Now, Our Tea Time Movie

Love spot gag cartoons? Love stereotypes? Love bad puns?

You’ll get your fill of all that in the Columbia/Screen Gems short Wacky Wigwams (1942). “Look! It’s a scalper!” shouts the narrator (Frank Graham must have been off that week) as a typical Indian brave performs a typical dance, then jumps to the camera. “Say, doc,” he asks the theatre audience, “wanna buy a couple of seats on the 50-yard line?”

Some of the other gags are even more obvious.

There’s a bit of animation I quite like. It’s on twos and a little hard to see in this fuzzy dub. “I wonder what concoction this old witch doctor is brewing,” says the narrator, as a native raises, lowers and twists his gnarled fingers. The fingers are even in perspective, though you can’t tell here, as they come closer to the camera. Excellent work.



“Ugh, ugh. What-um you cook-um, chief?” asks the narrator (speaking the language of the Hollywood tribe). After a pause, the medicine man lifts his head, and responds “Spot of tea, old thing?” The head remind me of something you might have found in a ‘40s Disney cartoon, not surprising since many of the Columbia artists in 1942 had left Uncle Walt after the strike. I particularly like the half-closed eye.



Yes, the “Cherokee strip” gag you see on the poster to the right appears (rotoscoped maiden), there’s the old reference to Mischa Auer’s “confidentially, it stinks” line in the Frank Capra feature You Can’t Take It with You, with Dave Barry providing the voice, and an alligator that sounds like Rochester (I guess that’s Barry, too).

The original credits listed Alec Geiss as the director and Volus Jones as the animator, with music by Paul Worth. Showman’s Trade Review of Dec. 6, 1941 reports the short was written by Frank Tashlin. This got re-released several times as a Columbia Favorite, including as late as September 1963, according to a print ad for the Chilliwack Drive-In (the feature was The Kettles on Old MacDonald’s Farm). I used to go there as a boy but, somehow, I don’t recall Wacky Wigwams.

What's in the Bag, Dad?

Half-Pint Pygmy (1948) contains all kinds of impossible characters, such as a camel with a head at either end of its body, or a giraffe with two bodies and no heads.

Almost the entire cartoon is a chase, with George and Junior (they are bears in this one) racing after a teeny black African native. In one sequence, the pygmy jumps into a handbag. Director Tex Avery pulls back the camera to reveal that handbag is part of a living alligator.



Junior grabs the “bag” and takes it back to George. The alligator is not happy.



Junior tells George the pygmy is in the bag. George starts pulling stuff out of the bag to get him. You can see where the gag is below.



How can an alligator have its head in its own body? Don’t bother asking.



Tex now cuts to the next gag.

The cartoon ends with George and Junior killing themselves. That also killed their cartoon careers. This was their last MGM short.

Heck Allen helped with gags. The animators were Grant Simmons, Walt Clinton, Louie Schmitt and Bill Shull.

The Man of Television Firsts, Dennis James

You only needed one hand to count the number of television stars there were 80 years ago. That’s because in 1942, only one station was airing regular live programming—W2XWV in New York, your friendly Du Mont station.

Remarkably, one of those stars was familiar to TV viewers for many years, hosting game shows, emceeing telethons and hawking Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.

He was Dennis James, one of the smoothest, most casual people ever on the small screen. He made hosting look effortless.

A lot of “firsts” have been attributed to James, though it seems some articles expanded the number a bit over time. Research using contemporary reports reprinted on our “Old TV History” blog shows James was the first person on TV with a regular sports show. And he was the host of the first real variety show on the tube, something called Television Roof ¹. This was all back in the war years, not before, when you could legitimately call him Du Mont’s first big star (certainly one who didn’t come over from NBC like Sam Cuff or Doug Allan). When he returned from service, he was the host of the game show, “Cash and Carry,” arguably a first (John Reed King might claim that title, too).

