Spike Cracks Up

Tex Avery wasn’t above re-using gags, and he did it several times in The Chump Champ (1950).

This is one of Avery’s Droopy/Spike competition cartoons where, naturally, Spike cheats but stillgets the worst of it.

In this sequence, Spike loads an anvil in a punching bag, hoping Droopy will smash his hand when batting it around. I like how Spike slithers away like a snake.



Naturally, the anvil has no effect. Naturally, Spike responds by confidently testing the bag for himself.



Impact close-up.



Now the familiar gag. Spike cracks up like a piece of broken china. The pieces fall to the ground. After a brief pause, more of him cracks up.



Rich Hogan is Avery’s gagman in this cartoon, with Mike Lah, Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons receiving animation screen credit.

The Lady With the Zonks

She made a career on television without saying a word.

Granted, a lot of it involved gesturing at “A NEW CONVERTIBLE!!!” but Carol Merrill’s name was constantly mentioned for years by Monty Hall on Let’s Make a Deal, giving her a level of fame. She was probably the best-known TV model of the 1960s.

Ah, how things could have been different. Instead of Door Number 3, she was Contestant Number Five in the Miss Rheingold contest of 1962. She wasn’t unknown then. The Hollywood Reporter of March 6, 1961 announced she would be the model/assistant on the CBS game show Your Surprise Package. (Since some trivia lover will point it out if I don’t, Beverly Owen in the picture to the right, was the original Marilyn on The Munsters).

It’s a delight to find interviews were done with some of television’s non-stars. Here’s one with Carol from the Wichita Eagle of June 21, 1970.

TViews
By NANCY SPARKS
Watching television on one of those infrequent weekdays at home, I suddenly had the urge to interview Carol Merrill.
Who, you may well ask, is Carol Merrill?
If you watch much daytime television, Let’s Make a Deal to be specific, you don’t need to ask. You already know the answer. She’s the girl about whom Monty Hall (the host) is always saying: “Or you can have the curtain Carol Merrill is pointing to. Or the coat Carol Merrill is wearing.
Miss Merrill, in private life the wife of an importer and mother of 3-year-old Hillary, describes her job on the show as “actually a model. There are those who try to build it up to be more than that, but all I really do is model."
She’s been doing it now day in and day out for the past six years, since Let’s Make a Deal first went on the air. But her job was something of an after-thought, she explained.
“The night before the first show was taped, suddenly somebody said 'Maybe we should get a model for the show.’ So they called me and the next day I had the job.”
Ironically, although she hadn't met Monty Hall until that day, she had worked in the same studio—CBS — with him for a year.
“I was doing Your Surprise Package with George Fenneman, and Monty was host of Video Village at the time. On Surprise Package I had much the same job as I do on Let’s Make a Deal, so there were people who knew me."
Miss Merrill, who never speaks on the show, has a soft melodious speaking voice.

“Although Monty always tries to build me up by saying my name as much as possible, my real job isn’t to speak. I did say something on the air once, though. Right before I left three years ago on a leave of absence to have the baby, Monty called me out on stage to explain to the audience that I was leaving. As I remember, I said ‘Thank you.’
“I’ve been asked to do dramatic roles, but I have no interest at all in acting. In fact, I can’t think of one thing I’d like about acting. I have the best possible job — go to the studio at 4 p.m., get home by 10 p.m. I work some weeks every night and then some weeks only two nights. Every now and then we get little vacations, and sometimes whole months off. So I have time to be home with my family, and I play tennis and ski a lot.”
While she’s at the studio she’s busy, though. For each new “deal,” she makes a costume change, which means rushing off stage, into a dressing room which she characterizes as a “lean-to,” and back on stage again, all during commercial breaks.
“I actually change clothes in just the time you see it done, too,” she laughed. “We don’t halt taping for anything except an emergency.”
Emergencies do arise but they are infrequent. In the six years, taping has been stopped fewer than a dozen times.
“It’s just too costly to stop a tape,” she explained. “I do remember one time, though, when a sleeper sofa wouldn’t pull out all the way. We had to re-tape that segment at the end of the show and splice it in later. Every now and then, too, a refrigerator door won’t open right (remember Betty Furness back in those days of live television and her now classic battle with a refrigerator door?). I have the boys trained now, though, to put plastic guards at the bottom of the doors so they won’t close altogether. The magnetic catches are sometimes terribly difficult to open otherwise and, because the refrigerators are on dollies, they will roll around if you tug on them too hard.”
If and when Let’s Make a Deal runs its television course, Miss Merrill probably will return to making commercials. “That’s a lucrative field and I’d find it far more interesting than acting. I’ll probably have to go to school to learn how to do commercials again, but it would be much easier than returning to modelling.”
That may be far in the future, however, since Let’s Make a Deal seems to gain more audience and more popularity each year. As long as it's on the air, viewers will continue to see Carol Merrill smiling, pointing, and modeling through one deal after another.

