Monday, 9 August 2021

Firey Sandwich

A smouldering cigarette creates a cute little flame that starts cheerily destroying everything in the forest in Red Hot Rangers.

He makes a sandwich out of a leaf and a pinecone in between “No Smoking” and “Help Prevent Fires” signs.



Soon, George and Junior will be on the scene and Junior will screw up everything, though the little flame dies in the end.

Ray Abrams, Preston Blair, Ed Love and Walt Clinton are Tex Avery’s animators in this cartoon. Irv Spence drew the character models for this short in February 1945 but it wasn’t released until May 3, 1947.

Sunday, 8 August 2021

Leftover Aspirin Available

Some stars know the value of good publicity. That means being organised and not being a jerk.

A lot goes on behind the scenes to make a publicity tour a success. A good example can be found in an interesting story in the January 30, 1950 edition of Broadcasting magazine.

Jack Benny was appearing in Houston at a charity football game on December 17th staged by Glenn McCarthy, oilman and owner of the Shamrock Hotel. He was on CBS radio at the time and the local affiliate wanted to take advantage of the visit. It involved an awful lot of coordination. In fact, an advance party of Benny people showed up two days beforehand to work out the logistics.

Because Jack was not one to lord over everyone—nor tolerate it in his staff, it would seem—things went off incredibly well, culminating in a special broadcast for CBS stations in Texas that could clear the air time.

Something the story doesn’t mention is that writer John Tackaberry was a Texan and that’s likely why he was picked to be part of the entourage. And also along for the trip was Phil’s guitarist Frank Remley.