Stories in the early ‘50s claimed James started in television on W2XWV in 1938. That was impossible. The station didn’t exist then. It was granted a construction permit by the FCC on April 13, 1940.² The station made a frantically put-together debut on July 1, 1941³, with test programmes in the evening once or twice a week⁴, though it considered its debut of regular programming to be June 28, 1942.⁵

James’ radio career began at WAAT in Jersey City in 1938. In May 1940 he moved to WNEW in New York.⁶ Meanwhile, the 1940 Census reports his brother Lou, who later directed a number of his series, gave as his occupation an insurance inspector. Dennis jumped from WNEW to television (in 1941, according to Michael Ritchie’s book Please Stand By), went to war, and became an even bigger star when he returned.

The Daily News profiled him in its TV page on November 1, 1953. By then, he had spread his career outside of soon-to-be-dead Du Mont.

Dennis James Is 4-Network Man
By JERRY FRANKEN
QUITE possibly the only performer in TV who appears every week on each of the four networks is an ex-sportscaster gone legit, by name Dennis James. Right now Dennis is doing 13 shows a week, all of which put him in the 90% income tax bracket—not bad for the son of an Italian laborer.
Dennis's chores include "Chance of a Lifetime" on DuMont; "Turn to a Friend," an afternoon, daily ABC-TV series and the Old Gold cigaret commercials for Fred Allen (NBC-TV) and Herb Shriner (CBS-TV). As you can see, Dennis gets around and just in case you’re wondering, he smokes cigarets and believe you me, they're O.G.'s.
Despite all these activities, though, chances are Dennis is best remembered for his announcing accomplishments at wrestling matches. It was through these that he became well known to TV viewers. The wrestling routine started a few years back on DuMont when, out of a clear sky and without any previous experience, Dennis was assigned to cover the sweaty pachyderms.
Well, Dennis didn't know a half-nelson from a potato masher, so he bought a wrestling book by Frank Gotch, a one-time champion, and went to work. For a while he did a straight grip-by-grip description but after a while he started kidding the matches and the wrestlers.
During a seemingly painful grip he'd provide a sound effect that sounded like the cracking of a gigantic peanut shell, or else do his commentary in doggerel or bawl the daylights out of one of the wrestlers for foul tactics.
Rhyming Comment Enchanted Fans
Before long, Dennis' techniques caught on big. People tuned in just to hear him kid the grunt-and groan exhibitions, and to catch his home-made verse, which frequently told viewers what to expect. Once, for example, after two wrestlers had "thrown" each other out of the ring. Dennis rhymed:
"In the ring they'll soon be back
"And then two heads you'll hear crack.
Sure enough, after the two men hauled themselves back into opposite ring corners (with much groaning and feigning of agony) they lowered their heads, bull-fashion, pawed the resin, bellowed and tore towards each other, heads foremost. After the collision both were counted out and the wrestling fans ordained Dennis as a soothsayer. He himself took a less serious viewpoint. "After a while, you just got to know what the next move was going to be," he explains, "so it gave you chance to ad lib about it."
One ad lib proved dangerous though. Happened when a "villain” (wrestlers are generally grouped as "heroes" and "villains") named Tarzan Hewitt objected to a rhyme Dennis made up about him. Hewitt has more than his share of bay-window and when during a match Dennis observed, "Look at the suet on Mister Hewitt,” Tarzan stalked over and threatened Dennis with every hold he knew.
Dennis thought he was kidding until Hewitt grabbed him later on in his dressing room, put hammerlock on him and said, applying the pressure none too gently, "Next time you mention suet, I’ll break the arm."
Hewitt wasn't the only wrestler who objected to being ribbed. Another, a hulk named George Lenihan, once lumbered cut of the ring, walked over to Dennis, lifted him up bodily, held him up in the air, grunting the while, and thee tossed him into the audience, five or six rows back. The TV cameras got all the action.
About the only background Dennis James ever had for his career as an m.c. and announcer was his ability to talk, first demonstrated in a Jersey City, N. J., high school and later at St. Peter's College. He was a champion debater and an outstanding student in elocution. Even today, at the drop of a diploma, he’ll recite the long, sad narrative poem called "Over the Hill to the Poorhouse." His recitation of that tear jerker won him a prize in high school.
In those days Dennis used his real name, which is Demi James Sposa. He dropped the Demi because his friends insisted on changing it to Dummy just about the same time he decided to forego a medical career for radio. He got job as an announcer on a Jersey City station and broke into the big time, on WNEW, New York, after he’d fluffed a commercial.
Instead of saying "I want to talk to you," Dennis said, "I want to chalk to you" and immediately covered it up by ad libbing his entire commercial around the word “chalk." His feat so impressed Bernice Judis, the head of WNEW (she helped launch the careers of Dinah Shore and Frank Sinatra, among others), that she hired him for her own staff.
Dennis got into TV through his brother Lou, who now directs Dennis's own shows. Lou worked for DuMont when it was operating W2XWV, the forerunner of WABD, the present DuMont station in New York. Dennis did every kind of show, from sports to vaudeville and eventually joined the DuMont staff.
Dennis's most hair-raising wrestling experience was provided by Gino Garibaldi, who is known for his spectacular dives in and out of the ring. He casually informed Dennis, one night, that he was going to dive into him and then, equally casually, added, “Don’t worry, though, Dennis . . . my skin is like velvet."
Sure enough, that night Gino took his dive toward Dennis and while he barely grazed Dennis's chest, he knocked Dennis to the floor, splintered his chair into smithereens and terrified everyone sitting near by. Then, to show that there were no hard feelings, Gino commented as he sauntered back toward the ring, "See, Dennis, didn't I tell you my skin was like velvet?" Dennis, still busy pulling himself together, barely managed to nod confirmation.

