The King and Santa

The Van Beuren cartoon studio made a handful of cartoons involving winter, and Santa Claus appeared at the beginning of the Cubby Bear debut Opening Night (1933), but the studio made only one true Christmas cartoon—The Little King’s Pals (1933).

The king reads a sign in a department store window (note the spiked fingers).



He goes inside. You can’t see them very well in this murky print but there are radiation lines of glee around his head as he sees Jolly Old St. Nick. A little girl and her satisfied mother are frozen while the lines do their thing for several seconds of footage.



Santa is the only one who speaks in the cartoon. He tells the Little King to run along and he’ll bring some toys. He pats His Majesty on the head and then the two exchange a coy wave.



The cartoon stops when the Little King and one of his “pals” (he picked up a couple of hobos) crash into each other in the toy vehicles Santa brought.

This is the last Little King cartoon where Jim Tyer gets an animation credit. The style of his you’re used to at Terrytoons with shrinking heads and bodies that turn into weird shapes isn’t evident yet, but Tyer diehards seem to be able to pick out his work here.

Christmas is On the Air

I don’t remember my first Christmas on the air. I think I was playing taped programming hosted by someone from one of the city stations (I was at a small town station 65 miles away then). I remember my second Christmas (different station). The morning man came in before 6 a.m., put down a 26er of scotch and offered me as much as I wanted. I didn’t want any. He polished off the whole bottle during a six-hour shift, and you’d never know it listening to him.

This was old-school radio in the mid-1970s. I am afraid I wasn’t in radio in the ‘40s, but we can get a glimpse back at what the four main American networks were running on Christmas Day 80 years ago.

The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor a few weeks earlier, so several of the New York stations were now on the air all-night, just in case something happened. Christmas morning, both NBC networks and CBS ran King George’s Christmas message live via shortwave (Mutual recorded it and ran it later). CBS featured two-way conversations between U.S. children and fathers in London, while NBC Blue broadcast British children living in the U.S., Canada and South Africa speaking to parents in England. The U.S. Navy Department has to relax censorship rules to allow it. A review the next day said shortwave difficulties marred the former programme.

Programming on NBC and CBS was still live then. It meant Rudy Vallee, Arthur Godfrey and Virginia Payne (Ma Perkins) had to come in to the station and do their shows on Christmas Day.

If you got a new, 1942 Emerson radio for Christmas, here is what the flagship stations were broadcasting the night of December 25, 1941. Not all stations along the network picked up each show. The information is a compilation from about a dozen papers.

You might be surprised to see television listings for the three stations in New York. Surprising to me was a blurb that the CBS station was broadcasting one programme in colour.

WABC (CBS)
6:15 p.m. – Norman Corwin’s “Plot to Overthrow Christmas.”
Norman Corwin’s radio classic, “The Plot to Overthrow Christmas,” is presented for the third time on Columbia network tonight at 6:15 o’clock over WGST. The production is broadcast from Hollywood, with Norman Corwin directing. It was first done on Christmas Day, 1938, in the CBS “Words Without Music” series as a Columbia Workshop presentation.
“The Plot to Overthrow Christmas” is the story of a diabolical scheme hatched in Hades by “Mephisto” and a group of historically-wicked characters to “purge” the Christmas spirit.
6:45 – The World Today.
7:00 – Amos ‘n’ Andy.
7:15 – Lanny Ross.
7:30 – Maudie’s Diary. A Christmas story, “Life is But a Dream.” With Mary Mason, Robert Walker, Betty Garde and William Johnstone.
8:00 – Death Valley Days: “Cornish Carols.”
A Christmas broadcast of Cornish music from a 2,000 shaft at the Grass Valley Mine, Grass Valley, California—a Cornish settlement. The songs are all traditional unpublished Cornish carols.
8:30 – Duffy’s Tavern. Guest: Fats Waller.
8:55 – Elmer Davis, news.
9:00 – Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour.
10:00 – Glenn Miller, Ray Eberle and Marion Hutton, vocalists.
10:15 – News; Saroyan Christmas Play “Something I Got to Tell You.”
Larry Walters, Chicago Tribune: There’s a characteristic Saroyan story behind the Christmas play, “There’s Something I Got to Tell You, which is to be on the air at 9:15 [CT] tonight over WBBM-CBS. Last year William Saroyan was asked by the network to write a Christmas play. Saroyan was in San Francisco at the time. Two days later he finished the play and transmitted it by teletype to New York.
A couple of days after Christmas a second play came from Saroyan with this note: “While I was writing Christmas plays I thought I might as well do two. I think this one is better than the first.”
The second one will be broadcast tonight.
10:45 – News; Mark Hawley.
11:00 – Christmas in the New World. CBS brings in Montreal, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro for a picture of Christmas Day in the Western Hemisphere.

