Is Your Husband a Worm?

Tex Avery was a great gag switcher. He had a little stockpile of gags and he’d make variations on them throughout his directing career at both Warner Bros. and MGM.

One was the explanatory title card. It was a parody of those disclaimer cards in movies that read something like “All characters in this photoplay are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.”

Here’s the one that opens The Early Bird Dood It!.



Rich Hogan is given the story credit on this cartoon. Daily Variety reported on June 24, 1942 that Hogan had joined the MGM staff. Either the trade paper was late with the news or Hogan was working on this on the side. This was Avery’s first cartoon in production at Metro, and he arrived at the studio in 1941.

About Being 40...

Jack Benny turned 40. Twice. Once in real life in 1934, and then on television in 1958.

The television “40” was quickly forgotten and Jack went back to being 39. During the 1950s—Benny’s character began being 39 for the first time in 1948—Jack insisted 40 wasn’t a funny number, but 39 was. He insisted it again after turning 40 on TV. (As if plagued by a bad omen, the day before the 40th birthday show, Eddie Anderson suffered a mild heart attack and his lines were awkwardly reassigned to Andy Devine, who made two entrances; evidently the script couldn’t be changed in time).

Jack talked with the North American Newspaper Alliance about his 40th birthday, violin playing and dealing with looking at Mel Blanc. This story appeared in the Indianapolis Star on June 22, 1958.

Jack Benny, Master Of Pause, Blank Stare
By BILL FISET
HOLLYWOOD (NANA)—Jack Benny swung open the door of his home and was all savoir faire.
“Come in, come in,” he said grandly. He was wearing a brocade silk dressing gown. His shirt had french cuffs and gold links showing at the wrists. His cigar was aromatic.
Experts credit Benny with the greatest sense of timing of any living comedian. “Timing is the ability to pause for the precise interval to get the most out of a joke before saying something else. It’s also knowing when to emphasize a word or when simply to stare blankly at the audience. It’s making the utmost of a situation.
Do you consider yourself a good violinist, Mr. Benny?
(No answer. Instead you get a sort of haughty look. Finally “Well . . . Really!” This is timing.
He doesn’t consider himself a top violinist. People go to his concerts to see a comedian, he says, not a violinist. “The humor is that I’m playing the best I can.”
How does it feel to be 40 years old?
(Here you get a doleful, silent stare that lasts perhaps five full seconds. Then: “In real life? This is timing.)
He “turned 40” on his TV show because he figured it would be a good way to bring his old entertainer friends together before the camera.
“Now I regret it. The age of 39 is a funny age. It’s a funny number. There’s something about 40 that isn’t funny.” He’s 64 in real life.
WHEN YOU do a “live” show, don’t you worry breaking up laughing when you shouldn’t?
(Here you get a blank, expressionless stare and a long pause. This isn’t timing. Benny’s thinking.)
“It’s all right to break up laughing if it’s genuine. I hate to see someone break up, shoulders shaking, if they’re putting it on. As for me, I simply can’t look at Mel Blanc when he’s on the show. Just looking at him I laugh.
“Then Phil Harris—when he throws in an ad lib, I start laughing. You can always tell those ad libs. The camera isn’t on the person who makes them because the cameraman doesn’t know they’re coming.”
One more question. How does it feel to be 40? Do you feel older?
(The blank look. The customary five-second pause. Then: “How about a drink?)
This isn’t timing. It’s savoir faire.

Whistle, That's My Work

We know so little about people who lent their voices to animated cartoons in the Golden Age. Unless their name was Mel Blanc, they were rarely credited before 1950.

Here’s a story about a woman I had never heard of before. It’s from the Santa Cruz Sentinel of August 10, 1939. She worked for a number of studios, in shorts such as Flowers and Trees, and features such as Bambi.

