The Super Barbershop of Television

You’ve no doubt heard horror stories of temper tantrums around the sets and writing rooms of TV comedy/variety shows of the 1950s. This isn’t one of them.

In fact, it’s the exact opposite.

Jack Benny was calm and cool, even though his “Benny character” on camera could be exasperated or annoyed. There are plenty of stories about how stars felt at ease with him (Ronald Colman was one). Here’s a syndicated story that appeared in the Ottawa Citizen of January 23, 1953 showing how Benny, who actually had a reputation in the ‘30s as a worrier, was seemingly unruffled as he put together his TV show and, occasionally, dealt with last-minute emergencies.

"Easy-does-it" approach guide for Jack Benny awes his guest stars
By Don Royal
HOLLYWOOD—It IS possible to produce a top-flight TV production without an accompaniment of ulcer-sparking tensions, screaming, ranting and other temperamental outbursts. That has been proved to a growing group of stellar and diverse personalities which includes Ernie Kovacs, Gary Cooper, Phil Harris, Marilyn Monroe, Mrs. Bob Hope and Marvin (the Millionaire) Miller. About the only thing any of these people have in common is a deep-seated admiration and open-mouthed awe for the way Jack Benny puts a program together.
Each of these personalities, you see, has been Jack's guest on his top-rated CBS Television Network show, "The Jack Benny Program."
"We don't get into a raging fuss about every, little thing," says Jack Benny about his own way of working. "We've all been together long enough to anticipate difficulties and cope when they happen. That's why it looks so easy."
Never, reports the average Benny guest star, has a network broadcast been approached so smoothly and recalled as fondly as the average Jack Benny program.
Fond Recollection

About the same formula for success was followed when Jack went to an hour-long format with his "Comedy Specials."
"Sure, these shows are more work and require more concentration," Jack admits. "But that doesn't mean we're climbing the walls— or over one another—by dress rehearsal time."
The men most responsible for this ease of operation in the Benny organization are the Benny organization: the producer Hilliard Marks, his writers, Sam Perrin, George Balzer, Hal Goldman and Al Gordon, and of course Benny himself.
Bob Hope, who has been Benny's guest before was the latest star to experience the Benny "easy does it" policy, as Jack's guest star on the first Benny Comedy Special.
"I remember the last time, a couple of years ago, that I appeared on Jack's show," Hope recalls. "It was even sort of complicated, with a song-and-dance number and everything.
"So did we have a lot of big and little detail to iron out before air time? Not on your life. It was like walking into one of those super barbershops, where the attendants do everything for you but pay the tips."
Follows Routine
The schedule for a Benny program goes something like this. As soon as a guest star is signed, usually four or five weeks in advance, a script is worked out among the four writers, Benny himself and producer Marks, who once wrote for the show.
About three weeks before the show, a finished script is prepared and sent to the guest star. In about a week, everyone— Benny, his staff, the guest, and any other players in the skits— get together for an informal reading in Benny's Beverly Hills office.
A week later, the Friday before the show, the cast and crew assemble for the first time on the stage in Studio 33 of Television City in Hollywood, where the program will go out on the air two days later.
That Friday session is usually devoted to "walk-through" rehearsals, where the movements are timed to co-ordinate them with the 50-odd punch lines that make up an average Benny half-hour.
Benny's director, Semour Berns [sic], uses this opportunity to inject any bits of comic "business" into the action, as well as timing the various routines, commercials and musical numbers that must be included the next Sunday.
Somewhere off to the side during this is Mahlon Merrich [sic], the Benny musical director, who works with his orchestra on numbers for the show, for the "warm-up" and on arrangements with a singer like Dennis Day.
Saturday is the polishing day. The pace is stepped up slightly, the lines are smoothed into comic sharpness, and the actors' and cameras' movements are finalized.
The first dress rehearsal occurs exactly one hour and a half before the show hits the air. Even then, an air of calm sureness pervades Studio 33. Benny himself appears ready for an afternoon nap rather than a fast-paced comedy program.
If there are any rough edges in the dress rehearsal (and there seldom are), they are worked out between Berns, the director, Marks, the producer, and the writers.
Typifies Approach
Jack comes out to do his "warm-up" before the studio audience about five minutes before "air." One of his regular cracks in this period rather typifies his whole approach to show business. "I don't really have to come out here, you know," he quips. "But I do it just to make myself nervous."
Then, at exactly 4: 30 p.m., PST, he makes his entrance for the show.
As Benny himself says: "There's no sense getting into a snit about things. I remember when Nanette Fabray had to bow out at the last moment because of an injury.
"You know what happened? We got Janis Paige to step in as a last-minute replacement. She took the script home one night and came back the next day ready for work.
"Sure there are ragged spots in the show, but part of this business is learning to make the unexpected look as if it were brilliant."
The Benny approach: never panic, always relax and remain unalterably optimistic.

The Background Behind Scrappy

Want to know who is responsible for the backgrounds in the Scrappy and Krazy Kat cartoons of the mid 1930s? Don’t look at the screen. You won’t find it there.

In a way, it’s a shame that many of the artists who worked on cartoons in that decade got no credit, especially the ones who painted backgrounds. Perhaps it’s just as well. Art Davis once remarked the Charles Mintz cartoons released by Columbia never had accurate credits anyway, a fact echoed at other studios.

However, the answer to our question can be found in the Montana Standard newspaper of Butte on February 8, 1934. It’s a name associated with Walt Disney and Walter Lantz.

