Alvin and Calvin (And The Rest)

Three half-hour cartoon shows didn’t make it in prime time in 1961. Top Cat, The Alvin Show and Calvin and the Colonel were all cancelled after one season; Calvin was even pulled from the airwaves for a while for some re-tooling. T.C. ended up in Saturday morning reruns and, occasionally, Hanna-Barbera brought him and the gang out of retirement. The biggest success of them all was Alvin. 1961 was a very minor setback. The Bagdasarian family built a huge empire out of the Chipmunks long after the record label which brought them to life went bust.

The Cincinnati Enquirer’s TV editor, Luke Feck, wrote about one of the three shows in his column of September 15, 1961 and the other two the next day. Two consecutive newspaper columns devoted to TV cartoons! That might have been unprecedented.

I’m afraid I’m with the 1961 TV audience in finding no appeal in Calvin. Other than the score, I could never get into Top Cat, even with Arnold Stang as the lead. As for The Alvin Show, the theme’s good, the opening and closing was imaginative, but Alvin himself is an annoying jerk and the musical segments mostly featured tired, worn-out songs. The “sped-up singing harmony” bit gets tired fast. The cartoons with Clyde Crashcup are still my favourite part of the show.

Feck’s first column also includes a note about The Bullwinkle Show. It aired Sunday evenings at 7 p.m.; I don’t really consider that prime time (in the ‘70s, they called it “prime time access”). Bullwinkle was the funniest series of the four; it was faster-paced and made fun of ridiculous things, like politics and pop culture.

In a column earlier in 1961, Feck proclaimed himself “the regional defender for Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear” against those who would insist “cartoons are kid stuff.” It’s no wonder he got a chance to chat with Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, who tried to differentiate between “limited animation” and “planned animation,” but never really specified what “limited animation” was; I can only guess they considered it along the lines of NBC Comics or the original Crusader Rabbit, where there wasn’t much movement. But, still, Bill and Joe...

As for the second column, I’ll bet the unpublished first-hand tales about the heydey of Amos ‘n’ Andy were funnier than anything in that Calvin series.

Animated
HOLLYWOOD—Trend spotting can be almost as much fun as bird watching. TV, which has almost had it with the horses (hear them galloping off?), will lay many of its eggs in the animated cartoon basket.
Over at ABC, that prolific paid, Hanna-Barbera, who followed their syndicated success of "Yogi Bear." "Huck Hound" with the "Flintstones," have conjured up still another gimmick from their pens.
"Top Cat," a Bilko-like cat with a feline following similar to the platoon, makes its debut Wednesday, September 27, in a trashcan-forested Manhattan alley.

The voices, one of the treats of earlier H-B productions will be supplied by Arnold Stang, Allen Jenkins, Maurice Gosfield (Bilko's bestial Doberman), Marvin Kaplan, Leo De Lyon, and John Stephenson.
Hanna, who had just come from a 7:45 a. m. dental appointment, found the porcelain filling impaired his chewing but he minced no words in speaking out on his favorite subject: cartoons.
"We do over two hours of cartooning a week for TV. In the movies that would be a full year's output. The secret is in the animating." Barbera said.
"The movies use full animation, trying to be as lifelike as possible. Limited animation (a herky-jerky animation form) is too shoddy for TV. Ours is called planned animation where each move is planned and there is a lot of closeup facial work."
Hanna said voices are awfully hard to come by. "Over 80 people read for the "Top Cat" role. You just have to close your eyes and listen to them talk. The voice must fit the cartoon, not the actor." (Arnold Stang has the "Top Cat" voice.
Now firmly entrenched in the prime time firmament, H-B are already planning ahead for next year. In the works: Touchee Turtle, Lippy Lion, Hardy Har Har a baboon and Wally Gator, any one of which may be slapped into the breech [sic] next fall if a familiar series falters.
Bullwinkle
Jay Ward, who heads up one of the funniest publicity campaigns ever, "I'll give you a pewter spoon warmer if you watch us," brings his clod-[l]ike, plodding moose (named Bullwinkle?) to the home screens in color September 24 on NBC.
"The Bullwinkle Show" promises such stalwart regulars as Dudley Do-Right and the maliciousest meanie of them all, Boris Badenov.
The word out here is that you can expect some sharp satire from Jay Ward—one-time Mr. Magoo and Gerald McBolng Boing scripter—and his associate, Bill Scott.
Tomorrow, two more cartoon series are visited.

