He's Too Bizet to See the Conductor

A trombonist isn’t too careful where he’s playing in a sketchy rendition of Bizet’s “Carmen” in the 1929 Mickey Mouse short The Opry House.



This is one of 47 drawings in an elaborate but perfectly timed cycle. I’ve slowed it down to 75% speed of what it is in the cartoon.



Ub Iwerks supposedly drew this if we believe the re-created opening title card. My guess is Les Clark worked on this as well.

Kill the Umpire? Nah, Kill the Other Guy

There’s more than just a baseball game being played by the stick figures in Tex Avery’s Batty Baseball (released April 22, 1944).

If you look in the upper left in front of the dugout, someone is chasing someone else with a baseball bat. He lunges for him at the base-path from third to home, but misses.



The guy being chased trips on the field between the mound and the base path between third and home. He gets up and the crazy guy starts to chase him around the pitcher’s mound, across the base path from home to first, lunges and misses again.

>>

This is all in a separate cycle than the game on the field. 44 drawings.

Ray Abrams, Ed Love and Preston Blair are the credited animators. John Wald (later the announcer on Fibber McGee and Molly) does the play-by-play. Oh, as for the score, The Independent Film Journal of April 29, 1944 reported:

As an outstanding example of musical scoring for animated cartoons, M-G-M’s Technicolor cartoon, "Batty Baseball” was shown recently to the National Association of American Composers and Conductors. Sigmund Spaeth, president of the Association, giving the last of a series of music in the films, illustrated his talk with showings of various outstanding scoring jobs. Scott Bradley, of M-G-M’s music department on the coast, did the score for “Batty Baseball.”

Considering Bradley did not agree with Avery on the contents of an appropriate cartoon score, we wonder what his reaction was.

The Wife, Mother and Ruby Keeler of 1961

Rose Marie had been a star on stage and radio back in the late ‘20s. Morey Amsterdam had been a variety show pioneer in early network television in the late ‘40s. Dick Van Dyke found success in a top Broadway musical in the earliest ‘60s.

And then there was Mary Tyler Moore.

To the world in 1961 she was pretty much unknown. Looking through newspapers before 1960, there are brief references to her appearing in Bourbon Street Beat and Bronco. But her casting on the Dick Van Dyke Show proved to be a stroke of genius. Her Laura Petrie was a completely different kind of wife and mother than anything else on television; in fact the whole show seemed smarter than comedies before it, which still had a foot stuck in old radio.

One could make the argument that her best years were ahead when she got her own situation comedy.

However, let’s look at a couple of stories from the early Van Dyke era. The first appeared in papers around March 23, 1963 and explain Tyler Moore’s background and how she was cast. National Enterprise Association columnist Erskine Johnson makes a comparison I never thought about before.

