Come Up and See Oopy Some Time

Is there a Columbia cartoon, outside of The Little Match Girl, that isn’t bizarre?

Take for example the 1934 short Scrappy’s Toy Shop. Through the whole cartoon, Scrappy’s little brother is a destructive jerk, finally using a doll’s panties as a slingshot to knock down Scrappy with a cannon ball.

But that’s not the bizarre part.

Scrappy comes to, then Oopy puts on the doll’s hair, sprouts lipstick and eyelashes, sashays over like Mae West and comes on to his own brother. Scrappy smirks and drifts off into dreamland. Is he dreaming of Mae West? He’s a prepubescent child!



If the credits are to be believed, Sid Marcus wrote the story.

Sorry for the fuzzy frames. This is the best the internet has to offer.

Verna Doesn't Fuss With Old Age

Between the time she was Dennis Day’s mother and Fred Flintstone’s mother-in-law, Verna Felton was the comedy highlight of a TV show starring Spring Byington called December Bride. Felton played Byington’s best friend Hilda Crocker, and got some of the best lines. She even got to do physical comedy.

Felton wasn’t exactly an ingénue when the show debuted in 1954. She had been on the stage at the turn of the century and spent a good part of the next three decades in touring companies, especially one based in Western Canada (Felton’s son, Lee Millar, was born in Vancouver).

Here’s an unbylined newspaper feature story from May 9, 1958, one of those “age is just a number” pieces.

Life Begins at 60 Plus For TV's Verna Felton
"Tarnation! What's all this fuss about old age?" asks Verna Felton, who takes the role of Spring Byington's accomplice in TV's "December Bride" series. "Just because the calendar says you've hit the mid-century mark, you don't just stop living.
"It seems to me that getting on in years would be enjoyable. When else in your life can you have such freedom? At 60 plus you can first begin to do what you please. There are no more responsibilities to growing children, home and family."
Reason for Rating
Verna Felton who approaches her seventieth year, has provided some of the most entertaining moments in the "December Bride" series. She is one of the reasons why the comedy series has been so highly rated in the past years.
She credits her spirit of youth to Walt Disney, Spring Byington and the roles she has taken in the entertainment world. "Without all three I might have become a doddering old woman," she says. Her voice, once described as a cross between Tallulah Bankhead, Wallace Beery and Ethel Merman, has been used for many of Mr. Disney's cartoon characters. "It's hard to be "old" when working for Mr. Disney," she says. "And working with Spring Byington—she's younger than me, you know—one has to keep herself going. Can't let a youngster like Spring get ahead of me."
Because she has always been cast as a mother, older woman or grandmother, Miss Felton has learned to keep her youth. "After playing Dennis Day's mother, Bob Hope's mother and Red Skelton's grandmother, anyone would start feeling ancient even when she left the program. I simply reverse attitudes after every role and I've been young ever since," she says.
Off Screen Humor
As humorous off screen, as on, Verna couples her amazing youth with dry wit that keeps the crew and staff in a state of helpless laughter during the long hours of filming the show.
Often, she is the butt of harmless practical jokes which go on continuously, sparked usually by Harry Morgan who plays Pete Porter, the caustic next-door neighbor.
Verna, who has more pep than a sixteen-year-old cheer leader, believes that she was destined for comedy. "With the start I had—she played Little Lord Fauntleroy in her first stage appearance—how could it be anything else?"
Born in Salinas, California on July 20, 1890, the brown eyed silver-haired actress augments her radio and TV careers with occasional motion picture parts. She drew critical praise for her role as the neighbor in "Picnic."
Away from work, she enjoys her swimming pool and loves to spoil her pets. She has three cocker spaniels, a big grey cat named "Veronica" and a talking parakeet which answers to the name of "Mama's Baby Bird." The delights of her life are her grandchildren, the two children of her son Lee Miller and his wife Edith. The amazing quality about Verna Felton is that she never ages. "I do add a few wrinkles, but that's about all. It's a shame that so many women seem to slow down for no reason once they grow old."

This short story from November 16, 1957 illustrates the dangers of live-to-film.

Verna Felton Loses Cue In Coffee
by RON BURTON
HOLLYWOOD (UP)—Shop talk: Verna Felton, a clever actress with a habit of putting cue lines in 1,001 places, received a setback the other day in the course of a CBS-TV show in the "December Bride" series.
The place this time for her cue line to help her remember her lines was in a coffee cup. It was part of the set, and Miss Felton wrote in the memory-jogging line with a crayon. The only trouble was that when the crucial time came, she looked into the cup and saw the line no longer just coffee. She drank the coffee but there was still no cue line.
It seems the prop man had filled the cup, and the hot coffee had melted away her crayoned words.