WHEN MR. STAR Comes to Town
By MONTE KLEBAN

EXECUTIVE STAFF, KTRH HOUSTON
WHEN an affiliate station executive is notified that a network star is coming to his town, his first thought is to double the supply of aspirin in his desk drawer. Too often, Mr. Big Name turns out to be Mr. Little Man, bringing with him assorted cases of jitters, recriminations and other troubles.
So, when the perfect guest-star comes to your city he deserves not only a tribute, but for the good of the industry, his methods of operation should be explained to other travelling celebrities.
Jack Benny and his first-team were in Houston, to entertain at the Charity Bowl football game, Dec. 17. Although my years of hinterland-radio have brought me into contact with most of the network big names, I had never worked a show with the laugh-master before. When I learned he was coming I doubled my aspirin supply.
Anybody want to buy some aspirin cheap? My supply is still intact.
Let's take a look at the visit, from its inception, and point out the results of the expert handling of his appearance. First, an affiliate is usually notified by his network stations relations that such and such a star will be in his city on such and such a date and will the affiliate please contact him upon arrival. This, of course, gives the station-executive no time to plan anything until he has consulted with the Great Man, after his arrival.
In the case of Jack Benny's appearance in Houston to take part in the charity show, this first station hardship was adequately avoided. Several weeks before his arrival I received a letter from Irving Fein, promotion manager of Amusement Enterprises, Mr. Benny's holding company. Irving invited suggestions as to what we would like to do with and for Jack Benny, to promote attendance at his appearance and to help promote his regular Sunday night programs, while he was in our city.
We were able to rig two local broadcasts by letter in advance, giving us time to allocate our engineering and announcing personnel, to publicize the coming broadcasts and to start our actual planning.
Point number one: Of the dozens of stars whose public-appearance I have handled, this was the first time anyone with savvy and authority took the trouble to set-up firm dates for local broadcasts in advance. In practically all the other cases, they had been last-minute, catch-as-catch-can, mumbly, trite interviews. Point number two: Irving Fein arrived in Houston two days before Jack Benny and his troupe. We got together immediately and were able to crystallize our planning and to release more and better news stories and pictures to build up the appearances and our own planned programs. Sitting in Mr. Fein's hotel room, calmly setting up the schedule, I remembered too well the other stars, the last minute hectic arrangements, the program log changes, the lack of advance notice, the engineering failures because of lack of time for lines and facilities, the nerve-wracking rush and bustle.
Point number three: No network star can be expected to remember the call letters of every affiliate in every city. Very often, in the past, stars from our network have come to town and have done shows on other stations under the delusion that they were building ratings on their own network station. In this case, Mr. Benny and his people were told to look for our special-events man, Lee Fallon, who was at the station at dawn to meet them, along with mike-men from other stations in town. Result, we got a fine beat interview on their arrival.
Point number four: The travelling team itself usually has at least one officious, bossy individual who tells you what, where, when and how Mr. Big will be seen and interviewed. There were none of these in the Benny entourage.
First, Jack Benny himself is one of the few really important radio people who is calm, affable, friendly and a reliable ad lib artist. Then with him, Phil Harris who, in spite of his standing, seems as appreciative as a puppy for any attention paid him. Mr. Harris is, as an old shoe, easy to work with as Jack Benny himself and gives you a show every time he hits the mike and the same goes for Artie Auerbach, Benny's Mr. Kitzel.
Pleasing Cooperation
John Tackeberry, the writer who came along with Mr. Benny, could have proven the weak-point from our experience with other stars who brought writers along. Instead, he worked with us as smoothly and easily as though he were a writer on our own staff, turning out material for our local shows as good as any Sunday night's show script.
Then, Hilliard Marks, producer of the Jack Benny show. Here, too, we were wary. We had had producers come down on us like trip-hammers, trying to do everything but tell us how to tie our shoe laces. Not so Mr. Marks. With quiet, unobtrusive control he handled himself and cast, including some of our own people, with absolute efficiency.
And so with the rest of the Benny party. The point here is, of course, that too many visiting stars bring hectic Hollywood characters with them, who manage to antagonize everyone on the affiliate-station staff, create utter confusion and wreck what might have been a good-will tour.
Point number five: Because of the ease with which everything was working, we were able to expand our plans. Instead of a local show we cleared time on other CBS stations in Texas for a nighttime half hour show. We were able to give them the booking in time for publicizing in their own cities. Score another point on the Hooper-upping card. We were able to arrange a cocktail party and dinner, from which the broadcast originated, inviting the city's V. I. P. top-layer. Through this, we secured still wider publicity and build up.
Point number six: Jack Benny, John Tackeberry, Hilliard Marks, Phil Harris, Artie Auerbach and the entire cast of our now-regional show, put as much time and effort into the writing, rehearsing and producing of the program as though it were a TC origination. When the show hit the air, it was network calibre, the kind of program the several million listeners in Texas expect to hear from a man named Benny. This is probably the most important point of all.
Most of the stars who come our way should have stayed home in the first place, as far as helping themselves, their shows and their sponsors are concerned. Nothing will lose ratings faster for a performer than to hit a town and disappoint the local and regional listeners with a careless, loose, dull show. I have seen Hoopers fall after appearances by stars in. local markets. Jack Benny is due for a rise in Texas.
Point number seven: Too few stars realize that the affiliate station which carries their program is composed of people. If these people are well-disposed toward them, their programs surely have a better chance than if they aren't. The Benny troupe made friends of every one on the staff. I have seen other stars convert former friends into detractors. Even though we are local radio people, we are human and have our weaknesses.
In a Nutshell
Here, then, is the net result of the Benny visit to Houston from the affiliate-station personnel standpoint. Our promotion people, when they allocate spot announcements, newspaper ads and stories promoting our shows, will hit the Benny show more often than they did. Our commercial and public-service departments will somehow find ways to keep demands for time by politics and other events away from the Benny show time.
(I know of one specific case where a so-called star appeared in a city where he antagonized the staff of a station. It was odd, during the next political campaign, how many candidates demanded and got the time at which that star's show should have been broadcast. He never recovered his ratings in that market.)
Our engineers will remember the pats on the back, instead of the usual carping and complaining and will ride the show, each week, more carefully than any other on the schedule. Our merchandising man will go a little further helping to sell Benny's sponsor's products in our market. And so on down the line.
Finally, comes the question: Is it wise for network stars to make appearances in local markets? As a gray-beard of local radio who has handled these people and seen the tangible results over a period of years I'd say that the best insurance a radio-star can have for lasting popularity and high ratings is to get out and around the country, especially for charity purposes as Jack Benny does. The top names, Hope, Crosby, Benny, seem always on the move. They go where the people are, the people who are called for ratings and who buy the products they advertise.
For a concrete example of appearance-importance, look at the life span of the Dr. I. Q. show against the hundreds of other static quiz-hows which have come and gone. There is nothing a listener likes more than to have his star visit his town.
But, and this is a very big but, these appearances can do more harm than good if not handled properly. Everyone can't be a Jack Benny or a Phil Harris, with their charm, modesty and ability. But every network "name" can work carefully to make his appearance smooth and successful. Instead of taking in laundry to supplement his income, Jack Benny might well give a course of instruction to radio celebrities on how to get along with the public on tours.