Talented Whistler Captivates Audience At Caroline Swope School; Whistled 'Snow White'
By Laura Rawson
Dainty, petite and graceful as the feathered friends she so perfectly imitates, is Marion Sevier Darlington, who captivated the hearts of the Caroline Swope Summer school assembly period yesterday morning and again at the faculty banquet last evening, in Hotel Palomar.
In a little chat with the charming whistler I learned she has always loved music, but most decidedly did not like to practice her piano lessons when a small girl. So her mother secured a good whistling teacher for her (as she loved to whistle) and she showed such decided talent, that her gift was recognized by those seeking entertainment of this type. It was while she was concert whistler over the radio with Raymond Paige's orchestra that invitations from the big moving picture companies came to her. Since then she has been in great demand for radio and sound effect artist in addition to her concert engagements.
"Snow White" Whistler
She took the solo part of the little bird in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and whistled in all of the groups of bird songs in the same picture. She also whistled the bird sound effects for Walt Disney's first color cartoon and academy award, Flowers and Trees" and in many others of his cartoons. She was also soloist on the Disney Mickey Mouse Radio Show.

Mrs. Darlington whistled bird sound effects for Harmon-Ising's "Chinese Nightingale" [frame to the right]. She also gave the radio adaptation of the "Chinese Nightingale" for the same company over a national hook-up.
She did the bird work in the Charles Mintz cartoons, "Dr. Blue Bird," "The Blue Bird's Baby," etc., and whistled in many other cartoons and feature pictures for Warner Bros., Universal, M.G.M., Iwerks, etc., including Bing Crosby's vehicle, "Dr. Rhythm."
Mrs. Darlington presented a program on Treasure Island at the California state convention of the California Federation of Music Clubs.
Accompanying the whistler yesterday was Onalee Repp Arey of Long Beach, who provided a lovely piano background for the sweet whistler.
Besides the lovely bird calls, Mrs. Darlington is called upon to imitate crickets, bees, bluejays, grouse and other tiny beasties needed to complete accurate true-to-life pictures. The talented little artist goes happily whistling through life, giving much pleasure to all fortunate enough to hear her.

Marion Sevier Darlington really was a whistler; the 1930 U.S. Census lists that as her occupation. She also taught music. She married Keith Darlington in 1930, he left her a widow in 1937. She married again in 1942. Her throat was evidently much in demand, as the Los Angeles Times published a story in 1943 referring to her as a “concert bird singer” and the star attraction of a show at the Redlands Bowl. The same year, she warbled “White Christmas” at a party at the Long Beach City Hall.

Marion packed up and moved to Arizona and that’s where the Christian Science Monitor caught up with her on January 22, 1965.

Marion Pratt Whistles at Her Work
By Margaret Davis de Rose
Sedona, Arizona
Some people whistle in the dark; some people whistle while they work, but Marion Darlington Pratt’s whistling is for the birds.
To children and even some adults, the animals in Disneyland appear so natural it is hard to tell the actual from the make-believe. And the birds sound just as we’ve heard them in our gardens or in the woods. But it is Marion Pratt’s fantastic imitative whistling that makes the bird calls.
When Marion was a little girl, instead of singing joyously she always whistled. They day her parents took her to a professional whistler, Marion knew what her career would be.
Her understanding parents allowed her to enroll in the Agnes Woodward School of Artistic Whistling in Los Angeles.
Disney Calls

