Benny to the Rescue

The star of a prime-time TV show didn’t know he was on the air. That’s because he was dead.

In August 1977, CBS decided to haul out and run old black-and-white episodes of The Jack Benny Show. The show left the network in 1964 and Benny had died in 1974.

For the record, the episodes involved Jack’s Maxwell going missing, the night he refereed a wrestling match, a visit to his vault with Treasury agents and the last show to feature his violin teacher, Prof. LeBlanc.

Why did CBS try such an unusual programming move? A syndication service decided to find out. This story appeared in papers starting August 30, 1977.

Jack’s old TV show continues to pop up, making the rounds of nostalgia cable channels whenever a new one is invented where he can fit their programming.

Pulled up CBS Ratings
Jack Benny Show' scores
By BRUCE BLACK
Gannett News Service
CBS' recent four-part retrospective of "The Jack Benny Show," which the network aired Tuesday nights this summer, was a real treat for TV viewers.
For old Jack Benny fans, it was a chance to once more watch the comedian go through some of his most memorable routines. For younger viewers, it was perhaps their first and only opportunity to see for themselves why Benny had become a legend in his own time.
We were grateful for the chance to again see some of his wonderful old shows, but we were more then a bit curious about what prompted CBS to put him back on the air.
For an answer, we sought out CBS programming vice president Harvey Shephard.
He explained that the 8 to 9 p.m. Tuesday slot had been a problem for CBS all season, with "Tony Orlando" and "Who's Who" failing to draw an audience. "They were against the strongest combination in television: ABC's 'Happy Days" and 'Laverne and Shirley,' " he said.

When "Who's Who" went down the drain in May, CBS revived the old "Family Holvak" series, which had bombed when it first appeared a couple of seasons back.
Shephard defended this selection. "When 'Holvak' originally aired, it had a mid-20s share (usually a show needs a 30 share to survive), but it was against formidable competition and had nice press notices," he said. "Also, there seemed to be a change in public tastes—family shows like 'Eight is Enough' and 'The Waltons' have been doing very well, so we thought there might be a market now for 'Holvak.' "
"Holvak," which debuted May 31, disappeared at the end of July, leaving CBS programmers wondering what to put on for the next several weeks.
Since retrospectives like NBC's 50th anniversary show and CBS' "When TV was Young" special had received high ratings, Shephard said: "We concluded there seemed to be some sort of desire, maybe nostalgia, for TV shows from the '50s and '60s."
CBS thus decided to bring back an old show, "a classic," to run during August. "We did not want to go with a youth-oriented show," he said, "We wanted something to appeal to adults. So we started exploring ideas about what we could schedule."
"You mean you were all sitting around a conference room and somebody said, 'Hey. How about Jack Benny?' " we asked.
"That's about right," Shephard replied.
In its first week on the air in August, "The Jack Benny Show" drew a 26 share. That's not great, but it was one of the best performances of anything CBS had had on in that time period. In subsequent weeks, though, the show slipped to a 20 share, which was the same as the network had been doing with 'Who's Who,' 'Holvak,' and 'Orlando.'
We asked if the success of the first Benny re-airing meant CBS might revive other old series for one-night shots.
"Perhaps we'll do it again," he said. "We're looking into it. We might run an episode of a series as a special broadcast." We hope that CBS does battle to bring back some of the best shows from days gone by.
There are a number of truly fine comedies and dramas lying in storage vaults that could, if dusted off, provide contemporary viewers with 30 or 60 minutes of excellent entertainment. CBS has recognized this. Perhaps the other networks will, too.

Beavers and a Pink Sweatshirt

How many cartoon producers had a sense of humour?

By all accounts, Fred Quimby at MGM and Ed Selzer at Warner Bros. did not. Paul Terry liked borrowing gags so maybe he had everyone else’s sense of humour.

Then there was Jay Ward.

His sense of humour was like his cartoons—irreverent. Take away his PR department that cooked up ridiculous and facetious promotions and Ward was still a playful, amusing man. He was an enigma, too. He was private, on one hand, but outrageous whenever he decided to brave going out in public.