Tinkering ended Felton’s career as Hilda Crocker. Pete and Gladys was spun off when December Bride went off the air. Felton and Harry Morgan moved over from the old show, but then a “Gladys” had to be added. Cara Williams was hired for the role. She was to be the comedy star of the show; there was no need for Hilda, who was shuffled off after one season because creator Parke Levy didn’t feel there was a logical reason for her to be part of the plot.

“I would rather not go into detail about it,” Felton said about her firing, telling columnist Hal Humphrey in October 1961: “I'm too old to fight. Tell my fans they'll see me soon on a Jack Benny show, and I hope some other shows, too.” Indeed, Jack Benny called her one more time to yell “Aaaaaah Shaaaaadup!” at him like in the olden days on radio. She appeared with Cara Williams (that must have been uncomfortable) on a CBS-TV special starring Henry Fonda and then Joe Barbera came calling to see if she’d yell “Aaaaaah Shaaaaadup!” at Alan Reed as Fred Flintstone.

Felton’s career was fading, though. She died on December 14, 1966, the day before the man who brought the world feature cartoon versions of Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Dumbo, Sleeping Beauty and Lady and the Tramp—all films she appeared in for Walt Disney.

Space Wiener

Daws Butler played a seemingly uncountable number of cartoon characters in his career. He was a star at Hanna-Barbera in its early years. MGM, Warner Bros. and Walter Lantz regularly featured him in their cartoons. He was the voice of all kinds of animated TV commercials, and even wrote some. This doesn’t include children’s records, writing and appearing on Stan Freberg’s radio shows and manipulating and voicing puppets on Time For Beany. But perhaps his most unusual role was that of Cadet Frankie Luer.

Frankie was an animated wiener. Well, barely animated. In the brief clips available of him, only his mouth moves for the most part. And while he’s in a commercial, it doesn’t appear it was a television commercial. It was shown on a makeshift rocket.

If you’re a kid, it sounds like something fun. The Torrence Herald wrote in its issue of January 10, 1957:

Jim Dandy to Offer Trips To Moon at Lomita Store

Local children will be treated to tree trips to the moon tomorrow when Frankie Luer brings his huge space ship to the Jim Dandy Market at 24911 S. Western Ave. Free trips in the rocket ship will be available from 12 noon to 7 p.m.
Built by Luer Packing Co. to entertain their young friends, Frankie Luer's Space Ship is an authentic 60-foot replica of the giant interplanetary ship of the future.
Inside its metal hull, the space ship contains a comfortable 34-seat auditorium where children are seated for their seven-minute trip to the moon. During their trip the young space travelers experience all the thrills of supersonic flight, from the first surge of power as the ship blasts off to the final bump as it lands again.
Technically, the Luer Space Ship is a mechanical and electronic wonder. The full color animated film of the trip is projected onto the front "view plate" by means of a lens device that resembles a periscope. This allows a projection space of a few feet to accomplish the same thing as a huge auditorium projection room, and adds realism to the film.
Vibrators mounted in the tail of the ship give the illusion of flight with both sound and vibration. Other unique devices on the Luer Space Ship record altitude and flight time in a series of lights that can be seen by the passengers.

Charles Pappas’ book Flying Cars, Zombie Dogs & Robot Overlords reports the budding astronauts also received a promotional pamphlet called “Frankie Luer’s Space Adventures” where the space winner joins a boy named Davey Rocket on a trip to Venus, where they meet mushroom people and see moss-covered cities. On the back of the comic was a Flight Certificate which officially certified the bearer travelled aboard the Luer space ship. Mycomicshop.com adds the 5-by-7 full colour comic was 36 pages and included instructions for making a flying saucer sandwich. It was printed by Western Publishing. Comic price: ten cents. The Catalogue of Copyright Entries reveals it was written by the Dan D. Miner Co.

By the way, the Luer Space Ship was rescued from a life-time of increasing rust. Its story is on this web site run by its co-owner. I’ve spotted ads in Los Angeles papers up to 1968 advertising the rocket’s appearance.

Getting back to the cartoon, the always enjoyable Prelinger Archives posted bits and pieces to archive.org. Parts of the first two silent films were used to make the animated plug that apparently appeared at the beginning of the “space trip.” If you want to hear Daws, click on the audio player. You might be able to get it to match up with the first part of the first video and get a better idea of what it looked like to the kids in the rocket ship.







And below is silent footage of the space trip itself. Not very exciting and the animated portions are very limited. I couldn’t tell you who did the animation.

