Dance of the College Footballers

It’s the day of the Chili Bowl, and the field goal kickers are warming up. They’re also performing a satisfied little dance.



This is from Screwball Football, a 1939 Tex Avery cartoon loaded with obvious puns. Virgil Ross gets the animation credit. The narrator is not Robert C. Bruce or Gil Warren.

The Stars Resolve—For 1945

What did radio’s stars want 75 years ago?

Some of them answer that question in a story in the December 31, 1944 edition of Radio Life magazine. There were joke answers and there were serious answers.

If you’re of a certain age, you should recognise many of the names. It’s odd to see the magazine explain who Art Linkletter and Gabby Hayes are, but I guess Linkletter’s real fame came when CBS got into the television business. Sam Hayes was a news commentator sponsored as of the above date by Choclettos. Chet Huntley was a newsman on KNX (CBS) at the time. There are a bunch of cartoon voice actors here, too, and a few references to the war.

While the article is accompanied by a picture of Jack Carson (upper right), Carson’s resolutions isn’t in the story.

IF YOU THINK radio stars are perfect and able to do whatever they want to do when they want to do it, you have another think coming! To prove our point, Radio Life canvassed the studios during the remaining days of 1944, and asked your airlane favorites for their New Year's resolutions. Here's what they told us:
KENNY BAKER: "I hereby resolve to teach my kids how to fish. In that way, I'll be sure to do some fishing myself!"
ONA MUNSON: "I'm going to buy myself a hat in 1945. Right now, I don't even own one!"
MEL BLANC: "I resolve not to do more than nine shows a day."
HELEN FORREST: "I'm going to keep right on following my hunches. They've always been lucky for me."
DICK HAYMES: "For years, I've been kidded about my big appetite. In 1945, I'm cutting down to a starvation diet—only five meals a day and no more!" CATHY LEWIS (actress): "I'm going to quit worrying. I resolve this every year, but it never does any good."
JOE KEARNS (actor): "I resolve to learn to play "Staccato and Fugue" on the organ."
CHET HUNTLEY: "I'm going to take a day off next year."
ROBERT ARMBRUSTER: "I resolve to fulfil my life's ambition—to be a rich eccentric!"
TOM BRENEMAN: "I resolve to continue going to bed with the bees, getting up with the birds, and worming my way down to Sardi's to let four hundred chicks make a monkey out of me!"
HOAGY CARMICHAEL: "Someone said in 1944 that I didn't want to write any more songs. Well, in 1945, I resolve to make you forget these words, and to write what you'll want to remember."
DINAH SHORE: "I resolve to keep George out of the kitchen because no G. I. should be made to do K. P. at home!"
HELEN WOOD: "I'm not going to make any resolutions to break."
NORA MARTIN: "I'm going to find something good in everybody and everything."
TED STRAETER: "I'm going to learn to do the zomba and the rhumba. Sonja Henie's my teacher!"
KITTY CRAWFORD: "I resolve to write that fifth chapter of my book!"
ROSEMARY DE CAMP: "I'm going to try to keep up with my two-year–old daughter who is way ahead of me already!"
GINNY SIMMS: "I'd like to take a vacation—but it will be another two years before I get one!"
Won't Kid Benny
ROCHESTER: "I resolve not to kid Mr. Benny about his toupee—at least, not the curly one!"
CLAIRE TREVOR: "I have a husband in uniform whom I want my little boy to get to know better in 1945."
SARA BERNER (actress): "I resolve to remember my creed—'it's nice to be great, but it's really great to be nice!'"
TOM HOLLAND: "I resolve to keep on playing juveniles, so that I can go up to any producer and call him ‘Pop!’”
JANET WALDO: "I'm not going to make more than one date for the same night. I do it all the time!"
LINA ROMAY (singer): "I'm really going to work hard to achieve a spot for myself in radio, because I love it."
FANNY BRICE: "I resolve to make no more appointments in advance."
MARY LIVINGSTONE: "I resolve to be calm when we go on the air. I haven't been since my first broadcast, although I try to be every year.
