Dinner Time For Woody

Dry brush makes the characters move faster, or at least it kind of looks that way.

Here are some frames from the Woody Woodpecker cartoon The Redwood Sap, a 1951 cousin to Pantry Panic released ten years earlier. Woody turns around and then we get a dry brush exit. A few frames.



Walter Lantz apparently directed this cartoon, with Don Patterson, La Verne Harding, Ray Abrams and Paul J. Smith receiving animation credits.

Why, It's a Piano!

Let’s see, there was the jungle picture, and the underwater picture, and the stormy night/horror picture, oh, yes, the Egyptian picture.

We’re talking about Van Beuren cartoons where a) characters discover a piano and play it, and b) there are all kinds of skeletons. (Okay, we cheated. In the horror picture, a skeleton creates a piano).

The Egyptian picture is the Don and Waffles epic Gypped in Egypt (1930), where a sphinx casts some kind of hallucinogenic spell on our heroes because they killed the weirdest-looking camel in animation history.

In this scene, they fall into a room, where Waffles accidentally discovers some mummy case, or something or other, and plays its hands like a piano. Part of the stone wall slides open and a helpful skeleton stretches it into a keyboard, then comes up from the floor to engage in a duet.

Waffles shakes hands with the skeleton and, for reasons known only to him, takes off the skull and tosses it to the shaking Don. Don spends great portions of the cartoon in fear, miming to Waffles not to do something. Waffles maintains a blank expression as he does it anyway.

Don drops the skull and shakes some more in panic. Then a doorway slides open and it’s on to the next scene.

The story isn’t all that coherent and some of the drawing is butt-ugly, but I still like this cartoon. The Film Daily’s review ends: “A nightmare of goofy antics cleverly worked out for the laughs.”

Don and Waffles would evolve into humans named Tom and Jerry, who provided theatre-goers with a few laughs and a lot of puzzled or blank looks from 1931 to 1933.

Warners' One-Shot Crow

Just because the voice credit on screen reads “Mel Blanc” doesn’t mean Blanc is the only person heard in that particular Warner Bros. cartoon. Yes, June Foray and Daws Butler were heard somewhat regularly in the 1950s, but there were others who are far lesser known—unless you’re really familiar with old radio comedy/variety shows.

Director Bob McKimson seems to have gone out of his way to not cast Blanc on occasion. A good example is Sheldon Leonard, who appeared in two cartoons as Dodsworth the cat. Jim Backus shows up in his pre-Magoo days as a miffed genie in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Musician Lloyd Perryman and veteran actor Herb Vigran, who had worked for John Sutherland Productions, are each in one McKimson short.

But there’s an obscure voice, one that appeared in one really odd cartoon that seems like a misfire by McKimson in creating a new character. That’s the unnamed crow in Corn Plastered, released in 1950.

McKimson dipped into network radio to cast the voice in this one, too. The actor appeared on the Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy show for a number of years. Everyone thinks of Bergen as having dummies as foils (including Mortimer Snerd, the origin of Beaky Buzzard’s voice). But there was a strange human character with twists of the English language on the show. He was named Ercil Twing and played by Pat Patrick. His voice (sped-up) is the one you hear as the crow, who behaves pretty much like Twing does.

Just who was Pat Patrick?

Let’s find out from the “Radio Sidelights” column of the Kansas City Star, March 14, 1948.

Pat Patrick’s Star Rises in The Role of Ercil Twing
Character Actor on Edgar Bergen Show Gets More Laughs Than Charlie McCarthy or Mortimer Snerd — Milque-Toast Part Developed by Accident
THE supporting players on several of the top-rated comedy shows have much to do with the success of the programs. On some shows such personalities seem to get more and louder laughs than the stars.
That Is especially true on the Edgar Bergen-Charlie McCarthy show. The supporting player in that case is Pat Patrick in the role of Ercil Twing. Patrick has caught on in a big way this season, and seems to be gaining in popularity each week.

