The Looney Tunes Mystery

Cartoon producer Leon Schlesinger realised in late 1934 that Buddy wasn’t working out as a starring character. He needed someone, something else. The studio then hit on an idea. It wasn’t an original idea. The “Our Gang” shorts were popular, so the Schlesinger crew created their own gang, which debuted March 2, 1935 in I Haven't Got a Hat.

To the right, you see part of the original gang. There’s Beans, who became the breakout star for less than a year. His plucky heroics weren’t enough to carry a cartoon. Another member of the gang had something Beans didn’t—a gimmick. At the bottom of the poster is Porky. He stuttered. Audiences laughed. Bye bye Beans.

More also-rans you see on the poster made a handful of cartoons until the Looney Tunes gang disbanded. There are the twin dogs, Ham and Ex, whose mischievousness was supposed to appeal to theatregoers. Above them is Oliver Owl, who started out as snooty. Bad potential. People laugh at snooty only when you’re making fun of it, and you can’t continually make fun of a star.

And then above him is a buck-tooth guy with glasses.

Just who is he? Does anyone know?

All the other characters are identified in I Haven't Got a Hat and all have solo bits of business. Young bucky doesn’t. He’s in the cartoon, but he just sits on a bench. He doesn’t rate enough in his classroom to get a desk.



Judging by his ears, I guess he’s a dog. In Hollywood Capers (1935), he plays Oliver Owl’s cameraman. He rarely shows his teeth in this cartoon but gets screen time.



UPDATE: Reader Matt Hunter points out he appears with Miss Kitty in Plane Dippy (1936). He has a male falsetto voice in this one.



He’s a pirate’s cabin boy in Shanghaied Shipmates (1936).



By this time, Beans had likely left Los Angeles and returned to Boston. Ham and Ex, Little Kitty, Oliver Owl, Tommy Turtle and Miss Cud had been told their animated services would not be required. All that was left was Porky, the newly annointed Looney Tunes star, and this buck-toothed guy. And this was his last cartoon. (Poor Berneice Hansell’s paycheque took a beating when the gang was disbanded. She voiced a bunch of the characters).

I suppose our friend’s identity is known somewhere. Can there be story synopses or model sheets filed away somewhere with the answer? If anyone reading has information (ie. not speculation), put a note in the comments.

Fourth of July Mouse

The expressions are what makes Tom and Jerry cartoons enjoyable to watch.

In Safety Second (released in 1950), it’s the 4th of July. Nibbles wants to be a fireworks freak but Jerry reminds him to keep the holiday “safe and sane.” In other words, no fireworks.

Cut to the next scene. The frames tell the story.



The usual bunch animated this short: Ray Patterson, Ken Muse, Ed Barge and Irv Spence. Al Grandmain gets a screen credit. Usually, he was an effect animator.

Canada's Glamorous Ghoul

She played opposite Clark Gable and a host of dramatic stars on the big screen for more than two decades. But you know her for being married to Herman Munster.

On this Canada Day, let’s look at the most famous role of one of Vancouver’s exports to Hollywood—Peggy Middleton. Or, as we all know her today, Yvonne De Carlo.

It is hard to believe The Munsters ran for only two seasons. Its ratings in the first season were so powerful that ABC moved The Flintstones out of the same time slot to give it a chance at renewal. But Herman, Lily et al died after one more year on CBS, and a for-fans-only movie called Munster, Go Home! However, the 70 episodes made were enough to offer it to stations in syndication, and it did a roaring business for years, especially in the after-school time slots.

De Carlo was known as a movie actress with sensuality, so perhaps that's why reporters focused on her wardrobe and make-up when she was cast as Lily Munster. She talked about it with the National Enterprise Association’s Hollywood writer in this story that appeared in newspapers starting June 18, 1964.

