Christmas Cracker

Here’s an Oscar nominee and a seven-award winner at the 1964 San Francisco International Film Festival, courtesy of the National Film Board.

“Christmas Cracker” was co-directed by Norman McLaren, Gerald Potterton, Grant Munro and Jeff Hale. The NFB site tells us:

This short animation consists of three segments that take a playful look at Christmas: a rendition of "Jingle Bells" in which paper cut-out figures dance, a dime-store rodeo of tin toys, and a story of decorating the perfect Christmas tree. This holiday film received many awards and an Oscar nomination.

Radio vs Television, a Christmas Season Look

How much did entertainment change in living room after the television set was planted in it?

You can judge for yourself from these two columns by critic John Crosby ten years apart.

In 1949, the four TV networks were now broadcasting seven days a week (though not in all time periods) and despite a license freeze imposed by the FCC from 1948 to 1952, new stations were slowly going on the air.

But radio was still king. Witness the huge deal CBS made to get Jack Benny and other radio stars to leave NBC, stars people had been listening to for years. Radio had become a comfortable rut; Christmas shows featured repeats of well-loved old routines.

By 1959, network radio was considered something of the past. Advertising dollars had moved into television (now with three networks). Stations took back their time to put disc jockey and chatty housewife shows on the air. Even Benny was gone—gone permanently to television where his career continued on its merry way.

Here’s John Crosby on December 23, 1949 talking about the same old stuff on the radio, with the second half of his column an odd fantasy (Crosby was born in 1912; there’s no way his pre-teen years included network radio, let alone Frank Sinatra). Crosby had a fascination with Ed Herlihy (to the left). This may be the only radio column to include the word “ineradicable.”

The second column is from Christmas Day ten years later. By then, it seems Crosby was bored covering home entertainment; his paper even had another television columnist. Like the piece below, his columns started branching out into Broadway and other areas of entertainment.

Crosby was extremely critical of the banality and commercialism of television. His 1959 article is unusually buoyant for him; he appears hopeful the Payola and Quiz Show scandals would wash away what he sees as foul in the medium. Perhaps it was the holiday season talking. Within days, he was as cynical as ever about the ratings system and the viewing habits of the average American.

OLD-FASHIONED BOYHOOD
Now comes the time when the existence of Santa Claus is reaffirmed, when comedians dust off their Christmas routines, their Yule jokes, when “White Christmas” tinkles like silver bells from CBS to ABC, when Lionel Barrymore booms like an organ over Mutual and visions of sugar plums assault all the vice-presidents of NBC.
Christmas broadcasts, normally as traditional as plum pudding, offer a few new notes this year. Louella Parsons, for example will spend the day at the Allan Ladds. At 9:15 p.m. E.S.T. on ABC, she will tell her spent replete audience how a prominent Hollywood family passes the day. (Little swimming pools for the kiddies, I expect. A Cadillac carved out of solid emeralds for Mummy. Just like any normal American family.)
Overcome by seasonal spirit, WNBC in New York will broadcast an hour-long "Santa Claus Round-up" (3 p. m.) in which Ed Herlihy will interview Mrs. Claus, Ben Grauer will get a few pertinent comments out of Mr. Claus, and Bill Stern will describe the final loading of Santa's sled. Then H. V. Kaltenborn will analyze the implications behind Santa's yearly pilgrimage.
Out in far Hollywood, where Christmas falls every day, NBC (noon), will broadcast the Christmas morning activities at the homes of Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Phil Harris and Alice Faye, Gordon McCrae and Art Linkletter, each featuring the happy cries of the gilded children of these stars.
It'll be quite a holiday for the kiddies, all in all. For the tenth straight year, Amos of Amos ‘n’ Andy will explain the Lord's prayer to his daughter, Arbadella; a hidden microphone will broadcast the children's Christmas eve remarks to Santa from Macy's; Santa will visit the Quiz Kids on their broadcast (and I do hope they don't make a monkey of the old gentlemen); the three daughters of Red Foley—Shirley, 14. Julie, 11, and Jennie, nine—will help pop sing Christmas carols on the Grand Ole Opry program.
It all takes me back to my own boyhood Christmases which were as normal and American as any. boyhood could be. Up at daybreak, shivering a little in the frosty dawn, the microphone clutched securely in one childish fist, the script in the other.
“Wake up! Wake up!” I would shrill to my brothers and sister, directly following the NBC chimes. “This is Christmas day!”
This was the cue for the NBC symphony, huddled over in the far lefthand corner of the nursery to launch into “Adeste Fideles,” which in turn was the cue for my brothers and sister to roll over and yawn (always a different bit for the sound effects man) and the announcer to go into his bit.
“Good morning and Merry Christmas, one and all. This is Ed Herlihy, bringing you the normal American Christmas of a normal American family. And here are the Crosby kids . . .”

