How a Hare Heckles

Mike Maltese loved Bugs Bunny twisting situations around to his advantage without the other character realising it. Bugs did it to Daffy with the rabbit season/duck season routine in Rabbit Fire (1951).

Maltese did it in The Heckling Hare (1941) where the rabbit imitates what Willoughby the dog is doing then takes over and Willoughby is copying him. Bugs stops but Willoughby keeps going, then holds up a commentary sign to the audience. Bugs did the same thing with the wolf in The Little Red Riding Rabbit (1944).

All of them pretty funny. (All three were for different directors)

Here are some frames from The Heckling Hare.

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Now, Bugs takes over.



No need for Bugs to carry on. Dull Willoughby's on auto-pilot.



The commentary.



Maltese tops the gag by ending it with a baseball bat. The final two frames below are separated by red and white colour cards, each shot twice taking up a total of a fourth of a second.



This is the cartoon where director Tex Avery refused to chop 40 feet at the end, so producer Leon Schlesinger chopped it anyway and suspended Avery. He never worked on another Warner Bros. cartoon again.

Biannual Bud and Lou

“Who’s on First?”

It was Bud Abbott and Lou Costello’s most famous routine and launched their careers in radio, then films, then television.

The pair’s radio show had several different incarnations, but they all included the quick back-and-forth play on words that brought them their initial fame. One version was taken off the air in 1943 when Costello became seriously ill. Quickly rushed into the breech was an unlikely pairing of Garry Moore and Jimmy Durante, which became such a hit that when Costello was ready to come back, the sponsor had to find a spot on another network.

Abbott and Costello’s second broadcast of the 1946-47 season for Camel cigarettes was examined by syndicated critic John Crosby on October 15, 1946. I always liked their wordplay, but Crosby outlined what he saw as a difficulty for the pair, which became more pronounced once they began to appear on television. For the record, the landlady in the episode was played by Verna Felton. Also uncredited are John Brown and Gale Gordon.

RADIO IN REVIEW
Comedy by Instinct
By John Crosby
Abbott and Costello are back on the air again (N.B.C. 10 p.m. Thursdays), a sure sign the ducks better start winging south because cold weather is just around the corner. As a matter of fact, this raffish pair of comedians are animated by instincts far more highly developed than any migrating duck. Their routines have the precision and predictability of a conditioned reflex. If you've never seen these particular conditioned reflexes, they're wonderful. If you have, it's another story.
In a recent sketch, Costello—that's the little fat one—was suffering from a strange malady; every time he told a lie or did anything wrong, an invisible pixie blew a horn. It went something like this: "Look at me! The picture of masculine virility; Two hundred and sixty pounds of bulging muscles. (Horn) Medium-sized muscles. (Horn) Teentsie-weentsie muscles. (Horn) Blubber (Silence) . . . Blubber."
● ● ●
It's a well-worn idea with infinite variation. Its humor depends on Costello’s beautifully modulated inflections and brilliant timing. It took countless repetitions in countless vaudeville houses to get it down pat.
"I got money in the bank," boasted Costello.
"You got money in the bank!"
"Four hundred dollars. (Horn) Twenty-eight bucks."
They spit it at you like bullets and before the laughs die, you get more.
"You're in bad shape. You better make a will."
"Twenty-eight bucks. That isn't enough to start a college, is it?"
"No."
"Small college?"
"No."
"Junior college?"
"No."
The first time I heard Abbott and Costello, they were delivering the same sort of rapid-fire malarkey about hot dogs and mustard at the New York World's Fair in 1939. It went on for minutes and it was pretty funny. In fact, if you've never heard it, it still is.
● ● ●
They are an excellent example of what happens when one amusement industry tangles with another. In vaudeville or even in musical comedy, you could reasonably expect to see this pair of comics not much more than once a year. In radio you get them every week. These routines get their punch from long practice—but not in front of the same audience.
Radio has simply taken over, undigested, a rather low but authentic form of comedy from another medium, just as the automobile industry borrowed the body design of the horse-drawn carriage. But, whereas the automobile industry rapidly modified the carriage body, Abbott and Costello have scarcely been modified at all.
There are a few up-to-date references about the housing shortage and the O.P.A. but Abbott and Costello are never quite at home with them. They prefer a gag they have gradually molded with their own hands from a little laugh to a great big belly laugh.
Abbott, for instance, is greeted at the door of Costello boarding house by the landlady, who apologizes for the mess on the floor. "Try not to step on my husband," she said. "It's his birthday." Or, if you'd like another sample, Abbott greets a lawyer at the door of Costello's room.
"Come in."
"Sorry, I'm late. I was detained at court."
"How did you make out?"
"I was acquitted."
"Good!"
"Father got 35 years."
You can see for yourself how one gag has been patiently grafted onto another, probably by trial and error. In the old day a comedian could, through a season, carefully fatten one joke into a whole five-minute routine. But, with substantially the same audience, week after week, you can't get away with it in radio. Just what the old-style comedians should do about radio is beyond me, but I have my own remedy for the listener. Tune in to them just twice a year.