James continued to keep busy into the ‘70s, and landed a plumb job—host of The New Price is Right. If he had been picked for the CBS version he likely would have achieved legendary status as the show rolled on and on, year after year. Instead, it went to Bob Barker. James simultaneously hosted a syndicated nighttime version for a number of years. James was unflappable and kept each show moving nicely. He showed a sense of humour and affability. The Los Angeles Times profiled him in its issue of September 21, 1972.

DENNIS JAMES’ CAREER
Star in a Crowded Arena
BY DON PAGE
Times Staff Writer
In the crowded game show field, Dennis James leads in gamesmanship. At one juncture in his 32-year television career (which includes early experimental programs), he starred in 13 nationally televised shows every week—a variety of games such as High Finance, Chance of a Lifetime, Stop the Music, Can You Top This, Name's the Same, Two for the Money and First Impressions. About the only thing he didn't appear on was the sermonette.
Dennis James also is one those charismatic commercial announcers with whom you identify certain products. When you think of Kellogg's breakfast cereal, you immediately picture James giving the casual pitch and ending it with his "OK?-OK!" tag line.
And he was closely identified with a leading cigaret for years, an account worth an annual salary of $350,000, which he unflinchingly gave up (along with smoking) when the surgeon general’s report was made public. In the commercial he was supposed to say, "We're tobacco men, not medicine men." "I couldn't do it with a conscience," he says.
After a long lucrative career in the game-emcee arena, Dennis James suddenly found himself phased out along with a number of his veteran colleagues. In recent times he's been doing a lot of independent, spot commercials and playing golf almost daily. The golf alleviated the boredom somewhat, but did not diminish the nervous drive to get back on the network in his familiar role.
"The networks were looking for hosts under 30," James said, sipping a drink at Lakeside Golf Club. "They'd say, 'Yes, you're perfect for the job, but we need a new face.' The trouble was, these young announcers had no place to be schooled and they gradually fizzled out."
Series Revivals
Goodson-Todman Productions this season revived one, of the most prosperous of all network game shows, giving it the new title The New Price Is Right and bringing back sort of a new, slimmed down and remarkably younger-looking Dennis James ("diet, diet and plenty of golf and sunshine").
Why the revival of these old series (I've Got a Secret is back, too)?
"Because they were great shows to begin with," Dennis said. "And with the prime-time access rule, sponsors and networks want to go with the tried and true." (James hosts the syndicated nighttime version of The New Price Is Right on Mondays at 7:30 over Channel 4, while Bob Barker emcees the daytime counterpart on CBS.)
In The New Price Is Right, he explains, the prizes are bigger and better—boats, cars and trips around the world.
Dennis James, one of TV's most identifiable personalities for more than 20 years, had to experience an incredible identity crisis before his face first showed up on kinescopes.
Born Demie J. Sposa in Jersey City, he was told to change his name when he first appeared on variety shows in the late 30s. "It sounds too Italian," he was told by one producer. "Frank Sinatra was working with me at the time," Dennis said, "but he was a star and no one asked him to change his name."
Name Mixup
James complied and upon securing his birth certificate, learned that through a mixup he was officially registered as "Theresa Sposa" (his mother's name). "That wasn't the worst of it. The certificate listed the doctor as Demie J. Sposa, MD. (Over at Lakeside, "Theresa" Sposa hits the ball 230 yards.)
As Dennis James, he bounced colorfully onto the small screen during the birth of the 50s as a sportscaster doing wrestling out of New York's musty Sunnyside Gardens. He described the melodramatic acts of early TV favorites such as Gino Garabaldi, Gorgeous George, Gene (Mr. America) Standlee and Sandor Szabo. He shaded his approach toward the female audience ("they controlled the one-TV set homes in those days") and introduced his Damon Runyon-ish ringside characters to the parlor fans, such as, "Hatpin" Mary (she stuck the wrestlers where it hurt) and "Heckleberry" Finn.
Boxing Announcer
By the mid-50s, James was the announcer for the Wednesday night fights when boxing dominated the ratings as America's most popular prime-time sport event. He still appealed to the female viewer, believing that explaining the obvious in a sports event was an "insult to the male viewer." Whenever he was pressed into the intricacies of sports parlance, he would direct his commentary to "Mother." This phrase led to another of his network game series, OK, Mother. When you're hot, you're hot.
It is interesting to note that two of Dennis James' simple ad libs ("OK" and "Mother") netted him a half-million dollars in network salary.
Before 1960, James had been named sports announcer of the year three times and personality of the year on four occasions.
"I've never been off the air in some capacity a week since 1938,” he said. "I've saved my money and could retire comfortably right now, but I'm too much of a ham and my golf game isn't what it used to be."
Through the years Dennis James always seems to be on top of the game.