JIMMY SCRIBNER: "In 1945, I want to come to Hollywood. Maybe I could resolve it, but maybe I'd better let 'Papa Johnson' evolve it!"
LOUISE ERICKSON: "I resolve not to have any more crushes on older men. Hereafter, I'll confine my attention to the Van Johnson type, rather than the Alan Ladds."
DIX DAVIS: "I resolve to do all my homework—well, at least one night a week."
DAVE WILLOCK ("Tugwell" of CBS' Jack Carson show): "I resolve (at my wife's request) to cook my own omelet only once each week in 1945."
GLENN HARDY (Mutual newscaster): "I hope to be able to carry out my 1944 resolution—to be the one to shout 'the war is over' first and loudest, in 1945!"
Ladies Won't Worry
ART LINKLETTER (Blue's "What's Doing, Ladies?"): "I've decided to be more discreet while going through ladies' purses on my program!"
ED GARDNER ("Archie" of N B C's "Duffy's Tavern"): "I'm gonna get into the higher income brackets next year—$17.50 a week or bust!"
FRANK MORGAN: "I never make resolutions. They always make a liar out of me!"
JACK KIRKWOOD (CBS comic) : will not "I knock ladies down in trying to beat them to a seat in the street car—I'll think of some other way!"
REX MILLER (Mutual news commentator) : "In 1945, I hope to put my own code for a commentator into practice with every word I say—'let every word build a straight, sure route to peace. Let no word begin a detour from that route.' "
HAVEN MACQUARRIE (NBC's "Noah Webster Says") : "I resolve to stoligate the frantistraph whenever I thiculize the entire fosnick during 1945."
GEORGE "GABBY" HAYES (Blue's Andrews Sisters show): "I'm gonna git more actors to go where I've jist been, on bed-to-bed Army and Navy hospital tours. I want more people to see what I've seen. You kin bet there'll be less gripin' about sech things as the cigarette and gasoline shortages. Yessiree!"
PATTY ANDREWS: "I'm going to quit flirting with every good -looking man I see!"
MAXENE ANDREWS: "I'm not going to buy any more dogs. I just got rid of seventy-five!"
LAVERNE ANDREWS: "I'm going to bed earlier every night!"
Dagwood Serious
ARTHUR LAKE: "I'm going to continue to do everything I can to promote the war effort."
ELSIE JANIS: "I resolve to keep sincerely trying to make it a better and finer world for those boys who we hope will be coming home soon."
SAM HAYES: "I resolve that through-out the New Year I shall never forget what those boys who have fought overseas have done for us. I shall always remember they have the right to ask as that soldier boy on the battleground in Italy did when he thought he was going to die:
'What did you do today, my friend,
To help us with the task?
Did you work harder and longer for less,
Or is that too much to ask?
What right have I to ask you this,
You probably will say.
Maybe now you'll understand—
You see, I died today.'"
DICK POWELL: "I'm going to stay on that war bond bandwagon."
JACK BENNY: "I hereby resolve to learn something else to play on my fiddle besides 'Love in Bloom.' In fact, I resolve to learn 'Love in Bloom.'"
PHIL HARRIS: "This New Year I dissolve to quit making them corny revolutions that nobody pay no attention to on Jan two, anyhow."
FRANK GRAHAM: "I resolve to continue living as wickedly as I have—and get by with it."
PAT MCGEEHAN: "I'm going to get married—that's all, brother!"

Goona!

Walter Lantz’s 1933 cartoon King Klunk climaxed just like the feature King Kong did—the giant beast fell from a skyscraper to the pavement.

In the Lantz version, the title character caught fire and turned into one of those skeletons so popular in early 1930s cartoons.



The big gorilla spent portions of the cartoon falling in love, thanks to arrows from what looks like an insect version of Cupid yelling “Goona!” at him. At the end, the taunting Cupid is smashed by the living skeleton, which flies into pieces. As the camera closes in, Cupid lifts up the skull and looks bewildered. Fortunately, our readers know more than I do. See their explanation in the comments.



Frankly, I’m bewildered by the “goona” business.

