Death to Terrytoons

Terrytoons died because the dollar signs didn’t add up.

The Saturday morning cartoon business was huge. In the late 1960s, CBS was buying shows from Hanna-Barbera and Filmation. That’s even though CBS had its own cartoon studio. And the company let it die.

It made no sense. CBS should have easily created its own Saturday morning shows, maybe even selling them to other networks. But, instead, it let its Terrytoons studio wither away. Reader Andrew Lederer points out the studio was sold in 1971 to CBS' former Viacom division.

The studio had been creating TV cartoons in the early ‘60s. It invented Deputy Dawg as well as the insufferable Luno, the flying horse. But soon everything was shut down.

The Daily News in Tarrytown, New York looked back at the studio in a two-part feature story that ran on January 4th and 5th of 1973. Here it is below. We presume the author used a pseudonym.

Terrytoons' departure ends an era
First of two articles
By DICK TRACY
It was 63 years ago that Gertie the Dinosaur first flickered across the American consciousness.
Since then innumerable one-dimensional lions and cats and insects and dogs and nonsense creatures, as well as people, have entertained and influenced generations of movie goers and television watchers.
Millions of drawings on paper and celluloid have gone into building an art form and an industry which is now a vital part of the 20th century imagination.
LAST MONTH, in New Rochelle, what was an important chapter in the development of animated cartoons was brought to a close.
Terrytoons, which had operated there since 1934, closed down its Centre Avenue studio and moved its headquarters to offices in Manhattan.
The move out of Westchester County comes following a fall-off since 1969 on production by the company, which over the years created such one-dimensional stars as Mighty Mouse. Heckle and Jeckle and Deputy Dawg. It also marks the end of the only remaining complete animation studio on the East Coast.
"If our production of cartoons were to resume again, and it might someday," said William Weiss, the retired president of Terrytoons, "we'd probably have to open on the West coast."
Weiss, who has been retained as a consultant by Terrytoons' parent company, Viacom International Inc., blamed the wind-down in production over the past few years on a combination of factors, including changing forces in the animation industry and the nation's economy as well as in television program syndication.

The television market has been an integral part of Terrytoon operations since the company was sold in 1956 to CBS by the late Paul Terry, founder and guiding force behind the growth of the Westchester-based cartoon company.
IT WAS IN the years following 1956 that the tempo of operations at the New Rochelle headquarters began to speed up as the staff of artists, directors and technicians bore down to meet the deadline pressures of a weekly Saturday morning show on CBS.
Before the changeover to television, a staff of slightly more than 100 people working on the three floors of the company's operations had turned out 26 shorts each year for screening in movie theaters in the U.S. and overseas.
During the late '50s and into the 1960s, a smaller staff was producing about 100 shorts each year for both movie theaters and the network.
This pace of mid-century activities would most likely have been unrecognizable to early animators such as Winsor McKay [sic]. whose "Gertie the Dinosaur" in 1909 was one of the earliest touchstones of animated magic.
IT WAS THE work of McKay and other early cartoonists that gave Paul Terry the idea of trying his hand at animation in 1915.
An illustrator with the New York Globe at the time, Terry worked in his living room for six months to produce his first scratchy short, "Little Herman," a character based on a magician whose vaudeville stage name was "Herman the Great."
He had trouble selling the work until he came up to New Rochelle and approached officials of the Thanhouser studios, a long defunct motion picture company. The company bought the work after youngsters invited off the street by Terry broke up in laughter at the moving cartoon.