Yvonne DeCarlo To Be in New Fall Series as Spook
By EKSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD — Television fans who remember Yvonne de Carlo from her movie glamor girl days will be blinking this fall at the sight of gorgeous Yvonne as a spook in a fright wig. What's more — and for added eyebrow lifting — she says she's Miss Delighted about switching from girl to ghoul.
But this is to report that Yvonne herself is doing a bit of eye blinking about her vampire role as the wife of a Frankenstein-like monster in The Munsters, a new CBS-TV series.
The series is described—are you ready for this?—as "a domestic comedy featuring a family of loveable monsters."
The "loveable monsters" include Yvonne with floor-length wig; hubby Fred Gwynne who looks like the monster; their 8-year-old son, with pointed ears, and grandpa, who imagines he is Dracula.
The Munsters, we are to believe, are monsters in appearances only. Otherwise they are nice, normal people.
That's why even Yvonne is blinking. She has been blinking since she was briefed on her role by the show's creators, Bob Mosher and Joe Connelly.
"They told me," Yvonne reported, "that except for my apperance I should play the part as sweet as Donna Reed plays her TV character. Can you imagine that?"
Whether audiences can or will imagine all this about a family of spooks is the problem. Yvonne says she is not counting on anything.
"I think," she said, "that the first few shows will tell the story. It's either going to be a big hit, like the Beverly Hillbillies, or the season's biggest and quickest flop."
The Hillbillies, obviously, started a trend toward off-beat family comedy on television. And the sale to another network of TV rights to the famed Charles Addams cartoon characters cued "The Munsters."
As rival ghouls to ABC-TV's The Addams Family, The Munsters will have, says Yvonne, the legal protection of Revue Productions. Revue inherited from the old Universal studio TV rights to the images of the Frankenstein monster, Bela Lugosi's Dracula and the Wolf Man.
"And even the Wolf Man," Yvonne giggled, "turns up in the series as my ex-boy friend. Can you imagine that?"
As satire on old movie monsters as well as on contemporary TV domestic comedy. The Munsters will not be bothered, at least, by nice neighbors next door. "Our neighbors." Yvonne reported, "are scared to death of us."

De Carlo discussed make-up, and little else about the show, in a United Press International interview shortly after the start of the second season. We learn a bit more about her home life instead. This appeared in papers starting October 10, 1965.

"Mrs. Munster" Takes Two Hours for Makeup
By VERNON SCOTT
Hollywood (UPI) — Yvonne DeCarlo devotes two hours every morning acquiring a case of the uglies for her role as the funeral Lily of "The Munsters" series. In a reversal of the traditional actress attitude, Yvonne is pleased when she looks her worst for the cameras.
Even so, she is still beautiful to her family—husband Bob Morgan and sons Bruce, 8, and Michael, 7.
On a normal workday Yvonne leaves home every morning at 5:45 to allow the makeup artists the two hours it takes to apply greenish makeup, Theda Bara eyes and the weird hairdo fancied by Lily Munster. Another 45 minutes is devoted to removing the greasepaint at the end of the day.
By 7 p. m. Yvonne jumps into a new auto, which she is equipping with coffin-handle baggage rack, for the 15 minute drive up the hills from Universal studios to her home on the outskirts of Beverly Hills.
Home is a baronial house set on six and a half acres of Santa Monica mountaintop with four patios, a 60-foot-long free-form swimming pool (with 20-foot waterfall) and horse stables.
As Yvonne puts it, there are five bedrooms in use, not including a large guest apartment in what would be a basement in eastern homes. There's also a spacious rathskeller which holds Bob's desk and a piano for rehearsal accompaniment for Yvonne's night club act.
Upstairs Yvonne is gradually redecorating the house in which she has lived since 1950. She bought the place some five years before she met and married Morgan.
At the moment she is completing the living room, which is furnished in elegant dark walnut, offset by vinyl walls. The color scheme is pale green with touches of a avacado. Her bedroom has been redone in ivory and gold.
The Morgan family suffered a tragedy three years ago when Bob, a stunt man, was almost fatally injured filming of "How The West Was Won."
He was thrown beneath the wheels of a runaway train. Yvonne gave up all her activities to nurse her husband back to health. Morgan recovered after almost a year of hospitalization, during which one of his legs was amputated.
He now works as an actor and has returned to playing golf—shooting in the 70's. But the stables on their property are now empty.
A Mexican woman comes in twice a week to do the cleaning, and an aunt lives with the Morgans to look after the youngsters while mother and father are working. Yvonne, however, does most of the cooking. She says her New England boiled dinner and several Italian dishes are family favorites.
The Morgans entertain infrequently because of Yvonne's heavy workload. On weekends the family lazes around the swimming pool.
There is a station wagon for trips to the snow during the winter and for hiking and fishing in the Sierras in summertime. Bob drives a new sports car. Bruce and Michael romp around the acreage with a pair of apricot-colored standard poodles named Spunky and Igor.
When Yvonne has a long weekend she frequently moves into the Disneyland Hotel with her sons, spending the days at Walt Disney's magic kingdom and relaxing in the evening around the swimming pool.
"I try to spend as much time as possible with the boys when I get a breather from the show," she explains.
"It isn't necessary for me to appear in night clubs now that "The Munsters" is a hit. But I do make personal appearances once in a while to help plug the series."
Yvonne is almost unrecognizable without her Munster makeup, happily returning to her own glamorous appearance.
"I guess I lead a double life," she concludes. "And I must admit I'm happy with both."

