Brunish died on June 25, 1952, nine days after this cartoon was released.
Monday, 13 July 2020
Lantz Links
A panorama shot of a golf course by Fred Brunish opens the 1952 cartoon Woodpecker in the Rough.
Brunish died on June 25, 1952, nine days after this cartoon was released.
Brunish died on June 25, 1952, nine days after this cartoon was released.
Sunday, 12 July 2020
The Smell of Entertainment
How loud is a smell?
That question—a quite logical one, in my mind—was once raised by Jack Benny. Whether he got an answer, we may never know.
The response is not revealed in Charlie Einstein’s “Top of the Town” column in the San Francisco Examiner of August 28, 1960. But he does reveal some of the goings-on at a Benny stage show rehearsal and why Jack continued to work and work until his death in late 1974.
The column is interesting, but not as much as Einstein himself. Wallace Stroby wrote this wonderful remembrance in this blog post. Charlie’s father was radio’s Parkyakarkas, Harry Einstein. Read the blog for more.
Jack Benny's Three-Fold Reason for Hard Work
The Comedian Rehearses for A Cabaret Act
“WHY,” SAID somebody with awe in his voice, “does a man with so much money want to work so hard?”
He was talking about Jack Benny, who was knocking himself out in a marathon rehearsal for his new stage show at Harrah's South Shore Room at Lake Tahoe.
The question was relayed to Mr. Benny.
He seemed puzzled.
“Why work so hard?” he said, and reflected for a time. “Well, maybe there are three reasons. One is that I don't know any other way to work. One is that people are paying money that they worked hard for to watch my show. And one is there's a face I have to look at in the mirror the next morning.”
Those three reasons in combination are good enough. Matter of fact, any one of those three reasons would be good enough.
The man in charge of the rehearsals that makes the Benny show as top-flight as any in the business is a gentleman named Jack Benny. He has forgotten considerably more about his job than any two of his high-priced floor men ever knew.
Sample: there is a gag interlude in his supper club show where two elderly ladies, arguing with the head waiter every step of the way, forge from the back of the room to a table directly beneath the stage, demanding to be seated close to their idol all this while Benny is playing his violin, serenely unaware of the commotion.
“Jack,” one of the floor men said at rehearsal, “at what point on their way down the aisle do you want the spotlight to pick them up?”
“At no point,” Benny said. “It's an audience gag. People are supposed to think it's real. If it's the genuine thing, who’s going to be ready with a spotlight?”
At another point in the show, Benny is supposed to think aloud. He does this through the medium of a recording of his voice, which is played as he saws at his fiddle.
The first time they tried it in rehearsal, Benny thought the record should be played a trifle louder.
“Just a smell louder,” one of the floor men agreed.
“Wait a minute,” Benny said. “A smell louder? What precisely, if I may ask, is a smell louder? What is the sound of a smell?”
He delivered these lines exactly the way you might imagine a Jack Benny delivering those lines. This is not his secret, but it is one of the things that makes up his secret. Jack Benny is Jack Benny, offstage as well as on. And when a few hardened professionals, and a vaguely dressed orchestra, sitting in on a tech rehearsal in the nakedness of a swank supper club at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, find themselves laughing at the same things the audience will laugh at in the tinseled surroundings that night—and laughing just as hard—then the fellow in charge has got to be pretty good.
He is pretty good. He and his wife came to Tahoe accompanied by their lifelong friends, George Burns and Gracie Allen.
“Where's Burns?” Benny said, looking around the empty room during rehearsal.
“He said you'd kill him if he showed up,” a friend answered. It's true. Burns looks at Benny and Benny collapses.
“He's probably at the blackjack table,” Benny said. “He'll win $40 and give it to Gracie.”
Burns was located at the swimming pool.
“What've you been doing?” he was asked.
“Not much of anything,” he replied. “Taking it easy, getting a little sun.”
“Play any blackjack?”
“Just a little.” “Do any good?”
Burns took the cigar out of his mouth. “Won $42.”
“What'd you do with it?”
The cigar went back in the mouth. “I gave it to Gracie.”
That question—a quite logical one, in my mind—was once raised by Jack Benny. Whether he got an answer, we may never know.
The response is not revealed in Charlie Einstein’s “Top of the Town” column in the San Francisco Examiner of August 28, 1960. But he does reveal some of the goings-on at a Benny stage show rehearsal and why Jack continued to work and work until his death in late 1974.
The column is interesting, but not as much as Einstein himself. Wallace Stroby wrote this wonderful remembrance in this blog post. Charlie’s father was radio’s Parkyakarkas, Harry Einstein. Read the blog for more.
