Highland Dancing Times Two

Friz Freleng featured Scottish characters Highland Dancing in two 1937 cartoons, Dog Daze and September in the Rain. So, was the animation re-used? We’ll post some frames side-by-side.



Yes, I do believe there was a bit of referencing going on.

Bob McKimson and Ace Gamer got the animation credits in Dog Daze while Cal Dalton was credited on September in the Rain. These don’t reflect the sole animators; the Schlesinger studio insisted on rotating credits back then. Ken Harris and Phil Monroe were also in the Freleng unit at the time.

And if the thistles look familiar...

They appear in Freleng's Flowers For Madame, a 1936 short animated by Don Williams and Paul J. Smith. The Technicolor is nice, there's a Tedd Pierce inside joke and a couple of J.S. Zamecnik's cues are on soundtrack, including "Traffic" during the fire extinguishing scene. Other than that, if you skip it, you won't be missing much.

New Look But Same Old Benny

There was an odd time on television where old stars simultaneously made fun of young people while kissing up to them.

The counter-culture of the 1960s was not the culture of Bing Crosby or Kate Smith or Milton Berle. The status quo always ridicules cultural change. They did it with Elvis, they did it with the Beatles, and they did it with “hippies.” So it was you could tune into a TV special and watch Bob Hope in love beads and saying “far out, man,” basically telling viewers “Isn’t all this stuff the kids are into really stupid?”

But their TV outings needed those kids watching for ratings. And since their culture was stuck somewhere around 1947, the stars did the only thing they could do—they brought on acts that would appeal to a younger audience but not too radical to make viewers stuck in 1947 uncomfortable.

This brings us to Jack Benny.

By 1969, he had been on the air for 37 years. Jokes about being 39 set aside, he wasn’t getting younger and neither was his audience. He had no intention of changing his routine after all that time, so you wouldn’t be getting “messages” about the Vietnam War and racial discrimination from him. Yet he had to try to appeal to a growing audience of people who were amenable to that. So he and his writers came up with the “New Look” idea. Put Jack in a Nehru jacket (which was already passe by 1969) and have him bring on a smattering of guests who were under 30; crossover acts who would also fit in with a middle-of-the-road crowd.

Jack also loved fish-out-of-water stars ever since hiring Ronald Colman to do situation comedy. His choice in the “New Look” special was Gregory Peck.

But there was also a typical Jack Benny twist. Jack was always the butt of the joke on his radio show. And in his special, the opening montage shows off how he doesn’t fit in to the counter-culture, no matter how much Flower Power he tries to exude (in one gag, he gives the Peace sign with the wrong number of fingers). In other words, he’s not making fun of young people, he’s making fun of himself.

Someone in the special who was trying to look young was Frank Nelson, who was wearing a ridiculous rug at the time. He appears in the Kodak spots.

Here are some short columns from the day the special aired, December 3, 1969.

Fine musical cast visits Benny tonight
By JOAN CROSBY
BEST BET—It's titled Jack Benny's New Look, but that's a misnomer since the real new look here belongs to guest star Gregory Peck. The Oscar winner and current President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, puts those images aside to become a song-and-dance man. He does his act to "The Shadow of Your Smile" then joins Jack and added guest star, George Burns, to form the vaudeville team, Two Bushels and a Peck.
The younger generation is represented by Nancy Sinatra and Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. The group's feature is "The Begger" and Gary joins Nancy for a duet to "Spinning Wheel."
The "new look" for Benny comes in the beginning with the comedian garbed hippie style with a Sunset Strip motorcycle gang. Eddie "Rochester" Anderson and Lucille Ball are seen briefly, with Rochester at the wheel of a Rolls-Royce, his own.