The other Crosby columns of the week:

On October 14th, Duffy’s Tavern and insult comedy get a look. On the 16th, it’s a fairly local column on a bank jingle and radio etiquette. The 17th is about a show on a local New York station. It involves the incredible racism of a politician from Mississippi. Fred Allen’s “Radio Mikado” was quoted in depth in the column of the 18th and was transcribed in an earlier post.

Where Have I Heard That Music Before?

Yes, a piano, classical music and little living flames can combine for a fun cartoon.

But the Woody Woodpecker/Andy Panda short Musical Moments From Chopin (1946) wasn’t the first. You can find the same situation 16 years earlier in the Fleischer Talkartoon Fire Bugs.

One difference is the 1930 cartoon utilises that classic piece that is the favourite of cartoon directors everywhere—Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.

This one stars Bimbo as a fireman, Sparky as his firewagon horse, and an obsessive lion who does not want his piano playing interrupted, fire or no fire.

The fire turns into little flame characters (similar to the aforementioned Woody/Andy cartoon) that dance on top of the piano.



Cut to a scene of a flame and a hand-drill flame and, well, we’ll leave this gag alone.



The lion is shocked to see the flames are now playing the Second Hungarian Rhapsody. He blows them off the piano.



Never was there an A-list studio whose cartoons have been treated so shabbily than the Fleischers. We’ve seen restorations of its Popeyes and some Betty Boops, but the early Talkartoons and Screen Songs have been completely ignored. The ones I’ve seen have more crazy little gags, at least to me, than almost everything else being put out in the early ‘30s. Someone should do something to get good-looking versions to home viewers.

So Long, Folks!

The early Warner Bros. cartoons had the best endings. Beginning with the first short in 1930, the Looney Toons concluded with Bosko leaping out from behind a wooden sign and exclaiming “That’s all folks!” When the Merrie Melodies debuted in 1931, a character would run from the back of a drum, but the exclamation now was “So long, folks!”

The drum was put into storage for a while when Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising parted ways with Leon Schlesinger in 1933. The ending now featured a stage curtain with musical notes, and a character in the cartoon standing and making the final pronouncement (Buddy in the Looney Toons).

It would appear when the Merrie Melodies went completely to colour in 1935 with The Country Boy, the ending featured a jester on stage, waving a marotte and exclaiming “That’s all, folks” (his voice varied with each cartoon). I always liked the jester when I was a kid. It never dawned on me he never starred in any cartoons.

Perhaps the creepiest looking and sounding spokes-character was the cat at the end of Sittin’ on a Back Yard Fence (1933), apparently animated by Don Williams. It shouts “So long, folks!” in a raspy falsetto. Get a load of the teeth.



The jester et al were retired in 1936. The familiar concentric circles were seen on the Merrie Melodies for the first time in the Friz Freleng-directed I Wanna Play House. The Looney Tunes had the zooming Warner Bros. shield and the “our gang” animals, with the “That’s all, Folks!” script at the end. Porky knocked Beans, Little Kitty and Oliver Owl out of the opening starting with Little Beau Porky later that year.

The bass drum apparently returned, with Porky bursting through it, when “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down” took over as the Looney Toons theme. Since the Porky 101 disc set has such mangled openings and closings, I’ve had to rely on cue sheets supplied by Daniel Goldmark, which say the first short was Rover’s Rival (1937) from the Bob Clampett unit.



For this post, that’s all, folks.

The Secret Desire of Jack Benny

During the ‘50s and ‘60s, Jack Benny repeatedly told newspaper reporters if he had to do it all over again, he would be a concert violinist and not a comedian.

It appears, though, he had a different desire in the days before he did violin theatre performances.

The North American Newspaper Alliance revealed it in its Hollywood column of January 20, 1944. Interestingly, whole chunks of this column appeared a year and a half later. And the columnist is quite correct. Jack talked in print about retiring a number of times in the ‘40s, then did a 180 when television came along.

