Police!

Julius the cat uses a turtle with an extended neck to steal a pie from a third storey window sill in Alice The Jailbird (Disney, 1925).



The baking hippo, who has some kind of accent, calls for the police. The letters of the cry for help turn into a police officer.

I’ve always liked this kind of gag, but it became obsolete in the early ‘30s. Cartoons had sound, so there was no reason to spell words on the screen.

There’s a fun morphing gag to open the cartoon as Julius’ tail turns into a hand (with four fingers and a thumb) and waves at the theatre audience watching.

Protuberant Eyes and the Greasepaint Race

Eddie Cantor was hugely popular for several decades, but always struck me as someone who didn’t necessarily want to entertain you. He wanted to leave you with the impression that he, Eddie Cantor, was hilarious.

This brief editorial is a lead-in to a review of the Cantor radio programme by Herald Tribune syndicate columnist John Crosby. Cantor puzzles him in a way, as you can see in this story dated October 30, 1946.

RADIO IN REVIEW
THE CASE HISTORY OF CANTOR
By JOHN CROSBY
I never got around to any of the original Ziegfeld Follies but, having closely studied two opulent motion pictures about the great Ziggy, I consider myself an authority on them. According to this somewhat questionable source material, Eddie Cantor, in those days, was a little wisp of a man in white gloves and blackface who jumped up and down, rolled a pair of out-size eyes and shouted, "If you knew Suzie Like I knew Suzie."
During this luminous period Eddie was surrounded end supplemented by a roster of talent as long as your arm, including Will Rogers, W. C. Fields, Bert Williams and of course dozens of beautiful girls. The second, or technicolor period of the Cantor career, took place in Hollywood— and from here on speak from personal observation— when the little comedian did his jumping up and down in front of hundreds, rather than mere dozens, of beautiful girls and about a million dollars worth of United Artists’ most expensive furniture and drapes.
When he entered radio, Cantor brought along as much of this luggage as was possible in a non-visual medium. The beautiful girls and the settings had to be discarded but in their place Cantor surrounded himself by a huge orchestra, a comic violinist (predecessor, I guess, to the comic bandleader), a comic announcer, and an impressive array of guest stars. In the middle, as usual, were Mr. Cantor's wistful, protuberant eyes floating, as it were, in a sea of somebody else's talent.
It's an excellent formula and has kept the customers coming, for 30 years or more, to the theater, the motion pictures, and their radio sets. Still I could never understand why the little man was worth all the fuss. A pair of performing dogs surrounded by the Philharmonic, beautiful girls and screen stars would attract just as large a crowd and would be less expensive to maintain.
Cantor's brand of comedy and his personality, it must be admitted, is uniquely his own. He's an appealing little cuss who is always chased by bigger men, and his reaction to almost any stimuli never seems to fit his small body. When he's frightened, he gibbers; when he's sad, he cries; his indignation is explosive and his happiness is radiant. It should be funny but to me, raised to a period of quieter, more understated comedy, it just isn’t. Some trauma of my childhood, probably, because Cantor makes lots of people laugh. I know because I've heard them.
Anyhow, to bring this history up to the present, no one can accuse Cantor of resting on somebody’s else's talents in his current radio series (N. B. C. 10:30 p. m. E. S. T. Thursdays.) The program is an overpoweringly intimate affair, consisting largely of dialogue between Cantor and Harry Von Zell, a mastodon of an announcer, which might very well have been called "Eddie and Harry At Home."
At various times on the current series, Eddie and Harry were plagued by refrigerators—Eddie ordered them from every dealer in town and then got them all at once, a situation that was worked up and down Iike a crossword puzzle—and were frightened by a horror movie and passed the evening crawling under one another’s beds.
More recently Mr. Cantor became petulant because the motion pictures bought and filmed Al Jolson's life and ignored his own. In this one, Cantor prepares a script of his own life, authentic, he says, in every detail. (His father, he insists, sold shoelaces only at night; in the daytime he was prime minister of England). Cantor attempts to get Cary Grant, his guest star, to play the leading role.
"Grant’s about my age," he says to Harry.
"You're speaking of Ulysses S., of course."
Anyhow, Mr. Grant says no to this proposition and so does Harry, whereupon Eddie, according to my notes, says: "Harry turns me down. Cary turns me down. What’s left for me—harikari?" This winds up in a deathbed scene, taken right out of Hecht and MacArthur's "Twentieth Century," in which Cantor wangles Grant into signing a contract by pretending suicide.
"I see the Pearly Gates right in front of me,” he cries. "But I can’t get in. I can't get in."
"Why not?"
“They're picketing the place."
Somewhere along the line there was an elopement joke, the first I’ve heard in years, which I pass along as a collector's item: "Her father caught me when I was half way up the ladder.” “What did you do?" "I painted the house.”
All in all, the Cantor show is fitfully amusing and only occasionally painful. For my money, the best part of it is the wind-up when Eddie shouts in that surprisingly full tenor those old songs like "Louise" or "If You Knew Suzie." Also you get one or two songs from Margaret Whiting, a thrush who puts lots of flavor and bounce to the more recent tunes.
Incidentally, Pabst Blue Ribbon deserves a pat on the back for its discreet, intelligent and frequently amusing advertising which is blended right into the script.