The success of The Flintstones on ABC in prime time had an unexpected effect—other networks wanted their own cartoon hits, and NBC saw one in Rocky and His Friends. They had some elements changed, revised the name to The Bullwinkle Show and then were aghast at what Ward and co-producer Bill Scott wrought. The two of them continually accused the network of either ignoring the show or wilfully trying to kill it.

Here are a couple of feature columns that give you an idea of Ward’s warped sense of humour, not that any of what you’ll read will surprise Bullwinkle fans. The first story came from the Pittsburgh Press of November 9, 1962 and the latter appeared in papers starting April 1st. It was syndicated by the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Roasting the NBC peacock is a truly inspired idea; the network’s executives showed their traditional horror toward anyone who dared to be sacrilegious toward the hallowed National Broadcasting Company. Even Quimby and Selzer weren’t that much of a corporate toady.

Bullwinkle Creator Is An Unusual Harvard Graduate
His Pink Sweat Shirt Is Definitely Non-Ivy
By FRED REMINGTON
Jay Ward is perhaps the only alumnus of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration who lunches in metropolitan hotels wearing a pink sweatshirt. With the gracious manners of a Harvard man, however, he removes his hat before entering the dining room. This is fortunate, since his hat is a lavishly plumed affair, looking like something the Goodwill might have picked up at Napoleon's house on Clean-up Day.

He was in Pittsburgh this week on a promotional tour for the "Bullwinkle" cartoon show of which he is producer.
“Thirty cities, 30 states, 30 days, 30 parties,” he said of his trip. “I just met your mayor. We had a very pleasant chat.”
“What did he say to you?”
“Get out! But he said it in a friendly tone. I could see right off he was my kind of politician. I have big plans for this man. He gave me a key to the city; I gave him a lock.”
Jay has a laugh that can be heard all over the Golden Triangle which, combined with his pink sweatshirt and plumed hat, made him a rather noticeable figure in the Hilton Hotel.
A waitress came over and asked: “Are you Mr. Jay Ward of Hollywood? I have a phone call for you.”
“Now how in the world did she know it was me?” marveled Jay.
He got into cartooning more or less by accident, he relates. He had intended to put his Harvard business education to use in the real estate field and opened an office in Los Angeles.
“I had barely got to the office and sat down at the desk when my first prospect entered,” he said. "The driver of an out-of-control truck. The office was smashed and I was in a plaster cast for six months.” During this period of incapacitation, when, he explained, “I didn't dare try to sell any real estate because I couldn't run,” he took to cartooning. The result is the fanciful characters of Bullwinkle, Rocky the Squirrel, Dudley Do-Right and the others who brighten Sunday afternoons (5:30 p. m.) on the NBC network.

Bullwinkle Has Rocky Going On TV
By JOAN CROSBY
NEW YORK — Yes, television viewers, there really is a Jay Ward.
Who is Jay Ward? Well, he’s a man who never stops smiling, who yells “beaver” whenever he sees a man with a beard, who laughs through his stories of a feud with NBC, who will go to enormous lengths for a practical joke, who sends out the funniest mail carried by any postmen, and, incidentally, heads Jay Ward Productions, the firm which produces the Bullwinkle Show.
Jay came to New York recently in the company of his co-producer Bill Scott (who also supplies Bullwinkle’s voice) for the sole purpose of throwing a gigantic picnic at the staid old Plaza Hotel. )Invitations to the press were delivered in person by a man dressed as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, accompanied by an eight-piece band wearing Bullwinkle hats.)
Ants and a pickpocket were hired for the picnic, atmosphere, you know, although Scott did express a small amount of concern regarding the pickpocket: “We’re not sure he is honest.”
A good deal of New York’s population was there—but no one from NBC was invited.