Ex-Butte Youth Discloses Secrets of Krazy Kat and His Companions of Screen
How Krazy Kat and that comic strip boy-character, Scrappy, are sent through their capers across a motion picture screen to amuse theater-goers throughout the nation was explained yesterday afternoon by Ray Huffine of Los Angeles, a former Butte youth who made good in the movie capital.
Mr. Huffine, art editor of Butte public high school annual, The Mountaineer, in 1923, now is manager of the background art department of the Charles B. Mintz Cartoon studio, which distributes Krazy Kat and Scrappy cartoons through Columbia Pictures. With his wife, a California young woman enjoying her first visit to the Treasure state, he has been spending a two-week vacation at the ranch borne of his parents, Mr and Mrs. Walter Huffine, near Bozeman. The two will leave by car this morning on their return to Hollywood.
At his room at the Leggat hotel yesterday the young artist exhibited a number of samples of his work, and explained that his position with the studio was similar to that of the director of the scenic department of the average motion picture plant.

“My three assistants and I prepare the setting or background for the cartoons,” he said. “There are from 40 to 50 scenes in a 7-minute, 700-foot cartoon, and it takes about 13 days to complete a set of backgrounds. We put out 13 sets of each cartoons, or about 26 pictures a year.”
Guiding Krazy along his adventurous course is not so simple a task as it appears on the screen, Mr. Huffine pointed out. First, the “continuity and gags” are worked out, and then the music is filled in so that the story may be timed and the characters animated to each musical beat.
After this, “animators,” using thin sheets of paper over a strong light, trace out the characters in the extremes of action, such as at the start, high point and finish of a jump. “In-betweeners” handle the tedious detail of drawing the thousands of intermediate films, of which, as many as 10,000 are necessary in one film.
These characters, in their 10,000 changed position [sic], are then photographed over the appropriate backgrounds prepared by Mr. Huffine and his staff. “In pictures where Scrappy appears to be dashing along past a variety of scenery,” Mr. Huffine said, “the figure actually is remaining in the same spot and the background, in the form of a long roll or panorama, is moving past instead.”

Raymond Walter Huffine was born on October 12, 1905 in Garland, Missouri to Walter R. and Eva (Chezem) Huffine. His father had a farm. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was 5 and the family moved to Montana, where his dad worked as a teamster.

After graduation from high school, Ray worked as a clerk in Butte for the Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company. The site artask.com says Huffine moved to Los Angeles in 1927 and studied at the Otis Art Institute. The City Directory of 1930 states he worked as a clerk, apparently in a hotel.

When he began work for Mintz remains to be discovered. He was at the studio in 1933 when he got married (in 1959 he married again to Charlotte Darling Adams, who spent years in the animation industry). Meanwhile, Walt Disney needed artists with a feature on the horizon. Huffine was hired. The Great Falls Tribune of March 29, 1938 reveals:

Former Bozeman Youth Painted Some Scenes In "Snow White" Film BOZEMAN, March 28.—(Special). To most threater goers [sic], "Snow White And the Seven Dwarfs," famous animated cartoon, will be just a good movie, but to Bozemanites who once knew a lad named Ray Huffine who attended grade school here, the film will have additional interest. For Huffine, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ray Huffine, painted several of the scenes in the film at his easel in the studios of Walt Disney in Hollywood. Huffine has worked in Hollywood nearly a decade and has been employed in the Disney studios several years. His parents live five miles north of Bozeman on the Springhill road.

Huffine was also a fine arts painter and had a showing of water colours at a gallery in Los Angeles as early as 1935. He was also involved in union activity, but not where you might expect. He was a Steward of the American Federation of Musicians, Local 47, which represented film studio musicians (it appears Huffine played the sax in high school). In 1947, he was appointed the local’s tax collector and fired in 1951 when the candidate he backed for local president lost.

Huffine provided backgrounds for all the early Disney features—Pinocchio, Bambi, Dumbo—up until Lady and the Tramp. Oddly, he doesn’t appear to have been employed on Sleeping Beauty and left the studio before it was released. What he did for the next few years is unknown, but he was hired at the Walter Lantz studio by early 1960. Huffine’s last work there was on a 1968 Woody Woodpecker cartoon called One Horse Town.

By then, Huffine was gone. He died at the comparatively early age of 62 on November 4, 1967.

Farewell to Hornsby Shirtwaist

Success came to Orson Bean because of an intangible—he and three other actors meshed very well on a TV game show.

Bean was not part of the original regular panel on To Tell the Truth, but was on the one that everyone of a certain age thinks of when they remember the show. Maybe the best part of his appearances was when he drew a little figure forming the number of the contestant he picked.

Bean was originally a stand-up comedian named Dallas Burrows. How he became Orson Bean is related in Charlie Rice’s “Punchbowl” column in the June 25, 1961 edition of This Week magazine, one of those weekend newspaper supplements. Also below is a column from the Hearst papers from August 26, 1965 where he talks about his game show career to date.

A few years ago he was interviewed by Kliph Nesteroff and you can read the transcript on this web page.