Jack Benny's Three-Fold Reason for Hard Work
The Comedian Rehearses for A Cabaret Act
“WHY,” SAID somebody with awe in his voice, “does a man with so much money want to work so hard?”
He was talking about Jack Benny, who was knocking himself out in a marathon rehearsal for his new stage show at Harrah's South Shore Room at Lake Tahoe.
The question was relayed to Mr. Benny.
He seemed puzzled.
“Why work so hard?” he said, and reflected for a time. “Well, maybe there are three reasons. One is that I don't know any other way to work. One is that people are paying money that they worked hard for to watch my show. And one is there's a face I have to look at in the mirror the next morning.”
Those three reasons in combination are good enough. Matter of fact, any one of those three reasons would be good enough.
The man in charge of the rehearsals that makes the Benny show as top-flight as any in the business is a gentleman named Jack Benny. He has forgotten considerably more about his job than any two of his high-priced floor men ever knew.
“Jack,” one of the floor men said at rehearsal, “at what point on their way down the aisle do you want the spotlight to pick them up?”
“At no point,” Benny said. “It's an audience gag. People are supposed to think it's real. If it's the genuine thing, who’s going to be ready with a spotlight?”
At another point in the show, Benny is supposed to think aloud. He does this through the medium of a recording of his voice, which is played as he saws at his fiddle.
The first time they tried it in rehearsal, Benny thought the record should be played a trifle louder.
“Just a smell louder,” one of the floor men agreed.
“Wait a minute,” Benny said. “A smell louder? What precisely, if I may ask, is a smell louder? What is the sound of a smell?”
He delivered these lines exactly the way you might imagine a Jack Benny delivering those lines. This is not his secret, but it is one of the things that makes up his secret. Jack Benny is Jack Benny, offstage as well as on. And when a few hardened professionals, and a vaguely dressed orchestra, sitting in on a tech rehearsal in the nakedness of a swank supper club at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, find themselves laughing at the same things the audience will laugh at in the tinseled surroundings that night—and laughing just as hard—then the fellow in charge has got to be pretty good.
He is pretty good. He and his wife came to Tahoe accompanied by their lifelong friends, George Burns and Gracie Allen.
“Where's Burns?” Benny said, looking around the empty room during rehearsal.
“He said you'd kill him if he showed up,” a friend answered. It's true. Burns looks at Benny and Benny collapses.
“He's probably at the blackjack table,” Benny said. “He'll win $40 and give it to Gracie.”
Burns was located at the swimming pool.
“What've you been doing?” he was asked.
“Not much of anything,” he replied. “Taking it easy, getting a little sun.”
“Play any blackjack?”
“Just a little.” “Do any good?”
Burns took the cigar out of his mouth. “Won $42.”
“What'd you do with it?”
The cigar went back in the mouth. “I gave it to Gracie.”
Saturday, 11 July 2020
Sound Cartoons the Van Beuren Way
The Van Beuren studio was simply the Fables studio with a new name for a new decade. It had been making silent cartoons through the 1920s under the direction of Paul Terry. But at the end of the decade moneyman Amadee Van Beuren had a falling out with Terry and fired him. Terry and Frank Moser started their own studio while Van Beuren put John Foster in charge and went into the sound cartoon business. (Van Beuren also made other kinds of sound shorts for release by RKO).
With sound, drastic changes were needed and instantly. Cartoons now had to be timed to the beat of the music. Vocal and sound effects had to be coordinated with the picture. That didn’t seem to be too much of a problem. But stories needed to more structured than in the silent days and Van Beuren’s staff appeared quite happy with just tossing around odd gags until they ran out of ideas and put a cap on the ending.
I think Amadee Van Beuren really was interested in making good cartoons instead of just churning anything out to meet a release schedule. If he wasn’t, there’s no way he would have signed Amos ‘n’ Andy to a contract to turn them into animated characters. The pair were at the height of their popularity and didn’t come cheap. Van Beuren bought the rights to The Little King. He also used popular songs when Gene Rodemich was his musical director; while some studios got them gratis due to tie-ins with their distributors, Van Beuren had to pay. And as his cartoons looked shabbier and shabbier compared to the ‘A’ list studios, he opened his chequebook and hired Burt Gillett from Disney at the height of Gillett’s career.
By the time Amadee Van Beuren spent more money on the rights to Felix the Cat and the Toonerville Trolley characters, it was almost all over. Both could have made strong series, especially with young animators and writers like Joe Barbera, Dan Gordon, Bill Littlejohn and Jack Zander on board, but RKO had enough and essentially closed the studio by signing a contract with Walt Disney in 1936.
