About That Television....

“Now don’t ask us how we got the television set back,” Droopy advises the audience in The Three Little Pups. Of course, the Southern wolf swallowed it earlier in the cartoon.



Tex Avery makes use of limited animation. Droopy’s head and mouth are the only thing that move in this scene. Droopy turns his head on twos, while grey shades on the TV screen alternate on the opposite twos. That means each frame is a little different.

Avery saves animation at the start with a storybook introduction. That means the camera focuses on immobile pages of a book. Later, there is a hole that’s cut in the page so a cel with drawings of the pups can be slid underneath it.

Still, there are five animators on this show, with Ray Patterson added to the usuals of Walt Clinton, Mike Lah, Grant Simmons and Bob Bentley.

Early Cloris

Jane Claiborne had a stellar acting career in films and television and....

Oh! Who’s Jane Claiborne, you ask?

A squib in the December 20, 1946 edition of the New York Daily News informed readers that “Jane Claiborne, who formerly called herself Cloris Leachman, has been signed for the feminine lead in “William Loves Mary,” new Norman Krasna comedy which begins rehearsing Monday.

The paper doesn’t explain why she changed her name. As you well know, she changed it back and went on to star opposite a dog (“Lassie”) and appear in one (“Phyllis”. Sorry, fans). But she’s being lauded for her triumphs.

One aspect of her early TV career is fascinating and a little baffling. Bob and Ray were a wonderful, creative team who got caught in the transition from radio to television. They were far better on radio, where they worked alone. On TV, they (or someone) decided they needed a female cast member. At first, they employed Audrey Meadows, who moved on to stardom opposite Jackie Gleason. Her replacement was Cloris Leachman.

Considering her show-biz career to date, it was an odd choice. She was Katharine Hepburn’s understudy, after all, as you can learn from this Daily News feature story of August 31, 1952.

A Star Now, Cloris Seeks Singing Role
By JERRY FRANKEN
BY UNOFFICIAL count, there are about 3,000 actresses constantly looking for jobs on New York TV programs. While there may be some doubt as to the exact number, there's one point on which there is no doubt: A 26-year-old blonde, hazel-eyed, Iowa-born performer named Cloris Leachman is one of the best of the lot.
Cloris (it's a family name and her mother's too) has been on virtually every TV dramatic show emanating from New York, and for the last year or two has been getting star billing.
A measure of her ability is the fact that while she is most frequently seen in heavy dramatic parts on such programs as "Suspense," "Danger," "Studio One" and "Kraft Theatre" it was she who was chosen when Bob and Ray needed a new girl comic for their NBC-TV show. Now she appears with them every Saturday night.
It's almost traditional in show business that a country-born girl who reaches stardom at the age of 26 should have done it the hard way. Not so in Cloris Leachman's case. She’s one of the rarely fortunate people whose lives seem a succession of good breaks. Her first good break came when she was 15 and won the first of three scholarships that helped further her dramatic studies. This gave her a free course in radio acting and announcing.
Apparently she learned a lot from her radio instructors, because by the time she was 18 she had three shows on KRNT and KSO in Des Moines.
Read the Funnies, Advised Housewives
She read the Sunday funnies; did a program on women in the news and under the name of Sara Wallace conducted a program giving housewives advice. Most of the housewives were old enough to be her mother, and one of them was.
The second scholarship was an Edgar Bergen scholarship to North-Western University—one of a number of awards that Charlie McCarthy's mentor has donated to that school.
While she was in her sophomore year she got still another break when, without her knowledge, a friend submitted her picture in a beauty contest. She emerged Miss Chicago and was a contestant in the annual Atlantic City beauty pageant of 1946 (all 48 states and New York City and Chicago are represented at Atlantic City). She didn't win the Miss America title, but she was one of 15 finalists, each of whom get a $1,000 scholarship.
When the Atlantic City contest was over, Cloris started on three-day holiday in New York City, but it turned out to be one of the longest week-ends of all time—she's never been back to Des Moines. Within two weeks she had job understudying Nina Foch in "John Loves Mary" on Broadway. Subsequently, she was understudy for “Happy Birthday”; appeared in “As You Like It” with Katharine Hepburn and won the “Theatre World” award for her acting in a flop play, "Story for a Sunday Evening."
So far Hollywood doesn’t seem to have discovered Cloris; but it may pretty soon. A few months ago she gave an audition for Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, the authors of "South Pacific," "King and I" and other smash hits.
She made so great an impression that they decided to write her into their next Broadway musical (it's untitled as yet).
They also decided to put her on a weekly salary—something just about unheard of in show business—so she could continue studying voice. She likes to think of this as her fourth—and perhaps most important—scholarship.