"Those children sold my picture for me," he said later. "They laughed and everybody laughed but I wasn't sure whether Mr. Thanhouser and his crew were laughing at the picture or at the children, they laughed so hard."
There followed a steady growth in the fortunes of Paul Terry and his moving cartoons as he produced first a series based on Aesop's fables and later a stream of characters ranging from mosquitoes that sang jazz, to villainous spiders and peg-legged pirates.
IN THE MIDDLE '30s, when he moved his studios out of New York up to the city where he had sold his first short, the animation industry was poised on the threshold of what was to become a period of growth which still he hasn't ended.
Techniques and technology were improving, and the public was demanding quality in their cartoons People had grown used to moving cartoons, and so were no longer beguiled by the mere novelty of drawings that moved.
At the same time that Terrytoons was beginning to move, a man by the name of Disney, who had a studio on the West Coast, was beginning to get a very good reputation among animators.
Weiss tells the story of a secret meeting held in a movie theater in New Rochelle at which some of Terry's top animators were lured out to work on projected full-length animated movies — notably Snow White.
"Some of Disney's key men received their training in our studio." adds Weiss, who didn't learn about the meeting until some time after it had occurred.
CORPORATE PIRACY wasn't the only bad news plagued the Terry operation in the late '30s. One news story which hit the front pages was the report of a law suit filed against the famous illustrator by Frank H. Moser, who had been Terry's partner until 1936 when he sold his 50 per cent share of the company for $24,200.
Moser charged that fraud and deceit had been used to paint a bad financial picture of the operation when in fact the company was in the pink financially and about to expand. The courts found in favor of Terry. This ended what had been an early triumvirate of Terry, Moser and Philip Scheib, the music director who remained with the company longer even than Terry.
As the country entered the forties, the Terry characters went to war along with everybody else. Shorts such as "All Out For V" stressed "preparation and the importance of individual work" and swing shifts of war factories were treated to the midnight spectacle of helmeted screen animals marching to victory.
IN 1942. a birth took place at the Terrytoons studio which was destined to lift the firm to its highest pinnacle of public recognition. The new creation was called Mighty Mouse.
Thirty years ago this year this screen hero, who was the product of the combined efforts of several people, has fulfilled Paul Terry's original predictions that he would be the most popular Terry character ever. His shorts, along with other Terry Creations, are still released by the company at the rate of 12 each year.
After the war years, the forties blended into the fifties and television became king of the media mountain. The impact of the electronic media on the art and industry of animation would generate forces which
would eventually bring abort a severe cutback in Terry operations.
NEXT • the machinery behind the ghost.

A look back on the 'golden days'
Second of two articles
By DICK TRACY
Tommy Morrison, who once supplied the voice of Mighty Mouse, is a thin, ruddy-faced man whose light blue eyes and quick movements might fit your image of a cartoon animator.
The other day, he and Bill Weiss, who retired this fall as president of Terrytoons, sat in their New Rochelle office, amidst cartons and furniture labled for shipment to New York, and talked about the end of an era.
THE ERA BEGAN 38 years ago when the late Paul Terry moved his animated cartoon studio up to the southern Westchester city.
Over the years such celluloid celebrities as Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, Dinky Duck, Deputy Dawg, Tom Terrific, Koolcat [?] and a host of other quick-witted rascals and kind-hearted dimwits danced their seven minute stories upon the animation camera stage and then were gone back to the story room.
Now, the story room, like the rest of the Centre Avenue studio, is empty. The few remaining pieces of furniture—a couch, a table, the fiberboard where artists pinned up their rough drawings—have been sold, given away or junked, gone the route of the special photographic equipment and the metal shelves where films were stored and the special desks where once animators and background men, inkers and opaquers toiled to supply a public hungry for funny cartoons.
All gone.
TERRYTOONS will operate out of the Manhattan offices of Viacom International Inc., formerly a division CBS and now the cartoon firm's parent company.
The scale of operations, however, has been considerably reduced from the early and middle '60s when the Centre Avenue studio hit full stride with its production for a weekly television show plus creation of commercials such as Bert and Harry, the Piels Beer duo.
It was in those golden days that, despite what business manager Nicholas Alborti terms a heavy production schedule, the company was still able to turn out quality material such as Eli Bauer's "Hector Heathcote," the minute-and-a-half man.
The short "Drum Roll" took first prize at the Venice Children's Film Festival for "using the particular possibilities of animation to realize a visual amusement permeated with intelligent humanism."
TODAY THE firm is engaged solely in sales and servicing of existing cartoons, unlike the days when dozens of animators like Tommy Morrison would wrack their imaginations in the story room or animators' cells. At times, they'd jump up to grimace or do a jig in front of the mirror, which was standard equipment for each animator, to help him realize the character he was working on.
"An animator has to be an actor," explained Morrison, who is a resident of Larchmont, as was his ex-boss Paul Terry.
"He has to have a feel for the character, then he has to make these feelings intelligible with his drawings. He gets very close in his mind to the character." Given such working conditions, it's understandable that the atmosphere at Terrytoons was unlike any conventional working environment, such as, say, a bank or a factory.
"Our approach over the years was strictly a fun approach," said Weiss who, like Morrison, went with Terry in the early '30s. "We wanted to make the kids enjoy themselves; to stir their imaginations."