A few years before Deal signed on, the Bill Cullen version of The Price is Right would occasionally offer unusual prizes. Monty Hall and business partner Stefan Hatos expanded this on their show to include gag gifts; the bigger, the better. The Pomona Progress-Bulletin decided to get the story, and who better to spill the goods than Carol Merrill. This appeared June 8, 1969.

ZONKS I HAVE KNOWN
By Carol Merrill
(Editor's Note: Carol Merrill is the model on ABC’s Let’s Make a Deal, the trader-game show. The statuesque beauty is 5’ 7 ½” tall with brown eyes and light brown hair. A former photographic model (35-24-35), she started with the show five years ago. "Deal" airs Mondays through Fridays, 1:30 PM, and in prime time on Fridays in its new time period 7:30 PM.)
In case you haven't seen our show, I would like to explain the ground rules. They are simple. To play, you must be selected for the trading floor. A trader is selected because he brings something unusual to trade and is dressed in some way that draws attention.
When selected for the trading floor, Monty Hall will ask them to trade and when they accept, they keep going until they get what they want or get zonked. The game is to guess right in making the trade since you never see what

Monty has until you accept it could be bartering for a new car or a camel. The camel would be the zonk since that would be a funny booby prize. You could also be zonked with an old bathtub, a salami or a wild turkey. The zonks are strictly for laughs but I've found that working with some of the live zonks isn't always that funny.
There was a zebra who had me going around in circles——literally. Just before I took the leash, the trainer warned me that might happen and as soon as the curtain opened, there we were going around together.
I like animals—at least most of them. There was a hippo zonk that did scare me a little. I was told that I had nothing to worry about because he was inside a railing. I stopped worrying until discovered that he could climb the railing. I looked over just as he was about to take a bite out of my arm.
Jay (Stewart), our announcer, works with all the big animals that appear on the show like lions, tigers and camels. I’m just as happy handling the sheep. They just stand around. So do horses and cows.
There is a burro named Junior who is a friend. There was also a seal who wasn't a bit mean although I heard that seals are. I fed him fishheads while we were working together.
I can remember the time we had chinchillas as zonks—they reminded me of mice. I like the skunks. They were the non-smelly kind.
But then there's the mountain goat who bruised my leg with his horns. And there was a boar that chased me. I remember two different times when bears gave me a rough time. One started walking when the curtain opened. I gave a tug on his leash but he kept on going. He stopped at a camera to smile into the lens. I guess animals are hams too. The other bear got affectionate just as we went on camera. I was so shocked that I just stood there.
(Editor's note: I have to admit, I admire the bear’s taste.)

A macadamia nut farm sounds like a zonk, but that’s what Carol Merrill owned when she moved to Hawaii after giving up her life with “TV’s biggest dealer” (Monty Hall was originally called “America’s biggest dealer.” Then I guess someone realised he was Canadian). Her life couldn’t have been any more nutty than it was with contestants on TV some 50-plus years ago.

Beaky Takes His Turns

Why does Bob Clampett have a flying dragon in a cartoon? Well, why not?

Clampett gets some interesting visuals out of it in The Bashful Buzzard (1945), as it chases after Beaky.

After a twisting pan of the curled-up dragon’s body, Clampett cuts to a close-up roar. He quickly cuts to Beaky zooming away from the creature, and cuts again to a long scene where the dragon zooms after Beaky in mid-air, turning in two circles before the pair jump into a cloud that appears on the scene. The animator goes for perspective.



The cloud starts changing shape with fight sound effects in the background. We now reach to the finale with Beaky returning home.



“You never, never, bring-a home one teensy-weensy piece of-a meat!” Mama Buzzard shouts at Beaky. Cut to the final scene where the camera pans down the side of a cliff, with Beaky holding on to the dragon, who says “Well, now, I wouldn’t say that.”