WEAF (NBC Red)
6:30 p.m. – Rose Bowl Christmas program at Duke University.
6:45 – Three Suns Trio.
7:00 – Chesterfield presents Fred Waring’s Orchestra.
7:15 – News of the World with John W. Vandercook.
7:30 – Camel’s Cugat Rhumba Revue, with Margo, Carmen Castillo and Miguelito Valdes, vocalists, and Bert Parks, emcee.
8:00 – Maxwell House Coffee Time.
Having just received Motion Picture Daily’s award as the “best comedienne” on the air, Fanny Brice as Baby Snooks is expected to be in such a magnanimous mood on her Christmas Day broadcast of Coffee Time that she’ll return all the presents her daddy (Hanley Stafford) has given her during the year. The program is heard over WGST at 8 o’clock.
Meanwhile, “Kris Kingle Morgan Suh,” with Comedian Frank Morgan in the role of the protagonist, will display as fine a pair of reindeer as ever bettered the world’s top air speed of 837 ½ miles per hour—but only in conversation.
John Conte is your singing emcee, with Meredith Willson’s orchestra.
8:30 – The Aldrich Family.
Lawyer Sam Aldrich looks a Christmas gift horse in the teeth and the Yuletide spirit runs low momentarily in “The Aldrich Family,” starring Ezra Stone, over WSB at 8:30 o’clock tonight.
Too much Christmas candy, a mix-up in tags on the presents, and a burn from Henry’s new chemistry set put the head of the house in a very bad humor. He even says uncomplimentary things about the neighbors.
When they drop in for a visit, Henry demonstrates what he has done with his new recording machine. To the consternation of all, Lawyer Aldrich’s scathing remarks are repeated for the neighbors’ edification with only a needle scratch to dull their edge.
9:00 – Kraft Music Hall.
For the sixth consecutive year Bing Crosby will sing “Adeste Fidelis” and “Silent Night: on Kraft Music Hall’s Christmas program tonight at 9 o’clock over WSB. As a Yuletide novelty he will sing for the first time on the air “White Christmas” from his new film, “Holiday Inn.”
The guest panel will be composed by Fay Bainter, celebrated character actress of stage and screen, and tubby zany Frank McHugh. Danish comedian Victor Borge, who became one of the regulars with last week’s K.M.H. proceedings, will play and sing “The Bells Are Ringing for Christmas,” an old Danish folk song. Bing and his colleagues in the Hall will regretfully say farewell to songstress Connie Boswell, who leaves the show to fulfill a series of personal appearances in the east. Her sultry-voiced singing has been one of the pleasantest features of K.M.H. for more than a year.
10:00 – The Sealtest Show.
Lionel Barrymore’s inimitable portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge in a radio dramatization of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” will mark the Christmas Day broadcast of the Rudy Vallee-John Barrymore program to be heard over WSB tonight at 10 o’clock.
Lionel Barrymore’s portrayal of Scrooge has become a Christmas tradition of American radio, and it is at Rudy Vallee’s invitation that he will carry on that tradition this year for the NBC-Red network audience. Vallee also will be heard in the dramatization of the Dickens classic.
Christmas music and carols sung by Rudy Vallee will be the only other features of this Christmas Day broadcast.
Dix Davis plays Tiny Tim with Vallee as Bob Cratchet.
10:30 – Frank Fay with vocalist Bob Hannon, Beverly and her Boy Friends, and the Harry Salter Orchestra.

