A Slice(r) of Life

Time seems to go backward in Rough on Rats (1933), where a huge rat in a grocery store kidnaps a little black kitten and ties him to a meat slicer. The rat rubs its misshapen (this is a Van Beuren cartoon, after all) hands in poorly-animated glee while kitten moves its head from side to side in fright.



The rat smells cheese outside its hole and goes to investigate. But when we cut back to the kitten, notice how far back he is. Somehow, the slicing board has moved backward, not forward toward the blade. Fortunately, this odd time-warp allows a white kitten to jump and grab the rope to stop the slicer so it doesn’t have to go back in time again.



Harry Bailey gets the “by” credit; Bailey had been around animation for about 15 years at this point.

This cartoon is still enjoyable to watch, even though it’s kind of a low-rent Disney short in terms of story. Where else can you see a rat attacked by Best English Walnuts (with a sign poking out of the bag reading “Nuts to you”?). And, as usual, Gene Rodemich finds some great tunes. Devon Baxter points out the one in this scene is called “Zombie” composed by Harold Mooney. Listen to a very good version below.

What's My Beef

We wrote the other day about Jack Benny and laugh tracks, and quoted from an article.

Here is that article, from the Associated Press wire of February 28, 1960.

Frankly, the writer’s advice is silly. Just taking time off and ignoring a problem doesn’t solve it. I imagine if she proposed that at one of her newspaper guild meetings dealing with a union problem, she’d be hooted down with ridicule.

You’ll note Jack Benny continues to support his former protégé. Benny handed the unknown Paar his summer replacement slot one year on radio to help launch Paar’s career.

Their Gripes Many, Varied
Our Unhappy Funny Men
EDITOR'S NOTE: Most people have known for quite awhile that comics are often very unfunny—sometimes very unhappy—people in private life. But lately new strains have come into the lives of television's funny men. Here's what top comedians themselves say.
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK—Something serious seems to be happening to the men whose job is to make the nation laugh. Off-camera, they aren't doing much smiling. A lot of them, in fact, are unhappy if not hopping mad.
For instance:
Jack Paar stormed off his late show recently. Bob Hope has complained bitterly about his bosses. Jack Benny burned loudly at his network's new rules about announcing the injection of canned laughter to sound tracks. Red Skelton and Danny Thomas are reported unhappy about the same thing. Steve Allen wants a lighter schedule next year.
What's the matter? Why the revolt of the comedians? Three top comedians—Allen, Benny and Jackie Gleason, who has been watching the fireworks as a sympathetic spectator—have some answers. The one thing they all agree on, however, is that the Jack Paar explosion in mid-February is not typical of the average comedian's beef.

"He's a very emotional fellow", is their analysis, "and he feels the pressure of doing a show four times a week."
"I used to have that show," says Allen, "and when I had it, it seemed like a lot of fun. That was my reaction to it, but I think I have an easy-going nervous system. The question, 'Is a nightly show hard?' is a bit like asking, 'How do you like married life?' or, 'How do you like being in the Army?' You can get a lot of different answers, all correct."
Allen does believe, however, that television is a "battlefield for comedians."
"It has increased enormously the pace and evolution of the comedian," he says. "Today he will run through in three or four years material which once could have kept him going at least 25 years. "And it is a medium, too, which lets the public fall violently in love with a performer. Then it cools off just as quickly, and it starts resenting the very ones it most adored."
Gleason, who is happily sitting out this turbulent television season with an occasional special, thinks the comedians with the regular shows are edgy because of the pressures.
"It's the tension of finding suitable material," he says. "With a weekly or even a biweekly show you're faced with finding good material or lowering your standards. And I think it is impossible to do a weekly show with quality."
Four shows a year, insists Gleason, are just about the limit for the star comedian who wants to feel satisfied with his works.
"It's the luxury of time," he amplifies. "It takes a month even to get an idea. It takes another month to write the show. Then there is the production of the show—and the three months are gone."
Jack Benny insists that "comedy is treacherous," and points out that in all other areas of show business the star is removed—in the audience's mind—from his material.
"But in comedy, nobody ever says that the show was rotten but the performer very good," he continues. "However, I think that most comedians work under great tension. I'm lucky because I enjoy working on a show, and rehearsals are fun."
Paar, he says, is a marvelous performer: "He can do everything beautifully. His delivery is great, he's a wonderful straight man, and he listens—how he listens! It must take a lot out of him. I couldn't do it for a million dollars."
Benny is resentful of his network s attitude on canned laughter.
"I was very angry for a day or so," he says, “But I got over it. But I still think telling the audience that you've inserted laughter in your show is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to when you must re-tape a portion of the show that didn't go right, or when the show is made in a corner of the studio where the audience can't see it."
But even so, says Jack, he's not mad enough about the rule to leave his network.
None of the three suggests that some of the widespread unhappiness stems directly from the TV quiz scandals. But the new rules on informing audiences about recording, taping and canned laughter are a result of the uproar.
And so is the networks current and passionate concern with good taste and the elimination of material that might cause more criticism to be heaped upon television's already bloody head.
As a matter of fact, it appears that today network executives are even more touchy than the sensitive talent which works for them.
It is very possible that, in their great apprehension, they have overlooked the necessity of dealing with their stars as tactfully or thoughtfully as in other, less parlous days.
Anyway, what everybody needs is a nice long TV vacation in which to rest up and heal up with reruns, repeat shows and summer replacements.

