The Cat That Hated People (from the cartoon of the same name) meets up with a disembodied hand with scissors chasing a piece of people and trying to cut it.
The paper runs past the unnamed cat. The hand changes its target.
Director Tex Avery uses four drawings of the cat and four more for the scissors. They’re not in a cycle; Avery uses them at random. A couple of extra hands appear.
Handiwork displayed. Gag over. On to the next one.
Walt Clinton, Louie Schmitt, Bill Shull and Grant Simmons received animation credits. Schmitt made the model sheets. Pat McGeehan stars as the cat in this 1948 short.
Porky reacts after hearing a slobbering, screeching monster comes out of the umbrella trees in Porky in Wackyland (1938).
Porky turns around in mid-air in a cycle of eight drawings, one per frame. Here are some of them as the monster (growls provided by Billy Bletcher) emerges.
Closer and closer the menace comes (Porky’s plane is cowering).
Instead of pouncing, the monster (now voiced by Mel Blanc) femininely says “Boo!”
Off it goes, skipping into the forest, singing “La-la-la.”
Norm McCabe and Izzy Ellis appear in the animation credits. My guess is Bobe Cannon worked on this as there’s a reference to him in the cartoon, perhaps along with Jack Carey. There are no background, story or layout credits.
Is a gag from Tex Avery’s Uncle Tom's Cabaña left over from the war?
The cartoon was released in 1947, but trade ads a couple of months before V-E Day (May 8, 1945) announced it was going into production.
We see animation of Simon Legree. Narrator Uncle Tom tells the theatre audience “First thing he do was go for dem bloodhounds.” Legree opens a door marked “Blood Hounds.” Uncle Tom adds “But dey was busy.”
Avery cuts to a group of hounds giving blood.
Normally, this would seem like an ordinary pun, but Scott Bradley plays “Columbia, Gem of the Ocean” at the end. That always seems reserved for patriotic scenes, like donating blood to help win the war. Perhaps it was still considered patriotic in 1947.
Heck Allen came up with some Red-Wolf gags with Avery, with the animation by Walt Clinton, Ray Abrams, Preston Blair and Bob Bentley. I’ve speculated that Will Wright may the one playing Uncle Tom, doing an impression of Andy, as in “Amos ‘n’.”
Carl Stalling ranks first among cartoon composers for quite a number of fans, partly because of the ubiquity of the Warners animated shorts on TV (at one time) and Stalling’s clever musical puns based on song titles or lyrics.
Other composers have their champions, too. They’re at either end of the spectrum. Gene Rodemich at Van Beuren generally settled for tunes of the early ‘30s solely as mood music, predating the same practice in TV cartoons of the 1950s and onward. Then there was Scott Bradley at MGM, who not only set moods with his own compositions, but scored to the action on the screen.
Bradley had a champion in Bruno David Ussher, the music columnist of the Los Angeles Daily News. He wrote in depth about Bradley in his column of May 27, 1939. By then, Bradley’s tone poem “Cartoonia” had been performed at the Hollywood Playhouse. Richard D. Saunders in the February 1, 1939 edition of the Hollywood Citizen-News called it “an utterly delightful bit of fantasy, deftly scored, and conceived with intriguing whimsicality. The naïve theme of the child was charmingly guileless, the “Calico Dragon” was introduced sinuously by the bassoons, the “Fleas” skittered and hopped in the notes of the upper winds, and the prince who came to slay the dragon with a peppermint candy spear was announced in a lilting trumpet fanfare. The “once upon a time” mood was adroitly sustained.
Ussher’s column followed two where he complained about the lack of credits on MGM cartoons. Evidently he chatted with Fred Quimby or maybe Max Maxwell at Metro and was given an interesting explanation you can read below.
MUSIC
By BRUNO DAVID USSHER
SEVERAL days ago I expressed my pleasure over a musically and visually artistic color cartoon made by the MGM cartoon department. I voiced also some surprise that name credits were absent in the title, especially when sight and sound bore such evidence of taste, skill and coordination. I grumbled about it at the studio and found that the powers that be are well swore of the thoughtful, imaginative and self critical work which the men and women with typewriters, music paper, paint brushes, cameras and sound reproducing machines are pooling in a remarkable spirit of veritable art-democracy.
Important as indeed the musical contribution of composer-director Scott Bradley is, his name is kept off the screen, together with those of his meritorious collaborators from the writing, painting, photographic and sound departments, because time in terms of film footage is valued infinitely. A cartoon is a story told in action. Lack of a few seconds of action can rob an otherwise cleverly thought out, well made cartoon of its "punch."
COMPOSER-DIRECTOR SCOTT BRADLEY and his two story writing, action directing colleagues, Hugh Harmon [sic] and Rudolph Ising, have to fill a yearly quota of 15 cartoons. Bradley has been at it five years. No doubt that length of time has given him a special skill for writing epigrammatically pictorial music. In terms of actual quantity, Bradley’s fellow screen composers often have to produce more music in less than three weeks than he has to provide. (A cartoon is accompanied by nine or ten minutes of continuous music.) On the other hand, the cartoon predominantly a thing of action. It consists, on the average, on 15,000 pictures, and while some of these differ from each other but imperceptibly, nevertheless music must fit them with almost microscopic closeness of mood and motion.