Saturday, 7 August 2021

The Buzz About the Bees

The Harman-Ising short Honeyland (1935) is an exercise in overkill. More cute characters than Disney! More colours than Disney! That seems to have been the attitude.

The problem is putting all those bees on the screen at the same time and umpteen colours in the palate have nothing to do with the story. They’re there to show off. If you strip down the film, it’s the same old thing Hugh and Rudy were doing in 1930: singing and dancing in the first half, the gang rescues the girl from the villain in the second.

I imagine Hugh, Rudy and Metro were now giddy with the fact that Disney’s exclusive hold on three-strip Technicolor was over (effective September 1, 1935) and any studio could now use it. So they did. MGM began printing cartoons with the “new Technicolor” at the start of the 1935-36 season; first The Old Plantation and then this cartoon.

Variety of May 29, 1935 does not give numbers for MGM, but talks about the other cartoon studios getting ready for the new season:
Leon Schlesinger will make 13 three-tint cartoons for Warners; Max Fleisher delivers six to Paramount; Disney's two groups call for total of 18; Charles Mintz expects to close negotiations for 13 three-color Screen Gems for Columbia, and Radio deal for 13 is virtually set.
“Radio” means Van Beuren, referring to the Rainbow Parade series. As Ub Iwerks’ ComiColor series was released via states rights through Pat Powers’ Celebrity Pictures, it is not mentioned.

Enough about the gaudy colours. As for the bees, there are hives full of the things in this cartoon, with big eyes and child-like proportions for extra “Awww” factor.

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The cartoon got pounded by critic W.J. Turner in the New Statesman and Nation, published in London. He especially took aim at Scott Bradley (who did not get screen credit for the short). Under “Music For the Films” in the April 13, 1940 issue, Turner sniffed:
I recently visited a cinema where a Technicolour [sic] film was shown called Honeyland in which the dramatis personae were bees. I thought the film hideous in colour (as are the majority of colour films from Disney onwards) and boringly vulgar in conception, the humour particularly being of the adult school-boy type. Nevertheless, it had the slick efficiency of most American films of this kind, an efficiency which is in itself sufficient to account for their popularity in the present degraded state of public state. What struck me most, however, was the badness of the music for a subject which to a composer of taste and some invention offered exceptional opportunities.
The article complains about the lack of original scores in movies of all types, and how music was heard at times when the action on the screen called for silence.

The faux Disney era carried on for a few more years but, slowly, other influences came into play. Variations on Warner Bros. phoney travelogues and heckling animal characters started appearing at other studios. Even at MGM, a pair of new directors named Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera realised you could have rich settings that were muted, not garish, and entertain audiences with characters expressing a variety of emotions within a logical narrative. Realistic colour became the means to an end, not the end itself.

Friday, 6 August 2021

Cartoon Familiarities

Time for a game! Put on a bunch of Harman-Ising cartoons from the early ‘30s.

● Take a drink every time a female character says “Yoo-hoo!”
● Take a drink every time a female character asks “Ain’t he cute?”
● Take a drink every time a male character does that slip-step dance.

I’ve never actually figured out the numbers, but I don’t think you’ll be able to walk after a while.