WJZ (NBC Blue)
7:00 p.m. – Easy Aces.
7:15 – Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons.
7:30 – Schaefer’s Revue: Allen Roth's orchestra with Bud Collyer.
8:00 – The March of Time.
Re-enactment of the defence of Wake Island against the Japanese.
8:30 – Service With a Smile: Army, Navy and Marine talent. This week from Great Lakes Training School, with Garry Moore, and Ben Grauer, emcee.
9:00 – Rochester Civic Orchestra with Guy Fraser Harrison and conductor Mack Morgan.
10:00 – Metropolitan Opera Guild: Excerpts from “Hansel and Gretel.”
10:15 – First Piano Quartet.
10:30 – News with William Hillman and Raymond Clapper. (local?)
10:45 – Carmen Cavallero’s Orchestra.

WOR (Mutual)
7:00 p.m. – Fulton Lewis, News Commentary.
7:15 – Here’s Morgan.
7:30 – Confidentially Yours, with Arthur Hale.
7:45 – Inside of Sports.
8:00 – Morton Gould’s Orchestra, with Jimmy Shields, tenor.
8:30 – Boake Carter, News Commentary.
8:45 – Eddy Duchin’s Orchestra.
9:00 – Gabriel Heatter, News.
9:15 – News from Manila with Royal Arch Gunnison.
9:30 – America Preferred. Deems Taylor, commentator; Alfred Wallenstein’s orchestral Salvatore Baccaloni, basso.
10:00 – Raymond Gram Swing, News.
10:15 – Spotlight Bands, Ray Noble’s orchestra.
10:30 – War at Sea, with Paul Schubert.
10:45 – Under Western Skies, Ramona and the Tune Twisters with the Mountaineers.

Television
WNBT
8:30 p.m. – Hansel and Gretel. Musical Fairy Tale with Adriana Caselotti and Ivy Dale.
9:00-9:30 – Christmas Varieties with Yola Galli (songs), Carla and Fernando (dancers), Southernaires Quartet.

WCBW
2:30-4 p.m. – Christmas party; Police and Fire Department toy campaign. In Color!
8:00 – News.
8:15 – Bob Edge, sports.
8:30 – Visual Quiz.
9:25 – News.

W2XWV
7:30-9 p.m. – Tests and Selected Films.

And for readers in Canada, here is what the CBC was sending out that evening from Toronto. Not all stations picked up every programme and Western stations had a different line-up after hearing from General McNaughter, who had been wounded overseas. Incidentally, "Stag Party" eminated from CBR Vancouver and starred a young local man named Angus Young. He decided "Angus" was a bit stuffy for a comedian, so he changed his name to Alan Young. He also wrote "Stag Party." As for the 6 p.m. news, it is quite likely read by (unless he got Christmas off) Canada's Voice of Doom, a gentleman named Lorne Greene.

6:00 - CBC News Service.
6:15 - “Hello Children.”
Greetings from British Parents to Children Over Here.
6:30 - Programme summary, etc.
6:45 - BBC London News.
7:00 - “The Mysteries.”
Drama of the Nativity.
8:00 - Montreal Variety.
9:00 - Chuhaldin’s strings.
9:30 - “Stag Party” from Vancouver.
10:00 - Period of the Drama.
Christmas Carol, 1941, a 20th century version of the immortal story of Scrooge. Scrooge, in this version, is a hard-boiled businessman, who is taken in hand by the spirits of Christmas past (in a London air raid shelter); Christmas present (in Germany occupied countries) and Christmas that is yet to come (if Canada loses sight of her precious heritage of freedom). What Scrooge sees, and the conclusion he draws, carry an important message to Canadians on their third war-time Christmas. [Summary from the Windsor Star].
10:30 - Toronto Choristers.
10:45 - The King’s Message (rebroadcast).
11:00 - CBC News Service.
11:15 - Lt. General A.G.L. McNaughton, commander of the Canadian Corps in Britain, by phone direct from London.
11:30 - The BBC News Reel.
12:00-12:30 a.m. - Romanelli Orchestra, dance music.

Mutant Santa

Scat-singing Pooch the Pup? Check.

Talking door that slugs a wolf? Check.