The Old Grey Fudd

I suppose the change from a 19th century agrarian society to one of growing cities and suburbs is the reason old folks sounded like hayseeds in popular culture in the ’30s and ‘40s. Jack Benny, for example, used the same old-folks voice for both rubes and seniors in sketches on his radio show.

The plot of The Old Grey Hare (1944) shoves Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny way into the future—the year 2000. Bugs doesn’t sound just old; he sounds like a yokel. Dry brush and perspective are used as Bugs swats away Elmer’s gun.



Director Bob Clampett employs few frames to get Bugs to push Elmer up a tree to choke him.



Here’s the extreme.



Mike Sasanoff’s story puts the two in the past, present and future; I don’t know if any other Warners cartoon did the same. I remember thinking when I first saw it how far away the year 2000 seemed.

Bob McKimson is the credited animator. Rod Scribner, of course, is here, too.

Cinemascope Scare

Former assistant animators Lew Marshall and Bill (Victor O.) Schipek have been promoted and add to some of the weird shapes in the Tom and Jerry cartoon Timid Tabby (1956), joining ex Lantz animator Ken Southworth, along with Ken Muse and Irv Spence (who would leave MGM later this year).

The premise is straight-forward. Tom’s hitherto-unknown cousin who is afraid of mice pays a visit. Among other things, he tries hiding from Jerry behind a window blind.



Jerry trying to be scary.



The cartoon’s basic premise was reused by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera in the Pixie and Dixie cartoon Scaredycat Dog.

Laughing at Jack

There’s something cringe-worthy about 1960s sitcom laugh-tracks. They all sound the same (in many cases, they were). And they sound so phoney.

Having listened to Jack Benny radio show when it was still live, it’s jarring watching his filmed TV shows and hearing the identical tired laugh track heard on other episodes. There’s a world of difference.

Jack knew it, too, and wasn’t altogether happy with it. He talked about it on several occasions, once with the Associated Press after CBS ordered him in 1960 to insert a disclaimer that phoney laughs had been cut into the soundtrack (part of the network’s knee-jerk response to the dishonest quiz shows it had been airing). This United Press International column appeared in papers on May 17, 1968. By then, Jack no longer had a weekly show and had reduced his workload to occasional specials.

The Laugh Track
By DICK WEST
WASHINGTON (UPI)—Most people think of Jack Benny only as a comedian and concert violinist, not realizing he is also an ardent social reformer.
I didn't realize that either until Benny came here this week for a series of recitals at the Shoreham Hotel. During a press luncheon, he advocated a social reform that caused me to jump up and shake his hand.
Benny came out in favor of realism in laugh tracks, which surely ranks with honesty in advertising and truth in lending as among the most needed reforms. Laugh tracks, as if you didn't know, are pre-recorded titters, giggles and gaffaws that are spliced onto taped television shows.
Okay When Accurate