It is one of the most poignant and ineradicable memories of my memories of my childhood that we always got Ed Herlihy. We wanted Ben Grauer like every normal American boy. I used to write Santa every year for Grauer but we never got him. The O'Reillys, rich kids from the right side of the tracks, they got Grauer. They got the Philharmonic and a much better time break on CBS, and all the best stars like Bing Crosby. (We always got Sinatra.)
Gads, how it all comes back to me now! Opening the presents under the tree. Actually, we didn't. A sound effects man had a record which sounded much more like the tearing of Christmas wrappings than the real thing. Our happy cries of delight at the presents, being careful not to get too close to the microphone. I remember the gaily trimmed cables running across the living room, the electricians festooned, as was the custom, with mistletoe, Herlihy losing his place in the script and fluffing the words “Santa Claus.”
Today, it all sounds like a dreadfully old-fashioned Christmas. Today we have television. The modern child, I expect, will have to wake up with full makeup to the sight of cameras instead of the traditional Yule microphones. Probably have to rehearse for three solid weeks. We never rehearsed more than a couple of days.

A SOLID SOBER CHRISTMAS
I think the Christmas shows this year have been absolutely wonderful. This has been the year of the moral awakening; the year Hulan Jack and Bernard Goldfine and Charles Van Doren were called to account; the year of great soul-searching, not simply on the part of television but of the country at large. And all this moral rebirth seemed to come to a head in Bach's shattering "Magnificat" played by the Philharmonic under the direction of Leonard Bernstein on "Ford's Startime" the other night.
It was a lovely show to look at as well as listen to and the cast, which included Marian Anderson, the St. Paul's Cathedral Boys' Choir of London, the Schola Cantorum under Hugh Ross, and Joseph N. Welch was terribly impressive. "Startime" is a fine program and this Christmas program marks a high point in its, I trust, long career.

On a much less exalted level, Dinah Shore's Christmas show was a lot of fun and very pretty and moving. I particularly enjoyed a duet between Dinah and Charles Laughton, acting as two pukka pukka colonials, singing "We Won't Be In England for Christmas," a witty satiric song. She’s a marvellously gifted and versatile performer, Miss Dinah, and just seems able to tackle anything. A moment after the English number, she was back—ah, the wonders of tape—in a white ball gown singing "White Christmas." Later Donna Attwood, the skating champion, was very seasonal and captivating on ice—that is, if skating captivates you as it does me.
There is always a tendency to get a little sticky at Christmas time and at least one of the special shows, "Once Upon a Christmas Time," didn't manage to fight down the urge. This one, based on a story by Paul Gallico, had orphans and kindly bumbly old Charles Ruggles and even dear old Kate Smith and it got so tinselly you could hardly stand it. “It’s going to be the ding dangdest parade you ever did see,” shouted old Charley at one point, and I shouted “God bless us every one” at him in my excitement.
Otherwise, though, it's been a quiet, sober Christmas season. Even the Christmas cards seem more subdued and more religious in tone, as if the lessons of the last year had left their mark. At any rate they've scared the daylights out of everyone. Incidentally, on WQXR, the carols are in stereo and they sound more solid and Christmasy than ever.
Is it a trend of the times or has Christmas affected my judgment? Well, one symptom of the times, one tiny pulse beat that may yet develop into something, is off Broadway. Down in Greenwich Village, a big hit is "Little Mary Sunshine" which is a sort of spoof of all the Sigmund Romberg and Rudolf Friml operettas, especially "Rose Marie." It’s got the Northwest mounties and “The Indian Love Call.” I don’t happen to think it’s quite as great and charming as everyone else does but it is charming and sweet and fresh and gay.
Its chief charm—now pay attention here—is its innocence. There is a great thirst in the populace, I feel strongly, for innocence of this nature. Heaven knows there is no great need to satirize Rudolf Friml at this period in our history, so the appeal must lie elsewhere. Greenwich Village is full of these charming period pieces. Not far away "Leave It to Jane," an ancient Jerome Kern musical, is running. "The Boy Friend," another period piece, closed not long ago after a long run. "Once Upon a Mattress," which went on Broadway, is not a period piece but it's a sort of updated fairly tale with the same sort of whimsey and charm.
It may be the sentimentality of the season has warped my reason but I seem to direct a revulsion on the part of the public against plays of southern degradation, of wild sexual perversion. 1959 may be remembered as the year they booed Tennessee Williams as he left a movie house playing his "The Fugitive Kind." (He booed right back.)
Of course, even while finding all this sweetness and light fraught with significance, it's my duty to report another small trend in show business. Cannibalism—that's the trend. At least that was the theme of Alfred Hitchcock's not-at-all-seasonal program the other day with Robert Morley and, just this week, "Suddenly Last Summer," which features cannibalism and Elizabeth Taylor, opened in the movie houses.
And with that Yuletide thought, I'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Spunky the Snowman

