The Pride of Portis

Mike Maltese doesn’t have a marker celebrating his life. Neither do Warren Foster or Tedd Pierce. But one Warner Bros. cartoon writer does.

At the corner of Market and East 5th streets in Portis, Kansas, you’ll find a long wooden marker in a little park in memory of Mel Millar, known as Tubby in his time at the cartoon studio.

Millar worked on animated shorts for various directors into the 1940s when he left the studio and began a career as a freelance print cartoonist. He’s even caricatured in Tex Avery’s 1936 cartoon Page Miss Glory. Millar lived in Burbank much of his life and was deemed enough of a celebrity to be profiled in area newspapers.

First is this piece from the Van Nuys News of May 5, 1949. The above self-portrait is from part of an ad announcing Tubby's hiring in 1949.

‘Little Slocum’, Other Cartoons By Mel Millar Slated for ‘News’
There’s a new little youngster coming to Van Nuys—a perky, happy little fellow in a big sombrero, and you're going to see a lot of this happy chappy in the weeks to come, because he is going to be here and there and ‘round-about in the Valley to greet all present residents and newcomers.
His name? “Little Slocum”!
He is a pen-child created by Mel Millar, nationally known cartoonist and illustrator, and has been devised by Millar to tell the thousands of Valley residents about Slocum Furniture Co. at 6187 Van Nuys Blvd., and of the wide selection of home furnishings to be found there at attractive prices.
Pictures Each Issue
Little Slocum’s pen-master is a Valley man himself, and everyone has seen his clever, laugh-provoking cartoons in such leading newspapers and magazines as The New York Times, Collier’s, and many others.
Now readers of The News will see Millar’s famous drawings in each issue of this newspaper, and will enjoy them thoroughly, as they will enjoy Little Slocum’s periodic appearances in these pages to act as an alter ego to the cartoons, and to carry the Slocum Furniture message to the public.
As for Mel Millar, he has led an interesting and varied life. Born in the Sunflower State at the turn of the century, he began his artistic attempts on the side of a barn with a piece of rock.
Finishing high school, he served a short hitch in the Navy, then came out determined to pursue art as a career and specialized in cartooning at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.
Draws For The Best
From here Millar went into an agency, was with a film advertising firm, then came to Hollywood in 1931 and worked in animated cartoons at Warner Brothers.
In 1944 he returned to free lancing and since that time has drawn illustrations for Talking Komics, and has sold to Collier’s, This Week, Argosy, New York Times, King Features, Fortnight and others. Also had his own cartoon business in Pasadena for a couple of years, and taught at the Hollywood Art Center School.
“I have a theory that cartoons are the best attention getters, and I sincerely hope everyone will enjoy meeting up with Little Slocum as he greets you in these columns, and also will enjoy the creations I shall draw for publication in The News,” was Millar’s statement today in discussing this new series.

We jump ahead to December 28, 1967, when this was published in the Valley News.

Mel Millar’s Cartoons Span 3 Decades of Good Humor
By BETTY RADSTONE
Clever cartoonists make most of us feel merry the year around. One of the best-liked American cartoonists has lived and worked in Burbank for the past 32 years. He is Mel Millar who resides at 120 S. Beachwood Drive with his wife Helen and their two cats.
In some ways Mel looks and acts like some of the cartoon characters he draws. Five-foot-six in height and almost that dimension in girth, he lives his humor. When Mel explains a gag, he laughs and shakes — much as Santa Claus — like a bowlful of jelly. His favorite hobby is eating.
The 67-year-old cartoonist, who has created some 10,000 cartoons during his career, wanted to be a cartoonist since he was a boy. In particular, he wanted to be a political cartoonist.
Millar has worked at one of the largest animation studios in Hollywood, has written books on cartooning, and has had many of his cartoons published not only nationally but reproduced in publications throughout the world. One popular book he has written is a pocketbook, “How to Draw Cartoons.”
Millar is known not only as a magazine, trade journal, and advertising cartoonist, but as the cartoonist’s cartoonist. He receives mail regularly from aspiring young artists as well as from world-famous cartoonists.
Often, Millar receives letters asking, “would you please send me all you know about cartooning in the enclosed stamped envelope?” he said.
In 1920 Millar graduated from the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. This was just a few years after Walt Disney’s graduation from the school. In fact, for about a decade Millar seemed to follow Disney’s footsteps from school, to work in Kansas City, to California.
Millar worked for the United Film Ad Service in Kansas City, Mo., from 1927 until he came to California in 1931.
His first job in California was at Warner Bros., where he stayed until 1945. His duties at the studio included being a cartoonist, a gagwriter, and storyman.
During his employment at Warner Bros., he drew well-known cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig.
Syndicate Work
Since 1945, Millar has set up shop in a studio in his Burbank home and has become a free lance cartoonist.
His work has appeared consistently in leading publications across the United States. You can find his work in the Saturday Evening Post and his drawings also have been used by King Features and other syndications.
During the past several years his works have been published nationally in a quarterly advertising booklet called “Happy Days.”
Several years ago, Parade, a national Sunday supplement magazine, asked opinions of America’s leading comedians as to what cartoonist they thought the funniest.
Interpret Differently
The late Ed Wynn, dean of all comedians, picked Mel Millar. As a result, a page of Millar’s cartoons, selected by Wynn, was featured in Parade.
“No art school can make a cartoonist. They only teach one to draw,” Millar stated. He said cartoonists interpret differently than other artists and views cartooning as an art within an art.
“A cartoonist is an artist, but an artist is not necessarily a cartoonist,” Millar said.
“Artists reflect themselves, whereas cartoonists reflect the situation in a gentle satire,” he added.
Need Experience
As far as “what” makes the cartoonist, Millar said:
“It is the humor or satire of the idea that makes the cartoonist. And the originating of the ideas comes from observation and accumulated experiences of the various things one has seen or done.”
He said that cartoonists have an art of visualizing the humor in situations which many people miss until they actually see it in the cartoon.
The professional cartoonist must be versatile, refreshing understanding, and have a wide range of interests, according to Millar.

