Hans Conried, a Paart of the Show

Maybe Hans Conried should have got a better manager.

Conried worked continually during the days of network radio, one of those top supporting actors who could do several shows a day. Then he appeared regularly on television. But he sighed that he still had to keep working because he didn’t have money. Either Conried was spending way too much on Japanese antiques or he wasn’t getting paid enough.

By 1958, one of Conried’s semi-regular TV parking spots was on the Jack Paar version of the Tonight show. Paar and Conried were friends and occasionally took trips together. Here are a couple of feature stories on Conried’s appearances on the show. The first is from the New York Daily News of August 27, 1958. Conried reveals where he and Paar first met. The second is from Arthur Grace’s column in the Miami News of January 15, 1958. Conried credits Mel Blanc into getting him into radio comedy.

By the way, to explain something odd in the second story—when the Tonight show first started on NBC with Steve Allen, the show moved over from WNBT in New York. Because of local ad commitments, the show started at 11:15 p.m. with the first 15 minutes appearing only on WNBT. This carried over into the Paar years, which is referenced in the story (Johnny Carson finally ended the quasi-pre-show after refusing to appear on it; Ed McMahon and bandleader Skitch Henderson were responsible for the 11:15-11:30 period).

Jack Paar's Looks Set Hans Conried to Talking
By MATT MESSINA
Hans Conried never has trouble doing his conversational bits on Jack Paar's NBC-TV shows. “When Jack looks at me the first time, I start talking. When he looks the second time, I stop,” he explained.
Conried is in New York on one of his quickie trips from the Coast. He has been hopping around town the last two weeks doing everything from recording for NBC-Radio's "Monitor" to posing for liquor ads—“little bits of sweepings” is how he describes his varied jobs—and, of course, he’s guested with Paar (he was on last night).
The busy actor appeared on Paar's summer-subbing stint for Jack Benny on CBS-Radio some years ago.
“Since then, Paar has taken a kind interest in me. He has been unfailing in his loyalty, based on nothing but a sense of kindness, I’m sure,” he said.
No Scripts
Is all the repartee between him and Paar ad lib? “Completely,” he declared. That's one of the reasons he looks forward to guesting with Paar. “It's very easy—no scripts, no lines to memorize.”
Conried will be visiting Paar whenever he’s in town. “I have an open invitation to go on his show,” he related.
Featured in most of the top shows during radio's “golden age,” Conried has also been seen in many TV offerings, including “Omnibus,” “Maverick,” Danny Thomas' stanzas and “Pantomime Quiz.”
He appeared on the latter, in fact, when the program was first struggling as a West Coast TVer.
“We didn’t get any money in the beginning. But, in lieu of cash, the members of the panel were rewarded with cigaret lighters. Also, a local mill company used to send six bags of its flour products to the show, so that the Conried household had a pantry full of macaroni, pancake mix, etc. We lost our figures for a while until I started getting money for my appearances,” said the lean six-footer.
Watches His Old Movies
Conried confesses to a “morbid fascination” in watching on TV one of the more than 100 movies he made in Hollywood. “I see a young man of 20 or so, slim, with all his hair, who now works for nothing in competition with you on television,” he said with a bite in his voice. Then, putting a hand to his head, he added: “All the hair you see here is mine, but there used to be more.”
Although Conried, who began his career as a Shakespearean actor, admits “No one ever becomes an actor without wanting to become a star,” he insists he has no ambition to head a TV show of his own. “I'd want a challenge, but without the responsibility. And that’s hard to come by.”
He's had two-and-a-half weeks off from work in the last 16 months and there doesn't seem to be any letup in sight. For example, Conried will be seen in the Bell science TV series’ “Alphabet Conspiracy” and he’ll also guest on the Danny Thomas CBS-TV show this fall.
“I'd like to retire,” he sighed, “but who can afford it?”

