Money Bags

Here’s how Tom’s eyes grow in 16 frames after he learns he’s inherited a fortune in Million Dollar Cat (1944). One drawing per frame.



The animators are Ray Patterson, Irv Spence, Ken Muse and Pete Burness.

It's Not Easy Being Phil Harris

The Jack Benny radio show managed to assemble a terrific cast of players. One by one, most of them dropped away.

The biggest loss, in my opinion, was when Phil Harris left the show at the end of the 1951-52 season.

Philsie was one of a kind. He was over the top. No one could take his place. Bob Crosby was brought in to front what had been Phil’s orchestra, but Crosby was almost the opposite of Harris. He was low-key, maybe a little too low key for the Benny show. In the last season, he was dispensable. His spot was taken some of the time by arranger Mahlon Merrick or one of the musicians.

Harris had been on network radio before joining Benny in 1936. He, his orchestra and vocalist Leah Ray appeared on the NBC Red network in 1933. His comedy short So This is Harris won an Oscar. That was all forgotten after Benny’s writers figured out a personality for him after several months on the Jell-O show. He became a self-loving, party-loving, lady-loving leader of a group of degenerate musicians. That breezy personality stuck with him for the rest of his life.

Here’s a story from the Scranton Tribune of May 20, 1950. Not only does Harris explain how he had to cope in public with his radio persona, he explains how Jack Benny went out of his way to help him in his movie career. Incidentally, Paul Douglas, for a brief period, announced the Benny show in its first incarnation for Canada Day.

Harris Featured On Benny Show At CYC June 5
Phil Harris, who appears with Jack Benny and Rochester in person at the Catholic Youth Center on Monday night, June 5, disillusions everyone he meets. He is quite the antithesis of the hard-drinking, “Hi, Jackson” type he plays over the air.
Harris has a faint suggestion of a southern drawn and the manners of a southern gentleman, which he is. He would look much better with a mint julep in his hand than a bourbon, but he’s now Hollywood-ized enough to prefer the bourbon. He likes to talk about himself but never does, unless prodded, because he’s afraid people may think him the egomaniac he is on the radio. He says “yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am” when he’s talking with women.

The Jack Benny program and his own radio show with movie star wife, Alice Faye, have made him into a fictional character, and now the movies are adding to the illusion. He plays a rough house character in the 20th Century Fox Technicolor musical “Wabash Avenue,” starring with Betty Grable and Victor Mature. The fictional character of Phil Harris has forced the real Phil Harris to lead an almost monastic life. “If I go some place for a cocktail,” says Phil, “I can see the customers nodding to each other. ‘Uh-huh,’ they say, ‘there he goes again.’ But when I leave a place after one drink, they think I’m sick!”
He doesn’t want anyone to think, however, that he doesn’t like the Phil Harris that Jack Benny created. He loves him.
Harris credits Benny for the role he has in “Wabash Avenue,” his first straight dramatic part in pictures. Benny was playing golf one day with William Perlberg when the producer seemed unduly disturbed and unable to concentrate. “What’s worrying you?” asked Jack. “A movie,” said Perlberg. “I’ve got one starting with Betty Grable, Vic Mature and Paul Douglas, only Douglas isn’t in it. The studio has taken him out for another film and I cannot find a replacement.” “Nothing to it at all,” said Benny. “Phil Harris can do it. He can do anything Paul Douglas can.”
Despite the obvious pessimism, Benny was persistent. He telephoned Perlberg several times, begging him to test Phil, which he eventually did—and decided Jack Benny was right.
Tickets for the local show are now on sale at the Spruce Record Shop and Reisman’s. They are available for both the 7 and 9:15 p. m. performances.
A portion of the shows proceeds will be donated to the Scrantonian-Tribune Charity Fund Foundation.

Termite Terrace

You’ve seen the photo for years—a frame grab from a home movie of Termite Terrace with Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Sid Sutherland, Virgil Ross and Tex Avery, standing in the doorway of the ramshackle little building where Leon Schlesinger originally housed their new unit.

