Not Bert and Harry

Want to sell beer? In the 1950s and early 1960s, the combination that seemed to work was cartoons and comedy.

Hamm’s featured an animated bear in its TV ads. Mr. Magoo sold two different brands of brew. Perhaps the most famous cartoon beer hawkers were Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding as Bert and Harry Piel. Word is their Piel’s beer spots were so popular, they were included in New York television listings in newspapers.

There was another famous comedy couple employed to sell beer to a regional audience, appealing to the smart set in their own way as much as Bob and Ray. Mike Nichols and Elaine May were seen on Ed Sullivan and other variety shows, breaking up audiences with their nightclub routines. In 1960 they were hired to lend their voices to ads, both radio and TV, for a regional beer.

In the May 1961 edition of Television magazine, an article entitled “Keeping Up With the New Generation” states:

Last year the Jackson Brewing Company, New Orleans, marketing its Jax beer in nine southern and southwestern states, left off live-action film commercials on an “adventure in taste” theme to go with fun, animation and the voices of Nichols & May.
The commercials—full animation, no break for the usual “live” product shot —center on humorous situations: a cowboy who brings his horse into a bar, is saddened when the animal is refused service; a talking dog, also refused service; a woman who uses Jax to wash her hair; a man who breaks his teeth taking off a Jax bottle top.
Jackson, advertising via Doherty, Clifford, Steers & Shenfield, New York, works its key themes into the humor (“real beer taste,” “premium brewed from 100% natural ingredients”), has had its share of success as measured by a sales increase last year, a flood of complimentary viewer mail, and even a request from a TV station for permission to run the commercials in its local programming.

The article adds that a survey of best-liked TV commercials conducted in January 1961 by the American Research Bureau found five beer companies ranked in the top 31, with Jax at number 11 with 2% of mentions (Hamm’s was no. 1 for the eighth year in a row).

Though Jax was based in New Orleans, its New York City ad agency decided to have the TV spots animated in New York City, where there were a number of excellent commercial/industrial studios. According to the May 15, 1961 edition of Television Age, the agency hired Pelican Films, the firm owned by Jack Zander, who started with Romer Grey’s ill-fated studio in 1930, and later animated Tom and Jerry for Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. He formed Pelican in 1954. One Nichols-May spot for Jax involving a kangaroo won honours at a commercial animation festival in New York in 1961; Chris Ishii co-directed with Armin Shaffer designing the characters.

Here are some frames from one 60-second commercial that spoofs The $64,000 Question. Nichols plays the quiz-master, with May as “Miss Mallory,” the contestant in the sound-proof both. Nichols confides in the audience that the contestant’s father, whom she hasn’t seen in 45 years, is next door. Miss Mallory blows the question (about Jax’s slogan, “premium brewed from 100% natural ingredients”) and a stage-hand grabs the father and hauls him away, killing any happy reunion. “Do I still get my freezer?” she asks hopefully as the camera fades out.



Here’s another one, with Nichols as an interviewer and May as “Boo Boo Gorman, popular Hollywood starlet,” who spends much of the interview being an airhead and blowing bubbles. You’ll see a logo for TVDays.com, a site owned by Ira Gallen, who rescued these, and countless other discarded reels of old television film.



The interviewer has trouble pouring the beer into a glass.



Boo Boo reveals her measurements are 76-22-64 1/2. The interviewers eyes make a path equalling the ridiculous measurements.



The spot comes to a halt when Boo Boo blows a bubble and then says she sinks in the ocean. No tag line for the beer, just a fade out.



1961 was the year the networks, encouraged by ratings for The Flintstones, started snapping up cartoon series for prime-time. All kinds of animation outfits tried to jump on board. Variety of September 20th that year reported Pelican and Total Television Productions joined together to concoct “Parrot Playhouse,” which never got on the air. Zander’s company carried on with commercials and, in 1966, debuted the 10-minute short A Nose at New York’s Trans-Lux Theatre.

