Hungry Sheep

Droopy’s sheep eat everything in Drag-a-long Droopy, including a river and an Indian teepee.



Tex Avery explored the eat-everything concept in full in the next cartoon he put into production, Billy Boy.

This 1954 short features Avery’s usual animators—Walt Clinton, Grant Simmons, Mike Lah and Bob Bentley, as well as Ray Patterson. The “Moo moo moo/baa baa baa!” and “Hey, taxi!” routines in this short are among my most favourite moments in MGM cartoons.

Who is Alex Trebek?

If you look at the right side of the bottom row of this football team, you’ll see a head sticking out between two uniformed players. That head went on to great fame, but not in football.

The head belongs to Alex Trebek.

At the time, he was better known as Alexandre Trebek when he was going to school in the Ottawa area. The photo is from 1956.

Trebek did some acting in school but needed money. One place where actors could find some pay was at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which not only mounted TV productions but still had live radio drama. The CBC hired him. But not as an actor.

The Ottawa Citizen made Trebek the cover story of its TV Weekly magazine of Saturday, June 17, 1961, and also showed headline writers don’t always read the stories they’re captioning very well.

George Trebek Youngest Announcer
George Alexander Trebek is probably the youngest CBC permanent staff announcer in Canada.
Alexander, who is of Russian and French descent, was born in the northern Ontario city of Sudbury. He came to Ottawa seven years ago to attend the prep school of the University of Ottawa . . . and has been here since except for a few short stays in the United States.
Alex has just completed the Sedes Sapientiae where all his philosophy subjects were taught in Latin. This fall, he will receive two university degrees, a bachelor of arts degree with a major in philosophy, and a bachelor of philosophy degree.

Alexander began his announcing career quite by accident when he was hired as a summer replacement on CBO radio last year. He was again a replacement during the Christmas holidays, and then in February of this year joined the permanent announce staff in order to help pay his tuition at the University.
His main interests lie in the entertainment field in general, and drama in particular. During the course of his university stay he was first a member and then president of the University of Ottawa Drama Guild. Among his other interests are music and travelling.

There are some in the CBC who gravitate to Toronto to further their careers. That’s what Trebek did. By May 1964, he was Canada’s Dick Clark, hosting a TV show called Music Hop. Two years later, he hosted Championship Curling. It sounds like an SCTV sketch—two curling rinks competed for, well, I’m not really sure. Next he was paired with Canada’s Pet, Juliette, in a three-times-a-week mid-day live chat show. In the early ‘70s, he got a shot (as did many others) at being Canada’s Dick Cavett by hosting a late Thursday night talk show.

The CBC decided to put Trebek at the other end of the clock and made him the local radio morning host in Toronto in October 1971. The format was supposed to be information-based but one Toronto newspaper critic tutted it had too many records and commercials. It lasted until the end of 1972. The CBC decided to make a change.

The Globe and Mail profiled Trebek in its edition of November 25, 1972. By then, he was now Canada’s Allen Ludden. He was on local CBC-TV hosting the high school equivalent of the G.E. College Bowl called Reach For the Top—which WAS an SCTV sketch (at least a parody of it was). It’s evident Trebek’s number one priority was, despite talk about spending time “thinking,” advancing his career.

Trebek: cautious, eligible and ambitious
By EDNA HAMPTON
“Well, are you going to do a hatchet job?” Alex Trebek slips the question into our conversation as we walk from the CBC radio building on Jarvis Street to Yonge Street where he drops off a pair of ski boots he wants to sell.
That’s much the way the interview goes. Several hours later, he is still giving a lot of yes and no answers to questions.
Alexander Trebek is not about to show a bleeding heart—if he has one. He denies that he does. So does his producer, Fred Augerman. But the fact remains that both are unhappy about the CBC’s decision to drop them as host and producer of the 5-to-9 morning slot on CBLT [sic].
There’ll be a new host (as yet unnamed) and two producers, John Barberash and Mary McFadyen, in the new year. Trebek was invited to stay on until April but declined.
He’s not worried about the future. He’s got 10 weeks leave due and he just wants to relax, ski and work on the chalet he is building at Collingwood. At least for a while.