Flying Walrus

Shamus Culhane pulls off some of his wild camera shakes in Chew-Chew Baby, where Woody Woodpecker goes in drag to humiliate Wally Walrus.

After losing his disguise, Woody sticks a barbecue fork into a love seat (note the heart) as Wally drops from the ceiling.



Up he crashes through the ceiling after some perspective animation. Culhane’s cameraman shakes things up.



Wally falls to the floor, stopping momentarily in mid-air at a stop light Woody has conveniently whipped out of nowhere. There’s another violent camera shake. The camera is out of focus for two frames. Animator Bob Jaques tells me that was not deliberate; the camera operator didn’t focus when he changed fields.



Grim Natwick and Paul Smith are the credited animators. I imagine Don Williams is here, too. Layouts are by Art Heinemann, backgrounds by Phil DeGuard and voices by Bugs Hardaway and Jack Mather.

Three Pigs Are Three-er Than One

If it’s funny once, three times will be three times as funny.

Well, no, 1930s cartoon writers, it doesn’t work that way. Especially if it’s not funny once.

Alpine Antics, a 1935 cartoon directed by Jack King at Warners, is a good example. The plot of this one is a downhill race for cash that Beans pledges to win (the word “Beans” already tells you this is not a funny cartoon). One of the contestants is likely the early version of Porky Pig riding a hobby horse.



The bad guy cat, played by the great Billy Bletcher, decides to stop his downhill challengers by blocking the route.



We don’t actually see it happen, but the line trips up Porky and the hobby horse. They crash-land into the snow and wiggle their butts with a jingle bell sound effect on the track.



“Hey, Treg!” possibly said Jack King or someone else even less inspired, “If it’s funny when a pig does it once, it’ll be three times as funny if three pigs do it.” So that’s what we get, three pigs in a snow bank, wiggling their tails with Treg Brown playing a jingling sound effect.



Jack Carr is a credited animator on this short. He used to contribute gags to cartoons around this time. Either he was silent or uninspired when Tom Armstrong’s story department came up with this one.



Whew! A relief to theatre goers.

Car (Stop) of Tomorrow

“This car is equipped with the latest sure-stop, toe-touch hydraulic brakes,” says narrator Gil Warren in Car of Tomorrow. “Just barely touch these brakes....”



Director Tex Avery cuts back to the car. The camera shakes, there’s a skid sound and part of the car slides out of the frame. The camera then pans over. “...You stop,” concludes Warren. On to the next gag.



There’s no animation at all in the punch line scene; it’s all camera movement over one drawing.

Avery and writers Rich Hogan and Roy Williams seem to cram in every possible gag about early ‘50s cars and throw in stereotypes about women drivers, mothers-in-law, Indians, Scotsmen, Chinese and the Los Angeles weather for good measure.

A Bird in the Bush

How strong were the gags in a Mickey Mouse cartoon?

The earliest Mickeys, I like. Once the ‘30s started rolling along, things get really lame.

Take Mickey Cuts Up (1931), for example. A good portion of the cartoon is taken up by Mickey and Minnie whistling, part of the time while Mickey pretends to be a bird. That’s it.

The cartoon gets its title from the scene where Mickey (with huge pupils) is skipping along with gardening shears, what I think is a pair of rose clippers and some kind of hand rake/comb.



He sticks the end of the rose clippers in a bush to form a nose, grabs a couple of daises or something or other as makeshift eyes, clips a mouth and then pretends to be a barber. You can follow along with the frames.



Now the gag. Are you ready? A bird comes out of the bush and spoils Mickey’s work. Not even Minnie laughs at this one.



This is yet another cartoon where the climax involves Pluto creating complete mayhem by chasing something (a cat this time). If it’s all the same to you, I’ll take Galloping Gaucho, thanks.

The Squares' Master

Something didn’t seem right.

It was 1986. La Cage aux Folles was in performance at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver and the ads proclaimed the star of the show was Peter Marshall.

Peter Marshall? The Hollywood Squares Peter Marshall? What was he doing singing and dancing?

I suspect the first exposure many people had to Mr. Marshall’s talents was as the emcee of a game show and didn’t realise he had a whole career before that, including being part of a stand-up comedy team. The latter would come in handy on Hollywood Squares as he set-up gag answers from celebrities (in some cases via staff writers).

The show first aired on October 17, 1966 replacing a forgotten half-hour starring Joe Pyne called Showdown which had been on the air a whopping 3½ months. The Associated Press review the next day wasn’t all that favourable (read it to the right) but audiences liked the mix of the show and it’s been off and on the air a number of times over the decades.