The studio audiences virtually go into hysterics when he appears on the broadcast even before he says a word. What is so funny? the listeners wonder. Does he fall down on the way to the microphone? Does he cut his suspenders or make faces? We decided to try to find out.
As far as we could learn, Patrick has done nothing more than to accent the character part his appearance. Those who saw him here last year will remember that he swings onto the stage in a prissy manner, with his hair pasted across his forehead. He wears nose gold-rimmed glasses and portrays a fussy, Casper Milquetoast role.
Patrick is a Mid-Westerner who has been in the show business some time, although his radio career didn’t start until 1942. He was scheduled to start on the air in Los Angeles as a disc jockey on KMPC on December 7, 1941. That was the day the United States entered the war and the program was nipped in the bud.
He stayed on the West coast and was doing the apologetic “Ercil” role in a Hollywood nightclub when Edgar Bergen saw him and six months later Patrick was on the radio program. He has been on it since, except for a stretch in the army.
Bom Ersel Kirkpatrick in Strawberry Point, Ia., he ran away from home at the age of 16 to join a circus. He spent two years as a clown with the Al G. Barnes circus. Then he played stock and tent shows and appeared on the Chautauqua circuit.
At the age of 22 Patrick struck out on his own — as a producer and actor in an original stage production in Los Angeles. It was there that ’’Ercil,’’ the radio character was developed.
"As part of the after-show I did a travel lecture," Pat explains. “One day by accident I used a hesitant, high voice. The audience liked it and Twing was born.”
Many persons have asked Pat if the character he played is based on a real person. Pat’s answer is that “He’s a little like my father and a great deal like my brother who teaches school in a small New York town.”
Some Kansas City ex-GIs will remember Patrick in the army by his real name of Kirkpatrick. He was stationed for a while at Hammer Field, Fresno, Calif. Carl Cooper of The Star’s staff says Patrick was attached to special services as an entertainer. “Patrick did a ventriloquist act and used a dummy part of the time,” Cooper said.
Patrick is married and the father of a 5-year-old son, Jeffrey.

Corn Plastered has a copyright date on screen of 1950. It was released March 3, 1951, though we’ve found it playing on February 24th at the Granada Theatre in Streator, Ill.

Patrick was on Bergen’s TV debut in a special on Thanksgiving 1950 (doing very little, according to Variety). He apparently left Bergen’s radio show soon after that and concentrated on nightclub appearances as Twing and other characters.

The same fate befell Patrick as radio and cartoon actor Frank Graham. The Hollywood Citizen-News of August 20, 1954 reported:

Pat Patrick Rites Planned
Funeral services today are pending for Pat Patrick, 40, comedian of stage and radio, well known for his role of Ercil Twing on the Edgar Bergen radio series.
North Hollywood police listed the death a suicide yesterday after carbon monoxide gas was piped into his station wagon with a vacuum cleaner hose.
He was discovered in the 2000 block on Ventura Blvd., across the street from property which he purchased to open a bar.
Police reported no suicide notes were found in the car and his widow, Dani Patrick, said she knew of no reason why her husband would kill himself. Mr. Patrick left Wednesday night to get his business ready for opening, and did not return home.

Corn Plastered was Patrick’s only cartoon. Nowhere have we found Patrick mentioned in newspapers of the day in connection with it, nor does it seem anyone asked McKimson how Patrick came to be in it.

Late Additional Note: Patrick was originally identified by Keith Scott. His book on cartoon actors of the Golden Age is on sale. Buy it.

The Narrator Was Right

If you want proof that times change, consider the fact that old cartoons I saw on TV 60 years ago are withheld from DVD release today because they’re “offensive,” but ones that were censored back then are seen without editing today.

In 1962, I could watch All This And Rabbit’s Stew over and over again. It wasn’t among the Bugs Bunny cartoons I liked because the antagonist was whiny and annoying. I didn’t mind another Tex Avery short for the Schlesinger studio that I saw innumerable times, but I was shocked when it came out on DVD years later because there was a gag I had never seen before. Whether my local TV station censored it or someone else did, I don’t know, but I suppose it’s irrelevant at this point.

In Cross Country Detours (1940), a pan over one of Johnny Johnsen’s layered backgrounds sets up a gag in a reedy swamp. A frog crawls onto a lily pad. Cut to a close-up. Narrator: “Here we show you a close-up of a frog croaking.” No sooner does Lou Marcelle finish his line than:



It takes 12 frames, most of the animation on ones, for the frog to enact the dialogue literally and shoot himself.

