Wolfie Flips For Red (Cinderella)

Wolfie lands on the ground in a clump and has to straighten himself out in Swing Shift Cinderella (1945).



He pulls upward and tugs a few times.



Success! These are 14 consecutive frames. Wolfie flips over twice before landing. Note the dry brush and how he follows the laws of squash and stretch at the end.



Ed Love, Ray Abrams and Preston Blair animated this Red Riding Hood cartoon for Tex Avery, though the real Red disappears at the start and Cinderella (with Sara Berner doing her Bette Davis voice) substitutes for her the rest of the way.

Rochester and Albuquerque

A stroke of genius wafted over the radio airwaves on March 28, 1937. The Jack Benny show included an incidental character who got laughter and applause. The reaction no doubt spurred Benny and his writers to find other situations for him. The character was an unnamed porter played by a film and stage actor named Eddie Anderson.

Finally, on June 20, the character now was employed by Benny and named Rochester. Because the show didn’t always have an element of Jack’s “home life” (it was stage-bound much of the time, like other comedy/variety shows), Rochester didn’t always appear; in fact the Rochester character only showed up once before becoming somewhat regular at the end of the year. But Benny and the writers knew he had comic appeal. Eventually, a “phone call to the studio from Rochester” bit was included on the show to squeeze him in if there was no “home life” scenario that week.

Audiences came to love Rochester because he was the employee who constantly one-upped his boss, the same as the rest of the cast. He had the audacity to wear Jack’s clothes, smoke his cigars and empty his fridge (and bar), and didn’t seem too concerned he’d get caught, coming up with lame and funny explanations. As the show evolved into a sitcom after the war, he and his “boss” were like friends and mutually respected each other.

On that first appearance, there’s a running gag where Rochester, the redcap, doesn’t know anything about a train stop at Albuquerque. He thinks Jack has made up the name and won’t take it seriously. The interesting thing is, like much of the Benny show, there was a touch of real life behind it. Jack was on a train that week and he did stop in Albuquerque two days before the Sunday broadcast. The Albuquerque Tribune of March 27 reported and made a revelation about the show. The Benny-Allen feud that started over “The Bee” ended on March 14th in New York. At least temporarily.

Jack Benny Asserts He Can Play the Bee All Right
"What do you mean am I ever going to learn to play ‘The Bee’? I already can play it. Improve? What's wrong with it the way it is?" Jack Benny queried defensively here yesterday afternoon.
Off the screen and off the air Jack Benny is a business man. Yesterday when he and Mary Livingston passed through here on the Chief his business was preparing his Sunday night's broadcast, in which, incidentally, Albuquerque will play a minor role.
The program will be worked around Mr. Benny’s train trip to Hollywood and the stop-over here will be used in the script which Mr. Benny Is preparing en route. While here, he wired Hollywood to here train bells, whistles, escaping steam and other locomotive noises ready for the broadcast.
Aside from defending his musical accomplishments, Mr. Benny seemed to be taking life pretty seriously. He refused to take any stand on Fred Allen, except that contrary to rumors, he and Mr. Allen will not make a picture together in the near future at least.
Mr. Benny will, however, start work soon on "Artists and Models," a picture about which Mr. Benny knows no more than anybody else.

As a side note, it’s interesting to see the show was still being written on Friday. NBC issued news releases promoting programmes and I’ve run into cases where the summary doesn’t quite match what appeared on the air. I suspect this paragraph in the March 28 edition of the Sunday Times of New Brunswick, N.J. is from a release.

The opening portion of the program will be devoted to a dramatization of the cast’s transcontinental railroad trip. Among the episodes to be covered will be the celebration of Jack Benny Day in Waukegan, a discussion of how the various members of the troupe spent their vacations in New York, a poker game, a dining-car sketch and an interlude with the conductor who thinks that Mary Livingstone ought to get a new straight-man.

Other than being on the train from Chicago, none of the rest of the above plot took place. There’s a Yiddish dialect routine with Pat C. Flick and a routine with Verna Felton and Blanche Stewart involving a stage mother who coerces Jack to hear her operatic daughter. And there’s Rochester.

Benny and cast made another train trip a year later and again stopped in Albuquerque. By then, Rochester was already known. The Journal interviewed Eddie Anderson and Jack for its March 28, 1938 edition.

