert Fiske and then David Broekman worked on the Lantz cartoons in 1929. Dietrich’s first short was Hells Heels, released on June 2, 1930. His last cartoon was The Air Express, released September 20, 1937.

We know a little something about Dietrich, thanks to the fall 1983 edition of The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress. William H. Rosar’s article states:

Dietrich was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on October 30, 1894, and received his musical education at the University of Missouri (from which he obtained a B.A. in music) and at the Schola Cantorum in France, where he studied composition with Vincent D’Indy. Dietrich was a composer, arranger and music director in New York, where he worked for famous theatrical producer John Murray Anderson. When Anderson came to Universal in 1929 to direct King of Jazz, he brought Dietrich with him to be the film’s musical arranger. All concerned liked Dietrich’s scoring of the cartoon sequence in King of Jazz so much that he was soon appointed Universal’s cartoon composer (for Walter Lantz Productions). One of Dietrich’s innovations was the “bouncing ball” in cartoon songs. He had wanted to score feature films and was given his first chance to do so in 1932 on They Just Had to Get Married. Everyone at Universal was so pleased with his work that he was given the job of scoring The Mummy.

I suspect the Fleischer studio would take issue with the “bouncing ball” claim. And Dietrich was a graduate of a different university.

Dietrich was another composer who changed his name. He was born Claire Lilburn Dietrich. He always seems to have been musical; at Central High School he played the flute in the orchestra. In 1913, he was living in Ottawa, Kansas, helping his uncle in his drug store, and providing piano accompaniment at local recitals while attending the University of Kansas, graduating in late May 1918. Less than a month later, on June 22nd, he enlisted and served with the 3rd Field Artillery Band in France, returning to Kansas in 1919 before going to New York. There, he married Helen Jenks in September 1920 and the following year, the two were employed by the New York Public Library while pursuing music careers. He also formed a choir at the Richmond Hill Baptist Church, where he spent three years as organist, ending in 1926, and had appeared on radio as early as June 1922 on WJZ. Other secular activities included the musical directorship of the Rialto Theatre in New York in 1926, and the formation of the Jimmie Dietrich Jayhawk Band (not forgetting his alma mater) the following year.

Why Dietrich and Lantz parted company is unknown. His music career took several turns. In 1940, he was employed by Select Attractions, Inc. to provide music behind a 61-minute feature called The Leopard Men of Africa. The 1940 Census states he only worked 12 weeks in 1939, pulling in $1,200. In the February 5, 1941 edition of Variety, we see that “James Dietrich, orchestra leader, filed a $4,500 damage suit against Clifton E. Barber, musician, as a result of an auto accident.”

His World War Two draft registration card signed April 1942 reveals his employer is the Los Angeles Police Department. A June 16, 1944 story in Variety tells of the 10th annual Los Angeles Police Relief Association show at the Shrine Auditorium with music “directed by Stan Myers and his assistant, James Dietrich.”

Dietrich was the orchestra director for Hollywood on Ice, a stage show (yes, there was ice on the stage), that toured the U.S. in 1947-48. He appears for a final time in Variety on October 27, 1948, arranging a stage musical revue called “Music Sends Me” at the Highland Playhouse in Hollywood. “The music, while at times passable, seems hauntingly familiar” is the trade paper’s hardly-enthusiastic opinion of Dietrich’s work. What Dietrich was doing after this has yet to be discovered. His wife Helen was extremely active in the Daughters of the American Revolution, and Dietrich composed the music for a song called “In the Hearts of True Americans” in 1958 (it was about the American flag and the lyrics were written by a DAR state officer). Apparently, Helen Dietrich was a descendant of President John Adams.

In 1971, Dietrich provided original music for “Ghost,” an otherwise silent production put on by the South Coast Repertory Company in Costa Mesa, California. The last clipping I can find about him comes the Los Angeles Sentinel of February 21, 1980. The play about Fats Waller, “Ain’t Misbehavin’” was performed for disabled vets. One of them was Jimmy Dietrich, confined to a wheelchair, who told a reporter he had played with Fats’ orchestra in New York in 1926. He was 90 when he died on November 7, 1984.

Below is Dietrich, age 15, in the Central High School orchestra.

Killing the Bagpipes

What happened after Tex Avery left the Walter Lantz studio in April 1935? Tex went on to better things. Lantz cartoons pretty much went into the toilet until Woody Woodpecker came along in 1940.

