Something's Kosher Here

The Army, the Navy and Buffalo Bill Cody come to the rescue of Tom and Jerry in Redskin Blues (1932). Cody’s there because T. & J. are in the Old West and have been tied to stakes by Indians.

Cody ropes the Indian Chief.



Oy! A Jewish Indian! (This is an era when they populated vaudeville).



The chief opens up a box.



What’s this? A mouse, you say? The gag here is that Buffalo Bill Cody is afraid of a mouse.



Well, actually, everyone is afraid of the mouse. The cavalry, etc. makes a hasty in one of many bits of cycle animation which litters this cartoon.

John Foster and George Stallings get the “by” credit this time and Gene Rodemich comes up with a lot of snare drum and xylophone music.

Censoring Saffron and Woo

Radio networks loved entertainment, so long as it was innocuous entertainment. Making fun of Bing Crosby’s horse was okay. Making fun of anything that someone might get indignant about wasn’t. And that list was pretty long. So networks stepped in to stop it before it happened.

Insightful columnist John Crosby put together an eight-part series on radio censorship in 1946. We aren’t going to post all of it here; for now, we’ll give you the first part. Crosby began his series with a look at satirist Fred Allen. Satire was something suspicious and fearful to radio executives, so Allen was continually battling to air material that was even tame by 1946 standards. This was before things reached a climax in 1947 when an NBC functionary ordered master control to fade out about 25 seconds of Allen’s show because it dared to make fun of NBC functionaries.

This appeared in print on July 29, 1946.

Censorship on the Air
A new procedure in the Army used to originate in the ranks, where it would start as a good plan to correct, let us say, a current abuse. In its progress from higher authority to still higher authority, the plan would be modified by each man who got his hands on it, until, by the time it reached the War Department, the original plan had lost much of its original meaning and acquired a lot of new and useless trimmings. One incorporate into the Army doctrine, this new, distorted plan would start downward toward the ranks again, this time acquiring different interpretations at every step. By the time it reached the starting point, the ranks, the plan would have little to do with the original abuse or anything else. Still, it was inflicted on the man as gospel and the men wearily accepted it as another sample of Army snafu.
Censorship on the air is pretty much the same routine, the misuse of an originally sound purpose. The broadcasters, quite understandably, don’t like to offend individuals, minority groups, religious orders, advertisers or members of other nationalities. There is nothing particularly wrong with the desire to please except that in many cases it is pursued to such lengths that radio programs are robbed of much of their vitality. The intentions are good but the administration is ridiculous.
● ● ●