The 'Parade' cartoons appeared in papers April 27, 1958. One is to the right. You should be able to find them in a search of newspapers of the era.

If you see a reference to Portis in the background of 1930s Warners cartoons, you will now know the man who is the subject.

Melvin Eugene Millar was 80 when he passed away on December 30, 1980.

Mommy, Where Does Jippo Come From?

A singing Bimbo (accompanied by a ukulele), Ko Ko and Betty Boop rake in profits from their new wonder tonic Jippo.

Where does Jippo come from? We start with a guy bottling it from a barrel. But let’s follow the trail.

The fire hydrant is a classy one. It wipes off its own mouth.

The fact that Jippo is plain, old water doesn’t make sense in light of its effects on people, but that’s just spoiling things. With a Fleischer cartoon of this era (1932), it’s best to get caught up in the absurdities, role reversals, and instant life by inanimate objects that made the studio’s cartoons the most entertaining of the first half of the ‘30s.

Willard Bowsky and Tom Goodson are the credited animators.

Buddies Thicker Than Water

When Gene Deitch was handed the task of creating new Tom and Jerry cartoons for MGM, he and his writers put the cat and mouse in different locales. For a time they were paired with a grumpy guy who reminded speculating cartoon fans of Clint Clobber from Deitch’s Terrytoons (he wasn’t Clobber, as Deitch had to inform them).

However, in Buddies Thicker Than Water (released in 1962), Tom’s owned by a young lady in an urban penthouse apartment.

Having come from UPA where design was practically everything, Deitch and his artists came up with exaggerations on ultra-current home interiors.



This is a lovely satire on 1962 home interiors. Who had a pole lamp like that? We did. Or that plant? We did. Or that clock or divider or plastic chair? We didn’t, but I knew people who did. (The chair was the same colour, too).



The uncredited background artist came up with a different background to use as a close-up. Actually, this is part of a long background that was panned left-to-right at one point in the cartoon.



A view from the other direction.



This kitchen is pretty basic and dull. But at least Deitch (or whomever handled this kind of thing) has it laid out at an angle.



Dig the modern art portrait of Tom.



More modern art. My guess is a blue filter was placed over the camera.



The cartoon starts with some exteriors; I presume the setting is supposed to be Manhattan. The snow is on a couple of cycles. The penthouse has a jazzy human statue next to the tree and a crazy TV antenna on top.

Animation? Soundtrack? Well, let’s forget those for now and say the backgrounds in this short may be the most attractive thing about it.

The Long-Time Residents of Wistful Vista

If Fibber McGee and Molly consisted solely of an overcrowded closet gimmick, it never would have lasted almost 2½ decades.

The series featured ordinary people in ordinary situations that came across as completely plausible. Certainly listeners must have known an ill-informed braggart like McGee or a woman who put up with her husband’s foibles like Molly.

Jim and Marian Jordan don’t seem to have talked a lot about the show during its heyday. After WW2, the only newspaper articles I’ve found unvolve the Jordans, and the show’s timeline.

Here’s an example from the Tampa Tribune of April 17, 1949. It has a quote from Jim Jordan about the programme’s success.

