Bowling Alley Mouse

Jerry moves Tom's tail out of the way so he can get a clear run down a lane in Bowling Alley-Cat (1942).



Here's Tom's take-off. Note the slight movement. These are mainly animated on twos. I like the big-eyed in-between.



A sudden stop. A couple of expressions.



There are no animation credits on this short, but I guess Pete Burness, George Gordon and Jack Zander provided animation. See Mark Kausler's comment. He knows the MGM animators better than anyone.

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.