In the early days of whistling for Disney Productions, the cartoons were “black and whites.” Later, she did the bird sounds for their first color cartoon, “Flowers and Trees,” which won them their first Academy Award.
More pictures followed. The famous “Whistle While You Work” melody of “Snow White” called upon all Marion’s talents as she trilled, warbled, yodeled, and chirped for many species of birds.
In Walt Disney’s “True Life Adventure Series” Marion furnished the sound for live birds. In “Nature’s Half Acre” the studio had a shot of a meadow lark sitting on a fence flapping his tail up and down. The director wanted the action of the bird, plus his song, synchronized to the music. So he ran the film for Marion while she whistled an authentic meadow lark song to each flip of the bird’s tail.
Animals, Too
Marion is also the “movie voice” of many creatures, including hyenas, peacocks, parrots and chimpanzees.
“I’ve done all kinds of crazy things,” said Marion, a petite blonde. Her brown eyes twinkled. “In one of Bing Crosby’s pictures I was the ‘buzz’ for an artificial bee that zoomed around his head to the tempo of the song Bing was singing.
“In a Bob Hope picture two trained vultures followed him across the desert. With table napkins tied around their necks and knives and forks in their claws, they’d land on his shoulder presumably anticipating a juicy meal when he could go no further. My job was to make the sound effects when these clowns laughed, cried or sang.”
In Audrey Hepburn’s “Green Mansions,” Marion recalls that the bird songs had to be mystical. Many of those weird jungle noises in the Tarzan pictures were her creations, including Tarzan’s own whistle. She has even been the voice for a stuttering, tuxedo-bedecked penguin. Often, when working out-of-doors, her bird calls are so natural that live birds answer.
About five years ago, with her talented trumpet-playing husband Don, and daughter Susie, Marion moved from Long Beach to Sedona. And every Easter, Don’s trumpet and Marion’s whistle welcome the sunrise at the service held on Arizona’s Tabletop Mountain in the flaming Red Rock Country of Oak Creek.
Jungle Sounds
“I’m especially proud of my work in the addition at Disneyland of the Enchanted Tiki Room,” Marion said. “In this South Seas atmosphere where fountain plays in color, orchids sing, and the Tiki gods chant, a whole roomful of birds sing and talk. I did all the pretty bird calls as well as many of the raucous jungle sounds. Many separate recordings were made which were then blended together on a single sound track. Each bird is wire stereophonically with my calls.”

Pratt divorced and married again in 1974. She was born November 7, 1910 in Monrovia, California and died in March 1991.

They Shall Sample My Blade

Duck Amuck has always been one of my favourite cartoons but so much has been written about it, there’s nothing I can add.

Chuck Jones’ cartoons can have such subtle movement and expressions that you feel it, even if you don’t notice it. Here is the open with dramatic actor Daffy Duck in an Errol Flynn-type swashbuckler role. Phil De Guard’s background pans to the left and disappears.



A realisation take. But Jones (or whoever animated this) doesn’t just have a static pose. The plume in Daffy’s chapeau drops to add to the effect that Daffy is stunned.



Daffy turns around to inspect the disappearance of his sword-fight scenery. Again, it’s not just a turn. Daffy flattens the palm of his hand. The gesture adds to what he’s feeling.



Daffy then gives us a shrug before tip-toeing out of the scene to adjust and give the audience watching his latest cartoon their money’s worth. Daffy, if nothing else in the 1950s, fancied himself an entertainer.



I shan’t attribute this scene to Ken Harris, but my wild guess is that’s who animated it. Ben Washam and Lloyd Vaughan also get screen credit, with Maurice Noble laying out the scenes, and Mike Maltese adding his unique style of dialogue. This post has the opening credit scroll snipped together.

Swat the Teacher

One of the trade ads for Ub Iwerks’ ComiColor cartoons was better than the cartoons themselves. Film Daily may have decided Mary’s Little Lamb had “lots of laughs resulting from the confusion” but you’d be hard-pressed to find them.

The cartoon opens with Mary kind of tap-dancing to an insipid song, except she and her lamb are animated on twos while the background keeps moving. That means it looks like they slide in every other frame.

Iwerks’ standard-issue old crone design is the teacher who declares it is entertainment day in Mary’s school, part of which consists of a long swish dance by a student named Percy.

Mary’s lamb keeps horning in on the act and the crone chases it with a broom. In one scene, the gag is the teacher gets her head stuck in a drawer, the lamb swats her butt with a broom and the teacher emerges with a mousetrap on her nose. She pulls it off and is left with a long, bent nose. Yeah, the gag is the funny shape. Being an Iwerks cartoon, we get to see female underwear a lot of the time. The broom maintains a butt shape.