All three can be found in Moonlight for Two, the eleventh Merrie Melodies cartoon, released June 11, 1932.

Here’s Goopy Geer doing the stomp-in-place. Frames one and 11 are the same. Drawings one and six are held for two frames, the rest are on ones.



And the plant, shift and slide. We won't show the whole thing, just some key frames.



The title song was published in 1932 by Harms (as was The Queen Was In the Parlor, which also became a Merrie Melodie), with words by Irving Kahal and music by Joe Burke.

The credited animators are Friz Freleng and Larry Martin.

Thursday, 5 August 2021

Backgrounds from UPA's Spring

Can anyone explain who was supposed to be entertained by the “Ham and Hattie” series from UPA?

In watching and listening to Spring (1957), I get the feeling it exists for little ones in cribs who can be diverted by the pretty colours and the calm, child-like song.

Hattie, her expression never changing, skips rope and rides her tricycle as other characters move with no in-betweens. Animator Fred Crippen doesn’t appear to have been overloaded with work on this short.

Something I do like are some backgrounds by Jules Engel and Erv Kaplan. Very attractive.



And here are the happy characters seen in this short. They don’t move. The camera pulls back and the cartoon is over.



Lew Keller, who went over to Jay Ward, is the director.

Wednesday, 4 August 2021

Fan Mail From Some Flounder

Does anyone send fan mail anymore?

In this age of social media, where stars communicate with their fans, maybe fan mail is obsolete. Or it’s changed into something else.

I’ve stumbled across a couple of newspaper columns from the same time frame in Hollywood talking about fan mail. The first one is from the North American Newspaper Alliance, December 5, 1937.

Fan Mail No Longer Awes Film Chiefs
Producers Like to Collect Cash, Not Stamps, From Stars’ Rooters.
By Harold Heffernan.

HOLLYWOOD (N.A.N.A.).—One of the sprouting buds on the contract list of a leading studio confided proudly to an intimate a short time ago that 17 “fan clubs” were sponsoring her throughout the country and that her fan mail total had leaped some 500 letters within a month. “My fans are my protection," she boasted. “If my contract were not renewed my clubs would start a young revolution.”
Fan clubs and a heavy letter total were promising omens to this starlet—an open sesame to better roles, richer financial rewards. Yet, when her contract came up for renewal a few days ago the bosses passed her up. Her mail count, one of the heaviest on the lot, didn’t mean a thing in her favor. The fellow wearing the brass hat didn’t inquire about her letter total. He merely sent word to the legal department to pass the option because the girl had no drawing power at the box office. And, to date, there has been no hint of a fan revolution.
A few years ago, under the same conditions, the young lady’s contract would have been renewed and boosted long before it had a chance to expire and she might have received a nice expensive gift from the boss to make her even happier. But studio attitude toward fan mail has undergone a radical change in recent years. Producers no longer scan their players’ letter totals with the avid interest once manifested. They’ve come to the conclusion that gate receipts, rather than the mail man’s load, is the most accurate measure of a player's popularity. What’s more, the Hollywood postman doesn’t groan today under the staggering pack he once lugged through studio gates. Inquiries at all fan mail departments reveal a reduction of approximately 40 per cent over the number of letters received five years ago.
NO STAR ever has or probably ever will approach Clara Bow's record-breaking total of 10,560 letters received in a month. That mark was established by the “It” queen back in 1929, when she was at the apex of her career. Extravagant claims are made for many of today’s favorites, but inasmuch as studios now refuse to release official figures, most can be written off as plain bunk. The truth is that most of the fan mail nowadays comes from children. Comparatively few adults write to the stars and those who do are usually asking for something—if not money, then photographs, autographs or trinkets and wearables seen in pictures. Bing Crosby still pays more attention to his fan correspondence than any other player in Hollywood. He encourages folks to write by maintaining an expensive organization that peruses each missive and offers an individualized answer in each instance.
Crosby’s signature appears at the bottom of each note; at least it’s a beautiful imitation of Crosby’s scrawl because three secretaries have been trained to relieve him of this arduous job. Otherwise, Bing would have no time to make pictures, perform his radio chores and look after the horses.
Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard, Mae West and Marlene Dietrich are not so high as you’d suppose their popularity would warrant in the list of Paramount letter recipients. A young man named Ray Milland, who seldom gets out of “B" pictures, but who nevertheless has inspired a widening interest among correspondents, is found trailing close behind Crosby in letter totals. Shirley Temple is conceded to be the leading letter-getter of all the stars, her vast mail accumulation, reported in the neighborhood of 8,000 a month, coming from all parts of the world. Mrs. Temple estimates about 95 per cent of the writers are children of about Shirley’s age.
At Warner Bros., Errol Flynn has slowly taken first place, pushing Dick Powell out of the spot he held for more than three years. Oddly, the player receiving third largest amount of mail at that studio is Marie Wilson, an actress whose name seldom makes the marquee lights. Robert Taylor is still head man in a correspondence way at M-G-M, although he has fallen off somewhat during the past year. And since her marriage to Arthur Hornblow, Jr. a year and a half ago, Myrna Loy is not attracting nearly the number of letters she once did from admiring and lonesome males.
GINGER ROGERS remains far out in front at R-K-O. Fred Astaire and Jack Oakie lead the men there, although Wheeler and Woolsey, who are usually unmercifully panned by the critics and not particularly favoured by producers, draw a heavy load, especially from foreign countries. Katharine Hepburn's few fan writers are either very much for or equally against her, but she seldom asks to see any of her mail. Fan clubs seem to help fan mail totals, but it is all "repeat” business, the same “members” writing again and again. Many important stars whose box office ratings are higher than fan mail favorites receive scant attention from writers. Leslie Howard is one who doesn’t excite many letters. Jack Benny and Edward G. Robinson are others. However, they are established stars. It is the young players just getting started who really clog the Hollywood mails.


