Why Play Leap Frog?

“Preparing bully-boy’s anatomy for the butcher shop costs money, too,” we’re informed by narrator Bud Hiestand in the John Sutherland industrial cartoon Why Play Leap Frog?

The bull catches on to the fact he’s going to slaughtered and runs away, leaving the painted markings hanging in mid-air.



Why Play Leap Frog? was part of the “Fun and Facts About America” series made by Sutherland at the commission of Harding College of Searcy, Arkansas. Harding’s leadership was unapologetically pro-capitalist, anti-Communist and thoroughly against any government interference in letting business do business, a philosophy shared by John Sutherland himself. The two got together and this cartoon series was the result.

This was the fourth Sutherland cartoon made for the series. It stars average American worker Joe, the star of the first short Meet King Joe. That cartoon was followed by Make Mine Freedom, which won the Freedom Foundation’s award in 1949, Albert in Blunderland, which won the award in 1950. This cartoon won the award in 1951.

Daily Variety reported on February 28, 1952 that final editing was being done on What Makes Us Tick for the New York Stock Exchange, and Sutherland was putting into production Dear Uncle and The Devil and John Q as well as preparing an animation/live action 30-minute film for Kaiser Aluminum on industrial public relations.

MGM agreed to give the Sutherland films a theatre release; it had eliminated its Lah/Blair unit and acquiring the rights to screen cartoons was no doubt less expensive than making them. Metro didn’t release them in order. Leap Frog was the second Sutherland cartoon on its schedule. It was in theatres in Los Angeles by February 1, 1950 (see ad on the right), though Boxoffice magazine put its official release date at the time of February 4th. Despite the America-is-Number-One patriotism in the shorts, they appeared in theatres in Canada.

How did these shorts end up at MGM? W.R. Wilkinson, the publisher of the Hollywood Reporter, explained in his column of February 23, 1951:

WE SAW a couple of shorts the other day that gave us the greatest kick we have ever had out of a short. We saw great entertainment in these couple of two-reel subjects, with a background of FACTS of our great American scene. Each told a story in extremely humorous cartoon form about important conditions in our country—a type of story telling and buildup of America that’s never before been approached in this business. Each one of the subjects should be a MUST on every exhibitor’s playbill.

The pictures were so novel and so GOOD we dug into their making, and found the ideas for both were conceived by George Stuart Benson, president of Hardin[g] College, an institution for boys obligated to work their way through college. His conception of the approach arose out of a desire to illustrate his lectures in a manner that his students would have the least trouble understanding.

John Sutherland Productions got wind of this manner of Benson’s teaching, then animated the subjects, showed them to Nick Schenck and they were referred favorably to Fred Quimby of the MGM shorts department, and they are now in release. Their titles are “Meet King Joe”—he’s the labor wage earner in our nation—and “Why Play Leapfrog,” a subject proving that Labor and Management CAN work together.

Fred Quimby tells us that never before in the history of MGM’s shorts department have so many letters been directed to his desk praising an effort. The letters are not only from a very pleased public, but actual raves from almost every exhibitor who has played the shows, pleading for more of their type, and promising not only more playing time but more important billing because, as one exhibitor put it, “I have never had such audience enthusiasm for a short reel picture.”

What makes those little pictures good is (1) the story idea back of them, explaining conditions important to every ticket buyer, and (2) the explanation done on an extremely amusing background that takes all thoughts of preachment away from the subjects.

MGM continued to release the Sutherland films until a short called Fresh Laid Plans laid an egg, despite being submitted for Oscar consideration (Hollywood Reporter, Jan. 23, 1952). It was accused of being propaganda against the Truman administration’s agriculture policies. We outlined that story in this post. Sutherland then signed a distribution contract with United Artists (Hollywood Reporter, May 20, 1953) for six or more shorts a year but it’s unclear how many made it into theatres. The Living Circle was one.

There are no credits on this short other than John Sutherland’s name. Former MGM animators George Gordon and Carl Urbano were both at the Sutherland studio around this time. Besides Hiestand, Frank Nelson provides a couple of voices, though I do not know who is voicing Joe. Setting aside any politics, the cartoons are enjoyable to look at, and a further examination of John Sutherland Productions by animation historians is overdue.

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.