The network, it seems, is persona non Minow to the Ward production company. There is the matter of the Bullwinkle puppet no longer being allowed to appear on his own show (the network was offended when he roasted the NBC peacock for Thanksgiving) and also the matter of cannibalism.
One episode, concerning Bullwinkle and his friend, Rocky, a squirrel, contained a sequence described by Scott as “so usual as to be time-honored in cartoons.” Our heroes parachuted out of a plane into deep jungle territory. Waiting below was a group of cannibals, a large pot containing boiling water, and a chef reading a book called “Fifty Ways To Cook a Squirrel.”
“That was as far as we got with the sequence,” says Ward. “The continuity acceptance telephone in our office (it has an angry ring and fire comes up when you answer) rang resolutely. A voice on the other end said, ‘We have been looking over the script and NBC will countenance no cannibalism in any program on the network.’
“We brooded for a while, then we sent back a very terse, concise letter in which we asked, ‘As a moral point, is it strictly cannibalism to eat a squirrel?’ We're still waiting for an answer.”

Quick Change For Betty

An easel with a picture of Maurice Chevalier grabs a megaphone nearby on the stage and puts it to the picture’s mouth. “Can you imitate me, Betty Boop??” says the Chevalier picture. (Yes, that really is Chevalier’s voice). Betty answers in the affirmative and the picture tells her to do it right now.



A screen with legs trots onto the screen, Betty changes, and the screen trots off stage. Betty grabs a straw hat from someone in the audience and sings “Hello Beautiful,” a song Chevalier did on his 1931-32 radio show for Chase and Sanborn.



Doc Crandall and Rudy Eggeman get the animation credits in Stopping the Show (1932). Mae Questel is Betty.

How to Become a Skunk

Slowly, Spike transforms from a dog into a skunk as he plot to kill Droopy in Wags to Riches. The dissolve happens over 16 frames, one frame for each change in colour and character. Here are just some of the frames.



Spike snickers just like Precious Pupp and Muttley would in Hanna-Barbera years later. As far as I know, director Tex Avery is doing the voice himself.

Bobe Cannon, Mike Lah, Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons are the credited animators in this 1949 release.

Shapeless as a Scrambled Egg

In a day when radio announcers still intoned, Arthur Godfrey didn’t. He was the most relaxed, informal guy you could listen to.

And it was all phoney.

It took until Godfrey fired singer Julius De Rosa on television in 1953 for people to realise the guy was a callous control-freak. They started noticing he fired an awful lot of his “Little Godfreys” whom he doted on when the camera light was on and there never was a good reason why. Still, Godfrey maintained a following, as well as a place on CBS schedule until 1972 when just about every non-information programme had long been cancelled.

It was a different story in 1946. Godfrey was low-key and observational and audiences at it up. So did noted cynic John Crosby. His opinion changed after The Firing. In his column of October 23, 1953, he quoted from the piece below and added “But that was long ago, before all that humility crept into the act,” putting Godfrey high on the list of celebrities “least aware of the meaning of humility.” (Godfrey told the media he fired La Rosa because the singer “lacked humility”). This column is from August 20, 1946 and Godfrey sounds very entertaining.