Let’s stroll back a bit to 1930. Sound cartoons were about a year old and aroused curiosity from theatre-goers. This unbylined story was syndicated to newspapers and this version comes from February 13, 1930. Frame grabs are from The Haunted Ship, a 1930 Fable that’s one of my favourites.
How Aesop's Sound Fables Are Made
Caught up in the resistless wave of sound motion pictures, animated cartoons which once passed silently on the silver screen have had their production methods readjusted to bring them in line with the needs of the day. Their producers have been taxed to the limit in work, gags, ideas and new effects.
As in the silent cartoons, between six and seven thousand separate drawings are necessary to complete a reel. In the making of Aesop's Sound Fables it was found necessary to augment the staff of animators, tracers and gag-men, and to add to the staff an expert on synchronization, a musical director, an orchestra of twenty-four pieces and seven well trained "effects" men.
The making of a silent animated cartoon was difficult and arduous, but child's play as compared with the making of a cartoon in sound. Technical difficulties are such that the time necessary in production is greater, the cost almost tripled, and despite the enlarged staffs two shifts of animators and tracers are necessary to turn out the laughter-makers on schedule time.
With drawings, photography and orchestrations completed, the film of the Fable is shown upon the screen of the recording studios before the orchestra and "effects" men. The latter have upon a table before them hundreds of devices designed to imitate the animals in the cartoon. In front of them are four microphones. Another "mike" is used by the actor or actors whose voices will be heard on the film Usually at least ten rehearsals are necessary before sound and effects are recorded. The quacks, barks, growls and cackles must be made in perfect synchronization with the cartoon as it is passed on the screen. Often long experimentation is necessary before the best results are arrived at. Animal effects are simple, but the rushing of water, patter of feet, firing of a gun and the like offer many problems. In the "monitor" room sit two experts who report on the quality of the effects as heard by them through the connection of room with microphones.
Friday, 10 July 2020
How Now Singing Cow
Ub Iwerks’ Jack and the Beanstalk hewed to the Disney formula of songs and animals (birdies fly around in the opening scene with trees on overlays in the foreground).
The studio’s writing staff tried to get some humour into the opening song after Jack’s mother cries. The lyrics are a little mild, but it is a Disney imitation, after all.
Mother: We haven’t any food and we haven’t got a cent
Jack: It’s weeks and weeks since we paid the rent.
Pan to a shot of a picture on the wall of eaten food. Pan to a cat.
Cat: Meow! I’m hungry! I’d like a little fish.
Cut to the fish. He’s not skin and bones. He’s just bones.
Fish: Now look at me. I’m not your dish.
Cut to a cow. The designer’s done their best by coming up with bent blue horns and having a spider live underneath it. It has the Iwerks tear-drop eyes (Flip was drawn the same way sometimes).
Cow: I must have some hay but I ate it all up.
Cut to the spider. I can’t really tell what he’s singing but it ends “since I was a pup.”
Jack and his mom agree to sell the cow. The characters are happy.
I like the dancing beans and the singing purse and some of the designs (like the mysterious blue guy who sells Jack the beans). Carl Stalling (uncredited) has the beanstalk growing in time to the beat of the music in places. And there’s some imaginative (for 1933) dissolving where drawings remain in place while the backgrounds and characters fade out and in.
This was the first of the ComiColor cartoons produced by Iwerks. Unfortunately, they were released on a states-rights basis and not a major studio which could have pumped in the capital needed to make colour shorts during the Depression. The series finally petered out in 1936 and the cartoons found their way into the home film market.
The studio’s writing staff tried to get some humour into the opening song after Jack’s mother cries. The lyrics are a little mild, but it is a Disney imitation, after all.
Mother: We haven’t any food and we haven’t got a cent
Jack: It’s weeks and weeks since we paid the rent.
Pan to a shot of a picture on the wall of eaten food. Pan to a cat.
Cat: Meow! I’m hungry! I’d like a little fish.
Cut to the fish. He’s not skin and bones. He’s just bones.
Fish: Now look at me. I’m not your dish.
Cut to a cow. The designer’s done their best by coming up with bent blue horns and having a spider live underneath it. It has the Iwerks tear-drop eyes (Flip was drawn the same way sometimes).
Cow: I must have some hay but I ate it all up.
Cut to the spider. I can’t really tell what he’s singing but it ends “since I was a pup.”
Jack and his mom agree to sell the cow. The characters are happy.
I like the dancing beans and the singing purse and some of the designs (like the mysterious blue guy who sells Jack the beans). Carl Stalling (uncredited) has the beanstalk growing in time to the beat of the music in places. And there’s some imaginative (for 1933) dissolving where drawings remain in place while the backgrounds and characters fade out and in.