There’s a coal gag to end the cartoon. It’s handled pretty straight (the teacher is embarrassed yet again); any temptation to do a blackface gag was resisted.

None of the animators are credited in this 1935 cartoon and they were, perhaps, thankful for that.

Acting By DeVol

One of the most inspired bits of casting on Fernwood 2 Night was Frank DeVol as humourless bandleader Happy Kyne.

DeVol’s name was well-known to TV credit watchers. I think I saw it first on My Three Sons. He also wrote The Brady Bunch theme in 1969. DeVol’s musical career went back far before that. His obit in the National Post tells of how he joined the musicians union when he was 14, played at a Chinese restaurant in Canton, Ohio to save money for a saxophone, and after fronting a band in the 1930s, wound up in California working for Lockheed during the war. It was there a radio station on the Mutual network asked him to lead its studio orchestra. He scored his first picture, World For Ransom, in 1954, for $3,500 (“I never turn anything down,” he once gave as his reason).

DeVol got away from his charts and got on camera at the dawn of the coaxial cable age on TV, though he first appeared on local television in Los Angeles. It’s nice to see he was interviewed a number of times in the days before Fernwood. Here’s an Associated Press story from November 30, 1950.

New Sound in Music
By GENE HANDSAKER
HOLLYWOOD (AP)—Frank DeVol has generous-sized ears and a deadpan expression. The ears recently devised what he calls a new sound in music. The expression masks an astonishing talent that keeps goading him on to new melodic enterprises.
He rises at 4 a. m. to work on musical arrangements. Five nights a week he broadcasts coast to coast with Jack Smith, Dinah Shore, and Margaret Whiting. He makes at least one phonograph record a week. He's preparing to crack TV and has accordingly dieted off 20 pounds. Drama lessons two nights a week are training him for comedy skits. And next summer he'll barnstorm around the nation's ballrooms with his new, 22-member dance band.
"Frank DeVol and His Music of the Century" it was named in a nationwide contest conducted by about 2,200 disc jockeys. The winning suggestion paid $500 to Mrs. H. L. Davis, 26, a housewife living in a trailer at Dodge City, Kan. Between 500 and 600 listeners suggested '"Music for All by (or with) Frank DeVol." A Southerner in Athens, Ga., gave the idea a drawl: "Music for You-All."

DeVol wanted a new tonal style for his orchestra. It came about almost by accident. A couple of stenographers at the network studio were listening to one of Frank's nightly arrangements. "They said, 'What's that? You ought to do more of that'." Frank relates. "An alto flute, which has a deeper tone than a regular flute, carried the melody. Three clarinets played harmony, and an alto sax doubled the melody, an octave lower, without tremolo."
A piano or celeste in Frank’s experiments with his new sound plays the same notes as the five winds, giving them a ringing quality. A Minneapolis fan letter called the effect "clean and modern."
DeVol's smaller radio orchestra is in its third year on the air for the same sponsor. He's readying the new one for possible TV deals and nearby one-night dance stands. Radio employment of musicians here is dropping off, he reports. “Musicians who had four shows now have two; those who had two have none. A lot are leaving for New York, where television is really booming.”
But Frank thinks that in five years Hollywood's pleasanter climate and time differential—coast-to-coast programs are over three hours earlier here—will make this the TV capital.

What about his acting? He appeared on one of Betty White’s shows in the 1950s (with a rug). His biggest role before he arrived in Fernwood, Ohio may have been in the short-lived comedy I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster. Here’s a story from December 1, 1962. There’s no byline, so this could be a production company or network release.