Hans Conried Set a For Busy Future
If there is anything more grisly than driving from Tropical Park to the Carillon Hotel on Miami Beach, I'd just as soon not know about it. Or maybe you think it's fun driving 20 miles through hip-deep traffic after betting nine losers?
I made this interminable journey Monday night for one reason only; I had to find out what happens on the first 15 minutes of Jack Paar's delightful "Tonight" show.
Ever since I started watching "Tonight" on Channel 7, the first 15 minutes of the show have been preempted by a surly, rotund horse player who dabbles in sports announcing. This fellow happens to be entertaining enough to prevent me from lodging loud protest, but I still wondered what happened to "Tonight" between 11:15 and 11:30 p.m.
With Paar and his guests telecasting for one week from Miami Beach, I had my chance to find out. I can now report on what local viewers missed:
1. An amusing monologue by Paar.
2. A pretty French song by Genevieve.
3. An interview with an inventor of odd-ball shoes.
4. Jose Melis at the piano.
Funny Stuff
Paar's monologue was first rate. Referring to the still-incomplete hotel, he commented that he had a room overlooking a carpenter.
The weather report was very heartening, he noted. Temperatures of 78 and sun were expected tomorrow, with winds of 140 miles-per-hour.
The shoe salesman has invented "shoes" which will enable its users to walk on water. It is intended, I gathered, to replace the Queen Mary.
The shoes resemble two outrigger canoes. A hotel lifeguard tried to demonstrate them but was unable to move. It wasn't clear whether they were for motivation or for anchorage.
As for the song by Genevieve and Metis' piano playing, both were completely enjoyable.
The first "Tonight" telecast originated from the Tambourine Room of the hotel. It is a small area and things were pretty hectic Monday night. Facilities were not all that they might be.
At 12:31, for example, the show signed off when it should have signed on. For about 60 seconds, in view of millions, Paar tried to determine whether he was on or off the air.
These little entanglements would be catastrophic to most shows. On easy-going "Tonight" it's just part of the fun.
Jack's guests for the week include urbane Hans Conried, inexplicable Dody Goodman, the somewhat British Hermione Gingold and a confused Genevieve.

Mr. Conried is man of diverse talents. At the moment he is, as he describes it, “a professional wise guy.” He has not always been thus.
Hans Tops
“All actors go through phases,” he said. “I started with Shakespeare, working with Barrymore for three or four years. I realized there was no commercial future in this so I became an emotional radio actor, doing a lot of dialect parts.
“World War II came along and I became a heavy, one Nazi officer after another. I went into the Army and came out without a job.
“A friend of mine—Mel Blanc—had a comedy show and asked me if I wanted to work. I told him I'd never been really successful at comedy roles but he insisted. All at once I was ‘hot’ as a comedian.
“When radio went downhill we had to adjust. A radio actor had about as much future as a dirigible pilot.
“So I’ve drifted into comedy and I’m being kept busy. Next Monday I fly back to the west coast to film a ‘Danny Thomas Show.’ I play his Armenian uncle. It’s character comedy, not the role of a stooge.”
A dozen years ago, however, Hans was “stooging and knocking around town” when Paar hired him for his show.
“He gave me a job when it counted and things have gone pretty well since. I’ve worked with him often. I don’t know why he’s so loyal to me. I guess it's because we like each other; he likes to have his friends around him.
“Most of the people on this show would go through fire for Jack.”
Is Hans unhappy with his role of “professional wise guy?” Not at all.
“It isn’t bad; working on Jack’s show is the easiest job I’ve ever had and the most fun. There's no preparation at all. My ambition? To keep working.”
Conried recently completed two movies, with “The Big Beat” to be released in April. He will portray a witch in the "Hansel and Gretel" TV spectacular in April. He always keeps turning up on panel shows such as “Pantomime Quiz” and “What's It For.” Not even Hans could save the latter series from an untimely death at the age of 13 weeks.
If Conried can't save a show, it’s beyond human salvation.
It is this writer’s opinion that Mr. Conried would be perfect as narrator of children’s stories on TV. A title? How about “Hans Across The Fable.”

Hey, What Does That Say?

A searchlight tracks the path of an escaped convict wolf in Tex Avery’s Dumb-Hounded.

The light realises it has zoomed past some writing on the wall, skids to a stop, and backtracks (a switch on this gag involving a painting was used in Northwest Hounded Police



The writing reveals a clue. The camera pans up to show the convict has escaped over the wall.