De Carlo’s career after Lily took her to the stage across the U.S. She appeared on Broadway in the Tony-winning Follies. She also returned to a former place of employment in Vancouver in 1987 to mark the 60th anniversary of the Orpheum Theatre. It still stands. So do the hospital she was born in and the church she attended. One is a block south from where I am writing this post. The other is a block north.

De Carlo had a stroke in 1998 and died at the Motion Picture home at the age of 84 in 2007.

Shaking a Building the Fleischer Way

There’s a real neat effect that the Fleischer studio used in some of its cartoons in the late ‘30s.

To emphasize the pounding Bluto is taking in the Organ Grinder’s Swing, the background setting becomes angular, like the buildings are shaking. The drawing is alternated every other frame with the regular building setting.



You’ll notice Olive Oyl swinging her spaghetti arms in a window in the background.

This 1937 cartoon was from the Dave Tendlar unit, with Bill Sturm getting an animation screen credit.

Boom Boom Backgrounds

Background artists and scenic layout men were never identified for the first dozen-plus years on Warner Bros. cartoons, so the screen doesn’t tell us who is responsible for these settings in Boom Boom, a 1936 cartoon directed by Jack King. I believe Elmer Plummer was in charge of the background department at this time.



There’s an inside joke that is tough to detect. On the bed at the left is a partially-written word: “Hardaway.” This, of course, refers to story man Bugs Hardaway.



This cartoon is a bit of a rarity. It was released on February 29th.

Chase in Slo-Mo

The sign says “SLOW,” so that’s what a bird and cat do during a chase in Tex Avery’s The Early Bird Dood It (1942). Then when the next sign says “RESUME SPEED,” that’s what they do.

I like the cat’s expressions.



Scott Bradley plays a slow, wowwing version of “The William Tell Overture” while this is going on.

The animation in this cartoon is by Irv Spence, Preston Blair, Ray Abrams and Ed Love.

Its start and finish are typical Avery. The cartoon opens with a left to right pan of the outdoors, with an overlay in front for added depth, and ends with a sign reading “Sad Ending Ain’t It” as the cat has eaten the bird after the bird ate the “Costello” worm.

Cheap, Cheap

Have you gone to the store and think “I’m not paying that much for THAT”?

That’s why we laughed at Jack Benny.

Saving money makes sense. But Jack did it to such a degree that it was ridiculous. And, so, we laughed.

Here are two short items on Jack from columns ten years apart. Jack is cheap in both of them, though the second one refers to it only in passing. Both columnists think it’s funny.

First, from December 3, 1956, and then December 2, 1966. The second is, more or less, a review of a Benny TV special. I believe it is on video-sharing sites on-line.

Old Jokes the Best Jokes
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD (NEA) — There's nothing Jack Benny won't do to save a buck. He's even dancing with Ginger Rogers now because Fred Astaire "wanted too much money." It's the plot of a forthcoming Jack Benny show on CBS-TV and its one of the reasons why Jack remains daisy fresh after all these years. Too many cooks spoil the broth and too many jokes spoil the comedian. Jack sticks to one joke—Mr. Tightwad—and America howls.
You need Jack’s auditor to count the number of comedians who have failed to survive in television, but the comedy character Jack created on radio is humming right along in the home screen age. Why, kids who weren't even born when Jack was Mr. Radio stop page boys at Hollywood's Television City these days and ask: "Tell me, where does Jack Benny park his Maxwell?"
Even Jack will tell you now that he likes TV better than radio.
"I'd better like it," he grinned, "because radio doesn't mean anything any more."
Several of Jack's shows this year were filmed last summer in Europe. In one chapter, made in Rome, Mary finds him standing beside a fountain — the one used in "Three Coins in a Fountain."
Jack's comedy is as simple as that—and I'm laughing already.