In the regular film a composer may write against a scene. In the "acted" film the composer enjoys a good deal of liberty as a musical commentator and he may retrace the course of the film story or anticipate same. In the animated picture or cartoon, the composer makes action aural and illustrates and emphasizes happenings and atmosphere. At least that has been the tradition of the past. ANYONE thinking that Scott Bradley has time on his hands while having to create only nine or ten minutes of music every two or three weeks is greatly mistaken. The technical process of the cartoon is painstaking in its minute demands. Making a cartoon is a process of checking and double checking. Twenty-four individual pictures (technically known as frames) flash across the screen every second of performance. To these 15,000 frames must be fitted an average of 425-450 measures of music, the difference being determined by how much slow tempo music the cartoon score contains.
"As a rule, cartoons are packed with action. The music moves with the action and literally every note must convey, or at least sustain, the general meaning," Bradley told me. We have broken away from the noisy, slam-bang-craah cartoon film. The raucous film is giving way to a cartoon type which can be no less humorous and entertaining, but which meets also the public craving for things beautiful as imaginative and extravagant of idea and action.”
BRADLEY is dispensing with what might be called crude sound or actual action noise when he can obtain the same auditory effect by means of ingenious orchestration.
"As a matter of fact, good, suggestive Instrumentation can produce sound of an atmospheric imagination stirring effectiveness which the plain imitation of so-called natural sound does not possess. In ‘The Goldfish’ (the preview title was ‘Wonders of the Deep’), the little creature is seen shooting the chutes—(the curved arm of an octopus). Instead of resorting to the old fashioned slide whistle we used a harp glissando with string tremolo.
"The sound of the rising bubbles is made by flutes, clarinets, strings tremolando. When ‘Sea Biscuit’ hee haws, violins play intervals of minor seconds instead getting the actual sound of a horse neighing. In other words, I am evolving sound effects out of the music by means of harmonization and orchestration.
Some day I shall induce Scott Bradley to share a few more secrets of his super realism. His method does make cartoons lovelier and musically more fascinating. Of course, it means more work, more ingenuity, on his part. He is now getting ready for a Christmas cartoon with a real, anti-war message. Another production will be a cartoon fantasy on Grey’s "Elegy.” And the Bradley-Harmon-Ising triumvirate is also hatching plans for a full length cartoon feature to be started next year.
Bradley’s belief in the end of “slam bang” cartoons couldn’t have been more wrong. Just around the corner from this interview, Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry would be created, Bob Clampett would fill his war-time cartoons with crazy (and, at times, violent) action, and Tex Avery would perfect his wild takes.
Ussher devoted part of another column to Bradley, this one published December 2, 1939.
I was gratified to read Virginia Wright's enthusiastic article about MGM’s cartoon short, "Peace on Earth two days ago. It deserves every inch of the two columns she devoted to this simple and yet potent one reel picture. As the Daily News drama editor observed, this "short" carries a deep and timely message and does it with all the charm of producer Hugh Harman's previous creations. I touched on one of them (“The Goldfish”) several months ago because Scott Bradley’s background music impressed me as quite ingenious as well as befitting that beautifully colored, quaintly imaginative "short." All the widely varied sound effects were produced by means of instrumental imitation. Music was put to clever use.
IN "Peace on Earth the only nonmusical sound, apart from dialog, is the crashing of shells. Ones or twice the street carols, when heard in the squirrel home, should sound less loud than outdoors, but that is a small matter. Bradley’s craftsmanship in musical miniatures is exemplified once more. For instance, he uses nothing but a low viola tremolo over deeply beating kettledrums when the last two men in the world die in battle. As they sink down, even the violas cease and finally even the drums lapse into a silence which grows tense although it lasts but 10 seconds.
No need to mention the fine use of English horns, celeste, trumpet and strings.
It’s been 30 years since a CD of Bradley’s work on six Tex Avery cartoons was released. The irony is Bradley told interviewer Milt Gray in 1979 “Tex Avery didn’t like my music. We disagreed a lot on what kind of music was appropriate for his cartoons. His ideas on music were so bad that I had to put a stop to it.... I gave in to him for a while, but finally I went down to see Quimby in his office and complained.... And Quimby backed me up.” One wonders if Avery’s penchant for hoary old tunes like “Old Black Joe” or “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain” irked a modernistic composer like Bradley (conversely, Carl Stalling told historian Mike Barrier in 1969 “Tex Avery was...great”).
When MGM closed its cartoon studio in 1957, producers/directors Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera set up their own operation. Bradley didn’t go along. He retired. It’s doubtful Hanna and Barbera could have borne the expense of a composer at that time, relying instead on a cue deal with Capitol records.
Bradley died in 1977 at age 85. A plaque over his grave only features the Masonic square and compasses; he was a member of Silver Trowel Lodge No. 415. Nothing reveals the contribution he made to the world of animated cartoons.
90 years ago tonight, Jack Benny made his radio comeback. He and wife Mary Livingstone were picked up by NBC to broadcast for Chevrolet, after being unceremoniously dumped by Canada Dry and its ad agency, N.W. Ayer.
The soft drink maker wasn’t thrilled with Jack making fun of its product on the air—though listeners seemed to enjoy it quite a deal. After a failed attempt to foist a new writer on Jack (and a new announcer and orchestra due to a network change), he was fired in January 1933 after about nine months on the air.
Within days of his Canada Dry demise on CBS, he auditioned for the comedy spot in Fred Waring’s new show on the network.
Fortune smiled on Jack in the form of Al Jolson. Jolie wanted off his show for Chevrolet. Variety reported on February 21, 1933 that the car maker and agency Campbell Ewald were going to release him from his contract and NBC had already submitted a substituted show with Jack Benny and a studio orchestra led by Frank Black. One AP story said Irene Taylor would be the singer on the proposed show. She never made it and Jimmy Melton got the job. When the show returned from the summer break in October, Melton had moved on and Frank Parker was hired.