“The Barefoot Boy of Radio”
This seems to be my week to discuss redheads. Yesterday it was Red Barber. Today let’s take up Arthur Godfrey, whom Fred Allen refers to as the Huck Finn of radio, an apt description in some respects and not at all in others. Godfrey has a Huck Finn voice, the laziest in radio, but this vocal appearance is misleading. The red-headed master of ceremonies is easily the busiest man in the industry. He’s on the air twenty-two hours a week, or about five more hours than I like to listen during any one week.
Mondays through Fridays you’ll find his homespun comments emanating from your nearest Columbia Broadcasting System station from 11 to 11:30 a.m. in a program as shapeless as a scrambled egg, as informal as a naked child.
* * *
It’s a wonderful day for a wrong number,” he’ll remark in that barefoot voice. “You know there’s a new gadget on the market. It answers the phone for you, insults the party on the other end and then hangs up. It gives a Bronx cheer to wrong numbers. Frank Saunders, what have you got for us this morning?”
Mr. Saunders then steps up and sings something like “Mean to Me” or “Exactly Like You,” nostalgic, old numbers as restful as a second cup of coffee. Pretty soon Godfrey is back again.
“I have a news item for you. The United States government has bought 1,045 dead horses. The horses are—or were—ponies illegally seized from the Indians during the Sioux War. Well, Congress has appropriate money to pay for ‘em. But there are only a few Indians old enough to make a claim. Let’s see, there’s Bear With Black Body. He’s ninety-three. And there’s Daniel Grass Rope, eighty-four. But White Buffalo Leader. who is 103, can’t collect a dime. You see, he had a hand in wiping out General Custer and he’s still considered hostile.”
Godfrey is also likely to tell you about the 27,000 pigeon strait-jackets the government is trying to get rid of (paratroopers used them to keep pigeons quiet during jumps), or he will become engrossed in statistics on the number of girls who say yes the first time a man asks for a date and the number of marriages this leads to. (Only 8 per cent, in case you’re interested). Heaven knows where Godfrey digs up this zany comment on our civilization, he but he takes keen relish in telling about it. His voice gurgles with pleasure like spring water in the back yard pump. Sometimes he sings a parody on the whole art of singing, and I can think of no higher praise than to say he even makes “Five Salted Peanuts” likable or, at least, endurable.
At intervals, Godfrey brings on the Jubilaires—I think it’s a quartet though I can’t be sure—or Jeanette Davis to sing and the song is probably “Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet.” Even the singers seem infected with Godfrey’s easy going ways, so the tempo of the whole program is just plain lazy. First thing you know the half hour has slipped by and Godfrey is saying good by until tomorrow. As he fades off you hear him whistling like a small boy roaming down a dusty road with nothing on his mind but the joy of living.
I can’t speak as highly of Godfrey’s evening program—C.B.S., 9 p.m., E.D.T., Tuesdays. The purpose of this program is to give a break to promising but unknown singers, entertainers, piano players and the like. Talent scouts, some professional, some amateur, introduce these newcomers to Godfrey, who gives them a chance to do their stuff. It’s not a Major Bowes program, the talent is strictly professional. I applaud the aim of the program, but somehow it sounds rehearsed and Godfrey is better at ad lib.
One of the recent talent scouts turned out to be an explorer. “Aren’t you sort of unemployed,” inquired Godfrey. “I mean, is there anything left to explore?” a remark which indicates the kind of mind Godfrey has. The explorer explained that all you had to do to get along with the lady head hunters was to bring them beads and trinkets.
“Just like New York,” observed Godfrey.
There’s some pretty good talent among these unknowns. One night I listened as Godfrey introduced Hildegarde Halliday, a monologuist [sic], who rattled on in a devious and highly entertaining manner.
“I think politics are so common—what with allowing every one to vote,” she said. “That reminds me: I saw your husband last night with the most attractive woman—probably your sister.”
Oh, the talent scout program is worth listening to, all right, but, for my money there is too much talent and there are too many talent scouts. They blanket the Godfrey personality, certainly one of the warmest in radio.
* * *
In a lot of ways Godfrey is the nearest thing to a humorist we’ve had since the death of Will Rogers. His humor is free from malice; it has that searching tenderness I’ve missed since E.B. White went to Vermont to raise chickens. It’s difficult to convey that quality in print. Much of Godfrey’s humor is like those screamingly funny remarks you hear at parties. They’re uproarious at the time, but somehow lose their point when you repeat them the next day.
It puts me in mind of a statement once made by the late, great Percy Hammond. Hammond remarked once that he’d never left a J.M. Barrie play without feeling a revived and wondrous delight in being a human being. In this impassioned and jittery age Godfrey is doing his bit to restore our faith in the amiable and gentle characteristics of our high-strung civilization.