The day before, Crosby examined the phenomenon that was Amos ‘n’ Andy. It’s almost impossible to have any kind of discussion about this show today. There are people can’t get past the word “blackface.” The odd thing is perhaps the biggest complaints about the show came in the television years when all the major parts were played by black people.

Crosby takes the unusual viewpoint that blacks and blackface are not the same thing; that the latter is a phoney, theatrical thing. I don’t want to get into a racial discussion here because it’s lose-lose. Instead, I’ll reprint his column.

RADIO IN REVIEW
Amos 'n' Andy Carry On
By JOHN CROSBY
On March 28, 1928, Charles J. Correll first said, "Hello, Amos," and Freeman F. Gosden first replied, "Hello, Andy," on a sustaining program over WMAQ in Chicago. Five months later they were on a national network earning $100,000 a year from the Pepsodent Company, and almost overnight they set the back woods ablaze. "I'se regusted" became a national catchphrase and millions of listeners quivered for weeks as Andy fought and finally won a breach of promise suit brought by Madame Queen. Telephone calls dropped 50 percent during their 15-minute program (7 to 7:15 p. m.) and Amos ‘n’ Andy's fame approached that of Al Capone and Jimmy Walker, though, of course, they didn't get the headlines.
Well, time passed. President Hoover left the White House, Jimmy Walker went to England, Al Capone went to Alcatraz. "I'se regusted" fell out of favor and Popeye's "I yam disgustipated" took its place. Somewhere in the last eighteen years we reached a deeper, bitterer, more perceptive understanding of Negroes.
And, in spite of it all, if you had been listening to Amos 'n' Andy recently (N. B. C. 9:30 p. m. E.S.T. Tuesdays) you might have heard the Kingfish frying to embezzle some money from Andy by starting on the spur of the moment De First National and Kingfish Bank and Trust Company.
"I wanna make sure my bank is safe", says Andy.
"Yo couldn' find no safer bank dan de First National an' Kingfish Bank and Trust Company. Ev'ry deeposit goes right heah in mah back pocket.”
“What's so safe about dat?"
"Well, can't you see de button on it?"
"I still feels I’d be better off wid a reg’lar bank."
"Now, wait a minute, Andy. Banks is closed on Sundays and holidays, ain't dey? But you can git into mah back pocket at any time. All you gotta do is walk up behind me an' unbutton it."
"Yeah, an' a pickpocket can do de same thing."
"No, dat's against de law."
"I nevah thought of dat."
Amos ‘n’ Andy are no longer on six days a week. Their half hour, once-a-week show, which started in 1943, is a sleek streamlined job built around one idea. Where they used to play around with one idea for weeks, each program now is a complete story in itself, consisting of short, sharp sequences with the dialogue, cut to the bone.
I don't know what happened to Ruby, Amos' old flame, and Madame Queen doesn't seem to be around any more, but you'll meet a lot of old friends. As usual, Gosden plays Amos as well as the Kingfish, Brother Crawford and Lightning. Correll plays Andy, the landlord and Henry Van Porter, the Harlem socialite. However, the two comedians no longer attempt to play all the roles themselves. It's a big show now and its waistline has increased considerably.
The conversation has been brought up to date along with the format. You don't hear much about the Fresh Air Taxicab Company Incorpulated these days. Instead the talk is of prefabulated housing and the meat shortage.
"Las' night we done had a aspic salad."
"Aspic salad? What do aspic mean?"
"Well, it means you can pick and pick and you ain' gonna find no meat."
That sort of gag is infrequent, however, and the boys are not entirely comfortable with it. Amos 'n' Andy was and still is character comedy. The laughs, what there are of them, revolve around the shrewd but faulty scheming of Andy, and the shiftless habits of de Kingfish, who is still horrified by employment.
"Ah just happened to think how yo could git some money, Kingfish", says Amos.
"How's dat, Brother Amos.”
"Go to work—so long.”
"Dat Amos is got a nasty tongue."
It's about as characteristic of the Negro race as Al Jolson's Mammy and as harmless. Actually, Amos 'n' Andy aren't Negroes at all; they're blackface, a race apart that lives on grease-paint and fan mail. They're at their best when they talk pure nonsense. ("We gotta let the population predominate the internal revenue and inflate the reforestation of lumber") and they're still the masters of timing and inflection.
I don't recall taking much part in the original Amos 'n' Andy craze, but today I think they have a certain historical interest. Their theme, "The Perfect Song," is already a classic and will probably wind up in the Museum of Modern Art like Douglas Fairbanks' old films.