Sigh. Good intentions don’t always work out.

Here I was all set to post Christmas cartoons you likely hadn’t seen before, and I should have known Jerry Beck would have done it already, at least in this case.

In the 1950s, television couldn’t get enough cartoons. Kids were willing to turn on the set and watch them for hours. Stations and their advertisers will willing to accommodate them. Even hoary old silent theatrical cartoons produced by John Bray were resurrected with a newly-added soundtrack. But there were only so many American-made cartoons to go around and, at the time, producing fresh animation for television appeared too unprofitable.

Eventually, low-budget packagers turned to foreign cartoons. All that had to be done was add an English-language soundtrack and ta-da! Whole half-show syndicated shows were built on them; The Nutty Squirrels Present was one; so was Cap’n Sailorbird.

Among the cartoons that aired on the latter show was a Russian short called “The Snow Postman.” As Mr. Beck’s Cartoon Research site points out, the unedited (19½ minute) version won an award at the Institute of Chartered Foresters in Edinburgh in 1956. It was scrunched down for American TV use and changed from a New Year’s cartoon into a Christmas one (after all, those Godless Commies in the Soviet Union we were warned about were engaging in a war on Christmas, you know). For TV, it was called “Spunky the Snowman.”

Producer Saul J. Turell started out in the post-war ‘40s as the head of Sterling Films, which originally produced educational films for TV, and distributed old shorts for the small screen. He was involved in a number of projects for David Wolper Productions, including a “videumentary” on Rudolph Valentino and won an Oscar in 1980 for his short documentary on Paul Robeson. He died of cancer at age 65 in 1986.

The print below is very red-and-green (appropriate for the holidays, I guess) and it looks like there’s been some rotoscoping.

The Bear's Christmas

This year, fans of Tralfaz, we’re going to do something different for the Christmas season, though it’s something you find on many blogs. We’ll post some Christmas cartoons.

The reason I don’t post a lot of video on the site is web links change or vanish, and Blogger periodically mucks around with its coding. I don’t have the time to keep checking and fixing broken URLs. However, I’m confident these posts will be intact for a while.

You will not find “Mickey’s Christmas,” “The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives” or “Gift Wrapped” in these posts (though “Gift Wrapped” is probably my favourite). Other sites will post those. These are more obscure. To be honest, I haven’t actually watched any of them all the way through.

First up is The Bear’s Christmas from the National Film Board, a 1974 short directed by Hugh Foulds. The NFB site says:

This short cartoon tells the story of a bear who didn’t believe in Christmas. His main problem with this most magical of holidays? Too many Santas. How would he ever recognize the real one? Alone, out of a job, he goes to drown his sorrows, but back in his lonely room, for all his doubts, the Christmas spirit makes a surprise call.

