Deems Fudd

Freeze-frame some animation and what looks like flowing movement under director Bob Clampett reveals a raft of quirky poses.

Here are some random frames from the opening of A Corny Concerto (1943), where Elmer Fudd fails miserably at being concert music commentator Deems Taylor a la Fantasia, thanks to a dickey that won’t stay down.

Only the Clampett unit would have a character with his hands down his pants.



Clampett cuts to a closer shot. Fudd’s hands are the best part of this, but there’s also a continual flow of facial expressions.



Bob McKimson is the credited animator on screen. Dick Thomas is the background artist.

Television's Anti-Parking Meter Crusader

J. Edward McKinley popped up everywhere on 1960s comedy shows as kind of an impatient businessman. It seems that’s how he began his acting career.

McKinley had a knack of finding interesting ways to get publicity. Witness this wire service story from 1951:

Radio Station Sells 30 Seconds of Silence
HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Jan. 26 (INS)—A Southern California radio station—KMPC—boasted today that it had sold thirty seconds of silence.
The unusual sale was chalked up by Ross Mulholland, doing a daily campaign for the March of Dimes on his show Thursday.
J. Edward McKinley, co-owner of the Chef Saw Manufacturing Co., dropped in to add $10 to Mulholland’s March of Dimes. But instead of asking for ten dollars worth of music, he asked—and got—$10 worth of complete silence.

The not-yet-actor’s next PR effort involved parking meters. Well, some parking meters. It’s one of those things that just about anyone can identify with. A wire service picked up McKinley’s populist crusade and put it out on May 10, 1958.

Parkers’ ‘Good Shepherd’
HOLLYWOOD (AP)—J. Edward McKinley hates parking meters that run too fast.
So much so that he is conducting a one-man campaign against them along Sunset Boulevard.
His crusade began a year ago when police tagged his car for overtime parking. He checked the curb parking meter and found that the meter was a cheater.
McKinley, a salesman, took the ticket to court. A judge, impressed by his defense, dismissed the case on the technicality that the ticketed car was registered not to McKinley but to his wife.
McKinley then declared an all-out war on parking meters. He ranged up and down the boulevard and found most of the meters ticked faster than his trusty wrist watch.
Flush with success, McKinley said yesterday that he is expanding his crusade to include parking zones whose colors have faded.
“I spotted a while passenger-loading zone on Whitley Avenue,” McKinley said. “The paint was more than 50 per cent rubbed out, making the zone invalid.” The average motorist hasn’t the time to go to court over minor traffic violations, McKinley contends.
“People are just paying their fines like sheep,” he said.

The publicity got McKinley on television. On October 6, 1958, he starred in an episode of Police Station, a 30-minute drama produced by KTLA in Los Angeles. McKinley explained the circumstances in a wire story on June 5, 1960.

McKinley Slated For Films and TV
HOLLYWOOD (AP)—J. Edward McKinley built a $2 parking ticket into a $25,000-a-year acting job.
"It's crazy," McKinley says. "One day I grabbed a parking ticket off my windshield and a few weeks later I was an actor."
He fought and beat the rap on the parking ticket. Appearances on television news and interview shows followed because of the uproar over the case.
"Next thing I knew," he says, "the movie producers were calling up making me offers to act in straight dramatic shows."
McKinley appeared in 51 television shows and motion pictures. Among the TV shows have been "Alcoa Presents," "77 Sunset Strip," "Mr. Lucky," and "Colt 45." He has played lawyers, judges, crime bosses and scientists.
He still is hanging on to his sales promotion business and owns part of an oil company in Colorado.
He's still interested in traffic tickets, promoting a plan for night traffic courts so that the working man can fight tickets.
McKinley, who hasn't got a ticket since he went into acting, has taken nine citations to court and lost but one.