Johnny Johnsen is the background artist. The version of the cartoon in circulation is a re-issue and without a writer credit.

Friz is Better Than Fritz

Continuous movement? Sure. Gags? Uh...no.

The Captain and the Kids short Seal Skinners (1939) is no eyesore, thanks to the work of the uncredited MGM animators, but there’s really nothing to it. None of the characters are likeable. Even the voice-work is grating. Mel Blanc’s sort-of-cockney pirate doesn’t work for me and a decision was made to speed up Hans’ voice so he sounds more like Theodore on The Alvin Show.

An interesting bit of animation is when Hans waves his hands anxiously. The animator uses multiple hands, with some inked lighter.



The animation was reused later in the cartoon, as was the scene of a growing number of birds flying and swooping.

Friz Freleng directed the cartoon. His name isn’t on the credits. Friz never had much good to say about this series and he willingly rushed back to the lower budgets of the Leon Schlesinger studio than to continue to put up with weak concepts and strong studio politics at MGM.

A Bit About Some Minor Players

When you think of Jack Benny’s supporting cast on radio, there’s the ‘A’ list that was credited every week—Mary, Don, Phil, Dennis. And there were ‘B’ players who played characters that showed up with some regularity. By the mid to late 1940s they were mainly Frank Nelson, Mel Blanc, Bea Benedaret, Sara Berner, Sheldon Leonard, Artie Auerbach and Joe Kearns.

But Benny had been on the air since 1932 and he had other minor players who came and went.

It would appear NBC sent out a news release because I’ve found a few newspaper clippings from 1937 that mentions them. Here is a version from the November 21, 1937 edition of the Indianapolis Star, along with a funny squib about Phil Harris.

JACK BENNY HAS MANY assistants on his Sunday night NBC shows. Joe Franz is Cactus Face Elmer and sundry other villainous characters. Blanche Stewart handles off-stage screams. Jack's secretary, Harry Baldwin, is, and has been for several years, the inevitable Western Union boy. The biggest star of Benny's "Who's Zoo" collection is Don Wilson, who does the horse's whinny every time "Buck Benny Rides Again."
PHIL HARRIS, formerly of Linton, Ind., returned to NBC Hollywood the other day after chasing the rainbow's end trying to find gold on his Mexican property. But Harris returned without gold, it seems that Harris got as far as the border, where officials turned him back. A revolution was in progress, they said. So Jack Benny's maestro, who had been informed that gold had been struck on some Mexican property he had bought for hunting purposes, still doesn't definitely know whether he owns a gold mine or just a lot of cactus.

Joe Franz may be the most obscure of the lot. He first appeared on the Benny show in the General Tire days on June 22, 1934. The show had moved from New York to Los Angeles while Jack made a film. His minor players didn’t come west, so he had to employ new ones. A 1935 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette mentions his work with Benny and reveals his hobby was botany. Franz’ last appearance with Benny was December 18, 1938. James Joseph Franz, Sr. and his wife Florine Garland were on the stage as early as 1909, then went into silent pictures. They were with the St. Louis Motion Picture Company when it moved to Santa Clara, California in September 1913. Franz was acting and directing in California into the early ‘20s, but returned to New York by the end of the decade. He may have been playing the ukelele on a 15-minute show on WSGH Brooklyn (it could have been a different Joe Franz). Franz was back in Los Angeles by October 1931. He apparently left Los Angeles in 1940 to appear in a play in the Chicago area but returned to California. He lived until age 85 and died in 1970.

Harry Baldwin and Blanche Stewart were mentioned in this post. Baldwin’s first show was in the Canada Dry era on July 20, 1932. His last routine with his boss was May 3, 1942 before he ended up in the military. Why he didn’t return to work for Jack after the war ended, I don’t know. The “bald” in Baldwin’s name was very appropriate, and Benny joked on the air about Baldwin’s lack of hair.