He has four offers for television shows and he still hosts Reach for the Top so that “hopefully” he won’t be spending much time back on the announcers’ roster filling in station breaks.
Trebek doesn’t mention more lucrative jobs in the United States but Augerman does. The producer believes that Alex Trebek is as good as the $85,000-a-year hosts on private U.S. networks.
The situation with the morning show is a paradox for Trebek. He was brought in 15 months ago because the CBC wanted to change the format. The former morning host, Bruce Smith, was moved to the afternoon slot. Now the CBC wants another change. Augerman says the decision was made by Ottawa.
“They’re just changing the format, that’s all,” Trebek explains. “They came up with a new format last year, a format I liked and felt reasonably sure I could operate in and now they’re decided that’s not what they should be doing. I think they’re wrong getting away completely from what they’ve been doing. They don’t really know what they’re doing.” And he admits “I was a little cheesed off. I supposed because I don’t think it’s the right move.”
Augerman, who is probably Trebek’s number one fan, says that “Alex doesn’t have to take a back seat to anyone. He’s New York, Chicago, Los Angeles. I think he’s probably the most underrated broadcaster. His versatility scares the hell out of me.”
Trebek’s experience ranges from acting as host of Swan Lake to the horse races. His detractors tend to say he is equally glib on them all.
As the CBC’s early morning man, Trebek has been getting up at 4 a.m. and dashing (it takes seven minutes) from his George Street home along the few blocks in central Toronto to the CBC. He usually carried his briefcase in one hand and often a can of pop in the other.
His three-story house, which is paid for, was bought “because I wanted to own something.” He restored it himself. It’s attractively—but for some tastes a little too carefully—decorated. A chess board is set up. It’s no casual bachelor’s pad thrown together with Crippled Civilian and Salvation Army furniture but it’s in the style of an Eaton’s College Street store window. Trebek has, and obviously cherishes, a fine collection of paintings, including some by a friend, John Gould.
There’s a handsome dining set where he can entertain up to eight dinner guests. The son of a Sudbury chef, he likes to cook and enjoys going to and giving dinner parties.
He grins (and for the first time in the interview he appears to relax) when he’s asked if he doesn’t agree that he’s a good catch. He agrees, modestly.
At 32, he’s handsome, and has plenty of ambition. “No, I’m not romantically involved,” he says. “I don’t have a big romance with any one girl.” He says he likes “attractive girls with something on the ball. I haven’t met the right one yet. It’s probably because I’ve been too busy pursuing my career to have a stable, emotional relationship with anyone.” He notes the divorce of his parents and many friends.

He complains with good humor when he explains that every time he mentions on air where he was the night before, the girls with whom he dates speculate who he was with. “That’s why I end up going lots of places alone.”
Some dates end by 10 p.m. “Any girl who dates me has time for two dates on the same night.” In 15 months of doing the early show, he’s never been late.
Trebek enjoys being a radio and TV celebrity. “It’s enjoyable being recognized. It’s good for your ego. Everybody likes being rubbed, petted, or whatever.”
Born in Sudbury, he moved to Ottawa as a child and stayed there long enough to study philosophy at the University of Ottawa and to establish himself at the CBC. He came to Toronto in 1963 [sic] to do Music Hop—“a rock ‘n’ roll teeny bopper show on TV. I was fairly young. I was all right. I suppose.”
He likes to clown around both on and off the air—a bit that led to his suspension for a few days recently. “Just make some vague reference to it,” he says. (An offhand remark offended some members of a religious group.) He admits that he finds few subjects sacred.
Is he ever serious? “I’m serious when I think about politics.” He has political ambitions, “Maybe federal politics eventually but a start at the local level. I like politics. It appears to whatever things like that are supposed to appeal to a person of my character. He says—and he does not seem to be kidding—that there should be a degree course at university for politicians.
He adds that if he ever does get to the House of Commons and has a say in the management of the CBC. “I’d make changes. I’d do a little house cleaning. I think the CBC takes up too much of the taxpayer’s dollar for what it gives out. But that can be said for the entire Government.”
Later, he says he would like to work in films either as an actor or producer. “Film is where it’s at. We’ve got a budding film industry in Canada.”
In the meantime he plays to take it easy. “I’ve been working pretty hard for a long time. Maybe I’ll do some reading and some thinking. I’d think to get away from the showbiz atmosphere for a while. But broadcasting is fun. And it sure beats working.”

