Keep Smiling!

Bugs Bunny gets conned into making the Easter Bunny’s deliveries in the Bob McKimson-directed short Easter Yeggs. He has to outwit an anti-social brat and Dick Tracy-hatted Elmer Fudd over the course of seven minutes.

With the brat and Elmer disposed of, writer Warren Foster comes up with a lovely way to wrap up the cartoon. The scene pans over to a large egg, which the Easter Bunny picks up for delivery.



A fuse attached to the egg is revealed. Ah, ha! Now we know Bugs is going to get his revenge.



“It’s the suspense that gets me,” Bugs tells us (a little too quickly, in my opinion; as suspense hasn’t been allowed enough time to build). Then the blast. Cut to the aftermath.



Through the whole picture, the Easter Bunny has been telling Bugs “Remember, keep smiling!” (Stolen from Mel Blanc’s postman character on the Burns and Allen radio show). Now it’s Bugs’ turn, then he laughs as the iris closes.



For whatever reason, this cartoon was not released at Easter. It appeared in theatres starting June 28, 1947.

Rochester and the Future

Rochester was a great character.

Sure, Jack Benny paid him next to nothing, and had him do just about everything for him. But Rochester really ran Benny. He wore his clothes, drank his booze, smoked his cigars, sat around if he didn’t feel like working, ran around with women when the plot called for it (and faithfully stuck with Susie when the plot called for it), and caroused with his Lodge buddies, winning cash from them on occasion. In the later years, the writers gave Rochester a buddy (played by fine character actor Roy Glenn) to set up his jokes.

Eddie Anderson’s distinctive voice no doubt helped his character, too, though I understand he exaggerated it for radio.

Benny showed his genius at casting when Anderson’s one-shot appearance as a stock porter character was so popular, he found a way to put him in the show on a regular basis. Anderson soon got cast in Benny’s films and critics praised him. There were even gags on the Benny show about Rochester’s fan mail.

When the Benny series went off the air in 1965, Rochester appeared in a couple of specials. Benny died in 1974. Here’s what Anderson was doing post-Benny. This syndicated column appeared January 5, 1976. Anderson died in 1977.

Eddie's Not Living In Past At 70, He Wants To Produce
By NANCY ANDERSON
Copley News Service
HOLLYWOOD — Eddie Anderson, who for almost 30 years as the sassy “Rochester” served Jack Benny well, turned 70 last September, but he’s not living in the past. Instead, he’s looking forward to producing a picture from a script he's writing.
“It’s a comedy,” says Anderson, “Integrated.
“I can’t tell you whether it’s going to be like ‘Uptown Saturday Night’ or any of the other recent comedies or not because I haven’t seen them.”
A studio or so is interested in the project, Anderson continues, and so are one or two friends with money who might bankroll the production.
Asked whether the humor in his picture will be more visual or verbal, the comedy star doesn't seem to understand the question. One gets the feeling that his hearing’s not perfect, but, otherwise, Anderson seems to be in lively good health.
He says he is, continuing:
“I’m 70 years old, but a man’s true age depends on how he feels, and I feel fine.”
Anderson, whose pebbly voiced, pert-mannered Rochester made him almost as well known as Jack Benny during the three decades they worked together in radio, television and films, was born in Oakland, Calif., and entertained in vaudeville and nightclubs before Benny’s radio show signed him for a single performance. “I first met Mr Benny when I went for an interview for the part,” Anderson remembers.
“It was supposed to be a one shot, but he got so much mail about me that he kept me on.”

As a result of his success with Benny, Anderson not only worked in pictures with his radio and television boss but also appeared in a number of others without him, notably “Jezebel,” “Cabin in the Sky,” and even “Gone With the Wind.” His final film appearances to date were in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World” and “Divorce, American Style,” in which he played a cameo role.
“But,” Hollywood's most uppity butler assures, “I get calls to work in various television shows, and someday I may do a spot.”
Since Anderson eschews the paths of glory, living quietly in a solid but less than fashionable section of Los Angeles and ignoring the premieres and glittering party scene, it’s a miracle that his fan mail finds him.
Yet he receives encouraging quantities of it, much from young people and college students to whom he’s a new personality.
Since Rochester was a comedy figure and a white man's domestic, one would imagine that he’s been target for the kind of criticism that killed “Amos and Andy.” But Anderson says all the mail he's received has been complimentary.
“Mostly people just write and say they’ve enjoyed this performance or that, or that they thought Rochester was funny,” he claims.
Like most rational fathers, Anderson is extremely proud of his children, including two daughters in college, a son in high school, and another son who was a star athlete until he fractured a knee.
“That’s my son Billy,” he says. “He made quite a mark in sports. He played at Compton (Calif.) Junior College, and then he played two seasons with the Chicago Bears. And he was on the all-Army team.
“Billy had been hired by the Chargers, but then he fractured his knee and that put him out of football. “He was a good all-around athlete. “Now he’s manager of a maintenance company, and he’s doing well at that, too.”
So far, none of Anderson’s children has shown any desire to become a performer, though their father thinks. “All of them have indications of talent. “But I don’t care whether they go into show business or not.”
Asked how he spends his own free time, Anderson claims, “I stay pretty busy working on my script.”