Possibly the most censored man in radio is Fred Allen. Allen gets his ideas from the current news. His jokes are invariably pointed, and pointed jokes usually sting somebody. As a result, Allen’s fourteen years in radio have been an almost continuous battle with censors and he has lost many an engagement. After fourteen years of this, Allen is a little bitter toward radio censorship. Recently he left for a vacation in Maine and in his suitcase was a collection of notes he refers to as his “white paper” and which he plans to turn into a “Saturday Evening Post” article during his vacation.
Before he left, Mr. Allen graciously let me run through that part of his notes concerning censorship, and, as a sort of preview of that “Post” article, with Mr. Allen’s permission, I should like to give you some examples of the jokes that have been cut out of Allen’s scripts and the reasons they were cut out. This should give you some idea as to why humor on the air is usually as bland and innocent of the life around us as an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel.
Let us first consider salaciousness. Off-color jokes are not allowed on the air and that, in itself, is a good idea. However, the man who censored Allen’s scripts at the National Broadcasting Company—let’s call him Pincus, although that’s not his name—pursued this noble aim with a zeal which would have alarmed even Savonarola. Mr. Pincus suspected any word he didn’t understand, particularly in a boy-girl context, or being a dirty word.
Allen, for example, had a terrible time getting the adjective “saffron” on the air because Pincus suspected it had sexual connotations. With the aid of Funk & Wagnalls, Allen got the adjective approved. On another occasion a character in an Allen show called Bear Mountain a “strip tease crag.” Mr. Pincus was horrified, and it took hours of arguing to convince him “strip tease” could hardly be offensive when applied to a mountain.
Pincus also objected to the phrase “pitch a little woo.” Believe it or not, he’d never heard it before and Allen had quite an argument convincing him that the phrase was current usage among young folks. Although he yielded on that point, the censor refused to budge on another phrase about “pizzacating” a woman’s lavaliere. It brought up a distressing mental image, said Pincus.
A decent respect for religion on the air is hardly open to comment. Still, Mr. Allen’s censor took it to lengths which any sensible minister would consider rather silly. Once Allen brought in a gag about a judge, recently deceased, “going to a higher court.” The joke was blue-pencilled. “Higher court” implied heaven and you can’t make cracks about heaven. Then there was a joke about a man named Stickney S. “for Stickney” Stickney who got that name because the minister who baptized him stuttered. It was cut out, too. Mustn’t make fun of ministers.
Another Allen line read “she promises to love, honor and lump it till death do them part.” Absolutely not, said Pincus; the marriage ceremony is not a suitable topic for comedy.
● ● ●
Allen has complained for years because he is unable to mention or even hint at the existence of another network. “Darn,” he said once, “is a word invented by N.B.C., which doesn’t recognize either hell or the Columbia Broadcasting System.” Here again the ban is invoked to incredible lengths. For instance, Allen once spoke of smoking “that cigarette that grows hair, fixed up your nerves and fumigates the house.” N.B.C. objected to the phrase “fixes up your nerves” because I sounded a little like Camel’s current advertising campaign. At that time, the Camel show was on C.B.S. and not even by so remote a connection as a single vague phrase did N.B.C. want to call attention to its powerful network rival.

Now, a look at Crosby’s columns from the previous week, July 22 through 26. The most interesting is from July 23rd, where radio commentator Drew Pearson got booed by a crowd in Alabama for promoting racial tolerance. Pearson was hardly a raving leftie. Broadcasting magazine, in its issue of July 29, 1946, pointed out it out it cost an estimated $20,000 for Pearson to speak out against the Klan from the steps of the State Capitol—including $1,000 for insurance and $5000 for ads in two newspapers. Pearson’s sponsor, Lee Hats, supported the broadcast on ABC.

The July 22nd column deals with a couple of public service shows on the NBC New York City station, July 24th looks at “Suspense” and the clichéd lines on an ABC Sunday night mystery show, July 25th talks about quality programming, while Crosby chides the BBC on its monopoly. The July 26th column has some odds and ends, including a story about sound effects. The “sound of screeching tires” effect that Crosby talks about could be one of two that got overused, one with a collision (which doesn’t sound like one) and one without. The latter can be heard on the Jack Benny radio show and seemingly endless numbers of Terrytoon cartoons.

Daffy Says...

Daffy Duck holds up instructions to the operating theatre audience in The Daffy Doc (1938). Not only do we get Hebrew characters, Daffy shakes the sign so it spells out “Silence is Foo!” To learn more about foo, why not check out Eric Costello’s Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion.



Vive Risto and John Carey are the credited animators, but Bobe Cannon did some funny stuff in this short, too.

Wolf-Bashing Bull

The wolf bullfighter in Señor Droopy is not too familiar with Tex Avery cartoons, it appears. He takes out the bull using the old fold-up-the-doors routine.



You and I know what’s going to happen. The doors will unfold.



The bull gets his revenge.



I’ve always liked the bent horns on the bull as he looks satisfied.



Bobe Cannon animated this cartoon, along with Preston Blair, Walt Clinton, Mike Lah and Grant Simmons.

Baseball, Benny and Broadcasting

Baseball was still America’s pastime in the 1950s. It began in the days when even big cities had vacant lots on which boys could play the game. It was played all over America; even teeny towns could have a professional team, if not semi-pro or amateur ball. The big leagues were centred in the East, where newspapers in New York City and its boroughs wrote of the game’s stars, some of whom hob-nobbed with Broadway’s hoi polloi (and appeared on the vaudeville stage in the off-season).