But Avery doesn’t stop there. We get a sign-gag topper.



Paul J. Smith receives the animation credit, but I imagine Virgil Ross, Sid Sutherland, Chuck McKimson and Rod Scribner worked on this as well.

Something else we don’t see today is the original credits because the release on DVD is from the Blue Ribbon print. The chopped music over the credits is “There’s a Long Long Trail” by Zo Elliott and Stoddard King.

Felix and the Spider

Felix battles a spider in Sure-Locked Homes (1928). I’m presuming Otto Messmer animated this short and is responsible for the great shapes during the fight. Some are below.

This is a fun cartoon with lots of impressive shadow-work. This print is found on the Cartoon Roots Halloween Haunts Blu-Ray. Felix is my favourite silent cartoon character and once of my hopes is a larger collection of his films for Educational is put together.

Writing a Jack Benny Radio Show

During his 23-year career on radio, Jack Benny used three sets of writers. The middle group was Ed Beloin and Bill Morrow, who were able to develop the characters of newcomers Phil Harris, Rochester and Dennis Day, adding in the Maxwell, Carmichael the Polar Bear, the Buck Benny sketches, and the feud with Fred Allen. All this kept the show fresh.

Benny, of course, was the unofficial head writer as he sat in on sessions and yea’d or nay’d every word.

A columnist with the Ogden Standard-Examiner decided to find out more about Benny’s writers and the way they put the show together, and wrote a feature story that appeared May 4, 1941. She also interviewed Jack’s business secretary, Harry Baldwin, who took shorthand notes of what was brought up at the sessions. Baldwin, it would seem, unexpectedly inspired a joke on one broadcast.

The war and ambition ended Beloin and Morrow’s regular pay cheques with Benny in 1943. Jack replaced the two with four writers—George Balzer, Milt Josefsberg, John Tackaberry and Cy Howard (Howard soon left and Sam Perrin came in). After a ratings drop, the new writers rallied and came up with additional secondary characters, new situations and running gags (and Mel Blanc became a regular cast member in everything but the opening credits). Benny was soon back up top. Baldwin, for reasons I don’t know, never returned to Jack after the war.