Stewart was incredibly talented. She even pre-dated Baldwin; her debut was June 15, 1932. She was part of Benny’s stage act during the 1930s and was also Mary Livingstone’s stand-in. Stewart’s biggest claim to fame was after being signed by Bob Hope to play Brenda, based on celebrity Brenda Frazier (who was famous for being wealthy). Stewart was unfortunately plagued by poor health and injuries during the 1940s. She was 49 when she died on July 24, 1952. Her last Benny show was on the previous March 23rd. Read more about her in this post.

There were so many others who played minor roles again and again on Jack’s show; listing even a portion of them would be like printing a phone book. Almost all of them were anonymous on the air, so it’s good to see they got a bit of publicity somewhere.

The Accidental Cartoon Producer

Bullwinkle the moose may the only cartoon character who took a back seat to the publicity for his own show. When NBC picked up The Bullwinkle Show in 1961, Jay Ward, Bill Scott and PR maven Howard Brandy sent out a seemingly endless stream of off-beat news releases and other plugs for the show, not to mention organising events that were way out of the realm of anything anyone else was doing to grab attention.

Writers succumbed to the temptation of writing about the PR campaign instead of the actual cartoons, though Ward and Scott managed to get their personal philosophies of animated comedy in the stories at times, too.

Here’s a piece from Bob Foster’s “TV Screenings” column in the San Mateo Times of November 29, 1961. The quotes about tiring an audience can be found in other newspaper stories around this time. This is one of two references I recall seeing about the “Playville Club.” Ward and Scott (and their writers) satirised key clubs of the early ‘60s, and sent out fake brochures like the Playboy Club used to make.

Jay Ward, the Delightful ‘Nut’
Jay Ward is a nut. At least that is what one must presume from his press releases, his cartoon antics and from talking to the guy. One of the real humorists of our time, Jay does the unexpected, not only now and then, but every week right on schedule.
A former real estate salesman from Oakland, and one of television's first animators, he is currently giving birth each week to some of the most subtle comedy on television in his "Bullwinkle Show" (KRON-TV, 7 p.m. Sunday).
We discussed Jay's very funny press releases previously, but they still come to our desk and have become must reading for the entire staff.
The latest was the proud announcement that Jay Ward was opening "Playville Clubs" in 86 American cities and enclosed were two skeleton keys.
Previously he sent along some of the funniest parodies on well known songs, in a book entitled "Sing Along With Bullwinkle."
The Brandy agency, I even wonder about that name, who handles Jay Ward's account can be credited with much of the humor, but knowing Jay, he must contribute quite a bit to the humor.
JAY BECAME AN animated film producer strictly by accident. He really intended to be a real estate salesman. On July 10, 1947, sitting quietly in his Oakland office, he suffered a fractured leg when a runaway truck smashed through his front window.
"I was six months in a plaster cast and had lots of time to think things over like hospital equipment and plastering. About this time I met an old air force buddy and we got together with pencil and paper to develop an animated cartoon, 'Crusader Rabbit,' made entirely in Oakland... in a garage."
THIS VENTURE obviously was away ahead of its time ... so far ahead, in fact, that San Francisco still didn't enjoy television. "Crusader Rabbit" ran for two years locally, and is still being seen around the country in syndication.
"About this time," Jay says, "we got the feeling that television wasn't ready for us yet, so I went back to the real estate office in Oakland. I still have that office, just in case of, but it's now in the Claremont hotel, Berkeley."
Jay will cheerfully admit he can't draw, but he feels that writing is the thing in cartooning. Far too often mechanics are confused with the "results." Many cartoon producers become so intrigued with the novelty of a moving drawing that they forget the prime factor, story.
"Cartoons have a basic appeal," Ward says, "but an audience will tire if presented only action without thought. Some cartoon makers go as far as to perfect animating a life-like reality. This is fine, but the story suffers in consequence. We try to use animation to tell the story, not the story to sell animation."
ACTUALLY THE "BULLWINKLE" show is either liked or disliked with a passion. The humor on the show is subtle, and aimed at lovers of subtle humor, yet the series does have an appeal for youngsters as well as grownups. Those who do not like "Bullwinkle" refuse to admit that it has any humor. Those who really like "The Moose," however, are the color set owners. The series has some of the best darn color to be found on the air.