Benny Likes His 'New Look'
By BOB THOMAS
Associated Press Writer
HOLLYWOOD (AP) — An advance review on Jack Benny's television special for tonight: "Sensational!" The reviewer: Jack Benny.
The reviewer bears the best of credentials for his evaluation: lengthy service in his field; sagacity in judging performances; articulate judgments. The only thing he might lack is objectivity.
Yet Benny, ageless, though 75, remains as enthralled by show business as the most green of juvenile. The results can be seen tonight on "Jack Benny's New Look" over NBC.
"I think it's just great," he remarked with sincerity in an interview at his office in Beverly Hills. "Every show I've ever done on television I've found some fault with. I mean, I always find something that could have been better, once the show was put together.
"This one, no. I liked every inch of the film, and I even saw it without color. Now if a show looks good to me in black and white, you can imagine how it would took in color!"
Benny was proudest of his coup in snagging Gregory Peck as song-and-dance man on the show. He admitted his reluctance to approach the actor, but his producer, Irving Fein, said, "Ask him—the worst he can do is say no." Benny asked, Peck pondered, later said, "Why not?" provided that his salary go to the Motion Picture Relief Fund, for which Peck is chairman of the fund drive.
"You know something?" said Benny. "I couldn't get Peck to stop rehearsing. I finally had to say to him, 'Greg, I'm tired! We've got to stop for a while!' " "In 35 years in radio and television, I don't think I've ever had a guest star who was more cooperative and offered no problems."
Those 35 years comprise a remarkable record in broadcasting for Benny. Most of that time he starred in his own weekly show; only in the past few years has he cut down to occasional specials and guest appearances. Not that he doesn't feel capable of doing the weekly stint.
"I still get offers to go back to the weekly show," he remarked."I got two just recently. But I told the fellows: 'You couldn't afford me."

Jack mercifully gave up on trying to be groovy and went back to wearing a tuxedo in future specials. Gregory Peck came back to rehearse, too, but the Benny special he was preparing for never aired. It was to be Jack’s “Third Farewell Special” scheduled for 1975. Jack died just after Christmas 1974.

Rudy's Boots

Time for a tough-to-see inside joke from Tex Avery’s The Peachy Cobbler from the background art of Johnny Johnsen.

There’s a pair of boots on the top shelf with a label on it. The BluRay version allows you a better look at the scrawl. Though it’s not altogether clear, you can make out a name: J.R. Zamora.

That, of course, is none other than Rudy Zamora, who started in animation working on Felix the Cat cartoons for Pat Sullivan. Zamora told historian Harvey Deneroff he answered an ad and was given a test.

Zamora came in second to an African-American, with Eddie Salter third. He recalled that, animator Dana Parker “took the black boy [aside] and told him that they’ll call him when they needed him, [as they were] not hiring anyone that day. But they kept Eddie and I. That was lousy. Then they would have hired this black guy and myself. Ed was third.” When Zamora complained about this to Parker, he was told, “The old man didn’t want any black guys.”

He moved over to Fleischer and assisted Dick Huemer, finding himself promoted to animator in May 1930 along with Shamus Culhane, who wrote:

Rudy was animating a song cartoon that had been abandoned by Dick Huemer. Glow Little Glowworm was about half-finished when Huemer left, and in one of Max’s desperate moves, he had allowed Zamora to finish the film by himself. The result was incredible; there was no way to tell where Huemer had ended and Zamora had taken up.

Zamora jumped his two year contract and headed to Disney. Culhane related how after a sneak preview of one cartoon, the newly-arrived Zamora

...was part the group listening to Walt’s litany of complaints, grudging approvals, and plans for retakes. Apparently Rudy was not in tune with the tense feelings of the group because he plucked his one-inch cigarette stub out of his mouth and waved it at Disney. “Excuse me, Walt, could I ask a question?” Disney was startled by the interruption of his though processes. “What is it, Zamora?” Rudy, looking at him in mock perplexity, said, “Tell me, Walt, what makes these things move?” Lèse-majesté! Despite the fact that he was one of the most promising young animators at the studio, Zamora was fired the next morning.

Three jobs in about three years. As you can see, Zamora bounced around a lot. He’s spotted in a staff photo of the Charles Mintz studio around 1932. Next, he and Culhane reunited at the Ub Iwerks studio. He animated and directed at Walter Lantz then moved over to MGM (apparently after a stop in the late ‘30s working for Paul Fennell at Cartoon Films), getting screen credit on a pair of cartoons released in 1942-43. Bill Melendez was at Warners then, but the two worked together on the Peanuts specials years later. Both were Mexican. About Zamora working for Fred Quimby at Metro at this period, he told chronicler Didier Ghez:

When the union signed a contract with MGM, Quimby was of course furious. He turns to one of his production managers and says, “What do these guys animate? From now on, 25 feet a week or else out!” Rudy being a cantankerous, undisciplined guy . . . He worked for me several times and I couldn’t stand him. I would fire him all the time. He made it a point of honor as soon as a contract was signed never to be caught working. He would be there picking his teeth or smoking. You know, he smoked the way Frenchmen do [Bill demonstrates indicating the cigarette inside a cupped hand.] Quimby would come in and say, “Jeez, Rudy, what are you doing?” Rudy would say, “What do you mean what am I doing, Mr. Quimby.” Quimby says, “Rudy, you should be working. Why aren’t you at your desk?” Rudy would say, “I have done my footage. You said 25 feet a week and I have done my five feet for today.” Now Quimby was watching him. He was going to watch him. You know, you had to put in your footage every day. So Quimby would come up and say, “Rudy, you’re terrible. You should be working! I am paying you good money to be a 25-feet-a-week animator and you’re not working.” Rudy would say, “Mr. Quimby, look at your figures. I have already done my 25 feet. I don’t have to do any more. I did 25 feet; I am going to go up and practice my bowling.” This actually happened. Quimby goes downstairs furious, you know, whistling through his teeth. He goes downstairs and suddenly he hears, in a hallway bigger than this . . . [Bill points to the area in which the interview is being taped.] Rudy has his bowling ball and he rolls the ball down the hall. Quimby couldn’t believe it. He says, “Rudy what the hell are you doing?” Rudy says, “I thought I had time to practice my bowling. I’m preparing for the tournament.” Quimby didn’t know how to control him. He just didn’t. Rudy never complained when they put up a time clock. It was the fact that they said he had to do so much work. Rudy was a very fast animator. He could just rip it out.

He may have returned to the MGM in the late 40s, but tracking every move of some animators is pretty much impossible.

In 1951, he was picked up by the Jam Handy Organization in Detroit, where the coffers were loaded from assignments (animated and otherwise) from General Motors. He worked there for Gene Deitch, who wrote, quoting Zamora’s claim eating a hot pepper is a discerning qualification of an animator:

He obviously thought I was too young and green to be his boss, and he constantly let me know it. He went along with the gag of working under my direction, because he needed the job. I too went along with the gag, because I needed him [. . .] to give life to my conceptions. Rudy was probably the only first-class animator Jam Handy ever had. I was delighted to take his ribbing, as long as he would stick with me, and give me what I wanted.

It was back to the West Coast for Zamora. In 1958 he was at Playhouse Pictures before being hired as a sequence director on UPA’s Magoo feature. The next year, he found himself in Mexico overseeing Rocky and His Friends for Jay Ward, then spent part of the ‘60s at Gus Jekel’s FilmFair studio before more work for Bill Melendez and Hanna-Barbera. Along the way, in 1956, he became a naturalised American; he had been born in Mexico on March 26, 1910 and came to the U.S. with his family in 1917.

Interestingly, there was another inside joke about Zamora at a studio where I don’t believe he worked. Bob McKimson’s background artist, Bill Butler, plants his name on a poster of Mexican names (some puns) in the Warners short West of the Pesos (released 1960).

Zamora died July 29, 1989 in Los Angeles.

Harvey Deneroff recorded an all-too-brief interview with Zamora. See it HERE.

Butt Biting

Van Beuren could put Molly Moo Cow out to pasture.

Film Daily reported October 18, 1935 that the studio had cut deals to make cartoons starring Felix the Cat and the characters in the Toonerville Folks newspaper comic. Both had the potential to be good series, but it didn’t work.

Three of each were released in the Rainbow Parade series before Van Beuren gave up on cartoons together when its distributor and part-owner RKO signed a deal to put Walt Disney’s shorts in theatres.

The Toonervilles generally got favourable notices from exhibitors, but the gags were anything but fresh. One wonders if Joe Barbera had a hand in the story for Trolley Ahoy, released July 3, 1936. In one scene, the trolley bounces wildly on the tracks. The Skipper, hanging on a rail, mashes Mr. Bang in the face because of the impact. Finally, Mr. Bang bites Skipper in the butt and tears off part of his underwear. It sounds like something in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon in the ‘60s.



No, the bench doesn’t change really colour. Blame a public domain print. The Rainbow Parades are close to being restored by the overworked Thunderbean Animation. It means you’ll see the Skipper, Katrinka (and even Molly Moo Cow) in vibrant three-color Technicolor and without fuzzy ink lines.

By the way, Hal Erickson’s written a book on the Van Beuren films (all of them, not just cartoons). You can check it out here.

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.