Crosby’s other columns for the week:
● Bill Paley criticises the critics (Oct. 28)
● More Paley and a look at some giveaway shows (Oct. 31)
● A profile of “We, The People” (Nov. 1)

How'd He Do That?

After 28 years on the screen, Jerry Mouse suddenly develops, in the mind of Chuck Jones, a malicious sleepwalking habit in Jerry, Jerry, Quite Contrary (1966).

I realise Tex Avery once said “anything can happen in a cartoon,” but I still wonder something after watching this T & J short. There’s a pan up, first of a ladder, then of a roof.



The shot cuts further up the roof. These are consecutive frames. It means Phil DeGuard didn’t have to paint one long background, he had two shorter ones.



Higher and higher we go.



Okay. How did Jerry get all the way up there? And how did he get an anvil up there? Did he call Mighty Mouse?

Jones wrote the story for this one, and he telegraphs the climax gag, at least for anyone reasonably familiar with cartoons. Jerry wraps a cord or cable or string or something around table legs, bannisters, through keyholes, etc. We already know what’s going to happen. Tom’s going to get pulled through all those things. We’ve seen it before.

When Jones had Mike Maltese writing for him, and coming up with gags for the Roadrunner cartoons, the audience knew something was going to happen to the coyote—but not exactly what. The gag was usually a surprise. Remember this when you read about how great “Chuck Jones” cartoons were. Give some credit to Mike Maltese.

For some reason, Jones needed six animators to make this cartoon.

Also for some reason, the late Earl Kress acquired a cue sheet for this short. It’s interesting because it gives the official name of the opening music for the Tom and Jerry series (Love That Pup was a 1949 MGM short). And you can see the names Dean Elliott gave to his cues in various parts of the cartoon. All things considered, it’s not a bad little score.

Home Front Opening

Pan shot from Home Front, a 1944 Snafu cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin.



The camera stops at the record player for a few song lyrics, then carries on to Private Snafu, who is freezing his butt but steaming about the soft life of the folks back home while he’s fighting a war. Naturally, this “soft life” is a product of Snafu’s imagination, as Technical Fairy First Class shows him on a television set that he materialises.

This not-for-the-home-audience short has a horse spreading its own manure and ends with the fairy kissing Snafu. The idea of a room full of young men who sleep together in the same barracks laughing at male-male kissing is an interesting one.

Writing and Reading With Jack Benny

When Bill Morrow and Ed Beloin left the Jack Benny show during the war, they were replaced with five different writers (which dropped to four within weeks when Cy Howard left).

Why did Jack double the number of writers?

He actually answered that question in an interview with the appropriately named Interview magazine.

Fred Allen and the Maxwell came up, but the interviewer seems to have shied away from some the usual questions that, sometime, Jack grew tired of answering. In this feature piece from the January 24-29, 1944 edition, he’s asked about books and music. There’s some familiar biographical material, and a couple of jokes about his latest trip to entertain the troops.

This is one of a number of occasions where he expressed his like for the works of Canadian humourist Stephen Leacock.