‘Miss America Pageant’ Spoofed by Jack Benny
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
NEW YORK (AP) — Jack Benny turned up on NBC Thursday night in his annual special and, for a lot older viewers, it was a happy reunion with a friend of long standing.
In the whirling world of television, Jack Benny does not change, even though his show does, slightly. There were the anticipated "cheap jokes," any number of the long Benny takes, a little violin playing—and some smooth help from his guest stars.
Trini Lopez and his guitar were there for some songs; the Smothers Brothers did a variation of one of their routines.
The big number was a spoof of the "Miss America Pageant." Jack, in a horrendous black wig, presided over "The Miss Northern and Southern Hemisphere Pageant," and introduced 10 very pretty girls as finalists. Phyllis Diller was on hand for comedy contrast.
It was all good, comfortable fun, more like a visit than an extravaganza. Maybe Jack Benny could increase his television visits -- three or four a year would be about right.

Benny died in 1974. How did the Associated Press’ Bob Thomas open his story about the passing? “Jack Benny, the make-believe miser....”

Jack was cheap in everyone’s minds even at the end.

Squirrel Animator Sal

There were problems aplenty at Val-Mar Productions, so many that even an heroic flying squirrel couldn’t solve them.

It was the studio set up in Mexico to handle a lot of the artwork for Rocky and His Friends in 1959. The cartoon series was going to be sponsored by General Mills, and someone in its ad agency told the cereal maker it could save half-a-million dollars a year by having it animated outside the U.S. (where unionised labour would have to be employed). The contract with Jay Ward Productions set the budget for each half-hour at a ridiculous $8,520. By contrast, Hanna-Barbera was getting $21,000 for a half-hour of The Quick Draw McGraw Show.

Keith Scott’s book The Moose That Roared outlined some of the problems, including the fact the studio didn’t have a phone. Film was held up at the border. Rookie artists were hired, and they only spoke Spanish. Ward responded by getting some Americans to work out of Mexico—Bill Hurtz, Dun Roman, Gerard Baldwin (briefly) and the man who is the subject of our story. It appeared on newswires on July 22, 1961.

'Rocky' Animator Works in Mexico
Sal Faillace is an American artist with a Mexican ink bottle.
South of the border, where they munch tortillas, ole to bulls and matadors, and palaver in Spanish, this ex-New York area resident cha chas with brush and palette to animate the characters for ABC-TV's "Rocky and his Friends."
Sal Faillace does all this animated nonsense on a drawing board in Mexico City. He is production supervisor for Gamma productions, an outfit that employs 150 people and does both the story lines and animation for "Rocky and his Friends." The studio will also do the animation for "Rocky" when it hits the South American market — in Spanish.
"When I first came to Mexico nine months ago," said Sal, "my biggest problem was the language barrier. There were 12 animators in the department, and only myself and the Mexican interpreter could speak English. So I used hand signals and expressed what I wanted to say in my drawings. It worked out fine. Besides, an animator is like an actor; instead of acting on stage he acts on paper."
In New York recently to attend his brother's wedding, Sal, 31, recalled his childhood doodling days in Larchmont, N.Y.
"I always liked to draw cartoons," admitted Sal. "I bought comic books and copied all the Disney characters. I learned by experience."
Sal, who never had any formal cartoon schooling, ventured into whut he calls the "play for pay" ranks when he graduated from high school a dozen years ago. He bundled up his art work, kissed mom goodbye, and bought a one-way ticket to New York and the Famous Studios.
"I guess I was lucky," said Sal. "The director of Famous liked my stuff and put me on the payroll as one of the animators for Popeye."
But Sal finally tired of Wimpy, Olive Oil and other Popeye personalities and expanded into animated commercials for television. His journey across the Rio Grande was prompted by information that Gamma was looking for an animator.
Unmarried, he plays the role of an American tourist in metropolitan Mexico City. "Sometimes I get homesick," said Sal. "But never lonely. Besides, I'm too busy learning Spanish."

After Bullwinkle wrapped up, Sal worked on the Underdog Show. He also animated on Schoolhouse Rock in New York in the mid-70s.

What happened to Sal after that is difficult to say. There was a Salvatore Fallace who died in Laramie, Wyoming last July who would be our Faillace’s age, but there’s no confirmation it’s him. No biography is in his obituary (this Sal’s brother was a professional magician in New Jersey). He’s one of the countless people who animated in the Golden Age and even managed to get credit on the small screen. Their talents deserve recognition.