The Old Pepper Gag

Felix the Cat probably wasn’t the first, but he was among the silent cartoon characters to drag out the pepper/sneeze gag that got good mileage in cartoons for decades into the sound era (ie. starting in 1928).

In Felix Gets Broadcasted, he winds up in Egypt and is chased by what was then described as a Nubian. He rushes onto the Sphinx. Trapped!

Some expressions.



He looks up at the Sphinx’s nose and gives his “Aha!” take. Two extremes are below.



He pulls out the you-know-what.



The gag works every time.



Felix thanks the Sphinx and it’s off to the next scene.



The M.J. Winkler studio was distributing the Felix cartoons on a State Rights system every two weeks. This one was released June 15, 1923. It was preceded by Felix the Globe Trotter and followed by Felix Strikes It Rich and then the fun Felix in Hollywood, according to the Motion Picture Booking Guide of Oct. 1923. Film Daily of Feb. 17, 1924 gives the date as Sept. 1, 1923. The Motion Picture News lists it on the bill at the Stanley Theatre in Philadelphia on the week of July 1, 1923. It was still being screened at theatres as late as 1927.

The Irritating Jack Carson

Jack Benny evolved a “gang” type comedy and a character in the early 1930s that others were stealing more than a decade later.

One of them was Jack Carson, a Warner Bros. contract actor who is pretty much forgotten now. He managed to hold out on radio until 1956, doing a 25-minute show on weeknights in his final season. Carson has a star for television on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but he didn’t exactly have a long career on the tube. He died in 1962.

To be honest, there wasn’t a great deal of originality in comedy on the radio, as John Crosby pointed out in his syndicated column of November 4, 1946. The most interesting thing about the column is one of radio shows he felt should be made has the same plot as The Pruitts of Southampton, Phyllis Diller’s 1966 sitcom that nine-year-old me adored.

The episode Crosby is reviewing is from October 30, 1946. The hypochondriac character was played by Irene Ryan, who performed the same character on Bob Hope’s radio show a few years later. The “South American tamale” is an uncredited Veola Vonn. She is supposed to be from Brazil, but she speaks Spanish. On this episode, to add to the Benny connection, he has jokes about both the May Company and Jell-O. And Del Sharbutt’s spots always talk about “table butter.” Is that different from ice-box butter?

The Narrow Circle
Radio In Review
BY JOHN CROSBY
Jack Carson, a great broth of a fellow in the movies, is somebody else entirely in radio. On his radio series, (CBS 8 p.m. E. S. T. Wednesday), Mr. Carson, is as stingy as Jack Benny and as unsuccessfully rakish as Bob Hope. His laughter is as raucous as the Great Gildersleeve’s and he is the butt of most of the jokes like, well . . . any radio comedian.
Carson's a character, in fact, is as skillfully blended as the Campbell Soup he advertises; it contains all the successful ingredients.
Besides Carson's composite personality, you get Arthur Treacher of the movies, who acts as his a butler and severest critic, just like Mr. Benny’s Rochester; Tugwell, Carson's radio nephew, who has Henry Aldrich’s personality but performs Mary Livingston's function, and a lot of the minor characters that wander in and out of small town comedy series such as Fibber and Molly and Gildersleeve.