Let’s pass along a couple of profiles of Mr. Marshall. The first appeared in papers around April 29, 1967, the second in Harvey Pack’s “TV Key” column of July 3, 1969. Casual viewers of the show may not have realised Paul Lynde was not a regular member of the cast at the beginning. “Mumbles” Dalton and Morey Amsterdam fell out as the series carried on, while Cliff Arquette died while still playing Charley Weaver.

Personality, Wit Mark Emcee
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD — At first glance NBC's Monday through Friday mid-morning celebrity game show, Hollywood Squares, looks like a retirement home for out of work TV series stars.
The permanent panelists are Morey Amsterdam, Wally Cox, Rose Marie, Abby Dalton and Cliff Arquette.
But look closer and you'll see the Who's Who of Hollywood guest-starring at one time or another to play the game — a TV adaptation of the familiar Tic Tac Toe — emceed by Peter Marshall. Four stars, In fact, appear in week-long guest stints along with the regular panelists.

One guest star has been known to upset many a TV show, but when they add up to NINE, well —
"Well, it may sound fantastic, but I've had trouble with only one guest since we started the show last October," says Marshall, who started big time show business life as Tommy Noonan's partner in a nightclub and TV variety show comedy-singing act. Marshall was the straight man who also sang.
The guest star with whom Marshall clashed on the show was a woman, and, he says, "she was unbelievable. She never stopped talking and she even tried to rewrite the questions I ask on which the whole game is based."
By contrast, Zsa Zsa Gabor is a dream, he reported. “She's been on the show 10 times and has never interrupted anyone.”
The need for a personality who could banter ad libs with the likes of Amsterdam & Friends was the reason Marshall landed the job after co-starring for a year on Broadway with Julie Harris In the hit musical "Skyscraper."
"I guess they figured I had been through the mill with Noonan because I knew nothing about the workings of a TV game show and I still don't know."
What Marshall does know is that Hollywood Squares is climbing in the popularity ratings and that he has never before enjoyed such personal recognition.
"For 15 years I've lived next door to the same neighbors who I guess never knew exactly what I did because now all of a sudden I'm a celebrity to them."
About Amsterdam, he has great praise. "He never knows what category the questions will be in, but if it's diamonds, for example, he has three jokes about diamonds even before I get to the questions."
About ex-partner Tommy Noonan, Marshall tells you:
"We're great friends. He's delightfully crazy. I appreciate his insanity — now."

Peter Marshall's Diverse Background Helps Him Emcee ‘Hollywood Squares’
By HARVEY PACK
NEW YORK—Peter Marshall, the hip guy who rides herd over the “Hollywood Squares,” NBC's popular daytime game show, was in New York recently to plug his new record album "For the Love of Pete." By his own admission Pete would go anywhere to put in a pitch for his singing career because as happy as he is picking up a weekly paycheck on "Hollywood Squares" he's put in too many years in this business to relegate himself voluntarily into the category of quiz show emcee.
"When I was first approached for the job on 'Squares' a lot of my friends advised against it claiming it would be the end of me as an actor But I kind of liked the format and since I do have a wife and four children I thought I'd give it a go."
Pete was picked because of his background as an actor and the experience has paid off for the show. Marshall's theatrical background goes back almost 20 years and includes such diverse activities as page boy at NBC, co-starring in a Broadway musical with Julie Harris and being part of a successful comedy team, Noonan and Marshall. "Now I'm asked to play straight man to nine performers five times a week and that not only calls for a lot of timing but even requires continuous change of pace. For example you can't throw a straight line to Wally Cox the same way you feed one to a comic like Jan Murray.

When “Hollywood Squares” first premiered all the guest stars had a ball and everybody around the production thought it was going over great. Everybody that is except host Peter Marshall who took time off from the golf course to watch the show on TV. "I noticed it had no pace." explained Pete, "and I blamed the whole* thing on me.
“I was giving the stars a chance to go off on tangents as they tried to be funny and often succeeded. But by not sticking to the basic game we were letting the thing get away from us and while we were enjoying it—it meant very little to viewers.”
Marshall spoke up and the producers listened. The game became the thing, stars were told to shorten up their anecdotes and gags and emcee Marshall kept the game going. The amount of questions asked doubled and the rating went up. The idea of selecting an emcee with theatrical experience paid off and "Hollywood Squares" became an NBC daytime staple.
"No matter who the guest is I don't let him run off with one of his answers," says Pete. "Except for Wally Cox. Wally must set his own pace and it generally works out funny."
Delighted with the security he has achieved with "Squares," Marshall has obviously not given up on other aspects of his career. In addition to the new record album, Peter is still shopping around for Broadway roles, will spend his summer vacation appearing in a play in Chicago and has written four screen plays.