What became of Hornsby Shirtwaist
Some years ago I had the honor of writing comedy material for The Great Man, as the late W. C. Fields was known. And in a rare sober breath, he confided to me that he took his stage name from an empty peach crate which he broke over his father's head upon leaving home at the age of 15.
"It was a moment of poignant misunderstanding," he murmured, "and the trademark on the crate naturally stuck in my mind—'Pick of the Fields. "
I somehow doubted The Great Man's words, particularly since he was born William Claude Dukenfield, which more or less squared with W. C. Fields. But his story did serve to get me interested in just how actors choose their stage names. The results of my studies are clearly shown in the compendium on this page, and I think you'll agree the Rockefeller Foundation should slip me a couple of million to complete the project.
Reason I bring the subject up now is The Orson Bean Story. Mr. Bean (who, incidentally, is pinch-hitting for Jack Paar this coming week) is an old friend of mine because we both grew up in Cambridge, Mass.—about 80 years apart.
We had lunch the other day, and he told me a story about his stage name that must certainly top all stage-name stories.
"My real name is Dallas Burrows," he said, "and I used it when I first broke in as a comic magician about ten years ago.
"I played little night-spots around Boston, and I got nowhere fast. But once I had a week's date at Hurley's Log Cabin and a guy laughed like mad at me—he was the piano-player, Val Duval. Everything I said or did broke him up—for some reason he thought I was the greatest. None of the paying customers even bothered to listen to me.
"Well, I opened my act with: 'Hello, folks, I'm Dallas Burrows, Harvard '48—Yale nothing.' But it never got a laugh.
"Val decided that maybe the name was wrong. Perhaps if I used some thing nutty like Hornsby Shirtwaist, I could get the act off the ground.
"I had nothing to lose, so I tried Hornsby Shirtwaist, but only Val laughed—the customers just drank laughed beer and checked their racing forms.
"Next night Val suggested Roger Duck, but that didn't do any good—except it almost killed Val. He laughed so hard he could hardly play my introductory music.
"Next night he told me to try Orson Bean—I don't know where he got it. So I said: 'Hello, folks, I'm Orson Bean, Harvard '48—Yale nothing.' Val gave a howl and fell right off the piano stool. Every body started to laugh at him, and somehow the atmosphere got jolly. From then on, every thing I did got a laugh. They even clapped at the finish.
"After the act an agent came back and said I wasn't too bad. He said, 'I got a full week's work for you in Montreal.' I got all excited. I said, 'What's the money? He said, 'Seventy-five bucks less ten per cent.' I said, 'Gee, it'll cost me more than that to get there'; and the agent said, 'Well, you got to save up for these jobs.
"But I decided to take it anyway, so he got out the contract forms and asked me how to spell Orson Bean.
" 'I don't know,' I said. He looked sidelong at me, as if I were some kind of a nut, and then wrote the name down the way he figured.
"Well, I did pretty well as Orson Bean, so I never bothered to change it. Funny thing—I married a girl who changed her name too.
"She was Jacqueline de Sibour and took the stage name of Rain Winslow. So now she's Rain Bean."
Orson sipped his coffee thoughtfully. "But it could be worse, you know. If Val had fallen off his stool any other night, I might be Hornsby Shirtwaist—or even Roger Duck!"
"What happened to Val Duval?"
"You probably won't believe it," said Orson, "but I got a letter from him only a few weeks ago, and it's the most poetic irony you ever heard of. Val was actually a Frenchman, but all the managers up in Boston said his name sounded too phony. So he's now playing under the name of Barney O'Day. "

He Won't Rap Game Shows
Orson Bean Has Learned It Pays To Be Idiotic
By HAL HUMPHREY
HOLLYWOOD—Orson Bean says he feels like the little kid who is asked what he is going to do when he grows up, and the little kid says right off, "Same thing—play games."
For the past several years Bean has been playing games on TV and got a steady job at at after Don Ameche left his chair on the To Tell the Truth panel at CBS to join the circus (International Showtime) at NBC four years ago. Ameche's circus folds up next month, but Bean will go right on being the Peck's Bad Boy of To Tell the Truth.
"I'm making more money than I deserve with these idiot games which I enjoy playing," says Bean to anyone who asks him if he doesn't believe such a career is beneath his talents.
YEARS AGO, 1954 in fact, he had his own show on CBS, a comedy show called Blue Angel for the New York night club in which Bean first was discovered. It lasted 20 weeks.
After that, CBS did two pilot films for Bean series ("They give up hard"), which didn't sell, then later he did an episode in the June Allyson series titled "The Secret Life of James Thurber." It was supposed to be a "spin-off" pilot for a projected series, but there were no buyers for that one either.
The Bean comedy is sharp, urbane and witty and that would make it suspect along Madison av. where such attributes are not considered salable items on a mass scale.

"REALLY, I'm not that wild to do a series," says Bean. "I have a terrible fear that after burying myself for three years to make all of that money it would be my luck that the Red Chinese decide to attack. Sure, I'd like to live out here and have a pool with Tuesday Weld in it, but what-the-hell."
Not all of Bean's career is strictly fun and games. He flew to Hollywood for one day last week to do a bit part (these are called cameos now) in the Roz Russell picture, "Mother Superior."
Bean plays Mr. Petree, head of a progressive school which gets involved with Mother Superior's St. Francis Academy over a former student.
IT COULD be called typecasting as far as Bean is concerned. Two years ago he founded the Fifteenth St. School for nursery, kindergarten and first-second graders. Bean calls it a non-permissive progressive school, and he patterned it after England's Sumherhill school. His own five-year-old daughter, Michelle, attends.
After the one-day shooting with Miss Russell, he headed for Chicago and two weeks of appearing in "Bye Bye Birdie." Prior to this he had taped a week of radio shows, subbing for Arthur Godfrey.
During his run on Broadway in "Never Too Late" with Paul Ford and Maureen O'Sullivan, Bean frequently had to tape his To Tell the Truth show between the matinee and evening show, then do two after-midnight shows at his old alma mater, the Blue Angel.
MUCH OF his off-TV activity will be reduced, now that the panel on the nighttime version of To Tell the Truth has been pressed into serving on the five daytime Truth shows. Goodson-Todman, the Barnum & Bailey of the quiz-game shows for TV, apparently got worried over the ratings of the daytime series.
"We didn't exactly volunteer for the job," recalls Bean. "Mark Goodson hinted rather strongly that it was necessary if we wanted to keep our chairs on the nighttime show."
Occasionally Bean swings over for a guest appearance on one of the other Goodson-Todson panels. The experience can be unnerving.
"I WAS on the 'What's My Line?' panel, and I had thought all those precious little jokes they bandy about among themselves were done just for the show. But no. Cerf and Dorothy and Arlene act the same way with one another backstage.
"It's all so cute," Bean reports, with the same facial grimace I get any time I inadvertently turn the channel selector to CBS around 10:30 on Sunday nights. I also have a certain amount of trouble swallowing all those God-bless yous which host Bud Collyer passes around so indiscriminate on To Tell the Truth, and I was happy to hear Bean say that he too always figured that a God-bless-you should be a special sort of thing.