Gangster mouse in a sedan firing a machine gun at a cat? Check.

It’s all part of Merry Dog, a 1933 Christmas cartoon by the Walter Lantz studio.

There’s a scene of a cat and mice fighting in Santa’s beard (worn by a sociopathic wolf in disguise) but an odd scene has, for absolutely no reason, Santa with three noses and two mouths singing “Jingle Bells.”



Like a Harman-Ising cartoon, toys (and a Christmas tree) gang up in the second half to quell the villain with fire/butt gags.

The “artists” listed on the title car are Manny Moreno, George Cannata, Fred Kopietz, Les Kline, Bill Weber and Tex Hastings. Jimmy Dietrich provides the score.

Gopher Stretch

Should the gophers open the trunk that says “Not To Be Opened Until Xmas”? One gopher inspects the label. His head enlarges as he moved toward the label.



When the gopher's head moves back, we get some stretch in-betweens.



Two Gophers From Texas is a tour-de-force for Emery Hawkins, who draws the dog at all angles and with different sized eyes. Don Williams, Bill Melendez and Basil Davidovich also animated this 1948 Warners release. Art Davis directing.

Christmas on Stage

What was Jack Benny doing 50 years ago at Christmas time? Working, naturally.

He was appearing in Las Vegas.

How’d he do?

We’ll find out in just a moment. But first, a word from Irv Kupcinet’s column of January 6, 1972.

JACK BENNY, starring with Della Reese at the Sahara Hotel, was asked why he, at 78, continues working while Frank Sinatra, many years his junior, has retired.
"W-e-l-l," drawled Benny, "I can explain that. Frank is very wealthy and he has so many hobbies—all young ones."
Benny's constant companion here is former Chicago songwriter Ned Miller, who has been at the comedian's side, strictly as a friend, for almost 50 years. Benny had an explanation for that, too: "Ned has the same blood type as mine and you can't be too careful."

Del Webb must have liked Jack because his bookers hired the old vaudevillian several times. The San Francisco Examiner reported on March 19, 1972:

Jack Benny has turned 39, times two, and at 73 he is busier than when he first reached 39. Benny opened his second three-week engagement of the year at Hotel Sahara last week and has another scheduled for May.
During the 21-day stay he is doing a total of 42 shows, two each night.
Retire? Not if he can help it!
"I've known men who retired and immediately got ill," says Benny. "I enjoy keeping active, and playing benefits and nightclub engagements is what I enjoy most."

As for the holiday season stage show, here’s what Variety wrote on December 28, 1971:

SAHARA
($7.50 minimum)
Las Vegas. Dec. 27—The drolleries of Jack Benny are moving fair-sized audiences to much laughter, with the warbling expertise of Della Reese seconding the entertaining motion of this 11-day Sahara stand.
Benny tends to pace a trifle slower, although the punch jabs lose no effectiveness. His timing is still up there with the best in the funny-biz. He naturally dwells upon his vaunted parsimony as principal raison d'etre for most of the comedic thrusts. Without this w.k. [well-known] identification mark, there are some excursions into subjects of retirement (he rejects the mere idea of it), George Burns feud over the years and, of course, the fiddling around.
This trip he brings out his teacher, lissome blonde, Gloria Chappell, who keeps a close watch upon his left hand manipulation of the Stradivarius strings as both please with Sarasate's "Zigeunerweisen." His taped voice of thoughts while fiddling is a solid closer.
Miss Reese moulds her songs into pleasing forms with introductory narration. Hers is a bright pattern woven all the way, from "Let Go," through a song about a frog, and medley of youth poptunes about love. Following a bit of sparring with Benny and shooting down some planned dialog for extra laughs, she closes with a brace of mod spirituals.
The Jack Eglash crew, augmented by a bank of strings (two violins), have plenty of kicks backing Miss Reese and on the receiving end of some special sotto quips directed their way from Benny. Eglash also has a couple of lines with Benny without fluffing one syllable. Johnny Mathis opens Jan. 4. Will.

“A song about a frog”!! Billboard’s Laura Deni (who focused on Reese in her review) revealed it was “It’s Not Easy Being Green” which, even not digging too deeply, is actually about something else. She also sang “I Feel Pretty,” “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” and “Proud Mary.”