Most people reading here probably think of The Mary Tyler Moore Show when they think of Leachman. The show had the unenviable job of trying to by funny while balancing the comedy around two completely different settings. It’s to the credit of a strong cast they were able to do it. Leachman may not have been the strongest, but she won honours from her peers and has left behind a huge body of work.

My Mother-in-Law, the Cow

Anonymous Bob Clampett and his anonymous writer put a new spin on the old mother-in-law joke in Bacall to Arms (1946).

A henpecked husband, forewarned “the old battle axe” is on the way, hides his home under farmland occupied by a cow. Clampett called for an exaggerated mouth-movement chewing cycle. A few drawings:



The henpecked guy pops up from the ground. “She’ll never find us now Bessy!” he says to the cow. In a piece of extremely-quick timing, the cow disguise comes off.



The take.



The scene ends with a radio catchphrase as the mother-in-law exclaims “Don’t you believe it!”

Clampett is anonymous because he’d left Warners by the time this cartoon was pieced together. I don’t know about the writer, who is uncredited.

The Likeable Denizens of the 12th Precinct

The death of Gregory Sierra a number of days ago got me thinking about what made the TV series Barney Miller so popular. It boils down to the strong personalities on the show.

Some of the characters were comic, others not so much. But they were well-defined. Whenever new secondary players were added to the show along the way—Inspector Luger, Dietrich, Officer Levitt—all of them were well-defined with very different personalities.

Of course, writing and acting play a major role.

Here are a couple of different newspaper pieces. The first one, from May 24, 1975, is a critique of the show.

Barney Miller crew roles all likeable, well played
By TOM DONNELLY
Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON—"What happens when you a police story with a situation comedy and then throw in a little bit of family life?” asks an ABC press release on “Barney Miller.”
A mess is what TV impresarios usually get when they throw together a chunk of this, a piece of that, and a borrowing from the other. But "Barney Miller” is good.
Barney Miller is a New York City police captain, an intelligent, good-humored, compassionate man who runs the 12th Precinct with as light a hand as possible. His wife is a comparatively unflappable woman with a wry outlook on life a wry outlook being a handy thing for a woman in her position to have; after all, the hazards of her husband’s trade are exceptional and potentially lethal.
Mrs. Miller doesn’t really play a dominant part in the proceedings, since it’s at the office where the action is. But whenever she turns up, she’s welcome: Barbara Barrie plays her and has a nice way with a rueful line.
The men of the 12th Precinct include a cop named Fish, an oldtimer who's afraid he can’t keep up anymore and ought to retire; Chano, the precinct’s undercover man, a Puerto Rican who keeps getting emotionally involved with the suspects; Wojehowicz, a puritanical youngster who can be made to realize his moral focus may be a bit too narrow; Harris, a black who works at being crisply sophisticated; and Yemana, an Oriental who tends to be philosophical in a simplistic Blue Plate Special way.
The most notable thing about the Barney Miller crew is that they are all likeably, they’re fun to be with. And, curiously enough for a police series, the show has charm. It reminds me a bit of — of all things — "The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”
If the central characters are almost invariably affable, there is a sufficency of acid and abrasiveness in "Barney Miller” provided by the folks who drift in and out of headquarters: a haughty escape artist who has broken out of prison five times, an arsonist who moonlights as a flamenco dancer, an effete purse snatcher who sneeringly tells his victim her taste in accessories is atrocious, etc, etc.
On "Barney Miller” they get with away confrontations that come dangerously close to crossing the line and falling into the saccharine sea, as when the gaudiest of pimps agrees to strike therapeutic terror into the heart of an 8-year-old black culprit by telling him what it’s like to find yourself hauled up before the notorious “Judge Meanie.” Of course, they have promised the pimp they’ll try to go easy on him if he’s successful in his missionary work; there’s usually a common-sensical base to the more heart-warming flights in “Barney Miller.
The criminals Barney Miller and his associates deal with are no doubt considerably less brutal than some of the specimens real-life New York detectives meet up with, but the other night the series considered a situation of extreme violence. Chano returns to the precinct with a bad case of nerves; he has shot and killed a couple of bank robbers. He goes to the movies to "get his mind off”; the picture is "Dirty Harry.”
The other men talk about how many guys get killed in cop shows. Barney Miller drops in at Chano’s place to say a consoling word. He can’t think of any. The men shrug helplessly; that’s the way it is.
Moving and effective, this brief episode, meatier than a lot of more grandiose television productions, is beautifully acted by Hal Linden as Miller and Gregory Sierra as Chano.
All the roles on “Barney Miller" are well-played: Abe Vigoda is the aging Detective Fish. Max Gail is Wojehowicz, Ron Glass is Harris, Jack Soo is Yemana.