Shakespeare Silhouettes

Some points to writer George Manuell and animation unit head Doc Crandall for trying something a little new in Shakespearean Spinach (1940). The cartoon is set in a theatre and the plot surrounds an operatic version of Romeo and Juliet, which is done with a lot more panache than some similar cartoons at the Paul Terry studio.

There are a couple of short scenes where there’s a cut to the audience applauding. What makes it different is there’s a guy in silhouette clapping in the foreground. Some of the same drawings were used in both cycles.



It sounds like Pinto Colvig as Bluto in this cartoon, with Jack Mercer and Margie Hines in their usual roles.

The Leaking Mouse

Gangsters riddle the mouse hero with bullets in the 1932 Terrytoons cartoon Romance.



“They got me!” he exclaims.



The mouse then goes off scene and emerges at a water barrel. You know the gag about a cartoon character drinking water after being shot and the water pours out of the holes in his body? This may have been the first cartoon it was used in (for all I know, it could have been a silent comedy gag).



The gag is completely lost in the poor direction. The mouse, for no reason at all, goes to the pitcher, drinks the water, then exits the scene to run after the cat that has mouse-napped his sweetheart. The gag isn’t set up or emphasized; it happens in a continuous stream of action with no real reaction.

Why did the bullets have no effect? And don’t ask me why a mouse would have been lured away by a duck messenger shouting “Call for Mr. Goldfish.” The mouse is named Goldfish? I’m missing something here.

Here is it 1932 and the Terrytoons were already becoming mediocre. I’ll take a 1932 Van Beuren cartoon over this (though there is a neat cat walk cycle near the start).

Between 40 and Death

Her first review may have been in a caption of a newspaper photo showing her and fellow aspiring actress Elaine Herman painting a stage backdrop.

She was a member of the Dramatic Workshop Players of Great Neck, Long Island, a troupe consisting of World War Two service people, which was about to open a run of “Androcles and the Lion.” A newspaper story several days later concludes with her name in a list of unknowns (today and then, I suspect).

Her name was Bea Arthur.

The photo was in the New York Daily News of August 13, 1946. That gives you an idea of how long it took for Arthur to gain fame. (Sorry, we can’t reprint the picture).

In 1947 she was appearing in plays at the Cherry Lane Theatre but by 1951, she decided to toss acting away for a singing career. She joined the stock company on a short-lived musical show on the Du Mont Network called Once Upon a Tune. At the same time, she appeared at the One Fifth Avenue. Billboard’s Bill Smith reviewed her act on April 28, 1951—twice. One review went:

Bea Arthur, a tall, attractive brunette, in her first café job (she comes out of legit) impressed with a low contralto and a sharp under-selling style that drew and held attention. That the girl can act was evident from the way she handled the lyrics on torcheroos and ballads. Most of her material was standards tho she handled them so skillfully they sounded like specials. On the basis of her projection, the gal could make it in class uptown rooms and might even be a look-see by some record a. and r. guy.

In the second review, he mentioned “With proper costuming and lighting, Miss Arthur could catch on. She has the basic talent.”

Of course, we all know Arthur didn’t make it as a lounge act. She performed off-Broadway, unstudied Tallulah Bankhead in a 1956 version of the Ziegfeld Follies that died before it reached New York. She appeared on TV as a sketch performer. She didn’t appear on stage in an all-female “Hamlet”; only one actress was in front of the audience, the rest gave their lines from behind a curtain. And she did some cabaret work; she opened with the song “I’m in Love With Sammy Snead.”

Arthur had to be convinced by her husband to take the role that made her a Tony winner. She was appearing in “Fiddler on the Roof” in 1966 but Gene Saks wanted his wife to join the cast of his musical version of Auntie Mame, which tuned up in Philadelphia and Boston before hitting the Great White Way to, I think, universal rave reviews.

And then came Maude.

Well, some other things came between the two but we’ll never get there if we list anything and everything.