Easter fell during his second stint at the Sahara and he and Reese took a break to entertain during an Easter Seals telethon. In between runs, he played a benefit for Mexico City’s blind with Vikki Carr. And about a week before his Christmas season shows, he presented old friend Rosalind Russell with an award for her work helping people with arthritis (which victimised her).
Considering all this, and his various charity concerts around North America, Jack was in the Christmas spirit of giving all year round.

The Night Before Christmas

Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera could not have made a better seasonal cartoon than The Night Before Christmas, which turns 80 this year.

Both Tom and Jerry show a range of natural, logical emotions. Scott Bradley’s score suits every bit of action, with a minor key during the building climax and a chorus singing carols to set the mood.

Especially worth looking at are the backgrounds and the incredible use of shades of colour. In the establishing shot of a house in the country, there are different tones of blue and purple blended together. The Christmas tree isn’t just one shade of green. Lights appear to be glowing. It is true artistry.



Below is a fine pan shot that has, unfortunately, been cut up because the shadowy toys are on a different layer in the foreground, photographed at a different rate than the background, adding depth to the shot.



It’s a crime the background artist wasn’t identified. MGM had several of them at this point, but the man most connected with the Hanna-Barbera unit was Bob Gentle over the years. I do not know if this is his work. I don’t know how far the studio worked in advance at this point, considering he was in the military when this film was released.



Hmmm. I wonder who the "J" and "B" blocks refer to.



The rocking chair, lion and furry lump (Tom) below are on cels.



Some time ago on the Yowp blog, we gave a short biography of Bob Gentle. Robert Mac Gentle was born in Norfolk, Nebraska on February 15, 1914, the third son of Burton Coe Gentle and Frances Davenport. His father was acting postmaster there, and later deputy assessor for the County of Los Angeles. The Gentles arrived in Los Angeles around 1927.

Bob attended Hollywood High School where, in 1930, he designed Christmas cards and seals. He graduated in 1931, enrolled for two years in the Otis Institute of Art, then eventually got a job at the Harman-Ising studio. When MGM dumped Harman-Ising and started making its own cartoons in 1937, Gentle made the jump to the new operation and ended up handling backgrounds for the Hanna-Barbera unit when it was formed a couple of years later. However, his son Drew recalled his dad was loaned to Disney to help get Snow White in theatres on schedule.

He enlisted in the U.S. Army on January 23, 1941 and by April was in uniform along with Metro artists Paul Fanning, Tom Ray and Sam Dawson. Gentle married Jane Virginia Parmele on December 13, 1943. They had met years earlier in art school. Drew also recalled his father was a reconnaisance map maker for the Allied advance after D-Day. He was discharged November 9, 1945 and returned to MGM.

Gentle was one of the originals hired by H-B Enterprises in 1957 to work on Ruff and Reddy. Gentle’s name can be found on the credits of Hanna-Barbera’s TV cartoons up to “The Flintstone Kids” (1986). He died on January 24, 1988.

Joe Barbera’s story is set indoors for a little more than the first half of the cartoon. Jerry escapes outside through the front door mail slot and we get shots of the mouse getting colder and colder in the blowing snow. The backgrounds looked like this:



In a wonderfully animated sequence, Tom’s satisfaction in kicking out Jerry turns to concern that the little mouse may have frozen to death in the snowstorm. An an oboe plays a minor key version of “Silent Night,” the interior turns darker with shadows. The cat rescues Jerry from the buried snow in time and rushes him to the fireplace to warm up. The backgrounds are beautifully painted.



The fire and snow effects are first-rate, too. Again, there is no credit given on screen, but Al Grandmain was an effects artist for the studio for a number of years.

Jean Albert Grandmain was born in Paris on March 23, 1902 and his family came to the U.S. in 1905. He was married in 1923 in New Orleans where he was an artist and was initiated into the Masons (Polar Star No. 1) in 1926. He moved to Los Angeles by 1929 as a son was born there. The 1930 City Directory has him decorating windows for a dollar store. The 1932 directory lists him as a commercial artist, in 1934 he is a sign painter/card writer, but his occupation is “cartoonist” as of 1936.