On one episode of Chance of a Lifetime in the mid-‘50s, during the public service message at the end, James shouted the single word “cancer” at the camera, and simply urged viewers to send in a donation to fight it. James died of cancer at age 79 in 1997.

---

1 The Billboard, July 24, 1942^↩
2 Broadcasting, July 7, 1941, pg. 10^↩
3 Broadcasting, Jan. 19, 1942, pg. 39^↩
4 Daily News, July 21, 1936^↩
5 The Daily Home News, June 27, 1943, pg. 7^↩
6 Broadcasting, May 15, 1940, pg. 52^↩

Golfing With TNT

Shamus Culhane ends The Loose Nut (1945) with an explosion effect he used in other cartoon.

Woody Woodpecker spends the entire cartoon playing golf and hassling a sidewalk construction worker. The nemesis substitutes Woody’s golf ball for TNT. Woody swings and hits it.



Now the effect. Culhane inserts random still drawing and solid-colour cards, every one or two frames, to signfy chaos. Here are some of the drawings.



The smoke clears. The construction worker is charred and more worse for wear than the woodpecker.



La Verne Harding and Emery Hawkins are the credited animators. Terry Lind gets her first credit at Lantz for backgrounds; this may be the first time two women are credited on screen at the same time in an animated short. As usual, Bugs Hardaway, Milt Schaffer came up with the story. Darrell Calker provides a typical Woody score, while Dave Lurie is the uncredited sound editor. According to the March 23, 1945 edition of The Film Daily, the worker is voiced by Nestor Paiva.

I Get a Kick Out of a Kick

Porky Pig dreams of marrying Petunia in Porky’s Romance (1937). It’s not so much a dream, but a nightmare where the candy-gorging sow forces him to sire countless piglets, do all the housework and put up with her abuse (and that of her dog, Fluffnums).

Porky wakes up (the dream was caused by a bump on the head after a suicide attempt) and Petunia is there assuring him she’ll marry him. He looks up and all he can see is a vision of the lazy “wife” getting porked out on candy. That’s his cue to head for the hills.