The only change in the CBC that Trebek made was his employment status. Augerman called it. Trebek became Canada’s Monty Hall, making a Hall-esque jump from the Mother Corp to a hosting job in the U.S.A. Broadcasting magazine reported the following June 11th that Trebek would be emceeing The Wizard of Odds on NBC starting July 16th. “Does his job passively though unimpressively,” sniffed the Globe and Mail, whose columnist looked down on “the worship of possessions.” Another critic compared him to someone other than Hall. “Lacks [Gene] Rayburn’s real or manifested manic enthusiasm,” declared Variety.

Odds was replaced with High Rollers almost a year later but Trebek was on his way. When 1984 rolled around, syndicated show pushers dredged up a bunch of old game show ideas. One was Let’s Make a Deal. Another was Name That Tune. There was even a new edition of High Rollers. Trebek wasn’t involved in that one (Tom Kennedy hosted) because he landed a job on the biggest plum of all: a “high-tech” version of Jeopardy in spite of being labelled, as syndicated columnist Gary Deeb called him, “a thoroughly unremarkable fellow.” And despite critics initially complaining the new Jeopardy was less intellectual and more shallow than the old version, it stayed on the air.

And, in the process, Alex Trebek became the world’s Alex Trebek.

They Remember My Name in Sheboygan

Jack Benny was proud of the town where he grew up, Waukegan, Illinois. Sometime toward the mid ‘30s, it became one of the subjects used for joke fodder on the Benny radio show. It’s familiarity with Benny’s huge audience gave someone a brainstorm—instead of Hollywood, why not premiere Benny’s new movie in Waukegan? It’ll be different! It’ll be a homecoming! Think of the extra publicity!

And that’s exactly what happened when Man About Town opened in June 1939 in Jack’s hometown. NBC even got in on the act by broadcasting Benny’s final show of the radio season from Waukegan. Reporters from all over flocked there, from papers big and small.

One of the small papers was the Sheboygan Press of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. It had its own Benny connection, once removed. Benny was part of a vaudeville act with pianist Lyman Wood (though they were billed as “Benny and Woods”). When Benny went solo, Wood eventually found his way to Sheboygan. The Press’ reporter covering the premiere got a comment about Wood, and came back with a story full of festiveness (Wood died in California in 1967).

Sheboygan And Lyman Wood Remembered By Jack Benny
(By Staff Correspondent)
Waukegan, Ill.—(Special)—This entire city and thousands of kibitzers watched Jack Benny be a "Man About Town" both in real and reel life here Sunday.
The occasion was a "local-boy-makes-good" homecoming, the highlights of which were his national broadcast from the stage of the Genesee theatre here and the premiere showing of Jack's latest picture, "Man About Town." With him were his entire radio cast and Dorothy Lamour, who takes a leading role in the picture, and who was introduced to the huge audience immediately after the broadcast, just before the showing of the picture.
During the day Jack Benny's man about town activities consisted of chatting with newspapermen from all over the country, signing autographs, greeting old friends, and staging rapid exits when the crowds got too huge.
“Sure I remember Sheboygan,” Jack Benny told your correspondent. “I played there with my violin act many years ago—but don't mention how many. And Lyman Wood? Say, he and I put on an act together—where is he now, anyway?”
Put On Premiere
Just about then, Andy Devine interrupted, saying "Mary's here, Jack," and Mary Livingstone joined the group. There was no more time for talk then, for photographers hurriedly snapped a few pictures, and Jack, Andy, Mary and the rest of the cast rushed over to the theatre to rehearse the broadcast.