Radio references? What were you expecting in a Clampett cartoon? The dragon’s doing the catchphrase of Peavy the druggist in The Great Gildersleeve. Beaky (voiced by Kent Rogers) is an imitation of Edgar Bergen’s dullard dummy, Mortimer Snerd.

And for years I’ve wondered why Mama speaks in Italian dialect. Nobody else does in the cartoon. I have now concluded it’s yet another Los Angeles radio reference. Minerva Urecal appeared on variety shows on stations in the 1930s as “Mrs. Pasquale,” shouting in an Italian accent in the exact same way Sara Berner does as Mama Buzzard. I’m not saying this is the origin of the voice in the cartoon, but I can’t think of any other explanation. (As a side note, Mrs. Pasquale appeared on the syndicated “The Mirth Parade.” Another actor on the show was Bob Burns, known as “The Arkansas Traveller,” the name of a song that appears in this cartoon with some new, bumblebee lyrics).

As for animators, Bob McKimson and Rod Scribner’s work can be seen in this cartoon and Bill Melendez and Manny Gould must be here, too.

Periscopasaurus

A brontosaurus hunts for a meal in The Cave Man, a 1934 Willie Whopper cartoon.



He’s looking. Aha! Let’s turn him into a periscope.



It turns out the grassy snack is some kind of prehistoric chicken, who stares the bronto in the eye and flies away.



What’s a bronto to do? He rolls his eyes and it’s on to the next scene.



The cartoon isn’t especially funny but there are some odd gags, solid backgrounds and a nice jazzy score. Berny Wolf and Grim Natwick are the credited animators.

Getting Into the Mood to Laugh

You’d think people would already be in the mood for laughing when they seat themselves down in front of a stage to watch a comedy.

In radio and television, producers take no chances.

There’s always a warm-up period after a studio audience seats itself to get it in the mood to enjoy the show—and be told when to applaud and react.

Here’s a piece that I suspect came out of the CBS publicity department and was sent (along with photos, I imagine) to newspapers on its mailing list. This appeared in November 1960. Inidentally, Moore had been using the “feathers” line for years, judging by old clippings.

Benny, Skelton Featured In Audience Warm-up Roles
The curtain parts and Jack Benny steps before the audience to relate how he talked former President Harry S. Truman into appearing on one of his shows . . .
"I was terribly nervous about calling such an important person, and a little afraid, too. When I got Mr. Truman on the line, I said, 'Mr. Truman, this is Jack Benny. Would you appear on my show?' Well, he said, 'yes.' And I was so nervous I said, Why not?'
Then Benny switches the subject . . .
“There has been a lot of talk about my age. Actually, I'm not 39. I'll be 66 on my next birthday . . . I don't mind telling you this because you'll all say, 'No, he can’t be.'”
This is Jack Benny during the audience warm-up period that is held before every broadcast of "The Jack Benny Show, presented on the CBS Television Network on alternate Sundays from 10 to 10:30 p.m.
The purpose of a warm-up is obvious: to get the audience into the mood to laugh and enjoy themselves. Benny and other top CBS Television Network comedians—such as Red Skelton and Garry Moore—accomplish this result by doing what comes naturally: telling jokes.
Even Ed Sullivan, who is not a comedian, has a warm-up period for "The Ed Sullivan Show" presented on the CBS Television Network Sundays, 8-9 p.m. Sullivan doesn't tell jokes, but he makes his audience feel at home by introducing various members of the show. For instance: "I'd like you to meet my handsome co-producer, the Scarsdale Flash, Mario Lewis. We've been working together since the show first started 12 years ago and we're still speaking to each other.” Sullivan will go along in this vein introducing all show staffers who happen to be on hand.
Most warm-ups—but not all start—with an announcer greeting the audience and introducing the stars.
Don Wilson handles these warm-up openings for "The Jack Benny Program," Harry Von Zell for “The George Gobel Show” (CBS Television Network, alternate Sundays, 10-10:30 p.m.), and Durward Kirby for 'The Garry Moore Show,” CBS Television Network, Tuesdays, 10-11 p.m.
Red Skelton, star of "The Red Skelton Show," CBS Television Network, Tuesdays, 9:30-10 p.m. handles the warm-ups himself.
What kind of routines do the stars employ?
Jack Benny is the same during the warm-up and during the show itself. Only his jokes are different.
Garry Moore starts his routine by running his hand through his crew cut, staring at the audience and demanding:
"What did you expect, feathers?"
Moore then seats himself on a stool to answer questions thrown at him from the audience. He manages to turn many answers into jokes.
If he's asked, for instance, how tall he is, he might compliment the questioner for his diplomacy, "because what you really mean to ask is how short am I."
And Moore has a regular quip that closes each warm-up. "Don't worry," he tells the audience, "you'll get through this just fine."
Red Skelton varies his routine from week to week, telling whatever jokes come to mind.
Here's a recent Skelton warm- up joke:
“Gee, what a nice surprise I had when I walked into the studio. There was a crowd outside and some guy hollers: 'Hey, there's Red Skelton. It really made me feel good, you know, with everybody turning to look at me."
There is a pause. Then Skelton adds:
"Heck, I may as well admit it. I'm the guy who hollered."