THIS FUN approach carried over into the workday world, and some of the two men's fondest memories are of the early days in the Pershing Square building in New Rochelle, when the staff seemed to have as much fun as their celluloid creations.
The tale is told of one Christmas party when the 12-story building's elevators were commandeered by members of the Terry staff, and everybody using the elevators that day ended up at the seventh floor party—whether they liked it or not.
This spirit seemed to depart the company's operations in the '50s and '60s, perhaps, they suggest, because of the increased production pressure caused by television and because the new generation of animators, while dedicated the their craft, seemed less inclined to fool.
The two also claim the new batch of animators, while serious in their work, can't match up to the craftsmanship of those who were trained in pre-television days.
"Anytime you see really good work nowadays," said Weiss, "you can almost bet it war, done by one of the old timers; their training was more painstaking and they had time to develop greater skills.
MUCH OF THE work done on contemporary shows, which all feature humanoid characters, does not require the patient workmanship and craft which young animators cut their teeth on in the days when movie-goers were treated to a cartoon and newsreel as well as the feature show.
"There are a lot of would be good animators around," said Weiss, "but there aren't any places where they can get the type of training that used to be offered by us and by other studios."
Because cartooning is such a big business in this country, he explained, development of mass production techniques and specialized services to do stages of animation work have tended to shift the emphasis away from the individual animator's skillfulness.
"In the old days they'd study things like Grey's Anatomy or books on the bone structure of animals," he said. "Today this type of accomplishment isn't needed, so not many have it.
"In the United States, Australia and Japan, animation is a business. In most European countries it's an art form."
A GREAT DEAL of the work done for contemporary television animation is contracted out, he said, and the Japanese have captured a good portion of this market because of their ability to do the work less expensively.
And what of the future?
"Computers," said Weiss, "they're now working on a way to produce animated work by computer."
"Never," said Morrison. "It won't be animation if the human intelligence, the creativity, is taken out of it." He said this wistfully, as though afraid to think of a computerized future replacing what was in his lifetime an exacting art requiring close cooperation between the human brain and man's machines to produce the 8,000 to 10,000 frames, carefully drawn and colored, which made up the average short.
BUT ALL HOPE isn't lost. Questioning of several members of the under-30 set indicates a complete antipathy to much of the animation now turned out for mass consumption.
"There's one good thing about these modern cartoons," said a young mother, "kids don't stay glued to the TV set all Saturday morning like we used to. They go out and play."
Another girl summed it up more succinctly. "Cartoons just ain't funny no more," she lamented with a grimace and a wink in the best tradition of animation.

Drunken Camel

A rubber-legged camel decides to drink some beer in Mickey in Arabia (1932).



You can’t appreciate the animation in the frame grabs, as the animals sways and staggers. But you can appreciate the rubber-hose drawings that Disney would soon shy away from.



Author David Gerstein, who knows this kind of stuff, points out this is a partial remake of Oswald’s Harem Scarem(1928), which includes a drunken camel.

Response of the Coo-Coo

A large-headed parrot uses sex to lure a coo-coo bird in Columbia’s The Coo-Coo Bird Dog (released in 1947).

You see, writers Dave Monahan and Cal Howard have made a dog swallow the bird, and it won’t come out. That’s when the parrot (who had been harassing the dog earlier in the cartoon) becomes involved.

But it turns out the coo-coo is now outside of the dog (don’t ask how it happened). I like how it turns to the audience and urges us to be quiet as it bashes both the dog and the parrot.



Howard Swift, Ben Lloyd and Roy Jenkins are the animators with layouts and backgrounds by Clark Watson. Sid Marcus is the director. Darrell Calker’s sleepy score doesn’t help the cartoon.

America's Pinocchio

It was called The Chase and Sanborn Hour, but nobody except maybe some agency people and the sponsor called it that. To everyone else, it was “The Charlie McCarthy Show.” Not “The Edgar Bergen Show,” even though he created Charlie and provided his voice and personality.

What’s odd isn’t the fact “there was ventriloquism on the radio.” What’s odd is everyone knew McCarthy was a dummy—there were even references and jokes on the show to his being wood—but people were quite willing to treat him as if he were real and separate and apart from Bergen.

And accept him they did in large numbers. It seems the show was in the top five for years and years. The debut show for the 1946-47 season was a mere half-point behind the first place Mr. District Attorney.

Herald Tribune syndicate critic John Crosby was a fan—he didn’t think much of Mortimer Snerd, who was outrageously dopey enough to get laughs—and had a short review, along with some gripes about his holiday on Fire Island. It’s a tough life, Mr. Crosby. The column appeared September 6, 1946.