Pelican remained busy, despite a bit of a downturn in the commercial animation industry in New York. An article in the February 28, 1966 edition of Broadcasting reported the company had 56 animated commercials in various stages of production and gave a prediction of gross income that year of around $3,500,000, up a half-million dollars from 1965. Some clients are below:



When the ‘70s rolled around, Zander put Pelican to rest after roughly a thousand commercials and opened Zander’s Animation Parlour. He retired in the mid-‘80s, and passed away, a respected figure in animation, at the age of 99 in 2007, leaving behind some stylish, enjoyable commercials. If only more of them were in circulation.

A Streetcar He Didn't Desire

In the climax scene of Canary Row (1950), Sylvester tries to reach Tweety’s apartment building from his building across the street by walking gingerly across the power line connecting the two.

Uh, oh. Sylvester’s plan is about to be spoiled by the electric trolley running along the road. Note the motorman.

As Carl Stalling plays Shuffle Off To Buffalo, the streetcar catches up with Sylvester and ZAP!!!

Cut to the end. The motorman has been replaced by Tweety and Granny. How? Why? Oh, well. It’s a cartoon. Granny sure is enjoying trying to electrocute Sylvester.

You can see some of Paul Julian’s background work in this short, including some pasted together frames, on this blog.

Tedd Pierce came up with the story for director Friz Freleng. Virgil Ross, Arthur Davis, Emery Hawkins, Gerry Chiniquy and Ken Champin are the animators.

Piano Slang

The guy at the piano played by ear.

Yes, this is yet one of I-don't-know-how-many visual puns in Tex Avery's Symphony in Slang (released in 1951). In this scene, only the ear and the piano keys are animated. The piano player remains on one cel.

Boxoffice magazine of May 26, 1951 gave it a good rating and reviewed it thusly: "A hep-cat goes to Heaven and tells about his life in every-day slang. Webster is called from his dictionary editing to interpret, but he doesn't seem to grasp what the man is driving at. A more advanced type of drawing adds to the humor of this clever short."

Fans know this was Tom Oreb's great moment at MGM after being punted from Disney, providing designs. There's plenty of non-animation in this short, an interesting experiment by Avery, who seems to have loved showing off puns on the screen.

Rich Hogan is the credited writer. John Brown is uncredited as providing the voices.

Time To Stump the Experts

Information Please was, in a way, the Jeopardy! of the network radio era. It was a question-and-answer programme that aspired to be not low-brow. There was no Bert Parks screeching “STOP THE MUSIC!” There were no screaming studio audience members yelling at a wheel being spun.

The main difference between the two is, instead of three ordinary-folk contestants, Information Please relied on four erudite intellectuals to respond correctly, with dry wit if at all possible.

Frankly, I find the programme dull, despite the presence of a usually-amusing Oscar Levant. Evidently, I’m in the minority as the quiz lasted 13 years on radio and got a brief run on television.

The Herald Tribune syndicate’s John Crosby analysed the show in his column of October 8, 1946. He gets in a shot at a stupid contestant on another quizzer as he explained the problems attracting an audience for radio guessing games.

Interestingly, the New York Herald Tribune version of the story talked about Mobiloil sponsoring the show. The Ottawa Journal’s copy says Texaco. I thought this might be because Canada never had Mobil stations but I see papers in Greenfield, Mass. and Dayton, Ohio also say “Texaco.” The Oakland Tribune reads “an oil company.” I’ve used “Texaco” here.



