Floating in Mid-Air

There’s not one, but two gags about things floating on their own in mid-air in the Tex Avery opus Thugs With Dirty Mugs (1939).

First, the police chief (played by John Deering) walks back and forth, promising himself he’ll get “Killer” the bank robber (voiced by Danny Webb). At one point, his cigar remains behind while he continues to pace.



Later, Killer points his guns at a bank teller. The guns helpfully remain in the air as he stuffs his pockets with cash.



Jack Miller helped with gags in this wonderful Warners gangster picture send-up, while Sid Sutherland got the animation credit.

Today's Lesson: Bashing the Cat

You know the old “I’ll chase him and you clobber him with this” gag. Usually, it means the guy doing the chasing gets clobbered instead.

Joe Barbera (or his unacknowledged gagman) switches it in Professor Tom (1948). The gag here is the kitten Tom is instructing just stands there as the chase goes round and round.



Tom stops and gives the kitten a disgusted look. Jerry stops, too. Tom gives instructions to the kitten.



The twist to the gag: the kitten thinks for a moment, and then gives the vase to Jerry.



The whole blackboard/classroom idea that starts the cartoon was used again by Barbera and writer Charlie Shows in 1958 in the Pixie and Dixie cartoon Jinks, Junior. The lineage of the kitten in this short is unclear.

The cartoon features Bill Hanna shouting “Noooooo!” and a nice little piece at the end animated by Ken Muse where Jerry and the kitten stroll off together toward one of Bob Gentle’s watercolour backgrounds as Scott Bradley conducts the MGM orchestra in “We’re Off to See the Wizard.”

Ray Patterson, Ed Barge and Irv Spence are also on the animation credits.

Photographer, Actor and Fake German Grocer

Everyone annoyed Jack Benny on the Jack Benny radio show in the 1940s.

Everyone except one person.

Jack had to put up with insults and gag-toppers from his main cast—Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris, Rochester, even Don Wilson on occasion. Dennis Day annoyed him with ridiculousness.

Even the secondary cast got on his case: floorwalker Frank Nelson, tout Sheldon Leonard, phone operators Bea Benaderet and Sara Berner (did they ever put through one of Jack’s calls?), the recalcitrant Maxwell of Mel Blanc.

Through all this, a knock at the door or a stroll somewhere would bring a pleasant conversation with Mr. Kitzel, played by Artie Auerbach.

Kitzel first appeared in 1946 as a hot dog vendor at the Rose Bowl. He eventually morphed into kind of an acquaintance of Jack’s who felt he could stop in unannounced at the Benny mansion to say hello (in reality, fans in those days came right up to the Benny door to get an autographed photo). Mr. Kitzel was the Benny version of Mrs. Nussbaum, in a way. He would give names and words a mangled Hebrew pronunciation or Jewish connotation, fit in one of his catchphrases, and bid farewell. (His most famous catchphrase wasn’t heard on the Benny show. “Hmmmm...could be!” has been immortalised in old Warners and MGM cartoons but was from a pre-Benny time).

The Kitzel appearances were actually an inspired bit of business by Benny and his writers. It gave the show a bit of a break from all the insult humour. And Jack was allowed to shuck all the famous foibles of his character for a segment and be a friendly, ordinary guy having a conversation. In the 1950s, the writers employed the same device with Sam Hearn’s Calabasas farmer character.

Unlike Hearn, who was a veteran vaudevillian, Auerbach didn’t start out in show business, let alone a comedian. The Detroit Free Press profiled him in its edition of June 12, 1948.