Evidently this cartoon was too much for the British Board of Film Censors. Motion Picture Herald reported on March 3, 1934:

'Pears they took objection to one of the Warner cartoon shorts. [sic] "King Klunk" it is called and it burlesques "King Kong." So they gave it an "Adults only" certificate and listed it as a "horrific" film, meaning that exhibitors would have to hang a notice on the theatre front to let patrons know it was a horror!

Manny Moreno, Tex Hastings, Les Kline, Ernie Smythe and Fred Kopietz are the credited artists, with Jimmy Dietrich littering the score with Arkansas Traveler.

General Tire and Jack

As inconceivable as it is, Jack Benny was fired by his first two sponsors despite his popularity with radio listeners. Canada Dry got annoyed at Benny having fun with the soft drink on the air (and being forced to fire a writer it imposed on him). Chevrolet’s boss, C.E. Coyle, decided he wanted something classier than a comedian and over the objections of franchise dealers, replaced the Benny show with Victor Young (who didn’t last very long).

Benny wasn’t out of work for long. He was quickly snapped up by General Tire and Rubber Company. His last show for Chevrolet was April 1, 1934. His first for General Tire was five days later. Mary Livingstone and vocalist Frank Parker stayed when the new sponsor took over. Significantly, a new announcer was hired and Don Wilson won the audition over the others in the NBC stable. He remained until the Benny TV series ended in 1965.

How the Benny show came to be sponsored by General Tire is outlined in the book A Whale of a Territory: The Story of Bill O'Neil by Dennis John O’Neill (with two Ls), published by McGraw-Hill in 1966. What the book doesn’t reveal was how it came to be unsponsored. Trade publications in 1934 stated that a deal was struck that Benny would be “loaned” to General Foods for the winter and General Tire would resume sponsorship in the spring. But it never happened; Jack and Co. stayed with General Foods for another ten years. What happened? We may never know.

Benny was finished with General Tire on September 24, 1934 and, after a short break, took to the air with General Foods on October 14th.

Here are the pertinent points about O’Neil and the Benny show from the book.

One of the reasons his associates—and competitors—were frequently taken off guard by Bill O'Neil's ideas was his habit of starting with an idea and using it as a launching pad for a vaguely related but quite different one. A good illustration of this was what happened as a result of his first exposure to radio. In the early 1930s, national radio shows had become the glamour advertising medium. The big stars were coming into American homes and making friends in a way never before possible. These people could influence potential customers, and W.O. had great faith in the power of the spoken word to sell ideas and products. W.O. felt that in many cases the stars received more advertising than some of the products they were paid to advertise, but this was because their sales talks were not properly prepared. One young fellow seemed to have an especially nice, easy way of weaving the advertising messages into the format of his show. So Bill O'Neil phoned his advertising agency and asked how much it would cost to sponsor Jack Benny. Characteristically, he did not ask for any listener ratings or for any other program suggestions. He had made up his mind that he wanted Benny.
The price floored him. General advertised heavily in the expensive media of national magazine and newspaper advertising, but W.O. figured that they had large equipment and inventory expenses, tons of paper to buy, and costly distribution and postal charges.
Theirs was a manufacturing business and these costs he could understand. Radio, he figured, had none of these expenses, or practically none. For days W.O. reasoned his case with everyone remotely connected with the problem. He stormed, pacing up and down his office, hands jammed into his pockets. He burned the long-distance wire to New York. In short, he reacted as he always did when his own ideas collided with an entrenched status quo.