Jack Benny Keeps Amiable by Keeping Always Busy
By HAROLD HEFFERNAN
HOLLYWOOD (NANA) — Jack Benny is going to retire and have himself some fun. He said so yesterday. He said so a year ago, five and 10 years ago. Not right away, of course. He's too busy at the moment. He's been too busy for the past 30 years. But some day, and mark it well, he's going to get clear away from gag writers, radio programs, movies and such and really relax.
At least that's what he says. Personally, we think Benny is just talking through his cigar again. Benny is the sort of fellow who'll pass out of the picture with a gag on his lips and his feet on the chalk marks before a camera. He can no more relax than you can lay your hands on a 50-gallon drum of gasoline tonight. It isn't in the cards, and, secretly, no one knows it better than Benny.
We had a talk with Jack in his make-up for one of the most fantastic characters of his career. It's that of an angel, complete with wings, for "The Horn Blows at Midnight," which he's doing for Warner Bros. As The Angel Least Likely to Be Missed," Jack is sent down from heaven by Chief Guy Kibbee to destroy the earth by the simple act of blowing his trumpet at midnight.
Actually, he never gets around to the act, as the world is deemed worth saving after all. But before getting to the fadeout enough screw-ball things happen to give us a clue as to why Benny won't be retiring this year, or next, or even next. The reason is this: Jack Benny gets too much fun out of his work to give it up.

He admits he must be busy or he gets irritable. That's why he crowds his days with writers' conferences and work, and his nights with benefits and shows for soldiers. It beats sitting around with the boys at Chasen's or the Brown Derby.
Jack isn't interested in the past, doesn't care to talk about it at all. The superb work he did entertaining troops in North Africa and Italy is never mentioned. We did, and he quickly shifted the subject. All that happened yesterday. Jack has his sights on tomorrow.
Because he’s been a reigning radio favorite for more than a decade, many people overlook the fact that Waukegan-born Benny Kubelsky (his real name) has been a screen star for even longer 16 years to be exact. He has, then, been "in the money" for long time, and money, as such, has long ceased to interest him. But Jack knows if he stops work tomorrow he would toss some 100 people, his official family, out of work.
Like most everybody who reaches the top of his line, Jack entertains a secret ambition. He wants to be a movie director. With certain qualifications, he is quick to add.
"If I thought I'd be a good director," he told us, "I'd try it tomorrow. But I don't want to be just another director. I'd want to know I'm bringing something to the business that wasn't there before." Many of his closest friends are directors. He studies their actions on the set. It he has an idol among directors it is Mervyn Le Roy. When Le Roy was making “Random Harvest,” Benny was a visitor two or three times a week, always observing and always question questions of Le Roy as to why he did this or that.
Benny thinks the most enviable fellow in the entertainment field to day is Elliot Nugent. This for the reason that Nugent is equally adept at acting, writing or directing.
“If Elliot sees a good part in a New York play, he takes it,” said Jack. “When the run is over and he has an urge to direct, he hops a train for Hollywood and picks up a megaphone. He never will be in a rut and, of course, you can say the same thing for Orson Welles.”
All of which may be by way of warning you that you needn’t be surprised when, some day in the not too far distance, you see on the screen of your favorite theatre: "Produced by Jack Benny. Directed by Jack Benny. Starring Jack Benny. Written by Jack Benny.
He thinks that would be just tops.

Jack Benny never retired. He was set to do a television special (the script had been written and guest stars hired) and was to appear on the big screen in The Sunshine Boys when he died after Christmas in 1974.

Finding Fame For Felix

What’s with Felix the Cat and dancers?

We posted a spread of Felix from Photoplay magazine with 1920s dancer Ann Pennington. He also got an appearance in with another dancer, this time in the New York Herald Tribune in 1925.

Exhibitors Trade Review of November 7, 1925 wrote about it, with advice for theatre owners—Yes, You, Mr. Exhibitor!—on how to exploit moviedom’s most successful animated character to date.

"Felix, the Cat" Crashes Sunday Supplement Section
More persons than usual, 330,000 more in fact, had an opportunity to laugh at the antics of "Felix the Cat," the comical feline star appearing in Educational Pictures, when the rotogravure section of the Herald-Tribune on Sunday, October 25, featured a series of "Felix" photo caricatures.
Felix "crashed" his way into the picture pages of this great metropolitan Sunday newspaper in the manner that would do justice to Tammany Young himself. Not only did Felix "crash in" but he also "strutted in," in his own inimitable feline way — via "The Charleston."
On the Sunday afore-mentioned, the famous Pat Sullivan character dominated one of the picture pages with four views of his version of the dance as taught him by Virginia Vance, leading lady of Educational-Mermaid Comedies.
Not to be outdone by the "thousand and one" celebrities who have been breaking into print these days, by showing pictorially the "fad fond" multitudes how they do the "Charleston" and having himself a few new ones up his pelt, Felix decides to broadcast evidence of his skill to the world.
That he does this satisfactorily is borne out by the fact that following the use of this pictorial feature by the Sunday Herald-Tribune, another great news organization, King Features Syndicate, requested the use of the pictures for distribution to about fifty of the principal newspapers throughout the country subscribing to this Hearst feature service — a most decided publicity "beat" for Felix.
This and many other Felix publicity ideas may be used to advantage by Exhibitors who have booked the Felix cartoon series. For instance, the photo of a pretty local girl could have a small cut-out of the cat pasted on her cheek — call it a new beauty spot fad or what you will. A prominent boxer could be posed boxing and Felix afterward inserted as a sparring partner. Felix directing traffic could be inserted in place of the regular officer over a photo of the busiest corner in your town.
Think up a few of these trick photographic stunts yourself, Mr. Exhibitor. Send any print you desire Felix inserted into, to the exploitation editor of this publication and they will be returned promptly with a quaint figure of the cat carefully inked in. This is the sort of picture material that your local newspaper is usually willing to print — it has humor and local interest, a most ideal combination.