Back when the show was still new running new episodes, a number of papers ran stories where cops were interviewed about cop shows. Barney Miller came up in this story in the Yonkers Herald Statesman, June 18, 1978.

The badge goes to Barney Miller
By MARY ANN GIORDANO
Staff Writer
If the Yonkers Police Department were to present its own Emmy Awards this year, police shows would not rate highly on the list.
But if you narrowed the field down to the police shows most favored by Yonkers' finest, "Barney Miller" is a sure-fire win, with "Police Story" running a close second.
In an informal survey of Yonkers police, none of the officers were too enthusiastic about lauding television's offerings of police shows but many acknowledged that some of the shows were "interesting" and "close to the truth."
Such shows as "Baretta," "Starsky and Hutch," "Police Woman" and "Charlie's Angels" were cited as "ridiculous" and distortions of a police officer's work, though some officers secretly admitted that they enjoyed watching them. Most laughed at the shows and criticized them for their overdramatization and violence. "Baretta rides the hood of a car every week." said Keith O'Brien, an oificer in the South Command.
"Every show they shoot somebody," said Sgt. Thomas Reese. "They add more action to it than there is in reality."
"Any detective that goes around with a parakeet on his neck, you tell me if he's playing with a full deck," said Anti-Crime Officer Robert Rofrano, referring to "Baretta."
Instead, the officers said they preferred watching what they called "realistic" shows. "Barney Miller," a TV-comedy, about a detective squad in New York City, rated highly upon the list of most officers, especially those in Yonkers' own detectives division.
"Barney Miller is more true as a police story than any other," Detective Thomas Powrie said. Many of Yonkers' detectives said they enjoyed "Barney Miller" because it reminded them of a squad room closer to home.
Many officers on patrol said they enjoy "Police Story," a chronicle of true-to-life police tales that was also described as "realistic."
"That's about the closest story (to the truth) there is," Officer Timothy McGrath said.
But most officers said they avoid watching police shows on television, hoping for a change of pace after eight hours on the job.
Many said they felt the shows seriously damage the public's view of police officers and raise the public's expectations about the duties of cops.
"For the people in the street, they don't understand we can't do all that," Officer McGrath said.
"People want everything done in 60 minutes," Detectives Powrie said. "Meanwhile, the cops on television break the law more than the criminals they're going after. If we ever did the things they do, we'd be in jail." The show lasted eight seasons and is still in reruns today. Barner Miller may have shut off the lights for the final time in 1982 but, to fans, the 12th Precinct has never closed.

The Old Wolf Grind

A wolf and Woody Woodpecker are trying to eat each other, with maybe the most uncomfortable gag being when the wolf thinks he’s got Woody in a meat grinder, but it’s his own tail instread.



Here are some expressions as the wolf rotates the handle on the grinder.



Finally, he gives the handle a forceful last push to make ground woodpecker. Then comes the sharp pain of understanding. He flies into the air, yelling. A nice touch is the animated word “Yeow” as he soars upward. Tex Avery loved that type of thing, too.



The animation credits for Who’s Cookin’ Who (1946) say Les Kline and Grim Natwick but, of course, the funnest animation is from Emery Hawkins. Shamus Culhane directs, and he has really picked up the pace from the Alex Lovy cartoons of the early ‘40s. Will Wright plays the wolf.

Pig in a Poke

Oswald the rabbit is trying to serenade his sweetheart on a banjo, but his sheet music keeps blowing away from against a rock. He shows his silent-film anger.



He comes up with an idea. He’ll tack the paper into the rock so it won’t move.



Oh, wait. It’s not a rock at all.



There are some good little routines in this 1928 Walt Disney/Universal cartoon, Rival Romeos, or “snappy” as one trade paper called it. The goat spewing out musical notes after eating an instrument was used again in Steamboat Willie.

Hennepin Benny

True or false: Jack Benny performed with Steve Allen’s mother.

The answer is true. At least they performed on the same bill.

Belle Montrose (stage name) was married to another vaudevillian named Billy Allen. Belle was one of many performers on the Orpheum circuit, as was Jack. And we find them together at the Hennepin Theatre in Minneapolis the week of July 9, 1922.