Besides cameras, courtrooms continued to beckon McKinley. This is from a southern California paper of December 20, 1960:

Former President’s Nephew Scores Ninth Time In Court
By DAVE HOLLAND
Valley Times TODAY Staff Writer
J. Edward McKinley has done it again. For the ninth time in 11 tries, the grand nephew of former President William McKinley has beaten a traffic ticket in court.
McKinley, 6909 Oporto Dr., Hollywood, was accused Monday in Burbank’s Municipal Court of making an illegal U-turn on Riverside drive near its intersection with Valley street, Burbank.
When the incident took place last Oct. 9, McKinley didn’t believe it was illegal.
He told Judge Edward C. Olson why he didn’t think so yesterday. The judge apparently agreed. The defendant deserves the benefit of the doubt, Olson said, then added, “Not guilty.”
“It was those same two words that started me on my new career three years ago,” McKinley said. “I’m an actor now and have appeared in 67 TV shows since then all because I appeared in court on my own behalf and won.
The 44-year-old, graying man told this story:
“It all started when I found a meter violation ticket on my car. I insisted that it was the meter’s fault, not mine. The meter was fast and I proved it with a stop watch.
“Sam Taylor, traffic department director for Los Angeles, said that was one meter in a 1,000. We picked out 15 in a row, timed them all, and found more than half of them to be fast. I won the case.”
From the notoriety he received during the trial, McKinley was asked to appear on different television shows, including the Groucho Marx and the Paul Coates programs. A quiz show followed, then others. Finally someone talked him into tackling a dramatic part rather than just guesting on TV.
His first part? A defendant on Night Court. His last? A U.S. Senator on Stagecoach West. His next?
“I think I’m ready to play a lawyer,” McKinley smiled.

Besides being an actor and a traffic meter challenger, McKinley turned to record production. The Hollywood Reporter informed readers on May 25, 1962:

J. Edward McKinley, appearing in Otto Preminger’s “Advise and Consent,” has been signed by Del-Fi Records, Hollywood, to produce three new singles featuring comedian Jackie Curtis. McKinley has had his own compositions published and recorded in the past and will be a record producer for the first time.

I keep thinking of McKinley as the perennial client on Bewitched. Apparently, he appeared on ten episodes.

McKinley died in 2004. Part of his obit is posted to the right. Evidently, playing opposite Dick Sargent brings wealth as McKinley not only lived in Beverly Hills, he had a collection of classic cars. We presume none of them ever got a parking ticket.

Storm of the Cuckoo Clock

Artwork, sound (music and voice) and camera movement aren’t the only things that play a role in animation. So does lighting.

Here’s a good example from the opening of Tex Avery’s The Cuckoo Clock for MGM. The cartoon starts during a creepy thunderstorm, so colour and lighting are used to create a lightning effect over Johnny Johnsen’s background painting.



I suspect Tex would have indicated the effect he wanted on the sheets given to cameraman Jack Stevens (I believe Stevens was still at Metro when this was shot).

Mike Lah, Grant Simmons and Walt Clinton animated this cartoon, with narration by Daws Butler.

Oh, Boy, This is Ducky

Popeye wasn’t the only one to eat spinach in the Fleischer cartoons. Olive chowed down on it to turn beat the crap out of a woman gym rat in Never Kick A Woman (1936). Bluto had it shoved down his throat to beat up Popeye and put him in hospital with nurse Olive in Hospitaliky (1937). And Popeye fed it to a duck to turn it into a helicopter in I Never Changes My Altitude (also 1937).



The duck and Popeye reach the chortling Bluto, who has thrown Olive Oyl out of his plane. You know what’ll happen next.



Willard Bowsky and Orestes Calpini are given the animation credits.

Belle Province Benny

Allied troops around the globe took a brief break from World War Two by enjoying one of the top comedians of their time in front of them on stage.

No, we don’t mean Bob Hope. We’re talking about Jack Benny.

This isn’t meant to denigrate Mr. Hope’s dedication. But Benny showed up in the jungles of New Guinea, bore the sweltering heat of Iraq and even took down the names of injured servicemen and hand-wrote to their families once he got back home.

The Benny radio show went on tour, too. It broadcast from various American military bases, and appeared in Vancouver and Toronto for Victory Loan efforts.