Part of that home movie was featured in Bugs Bunny Superstar (1975). There are other shots besides the famous one we all know. Here is one below.



Does anyone know who these people are? (No guesses, please).

Avery’s unit included assistant animators Bobe Cannon, Elmer Wait and Cecil Surry. I believe that’s Surry standing at the far right. I don’t see Cannon here; he and Surry both ended up at UPA. Wait died fairly young.

(A note a propos of nothing: This poor post has been sitting in my system since the end of 2012 and I am finally getting it on-line).

Dog Bites Man the Terry Way

The drawing of a suburban man and his dog looks fairly ordinary in this scene from Lucky Dog, a 1956 Terrytoon directed by Connie Rasinski.



Wait! Did I say “Terrytoon”? You know that means some weird shapes will suddenly hit the screen.



As an added bonus, this cartoon features the Terry Splash™.

Corny Concerto Stretch In-Betweens

The fey Bugs Bunny twirls and zips from the scene in A Corny Concerto, Bob Clampett’s send-up of Disney’s Fantasia.



Cut to the shocked dog.



Bugs appears. The drawing is similar to a smear in Freleng’s A Hare Grows in Manhattan (1947).



The dog backs up. Multiple Bugs hands ties his tail to the tree.



The dog runs forward and springs back.



Bob McKimson is the credited animator on screen but Virgil Ross, Sid Sutherland and Rod Scribner should be here as well.

Gisele MacKenzie's Horse Play

There’s a down side to fame. Yes, you get lots of money and a comfortable life. But you can also attract leeches and kooks.

The 1950s were a more innocent time is the conclusion of many people who were never there. Perhaps it’s true in some ways. Today we hear about stalkers who are dangerous. Way-back-when, they were, well, just eccentric.

Here are some examples cited by one of Canada’s singing exports to the U.S.—Gisele MacKenzie. She had her biggest fame on the American side of the line in the ‘50s, appearing on stage with Jack Benny, smoothly singing on Your Hit Parade and even having her own network show. She also had to deal with obsessed men, as revealed in this story that appeared in newspapers of May 16, 1958. Unfortunately, the ending leaves readers hanging in mid-air.

Follows Gisele All Over.
By LEE BELSER.
International News Service.
HOLLYWOOD—Gisele MacKenzie, since her emergence as a national celebrity, has found a lot of wonderful people in the world but a lot of crackpots, too. "There was the time," she laughed, "that some guy followed me all over the country just so he could pop out from behind the potted palms and yell, 'boo, I'm here.'
"So he's here," she said, "so I didn't even know this guy!"
This amorous character became such a nuisance that the cops chased him out of Las Vegas during one of Gisele's engagements there. But that didn't stop him. When the singing star left for Canada, he hopped into his trusty auto—dressed in pink bermuda shorts yet—and chugged all the way to Winnipeg just to "surprise" her.
"He did too," she grinned, "and he surprised the cops too who chased him out of town again!"
Then there was the old farm hand, who, completely smitten by Gisele, wrote and told her he loved her and in fact had decided to marry her—all she had to do was set the date.
But then he heard her sing a sexy song and wrote furiously: "The deal is off. You are obviously a woman of the world and I don't think you'd made a good wife after all. However, I feel I owe you something, so I'm going to send you my horse!"
Gisele said he enclosed a picture of the animal a sway-backed, rawboned nag that had all the earmarks of having ploughed its last furrow.
"The horse never arrived," she added, "and you can imagine how sad I was."
One of the worst experiences that ever befell Gisele concerned a Wall Street tycoon who had delusions of marriage with the singer to the point where he wrote her passionate letters telling her it was all right for them to wed and that his wife had even agreed to a $300,000 settlement!
"I never met this guy either," she declared. "And after that, I didn't want to."
Romantically speaking, no more suitors need apply. Gisele is all sewed up—with her brand new husband, Bob Shuttleworth, who she says, won her in a raffle!

No doubt when Gisele faded from TV screens, the obsessive fans faded away, too. Gisele wasn’t bothered when others took over the spotlight. She had a family.