Jack's Fun Factory Works On All Four Gag Cylinders
By MAY MANN
Standard-Examiner Staff
HOLLYWOOD, May 3 — Two heads are better than one— but it takes four heads to figure out gags and jokes — so Jack Benny, Hollywood star, can be so funny.
One of the four experts in the Benny humor factory is Mr. Benny's own, of course. Bill Morrow, who in five years with Benny has become the highest paid gag writer in the industry; Ed Beloin, humor writer, and Harry Baldwin, Mr Benny's secretary, are part of the good humor quartet. But please don't think of ice cream— on that last — for it wouldn't be fair to the Benny sponsors — and besides we have three tickets in the front row for the NBC Benny show.
Jack, as you know, is a Waukegan, Ill., lad who was born on St Valentine's day and as he puts it — turned into a comic valentine. During vacations Jack worked in his father's haberdashery business. He bought a fiddle and formed a small orchestra and later played for school dances. That's how showmanship — got into his bolod [sic].
He Tours in Vaudeville
After fiddling in an orchestra he teamed with a piano player and toured in vaudeville. Then came the World war— and Jack was placed as an entertainer in the navy. He kept right on when he came out.
Bill Morrow was writing jokes and gags in Chicago and selling them to humor magazines at five bucks a throw — and doing a bit of press agenting for a band — five years ago. In Miami, Fla., he met Mary Livingston — who is Mrs. Jack Benny. Bill mentioned that he had several gags that would fit into Jack's vaudeville act. Mary suggested that he come to Detroit and she’d introduce him to Jack.
At the same time Mr. Beloin was also offering his services as a gagster — to Mr. Benny.
Both humor writers met Benny and later accepted his offer to come to California for the summer and give it a fling. They did— and now they're on a $2500 a week salary— the highest paid in the business of gag-writing.
Here's What Goes On
And what do you suppose goes on inside of the Jack Benny joke shop?
We tried following the qaurtet [sic] around for the day.
Promptly at seven a. m. every morning— they never miss one — unless it's a blue Monday and raining — the two gag writers meet with Jack's secretary. "We always do our best writing early in the morning," Mr. Morrow explained. "We sit around and gag up situations. For example — once a year Jack always gets a cold. So what do we do— but enlarge on it a bit— and put it on the radio— with doctors and nurses. One year we were in the mood to put on the "cold" act— only Benny didn't get one. Then all at once he did — and it was so bad he didn't go on the air at all — and neither did we. We had to fill in with music instead.
"But like today when Jack's making a picture (he just began "Charley's Aunt" for 20th Century Fox) we work for three hours early — come down here to the studio for breakfast and read Jack what we've written.
"Jack goes over and suggests what he thinks would be better.
“Or if he's not working we meet at his home for 'free breakfast'— Pips too— ham and eggs and waffles—well just platters and platters of food— and sit around in his game room and talk. Or we might swim while we talk— or sit about the pool.
Works on Original Idea
"Every day we keep working on our original idea— and send the typewritten copy each morning over to Jack— before we meet with him.
"We follow right up to Saturday —when we have just one reading with the cast. That is our only rehearsal. But we time it for laugh—and if we don't get enough certain laughs from our own company—then we keep changing it— until we do. We polish each gag— up to within 30 minutes before going on the air. And we make changes between the first radio broadcast which hits the East and Canada— to the second one for the west, Honolulu and South America.
“We like to introduce characters and situations that will keep running for weeks and tie in with the next week's program.
"We conceived the idea of Rochester — when we were on a train returning from Chicago. Usually we center our situations around whatever we are doing. Well, we wanted a colored porter. We asked the colored boot black at the studio if he'd like the role— but he wanted a fortune to play the part— just because he was to be in a Benny show. So we scouted around for colored actors and found Rochester. We gave him that name — and didn't dream he would click so big —until the mail began pouring in for Rochester. Now we treat his parts— with the same exacting care and timing we give Benny’s.
"It seems like every day is Sunday," Mr. Morrow continued. "Writing a 20-page script each week is comparable to writing one complete act in a play. We have to keep it at the common level — with the standing high— the jokes and gags must be obvious — but not too obvious — else they lose their sparkle.
"The radio is a more common denominator of reaching the people than the movies. We have to try to please everyone.
All Sorts of Skits
"Besides the radio program every week," Mr. Baldwin, the secretary said, "we have skits to write for Mr. Benny for benefits, shorts, newsreels, trailers, all sorts of war reliefs and for speeches at chamber of commerce banquets and many civic occasions— all funny too —for everyone expects Jack Benny to say new and funny things.
"Some folks think Jack should always be laughing and be funny off-screen," Mr. Baldwin continued, "But Jack's different than most comedians. Some folks think he's glum. He becomes so absorbed by his thoughts — that he'll walk along the street and his own wife can pass him by and he won't see her.
"But he loves to laugh and he's excellent company. It's when he's thinking up gags and details for his acts— that he becomes self-absorbed in thought."
Jack and his gag-experts live within a radius of a mile of one another. They spend part of each day together — thinking up jokes. Sometimes they telephone each other in the middle of the night— if they’ve hit upon something particularly good.
"We never even read any jokes that people mail in to us," Mr. Morrow said. "We have a form letter that states 'Returned— Unopened — unread.' We don't want to take any chances of being sued for using anyone’s brain-children — because they have similarity to some of our own. Besides we believe that no one will think up anything that we won’t eventually hit upon anyway.
Jack Benny came walking in. He was smiling and said the boys would have to confer with him during lunch — for he had special scenes that afternoon.
At lunch one of the boys mentioned he was going on a diet — whereon Jack said, "The worst pests in the world are people with diets and electric razors. They always try to force both of 'em on you. Never saw a man who didn't insist you try his electric razor. Misery loves company so dieters want you to diet with them."
The men began talking amongst themselves. They howled with laughter at their own jokes. To anyone else— they were having a good time — without a care in the world. Actually all this joke cracking and repartee of the day's happenings was serious work — out of which would evolve a new radio show.
When asked what they considered their funniest joke — Jack replied a recent one where Jack has a boarder, Mr. Billingsly, who is a lunatic. Mr. Billingsly has a turban wrapped on his head. "Is that a turban wound around your head?" Jack asks him. "No," replies Mr. Billingsly. "This is a bed sheet. I slept like a top last night!"
Joke originated when Mr Baldwin slept in a bed with too short sheets — and woke up with the sheet wound around his shoulders. When Jack asked him how he'd slept that night he said "like a top" — and that was the birth of a new gag!
Jack is generous — even to a fault with his family and his friends. He has a large number of relatives on his pay rolls. One day when someone saw Jack walking alone across the Paramount lot — they said, "Hummmh! There goes Jack Benny without any members of his family. He must be out on bail."
Believing that his gag-men and his faithful secretary should share his success — Jack Benny takes them with him wherever he goes. They had just returned from three weeks at Palm Springs. Before the war — he gave them a trip to Europe. They have valuable watches and rings and other handsome gifts— which show his generosity and appreciation.
People Need Laughs
"People need laughs now more than ever before," Mr. Morrow concluded. "It takes crazy people like us to keep thinking up new ones each week. We have to figure out some 200 laughs a week. That's why we're bald-headed — doing it. "But one thing Jack's shows are always clean. We think up gags — all week. If we ever come to a tight spot— then we just disband— relax— and come back together again — and have a lot of fun."
Jack Benny says, "Our jokes are in character — our own peculiar brand and style. With me, I'm the star on the program. I have to take it— be belittled. That is the secret of our brand of humor. You know, it all goes back to the boy with the snowball and the fellow with the high hat. It would be no fun at all if the fellow wore a cap— but to knock off a silk hat— Ah, there's the secret in fun."
Jack Benny's laughs— on radio and movies combined gross almost a million dollars a year. Humor not only stays— but it pays.