When done with verisimilitude—that is, if the laugh track matches what is happening on the show—there is no quarrel with the practice. But you have only to watch one of the so-called situation comedies to recognize that mismating is rife and that liberties are being taken to the detriment of the viewers.
Laugh track synchronizers are constantly dubbing in cackles alter jokes that clearly call for chuckles, or, as is often the case, dead silence. Their worst offense is inflation.
When a show is slipping in the ratings, the usual remedy is to juice up the laugh track. Lame little jokes that merit a snicker at best are bolstered with full scale boffos. This is outright deception, and creates confusion and irritation in the home audience.
I don't know of anything more disconcerting than to find myself barely sniggering when my TV set is rocking with merriment. Makes me think I'm a hopeless square.
Rates Wit
Benny, as I was saving, understands this. Long experience performing before live audiences has taught him to evaluate the mirth-provoking qualities of any given witticism.
He said that when he uses canned laughter on a television show he personally selects the hilarity category to prevent a knee-slapper from being represented as a side-splitter, and vice versa.
Once, Benny said, when he was taping a show with living laughter, he broke everybody up with a gag that he regarded as mere chuckle material. Fearing the overkill might alienate home viewers, he snipped out the authentic belly-laugh and dubbed in a more restrained response.
It was an open-and-shut case of laugh track heresy and may explain why Benny no longer has a regular program.

We Want Quackenbush

Buried on the page of The Animator newsletter for April, 1945 is this line about the doings at the Walter Lantz studio: “Stan Qwackenbush back from European theatre”.

The fact Quackenbush, to correctly spell his name, was at Lantz is news to me. He never received screen credit. In fact, he rarely received screen credit anywhere else. Quackenbush was one of many animators who toiled in the Golden Days in obscurity, at least to the general public.

Fortunately, after he retired to Arizona, a newspaper printed a feature story after interviewing him. It doesn’t say a lot, and it certainly doesn’t contain a full filmography or studiography, but it’s nice to read about someone who contributed to theatrical cartoons way-back-when.

Louis Stanley Quackenbush was born on November 14, 1902 in what’s now Bellingham, Washington. His family moved to San Diego when he was young and returned to Bellingham where Quackenbush went to high school. In college, he was an unusual combination of a boxer and an artist.

The feature story will get more into his biography, but he was married in 1928, divorced and married again in 1937. He headed to Florida in 1939 before returning to California not long after. The story skips whole swaths of his career but he worked in Vancouver, likely at Canawest which had a subcontract with Hanna-Barbera. Among the shows animated there were the Abbott and Costello cartoons that ran in syndication (including on Canawest’s parent operation, KVOS-TV in Bellingham) and Wait Till Your Father Gets Home. Canawest had offices on Burrard Street south of Davie Street, but former Canawest manager Vic Spooner remembers the animation was done in six rented houses along Pacific Boulevard, which I suspect are the lovely wood-frame homes that have been restored west of Burrard.
This story appeared in the Arizona Republic on August 21, 1977.

Former Disney animator still draws smiles from children
Story and photo
By MARY JANE ALEXANDER
When Stan Quackenbush of Mesa recently took neighborhood children to see the original movie version of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," he had a special interest in seeing how well the animated characters have weathered the last 40 years. Quackenbush happened to be at the other end of the pencil when many of the seven dwarfs came to life on paper.
And today, at 74, Quackenbush is still drawing regularly, using much of his cartoon work to delight children in the Mesa Public Schools.
When he went to work for Walt Disney Studios, he was "at a loose end". He had been in the advertising business in San Francisco until the Depression closed all of his accounts overnight. He had returned to Berkeley, Calif., where he had graduated from the University of California in 1925, to plan his future.
Quackenbush and his wife Marjorie had decided if they had to sit around for a few years, it might as well be in Europe where the money they had saved would get a better exchange rate.
"I had wanted to study modern art anyway, so we went to Munich, Paris and Florence. I particularly liked the Louvre—you can go there every day for months and always see something new and beautiful," he says.
Because his money finally ran out and he and his wife had drifted apart, Quackenbush returned to his hometown of Bellingham, Wash., where his parents were still living. "I didn't want to go back to San Francisco and fight the battle of advertising again," he stresses.
A year later his brother in Oakland, Calif., sent him a newspaper clipping stating that Walt Disney was recruiting animators to work on a feature-length animated movie.
"They only had seven or eight animators, and for a full-length movie, my goodness, you need 30 animators or more. So a lot of people came to Hollywood to apply—about 20 of us, and they eliminated all but three of us.
"They took us on full-time, but before we could get to work on 'Snow White' the story people and those making the characters had to finish working. How are you going to animate a character that you can't see?