The premiere was put on in typical Hollywood fashion. The streets were roped off and the natives and visitors who didn't have tickets for the broadcast or premier stood on the other side of the ropes for hours to catch a glimpse of their favorite son and hear him and Miss Lamour make a few remarks over the public address system before going into the theatre.
Inside Jack put on an impromptu show for his guests during the 20 minutes which awaited broadcast. He ad-libbed about Fred Allen, walked through the aisles making wisecracks, and finally grabbed a violin and played a number in A-Number-One fashion just to show that he really can play without hitting the sour notes always heard on his radio programs.
Incidentally, the number he played was "My Honey's Lovin' Arms," a favorite that he and Lyman Wood "used to play in vaudeville and which Lyman played nightly when he was playing at the Calumet Inn in Sheboygan and was also being featured over Station WHBL.
Addresses Guests
Shortly before the broadcast Jack addressed his guests.
"There's only one request we have to make and that is to limit the applause, cut it off whenever it looks as though we were resuming the broadcast," he said. "That's necessary because the broadcast is timed to the split second, and we have to finish on time. But you can laugh all you want, and say—you'd better laugh!"
Soon everything became silent and tense on the stage. Jack Benny lighted up one of those huge cigars he smokes and paced up and down. The rotund Don Wilson took his position at a microphone on the other end of the stage. Phil Harris said a few-words to his orchestra and located himself in front of the band, ready to direct the opening number.
And then the broadcast went on.
Immediately after its conclusion Jack Benny, greeted by a storm of applause, again spoke briefly, thanking his audience and telling them he hoped they'd enjoy his new picture. The picture followed, and a first rate comedy it is, with Jack and Dorothy Lamour at their best and with Rochester stealing a number of scenes very deftly.
The picture over, the streets again were jammed with people from the three theatres where it was shown, and the routine of signing autographs and rushing to hotel rooms was resumed by the visiting celebrities.
All in all it was a big day for Waukegan, its home town hero, and his friends.

Puppetoons Go to War

Hollywood went to war in a big way after Adolf Hitler decided an invasion of Poland was a sehr gut idea for the Fatherland. Animation studios played their part.

There were propaganda cartoons for the home front, with unsubtle pleas to Buy Bonds interrupting the story. There were even less subtle caricatures of Axis leaders (Hitler getting bashed around is still funny) and the enemy in general, especially the Japanese (which, I suppose, was funny at the time, but chopped from post-war prints). On top of that, allied governments contracted studios to make films for the military. Disney, Schlesinger, Lantz, Hugh Harman were among them. So was George Pal.

Watching Pal’s characters move is something I still marvel at. That’s not even considering the incredible amount of work that went into designing, making and shooting his stop-motion models. Then combine that with an inspired story and you get something really remarkable; Tulips Will Grow is an amazing film by any standard.

While this story in the Showmen’s Trade Review of December 2, 1942, refers to war-time work, it’s really about how Pal’s Puppetoons were made.

All the studios were hit with staff being called up for war duty. Pal was no exception. The magazine reported on October 10, 1942 that just as Pal’s Jasper and the Choo Choo began production, nine of his employees were told that duty called with the U.S. Army.

Pal got out of shorts in the late ‘40s; it cost too much to make them. He moved into features where he, arguably, received more fame and honours.

Pal Puppetoons Get Wartime Assignment from Uncle Sam
Famous Wooden Characters Star in Training Pictures; Creator’s Technique Detailed
Some years ago when George Pal had the idea of using wooden puppets in animated pictures to achieve third dimension, he probably never realized that his idea, besides revolutionizing the animated picture, would also prove valuable to a nation at war. But that's what has happened, for Paramount's Puppetoon King has joined the ranks of shorts and cartoon producers making training films for the United States Government.
Depth and perspective are important in projecting a realistic miniature scene of an actual maneuver or plan of action in these films, it is pointed out, with the result that Pal's technique is proving its usefulness in wartime.
Nearly a dozen years ago when George Pal received his degree in architecture in Europe, he hoped to make a career of designing sets for feature pictures. He did follow that course for a while, but the idea of making his own wooden puppets so that his pictures would have a third dimension caused him to change his course. He photographed puppets in all sizes and forms, photographed them with a stop-motion camera, studied their action, carried on endless experiments and developed his new technique to the point of perfection. He was then ready to produce pictures.
He Trained a Large Staff
In Eindhoven, Holland, he opened a studio, went to work. His Puppetoons were enthusiastically received in the first-run movie theatres in England and on the continent, and were warmly praised by film critics. Rushed in making pictures to meet the public demand, Pal trained a large staff of assistants. His studio became the largest animation studio outside the United States. It was there that he developed and perfected his revolutionary system of third dimensional animations.
From Holland and England his fame spread to America. Paramount brought him to Hollywood where, in little more than a year, he has become one of the most successful artists in the film capital.