STILL TOPS
Fibber McGee and Molly On Radio For 15 Years
Most of the radio stars you heard 15 years ago are gone, because that's a long, long time in this comparatively new entertainment medium.
The few who are still on the air include Marian and Jim Jordan who as Fibber McGee and Molly have steadily increased in popularity through the years. As they celebrate the start of their 15th year next Tuesday night over WFLA and WFLA-FM, The Tribune stations. Fibber and Molly stand in the number one spot as radio's most popular comedians.
Their steady rise in popularity is credited to strict adherence to what is known as "the Fibber McGee and Molly program formula."
"First on our list of ‘musts’ is kindness," explains McGee. "Beyond skirting such subjects as serious infirmities, races and religions, which simply is a matter of good taste and good judgment, we extend the taboo to any material which strives for laughs with nasty innuendo or acidulous comment. We can take and dish out insults, but if they are not intrinsically good natured, we don't want them."
Jim Jordan and Marian Driscoll met during choir practice in their home town, Peoria, Ill. He was 17, she was 16, and it was love at first sight. Several years passed and then, on Aug. 31, 1918, they were married. Five days later, Jim went to France for Army service in World War I.
Jim returned from overseas in the Summer of 1919 and the Jordans launched their theatrical career. Their act was a success and a long vaudeville tour followed. They toured until two months before their second child, Jim, Jr., was born in the Summer of 1923. Marian remained In Peoria and Jim tried it alone without luck. After six months, the two teamed up again, but their act failed to click and they went broke 50 miles from home.

After a series of odd jobs, Jim returned to Chicago and became the tenor part of a singing team. During a visit to his brother, the Jordans were listening to a radio broadcast when Jan [sic] declared, "we could do a better job of singing than anyone on that program."
"Ten dollars says you can't," answered his brother.
Thus, on a dare two shaky people started a history making radio career. After an audition, they were signed for a commercial show at $10 a broadcast once a week. A few years later they met Don Quinn, cartoonist turned radio writer. The combination turned out Smackout, a five-a-week serial, and their first network show.
Fourteen years ago, the Jordans made their debut as Fibber McGee and Molly, the Tuesday night program that has become an American institution.

The same paper, on Sept. 11, 1949, quoted Jordan further:

"To us, comedy is merely a risible distortion of circumstances and attitudes. Mostly, of course, a distortion by exaggeration, which we think is the American type of humor. And as for construction we simply take an ordinary humorous incident, dilly it up, broaden its scope, throw in a couple of non-sequiturs, hide the denouement behind a few inconsequentials, indicate a glass crash, and pay it all off with a word twist."

Few radio stars, it seems, reached such heights that the network cleared time for a special broadcast to honour them. Jack Benny was one in 1941 (though it seems some back-room sponsor politics might have been involved). And Jim and Marian Jordan were another.

This plug was one of a number. It was in Alice G. Stewart’s radio column in the Latrobe (Pa.) Bulletin, Sept. 13, 1949.

RADIO DOINGS
The greatest names in radio will help Fibber McGee and Molly celebrate their 15th anniversary on NBC in a special, hour-long program this evening at 9’clock.
Such "newcomers” as Bob Hope, Dennis Day, Phil Harris and Alice Faye and others will join an old Wistful Vista neighbour, Harold ("The Great Gildersleeve") Peary in paying tribute to a program and a comedy team which have made radio history.
The anniversary program will be written by Don Quinn, who has been head writer since Fibber and Molly started on the air, and Phil Leslie, who has been his assistant for the past five years. It will be produced by Frank Pittman, regular Fibber and Molly producer.
Jim and Marian Jordan started playing Fibber and Molly in 1935 and have since become so identified with their fictional counterparts that they are accustomed to being addressed as "Mr. and Mrs. McGee." Back in 1935, however, not too many people had heard of the Jordans, who were doing a program called "Smack-out” from NBC’s Chicago studios. Fortunately for them, one of the people who did hear and enjoy them was Jack Louis, vice president of Needham, Louis and Brorby, Inc., the advertising agency for Johnson's Wax. When the Johnson people decided to sponsor a new radio program, Louis remembered "Smackout," which was being written by Don Quinn. Out of many conferences involving the Jordan’s, Quinn, the agency and sponsor came Fibber McGee and Molly.
The public's reaction was slow at first—but not for long. The McGees steadily won public favor with their original situation comedy. By 1937 they had been called to Hollywood to make "This Way, Please" for Paramount. In 1938 they moved to their present Tuesday-night spot on NBC from the Monday time they had originally occupied. The ratings of the program at first by Crossely [sic] and in recent years by Hooper, have shown them to be the most consistently popular program on the air.
In their climb to success, the Jordans brought others with them. Don Quinn, of course, is one of the top writers in the radio business. Harold Peary, whose "You're a hard man, McGee," became a national byword has been the star of his own successful program "The Great Gildersleeve," since 1941. One year the McGees had a maid named Beulah, played by Marlin Hurt. Beulah, too, became a star and still is, despite the fact that Hurt, who created the role, has since died. Perry Como once sang during the pleasant musical interludes of the Fibber and Molly program, filled now by the King's Men and Billy Mills' orchestra. And the former drummer in the Mills band was none other than Spike Jones, now also a star In his own right.
Announcer Harlow Wilcox started with the McGees when they first went on the air back in 1935 and is now one of the most sought-after announcers in radio. His reading of Don Qulnn's announcements is always the winner in polls of the most commercial. The other members of the cast—Bill Thompson as the Old Timer and Wallace Wimple, Arthur Q. Bryan as Doc Gamble, and Gale Gordon as Mayor LaTrivia—have earned places in the national consciousness and national heart second only to that large spot occupied by the McGees themselves.
Fibber McGee and Molly are as popular in sophisticated Hollywood as they are in the Jordan's home town, Peoria. The entire radio and motion picture colony turned out to honor them on the occasion of their 10th anniversary in 1944. The same stars will be on hand to wish them well on tonight when they begin their 15th year on the air.