Finally the temptation of being able to speak with millions of consumers in their homes became overpowering. So W.O. instructed his advertising agency to sign a contract for the Jack Benny program, including Jack's wife, Mary Livingston, tenor Frank Parker, announcer Don Wilson, and the orchestra.
The association was a success and W.O. enjoyed it immensely. During the initial weeks he found excuses to be in New York and attend the broadcasts. One reason he gave for wanting to be there was to familiarize Benny with tires— General Tires— so he could ad lib some sales points: it was Benny's knack of selling other products informally and effectively that had attracted W.O. to him in the first place. But the hazards of the technique showed up on one of the early programs. Frank Parker had just finished a popular song and Benny returned to the air to exclaim enthusiastically, "Wonderful, Frank! Wonderful! That was as smooth as General Tires!" With this remark Bill O'Neil's enthusiasm for the ad-lib commercial waned.
On the first program, Jack Benny told a story about his new sponsor and referred to him as Mr. O'Neil. On the second show he told another story and again referred to Mr. O'Neil. After that program, W.O. got his advertising man to one side and and said: "I don't feel comfortable having Jack call me Mr. O'Neil. Don't make a big issue of it, but see if he'd mind calling me Bill O'Neil. It sounds more natural."
The significance of W.O.'s early association with the Jack Benny show was that it gave him his first contact with radio. No one at the time attached much importance to the interest he showed in every detail of the business. After each of the early Friday-evening broadcasts he gathered together a group from the studio, usually the producers, engineers, time salesmen, agency men— the people who were knowledgeable about radio as a business. More often than not, they would go out to a restaurant for a late supper and talk radio for hours. The studio people had never met a sponsor quite like him. He did not want to tell them how to handle his show, or talk about his business at all. He wanted to talk about theirs. A most peculiar sponsor!
They liked him, not only as a big, attractive human being with wit, great personal magnetism and a naturalness that was refreshing, but also because he was obviously interested in their business and shoptalk.
Usually at the restaurant sessions, he would sell one or another a set of General Tires. He seldom missed an opportunity to do that. There was always a new face or two at these get-togethers, any one of whom might be the next eager caller at the New York General Tire store the Monday morning after hearing W.O. quietly paint a word picture of the difference between Generals and other tires. "Bill O'Neil said you'd give me a good trade-in and a good price on a set of Generals," became a familiar opening gambit of these radio friends calling at the store.
This was the seed of General Tire's eventual role as a major factor in radio and television through RKO General, today the largest independent operation in the field. W.O. learned enough about radio to know that the business was attractive to him. He felt at home in it. He felt radio to be the wave of the future. It would be a challenge— his ideas against larger entrenched forces. There is no question that he decided then that someday he would like to test them. And test them he did, very successfully.

Don't Follow the Bouncing Ball

Cartoons have been considered kid stuff for so long, it’s refreshing to read a film critic who actually looked forward to going to the theatre and watching them.

Well, some cartoons, anyway.

Tracy Tothill was a columnist for the Abiline Reporter-News after graduating from the University of Oklahoma in Journalism in 1951. She revealed her love of cartoon shorts in her “Press Passes” column of August 3, 1952. Maybe we should qualify that by saying “West Coast cartoon shorts.”

Mrs. Tothill and I share a dislike for the Famous Studio bouncing ball cartoons. I always thought they were incredibly hokey and obvious, and I’ve never been crazy about the mixed chorus Famous hired. She wasn’t a fan of the Famous Popeyes (neither am I) and would have preferred someone silenced the operetta Mighty Mouse cartoons (I like them in small doses and some of the dialogue is clever).

But she cottoned onto filmdom’s newest star in 1952—Mr. Magoo. This was when Magoo was new and fresh, and hadn’t been run into the ground with the worn-out “misread the sign” bit, followed by Magoo being incapable of seeing anything for what it is. By then, Magoo had turned into a TV-only character and the sheer volume of the cartoons needed for the small screen must have taxed the abilities of a fairly adept group of writers.

This must be a rare column where someone noticed Hubie and Bertie, though the first name is wrong. I wonder what Bob McKimson (and even Kenny Delmar) would think of “Senator Laghorn.”

To finish the Tothill story, and it’s a sad one, she divorced and left Texas for New York. She was working on a book. She was found dead on her bed by a friend on September 3, 1974; she had been dead for several days. Tothill was 45.