Pulchritudinous for Pisces

Ah, for those pre-Code-enforcement days when you could have funny sex gags in a Fleischer cartoon instead of Betty Boop being shoved aside for a dog or an insanely-laughing gadget inventor.

In Old Man of the Mountain (1933), Dave Fleischer and his team come up with assorted gags with animals as Betty tap-strolls up the aforementioned mountain. In one, a puddle provides a home for a fish.



Yes, even fish are attracted to Betty.



Uh, oh, Mr. Fish. Someone back in the puddle sees what you’re doing.



The wife fish drags the husband fish back into the puddle. I like the looks of surprise and sadness on him.



Eventually, Betty strips down to her underwear as the old mountain letch grabs her clothes.

Berny Wolf and Tom Johnson receive the screen credit for animation. They’re saved some work thanks to live action footage of Cab Calloway and his orchestra,

Reflections of an Allied Duck

“We’re in to win!” sings patriotic Daffy Duck in the Frank Tashlin-directed Scrap Happy Daffy (1943).

Daffy dives from a pile of garbage he’s collected for the scrap metal drive and lands in front of some mirrors where he sings as a chorus. Note the flip.



The camera cuts closer to the mirrors. As the Daffys sing, they morph into Mussolini, Hitler and Tojo.



The Axis images crack up the mirrors and Tashlin cuts to multiple Daffys singing and swaying in each of the shards. Note the stylised backgrounds.



Art Davis is the credited animator; Don Christensen wrote the story. Carl Stalling has the orchestra play a pumped up version of This is Worth Fighting For by Eddie DeLange and Sam E. Stept over the opening titles.

Charles

The late Charles Nelson Reilly based part of his one-man show on the fact he really rocketed to fame by having a regular seat on the 1970s version of The Match Game. Forget Broadway, where he first got attention. Forget The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Arnie or even Lidsville. America was captivated by, and sniggered at, a TV show that made the words “tinkle” and “boobs” part of the popular culture. It all seemed, well, so daring to suburban Americans. (They may have been the same people who wrote to TV columnists breathlessly wanting to know whether Reilly and Brett Somers were seeing each other).

My first home-screen encounter with Reilly was on the aforementioned Muir show, which was switched from a movie drama to a TV sitcom. This unbylined story appeared in papers on January 4, 1969; it may be from an NBC publicity release.

Gives First Autograph on Grocery Bag
HOLLYWOOD — Charles Nelson Reilly is the first to tell you that he doesn't look like Charles Nelson Reilly.
"I've only been asked once for my autograph since the series started," he said. "It was on a paper bag in a grocery store. If people recognize me at all, they'll say, 'You have three names,' and then it comes out John Charles Thomas. Or they say, 'Aren't you on 'The Ghost and Mrs. Miniver'? Jack O'Brien, of the (defunct) New York Journal American, once called me 'a medium dazzle star.' "
Charles Nelson Reilly, as fans have come to realize more or less accurately, is the person who portrays Claymore Gregg, the flustered landlord and nephew of Capt. Gregg, in "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir," Saturdays on the NBC Television Network.
Actually, Charles Nelson Reilly has done some impressive work and received two Tony Awards in the process. He has appeared in numerous Broadway and off-Broadway hits, including "Bye Bye Birdie," "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," "Hello, Dolly!" and "Skyscraper." His films include "The Tiger Makes Out," "Two Tickets to Paris" and "Let's Rock." He has also written and appeared in numerous radio and TV commercials.
"This," said Charles Nelson Reilly of his present role, "is the nicest job I've had in my life, except 'Skyscraper,' which I loved, with Julie Harris. I adore California. I've spent seven years on Broadway and done 7,000 performances. I plan to stay in California the rest of my life. New York ran out for me."
Reilly notices things others have come to take for granted.
"Take my wardrobe, for instance," he said. "When I arrive at the studio, I find three shirts to wear, each beautifully laundered, with tissue paper in the sleeves. In New York, where I was the second male lead in 'Hello, Dolly ' I only had one shirt. Then they made a big thing about letting me know that they had turned the collar — the second year of the show!"
Reilly feels like he's found the right place for settling down.
"I'm buying paintings now, which I never did before," he said. "I also bought a house and a convertible. People let you know here whether it's a good day for putting the top down. As far as I'm concerned, the top has been up for 37 years — now it's staying down!"
Reilly's one concession to New York is that he's kept his subscription to the New York Times.
"But," said he, "the only thing I miss is the Metropolitan Opera."
Reilly loves opera, has a large record collection, and coached opera singers.
But it's the elevators, airport and telephones that convince him that West Coast living is right for him.
"I watch the elevators here and there's always a beat or two before people start coming out," he said. "In New York they just pour out. Or take the phones. We have a party on the set every Friday. What floors me is that there are several phones, but they're never in use! In New York, the line at the phone is always a mile long — people calling agents, lining up interviews, always thinking about the next thing. And the airport here — you can hear a pin drop."
Reilly doesn't fear ghosts, or change.
"I never go back," he said. "Some actors are still playing the same parts they did 20 years ago. I will leave something because there is always something better that awaits you."