And speaking of warm-ups, here’s a revelation from the “Between You and Me” column of the Port Huron Times-Herald of March 12, 1950. Jack obviously didn’t tell this one in vaudeville, but it wasn’t exactly a new joke.

THE TALKING DOG—We are all still laughing. Jack Benny and his radio entertainers, at last Sunday's broadcast, laid us in the aisles, as the saying goes. Jack Benny is tops, in my opinion. The fact that he holds the ace position in about every radio survey, year after year, leaves me with plenty of company, too. Sunday afternoon, along with Blanche and the Andreaes, we attended his broadcast out here in Hollywood and we are still holding our sides. Because of the differences in time the starting hour out here is four o'clock in the afternoon (seven in the evening at home) and there is always a long line-up. Only a ticket holder has any chance of getting in and, as one stands in line, he is besieged with requests from both men and women who go from one to the other asking for "an extra ticket." Those who heard Benny last Sunday, when he had that brilliant and attractive daughter of Winston Churchill as his guest star will know what I mean. But I really like Benny, Phil Harris, Rochester (who does a grand job in his modest way and is mighty popular out here), orchestra and, in fact, all of them, in the horseplay which goes on before the broadcast, more than I did in the show itself. It is one of those things which go absolutely flat when one tries to tell about it or write about it, but I can repeat a story which Jack told just before the real show started. A fellow and his dog walked into a bar and the man asked the bartender for a drink. "I've got a talking dog here," he said, "and if you'll give me a drink I'll make him talk." The bartender looked a bit suspicious, but finally agreed. "Now let's hear the dog talk," he growled, after he gave the fellow a shot. "What's that up there?" said the dog's owner, pointing to the ceiling overhead. "Ruth, Ruth!" barked the dog. The bartender looked black. "That's no talk!" he exclaimed "I have a notion to throw you out." The dog’s owner was undisturbed. "Just give me another drink and I'll prove it again," he said. The bartender weakened. "All right," he said "but no more fooling, you understand." The man got his second drink. He pointed with his finger to the roof of his mouth. "What's this Fido?" he asked. "Ruth, Ruth," barked the dog, again. The bartender was at the boiling point. "Out you go," he exclaimed, threateningly, pointing to the door. The man was unperturbed. “Give me another chance and another drink and I'll show you this time," he pleaded. Once again the bartender fell for it, but this time with the threatening promise that he would be tossed out if he did not make good. So he poured the drink, the man took it and again turned to his dog. "Fido," he cried, "who was the greatest ball player in the world?" The little dog never batted an eye. "Ruth, Ruth," he barked once more. Both he and his dog were promptly tossed out the door by the outraged bartender. As they picked themselves up the dog turned to his master and exclaimed: "He must be a DiMaggio fan!"

Romeo in Rhythm

Think about it for a minute. How many cartoons take place on a low-budget theatre stage inside a scarecrow? I can think of a grand total of one—MGM’s Romeo in Rhythm (1940).

As you might expect in a Metro cartoon of this year, there is plenty of animation on ones, but because it’s a musical with singing and dancing, it doesn’t seem over-animated with movement for the sake of movement.

There’s a good story-line woven through the cartoon. Romeo woos Juliet in swing-time, but is constantly interrupted. That’s worked into the music, when Romeo kicks away his mandolin (a guitar is heard on the soundtrack) and sings “You’ve Got to Be Alone to Woo.” The song doesn’t come from an MGM musical. It was written by, of all people, Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, with music by Scott Bradley. Hanna and Barbera’s lyrics are clever and a far cry from “Pixie Dixie, deedly dum, are the best of friends.”