After a pause in the action, he rushes back to take back his candy and zooms away again, not even bothering to stay on the path.



Oh, yes. Porky’s determined to take care of one final bit of business.



Take that, you @$#&@# dog.



Iris out as Fluffnums yelps in pain.

Joe D'Igalo and Bob Bentley are the credited animators for director Frank Tash(lin). Volney White is uncredited. Mel Blanc can be heard in the cartoon but Joe Dougherty plays Porky for one final time. Shirley Reed is Petunia and it sounds like Billy Bletcher is telling us that “Time munches on.”

No Rochester In Rochester

Rochester, the butler, was connected with Jack Benny for so many years. I wondered if Rochester, the city, had a connection with Jack as well. I mean besides airing his show.

The answer is “yes.”

And if you’re wondering if Jack ever explained to people in Rochester why his butler was named Rochester, the answer is also “yes.”

A parade of ancient cars—we suspect a Maxwell was among them—greeted Jack upon his arrival in the city on Saturday, November 14, 1959, according to a local paper. He had just raised $41,300 for a musicians benefit fund in St. Louis. Tickets there went for $50 and 3,500 filled the concert hall, bringing the total Jack raised for musicians and concert hall preservation to $1,700,000 in three years.

Here’s what the Rochester Democrat Chronicle had to say the following day about the Benny arrival.

It’s the 39-Year-Old Prodigy
‘Oh, No, It Isn’t the Breeze . . .’
By ARTHUR DEUTSCH
The strains of "Love in Bloom," performed by a perenially 39-year-old musical prodigy, rent the air and broke up a small but highly critical audience in a fifth floor suite of the Sheraton Hotel about 6 o'clock last night.
Jack Benny was rehearsing.
The famed comedian, here to prepare for his appearance tonight in the Eastman Theater, put his Stradivarius under his chin, put bow to strings and succeeded in convulsing Theodore Bloomficld, conductor of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra; Millard Taylor, the concertmaster; Joseph T. DeVitt, president of the Rochester Musicians' Assn., and others from the orchestra and Civic Music Assn.
Benny's appearance with the orchestra will benefit a special fund for the musicians and comes on the heels of a similar concert Friday night in Detroit, where a benefit fund gained more than $59,000, and one Tuesday in St. Louis, where the gross for a charity was $41,300.
It was quite a day for the gentle comedian. His plane was 2 1/2 hours late, he was rushed into a press-radio-TV conference room at the airport, led by a motorcycle escort to the hotel and promptly plunged into a preliminary rehearsal with Bloomfield and the orchestra principals.
Between his arrival and a quick run-through of the concert program, however, the man who made “Gee!” and "Well!" his trademarks proved that his wit isn't manufactured by writers alone. Some samples:
"Eddie Anderson? We named him 'Rochester' because it seemed like the right name to yell at a guy. Eddie comes from Oakland."
"Sure this is a genuine Stradivarius. I have the papers to prove it. I wonder . . . hmmm . . . a magazine had a story about some forged papers . . . Do you think I may have bought a fake?" "This will kill the audience. This is especially good. I know . . . Now you just play this straight . . . no, I'll play this straight. That'll convince 'em."
"You know, I competed with Isaac Stern in Detroit. He sold out and so did I. But I have real competition here in Rochester on television. That's the Jack Benny Show (Channel 10, 10 p.m.). It's a good show, too Jimmy Stewart and his wife and Barbara Nichols. Gash, I'd like to see it . . ."
Benny had a sympathetic word for Bloomfield. The Rochester maestro planned to watch Benny's concert in Detroit on Friday. But he was grounded in Chicago, spent the night there and was able to reach home only four hours before the comedian.
Irving Fein, who manages Benny's television production company, and Mahlon Merrick, for, 24 years his music arranger, accompanied Benny here.
Merrick said Benny loves the life of a trouper.
"This tour is good for him. It's amazing how he keeps his health. It's medicine for him. After all, if I can let the cat out of the bag, Jack'll be 65 years old in February."
Merrick said that on this trip his life was "very easy."
"All I do is carry" the fiddle," he confided, then went into serious conference with the orchestra member's.
Benny extended to Taylor the personal regards of another Taylor, actor Robert, for years a close friend of the comedian. Robert Taylor and Millard Taylor were Pomona College classmates and members of the same musical groups.
The comedian was given a key to the city by Vice Mayor Joseph Farbo, along with a life membership in the musicians' union. Only three others have the life, memberships, Farbo told Benny—Jose Iturbi, Rabbi Philip S. Bernstein—and the vice mayor.