The bulk of the Benny shows from 1933 don’t exist in audio form. Reference discs were ruined some years ago. Scripts for all the shows exist, so we do have a script for the programme of March 3, 1933. These scripts are being collated by the great Kathy Fuller-Seeley for publication, and she has supplied a scan of the papers of the first Chevrolet script.
Casual fans of the show will notice there is no Rochester, no Dennis Day, no Don Wilson, no “39,” no Maxwell. None of that had been invented yet. Harry Conn, who had a very unamicable split with Jack several seasons later, was the writer. The formula is this: kibitzing with the announcer at the start, a character or two comes in for a dialogue, Mary gets a featured spot, and maybe some kind of movie parody to end it all. The character in this episode is played by Benny Baker, yet another vaudevillian that appeared on Jack’s show in his early, New York days.
The announcer on the first show was Howard Claney. When Parker replaced Melton, Alois Havrilla took over from Claney. Neither announcers were jolly Don Wilson types. Claney shouts and Havrilla comes across as stuffy and forced. Frank Black may have been a fine orchestra leader, but he sounds growly and somewhat bored. Melton sings far longer than Kenny Baker or Dennis Day ever did. In this episode, he isn’t trusted with dialogue (Larry Stevens later knew the feeling). Edith Evans’ appearance in this show seems pointless. She exchanges very few lines of dialogue, then sings, and disappears.
And, I hate to say it, but I didn’t really laugh reading this script. Jack had been declared one of the top five radio personalities in one poll after his time with Canada Dry, but, to me, he isn’t all that funny here.
Spellings are transcribed exactly. There are a couple of typos. And Mary’s last name is spelled without an ‘e.’
WEAF CHEVROLET (FINAL REVISION)
10:30- 11:00 P.M.MARCH 3, 1933FRIDAY
CLANEY: The Chevrolet Program!
(FANFARE)
CLANEY: Ladies and Gentlemen: If you have some money to invest and are wondering where to put it—here’s a suggestion. Take that money of yours and use it to buy a new Chevrolet Six. There’s no safer, sounder investment than the purchase of an automobile. There’s no other investment that will pay you such sure dividends—in pleasure—and comfort—and peace of mind.
Automobile men will tell you that the low priced car with the highest re-sale value is CHEVROLET. The one with the greatest record of dependability and durability is CHEVROLET. Yes—and the low prices car with the greatest number of New inventions and new thrills is that sound sure investment—CHEVROLET.
Be wise my friends, put that money of yours in the one place that will do you the most good—in a new car—a big new Chevrolet Six—a General Motors value.
-1A-
CLANEY: (CONT) Frank Black and the Chevrolet Orchestra presents “Strike Me Pink,” and the 2nd orchestra selection that you will hear is “Let’s Call It a Day.” Both of these choices are from the Show “Strike Me Pink” which has its premiere in New York tomorrow night.
1. (A) STRIKE ME PINK ORCHESTRA)
1. (B) LET’S CALL IT A DAY ORCHESTRA)
CLANEY: And now, ladies and gentlemen, for our big surprise of the evening. I take great pleasure in introducing to you for the first time on the Chevrolet program, that mirth-provoking, inimitable, suave, polished, bland, genteel, learned---
JACK: All right, Howard, all right. Maybe that’s a little too strong.
CLANEY: That effervescent comedian. . .the representative of American youth. . . . .
JACK: Howard, please—this is embarrassing.
CLANEY: A gentleman, a scholar, America’s foremost exponent of wit and humor----
JACK: Howard, stop—you’re crabbing it. Nobody can be that good.
-2-
CLANEY: That delineator of mirth. . .a man of intellect, vision and achievement—
JACK: Tell them I’m good to my folks, too – will you?
CLANEY: And last but not least, that well-known stage, screen and radio star, Mister er. . .er. . . . .
JACK: Jack Benny, folks.
CLANEY: Mr. Jack Benny.
JACK: Well, I’m glad that’s over. Some fellows have to die to get that eulogy. . . . . .Howard, do me a favor, will you? The next time you introduce me just say Jack Benny. You’ve taken up half the program already.
CLANEY: Well, Jack, I wanted to give you a good send-off, so take the microphone. It’s all yours. . . . .Good-luck, kid.
JACK: Thanks, Howard.
CLANEY: Oh Frank, give Jack a nice musical introduction.
BLACK: Okay. (ORCHESTRA PLAYS OPENING BARS OF CHOPIN’S “FUNERAL MARCH)
JACK: Thanks, Boys. . .That was “Underneath the Harlem Moon”, folks. You can see the cooperation I’m going to get on this program. . . .Well anyway, this is Jack Benny again – remember, hmmmm? the Robert Montgomery of the air?
BAKER: Sez you.
JACK: All right then, the Boris Karloff of the air. . . .Boys, do I look like Karloff?
BAKER: No, but certainly Boris.
JACK: This is a nice program. Even the janitor tells jokes. . .Well anyway, ladies and gentlemen, I’m certainly glad to be back on the air again. I had a nice five-weeks rest and now I’m ready for work.
-3-
CLANEY: Where did you spend your vacation, Jack?
JACK: I went down to Miami Beach, Florida, Howard. . .and that’s the spot this time of year, believe me. Imagine, in February, it was seventy in the shade.
CLANEY: Why, when I was down there it was ninety.
JACK: Well, that was during the boom. You know how things have come down since then.
CLANEY: Were you over to Coral Gables?
JACK: Yes, but I didn’t stay. He was making a picture with Joan Crawford. (Pardon me for thinking of that one, folks.)