Let’s talk about a Canadian stop wasn’t part of the broadcast schedule. Benny and his cast appeared in Montreal on February 10, 1943, playing at the Home of the Habs, the Forum. The Montreal Gazette gave a fine account of the show the next day, along with a sidebar story about Benny’s coming tour. Unfortunately, it was waylaid a month later when he was bed-ridden with pneumonia and couldn’t appear on the air for five weeks.

Let’s give you the sidebar first, followed by the review. Unfortunately, the photo in the paper of Jack and his cast on stage doesn’t reproduce well enough to augment this post. Being the keen showman, veteran vaudevillian Benny lined up his show well, reserving the last spot for Rochester, who was loved by audiences everywhere. McIver’s orchestra appeared with Benny on his Toronto broadcast on February 14th.

Jack Benny Signs U.S.O. Contract
Will Go Overseas to Entertain Troops, Comedian Says Here
Jack Benny and Company, which include Mary Livingstone, Dennis Day, Don Wilson and Rochester, will be heading overseas this summer to entertain the American troops. The comedian signed a contract with the U.S.O. Camps Shows just before he left for Montreal to launch his voluntary tour for Canadian servicemen here yesterday.

The USO Jaunt, whether to Alaska or North Africa, will not come, however, until the holiday break in his radio program leaves him free. It means, however, that instead of staying in Hollywood to make a film, he will start travelling for Uncle Sam.
He has just completed one picture, The Meanest Man In The World, which is to be released shortly. He says it returns to an older pattern of film-making for him, with Rochester teaming up with him throughout. But on the whole, the comedian finds the type of film like To Be Or Not To Be, Charley's Aunt or George Washington Slept Here more satisfactory. In them he felt he was playing a straight part, with a character being created other than that he has built tor himself on the air.
Benny likes making pictures because they are comparatively restful after the grind of broadcasting. For the air there is always the driving immediacy of the next week's program and the endless conferences with script writers. For the screen everything has been worked out by the studio. The possibility of retakes, if a laugh line doesn't quite go over, eliminates much of the nervous strain of the radio, where a thing once said can never be improved.
But despite the fact that now, in addition to the radio show grind, he and his wife have the strain of steady troops shows, both of them looked well and fit as they chatted with reporters and servicemen at the Windsor Hotel yesterday. Mrs. Benny (or Mary Livingstone) had a relapse two weeks ago but is recovered and looking forward to the week in Canada. Both she and Mr. Benny feel it's a privilege to be allowed to play for the troops, and that goes for anywhere they are sent, be it Alaska or overseas.

TROUPE PLAYS TO PACKED HOUSE AT LOCAL FORUM SHOW
Local Servicemen Pack Forum, Accord Benny Rousing Welcome
With a crowd of about 14,000 whistling and cheering servicemen and their girl friends, Jack Benny and the personalities of his radio show launched their whirlwind tour of shows for the Canadian troops at the Forum last night. In a show that lasted over an hour and a half, the radio comedian won the wholehearted applause of Canadian troops and the title of "Public Morale Builder No. 1" from Air Vice Marshal Albert de Niverville, who thanked him at the close of the show.
This was a show for the troops, with a minimum of formality attending it. At about a quarter to nine, the men of Alan McIver's band walked onto the stage at one end of the vast building, by that time packed with an expectant crowd of soldiers, sailors, airmen and men of the Merchant Marine. They were followed by Jack Benny and the show was on.
The appearance of the grey-haired comedian, walking onto the stage with the familiar swagger, brought the first burst of applause of the evening. He walked out to the bank of microphones and quipped, "H’m he looks a lot older than he does in the movies, doesn't he!"
He then looked around about him and off into the far reaches of the Forum and exclaimed: "Why, it's bigger than Waukegan."
The show which followed was the show which Benny and his associates have built up from extensive touring of U.S. Army posts. It differs from the regular broadcasts in being a series of solo specialties by the members of the cast, rather than a show built on a consecutive comedy theme. And, contrary to expectations, neither Benny or the others worked from a script.

