Multiple Eyes

Don Williams provides some beautiful animation in the not-all-that-exciting A Hick, a Slick, a Chick, a 1948 one-shot by the Art Davis unit at Warners.

His animation of Elmo mouse putting on clothes to leave the house (while singing) really is expressive. And he also employs multiple-eye in-betweens as he did in other cartoons for Davis. Here are some examples.



Williams will stretch a character, drop his bottom half down, then follow with the rest of body, with the multiple eyes left in the path.

Tex Avery began a cartoon called The Slick Chick in 1944. They share the same bent-fist punches, but the Avery cartoon is far faster and funnier. Still, Avery doesn’t spend almost the first 30 seconds on personality animation.

A Walk With Fred Allen

Fred Allen complained.

He griped about agencies, networks, and even his audiences. Over and over again to any reporter who would listen.

Fred Allen also liked to walk. And perhaps that made him a little more reflective.

Here’s a story from the Bell Syndicate that appeared in newspapers on April 3, 1955, a little less than a year before Allen collapsed and died during one of his walks. He walked with columnist Margaret McManus and seems a little less bitter in her report than I’ve read elsewhere.



As He Walked Down Broadway (on Way to Dentist) He Heard Girl Tell Her Friend He Was ‘Cute’
By MARGARET McMANUS
NEW YORK—To walk a few blocks on Park Ave. with Fred Allen, on his way to the dentist, is to see a celebrity abroad in the real sense of the word.
It is difficult to mistake that deceivingly dour countenance and those unsmiling blue eyes, which look out at the world with such acid perception.
A taxi driver leans out of his cab at 57th St. and talks right in to Allen's face.
"What's my line? What's my line, Fred?" he shouts.
BOYS WANT AUTOGRAPH
Two young boys stop him for an autograph. They are disappointed because Allen is not carrying any pictures with him.
A well-dressed, middle-aged man passes, salutes and then says:
"Hi, Seagirt!"
Allen turns quickly to tip his fedora to him.
"Portland and I used to spend our summers at Seagirt, a nice little community in Jersey," he said. "He was one of our neighbors."
Two women, coming out of one of those so smart, so expensive little Park Avenue dress shops, stop abruptly in the doorway, one nudges the other.
"There's Fred Allen, Marion, look! Did you see him the night Portland was the mystery guest on 'What's My Line?' He was so cute."
'DEAD PAN' BREAKS
Even Allen's dead pan broke slightly at this description and he shook his head in some wonderment.
"I must remember to tell that to Portland," he said. "I don't think I've heard myself described as 'cute'— not recently."
Fred Allen, who replaced Steve Allen as a regular member of the "What's My Line?" panel on the CBS-TV Sunday night show, says he likes doing a panel show on television.
"It doesn't take much preparation," he explained. "You don't have to worry about getting material ahead of time. It's a comfortable living, and it leaves you time for other things."
The principal "other thing" for Mr. Allen, at the moment, is writing a book.
His "Treadmill to Oblivion," which was published recently is still a best seller. He will soon begin his autobiography.
TRACKS VAUDEVILLIANS
He is currently engaged in the research for this book, which includes tracking down old vaudevillians to recapture the real flavor of the early vaudeville days. He said he has very little time to watch television, although he is interested in the comedy shows and especially enjoys Jack Benny, George Gobel and Sid Caesar.
"There is a sameness about television shows," he said, "which is very difficult to attain. You might even say that television performs a rare service. It is showing the public how monotony actually looks."
You can also take it from Fred Allen that radio has done died.
"It is the advertisers' fault. Everything is subdued to the demands of the sponsors. They milk a medium dry, and then walk out and leave it for something better.
"All the radio equipment is still there. The hours are going on, filled with nothing, because the money has gone into television."
Born John Florence Sullivan, in Cambridge, Mass., 61 years ago, Allen attended the High School of Commerce in Boston and, for one summer, he studied at Boston University.
He began his career in show business in and around Boston, as a juggler and a monologist, going on to a vaudeville career which took him several times around the United States, and, in 1915, on a tour of Australia.
This is why today, he prefers to stay quietly at home in his mid-town apartment in Manhattan, confining his traveling to the hour's walk he and Portland usually take each night about 11 o'clock.
GREAT TRAVELER
"Portland's a great traveler," he said. "Her whole family likes to travel. She went to Europe last summer for three months with her sisters, but I stayed home. I had work to do."
In 1922, Fred Allen made his first appearance on Broadway, in "The Passing Show of 1922" at the Winter Garden Theater. It was during that show that Allen met Portland, one of the dancers. They were married in 1927.
Later he played on Broadway in "First Little Show" and "Three's a Crowd," but retired from the stage in 1932, to start his 19-year-radio career, with his famous gallery of Allen's Alley characters.
Allen finds the transition from comedian to writer actually no transition.
WIRE TO BENNY
After his good friend Jack Benny made a slight mistake in quoting Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, at the recent Emmy Awards, Allen sent him a telegram which read: "How could you possibly misquote Lincoln's Gettysburg Address? After all, you were there."
This was strictly for laughs, just to keep alive the years-old radio feud between Benny and Allen, in the spirit of Auld Lang Syne.
And all too suddenly, here was the dentist's office.
"Will this be a bad session, Mr. Allen? Any extractions?"
"Well I don't know," said Mr. Allen. "This is the dentist's department. After all I'm doing my part. I'm bringing my teeth."
(Released by The Bell Syndicate. Inc.)