As for the columns for the rest of the week, Crosby sat in with the great Brooklyn Dodgers announcer Red Barber, a man with turns of phrases everyone (well, maybe not a Yankees fan) could enjoy. He related some of the play-by-play and ancillary chatter in his column of August 19th. On the 21st, Crosby had three topics, including a musing on the tables being turned by contestants on game show/audience participation show hosts. The next day he looks at a now-forgotten 15-minute medical show which aired on ABC, while the 23rd examined an episode of Inner Sanctum written by Ben Hecht. You can click on any of them to make them bigger.

Tanks, Snafu

Private Snafu thinks the infantry sucks, so Technical Fairy First Class uses his magic wand to let him try out the other armed services.

In the tank corps, he ends of motoring his tank over jagged rocks.



A cut to the next scene shows a cutaway of the tank with Snafu in silhoutte, getting tossed around.



Cut to the next scene where his eyes are jiggling around due to the impact of the tank moving.



Infantry Blues was produced for the “Army/Navy Screen Magazine” of September 11, 1943 by the Chuck Jones unit at the Schlesinger studio.

Witchiepoo

65 years ago, she was a “New Face.” But in her most famous role, you never got to see her face.

Billie Hayes was packed under all kinds of make-up as the scenery-munching Witchiepoo on H.R. Pufnstuf, a live-action show nestled amongst the cartoons on Saturday mornings in the 1969-70 television season.

Only seventeen episodes were made but they still resonate with anyone who watched the show way-back-when. You can partially credit Hayes for that. Witchiepoo was supposed to be the villainess, but she seemed to be having a great time camping it up, so kids loved her.

Hayes has passed away at the age of 96.

She got a break when she was cast in “New Faces of 1956,” a revue staged by Leonard Sillman and partly written by Paul Lynde. She moved on to the role of Mammy Yokum in Li’l Abner not long afterwards. But she had been around before that. For example, she appeared in what Variety called a “vestpocket musical” that kicked around for about a year and a half before it arrived at Gogi’s Larue in New York City in 1953. Of the six original cast members, she was the only one kept for the whole time. The trade paper called her “a mugging cutup as evidenced in a very bouncy ‘Back in the Old Routine’,” which earned her an encore.

Here’s a story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution of September 9, 1953. I don’t understand the ‘50s preoccupation with asking women show-folk about getting a man. There’s some of that in this story.

Visiting Comedienne Wants Contract With Fun, Not Man
By JEAN ROONEY
A visiting bachelor girl admits she wants a long-term contract, but it can be with a movie or TV company instead of a man.
But Billie Hayes may have been joking when she made this announcement as she came to Atlanta Tuesday morning from Manhattan.
A tiny, curvesome, platinum blond, a comedienne by trade, Billie is one of the stars of an entertainment troupe in the city for about 10 days to appear with an international fashion show to be presented by Rich’s and the Young Matron’s Circle for Tallulah Falls School, Sept. 14-19.
Husky-voiced Billy [sic], who weighs in at a neat 110 pounds and measures five feet two inches high, quickly explained she has nothing against romance.
“I just haven’t time to dress up and go out courting a man,” she elaborated, without a smile.
Besides Billie’s “awfully undomestic,” she reported. “I always have to pick a roommate who can cook.”

The little blonde bounced into the entertainment whirl when she was in high school in Du Quoin, Illinois.
Since then, “a hundred years ago,” she has made Manhattan her headquarters, fanning out for night club appearances over the country as well as starring on national TV shows.
With a style her friends say is like Mickey Rooney’s, Billie’s acts range from take-offs on a fluttery dean of a girls’ finishing school to a rubber-necking American tourist in Paris.
But the little blonde isn’t sure how she makes people laugh. “I guess I’m so doggoned happy other people know it,” she said.
As to Southerners’ sense of humor, Billie thinks they are “a little reserved and dignified in their appreciation of comic situations.”
“They don’t double up guffawing like audiences do in other parts of the country,” she explained.
She and Atlantans “understood each other” when Billie appeared in an Atlanta hotel supper club about a year ago.
“I hope I’m still good for a laugh,” she chuckled.