The Carson show is a particularly irritating example of the inbred nature of radio because it happens to be a darned good comedy series. It is leisurely, well-directed, and extremely well acted. But virtually every bit of it has been borrowed from somewhere else. Mr. Carson, a much more likable fellow in radio than in the movies, has borrowed not only Mr. Benny’s stinginess but also his method for projecting it. The other night, for instance, Mr. Treacher asked him about the coke situation—that’s the drink, not the fuel—for a party Mr. Carson planned that evening. Did he think two bottles would suffice six people? “Yes—I think so. . . . We have plenty of straws.” The resemblance to Benny was acute not in what was said but how it was said, with a long, expert, laugh-provoking pause between the first and second sentences.
It doesn’t come over very well in print, but it was sound character comedy. Stinginess, as Harry Lauder demonstrated, can amuse a lot of people over an indefinite period of time. But aren’t there any other traits in human nature that could be exploited in radio? As a matter of fact, comedy of character is far more suitable for radio than gag comedy. Radio burns up gags by the barrel and, after all, you can only say so many things about the meat shortage and even the Sinatra gold mine is going to run out sooner or later. Comedy of character is infinite but it hasn’t begun to be exploited.
When you look, around there are only about four characters in radio—misers, flighty teen-agers, bumble-headed Gildersleeves, and wide-eyed young men like Alan Young. Radio script writers must have a limited acquaintance. I’d like to introduce them to an engaging, middle-aged couple I know who have upheld the appearance of wealth with great good humor since 1929 (when they lost it all) in a vast, draughty apartment on Park Ave. To my knowledge they haven’t any money or any income at all, but they have successfully outwitted the landlord, charmed their bill collectors, and amused themselves by a sort of necromancy which I find considerably funnier than Gildersleeve’s laugh.
Or, if you boys would drop into my Third Ave. saloon, I’d like you to meet a frayed but still elegant Englishman who has contemplated the same lady for 22 years without ever managing to determine whether her virtues, which are manifold, outweighed her defects, which are also manifold, to the extent where his family, which he hasn’t seen for 27 years, would approve of her as his wife. The lady in question has enough comedy quirks to stock a dozen radio series.
Or, if you're looking for comedy domestics, I know a maid who covers herself with cellophane to keep out witches and another girl . . . well, let’s cut out the wishful thinking and get back to Mr. Carson.
Besides the characters enumerated, the program boasts a couple of reasonably original characters. One of them is played by Norma Jean Nilsson, who is 8 years old, but whose comedy is extraordinarily elevated for her years.
When she meets a South American tamale of the sort that says in broken English, “You American men are so amusing," her comment is: “Hmmmmm," which is exactly what mine was. There is also a spinster named Miss Bryan [sic], who runs a novelty store and whose special quality is hypochondria. Unless I am mistaken, she is the first hypochondriac in radio. One of the writers must have done some prowling around outside his normal, limited circle.

Perhaps the most interesting columns of this week by Crosby were two on the “growing obsolescence of top radio stars.” The problem, as Crosby saw it, the stars had been stars for too long and were becoming too old. He made several interesting proposals. Of course, television soon came along and many radio stars simply ran their course as time progressed, Bob Hope and Jack Benny being notable exceptions. These columns were published on November 6 and 7.

It seems every executive in media—radio networks, ad agencies, electronics manufacturers—had an opinion about the future of television in 1946. Innumerable articles were written. Crosby’s column of November 8 quoted NBC vice-president John Royal, who had been shuffled out of his job in charge of radio programmes in 1940 and banished to an outpost job dealing with shortwave, fax and television programming. Few expected television would grow, but it did and Royal ascended again within NBC.

The November 5 column deals mainly with the Dick Haymes show. Crosby also talks about an improvement in the Phil Harris-Alice Faye show, into its second season for Fitch. The columns will grow when you click on them.

It's Not Chicken Salad

No plot, but there’s lots of dancing and musical synchronisation in the barnyard in Musical Farmer, a 1932 Mickey Mouse cartoon.

There’s one scene in a chicken coop where hens are laying and clapping in time to that public domain favourite, “Turkey in the Straw.”



Cut to one poor, despondent hen who just can’t do it.



I looked to the left of the background and wondered what frozen snow was doing there. Then I realised what it really was. (I grew up adjacent to, but not on, a farm).

There are a few things I like in this cartoon, mainly because Walt isn’t obsessed with the Illusion of Life™. Check out these spaghetti-limbed sheep you’d never find in Fantasia.



After the hen finally lays a huge egg and alerts the other animals, a cow sticks its oversized head out of birdhouse.



And Mickey’s camera stand becomes human-esque and starts chasing Pluto.



The cartoon ends Mickey using too much powder with his old-timey camera and blowing the feathers off all the hens when it explodes.

We never find out about the egg. If this had been a Tex Avery or Frank Tashlin cartoon, the egg would have cracked open with a “THE END” sign popping out. Instead we get Mickey smiling as the iris closes.

Oops! Not Done Yet

The good news was Leon Schlesinger had finally rid movie screens of Buddy in 1935. The bad news was he was replaced by Beans. Tex Avery was told to star him and feature some of the rest of the “I Haven’t Got a Hat” gang in his directing debut for the studio in 1935.

It’s interesting watching how Avery approached certain things, because he never would have done it the same way later at MGM when he picked up the pace.

