Think of the Children

Once upon a time, we had Felix the Cat getting drunk surrounded by kitten babes before staggering home and being hit with a rolling pin with his wife. We had Heeza Liar out-cheating cheaters at poker before a hail of gunfire in the darkness.

And then Uncle Walt came along. With him came frolicking fish, singing little birdies, trees swaying in the wind, fairy tales, and a shy, very innocuous mouse. Other studios started to copy him.

In other words, Disney turned cartoons into children’s fare. People today still can’t shake that out of their heads; some are still outraged that Fred Flintstone smoked “on a children’s show.” It became a vicious circle when television grew. Cartoons were aired during periods when kids would watch. Pressure groups then demanded they be more kid-oriented. Quick Draw McGraw’s guns were out. Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears were in.

Which brings up to this article in the Pittsburgh Press of June 14, 1946, lashing out at Walt Disney (of all people) and demanding he make his cartoons more inoffensive so sensitive people won’t suffer.

The writer says people are forced to take their kids to the cinema (yet, there is no call to feature films kid-friendly, even though children would see them) and objects to “frenzied and dizzy” cartoons. To me, those are the best kind. I probably watched more Bugs Bunny cartoons in a week on TV than a kid saw in a full year in theatres in 1946. I think I came out okay. And so did millions of other kids who watched mounds of cartoons on the tube in the ‘60s. Maybe parents should teach their kid how to handle unpleasant things. The child is going to need that later in life.

Children Baffled by Film Cartoons Which Only Adult Mind Can Grasp
By FLORENCE FISHER PARRY
Some time ago at Loew's Penn they held a wonderful party for little children. The whole program wras devoted to cartoons and they tell me that the theater was packed and jammed with little children.
While I was up home in Punxsutawney over the holiday, a similar program was shown, and many, many conscientious young parents stopped in their tracks and took their little children to see this treat.
There were some, however, who kept their little cnildren at home. They had learned from experience that their own children were simply not "up to" many of the cartoons that are ostensibly designed for children, yet which only have the effect of confusing and frightening them, and they could not risk having their children become hysterical again.

This, I remember, happened not to be my experience with my own children, who took everything at the movies in stride very much as they did their oatmeal for breakfast. I dare say that was because movies were their usual diet. They had been conditioned to them just as they had been conditioned to Mother Goose and Grimm's Fairy Tales and other little children's stories, and therefore were prepared for the wicked queen in "Snow White" and the sorcery by which poor Pinnochio was turned into a donkey for as you know, the old children's classics contained much violence and even cruelty.
Lurid Stuff
The wicked persons were always punished by the most excruciating means. It was nothing to tie an evil person to four horses and let the horses gallop in different directions and tear the wicked victims limb from limb. It was nothing for Rumpelstiltskin to split himself in two with rage, or for wild beasts to devour the unfaithful. Little children go through a curious stage of savagery, as every parent knows, and can be conditioned to take almost anything in stride.
I have repeated before in this space how I took my little nephew to see "The Sign of the Cross" and, worried lest he become nervous when the Christians were thrown to the lions, leaned over and said: "Remember, this isn't really true. This is only a movie. The lions are really not going to eat the Christians." To which he replied: "Oh, I don't care whether they eat them or not." On the other hand, my little grandniece could not sit through "Bambi" or "Pinnochio" or "Snow White," all of which had the power to terrify her to the point of hysterics. Which just "goes to show" as we say Up Home, that there is no rule to follow in providing little children entertainment. Each parent must determine what is suitable for his child. Not even a Walt Disney can hope to find a formula for his cartoons and stories that would be acceptable to all little tots.
Becoming 'Slick'
Frankly, I have noted, in the past number of years, a growing tendency on the part of the makers of animated cartoons, to depart more and more from the type of picture designed purely for children, and to devote more and more of their appeal to the adult mind. Our cartoons are becoming more and more slick. Their very tempo has been so sped up that it is all that the adult eye can do to follow the insane action. Cartoon figures which used to move through easy sequences now seem to be jet-propelled, whizzing insanely through bewildering action which no small child could possibly follow! The audience reaction is gratifying. Grown-ups seem to love it. That is because their coordination is more developed, their reactions more acute! but this maniacal frenzy of action only serves to bewilder little children and make them nervous. They simply cannot understand what's going on, and their bewilderment gives rise to nervousness and petulance and is likely to end in their parents having to take them from the theater.
All this is too bad. The animated cartoon used to be one of the loveliest treats imaginable for children. The early Mickey Mouse cartoons, simple, easy in plot, leisurely to action, brought joy to millions of little children! The early Disneys were masterpieces in this regard. Then, once the animated cartoon had become a valuable piece of property to the exhibitors, there slipped into them a note of sophistication and smartness. All this is well and good for the adult audience, but leaves little children with no really suitable cartoons.
It can be argued, of course, that the motion picture theater is not the place for little children and that they should be kept away until they are old enough to absorb the kind of animated cartoon that is supplied today. This is just as ridiculous an argument as to say that the street is no place for the children to play. Millions of young American parents have no choice but to take their children with them to the movies for the simple reason that they have no one to leave them safely with at home. Children are tremendously patient, as a rule. They have an infinite capacity for boredom, and most of them would gladly sit through an interminable feature if at the end they would be rewarded by an animated cartoon they they would understand and enjoy. Surely, we can spare them these few moments even if the cartoon does seem childish to us.
Too Adult
Recently Walt Disney spent a fortune on a feature-length of animated cartoons which he titled "Make Mine Music." Delightful as was this variegated program, it was essentially adult in every number. There was only one which could be said to have child appeal, and that was Johnnie Fedora, a simple little romance of a hat for a bonnet. The others were, frankly, beyond the capacity of the average little child. Here is a man who, more than any other person in the field of animated cartoons, is possessed of the imagination, the tenderness, the genius to make beautiful children's animated cartoons. We do not want to feel that he has lost his simplicity. Yet many of his recent cartoons give us no alternative but to suspect just this.