Switch: ‘Mr. Kitzel’ Dropped Pictures for Pickles
BY JACK SCHERMERHORN
Free Press Staff Writer
NEWSPAPER PHOTOGRAPHERS can do anything. If you won't take our word for it, consider the life of Artie Auerbach, who is "Mr. Kitzel" on the Jack Benny show.
You know “pickle in de middle with the mustard on top . . .”
Artie, a former New York Daily News photographer, is in Detroit with the Benny troupe for a seven-day engagement.
AN EXPERT in dialect, Artie says that everyone has hidden talent. All you have to do is bring it out.
And he should know.
His career as a successful comedian began back in 1934 when he was with the New York paper. At that time he was covering blistering three-alarm fires, murders and worked the usual crime stories that go with being a photographer.
He spent idle hours in New York's eating spots picking up all the dialect he could and imitating it.
ARTIE GOT so good that one day he used his talent on a hot assignment. A New York dowager had locked herself in a room of a swank hotel and Artie was assigned to the story along with a dozen other photographers from competing papers.
In notes thrown out a window, the dowager said that she was being held captive. But when police responded they couldn't get in.
So Artie got an idea; the woman had to eat!
HE DRESSED in a white apron, got a bag of groceries and sounded off like a German grocer.
All of a sudden the dowager became hungry, and to show her appreciation for the food, let Artie take her picture with a camera he had hidden in the grocery bag.
His first radio show was with a cafe owner named George Frame Brown. Brown played the guitar while the hash was being slung.
Artie wrote a show around him and they went on the air for two and a half years together. But things turned a little rough for Artie and he decided to call it quits and go back to his job as photographer.
It was security, and his aged mother and two kid sisters had to eat.
THEN THE show bug bit again and he wrote a series of sketches for a Broadway show, "Calling All Stars." Included in the cast were Lou Holtz, Phil Baker, Judy Canova and Martha Raye.
That did it. He could pack away his flash bulbs after that one.
He did shows with Phil Baker, Eddie Cantor, Jack Haley, Al Pearce and Abbott and Costello.
Jack Benny heard Artie on the radio and hired him. He's been with Benny ever since.
THOUGH HE'S making more than five times as much money as he made as a photographer, Artie gets the urge for an assignment when he is in New York.
And they pay him for his work, too. Recently he earned $23 on one job.
"I miss the newspaper game,' Artie said, "but on the other hand the show business has been darn good to me. I've never had to hock my camera yet."
The 45-year-old comedian lives in a modest Hollywood apartment with his wife.
As for Jack Benny, well, all city editors should be like Mr. Benny, Artie remarked.

Mr. Kitzel followed the Benny show from radio to television. A heart attack claimed his life at the age of 54 in 1957.

Death didn’t end Mr. Kitzel. He appeared in some episodes put in the can for later in the season. Ben Gross of the Daily News wrote on April 21, 1958: "It was odd, amusing and yet tragic to see a filmed segment showing the late Artie Auerbach (Mr. Kitzel) during Jack Benny’s show (CBS-TV, 7:30) last night. It reminded us of what a talented performer Artie really was."

Cartoon Commies

The McCarthy era destroyed people’s lives and drove some to suicide. All because of 1950s paranoia that, somehow, Communism would enslave America. It was an era where anyone could accuse anyone of anything, and if you said “Where’s your proof?” then you must be a Commie, too.

The ridiculous hunt for Communists touched the animation business.

Most readers here, I suspect, know of “Disney’s Revenge,” when less-than-affable Uncle Walt testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 and claimed certain union leaders and others involved in the strike at his studio six years earlier were under the influence of “Reds.” His testimony can easily be found on the web. Hell hath no fury than corporate leaders scorned by unions.

The FBI spent the 1940s hunting for Communists in the cartoon business, accepting the say-so of informants playing judge and jury. Bill Higgins—who worked in the 1950s for the most right-wing animation corporation, John Sutherland Productions—was supposedly “pro-Russian,” whatever that was supposed to mean. Art Babbitt was accused of influencing Disney “employees to become interested in Communist matters,” which is a pretty slanted way of saying he tried to sign up people for a union and got fired for it. Long-time Disney animator Bob Carlson “received Communist literature at the YMCA” on a trip to El Paso.

Nine pages of FBI documentation about the situation can be found on archive.org. I don’t know what the hand-written notations mean. Ronald Reagan’s name is on each page, presumably because he was the head of SAG.

I’d invite you to laugh as you read how one accuser knew someone’s wife was a Communist but didn’t know her name, except this was not a funny time in American history. Ask actor Philip Loeb. Oh, yeah, you can’t. He killed himself after being blacklisted thanks to gossip mongers who smeared people in Red Channels.