The next story is from the International News Service, January 12, 1938.

Fan Mail For Stars Comes Principally From Children
Importance of Players Has Little Bearing On Amount of Letters.
By Carlisle Jones

HOLLYWOOD, Jan. 12. (INS)—Although fan mail is no longer considered an absolutely accurate measure of a star's popularity, it is regarded as important by the studios, and much time and money is spent in seeing that the writers are supplied with the information and pictures they desire.
The truth is that most of the fan mail that floods the mail bags addressed to Hollywood comes from children. When schools start the amount of fan mail drops off. When vacations start, it picks up again. But all told, the quantity now is much less than it was eight or nine years ago when Colleen Moore was receiving, on an average, more than 15,000 letters each week an amount generally considered the high spot in fan mail received by any motion picture star.
Flynn Ahead of Powell.
At the Warner studios, Errol Flynn has slowly taken first place in the fan mail rating, pushing Dick Powell out of the spot he has held for more than four years. Flynn's mail averages some 4,000 letters and cards each month now, and was much higher than that before the public schools started this fall. Dick Powell now trails this figure, his average being about 3,500.
Oddly enough, the player receiving the third largest amount of mail at Warners is now Marie Wilson. She had better than 3,000 letters in December. The Mauch twins are fourth and Bette Davis is fifth. From there on the players rank as follows: Anita Louise, Olivia de Havilland, Dick Foran, Joan Blondell, Kay Francis and Wayne Morris.
The importance of the player has little bearing on the amount of fan mail addressed to him. A new star collects an enormous amount of fan mail the first few weeks or months after his initial appearance; and then this invariably drops off to a steady flow that maintains an average over a long period of time.
The fan mail of Wayne Morris and Fernand Gravet followed this average "curve." Wayne received more mail than any other player on his lot for many weeks after his first appearance in “Kid Galahad.” Now he gets about 1,200 each week since the release of “Submarine D-l,” with the prospects of another boost in reading matter with the forthcoming “The Kid Comes Back.”
Gravet got a good deal of attention right from the first, and his allotment has not fallen off as much as might have been expected with a personality who has made only one American picture. “Food For Scandal” should send his rating up again.
Fan Clubs Help.
Fan clubs help fan mail, but it is all "repeat" business, the same "members" writing again and again. However, it boosts the totals.
Many important stars, whose box office ratings are higher than that of the fan mail favorites, receive comparatively small amounts of mail. Leslie Howard is one who does not evoke many letters, and Edward G. Robinson is another. However, they are established stars. It is the younger players, just getting started, who really clog the Hollywood mails.
The care a star gives his fan mail is always reflected in the amount he receives and the way the "curve" keeps up. Dick Powell has undoubtedly taken more care with his mail than almost any other Hollywood star of recent years, and the result has been that he is still the second ranking favorite on the lot.
Probably 80 per cent of the fan mail received by any other star is made up of requests for a picture together with a brief complimentary note. A smaller proportion of the letters praise or complain about the sort of pictures the player is making. There are some begging letters, mostly asking for clothes. Even these have fallen off, however, because the public is gradually learning that stars will not (in fact they cannot) answer such requests.
A very small amount of the fan mail is objectionable as to content. This is occasionally turned over to the postal authorities, but is usually destroyed by the studio before the player sees it. Christmas invariably brings many presents, some of them of considerable value, to the more popular players.
The depression years brought about a severe drop in fan mail totals, but this is new being slowly rebuilt back toward the old records. Studios do not pay their stars by the amount of fan mail each receives, but in the long run the popularity that fan mail indicates is important to a player's career.