The Show Never Heard on the Radio

Once the Jack Benny radio show settled in Los Angeles in the mid-1930s, he occasionally took it on the road (not counting war-time location shows). Jack and his cast appeared a number of times in New York, Palm Springs and San Francisco. The Bennys had a home in Palm Springs, New York was the home of Fred Allen and where his TV show was shot at the beginning (expenses were no doubt paid thanks to mentions of the Santa Fe railroad and Sherry Netherlands hotel), and San Francisco was close enough up the coast for a nice short trip.

For a number of years, the Benny cast did two live shows—one at 4 p.m. on Sundays for audiences in the East and Midwest, and again at 8:30 p.m. for the West Coast. But during one of his San Francisco stops in 1938, they did a third show—one that never got on the air.

It sounds like the special Saturday “show” was thrown together considering the cast rushed to San Francisco post haste, according to the San Francisco Examiner. There’s no mention of Rochester by the newspaper for a simple reason. He didn’t make the trip. The paper confirms a man named Carl Kroenke appeared on the programme; he played a “blusboy” in Ling Foo’s Chinese restaurant; it turned out Ling Foo was really Schlepperman (played as usual by Sam Hearn). Benny always seemed to get good reviews in San Francisco.

The first story ran January 8th (Saturday), the second the following day.

Just a note that really has nothing to do with these stories or Jack’s San Francisco appearance—the week before, Don Wilson mentioned 24 Canadian stations had been added to those airing the Benny show. The CBC network picked up Benny live from the East Coast feed but, for reasons I haven’t been able to discover, newspaper radio listings say “Not BC.” CBR in Vancouver broadcast a symphony concert at 4 p.m. Vancouver and Victoria fans had to listen to KPO in San Francisco, KOMO in Seattle or other NBC Red stations down the U.S. coast to hear Benny.

'Buck' Benny Will Ride Again To Appease S. F. Radio Fans
Return Engagement Planned by No. 1 Funnyman
By DARRELL DONNELL.
"Buck" Benny will ride through San Francisco again!
Close associates of the famed air comedian have revealed that unless some unforeseen obstacle mars present plans, Jack Benny will return to San Francisco within a few months to accommodate disappointed thousands who will not see the Sunday show.
As suggested in this column a few days ago, Benny would choose an auditorium with a seating capacity of thousands, although he prefers to work in small theaters where he feels a greater intimacy with his audience.
Bill Morrow, senior script writer for the program, suggested to Jack, and Benny has agreed, that the nation's most popular comedy show should return here in the immediate future.
Meanwhile, to accommodate at least a few of those who were first to apply for tickets, a special performance of the forthcoming Sunday show will take place in the Community Playhouse this afternoon. This presentation will not be broadcast. In all, three Benny appearances are scheduled for the week-end. And Jack thought he was coming here for a vacation!
At The Sound Of The Chimes
DON WILSON planed into San Francisco two days ahead of his scheduled arrival here to appear in this afternoon's special JACK BENNY show . . . ANDY DEVINE and BLANCHE STEWART were also hastily summoned.

Jack Benny's Preview Big Hit With S.F. Fans
Six hundred self-satisfied San Franciscans smiled, chortled, applauded enthusiastically yesterday at the preview of today's Jack Benny show, scheduled to be broadcast from here via KPO at 8:30 p. m. The fortunate six hundred sampled the six flavors and found them satisfactory. They heard Benny promise a return engagement at the War Memorial Opera House to accommodate those who were unable to witness the program today.
Broad grins became guffaws when Benny brought forth his famous fiddle before the show began.
They chortled at Mary Livingstone's poem, dedicated to San Francisco, were gleeful when Harry Baldwin (he's the man who's always knocking on the Benny door) made his appearance. They applauded so enthusiastically when Andy Devine made his appearance that genial Don Wilson began to worry about what approximately seventeen million listeners might say about studio applause tonight.