JACK BENNY'S "FIND" COMES BACK THROUGH TOWN THAT MADE HIM ON RADIO
The Negro boy who began his rise to radio renown by good-humored jibes at Albuquerque less than a year ago came back to town Tuesday morning on the Chief.
And also on and with Jack Benny.
And Eddie Anderson—Rochester, the Pullman porter, to you dial twisters—"ain't been so excited since I was colored."
While Eddie attempted to establish kinship with a group of Navajo Indians who toothily consented to pose for the cameramen, he paid his respects to Albuquerque.
“Do I remember this city, Boy, I'll never forget it as long as I live," said the ginger-cake boy with unfailing cheer. "It got me my big chance in radio. Say, I love everybody here."
In Eddie's first radio broadcast when he was "discovered” by Benny a year ago, it will be recalled that he tore off some gags not exactly calculated to flatter the finer sensibilities of the Chamber of Commerce.
Benny All Apologies

For instance, when Jack asked him, in the skit, "how far is Albuquerque,” Rochester answered with mirthful impudence:
"Is dat on dis line? Shux. dey ain't no such a thing as Albuquerque."
When Jack persisted in plying the radio reporter with the question, Rochester was increasingly scornful.
"Lissen, dere he go again. Talkin' 'bout Albuquerque. He must be crazy."
As for Jack Benny, acclaimed by many as Radio Comedian Number One? And acclaimed by America's tailors as Well Dressed Man Number One?
He was all apologies. This was the first time he had ever failed to emerge from his stateroom in Albuquerque. He misunderstood the schedule and thought it was an hour earlier.
About this best dressed business. At ease in his bed, wearing horn-rimmed glasses, crinkled blue pajamas and a slight beard stubble, he said; graciously:
"Pshaw. There's not a man in my show that's not better dressed than I." I don't see where they get that. My recipe for being the best dressed? Just comb your hair, change shirts now and then, brush your teeth and shine your shoes, that's all."
Talks About Show
Jack preferred to talk about Rochester, his discovery. And his "radio show of shows," scheduled for New York next Sunday night.
The graying comedian expects to present, along with himself. Kate Smith, who will pinch hit for Mary Livingston, his wife; Fred Allen, his perennial "friendly enemy," Bob (Believe-It-Or-Not) Ripley and others. Mary stayed in Hollywood. So did Don Wilson, the announcer, who will be supplanted for the Sunday broadcast by Harry Vonzell.
What about Fred, now, Jack?
"O' I simply can't wait to get to New York and kick him in the pants," he chuckled. "Quite a citizen, that Allen."
What did he think of this year's awards of "Oscar?" (Hollywoodian for the Motion Picture Academy awards?)
"Very good, especially Spencer Tracy," he said. "However, I thought that Barbara Stanwyck should have been given more consideration for her work in "Stella Dallas."
Jack punctuated his observations with warm words of praise for the Santa Fe's Chief.
"Boy, this is the swellest train I ever rode. Yes, I used to fly, but I have about quit."
Jack Benny's last words to the reporter was a request to personally convey his thanks to the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce.
"For that splendid letter they wrote me last year after Rochester put on his Albuquerque broadcast."

Perhaps it’s significant that Anderson’s quotes are in regular English but the Rochester dialogue is pure minstrel show. Rochester drawled for a while on the Benny show and he engaged in some stereotype behaviour (On one episode, he steals Ronald Colman’s chickens. Why the dignified actor would own chickens defies explanation, except to draw on a tired racial stereotype). The Benny writers pretty much dropped it as time wore on.

Incidentally, where the paper got the Rochester dialogue from the show is a bit of a mystery. The broadcast in circulation is the West Coast version and it doesn’t contain any of the lines above. And while Eddie Anderson appeared in Albuquerque in 1937, Rochester did not. That’s because local station KOB didn’t hook up with NBC until June 1937. Albuquerque fans of Jack had to hear him on KOA in Denver on Sundays at 9:30 p.m. In fact, KOB didn’t even air the Benny show until April 24, 1938. Audiences got “Words and Music from Cheerio,” an NBC Blue network show, before that.