McCarthy Is in Season Again
The flame trees are turning scarlet on Fire Island, the Atlantic feels like shaved ice, and the smell of wood smoke is in the air again. Last Sunday night, like the smell of burning leaves, came another small but mistakable sign that autumn is almost here.
“Why are you late?” inquired Edgar Bergen of the small razor-tongued hedonist whose voice is familiar to about 70,000,000 Americans.
“Because I didn’t get here on time,” said Charlie, who hasn’t changed a bit.
“Why didn’t you get here on time?”
“Because I was late.—You want to go around again?”
* * *
Lordy, lordy, I said to myself. I’ve been treading water all summer long and at last land is in sight. The McCarthy show was the first smart comedy program I’ve heard in what seems like forever. If I get a little hysterical, ignore it: I’m over-wrought. In fact, I’m fed up with summer, let’s face it. I’m tired of wet bathing suits and sand in my hair and Flynn’s bar and grill. I’d like a martini, very dry, at the St. Regis and I want to wear shoes again, the leather kind, and I wish Fred Allen were back.
* * *
Charlie was in rare form. He’d intended, he said, to pass the summer improving his mind but passed most of it improving his technique. And his technique, one of the most subtle and sure-footed in radio, is as sharp as ever.
After considerable meditation, Charlie tells Bergen he plans to quit radio.
“You don’t know what you're saying,” says Bergen.
"Oh, yes I do. I read your lips."
Bergen points out that quitting radio is a serious step but Charlie is adamant. "I decided I'm getting no place and you're helping me."
"But Charlie . . ."
"No no no no no no. I say no and that's final. I'm using my veto power. I’m walking."
“But you mean so much to everyone.”
“Especially you. You get your pound of flesh for 75 cents.”
"But if you left radio, what would you do? Remember, Charlie, Satan has work for idle hands."
"Yeah? What does he pay?"
I've heard better dialogue but one thing every McCarthy show has is a distinctive McCarthy flavor. Charlie is a rounded, fully developed character with more flesh and blood than a dozen Abbott and Costellos. Over the years, Bergen has endowed this small self-possessed cynic with a heart and a soul as well as a highly articulate set of vocal chords. Charlie is America's Pinocchio.
* * *
I’ve never been a Mortimer Snerd man. Snerd, it seems to me, is one joke, endlessly repeated. But, in my new benign end-of-Summer mood, I even felt a faint warmth toward this slack-jawed imbecile who is only barely conscious he is alive. Mortimer, in case you hadn't heard, spent the summer in school. It came as a great shock to him to discover that school has been out all summer, though, he said, he'd become a little suspicious when he won all the games at recess.
Guest star on the McCarthy program last Sunday was Jimmy Stewart, who proved again that movie stars, particularly one who has been in the Army for five years, shouldn't get mixed up with the experts in front of a microphone. Mr. Stewart, bless his shy, wide-eyed American soul, was just plain awful and, if he didn't have such a fine war record, I'd tell him so.

Bergen’s show was, as best as I can determine, the last hour-long variety show on network radio (though five minutes was shaved off for news on both ends). CBS carried him on Sunday nights at 7 until July 1, 1956 and then replaced him with Mitch Miller.

The McCarthy show never made the transition to television but another show Crosby reviewed in the same week did. Ethel and Albert was a 15-minute show with low-key humour involving a husband and a wife; it became a half-hour in the late ‘40s. Alan Bunce and Peg Lynch played the roles on radio, then TV, until six days after Bergen left radio. Crosby seems taken with the show in the September 3rd column. He discusses DuPont’s Calvacade of America on the 2nd, Allen Prescott’s audience participation show on the 4th and has a funny story on the 5th about a game show contestant who firmly denied her answer was wrong—and she was right. Good for her. Click on any of the stories to enlarge them.

Just Who Is In That Egg?

Here’s where fanboys get whipped up into a frenzy.

In the Friz Freleng short Curtain Razor (1949), a hen auditions for talent scout Porky Pig, and lays an egg. Really.



The chicken takes her egg and rather snootily walks away. Porky takes care of her through a trap door.



But wait a minute! Looks who’s in the egg!



It looks like Tweety. But Tweety isn’t a chicken.

So is it really Tweety? It is the Freleng unit just reusing a character design? Or is it Tweety playing the role of a chicken?

It doesn’t make much difference, but some fans get all anxious about this kind of thing.

Gerry Chiniquy isn’t credited among the animators in this cartoon, for some reason. Manny Perez, Ken Champin, Virgil Ross and Pete Burness are.

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.

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.

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.

>

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.