Terrified 'Em
Walt Disney did wonders for children, older children, in "Snow White" and "Pinnochio" and "Bambi" and "Dumbo," even though in these, too, were interjected situations almost beyond a child's capacity to absorb. Tender-hearted and sensitive little children were terrified by the wicked queen in "Snow White," the anguish of Dumbo's mother; the fire in Bambi and the transformations that overcame Pinnochio. So even these pictures, as wonderful as they were, were definitely suitable only for children who could take suspense and excitement and horror in stride.
I find myself wishing very often now as I look at the animated cartoons of today, whether they come from The Disney Studio or those of his imitators, that there would be thrown on the screen some of the very first Mickey Mouse cartoons, the very first that featured Donald Duck and Pluto. The simplest, slowest mind of any child could follow their actions; and as I recall, they never bored the most adult mind. But lately all the cartoons have become so frenzied and dizzy that their action has become a veritable bombardment. If they appear thus to us, how confusing and senseless they must seem to little children!
Please, Mr. Disney, come to their rescue and restore to them the safe little world that was yours once to give them!

Hand Sandwich

Woody Woodpecker, on one side of a fence, turns Wally Walrus’ hand, on the other side of the fence, into a sandwich in The Dippy Diplomat (1944).



See the mustard change colour when it is held on a cel.



We never get to see the crunch. Director Shamus Culhane cuts from Woody to the reacting Wally.



Here’s one of those fly-into-the-sky/fire-alarm-bell things that Culhane loved. Look at the disgraceful DVNR on Wally’s right hand fingers in the last frame. It’s all over the place in the DVD version of this short.



Grim Natwick and Pat Matthews receive the animation credits on this cartoon, while Ben Hardaway and Milt Schaffer are the storymen. Backgrounds are by Fred Brunish (uncredited).

Stop The Noise Backgrounds

The 1930s Fleischer background paintings are enjoyable to look at, especially the warped cityscapes with boarded up buildings and twisted lampposts. Unfortunately, we don’t get that in Stop That Noise, a 1935 Betty Boop cartoon that’s formulaic and tame compared to her shorts a couple of years earlier.

Myron Waldman and Ed Nolan get the animation credits. I like Betty’s smart little cap as she chugs away in her car to a rural destination. The stone fence has little light reflections on the grey tones in the shot below.



Okay, we get a bit of warping on the farmhouse Betty goes to. The ratty-looking picket fence on the left is on an overlay.



The posts and railings are on overlays, too.



Muted scenics. These are watercolours, aren't they?



Some interiors of Betty's city apartment. There's nothing fancy. Construction workers are animated and trains (not seen below) travel on the “L.”



Instead of reusing the same background of Betty's bedroom, two similar ones were painted.



The Boop Bed.



Unfortunately, the artist isn't credited.

Cooking With Carl

How do you get a syndicated columnist to plug your book?

Simple. Make lunch for them.

I suppose that would make sense if you’re Julia Child or Graham Kerr. In this case, the author is comedy supporting actor Carl Reiner.

He did one of those interviews that ends with some “favourite” recipes (it’s questionable whether some of the interviewees have ever seen the recipe attached to their name). It appeared in newspapers on March 29, 1958. But before that, we’ll look at Reiner’s early career as he was just getting going with Sid Caesar. It’s from the Detroit Free Press of August 9, 1953.