Here’s an example. In one sequence of Gold Diggers of '49, Beans follows the old western movie cliché of bursting into a saloon and yelling he’s discovered gold. Some of the boozers and the bartenders high-tail outside.



That background drawing is how the scene ends. And Avery aims the camera at it for 2½ seconds. Why? In later years, he and Heck Allen would have come up with a gag (in fact, he did in the 1944 Droopy short The Shooting of Dan McGoo, where the bartender ran off to reveal he was standing in front of the picture of a sexy woman with no body).

Later in the sequence, Avery does come up with a gag, and it’s a variation on one you’ve seen in other cartoons. A barbershop quartet is in the middle of “Sweet Adeline” when Beans yells that gold has been discovered. They run off into the distance, but then realise they haven’t finished their song, so they run back, complete it, and (in re-used animation) zip back into the distance. In the last frame, the spaghetti-armed guy looks like he’s floating in mid-air.



The ending follows the Avery credo of doing something you don’t expect. It may not be as entertaining as many of the shorts he made later, but considering Friz Freleng was stuck in the musical/overcome-the-villain template on the Merrie Melodies, but it was a good start to Avery’s directing career.

Miltie and Donzie on Jack

Jack Benny’s comic abilities were lauded by everyone and so was his kindness and charity. That includes praise from some people in show business who weren’t universally praised.

An editor with the Charlotte Observer put together a column that dealt with Jack in a few places after getting calls from Los Angeles. The Observer isn’t exactly one of America’s Great Newspapers in terms of circulation. You have to wonder how many newspapers got similar treatment.

Milton Berle had his detractors (Fred Allen was one). The editor asks him a question, seemingly out of the blue, about Jack. The other correspondent is Don Wilson, so talking about the Benny TV show was almost a given. Around this time, Wilson seems a little annoyed he was known only as an announcer, so he tried some acting jobs. He’s trying to give his acting career a little push through this interview.

The paper was published on November 1, 1959.

INTERVIEWS
Berle And Wilson Talk Over Shows
By DICK BANKS
Observer Arts Editor

Milton Berle, on one occasion, and Jack Benny's Don Wilson, on another, called last week to talk about television shows they are appearing in today.
Berle said his guests will be Desi and Lucy in a comedy situation show: Berle is working in a Las Vegas hotel. Desi is his orchestra leader. Lucy is along. Berle forgets his wedding anniversary.
Lucy persuades him to buy a stolen diamond to square things. And a couple of racketeers after the diamond thicken the plot.
Berle said in an average day he's at the office at 8:30, home at night at 7, with the time in between going into interviews, the business of his own production company, discussions of properties he’s producing. "Then there are beneficial funds, and everything, tapes, speeches, you know . . .
"I'm taking it easy. Next week we're going to Switzerland to see our daughter Vicki [missing words] in school there. Have to take time out for family life.
“How come overexposure hasn't got Jack Benny?"
That's something for Jack Benny to answer. Then he's not on every week, is he? And Jack Benny didn't come into the television picture until quite late. Radio? Oh that's another story."
Berle said his favorite comedians of the current crop are Mort Sahl, Buddy Hackett and Mike and Elaine. His comment on pay-TV brought the only wisecrack of the interview: "I think a lot of people these days should get paid to watch TV.”
As to the trends in comedy: "It all revolves in a cycle. When television started, there was just me and Hopalong Cassidy, right? Now it's back again to 'Gunsmoke.' I don't think basic comedy will change, never will."
Berle said about the only unfulfilled ambition he could think of at the moment was to have another baby with his wife Ruth. "The father instinct is pretty strong, I guess."
Don Wilson said Jack Webb will be guest on the Benny Show tonight.