The first show appeared on NBC on April 16, 1935 and moved from Monday to Tuesday on March 15, 1938. Johnson Wax of Racine, Wisconsin was the long-time sponsor through the ‘30s and ‘40s. But then television started siphoning off the advertising money that used to go into radio. Johnson dropped Fibber, who picked up some new sponsors. Soon, it was shed of its orchestra, studio audience, and some secondary supporting players, becoming a daily, transcribed, 15-minute show on NBC from 1953 to 1957. Harlow Wilcox was replaced by John Wald. After that, it was a shell of itself. Jim and Marian Jordan recorded some short dialogues for NBC’s “Monitor” programme before being shoved out the door. The Jordans avoided television; a Fibber and Molly TV show with Bob Sweeney and Cathy Lewis never found an audience.

Marion Jordan died in 1961. Jim followed in 1988.

Quinn looked at the show after its demise and stated that it was vague in a lot of areas on purpose. “We preferred to let the audience paint its own scenery,” he told wire service writer Bob Thomas. “It seems to me television doesn’t give enough credit to the audience’s I.Q.—imagination quotient.”

Imagination was not only what Fibber and Molly was about. It was the keystone behind old radio itself.

Let's Use This Radio Catchphrase Again

Tex Avery made some brilliant cartoons. And he made some real disappointments, too.

Falling into the latter category are some of the spot-gag shorts at Warner Bros. Gags are either obvious or hokey. Occasionally, he spruced them up for re-use in later cartoons.

An example is the ending of Ceiling Hero (1940). A test pilot crashes his plane on the tarmac. Narrator Bob Bruce gets all dramatic on us. “What happened? He crashed! This is terrible! Is he hurt? Is he killed?? IS HE KILLED?!??” IS HE????”

While Bruce is completely overwrought and speculating about death, the scene cuts to the dopey-looking pilot drawing on the ground with his finger after crawling from the wreckage. Obviously, he’s not killed.

But Tex and writer Dave Monahan decide to ignore that for the sake of shoehorning in a radio catchphrase as their ultimate gag. Emulating Mr. Kitzel on The Al Pearce Show, the pilot says “Mmmmm...could be!”

Kitzel was funnier when he went over to the Jack Benny show and Avery was funnier when he put a Kitzel-ism in a row of devils meeting Adolf Wolf at the end of The Blitz Wolf (MGM, 1942).

Avery lost the potential for a good gag when Bruce pointed out ice had developed on the wings, and the scene panned over to a polar bear on one of the wings. I was waiting for the bear to make a quip like “Don’t ask how I got up here” but the bear itself was the gag. Oh, well.

Perhaps the most imaginative thing was when the opening titles appeared out of the clouds.

At least Avery laid out the jokes and moved on. In a Lantz or Columbia spot-gag, you get the impression the writer thought the gags were the funniest things on the face of the earth. At his best, Avery gave you a groaner like he was defying you not to laugh at it.

Rod Scribner got the rotating animation credit in this short.

Stretched Spies

There are some fun visuals you can see in the Chuck Jones-directed Snafu short Spies (1943), but here’s one where you have to freeze the frames.

It’s another one of those stretch in-between scenes that Bobe Cannon specialised in. A few spies come out of their hiding places to repeat a line in the rhyming verse (by Dr. Seuss, I suspect), and then disappear.