The Rise of Reiner: From Grease to Grins
"I started at $12 a week and, through my own ingenuity, hard work and perseverance I ended by making $8 a week," says Carl Reiner, now on ABC-TV's The Name's the Same and featured on Your Show of Shows on NBC-TV. Reiner wasn't talking about his career in show business.
Carl Reiner was born in the Bronx, March 20, 1922. He was graduated at 16 from Evander Childs High School, and went to work as a shipping clerk in New York's garment district.
That's when he made his meteoric "rise" in the business world, from $12 to $8 a week. The $8 job was as a machinist's helper in a shop which made millinery equipment.
"I used to take off a half-hour early, because I was going to a dramatic school. I never seemed to get all the grease off my hands."
AFTER EIGHT months of drama school, he played in a little theater group.
"We played every night," he says. “It was terrific experience, but I wasn't getting any money for it. Nobody else in the troupe was, either. But I got uppity one day—after all, the audience paid admission—and demanded to be paid.
"They offered me $1 a performance, and I was satisfied."
THE FOLLOWING summer Reiner played stock in Rochester, N. Y., for room and board.
Between times he appeared in National Youth Administration programs on a New York radio station, and one summer he appeared in a revue at a Catskill Mountain (N. Y.) resort.
IN 1942, Reiner went into the Army, studied French, was awarded a diploma as a qualified interpreter and then was sent to Hawaii as a teletype operator.
When Maj. Maurice Evans arrived in Hawaii, Reiner auditioned for him, using routines he had perfected at Army recreation halls in the States, and then toured the South Pacific for a year and a half in revues which he wrote.
After his discharge from the Army, he wore out considerable shoe leather on Broadway before he landed a part. Later he was in a Broadway musical on which Max Liebman, producer-director of Your Show of Shows, did considerable work.
IN 1950 Liebman hired Reiner as a character and comedy actor and emcee for NBC-TV’s Saturday show.
Except for baseball, for which he has an almost pathological affection, Reiner has no hobbies.
“When I was a kid,” he says, "I wanted to be a big-league pitcher. When I go to a game today I put myself in the role of the pitcher. Boy, can I act it up!" Reiner is married to the former Estelle Lebost, an artist. They live—with their two children, Robbie, 6, and Sylvia Anne, 4—in an apartment in New York! "The Bronx!" Reiner says proudly.