The Joke’s on Him
Funny Business Made Jack Benny a Network Favorite But He Likes Serious Books, Music
By Gretta Baker
BEING a radio “funny man” is no joke, according to Jack Benny. It means plenty of hard work.
Jack Benny’s program goes on the air Sunday night at 7 (EWT). But work on the program begins Tuesday morning.
I talked with Jack during his last visit to New York, and he explained how it happens. “I meet with my script writers Tuesday morning. I used to have two writers, but now I have four.”
“Why so many?” I had to ask.
“Well, I figured I’d play safe. You never can tell when Uncle Sam may decide that he needs a couple of husky fellows. Actually, though, writing a show like mine is a tough business. It takes a lot of bright ideas to keep it running week after week and year after year. Each writer contributes something to the final product.
“Then it’s a cooperative job,” I remarked.
“Exactly. For example, one fellow may get the idea for the show. He’ll work out the situation around which we’ll build the program. Another may write the dialogue, and a third may supply some of the gags. Of course, I try to throw in a few ideas myself.”
This was a triumph of understatement, for Jack Benny works as hard as any of his staff in planning, writing, and polishing the script. I saw an example of this as I watched the rehearsal in New York that Sunday afternoon. The script was two minutes over time, and Jack was in a huddle with his writers. What to cut, was the problem. One laugh depended on another. So Jack and his writers went through the entire script, carefully gauging the possible effect of an omission here or there. After thirty minutes of hard work the script was ready for air.
Meanwhile, the cast had gone out for lunch, so my interview with Jack Benny was resumed. He had recently returned from overseas where he had entertained our fighting men on the battle fronts. His troupe included Larry Adler, harmonica player; Jack Snyder, pianist; Wini Shaw, singer, and Anna Lee, actress. They played in all kinds of weather, indoors and out. At one spot along the Persian Gulf the audience sat in the sun for an hour and a half with the temperature at 140 degrees. Jack and his companions wore khaki while traveling and civilian clothes for the performances.
In Egypt Jack rode a camel, although he said he preferred his old Maxwell. He also played his violin for the Sphinx. But he didn’t say how his efforts were received. Probably in silence!
In reply to a question about his itinerary, Jack Benny said, “I followed the same route as Wendell Willkie, although I didn’t go to Russia or China. But I met many of the same people he did. Now I have a greater appreciation of his book One World and a deeper understanding of his viewpoint expressed in that book. I can highly recommend One World.
“I spent some time in the Holy Land and was greatly impressed by the co-operative farms. I think I could read the Bible now with a new interest.”
Following up his lead on books, I wanted to know more about Jack Benny’s reading tastes.
“A great many fine books are coming out of this war,” he continued. “One of my favorites is William L. Shirer’s Berlin Diary. I generally read a bit before I go to sleep. Of course, for that purpose I like something light. I am very fond of Robert Benchley and Stephen Leacock. They are two of the world’s best humorists, in my opinion.”
In music Jack Benny prefers symphony to opera. He is familiar with all the classic composers, for he once studied to be a concert violinist. On the lighter side he enjoys the music of Irving Berlin and George Gershwin. He was enthusiastic about the musical hit, Oklahoma! now playing on Broadway, the music for which was written by Oscar Hammerstein, 2d, and Richard Rodgers.
He likes music on the phonograph and radio, too. He also is a mystery fan and enjoys Ellery Queen and Inner Sanctum. His famous feud with Fred Allen is just a gag. It started when they both worked for the same agency. Fred and Jack are really great friends. But now Fred Allen may have cause for complaint, because two of his actors have joined the Benny show.
Jack Benny started his theatrical career at the age of fifteen. He took a job in the orchestra of a vaudeville theater in Waukegan, Illinois, where he went to high school. The theater closed the following week. (Jack insists he had nothing to do with that!)
Jack got into World War I via the Navy. He was immediately assigned to the Great Lakes Review, a sailor’s road show, where he had a chance to capitalize on his theatrical talents. Benny returned to vaudeville after the war. It was during a vaudeville engagement in Los Angeles that some movie scouts saw his act and offered him a part in the Hollywood Revue of 1929. After this first success he appeared in Chasing Rainbows and The Medicine Man for MGM.
Jack Benny left Hollywood for New York to take a leading role in Earl Carroll’s Vanities. It was a lucky move in more ways than one, for it started Jack on his radio career. He first appeared with Ed Sullivan but soon became a network star in his own right.
The Waukegan Jester likes to share the credit for his show with his leading lady, Mary Livingstone, who in private left is his wife. He met Mary at a dance in Los Angeles and married her in 1927. She was not a professional at that time, but in working with Jack she has become one of radio’s leading comediennes. In 1934 the couple adopted a daughter, Joan Naomi, then only four months old.
Jack Benny’s father is now living in Chicago. Until last year he kept up his little haberdashery in their home town of Waukegan. He loves to tell the neighbors about his famous son Jack, and they love to listen. Like millions of others, they are all Benny fans.