Those stringless puppets romping across the screen represent the ultimate advancement in the field of animated motion pictures. The wooden figures perform against actual sets with synchronized music and special sound effects.
Whereas animated cartoons require a separate drawing in celluloid for each movement. Pal builds a separate wood figure or puppet. The result gives a more fluid action, with the theatrical advantage of complete third dimension.
First steps in the making of a Pal Puppetoon: writing the script, composing the music (done first so movement of the characters may be clearly defined before they are made) and designing the sets. The sets are just as real as in feature films, but small and according to exact scale.
Pal then makes color models of the first, middle and last phase of each movement of each character. Assistants complete the twenty-five or more models of the intermediate steps. Then they are photographed and projected to test the movements.
Each puppet is made up of three sections: body, head and legs. Contrary to common belief, a complete puppet is not made for every step in the action of the picture. Since the body remains the same regardless of the action, only one body is needed. Walking or running action is achieved by changing the legs. The heads number some 200, with varying expressions. For the proper expression. Pal's assistants record the sound track on the film, listen while the expression is run back. Then they select a head with a mouth of the shape and size to synchronize with the sound.
When actual filming begins, the position of the puppet is determined and holes are made in the floor of the- set in which the pin protruding from the bottom of the feet will be inserted. That will hold the puppet in the desired position. The other holes, past and future, are filled with removable pins until they are needed.
Shooting Time: Six Weeks
Altogether, approximately 10,000 individual pictures are taken for the subject that will run seven minutes. Actual shooting time is about six weeks, in spite of the fact that 90 per cent of the work on a cartoon is preparation that has nothing to do with the actual shooting.
The ordinary Technicolor camera takes scenes from behind three different lenses. Not so with the camera used to take a single frame at a time. This camera has a Technicolor attachment consisting of three different color filters. Each frame is "shot" three times, each time with the color changed. When the film is printed, the positive is exposed to each of the three different color frames of the same scene, one at a time. Result: one Technicolor positive, the same as a positive made from the ordinary three-film-color negative.
Hollywood producers have spent millions to develop animated mediums. In spite of the most careful measures to give wooden, plastic and clay subjects smooth animation, the problem had been long unsolved until George Pal came along with his highly developed Puppetoons. His famous little characters, while entertaining millions, will also carry out their acting assignment for Uncle Sam to speed the day of victory.

I Interrupt This Programme...

Woody Woodpecker is enjoying some hula dancers while cleaning his home inside a tree.



Suddenly, an announcer shoves the dancers out of the way to nervously interrupt the programme for word of an invasion from outer space.



Woody doesn’t like having his TV viewing interrupted for such nonsense. He changes the channel, but the same announcer shows up on a kids show and a wrestling match, shoving everyone on camera aside.



This is from Termites From Mars, a late 1952 Walter Lantz cartoon directed by Don Patterson. Ray Abrams, Paul Smith and La Verne Harding are the credited animators with Dal McKennon as the fear-struck announcer.

Roller Coaster of the Mardi Gras

The roller coaster chase and fight in King of the Mardi Gras (1935) may be my favourite sequence in a Popeye cartoon.

This short is so well thought out. The cloudy skies in the background waft to the right as the roller coaster cars zoom along the tracks, adding to the sense of movement. There are imaginative angles including one where the tracks twist. The wooden slats are animated as the cars roll over them, making it appear that the tracks shake. And there’s perfect timing where the tracks intersect and Olive, Bluto and Popeye almost hit each other. You can’t, unfortunately, get any of those effects through a few still frames. Search out for the cartoon and watch it.