Carl Reiner Doesn't Waste Any Time;
He Acts, Writes and is Quite a Chef
By MARGARET McMANUS
NEW YORK—Once there was man who came to dinner and he bad such an elegant time that he stayed on and on. In fact, he lingered so long on the premises that they finally wrote a play about him.
Then there is the man who came to our apartment to cook lunch for our children. This guy didn't even stay long enough to help with the dishes, he bolted before the coffee was cool in the cup.
Now I'm sure as I can be that the children had nothing to do with this. Absolutely nothing. After all, he’s a family man himself. As he will be the first to tell you, some of his best friends are children.
Carl Reiner is a man of considerable, versatile talents. As the second banana to Sid Caesar for the past four years, he currently appears with Caesar and Imogene Coca on "Sid Caesar Invites You,” 9 p.m. Sundays on ABC-TV.
He is also the author of a new novel, his first, "Enter Laughing," which was published last month. He is also an amateur chef who bows to no man in accomplishments with omelets.
The poet who runs the press department of the American Broadcasting Company came up with the lyrical suggestion that Reiner, the chef, who has nothing better to do on his day off, come up one fine Spring day and cook lunch for Mary, who is almost five, and 5ean, who is three. Both, of course, are gourmets.
Reiner arrived, the guest perfect. Not only did he come prepared to cook, but he brought his own groceries.
A tall, genial, black-haired man, 38 years old, apparently at ease in anybody's kitchen, he put his bundles on the counter, explained that he needed no protection for his well-tailored dark-blue suit.
"One of the first things a good cook learns is that you must be very neat while cooking,” he said. "An apron is unnecessary. It's such bad form to be messy.” Mr. Reiner unpacked his supplies: eggs; a small potted plant which turned out to be herbs; a bunch of parsley; sour cream; red caviar: and a jar of rosemary leaves. Such a pretty name to be edible.
He looked past the copper-bottom skillet, polished for his coming, which stood waiting on the stove and poked about among the pots and pans in the cupboard.
WHAT, NO OMELET PAN!
“I suppose you don’t have an omelet pan," he said finally, with wistful courtesy. He was right. We don’t. "An omelet pan is quite important if you want to get absolutely perfect results," he said. "I should have brought mine along. You never wash an omelet pan, you know. You just wipe it out and hang it up. It isn't unsanitary becauae the minute you put a fire under it, the fire kills any germs."
I told him maybe I'd ask for an omelet pan for Christmas. It sounds like one of those luxurious necessities vou're supposed to get from Santa Claus, like a gold car key or a sterling silver telephone dialer.
"Another important thing about omelets," the dedicated Mr. Reiner explained, "is that you never, never mix milk with the eggs. If you want a really light omelet, you beat the eggs with water.”
The world should know that Carl Reiner is an orderly, systematic chef. He fines up his provisions with care, works with the deft, precise motions of the professional, talks as he works, dispite distractions.
My only contribution was to hand him the plates at the moment tor dishing up, and then bolt for the dining room to be served. As soon as the children were anchored to their seats, Reiner served them with the suave flourish of the maitre d'hotel at "21."
He then stood behind waited, as artists are wont to do, for a little respectful appreciation.
DISDAINFUL PATRONS
Mary looked at her plate, and to be specific, what she said was: "I don't want eggs for lunch. I had eggs for breakfast. I want a peanut butter sandwich.” Personally, I think her attitude was infinitely kinder than Sean’s. He said: “I want a boiled egg, Mom.”
Mary attempted graciousness. She took a taste of the sour cream, topped with red caviar, and she made a most distressing face. It’s only a guess, but I think she was expecting a taste similar to vanilla ice cream and marashino cherries.
“I don't like those berries," said my innocent child. “That ice cream's sour.”
Later, after the children had finished their peanut butter sandwiches and apple sauce, Mr. Reiner and I finished the four omelets and the parsley and the sour cream. Even chilled, the omelet was delicious, worthy of a master. And the chef, the father of an 11-year-old boy, Robby, and a 9-year-old daughter, Sylvia Anne, was quite understanding.
"Look," he said philosophically "you can lead yhem to the table, but can you make them eat?
Not super-sensitive by nature, Reiner was in such an elated mood about the Sunday night television show, and the publication of his book, that two unappreciative, nonco-operative children couldn't make a dent in his composure.
GRATIFIED OVER HIS BOOK
"I tell you the truth,” he said, “getting this book published is about the most gratifying thing that ever happened to me. It's been much more exciting than the television show has ever been. A lot of people contribute to the success of the television show, but this book is just between me and the typewriter.” He wrote "Enter Laughing" during this Summer holiday last year.
The Reiners, who live in New Rochelle, in Westchester County, N. Y., also have a Summer house on Fire Island where they go during the months the television show is not on the air.
"I used to spend all my time in the summers with the kids," he said. "Now they're a little bigger and have their own friends. They don't want me hanging around all the time. Last Summer I had some time to spare, so I wrote. Now that I know I can do it, I can hardly wait for Summer to try again.”
Carl Reiner, author and chef, did one other small piece of writing before he left to take his son bowling. He wrote out his two favorite recipes, guaranteed to make you a more successful dinner hostess than Elsie herself.
TWO OF HIS FAVORITE RECIPES
Try them at your own risk. They read so well you may get the man who came to dinner. They you'll wish you had stuck with peanut butter sandwiches.
FILET OF SOLE NAVOROFF
Chop pound fresh salmon. Add white of one egg, 1 tablespoon cream, teaspoon salt and fresh pepper. (You can add chopped parsley or chive.)
Make pockets in filets. Fill with salmon mixture.
Poach fish in 1/4 cup sauterne, ¼ cup water, 1 bay leaf and a few peppercorns. (Put wax paper under cover of pot.) Put in medium oven (350°) for 15 minutes. Serve with sauce.
SAUCE FOR FISH
Blend 2 tablespoons flour and 2 tablespoons butter. Add ½ cup milk and 1/2 cup fish stock (from above). Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Add 2 tablespoons sweet cream when done.
STUFFED VEAL CHOP
Make pocket incision in loin veal chop (one-inch thick chop) and stuff with stuffing (see below). Brown chops in brown butter on high flame. Cover and cook on low flame 20 minutes, till done. Add ¼ cup flaming sherry.
STUFFING
Saute 1 chopped medium onion in ½ bar butter. Add 3 stalks finely chopped celery and saute a few minutes longer. Add croutons which have been dried out in oven (1 slice bread per chop). Add salt and pepper and stuff chops.

Wide Vs Academy

Not all cartoon studios succumbed to the 3-D gimmick in 1953 but most of them resigned themselves the following year to jump into a wide screen format.

MGM announced:

New York, Oct. 21.—Four Fred Quimby "Tom and Jerry" cartoons will constitute the first Metro CinemaScope briefies. Titles include "Pet Peeve," "Touche Pussycat," "Southbound Duckling" and "Pup On a Picnic." "Pet" will be released Nov. 20.