Meanwhile, stars of the entertainment world took more than a passing interest in the game. Bing Crosby and Bob Hope had an interest in major league clubs. Hollywood stars became minority owners of the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League. Jack’s radio show featured at least one episode centring around a PCL game in Los Angeles. And twice he had as his guest that noted umpire-baiter, manager Leo Durocher (though the way Jack pronounced his name, you’d swear it was Derosha).

Durocher was glitzy, show-biz guy by nature. He appeared on other radio comedy shows as himself. Television, too (including the George Burns-owned Mr. Ed). He showed up on a Benny TV broadcast in 1954, and one Associated Press columnist thought it was worthy of a column on “the changing Benny.”

It was no change at all, really, as you’ve read above. Durocher had been on the air with Benny before. And the idea of a “Benny life story” episode had been done twice with Danny Kaye on radio. The “Tom Jones” show mentioned below was an episode of “General Electric Theatre” co-written by Benny’s occasional writers Hugh Wedlock, Jr. and Howard Snyder and included secondary players Joe Kearns and Benny Rubin in the cast.

This story appeared in papers on November 19, 1954.

Jack Benny Forgets His Maxwell, Violin In Change Of Pace
By WAYNE OLIVER
NEW YORK (AP)—“How'd you like that Leo Durocher? Wasn't he great?”
That was Jack Benny as he flew into New York from Hollywood, still enthusing over the appearance on his show of the New York Giants manager in a baseball skit. In it, Durocher repeated some of his now famous performances from the playing field, where his acting reputation already is firmly established.
Benny's opinion is that the acting ability of the Durocher family is by no means confined to Leo's pretty wife, Laraine Day.
Turning serious, Benny declared “I think Leo would make a fine actor. I think if he wanted to quit baseball and start playing character parts, he'd do very well. “And that Beans Reardon is another good one who would make a good actor,” said Benny of the retired National League umpire who also took pan in the Sunday night show.
The show was in keeping with Benny's increasing change of pace in which he relies less on old trademarks—such as his Maxwell, his stinginess and his famous violin. He will change pace again on his next telecast Nov. 28 “in which I'll do my own life story.”
The comedy will develop from his attempts to cast actors in the roles of people he has been closely associated with in his long career.
Benny came here for an appearance in a Sunday night half-hour guest shot on CBS-TV's Sunday Night Theater. He will play “Tom Jones,” a waiter whose face is so ordinary no one is able to remember him.
Jack, who has the energy you’d expect if he were really 39, has continued his weekly radio program and stepped up his telecasts to every second week this season. But somewhat to his own surprise, “it's not tough at all.” He resorts to film only on occasion and all except four of his 16 shows this season will be live.
He says he finds a lot of people still follow his radio show “and I think it has a bigger audience than the ratings show—19 out of 20 people who tell me about hearing it say they heard it in their cars, and the ratings don't cover automobile sets.”

Angry Mickey

Don’t tell the Disney people there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Either now or in 1932.

You wouldn’t think a column in a local newspaper would be worth getting upset about, but it did when it didn’t fit The Gospel According to Walt. And the gospel, in 1932, was that Mickey Mouse was a huge success, beloved by the world.

So it was one of Walt’s Minions took on the writer of a column in the Pittsburgh Press of July 18, 1932. All the writer did was quote another publication. But Walt’s Minion got what he wanted. The writer backed down and instead lauded how great Mickey was. At least he tried to make some humour about the brow-beating.