Carl Stalling tosses Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse” into the soundtrack, and the familiar “horse’s ass” music ends it all.

Lisa Loring

There was a time when “dark and edgy” on television meant The Addams Family.

It doesn’t look terribly dark or edgy these days, and it wasn’t really back then—except in an industry where huge, fearful discussions took place over whether a character could be (gasp!) divorced. It wasn’t even as dark and edgy as Charles Addams’ panel cartoons that attracted people who relished a macabre and off-beat sense of humour.

When Addams agreed to allow his brainchild to be turned into a television sitcom in 1964, the youngest member of the cast was Lisa Loring, who has been in show biz most of her life.

Loring has passed away four days after a stroke. She was 64.

A cute story about her hit the wire when the series was in first-run. There’s no byline I can find. This is from a paper of November 20, 1964

Wednesday breaks ‘em up
Jesse White, a jocund Hollywood actor who is kept busy in the television arena as a portrayer of con men and cops, was stopped cold during the filming of a scene for "Wednesday Leaves Home," tonight's episode on The Addams Family.
In this instance, White's "competitor" was dainty 6-year-old Lisa Loring. Lisa, in her regular role of Wednesday Addams, had run away from home and innocently walked into the police department's Missing Persons bureau, headed by Sgt. Haley (White).
AT THE OPENING of the scene being rehearsed White is ranting and raving because of all the mothers who are reporting missing children. Suddenly he looks down into the angelic countenance of his little visitor.

"Look Kid," he says, "I've had a rough day. What's your name?"
Lisa's lips tighten, her brown innocent eyes widen, and she says, "I'd like a dead fly for my spider, he's hungry."
Jesse broke up. So did the director Sidney Lanfield.
It wasn't that the lines were so screamingly funny. It was Lisa's detached unconcerned, unaware way of reading them. That's what broke them up.
TO ANY OBSERVER it would be difficult to determine where Lisa leaves off and Wednesday begins. The youngster with the Mona Lisa face is solemn and a bit secretive, like her TV counterpart.
But, caught off-guard, off-camera, Lisa Loring is not a child of woe like Wednesday. She plays with her dolls and dutifully does her school work like any normal child of her age.
Lisa was born in Kwajalein in the Marshal Islands, where her father, James Phillip De Cinces, was serving in the U.S. Navy. Her mother is an actress who goes by the professional name of Judith Callies.

Networks or producers sent out biographical blurbs to newspapers in hope of getting a bit of publicity. This one appeared in a Florida newspaper on Sept. 26, 1964.

Girl in Hurry—Lisa Loring
Dainty little Lisa Loring who, at the age of 6, loves dolls, dismembers them without compunction in her role of Wednesday on ABC-Tv’s new series “The Addams Family."
A professional model since she was two, Lisa has been seen regularly in several TV commercials. She also has appeared on “The Jack Barry Show’ in Hollywood dishing out advice to the younger generation.
Her one big ambition is to marry Richard Beymer, having seen “West Side Story" five times. Another is to be a big movie star by the time she’s 7. "I’m in no hurry for that," she declares.
Lisa's favorite color is yellow and her favorite animals are Yorkshire terriers and Siamese cats.
She was born in Kwajalein, the Marshall Islands, when her father, James Phillip DeCinces, was serving in the U.S. Navy. Her mother, an actress, goes by the professional name of Judith Callies. Lisa is in the first grade at Dixie Elementary School in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

The Addams Family lasted two years on the network and umpteen years in syndication. What happened to her? Soap fans know. Here’s a syndicated column from Oct. 19, 1980.

Lisa Loring graduates into soaps
By JOHN N. GOUDAS
Remember Wednesday, the beautiful little dark-haired daughter of Morticia and Gomez, on the outlandishly ghoulish "The Addams Family" television series of 1964? Lisa Loring, who was only 6 when the series started, has blossomed into an attractive and very feminine young woman with a lot of living packed into her 22 years.
"I grew up in the business," says Lisa, who's currently portraying Cricket Montgomery on "As the World Turns," "so I became tough by learning a lot of things the hard way."
Lisa's sensitivity and candor have indeed been learned from her own personal experiences, which among other things included a marriage at 15 that ended in divorce soon after.