"So while we were waiting I worked on some shorts — I did a lot of Mickey (Mouse). Mickey was drawn by Walt in 1928 just after sound was added. I worked on the first one that combined sound and movement, called 'Steamboat Willie', and it was a fair success. Of course, in those days a short only got about $25 for every showing.
"By the time I went to work for Disney, we'd already started on what they called the 'Silly Symphonies.' They were all in color, and I worked on one of the first ones — 'Flowers and Trees'. It had flowers and trees swaying to the music," he recalls.
Quackenbush says Walt Disney knew "Snow White" had to be in color, leaving a big job for the inkers and painters. In those days inkers had to trace the animators' pencil sketches onto sheets of transparent celluloid called cels, then painters added colors on the reverse side.
The movie, over four years in production, was released in time for Christmas in 1936. While the number of individual drawings it required is countless, Quackenbush estimates that he did 5,000 sketches for just one three-minute sequence of the dwarfs bathing in a stream, because even the, drops of water falling had to be drawn separately.
"At a film speed of 24 frames per second, you could use one drawing for two frames if there wasn't much action, but with fast movement, each frame had to have a separate drawing," he explains.
"To draw an animal, I was given a model sheet showing the character I was going to animate in profile, back and front views. I copied it many times until I was completely familiar with the little guy and how he moved. After a while I got so I could see his proportions and was able to make him move the way he should," he recalls.
It was a bit of a letdown for Quackenbush when the "Snow White" project was finished. "I was used to animating 50 feet (of film) every two days, but after that I'd sit around for two days a week with nothing to do," he says.
He then joined the Fleischer brothers in Miami, Fla., to work on another full-length animated film—Gulliver's Travels. But World War II interrupted any further pursuits for him in animation. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1940 and stayed through the Korean War, becoming discharged finally in the summer of 1954.
Quackenbush then spent five years in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, working part of that time for Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. on shorts with Abbott and Costello and Moby Dick characters.
"Then on May 3, 1972, I looked out the window and it was snowing—and I said to myself, 'Oh no. I do not live like this.'
"My sister-in-law lives in Mesa and she had been telling me how great Arizona was, so I came here four years ago," he says.
Since his arrival here, Quackenbush has been active in volunteer work and in cartooning for a community newspaper. He has over 650 hours of volunteer work on record with the Tri-City Retired Senior Volunteer Program based at Mesa Community College.
His projects have included caricatures of children at Franklin Elementary School jn Mesa, posters for RSVP, Mesa Public Library, Scottsdale Blood Services, Mesa Veterans of Foreign Wars, and he has just started preparing a brochure for Phoenix public schools.

People in animation padded their resumes in the day before historians started digging around to find the facts. I sincerely doubt Quackenbush ever worked on Steamboat Willie. The 1930 census has him living in Carmel and employed as a commercial artist.

I am baffled by Quackenbush’s claim about snow. Vancouver rarely gets snow, and any snowfall in May would be a real quirk of nature. Furthermore, the local papers of the date in question show the weather was sunny with highs in the mid-50s and lows in the mid-40s. Incidentally, around that same time, I read a biography of W.C. Fields where it said he and some of his drinking buddies would go to football games and incongruously shout “We want Quackenbush.” Hence the title of this post.

Stan Quackenbush died in Mesa, Arizona on September 10, 1979.

Fish and a Pan

There’s nothing like joyful little fish, and that’s what we get at the start of Playful Pan, a 1930 Walt Disney cartoon.

The fish swim along happily in a lake, skate on the water with the bodies, slide down a log (the animation is reused) and attach themselves to a turtle’s tail before Pan jumps onto dry land and the fish leave the cartoon for good.



This isn’t an all-dancing, all-music cartoon. Disney’s moved beyond that. A fire burns down the forest as Uncle Walt fill the screen with characters, and Pan puts out all the flames, albeit after every single tree has burned down.

Hassan Open!

Hassan continues to guess at the magic words that will open the entrance to the cave, and is shocked when he actually makes the right one. (It’s not “Open Saddlesoap”). Some drawings.



You likely know this is from Ali Baba Bunny, animated by Ken Harris, Dick Thompson, Ben Washam and Abe Levitow. It was released in 1957.

Larry Bud

Late Night With David Letterman was quirky and inventive when it began airing on NBC in 1982. Of the many incongruous things that attracted viewers was a character named Larry “Bud” Melman. Viewers weren’t sure whether he was in on the joke as he awkwardly went through the motions and read cue cards—and was utterly lost when he was left on his own.

Columnists sought him out to find the answer. One of the many feature stories written about him was this syndicated piece that appeared in newspapers on August 8, 1984.