Note: This story comes from the wonderful Benny scrapbook collection kept by fan Barbara Thunell.

The Series That Lasted One Cartoon

Leon Schlesinger had big plans for a new cartoon series. It would feature paintings by a well-known and respected artist and uber-cute little boys. Sounds like an attempt to take on Disney, doesn’t it? But after Schlesinger poured out extra money and effort, the series died after one cartoon.



What was the series?

Schlesinger’s aggressive PR flack, Rose Horsley, got material planted on it with various columns (Lolly, Hedda, Fidler) and assorted news agencies and newspapers. Here’s an International News Service story from January 14, 1940.

IN HOLLYWOOD
By BURDETTE JAY
HOLLYWOOD, Jan. 13. (INS)—Leon Schlesinger, who produced the screen's first patriotic cartoon, "Gold Glory" [sic] and originated those popular animated travelogues, will present another innovation to the pen and paintbrush film industry in "Mighty Hunter," first in a series of one-reel Jimmy Swinnerton-"Canyon Kiddies" Technicolor cartoons, which will be released as a "Merrie Melodie" by Warner Bros.
The new idea is backgrounds painted in oils, rather than the usual water color, which have been done by Swinnerton, noted artist and newspaper cartoonist, who also created the screen characters and collaborated on the story.
Swinnerton, famous for his desert landscape paintings, has brought the splendor and colorings of the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert to "Mighty Hunters," which took 12 months to produce.
A precedent was established in cartoon production when Schlesinger sent Swinnerton, Director Charles M. Jones and several animators to the Grand Canyon and nearby Indian villages to make 16 mm. color pictures for background reference and study native dances, and costumes for this animated subject.

“Canyon Kiddies” was appearing in Good Housekeeping magazine every month. We’ll likely never know at this late date what induced Schlesinger to decide to turn Swinnerton’s comic into an animated series, but the first hint of him doing it appeared in Lee Shippey’s column in the Los Angeles Times of November 25, 1938.

Jimmy Swinnerton’s Canyon Kiddies, long featured by a national magazine, are to be put on the screen as animated cartoons.

Schlesinger and his wife boarded the Super Chief for New York on December 27th for meetings with Warners mucky-mucks (Daily Variety, Dec. 23, 1938). He already had some cartoons for the 1939-40 season in the can (Variety, Oct. 19, 1938). When he got to his destination, he had an announcement to make. Film Daily reported on January 6, 1939:

Schlesinger Expects New Short to Require a Year
In wake of his arrival this week in New York from the Coast, Leon Schlesinger, short subjects producer for Warner Bros, at whose home office he is currently discussing preliminary plans for his program of "Merrie Melodies" and "Looney Tunes" for the company's 1939-40 line-up, stated the "Merrie Melodies" series next season is virtually certain to include several subjects delineated by Jimmie Swinnerton, creator of “Canyon Kiddies,” whom Schlesinger recently signed to a contract.
Production will start on the initial "Canyon Kiddies" short on Feb. 6, and the picture will require approximately one year to complete, Schlesinger declared.

There’s a possibility most of the Schlesinger staff had no idea this was happening. Leon arrived back in Los Angeles on January 26th (Daily Variety, same date) and the studio newsletter, The Exposure Sheet reported that he had told the staff on his arrival about the series that would “retell old Indian legends” and that Chuck Jones would direct it. Kiddie characters were his forte.

Film Daily of February 9th reported:

Leon Schlesinger has started production on the initial "Canyon Kiddies" cartoon. Jimmy Swinnerton, recently signed to a long term contract, will create the characters and collaborate on the story and draw his inimitable backgrounds. The initial subject as yet untitled will be as a "Merrie Melody" of the 1939-40 program as Schlesinger has room for only one subject on this series. Schlesinger will probably do a series for the 1940-41 schedule.

A February edition of the Exposure Sheet provided an update:

Due to the unusual backgrounds and customs in the new series of Canyon Kiddies Cartoons, James Swinnerton, Chuck Jones and his story unit, left yesterday morning for the old Indian ruins of Arizona.
Mr. Schlesinger felt that it was quite necessary for the department to be familiar with the general atmosphere of the country. They took a 16 m.m. camera with which to capture, in color, the Indian dances, settings and characters. They expect to gather enough material on the old Indian legends for the entire series of cartoons.
Isn’t this the first time a cartoon studio has gone out on location for material.
P.S. – Tex Avery’s story unit [Tubby Millar and Jack Miller] swear their next picture will have a Hawaiian background.