When he left MGM isn’t clear. He had few screen credits at the studio, the last being on Just Ducky, released in 1953. Grandmain did not join Hanna and Barbera at their TV cartoon studio. He died in Visalia on June 25, 1972 (unfortunately, neither the Fresno nor Tulare newspapers gave his obituary).

The story ends with both characters in the Yuletide spirit of giving and friendship. But it seems the story may have been changed. The plot description of the short in the Motion Picture Herald of December 27, 1941 has little in common with the final cartoon:

Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse call a halt to their eternal battling and decide to celebrate the holiday by exchanging presents. But a lifetime of enmity cannot be resolved in a moment of repentance so when the presents are opened Tom gets a tome on “The Art of Catching Mice” and Jerry receives a package of cheese beautifully wrapped and neatly affixed to a mouse trap. Thus, once more, the feud begins. Round and round the Christmas tree, in and out of the piles of presents dashes the cat in pursuit of the mouse.

Tome? Not that I saw. Wrapped package? No, it’s just a hunk of cheese. Did this come from an earlier studio synopsis? Regardless, the story as it appeared on the screen is far superior.

Animator Mark Kausler has pointed out some of Jack Zander’s expert animation in this cartoon in previous comments. My understanding is George Gordon and Bill Littlejohn animated on this short, there must have been others. The whispery narration at the start is by Frank Graham, according to voice historian Keith Scott.

The print of the cartoon in circulation has the original Christmas title card, which adds a bit of charm.



Even if you are not a Christmas person or a Tom and Jerry person—and I am neither—you’ll still enjoy the fine overall artistry of this cartoon released December 6th 80 years ago. As the Exhibitor put it in a review at the time: “This is a heart-warming subject that will charm young and old...EXCELLENT.”

The Fire Where Santy Claus Lives

There’s a sameness about the cartoons Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising made for Warner Bros. The characters are all designed the same way, posed at the same angles, and have the same falsettos in about every cartoon. The shorts are competent but not very daring.

The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives is missing something Harman and Ising loved—a plot where a girl gets kidnapped and the hero and his buddies gang up to defeat him, generally with some butt violating gag along the way. The danger comes late in this cartoon, and it’s in the form of a fire started by an enthusiastic toy, bobbing to the tuba beat in the cartoon’s title theme. Fire! he yells.



You’d think St. Nick would come to the rescue, or at least show up, but he vanished about half-way through the cartoon, never to be seen again. Instead, the poor boy he rescued from a shack comes up with an idea—use bagpipes as a firehose.



The fire is out. The toys cheer. The boy looks at the camera like he does periodically through the cartoon.



So long, folks!



Ham Hamilton and Norm Blackburn are the credited animators, with chunks of scenes lifted from Red Headed Baby in 1931. This cartoon just missed a Christmas release and came out in January 1933.

Ice Rescuing You

Maybe the title of the 1933 Popeye cartoon Seasin’s Greetinks! refers to the winter season. There isn’t much that’s Christmassy about this short, other than Popeye gives Olive a present and there’s a decorated Christmas tree at the end.

Olive kind of rescues herself off an ice chunk in a swift-moving river. She extends her leg an impossible distance to Popeye on land, then climbs along her leg to safety.



Seymour Kneitel and Doc Crandall are the credited animators.

Mel Recovers

Mel Blanc made probably the most remarkable physical comeback of anyone associated with the radio or cartoon industries.

He was involved in a horrific car wreck on January 24, 1961. It almost killed him. He was comatose. Bones were broken everywhere. Slowly, he healed. Even more amazing—he resumed working. A home studio was set up so he could read a scratch track for Warner Bros. cartoons. Eventually, he was voicing Flintstones episodes from his bed.

Mel had been occupied on camera, but only rarely. He worked for years on radio with Jack Benny; the last several seasons he was on almost every show. That carried over into television. When the accident happened . . . well, why don’t we let Mel tell you? Here’s a Boston Globe story from Sunday, December 24, 1961.