Benny as Charlie Chan will be running a Chinese laundry. His Number One son will turn out to be Jack Webb. Together they will team up in Dragon-Net to solve a mystery.
Wilson says he's doing other things these days besides announcing for Benny, guest appearances, for instance.
In the Death Valley Days series Wilson plays an itinerant gospel speaker, Gates Ajar Morgan, a real bum. But after helping rob Wells Fargo he reforms and turns out to be a good guy. "You know the good guys always have to win."
But before his reformation he gets into a fist fight and is thrown out of a saloon. "It was a lot of fun doing it.
"The fellow who plays my son on the Benny Show isn't really. He's an actor, a young fellow who works at the Pasadena Playhouse, handles lights and directs some things.
"My wife on the show is my real-life wife, a professional of long standing in the theater, Lois Corbet.
"Last summer we played in summer stock, did 'The Great Sebastians," Got wonderful reviews. It was a vindication for Lois. She hadn't appeared in a play in 22 years. Showed she still holds on to her acting techniques.
"What Is Jack Benny really like?
"Well the character in the show is only done in fun. In real life he is quite the contrary, thoughtful, tolerant, generous.
"Benny has a deep-down-in consideration and thoughtfulness for what other people do.
“For instance when I was appearing in a play on Broadway, 'Make A Million,' Benny managed so I could come on his show once a month. Set the whole thing up with my manager so I could get a lot of publicity.
"We've been 20 seasons together, I think he's a great man in our profession. Just tops."

Yes, you are reading that right. Don Wilson was on Broadway. He was in the opening night cast of “Make a Million” on October 23, 1958. He was replaced along the way; perhaps his TV commitments precluded him from working in New York. He appeared on camera in various roles on rare occasion, and then relaxed in Palm Springs where he and Lois had a local TV interview show until the station went in a “different direction.” Meanwhile, Uncle Miltie was less than a year away from emceeing the ever-popular Jackpot Bowling. Jack Benny carried on with a regular TV show and then specials, along with his humanitarian work, until his death in 1974.

Life of Lantz

Walter Lantz always strikes me as a decent enough man, even though his cartoons left a lot to be desired as time went on.

He had an extremely long career, turning out inventive live action/animation combinations during the silent era, then being handed Oswald the rabbit from the hands of Charles Mintz and given a cartoon studio to run by Universal. He manoeuvred through the Golden Age, striking upon his own raucous cartoon character during the height of their popularity, then successfully managing to re-package his cartoons for television, complete with insightful little segments about how cartoons were made.

As the theatrical era wound down, Lantz set up charitable groups to help young people. He even went to Vietnam to meet with soldiers, not exactly something animation studio heads are known to do.

Here’s a full-page profile in the Motion Picture Exhibitor of May 8, 1957. He was soon to embark on a TV career, hosting a half-hour show a la Walt Disney.

Walter Lantz: Dean Of Cartoonists
Producer Walter Lantz, dean of the animated film cartoonists, is going strong in his 41st year of motion picture production.
Lantz broke into the animated cartoon business in 1916, at age 16, he got a job with the late Gregory LaCava in New York, when the cartoon industry was in its infancy. At that time, Lantz was an ambitious art student without professional experience. For the old-timers who remember such early, and jerky, film cartoons as The Katzenjammer Kids, Happy Hooligan, Krazy Kat, and Mutt And Jeff, Lantz played a prominent part in the films’ production.
Later, the J. R. Bray studio offered Lantz a better deal than the $10 a week he was making with LaCava, and he started making films for Bray. Among the best-known cartoons which Lantz created and directed for Bray were Pete The Pup, Dinky Doodle, and the most famous of them all, Colonel Hezza Liar [sic].

In these early films Lantz conceived the idea, which has been copied many times, of combining animation with live action. And, to cut costs, Lantz usually played the actor’s role himself. That was in 1922. Today the producer enjoys many a chuckle as he sees himself cavorting on a television screen when the late shows reel off the old cartoons. In Hollywood, the “Lantz Luck” is a well-known phrase. His “luck,” however, really started in 1928 when he traveled across the country for a short vacation in Hollywood and Carl Laemmle offered him the job of running Universal’s animated film cartoon department. Lantz stayed with Universal until he decided to form his own company at the time that Universal was considering closing out its own cartoon department. The two got together and set up a deal whereby Lantz would produce cartoons on his own and Universal would handle the distribution. For the past two decades, this arrangement has been mutually profitable.
Today, Lantz owns his own ultra-modern studio in the heart of Hollywood. Staffed by a creative group of artists and technicians, it turns out 13 cartoons a year for Universal release. Seven of the 13 films are Woody Woodpeckers.
In keeping with the “Lantz Luck,” there never would have been a celluloid Woody Woodpecker if it hadn’t been for Lantz’ wife, former actress Grace Stafford. To capsule a long story, a real woodpecker was driving Lantz crazy some years ago by knocking holes in the producer’s mountain cabin. Completely exasperated, Lantz finally got out his gun and was about to blast the noisy and destructive bird when Grace interceded with the observation that the woodpecker would make a good cartoon character.
So, the woodpecker’s life was saved and Lantz used him as a model for today’s Woody Woodpecker who, from his first public screening, zoomed to stardom and has remained popular ever since, to such a degree that when one thinks of Walter Lantz he automatically is reminded of this top cartoon character, the ace of the producer’s menagerie of mirth and merriment. Woody has been the star as well as the top money-maker of the stable since his creation a decade ago, and it appears that his popularity will not wane for many more years to come.