Some of the tribulations of the Jones expedition were outlined in a March edition of the Exposure Sheet. It doesn’t say who went on the trip, but storyboard artist/designer Bob Givens revealed that, at the time, Jones’ story unit was Dave Monahan and Rich Hogan. They rotated credits and Monahan gets screen credit on Mighty Hunters.

The C. Jones unit’s trip to Arizona for research on “The Canyon Kiddies” was a huge success, their one disappointment being their inability to secure many pictures of the Indians who thought the boys were taking a part of their lives when they snapped any pictures.
On approaching the Indian settlement of Hoteaville, they had a feeling of being in Shangri La because of the detachment and unreality of the place. And although it was almost zero weather, many of the old Indians walked around barefoot.
In one hogan they saw a little old woman of 110 sitting near a stove, and were told she had been there for ten years, getting up only occasionally during the summer. The different tribes’ manner of living was also noted. The Hopis are pretty wealthy and are very commercial. They work well together, and are very friendly – in direct contrast to the Navajos.
The boys were very fortunate in witnessing the ancient Bean Dance which only a hundred or so white men have ever seen; particularly as it may be the last time the Indians will have danced it. The leaders of the dance were all over a hundred years old, and half blind. One was totally blind.
Outstanding, during the entire trip, was the unusually good behavior of the children – parents [remainder of sentence missing ].

Something delayed the Canyon Kiddies project a bit—Leon decided to join the flag-waving going on at the Warners main lot. He announced in late March a patriotic cartoon. The trades reported he assigned as many people as possible to Old Glory, with Chuck Jones directing. It was finished in ten weeks on June 16th (United Press story). Then it was back to Mighty Hunters for a bit. The Exposure Sheet of August 25, 1939 tracked the progress.

James Swinnerton has completed the oil backgrounds for the first of the “Canyon Kiddies” series – as yet untitled – and has turned them over to the studio.
Chuck Jones’ story unit has finished the story, and with Chuck now working on the timing of the picture, it will soon be in the hands of the animators. Much interest has been shown around the studio in anticipation of this first picture of the series, and from all reports the finished product will be indeed worthy of praise.
One of the interesting points of the cartoon will be the authentic Navajo music and dances. The backgrounds will also authentically show the Navajo land.

It’s clear, even looking at the murky version of the cartoon in circulation, that Swinnerton did not do all the backgrounds. Once the cartoon shows the kiddies in action, the backgrounds (and character designs) are very much in the style of other Warners cartoons. Art Loomer and Al Tarter were Jones background men in spring 1939. Paul Julian was hired and assigned to the Jones unit in mid-October but it’s unclear if he replaced someone. Let’s see how the cartoon moved along as reported in the trade press:

December 11, 1939 (Film Daily)
LEON SCHLESINGER has just put his new "Canyon Kiddies" cartoons ... first of which will be "The Mighty Hunters" ... before the Technicolor cameras for Warner release ... James Swinnerton, originator of the "Kiddies," created the screen characters ... collaborated on the story and painted all the backgrounds ... entirely IN OIL ... for the first time in an animated cartoon ... Schlesinger asserts the oil paintings will give the animated film the same advantage that an oil painting has over water color ... solidity, depth and color effect.

December 13, 1939 (Hollywood Reporter)
Leon Schlesinger will start scoring the first of the Canyon Kiddies-Jimmy Swinnerton cartoons, “Mighty Hunters,” today. Carl Stallings [sic] will conduct the Vitaphone orchestra.

December 22, 1939 (Hollywood Reporter)
Leon and Mrs. Schlesinger leave Tuesday by Superchief for New York where the cartoon producer will spend a month on business. He is taking with him a special Technicolor print of “Mighty Hunters,” the first of his new “Canyon Kiddies” series, to show to Warner home office executives.

January 9, 1940 (Louella Parsons column)
When I return to Hollywood I’m going to have to pay more attention to the animated cartoons—they are so popular across the country. Hear the new little characters Jimmy Swinnerton created for the Leon Schlesinger short, “Mighty Hunters,” are a knockout.