Here’s another pre-Match Game interview, this one for the King Features Syndicate. It appeared December 2, 1971. Reilly seems to have more work than anyone can handle.

Now He's Actually Leading the Busy Life of Reilly
By HARVEY PACK
NEW YORK — Charles Nelson Reilly is featured on five TV series — which isn't bad for a guy who once took a week off from a Broadway show, and went to Hollywood to make a pilot film.
"Remarkable, isn't it?" he asked himself, as we sat in Sardi's nodding to all his Broadway friends. "I'm doing so well I can up and fly to New York because Karen Morrow is opening in a play and Roberta Peters is at the Met. Crazy? Of course...but a lot more fun than selling blood to the blood bank to raise money for train fare to go to an audition in Connecticut."
Reilly is practically an acting corporation. Two years ago he began making funny commercials and he found that he was writing the copy when he showed up for the taping. Now, he's decided to go into business for himself and, with a few friends, he has formed Commercial Clinic, a company which can take an ad agency's ideas and convert them into amusing, effective commercials.
In addition, Charles is on the tube as star of the syndicated "Golddiggers," a semi-regular on "Arnie" and the Dean Martin Show. On top of that, he has seen "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir," the show that originally brought him west for a one shot, go into syndication. Nor is that all: Saturday mornings on ABC he is the star of one of that web's most successful children's programs, "Lidsville."
"I knew California was the place for me when I filmed my first scene for the pilot of "Ghost and Mrs. Muir,' said Reilly. "I liked everybody's attitude. On Broadway, actors are always trying to 'make it' in the business. I still see them here in Sardi's putting on sortie sort of act even after they've been around for years. In Hollywood, there's time to have fun between set-ups for the next shot and the business becomes less arduous. I know I'm one of the few former Broadway actors who feel that way, but I did on that first day and still do."
Once he got past starving and selling blood ("I sold two pints on one day and didn't faint until late afternoon"), Reilly was a very employable actor. He had the third lead in the award-winning musical, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," and followed that with "Skyscraper" and another musical that had a fairly good run, "Hello, Dolly."
"Dolly was unbelievable," he said with a smile after a friendly chat with that box-office bonanza's producer David Merrick. "It was crazy time every performance. I really could not take it. I have a dear friend who's a prominent dentist and lives in Westchester with his family. During the two years I endured 'Dolly,' he wrote me notes about dental surgery and I hid at his house for a few days. I must have had ten impacted wisdom teeth and assorted abscesses. Whenever I see David Merrick I expect him to ask how my teeth are."

"Lidsville," the Saturday daytime show, required more work than any of his other series. He admits that for a Dean Martin appearance he earns more than he did in 10 months of "Dolly," but "Lidsville" is so hard it has to be a labor of love.
"It takes hours to put on the crazy make-up," he explained. "And I don't even look like myself when I'm finished. Come to think of it...putting on the Lidsville make-up is harder than doing Dean's show."
Tape is what makes it possible for Charles Nelson Reilly to be all over tube and still come East to see friends open in shows. He doesn't go back to finish this year's Golddiggers" until January, the Martin shots he does as they come along, He's filmed a few episodes of "Arnie," and awaits reaction to the character he has created, and "Lidsville" was completed a month ago.
If he had failed as a performer, Charles Nelson Reilly might have been the greatest comedy acting teacher of our time. He taught in New York and his pupils are "making it," and his workshop in California is only kept down by his busy onscreen schedule. "I just had the knack," he said, and scores of actors I have interviewed confirm this. "Besides, there were very few places teaching musical comedy."
Reilly, a well-liked character ("Charles is legitimately nuts...and I mean legitimately," a friend of his assured me), is enjoying his success after so many years of waiting for it. After all, in "Succeed" there was Bobby Morse, and Carol Channing appeared in "Dolly," but in TV it's Charles Nelson Reilly the casting directors are demanding and even though he has left New York behind him there's no doubt about that fact that he's "making it." (Copyright, 1971, by TV Key)

The revived, West Coast version of The Match Game began airing on June 25, 1973. Reilly arrived soon after and later in the season was handed a permanent spot, one eventually he bemoaned he couldn’t escape. He appeared on various incarnations of the show into the ‘90s.

He found time for theatre directing and coaching, as well as cartoon voice work before he died in 2007. But if you search on video websites, you’re more likely to find him being snippy to Somers than anything else. At least no one was mistaking him for John Charles Thomas any more.

Goats Don't Make Good Kites

Tex Avery’s Southern wolf returns in Billy Boy, where he spend the cartoon trying to get rid of a baby goat that eats everything.

The cartoon motors through a bunch of gags, some better than others. In this one, the wolf ties Billy to a kite and sends him aloft.



Whether the idea was the wolf was going to let go of the kite string, I don’t know. In any case, the goat eats the string and floats down in the shape of a kite. The wolf is whistling but there’s no whistling on the soundtrack in this scene.



“Hey, Billy,” he calmly says. The goat stops chewing and looks up at him. “Break it up, son.” (The line was used in the first Southern wolf cartoon, The Three Little Pups and to better effect).



Walt Clinton, Mike Lah, Bob Bentley and Grant Simmons animated this cartoon, with Ray Patterson borrowed from the Hanna-Barbera unit. It looks like Joe Montell painted the backgrounds. Lah, Clinton and Montell ended up at the Hanna-Barbera studio, along with a close proximity of the wolf’s voice (which became a hound’s voice) provided by Daws Butler.