Lantz had quality people on his staff over the years. In a 1954 photo accompanying the article, you can see Mike Maltese in the front left, Don Patterson standing at the front right and Tex Avery in the back right. In the ‘40s, he hired good radio actors to supply voices when Blanc became tied to Warners, including Jack Mather, Will Wright, Walter Tetley and Lionel Stander. In the ‘50s, he brought in Daws Butler and June Foray and actually put their names on the screen.

A few of the Lantz cartoons I like:

Mars (1930). Weird things can happen in the early Lantz sound cartoons. In this one, Oswald the Rabbit ends up on Mars where bizarre combination creatures exist. The short boots along at a merry pace. Oswald sings and plays his theme song; mercifully, he’s not doing a Mickey Mouse falsetto.

Woody Woodpecker (1941). The closest thing to a Warners cartoon. Mel Blanc’s voice is all over the place as Woody and Dr. Horace N. Buggy are both nutcases, though without the energy of the early, screwed-up Daffy Duck.

Abou Ben Boogie (1944). The second of the Miss X cartoons. Pat Matthews animates a marvellous dancing camel as well as the sexy harem girl. Fine brassy score from Darrell Calker, who did good work on the other Swing Symphonies.

Musical Moments From Chopin (1947) Calker wasn’t only adept at swing, he was an excellent classical arranger. A drunken horse (again, Pat Matthews) and little living flames highlight this cartoon. Another classical cartoon, The Bandmaster (1947) has another fine score from Calker and more great animation from Matthews of a drunk on a high wire with pink elephants. Matthews gets my vote as the most unsung animator of the Golden Era.

Real Gone Woody (1954). The addition of writer Mike Maltese from Warner Bros. could even improve the tepid direction of Paul J. Smith. He puts down Guy Lombardo, parodies Johnny Ray and satirises the school sock-hop culture. We get a switch on his cake gag from Rabbit Hood.

The Legend of Rockabye Point (1955). Tex Avery directed four shorts for Lantz. This one has variations on Avery’s theme of “Don’t-make-noise-to-disturb-other-character,” including a gag with a clarinet and sheet music. Avery’s other Chilly Willy short, I’m Cold (1954), includes an even more laconic version of his Southern wolf at MGM with solid scenes. Dal McKennon supplies a good voice for the Old Salt.

Things went downhill from here, with increasingly lacklustre characters, one after another. There was nothing innovative. Gabby Gator? Inspector Willoughby? The Beary Family? Mrs. Meany? Did anyone laugh at them? Smile, even? Still, Lantz remained in business, keeping a loyal crew employed into the early ‘70s and supplying theatres with something, albeit watered-down slapstick.

Lantz complained endlessly about the lack of money he was getting from theatres to turn a profit. Despite that, he lived a comfortable lifestyle. He did find the money to come up with many enjoyable cartoons at his own studio, and was responsible for some entertaining shorts reaching back to his days with Dinky Doodle for the Bray studio in the ‘20s.

Walter Lantz was recognised over the years for his accomplishments. And deservedly so.

Four-in-One Mouth Time From Van Beuren

What would a Van Beuren cartoon be without mouths joining together in song?

One of them is the 1932 short Stone Age Error.

What is the error? A caveman (a dog, I believe) is in love with a cavegirl (a cat, I think). The girl is more interested in dancing on the back of a tiger. He throws the tiger out of the picture and suddenly they decide to get married (don’t expect logic in a Van Beuren cartoon).

The two say their “I do’s” and are yoked together in a stone with cut-out heart shapes for each of them. The bird chorus now launches into the comedy part, singing to the caveman “Your Wild Days Are Over,” a 1918 song by Rubey Cowan and Lew Brown.