This was the first of the ComiColor cartoons produced by Iwerks. Unfortunately, they were released on a states-rights basis and not a major studio which could have pumped in the capital needed to make colour shorts during the Depression. The series finally petered out in 1936 and the cartoons found their way into the home film market.
Thursday, 9 July 2020
Look For the Union Label
An inside joke opens What’s Buzzin’ Buzzard, a 1943 Tex Avery cartoon.
Local 852 was the local of the Screen Cartoonists Guild in Hollywood. The background artist of this cartoon, Johnny Johnsen, was a local member.
Local 852 was the local of the Screen Cartoonists Guild in Hollywood. The background artist of this cartoon, Johnny Johnsen, was a local member.
Wednesday, 8 July 2020
Waah! I'm Offended!
These days almost every comedy routine you do will offend somebody or other.
Oh, this is not something I just thought of. This is a quote from 1957 by no less a comedic authority than Steve Allen.
Yes, the thin-skinned have always been with us, screwing up their faces in reddened outrage. Maybe the type of situation that bothers them has changed, or the morality behind their indignation, but they’ve always been there to try to quash thoughts and words. And I doubt that will ever change.
Here’s Allen’s editorial from August 16, 1957. He was filling in for Herald Tribune News Service columnist John Crosby that day.
Everybody’s An Expert
The letter was typed on official-looking stationery, the usual column of names that nobody ever reads, running down the left side of the sheet. “You must realize,” the writer lectured, “that not all motorcyclists are delinquents.”
I realized it.
What had occasioned the protest was a comedy sketch in which I had worn leather jacket and motor cycle boots as a member of a new vocal quartet, “The Four Punks.” I knew the letter was coming before the skit was ever aired, because these days almost every comedy routine you do will offend somebody or other.
Perhaps a few words about the philosophy of humor might be in order, therefore, if only to lighten the burden currently placed on the secretaries of television comedians. You see, friends out there in televisionland, comedy is about tragedy. By that I mean that most of the things we laugh at are disasters of one degree or another, either actual or make-believe. What are jokes about? They're about fat people, skinny people, dumbbells, small hotel rooms, drunks, sexual problems, high prices, war, marital tensions, laziness and well, as Christian tradition lists them: pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth.
PERFECTION UNFUNNY
In other words, there's nothing amusing about perfection. Things are funny in some sort of loose relation to how far they fall short of perfection. There may not be laughter in hell, but there couldn’t possibly be any in heaven.
Almost every comedy sketch, therefore, either makes father look like a goof, portrays a fighter as punchy, makes an old-maid seem man-crazy, a motorcycle cop gruff and rude, a drunk an object of laughter or some other character selected from real life appear ridiculous. You are perfectly at liberty to protest about all this and to say there's nothing amusing about any of it, but it should be explained that the only way you could be completely satisfied is for the networks to fire all the comedians, which, now that I think of it, isn't exactly in the realm of science-fiction.
It will be more productive, of course, to live with the reality of the problem, to appreciate that humor is a gift of the gods that enables us to multiply magically our sometimes meager fund of material joy.
So, bus drivers, don’t waste time writing to Jackie Gleason. School teachers, don’t bother to complain about Our Miss Brooks. Firemen, don't—especially this late in the century—start complaining about Smith and Dale's fire house sketch. Presley fans, Bob Hope doesn’t see your angry post-cards; Liberace-lovers, George Gobel has a staff of secretaries who handle your protests and who know that Liberace himself loves to hear co medians do jokes about him.
MAJORITY AMUSED
Me, I’m fascinated by people and I like to hear them ticking, so I’ve given the matter a bit of study.
I've learned that when a TV comic jokes about cowboys, Indians, undertakers, hillbillies, the Brooklyn Dodgers, Lawrence Welk or what-have-you, he's usually amusing 20 or 30 million people, but making a handful of other people quite angry. And do you know what these angry folks always do when they write to Jack Benny or Red Skelton? They always start off by telling him that the offending joke or sketch wasn't funny. The guy's writers get maybe fifteen hundred dollars a week and they've been studying humor for perhaps 20 years, but there's some druggist out in Keokuk who can confidently assure them that a particular routine wasn't funny.
There's a profound lesson to be learned here, I think. You and I can smugly assume that we're superior to our theoretical pharmacist, but the point is, we are the druggist in Keokuk. We all think we're experts on humor. We don't claim to know a thing about architecture or deep-sea diving or playing the zither, but we all pose as authorities when it comes to the artistry of Sid Caesar.
This is not to say, of course, that all TV and radio sketches are hilariously funny. Once in a while a routine doesn’t succeed, but the first people to know it are the performers and the writers, just as the people who understand when a new air plane is a failure are the pilot and the draftsmen.