RADIO IN REVIEW
Information, Please Returns
By JOHN CROSBY
NEW YORK, Oct 8.— "Information, Please" is back on the air again after a summer recess and the opening program demonstrated it's still the most intelligent quiz show on the air and its badinage the most literate on the air (C.B.S., 10:30 p. m., Wednesdays). Clifton Fadiman, who possesses possibly the most cultivated voice in radio, is still in there pitching them and Franklin P. Adams and John Kieran, assisted by a couple of guests, are still in there catching them, or most of them. Guest stars on the opening program were Fred Allen and Oscar Levant, a couple of sharpies from other branches of the amusement industry.
The great problem on a quiz show is to select questions which are hard enough to stimulate the average listener and not so difficult that they simply bewilder him. "The Quiz Kids", who throw around square roots of six-figure numbers like tennis balls, are so far ahead of most listeners that their program is less a quiz contest than a stunt like a dancing bear act. It's fun to watch but impossible to take much part in. The questions on most quiz programs are ridiculously easy, as is exemplified by the following sample—taken verbatim from "Allan Prescott’s Party (A.B.C., 5 p.m., Sundays).
"What author said the report of his death was greatly exaggerated?"
"It wasn't William Shakespeare, was it?"
"No, it wasn't.”
● ● ●
"Information, Please" steers a sharp course between extremely difficult and too easy questions. Its puzzles are literate, thought-provoking, and fun to guess at even when you guess wrong. Here are a few of them from the opening program, the answers to which you’ll find at the end of the column:
1. Why would the following persons be of value to the Dodgers? , (The pennant race hadn't been decided then.) (a) Two Headed Grogan. (b) Dick Merriwell. 2. You lift an object with your left hand while the index finger of the right hand performs seven arc-like motions. What are you doing?
3. Name the poems in which three successive lines begin with the word "she".
4. Identify the member of the partnership who (a) did the painting in the Currier and Ives team, (b) is the Senator in the Smith-Connally team, (c) was the straight man in the Moran and Mack team.
5. Name three lines of poetry which suggest horse racing.
6. Name two fictional characters whose lives were considerably altered by reading.
While you’re mulling over those, here is a conundrum which came close to sinking the "Information, Please" experts this Summer. During the war "Information Please" parted company with the American Tobacco Company. The Texaco Company took over the sponsorship at the old hour on N.B.C. (9:30 p.m. Mondays).
At the end of last season, Texaco dropped its sponsorship and this season came up with a new program, the Victor Borge show. "Information, Please" had little trouble finding a new sponsor but suddenly discovered that its old spot was now owned by Texaco. As a matter of fact, the program had great difficulty finding any evening time on the air. Its switch from N.B.C. to C.B.S. will do it little harm but the new time, 10.30 p.m., is too late for many school children who used to listen to the program as part of their homework and also, at least in the East, for many adults who prefer music to quizzes at that hour.
Many other media, notably this newspaper, are supported by advertising, but no other media, with the possible exception of sky-writing, is so completely controlled by advertising. Suppose a newspaper were run on the same basis, as broadcasting. Let us say Walter Lippmann, who usually occupies either the split or editorial pages of the many newspapers he appears in, were sponsored by Proctor & Gamble. Suddenly the sponsor decided that a comic strip, say "Superman," would sell more soap than a political columnist and dropped Mr. Lippmann. The sponsor could then insist that "Superman" occupy the same coveted spot in the paper formerly occupied by Mr. Lippmann's column. No newspaper publisher would put up with it, but the broadcasters accept such a pushing around as a matter of course.
● ● ●
The answers to those questions:
1. (a) He was the two-headed pitcher of "Duffy's Tavern" who could watch both first and third at the same time. (b) He was the mythical pitcher whose curve broke both ways in the same pitch.
2. Dialing a telephone. (The experts missed it).
3. Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written In a Country Churchyard." ("The curfew tolls the knell of parting day. The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea. The plowman homeward plods his weary way.") (b) “Only a bird in a Gilded Cage.”
4. (a) Ives, (b) Connally, (c) Moran.
5. The experts got a little kittenish on this one. Fred Allen suggested two of them: "I pass by your window." (The two-dollar window) and "Mademoiselle From Armentieres, Parley-vous?" Mr. Fadiman suggested "Life is full of Epsom Downs."
6. (a) Don Quixote, whose reading about chivalry set him to tilting windmills. (b) The heroine in the play "Born Yesterday" who read "The New Republic" and became a new woman.

As for the other Crosby columns of the week, on October 7th he looked at Paul Whiteman’s live music show on ABC. Before the end of the ‘40s, the band disappeared and Whiteman played records. Crosby also complains about the repetitiveness of Jack Benny’s show.