Chorine Set To Star, a la Ruby Keeler
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD — (NEA) — Remember those old movie musicals with a chorus girl, usually Ruby Keeler, becoming a star through a series of fortunate but highly improbably events?
Well, here's the same story—for real. The new background is television, but the events are just as improbable.
Meet the heroine—gorgeous brunette Mary Tyler Moore, ex-chorus girl. She plays Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show on CBS. And as a sophisticated comedienne she has Carole Lombard's flair and a voice as offbeat as Myrna Loy's.
As Laura, she's Van Dyke's ever-lovin' wife. As a team, Van Dyke domestic comedy as William Powell and Myrna were in the "Thin Man" series.
Third From Left
Let's flash back to 1959 Eddie Fisher has a big musical show on NBC-TV. There is a line of shapely chorus girls, and the third from the left is Mary Tyler Moore.
But acting, not dancing in the chorus, is Mary's goal. Just like Ruby Keeler's.
Now fade out and fade in on the television series, "Richard Diamond." The show opens on a telephone operator whose face you never see. You just see a pair of shapely legs and hear her sultry voice.
Diamond's name for her "Sam." Pretty improbable.
In the first 18 shows Mary Tyler Moore was Sam. She received no billing but a lot of publicity as the show's doll of mystery. When she asked for more money to play the role she was fired and replaced by another "Sam."
She pouted to her agent at the time: "They won't let me see my fan mail."
Everyone at the studio where "Diamond" was filmed knew why they wouldn't let pretty Mary see her fan mail. As "Sam," she was receiving more letters than the star.
It was "Sam" who turned the trick for Mary. After seeing those legs and hearing that voice, casting directors were curious about the face. Once they met her, they hired her—and showed her face, too.
After leaving the chorus and before becoming "Sam," Mary was turned down for the role of Danny Thomas' eldest daughter. "Too sophisticated," said Danny. She worked in commercials used on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett."
She also found time to become the wife of television executive Grant Tinker.
Directors Impressed
It's 1962 [sic] now in our flashback. Carl Reiner, who created the Dick Van Dyke show, is looking for a girl to play Laura. As executive producer of the show, Danny Thomas suddenly remembers Mary Tyler Moore.
She's called in for an interview and hired for the role, which Reiner describes merely as "Van Dyke's charming wife."
But Mary's flair for comedy soon became obvious. The role became bigger and the lines became sharper. Directors were impressed with her ability.
One of them, John Rich, said, "She's like a sponge. She soaks up everything you suggest and it comes out as sparkling as if she had just thought of it." Her offbeat voice has been an asset, too. Personally, it gives Mary the shudders.
"It's so strident and nasal," is her analysis. It's the added touch in the chorus girl-to-Sam-to-Laura saga.
Come to think about it. Ruby Keeler's plots WERE that improbable.

This syndicated feature story ran in papers the weekend of August 4-5, 1962. By then, the Van Dyke show had been renewed through the forcible intervention of co-producer Sheldon Leonard, who convinced the sponsor to take another whack at it. Tyler Moore talks mainly about her wardrobe and being a mother.