"Thank God For Little Children,” Says Mel Blanc
By Elizabeth L. Sullivan
Of all the people who will be enjoying this joyful Christmas season, perhaps the most grateful is TV’s Mel Blanc. He will be seen on the Jack Benny Show tonight (Sunday) in a wheel chair and leg cast—his first appearance on TV since an almost fatal automobile accident last January.
"I've taken off the cast," said Mel when he called from the West Coast the other day. "It feels wonderful to see my bare leg after a year's absence. I'll be wearing a brace on the leg for some weeks but as long as I can walk, that's all I ask.
"I don't remember a thing about the accident. I was taken to the hospital and remained unconscious for 10 days. My wife and son were called in. The doctors told my wife, Estelle, that I was going to die. Every bone was broken.
"My son, Noel, age 21, a sturdy lad, who served as a lieutenant in the Army, fainted dead away. He was shocked, but my wife said over and over again: 'He's not going to die. He’ll be all right.'
“The day after the accident letters and telegrams arrived from entertainers and people in all walks of life.
"And thank God for little children. Of the 15,000 letters to come to the hospital a large portion were from the children. They sent nickels and pennies, along with chewing gum. They wanted to express their sorrow and love. This Is the way they selected to do so.
"Jack Benny was wonderful. I’ll never forget him. He visited me at least once every 10 days. If he were going to be out of town, he'd call to let me know. And no matter where his destination, he'd always telephone—New York, Chicago, Florida, anywhere!
"George Burns, Red Skelton, Jerry Lewis and scores of others either visited me, sent letters or telegrams. Mayor Sam Yorty, of Los Angeles, with whom I was supposed to parade last July 4, was most solicitous.
"It was an enjoyable three months I spent in the hospital, although I was in considerable pain. I kept my mouth shut and endured it. The doctors and nurses said I was the best patient ever.
"I'll be glad to be rid of braces and crutches so as to devote full time to my new business—Mel Blanc Associates. I formed the organization shortly before my accident. My son carried on the business all year and he has done an excellent job. He's a graduate of UCLA where he majored in theater arts. He's my production manager.
"We record radio commercials and tape TV ones and I might add, 'collect residuals.' The latter came in handy for my long illness. Anyone can use money at a time like this!" For a long time, Mel hid behind the anonymity of his 300 voices. He started as a voice specialist for Warner Brothers' cartoons in 1937. He was heard by millions but never seen by them. This he liked.
When he joined the Jack Benny radio show in 1940, he preferred to remain anonymous. But when Benny took to TV, Mel became a favorite with viewers. Let him travel and his eager followers stop him to hear his repertoire of voices and characters.
Incidentally, Mel's first appearance with Benny was as "Carmichael, the Bear." He was also the sound of the old Maxwell.
The road to fame wasn't smoothly paved for Blanc. He started as a musician, moved into the Orpheum Theater in Portland, Ore., as music director, but then decided that the field of dialects was for him. He pounded the pavements and eventually won a job at Warner's. He played a drunken bull with hiccups in a cartoon feature. After signing with the Warner Studio, the road to radio opened to him.
Mel has helped win five Oscars, has invented the voices of Bugs Bunny, Speedy Gonzalez, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam, Barney of the Flintstones and many others.
He loses thousands of dollars a year due to plagiarism. In the United States there is no legislation for the protection of original voices and characters. Hundreds of creations have been stolen from him. He hopes that laws will soon be enacted for such protection.
After the first of the year, viewers will see more of Mel. He's glad to be back in the swing of things. And as he finished his phone conversation, he again remarked on the thoughtfulness of the children. "God Bless them all . . . and the adults, too, for their prayers," he said humbly.

By the way, you’ve likely heard Blanc talk about his doctor talking to him when he was unconscious, getting no response, then talking to him as if he were Bugs Bunny and Mel, as Bugs, answered back. It’s in Blanc’s autobiography. In Harold Heffernan’s Hollywood column of December 23, 1961 for the North American Newspaper Alliance, Mel is quoted:

“There’s a story that when I came to I said ‘What’s up, Doc?’ in my best Bugs Bunny voice,” Blanc smiled, “but it’s not true.”

Mel told a bunch of tall tales in his life. We’ll let you decide if this is one of them.