As fans eventually learned, Larry “Bud” was an obscure actor named Calvert DeForest. Viewers loved him because he seemed so genuine and helpless. He was unique. He died in 2007 at the age of 85.

The Real Larry ‘Bud’ Melman
By MANDALIT DEL BARCO
Larry "Bud" Melman celebrity. He conspicuously takes a walk around Rockefeller Center outside the NBC studios where he irregularly appears in comedy sketches on “Late Night with David Letterman.” He poses for a photographer, smiling a seemingly toothless smile, and making baby gurgling noises. He pretends to eat a Chipwich and, later, to read a bus schedule. These are the kinds of stunts for which he is famous.
Several fans from Queens and Illinois come up to ask him for his autograph. He signs and continues walking as the whispers and snickers of awe-stricken Melmanites follow him. They recognize his trademark black glasses that give him that goofy aura. They spot his space-cadet expression and are reminded who he is when he begins to laugh a silly little cartoon chortle that reaches down to shake his belly. This mild-mannered star looks a little like Casper the friendly ghost. In "real life" he is actually funny man, Calvert De Forest, 63.
He rounds the corner and a limousine pulls up. Out comes another star. It's the new Miss America! Suzette Charles!
"Larry Bud Melman!" she screeches as about 10 photographers click away. After posing with the beauty queen, he walks away, saying, "Ooh, she's cute. She's so tiny!" This from an adorable man who is 5 foot 2—a man with hands and feet so small he has to wear boy's shoes.

Larry "Bud" Melman, just a regular guy. Seriously folks. He's lived in the same Brooklyn apartment for years. Takes the subway to Manhattan when he's called in to do a sketch for the Letterman show. But when he's not working, which is most days, he's sitting at home watching the soaps. No fooling.
Oh, sure, there are the vacations he takes in California, with pal Pee Wee Herman, another Letterman semi-regular. There are the galas at New York's famous Hard Rock Cafe with Eddie Murphy and Lauren Bacall. Heck, he's tired of going to Studio 54, and besides, "that's passe." But deep down, he's an ordinary bachelor who likes Mexican food and country music. Off camera, he is just as unassuming as on. His ordinariness really has no business being on national TV. And yet that is his appeal.
Since he got out of high school, he's done odd jobs, such as working as a file clerk for a drug company or working in a department store, so that he could pursue his acting career. He appeared in community theater and off-Broadway shows such as “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Philadelphia Here I Come” and “Here Comes Mr Jordan.”
He also appeared in several New York University student films, which brought him to the attention of people at the David Letterman show. In one titled “The King of Z,” he was cast as the actor in a studio on poverty row who had to play all the parts. De Forest was "discovered" two years ago by then-head writer Merrill Marko [sic] when the students who produced the film were on the “Late Night” show and a clip from the film was shown.
Marko decided to give him the whacky name Larry "Bud" Melman and cast him in a short sketch in which he played the president of "Melman's bus lines." Larry Bud was a hit explaining the merits of buses with a completely straight face reading his lines from a cue card and messing up.
From there, he was put on the show as a semi-regular, appearing twice every three weeks or so. The “Late Night” writers invent his material. He writes nothing himself. His antics have included promoting "Toast on a Stick," peddling "Melman's Mystery Dinners," interviewing tourists atop the Empire State Building, greeting surprised passengers at a New York bus terminal with hot towels and wearing a bear outfit and walking around the NBC studios. His latest stunt is "Ask Mr Melman" in which he gives straight answers to stupid questions.
For laughs, he need only appear onstage. And many of the laughs are on him like when the audio gets messed up while he's standing on location in a blizzard, and Letterman keeps cutting back to an obviously freezing Larry Bud throughout the show.
Letterman on working with Melman: “It’s a supreme joy.”
Melman on working with Letterman: “Working with David is a riot. He is really funny.”
Steve O’Donnell, “Late Night” head writer, on Melman: “He’s the sweetest man in the world. He’s always surprising us. I guess that’s part of the excitement he creates for us on television.”
Candy Carell, makeup artist for the show, on Melman: “He is by far one of the most special, humble people I have ever met, and success hasn’t spoiled him. You just look at him, and you feel good. He’s just naturally funny. I glue things on him, we’re constantly changing him. We put him through so much. And he never complains.”