CLANEY: Say, Jack, they tell me everything is reasonable down there this year.
JACK: Very cheap, Howard, very cheap. I had a lovely room in one of the leading hotels there for thirty-five dollars a day. You see, they have winter and summer rates. In the winter time, you get a room for thirty-five dollars a day, and in the summer time you can buy the hotel for thirty. . . .But one nice thing about it, with every thirty-five dollar room, they give you a locker for nothing. Isn’t that sweet? You know, one of those lockers where you keep your bathing suit?. . . .The second week I was there I checked out of my room and moved into the locker. . .But some things are very reasonable down there. . . .The post-office still sells stamps for three cents.
CLANEY: What hotel did you stop at?
JACK: I stopped at a place called the Roney-Plaza—two names, you know. At the end of the week, you get a bill from each of them. . .I hear they’re building one next season with three names.
-4-
CLANEY: How big a city is Miami?
JACK: Oh, I should say, it has a population of about. . . .45,000 Chevrolets. (Wasn’t that good, Howard, for my first program?) But there’s one thing about Miami that’s great—and that’s the sunshine. Boy, what sun! You stay down there about a week or two, and you get that wonderful sunburn and tan all over your face and body. . . .Gee, I saw Kid Chocolate down there and he looked marvelous. . . .But I really had to go down there, Howard, because when I got through with my last air program I was a nervous wreck.
CLANEY: How do you feel now?
JACK: Now I’m sunburned and nervous.
CLANEY: Did you go to the race track while you were there?
JACK: Yes, I played a few horses. I bet on a horse the day I left.
CLANEY: Did he come in?
JACK: Not [sic], but any day now. . . . .I’m expecting a wire. You know, it was a tip. The fellow that gave him to me told me to play him first and last to protect my money. But I got a good run for my money. He was right there with the rest of the horses. . . . .until they left the post, and then he didn’t want any part of them. . . . .Say Howard, I’m taking up too much time here. Who’s that young lady standing over there?
CLANEY: That’s Miss Edith Evans. She’s going to sing, “A Little House on the Hill.”
JACK: She is?. . . .Oh, Miss Evans?
MISS EVANS: Yes?
JACK: Miss Evans, pardon me. I’m Jack Benny.
-5-
MISS EVANS: How do you do?
JACK: How do you do? Didn’t I meet you once in Paris?
MISS EVANS: No! I was never there and neither were you.
JACK: Ah, you little mind-reader. . . . .Miss Evans, who’s that tall mug you were talking to a few minutes ago?
MISS EVANS: That’s my husband.
JACK: Miss Evans will sing, “A Little House on the Hill”. . . .Play, Frank. (SEGUE INTO NUMBER) 2. LITTLE HOUSE ON THE HILL – ORCHESTRA AND MISS EVANS)
JACK: That was “A Little House on the Hill,” sung by Miss Edith Evans. Very nice, Edith. . . .And now, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to have another musical arrangement by Frank Black and his Orchestra. And what an orchestra! All thorough musicians and each one a soloist. If we could only get them together, it would be swell. But they really are a swell bunch of fellows. Of course I don’t want to tell you where most of the boys come from, but if you’re thinking of Moscow, you’re hot. . . .The first violinist made a screen test in Hollywood last month, and here he is back home again, contented. . . . . And we have a new trombone player who was formerly with a chain gang band. His ankle is getting much better. . . .And I think the drummer is a fugitive from a bathtub. . . .Well, that gives you a rough idea of what these boys look like. But really, folks, there’s one good thing about these boys. They er. . . they er -----
CLANEY: They all drive Chevrolets – the largest selling low-priced car on the market.
-6-
JACK: Mmmmm, it looks like I’m going to hear that from now on. This is a commercial program as sure as you’re born. . . . . The Empire State Building don’t have to fall on me.) Anyway, I want you all to meet Frank Black, the director of this orchestra. A very lovely fellow, and the type of leader who swings his baton while the boys use their own judgment. And so far, they’ve been doing pretty good. . . . . .Oh Frank, come over here and say something.
BLACK: Ladies and gentlemen, I er. . . .I er------
JACK: And he will give these lectures on music every Friday night. . . .Thanks, Frank.
BLACK: But I didn’t say anything, Jack.
JACK: That’s all we expect to hear from you, Frank. After all, you’re a musician, you know. . . . .An, ladies and gentlemen, for the benefit of those of you who have never seen Mr. Black, let me describe him to you. First of all, Frank is a rather handsome chap, well-built, and not unlike Clark Gable. . . .yet not like Clark Gable. . . .In fact, disregard Gable and I’ll start over again. . . . .But Frank isn’t bad-looking at all, and he has a smile that suggests a Venetian gondola. And he’s got the cutest dimple on his right cheek, which he got from talking back to his saxophone-player. . .Otherwise, he’s okay. Taking him all in all, Frank reminds me of another great band-leader, Paul Whiteman. That is, Frank looks like the hundred pounds that Whiteman lost.
-7- BLACK: Hey, Jack, what are you talking about?
JACK: Oh, nothing, Frank – just talking.
BLACK: Well, what do you know about music, anyway?
JACK: What do I know about music? Why Frank, don’t you know that I used to be an orchestra leader?
BLACK: You were?
JACK: Certainly, and I found out one thing, Frank. If the orchestra doesn’t show up, you can’t get anything out of that stick.
BLACK: That’s true, Jack. But you can’t run an army without a general. An orchestra needs a leader -- just like an automobile needs gas. Isn’t that right, Howard?