There’s also one of those Fleischer background blurs to make the movement seem faster.



The cartoon includes bizarre heads along with the 3-D background effect in the opening scene, a great song sung by Gus Wicke and Jack Mercer, and Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” which the only melody that should accompany a Popeye fight.

Dave Tendlar and Bill Sturm are the credited animators.

On Fred Allen and TV Cartoons

Kenny Delmar went from working with Orson Welles to working with Fred Allen. It wasn’t a direct route, but how many people got to regularly share a microphone with two men of that brilliant calibre?

Delmar was an actor who, for better or worse, was forever connected with a catchphrase—“That’s a joke, son!” as Allen re-worked a character created by Delmar into a noisy, enthusiastic Dixiecrat. Even the Dixiecrats Delmar was parodying liked Senator Claghorn.

No, Delmar didn’t voice Warners Bros.’ animated rooster Foghorn Leghorn, but he did provide voices for, to be honest, some really third-rate TV cartoons.

(This is the part of the post where I post a link to Keith Scott’s research stating the facts behind Delmar’s Senator and Foggy).

In this syndicated column from April 29, 1961, Delmar talked about his cartoons, his work with Allen and his presence on Welles’ most famous radio broadcast (Delmar provided an FDR-cadenced voice on a character inspired by the president).

Kenny Delmar was 73 when he died in 1984.

Fred Allen Was Tops
By HAROLD STERN
Pat Weaver, the man responsible for the concept of the television spectacular (rechristened "special" by his ex-network NBC), was also largely responsible for the success of the late Fred Allen.
Back during Allen's radio heyday, Weaver, an ad agency executive at the time, insisted there was only one way to handle Allen—"Leave him alone!" With practically no interference from any non-creative buttinsky, Allen was a giant in the field of comedy.
Kenny Delmar, the Senator Claghorn of the old, "Allen's Alley" sequences was in a reminiscent mood the other day and, naturally, could find no subject more fascinating than Fred Allen.

"I've worked with exciting people all my life," he said, "but there will never be another Fred Allen. I remember when I joined him. I was working with Alan Young, and Fred hired me. Would you believe it, the sponsor wasn't even aware that I was part of Fred's company until he heard me on the show? Can you imagine anyone in television having that much confidence in a performer.
"I don't know why Fred didn't make it in television." he mused. "He was a success in the theater, he did well in movies and his radio career was without parallel. I have a feeling he might have done well, giving his kind of commentary on the news. Maybe the big problem with Fred was that you couldn't watch his mind functioning. He wasn't a clown, he was a wit—and there just doesn't seem to be room for wit on television.
"I think a lot of Fred's old material would go well on television," Kenny continued. "His 'One Long Pan' episodes and his courtroom sequences would still be hilarious. His Christmas show was a classic. And one show I'll never forget is one he did with Orson Welles playing a timid little boy. The Allen's Alley concept certainly worked on television. Steve Allen used the idea for his 'Man On The Street' routines.
"Steve Allen's characters weren't nearly as diversified as Fred's, though. We had a good group: Parker Fennelly as Titus Moody, Minerva Pius [sic] as Mrs. Nussbaum, Alan Reed as Falstaff Openshaw and myself as Senator Claghorn. That was my character, but Fred named him. When Alan Reed went to Hollywood, Peter Donald took his place as Ajax Cassidy."
Now TV Regular
Today, Kenny's in television on a regular basis, but he might just as well have stayed in radio. He's a voice on a highly successful "King Leonardo and His Short Subjects" Saturday morning cartoon series on NBC, on which he plays "The Hunter," "Flanagan the cop" and the narrator. It's sort of intriguing to note that Kenny's producer is a southerner named Treadwell Covington who professes to be a long-time fan of the garrulous southern Senator Claghorn.
The Claghorn character is one which Kenny continues to hold on to no matter what else he does and it is currently the basis for a series of one-minute spots which he and his son have worked up under the title "The Senator Looks at . . . " And again in the role of Claghorn, Kenny has a sales movie designed for sales banquets and conventions in which the Senator is the salesman of the year.
With his career spanning several decades and encompassing all entertainment media. I asked Kenny if he could recall his most frustrating experience and his single outstanding show.
"Many years ago," he recalled, "when I was working for CBS radio on an around-the-clock basis, I had to send out for my meals. The service was so bad that in self-defense I opened my own restaurant near CBS. I figured if nothing else could, that should guarantee me good service. Well, the restaurant became so successful that the service got worse than the other restaurant's.
"And if you ask for the single outstanding show of my career," he added, "I'd have to say it was the famous Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre 'War of the Worlds' show, after which we had much of American believing that earth was being invaded by Mars. That created more of a furor than any other program in radio history. For weeks after the show they were trying to find some law under which they could prosecute us as criminals," he said.
Needless to say, Kenny Delmar was not prosecuted as a criminal and remained "clean" long enough so that today, on The Hunter sequence of King Leonardo, he plays a private-eye bloodhound.