The names you likely will recognise are those who lead the Screen Cartoonists Guild as of mid-1947. However, the implication is they were elected because they were not under Communist influence (Volus Jones’ name is misspelled). Cecil Beard was an ex-Disneyite and writer for George Pal Productions (he co-wrote the anti-Nazi short Tulips Will Grow) who was involved in television cartoons in the ‘50s and ‘60s. He was also active in trade unionism. He died in 1987. The Writers Guild of America was still trying to find him in 1991.

Each page can be enlarged. If you’re interest in the entire documentation, you can find it on this site.

"S" is For Selling With Animation

Clever animated morphing and a bouncy mixed chorus jingle. What better way to sell cereal?

You’ll find it in an ad for Post-Tens, with one-serving boxes of different Post cereals. The jingle goes:

Ready for breakfast
Father, mother, sister Susie
And her brother

Okay, it doesn’t rhyme, but it accompanies visuals where the word “Ready” turns into a breakfast table.



An “F” appears and turns into the father. Then an “M” becomes the mother, an “S” the sister and a “B” the brother.



When was the spot made? It gives us a hint.



See the newspaper? The magic of an internet search of old newspapers reveals the copy is from a syndicated story by U.S. Open champ Jack Fleck published June 28, 1955.

Who made the cartoon? Business Screen magazine of the same year tells us Jack Zander’s Pelican Films in New York was animating spots for Post, so that studio is likely responsible for this one.

You can download it here.

Want Some Candy, Little Fish?

A worm (or “woim” as the tin can it came from says) tries to entice a little fish with a stick of peppermint in Jolly Fish (1932).



The kid's father swims into the scene, turns his fins into hands with fingers, and grabs the worm. The fish-ling can now swim away with the candy.



Despite the subject, this is not a social guidance film from Sid Davis Productions. It’s a lesser effort in the Van Beuren studio’s Tom and Jerry series. There are some likeable bits but the gags aren’t all that strong.

The vocal over the opening titles is “By the Beautiful Sea,” a 1914 tune by Harry Carroll and Harold R. Atteridge. Musical director Gene Rodemich employs only two songs as mood music in the short: Bernice Petkere’s “By a Rippling Stream (Waiting For You)” and “There’s Oceans of Love By the Beautiful Sea” by Little Jack Little and J. Fred “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” Coots, both released the same year as this cartoon.

Del Sharbutt

The old days of radio had announcers who got worked into the actual programme. Harlow Wilcox, Ken Carpenter, Don Wilson, Harry Von Zell are among them. And there were others who were very solid but worked more along the traditional lines of handling the opening and closing and commercials.

Del Sharbutt falls in that category for the most part.

He was employed in the ‘40s by the Campbell Soup company. His job was to sell soup, not be part of the dialogue with the stars, though I have heard a summer replacement show where he hosted and sang. He took credit for coming up with the phrase “M-m-good!” that was worked into the Campbell’s jingle well into the television era.

When network radio collapsed, Sharbutt managed to get picked up by the Mutual network to read news. Mutual also hired Tony Marvin and Westbrook Van Voorhis, guys they never would have been able to afford when network radio was at its peak. Sharbutt retired to Palm Desert, California in 1976 but found another calling—working with various alcohol and drug recovery programmes. Alcohol was at the centre of the social life for radio’s announcers and Sharbutt, like many others, got caught in it, but managed to get out.

Here’s a feature story on Sharbutt from Radio Life magazine of December 2, 1945. At the time, Campbell’s had moved him from New York to Los Angeles to announce on Jack Carson’s show for Campbell on Wednesdays and Request Performance on Sunday nights.