January 14, 1940 (Philip K. Scheuer, Los Angeles Times)
Backgrounds painted in oil, on the increase of late, reach full fruition in Leon Schlesinger’s “Mighty Hunters,” which I viewed last week. This Merrie Melodie is the first animated reel to use oil in lieu of water colors throughout: the artist was Jimmy Swinnerton, noted for his desert landscapes; his setting, the Grand Canyon. A camera unit actually dispatched to the spot to make 16-millimeter color movies for reference. The subject, first of a series about the “Canyon Kiddies,” redskins all, is more impressive than amusing—but probably even the animators were awed. You can’t get flip about a Grand Canyon.

The cartoon was released January 27, 1940. Parents Magazine liked it. Boxoffice magazine was lukewarm in its February 10, 1940 edition.

Mighty Hunters
Vitaphone (Merrie Melody) 7 Mins.
Although handsomely drawn and colored in a new oil pigment process, this bit of Indian whimsy is average stuff about children and their escapes [sic]. Based on “Canyon Kiddies” by Swinnerton, the comic strip, the action concerns a couple of kids who meet up with a bear high on the rim of a canyon. Very suitable for juvenile matinees.

But now that the cartoon was released, there was no more talk about a series. It ended with this one cartoon. Chuck Jones, known to pontificate about just about anything in animation, never mentioned the short or series in his two books, except in a filmographic appendix.

Some time ago, Jerry Beck wrote a piece about a full-page comic strip based on the cartoon. It appears to have been in a bunch of the Hearst papers; we’ve found it in the San Francisco Examiner. You can see a full-colour version in this post.

For the record, Ken Harris gets the animation credit in this short. Shepperd Strudwick is the narrator; Jones had him play the father in another 1940 release, Tom Thumb in Trouble. Carl Stalling’s score includes J.S. Zamecnik’s “Indian Dawn” over the opening credits as well as one of his go-to melodies, “The Sun Dance” by Leo Friedman.

Chinese Jinks Backgrounds

One of the good things to come out of restoration of cartoons from B-list studios like Van Beuren and Iwerks is you can get a better look at some of the artistry.

I quite like the Chinese-evoking background art in the 1932 Van Beuren short Chinese Jinks, even unrestored.

These frames are a little murky but you can still get the idea of what the anonymous background artist was trying to accomplish. Are they watercolours?

>

The cartoon is pretty much what a non-slapstick cartoon of 1932 was supposed to be—music, romance, bad guy shows up, bad guy is quelled, happy ending. Being a Van Beuren cartoon, though, means having the quirks we come to expect from the studio, like a male quartet of animals whose mouths join together while singing.



John Foster and Mannie Davis get screen credit (the copyright catalogue has Harry Bailey instead of Davis) along with musical coordinator Gene Rodemich. Cartoons released by Warners and Paramount got to use songs owned by the studios’ music publishers. Van Beuren had to pay to use popular tunes. The one the sailor sings to the girl on the bench is “Is I in Love? I Is” by J. Russell Robinson and Mercer Cook. Here’s a version from the year the cartoon was released. Fran Frey was usually a vocalist with George Olson (on the Jack Benny Canada Dry show) but he’s with Bennie Krueger here, and sounding more resonant than usual.

The Fish Gag Gets Canned

Tex Avery’s travelogue spoofs at Warner Bros. are hit-and-miss, sometimes in the very cartoon. In Land of the Midnight Fun (1939), studio politics must been the reason for gagless rotoscoped footage of Sonya Henje doing a skating routine. Why else would Avery stop everything in his cartoon to include this pointless bit?

There is some fun in Midnight Fun. I love the timber wolf commenting on the very pun he is in. There’s the ice breaker gag where Avery takes literalness to ridiculousness. And there’s just plain silliness. “These waters are truly a fisherman’s paradise,” says narrator Bob Bruce as he sets up an underwater gag. “We notice barracuda,” he says as several swim past while Carl Stalling plays “Over the Waves” in the background.



Swordfish. You’ll notice the underwater wave effect animation.



Tuna!



Avery was a master of timing as much as anyone. There’s a pause in the action. He’s setting up the punch-line. Bruce then remarks: “And here comes some salmon.”



Yeah, it’s not as funny as drunken fish singing “Moonlight Bay” (see Avery’s Porky’s Duck Hunt) but I like it. Stalling adds a silly arrangement of a snippet of “The Umbrella Man” to musically punctuate the gag.