Happy Days For the Hungry Wolf

“I haven’t got a daddy,” says the cute but oblivious little creature to a wolf that wants to eat him. “Will you be my daddy?” he asks.

You know, I said to myself, “Where have I heard this before?” Why, I know. In Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera’s pitiable duck cartoons at MGM, then later at their own studio, culminating as Yakky Doodle. Except then it was “Will you be my mama?” In fact, it was the plot of Foxy Proxy with Fibber Fox (1961).

Yes, the whole Yakky Doodle concept, right down to the “Go on, get out of here!” part, goes back almost 20 years before that in the MGM cartoon The Hungry Wolf. Hanna and Barbera weren’t involved in it; this was a Hugh Harman/Rudy Ising cartoon.

This one has a twist though. Mama Rabbit goes searching in the snowstorm to find her son and discovers him next to the frozen and unconscious wolf, who had chased him out of his home to save the bunny from being eaten by him. Since the cartoon’s almost at the nine-minute mark, there’s a perfunctory and implausible explanation that “I guess he must have fainted,” before the scene cuts to the finale with the fully-conscious wolf, his feet in a warm tub, being fed by the rabbit family, all singing “Happy days are here again.”



Ah, there’s nothing like clumps of food inside an open mouth.



The wolf hiccoughs his head out of the scene from being a glutton. Oh my!



And because there’s a war on.



Variety of January 28, 1942 reported Scott Bradley was conducting the score of the short. It was released February 21st, and copyrighted six days later.

Showman’s Trade Review rates it “fair.” “This one moves too slowly to be entertaining,” it assesses. One exhibitor in the Motion Picture Herald said: “Just a fair cartoon, not made for laughing purposes but to show artistic talent, I guess.” Metro’s own shorts publication didn’t bother to do a special review of it.

I don’t know who plays the rabbit, but Mel Blanc is the wolf. He couldn’t have voiced many more MGM cartoons after this. Variety reported on April 25, 1941 that Blanc had been signed to a term contract by Leon Schlesinger. Part of the deal meant he could not voice theatrical cartoons for any other studio. And, let’s lay to rest the oft-repeated tale that Blanc's contract stipulated no other actor could be credited at Warners. As Keith Scott’s research shows, it simply isn’t true. And he’s seen the contracts.

There are no credits at all on this cartoon. Jerry Beck’s research shows that Hugh Harman was responsible for it, but Harman was gone from MGM by the time it was released. Variety announced May 2, 1941 that Harman was leaving and had formed Hugh Harman Productions. It was Harman’s departure that quashed any ambitions by members of the MGM staff for a director’s job; Tex Avery was brought in from outside in September.