A Tyerd Cat

A cat running from an ordinary mouse? That’s the animation that opens the Mighty Mouse cartoon A Cat’s Tale (1951). It may be an ordinary mouse, but the animation’s no ordinary animation. Some random (albeit fuzzy) frames.



Jim Tyer’s animation is even crazier when the cat locks and bolts the door of his cave. We'll do a post on that some day.

Tyer never got screen credit. None of the animators did until Gene Deitch arrived toward the end of the decade.

There’s some mighty cross-promotion in this cartoon as several scenes feature Mighty Mouse comic books.

Here I Am in the Fifth Row!

Tex Avery erases the line of what’s on the screen and what’s in the movie theatre in the end gag of Cinderella Meets Fella (1938).

There are Averyisms throughout the cartoon, but the ending has the Prince following the original fairy tale and showing up at Cinderella’s house. The plot veers off into Averyland again, when instead of having Cindy try on the slipper (which disappears after an earlier scene), the Prince looks at a note. The artist goes for fleshy, fingernailed hands.



The Prince is inconsolable until a shadow appears on the screen. It’s Cindy in the theatre watching him in the cartoon (that she’s actually in). She leaves the theatre and rushes onto the screen.



Reunited, the Prince and Cinderella both leave the screen for the theatre through the closing iris to watch the coming newsreel. End of cartoon.



There’s plenty of familiar Avery to go around. The fairy godmother enjoys her gin (we see the bottle, but she doesn’t drink from it). The radio talks back to Cinderella. She gives out an advertising slogan before turning it on. We get Jimmy Fidler’s catchphrase “And I do mean you!” spouted as a post-script by the evil step-sisters with the NBC chimes lightly in the background. The Prince, of course, is based on comedian Joe Penner (the impression is by Danny Webb). Avery resisted the temptation to have him screech “You naaasty man!”

The Motion Picture Herald of July 23, 1938, was impressed, though I don’t think the dancing qualifies as “jitterbugging.”

Outstanding Cartoon
Hardly classically reverential in its treatment of the hallowed and ageless fable of the little slavey girl who meets a Prince Charming boy is this jazzed up version from the iconoclastic pen of Leon Schlesinger but even the youngster most ardently devoted to the fairy fable lore will lose his bewilderment in witnessing the desecration of one of his favorite tales in gales of childish glee. The free hand of the artist has drawn Cindy's magic fairy godmother in screwball shades and the soundman has given the curly haired heroine a set of "Betty Boopish" vocal cords. As for the glamorous and dashing Prince, the female contingency in the audience will be startled after admiring the "Snow White" edition of the royal gentleman to witness the "goofy" picturization of the princely chap in this cartoon. The famous ball scene is reduced to a jitterbug session. The finale finds the romantic couple at a neighborhood showplace. However, the drawings, taken in the insane spirit in which they are sketched, will produce an hilarious audience response and should flavor any programme with a welcome touch of amusing nonsense. The technical makeup of color and musical background provide excellent help in creating the atmosphere for the subject. — Running time, seven minutes.