The Hennepin was a “Junior Orpheum” theatre. Nine cities made up this version of the Orpheum circuit in the early ’20s. Acts first played the regular circuit then doubled back on the junior one, where theatres charged popular prices with no reserved seating. Read a bit more here.

In some cities, newspapers would give a preview of theatre shows arriving in town every week. The Minneapolis Star Tribune of July 9, 1922 described Jack’s coming appearance: “With the aid of a fiddle and rapid-fire line of funny gags, Jack Benny, gloom chaser, will undertake to banish the blues. He is both a comedian and a musician and promises to keep his audiences thoroughly amused the entire time he is on stage.”

Well, Jack did more than that. He stole the show from headlining contralto and former Ziegfeld star Emma Carus (“one of vaudeville’s highest-salaried artists,” the Star-Tribune confidentially told readers). Here’s what the paper said about the bill the day after its debut:

With a bill that provides no exercise for the brain but plenty for the ribs, the Hennepin this week has an ideal summer program and incidentally one of the best programs, for laugh-making purposes shown by the Junior Orpheum in several weeks.
Although Emma Carus, with J. Walter Leopold, a suave and talented pianist, is the official headlined act, it was Jack Benny who stopped the show at the opening performance yesterday. Benny wanders out on the stage with his violin, plays a little, talks and sings a little and succeeds in convulsing the audience. Benny has one of the best monologues in the profession.
As for Emma Carus, she is big and lively as usual. She might have chosen better songs, although the "Cat" number is immense. Belle Montrose as an amateur actress provides plenty of mirth. Ray Kern and Maree, Orpheum favorites, were received with equal enthusiasm at the Hennepin. Ethel Parker, a dancer of such ability that one wonders why she is not headlined with Ali Allen, offers one of the most engaging dancing arts in months. Luster brothers are superb contortionists.
The motion picture, with May McAvoy, is much better than the photoplays which the Hennepin has been showing recently. The bill as a whole well merits Manager Phelps' "summer festival" designation. Now, if the management would only assume that Hennepin patrons are sufficiently familiar with the operation of that efficient cooling apparatus, and would discontinue the movies thereof, even the most captious patron would find little cause for complaint.

The show also included a two-reeler from Mack Sennett, a Pathe Weekly, Topics of the Day and an Aesop Fable (which one was not disclosed).

Benny moved on next week to the State Lake in Chicago (Montrose went to Kansas City) before hooking up with Carus again the following week at the Junior Orpheum’s Rivoli in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He returned to the Hennepin at the end of January 1923, then again in the middle of November 1925, headlined the bill at the same theatre the week of July 3, 1927, and returned once more for the final week of January 1928. Such was the nomadic life of a vaudevillian that ended only when radio sponsors came calling.

Making the Alvin Show

ABC decided in December 1959 to pick up The Flintstones for its fall 1960 prime-time schedule, and that resulted in a mini-boom in night-time animated shows, only to quickly die when they never found the audience the shows needed.

One of them was The Alvin Show, the result of songwriter Ross Bagdasarian turning a production studio gimmick (voices sped up on audio tape) into a huge novelty record hit in 1958. He gave chipmunk personas to three voices and proceeded to cash in big-time by making them into animated cartoon characters.

That’s where Format Films came in.

There was a huge rift at UPA between owner Stephen Bosustow and a bunch of his staffers. Dozens left in a shake-up. On October 26, 1959, Herb Klynn, Bud Getzler and Jules Engel announced the formation of their own animation company, Format Films. The Hollywood Reporter chronicled its growth; all dates below are from that paper unless otherwise specified. Klynn quickly signed UPA director Ozzie Evans (Nov. 2), and started hunting for TV commercial business.

Midas Mufflers was an early client (Feb. 5, 1960) with June Foray hired to voice spots. Gold Bond Stamps, Adorn Hairspray and Folger Coffee followed (Feb. 25). But Klynn had his eye on TV cartoons. On April 6th, Klynn announced a contract with Al Brodax of King Features to make 100 Popeye shorts under producer Jack Kinney, and had hired Ed Friedman, Volus Jones, Ken Hultgren, Harvey Toombes, Noel Tucker and Bob Givens to work on them. Assistant animators Harris Steinbrook, Doris Collins and Ruben Apodaca and background artist Boris Gorelick were hired within a week (April 12).