Mary Tyler Moore Emancipates Housewife
By ISOBEL ASHE
HOLLYWOOD—There's a slight slim young actress out in Hollywood who has probably done more for the housewife in the past year than any one since the man who invented the first washing machine.
She is Mary Tyler Moore, who plays Dick Van Dyke's wife on the latter's CBS television series every Wednesday night.
And what has she done for the saintly state of the homemaker? Just freed her from the house-dress category and put her into capris. Pants, that is, not the island.
It should be noted, of course, that if all women were constructed like Mary Tyler Moore, capris would have achieved more popularity years earlier.
Known Fact
However, it's a known fact, although not listed in latest Bureau of Census figures, that the average housewife does wear pants of one type or another while toiling over a vacuous vacuum or dirty dishes. Ergo, says Mary:
"I decided to play the part honestly. I wear pants at home, all my friends wear pants at home. I wore pants on the show. And there was a lot of opposition at first. Some people said they were too tight.
"Other people said I shouldn't wear them at all. Carl Reiner, our producer, was on my side. So I held out against the opposition and, you know, the mail from viewers was in our favor too."
Mary concedes that many housewives who affect capris in their own homes shouldn't. But she won't set herself up as an expert on wardrobe advice.
From her long career as a dancer, prior to TV comedy and drama, she's blessed with slim hips, and still works out regularly at the American School of Dance in Hollywood.
"I can lose four pounds in 1 1/2 hours there," she says with satisfaction. "Of course it's all liquid, at first, but if I keep at it for a few weeks, regularly, the excess weight comes off too."
During the summer hiatus from filming the Van Dyke series, Mary has faced a weight problem. On June 1st she married NBC vice-president-in-charge-of-programming Grant Tinker.
"And he eats breakfasts! You know how it is when you're alone. A cup of black coffee for breakfast, no lunch if you're working around the house. And no weight problem.
"But now I'm doing the toasted English muffins with butter and jelly, all sorts of goodies. And I know there are some exercises in store before we shows," she smiles.
Mary shared the reaction of her co-stars when the renewal of the Van Dyke show was in doubt.
Broke Down
"I broke down and cried when I learned we were going to continue for another year," she confesses, “I'd been out all day during errands, and both Grant, who'd beard the news, and Carl Reiner had been phoning all day.
"When I got home, there was a big bunch of roses from Grant with a card reading: 'Take those to Sheldon Leonard. I knew he’d been east meeting with the sponsors. So I understood the message, and I just sat down on the floor and wept."
A girl with carefully thought out career plans, Mary hopes the Van Dyke series will continue at least another two seasons, and then she will try for a Broadway musical.
It was as a dancer, doing refrigerator and range commercials as a pixie, that she got her first job in television, and she later danced on several of the live variety shows that emanated from Hollywood a few seasons ago.
"I just don't believe you can ever stand still in our business. You need goals, and have to point toward them. Otherwise you get stale and stodgy. I suppose that's true of anyone in any field, however.
"Even as a native New Yorker, though, I wouldn't care to go back there to live permanently. I was nine when we moved to Hollywood, and I didn't go back until last season when I went to do publicity for the show.
"And I was really astounded. People are so rude there. If you smile at a cab driver, be looks at you like you're some kind of a nut. And I like to wear pants when I go to the store. Can't do that in New York, of course.
Recognized
"Actually I can't do it here very much any more, either, I'm starting to be recognized by the fans. It's wonderful.
"But I find myself feeling I should check to make sure the lipstick is on right, my hair's combed. There's a responsibility involved. You can’t be a slob."
Of particular amusement to Mary was the rerun of a recent Van Dyke Show, a flashback sequence where she and Dick explain to their television son the circumstances leading to his birth. And via padding, she looked very, very, pregnant.
The next day she was shopping in swank Beverly Hills shop where most of the sales personnel know the activities of celebrities, and, were aware of her recent marriage. A couple of them commented, jokingly: "Ought you to be so active in your condition?" There is, of course, no condition. They were referring to the show they'd seen the night before.
"It was very embarrassing, just the same," she felt.
In actuality Mary is the mother of a young son by a previous marriage. Ritchie was six years old on July 3.
“I let him stay up to see the show on nights when he isn’t too tired, and he isn't at all confused by the fact that I have another little boy on the show also named Ritchie.
"I never even had to explain it to him. He sort of grew up knowing Mommy is an actress, and he really take it very much for granted.
"I'm more of a heroine among the other kids in the neighborhood than I am to my own child. I heard some of them saying to him one day: ‘Your mother's a television star, isn't she?’ And he said, ‘Yeah’, and went right on playing.
"If I had an inflated ego he'd have punctured it right then. But it's better he reacts that way, and doesn’t make a big thing out of it. He sort of understands.
Asks Questions
"Take today for example. He wanted to know where I was going. I explained I was to be interviewed by a writer. ‘What's interviewed?’ he asked. And I told him that a writer asks questions and then writes the story. ‘Will they write about me?’ he wanted to know. And I told him probably, since I do talk about him a lot. And that was it. He accepts it.
"Let him be an actor? Oh, I don't know. I don't think I'd want him to be a child actor. A friend of mine used his boy on his show for a brief walk-on. The youngster learned seven or eight lines for the scene, and when it was edited down, as sometimes happens, there were two lines left.
"Well, the child saw the show and was crushed and shattered. How do you explain it to him? For that matter, bow do you explain it to an adult? In this business you lose your objectivity in many ways. "And I wouldn't want Ritchie to be hurt. Oh sure, if Dick and Carl ever want him to do a walk-on on the Van Dyke show I wouldn't object, but as a regular career, uh-uh, not just yet."
Mary has firm views on child-raising as well as on her career. Without hedging, she says: “I’m an old-fashioned mother. I believe a good, hard, deliberate, well-planned spanking is necessary now and then. And I think he's grateful for it.
"Kids want guidance and discipline. Just as they want well-set-out chores. Ritchie dries the silver for me, tidies his room every day, and puts all his toys away when he's finished playing with them.
"I get very out of patience with my friends who let their children rule their homes. It's an adult world they're going to live in, and I figure they have to learn to get along with grown-ups. How better to start than at home, I always say."
And so it isn’t really an acting job that Mary Tyler Moore does on the Dick Van Dyke show every Wednesday night.
“I'm playing myself," she says honestly. "An average young housewife who is in love with her husband and son. It’s an ideal situation. And I get paid for it too!"