We all must learn, I think, never to say "Wally Cox isn't funny." Those few of us who are not amused by Wally must say "He is not funny to me." And once we’ve learned about the subjectivity and objectivity of comedy we just might be able to apply our lesson to the fields of politics, morals, religion, philosophy and the dear, delicate business of living with each other.
Oh, this is not something I just thought of. This is a quote from 1957 by no less a comedic authority than Steve Allen.
Here’s Allen’s editorial from August 16, 1957. He was filling in for Herald Tribune News Service columnist John Crosby that day.
Everybody’s An Expert
The letter was typed on official-looking stationery, the usual column of names that nobody ever reads, running down the left side of the sheet. “You must realize,” the writer lectured, “that not all motorcyclists are delinquents.”
I realized it.
What had occasioned the protest was a comedy sketch in which I had worn leather jacket and motor cycle boots as a member of a new vocal quartet, “The Four Punks.” I knew the letter was coming before the skit was ever aired, because these days almost every comedy routine you do will offend somebody or other.
Perhaps a few words about the philosophy of humor might be in order, therefore, if only to lighten the burden currently placed on the secretaries of television comedians. You see, friends out there in televisionland, comedy is about tragedy. By that I mean that most of the things we laugh at are disasters of one degree or another, either actual or make-believe. What are jokes about? They're about fat people, skinny people, dumbbells, small hotel rooms, drunks, sexual problems, high prices, war, marital tensions, laziness and well, as Christian tradition lists them: pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth.
PERFECTION UNFUNNY
In other words, there's nothing amusing about perfection. Things are funny in some sort of loose relation to how far they fall short of perfection. There may not be laughter in hell, but there couldn’t possibly be any in heaven.
Almost every comedy sketch, therefore, either makes father look like a goof, portrays a fighter as punchy, makes an old-maid seem man-crazy, a motorcycle cop gruff and rude, a drunk an object of laughter or some other character selected from real life appear ridiculous. You are perfectly at liberty to protest about all this and to say there's nothing amusing about any of it, but it should be explained that the only way you could be completely satisfied is for the networks to fire all the comedians, which, now that I think of it, isn't exactly in the realm of science-fiction.
It will be more productive, of course, to live with the reality of the problem, to appreciate that humor is a gift of the gods that enables us to multiply magically our sometimes meager fund of material joy.
So, bus drivers, don’t waste time writing to Jackie Gleason. School teachers, don’t bother to complain about Our Miss Brooks. Firemen, don't—especially this late in the century—start complaining about Smith and Dale's fire house sketch. Presley fans, Bob Hope doesn’t see your angry post-cards; Liberace-lovers, George Gobel has a staff of secretaries who handle your protests and who know that Liberace himself loves to hear co medians do jokes about him.
MAJORITY AMUSED
I've learned that when a TV comic jokes about cowboys, Indians, undertakers, hillbillies, the Brooklyn Dodgers, Lawrence Welk or what-have-you, he's usually amusing 20 or 30 million people, but making a handful of other people quite angry. And do you know what these angry folks always do when they write to Jack Benny or Red Skelton? They always start off by telling him that the offending joke or sketch wasn't funny. The guy's writers get maybe fifteen hundred dollars a week and they've been studying humor for perhaps 20 years, but there's some druggist out in Keokuk who can confidently assure them that a particular routine wasn't funny.
There's a profound lesson to be learned here, I think. You and I can smugly assume that we're superior to our theoretical pharmacist, but the point is, we are the druggist in Keokuk. We all think we're experts on humor. We don't claim to know a thing about architecture or deep-sea diving or playing the zither, but we all pose as authorities when it comes to the artistry of Sid Caesar.
This is not to say, of course, that all TV and radio sketches are hilariously funny. Once in a while a routine doesn’t succeed, but the first people to know it are the performers and the writers, just as the people who understand when a new air plane is a failure are the pilot and the draftsmen.
We all must learn, I think, never to say "Wally Cox isn't funny." Those few of us who are not amused by Wally must say "He is not funny to me." And once we’ve learned about the subjectivity and objectivity of comedy we just might be able to apply our lesson to the fields of politics, morals, religion, philosophy and the dear, delicate business of living with each other.
Tuesday, 7 July 2020
Mystery Mouse
A mysterious little girl mouse flashes on the screen for one frame in Robinson Crusoe Jr., a less-than-inspiring effort by director Norm McCabe.
Who is it? We soon see. It’s “Snooks.” Writer Mel Millar tosses in a bunch of gratuitous network radio references.