How much of the cartoon did theatres lose showing it in Academy ratio instead of wide screen? Take a look at these drawings from Pet Peeve. The first two are by Ken Muse. (Sorry, the drawings look a little scrunched in the only way I could save the Academy ones).







Four more Tom and Jerrys were made for regular screens, then starting with That's My Mommy (released in 1955) all of the pair’s shorts were in Cinemascope until MGM ran out of cartoons.





Irv Spence and Ed Barge also animated on this short, with Bob Gentle painting the backgrounds. Daws Butler and June Foray provide suburban husband-wife voices.

Mixed Penguin Drink

“Give me a scotch and soda and a pinch of lemon,” orders the penguin. So the bartender does. But he doesn’t waste time with glasses, he mixes it right in the penguin.



Mel Blanc does his famous hiccoughing routine at the end of the scene.

This is from Tex Avery’s Penguin Parade (1938). The animation credit went to Paul J. Smith.

Building Comedy and Demanding Truth

It wasn’t third time lucky for Jack Benny.

Benny began his network radio career in May 1932 sponsored by Canada Dry. He made fun of the soft drink during commercials. The company wasn't bubbling with happiness. After it tried a change of networks and forced a new writer on him, the soft drink maker cut him loose and Jack found himself out of work in less than a year.

Then Chevrolet signed him. Chevy dealers loved the show. The radio audience did, too. But one of the top people at the car maker thought a comedian wasn’t dignified enough for General Motors’ low-price division so Jack was dumped again on April Fool’s Day 1934.

Before his last broadcast, the Hays MacFarland agency of Chicago (Chevrolet was represented by Campbell Ewald) hooked up the Benny broadcast with General Tire at the insistence of the tire maker’s owner, Bill O’Neil. The revised Benny show hit the air on 41 NBC Red network stations Friday. April 6th. The publicity machine at the agency or NBC churned away. An article about the show appeared in the May 20, 1934 edition of Screen and Radio Weekly, a magazine supplement that appeared in the Milwaukee Journal, Detroit Free Press, Atlanta Constitution and other papers (internet sources saying it began in 1935 are incorrect).

This was supposedly written by Jack himself. Interestingly, some of the quotes are found verbatim in other newspaper columns, including the one about how his name is spelled, along with some (not all are the same) answers to the “Where were you born?” question. They go back to 1932.

At first thought, I suspected this was written by Harry Conn, who wrote a good portion of Benny’s radio show at the time. But in the portion describing the writing, there is no mention of Conn. Frankly, Conn’s ego would never have stopped him from inserting himself into the story, so it must have been written by someone else.

The switch to General Tire meant a change in some personel. Announcer Alois Havrilla could not continue and was replaced by Don Wilson. Orchestra leader Frank Black was also otherwise committed so Don Bestor and his musicians were brought in. This resulted in confusing dialogue referenced in the story (with asterisks added for some reason). Also the first episode’s sketch involved a music store supposedly owned by vocalist Frank Parker. There’s a reference to that in the story as well.

In reading the description of the show, remember there was no Rochester, no Dennis Day, no Phil Harris, no Maxwell, no age 39, no underground vault. All of that came much later. Still, this version of the Benny show was very popular, thanks to the movie parodies and jabs at the sponsor.

The story comes from the Detroit paper; I don’t know what substitutions were made for place names in other papers.

The Name Is 'Benny' – With a ‘B’ Please
By Jack Benny
Written for Screen & Radio Weekly
HELLO there! Remember me? I'm Jack Benny.
How's that, you haven't forgotten me?
That's fine. Nice people, you Detroiters. Speaking of Detroit, I used to know a fellow out there. I think his name was Murphy, or was it Ford? Oh, well, names never were my forte. So, we'll let it pass.
Oh yes. I've been asked to write a piece * * * a piece about * * * Say, what do I do * * * Radio! Radio comedy, that's it. I'm always getting my jobs confused.