CLANEY:Yes – but you need the least amount of gas when you drive a Chevrolet.
JACK: Oh-oh, I was afraid of that. I knew it—I knew it. . . . .Play, Frank, play. SEGUE INTO NUMBER 3. “LET”S CALL IT A DAY” ORCHESTRA
JACK: Hello, this is Jack Benny again. Glad, hmmm? And now, ladies and gentlemen, I want to get down to the serious work of this program – introducing our guest stars whom we will have here from time to time. Now we don’t intend to have the ordinary run of guest stars, but people who have really accomplished something.
-8-
JACK: (CONTINUED) And tonight we have here in this studio no other than that great speed demon who has broken all records at Daytona Beach by driving a motor car at the rate of 364 miles, 4 yards, five feet and 1/8th of an inch per hour. . . . .I now take great pleasure in introducing the world’s greatest traffic-ticket collector, Major Welcome Scrambel.
(HEAVY APPLAUSE AND CHEERS)
Come Major, say a word to the folks. Don’t be nervous.
BAKER: Oh, hello.
JACK: (That’s the speed demon.) Now Major, I hope you don’t think I’m rude, but the folks would like to know something about your terrific speed tests. Now tell us, when did you first start speeding.
BAKER: I used to drive a taxi on Broadway.
JACK: Oh, it came natural. . . . .I imagine at the terrific speed you travel that you must have quite a few accidents.
BAKER: Oh yes, I have had hundreds of them.
JACK: Don’t you ever hurt yourself?
BAKER: No, I’m lucky. I always land on my head.
JACK: That’s using your head. . . . .Now tell us something about your record run at Daytona Beach.
BAKER: Well, the weather was nice and the beach was clear, so I started out at first very slow– about two hundred miles an hour–
-9-
JACK: I see, just to warm up the motor.
BAKER: Yes, and then I tried to go faster but I couldn’t get out at first.
JACK: Well, isn’t your car free wheeling?
BAKER: No, three more payments. . . . .I finally got into second and loafed along at about two hundred and eighty miles an hour. . . .and then I had to pull to the right several times to let some other cars pass.
JACK: Well, that’s road courtesy. Were these also racing cars?
BAKER: No– Chevrolets.
JACK:
Hmmmm, that was very nice of you to say that, Major. And here’s your dollar. I hope this won’t hurt your amateur standing.
(BOTH LAUGH HEARTILY)
BAKER: Don’t worry about it.
JACK: Tell us some more, Major.
BAKER: Well, then I threw her into high. Sixty cylinders all in harmony. Boy! you should have heard that motor sing.
JACK: Motor sing?
BAKER: It was singing, “Oil in me, why not put oil in me, Can’t you see?”. . . . Finally, I looked at the speedometer and found myself going 364 miles an hour, so I threw out the clutch and hit a pedestrian.
JACK: You hit a pedestrian with the clutch?
BAKER: Yes – then I threw in the pedestrian and kept going.
-10-
JACK: I see, one down and two to go. . . . .But tell me, Major, on these very fast trips of yours, do you protect your eyes with goggles?
BAKER: No, I just goggle my throat and start out.
JACK: Why don’t you use this on your throat?
BAKER: Heh, heh, heh – that’s a knife.
JACK: Heh, heh, heh – you’re telling me. . . . .Now come on, Major, tell us more about this record-breaking run of yours.
BAKER: Of course on this particular trip, I only drove three minutes.
JACK: Only three minutes, I see. . . .And how far did you go?
BAKER: Well, I started out at Daytona Beach, passed two red lights in Atlantic City and had a little tire trouble in Bar Harbor, Maine.
JACK: This all happened in three minutes.
BAKER: Yes, and I would have driven further, but the snow was terrific in Nova Scotia.
JACK: In going through China, did you notice any change in the war situation?
BAKER: I didn’t get there – but I’m going out for a little spin tonight and I’ll find out.
JACK: Well, thank you very much for coming here, Major.
BAKER: You’re welcome. Well, I guess I’ll have to be going now. . . .Good-bye.
JACK: Good-bye, Major.
(START UP MOTOR HUM)
What’s that? What’s that, Major?
BAKER: That’s my car. I got it right here with me.
-11-
JACK: Sounds like an aeroplane to me.
BAKER: Oh yes, I forgot to tell you. It flies, too. . .Well, good-bye, Mr. Benny.
JACK: So long, Major.
(MOTOR HUM GETS LOUDER---THEN DIMINISHES GRADUALLY)
Ah, there he goes, folks, spinning away in his little racing car.
(TERRIFIC CRASH)
There he goes on his merry way, taking half of the building with him. . .and now James Melton, who just got out of the way of the car in time, feels fortune [sic] that he will be able to sing. “Will you Remember?” from “Maytime”. . . . All right, Jimmy.
(SEGUE INTO NUMBER)
4. (WILL YOU REMEMBER? ORCHESTRA AND MELTON)
JACK: That was James Melton singing, “Will you Remember?” And very good, Jimmy, very good.
MELTON: Thanks, Jack.
JACK: And now our next guest star this evening is a young man who needs no introduction –
MARY: Jack Benny. . . .Jack Benny. . .hello, Jack.
JACK: Hello. . . .oh hello, Mary. . .Well, Mary Livingston. I’m certainly glad to see you. . . .Well, well, well. . .Say Howard, I want you to meet Miss Livingston. She used to be my secretary. You remember her.
-12-
CLANEY: Oh sure. . .Glad to know you, Miss Livingston. I’ve heard so much about you.
MARY: Oh, you know how people talk.
JACK: Gee, you’re looking fine, Mary. What are you doing in town?