The funny thing is you can find pretty much the same story before this. The headline in one paper in 1930: “Fan Mail No Longer Governs Producers.” Of course, it was the producers who supplied fan mail numbers to the columnists.

Still, I wonder if a general tweet to a K-Pop fan equals the thrill in 1960 of a cartoon lover getting an autographed picture in the mail of Bullwinkle J. Moose.

Tuesday, 3 August 2021

Screwy

Screwy Squirrel wants to know from Meathead if he’s the guy who chases the screwy squirrels that bust out of a mental hospital? After getting an affirmative answer, Screwy whips out a Napoleon hat (the symbol of insanity) and tells him to start chasing.

Screwy heckles the dog, whipping out a mallet and a kid’s stick horse before galloping out of the scene.



The scene is from Happy-Go-Nutty (1944), a cartoon animated by Ed Love, Preston Blair and Ray Abrams. There are some great in-betweens of Screwy in this scene, too. The Independent Film Journal of July 22, 1944 simply said “Laughs galore.”

Monday, 2 August 2021

Squiggly Fears

An old animation trick to show fear was to draw characters with wavy outlines and alternate the drawing with another with smooth outlines.

Here’s an example from Van Beuren’s The Bully’s End, a 1932 cartoon directed by Harry Bailey.



The animation is vastly inferior to the average Fleischer cartoon made across the street from Van Beuren. The story has some structure, though. A runty duck takes on an arrogant, abusive rooster. The hero duck wins by cheating!

Gene Rodemich sticks “Hold That Tiger” in the background behind the fight scene.

Sunday, 1 August 2021

Tobacco Leaf Carusos

It was a case of advertising the advertising.

“Have you heard the chant of the tobacco auctioneer?” asked print ads in 1938 for Lucky Strikes. The question referred to F.E. Boone, who spieled his auctioneer pitch during radio commercials for the cigarettes.

Billboard liked the idea, at least as a sales tool. In its May 8, 1937 edition, an unbylined writer opined:
Best commercial heard in moons is the Lucky Strike presentation of the tobacco mart auctioneer selling his wares. These auctioneers open their spiel on the final bid slowly, then work to an unbelievable rapidity of speech with a definitely liquid effect. It’s impelling was a fine display of technical perfection, and education for those who go in for that sort of thing. Same material, presented from a studio, would have been terribly dull.
The spots were effective, but Boone almost lost his job. Boone’s chant emanated live from Lexington, Kentucky and it cost American Tobacco $1,200 a week to plug Lexington into the network feed. Several papers in late 1937 talked about having someone else do the chant in New York. But Variety reported “Boone has few successful imitators” so the solution evidently was to have Boone go to New York.