How Not To Catch a Chicken

George tries to explain catching a hen using a leg-hold trap to Junior in the 1946 Tex Avery cartoon Henpecked Hoboes. Junior, just because he’s stupid, I guess, springs the trap early. See the expressions on George’s face, including multiple noses.



Someone will know if this is a Ray Abrams scene. Ed Love, Preston Blair and Walt Clinton are the other credited animators.

Fake Mickey

Let’s see...round ears, wears pants and shoes, speaks with a falsetto. Can it be?



Nah, it’s just one of all kinds of Mickey knock-offs that Harman-Ising used as early as Hold Everything (1930), their third Looney Tune. This one is a supporting character in part of Bosko’s Soda Fountain (1931). He’s a knock-off of Eddie Cantor, too, as he claps just like the Kid Millions star. Here, the mouse enjoys an ice cream soda.



A mouse getting fat is apparently the joke here. Later, the standard fat hippo (in fact, some of the animation is from Smile, Darn Ya, Smile) gets sprayed in the face with the whipping topping from the soda.

Friz Freleng and Ham Hamilton are the credited animators.

War is Wet

It wasn’t limos and luxury hotels for the stars entertaining Allied troops and visiting wounded personnel during World War Two. One year, Jack Benny and his troupe coped with oppressive heat. Another, it was torrential rain in the South Pacific.

On this patriotic day in the U.S.A., let’s give a couple of examples of how things went for Jack’s band of entertainers on an overseas tour to meet the forces fighting against tyranny. In 1944, Jack was on the road with musicians Larry Adler and June Bruner, singer Martha Tilton and actress Carole Landis. Adler was contracted by the Central Press to write a series of articles on their trip. His payment was donated to the Red Cross.

The first story was published September 19, 1944, the other on October 5, 1944.

This post isn’t altogether about Jack but give you an idea of some of the things he went through.

When The Roads Are Out, You Just Hop Into A PT Boat
By LARRY ADLER
Famed Harmonica Artist
SOMEWHERE IS THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC—We thought the trip by jeep last night in a driving rain was as tough as you could make it, but we are just beginning to live. We couldn't get to our next base by jeep because the roads were washed out by the storm, so they elected to transport us by PT boat.
We wore ponchos and a fat lot of good they were! Within 10 minutes Jack Benny and I were completely drenched. We drove to the boat in a rain so heavy that we could not see the road before us, but I don't think there was a road anyway. My spine tells me there wasn't.
Aboard the boat, Jack and the girls went below, which was a mistake. Those PT boats pitch like a bronco and everybody was seasick. I fared better, staying out on the bridge and just getting cut to ribbons by spray lashing across my face.
It's A Knack
Capt. Lanny Ross, on the bridge with me, said he'd never be tempermental [sic] about singing conditions again. Salt water, sea air, all supposed to be dangerous, and in addition he was trying valiantly to smoke a pipe!
We reached our base after twenty knots of heavy weather and were taken straight to the hospital auditorium where about 1,000 patients were waiting for us. There was no time to change into dry clothes, nor were there any dry clothes to change into.
Jack and I were muddy almost to the hips and soaked from there on up. For a gag, we wore very loud ties with our G.I. khaki.
There wasn't any way of taking out suits, which had been ruined anyway from playing in the rainstorm the previous evening.
We had a band which was really sensational and I did a jam session with them. They were a station hospital band with Pvt. George Horton of New York city doing a wizard trumpet solo as well as vocals.
The Boy Can Play!
T/4 Al Baldori of Detroit played his sax solos with a peculiar slouching stance as if he'd dropped something, but it didn't affect his music.
Vincent Mastronardi of New York city beat out the drums so well that I signaled him to take about five choruses on his own. He did and the house came down.
In all fairness I should say that the house comes down on anything. These boys are pushover audiences, more so than even in Africa, and it’s hard for the performer to keep his sense of balance; to remember that nobody is as good as the G. I.'s would lead you to believe you are.
Civilian audiences will be just as critical as usual. I try to keep my show up to civilian standard rather than play down—it’s a lot better if I can succeed in doing so.
This hospital base was cleaved out of pure jungle and they've done wonders with it. If it weren't for the rain, it would be very nice.
No One Gets Colds
I noticed, however, that nobody seems to have colds, nor did any of our troupe catch them despite the show in wet clothes. Outside the ward in which Jack Benny and I are quartered, Negro troops are trying to make something out of what used to be a road but is now just swamp.
This morning Jack and I breakfasted with two nurses, Lt. Fern Dahlgren of Shakopee, Minn., and Lt. Ruth Hook of Columbus, O.
"You do not have to be crazy to do this work," said Lt. Hook, "but insanity is an asset."
They were in the audience when we did our night show in a hangar at the airstrip.
I am always amazed at the facilities put up for our shows. They had floodlights, a fine sound system, a well-constructed stage, dressing rooms and—crowning achievement—a real toilet, put in for just this one night.