You can hear the soundtrack without Daws at this link.

That Fly is a Fairy

Felix rescues a fly which turns out to be a Fairy in disguise and offers him any wish that he may make. After some consideration he wishes to be in Fairyland, and Presto, there he is!

That sums up Felix in Fairyland, a 1923 release by the Winkler Studio with some very inventive settings (in shades of grey), punctuation that appears on screen, words that dissolve and our hero morphing.

Anyway, here are a few drawings of the fly turning into a beautiful woman.



There’s no animation credit, just “M.J. Winkler presents a Pat Sullivan comic.” The creative hand of Otto Messmer gets no mention on screen. Felix would become a little more rounded in his design a year later.

How To Interview A Sleeping Star

One thing that’s evident in hunting through newspapers of the 1960s looking for articles on Jack Benny is that he kept up an incredible schedule. He travelled to and fro making appearances when he wasn’t working on his TV show, meaning a steady stream of interviews, meet-and-greets and other such trappings in addition to his performances.

Is it no wonder he feel asleep on one interview?

The interviewer in question was Gerald Nachman, known perhaps these days for his book Raised on Radio. At the time, he was reporting for the New York Post. It would appear the 70-year-old Benny had a long morning—it’s not said when he landed in the city—and needed an afternoon nap.

Here is Mr. Nachman’s tale of his valiant attempt at an interview. Through his own resourcefulness, he managed to put together an interesting story. It appeared in print on October 4, 1964.

Hello Again, This Is Jack Benny...
By GERALD NACHMAN
MANY A VIEWER has dozed off watching a TV comedian, but in the annals of television there has never been an instance reported of a viewer putting a TV comedian to sleep. What follows, then, is something of a show business first.
Members of the cast include: Jack Benny, as the TV comedian; Irving Fein, as his producer and prompter; and a viewer, or in this case interviewer, who will remain anonymous and calm; an apple also figures importantly in the plot.
As the sketch begins, it is early afternoon one day last week and Jack Benny is riding up to his hotel room in an elevator, a weary look on his face. He's already put in a full day spreading the word that Jack Benny is starting his 15th year in television and that he is now back on NBC, where he began 15 penny-pinching, birthday-less years ago.
He was up at dawn for an interview on the "Today" show. Afterwards he went to breakfast and was interviewed by local TV writers, followed by a guest appearance on "Concentration."
Then he spent two hours taping promotional spots—the ones that go, "Hello, this is Jack Benny, next on NBC," as the final scene fades on "Bob Hope Presents" and the credits roll. After this came more questions from TV critics around the U.S. on a closed circuit interview. Finally Benny ate lunch, and had another press conference. A day like that could easily wear out a man of 39, let alone 70.
Benny stepped out of the elevator and, with that well known sashay, walked down the corridor to his hotel room (perhaps a better word is wing). He studied the handful of telephone messages and came upon one that displeased him.
"Do we have to do this Garroway thing?" he asked the tall man wearing Goldwater glasses, Irving Fein, referring apparently to Dave Garroway's radio program and the fact that it would mean answering still more questions about how it feels to be 70 and still as active as ever. Fein mumbled something. Benny let himself into his suite and went into the bedroom for a minute.
* * *
THERE, AS IF PLANTED BY A FUN-LOVING hotel manager, a cleaning boy was dusting the Venetian blinds and singing "Fine and Dandy." The only thing missing from the familiar scene was a wisecracking parrot. Fein, who has been with Benny 18 years, was obviously enjoying it immensely.
'That's him," said Fein, pointing. "That's just the guy we've been looking for!" The impromptu audition continued, but Benny didn't seem to notice. By now he must be used to discovering would-be Rochesters In every hotel room, Dennis Days waiting on him in restaurants and Western Union boys who can sound exactly like Maxwell touring cars.
Returning to the living room, Benny looked over the two mammoth baskets of fruit that were planted there by the hotel manager, plucked an apple from one and took a noisy bite out of it. Then he sat back on the sofa and waited to be asked how it feels to be 70 and still as active as ever. He made a valiant effort but the sofa was a little too soft and the apple had the effect of a glass of warm milk.
"All good things develop by accident," he said, munching on the apple, as he explained how his alter ego evolved. "If we would have said, 'Let's make me a stingy s. o. b.,' the damn thing wouldn't have lasted three weeks. You can't plan those things and you can't chart them. The character just grew. It grew out of nothing, the way a child grows."
Benny removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"People are always taking advantage of me, and I've always thought it's because there's a tiny bit of effeminacy in me. I don't mean I'm a pansy, but the vanity and the pouting and the sulking in the character I play on TV—it's like a woman."
* * *
Fein, who had been tossing salted peanuts into his mouth, decided to break in. He was wide awake. "The reason Jack has been around so long—the reason he's outlived the Gobels and the Berles and the Caesers—is because every joke has a 15-year buildup. He's got 40 gimmicks going for him!"
Benny yawned behind his hand and began making a final survey of the apple for unbitten territory.
"On Jack's show you never know what you're going to miss, because we don't work any of the gimmicks to death. If we wanted, we could do the violin thing every week, but when you'd had enough of the violin you wouldn't look any more. Jack is always ahead of the audience. He'll drop a thing before the public does, when it's still on the wane."
"Like the Maxwell," said Benny, and continued listening.
'The Maxwell is a good example," Fein went on. "It got to be corny and a little dated. People know that Jack owns one. That's enough. This season we've got one Maxwell show (you don't see it, you just hear it), a couple of Rochester shows, two vault shows, a floorwalker show and a fan club show."
Benny was really yawning now, huge catlike yawns. The apple had seen to that; What remained of it rested in an ashtray. Somehow the subject had worked its way around to Benny's opinions of other kinds of comedy and comedians.
"The only jokes I don't like are non —? What's the name of those, Irving?"
Irving: "You mean non sequiturs, Jack?"