MARY: Oh, I had to come in town to do some shopping. .and then I heard you were here. . .not to mention that I’m out of work. . . .Gee, I’d like to be on this program. I think Howard is swell.
JACK: One thing at a time, Mary. . .How is everything in your home town, Plainfield?
MARY: Oh just fine. . .things are picking up. The public park has opened up again, and Father’s got his bench back.
JACK: That’s nice.
MARY: I got your postal card from Miami. I’ll bet it was swell down there.
JACK: Did you get that box I sent you?
MARY: Did I?. . . .I showed it to all the neighbors. They never saw Florida beach sand before.
JACK: Well, I just meant it as a little souvenir.
MARY: Did you get my letter, Jack?
JACK: Oh yes, I think I did. . . .It was awfully nice of you.
MARY: Oh, here it is. I forgot to mail it.
JACK: That’s why I didn’t answer it. . .Well, Mary, would you really like to come back to work for me?
MARY: Yes, Jack, I’d love to, and I started already. Here are some telegrams marked “PERSONAL.” I read them, and I think they’re swell. .
-13- JACK: Thanks, and let me read my own personal wires from now on.
MARY: (SIGHS) Okay.
JACK: Well, let’s see who these wires are from. Kind-a nice to get these for my opening . . . . Here, who’s this from Mary?
MARY: It’s from your tailorin Brooklyn.
JACK: My tailor?
MARY: Yes – he says: “GLAD TO HEAR YOU’R BACK ON THE AIR. YOU KNOW WHY.”
JACK: (LAUGHS) Always kidding. . . .Hmmm, get this, Mary. It’s from my home town, Waukegan, Illinois. It says: “YOUR PROGRAM WAS GREAT TONIGHT AND I ENJOYED IT IMMENSELY. I THINK YOU’RE MARVELOUS.
MARY: Who’s it from?
JACK: My father. I told him not to send it until after the program. . .Ooop! here’s a cable from Glasgow, Scotland.
MARY: Gee Jack, who’s it from?
JACK: It just says – “LUCK, LAUDER”. . . . Well, that’s two nice words.
MARY: Oh Jack, here’s another one. It says “DEAR JACK BENNY: I HOPE YOUR OPENING TONIGHT IS AS BIG A SUCCESS AS OURS WILL BE TOMORROW.” Signed, Frankie and Johnny. Who’s Frankie and Johnny?
JACK: Frankie Roosevelt and Johnny Garner. . .who’d you think it was, Mae West?. . . Well, it certainly makes me feel good to receive all these telegrams. And now while I recover, Frank Black and his Orchestra will play, “NIGHT AND DAY”, from that popular Broadway success, “The Gay Divorcee”. (SEGUE INTO NUMBER) 5. NIGHT AND DAY – ORCHESTRA
(Chevrolet Revised 3-3-33) -14-
JACK: That was the last number on the Chevrolet program on the third day of March. Are you sleeping, hmmmmm? Well, folks, I have to leave you now. I hope you will all listen in again next Friday night, and we will have some more guest stars and many new surprises. . .Oh say, Howard.
CLANEY: Yes, Jack.
JACK: You know we may be working together for the next few weeks, and I was just wondering if. . . . .well, you know, I had a five-weeks vacation, and you know how those horses are and everything. . .and, well er. . .
CLANEY: Well, what is it?
JACK: I was just wondering, Howard. . . .well, you see. . .if you could just let me have ten dollars till next Friday.
CLANEY: Ten dollars?
JACK: Yes, I’m leaving for the Inauguration tonight. I want to see it.
CLANEY: Are you going to Washington?
JACK: No, I’ll get off at Baltimore so I can find a place to stand. . . .What do you say, Howard—how about a ten-spot until Friday?
CLANEY: I’m sorry, Jack, but I. . . . . .er. . . .er---
JACK: Come on, Mary. A lot of cheap people on this program.
MARY: I think he’s swell.
JACK: Come on, Mary.
MARY: (SIGHS) Okay.
(SEGUE INTO CLOSING SIGNATURE MUSIC)
-15-
CLANEY: Before you decide definitely to worry along with that old car of yours any longer, get out your pencil and paper and so [sic] some figuring. Put down first, the amount of money it will be costing you to repair or overhaul your present car this spring. Next, put down what it will probably cost you for tires—in either repairing the old one—or buying new ones. Next, write down the cost of extra oil and the extra gasoline your old car will be burning up this spring just because it IS an old car. Then add up all these figures---- and look at the total!
Ladies and gentlemen, the chances are: that the told will be considerably greater than what you’d pay out this spring driving a NEW Chevrolet. In other words, it will cost you less to own a new Chevrolet than to keep your old car another season. Why not visit your Chevrolet dealer and find out for sure. Ask him what he’ll give you for your old car in trade. Ask him what it will cost per month to pay the balance. Remember—Chevrolet prices are now as low as $485 f.o.b. Flint, Michigan, and G.M.A.C. terms enable you to spread this low price over a convenient period of time. SAVE—with a NEW Chevrolet.
This is the National Broadcasting Company.
Jack’s experience with Chevrolet was worse than with Canada Dry. Chevrolet’s boss, C.E. Coyle, decided he wanted something classier than a comedian. Over the objections of Chevy dealers, he replaced Benny with Victor Young’s orchestra on April 1, 1934.
Jack Osterman’s column in Variety of Feb. 7, 1933 led with an interesting scenario.