Mickey Mouse, His Vanity Wounded, Declares War on This Column and Writes Reproving Letter
By KASPAR MONAHAN
MICKEY MOUSE is mad at this column. He rushed into his palatial Hollywood office the other day, whiskers quivering in rage, and plunked down a copy of the June 20 Show Shops.
He was as mad as the M-G-M lion with a sore tooth and did his best to roar in the manner of that benign beast. He bellowed (if a throaty squeak can be called a bellow) and waved the Show Shops column.
“Who’s this guy in Pittsburgh, anyway?” he demanded. “What does he mean attacking a great artist like me by intimating that I'm not the greatest box-office attraction that ever was?”
Several dozen “yes” men turned pale and asked tremblingly of Walt Disney’s creation, “Why, what is it, Mr. Mouse—who's insulted you and how?” “How,” shrieked Mickey. "Why look at this, you dopes. Read it and then pack my bags. I'm going to take the next train to Pittsburgh and when I get there I'm going to do something awful to that Show Shops guy. I’ll swipe his cheese, or something, I will. Gr’r’r!”
The Show Shops column in question gave the results of the nationwide questionnaire sent out to 12,000 exhibitors by Motion Picture Herald in regard to the box-office appeal of the various film stars. Wallie Beery and Marie Dressler led the male and female fields, respectively, with 67 per cent and 91 per cent. But Mickey trailed far behind, and the column said so.
This Raised Mickey's Ire
THE cause of Mickey's great rage was this little innocent paragraph: “Mickey Mouse made a poor showing in the poll, despite all the reported popular interest in his weird adventures. He received but 1.6 per cent—the same rating as Loretta Young, Dorothy Mackaill and Bill Boyd.”
Mickey placed a quivering little paw on that paragraph, swore roundly, then paced back and forth with his hands behind him, fuming and fretting:
“The idea, placing me in the same class with Bill Boyd and giving me a lower rating than those two low comics, Wheeler and Woolsey, when everybody knows my comedy is refined and subtle.
“Gimme pen and ink, Ham, I'm going to burn that feller up in Pittsburgh. I'll tell him a few things. Insulting a great artiste like me, the fathead. Gimme that pen and paper and I'll burn his hide off. Huh!”
But Ham, who is Harry Hammond Beall, Mickey's chief press agent, talked soothingly and wisely.
“Tut, tut, Mickey,” he remonstrated. “Where's your sense of humor? Trying to insult one of these drama editor guys—haw! That's funny and it can't be done. Now you let me write the letter to him.”
“All right,” said Mickey, “but make it strong. Remind him that I once beat the socks off Emil Jannings in a popularity contest in Vienna. And call that Pittsburgher a couple of so-and-so's and a such-and-such. Make it hot.”
“All right, all right. I'll burn him up. Now run along, Mickey, and go to that cheese luncheon with Minnie Mouse.”



Once Beat Emil Jannings
SO HERE is Mickey’s reproving letter as written by the courteous Ham Beall, somewhat contrary to the rip-roaring rodent's instructions: “Although I think you'll agree with me that short subjects are quite vital to the motion picture industry and are saving many a program throughout the nation, they are not getting the recognition they deserve.
“The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does not offer any medals for short subjects now, but when such an offer was made, cartoons were excluded.
“In the case in point, the Herald contest, Mickey Mouse was not even submitted as a candidate, and the fact that he was ‘written in’ to the extent of 1.6 per cent scarcely indicates that popular interest in him is waning to any great extent.
“I feel that Mickey has made a great showing considering the fact that his name was not on the ballot.
“Mickey won the popularity contest over Emil Jannings conducted in Vienna and on numerous other occasions has topped the list in polls of the motion picture favorites.
“The Walt Disney organization would be delighted if the individuals conducting such contests in the future would include a division of short subjects or sound cartoons, or both, enter Mickey Mouse as a candidate and leave the decision to the public. At the same time it would give a vital part of every motion picture program the deserved recognition.”
A fair letter—and the column herewith apologizes for its unintentional slight to a great little guy whose followers indubitably number as many as those of the Great Greta. I'm for him as a candidate in a short subject contest or even for President.
Censors Are After Mickey
THE LETTER clears up the mystery why he made such a doleful showing in the poll. If the youngsters from 6 to 100 the world over had been allowed to vote, the result might have been a sweeping victory for Mickey.
One of the greatest tributes paid to the impish little fellow came from the two wee sons of Charlie Chaplin—Charlie, Jr., and Sydney Chaplin—when they arrived in New York from Europe en route to Hollywood to act in the films.
Both youngsters declared their favorite movie actor was Mickey Mouse, with his consort, Minnie Mouse, second choice, and their renowned daddy, third.
Further proof of the growing popularity of Mickey is shown in the increasing attention paid him by the high and mighty censors in all countries.
In Ohio, for instance, the censors believed Mickey guilty of moral turpitude or something when he permitted one of his droll herd of cows to read Elynor Glyn's “Three Weeks.”
England's censors were shocked profoundly when a fish with a naughty twinkle in its eye slapped a mermaid on the thigh in one of Mickey's films so the cartoon was banned.
Germany was no less outraged when General Mickey led an army of cats, wearing helmets. German censors also declared that Mickey was suffering with “paranoiacal dementia” in one of his films and barred it from German screens. Sweden would have none of another Mouse comedy because Mickey was “mentally unwholesome.”
Up in Canada the censors ordered that Mickey's herd of cows should have smaller udders.
All this censorship persecution, while annoying to Mickey, is really the finest compliment that could be paid. Censors are not interested in just “nobodies.”

