A Tale of Two Deer

Rudy Ising goes for Disney “realism” to open the 1934 short Tale of the Vienna Woods. With gentle classical music in the background, the sun rises to enlighten a forest. There, a little deer’s reflection can be seen in a pond as it drinks water.



The animator is trying to make the deer look somewhat like a deer.



Later in the cartoon, the deer looks like a cartoon and wags its tail like a puppy.

Only Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising get screen credit. Nothing for the animators, composer Scott Bradley or the woman turning the storybook pages in live action at the start.

Taking the Scissors to Tex

Some kids who watched Warner Bros. cartoons in the black-and-white TV days saw them over and over so many times, they had them memorised.

That’s why I was very surprised when I read Joe Adamson’s wonderful book “Tex Avery, King of Cartoons” that there was a gag in Cross-Country Detours where the narrator announces “Here is a frog croaking.” The frog then kills himself.



Tex and writer Rich Hogan add a quick follow-up gag.



What was surprising was I had never seen this gag in all the years I had watched the cartoon. The local station cut it.

Remember, this is before ridiculous network edicts about editing out gun violence. This is the only example I can think of where the local station chopped something out of a cartoon.

Perhaps kids had bigger connections to frogs back then. How many old comedy shows or short films do boys have frogs? In my case, there was a small swamp behind the house across the street. We could catch tadpoles. You could hear the frogs at night. 50 years later, the area is filled in and is a condo development. The land is too valuable to be a swamp.

Johnny Johnsen’s panorama backgrounds are a highlight of this short, along with the lizard stripping scene (which our local station aired).

The Gangster That Gangsters Loved

Sheldon Leonard looked like a gangster. Sheldon Leonard sounded like a gangster. Guess what parts Sheldon Leonard played?

Well, yes, he did more than underworld and shady characters; he was even a cartoon lion for a while. But Leonard was smart. He knew supporting roles like that wouldn’t lead to huge amounts of fame or fortune so, instead, he turned to television producing. He turned out to be one of the most intuitive producers of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s.

The odd thing is that real gangsters loved his romanticised portrayal. Here’s a story from early 1952. There’s also a mention of my favourite role of Leonard’s where a few times every season, he’d appear on Jack Benny’s radio show and give confidential racing-form type tips on the best elevator, restaurant table, sleepwear—everything except horses (“Who knows about horses?” he asked Benny on one show set at a race track).

Film Gangster Is A Hero To Some Fans
By GENE HANDSAKER
Associated Press Staff Writer
Hollywood, Jan. 8. —Sheldon Leonard isn't a gangster, has never been one, and doesn't intend ever to be one. But judging from roundabout compliments he has received, he's a sort of hero to shady characters in real life.
"I play 'em the way they figure themselves to be," Leonard explained the other day. "Omnipotent — with a cold detachment."
You probably have heard him as that hollow-voiced race-track tout on the Jack Benny radio program. His unchanging opening line—"Hey, bud ... Where ya goin'?"—never fails to get a big laugh. For this reason, Sheldon calls it "the most rewarding role in show business for the amount of energy expended."
He's also a reformed counterfeiter on Phil Harris' program, the boy friend on Judy Canova's show, and a hobo on a broadcast called "It's always Sunday."
Has Two Children
He has played assorted gangsters in about 35 movies and is used to being told: "I'll never forget the way you kicked Alan Ladd in the head in 'Lucky Jordan' . . . and the way you slapped Lauren Bacall in 'To Have and Have Not.' "
The real-life Leonard is dark-complexioned, with brown eyes, wavy hair, and, a worldly savoir-faire usually associated with gangster roles.
The father of two, he is a respectable member of the Parent-Teacher Association, whose other members frequently compliment him on his outlaw portrayals. A graduate of Syracuse University, where he majored in speech, Leonard tosses around shrewd observations on gangster portrayals.
"We tend to satisfy masochistic urge in certain women. We're all merchants, and I'll sell whatever is commercial. But I've skimmed the cream off the heavy type of thing. There's a more rewarding market, I believe, for the Bill Bendix type thing from now on— the likable mugs."
In a picture called "Decision" he plays a sympathetic character for the first time. He's devoted to a hunchback brother and wins the love of Anne Gwynne. Yes, Sheldon says he's tired of playing gangsters.
"This fishy, glacial exterior isn't acting. You just sit there and let your complexion and eyeballs sell the character."

Leonard never gave up appearing on camera altogether. In fact, he starred in Big Eddie, a show with a fine cast but survived only ten episodes before being cancelled in 1975. But it was as a producer of The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Spy and other shows where he made his mark—besides being the gangsters’ pin-up boy.

Looney Tunes Hidden Gag

Background artist Dick Thomas paints a reference to another Warner Bros. background artist in Calling Dr. Porky (September 1940).



The certificate on the wall refers to Lenard Kester, Friz Freleng’s background man for a period in the early 1940s. Kester never got screen credit at Warner’s. Harvey Deneroff’s history of the Fleischer studio strike reveals Kester was hired by Max and Dave as as an opaquer at age 17, moved to inking and then background painting, but continued to receive $17.40 a week.

The 1940 Census shows he had worked for 16 weeks in 1939, getting $500 during that period. Where he was, I’m not sure as he didn’t join Schlesinger’s until March 1940.

His work was still being exhibited as late at 1996. He died in Los Angeles on January 13, 1977.

Zooming Cat Head

Van Beuren loved those zooming heads to end cartoons. Here’s the ending of Rough on Rats (1933), where the little kittens sway and meow to the chirpy song in the background.

The black kitten looks angry but changes its expression as the head zooms forward to greet the audience.



Historian/animator Mark Kausler believes the first time this was done was in The Fly’s Bride, a 1929 Fables cartoon by Van Beuren.

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.