On October 9th, he runs through the highlights of a live-to-tape broadcast of a union meeting aired on the Mutual flagship, WOR. It’s actually not “tape.” It’s from a wire recorder, a portable pack that vanished when tape machines became practical to use on the beat. He also takes about the precursor of a clap on/clap off machine that works (based on guesswork) on radios, as well as a new programme in Britain.

The October 10th column gives some Hot-cha-cha! cheers for the Durante-Moore season premiere. We transcribed that review in this post.

Finally, CBS shows starring Dinah Shore and Hildegarde are reviewed on October 11th. Dinah has Peter Lind Hayes as her comic assistant this season and is sponsored by your Ford-Mercury dealers. Crosby gets a little shot in about the Confederacy. He also looks at Hildegarde’s new show for Campbell Soup and wonders when someone will give Tallulah Bankhead her own show. All in good time, Mr. Crosby. She didn’t just get her own show. She got the Big Show. Click on them to enlarge them.

Annie Round the World

Chuck Jones very capably uses a variety of limited animation techniques in the Private Snafu short It's Murder She Says... (1945).

Here are four static drawings of malaria-carrying Anopheles Annie that appear in the cartoon. They’re used several times. The first time, lettering zooms into place on each of them. The second and third times, the camera cuts into them closer and closer as Carl Stalling’s music gets more and more dramatic.

As you can see, Jones is using the short to try out stylisation, much like he did in The Point Rationing of Foods (1943).

Just don’t call it “Illustrated Radio.”

Today's Obscure Pop Culture Reference

Pop culture references of the 1930s and ‘40s were, to a large degree by my experience, still common in the 1960s when I grew up. Some from the war you could figure out on your own from the context (and repetition). But there were still obscure ones that I’m learning about today.

The Ub Iwerks studio didn’t produce a lot of funny cartoons. Sometimes, it’s tough to figure out if a gag is intended. A good example is in Rasslin’ Round (1934). There’s a scene, fairly well animated, used three times where a presumably Mexican guy is yelling “Geeve eet to heem, Willie!”



Is that supposed to be funny in itself? It’s possible, considering the dreary sense of humour displayed in Willie Whopper cartoons. Or is it a reference to a radio catchphrase or movie dialogue?

The answer is contained in an Associated Press story by Robbin Coons which appeared in newspapers in mid-August 1934. He reported on Hollywood film and singing stars who went to boxing matches on Tuesdays and Fridays at the Hollywood Legion Stadium or the Los Angeles Olympic auditorium.

Champion of many a battler but especially of those of Mexican extraction, Miss [Lupe] Velez screams and gestures through the evening, almost wearing herself out as she implores her choice to “Geeve it to heem! Keel heem!”

Did people watching this cartoon in 1934 know about this? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps someone at the studio went to boxing matches, thought it was funny, and threw it into the story. Or maybe it came from somewhere else. At the Iwerks studio, you never know.

Jack Benny Gets to the Story Behind the Story

Jack Benny “interviewing” Jack Benny was a gimmick used early in his radio career. Here’s an example from Radio Guide magazine of March 31, 1934.

Even back then, he was reticent to disclose his age, though the “39” gag hadn’t been invented yet (he was actually 40). There’s nothing about being cheap or the Maxwell or the violin; those aspects of his character came later.

There is some truth in this feature story. He did play “comedy in the Navy,” and was booked in vaudeville on the West Coast, though the Orpheum circuit also took him to places like Denver, Chicago and Winnipeg. He did perform “Grind Hotel” four times, though at the time of this story he had only done it three times (twice in 1932, once in 1934).

It’s interesting that his “response” to the end of his relationship with Chevrolet is that he was going to make movies. His firing by Chevrolet was apparently a sore spot with him for many years; someone at the car company wanted semi-classical music instead of comedy (his next sponsor was General Tire). It’s amusing to read he hadn’t “had an offer from Warner Bros.” Some years in the future, he reaped a bounty of laughs by ridiculing his final feature, The Horn Blows at Midnight, made for Warners.