Duck Tales, Er, Tail

A sight-gag pun in Real Gone Woody (1954), the cartoon where Woody Woodpecker and Buzz Buzzard are stereotypical ‘50s high schoolers. Woody combs his hair into a duck tail.



Gil Turner, La Verne Harding and Bob Bentley are the credited animators. Ray Jacobs and Art Landy provide some great settings and Clarence Wheeler was inspired to write both Guy Lombardo and Johnny Ray musical parodies. This may be my favourite cartoon directed by Paul J. Smith.

Duck Dodgers Proclamation

“Because there’s no one who knows his way around outer space like....”



Now, Daffy Duck makes his proclamation: “DUCK DODGERS.....IN THE 24TH-AND-A-HALF CENTURY!” Here are the drawings that get him there.



Duck Dodgers is not immune to gravitational pull.



I like how the scientist finishes the scene by looking over and then being shaken by the impact of the fall.



Naturally, this was written by the great Mike Maltese. Chuck Jones’ animators are Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris and Ben Washam.

Mary Wickes

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on a local actress who made good in its edition of October 21, 1934.

A NEW Marc Connelly play, "The Farmer Takes a Wife,” is set for a Broadway opening Wednesday night. Acting as understudy to Margaret Hamilton in the lead role is Mary Wickes, who is better known to St. Louisans by her real name of Mary Wickenhauser.
Miss Wickes, regularly in a minor part, had the lead role for several performances in Philadelphia last week, where the play has already opened, when Miss Hamilton became ill. Miss Wickes, graduate of Washington University, is a former comedienne of the St. Louis Little Theater and received further training at the Berkshire Playhouse, Stockbridge, Ma. Her first professional appearance was well-received by Philadelphia critics, according to a letter to Cowles Strickland, director of Little Theater.

Wickes never became a star, but she was a fine character actress, working opposite such diverse talents as Abbott and Costello, Monty Woolley, Shemp Howard and Acquanetta. She did have a starring role on television—she played Mary Poppins well before Julie Andrews. It seems to me she had a wise-crack about that once. Wickes wasn’t far from a withering comment when the mood struck her.

She had a long career. The same newspaper chatted with her in its issue of June 20, 1991, later syndicated.