Musician Frank DeVol Doubles as an Actor
HOLLYWOOD—Frank DeVol, the baldish Mr. Bannister who bosses Harry Dickens and Arch Fenster in ABC-TVs comedy series, "I'm Dickens . . . He's Fenster," has two identities.
"Music by DeVol" is his trademark and billing in the recording and concert fields.
As Frank DeVol, actor, he's carving a niche for himself as a droll comic on TV, and occasionally in movies.
The musician is sorely tempted to give way to the comedian-actor identity, he reports, despite the security and worldwide recognition he has received for many years as a conductor and arranger.
"I'm really hipped on this Bannister character," he says. "And I'll have to admit that the applause which comes from the live audience for some of my contributions to the show is music to my ears.
"I could be very happy in this sort of activity for the rest of my professional life.
"I find myself composing far into the night to meet my commitments. And I orchestrate backstage what I've written the night before. My Bannister dialogue and stage business is a pipe by comparison."
It is doubtful, though, the DeVol could completely drop the making of record albums of familiar old melodies which sell faster than he can turn them out. "You won't hear tricks or licks on my albums," he declares. "The buyers want to hear the melody." I make it so simple they can sing or whistle the tune while the platter spins."
The musicianship in DeVol is inherited from his father, but it has taken him a good many years to find his groove as an actor.
His father, Herman F. DeVol, was a pit orchestra leader for years in the Canton (Ohio) Grand Opera House, and Frank fell into the habit of hanging around the theater, helping his father by taking care of his music library.
At 15, Frank had a six-piece band on a Canton radio station and, following his graduation from Miami (Ohio) University, Frank rejoined his father at the theater and learned to conduct the pit band.
In the years that followed, Frank has established himself in music with his own bands, as musical director of a Los Angeles radio station and an executive for Columbia Records.
He now scores two of ABC-TV's series, "Our Man Higgins" and "My Three Sons," and did the score for the Bette Davis-Joan Crawford movie, "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?"
But, judging by his reactions, Frank is getting his biggest charge out of Bannister and "I'm Dickens ... He's Fenster."

DeVol was nominated five times for an Oscar and five times for an Emmy. Not one was for Fernwood 2 Night where, to absolute brilliant perfection, he played—and SANG!—the music you’d least expect from a straight-laced bandleader, such as “Boogie Fever,” and an incredibly funny 1950s-girl-friend’s-been-killed parody called “Skateboard Angel.” Frank DeVol was 88 when he died on October 27, 1999.

Woody See Him?

Woody and Buzz Buzzard realise they’re seeing each other. The animator responsible gives us arm waving, multiples and dry brush in this scene from The Great Who-Dood-It (1952).



This is one of Don Patterson’s Woody cartoons. The characters have thicker ink lines than they had in the late ‘40s and the acting isn’t nearly so nuanced as it was at the Lantz studio a few years earlier. There’s even one scene where Buzz is talking but his mouth doesn’t move.

Blow Your Head Off

Short gags, long gags. Tex Avery and his writers (Heck Allen or Rich Hogan) would use both in their MGM cartoons.

Here’s a short one from Ventriloquist Cat (1950). Avery and Hogan see how many variations they can do on a cat luring a dog into some kind of violent danger.

Dialogue is unnecessary in this short scene. You can get the idea from these frames. Ol’ Tex ends it with something else familiar—a stare at the camera (sometimes the stare would be interrupted by blinking, accompanied by a Scott Bradley piano chord).



Walt Clinton, Mike Lah and Grant Simmons are the credited animators.

Who Bites Nails and Plays With a Garter?

Sidney Skolsky profiled Jack Benny several times in his syndicated “Tintypes” column. We’ve posted one of his feature columns before, so let’s post the other two. You can see how he dipped into his archive and re-used or re-worked lines.

The first is from September 9, 1931, before Benny looked at going into radio. The next one is from December 3, 1937. He was a radio star now and making his name in some, frankly, lightweight pictures. Basically, Skolsky compiles bits of trivia and biography and weaves them into a column. (Some other trivia for you: Frank Nelson, playing Virgil Reimer, who in real life joined the NBC sound effects department in March 1936, called Benny “an old tintype” on an early ‘40s broadcast).