Jack: "Yeah, That's it. Non sequiturs . . ." (Yawn) "I don't like non sequitur humor . . ." The answers seemed to be growing briefer and Benny's eyelids seemed to be growing heavier. The interview itself seemed to be growing "curiouser and curlouser," in Lewis Carroll's phrase, with the conversation—speaking of non sequlturs and Lewis Carroll—reminiscent of a Mad Hatter tea party:
(Flashback)
"Oh, so many questions!" cried Alice.
"And no answers, either," replied the Hatter, proceeding to shake the Dormouse, who was falling asleep in his teacup.
Back in the present, Fein was doing his best to prop up the dialogue in the hotel room with some amusing examples of how the fictitious Jack Benny sometimes crosses over and becomes part of the real-life Jack Benny, but it failed to rouse the real-life Jack Benny, who at that very moment was dozing soundly.
"Hmmmm," said Fein.
"Well," said the interviewer.
". . . . . . . . , " said Jack Benny.
* * *
A MINUTE OR SO LATER, BENNY AWOKE FROM his nap just long enough to excuse himself and trot drowsily off to bed. Now if it had been radio he could have added: "We're a little late, folks, so goodnight."
If nothing else, perhaps the incident illustrates what Fein mentioned just as Benny was dropping off, that the fictional Jack Benny is based on a real person, Jack Benny. There is nothing affected about Benny's comedy or make-believe personality, for it's simply a collection of character traits and biographical truths. The skits are stolen from his life.
He really is from Waukegan, Ill. (although born in Chicago). He really did meet Mary Livingstone at the May Co. (and married her in 1927). He really did live next door to the Ronald Colmans once. He really was insulted by a Pullman porter who thought he was just being friendly (not Rochester, but pretty similar). There really was a guitar player in Phil Harris' orchestra named Frankie Remley. And, of course, Benny does play the violin. Of the "40 gimmicks," very few are actually gimmicks.
When Benny moved from New York to Hollywood, tor example, the next week's show was about Jack Benny moving from New York to Hollywood and about all the "wrong" people he met along the way. In 1960, when he began doing a weekly TV show for the first time, everyone told him it was a foolhardy idea, so the first show was about that. It was a violin, given to him on his 6th birthday by his father, Mayer Kubelsky, a saloon and clothing store owner, that brought Benny to the Barrison Theater, Waukegan's movie and vaudeville emporium, where he played with the orchestra at 15.
A year later the Marx Bros. came through town and Mrs. Marx asked young Kubelsky to join the act as an orchestra leader. Mrs. Marx' offer was declined by Mrs. Kubelsky, and what an interesting interchange that must have been. When the theater closed, a performer on the bill named Cora Salisbury, in her 40s, asked Benny (then his first name) to team up with her. This time Benny overruled his mother and at 16 left home "to make himself into a clown," in the words of a distraught Mrs. Kubelsky.
* * *
HE WASN'T MUCH OF A CLOWN AT FIRST.
When Cora Salisbury went back to Waukegan and an ailing father, however, Benny teamed up with a pianist named Lyman Woods, and Benny & Woods made a small name for themselves until World War I, when Benny went Into the Navy (and did an act called "Corporal Izzy There").
After getting out, he went on the road as Jack Benny and in 1921, playing Vancouver, went with the Marx Bros, to the home of a rabbi Marks, who had a 13-year-old daughter, Sadie.
Six years later he met her again, at the May Co., and married her, whereupon she joined the act as his first "gimmick," "Mary Livingstone" (They have an adopted daughter, Joan, 28, the wife of Hollywood film executive Robert Blumofe, 54.)
So now, 32 years after Ed Sullivan introduced him to a national radio audience, Jack Benny is still in office as the country's official jester, and that may he the greatest gimmick of all. Because, as everyone including Jack Benny is always pointing out, he's really more of a straight man.
"In some of my funniest shows," he insists, "I haven't said a single funny line." That's nothing. In some of his funniest interviews he doesn't say a word.

All Out for Terry

Cartoon studios didn’t sit idly by as the horror of Hitler and the tentacles of Tojo hovered over the Allied World. They were used in the war effort, with contributions significant enough that a documentary called “Cartoons Go To War” was made about the subject a number of years ago.

The studios made both propaganda shorts for the home front and training films for the military. Leon Schlesinger’s animators had Bugs Bunny “nipping the Nips” for theatres and Private Snafu showing soldiers what not to do. The Schlesinger studio wasn’t the only one.

Over on the East Coast, Paul Terry got into the wartainment business as well as assisting the allied effort in more tangible ways. His hometown paper in Larchmont, New York, published a front-page article on July 30, 1942. Unfortunately, the picture of Terry available from it on the internet is low resolution, so we have added screen shots of All Out For “V” to this transcription. That cartoon was nominated for an Oscar (it didn’t win) and is brimming with American patriotism (in song) and Disney-esque forest creatures, along with naked sheep, Carlo Vinci animation, a caterpillar tractor made from caterpillars and evil Japanese beetles who surrender after a Terry Splash™ into the water. It had neither the humour or energy you would find even in Disney propaganda cartoons of the day.