Unlike other radio shows, the Benny contingent is fearful of giving the impression of playing to a studio audience. At the same time Benny dislikes to mechanize the laughter and applause through warning the visible audience against prolonged demonstrations.
Backstage, this reporter watched writers Bill Morrow and Eddie Beloin, creators of many of the very funny gags on San Francisco (no we won't spoil it by repeating any of them). Morrow and Beloin were quite calm about the whole thing.
Suave, dapper Phil Harris and his bandsmen, arriving in the proverbial nick of time, tumbled out of a bus, turned in the typically smooth performance, and then trekked to Sacramento for a one-night engagement before returning here again for this afternoon's eastern show.
As for Schlepperman, wait until you hear him as a Chinatown restaurant proprietor. He has one line well, no, we won't spoil it. Carl Kroenke, of the local NBC staff as Schlepperman's stooge is another surprise.
Many a San Francisco girl found Kenny Baker no timid tenor, but a self-assured gent, considerably more handsome than his pictures, movie and still. Oh, yes—San Francisco, sophisticated San Francisco—is not above autograph seeking. Jack, Mary Phil, Kenny, Andy, Don and the others signed themselves into a fine case of writer's cramp.
Flashbulbs carried by news cameramen imbued the scene with a typical premiere atmosphere. Backstage, NBC moguls, including John Swallow and Syd Dixon, beamed approvingly.
Hollywood came to San Francisco, and unquestionably the cool city by the Gate went Hollywood.

Terry Tells Tales

Haven’t heard the “Little Herman” story? Well, you can read it below as Paul Terry tells his favourite tale about how he tried to sell his first cartoon in 1915.

Terry seems to have run a B-list studio through much of his career. In the silent film years, the Fleischers had Koko the Clown and the bouncing ball cartoons. And perhaps greater than them was Felix the Cat, turned out by Pat Sullivan’s studio. Terry carried on with his Aesop’s Fables and then was forced to strike out with animator Frank Moser when sound came in.

Again, the Fleischers had Betty Boop and Popeye. Terry had Kiko the Kangaroo. Guess which was more popular? Terry told one reporter in the ‘30s that it was better having one-shots than continuing characters. That, naturally, changed when Terry’s staff developed Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle, characters who seemed to be as popular as some of the stars at other studios. Terry carried on into the ‘50s when he sold his studio and films to CBS, then retired to a life of rest at a local gentleman’s club until he died.

Here’s Terry, paraphrased, after an interview with the Chicago Tribune. This appeared in the edition of April 25, 1948. I should probably groan at the pseudonym of the columnist but it’s kind of cute. Oh, and I’m not quite sure whether audiences rushed out to theatres to catch the next “Wacky Cat” or “No-name character” cartoons.

Pioneer Tells the Secret of Movie Cartoon
BY MAE TINEE
Animated cartoons have become firmly established as an integral part of every program offered by motion picture theaters. They round out and sometimes bolster the bill, and after sitting thru a dull full length feature, it’s remarkable to watch an audience perk up when a cartoon flashes on the screen. They’re colorful, musical, full of action and brief—probably four good reasons for their universal popularity, but if you think blithe tales about rollicking rodents are produced with any of the ease and nonchalance their principal characters exude, you’re very much mistaken.
Paul Terry, who pioneered in the field with a little boy character he labeled “Little Herman,” over which he worked laboriously for six months, drawing and photographing thousands of sketches, explained modern cartooning methods during a recent visit to Chicago.
● ● ●
His company produces Terrytoons, which are released by 20th Century-Fox.
“Mighty Mouse,” who always swoops to the rescue and brings about a happy ending in which the bully always meets a thoroly [sic] disagreeable punishment for his misdeeds, is probably the most popular of his characters, but the company also produces “Heckle and Jeckle,” “The Wacky Cat,” “Rudy Rooster” and many others, some of them nameless.
● ● ●