Plans were made to move the studio’s staff of 62 from Burbank into a larger building in North Hollywood (May 17). Klynn was ambitious. And on August 10th, it was announced a deal had been signed to produce The Alvin Show starring David Seville and the Chipmunks. The staff kept growing. Storyman Bob Kurtz, animators Bill Southwood and Jack Parr jumped aboard (Aug. 26). Shep Menkin was signed as the voice of Clyde Crashcup (Oct. 18). Chuck Harriton, Dan McRae and Fred Calvert were poached from New York (Back Stage, Aug 11, 1961), Hal Ambro was inked as a director (Aug. 14) as was Gil Turner (Sept. 5).

Meanwhile, Format announced a deal on September 28th for a second half-hour animated show, The Shrimp, based on Sy Gomberg’s short stories. Leo Salkin was named story editor; June Foray, Ross Elliott and Kathleen Freeman were tabbed as voice actors, and Klynn was meeting with potential sponsors by November. There was talk in Variety on March 1, 1961 about CBS airing Alvin and The Shrimp back-to-back, but it never happened. The Shrimp was delivered to Four Star (March 21) and there it sat forever. The studio also was sub-contracted by Creston Studios to make some Calvin and the Colonel cartoons for prime time (Aug. 31, 1961).

General Foods (Jell-O) signed for alternate week sponsorship of Alvin (Variety, March 8) while General Toy pulled out (Variety, May 31) because CBS didn’t expect finished footage to show the company until July. So the show was only half sold going into its American debut on October 4th; Sponsor magazine of Sept. 25th reported each show cost $43,000 to make.

That brings us to this story from the Valley Times of North Hollywood of November 18th. Its reporter chatted with Klynn about the making of the series and the potential problem with its time slot.

Alvin, Pals, Cavort in Valley Cartoon Plant
By ALLEN RICH
Valley Times TODAY TV-Radio Editor
Among the Valley’s mushrooming television facilities is Format Films Studios on Laurel Canyon boulevard presided over by a dynamic North Hollywood man, Herb Klynn.
It is here that creator-producer Ross Bagdasarian’s “Alvin Show,” featuring the chipmunks, Alvin, Simon and Theodore, is fashioned into the animated cartoon series you see on Channel 2 each Wednesday night at 7:30.
The chipmunks are not worried over the fact that their show is spotted opposite the block-busting Western, “Wagon Train” on NBC, and the rapidly improving “Steve Allen” affair on ABC.
“We may not achieve the rating of a Wagon Train, but according to the Nielsens we get our fair share of the total audience,” Klynn told me when I visited his studio. (He meant that more people per sets-in-use watch Alvin than is indicated by the rating. Maybe little people, but still people, he explained happily.)
Klynn took me on the 40-cent tour of this modern, animated film cartoon plant and it proved to be an entire revelation. I am sure that no one, except in the business, has any idea of the complex manner in which a half-hour cartoon is turned out for television on a weekly basis.
“I will take you to the story department first,” he said, “because all shows, like anything else, must start with ideas.”
Never having been in a cartoon plant I expected to enter a room and see maybe a couple of writers sitting in front of typewriters waiting for inspiration, It is nothing like that.
In this story department the writers must think in pictures, instead of words.
Instead of a script, each of these writers, and I believe there are eight, gets his idea, then draws a small picture of the action and puts words descriptive of the action underneath.
These are then pinned, in sequence, onto a “story board” about four feet high by eight feet long. The Alvin Show is composed of two 3½-minute segments, and two 7-minute segments.
Each 7-minute segment requires of the “writer” 160 key drawings, with accompanying captions. The completed 30-minute segment of the Alvin Show contains 17,000 individual drawings!
It is impossible for a layman on a quick trip through the studio to entirely interpret what he saw into lay language.
But as near as I could make out, the next step is to record the dialogue.
Subsequent operations find animators completing each of the 160 original key drawings so that each will give the effect of motion when seen on the television screen.
Other artists paint in the background, be it a house, tree or what have you.
Inasmuch as a number of complete Alvin shows are in work at the same time how do you keep track of the progress of the 17,000 drawings necessary to each complete production?
This is done by what is known to the cartoon fraternity as an exposure sheet. The exposure sheet is the keynote of the industry. Each artist in all the various stages and departments notes the progress of each individual drawing on this sheet as it comes to him for his part of the work. It is comparable to a bill of lading on a railroad or a dispatch sheet in an aircraft factory, only terribly more complex.
While all this is going on, various key personnel make checks and color checks to see that every one of the drawings is perfect and will jell when fused into the whole production.
Final stage is the filming. Two cameras work two 10-hour shifts to film the 17,000 drawings the artists have already completed. These cameras are valued at $30,000 and $20,000 apiece.
Producing an animated cartoon is a very painstaking and costly proposition. Competent artists and animators are paid between $250 and $300 a week. Completion of an Alvin takes more than four months from story department to camera. The budget is somewhere between $65,000 and $70,000 for each episode.
The length of time in production is quite surprising when you consider that regulation one-hour filmed TV dramas are turned out, so far as the actual production at the studio is concerned, in five or six days.
Klynn’s Format Studios have moved three times in the past several years, each time to a larger plant. He now employs 160 animators, artists and others and most of them are working on Alvin, the studios No. 1 project.
There’s a lot more to it than this, of course, but I hope you have at least a sketchy idea of how an animated cartoon is turned out by now.
Whatever the eventual fate of the chipmunks and their pal, David Seville, may be, of this I’m sure: executive producer Herb Klynn is sparing no expense, even to the inclusion of a live orchestra which often numbers 28 pieces, instead of canned music as used by many of the big “regular” shows.
When I first met cartoon men Bagdasarian and Klynn at the studio I quipped “Okay, so draw me a picture.”
It didn’t seem so funny to me after I had been privileged to see the magnitude and scope of the operation.