Actress Mary Wickes: Her Phone Still Rings
By Harper Barnes
Post-Dispatch Movie Critic
"OH, SO YOU'RE a movie critic," said Mary Wickes. She looked intently across the table, her eyes bright and piercing as crystal daggers.
"Did ya see 'Postcards from the Edge'?" she asked.
"Yes," was the answer.
"Did ya like it?"
"Sure."
"I'm in it, you know," she said, a smile flitting across her lips. Her eyes were twinkling, but she continued to look appraisingly across the table.
"You were great," was the response. "You should have been nominated for an Academy Award."
She raised her eyebrows, grinned and lightly slapped the table with her right hand. "That," she said, "is true.' She laughed heartily and rolled her eyes, simultaneously suggesting three things: (1) she knew very well when someone was trying to flatter her; (2) she understood that the whole Hollywood ego game was pretty much of a joke; (3) she was still very proud of her work in the movie.
In "Postcards from the Edge," the 1990 film version of Carrie Fisher's semi-autobiographical novel about growing up in Hollywood, Wickes plays the eccentric grandmother and holds her own with frequent Oscar nominees Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep. The movie just came out on videotape, giving us yet another chance to watch Mary Wickes do what she does best—bring an abundance of character to character acting.
Wickes has also been seen recently in the TV series "Father Dowling Mysteries," in which she plays the quippy housekeeper and cook to a priest played by Tom Bosley.
A St. Louis native (she grew up as Mary Wickenhauser) and 1934 graduate of Washington University, Wickes had flown here from her Los Angeles home to speak to Forest Park Forever, a nonprofit group that works to improve the park. Two days before she came, she received a phone call informing her that the "Father Dowling" series had been canceled after three seasons.
"It was quite a surprise," she said. "We thought the show was doing well, and people are always coming up and saying how much they enjoy it. People are always asking me for a piece of my apple pie. We've always had good ratings. I don't know, there's new management at the network, and I hear they're clearing the decks for a bunch of half-hour sitcoms next year."
"You know," she said, "I'm not sure these bankers who run the networks these days know what they're doing." She shrugged. "Maybe the show can be saved. Write letters. Sometimes that works. Send your letters to ABC."

By all means, send those letters. But you shouldn't worry that septagenarian Mary Wickes will be out of work if the series is not renewed. Wickes has been successful in show business since the mid-1930s—her first notable role was the nurse in the Broadway hit "The Man Who Came to Dinner," a part she repeated in the movie version. Her other early movies include "Now, Voyager," the 1942 Bette Davis romantic classic. In all, she has appeared in about 40 movies, and the phone still rings.
"I'm very choosy," she said. "I won't do anything that's in bad taste. One thing that's nice. I get a script from time to time that describes a part as 'a Mary Wickes part.'"
Wickes was staying at the Ritz-Carlton in Clayton for a few days, visiting friends and taking care of some family business. Over the years, she has been a frequent and enthusiastic visitor to her old hometown, and it was typical that she would come on behalf of a group that is trying to preserve Forest Park. She grew up a few blocks from the park and still speaks fondly of childhood visits to the St Louis Art Museum, the St Louis Zoo and the Muny.
As an adult, she has appeared in a couple of dozen Muny productions, and she was very enthusiastic about Paul Blake, who took over last year as production director. "He's sharp as a tack," she said, "and he really gets you excited."
Wickes is an authority on the history of the Muny, having done considerable research on it about 20 years ago, when she went to graduate school at the University of California at Los Angeles.
"You see," she said, "Washington University gave me an honorary doctorate of arts In 1969, so I decided I would go ahead and show I could actually do the work for a graduate degree."
She shook her head. "But I'm a very busy actress. I was just getting into it when I went to London to work with Orson Welles, and that sort of thing kept happening. I still haven't written that master's thesis on the Muny. I guess I'm an actress, not a writer, although I would like to finish the thesis just to show I could do it."
When asked why she thinks the calls keep coming, Wickes said, "Well, I get along with people. I don't grouse or complain. I have no patience with actors who sign a contract and then complain about the work they agreed to do."
She laughed deep in her throat, the kind of laugh that can cheer up a table, or a theater full of people, and looked her visitor in the eye once again. "I always remember what Spencer Tracy said about acting. 'Say your lines, don't bump into the furniture and remember that Shirley Temple did it at 4.'"
She laughed again, more softly this time, and gazed across the hotel lobby.
"You know, I've been in plays with kids who'll say, 'How do you feel it every night?' And I say, 'Sweetheart, you can't feel it every night. If you did, you'd be a limp rag. The idea is to make the audience feel it'. "

Wickes died four years after this interview. She was 85.