Modern cartoons are the product of the work of many people, and an idea goes thru a large number of departments before it’s ready for the screen. The story department provides a scenario, expert cartoonists fill in expressions, details and backgrounds. When the final cartoon emerges, the sound department takes over, noises and voices are dubbed in, and the final touches are provided by the musical department.
There is a complete research department for detailed information on all sorts of subjects, a publicity staff, in fact, almost all of the services available in studios making full length features. The company produces 20 cartoons a year, and each of them is viewed by an estimated 20 million people. Before sound, they were turned out at the rate of 50 a year. Color and music have added zest to the films, and time and expense to the production.
● ● ●
Mr. Terry, a rather quiet man with a mild and philosophical outlook on life, told of one of his early experiences in peddling his “Little Herman.” He took it to one of the top men in the film business, the father of David O. Selznick, and was offered one dollar a foot. The young artist explained that the stock for the drawings cost that much alone, and that price would be no reward for his painstaking work, whereupon the prospective buyer informed the young creator that such materials lost their value the minute they suffered the artist’s pen. Further salesmanship finally brought $1.35 a foot from another agent. Present day costs average about $50 for every 12 inches.

Bill and Joe's Angry Kitten

Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera started directing at MGM with Tom and Jerry and ended directing at MGM with Tom and Jerry. While the bulk of their cartoons starred the cat and mouse, three of their earliest efforts did not.

One is Officer Pooch, released in 1941. The title character tries to rescue a kitten which kind of looks like Tom in some scenes and Jerry in others.

Here are some multiples from one scene, animated on twos, of Officer Pooch and the kitten that didn’t want to get caught.



Bill and Joe later ripped off this idea from themselves and deposited it in Fireman Huck, a 1959 Huckleberry Hound cartoon.

Hanna and Barbera are the only ones to get screen credit for this short.

They Rattle My Brains

Daffy Duck’s The Upstanding Sitter has what you’d expect in an early Bob McKimson-directed cartoon—waving arms, floppy tongues, walking in perspective to the side of a camera. This one also has some rhyming verse courtesy of Warren Foster.

When Daffy strolls to his next gig complaining that his young charges rattle his brain, his head goes off in all kinds of directions. The scene is animated on ones.



Sorry there’s so much digital fuzz. My DVD with the cartoon won’t play and this version was grabbed off the internet.

Manny Gould, Phil De Lara, John Carey and Chuck McKimson are the animators in this short.

Behind the Scenes at To Tell The Truth

You wouldn’t think people need to be taught how to lie (insert your own politician joke here) but it came in handy on one TV show.

To Tell The Truth featured two liars trying to convince a panel of TV/stage actors they were someone else. They got a little bit of help, and for good reason.

Here are a couple of neat little backstage stories about the game show from the years Bud Collyer hosted it. The first is from the Associated Press and appeared in papers that published on Christmas Day 1966. The second is from the Niagara Falls Gazette of September 16, 1963.

In going back 50-some-odd years and thinking about it, To Tell The Truth was probably my favourite of all the Goodson-Todman game shows. It was on every day, so you got to know the panelists and they all seemed to have a good rapport. (The Match Game and Password had different people every week). And it was fun to guess along.

On 'To Tell the Truth'
Contestants Are Taught to Lie
EDITOR'S NOTE: Fooling the panel of To Tell the Truth isn't easy, so the producer runs a "school for liars." The imposters get all the dope on Oman, an oil sheikdom in Arabia, along with tips like don't volunteer information and never say "I don't know." But watch out, the panel's sharp.
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
NEW YORK (AP) —The two gentleman liars, scribbling furiously on legal-size yellow paper, listened intently as the honest man paced the room, describing the weather of Oman, the small oil-rich state on the Arabian Peninsula.
"Muscat, the capital," said the pacing man with the air of a lecturer, "is one of the three hottest cities in the world. I've read the thermometer at 120 degrees at midnight three nights in a row."
It was a briefing session for contestants on CBS' "To Tell the Truth," a panel show that has been around the network for 10 seasons. This month it made the jump to Monday evening's schedule as an emergency replacement for "The Jean Arthur Show."
The briefing, held the day before the show was taped, took place in a small room in the 30th floor offices of the show-packaging firm, Goodson and Todman.
Presiding was Bruno Zirato Jr., producer of the show. The lecturer was Wendell Phillips, an oil millionaire, honorary sheik of Oman, archaeologist and author of a new book, "Unknown Oman."
He and Zirato were teaching Thomas Gillis, a professional fund-raiser, and Howard Larson, an advertising man, how to fool a panel of four experts.
The object of the game is for the panel — Tom Poston, Peggy Cass, Orson Bean and Kitty Carlisle — to try to pick the truth teller from the imposters on the basis of brief questioning.
"We get the southeast monsoon," continued Phillips, "and it lasts from May to September — it stops around my birthday, Sept. 26 . . . ."
"Libra is his sign of the Zodiac," interrupted Zirato. "Peggy Cass might hit you with that kind of a question — she's interested in astrology."
Then Zirato addressed himself to Phillips:
"What's a Caftan? It's a cloak but women around here are wearing them and Kitty Carlisle knows fashion."
"That's Morocco," Phillips said. "I've only been there once."
"Zirato turned to the two liars: "That's a good answer — brush if off like that."
Gillis asked Phillips, "What are your oil interests?"
"They consist of rights covering 65 million acres — no, make it 75 million because I picked up some more last week. That's to look for oil or drill for oil, although some acres are producing now."
Zirato and the two contestants looked impressed.