Visit With Paratroopers Is A Real Thrill
By LARRY ADLER
Famed Harmonica Expert
SOMEWHERE IN THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC—At the moment I love everybody. My morale, which had done a nose dive at the sight of our home for the next five days, is on the up again. This base is another one of those mud and rain spots and we just ain’t in the mood.
However, just a few hours after our arrival a naval chaplain showed up. He asked Jack Benny and I to do a show aboard a troop transport just in from the states. Jack and I went down and found ourselves aboard a Dutch passenger ship, converted to war but with all the luxuries still intact.
We did our show on deck. Jack beseeched the men to write letters home to keep up civilian morale. He has intended only to talk, but a violin was rustled up and Jack gave out with the usual “Love in Bloom” and “Ida.”
There have been other numbers written but Jack refuses to recognize them.
A Worthwhile Kick
After we were introduced to Capt. Pest who invited us to dine. Jack was about to refuse as we were supposed to dine back at our base, but I kicked him under the table.
I know ship food and didn’t want to miss it after our tender acquaintance with bully beef boiled, fried, hashed and smothered in another portion of bully beef. Well, friends, our menu consisted of consommé macedoine, roast beef, braised goose with apple sauce and creamed spinach, chocolate cream pie, fruit and coffee, topped off with a cigar for Jack, beer for me.
For the first time since leaving the States I was almost unable to rise from the table. Oh, what a beautiful day—permissions of the copyright owners!
Meet The Boys
Before the meal, we met the most impressive group of soldiers that we have yet played before. They are a paratroop division—Douglass air-borne, as they are called. They are young, tough and I’ve never seen so much sheer health floating around. It made me wish I’d brought along my muscles.
Before we gave our show for them, we were invited to watch a mass jump from the vantage point of the plane itself. Jack Benny and Carol Landis were in one plane, Martha Tilton and myself in another.
The plane seemed to groan with the weight of these young giants and had a tough time getting off the ground. The men fiddled with their chutes, made jokes, sang a song that seemed to go “glory, glory, glory, what a hell of a way to die!”
Martha leaned over to me and whispered agonizingly, “I’m sacred. I don’t want those boys to jump out of this plane. Do they have to?”
Some Get Jump-Happy
I assured here that a great many of the men were probably scared, too, but that nothing could keep them from making their jump. In fact, as Cpl. Guy Berkstresser of York, Pa., remarked, “Some guys get jump-happy. They want to keep making one jump after another.”
The door for the takeoff was open, of course, and I stood in it, holding onto an overhead wire for support, which was just as well, because our plane banked sharply to the left and I was staring straight down at the earth with only my thin overhead wire between me and eternity. I was scared green.
I was told to stand to one side of the door, that the men were ready. The jump signal had flashed and the men were standing up, hooking on to that overhead wire. Then they got the go sign.
“C’mon, let’s get the hell out of this,” said one of them and then it started. There was an unearthly lot of mass yelling and the men began piling out, pushed none too gently by the officer in charge.
Quite A Thrill
I can’t fully describe how thrilling it was to see this impetuous race into nothingness.
Occasionally, a man would jam in the doorway and there would be a split second of heaving and panting. Then he, too, would have vanished and the stampede would continue.
The last man was out now and we could see the white mushrooms heading toward the ground. We headed back toward the landing strip.
I was astonished to see how close together the parachutes had landed. Scarcely 50 yards apart, or so it appeared from the air. One had landed right in the middle of a highway and several trucks waited patiently for the ‘chutist to extricate himself.
I left the plane feeling that I'd met the bravest man in the world.

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.