OBVIOUSLY, Lisa took on a great deal of responsibility for a girl of that age. This difficult situation was compounded by the birth of her precocious daughter Vanessa. Then at 19, Lisa had a decision to make. Her "Addams Family" trust fund money ran out, and she knew there was only one thing she could do and that was going back to the business she has left at age 10.
Her return was successful as she landed guest appearances on "Barnaby Jones" and "Fantasy Island," a few TV pilots and numerous commercials until she was cast in her current role on the soap last June. Lisa, living in New York for the first time, is working hard to make a new life for herself and Vanessa. "More than anything," she said, "I really like to see my daughter do well in school. She hasn't had a real good start in more ways than one. So far, everything is going quite well."
Lisa, along with help from the writers, is concentrating on the development of Cricket Montgomery.
"I like Cricket a lot more now," admits Lisa. "She's immature in many ways, but she's determined not to sit back and take second best."
The storyline for Cricket leaves plenty of options open for the beautiful, headstrong teenager who's more innocent than she thinks.
Worldly Lisa Loring, at age 22, is ready for the challenge.

Loring left the series in 1983 for family reasons and acted periodically after that.

She had to have made an impression as Wednesday in 64 episodes over two seasons, considering her character was reborn in a streaming service series that’s, well, darker and edgier than the laugh track-laden sitcom.

Charles Addams, not much of a fan of television, told the Associated Press’ Cynthia Lowry in 1965 the TV version of his cartoon “is less scary than the others—they are sort of cozy monsters. Anyway, children seem to love them and laugh at them.”

And that’s why Lisa Loring is being remembered today.

A Visit With Jack Benny at Radio City

Anyone fortunate enough to get tickets to see the Jack Benny radio show on stage got a bonus. They got to see the audience warm-up by the performers, including Jack.

The Pittsburgh Press of December 9, 1934 gave a neat little description of a Benny broadcast. The show was still being aired from Radio City in New York; Jack would pretty much move his home base to Los Angeles within a few months. The Benny show had been under the sponsorship of General Foods for not that many weeks.

Fans today don’t think of Jack as either grey-haired or smoking a cigar, but both traits were commonly known at the time. What’s different in this description of the broadcast is the revelation the cast tried to break up Jack. Frank Nelson said many years later that deviating from the well-polished script was forbidden. This show, though, is during the period Harry Conn put together the scripts with Jack.

The column wraps up with Mary talking about their baby. While newspaper and magazine pictures in the 1930s were pretty obviously staged, it’s apparent reading over the years that Jack did have great affection for his daughter.

Jack And Mary Become Serious About Business Of Being Funny
Co-Stars Try Hard To Trip Star
By S. H. STEINHAUSER
Would you like to go behind the scenes in radio with Jack Benny?
About two minutes to 7 tonight transfer yourself in thought to Radio City.
You're on the third floor of a magnificent building, walled in mahogany, floored in deep green carpets. Brass rails polished to the very limit encircle stairs leading downward to the next floor.
On the right side of the building a long line of men, women and children move silently through wide doors. Each holds a ticket rather proudly, for there are just 299 seats inside.
At a door further to the front of the building sits a little group on a grilled iron bench, with plush cushions.
One very wide-eyed, slender woman, clad smartly in brown, seems just a bit "on edge." She seems to sense that something is about to happen. Standing just in front of her and beaming down from his almost six feet is a hefty fellow in tuxedo and patent leather shoes, He's very formal, all except his smile. He knows what's on the little lady's mind and seems to be getting a big kick out fo [of] her excitement.
Almost paternally he glances from his wrist watch and says, "Let's go, Mary." His arms tower above her head as Don Wilson, one of radio's ablest network announcers, pushes the double doors of the studio open to admit one of the merry wives of radio—Mary Livingstone.
Immediately inside a gray-haired, serious looking fellow wearing a double-breasted blue suit paces the floor, looking everywhere, saying nothing. He looks like he'd make a good undertaker. If someone greets him, he awkwardly "comes back to earth" and says, "Oh, Hello." He isn't trying to be high hat. He has been away on a thinking tour of the program to go on the air. You see, he's Jack Benny, the funny guy. He and Mary take their seats at the extreme left of a triple-terraced stage. The sound effects man is just behind them. Jack gives him all of the signals. The Don Bestor band occupies the upper terrace of the stage. Microphones dot the others.
* * *
Far to the right, seated on a bench. is a fellow looking like "the undertaker's aide." His life seems to hang on what is about to happen. He's looking at the floor, his heavy-rimmed glasses making him a standout to stare at. He's Don Bestor.