First of his company to be introduced was Mary Livingstone, with an admonition from Benny: "She's my wife, fellows, so lay off." And Miss Livingstone's contribution, as all had hoped, was one of her famous poems. It was a salute to the Canadian forces and finished up on a high note of international amity:
"Here's to the Canadian people,
"Our neighbors loyal and true,
"Although our flags are different
"They're both red, white and blue."
A guest singer, Alice Rowe, came on next and sang three songs, leading up to the introduction of the regular Benny vocalist, Dennis Day, who scored a hit with his tenor rendering of I Just Kissed Your Picture Good Night, There Are Such Things and an old Irish tune.
Don Wilson, genial and rotund announcer of the program, was next in line with a few remarks, including a reminder of the Benny-Allen feud, by now an integral part of any Benny show. Sam Hearn, well-known as Schlepperman to audiences of a few years ago, came on with more comedy, including a lengthy parody set to a medley of popular tunes, and a clever imitation of three violins.
Schlepperman's violin duet with Benny introduced what was one of the high-spots of the evening when Benny played his famous Love In Bloom. And just to show that he wasn't as bad as all that, Benny followed it up with a bit of string swings. More music was supplied by Jimmy Shields, vocalist of The Army Show, who made a guest appearance which won him generous applause.
But the loudest single burst of applause of the whole evening came with the introduction of the next performer, the inimitable Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, complete with a double-zoot suit and broad-brimmed hat. The crowd opened right up then and let the colored comedian have a real Canadian welcome. Rochester sang a bit, danced a lot and had to beg his way off the stage.
Then suddenly, and all too soon, the show was over, and Air Marshal de Niverville was saying a few brief words of thanks to the assembled company. Jack Benny and company had finished their first big troop show in Canada, and Montreal servicemen had set a high standard of appreciation for the gesture which brings them that rare phenomenon, a first-rate American comedy star, to brighten their lives and further establish a bond between Canadians and Americans in wartime.

The Tennessee Teacher

Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales was one the first made-for-Saturday-morning cartoon series, but unlike the old theatricals and refugees from other time slots, they weren’t altogether entertainment cartoons.

There was an education component that fit completely with the plot of the cartoon, so kids didn’t realise they were being taught something (or perhaps, in some cases, it was something they already knew).

Critics have bashed Saturday morning shows for so long, it’s hard to believe there was a time where they applauded programming. The reviews of Tennessee were favourable.

Here’s a syndicated story from May 17, 1964.