This scene has Daddy (Mel Blanc) telling “Snooks” (Sara Berner) they must get off the ship. “Why, daddy?” asks Snooks, exactly in the manner of Baby Snooks on Fanny Brice’s popular NBC show. The answer is a parody of a line from the movie You Can’t Take It With You : “Well, confidentially, it sinks.”
The radio references aren’t over. When the ship shoves off, Porky emulates Kate Smith by waving “So long, everybody.” Friday has Rochester’s voice, while a parrot is waiting for the $64 question like the contestants on Take It Or Leave It. Incidentally, if you want to learn more about old radio references, E.O. Costello’s “Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion” is still on line. It’s been around since the days of Lynx and other DOS-based web browsers. Confidentially, it doesn’t...well, you know.
Vive Risto is credited on screen with animation; John Carey and Izzy Ellis are here, too. The backgrounds are by Dick Thomas; they have the same scratchy grass that he painted at Hanna-Barbera years later.
Who is it? We soon see. It’s “Snooks.” Writer Mel Millar tosses in a bunch of gratuitous network radio references.
This scene has Daddy (Mel Blanc) telling “Snooks” (Sara Berner) they must get off the ship. “Why, daddy?” asks Snooks, exactly in the manner of Baby Snooks on Fanny Brice’s popular NBC show. The answer is a parody of a line from the movie You Can’t Take It With You : “Well, confidentially, it sinks.”
The radio references aren’t over. When the ship shoves off, Porky emulates Kate Smith by waving “So long, everybody.” Friday has Rochester’s voice, while a parrot is waiting for the $64 question like the contestants on Take It Or Leave It. Incidentally, if you want to learn more about old radio references, E.O. Costello’s “Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion” is still on line. It’s been around since the days of Lynx and other DOS-based web browsers. Confidentially, it doesn’t...well, you know.
Vive Risto is credited on screen with animation; John Carey and Izzy Ellis are here, too. The backgrounds are by Dick Thomas; they have the same scratchy grass that he painted at Hanna-Barbera years later.
Monday, 6 July 2020
TV Terry Bear
Time for our Terry Checklist:
A fun Carlo Vinci walk cycle? Check.
Cymbal clash after a character crash-lands? Check.
Drum thump sound after a character falls? Check.
Terry Brake Squeal™? Not this time.
Terry Splash™? Check.
Phil Scheib running music with saxophones and strings? Check.
Oh, and we can’t leave out...
Crazy Jim Tyer straight-ahead animation? Double check.
This could describe dozens of Terrytoons but the one on the list today is Papa’s Little Helpers (1951). Papa hooks up a wire to a TV antenna but those scampish Terry Bears have plugged the other end into an electrical socket. What wags! You know the end result is tailor-made for Tyer’s type of animation.
Doug Moye is Pa Terry Bear. I wish he would have been given more grumbling dialogue. Is Dayton Allen doing the other voices?
There’s an enjoyable inside joke in the last background painting. The Bear family gives up on TV, and with great satisfaction lope to a theatre where Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle cartoons are playing. No doubt 20th Century Fox patted Terry on the back for that ending.
A fun Carlo Vinci walk cycle? Check.
Cymbal clash after a character crash-lands? Check.
Drum thump sound after a character falls? Check.
Terry Brake Squeal™? Not this time.
Terry Splash™? Check.
Phil Scheib running music with saxophones and strings? Check.
Oh, and we can’t leave out...
Crazy Jim Tyer straight-ahead animation? Double check.
This could describe dozens of Terrytoons but the one on the list today is Papa’s Little Helpers (1951). Papa hooks up a wire to a TV antenna but those scampish Terry Bears have plugged the other end into an electrical socket. What wags! You know the end result is tailor-made for Tyer’s type of animation.
Doug Moye is Pa Terry Bear. I wish he would have been given more grumbling dialogue. Is Dayton Allen doing the other voices?
There’s an enjoyable inside joke in the last background painting. The Bear family gives up on TV, and with great satisfaction lope to a theatre where Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle cartoons are playing. No doubt 20th Century Fox patted Terry on the back for that ending.
Sunday, 5 July 2020
He Saw the Other Notre Dame
What better way to get free publicity for your season-opening show than a newspaper article?
Jack Benny returned to the airwaves after the summer break in 1937 on October 3rd, the same day this little story appeared in the Pittsburgh Press. It’s supposedly written by Mary Livingstone, but as it’s in character, my guess is someone in the NBC publicity was responsible for it (note the mention of the Red Network).
Jack and the gang did kibbitz about their vacations. It’s not the strongest show. No wonder Jack wanted to try something different with the “Blue Fairy” debut show several seasons later.
By the way, if you’d like to read about the season, check out Bill Cairns’ site. Unfortunately, there aren’t reviews for all the shows, including this one, as they weren’t available on-line when the site was put up.