"What makes oil?" asked Larson, the second liar.
"The Arabian Peninsula was an inland sea during the Jurassic Period, the age of dinosaurs," replied Phillips. "Oil comes from either marine or animal organisms—no one is quite certain about that."
"What if someone asks my opinion about the Israel-Jordon thing?" asked Gillis.
Zirato broke in: "Just look at them sternly and tell them they can hardly expect an unbiased opinion from an Arabian sheik—and don't forget to pronounce it 'shake.' "
The session went on for more than two hours. Finally the contestants left, carrying with them copies of Phillips' book for homework.
Zirato relaxed and pushed away a pile of notes from in front of him. Mostly they covered subjects he knew, from long experience, might be the basis of questions from the panel.
"We know, for instance, that Orson and Peggy are real experts on flying saucers, and if you think of a spot involving comic strips, forget it. Orson knows everything about comic strips and he knows old movies, too."
POSTON is likely to trip liars with detail questions, like asking the location of the brakes in a small plane. Both Peggy and Kitty have traveled widely, but, according to Zirato, where Kitty would ask for the name of a hotel in a town, Peggy "would know the name of the hotel manager and the name of the sacristan of the local church, too."
Zirato always instructs the liars never to provide unsolicited information, and never to say "I don't know."
Thus if a panelist asked one of the liars to name his college archeology teacher, he was briefed to parry with a question: "Which one of my teachers? I had many, but if you mean in Egyptology, it was John Wilson."
"Use any name that comes into your head," said Zirato, "and if you can't think of one that sounds read, use your own name—which you probably can remember. In a lot of instances, the vague answer to a technical question—'I don't think that has ever really been established'—works well."
The panel has remained intact now for the past couple of years.
"People sometimes want to know why we keep the same panel, and the answer is that they are good and we couldn't do better," Zirato said. "And Bud Collyer, the moderator, adds a lot, too. He has probity. It isn't necessary for us to make statements that the show is absolutely on the level."
In their hunt for contestants, Zirato and four assistants wade through newspapers, magazines and books, and also accept nominations from press agents. The liars are found among volunteers, friends, of the producers and friends of friends.
Zirato interviews all the candidates for the imposter spots. From long experience he can judge whether they will be able to think quickly before a camera and not forget vital information.



