Greatest Man in Siam Swirls

Swirls, outlines, Phil De Guard’s backgrounds and Pat Matthews’ animation of Miss X are among the highlights of The Greatest Man in Siam, a 1944 short directed by Shamus Culhane for Walter Lantz.

Here are some swirls and outlines as one of the challengers for Miss X’s hand sings his own praises.



Culhane’s timing varies from static shots of backgrounds to jumpy movement on ones.

Matthews and Emery Hawkins receive the animation screen credits but I suspect Les Kline and others on Lantz’s wartime roster are at work here, too. I believe Harry Lang provides voices.

Flying Fireman Flip

Fireman Flip rescues his cat girl-friend and they fly away on a vacuum cleaner in Fire-Fire (1932).



The cat kisses him.



She gets sucked into the vacuum bag.



The vacuum cleaner starts hacking away. It coughs up her panties.



Now the vacuum sucks up Flip.



There’s a fight inside the bag and then the vacuum coughs out a roughed-up Flip.



The cat girl-friend is upset that he came onto her in the bag, even though she came onto him on the top of the vacuum cleaner. She wags her finger as a xylophone plays a four-note car-horn sound.



Yes, I know the vacuum sucked up fire before Flip and the cat jumped on it. No, I don’t know where the fire went and why they’re not burned. No, I don’t know why the vacuum cleaner flies. No, I don’t know why the cat is so fickle. No, I don’t know why a frog is dating a cat.

Ub Iwerks is the only person to get a screen credit in this cartoon.

She's a Grand Young Flagg

It was set in Arizona and Hope Lange was in it and...

Well, that’s about all I can recall about The New Dick Van Dyke Show, other than it was really bland. It lasted three seasons—probably on Van Dyke’s name—but I gave up on it long before that. (If you really want to know, it ran from 1971 to 1974).

One of the cast members was Fannie Flagg. She started out in stand-up in New York in the early ‘60s. Her act landed her a gig on a 1964 summer show called Repertoire Workshop that aired on CBS-owned stations. Variety wasn’t impressed. Its review: “Comedienne Fannie Flagg, who femceed the session, also turned in a routine as Dixie tv hostess going through her pre-air warmup. Bit had its moments, but overall lacked invention and was sagging well before the windup.”

After the new Van Dyke show petered out, Flagg was better known for being one of the rotating “sixth seaters” on The Match Game. She later became a respected author and was applauded by critics for her role in the film Fried Green Tomatoes.

Anyway, let’s go back to just before Van Dyke 2.0 debuted. This story was syndicated by the National Enterprise Association on August 6, 1971.

Fannie Flagg Joins New Fall Dick Van Dyke Series
By JOAN CROSBY
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (NEA)—Fannie Flagg, who is red-haired, blue-eyed, curvy and pretty, thinks this may be hurting her possibilities of becoming a major comic attraction in show business, but she still won't fall into the comedienne trap of doing "I'm so ugly that" jokes.
"I've been watching the comedy series on TV," she says, her Southern drawl apparent when she's not working, "and every one has one of the 'uglys.' The Mary Tyler Moore Show has Rhoda. Bob Cummings had Schultzy. Doris Day and Dick Van Dyke both had Rose Marie and the Beverly Hillbillies had Nancy Kulp."
Fannie wants to make it clear that she's not criticizing any of these actresses, but it's just that she doesn't want to play another of the man-hungry female second bananas on TV.
So, in her role as Dick Van Dyke's sister on The New Dick Van Dyke Show, premiering on CBS-TV in September, Fannie is a normal, pretty woman.

"The main problem with women comics," she says, "is that they try to compete with men. My idea is to go the other way and do comedy that men can't do."
She's an Alabama girl, a seven-time loser in the Miss Alabama Pageant for the state representative of Miss America (not a reflection on her looks, but rather on her humor which often prompted her into less than perfect-Southern-lady humor), a veteran of her own local talk show, a member of the cast of Candid Camera, a talk show perennial and star of the hit record album, "Rally 'Round the Flagg."
She just recently finished another album in which she plays Martha Mitchell. Her earlier impersonation of Lady Bird Johnson brought her much acclaim.
Fannie, who names Bea Lillie, Kay Kendall, Claudette Colbert, and Irene Dunne as the funny ladies she liked most, has been in two films, "Five Easy Pieces" and "The Bar." "I played white trash and I loved it," she smiles.
She wasn't born Fannie Flagg. She doesn't like to publicize her real name, because another lovely lady gained stardom with it first (Patricia Neal). She chose Fannie because "a grand old vaudevillian I knew said Fannie was a very lucky name for a comedienne. But I couldn't think of a last name. Then one night, a friend called me and said she had met a real old lady who would give up her name to me her name was Fannie Flagg. Well, it was silly and it stuck."
When they were casting for an actress to play Dick's sister, Fannie, not knowing why she was there, was sitting in her agent's office when a man walked in, slowly walked around her and finally said, "I don't believe it." He was Byron Paul, Van Dyke's partner, and he cast Fannie because she looks enough like Dick to be his sister.
"We do," she insists. "We both have blue eyes and big noses."
And large doses of niceness.

A Penny For a Pig

Porky flips when he gets a penny to add to his poke to buy an ice cream soda. 15 consecutive frames. Fine speed distortion on Porky.



Tex Avery made The Blow Out in 1936 and it looks years ahead of what other Schlesinger directors were doing. There is an overhead shot to open things and perspective animation of a bat. Avery explores one of his themes he perfected in Northwest Hounded Police at MGM—the bad guy can’t escape from the good guy, no matter what he does.

Interestingly, the bad guy is played by a woman. It sounds like Martha Wentworth, using her witch voice from radio and the later Tom and Jerry cartoon Fraidy Cat (1942). Wentworth’s real voice can be heard as the woman giving Porky a penny. Joe Dougherty is Porky.

Avery even inspired the Schlesinger scorer to do more than churn out a piece of music with a woodblock on the off-beat. He gave the bad guy a theme. It’s J.S. Zamecnik’s “Treacherous Knave.” Hear it below.

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.