Here’s a National Enterprise Association story of October 5, 1972. She engages in that old show biz tradition of subtracting a number of years off her age. She was born in the Depression—if the Depression started in 1922. One thing she doesn’t underestimate is the power of television’s national exposure.

“Maude” is Really Soft-Hearted Inside
By DICK KLEINER
HOLLYWOOD (NEA)—Beatrice Arthur describes herself this way:
"I'm a large lady with a deep voice. Inside I'm butter."
She's physically perfect as the beautifully bitter lady known as Maude, on that sure-to-be-a-hit new CBS series. In it, the butter underneath doesn't show. She can be large, deep-voiced and tough and nobody knows about her miserable sentimental core.
It's always been that way with Beatrice Arthur. Her husband (director Gene Saks) kids her about how she looks and sounds so forbidding that she could get any shopkeeper to do anything she wanted. But, Saks says, she's too timid to go back to the butcher with a bad piece of meat.
"I always was big," Bea says, "and I always wanted to be an ingenue, when I was eight, back in Cambridge, Md., I'd go to the movies and read the fan magazines and dream of being small, delicate and blonde. Here I was big and hefty and dark."
She was born in New York, during the Depression—"but let's not talk exact years"—and then her family moved to Maryland's eastern shore. At first she wanted to be a concert pianist but gave that up when she realized she wasn't dedicated enough for a concert career "and didn't want to spend my life teaching piano to kids in Cambridge, Md."
She was a registered lab technician and she worked in the local Cambridge hospital but gave that up after a couple of years. "I just couldn't see myself taking urine specimens the rest of my life." So she headed for New York, dramatic training and Broadway. She was there more than 20 years and she says it was pretty good. She did well, worked most of the time, had a few hits.
"But in one night on television," she says, "when I did that first guest thing on "All in the Family," I got more recognition than I had in those 20, 25 years in New York onstage."
When they first suggested that Maude would be a series, she says she wasn't overwhelmingly excited. She came out to Hollywood with her husband—he was here to direct "Last of the Red Hot Lovers"—and did her thing. But now she's excited.
"I want this show to be a hit," she says, "and if it isn't I think I'll kill myself."
It's hard to think of Maude, as we know her, of ever being shy but Beatrice Arthur was. No more.
"When I studied acting," she says, "I was so shy I'd hide behind the angry peasants on stage. Today, if an angry peasant appeared on my set, I'd shoot him."

Arthur had enough of Maude and quit after six seasons. Several years later, Norman Lear talked her into something that must have seen great on paper—an American re-working of Faulty Towers. Critics hated it. The show was cancelled after something like ten episodes. Here’s how one reviewer saw the seaside show, in a column of March 25, 1983.

Frenzied 'Amanda's' Is Unwelcome Guest
By DAVID HANDLER
NEA Television Critic
If you're a PBS watcher, you may have already seen "Amanda's."
This new ABC sitcom, a starring vehicle for Bea Arthur, is adapted from "Fawlty Towers," an incredibly funny British sitcom about an ill-humored, inefficient, hen-pecked bully of an innkeeper named Basil Fawlty. John Cleese of Monty Python plays him.
Since I'm a member of the "Fawlty Towers" cult following, I'm probably the wrong guy to talk to about "Amanda's." I've tried to watch it with an open mind, to take it on its own terms, to give it a chance.
I've tried. But this U.S. version still seems shrill and clumsy to me. To put it plain, I think "Amanda's" is an embarrassment.
Amanda Cartwright (Miss Arthur) is a sour, intimidating petty tyrant whose crumbling California seaside inn is in heavy financial trouble. Her neighbor and arch-rival, Krinsky (Michael Constantine), wants to buy her out and tear the place down.
"If I die before you," she advises him, "I'm to be cremated and my ashes strewn in your eyes."
Her son, Marty (Fred McCarren), has loads of advice for perking up business, seeing as how she did send him to hotel management school. But Amanda totally ignores him. He is an oaf.
As for his wife, Arlene (Simone Griffith), she's a pampered, snobby Bostonian who talks mostly about clothes and daddy, who is, she often points out, the third largest maker of folding chairs in America. Amanda despises her.
Rounding out our cast are Aldo (Tony Rosato), a forgetful bellhop who speaks no English, and Earl (Rick Hurst), the chef, who is an amazingly long-winded bumpkin.
Amanda is unfailingly nasty to all of them, as well as to her guests. When one diner complains that the lettuce is wilted, Amanda snaps, "You probably scared it to death."