Take It Easy
Says Del Sharbutt, Who Did! And Look What It Got Him—Head Mikeman for Top Shows
By Peggy Carter
Wednesday, 9 p.m., Sunday, 6 p.m.
CBS-KNX

WRITING THE STORY of tall, blond and good-looking Del Sharbutt is a pleasant task because it's the success story of boy makes good come true. Only "good" in this case is a mild understatement which covers a multitude of things.
As one of radio's most popular emcee-announcers, Del has hit his stride. His rich mellow voice, easy-going, friendly nature and his quick sense of timing have made him a "natural" for the job of head mike man. You hear him cavorting weekly with Jack Carson. On Sundays he can he found announcing the popular "Request Performance."
Often you hear his songs (although you may be unaware of it), "A Romantic Guy I," "Nickel Serenade," and others on your radio. He sings, plays the saxophone and piano. And someday (soon we hope) you'll see him as leading man in a musical comedy.
Versatile
Being able to do everything seems to be simple for Del. After leaving school, where he studied law, he joined a Texas radio station as staff singer, which, in turn, led to announcing. The time was ripe, young Sharbutt felt, to take a bigger step. And off he went to Chicago.
Chicago led to New York and in 1933, within a few months after his arrival, Del found himself emcee of the old Chevrolet program. In those days a studio audience was something of an innovation and frankly it scared.him to death.
It wasn't the prospect of the audience which was so terrifying as the thoughts of a warmup. “I had to wear a tux," he grinned as he reminisced with us, "because radio dressed at that time. The tux only added to my discomfort. I had no idea what to tell the folks but when the time came somebody gave me a push, I found myself in front of the audience and from there on it's a mental blank. I guess I got through it because no tomatoes flew in my direction, but it was the march of doom."
Likes Audience
With this initiation over, Del never feared an audience again, in fact he preferred (and still does) to work with one. But a new worry cropped up. He found that his working hours were very irregular. Sometimes his schedule called for a 6 a.m. broadcast, with his previous day's shift having ended only four hours prior. That wasn't much time for sleep and oh, how Del loved to sleep! His "out" lay in the fact that he was impossible to awaken.
With typical Sharbutt ingenuity he solved this crisis. He began collecting alarm clocks. At last count he had thirteen and wouldn't arise until the thirteenth had rung. "I wasn't late but it took me half the night to set the things."
The ensuing years found him on shows with every top name in New York radio. Yet during all of this time, music had not been forgotten. He acquired a Hammond organ and began taking "hints" from friend, Ethel Smith. Another pal, Lanny Ross, and he opened a music company, presenting the public with many of their own tunes, including "A Romantic Guy I." Del even spent some time training for opera, but decided he'd stick to lighter variations.
Today wife, singer Mary Bell, and he have built their lovely Beverly Hills home around music. The beloved organ is still there, myriads of records, and two lively youngsters who love to carol with mom and pop and bang on pop's piano.
Del's still writing tunes and when Lanny is a civilian again the music company will go back into business. He confesses he's a jitterbug at heart and at one time used to hold jam sessions in his apartment with contemporary jazz notables as stars.
He plays a mean game of golf and is quite a handy man about the house. California is an ideal spot for him because he likes its leisurely way of living. And he wishes he could wear sports clothes the rest of his life. His fondest memories include the days when he played straight man to a young comedian named Bob Hope. "We were terrific," grinned Del which brings up a point! Young Sharbutt has never become a comedian, which is just about the only credit he hasn't to his record. But don't be too sure about that!

Long after Jack Carson left the radio airwaves, Sharbutt was caught up in Watergate-like shenanigans during the Nixon White House. Variety reported on March 6, 1974:

Washington, March 5.—District Police and the FBI are investigating the discovery of an electronic eavesdropping device found Saturday (2) in the offices of the Mutual Broadcasting System here.
Police said an electrician found the bug implanted in the ceiling near the desk of Del Sharbutt, a national news correspondent.

M-m-Bad! If someone wanted to hear Sharbutt, they could just turn on the radio.

He was 90 when he died in 2002.

Listen to a snippet below of The Jack Carson Show as Sharbutt introduces the proceedings.

Little Johnny Jet Backgrounds

Little Johnny Jet and his father roar high over farmland and cities created by background artist Johnny Johnsen.



Little Johnny Jet (1953) features animation by Ray Patterson, Grant Simmons, Mike Lah, Walt Clinton and Bob Bentley. Heck Allen gagged the short with director Tex Avery. This was the first cartoon Avery made when he returned from about a year's leave of absence.