How did Benny’s concert go? The review in the paper the following day is much like those elsewhere over the years dealing with Jack’s concerts. Critics try to be nice about his playing and point out spots where he was acceptable or better. The comedy is always first-rate, and the members of the orchestra involved in the bits always rise to the occasion. I do think the paper’s fine arts reporter meant to write “Love in Bloom.”

Benny Rocks Audience With Violin, Humor
By HARVEY SOUTHGATE
THERE was an audience of near capacity size in the Eastman Theater last night, but Jack Benny, as you might expect, got in for free. Free, that is, in terms of money, not in the other values he gave forth. In those other values he was on a spending binge, and what he gave to the audience in laughs were to be measured only in terms of the incomparable showman he is. The financial profits of the highly successful evening went to the musicians' pension fund.
The Eastman Theater has never had a show just like this, for there is no one like Jack Benny. In the audience were many who had seen him come up from vaudeville and had watched him develop into one of the masters of comedy. The mastery was all there last night in the little shadings, smooth manner, the silent pauses that are funnier than words.
In addition there was the violin, speaking triumphantly with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Theodore Bloomfield in some of the funniest sounds ever heard from the stage. There were, of course, some very pleasant sounds too, for Benny, as his audiences know, began playing this instrument longer ago than his 39 years. He can do all right when he puts his mind to it. (He freely acknowledged last night that Heifetz is better.)
FROM THE moment he stepped on the stage, he had the audience in his hand. Slightly out of tune most of the evening, he tackled the Gypsy Airs of Sarasate with a flourish, beaming happily until Concertmaster Millard Taylor "stole" some of his lines and played them better than he could. For this Taylor was banished from the hall. The cymbal player who drowned him out at one point, followed him. Assistant concertmaster Abram Boone, who took the spotlight with a sweetly played phrase, slunk out, without waiting to be ordered.
Plunging into the first movement of the Mendelssohn concerto, Benny at least kept pace with the orchestra, showed some agile finger work and some occasionally warmly melodic phrases. If he really put his mind to it, who knows?—maybe he really would be a concert artist.
The audience had come to laugh, and Benny saw to it that it did. There were more high jinks with the violin, as Benny took over the concert-master's chair for the Capriccio Espagnol, then offered imitations of other great violinists—Isaac Stern, Szigeti, Heifetz. Of course he managed to work in "Love in Spring" and wound up with the inevitable "Bee."
BETWEEN numbers he look to the microphone, with what seemed an unrehearsed line of comedy patter, told of his pleasure in being back in Rochester with an orchestra he praised as one of the best in the land. In this sort of genial, intimate humor, Benny is of a matchless old school which, we fear, is passing from the stage.
Before the appearance of Benny, the orchestra played the "Meistersinger" overture, the "Lieutenant Kije" music of Prokofieff and the "Finlandia" of Sibelius. The first two of these were among the especially well liked selections the orchestra has played at regular concerts, the "Finlandia" of course is always a good audience number. Many in the audience presumably were not regular Philharmonic patrons. They heard a good taste of the orchestra's quality.
Benny, as most people know, is filling a limited number of engagements with leading orchestras to raise funds for charitable purposes. Rochester was fortunate to get in on this generosity.

Perhaps the best story about Jack came in a sidebar story, regarding the arrival of a noted space scientist in town for an anti-Communism speech:

Dr. Wernher von Braun took a ribbing from his wife on arrival at Rochester-Monroe County Airport yesterday.
The space scientist remarked about the crowd, and his attractive wife needled:
"Oh, they're not here to see you. They're waiting for Jack Benny."