A good example is Kiddie Revue, a September 1936 short directed by Lantz and animated by Manny Moreno and Bill Mason. It can’t figure out whether to be coy or funny. “Funny” means a spoiled brat sabotaging vaudeville acts because he can’t go on stage ahead of them. I’ve never found spoiled brats funny.

Maybe the best gag is when said brat pours sneezing powder into some bagpipes. As you might expect, the bagpipes sneeze. The bland version of Oswald the rabbit grabs a shotgun and puts the pipes out of their misery.



There are no takes or exaggeration. It’s ho-hum stuff.

Jimmie Dietrich composed original music for this cartoon, including “Hello Ev’rybody” sung by the coy rabbits, “The Parasol Song” (sung by Berneice Hansell as a bunny), two versions of “Over the Waves” and a melody called “(Le) Secret” which may be from the Gladys Goose/bubble sequence.

Ain't We in Da Wrong Pitcher?

Little Red Riding Hood runs past a title card in Swing Shift Cinderella (1945)—then realises something. She stops the wolf chasing her in mid-air and they go back to read the card. Tex Avery’s name has somehow vanished, but that isn’t what they notice. They’re in the wrong picture.



The wolf shoves Red out of the cartoon for good, and goes after the prey in the title card.



Preston Blair, Ed Love and Ray Abrams are the animators, while Frank Graham plays the wolf and Sara Berner does her Bette Davis and Barbara Jo Allen (as Vera Vague) voices.

Muriel Landers

Muriel Landers was nicknamed “the fastest ton in the West.” People weren’t too subtle back then. (Though considering the rudeness and crudeness on social media, things may actually be worse today).

“Plump” seems to have been the preferred word in the media to describe her, as she found her way into supporting roles on television. Her nickname in the San Francisco papers in the early ‘50s was “Lannie.”

Landers was a graduate of Northwestern University who moved to the Bay Area by 1949. There she opened a TV training school and soon married Bill Sweeney of KFRC, then got a job on the air at KYA in 1951. Sniffed Herb Caen in his column of April 12, 1951: “One Muriel Landers, who starts a midnight disc jockey show from the Papagayo Room Sunday, is ballyhooing herself as "Your Glamour Gal With a Brain." Such conceit. All other "glamour gals" (ich) are glamorons?” She was also part of an experimental colour TV broadcast in San Francisco in January 1950 by a company hoping to sell its technology.

The big-time came unexpectedly. Walter Winchell wrote in his column of November 16, 1951: “JACK BENNY laughed so much watching Muriel Landers when he appeared on Sinatra's program that he invited her to join him in his next Palladium (London) show. What a break.” Benny used Landers on radio and TV.

The big time meant “big” jokes. Perhaps Landers didn’t mind. Here’s a United Press story of March 11, 1952.

Plumpness Pays Off for This Gal in Hollywood
By ALINE MOSBY
HOLLYWOOD, Mar. 11. —(UP)— Beautiful girls are signed for pictures because of their slender shapes but Muriel Landers, a well-fed tourist from New York, was rushed into pictures today — because she's a perfect 42.
Twentieth Century-Fox studio's been scouring the cinema city for a caloried cutie to play 287-pound Thomas Gomez' Indian wife in "Pony Soldier." But the Hollywood dolls are too busy dieting. So when Miss Landers happened to visit the town and lunch with a friend in the Fox commissary, bedlam busted loose.
Whirled Through Routine
She was, to be exact, discovered over a piece of banana cream pie. The casting director leaped to her table and begged her to take a movie test.
The pretty brunette was whirled through the wardrobe department . . . tested in technicolor . . . and signed for the leading, role before her hefty lunch had a chance to settle.
"The studio claims I'm 225 but I'm only 201. Don't make it any worse," she chuckled, all over.
She's only 5 foot, 1 inch tall, too, just like two Marilyn Monroes.
Directors Happy

"When the casting director saw me he grinned as though a light had gone on," she said, "He called the director of the picture and they all were smiling broadly.
"After the test everybody around the studio looked at me and grinned and I thought maybe my slip was showing.
"Finally this big gentleman comes along and shouts 'How!' I said, 'Why?' He was Thomas Gomez, very big, and I knew why they were laughing. He says wait until I see the eight chubby papooses we have in the picture."
TV Character Roles
Miss Five-by-Five started out to be an opera singer in Chicago but ate her way out of that career. So she crashed into New York television to play character roles with Frank Sinatra, Ed Wynn and Jack Benny.
"I kept putting on weight, in layers," she smiled.
"My name isn't too well known, but anybody with a TV set can't forget my figure."
Always a Job
"I've never had to look for jobs," she shrugged. "In New York every time I eat in a restaurant some TV producer offers me a part. They welcomed me with open arms. Not being a glamour girl hasn't hindered me.
"I find audiences like me, too. After all, half the women in the audience are more like me than Lana Turner."