Mary Pokes Fun at Jack
Looked for Irish Stadium in Good Old Paree
By MARY LIVINGSTONE
That old wheeze about travel broadening one certainly holds true in the case of my husband, Jack Benny. His tailor is working day and night now letting out all of his suits.
But we really had a marvelous vacation in Europe, in spite of the fact that I never could succeed in dragging Jack past those Parisian sidewalk cafes. He said they reminded him so much of New York.
We didn't arrive in London in time for the coronation and I really was quite disappointed. That is, I was until we saw a newsreel of the affair the third time Jack took me to see his picture, "Artists and Models." Maybe we didn't miss so much, after all.
I was really proud of Jack when he took me to see Notre Dame in Paris. But my illusions were shattered when he asked the guide where the stadium was.
In Rome we went to see Nero's shrine. As we stood before the tomb of the emperor, Jack couldn't resist a quip. Although he tried to look serious, he remarked: "Poor Nero! I wonder if he could have played The Bee as well as I can?"
Coming home on the boat, a steward asked Jack if he wanted to take a chance on the ship's pool. "Sure," Jack replied, "but how can I get the darn thing home if I win it?"
But, why go on? Just tune in over the NBC "red" network Sunday nights and you'll hear all about the trip. That is, starting tonight. I haven't the slightest doubt that Jack will find a way to work most of the gags into the script. He better get them in quick, because I'm working on a new Labor Day poem for Christmas. After all, I wasn't on the air Labor Day, but I will be on Christmas, if our sponsor doesn't get wise to Jack's alleged humor before then.
Jack Benny returned to the airwaves after the summer break in 1937 on October 3rd, the same day this little story appeared in the Pittsburgh Press. It’s supposedly written by Mary Livingstone, but as it’s in character, my guess is someone in the NBC publicity was responsible for it (note the mention of the Red Network).
Jack and the gang did kibbitz about their vacations. It’s not the strongest show. No wonder Jack wanted to try something different with the “Blue Fairy” debut show several seasons later.
By the way, if you’d like to read about the season, check out Bill Cairns’ site. Unfortunately, there aren’t reviews for all the shows, including this one, as they weren’t available on-line when the site was put up.
Mary Pokes Fun at Jack
Looked for Irish Stadium in Good Old Paree
By MARY LIVINGSTONE
That old wheeze about travel broadening one certainly holds true in the case of my husband, Jack Benny. His tailor is working day and night now letting out all of his suits.
But we really had a marvelous vacation in Europe, in spite of the fact that I never could succeed in dragging Jack past those Parisian sidewalk cafes. He said they reminded him so much of New York.
I was really proud of Jack when he took me to see Notre Dame in Paris. But my illusions were shattered when he asked the guide where the stadium was.
In Rome we went to see Nero's shrine. As we stood before the tomb of the emperor, Jack couldn't resist a quip. Although he tried to look serious, he remarked: "Poor Nero! I wonder if he could have played The Bee as well as I can?"
Coming home on the boat, a steward asked Jack if he wanted to take a chance on the ship's pool. "Sure," Jack replied, "but how can I get the darn thing home if I win it?"
But, why go on? Just tune in over the NBC "red" network Sunday nights and you'll hear all about the trip. That is, starting tonight. I haven't the slightest doubt that Jack will find a way to work most of the gags into the script. He better get them in quick, because I'm working on a new Labor Day poem for Christmas. After all, I wasn't on the air Labor Day, but I will be on Christmas, if our sponsor doesn't get wise to Jack's alleged humor before then.
Saturday, 4 July 2020
The World of Oz Is a Very Funny Place
Crawley Films was a company based in Ottawa that made industrial films and commercials. Some of its work was animated. But then it was hired in 1961 by a small American company called Videocraft to help it jump into the expanding TV animation industry by animating a series of short cartoons called “Tales of the Wizard of Oz.”
Even though this was a huge undertaking for Crawley, Videocraft’s selection of a Canadian company was smart. Canada and the U.S. share a border and a language (for the most part) and the cheaper Canadian dollar meant production costs would be lower. And American studios had been complaining there weren’t enough trained animators and related artists in the U.S. due to the glut of TV work. Conversely, Crawley would never have been able to make a profit on animated cartoons exclusively for Canada; the country was too small. It needed the U.S. and other international markets.
The Oz cartoons are pleasant enough, and there are occasional bits of gentle satire and neat short-cut animation. The abstract backgrounds are a nice touch. And I like the voice work; of course, Videocraft used many of the same Toronto actors when it became Rankin-Bass.