Jack’s road trip wasn’t over. The following Saturday, he was in Washington, D.C. for a dinner at the National Press Club where he received the Laurel Leaf award for outstanding contributions to American music. It’s pleasing to Jack Benny was accorded recognition for his work besides the applause and cheers from audiences.

A Tour of UPA

Movie critics got sick of fairy tales and lippy animals beating up someone. And they got tired of seeing the same characters they watched a decade earlier. So when UPA came along with its different (and human) designs and cinematic effects, they embraced the studio. Even as late as The McBoing-Boing Show on CBS in 1956, the same critics were praising the UPA’s non-“slapstick cartoon violence.”

They kind of overlooked the fact the show was boring. Kids don’t go for boring, and the show was taken off the air after a few months.

The shine seems to have come off UPA after that. Staff who were unhappy with company president Steve Bosustow walked away; some started their own studio called Format Films. Columbia Pictures decided not to release UPA’s shorts in theatres and went with shoddy-looking Loopy De Loop cartoons made by Hanna-Barbera. Hank Saperstein, eyeing huge potential marketing money from Mr. Magoo, swooped in and took over the company. Pretention and artistry were out; churning out Dick Tracy TV cartoons with ethnic stereotypes was in. It almost made you wish for a sequel to UPA’s Baby Boogie (1955). Notice I said “almost.”

Let’s go back to May 1952, when the love affair with UPA was still a-blossoming, when Production Design profiled the studio. UPA pretty much produced cartoons like any other animation outfit, but it’s cool seeing plenty of photos and film frames (it’s a shame the version on-line you see below is of low resolution).

Upon the evening of May 21st, the Members of the Society of Motion Picture Art Directors were invited to attend a showing of the product of the United Productions of America, and an inspection of the UPA plant, 4440 Lakeside Drive, Burbank.

Members and guests filled the UPA projection room, and were received by Herbert Klynn, UPA Production Manager; UPA Directors Pete Burness and Ted Parmalee, and Louis Korn, SMPAD Program Planning Committee, who arranged the evening.

In order that Production Design readers may also share in some degree, the exciting filmic experience that resulted, we take pleasure in presenting some of the highlights.

The small animated cartoon character "GERALD McBOING-BOING," the little boy who can't talk, but can only make sound effects— has won wide acclaim throughout the nation since Columbia's release of the United Productions of America short.

The Technicolor "GERALD McBOING-BOING" won the 1951 Academy Award in the animated cartoon field and the British Film Academy Award in 1951, and Stephen Bosustow, president of UPA, has become, inevitably, the subject of widespread interest in the film production field.

Bosustow (the name is Welsh) is forty years old, has headed UPA since its inception, seven years ago. To bring his organization within a relatively short period to the forefront in the animated cartoon field, Bosustow has combined an artistic and creative background and fresh story viewpoint with organizing and executive talent, courage and brilliant business acumen.



Born in British Columbia, Stephen Bosustow was educated in California Schools, played the drums with a number of well known Bands, and finally went back to his original schoolboy interest— the field of Art.

His career in the Cartoon field started with Ub Iwerks on MGM's "Flip the Frog" series. Then with Walter Lantz at Universal, and finally a seven year stretch with Walt Disney on such films as "Snow White"— "Bambi," and "Fantasia." Followed in 1941, his employment as a Production Illustrator with Hughes Aircraft, and later with Consolidated Shipyards, producing a slide lantern story for instruction of safety rules for welders.

Fired by the success of the slides, Bosustow formed the Industrial Films and Poster Service, producing animated films for the Armed Services, Government Departments and business firms.

In 1944, this firm made "Hell Bent for Election,' a Technicolor animated film for the late President Roosevelt's last election campaign. It was estimated that at least 10,000,000 persons have viewed this production.

In 1945, Bosustow founded UPA with a staff of six. Now out of its swaddling clothes, the young company has 75 employees, does a $750,000 annual business, and has built up one of the most modern and well equipped animation studios in Hollywood.

The new company continued making animated training films for the armed Services and numerous business organizations, such as Ford, Timken Roller Bearings, Shell Oil, the American Petroleum Institute and others.