It’s a little difficult hunting for newspaper stories of Anderson’s early days as Rochester. That’s because there was another Eddie Anderson in Hollywood, an assistant director at Warner Bros. We found one with a Benny connection, once removed, in the Moline Dispatch of August 21, 1937. It praised Anderson’s movie work (not mentioning radio), and revealed:

In Over the Goal, however, he’s a college janitor boy who each year manages to wangle raccoon-skin coat from the freshmen who have the job of stealing a rival college’s mascot—which is a big black bear. He’s necessary because the bear knows and will mind him.
Parenthetically, Eddie has been having troubles with the trained bear used, who is not vicious but playful!

It turns out Eddie had some experience to prepare him to be shoved into a scene with Carmichael the polar bear in Buck Benny Rides Again.

One other note about the debut of Rochester: Frank Nelson claimed that he was supposed to the voice of the porter, but turned down the role because he had another commitment on the air so Anderson was hired. A look at the script for that episode says “Nelson” next to the lines for a redcap, but the broadcast has no other voice than Eddie Anderson’s. It would appear Nelson was to be on the show but all the porter lines were consolidated into one character.

It turns out that Frank Nelson, indirectly, was partly responsible for the creation of one of the most popular characters in all of network radio.

Making Those Warners Cartoons

When Tweety Pie won the Oscar in 1948 for the best cartoon, producer Eddie Selzer admitted “I’m afraid that my family was more excited about it than I was.”

Maybe that tells you all you need to know about the boss at Warner Bros. cartoons.

When Leon Schlesinger sold his cartoon studio to Warners in 1944, Selzer was installed to run it. Schlesinger wasn’t an artist, but at least he had a sense of showmanship as a former vaudeville theatre owner. Selzer didn’t even have that. He was a studio publicist who became head of the trailer department. It’s pretty easy to guess the studio gossip after the words “they brought in who??!”

Selzer didn’t have much to say to Miami News columnist Herb Kelly, who dropped into Warners new cartoon studio in Burbank in 1957. Instead, he let Friz Freleng and Warren Foster explain how cartoons were made. Foster, incidentally, would leave Warners for John Sutherland Productions that November. Selzer would retire the following January.

The storyboard is for Apes of Wrath, released in April 1959. This shows you how big the backlog was to release Warners cartoons. The story was published August 15, 1957.