Behind him, leaning over a baby grand piano, chewing gum and beaming as though he's the only one in the studio expecting to have a good time, is sleek, black-haired Frank Parker [left], the fellow who pushes his gum between his teeth and his cheek when he sings, then starts chewing all over again when he's through. He learned the trick from Will Rogers, on whose programs he also works. And when Will is on vacation Frank is on Stoopnagle and Budd's broadcast. And enough others to make his voice as familiar as the network chimes. You may expect to hear him any time you turn on your set.
"Schlepperman" and all of the other character players, who are seldom, if ever identified, stand around behind Parker.
Now the audience is seated. Don Wilson starts to make a speech inviting everyone to have a good time, "laugh and applaud all you wish." Then Jack Benny comes to life and really smiles. He informs everyone, (while puffing at his cigar) that the "first rule of the studios is no smoking." Then he introduces Mary, Frank Parker, Don Wilson and Schlepperman. He always pretends to forget Don Bestor, then, calling him to the stage, says "Look at those spats. White spats, phooey.”
Jack tells the audience a story (not for broadcasting or publication purposes). Usually its about the Benny adopted five months-old daughter and the Gracie Allen-Georgie Burns baby. Of course the story is one of Jack's impossibilities, but it puts the audience in an hysterical mood, just as the mikes are opened and there you are on the air with Jack Benny and his gang.
Everyone but Jack and Mary uses separate mikes. They stick together at one end of the stage. Don Wilson works at the center mike and Don Bestor and Frank Parker at mikes on the other side. They may seem to speak to each other but they're at least 40 feet apart.
The one big hope of everyone but Jack (and Mary is on the plot) is to cross Jack on the written lines. They do their best and usually catch him. Frank Parker or Don Bestor hand him a reply, just a little too hot to handle and Jack, looking on his script finds no reply, so the whole gang gives him the laugh and when they are through he has figured out a crack to shoot back at them.
Thus, the program goes on to its conclusion. Mary promptly slips out of the studio, takes her seat on the little bench outside the door and waits for Jack, who greets the audience, signs autographs and goes back to the business of being serious.

The floor of the studio stage is littered with typed sheets, dropped there by each member of the cast, as the lines are read. The mikes—they hope—don't pick up the fluttering of the pages as they drop to the floor. Children scramble for the pages and so do some elders.
The crowd finally leaves. Some I have tickets for other broadcasts at ! later hours on other floors of Radio City and go there. And the rest go home.
* * *
Jack and Mary hurry away to the Essex House, just off Central Park, to spend the rest of the evening with their little girl.
“Jack's gone crazy over her," Mary explained.
"And so have I. When Jack is out of town he phones home every evening to ask about the baby. We've discovered that having a little tot around is real living and we're happy that we've adopted her. We hope that she will never find out that she is not our own child. We love her as our own and want her to know us as her mother and dad. Fortune has smiled on us and we expect to devote it to this little girl—and maybe some others."

There's More Than Disney Out There

Leon Schlesinger had a number of different ventures before he became owner of a cartoon studio in 1933. He had been a theatre manager, so he knew the value of publicity.

In late 1935, Schlesinger hired Columbia studio's fashion editor, a woman named Rose Joseph (during her first marriage, she was Rose Horsley) to get him ink. She succeeded. If you wander through the posts here, you’ll see plenty of squibs or stories about Schlesinger’s studio. That was the work of Rose Horsley, contacting columnists, editorial writers and whomever else could give the studio publicity.

When Walt Disney soaked up all kinds of newspaper and magazine space during the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I suspect Schlesinger figured he could Porky-piggyback on Disney’s success. Horsley got on the phone and worked her PR magic. Soon, Louella Parsons was writing about a Schlesinger feature (it never happened). And a couple of stories came out like one below from the Newspaper Enterprise Association, appearing in papers around June 23, 1937. It’s basically “Hey, there’s a cartoon studio that makes more cartoons than Disney.”

Schlesinger talks about his star, Porky, and celebrity imitators in his cartoons. Neither Joe Dougherty nor Sara Berner get mentioned by name in this story. The photo below accompanied the article. I think the cameraman is Manny Corral.

FANTASY
By PAUL HARRISON
HOLLYWOOD (NEA) — An animated cartoon factory is a much quieter place, and more efficient, than an ordinary movie studio. Without bellowing assistant directors and bleating players, life is pleasanter, if more purposeful.
It didn't take long for the animators to introduce machine-like efficiency into their realm of pure fantasy. I used to think that all such films were turned out painstakingly, picture by picture, by a lot of busy little gnomes named Disney, sitting cross-legged in a grotto somewhere.
Instead of that, the pen-and-ink and water-color epics represent just about the highest development of the unit system of production in Hollywood.
There are budgets and shooting schedules and production charts. There are producers and directors and art directors and story departments. From inception to preview, each picture has its own full staff of executives and technicians.
Studio “Grew Up”