Chuck McKimson gets the rotating animation credit, Tubby Millar rates being handed the story credit and background artist Johnny Johnsen remains uncredited. There’s good effects animation in this one, too. Oh, and a dog/tree gag. It is a Tex Avery cartoon, after all.

The Gambling Freelancer From Tacoma

It would appear the only time Art Gilmore’s radio broadcasting was silenced was because of clumsiness.

This is before the days of announcing for Red Skelton, Amos ‘n’ Andy and Doctor Christian, before narrating the opening on Highway Patrol, before recording children’s 45s and 78s that were turned into Mel-O-Toons, before turning into a villain intent on bumping off Joe McDoakes in the Warners short So You Want Be a Detective, before Dudley Pictures hired him to be the voice of industrial films, before hyping the thrills and chills of countless movies in theatre trailers.

This is when he was a ham radio announcer with the call letters W7MR, and was about to get into the insurance business in Tacoma. He bought an 80-metre crystal to control his transmitter. Before he was able to install it, he dropped it on the floor, where it turned in ten pieces. No matter. His love of radio became a career, first at KVI in Tacoma in 1934 (where he also sang), then eventually at KNX in Hollywood in October 1936. He was one of the original announcers at Columbia Square when CBS opened it in 1938.

Gilmore decided to freelance in 1941, served a hitch in the navy as a lieutenant, then returned to civilian life after the war to continue a broadcasting career we’ve barely touched on above. He emceed public events. He served as president of AFTRA (members struck against KFWB during his tenure). He was the founding president of the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters. Daily, he introduced the Ambassador College religious show The World Tomorrow.

How did he have time for all this?

Gilmore died in 2010 and his Los Angeles Times obituary was published in newspapers across the U.S. Here’s a much earlier profile, from the Hollywood Citizen-News of January 20, 1958.

Busy Schedule For Art Gilmore
By ARLENE GARBER
Being the announcer for “Climax," “Shower of Stars,” “Highway Patrol,” “Men of Annapolis," the Red Skelton Show, plus narrating numerous motion picture features, short-subjects, children's albums for Capitol Records, narrator for the “Laymen's Hour” on KABC-Radio, acting in dramatic productions and singing at civic affairs might be more than some announcers could handle. But Art Gilmore who does all that, is taking on another task Feb. 24 when he becomes the commercial host for General Petroleum on CBS-TV’s “Track-down" series.
All this is possible, because according to Gilmore, he gave up being a staff announcer at CBS-KNX radio after the war to become a free lance man at the microphone.
He explained it like this, “Free lancing is a gamble, but it is far more stimulating than being a staff announcer. And most important, there is less chance that you will get into a rut taking the jobs as they come.”
Twenty-five years ago he was a singer. After working as a singing announcer he decided to give up being a vocalist as profession. He said, “I had sung for money but the money wasn't good. I got tired of sitting around for eight hours at a studio, just so I could go on to sing four bars of music.”
He admits to having luck in getting many of his first free lance jobs.
A DECISION

“You come to that Y in the road,” he told us, “when you have to make a decision. I took announcing, but when I was 40 years old I started looking around for a good vocal teacher, just to keep in practice. And the strange thing is that all these jobs that have come to me came after I started taking singing lessons.”
Now he does moot of his singing in the bathtub, on tape where he can erase it, and at a few civic or religious affairs.
Among the great radio voices admires are those of Art Baker and Ted Husing, for sports. Of Baker he commented, “He is an excellent performer in anything he does.”
It was because this same Art Baker had laryngitis years ago on a radio show, “All Aboard,” that Gilmore got his first chance to “warm up” a studio audience before the show went on the air and had to be he impromptu host for the program.
Two of Gilmore’s first lucky breaks were being selected announcer for the radio shows, "Red Ryder” which was on the air nine years and for “Dr. Christian,” which continued for 16 years.
When asked who his favorite disc jockey was, Gilmore said, "Someone like Dick Whittinghill. He just seems to bubble over with enthusiasm and has interesting things to say. It's enthusiasm that is the basic quality of all selling.”
When he finds free time, and he claims that he does very often, he likes to get busy in his workshop or take his family, wife and two daughters, sailing on their 30-foot cruiser.

Here’s an example of Gilmore on camera. I’d have to do research on why a Valiant is parked on the warning path of a ball park. Someone should take a shillelagh to the actor with the lame Irish accent. It’s bad enough some whiz-bangs at a copy department someone came up with the idea to name him “Pat.”