In one scene, theatre backdrops roll down from the rafters, each painting suiting the verse of the song. Romeo and Juliet stick their heads through holes where heads should be on the painting, like a painted board on Coney Island. The stylised humans are certainly different for an animated cartoon of 1940.



This dissolve looks awkward when viewed frame-by-frame but when watching it on the screen, I suspect audiences weren’t put off by it because it happens at the end of a bar of music.



“At last you’re alone, just you two,” sings Romeo. At that moment, lights come up to reveal rows of heads. The camera pulls back to show a blinking sign. Romeo carries on with the lyrics: “You parked in that hole called the Hollywood Bowl.”



Another good sequence is earlier in the short where Romeo falls into a pile of metallic junk and emerges like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz. Bradley scores “We’re Off to See the Wizard” on the soundtrack as Romeo stumbles around and tries to remove all the junk. (The DVNR on the home video version of this is just disgraceful).



“Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Shorts Story” magazine of July-August 1940 gives a summary of the cartoon (crediting the direction to Hugh Harman instead of Rudy Ising, though there’s no screen credit for anyone). Boxoffice magazine of July 27, 1940 reported Bradley was scoring the short, while the Hollywood Reporter of August 5 announced the cartoon was finished (mentioning the score included songs from Broadway Melody). The release date was August 10 (“Woo” was copyrighted Sept. 3). No animators were credited but I would bet Mark Kausler knows if we are seeing the work of Jack Zander, Bill Littlejohn, George Gordon and Carl Urbano.

The cartoon got mixed reviews when it was released. Uncle Walt was still the gold standard (no doubt to the annoyance of Harman). Boxoffice called the cartoon “An acceptable cartoon, but not beyond...The cartoon work is standard, which reminds that it is not Disney. With emphasis on that score.” “Fair,” declared The Exhibitor in one word. Motion Picture Daily was more enthusiastic. “This is a travesty in cartoon on ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ produced skillfully by Hugh Harmon [sic]. It should add a bright touch to any problem. The characters are crows which sing a few snappy tunes in Harlem jive fashion.”

Showman’s Trade Review felt “There’s a good idea in this cartoon but it misses fire somewhere. A couple of birds (ravens) play Romeo and Juliet (colored version). There are a lot of gags some of which are funny, but the subject bogs down in the middle and doesn’t get anywhere. It results in just a fair cartoon.”

Motion Picture Herald liked it a little better, calling it “an amusing cartoon.” Exhibitor Walter Pyle of the newly-opened Dreamland Theatre in Rockglen, Saskatchewan pronounced to that publication “Just another cartoon. A few kiddies snickered a little.” A “Harlem” short seems like an odd choice for a Canadian prairie farm town of maybe a couple of hundred people. But it was screened as well in Bengough, Sask., where the manager told the Herald it was “very entertaining.” The paper was told by the operator of a theatre in Dewey, Oklahoma is was a “good cartoon” but “the kids did not understand or appreciate it.”

To be honest, it’s tough feeling sympathetic for Romeo at the end when Juliet leaves him and runs off to work. It’s because they’re not real characters and the situation isn’t real. They’re actors performing a play on stage.

Mel Blanc provides a couple of voices on this short but the star is Billy Mitchell, who puts in a fine singing performance as Romeo. Juliet is Lillian Randolph (right), who found more work in MGM cartoons as the maid in the Tom and Jerry series. They both lent voices to the MGM musical short Swing Social (also 1940), a cartoon featuring Amos ‘n’ Andy accents, Uncle Tom, fish with thick minstrel-show lips, a razor and irresistible fried chicken.

Mitchell was a veteran at the time, billed in The Billboard in 1922 as “the boy with the insane feet.” The same year these two cartoons were released, he appeared as the Lord High Executioner in “The Swing Mikado,” with an all-black cast. By the late ‘40s, Mitchell was a pioneer of the parade of party-record comedians, with one release called “The Bumble Bee Invaded the Nudist Colony,” and appeared year after year at the Club DeLisa in Chicago. He was dead by the late ‘50s. Judging by newspapers of the day, Romeo in Rhythm vanished from screens long before that. It was never re-issued.