Years ago when we were invited to a theatrical party, people would point with pride to the different producers present. Woods, Harris, Earl Carroll, et al. That is a thing of the past. The other week Burns and Allen and Jack Benny invited us to a big party they gave at the Warwick. The room was packed. As we entered Jack grabbed our arm and whispered: ‘See that fellow over there, head man with General Foods. The short fellow next to him is chief of Standard Brands and the woman talking to him controls American Tobacco.’
It turned out Jack’s last two sponsors spanning 21 years on radio were General Foods and American Tobacco.
Animating frame-by-frame takes time. That costs money. It’s only, natural, therefore, that studios look at ways of cutting down on animation to keep within a budget.
One way of doing it is by using still drawings. All that’s involved is a click of the camera for as many frames as the drawing is held. You might think of it as a trick for TV animation, but it was used in the Golden Age of theatrical cartoons, too. Think of the drawings of all the villains in Bob Clampett’s The Great Piggy Bank Robbery.
Don Patterson saved Walter Lantz some money in Wrestling Wrecks (1953) with the same technique. Gag drawings were used of various wrestlers appearing on the card (the ring announcer is played by Dal McKennon).
“The Pincher will wrestle The Spider.”
“Hammerhead Harry will try to nail The Vice.”
“And Hatchet Man will chop away at The Octopus.”
“In a tag-team match, Cauliflower McHugh and Muscle Brain team up against Legs O’Houlihan and The Wringer.”
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“Man Mountain will trade dirt with Quicksand Joe.”
“The Phantom will contact The Smog.”
All this takes up 38 seconds of screen time with no animation. Lantz, who constantly complained about how little money he got from theatres to run his cartoons, must have been delighted.
There were animators on this short. La Verne Harding, Ray Abrams and Ken Southworth are credited; I wonder if Harding is responsible for the early footage of Woody Woodpecker pulling on his Great Dane’s tongue.
Art Landy or Ray Jacobs would have been responsible for the still drawings.
Distinctive voices decorated the landscape of the Golden Age of Radio, people you’d never mistake for anyone else. The same unmistakeable voices gravitated to animated cartoons, where the actors have achieved unexpected longevity, if not an almost immortality.
If you see the words “It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s Su-perman!” one voice likely comes to mind. It belonged to Jackson Beck.
Those of you who come here to read about cartoons know Beck’s accomplishments—Bluto and Buzzy the crow for Famous Studios, King Leonardo for Total Television are among them. Jack Benny fans will have recognised Beck on Benny’s post-war shows broadcasting from New York—roles included a cab driver, a theatre manager, and an on-the-take waiter. And he can be heard in countless old commercials—a hunt on-line will reveal he was the voice of Studebaker on TV for a time, while on radio, he growled “If every smoker knew what Philip Morris smokers know...” when he wasn’t pushing Kellogg’s Pep on Superman.
Let’s pass along a couple of articles from the 1940s about Beck on the air. The first one likely came from the New York World-Telegram. Beck was starring in “Joe and Ethel” on NBC at the time. This is dated August 29, 1943.
Jackson Beck Answered Ad And Now He's A Radio Star 'Cisco Kid’ Comes by His Acting Naturally, for His Dad Was a Professional on the Stage By HARRIET VAN HORNE
I've yet to meet a successful writer who got that way answering one of those ads—"How do you KNOW you can't write?"
But the other day I met a successful actor who broke into radio by the simple expedient of answering an ad that asked, "Do YOU want to get into radio?"
That was 11 years ago, and round-faced Jackson Beck has been living by the mike ever since. He works 10 hours a day, appears on some 20 shows a week and earns considerably more than $10,000 a year.
"And when I answered that foolish ad," he says frankly. "I was living on animal crackers and water."
Not that a chance newspaper item immediately turned the animal crackers to guinea hen under glass. There was, it developed, a catch to the ad—something thousands of hopefuls found out in 1932.
Here the gimmick was a solemn audition behind a curtain. Aspiring radio artists were given a speech out of an ante-bellum elocution book. Jackson recalls that his ran something like: "Ah, here comes the Prince! But little does he dream that I am the true love of his lady fair." No matter how you read it, the result is the same. You had an excellent chance of breaking into radio, the advertiser explained, IF you took his course in radio dramatics. Jackson put up an argument, complained that the ad was misleading. "Result was that I wound up as an instructor," he chuckles.
Glutted with radio school tricks, most of which turned out to be more hindrance than help, Jackson made his bow in a series of dramatized love stories on a now defunct station. It was the only English program on the station, and did little to adjust foreign born listeners to their new land and its quaint customs. "The show didn’t run very long," says Jackson. "It was directed by a guy with a glass eye and inhibitions."
During the next five years Jackson says he worked for all the 26 stations that have, at one time or another, flashed their signal from New York. He was actor, announcer, director, producer. He also sold time, swept out and answered the phone. "I did everything but sing," he says ruefully. "That's an ambition I have yet to realize.
Today Beck's radio roles include everything but vocalizing. They range from Louie the Lug on the Archie Andrews series for kids, to the tensely dramatic Man Behind the Gun. He plays The Skull in another juvenile thriller, The Black Hood. And, as almost everyone knows by now, Jackson is the Cisco Kid. This role, a romantic vagabond who halts injustice, solves crimes, aids the poor and sweeps young senoritas right off their balconies, fetches in a bale of fan mail. Most of it is from little girls.
On the program, Eye Witness News, Jackson is the "voice" of some famous bylines, including Drew Middleton and Clark Lee. He is also narrator of the new Coast Guard technicolor film, Task Force, soon to be released.
Jackson's father is an actor. His mother reads romantic novels. The senior Beck last was seen on Broadway in the play, The More the Merrier, no relation to the recent movie. "He was the one who drew mustaches on the corpses," Jackson explains.