Not all of Tyler Moore’s post-Van Dyke career was a success. She wanted to do feature films, and her movies in the ‘60s were middling at best. She wanted to a musical/variety show on TV and despite David Letterman and Michael Keaton being in her cast, it didn’t go over.

None of this was truly devastating. After all, she had been part of two of the biggest sitcoms in television history.

Hold the Goat

Was it Mickey Mouse who was showered with milk from an udder gag? Or was it Oswald the Rabbit before him? Oh, well. It’s one of those gags re-used by Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising from a cartoon their ex co-workers made in the ‘20s.

In Hold Anything, the third Looney Tune released by Warner Bros., a goat eats a steam whistle, become bloated with steam and floats up to Bosko, who is in an office playing a musical typewriter.



Bosko grabs onto the goat’s tail, floats over to a nearby girder and starts playing the animal like an accordion. He even presses the goat’s belly-button to get a note.



The whistle pops out of the goat’s mouth, and the two of them go twirling into the sky by the release of the steam. Baaaaaah! Bosko then slides down to the utter and holds on so he doesn’t drop to the ground. That’s when he gets the shower.



Bosko ends up falling, breaking into multiple Boskos (another old gag), then pulls himself together after a little dance. That’s all, folks!

Friz Freleng and Norm Blackburn are the credited animators, with Frank Marsales cobbling together the score.

The review from the Motion Picture News of August 30, 1930:

Looney Tunes, No. 3
(Vitaphone Varieties, No. 4,299)
Fair
"HOLD ANYTHING" is the title of this cartoon, but the artist must have tired while making it, for it is repetitious throughout. Several bits of new business were injected into it, but the music didn’t help a bit. Running time, 7 minutes.
Will get by with a heavy feature.

A Dog Doesn't Land on its Feet

The last Columbia short is about violence. A dog beats up a cat during the whole picture just for the sake it of it. Apparently, that’s the joke.

However, there is a break. Not exactly a funny one, but the concept is amusing. Chuck Jones and Mike Maltese pulled it off in one of their cartoons but director Sid Marcus and writers Cal Howard and Dave Monahan don’t here.

A truism is (supposedly) a cat always lands on its feet. That’s exactly what happens here after the dog drops him from a great height. Just as he’s about to hit the ground. The cat skids to a stop in mid-air, flips over, and lands safely. (A drawing is missing because of interlacing).



The cat gives us a knowing glance, looks as if he’s about to barrel away, but then tie-tops out of the scene.



The dog decides he can do the same thing. Nope. He flips onto his back and crashed into the dirt. (Apologies for the fuzzy frame grabs).



The cartoon is Cat-Trastrophy, released in 1949. It was animated by Roy Jenkins, Ben Lloyd and Howard Swift. Darrell Calker provided the score, freelancing while he was working at Walter Lantz.

The animation is solid, though not showy, in some of the late Columbias, and the characters are attractively designed in this one, but the cartoons don’t fire on all cylinders. Howard and Monahan were more than capable gag people but their work at Screen Gems isn’t all that inspired (or, in Howard’s case, just plain odd at times), there’s no irony or humour in Calker’s really low-key scores and the idea of Scribner or Gould-like outrageous animation never told hold like at Warners in the ‘40s. It’s no wonder the Cohns shut down its operations and eventually signed a deal with the promising UPA studio.

Jack, Is That Really You?

People on radio don’t look like you think. At least, that seems to be the general perception.