Children Learn By Talking Penguin
BY DON ROYAL
NEW YORK—Why aren't there more good and popular educational television shows for children? Thousands of parents and television critics—to say nothing of the Federal Communications Commission—would like to know.
Not that the networks have completely abdicated their potential, the power to disseminate education and encourage the development of curious young minds. They have tried, but apparently have, for the most part, failed to find a workable formula.
One children's educational show that seems to have found one is "Tennessee Tuxedo," seen on CBS-TV Saturday mornings. When the program came on the air last fall, it was given only average chance of success.
That it did better than average is indicated by the fact that it has been renewed for a second 52-week season. It will not leave the air all year, even for the usual summer hiatus. "Tennessee Tuxedo" dominates all network viewing when it is on the air, with an estimated 10 million plus viewers weekly.
By this time you may be ready to ask: "Who—or what—is Tennessee Tuxedo?"
Tennessee Tuxedo is the name of a hyperthyroid penguin with the native curiosity of a five-year-old and the brash, know-it-all bravado of a young teenager.
Along with his yes-man, a chumpy (what else?) walrus named Chumley, he walks out of the zoo each week only to become helplessly— and hilariously— involved in the complex human world around him.
For instance, the penguin's sheer brashness lands him a job as an automobile mechanic. But he doesn't know a carburetor from a cardinal.
In the process of learning, he—and his young viewers—are given a beautifully simplified explanation of the workings of an internal combustion engine.
In another episode, the penguin makes an effort to link all the cages in the zoo by phone so the animals can chatter sociably with one another.
He works himself into a series of embarrassing situations while discovering the essentials of telecommunication.
And so it goes, like when Tennessee and Chumley manage to wreck the zoo's huge clock. In a do-it-yourself repairing spree, they illustrate the principles of Einstein's relativity theory so graphically that its basics can be grasped even by 5 to 10 year-old minds.
In similar fashion, the perky penguin and his pals explore the fields of farming and irrigation, astronomy, space, physics, photography, sculpture and music, bridge building, ancient history, marine navigation, party politics, democratic electoral systems, and others.
Their frequent companion is a Frank Morganish genius named Mr. Whoopee, the proprietor of a magic blackboard with the tremendous power of reducing complex subjects to easily comprehensible essentials.
The program is the brainchild of Cyril Plattes, cereal marketing chief of the vast General Mills corporate empire, which spends some $45,000,000 on advertising annually.
Public Service
Plattes figured some of this money should be spent in furthering television's potential as a medium for uplift and public service.
" 'Education' has always been a dirty word in show business," he says. "Attach it to a movie or television show and it's the kiss of death.
"The networks haven't been entirely delinquent about educational shows: they have tried with such laudable efforts as 'Exploring' and 'Discovery,' but too many viewers stay away.
"It was my contention these and other shows did not fail because they were educational, but because they did not properly cultivate and maintain an audience."
"Education is easier to digest if you think your swallowing something else. "It's like an exotic foreign delicacy say, stewed butterfly wings or chocolate-coveted ante. I'm told they taste great if you don't know what you're eating."
Plattes knew his projected series had to entertain if it were to educate, and it had to win a large audience and help sell cereal if it were to survive.
If he were to please the youngsters, he had to discover what appealed to them most. Instead of consulting a team of psychologists, he consulted the kids themselves.
"We employed a firm to question thousands of children of all social strata across the country. They told us that of all entertainment forms they like animated cartoons the best. And they liked to laugh.
"So we decided to use comedy as a teaching tool and animation as our medium."
Plattes enlisted the aid of a long-time New York manufacturer of video programming, Peter Piech and a creative animation firm, TTV (also known as Teaching Television).
Inborn Hunger
Together, they realized the best way to hold a child's wandering interest was to involve him in the adventure at hand, to bait him with his own inborn hunger for knowledge.
With this in mind, they tabulated a set of questions kid most frequently ask. How big is space? Why do airplanes fly? How does steam move an ocean liner? What is fire and how is it fought? What is electricity, and how does it produce light?
The questions and their answers form the basis for each of the weekly half-hour shows. Subjects are very carefully researched and the nation's schoolteachers were even invited to submit suggestions.
The voice of Tennessee Tuxedo is provided by Don Adams, a nightclub comedian and the father of a nine-year-old girl. He is never seen on the show, only heard.
"One recent Saturday," reports Adams, "my daughter came running into the bedroom, woke me up and hollered, 'Daddy, there's a bird doing an imitation of you on television.'
"I asked if the bird were a penguin and she said yes. I told her to relax—it was me imitating the penguin."
Adams enjoys doing the show. He and his associates, including mimic Larry Storch, assemble in a New York recording studio once a month and are given four new scripts. They rehearse a while, then record the dialogue. The resultant soundtrack is then shipped to the cartoonery where animators draw the many thousands of individual full-color sketches that make up each program.
Educators have been lavish in their praise of "Tennessee Tuxedo," and recognized authorities claim the program has pioneered new techniques in visual education.
Reduction of inherently complex matters to easily understandable premises can be difficult, but this program manages it.
What makes the show all the more remarkable is that it doesn't deal with sex, violence, hillbillies or cowboys and Injuns.
It is, however, an adventure series—an adventure in learning so subtly executed the viewer doea not know he's learning anything.
The sponsor is happy with the results. The audience has built steadily and remains loyal.
Surveys indicate youngsters look at the program of their own volition—parents do not drive them to the set.
But a surprising number of parents look in, too.

While Adams gets mentioned, it should be pointed out the voice work overall was solid. Larry Storch does my favourite Frank Morgan impression and, here, he becomes a character rather than an imitation of someone. His Mr. Whoopee easily holds the interest of young viewers. Brad Bolke is likeable as Chumley. Mort Marshall's Stanley Livingston is amusing (he used the voice elsewhere at TTV). And I've always been a fan of Kenny Delmar, who never seems to get credit for his versatility (everyone thinks of him as Senator Claghorn on the Fred Allen radio show but he did much more than that).