First I was a violinist, then a vaudeville actor, then the movies and now radio. Maybe you won't blame me.
Anyway I am now supposed to be a journalist. You don't get it? Well, I can't help what you're thinking. Maybe the Screen and Radio Weekly has made a mistake. Maybe they were looking for Mencken or Lowell Thomas and they got me by mistake. I'm always being confused with those literary fellows.
Well, since radio is my subject, suppose we begin with the New Deal. There's room for thought! We might as well tackle a nice simple subject. Economics, sociology, foreign trade, tariffs, international debts, what Roosevelt is doing, what Congress is not doing! Take your pick. Oh, you don't want any? Well, suppose we avoid these rudimentary fields of thought and go on to something deeper. Radio comedy!
You like that?
O.K. Let's get started.
AS I pointed out earlier, this might as well be about radio comedy. And since the editor has asked me, it's not my fault that you're reading this. (Or are you?) So, I guess you’ll have to take it.
But, just in case some of you have been wondering about the present state of the comedy that comes pouring in upon you from the NBC microphones (after all, some of you may have heard of our Friday night show), I do have an idea or two despite what Havrilla * * * I mean Wilson! I am never going to get this thing straightened out * * * may think of me. Anyway don't take Black * * * I mean Bestor or Parker too seriously. They are three jealous meanies. Why, the way those guys steal my lines!
Now, seriously, we have lots of fun on our new program. And I'll tell you a secret. We're kidding most of the time. Uh-huh! A big bunch of good-hearted kids. Don Bestor is swell. So is Don Wilson. Gee, we've got an awful lot of Dons on this new program.
As I have suggested the boys take the ribbings like gentlemen. It's really all in fun. A lot of it is hard work, but much of it is pleasant. It's a joy to work with my gang. Hard workers! Willing! Loyal! A little dumb, maybe, but that's all right! After all I'm supposed to be the comic and leading character. At least that's what I draw my salary for.
Now, this matter of radio comedy. You may have wondered why we do all the kidding. In case you just haven't realized it, we strive for informality on our program.
I mean we work hard to make you believe we are anything but serious. Do you get it? I know it sounds screwy and a bit hazy, but I believe the best radio comedy is that that appears to be wholly spontaneous and natural.
Now, if one of the boys feels like inserting crazy idea, we just let it slip in. I'm just naturally generous, you see.
LET me illustrate what I mean. It was Frank Parker's idea that we should put him in the music business. That fitted naturally into his role as the soloist. A bright boy, Frank! Of course there may be some catch in letting Frank get away with an idea like that. He may want a raise or a night off. It doesn't always pay to let your performers take too much rope. I'll see to that.
I'm sure you'll agree with me that one of the best lines created for a long time in radio comedy was Graham McNamee's slip on gasoloon. That break was worth millions of laughs and Ed Wynn still uses it with good effect. We don't mind therefore if one of our Barrymores (I mean Mary), Clark Gables (myself) or Wallace Beerys (Don Wilson) muffs his or her lines.
Eddie Cantor is a genius at picking up such opportunities. They add spice to the scripts and the best comedy thrives on a lost or pronounced word or a twisted situation. A man like Cantor always comes out ahead of the game, whatever happens during the performance.
Our own technique isn't very baffling, although we may build our program a little differently. I sketch out the general script idea; that is, we decide we'll do a Russian drama (with vodka and sound effects) or a travelogue.
Then Mary and I think of all the ideas that could possibly go into such a script. We edit our material and then whip it into radio form. We meet with the production people on Wednesday and read the story over together. Suggestions are given and sometimes the whole idea is discarded and a new one has to be developed. On Thursday we have our first rehearsal. We read the dialogue with everybody present. We ask for more suggestions and get plenty of them. Sometimes I am even overruled and have to toss out, a perfectly classic line; a line that might have otherwise gone down (the chute) in literature.
Perhaps it may surprise you Highland Park, Grosse Pointe and Grand River people to learn that I once had poetical ambitions. Now this poetry business is always cropping up in rehearsals and I have to work like the dickens to repress it. You see it strikes Mary the same way, only she isn't able to curb her poetical bent I have to do it for her. But I feel very sorry for Mary since there isn't anything in the world so sad to me as a squelched poet.
WELL, after we have thoroughly read the script we put on a full rehearsal. Don Bestor has already worked on his Ellis Islanders, I mean his orchestra. (Darn it, if those fellows would only shave!) If we happen to need sound effects we call in Ray Kelly, the NBC sound wizard. Egad, how that fellow can think up all of those eerie whams, whacks and bongs, I don't know.
We spend a couple of hours which way and that, tightening or loosening our product to fit the half hour, polishing our choice verbs and perfecting our flawless diction.
After we have finished our practising we sign off for the day and I insist upon taking Mary to the movies so that she won't keep her mind on the program too much. You know how football coaches do? Take the boys to the movies on the eve of a big game. That's me. I always work psychology upon my gang and it works, sometimes.
Now that we have disposed of these weighty matters, suppose I answer some of the questions that your radio editor has asked me.
“LET ME HAVE THE TRUTH, BENNY STOP MY READERS DEMAND THE TRUTH STOP WERE YOU OR WERE YOU NOT BORN IN DETROIT STOP REPLY BY PAID WESTERN UNION STOP” This is what the wire said. Can you beat it?
All right, since you feel that way about it, I wasn't born in Detroit. But I like Detroit I like the way you build automobiles out there. They're good cars, safe, dependable—Whoa! I mustn't try to slip the product in here. But if you don't keep on making cars out there, how do you expect me to sell tires? Since the editor wanted especially to know about my place of origin I might as well say it was Lake Forest, Ill. Ever hear of it? Of course you did, Chicago's just on the outskirts.
Now since modesty forbids filling the rest of this paper about myself, I will include a recent interview which Joe Scruggs, a reporter from the Bingville Bugle was kind enough to write about me. This is Joe's pen from here on. Take it Joe!