The “appearance” of writer Harry Conn in the story makes me wonder if he was responsible for the copy. Their “exchange” is more uncomfortable than amusing, especially considering the two parted unamicably in 1936.

JACK BENNY GRILLS HIMSELF
By Jack Benny
HELLO, again! This is Jack Benny, the famous journalist, just returned to his typewriter after an interview with Jack Benny, the famous radio comedian. The interview? Let me set it down in detail:
"Pardon me, sir," I said, "I'm Jack Benny, the famous journalist."
"I never heard of you," he replied, "What do you want? And what do you mean butting into the studio here while I'm broadcasting? Can't you see I'm on the air?"
"I've heard of you," I replied. "You're the guy who tells the jokes on Frank Black's Sunday night program."
"Pardon me," said the great Mr. Benny. "Let me get this straight. Are you the comedian, or am I?"
"Mr. Benny," I said, "Radio Guide has asked me to interview you... First, could I get you to tell me the secret of your success?"
"Oh! It's a secret, eh?" he replied. "My good man, don't you know 1 have five million listeners every Sunday night?"
"But Jack Pearl, the Baron Munchausen of the Air, says you have only three."
"Why, the low—You mean he says I have only three million listeners?"
"No," I informed him. "He meant three listeners — three people."
"Hello, again!" said Benny. "This is Jack Benny Speaking to you from obscurity."
"Now, Mr. Benny," I continued, "let's get down to facts."
"How far down?" he asked, "you mean you must have the low-down?"
"No," I told him, "we must keep this interview clean. Now let me explain— I'll use one syllable words so you can understand. I want facts about your life."
The blank look on Benny's face disappeared.
"I getcha!" he cried.
"Well, how old are you, Mr. Benny?" I asked him.
"Off the records." he said.
"Where were you born?" I asked next.
"Waukegan, Ill."
"Do you ever think of going back there?”
"Yes!" he exclaimed. "I'm going back tomorrow! I just got a wire that my tailor's dead."
"I've heard that one before, Mr. Benny."
"I've heard that one before, too," he replied. "Wait a minute. Are you criticizing me or interviewing me?"
"I'll ask the questions," I told him. "You just answer them."
"All right," he agreed, pulling a cigar from my vest pocket. "Ya gotta match?" he asked then.
"Mr, Benny," I said, handing him my lighter, "I understand you were in show business a long time before you became a radio comedian. Tell me, what was the first role you ever played?"
"I once played the role of a sailor."
"What was your next success?"
"Well, after playing comedy in the Navy, I was booked for a vaudeville circuit on the West Coast. I was terrific. I was sensational! I was marvelous — colossal."
"What do you mean by that, Mr. Benny?"
"I mean that my act was fair."
"Well, Mr. Benny," I insisted, "it has been rumored around that you have some talent as a violinist. Did you really play the violin on the stage?"
"Sure," he declared. "Why, that's all I did."
"Why didn't you continue fiddling?"
"Well," he said, "Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler and Spalding were playing too, and the field became overcrowded. So I quit."
"According to the recent poll conducted by a New York newspaper, you are the most popular of all the radio comedians in the United States. How does it feel?"
"It's stupendous! Colossal! Terrific!"
"Oh, you're using that line again, eh? What do you mean now?"
"Just that. I really mean it. Can't I be serious once in a while?"