In 1948 Bosustow's studio made a deal by which Columbia Pictures agreed to distribute UPA's entertainment products. The first cartoon short made under this contract, "ROBIN HOODLUM," was nominated for an Academy Award in 1949 and the same honor accrued to "THE MAGIC FLUKE" the following year. UPA also began a cartoon series for Columbia featuring Mr. Magoo, a uniquely humorous old man, whose nearsightedness projects him into incredible adventures.



The producing of "GERALD McBOING-BOING" began with a contract made during the war. Ted Geisel, who as "Dr. Seuss," later wrote the verses for "GERALD McBOING-BOING" as a children's record, was working on Army films under the direction of Frank Capra. He was impressed by Bosustow's work and influenced Capra to hire him. In 1950, Seuss, well known in the juvenile book field, and as the creator of such faintly mad advertisements as "Quick Henry, the Flit," went to UPA with "McBOING," and this sensational short, using many new techniques, came into being. At this point, it may interest our readers to consider a brief resume of the many complex phases of production, incident to the placing of an animated film cartoon upon the screen.

First, a story is written in which characters, plot and dialog are developed.

Second, artist and writer work together to make a visual synopsis on a story board. (This is a layout of sketches in story form.)

Third, there are conferences between writers, artists and production men to polish the story until it is ready for production.

Fourth, the production designer and director determine the general mood of the story, design and backgrounds, conceive the animation and give the dialog more polish.

Timing is an all important factor in the synchronizing of all these skills.

Fifth, dialog is recorded on a sound track. The film editor then marks each word on the film adjacent to the track. This "exposure sheet" is used by the editor to time the action with the dialog.

Sixth, the animators, guided by the "exposure sheet" cues, animate the characters by successively advancing the action of each drawing at specified intervals.

Seventh, a "clean-up" reel is photographed and projected to show how smoothly the action has progressed and to provide a guide for possible revisions of both story and art work.

Eighth, colored roughs are now painted to determine the colors best suited to the characters and the backgrounds.

Ninth, these colored drawings are then test-photographed and checked to insure complete color fidelity. Color selections are then approved.

Tenth, the animation sheets now go to the ink and paint department where the individual sheets are traced in ink on celluloid "cels." Painting of the characters then follows and the completed cels— on which only the characters appear— are then ready for the camera.

Eleventh, the cels are laid over the background in several layers and only those which advance the action are changed after each exposure. This minimizes the number of cel changes. The transparent cels make possible the use of only one background for many frames of action and give the characters a third dimensional effect.

Twelfth, music is now composed, synchronized to the action and then recorded on the sound track.

Thirteenth, the last step, is editing, splicing and "dubbing" of the music, sound effects and dialog tracks into a composite to be printed with the picture.

The accompanying photographs illustrated some of these many complicated activities, which only a personal inspection of the Studio in action can fully present.

For these, and the photos relating to the physical aspects of the UPA plant and its novel applied contemporary art product, Production Design is indebted to Mr. Charles Daggett of the UPA Staff.

And to Messrs. Herbert Klynn, Pete Durness, Ted Parmalee, and Louis Korn, SMPAD extends its gratitude for a most informative, interesting and exciting experience.

You Are Now Entering Coldernell

If a gag works, use it again.

All cartoon studios in the Golden Age, I think, adopted that as a motto. After all, people didn’t binge-watch cartoons in the theatrical days. In fact, there was probably a good chance people didn’t see most cartoons. How often did the average person go to a movie house back then? And if they did, did they bother watching the cartoon or did they use the time to get some snacks?

Tex Avery liked coming up with variations on a gag, but there were times he re-used one. Maybe the best example is the “Timmmm” CRASH! “Ber,” tree-falling-on-a-character gag. He seems to have delighted in getting his play on “Colder than Hell” line through the censor as he used it three times.



The Shooting of Dan McGoo (MGM, 1945)



King-Size Canary (MGM, 1948)



I'm Cold (Lantz, 1954).

It seems to me there were some variations on it, too.

It does raise a question: Where isn't it Coldernell?