Add to that stories that don't pound things into kids' heads (unlike any didactic TV cartoon from the '80s) and you have a fairly entertaining series that deserves a look even today.

Ha Ha! Ha ha ha! Too funny!

Original comedy abounds in those dazzling, 1969 Warner Bros. cartoons.



A horse yells for help. After sound effects lifted from a Squidly Diddley cartoon, the horse says “Give me a hand.” I don’t possibly know what could happen next.



What?? Cool Cat claps?! As in “giving him a hand”? Oh, my sides! Who could guessed that was coming?

Or this? The Indian Brave says “Me give-um you squaw,” hands a hefty woman to Cool Cat, and then runs away. The suspense is killing me about the response.



“Indian giver!” yells C.C.

Don’t you get it?? He’s an Indian who gave. Indian Giver! That’s genius. Aren’t you uncontrollably shaking with laughter? I don’t know if I can take any more of this hilarity.

Hey, an Indian is painting eyes, a nose and a mouth on a bucket.



“Me, pail face.”

Pail face! Paleface! I’m retching with laughter. I know you are, too.



Thus ends Injun Trouble, the last Merrie Melodies cartoon of Hollywood’s Golden Age. About time for a Cool Cat reboot, isn’t it? Maybe team him with the Marvel Universe or Sonic or the Tennessee Williams Snagglepuss in that comic book series. Now that’s comedy!

They're Still Hungry

A cat is still hungry after he and Woody Woodpecker eat a full-grown moose. “Yeah? So am I,” says Woody. (Note the wiggling fingers in the air).



Woody and the cat need only four drawings to get into position. The dry-brush drawing is held for two frames.



And then the fight scene that fades out to end the cartoon. It’s a cycle of four drawings, one per frame. They’re eventually covered in brush swirls to indicate speed.



Pantry Panic (formerly titled What’s Cookin’) gives an “artists” credit to Alex Lovy and Les Kline, with Bugs Hardaway and Lowell Elliot producing the story. Danny Webb is Woody, the cat and the moose. The cartoon was released November 24, 1941.

Before Lucy

They kicked Vivian Vance out of town. And that was a good thing.

It happened after August 16, 1932. She was performing with the Albuquerque Little Theatre for nothing, and some people got together with the idea that she should be on Broadway. So a special performance was held that day and every cent from the box office was handed to her to pay for a trip to New York.

The Daily News related this in its September 15th edition, adding Vance hadn’t found work yet. Within a month, she had signed for a chorus part in Music in the Air at the Casino Theatre. She sang in cabarets and eventually made it to Broadway in a show starring Ed Wynn.

Newspapers across the U.S. picked up syndicated Broadway columns. It seems rather odd as someone reading, say, in Kansas, would likely never see a show on the Great White Way. Nonetheless, here’s a syndicated column about Vance that appeared around December 9, 1937.