What price fame? Last February, De Forest was fired from his receptionist job at a New York City drug-rehabilitation agency, after his bosses found out about his second career. A spokesperson for the agency said the job had been intended for elderly people with no more than $6,075 outside income. He had kept his job at the center because his work on the Letterman show was part time and spur-of-the moment. He doesn't want to discuss this ugly incident, except to say, "It's really got me upset. The point is I did nothing criminal."
His lucrative career, however, has him on the rebound. He has been performing a stand-up routine as Larry "Bud" Melman around the country on college campuses and at comedy clubs. The act includes reading jokes off a cue card and making mistakes. He swears he can't remember any of the material. Even so, his shows at Los Angeles' Improv and San Francisco's Other Cafe were sold-out smashes.
"The crowds were just — Ah! Beeeeeuteeful. Nice reviews," he says, leaning back in a chair in an NBC public relations office overlooking St Patrick's Cathedral.
"Where I live it's 'Oh, no, it can't be. You mean you live around here? I can't believe it’," De Forest says of his adoring public. "I see them on the subway and they think I should be riding in a limo. I say 'Of course I'm like everybody else.' It's amazing how they separate a celebrity from an ordinary person. They're exactly the same."
He gets stacks of fan mail, mostly from college kids who want to know more about his "Toast on a Stick," or from women who want a date with him. He's received marriage proposals ("not that many, maybe two or three") even a letter once from a woman in New Orleans who claims he fathered her child. It is a cruel and vicious allegation Larry Bud denies. "I told David that I've never even been to New Orleans."
He insists he's not a legend in his own time.
"I’m not that much of a sex symbol," the lifelong bachelor says, completely seriously. "I'm no threat to Tom Selleck or Robert Redford. They’re perfectly safe."

Wherever he travels around the country to do his stand-up routines, which he began doing a few months ago, he is mobbed. "At the airport in Milwaukee it was like the Beatles. The crowds were unbelieeeeeevable," De Forest recalls in his strongest Brooklyn accent. "They had to get me in the limo back to the hotel. I thought 'Oh, this is sooooooomething!' Then another car would be following and waving 'Hi Larry.' It felt great." v He admits to being starstruck. “I get a bigger kick out of meeting people like Robin Williams, Joe Piscopo, Eddie Murphy. I’m thrilled by them. They’re the ones who are great.”
But his biggest thrill, he says with an enormous amorous sigh, would be to meet Bette Davis.
“Just to meet her once!” he says, almost drooling. “David’s never had her on the show. I’ve been tempted to ask him, ‘cause Johnny’s had her on his show. I’ve gotta get the courage up.”
De Forest is a trivia buff, able to cite the “real” names of Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor, and says he loves gossip and “Entertainment Tonight.” At the tender age of 12, he saw his first movie, the silent version of “Seventh Heaven” with Janet Gaynor. From then on he was hooked on watching the Busby Berkeley big productions, and, of course, Bette Davis flicks. “Ya had better stars back then,” he laments “Mosta yer legends are gone.”
Women in clubs go up to kiss this man, but Miss America refused, shaking her finger and saying 'no' when he leaned toward her with his lips puckered. "Oh, she's gotta keep her image pure," De Forest explains. Perhaps it was just a chance encounter, meeting Suzette Charles on a typical day, perhaps it was fate. "What a thrill. Who expected that?" a tickled De Forest snickers.
It must be his great timing.
“Yes. Being in the right place at the right time. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” says Larry “Bud” Melman, celebrity.
“That’s show business all the way. Faaaaaaaaaaaaabulous!”

Oh, My Sides!

I don’t know who wrote the 1958 Paramount cartoon Travelaffs. You could have written it. I could have written it. Anyone could have come up with its all-too-obvious groaners that greeted theatre-goers who weren’t buying popcorn. The fact “laughs” is spelled “laffs” should tip you off that this is not going to be funny.

“Smash your baggage?” asks dog porter Jack Mercer. So he does. Are you rolling with laffter? By the way, is “smash your baggage” an actual term used at railroad stations?



“Check my bag,” says pig businessman Jackson Beck. You know what’s going to happen next. The dopey clerk is Sid Raymond.



“Carry your trunk, sir?” asks the Jack Mercer mouse that sounds just like the earlier dog. Trunk!? You know what the punch-line is going to be.



Well, as Popeye used to say in these late Paramount cartoons, “I can’t stands no more.” We get more spot-gag footage the rest of the way.

The one pleasant part of the cartoon is the narrator. Anyone familiar with Henry Morgan’s radio show will recognise the voice belonging to actor/announcer Charlie Irving.