JACK BENNY, the funnyman of the air (you see I couldn't have said that about myself), was seated in the National Broadcasting Company studios in New York, rehearsing for his Friday night program when, approached by this interviewer.
"Oh that's O.K., shoot," he said. "I don't mind, but please spell my name right. I'm Jack Benny and not Jack Denny of orchestra 'ennys. Get it right Benny * * * B, as in Bean Soup; E, as in Sharkee, the fighter; N, as in Knickers; another N, as in pneumonia and Y, as in the state of Wyoming."
"O.K., Mr. Benny. Do you like broadcasting?"
"Do I like broadcasting? I like it very much. You can't hear the audience hiss.
"But where were you born?"
"I tell you son, there's nothing like fresh air and spinach to tone up your rehearsals."
"Where did you say you were born?"
"This fellow Roosevelt is certainly doing a grand job."
"Where were you born?"
"I don't think the country is going Red."
"Where were you born?"
"I think beer is here to stay."
"Do you prefer dark or light?"
"Well, if you are going to keep harping on that subject, I was born in Lake Forest. I had one father and one mother. I spent eight years at college, the University of Illinois (you know, the school that produced Red Grange. Are you listening Uncle Fielding?) and don't ask me if I was a freshman for eight years. It was only two. I didn't attend classes. I was a cook. Then I wanted to become a radio announcer, so I practiced talking to myself, but I never got the job as a few people listened in on every program and talking to yourself does a person no good."
"What's that ? You've got to go to rehearsal Mr. Benny? Well, O.K."
"Yea, so long, Scruggs, remember the name is Benny."
But folks, if any one should ask you, I've lived for years in Waukegan, Ill. and I really did learn to play the violin. But the talking got me and after I had raised a lot of money at a Seamen's benefit I dropped the violin and started talking in earnest.
I did talk my way into and through two editions of Earl Carroll's Vanities, through several Shubert revues and a half dozen motion pictures. Right now I've talked myself hoarse and Mary is trying to tell me that the Free Press didn't want the story at all. It was an Oklahoma paper.

Stop Mel Blanc!

How could anyone be upset with the Man of a Thousand Voices, Mel Blanc? The man who gave us Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Woody Woodpecker and Jack Benny’s Maxwell?

Some people, it seems.

Like all kinds of actors in cartoons and on radio, Mel did dialects. People laughed. But then some stopped laughing.

One of Mel’s voices was a Mexican. He claimed he based it on a gardener he met. It first got noticed when he was a regular on The Judy Canova Show starting in 1943. No one seems to have been bothered by Pedro’s slow mangling of the English language at first, but as the world entered the 1950s and protests got louder and louder about some of the characters on Amos ‘n’ Andy, it seems Mel came in for some criticism. This is from The Daily Worker, Jan. 21, 1952.

Assail Radio Show’s Slurs on Mexican People
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 20.—The Independent Progressive Party has joined the Mexican-American National Assn. (ANMA) is calling for a boycott of Colgate-Palmolive-Peet products until stereotype characterizations of the Mexican people on the Judy Canova radio show are ended.
In a letter to the soap company and the Canova show the IPP’s county executive board condemned the stereotype presentation on the comedienne’s show as one which “completely distorts and vilifies the true Mexican-Americans who have contributed immensely to the growth and development of our great nation, especially in the Southwest.”

Art Takei, county legislative director of the party, called on all members and friends of the IPP to join ANMA’s boycott campaign and to enter protests to the Colgate Co. and to the National Broadcasting Co.
The letter, addressed to the Colgate Co., and the Judy Canova Show, said:
“It has been called to our attention that the Judy Canova radio broadcast sponsored by the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Co. has as one of its main features Mel Blanc’s characterization of what is purported to be a Mexican.
“Mel Blanc’s characterization is an affront not only to the Mexican people, but also to all other democratic-minded Americans who believe in the fundamental dignity and the rights of all people regardless of race, color, religion or national origin.”

Canova and her producers simply ignored it. In fact, Broadcasting magazine announced on April 7th that year that a TV pilot for Canova’s show had been shot at Republic studios with Blanc in the cast (the show never sold; the radio show finally died in 1953).

