The Unmerry Story of a Hollywood Christmas

The festive part of the festive season may not have been so, well, festive, in the city where there’s tinsel all year round.

True, stars and their families celebrate Christmas-time with a tree and gifts and parties and the various trappings we’ve come to know. In fact, Hollywood Boulevard was annually transformed into Santa Claus Lane with lights, decorations and a huge parade. Jack Benny was involved in the parade one year, as you shall see.

But something was wrong.

National Enterprise Association columnist Paul Harrison wasn’t in the Christmas spirit when he penned this jaded column that appeared in papers starting December 16, 1939. The Los Angeles climes didn’t make things feel like Christmas. And, in his mind, Hollywood’s holiday season was a whole lot of fakery. He doesn’t point it out in his column, but Benny, Andy Devine and some real horses were wrapping up shooting on a movie called Buck Benny Rides Again around the time his journey down Santa Claus Lane was taking place. Benny’s appearance in the parade was merely a film publicity stunt, a parade designed by merchants to attract customers to stores along the route.

HOLLYWOOD
BY PAUL HARRISON
NEA Service Staff Correspondent
In some ways, this doesn't seem much like the Christmas season. It's more like a fiesta sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, staged by the major studios and directed by Busby Berkeley. The star in the east is a Neon sign on a hovering blimp. Technicolor cameras guard the manger. Holy music comes to you by courtesy of the Upsy-Daisy Brassiere Co.

One trouble is that the “season” begins, by commercial decree and with a big parade, on the day following Thanksgiving. That made it Nov. 24 this year. It is almost as difficult to sustain a mood of sentimentality for a full month as it is to drive along Hollywood Boulevard when the traffic lights are obscured by lines of large tin Christmas trees.
The premiere pageant invariably includes several floats covered with cuties, along with swing bands, military bands and drum-and-bugle corps. You can't play "Jingle Bells" on a bugle. And you are not reminded of peace-on-earth, unless ruefully, while watching a mounted, uniformed troop flourishing unsheathed sabers. But for an ultimate discordant touch, I nominate the spectacle of Jack Benny astride a stuffed horse followed by Andy Devine with a shovel.
SANTA BETRAYS SLIGHT ACCENT
After the first, big parade, the Santa Claus float moves up and down the boulevard each evening unattended except by a couple of motorcycle cops. This month the whiskered saint betrays an accent as he shouts greetings into a microphone—“Folks, dis is de toiteenth year dat I been ridin' down Sandy Claus Lane . . ." In decoration and illumination, his huge conveyance looks faintly Japanese, but pure Hollywood is the blowing device which erupts every few seconds and showers the float with bleached-cornflake snow.

Of course the local weather, distressingly dry and enervating at this time, conspires against a Christmasy feeling. In previous years the shouts of newsboys could be depended on for a helpful touch. "Big Blizzard Sweeps Through East!" they'd holler. But the war has forced those stories off the front pages.
There are no sleds in the toy departments, and skates are for the refrigerated rinks. Only local ski slide is a slope covered with pine needles. The palms that line the avenues are dusty and brittle, though now and then some citizen will decorate one with colored lights in observance of the season.
In dozens of vacant lots, Christ mas-tree merchants sell dispirited little firs and spruces that have been tracked in from the mountains, many of them across the desert from Arizona. When a tree begins to droop and lose its luster, the merchants take a tip from movie prop men end spray them with bright paint. Besides misery green trees, there are pink, blue and platinum blond ones. In an uppity store here is a tree painted jet black and decorated with pearl ornaments. It'd give you the shudders.
POOR RICH KID CAN'T WATCH TOYS
In any town lucky enough to have seasons, the nip of winter enhances a grateful sense of snugness for people who have clothes and food and homes. Tingling cold is a reminder or others' needs, and a stimulant to human sympathy. But in Hollywood the street crowds seem to feel that the hot sidewalks are enough to keep Salvation Army kettles boiling. And the perspiring bell-clanging Santa Clauses, lifting their whiskers now and then to mop their faces, give little more than comic symbolism to charity.

This morning I watched a couple of raggedy kids with noses flattened against the window of a department store toy display. But then appeared a far more pathetic figure—a third boy, this one in a limousine that drew up at, the curb to let a woman alight. The youngster flattened his nose against the car window and tried to see the animated toys. He couldn't get out. His wealthy father and second stepmother are afraid of kidnapers.
On Christmas morning, he'll have plenty of toys, and a governess and a bodyguard to help him play with them. His dad and the blond dish whom he calls "mother" will he up at Late Arrowhead with their gang.

Now, Tralfaz Sunday Theatre brings you the aforementioned parade-promoted film: Buck Benny Rides Again.

Christmas Every Day

Back when cynic Henry Morgan had a show at the tail end of network radio’s heyday, he featured a play with some kids wishing it were Christmas every day. They get their wish and soon regret it.

Mr. Morgan’s writers (and he had good ones) weren’t all that original. A former editor of The Atlantic Monthly, William Dean Howells, explored the same subject in 1892.

Howells’ story was adapted a number of times over the years, including once for an animated half-hour special. “Christmas Every Day” didn’t join the pantheon of classics such as “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” It aired on CBS in 1986 and, well, vanished unnoticed within a few years.

The interesting thing is this special was not the product of Hanna-Barbera, DePatie-Freleng, Filmation or even a studio in Japan. It was co-produced by a guy who recorded hundreds of funny radio commercials and was known by industry insiders as the man behind the syndicated satiristic series Chickenman: Dick Orkin.

Orkin had a stock company of actors—Patti Deutsch and John Stephenson come to mind—and he used some in this animated effort. You’ll recognise Orkin’s distinctive voice in several roles and Edie McClurg as the Christmas Fairy. Orkin’s home base was Chicago, and the city’s Calabash Animation was hired to make this special. Orkin’s company also produced the animated half-hour “The Canterville Ghost” in 1988 with Janet Waldo, Nancy Cartwright and Susan Blu in the voice cast (along with Orkin, who seems to have been heard in almost all the radio commercials he produced). Orkin’s sense of humour is evident in the story adaptation (such as no television set or radio in the living room of 100 years ago).

My apologies for the wowwing soundtrack on this archive.org upload. The print is pretty beaten up.

Mole and the Christmas Tree

A delightful little series of animated shorts starring a mole was produced by Krátký Film in the Czech Republic. One was centred around Christmastime—“Mole and the Christmas Tree.”

This one is aimed at the very young kids and co-stars Mole’s friend Mouse. You’ll have to forgive the wowwing soundtrack on this archive.org upload. It spoils the Wurlitzer organ music on the soundtrack. This film dates from 1976 and got shown in North American libraries and other such places at Christmastime to the kids.

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.