TINTYPES
By SIDNEY SKOLSKY
JACK BENNY. His real name was Benny Kubelsky.
When he entered show business he made his first name his last and forgot all about the Kubelsky.
He had the name changed legally to Benny.
He was a St. Valentine's Day present to the family in the year 1894. Was born in Chicago, Ill., although his home town is Waukegan, thirty-six miles away. His mother went to Chicago for the event so Benny could tell folks he was born in a big city.
Is 5 feet 9 inches tall and weights 150 pounds. His hair has been graying for thr past ten years. His right eve is bluer than his left.
His father ran a saloon in Waukegan and he worked there for a short time. But the theatre interested him more than the saloon, and still does. Presently he had a job in the only theatre in the town. Started as a doorman. Then became a property man. Then became a tiddler in the orchestra, conducted by Cora Salisbury. When the theatre closed he and Cora went into vaudeville. Theirs was a violin and piano act.
He bites his nails, never gets a manicure and changes shoes three times a day.
Eats everything that isn't good for him and bolts his food.
Played in vaudeville with Miss Salisbury for about four years. The act never got to New York. During that time he didn't utter one word on the stage. If there was a curtain speech to be made to the audience—which wasn't often—Miss Salisbury was the speechmaker.
Then came the war. And it was an all right affair for Benny.
He joined the Navy and was put into the Navy Relief Society. It was this organization's duty to entertain and make money for the sailors. He played in "The Great Lakes Revue." In this show he spoke for the first time on a stage. He was ordered to do so, and he had to obey orders.
This gave him courage. After the war he did a single in vaudeville, telling a few gags between violin solos. Today he uses the violin for comedy bits only. He made his reputation as a smart monologist.
On Jan. 14, 1927, he married Sadye Marks in Chicago. She is not of show business. Often, however, when playing vaudeville she appears in the act with him. He doesn't do anything, on stage or off, without her advice.
His pet name for her is Doll. Her pet name for him is Doll.
Generally sits with his legs crossed and toys with one of his leg garters.
On stage he appears to be the calmest of the current crop of smart fooling monologists. His style is succinct, dry and ironic. He seems to be very much at home before the footlights. He's just a good actor. As a matter of fact he paces his dressing room before going on and is nervous when delivering his chatter. He doesn't smoke. Whenever he puts a cigarette to his lips, in an effort to learn how, the wife laughs at him.
Generally wears a blue or gray double-breasted suit. Has bad taste when it comes to socks and ties. His wife has to buy them for him. He has more dress suits than street clothes.
Does things on the spur of the moment. He has packed and left for Hollywood or Europe on only twenty-four hours' notice.

The word he uses most is "Marvelous." Every act he introduces on the stage is marvelous. Everything he likes and describes to a person is marvelous. Once, when playing in San Francisco, Aimee McPherson sent him the following backstage: "Enjoyed your performance very much. Like everything about you but the word marvelous. Am sending you a list of words that you can use in place of marvelous. Outside of that, Mr. Benny, you were marvelous."
His two favorite humorists, the guys who hand him a laugh in type, are Stephen Leacock and Robert Benchley.
Generally writes most of his own material. Can write gags for himself but not for others. Often he buys material.
Sleeps in pajamas, using both the trousers and the jacket. Is a sound sleeper. No matter what time he goes to bed he awakes early in the morning. Takes a cold bath every morning. His wife always travels with him.
He resembles Phil Baker so strongly that the two of them often pass for brothers. He also looks very much like Jack Warner and in Hollywood is often mistaken for him. Strangely enough, Baker doesn't resemble Warner.
He is really a funny guy for he's very fond of his in-laws.