"How long have you been on the air?"
"Two years."
"What was your funniest and most popular show during that time?"
"The dramatic skit, 'Grind Hotel,' which is a satire on the movie, 'Grand Hotel.' Why, we had to repeat it four times by popular request."
"You mean," I said to the comedian, "that the people demanded that you repeat it four time— FOUR TIMES, Mr. Benny?"
"Must you insist on knowing the truth?" he asked.
"I must have facts," I told him.
"Well, Mr. Benny," he said with a sigh, "I see I'll have to come through and tell all. Actually, one of those Grind Hotel repeats was made because I ran short of material for a broadcast."
"What are you going to do when your broadcasts for the automobile sponsor are through?" I asked him.
"Haven't you heard? Why, Mr. Benny, I thought everyone knew I have had offers from two motion picture producing companies to make talkies. One was from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the other was from Paramount."
"What!" I exclaimed. "You mean you haven't had an offer from Warner Brothers?"
"No," he said sadly. "I made a picture for them once."
"But radio seems to be the most important thing in your life, Mr. Benny," continued, "and your program is the most important part of your interest in radio. What kind of humor do you think is appreciated most by your audience?"
"New," he replied simply.
"Have you tried that type, Mr. Benny," I asked.
"Oh, yes," he said. "I frequently run out of old jokes. Why, most of the time I have to write new material for my broadcasts."
"Do your studio audiences always applaud your performances?" I continued.
"Oh, yes, as a general rule. But once in a while we have to remind them. You know, audiences are apt to let their minds wander from the comedian they're listening to."
"Oh, another thing about your program, Mr. Benny. I'm sure the readers of Radio Guide will be interested in this one. Is Mary Livingstone really your wife?"
"Yes, but don't you dare print that!" he cried. "It might hurt my woman fan mail."
"All right, Mr. Benny." I said, "I won't. And now, Mr, Benny, excuse me if I become personal. You set yourself up as a comedian, don't you?"
"Well—" he began.
"Don't interrupt," I cut in. "I want to know if you're really the merry fellow the people believe you are... the man with the trigger-action wit?"
"Absolutely," he declared. "Why, I'll bet you'll be surprised to learn that I can tell the funniest jokes without rehearsing more than three times."
"What are your ideas for future programs, Mr. Benny?" I asked.
"Well," he said, "I think maybe I'll do 'Way Down East'."
The interview was interrupted at this point by the appearance of a stranger.
"Better not do that one," said the stranger.
"Why not?" asked Benny. "Saaay, who are you anyway, barging in here like that?"
"Name's Harry W. Conn," said the stranger. "And I think you had better do 'I'm No Angel,' because it would be more appropriate."
"Very poor," said Benny.
"Well, you know Marv Livingstone loves to do impersonations of Mae West."
"So what?" said Benny, "I should ruin my program just to give Mary experience?"
"Well, I don't think the Down East idea is any good, cither," continued Mr. Conn. "In fact, I won't have anything to do with it."
"Now, wait a minute. Conn," Benny said. "Who asked you to have anything to do with it?"
"You did," said Conn, "two years ago. And here's my contract with your signature on it. I cost you money."
"So it is ... so it is," said Benny. "Why, now I recognize you . . . you're . . .
"I am," Mr. Conn said, "the only radio script writer you ever employed."
"PLAY, FRANK!" said Benny.

The Road to Linus' Jungle

Fortune didn’t smile on too many cartoon studios in the early 1960s that tried to break into television.

Hanna-Barbera had been the huge success story with The Huckleberry Hound Show winning an Emmy and The Flintstones winning hearts in prime time. Some commercial houses hoped they could duplicate H-B’s triumph. Format Films got The Alvin Show on the air in 1961. Creston Studios (spun off from TV Spots) put Calvin and the Colonel on the schedule the same year. Both shows struggled and neither went into a second season of new half-hours. Format sub-contracted some mediocre theatrical shorts while Creston seems to have faded away.

Another commercial studio overcame failure after failure to land a show on Saturday morning. But it couldn’t parlay that into bigger things and the series was eventually removed after being accused of being one, big cereal commercial.

In 1954, Ed Graham was a copywriter at Young & Rubicam in New York. He managed to convince his company’s sceptical higher-ups to try a funny ad campaign for Piel’s beer, featuring cartoon characters with the voices of radio satirists Bob and Ray. They were a smash hit. Graham then went into business with the pair to create ad campaigns for other advertisers.

The three soon tried to branch out into cartoon programming based on Bob and Ray’s radio characters. One was The Kertencalls, based on Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife (a spoof of the soap Mary Noble, Backstage Wife). Another featured an animated Lawrence Fechtenberger and his aliens from the planet Polaris (Bob and Ray’s takeoff on Tom Corbett, Space Cadet).