The caveman fails to run away and sings forlorn lyrics, resigning himself to his fate of his wife running his life to end the cartoon.

Whoever supplied the voice for Cubby Bear is the singing voice of the caveman. John Foster and Mannie Davis get screen credit, along with musician Gene Rodemich. One of the gags involves a pet dinosaur that behaves like a dog. Cartoon fans would see that again in about 30 years.

If the Sheepherder Counts Sheep, Then ...

It is nighttime in one of Johnny Johnsen’s background paintings for Drag-a-long Droopy (1954).

Droopy the sheepherder is sleeping. He is counting sheep.

Well, it only stands to reason that...

Heck Allen helped Avery with gags in this short crammed full of fun, from “Moo-moo-moo-baa-baa-baa” to the cattle rancher wolf finally hailing a cab after continually missing his horse when jumping from the second floor of a hotel. Ray Patterson, Bob Bentley, Mike Lah, Grant Simmons and Walt Clinton are the animators.

Monkee See on TV

Their theme song picked up on discontent about the status quo by young people.

“We’re the young generation, and we’ve got something to say.”

To be honest, I don’t think “I’m a Believer” or “Steppin’ Stone” were message songs. But that likely didn’t matter to fans of The Monkees.

There was a guy named Randy in my Grade 5 class who (no, I won’t say “went ape”) loved The Monkees. He had a Monkees lunch box and all kinds of other stuff. The band’s music didn’t do anything for me then, and I didn’t watch the show until it was in reruns (at least in Canada). It was crazy and eye-rollingly corny at the same time. The stars talked to the camera. The storyline was full of non sequiturs. It was maybe the closest thing to a live cartoon. The cleverest episodes worked a song into the plot. The direction and editing owed a lot to the Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night.

The United Press did a couple of stories about the show in 1966. The first one, which appeared in papers around May 24, claimed the coming series was competition for ABC’s Batman. It actually ran opposite the network’s The Iron Horse, starring a beautiful old steam train (that’s all I remember about it) and Gilligan’s Island on CBS, which is what I was watching.

Michael Nesmith has been recording for Colpix as “Michael Blessing”. Micky Dolenz’s stage name was Mickey Braddock when he starred on Circus Boy which, oddly, doesn’t get mentioned in the story.

'Monkees' Seeking Fame, Fortune On Television
By VERNON SCOTT
HOLLYWOOD (UPI) — N. B. C.-T. V. has a secret weapon aimed at "Batman" and will pull the trigger next fall.
It's not a zap gun. It's not even a roadblock for A.B.C.'s batmobile. What it is, is a new show concocted to woo the younger generation away from the Dynamic Duo.
The series stars a Fearsome Foursome in "The Monkees", a wholly manufactured singing group of attractive young men who come off as a combination of The Beatles, the Dead-End Kids and the Marx Brothers.
Critics will cry foul. Long-hairs will demand, outraged, that they be removed from the air. But the kids will adore The Monkees. You can bet on it.
Screen Gems, which produces the show, interviewed 650 young men and screen-tested 35 of them, before settling on the quartet. The stars-to-be are David Jones, Peter Tork, Mickey Braddock and Mike Blessing. Unlike other rock 'n' roll groups, the boys had never performed together before. Indeed, they'd never even met.

Last September they were brought together, presumably by guys in white coats with nets.
They shot the pilot show and sent the boys in their several directions with the admonition not to call Screen Gems. Screen Gems would call them. Six months later the show was sold and the boys were corralled once more.
Since last January they've been working like slaves to create their own sound, locking themselves on a small sound stage and working away on two guitars, a set of drums, and a tambourine.
The boys are from all four points of the compass. Jones is a 20-year-old one-time jockey apprentice from London. Tork is a New Yorker, Blessing is a Texan and Braddock a Californian.
An interview with the Monkees is an impossibility. Ask if any of them are married and Davy immediately claims he and Mike have been married for years. Peter makes the same claim for Mickey. They give their ages variously from 2 to 98 years.
They break into off-key singing at the slightest provocation and rather than give straight answers they come up with rehearsed and ad lib nonsense, most of it hokey.
They're an irreverent lot who are certain to offend the press. Their antics, however, are natural and boisterously funny.
Beneath the veneer of loud-mouthed confidence, the boys are fervently hoping to make good. They wear their hair Beatles fashion. Their clothes are kookie and their antics off-beat. But somehow on them it looks good.
Each show will have a Marx Brothers-type story line with quick cuts, imaginative camera shots, slow motion and speeded up chases and all manner of gags.
The only thing going against them is an NBC survey which predicts the Monkees will be the big hit of next season. The network said the same thing last spring of a bomb titled “Hank.”