Doorman to Comic, Rise of Jack Benny
He's Never Been on a Horse But He 'Rides Again' on Nearly Every Radio Program
By SIDNEY SKOLSKY
Hollywood.
TINTYPE of a comic—Jack Benny when he first entered show business, made his first name his last name. His real name was Benny Kubelsky. . . He has had his name legally changed to Benny. . . On the radio he has fun saying he hails from Waukegan. . . Fact is, he was horn in Chicago on St. Valentine's day, 1894. . . His parents went there so he could tell people he was born in a big city. . . He is 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 150 pounds. . . His hair is graying and thinning. . . His right eye is bluer than his left. . . When broadcasting he wears eye glasses. . . His program sounds as if everyone on it was having a good time, because they are. . . He starts work on his Sunday program on Tuesday. He sits around with his writers and they start talking about a magazine article or a movie, and then someone will say: "I got a line," and the secretary puts it down . . . During [a]performance, Benny will occasionally throw a kiss to the audience after generous applause . . . Don Wilson serves as applause leader . . . Benny had a struggle in show-business before he became a big success on the radio . . . His initial job in the theater was a doorman . . . Next he became a property man, then a violin player in the theater's orchestra, conducted by Cora Salisbury . . . When the theater closed, he and Cora went into vaudeville with a violin and piano act ... In those days he did not play the fiddle for laughs. Benny had to join the navy to speak on a stage. During the World war the Navy Relief society put on a show called, "The Great Lake Revue." Here Benny spoke for the first time on a stage. He was ordered to and he had to obey orders. Jack was never ranked with the big headliners of vaudeville, never starred in a Broadway show . . . He is married to Sadye Marks . . . She was not connected with show business but is an important member of his radio show . . . You know her as Mary Livingstone . . . His pet name for her is Doll . . . Her pet name for him is Doll Face . . . He bites his nails, seldom gets a manicure, and often changes his shoes three times a day. He is hardly ever seen without a cigar, either smoking or holding it . . . Everything he likes and describes to a person is marvelous ... He has never been on a ranch . . . He has never been on a horse--except when he got a good tip . . . Yet he's the most famous cowboy in the country today . . . Giddyap—Buck Benny rides again.

Makin' Educational Whoopee

Kids watch TV for the same reason their parents do—to be entertained. They don’t watch it to be lectured to or educated.

But there were parents groups that felt it was television’s job to do that, and in the least low-brow way. Producers and programmers had to find the way to straddle that line—to make something kids wouldn’t turn off but gave them something other than Popeye punching out Bluto for the umpteenth time. Cy Plattes of General Mills found an answer.

Thus Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales was born.

The story-lines driving the cartoons were similar. Tennessee would come up with a brainstorm and fail miserably to execute it. He and sidekick Chumley would then go to see Mr. Whoopee who demonstrated how to do it properly. Off went Tennessee who would make his idea work—but something else would go wrong to end the cartoon.

The “Whoopee” portion was the education aspect that critics loved because, well, because it was education. Kids liked it because the education was given by a cartoony voice (Larry Storch as Frank Morgan), and not some adult teacher talking down to them.

Here are two of a number of newspaper stories written about Tennessee. The first is from the King Features Syndicate of November 22, 1963, the other from the Newspaper Enterprise Association starting around February 8, 1964. Note that “TTV” does not stand for “Total Television,” at least not yet. It has a different meaning, no doubt to kiss up to networks and parent groups. Neither of them explain why Tennessee Tuxedo doesn’t have a Tennessee accent.

C.B.S. Airs Educational Cartoon
by HARVEY PACK
(TVKey Writer)
New York—Many of today's infants go from mother's milk to the T. V. tube and by the time they are ready to start their formal education television has done as much to prepare them for learning as their parents. This is an area where T. V.'s responsibility is not simply a matter of petty network jealousy or rating wars, but a vital part of our country's future.
Children, like adults, are attracted to mass audience programming and ambitious and praiseworthy projects like "Exploring" and "Discovery" are fine for F. C. C. hearings, but the youngsters prefer cartoons. As the prisoner said on his way to the electric chair: "Dis never would have happened if dey had held classes in saloons."