The man who makes the most animated pictures is Leon Schlesinger, a veteran showman who has been in practically all branches of the stage and movie businesses, but who can’t draw a straight line.
In 1930, when he had a prosperous little studio turning out titles and trailer ads and such, Jack Warner suggested making cartoon films.
So Schlesinger started “Merry Melodies,” with a staff of 36 people. Now he has two studios, a staff of 170 workers, and a payroll of nearly a third of a million dollars a year.
This year he will make 20 Merry Melodies in color and 16 Looney Tunes in black and white. That's twice the number of cartoon shorts issued annually by Disney.
Schlesinger is a pleasant, solid man who reminds you a little of Hal Roach. He likes his work and get a kick out of his own pictures, although with a modesty that is peculiarly non-Hollywood he says he's just a businessman, and acclaims the artistry of Disney.
As a businessman, though, he doubts that full-length cartoon features ever will make money. Disney has 575 employes and will spend nearly $1,000,000 producing “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
A Star Is Born
Schlesinger's current pride is Porky, a pig that stutters.
“I discovered Porky two years ago,” he said. We had a picture about a schoolroom, and the pupils were a cat, a turtle, an owl, and all sorts of animals, including a pig. Well, the minute we saw that pig we knew we had something. It was just like spotting a promising personality among the extras or bit players in a regular movie.
"So we got busy and gave Porky screen tests and changed him a little in developing his character. And now he stars in 16 pictures a year, the 'Looney Tunes’.”
A stuttering character actor does the Porky dialog for a recording; then the record is speeded up so that the voice is about an octave higher when it reaches the film. Before they attained acting prominence Rochelle Hudson and Jane Withers worked for Schlesinger, dubbing in their voices for those of cartoon characters.
The Real Actor
Hollywood has scores of people capable of imitating voices, and the producer never has any trouble finding talent for impersonating, in sound, the Crosbys, Stepin Fetchits, Garbos and other celebrities whom he frequently satirizes in "Merry Melodies.”
If you saw "Coocoonut Grove" you'll recall that Katharine Hepburn was caricatured as a horse. Schlesinger has heard that she was delighted with the impudence and went to see the picture three times.
In cartoon shorts, he explained, the animators are the real actors. They’re the artists who sketch the action and expressions of the characters, and they work from complicated scripts, or charts, plotted by the directors.
On these charts the action of each scene is minutely described, and a certain number of "frames," or individual pictures, is allotted for each bit of action. On the screen you see 24 of these frames a second.
Also on the animator's chart is written the dialog, divided into syllables and each syllable indicated for a certain group of pictures so that the characters' lip movements will synchronize perfectly, as though they are actually speaking.
In fact, the animators actually try to reproduce the true lip movements; they use themselves as models, looking into mirrors to see how certain sounds are formed.

Leon managed to get into the papers other times during that year. Hubbard Keavy (who I believe was with the Associated Press then) quoted Schlesinger about censorship and that only one cartoon in the studio's history had been rejected and needed to be redrawn (a hula girl's skirt was too short). Even a holiday in Hawaii turned into a PR exercise as Schlesinger was presented by "fans" with a black pig with a pork-pie hat when he landed at Honolulu. Pictures made the papers.

Chuck Jones always characterised Schlesinger as a bit of a dolt, but it seems to me he was far more canny than that, and sought to showcase his cartoons and little outfit amidst the whirl of the PR machines of the big studios and Walt Disney as much as he could.

Tom Take

The radio warns of an explosive-filled white mouse that could blow up the whole city. Tom listens as a newscaster cautions: “The slightest jar will explode this white mouse.”

Jerry, just before this, has been covered with white liquid shoe polish. “Aha!” he thinks.

Something tells me we can both figure out the story of this one. (The Missing Mouse was released in 1951).

Tom, who has heretofore never been known for eating walnuts, decides the first thing to do upon hearing the news is to bash open some nuts with a mallet (without even looking at what he’s doing). Jerry decides to get in the way. Tom brings down the mallet. There’s a brake screech sound effect (by Jim Faris, I believe). That sets up the big reaction.

Phone: Brrringgg!
Hanna: Is this Dick Lundy? This is Bill Hanna. Did Tex Avery leave any spare takes lying around your unit before he left? He did?! Send one over right away.

Here’s the Avery-esque take. There are two drawings. Hanna alternates them, and leaves the cycle on the screen long enough to register.

Does the white paint wash off? Does the real white mouse show up? Does he blow up? I think you know the answers to these.

The usual four T & J animators get screen credit. Scott Bradley is away so Edward Plumb scored the short (I notice no difference) and Bob Gentle receives a background credit. Paul Frees is doing an odd announcer voice as the newscaster.