Albuquerque Sent Her To New York; Now Vivian Vance's Name Is In Lights
As Singing Girl—Chance Came She Was Hired
By EDD JOHNSON
NEW YORK, Dec. 9.—If you go to see "Hooray for What!" take an especially long look at the blonde with the accent who plays the part of the international spy.
There, in the elongated person of Vivian Vance, you will see a dream walking—and singing. She's the dream of the sun-baked Albuquerque, N. M., and the fact that her name is up in lights on Broadway is the most exciting news out there since the murder of that snake-in-the-grass who was fooling around with the rich rancher's young wife. Four years ago the town opened up the old opery house and turned out for the event of the season—the benefit performance to raise money to send Vivian Jones to Broadway.
Off for Broadway
The play was "The Trial of Mary Dugan," presented by the Albuquerque Little Theater, with Vi playing Mary. It was such a success that before the cashier added up the receipts from the gala performance Vivian was on the train, bound for Broadway and stardom.
She reached Broadway on schedule, but then there were several detours. In private life, Vivian Jones became Mrs. George Kock, of Jackson Heights, wife of a violin player in a dance band.
Professionally, she became Vivian Vance, who sang in a couple of choruses, moaned into the mikes of some of the swankier east side night spots, and understudied Ethel Merman in "Anything Goes" and "Red Hot and Blue."
Name in the Lights
Miss Vance was to have been one of the singing girls in "Hooray for What!" but on the second night of the Boston tryout Kay Thompson stepped out—and presto, there was Vivian Vance with her name in lights.
Those wise to Broadway's ways will tell you that when a girl gets her name in lights it does things to her. and that a few years will find Miss Vance with a Pekingese, an English accent and temperament.
But today, positively giggling with excitement, she talked about herself in an accent that was strictly Alf Landon. She says she guesses she got to talking that way when she lived in Independence, Kan., before the family moved to Albuquerque. She was cheer leader of I. H. S., she said.
"Gee, I guess I got to be glamorous," she said, shaking out her blond hair. "My hair was really this color until I was 16, then it started getting ash blond—you know, just like a mouse."
Likes Plain Food
And while the subject of glamour was up for discussion. Miss Vance added that her favorite meal is one comprising mashed potatoes and gravy, meat, pie and cawfee.
"I'm a good cook, too," she says, "but that's not very glamorous. Say, can I make fried chicken and beaten biscuits and gravy. Boy!
"My car's glamorous, though. It’s cream-colored, a convertible. Boy, I've been crazy about cars ever since I was 11 and that darned old horse threw me. My hip still hurts sometimes.”
The other actors in the company say "Viv's a trouper," which is higher praise than colossal or terrific. They swear she's going places, and for that reason it might be interesting to set down a few facts about her as she appears, after her first night of Broadway success, in case she goes upstage on Albuquerque.
Not a Drinker
She chews gum and wears her hair done up like an Apache squaw at rehearsals. She doesn't like to drink. If she ever approaches Louella Gear as a singer she'll be satisfied.
Her favorite colors are red and blue, and she kids herself about the hump in her nose. She says "Volp" when she takes her cue in a song and dance number, and doesn't argue with the director about anything, or try to tell her partners what to do.
She doesn't go in for massages, and doesn’t have any trouble nowadays keeping her weight at 120—although she admits weighing 154 when she left Albuquerque. She calls her mother "mamma" most of the time, and her father “papa.”
She has no use whatever for “fancy” cooking and thinks the people she works with are just the grandest ever. Albuquerque historians of the future, please note.

The Associated Press put out a squib on Vance’s performance as well.

Varied Reaction
NEW YORK, Dec. 2 (AP) — New York reviewers were generally favorable today although some critics were not overly impressed in their reception of Miss Vivian Vance, Albuquerque, N. M. singer, in her performance in Ed Wynne’s [sic] musical comedy, "Hooray For What."
Miss Vance, said the World Telegram, "has beauty and did her big number, 'Night Of the Embassy Ball,' with impressive naughtiness.
The Herald-Tribune writer found Miss Vance "a blues singer of the Ethel Merman school, handsome and lively as a beautiful international spy.”
Not so enthusiastic was the New York Sun, which said: "June Clyde and Vivian Vance ornament the scenes, if neither of them gives their songs their due.”
"June Clyde and Vivian Vance sing as well as they can, which is nothing remarkable,” was the opinion of the Times.
Jack Whiting, member of the "Hurray For What" cast, was unable to appear last night because of illness.

And the New York Daily News said “Vivian Vance is the torch lady, hailing, I suspect, from the night club circuits. Her voice is a night club voice, at any rate. You get used to it after awhile.”

Despite the write-ups, real fame didn’t come for Vivian Vance just yet. She had to wait 14 more years when she met up with a redhead and a Cuban bandleader on the small screen.

Look of the Cook

A dough-covered cat lands inside the pants of a cook in Ub Iwerks’ Reducing Crème. That gives whoever animated this scene a chance to hold some poses.



Berny Wolf and Grim Natwick are the credited animators in the 1933 Willie Whopper short. Art Turkisher is responsible for the score.