C. B. S. has apparently recognized the need for spoon-fed learning and has backed a fine cartoon show called "Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales" on Saturdays at 9:30 A. M. I happened to catch it a few times with my youngsters and I found it a delightful combination of education and fun.
The main characters in this zoo-based cartoon are Tennessee, a cocky penguin; Chumley, an idiot walrus; and amusing but intelligent chap called Mr. Whoopee; an aptly named zoo-keeper, Stanley Livingston; and Flunkie, his assistant. Two of my favorite comics, Don Adams and Larry Storch provide the voices for Tennessee and Mr. Whoopee with top actors Kenny Delmar, Bradley Bolke and Mort Marshall rounding out the cast.
The program is financed by one of the big three cereal companies and was supposedly inspired by that wonderful child's habit of asking why about everything. Each week Tennessee and his friends escape from the zoo and venture into the outside world to solve a puzzling “why.” It ranges from “why does a telephone work” to “Why do things grow on the desert” and just about any subject is up for grabs on subsequent shows.
Produced by ex-advertising men who got tired of writing ads and simply earning a living, “Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales” may be the TV answers for helping youngsters in the 4-10 age bracket get something out of the tube besides eye strain.
According to one of the partners in TTV (Teaching Television), they research each “why” in the Golden Book encyclopedia and, through the cereal sponsor, offer prizes to teachers who can suggest a good “why” for Tennessee to explain.
What makes this spoon-fed education palatable to the kids is that the educational portion is lively and animated rather than a cut out to film clips provided by the industry that is about to be discussed. Another attempt in this field has used industrial films for the education segment of the show and the result has been a sloppy, uninteresting presentation.
Walt Disney's high budgeted N.B.C. program is always at its best when it informs the youngsters while entertaining them, and it's a pleasure to report that this fine approach to education is now available for the small fry on a Saturday morning network program. I sincerely hope that "Tennessee Tuxedo" is a popular success and attracts hundreds of imitators. We need them.

Penguin Teachers Kids
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD (NEA)—Hey, Ma! I've got news for you. That "know-it-all" cartoon penguin named Tennessee Tuxedo on television every Saturday morning is helping educate your kiddies.
The kids don't realize they are being slipped the educational needle. And that's the big idea.
So keep mum, Ma, about reading that Tennessee Tuxedo is produced by a company named TTV, the initials meaning "Teaching Television," which the name of the penguin also means.
Early ratings of the new show indicate the kiddies are getting out of bed Saturday mornings and dialing TT, oblivious to the fact that it is a significant breakthrough in visual education.
As an example of programming in the public interest you can almost forgive the sponsor's message.
In case you are unaware of Tennessee Tuxedo, he's the sort who is always sticking his nose into other folks' affairs. As a result, he keeps finding himself in situations he cannot handle.
Mistaken for a famed architect, he is given the job of building a bridge. The bridge collapses. In the doing, Tuxedo and the junior viewer absorb a few basic tenets about the bridge-building art.
When Tuxedo is unable to repair an automobile the ensuing fun, graphically and with juvenile simplicity, explains the working of the internal combustion engine.
In similar vein, other plots lead TT into the fields of irrigation, firefighting, astronomy, telecommunication, farming, navigation, deep sea diving, etc. The idea for the show came from Cyril Plattes, a Minneapolis industrial public relations and marketing specialist who surveyed interest of junior age levels. He found “an unbelievable hunger” for information about the world junior lives in.
“So,” he says, “we decided to use the cartoon as a carrier for a good comedy show with an educational message.

Tennessee survived on Saturday mornings for three seasons before super heroes and fantasy shows started taking over the schedule, then moved into syndication.

If they were ever to revive the series today, producers would likely ignore Larry Storch and turn Mr. Whoopee into some kind of Siri/Alexa thing on a tablet and toss in some CGI effects. Maybe cartoons were more fun way back when.