Earl Wilson wrote about Landers in his syndicated column of May 17, 1957. By then she had made a bunch of TV guest appearances, played Rosa in the TV version of Life With Luigi and was cast in that Duke Mitchell/Sammy Petrillo classic, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952).

Television's fat girl, Muriel Landers —height 5 feet, weight 200 plus—feels sorry for you skinny women.
And especially for bony fashion models.
"They have such a pained expression!" says Muriel, shaking with plumpish laughter. "They're miserable from hunger."
MURIEL, WHOM YOU'VE seen with Ray Bolger, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, Jackie Gleason, Jack Carter and others, is a comic herself.
"I get paid by the pound," she'll be glad to tell you. "When I was on Frank Sinatra's show, I lifted him. Yeah, that's when I started picking up men."
Muriel, a Chicagoan who started as a concert singer, was told when she arrived in New York hunting acting jobs. "They'll take one look and throw you out of the office."
"Now I'm afraid to diet too much because I'm doing so well," she says. "I took off 40 pounds, though."
"So what is your actual weight now?" I asked her.
"Two hundred is sexier than 250 isn't it?" she flung back.
"A LOT OF MEN like us heavy women," she rippled on. "I've never had any problem getting one."
Her wardrobe's full of expensive size 20's dresses, and at 28 she goes laughing through life.
LONDON AUDIENCES howled when she did pratfalls in Jack Benny's act at the Palladium.
"Most women in the audiences everywhere are more like me than they are like Marilyn Monroe," she says. "They say, 'She's got a glamour kind of a job, maybe there's a chance for me.'"
"Do you have any plans for marriage?" I asked her.
"Yes, I do have some plans for marriage," she retorted, "and hope it has some plans for me!"

One of the people on Laugh-In early in the first season was Muriel Landers. I thought she was supposed to be part of the regular cast but it looks like she only appeared on two shows.

A stroke claimed Landers at age 55. She died in the Motion Picture Country Home on February 19, 1977.

The Indian Chief Really is an Indian

Popeye and his trusty spinach (he eats the can, too) polish off some marauding Indians in I Yam What I Yam (1933). But wait! The chief comes at the sailor man from behind a rock. Popeye takes care of him with one punchk.



But wait again! Who is the chief revealed to be?



Why it’s Mahatma Gandhi! Wearing a diaper. Cartoons and radio comedy shows of the early ‘30s were big on fasting Gandhi jokes.

Now stuff from the chief drops from the sky and lands on Popeye. The Fleischer writers liked falling stuff gags; one ended I Eats My Spinach (1933) and Wild Elephinks (1934).



Billy Costello, Gus Wicke and Billy Murray (at least I think he’s Wimpy) provide voices, along with Margie Hines.

Let's Try This Plot, Rudy

“I know!” said one of the writers at Harman-Ising, “Let’s do a musical cartoon featuring a pile of little characters where a big bad guy comes in around the start of the first half, abducts the girl, everyone gangs up to finish off the bad guy, then they cheer to the end the picture.”

“Why didn’t we think of this before?” said one of the other writers.

Actually, they did. Over and over and over.

Here’s the version from the 1933 short for Warner Bros., The Dish Ran Away With the Spoon, animated by Ham Hamilton and Bob McKimson. It’s set in a bake shoppe. The bad guy—a huge piece of dough that’s eaten yeast and turned into a Mr. Hyde.

The pile of little characters sing and dance to the Warners-owned “Young and Healthy.”



The bad guy. The scream.



The pile of little characters realise he’s got the girl.



Let’s get him with cans of tomatoes. “Frank, play that music in double-time. We’ve never tried that before.”



“Hey, Rudy, let’s throw in a crotch pain gag. We’ve never done that before, either.” “Let’s do it three times. It’ll be three times as funny!”



The evil guy is turned into yummy baked goods.



And waffles! Hurray for waffles!



So long, folks!



“What’ll we write for the next cartoon?” “Say, I have an idea....”

“Shuffle Off To Buffalo” and “Am I Blue” are in Frank Marsales’ score, though the cartoon was likely plugging “The Dish Ran Away With the Spoon” composed by Paul Eisler in 1932.