The Eyes of Don Williams

Even those of you who have trouble figuring out who animated what in the days of yore should have no trouble picking out the work of Don Williams once he was put into Art Davis’ unit at Warner Bros.

Williams developed a habit of stretching a character up, then dropping him down leaving a trail of multiple eyes.

We’ll talk a bit about Williams in just a moment. Let me give you some examples of what I’m talking about.

From Mouse Menace, released Nov. 2, 1946 (Porky’s head looks like Davis’, bald and jowly).



The Goofy Gophers, released January 25, 1947.



The Foxy Duckling, released August 23, 1947.



More Williams in just a moment. But first a brief look.

To the right you see Williams’ draft card from October 1940. It shows that Donald Harold Williams was born on April 21, 1906 in Rochester, Minnesota. But you’ll notice the name “Murphy” written in the side margin. That’s because his birth name was Donald Harold Murphy. His father James Murphy was a “laborer” when he was born, but soon opened a crockery shop with a Jonathan J. Miller. The City Directory for 1913 shows that Murphy and Miller had moved to North Battleford, Saskatchewan. It’s not clear when or where his parents divorced, but his mother Susie was living in Long Beach in 1919 when she married George A. Williams.

Don Williams worked as a clerk in 1925-26, then got a job as an usher in 1927. The 1928 City Directory refers to him as a “commercial artist” and in 1930, the Census reveals he’s working at a film studio. Presumably, it was Walter Lantz’s; he was a witness at Sid Sutherland’s wedding in 1931 and both worked for Lantz at the time. He was married the following year.

Williams told historian Mike Barrier of being approached in 1933 to jump to the brand-new Leon Schlesinger studio, and he did. His first screen credit were on Those Were Wonderful Days, released in April 1934. Williams moved over to Disney from August 1936 to February 1938.

The MGM Studio Club News mentions him in its edition of December 23, 1937—but in the art department, not in the cartoon department. His draft card puts him at Paul Fennell’s Cartoon Films in October 1940, but the MGM newsletter has him at the studio again and promoted to the production department in May 1941. He ended up back in animation, possibly because the studio was losing too many animators to the draft, and he’s credited on two sorts, Wild Honey, released Nov. 7, 1942 and The Stork’s Holiday, released Oct. 23, 1943 (Metro had not begun crediting animators on every cartoon yet).

We then find him at Columbia, where he got an animation screen credit for The Playful Pest, released December 3, 1943. By then, he had been working at Walter Lantz again for almost a month. His last credit there was on Woody Dines Out, released May 14, 1945; he used the cascading eyes effect when he was there.

A Warner Club News montage photo puts him at Warners no later than April 1945; Davis became a director a month later. The Club News says little about him, other than he was thrown by his pet horse once and dropped 20 pounds before fall of 1947.Williams’ first screen credit came in Hollywood Canine Canteen, released April 20, 1946. He lasted until the dismantling of the Davis unit by the start of 1948 and was let go.

How he made a living during the ‘50s is unclear. He did some work for the Kling studios, as his name appears on the industrial short The Butcher, the Baker, the Ice Cream Maker. He did have exhibits of his watercolours at a number of galleries around Los Angeles. The Hanna-Barbera studio threw him some work in 1959 on its two syndicated shows, Huckleberry Hound and Quick Draw McGraw. His name surfaces on the Q.T. Hush series in 1960. When DePatie-Freleng formed in May 1963, Williams was among the first animators hired and he remained with the studio until his death on June 17, 1980. He was 74.

There’s great animation and dialogue in What Makes Daffy Duck, released February 14, 1948. Bill Melendez gives Daffy a pile of expressions as he sways his head during dialogue. And here’s Williams.



Dough-Ray Me-ow, August 14, 1948.



And, finally, The Pest That Came to Dinner, released September 11, 1948. Notice the last two consecutive frame. Dry bush is added to mimic movement. The only thing moving is Sureshot's mouth.



Davis had an excellent unit, but I gather he was more comfortable animating than directing. On top of that, he had to deal with studio politics. He only got to direct Bugs Bunny once. He got two rookie writers (who went on to better things) after George Hill was fired over a drunken escapade and never seemed to mesh with them. Williams was no stranger to alcohol and it seems to have waylaid his career for a bit. Still, he survived in the business and turned out entertaining animation. And quirky eye streams as well.

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.