Canadian Designs in Motion

A wonderful book by John Halas and Roger Manvell called “Design in Motion” was compiled in 1962 and looks at examples of animation design styles from various parts of the world.

Unfortunately, little of the book is in colour.

Here are some examples from Canada.

Unlike the United States, Canada didn’t have huge movie studios that owned theatres and released or distributed features and short films. Pretty much all the movies in the Golden Age were American or British imports. Cartoons came from the U.S.

This situation brought about the Canadian government forming the National Film Board in 1939. Its function was to make films (generally short films) about Canada for Canadians, eventually allowing their release elsewhere. I’m sure there wasn’t a kid in the 1960s who didn’t see at least one NFB film at school.

Being a government agency, independent animators gratefully received federal funding for their work or experiments. Their work began to be exhibited at international festivals and receive praise. Here are some examples from the Halas/Manvell book:





Gerald Potterton has had a fine career. Besides his NFB work, he animated on The Yellow Submarine, directed Heavy Metal and contributed to Sesame Street and The Electric Company. My favourite film of his is the live-action The Railrodder (1965), a silent film starring Buster Keaton (with musical and effects accompaniment).

Norman McLaren headed the animation portion of the NFB in the early days, and later won an Oscar for Best Documentary for the stop-motion allegory Neighbours (1952).

Kaj Pindal, correct me if I’m wrong, directed or animated a series of anti-smoking public service messages that aired on Canadian TV some 45 years ago. The narrator on them was radio talk-show host Pat Burns, who smoked like a proverbial chimney in real life.

We’ve posted other bits from the book before (see some drawings of the NBC Peacock by Bill Littlejohn for Playhouse Pictures in this post. You can read the book at ARCHIVE.ORG.

Ginsboig, You Say?

“Ginsberg’s house is burning down,” sing the cats that fill an apartment building in the Terrytoons cartoon Hook and Ladder Number One (1932).

“Ginsberg” is the cue for some Jewish jokes, including a fire call-box with a ball on top that grasps its head and moans “Oy! Oy! Oy!”



With that, the Jewish part disappears.

Film Daily called the cartoon “An outstanding number in the Terry-Toon series.” That’s even though the animation is stiffer and cruder than any Fleischer cartoon of the same period. But it has plenty of mice and turns into an opera about half-way through, a format that was glommed onto Mighty Mouse by the studio some years later.

People the Beautiful

Cartoons don’t get much more pro-America (and anti-foreigner) than The Cat that Hated People.

The aforementioned cat feels he’s being abused by “people” (ie. “America”). He launches himself to the “moon” (ie. “outside of America”), where there’s a different culture that’s odd and scary. He feels more abused there, so he launches himself back to Earth. The trajectory he’s on looks like he’ll land in northern Ontario but his course takes him to New York City.



Now, the cat loves “people” (ie. “America”) even though he continues to be abused the same way as at the start of the cartoon when he hated it. But at least it’s not strange abuse, like in that place with the foreigners. We even get American flags and Scott Bradley playing “America the Beautiful” in the background. “Ah! The good ol’ USA!” shouts the cat, who kisses and hugs the sidewalk as well.



Between this and releasing those propaganda John Sutherland cartoon shorts, MGM no doubt stayed in the good books of HUAC.

Walt Clinton, Grant Simmons, Louie Schmitt and Bill Shull get animation screen credit. Heck Allen wrote the story.

King For a Day

The phoney feud between Jack Benny and Fred Allen lasted for almost 20 years. It began in radio and even made an appearance on television, though Allen was not a force on TV and his career had plummeted after his radio show ended in 1949.

Among fans, the highlight of the feud may have been on the Allen show of May 26, 1946 when the studio audience went out of control while stagehands removed Benny’s clothes at the end of a sketch. Allen wrote in Treadmill to Oblivion that he hated when comedians—he named Eddie Cantor—would do something visual just to get a rise out of the people in the seats and to the loss of the people listening. However, perhaps in this case, the home audience could visualise what was happening.