Graham’s six-year relationship with the comedians fell apart. He went solo. Graham was doing business with General Foods, producing animated commercials for Post featuring characters on the company’s cereal boxes. From this came a half-hour Saturday morning show that debuted in fall 1964. But this turned out to be Ed Graham Productions’ only TV show. By August 1967, Television Age magazine reported he was going to the McCann-Erickson agency as the creative director of its Los Angeles office.

Television Age profiled Graham’s journey in its March 2, 1964 edition, including the drawing below. You’ll notice the absence of Sugar Bear and the presence of the Jack E. Leonard version of the postman seen in commercials. Lovable Truly was re-designed for the series and voiced by Bob McFadden.

Graham talks about original music. While Hoyt Curtin got a screen credit on some of the shows, Johnny Mann is listed in the ASCAP database as the composer of incidental music. Stock music libraries were also used; the So-Hi theme was in a library used (probably not coincidentally) on the Bob and Ray radio show on CBS.

AN ANIMATED CHARACTER
Now you’d think that anyone who had a solid commitment from CBS-TV and a good budget from General Foods to make an animated series of half-hours for daytime airing starting this fall, already would be counting his money on the way to the bank.
Ed Graham, a mild-mannered writing son of a J. Walter Thompson executive, finds himself and his production company in that fortunate position. But instead of listening for the sound of manna from Heaven, he lets out a worried look occasionally cross his brow and he talks of going to Hollywood, to supervise production, as though he can’t quite believe it all.
But considering his 10 years of creations in animation for production of commercials, his concern would seem to be as meaningful as that of a manager of the New York Yankees. He spent much of the past decade in a partnership with Bob (Elliott) and Ray (Goulding) and put funny words into the mouths of characters like Bert & Harry Piels (beer).
Even on his own, he has pleased a company like General Foods with his talented and profitable creations of Linus, King of the Beasts, for Crispy Critters; So-Hi, the Chinese boy, for Rice Krinkles, and Rory Racoon, for Post Toasties. These cartoon creatures are the core of that fall series.
Yet Ed Graham persists in his vague feeling of uneasiness. “With my past history” to consider he says, “I’m concerned.” What is this deep dark secret that haunts this man?