Cartoons Big Business—Here's How
Burbank, Calif., Aug. 15 —This has been the craziest day. It was spent with Bugs Bunny.
We were on Warner Bros. lot here and got lost and walked into the cartoon division of the movie company and met Edward Selzer, its executive producer. "What's up, doc?" we asked, and the little man behind the desk tossed us a carrot.
We were in the madhouse of the movies where characters like Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Tweety, Sylvester, Pepe LePew (the skunk), Speedy Gonzalez, Foghorn Leghorn and Henery Hawk are created by a group of men and women who are like a large family. That's how they get along.
The cartoons in the movies have always intrigued us and we see several a week in our job of reviewing films. (Many times they are better than the feature.) You can have a big picture, with a fascinating title and an all-star cast but when the credits come on the screen there is a dead silence in the audience.
But when a movie title is flashed — usually with a horrible pun — a hum can be heard, not only from the kids but from grownups, too.
"WHY IS THAT?" WE asked Selzer, and he gave us the answer.
"When the feature picture starts, the audience doesn't know what they're in for. It may be interesting, maybe not. But when a cartoon is up there before them, they know they are going to be entertained and they know they are going to have at least a few laughs. It's as simple as that."
There's another mystery to the cartoon business, the men who think them up. Maybe you have asked yourself the same question, "How do they get those crazy ideas."
We asked Selzer if it was possible for the thinker-uppers to put down their opium pipes and for him to unlock their padded cells. If it was safe, we'd like to talk to these fellows. The producer hollered down the hallway, "Hey, Warren, hey Friz, got a minute?" No push buttons and fancy gadgets in this division.
Two average-looking men came into the office, the kind of guys you wouldn't look at twice if you saw them walking down Flagler St.
Warren Foster is the story man, Friz Freeling [sic], the director. There are two other teams. They are the combinations who work out a plot, think up the dialogue and mischevious situations and bring you those laughs. Talk to them about their work and they are as plain as the slacks and sports shirts they were wearing. Get them deep into an explanation of their cartoon characters and they become the rabbit or bird or fox they are talking about.
ANOTHER BUGS BUNNY production is in the works, and the early steps are about half finished. On a wall in story man Foster's office are 78 drawings, a little larger than a postal card. Beneath each one are a few words of dialogue.
The plot goes something like this: "The stork is on his way to a Mama Gorilla and becomes delayed when he gets a little drunk. Bugs comes along, the stork snatches him and delivers him to the gorilla's lair as their new baby. Mama Gorilla cuddles him. Papa Gorilla wants to punish him and Bugs starts a family brawl.
The story sounds simple and it is, but there are laughs already and it isn't even finished. As Foster and Director Freeling went over the rough draft of the picture, reading the lines and enlarging upon the situations, they began talking like Bugs Bunny, hopping and waving their arms.
When they finished, they became their normal selves again. The men are buried in their work and they love it.
The actual making of a cartoon is complicated and technical process to those unfamiliar with the industry and it is not our aim to enfuse [sic] you with a lot of stuff that was a mystery to us even after it was explained thoroughly.
In substance there's the way a cartoon is produced:
Each of the three story men must come up with five ideas a year. Besides Foster, the others are Mike Maltese and Tedd Pierce. They are married, they watch their children, they read, they keep their eyes open. A plot comes to than from these or any other of a thousand sources and they take it from there.
Then the directors are called in. The other two are Charles M. Jones and Bob McKimson. The story is kicked around in a conference with Selzer and there is no "yessing" in these sessions. Criticisms are blunt, arguments are hot, but when they leave Selzer's office they are teams again.
ROUGH DRAFTS OF THE cartoons are drawn and the conversation printed below each panel. Then they go to a room where about 40 girls are at work, tracing the drawings onto 8 x 10 sheets of celluloid. The girls wear a white gauze on their right hand, which soaks up perspiration and keeps the celluloid sheet clean. The next step is washing each sheet with a chemical to make it spotless. Each sheet is photographed under the camera and how would you like to have to keep track of about 150,000 drawings? That's how many there are in the average cartoon. Remember, there is action in these and each movement is a drawing of its own.
Dubbing in the dialogue is another art. There are about dozen men in the film colony who have a corner en the voice market. Mel Blanc it tops and he does Bugs Bunny and many others for Warners.
And that brings up an example of how a bluff can work in Hollywood.
Dave Barry, who just closed at the Statler here and who played the Eden Roc in Miami Beach a few months ago, is one of those often called in to do mimicry. He has a long routine, but this one called for the sound of a raven.
Now Dave wouldn't know a raven from a canary, but out here you can't admit that. If you act just a little uncertain you are lost and this was a $1,000 job. Dave went into a huddle with the producer, director and writers. "Do you want me to imitate a male raven or a female raven?" he stalled. "You mean there's a difference?" they chorused. Barry appeared stunned at their ignorance. "A difference?" he said. "Sure there's a difference. Where do you think little ravens come from?"
All agreed he had something there and he got the job.
AFTER THE VOICE HAS been dubbed comes another vital part of a cartoon and that is the music, and Warner doesn't spare the horses there either. Thirty-five pieces for Bugs Bunny and the others. The score is composed, lengthy rehearsals are held and finally the music is synchronized with the action on the screen.
There's no room for temperament or retakes in the cartoon market. It is an expensive operation and the pennies are watched. Bugs Bunny and the others are on the screen for about seven minutes, but it took a full year to make the finished product, and the total cost of putting them up there is $30,000.
And that's a lot of carrots.
The cartoon market is drawing the interest of the stars. Recently one was put out called "The Honeymousers" and was satire on the Jackie Gleason program, Gleason saw it and roared and overruled his legal eagles who wanted to sue Warners.
Now Jack Benny is interested and Warners planning one with him. It will be titled "Jack Benny Mouse" and will kid him about his violin playing, show his vault where he keeps his cheese and have him suspecting Don Wilson of stealing one ounce of the treasure. Benny, his wife, Mary Livingston, Rochester and Wilson will do their voices off-screen.
Benny looks upon the venture as the best free advertising he can get. And if it's for free, Benny wants it. So does Warners.
SYLVESTER IS ANOTHER fall guy in cartoons. The villain must never win. When you see him and the others on the screen for only seven minutes, try to remember it took a year to make the completed product.

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.