While Miss Arthur went to town as the ill-humored, sharp-tongued Maude Findlay, she suffers from a lack of equals here. On "Maude," she had her husband, Walter, to keep her in line. Meanwhile, on "Fawlty Towers," Basil can bellow and huff until his face turns blue but you still know he's terrified of his tiny wife, Sybil.
Here, there is nobody to stand up to her. The rest of the characters are one-note patsies. She is out of control, and so is the show. It doesn't have stories, it has elaborate contraptions.
Each week we are force-fed an exhaustingly madcap, three-ring circus so crammed with stupid characters and frenzied sight gags that it reminds me of the disastrous movie "1941" - played out in a phone booth.
In one episode of "Amanda's," for instance, a bank robber holds staff and guests hostage in the lobby. Within the course of 60 seconds we are treated to the sight of: Marty, clad in snorkel and scuba mask, being tied to a chair; Arlene being hit in the face by a flying duck; two people being conked on the head by a large frying pan; a poodle named Joel being outfitted in a party hat.
While all of this is going on, Amanda is being wooed by the chief of police over the bullhorn.
In another episode, Amanda prepares an elaborate surprise party for Earl, invites banjo players, square dancers, a magician and a suicidal comic, only to learn at the last moment that the new bank president she was planning a party for next week is coming a week early.
So she has to switch the parties, only the place is already filled with the wrong crowd and Earl has found out about the surprise and Amanda has her arm stuck in a vase.
Two rules of comedy: More is not better, it's less; madcap is only synonymous with funny if you have Cary Grant as your star.
Bea Arthur is an imposing presence and a fine performer. It's nice to see her back on series TV. But this is the wrong kind of show for her. For anyone.

Perhaps it’s just as well that Amanda’s failed. That would have prevented her casting in the Golden Girls, which is Arthur’s biggest success in the eyes of some. If there’s one thing people like more than catty women, it’s catty older women. Yet she left that show, too, when she felt it had run its course.

There’s a line in the song “Bosom Buddies” from “Mame” about Arthur’s Vera Charles being “between 40 and death.” That’s what she was when she died in 2009. She’d come quite a way from painting backdrops after getting out of the service.

Tex's Missing Gag

There’s a gag you likely won’t see if you stumble across Tex Avery’s Happy-Go-Nutty on the internet. You might even notice there’s been a cut and can probably guess what the missing gag is.

Meathead the dog paints a bomb like it’s an apple. Screwy eats just like an apple. Well, if he can do it, Meathead thinks he can do it. Wrong. It turns into a bomb.



Yeah, it’s the old blackface gag. Scott Bradley plays “Swanee River” in the background (he even uses a banjo) while Meathead adopts a raspy Rochester voice.



This kind of gag wasn’t original with Avery. You can find it in Wheeler and Woolsey’s Diplomaniacs (1933). Avery kept using these blown-up/blackface bits periodically; there’s one in Garden Gopher (released in 1950).

Is this Ed Love’s animation? He worked on it, along with Preston Blair and Ray Abrams.

Hot-Cha-Cha in the Cold

Blizzards, downpour, lightning, twisting wind. It all hits the Aleutians, Isles of Enchantment, in a 1945 cartoon starring Private Snafu.

After the storm, the camera pulls back. “My gracious!” says the narrator who isn’t Bob Bruce, “Such conditions are almost unbelievable.” The scene now includes a walrus in the foreground. The walrus turns around the reveal a familiar face and catchphrase.



“Never-de-less, dat’s the conditions dat prevail!” says the Jimmy Durante walrus (played by Mel Blanc). Unfortunately, he didn’t end with a Durante-esque “Hot-cha-cha-cha!” He makes a repeat appearance at the end of the short.

This spot gag/travelogue cartoon was made by the Chuck Jones unit at Warners.