By the way, the same year as this cartoon, Bunny Berigan came out with a B-side called “When a Prince of a Fella Meets a Cinderella.” Coincidence? Mmmmm....could be. Oh, wait, Avery skipped that radio catchphrase in this one.

Virgil Ross was the credited animator. Sid Sutherland, Paul Smith and Irv Spence were Avery’s other animators at the time. Cinderella is Berneice Hansell. Mel Blanc is heard, and the godmother could be Elvia Allman.

Let's Try the Artificial Sweetener Angle

There are just so many things you can write about a star when there’s really nothing new to talk about.

In Jack Benny’s case, I suppose that speaks well toward his longevity in show business, but once he settled into television, it proved to be a challenge for columnists. After all, he had been on the air for so long, what possibly could be said about his coming fall season that hadn’t been said before?

Such was the challenge of the New York Herald Tribune’s TV columnist, who rose to the challenge in her paper’s edition of October 8, 1958 (the column was syndicated as well). She managed to find something.

Jack Benny's Not Stingy with Time
By MARIE TORRE
NEW YORK — JACK Benny is in New York on a business trip to extend an annual hello to his sponsor, his CBS boss Bill Paley, and members of the press. The practice has paid off in good will.
Benny's attention to the amenities of public relations, not to mention the fact that he's a helluva comedian, has kept his sponsor (Lucky Strike) happy for 15 years and has enabled the comedian to enjoy the status of top dog at Mr. Paley's network. As for TV reporters . . . well, naturally, they're flattered no end when a CBS man calls and says "Jack Benny is coming to town and he wants to talk to you."
Normally, it's the other way around. And sometimes, to the frustration of a reporter tracking down a performer in the headlines, we find the star doesn't want to talk to us.

But Benny has never minimized the value of publicity, and he's always ready to talk — even when he has nothing new to say. When he was asked about "changes" in his TV series, for instance. Everybody in TV, you know, feels the need to refurbish every other year or so.
"Changes?" Benny echoed over the breakfast in his hotel suite. "No, I'm not changing anything. There's nothing to change. I don't have a format. The situations hinge on the guest personalities, and since the personalities are different in each show, each situation is different.
"Frankly, we're all very happy with the way things are. The sponsor's happy, too. Do you know that in 15 years, I have never had any criticism from the sponsor about the commercials I integrate in the script. Not once. Every year Paul Hahn — he's the president of Lucky Strike, you know — comes to California with his wife and we all get together for an evening. First thing Hahn usually says is, 'Well, your shows have been great,' and then we all go out and have a good time."
In the interests of an "angle," we turned the subject to his wife, Mary Livingston, inordinately TV-shy last season.
"Oh, I have an awfully hard time putting Mary to work," Benny said, "she gets nervous when she works. She loves show business as an observer, but not for herself. Unless I come up with a show idea which positively requires her appearance, she won't do anything."
The subject of Mrs. Benny yielded nothing in the way of news; maybe he had some fresh opinions on the inability of other TV comedians to match his lasting success.
"Well, like I always said, and I don't mean this to sound egotistical," Benny answered, "I've got it made. I was lucky. Twenty or more years ago I stumbled on the idea of playing a cheap character and it's good enough to last a lifetime. It's good because it's a composite of every thing that's wrong with human beings. Everybody has an uncle who's stingy, or a coward or who thinks he's a great violinist. The identification factor is there, if you know what I mean.
"But I can see where TV is tough on the other comedians. They have to create new situations and characters all the time. I notice that whenever comedians refer to their troubles in TV they invariably mention me as the exception. All I have to worry about is to keep my show from stinking."
Our attempt to uncover something new about Benny, incidentally, wasn't a total loss. At the breakfast table, he announced he was on a health kick and he produced both a bottle of sucaryl and a tin of "non-fattening butter" (some form of margarine, actually) he had brought all the way from California. The products, however, weren't used under the most effective circumstances. The waiter had forgotten to bring milk for the berries, whereupon Benny shrugged, sprinkled the non-fattening sucaryl on the berries, devoured a slice of toast with non-fattening butter, and then with delicious abandon, poured very-fattening cream on the berries.