Amos ‘n’ Ross
HOLLYWOOD—Amos 'n' Andy's white-haired human counterparts, Freeman Gordon and Charles Correll, sat at Rominoff's dispensing their patented cure-all: Laughter.
Gosdon, a raconteur of the old school, and Correll, a 71-year-old composite of one-line jokes, were on hand to discuss their latest venture into show business: "Calvin and the Colonel" on ABC-TV.
Rambling off into marvelous, and frequently unprintable yarns about the heydays of Amos 'n' Andy, the pair would be casually guided back into line by an ABC publicist—which is a nice word for press agent.
The pair, after 33 years together, have found TV just what they need in their later years. "We work two or three hours a week doing the voices for the series, Gosden drawled in his Richmond, Va., voice.
"We have had some practice working with our voices together," Correll added in the understatement of the day.

"The cartoon, done by Creston Studios, is all about some animals from the South. Charlie plays a bear named Calvin and I'm a fox called the Colonel," Gosden said. "Everybody wants to know if we'll be doing the same voices we did on radio. The answer is definitely no. "By the way, Charlie has a little bit, that he uses every time he sees a girl. He gives a little tip of the hat and says 'How de do.' It should catch on." It is impossible to report here just what went on for the next several moments as Correll went through his hat-tipping exercises for any and all social occasions. Calvin and the Colonel will make its Cincinnati debut October 3 on Channel 12. The series is being put together by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher of "Leave It To Beaver."
Ross Who?
"How would you like to talk to Ross mumble jumble mumble," a CBS press agent asked the other day.
"Ross who?" I asked. "Bagdasarian, the fellow with the chipmunks," he said.
Then it dawned on me who he meant—the guy with that nutty collection of chipmunks which, for want of a better word, sing those nutty songs.
Ross, as he shall be henceforth called because of an economy move, was a former farmer in the raisin racket. In 1949 he produced a bumper crop just as the bottom fell out of the market. He went to Hollywood with an unpublished copy of "Come On-A My House" which he wrote with his cousin, playwright William Saroyan. The song sold—making Rosemary Cloony [sic] a star—and Ross was on his way.
Now he's busy bringing his famous trio of rodents to animated fame. "Our necks are stuck way out on this. We are going to do something entirely different. This will be like a cartoon variety show. When Alvin sings (two songs each half-hour usually with his brothers) it will be a regular production number," Ross said.
"The backgrounds to the song will try to take on the flavor of the country. In Japan, for example, the artwork will have a Japanese motif. Most of the cartoons, however, use the contemporary format familiar to UPA cartoon enthusiasts.

All the animal voices will be supplied by Bagda, whoops, Ross. "It's really a difficult thing to do," he said. "When you record, you must talk at half speed, but what that really means is that you have to be thinking at half speed. That's something my teachers always insisted on for me anyhow.
"There are 160 people working on various stages of this production and I'm always around to overlook better make that oversee. Whenever someone asks if he should do it like (sic) It was done somewhere else, I tell him no. We are not going to be like anybody else in the animated cartoon field. Like I said, our necks are stuck way out. If we die, we die but with dignity." Outside of the chipmunks and their songs, one other character will be introduced an inventor named Clyde Crashcup who invents things like shoes, jokes, horses, yes even babies, long, long after they're been invented, discovered or created as the case may be.
And as for Ross, at the end of each show, his name will be spelled out to a tune similar to "M-I-C-K-E-Y   M-O-U-S-E."
"If people can pronounce it after the series, I know we're a hit."

Boom Boom Bust

Jack King decides to cram a bunch of film transition techniques into Boom Boom, a 1936 Warners cartoon starring Porky and Beans. He didn’t cram it with gags. It simply isn’t funny.

I like the lighting highlights on the fence as the cartoon opens. They flash, though you can’t tell from this solitary frame.



The next scene has animation in silhouette.



King decides to show off with a bunch of wipes and dissolves.



Gags? One scene-ending gag is Beans eating a can of beans. That’s a bigger bomb than the ones seen in the cartoon.

Sandy Walker and Cal Dalton are the credited animators. Joe Dougherty is Porky and you’ll hear Billy Bletcher on the soundtrack, too, along with composer Norman Spencer’s obsession with a backbeat woodblock.

Jail Break!

The cry of “Jail break!” goes up in the Mickey Mouse cartoon The Chain Gang (1930). Prisoners run amok (some in cyclical animation amok). In one scene, we have running prisoners near the background and others running in the foreground. Some even stop and yell at the camera.



Later, we get prisoners running in perspective past the camera and some falling from the sky.



When in doubt, turn the drawing around and give it a different paint job.



It’s 1930, so there isn’t a plot. Mickey Mouse is in jail. For what crime, we don’t know. Maybe on a made-up charge of stealing his design from the Van Beuren studio.

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).