Here’s a Vancouver Sun “Where are they now”-type story about Gisele MacKenzie from the April 24, 1971 edition. Her brother Georges was living on the West Coast where he became an executive with the CBC French-language operations. We doubt he was ever stalked by fans but the darndest things happen in broadcasting.

Gisele: no postcard mother
By LES WEDMAN
"Go find out whatever happened to Gisele MacKenzie" is what the orders were for an interview at CBUT, where she was waiting out a pre-rehearsal period before doing two guest appearances with The Irish Rovers.
Well, the answer is that nothing has happened to Gisele MacKenzie that doesn't happen to people in show business.
After all, it's been 20 years since Gisele left Canada for New York and Hollywood and she isn't up here now to fill any Canadian content for the CBC, because she's been a U.S. citizen for the past decade.
She was married to her agent, Bob Shuttleworth, for seven years, and five years ago they divorced. She has two children, Mackenzie, who's 10, and Gigi, who's nine.
And because she decided not to be a "postcard mother," Gisele MacKenzie passed up big-time stardom, settling for good and steady work that kept her as close as possible to her Encino, Calif., home.

She's just finished starring in Mame and today, after a reunion with singing brother George LaFleche and his family, she flew south to put the final touches to her syndicated TV show, and to do more recordings, theatre, musical comedy, TV commercials. And movies. "I belong there," the tall, positive-thinking Miss MacKenzie declared between bites from a hamburger.
In came George LaFleche, who admitted he got his first singing job in Toronto because he was Gisele's brother. "And I was terrible," he exclaimed. He's still Gisele's brother, but it doesn't bother him anymore. He's proud of his sister.
Their close relationship goes all the way back to Winnipeg when Gisele took violin lessons and George played the cello. The difference was she enjoyed her music, overcame her laziness, and was forced to work hard.
She and George compared notes on dogs and children and he came off second best again, because Gisele, the actress, knew how to put over her harrowing experiences as a mother whose offspring refuse to practise piano.
"They knew how to play, especially Mac. But it got so that they were unlearning everything. I had to go out of the house because I couldn't stand to listen to them play.
"I got a brainwave. It was, I thought, like taking medals away from a soldier. I said, ‘I am going to deprive you of your piano lessons; I want you never to insult my piano again by putting your hands on it.’"
Then she ripped up reams of sheet music and that was that.
"I wasn't going to waste any more money. And it wasn't worth the aggravation," the singing star concluded.
"Did it work?" asked brother George.
"No. They practically cheered," replied mother Gisele.
Having described herself as a strict disciplinarian—and that includes dishing out corporal punishment—Miss MacKenzie said she's going to have to think up something new.
She used to say to them, Okay, no watching TV for a week.
That used to hurt. But not now. It's a relief not watching television for a week.
Just about then she cleared the dressing room to change, first going over some fresh repartee with brother George, because they discovered Channel 2's Irish Rovers' Show has been sold to the U.S. and nobody down there knows that Gisele MacKenzie and George LaFleche are related.
And that was the last seen of Gisele MacKenzie until May 10 and May 17, when her two guest shots will be aired.
By the way. You really want to know what's happened to Gisele MacKenzie? She sings better than she ever did.

Gisele died in 2003. She survived both the trappings and downsides of fame, even though she never did get a horse out of it.

Hey, Audience, Have Some Water

Tom and Jerry use a water-filled elephant to stop packs of angry, marauding lions at a circus at the end of Tight Rope Tricks (1933). Hmm. There are frames where the stream of water isn’t connected to the elephant’s trunk.



The Van Beuren story department wonders about the next gag. “I know!” says John Foster or someone else, “Let’s have Tom turn the water onto the theatre audience.” So Tom does.



Dissolve into the final scene. The lions drown (now there’s comedy!). Floating up from the sea of water (how much was in that elephant, anyway?) are Tom, Jerry, the female tight-rope walker (voiced by Margie Hines) and a happy elephant. Jerry dances on top of the elephant for no particular reason as the iris closes to end another Van Beuren cartoon.



George Rufle gets a “by” credit along with Foster, with musical accompaniment scored by Gene Rodemich.