Noted critic John Crosby loved Allen and he was particularly fond of this broadcast. He quotes from it in his column of June 5, 1946 in the Herald Tribune syndicate.

As a side note, I promised some time ago to republish, for historical interest, Crosby’s earliest columns. Many of them are irrelevant today; they dealt with one-shot or local New York broadcasts. However, below, find the columns of May 27, 28, 29 and June 3, 4 and 7. The column from May 30, 1946 (there was no May 31 column) was on Jack Benny and you can find it in this post, while the June 6, 1946 column was about John J. Anthony’s programme and it is in this post.

Radio in Review
By JOHN CROSBY
Mr. Fred Allen, who has adenoids where his tonsils are supposed to be, turned his attention a week ago Sunday to those radio programs in which people from the audience are showered with gifts as a reward for making fools of themselves in front of a microphone.
Allen is radio’s Voltaire. His with is sharp as a razor and he usually turns it against abuses in radio that cry out for satire. I inserted that last sentence as both an explanation and apology for running off with so much of Allen’s material and embodying it in this column. I feel Mr. Allen’s satire on radio is so healthy that is deserves, as it were, a second showing. If you heard Allen that Sunday, I’m sure you would like to relish some of his humor again. If you didn’t, your attention should be called to his parody.
* * *
This skit was called “King for a Day” and Mr. Allen was very ably assisted by Jack Benny, his guest star. It wasn’t as funny as Mr. Allen’s previous satire on the husband-and-wife breakfast programs, but it was very, very funny indeed. Before the satire started, Mr. Allen said to Jack Benny: “People don’t want entertainment today. A radio show has to give away nylons, ice boxes, automobiles.” That’s too true to be funny, and is a sad commentary on the people who flock to these affairs.
At the outset of his parody, Mr. Allen inquired genially: “Did you folks in the audience like those hundred dollar bills you found on the seats when you came in?” The audience, of course, screamed: “Yes.”
“Good,” continued Mr. Allen. “If you want more, there’ll be a big bag of money at the door. On the way out, just help yourself.”
The first contestant in “King for a Day” was ninety-eight years old and there was some question as to the advisability of making him king for a day because, he said, he didn’t think he’d last through the day. This problem was happily settled when Mr. Flog missed the jumbo-jackpot question which was: “Who was the sixth President of the United States?” Mr. Flog’s answer was Mary Margaret McBride, which isn’t correct.
* * *
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Mr. Allen. “But, Mr. Flog, for making such a swell try, here is a gift certificate. Present it at La Guardia Airfield and you will get a brand new B-29 and a polka-dot, form-fitting parachute.”
The next contestant was Jack Benny, thinly disguised as Myron Proudfoot, who said he had worked in a baker “long enough to know a crumb when I see one—and I see one.” Mr. Proudfoot, hereinafter referred to as Mr. Benny, got the right answer to the jumbo-jackpot question (John Quincy Adams, in case you don’t know) and was presented with a genuine, no-splash canoe paddle from Schnooks Sports Nook, a chromium pitchfork from Tiffany’s and 200 pounds of self-hardening putty from Hemmingway’s Hardware Store.
Benny was also informed he would be guest of honor at a banquet at Hamburger Heaven and would act as a judge in a chicken-plucking contest in New Jersey. At this point, the parody almost got out of hand when several of Mr. Allen’s assistants removed Benny’s coat and trousers in order to run them through a pressing machine. “Give me my parents back,” screamed Benny. “Allen, you haven’t seen the end of me.”
“It won’t be long now,” said Mr. Allen pleasantly.
* * *
I only hope all the masters of ceremony of all the gift programs were listening in and squirming. Incidentally, Fred Allen is the swiftest artist with an ad lib in radio. That Sunday there were two remarks that were not in the script but got into the show. The first came when a joke got a delayed reaction from the audience, which then burst into applause.
“That’s right,” commented Allen sourly, “anything you don’t understand—applaud. That’s what they do in Hollywood. They just come in to applaud and get warm and then go home.
The second ad lib came when Jack Benny was reminiscing about his violin playing act in vaudeville. “I stopped every show,” said Mr. Benny.
“Except this one,” observed Mr. Allen.
How am I going to get through the summer without Fred Allen? I’m afraid I’ll have to do my own work.”

McKimson Lion

Nero the frustrated lion jumps up and then stomps up and down in frustration after Bugs Bunny puts one over on him in Acrobatty Bunny (1946)



Art Davis, Cal Dalton and Dick Bickenbach animated this for Bob McKimson.

That ending line about “smokers.” What a wow! The cartoon is over and I’m still waiting for something funny to happen.