Presumably, Boone started off on the “Hit Parade” shows but he also appeared in 1938 on a five-minute syndicated show called Lucky Strike Presents along with two other auctioneers: L.A. Speed Riggs and Joe Cuthrell. Riggs later joined him on the Lucky spots on the various network shows.

The success of the ads brought up the obvious question among listeners: “Who is this guy?” It was answered in a syndicated newspaper column that appeared starting around Nov. 26, 1937.

Descendant of Daniel Boone Does His Pioneering at Microphone
TOBACCO AUCTIONEER BIDS FOR FAME WITH WEIRD CHANT
By NORMAN SIEGEL
NEA Service Radio Editor
New York, Nov. 26—The “Tobacco Leaf Caruso” whose rapid-fire chant has become radio’s newest novelty is a Kentucky Boone, all the way back to Daniel of the coonskin cap. Forest Boone is his name and he’s a nephew four or five generations removed of the famous Indian scout of the history books.
Daniel Boone probably never suspected, when he began raising tobacco out in Kentucky, that his line would produce a new kind of radio announcer. But that’s what happened when Forest Boone began opening the “Hit Parade” program on the Columbia network with his weird chant.
Actually his announcing rigamarole is perfectly intelligible. It consists of a series of numbers and the words “dollars” and “bid.” The secret of the confusion is the speed at which tobacco auctioneers, of which Boone is one of the best known, have to talk. Tobacco auctions are carried on at break-neck tempos in order to accommodate all the farmers who bring their crops to the big selling warehouses.
Has to Work Fast
A fair day’s selling for Boone is between 300,000 and 400,000 pounds of tobacco. He has been known to auction as high as 700 piles an hour. The auction takes place in a huge warehouse with about a dozen buyers grouped near the auctioneer. An appraiser sets the original figure. Then Boone begins his work. The buyers seldom speak. Competition is keen and they’d rather not say what they’re bidding. Each buyer simply indicates, by a series of almost imperceptible gestures, whether or not he accepts the figure Boone is chanting. One may wiggle the little finger on his left hand. Another twitches a muscle in his jaw. A third may wink, or tug at his coat lapel.
Boone never misses such a gesture of acceptance. Immediately he raises the price. His eyes are so well-trained that he follows this by-play with the greatest of ease, although he finds it difficult to focus his eyes on his own name on a calling card. He considers himself a sort of umpire between the warehouse and the tobacco buyers.
“I call the strikes,” he told us.
He is also a little like an opera singer. He has a practical and instinctive knowledge of voice production. Although he never took a lesson, he talks about keeping his throat “open” and never “forcing a tone.” He has learned to say “hawlf” just like a singer. “Forty” is also a danger word. It closes both lips and throat Boone modifies it to something that sounds like “whorty.”
Must Get Back on Job
He started in the field when he was 19. His only training was listening to all the auctioneers at the tobacco warehouses near his home in Lexington, Ky., until he could imitate some of them.
Then he went to a Lexington warehouse and asked for a job. The warehouse manager let him put on a mock sale. Afterward the manager took Boone regretfully aside and advised him to take up some other line of work. He’d never make an auctioneer. Two months later he was auctioneering at Mt. Sterling, Ky.
His radio experience began several years ago. He has never been the least bit nervous before the mike, though he says he does miss the excitement of studying the reactions and the pantomime of his tobacco buyers.
Next month he’ll be going to the biggest burley tobacco market in the world at Lexington to handle the sales. However, his chant will still be on the airwaves as it will be picked up from his hotel room. It’s a voice you can’t forget.


If you’ll pardon the pun, the auctioneer chant was a boon to Lucky Strike. It got all kinds of free publicity in parody form on radio shows and animated cartoons.

Boone was already famous when Jack Benny switched sponsors to American Tobacco in 1944 and suddenly found two auctioneers (and several announcers) from New York opening and closing his show. His last appearance on the Benny radio show was Nov. 21, 1948. Riggs went solo after that. The commercials had moved to the West Coast in 1947; Variety reported the switch from New York saved $100,000 a year.