Educational Pictures was releasing a Felix cartoon every two week. The same trade paper gave little synopses of shorts—and there was an amazing number of one and two reelers being made then—so let’s pass along a few to give you an idea of the kinds of situations Felix was in.

"Felix the Cat Trifles with Time"
Educational 1 reel
This is another Pat Sullivan animated cartoon having to do with the adventures of our old friend, Felix, the cat, when he persuades Father Time to transport him for a day to the Stone Age.
Felix has various troubles with Mastodons, dinosaurs, and the various other monstrous beasts of the time, and is mighty glad when he is recalled to modern times.
This comedy is well up to the standard set by its predecessors, and will please both children and grown-ups.

"Felix the Cat Trips Through Toyland"
Educational 1 reel
Here is one of the cleverest Pat Sullivan cartoons. Felix rescues a doll from an irate pup and in reward is taken for a trip to toyland. Here he encounters a villainous clown who kidnaps his doll-girl and spirits her away to his castle. Felix tries in many ways to rescue her. Finally he calls on the toyland army for aid and wages war against the villain. Finally he overcomes Punchinello and again clasps the doll to his heart. There are many nice touches in the film, such as lollypop trees and various toy animals that seem to live.

Felix the Cat "Eats Are West"
Educational 1 reel
Here is Felix again who expresses more human emotions than many a full-fledged actor. This latest edition of the Felix comedies, promises to emit chuckle after chuckle from the old and young, as the hero goes through his stunts.
Poor Felix is continually being chased; first by hunger, then by the old colored woman of the pancake ad, then cowboys and finally Indians. Miraculously, Felix uses many devices to escape. Punctuation marks are his greatest aid, but after he has succeeded in eating all the grub intended for the cowboys, he calls on his guns, and continues to use these to "shoot-up" the Indians — even a wooden one. Very good !

Exhibitors Herald published short squibs from theatre managers about the films they were running. Felix was incredibly popular and highly praised. Just a couple:

FELIX THE CAT TRIFLES WITH TIME
Best thing in a cartoon reel that I have ever seen. Used it with my one cent sales and “knocked ‘em dead.”
FELIX THE CAT BUSTS INTO BUSINESS
Another excellent cartoon.
FELIX ON THE FARM
I have found all of the Felix cartoon comedies very good. Well worth playing.
FELIX FINISHES FIRST is another comic in which the Sullivan prodigy gets the necessary money for the farmer’s mortgage holder. He does it by riding a trick horse in a funny race. It’s been done before, but it isn’t old.
There seems no end to this cat’s cleverness. Incidentally, Mr. Sullivan seems to me to have improved animation and photography materially since beginning distribution of the current output. I never see one of his comics, nor one of Paul Terry’s, without thinking how much funnier most of our flesh and blood comedians would be in similar footage than they are in the lengths they employ.
FELIX GOES HUNGRY
These Felix cat comedies are cartoons, of course, but they do please.

Considering the comments, it’s startling to release before the end of the decade, Felix would essentially be washed up, with sound—and a mouse—grabbing theatre goers’ attentions.

Goat, Goat, Gone

Two goats, each with a wooden leg, are pitching horseshoes in front of a blacksmith’s shop (in the shot below, one is concealed by the swaying tree).



Uh oh. One goat disappears for two frames. This is cycle animation and the goat vanishes every time.



The short is Ub Iwerks’The Village Smitty where Flip and his girl-friend (why is a frog dating a cat?). They’re at their Mickey and Minnie Mouse-iest in this 1931 short. Flip does an aw-shucks giggle. There’s even a piano in the livery stable. Too bad there’s not much humour in the cartoon.

Theatres had problems with the name of the cartoon, as you can see in the newspaper ad to the right.

Tex's Other Rabbit

Two buzzards are arguing over which one has caught a rabbit to eat when the rabbit gets between them and mimics their argument.

There’s great animation of the rabbit with fun expressions.



The buzzards kick the heckler out of the scene. These are consecutive frames.

What's Buzzin' Buzzard is a 1943 Tex Avery cartoon with lots of signs and wartime rationing references. Kent Rogers plays one buzzard. I don't know who the Durante buzzard is. John Wald announces the surprise ending. Ed Love, Ray Abrams and Preston Blair are the credited animators with Johnny Johnsen providing backgrounds.