Let’s turn our attentions to the role you know about. Yes, a Saturday morning show which looked like Mayor McCheese would show up any minute drew the attention of a few reporters (and not because of drug culture fan theories). I haven’t found a byline for this feature story, which appeared in papers around November 18, 1969.

Much Ado About Witchiepoo
HOLLYWOOD — Witchiepoo, portrayed by Billy [sic] Hayes, might well qualify as the Sad Sack of Saturday morning television.
Somehow, Witchiepoo, hard as she may try, just doesn't qualify as an authentic genuine 14-karat creature of evil. She has too many hangups. For one thing, she seems to lack authority even in her own castle, as when she asks:
"Castle, Castle, I hate to boast.
But who's the Witch who sends you the most?"
When the castle answers, "Not you, you old fossil!" Witchiepoo's only recourse is to kick the castle and exclaim in frustration, "Ahhh, you got termites in your tower!"
This is the character who tries unsuccessfully every Saturday to make life difficult for "H. R. Pufnstuf," the friendly dragon-mayor of Living Island, and his island friends, especially Jimmy ("Oliver!" star Jack Wild) and Freddy Flute, on the NBC Television Network.
"I wanted to do this role very much," said Billie "Witchiepoo" Hayes, the gamine-like actress who considers herself basically a singing and dancing comedienne. "I felt they would really let me be nutty, zany and wild."
Witchiepoo, according to Billie, shares some of the elements of two other characters she has portrayed, including Mammy Yokum in "Lil’ Abner (Broadway, national company and motion picture), and Minnie Fay in "Hello Dolly" (Las Vegas).
"Witchiepoo" said Billie "is really wilder and nuttier than Mammy. She's allowed more freedom. She can cry and admit she was scared or frightened."
Witchiepoo's gentler elements remind Billie of Minnie Fay in “Hello Dolly.”
“Minnie had a sweet character,” said Billie. “This comes out from time to time in Witchiepoo, too, when she is down and feels a warmth for Seymour (one of her two otherwise abused sidekicks).

Billie, who is the youngest of four children (two boys and two girls) was born to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Brosch in Duquoin, Ill.
"My dad still lives there," she said. "He's a retired coal-miner. He was president of his Local for 40 years. My dad is a sort of colorful kind of character, and I'm a lot like him. He's like a gremlin. He's a nonstop talker. He has a booming voice and stands up and uses his hands when he tells a story." Billie's mother passed away in 1952.
"She was a great, softspoken cheery, outgoing person," said Billie. "I was thrilled when a family friend came to me after the show in Las Vegas and said, 'I can't tell you how you remind me of your mother.' You look and act just like her. Mother was very dedicated to helping people who were in need. She was also the school's Santa Claus every year. I believed her till the third grade. Then I recognized Momma's voice. I asked her if she was Santa Claus. She said, 'Only at school.' I called her Santa in class, but when she gave me my present, I whispered 'Thank you. Momma.' "
Billy, who is single, lives in Hollywood. She has two new hobbies, photography and bicycling (she just bought a 10-speed bike). She also has an 11-year-old dog, Tina, a boxer-Great Dane.
"She's my true life sidekick" said Billie. "But I don't hit her, like I do Orson in the series."
Billie is pleased at the way youngsters are taking to Witchiepoo. As one adult friend put it, "They love Jack (Wild), but they don't hate you you've got that hangup!"
If she needed evidence that children like her, she got it recently when a mother kept prodding her shy youngster to speak to Witchiepoo, As she knelt down to the boy's level, he asked, "Will you hug me?"

Margaret Hamilton, who knew a little something about witches, praised Hayes’ performance on ‘Pufnstuf,’ calling her “one of the best witches ever.” Perhaps for once, the Wicked Witch of the West got something right.

Moving a Herr

Hermann Goering realises something’s wrong when part of “Hitler”’s moustache comes off and sticks to his face. Bugs Bunny is disguised (rather poorly) as Hitler.

Check how Friz Freleng handles the in-betweens in this scene from Herr Meets Hare (1945).

>

Gerry Chiniquy is the credited animator.