The voice was brightened up by Blanc as radio gave way to television. Of course, Blanc played the heroic Speedy Gonzales for Warner Bros. in the ‘50s and ‘60s. He found a place for the voice (not sped up) as Go-Go Gomez in the Dick Tracy cartoons of 1960 and again in the wildly successful Frito’s Corn Chip TV ads as the Frito Bandito beginning in 1967.

Once again someone objected to Mel’s Bandito, though he personally wasn’t criticised. Broadcasting ran this story on August 19, 1968.

Mexican-American TV image challenged
Television’s treatment of Spanish-Americans in both programming and advertising came under fire on two occasions last week.
One involved a request for “equal opportunity to explain . . . why Mexican-Americans find such characters as Jose Jimenez . . . demeaning and degrading after a performance by Bill Dana as Jose Jimenez on NBC-TV’s Tonight Show Aug. 9.
Domingo Nick Reyes, a Mexican-American working with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Washington, suggested to the network in a telegram Aug. 10 that time be granted to Albert Pena, Bexar county commissioner in San Antonio, Tex., to replay. Following Mr. Reyes’s suggestion, Mr. Pena, who has been working with a group called Involvement of the Mexican-American in Gainful Endeavor, also sent NBC-TV a telegram asking for time. The network said Thursday (Aug. 15) that no action had been taken on the request.
A complaint to the Frito-Lay Co., Dallas, about its “Frito Bandito” television commercials also involved Mr. Pena. He and the Mexican-American group requested the commercials be discontinued. The company has the proposal under consideration, but meanwhile has altered the commercials “because of the recent concern regarding violence” by removing gun-firing scenes.
Mr. Reyes said his action was taken in hopes of mobilizing a sufficient number of Mexican-Americans to get their television image changed.

The criticism was ignored for a time. Frito-Lay took out full-page ads at the start of 1969 including the Bandito. That year, Nadeen Peterson of Foote, Cone and Belding proclaimed “I’m the mother of the Frito Bandito” as she was in charge of the Bandito ad campaign. Among her brainstorms was one proclaimed in Broadcasting of May 19, 1969 as the agency tried to find a way to shoehorn into the hype about the coming Moon landing. The story also revealed who was animating the commercials at the time.

Bandito tries shakedown to get into the chips

Scheduled soon after this week’s Apollo 10 space mission is a shot to the moon by the Mexican bandit, Frito Bandito, in new 30-second commercials for Frito Corn Chips.
Produced for Foote, Cone & Belding, New York, by Pelican Films, that city, the commercials will be shown in Frito’s network (all three networks) and spot schedules, starting later this month or in early June.
For the “moon set,” the production studio built a reputation for a U.S. space ship and used space suits for the two “astronauts.” In the rotoscoped—combination of live action and animation—sequence, the animated character, “Bandito,” and his burro greet the astronauts as they arrive on the moon. Bandito announces he has the “parking concession” and demands payment—in Frito Corn Chips. Geoffrey Kelly produced the commercial for the agency, Jack Zander (shown in picture) was director, and David Hogoboom produced for Pelican.

Frito Lay continued to defend the character, telling the Associated Press he was “a little part of all of us.” But the National Mexican American Anti-Defamation Committee continued to talk of lawsuits and a complaint to the F.C.C. KNBC in Los Angeles decided, according to a UPI story of Dec. 10, 1969, to stop running what the group called “probably the most subtle and insidious of such racist commercials.”

Finally, the Bandito was killed off. Broadcasting reported on Feb. 16, 1970:

‘Frito Bandito’ yanked
Three TV networks were notified last Friday (Feb. 13) by Foote, Cone & Belding, New York, that “Frito Bandito” campaign for Fritos corn chips will be replaced with alternate campaign because of opposition by certain leaders of Mexican-American organizations. Groups claimed commercials were derogatory and at one time, considered seeking relief from FCC under fair doctrine (Broadcasting, Dec. 15, 1969). FC&B letter said decision to develop new campaign had been reached several months ago.

Frito-Lay’s comment to the Wall Street Journal in reaction was that the character is liked by “the vast majority” of Mexican-Americans, according to independent research organisations. And with that attitude, it continued to pump out new animated spots that ran locally. At the start of 1971, a 610-million-dollar class-action suit against Frito-Lay and its agency was threatened. In April, about 50 protesters shouted “Muerte al Frito Bandito” outside the chip-maker’s Dallas headquarters.

Still the commercials aired. In an article in Back Stage of March 22, 1974, it was revealed the Bandito had been handled at one time by—are you ready?—Tex Avery and director Hal Mason at the Cascade studio.

Eventually, the spots disappeared, though the debates about stereotypes—some of them, anyway—have lasted long past Mel Blanc’s lifetime. I suspect they won't end.