The National Post of February 17, 1962 gave feature space to Crawley’s animated venture and the wire service provided a neat little story about an attempt to shoehorn some political satire into one of the cartoons. Unfortunately, we can’t reproduce an accompanying picture of some of the staff at work.
We're Doing Nicely in Animation
Our Cartoons Now Show in On TV Screens in the U. S.
By AUDREY GILL
OTTAWA—Although visitors to Canada frequently profess to find this country lacking in artistic expression, we are doing very nicely in one of the world's most competitive artistic fields—animated cartoons.
The evidence: An Ottawa firm.
Crawley Films Limited, is creating a rejuvenated and refurbished version of the children's story “Wizard of Oz” for world distribution.
Crawley Films has signed a contract with Videocraft International of New York to make a series of 130 five-minute cartoons about the Wizard. Value of the contract: $250,000. The contract contains an option allowing for another 130 episodes, but this depends on sales.
The Wizard is being seen on American television already—45 episodes have been delivered to Videocraft and Crawley is working on number 60. It must produce 10 episodes a month to keep to the tight schedule. Canadian rights to the series have been sold to Telefilm of Canada Ltd., Toronto, film distributors. It will offer the cartoons to CBC or CTV networks.
Recruiting the largest crew of artists ever assembled in this country (45 are working full-time on the Wizard) was a big headache for producer Tom Glynn. The majority of his crew are Canadian and consist of: eight key animators, seven junior animators, two background artists, 16 tracer-painters, three checkers, one sound-track reader and six animation) camera men.
The oldest and largest producer of sponsored motion pictures in Canada, Crawley has had a small animation department for many years. Putting together 100,000 pieces of artwork, however, was a project never before attempted in Canada.
In 23 years, Crawley Films has made over 1,000 motion pictures for business, industry, government and television. Their first diversification into entertainment films was the 39-episode RCMP series which has been sold in Canada, England, Australia, Argentina, Iran, Rhodesia, Peru and other countries. Crawley's documentary 13-episode series "St. Lawrence North" has been sold by the CBC in Italy, Australia and West Germany, with other sales pending.
Here's how the Wizard is made:
Script is written by Videocraft writers in New York. "They keep adding new characters all the time." moans Tom Glynn.
Sound track is made in Toronto by an independent producer—Bernard Cowan. Lead voices are Larry Mann, Paul Kligman, Alfie Scopp, James Doohan and Pegi Loder. Drawings and film prints are done at Crawley Films, by a complicated process. The first job is to work out a camera "master sheet" which, in effect, is a schedule co-ordinating background, sound, dialogue, and cartoon action.
From this, the animator knows how many cartoon frames are necessary to have his character say a particular piece of dialogue, or go through a particular action.
Having decided upon the number of necessary drawings, and the substance of them, the key animator makes rough pencil drawings of the extremes of action: and junior animators fill in the details—they make mouths and feet move, and, by consulting the master sheet, fit the movements into the dialogue.
Each sequence is then enlarged to fill in the exact time allotted to it.
The pencil drawings are then traced onto transparent sheets and the drawings are painted in, in color.
The next step is to relate the character drawings to the background which is painted on a separate sheet against which they are to take place.
This is done by placing the character drawings on top of the background drawings, and photographing them together. Action is secured by changing the character drawings, and photographing each change. The backgrounds are changed as the characters move from place to place.
Crawley handles the final job of superimposing the sound track on the film strip and of making prints for distribution.
Now that the Wizard is well under way, the next project at Crawley is another "first" for the company—a full-length feature film. Crawley has bought the film rights to Hugh MacLennan's "Barometer Rising" and will be looking for backing as soon as the film script is finished.
They Fight For See-Saw In Oz Film
CP Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA—The original L Frank Baum book, "The Wizard of Oz," is about a little Kansas girl named Dorothy who is blown by a cyclone into the mystical Land of Oz.
Dorothy's adventures in Oz, and those of her friends—the tin woodman who spends his time looking for a heart (being tin, he is "heartless"); Dandy, the cowardly lion who searches for courage; Socrates, a scarecrow who looks for courage [sic]—made up the substance of a whole series of "Oz" books which charmed generations of children.
The Crawley film series tells the original story and adds up-to-date trimmings.
The quarrel is taken to the "Oz Nations" which is referred to as the "ON".
At the ON, other "Munchkins" get into the act. One character is a red (the series is in color) "East Munchkin" who punctuates his speeches by banging his shoe on the table. Another piece of sand in the wheels of the ON is a yellow-slant-eyed "Southeast Munchkin."
Finally the see-saw is cut into two pieces, and everybody is unhappy. The episode isn't intended as a parallel satire on the UN—the viewer is free to find his own analogies, and the episode is intended to amuse.
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