Boone’s wire service obituaries indicate he was still working until about the end of 1951 when he retired because of illness. He died of heart problems in Robertsonville, North Carolina, on July 1, 1954.

As for Riggs, he loved show biz. When The Hit Parade’s Lanny Ross appeared on stage in New York in 1939, Riggs was part of his act, demonstrating how he sold tobacco. He toured selling bonds during the war. The Associated Press profiled him in 1952.

Auctioneer Chanter Has Envied Job
By Bob Thomas
HOLLYWOOD, Feb. 29—(AP)—One of the most envied jobs in all of show business is that of L. A. Speed Riggs, the tobacco auctioneer.
For 15 years his work has consisted largely of delivering his gibberish chant at the beginning and close of his sponsor’s radio and television shows. The stint takes eight seconds. Lately he has not even been required to come to the studios. His chant is inserted by tape or film and his salary check comes in as usual.
Riggs is paid well for his eight second performance. He said he could not reveal his salary because of the possible jealousy of the other performers for the sponsor. But he admitted that he earned more than the $40,000 annual salaries which top tobacco auctioneers can draw in their normal pursuit.
But even such a handsome deal can have its drawbacks.
“For 15 years I was under exclusive contract,” he explained. “I couldn’t do anything else. The inactivity is almost enough to drive you crazy.”
For sidelines he had a ranch in the San Fernando Valley where he raised Palomino horses and white- faced Hereford cattle and invested in a print shop and a furniture factory. But even these interests weren’t enough to keep him busy. So when his contract came up for renewal recently he insisted on a non-exclusive pact. The new seven year deal permits him to make outside appearances as long as they aren’t for another cigarette.
“Now I can do some of the things I had to pass up before,” he remarked. “I’ve had many offers to do film roles in the past and now I can take them. I also have some ideas for a TV show for myself. One of them, called ‘Beat the Auctioneer,’ is being considered by CBS.”
Speed is a likable leather faced man of 39 years and no stranger to appearing before the public. He first developed a yen for his profession at the age of seven when his father took him to a tobacco auction in his home town, Goldsboro, N.C. Speed was intrigued by the chant and began practising it. At 17, he was a full-fledged auctioneer, the youngest in the business.
Fate intervened in a promising auctioneering career when Speed was 25. The tobacco advertising genius, George Washington Hill, decided to put auctioneers on his radio shows and sent talent scouts to the tobacco country.
“I was chosen after they had listened to 42 other auctioneers,” Speed recalled. “I noticed these men following me around all morning, but I didn’t know who they were. Afterwards they made me an offer. It was much more than I was making—$45 a week a an auctioneer and $12 a week as a disc jockey, so I took it. I’ve been working for the company ever since.” Also chosen was F. E. Boone who has since retired.
Speed hasn’t done an actual tobacco auction for a couple of years but he hasn’t lost his touch.
“When you learn the job you don’t forget it,” he remarked. “It’s straining work, not only on the voice, but on the eyes and mind. For instance, I would have to know at least 15 men who represent the buyers and keep my eyes on them for their signs. I have to know all the farmers and remember the tobacco that I had already sold and who bought it.
“I trained myself so I could look at you and also see what was going on many feet away. My eye doctor has told me that’s the reason I have to wear glasses now.”


By the time the article was published, Riggs was off the Benny show. He was phased out in October 1951. Eventually, sponsor announcer Del Sharbutt got the boot, too. American Tobacco already had Don Wilson on the show. He began plugging the tobacco (oh, there’s another unintentional pun) with a chorus and then contractee Dorothy Collins chirping about it in song. It meant more money saved on radio to spend on television.

Riggs did some acting with Benny. He found himself part of the plot of the second-last show of the 1950-51 season where he gently kidded himself and his tobacco hawking style.

Tobacco advertising ended on TV in the U.S. on New Year’s Day 1971. Lee Aubrey Riggs had retired by then and moved back to North Carolina about 13 months before his death in 1987. Something you may not have known was the charity work he was involved in. You can read that story on this web page.