Linus, King of the Beasts will be the first Ed Graham show to go on tv—if it does. It isn’t because he hasn’t tried to develop a pilot. He has—time and time again. That is Ed Graham’s awful but truthful secret.
Way back in 1955, Ed went to Sylvester L. (Pat) Weaver, then head of NBC-TV, and sold him on five-minute Curtain raisers that would lead into the 8 o’clock prime time period. NBC-TV gave Ed $20,000 and he finished the initial production around Thanksgiving. But suddenly Pat Weaver wasn’t at NBC-TV any more and the new NBC-TV president Bob Kintner “didn’t want anything to do” with the pilot. The network still had an option on the series and, by the time it lapsed, no one was interested.
Fortunately the commercials business was booming, “so we paid everybody a three months bonus and decided to make five-minute creations on our own” about a space cadet. They made two pilots and never showed them; “we didn’t like them.”
Then they wrote some more five minutes about the Madmen from Polaris, whose voice hysterically resembled that of a noted personality. But about the time they were to have been ready, the personality became seriously ill and therefore could no longer be considered a humorous subject.
Goulding, Elliott & Graham thereupon made an important decision—to hell with five-minute short subjects. “Somebody told us they wouldn’t work and we had plenty of experience to back them up,” Mr. Graham said. They tried a 15-minute production about Test Dive Buddies “but we cut so many corners that everybody in the cartoons wound up talking behind menus.” From there, they went on to Group Productions which agreed to do a pencil test of Racketeering Rascals for them. To finish the test, Group had to have some more money “but at the time, we didn’t have any.”
In came Pat Weaver again, with an idea for an hour special to include animation in a complete Bob and Ray Show. He couldn’t sell it, “because everybody who loved Bob and Ray said they didn’t have any popular appeal.” After that, “I got California National (the NBC west coast production arm at the time) to put up $40,000 for a half-hour pilot.” Perhaps this would have worked if The Flintstones hadn’t led a parade of cartoons into prime time; The Flintstones made it but nothing else did and, meanwhile, California National went out of existence.
Ed Graham is most sorry this pilot, Bob & Ray’s Hollywood Classics, didn’t make it. “It was unlike the others, because it didn’t resemble a situation comedy. If it had, things might have been different, at least for us,” says Ed Graham.
About that time, the relationship between Bob & Ray and Ed Graham turned sour as they accused one another of allowing $300,000 to go down the drain and hanging on to one another’s apron strings. Today Ed Graham says: “They really are terribly talented and now that the fire has died down and we’ve each done well in our own separate ways I really would like to work with them again sometime.”
On his own, Ed Graham associated himself with Dan Curtis, who had been California National sales manager and later an MCA man. Mr. Curtis took another pilot idea to General Foods and, when the company turned it down, he said, well, what do you want? They told him and, together with creator Gene Shinto, Ed Graham Productions at last was able to come into its own in show business.
“We’re pulling a Hanna-Barbera in reverse. Their characters started in show biz and eventually went into the commercial. Ours are coming from the advertising message into programming,” Ed Graham said.
Now everything would be just fine, if Ed Graham did not have a few admitted “bad” habits. He likes to work with the best—why take somebody less than a Mel Blanc, Carl Reiner, Sheldon Leonard or Jack E. Leonard for your characters’ voices, if you can get the best. Why mimic Chinese music, if you can get some original material? Ed Graham prefers the original, even for children’s cartoons. This can all add up to a lot of money, even more than General Foods if willing to spend. And that’s what really worries Ed Graham.
Can Ed Graham really overcome the “jinx” and his own very fine taste? Tune in at 11 a.m. Saturdays on CBS-TV in the fall and see.
ANIMATED FOOTNOTE
Animation has not been forgotten by the nation’s programmers. In addition to Ed Graham’s Linus, King of the Beasts, for General Foods and CBS-TV next season, Johnny Quest [sic] action adventure is committed to prime time on ABC-TV and Mr. Magoo from UPA has a similar arrangement on NBC-TV. Screen Gems, which has Hanna-Barbera turning out its work, practically can survive on animation alone. Besides Johnny Quest, and the Magilla Gorilla Show, which was placed on 150 stations this year by the Ideal Toy Company, Screen Gems has made a similar arrangement with the advertiser for a series of half-hours called The Peter Potamus Show.

There’s more on Linus in this 2018 post.

No Talking Animals Allowed

UPA didn’t want slapstick or funny animals in its cartoons. Horrors! It was quite happy to inflict, jealous, vengeful or self-pitying children on theatre goers.

Take Family Circus, for instance. Little Patsy doesn’t like the attention the family baby is getting from Daddy so (besides stealing the baby’s toys), she grinds up her father’s golf balls (and niblick), ruins his pipes with soap, then pretends the pet cat is him and digs an electric shaver into the innocent animals. Clearly this kid is on the way to being a selfish, petty adult.

Paul Julian designed this short and just like in his later Baby Boogie (1955), there’s a limited animation sequence of “child-like” drawings of the child, father and baby.

It includes callbacks to early scenes in the cartoon, such as the toy elephant Daddy brought home for the baby.

See how happy they are!

Uh, oh. “Patsy” is sad because of “the baby.”

“Patsy” falls from the trapeze past the cat and golf balls, then a pipe.

Now, she’s angry and smashes “Daddy” and “the baby” with the elephant.

In the end, she doesn’t get punished. Now the baby is jealous. No wonder mom got out of the house at the beginning of the cartoon. I wonder if the theatre audience did the same thing. Who wants to watch an unlikable child? Sorry, but I’ll stick with Bugs Bunny smashing Elmer Fudd with a banana cream pie.

Art Babbitt directed this short from a story by Bill Scott and Phil Eastman. Babbitt and Cecil Surry were the credited animators. Jerry Hausner is the father and baby.