And it apparently applies to people whose pictures are in the papers and in fan magazines and appear on the big screen, if you accept what’s stated in the newspaper feature story below. The writer took in a Benny broadcast, but doesn’t write about that. She doesn’t even describe much of the warm-up. Instead she goes on about how “wrong” everyone looks.

Jack Benny was prematurely grey and movie producers had him put on a small wig to fill out his hair. Evidently he didn’t colour it, at least some times, before going on the air.

This appeared in papers on November 25, 1937.

The Woman's Angle . . .
By ALYCE
HOLLYWOOD—THERE WAS A line of people a block long outside of the NBC studio on Melrose avenue the Sunday we went to see how programs were made. I heard one bystander ask another, "What are all those people waiting for?" I was rather surprised that everyone didn't know that we were waiting to get in the Jack Benny show. At any hour during the week if you see a line-up in front of the studios, it's the same answer with a different name. It may be the Charlie McCarthy show, the Bing Crosby broadcast, the Al Jolson program, but whatever the cast, the line-up is there, its length recording the popularity of the star.
It’s interesting to be part of an air show. Even if there are a hundred people in the audience, you have a feeling that you are a small part of the program. Your laugh, your hand clap, your appreciation goes out over the air to be heard by the nation.
As a result I was conscious of acting just a little bit; my appreciation—never robust when alone—suddenly became audible.
When the doors are open and you have grabbed yourself a seat—I used "grabbed" advisedly—you see a small studio that much resembles a little theater. On the stage Phil Harris is still rehearsing the orchestra. Mary Livingstone is in a chair reading her script. There is a glass partition on one side of the stage which encloses the technicians. Casually, Jack Benny wanders across the stage. You see Don Wilson and Kenny Baker. They are just wandering around, not paying the slightest bit of attention to the hordes of people filling up the seats.
Finally Don Wilson comes to the center of the stage and in that pleasing way of his he tells you that he will cue your laughter. He’ll tell you when to clap and how long. Air time is precious. Your applause has all been figured into the script beforehand, and Don expects you to do as you're told. And Jack Benny adds a loud aside, “And you'd better laugh hard if you ever expect to get in here again!”
Like a little gal from the country I notice small details. Jack Benny is chewing on his cigar. He removes his hat, and a little sigh goes the round of the audience. He is just slightly bald.
And Mary Livingstone is a surprise, too. She's not the glamour girl you may have seen on the screen. Nor is she that dumb, baby-faced blonde you’ve been visualizing. No, Mary is a slender, youthful, dark-haired, dark-eyed lady with rather strong features that indicate a mind of her own. You don't get an impression of a scatter-brained wench.
And Kenny Baker isn’t that young, young kid in his ‘teens that you've been seeing in your mind's eye. He's a young man in his early twenties who has such a boyish face and such roguish eyes that he’ll still look collegiate when he's a grandpa. His voice is really beautiful. That boy can sing. If he never cracked another comic “Yeah?” for Jack Benny again, he'd still be in the money. As long as his youth and his health and his voice hold up, he'll get a lot of fan mail.
And another funny thing, Don Wilson isn’t fat. Not really. He’s just a big man . . . tall with a big frame. He may have a little excess poundage from eating those six delicious flavors, but he's not the roly-poly type. His size is something to build gags around, and that’s why we hear cracks to the effect that he takes baths in the Rose Bowl. And for the money he's getting to be teased, it's not just a hard role to play. If they are going to comment on size, Andy Devine should take all honors. I thought they padded him with pillows, but that waistline is real!
While I may be prejudiced, I did rather expect a second Clark Gable in the person of Phil Harris. I don't know what I expected for nothing, a Greek god or Robert Taylor, but if Phil Harris is the original white collar ad, I don't see why white collars are so popular.
The one person who looks just as you imagined he would is Jack Benny. A little older, perhaps. He’s no boy. It's a surprise and a shock to see him put on glasses, to see his thinning silver tinged hair. But once he starts talking, once you look into that smiling, urbane countenance, you realize that it is his personality and his alone that has held this show at the highest peak for so long.
And it’s for him you laugh and applaud. It’s for him you forgive the discrepancies of the cast that is real and the cast that is make believe. And once the smooth machinery of the show begins, these details that were so important a moment ago fade from your mind so completely that even as you see the stalwart, big figure of Don Wilson, the earnest business-like Mary, and all the other real figures that make up the cast, your eyes are tinged, the focus changed. Presto! There is roly-poly Don, and dumb little Mary, handsome, devastating Phil Harris, and suave, smiling Jack Benny. Copyright, 1937, Homer Canfield