About Movie Cartoons; The Singing Kind Flunked Out; Good Ones Are Hard to Get
Six "singing" (just follow the bouncing ball) cartoons at six successive movies were just too much.
This writer, who frankly admits the cartoons count as much as the shows, vowed to lodge a complaint.
The manager of the theater was very interested—but it seems the complaint was a little late.
Hollywood has given up making singing cartoons, he said. They just didn't go over, he added.
Hallelulia! Now if someone will just do something about those where the mice talks in lyrics, showtime will again be goodtime.
The manager also said it was nice to see an adult (supposedly anyway) take an interest in cartoons.
He said most of them love the cartoons as much as the kids do but getting them to admit it was another thing.
But for us "kids" who will speak up and grant that they're wonderful (sometimes), here's the lowdown on what Hollywood has planned.
Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker. Tom and Jerry, Slyvester [sic] and Tweety Bird, and Chip and Dale are still going strong and all are scheduled to be drawn during the coming year.
However, (unfortunately) so is Popeye. Also, still popular are most of the Walt Disney characters including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Pluto.
New cartoon characters making their mark in this world are Yosemite Sam, Senator Laghorn [sic], Herbie and Bertie [sic] and that wonderful Mr. Magoo.
Mr. Magoo is this writer's current favorite.
Dear nearsighted Mr. Magoo.

This writer first spotted him in a side-splitter in which he attempted to engage a Colonel somebody or other in a tennis match. Because of Magoo's nearsightedness, he ended up playing tennis with a walrus.
Hotel house detectives were horrified—but even when Magoo was convinced of his mistake he persisted in his friendship. He decided he liked the walrus better than the colonel. Mr. Magoo was seen on the screen in Abilene recently in a job called "Dog Snatcher".
His nearsighted campaign against an arrogant city hall tax collector and dog snatcher led him into the circus grounds, where he mistook a panther for his mutt, Cuddles.
Panther on lease [leash], he confronted the dog snatcher, who was all too happy to pay for the license himself.
The informative theater manager also told this writer that the local theaters have a ton of trouble getting good cartoons.
The reason is they're so complicated to make.
Every time a cartoon character moves so much as a little finger another picture has to be drawn.
He said that the normal cartoon runs eight minutes and that the film will travel through the projector at approximately 90 feet a minute. The film averages one picture to every inch so (if the arithmetic isn't off) that would mean 8,640 pictures have to be drawn for every single cartoon.
The manager also added the interesting sidelight that one man, Mel Blanc, is the voice for all the Warner Brothers cartoons. Their menagerie includes Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Herbie and Bertie, Tweety Bird and others.
Seems he should more properly be called "The Voice" than one other who has that monicker.
Latest addition to the cartoon world is a character named Pepe LePew, a skunk. He's a great lover and talks in a Charles Boyer voice. This writer hasn't seen the Great Pepe—but folks who have are raving about him.

Walky Talky Tree

Foghorn Leghorn steals the show in the Henery Hawk cartoon Walky Talky Hawky (1946). Director Bob McKimson scored a hit on this one. Showman’s Trade Review rated it “excellent.” Ray McFarlane of the Arbuckle Theatre in Arbuckle, California told the Motion Picture Herald: “One of the best cartoons we have had for a long time.” It was nominated for an Oscar (and lost to The Cat Concerto with Tom and Jerry).

Warren Foster’s inventive idea of a chicken hawk that doesn’t know what a chicken is sets up the cartoon takeover by loud-mouthed, aggressive Foggy, who is in the midst of harassing the barnyard dog.

The cartoon opens with an establishing shot of a tree. The camera “looks down” to the ground from mid-tree, then pans up to the top. It’s all on one drawing, so artist Dick Thomas had to paint it with an odd perspective when you look at the complete background (which, of course, the audience never did).

Mel Blanc changes voices on the father chicken hawk after the first line and Henery tosses away a Lucky Strike cigarette catchphrase for good measure.

Since the Foghorn-Leghorn-is-Senator-Claghorn story keeps making the rounds, you can do no better than to click on this research by Keith Scott who actually delved into the origins and timeline to come up with the truth, using Warner Bros. studio records.

Foggy had some pretty good outings at first. McKimson’s cartoons got tamer and tamer as the ‘50s wore on and were inert compared to some of the wonderful thrashing about you can find in the earliest shorts.

McKimson had recently taken over the Frank Tashlin unit, so Dick Bickenbach, Don Williams and Cal Dalton animated this cartoon; whether Art Davis worked on this, I will leave to the experts.

Turkey Eyes

Tex Avery liked eye gags. Eyes either became really huge or they took on a life of their own (such as the eyes unable to get back into a closet in Who Killed Who?).