Panelists Spot Him
Reporter Struggles 'To Tell the Truth'
EDITOR'S NOTE —Earlier last week Gazette reporter Austin Hoyt took part in the production of a segment of "To Tell the Truth" in New York.
• • •
By AUSTIN HOYT
Gazette Staff Writer
SUPPOSE your name is Barbados Gunglefinger and you just went over Niagara Falls in a rubber ball.
The papers make a big scene over it, and the next day the phone rings. It's a producer for the TV show "To Tell the Truth." He offers you a round trip flight to New York, $50 expense money, and what you, as the "real Barbados Gunglefinger," can make by fooling the panel of four. No mention of a date with Miss America, a free evening of dancing at the Ritz or a set of luggage in case you win nothing else, but you decide to go anyway.
The day before the show is to be taped, you appear at a producer's office on the 35th floor of a glassed-in building.
A secretary's slim digit with a well polished nail motions you to an office where you meet your two impersonators, a shoe clerk and a pediatrician, both from New York.
• • •
FOR TWO HOURS the producer briefs you on the show and you help the impersonators fabricate likely stories. The shoe clerk's motive will be that he always liked rivers and water falls. You decide the pediatrician has had a life long fancy for rubber balls. You are to be yourself, the Pine Avenue butcher who just got sick of 20 years of hacking up meat.
You see that the imposters learn how high the Falls are and all the facts of your voyage.
• • •
EARLY THE NEXT DAY you walk through the stage door of the CBS-TV studios. You are given a blue shirt to cut down glare from the lights, and you take your place for another briefing. Across from you are the "three Cookie Gilchrists," and the "three barbers for Harry Truman" being filmed for Wednesday's show. You and the "three Dr. Salks" will be taped for Thursday's show.
A minor functionary passes out coffee and doughnuts as the imposters nervously recollect their stories.
An assistant producer arrives with more advice. "When you hear a voice say, 'What is your name?', that is your cue, number one," he says, addressing the shoe clerk. "The cue for the number twos and threes will be the spot light turned on you."
"When you turn to walk down to your seats, just stick out your left foot and walk. No army turns or marches," he warns.
Then there is a dress rehearsal with a mock panel, using the real panel's names: Joan Fontaine, Phyllis Newman, Jan Murray, and Dana Andrews.
There is another wait backstage as the audience fills the house. You can hear them practicing applause. They must be old ladies or degenerates, you think. Who else would be out there at 10:30 in the morning?
Then reassuring words from Bud Collier, the master of ceremonies. He wants you all to meet him so you feel "you have one friend out there."
• • •
HE REMINDS YOU there are no awards given for dramatic performances and not to upstage the panel when you chat with them at the close of the show. And, he goes on, when the game is over and he says "Goodbye and God bless you," that means "up and out."
The three Cookie Gilchrists and the three Truman barbers traipse off to the platform and you watch them on closed circuit TV.
Have to sit through the commercials, too. You're not nervous. All you have to do is tell the truth, but the imposters are writhing and smoking, wishing they had never volunteered.
• • •
"WHAT IS YOUR NAME?", a voice asks. What if the imposters keel over or say their real names, you think, but they all say, "My name is Barbados Gunglefinger." The quizzing goes quickly and you try to stall and underplay the truth and hope the imposters will feel casual. You enjoy the game and wish the panel would ask you more and not call so much attention to themselves.
Then it's over. Three panelists guess you. Why? You shouldn't have smiled at Joan Fontaine, and as Phyllis Newman said, you did "look like a Barbados Gunglefinger." And the shoe clerk should have known what a back eddy was.
• • •
THE IMPOSTERS reveal their true identities. Someone forgot his real name once, so they have cards saying who they are, but they manage without them.
A prompter beckons the audience to applaud, and the ladies muster what enthusiasm they can.
"Well that's one wrong answer, $100; split three ways, that's not enough for a new rubber ball," Bud says, "but next time you go over the falls, take our best wishes with you."
Up and out. There's a man waiting for your blue shirt. As another holds open the door for you, a voice says:
"Will the three James Meri .....

Fishy Skunk

Even the minor gags in Tex Avery’s Little 'Tinker (1948) are well animated and timed. Unfortunately you won’t get that in the screen grabs below, but you can get an idea of some of the poses.

B.O. Skunk pulls a Romeo and Juliet routine (thanks to an advice manual) and sings opera to his lady-love raccoon as he climbs a balcony. The raccoon is delighted at first, but takes a whiff and realises he’s a skunk. The Disney animation principles of anticipation and follow-through are used. When the raccoon expresses shock, she stops but her cheek ruff follow the principle of gravity and continue to move.

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B.O. is clobbered with a flower pot.



Avery’s timing is excellent here. He doesn’t wait too long or rush his next gag. The horrified fish come out of the lake after just the right amount of footage. The water doesn’t have time to completely settle before the fish leap out of the water and run away.



Bill Shull, Grant Simmons, Walt Clinton and Bob Bentley are the animators.