Friz vs Tex: A Study in Taxis

Streamlined Greta Green (1937) and One Cab's Family (1952) aren’t the same cartoon but they share some of the same elements.

The first cartoon was directed by Friz Freleng. After various auto gags, the plot focuses on a little boy car named Junior who wants to be taxi, not a touring car like his dad. He goes to a soda fountain/gas station, drinks some ethel, then decides to race a train and beat it at a railway crossing.

The second cartoon was directed by Tex Avery. After various transposition gags humanising cars (a spark plug is a “first tooth”), the plot focuses on a little boy car named Junior who wants to be a hot rod, not a taxi like his dad. He goes to a gas station, drinks some ethel, then decides to race a train and beat it at a railway crossing.

They both feature a point of view shot of the train going across the crossing. Friz continues to cut to a side-by-side viewpoint after the little car beats the train. Tex just keeps the point of view shot going because his action is much, much faster. Eventually he cuts to an overhead shot.

Here’s Friz. Notice Junior’s eyes are always looking up at the train. I don’t know how his hat stays on with the speed he’s going.



Here’s Tex. Notice Junior’s eyes are always looking up at the train.



The plots get close to the climax. Out of gas. Then Junior gets smashed at the level crossing. Cut to a hospital/garage exterior. First Friz, then Tex.



There’s a large difference in the stories here. In the Freleng cartoon, Junior is joy-riding on his own at gets hit. In the Avery cartoon, Junior’s dad races to protect his son from the train. He runs out of gas on the crossing. Junior goes back to push him off the tracks to safety, and then gets ploughed by the train. A father is completely absent in the Freleng short.

In the end, both Juniors continue to rebel. Friz’s goes racing after the 515 once again and beats it at the crossing. As he gives a “nyah” to the train, a second 515 mows him down. There’s a blackout and we see the dazed car. But Friz surprises us by panning over to the train which is a complete wreck.

Avery’s car simply lifts up its hood to reveal it still has a souped-up hot rod engine. Further racing adventures no doubt await. I like Friz’s ending better.

There is no story credit on Streamlined Greta Green. The first one on a Warners cartoon wouldn’t be until later in the year—and then one of the two animation credits was taken away. This, however, was part of the era when a storyman was picked out of a pool, or maybe pitched a cartoon to a director. Rich Hogan and Roy Williams helped Tex gag One Cab’s Family.

Some footage of the 515 came from Bugs Hardaway’s 1934 cartoon Rhythm in the Bow and would be re-used by Frank Tashlin later in 1937 in Porky’s Railroad.

Avery’s cartoon reuses as a gag he put on the screen in 1938’s A Feud There Was. A chicken and a cow are blown up into the air and turn into ham and eggs (preceded by a plate) when they fall to the ground. In One Cab’s Family, the chicken and cow are run over by the little car.

Friz’s voices are supplied by Berneice Hansell (as Junior), Martha Wentworth and Mel Blanc (two lines), while Tex employs June Foray and Daws Butler (Junior is mute). There’s a neat version of the title song in the Freleng cartoon, but I don’t know who is singing it.

Is one cartoon better than the other? It’s not really fair to ask that. Avery would have made his cartoon differently in 1937, while Freleng would have made his differently in 1952. Both have enjoyable moments. Perhaps at this late date, we should just accept them as they are.