PAUL TERRY PUTS $50,000 IN WAR SAVINGS BONDS
Resident Here Also Enlists His Cartoons In Effort To Help Win War
Another mighty Army tank for Uncle Sam's farflung fighting forces was made possible when Paul Terry, president of Terrytoons, Inc., who lives at 40 Ocean Avenue, Larchmont, purchased $50,000 worth of War Savings Bonds at the New Rochelle Trust Company.
The purchase, one of the largest made in New Rochelle by any corporation or individual, helped the city War Bond and Stamp sales campaign a step nearer the $633,000 goal for July. It also raised the bond sales of the New Rochelle Trust Company over the 2 1/2 million dollar mark in the drive begun May 1, 1941. The contribution is not the first to be made by Mr. Terry and Terrytoons, Inc. to the war effort.
Daily, some 100 employes of the Terry organizations bend their efforts to promoting Uncle Sam’s cause. With pen, pencil and paint brush, the workers laboriously fashion the humorous and lovable animated cartoon figures which cavort on the screens of theatres throughout the country and in many foreign lands. The animated cartoon "enlisted" some time ago in the war effort.
The business of the cartoon long has been to entertain and provide relaxation, a role that is considered very important in the morale of servicemen and civilians alike. Themes designed to promote or teach war lessons have been adopted for all of the 26 "shorts” turned out yearly at the New Rochelle building.

The artists have completed the latest Terrytoon, “All Out For V” in which the familiar animal characters dig in to help in the war effort. A special showing of this cartoon, emphasizing cooperation and the importance of each individual’s work, has been arranged for a 2 A. M, “break” in the toil of the “swing shift” at an RCA defense manufacturing plant in New Jersey, Later, it will reach the theatre screens, the USO show-houses and reduced to 16 mm. film, it will be shipped to the fighting fronts of Ireland, Australia, Alaska and other points on the globe where soldiers, sailors and marines will see It free with the best wishes of Mr. Terry and his staff.
Mr. Terry, a pioneer in the animated cartoon field, believes his art provides a forceful means of teaching a moral, in that he takes a leaf from the teachings of Aesop, the ancient philosopher and motto-maker. But then, Mr. Terry's screen versions of the Aesop Fables more than a decade ago added to the Greek’s glory. Terrytoons are endeavoring to teach salient facts regarding the importance of salvage campaigns, the USO and soon to go into production is a short on the new WAAC’s.
The message is designed not only for the entertainment and education of adults, but also for youngsters who Mr. Terry considers a special responsibility of cartoonists and animators.
"We command the attention of millions of children," he points out, “and in war time, we owe them a debt. It is our privilege, but a weighty responsibility, to help them formulate their conceptions of what this war effort is all about.
"Through our animated animals and comics characters we try to explain facts to the children and point out ways in which they, too, may serve in these times. We try to build morale, a spirit of cooperation and fire the will to win,” the master cartoonist asserted.
To further those aims, his staff of 100 turns out the voluminous quota of 4,000 to 5,000 drawings a week. Completed pictures requiring 8,000 to 10,000 drawings are finished every two weeks under rigid production schedules.
The plant occupies two floors of the Pershing Square building, and all of the work of the production, with the exception of sound recording, is done on the premises. The recording is done at New York.
Mr. Terry has resided at 40 Ocean Avenue, Larchmont for 18 years.
Back when World War No. 1 was under way but still far and unrelated to American thoughts, Mr. Terry gave up newspaper cartooning which had been his livlihood for more than 10 years to try his hand and fortune at a new trade in which he envisaged great opportunities.
Fired with ambition, he turned out unassisted his first animated cartoon, featuring "Little Herman," a popular comic figure of the day.
To induce motion picture people to accept the film proved a sizable task, but at length, he was successful. The once source of encouragement and acceptance was the Tannehauser Studios, then New Rochelle’s thriving motion picture industry.
"Had I been unable to gain acceptance for that film, I doubt that I would be in business today," Mr. Terry asserted.

But the picture was accepted, and it led to others. The first World War interrupted and he served two years as a lieutenant in the Surgeon General’s office recording a pictorial medical history of the Army physicians accomplishments.
After the war, he returned to animated cartooning, producing on his own or working with the large film companies. During the late 20’s he hit upon the popular idea of producing the Aesop Fables in a series of animated cartoons.
Terrytoons were originated in 1929 and were turned out at New York studios until 1934 when the plant was transferred to New Rochelle. Now, the production of pictures on the exploits of “Gandy Goose” and “Sergeant Cat” who have been making celluloid life miserable for the Japs in the Pacific. Nancy and other characters continue on the two-week schedules.
So far, the organization has escaped the bugaboo of priorities. Over a year ago, it became difficult to obtain the sheets of celluloid upon which the drawings are made. However, the problem was overcome by reclaiming turfed “cells” as the trade terms them.
Another item, obtaining English pen points used extensively in the work, proved more difficult. However, a survey of the points discarded soon revealed that two-thirds of the points were still serviceable when the artists tossed them aside. Now, the nibs are used to the fullest before being replaced.
Like all fields of endeavor, the young men from the staff have been going into Army service. At present, 18 of the Terrytooners are in the Armed Forces, ranging from the Royal Canadian Air Force down. The Signal Corps has drawn eight of the fellows.
Girls are replacing the men as the Army calls more and more artists from their boards. When the company first located in New Rochelle, William Weiss, vice-president, recalled, there was one girl in the organization. Today, the number has risen to 29, and it is going higher.
There is work to be done—teaching and bolstering morale—that is the job the Terrytoons are doing throughout the country and across the seas—all from the studios at North Avenue and Huguenot Street, New Rochelle.