In Jerky Turkey (1945), the turkey’s eyes did a bit of shocked travelling when the bird realised the pilgrim hunter had planted a bazooka in his snout.



Unfortunately, Avery and writer Heck Allen couldn’t figure out a way to finish the gag. The bazooka fires and that’s it; it’s on to the next scene.

Preston Blair, Ray Abrams and Ed Love are the animators on this cartoon.

The Santa With Two Bags, One Under Each Eye

This story needs no explanation, other than it was published in the Indianapolis Star, Christmas Eve, 1974. I suspect the drawing of Allen’s Alley is by Sam Berman.

THE MYSTERY SANTA
By FREDERICK JOHN
DURING THE Depression, Dorchester, a residential section of Boston, was faced with unemployment and other problems of the times. Still, there were occasional happy faces, especially at Christmas.
Somehow the people of Dorchester managed to pinch together enough pennies to assure loved ones of the gifts of the great day. And there were the “mystery Christmas presents.”
They came from nowhere during the holiday season. Nobody knew who sent them. Once they arrived, for a few days at least, hard times were forgotten in Dorchester.
There was another reason for good feeling in Dorchester. Fred Allen, a local vaudeville juggler, had hit it big on radio as a comedian. There was even talk he would soon be making movies in Hollywood.
“IT'S Town Hall tonight,” the announcer said. “And here comes Fred Allen now, leading Jack Benny and a parade of guests.”
Clancy got up from his chair long enough to snap off the parlor radio.
“Can't stand that guy,” said Clancy. “Give me Pick and Pat every time. They're what I call funny.”
“Fred's funny, too,” his wife, Maggie insisted. “You're jealous. He grew up in the same neighborhood. He's on the radio making big money. You're sitting home doing nothing.”
Clancy snarled.
“What about the waiter's job?” his wife asked. “They would have hired me, Maggie,” the husband said sadly, “only I didn't own one of those black suits. They told me they'd be able to give me work if I had one of those waiter suits with the black bow ties.”
Maggie sighed. “It's going to be a sad Christmas,” she said. “No money's coming in and everything's going out. They'll be no joy for us this holiday.”
The next day, Christmas Eve, a messenger knocked on the door of Clancy's flat. Clancy, it should be noted, was not his real name. The messenger left a Christmas package and departed. Inside was a black waiter's suit which fit Clancy perfectly.

QUITE a few people in Fred Allen's old neighborhood were listening to him that Christmas week. Mrs. Cappadona was among them. She almost smiled when Jack Benny tried to sell her former neighbor a second hand car.
Mrs. Cappadona had trouble smiling. True, her husband had a job, there was enough money for food, coal and other essentials. But all Mrs. Cappadona's upper teeth had been removed a few months earlier. She lacked the money for an upper plate—$42, the dentist wanted.
The morning after the Allen show—Christmas Eve—Mrs. Cappadona received a telegram from her dentist (she couldn't afford a phone). The doctor wanted her in his office immediately.
“It's a good thing I made those impressions,” the dentist said, as he placed the brand new set of uppers into Mrs. Cappadona's mouth. "You'll be able to enjoy a hearty Christmas dinner.”
“I can't pay for these,” she reminded him.
“The teeth are a Christmas gift,” the dentist revealed. “They came from an old friend of yours.”
“I don't have any friends who can afford $42 gifts,” she objected.
“Yes, you do,” he said.
Mrs. Cappadona's smile at that was genuine, although the name is not.
MARGARET O'Shea was another Dorchesterite who enjoyed the Allen radio show that Christmas week. She had reason to be happy. Her husband was earning enough to get by on and there would be gifts for young Tommy. They were concealed in a bedroom closet.
Where the gifts came from she would never know. The doorbell rang and a messenger came in loaded down with Christmas toys, including the red fire engine her son had dreamed of getting.
Tommy, 5, wanted to be a fireman. But a few days earlier Tommy had been hit by a car near his home. The injuries had been minor, but the day in the hospital had cost all the money Mrs. O'Shea had put away for Christmas.
Mrs. O'Shea was not, however, her real name.
She told Mrs. Nellie O'Connell about having to spend the Christmas money on medical bills.
“Maybe something will come up,” said Mrs. O'Connell, who really was named Mrs. O'Connell. “Maybe there really is a Santa Claus and maybe he'll drop by your house on Christmas Eve.”
MRS. O'Connell headed across the street to confer with her good friend Elizabeth Lovely.
Mrs. Lovely was Aunt Liz, Fred Allen's aunt, the woman who raised him on Grafton Street in Dorchester after his parents died.
Elizabeth Lovely, Nellie O'Connell and the Rev. William Ryan, pastor of St. Margaret's Church in Dorchester, all are gone now.
So is Fred Allen. He died in 1956.
But all four played an important part in making Christmas merrier in Dorchester. They were the ones responsible for delivery of the “mystery Christmas presents.”