Mr. Scott profiled one of the stars in a column that showed up in papers after the series began. He picked the one that became girl-bait for “16” and other magazines aimed at boy-crazy teenagers. It appeared around October 14.

Davey the Jockey Is Also a 'Monkee'
By VERNON SCOTT
HOLLYWOOD (UPI) — David Jones is a pint-sized Cockney jockey with shoulder-length hair who is also a Monkee.
Sounds implausible, or at least something out of Dickens. But Jones is real and a member of the rock 'n' roll group "The Monkees," television's new offering for teen-agers.
A native of Manchester, England, Davey is a scrappy little cuss who dared Western star Dale Robertson to do something about it when he parked his own car in Robertson's parking space at Columbia studios. Robertson passed.
Davey picked up his Cockney accent when, as a lad, he was told he could make his stage debut if he could master the patois in six weeks. Davey out-Cockneyed the Cockneys and it's stuck with him.
His accent won him a two-year role in "Oliver" on Broadway as well as in "Pickwick."

At the tender age of 15 1/2 Davey became an apprentice jockey in England with a promising future.
Only last winter he rode 26 winners in 3 1/2 months. But the trainer with whom he worked told the lad he must choose between show biz and riding nags.
"I like horses and acting," said diminutive Dave. "But I never went back to riding.
"I'm 20 years old but I've had more experience than most chaps of 30. I had no idea of becoming part of a singing group when I came out here to Hollywood. But they put me in with the other three and now I'm a Monkee.
"But there's one difference between me and the others. I didn't have a contract. I hope the series runs a couple of years so I can count my money and rest. Then I'll start all over again."
The little guy—who resembles a male version of Patty Duke—has no desire to perpetuate his current success.
"Put me down anywhere, flat broke, and I'll find my way home,” he said. "I can take care of myself."
The other day he was driving down Sunset Blvd. when a car-full of teen-age females shrieked at him. At a stoplight they insisted they recognized him.
"They thought I was George Harrison of the Beatles," he said outraged. "Imagine a thing like that. Enough to send a chap back to England. But I like it better here in America.
With his first big paychecks Davey bought a new home for his parents in Manchester. Now he's moving into a new apartment to escape fans who clutter his doorstep.
"If things get tight I can lose a few pounds and return to racing,” Davey concluded. "I once earned $10,000 as a jockey, but I lost $9,000 of it betting on the horses.”

The series picked up two Emmys but lasted only two seasons. The show’s still fun to watch; all kinds of great comic actors were hired for one-shot appearances. It wouldn’t get made today. It’d be turned into a reality format.

Today's Inside Joke

A shot of a fake newspaper with some real names opens the pre-Bugs Bunny cartoon Hare-Um Scare-Um (1939).



There’s a drawing of co-director Bugs Hardaway, labelled “Happy Hardaway” (it looks suspiciously similar to a T. Hee caricature made at the studio in 1936). He was from Missouri, and the story above his picture is datelined Hog Hollow, Missouri.

The next column features a story about a “riot at the Looney Tune cartoon studio” caused by Tex Avery dealing from the bottom of the deck in a card game.

On the opposite page is a reference to Lu Cavett and banking. Lewis Lee Cavett was a Los Angeles High School grad who became an assistant animator at the studio after a brief career as a commercial artist. He was noted for loaning money to other employees to top up his pay. He left Schlesinger’s to work as an artist for a pottery company and was assigned to the 517th Airborne during World War Two. Corporal Cavett died in a parachute training exercise near Camp Mackall in North Carolina in 1944 at age 29.

And a box above the Cavett headline makes fun of the slogan “Movies Are Your Best Entertainment.”

The background artist is unknown but Art Loomer was still at the studio and it may be him.

Tubby Millar gets a story credit and Gil Turner receives the revolving animation credit.