Alvin’s debut beat Steve Allen for second spot in the ratings, with 32 share, compared to Wagon Train with a 48 share. By November 8th, Variety was opining the series was in trouble. Broadcasting was reporting rumours along agency row that the cartoon might be switched to a cheaper Sunday 6:30 p.m. time slot. There was even talk two days later in the Hollywood Reporter of a meeting between Klynn and Bagdasarian about a Clyde Crashcup spinoff. But it was finally announced on April 17, 1962 that CBS would move The Alvin Show to Saturday mornings in the fall with a mix of repeats and first-run shows it hadn’t blown off yet.

Format kept busy before the prime-time failure of Alvin. From issues of the Reporter:

● Sept. 22, 1960: Klynn meets with Burl Ives meets to talk about a live action/animation feature,
● Oct. 21: Format signs Ray Bradbury to produce theatrical short Icarus Montgolfier Wright,
● Dec. 1: Studio contracted to make opening titles for The Hathaways, a sitcom with Peggy Cass,
● Dec. 2: Studio joins with Kinney and Brodax to produce Barney Google cartoons for syndication,
● Jan. 19, 1961: Half-hour animated series Keemar, the Invisible Boy announced, with Alan Zaslove directing from a Klynn and Engel concept.
● Jan. 24: Shep Menken and Ross Martin to voice Keemar,
● Jan 26: June Foray and Kathleen Freeman to voice Keemar, Dennis Farnon to supply background music, Mel Leven to write theme,
● Feb. 13: Animated inserts to be made for a Secret Life of James Thurber TV series from Four Star Productions,
● Mar. 1: Opening/closing commercial inserts to be made for the Danny Thomas Show,
● July 6: Prep work begun on feature animated/live action The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury.

Some of Format Films kept busy before the prime-time failure of Alvin. From issues of the Reporter:

Some of Format’s work after Alvin is better known. In July 1964, DePatie-Freleng signed a contract to revive Warner Bros. cartoons, some of which were subcontracted to Herb Klynn & Associates, Format’s new name as of the previous January, which became Format Productions by December. In January 1966, CBS and Jack Wrather Productions agreed to bring a half-hour animated Lone Ranger to the small screen. Wrather hired Format, which announced in April that none other that former Disney genius Bill Tytla would be directing sequences. In the meantime, it created main titles for I Spy, Honey West, The Smothers Brothers, Hey Landlord, Rat Patrol, Glory Guys, and a show originally titled Everywhere a Chick Chick (later Accidental Family). The company would later add the animated inserts on Hee-Haw to the list in 1969.

There were all kinds of failed projects, too, including an animated half hour with the Mamas and the Papas (Variety, Sept. 16, 1966), The Polar Treasure, an adventure feature live-action production (Variety, May 11, 1967) and Hubird a comedy cartoon short in association with Warner Bros. (Variety, July 17, 1967).

Klynn left Format in 1982. Though this is not a complete filmography, someone will scream if I don’t mention Klynn’s The Duck Factory sitcom in 1984 about a cheap animation studio. He died in 1999. By then, Format Films was a memory. Those chipmunks were still harvesting cash aplenty for the Bagdasarian family.