Even in the 1940s, when there was prosperity, the gifts continued to be delivered to those who needed a helping hand.
“Fred Allen never forgot where he came from,” said Daniel O'Connell, Nellie's son, now in his 60s. “One time, one of the kids on a local baseball team got hurt. Fred paid the medical bills and nobody ever knew he did.
“FRED lived with Aunt Liz, her husband, Mike, and another aunt, Jane Herlihy. They lived on the second floor and I lived on the first floor with my mom and dad.
“Every year during the Depression, Fred sent a check to his Aunt Liz. It always came a few weeks before Christmas and it was always a big check. Fred believed in sharing his blessings.
“There would be a note with the check. Fred always asked his aunt to check out families in the old neighborhood and to help those who needed a helping hand at Christmas. He always wrote, ‘Use your own judgment, Aunt Liz. You'll know the ones who really need help.’
“Then Mrs. Lovely would call my mother upstairs and they'd swap information for an hour or so. After that, Aunt Liz and my mother would go to St. Margaret's where they'd chat with Father Ryan, the pastor, for quite a while. He'd make some phone calls to other priests and ministers and rabbis in the area and eventually a list of people in need of help at Christmas would be compiled.
“If there was a real emergency, Mrs. Lovely would go right over and hand the people some money,” concluded O'Connell. “In most cases though, the gifts, or money, were sent anonymously. Those who needed help never knew where it came from.”
Toward the end of his Christmas show more than four decades ago, Fred Allen stepped out of character long enough to say: “From all of us here in the studio to all of you at home, may your Christmas be a joyous and blessed one.”
If you are still alive Clancy and Mrs. Cappadona and Margaret O'Shea, at last you know the identity of your mystery Santa Claus of years ago.
He had baggy eyes.

The Story of Christmas

A quiet, gentle version of the birth of Jesus came from the National Film Board in the 1973 animated short “The Story of Christmas.”

Director Evelyn Lambart created some very charming shorts for the NFB starting in the 1940s. She was a 1937 graduate of the Ontario College of Art. Lambart died in 1999.

This particular short won a blue ribbon at the American Film Festival in New York in 1976 in the religion and society category. The NFB’s site gives this description:

This short animation tells the familiar story of Christmas in an innovative and colourful way. Filmmaker Evelyn Lambart uses glowing zinc cut-outs to give this traditional tale a contemporary twist. Akin to a joyful medieval manuscript, the film is embellished by the artist's own whimsy—heraldic trumpet sounds, luminescent light, and wildflowers in every scene tell the message of rebirth. A film without dialogue.

“The Story of Christmas” is a fitting short to end our series of animated Christmas films.

The Great Toy Robbery

There’s nothing like a clever spoof, and that’s what you get in “The Great Toy Robbery,” a 1963 short directed by Jeff Hale for the National Film Board. Santa Claus is plunked into a Christmas-style hold-up a la “The Great Train Robbery,” and western film clichés abound. The designs and score are a lot of fun.

The cartoon got released in the U.S. by Columbia Pictures (which had been inflicting the second-rate Loopy de Loop shorts on theatre audiences) and was generally sent out with Dr. Strangelove. By that time, Hale was working for Cameron Guess Associates in San Francisco.

It was the top winner at the Irish Film Festival in the animated and cartoon films category in 1963.