One thing above all else is Jackson Beck grateful for. Some kind soul dissuaded his mother from naming him St. Elmo after the novel she was reading in 1912.
The next story is the kind you hear about every once in a while in the Golden Age. It is from the Buffalo Evening News, January 30, 1946.
Jackson Beck Saves the Day
By JIM TRANTER
Few people listening to Quick-as-a-Flash last Sunday realized that real radio drama was being enacted under their very ears. Only the fast thinking of one Jackson Beck, who did such a swell job as "Stonewall Scott" in “Mystery in the Air," saved the program from being a complete flop.
Jimmy Meighan was the guest star, enacting a scene in which contestants were to find clues leading to the solution of an adventure of the Falcon, played by Jimmy on the air. He stepped to the mike, started the playlet, gasped “I can’t go on” and left the air. Jackson, a seasoned radio actor playing a supporting part, stepped in and took over Meighan’s role; one of the others grabbed Beck’s part and on they went. With hardly a noticeable break the play ran smoothly to its conclusion.
This is one sample of why a few actors get the bulk of the work in radio. Imagine the director’s feeling when Jim Meighan (suffering from flu) folds up and leaves him high and dry! That’s why directors hesitate to use someone whose work they’re not sure of in any situation, and one of the things you must be prepared for if you intend to become a radio actor.
To the best of my knowledge, Beck’s cartoon characters never included a mouse—Arnold Stang got that role at Famous Studios in New York—but he had experience with one as we read in the August 4, 1957 edition of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
Mouse His Undoing
Jackson Beck, as Special Agent Stevens on CBS Radio’s “FBI in ePace and War,” [sic] always gets his man. But the other day, a mere mouse got him.
The animal-loving actor, who owns five cats and four dogs, was relaxing in the garden of his Huntington, L. I., home when he noticed his cats ganging up on a little brown field mouse. Gallantly springing to the rescue, Beck grabbed the intended victim, which was already groggy, before the cats could finish their dirty work. But the rodent, not realizing that a special agent is always on the side of the undermouse, bit Jackson in the finger, leaving it bleeding.
Just to be safe, Beck went to his doctor who gave him an anti-tetanus injection as a precautionary measure. In addition, the physician insisted that the mouse be tested for possible rabies. If the result is positive, Jackson will have to undergo a series of painful rabies shots. So will his cats.
And, just to make the day more complpte. Beck picked up a severe case of poison ivy during his rescue mission.
Special Agent Stevens swears that, from now on, he’ll let the mice fight their own battles.
Beck voiced commercials until the mid-1990s when his health couldn’t hold up much longer, a 60-plus-year career on the air. They made him wealthy. Friend Jeff David noted Beck “took care of a lot of people and no one will ever know who they are. He always sent his friends money; broken-down actors, radio and TV people.” His agent Fifi Oscard called Beck “one of the giants” and “the last of the grand old guard of radio performers.”
Bradley had a champion in Bruno David Ussher, the music columnist of the Los Angeles Daily News. He wrote in depth about Bradley in his column of May 27, 1939. By then, Bradley’s tone poem “Cartoonia” had been performed at the Hollywood Playhouse. Richard D. Saunders in the February 1, 1939 edition of the Hollywood Citizen-News called it “an utterly delightful bit of fantasy, deftly scored, and conceived with intriguing whimsicality. The naïve theme of the child was charmingly guileless, the “Calico Dragon” was introduced sinuously by the bassoons, the “Fleas” skittered and hopped in the notes of the upper winds, and the prince who came to slay the dragon with a peppermint candy spear was announced in a lilting trumpet fanfare. The “once upon a time” mood was adroitly sustained.
ANYONE thinking that Scott Bradley has time on his hands while having to create only nine or ten minutes of music every two or three weeks is greatly mistaken. The technical process of the cartoon is painstaking in its minute demands. Making a cartoon is a process of checking and double checking. Twenty-four individual pictures (technically known as frames) flash across the screen every second of performance. To these 15,000 frames must be fitted an average of 425-450 measures of music, the difference being determined by how much slow tempo music the cartoon score contains. 
I was gratified to read Virginia Wright's enthusiastic article about MGM’s cartoon short, "Peace on Earth two days ago. It deserves every inch of the two columns she devoted to this simple and yet potent one reel picture. As the Daily News drama editor observed, this "short" carries a deep and timely message and does it with all the charm of producer Hugh Harman's previous creations. I touched on one of them (“The Goldfish”) several months ago because Scott Bradley’s background music impressed me as quite ingenious as well as befitting that beautifully colored, quaintly imaginative "short." All the widely varied sound effects were produced by means of instrumental imitation. Music was put to clever use. 
90 years ago tonight, Jack Benny made his radio comeback. He and wife Mary Livingstone were picked up by NBC to broadcast for Chevrolet, after being unceremoniously dumped by Canada Dry and its ad agency, N.W. Ayer.
BLACK: Hey, Jack, what are you talking about?
JACK: Thanks, and let me read my own personal wires from now on.
Ladies and gentlemen, the chances are: that the told will be considerably greater than what you’d pay out this spring driving a NEW Chevrolet. In other words, it will cost you less to own a new Chevrolet than to keep your old car another season. Why not visit your Chevrolet dealer and find out for sure. Ask him what he’ll give you for your old car in trade. Ask him what it will cost per month to pay the balance. Remember—Chevrolet prices are now as low as $485 f.o.b. Flint, Michigan, and G.M.A.C. terms enable you to spread this low price over a convenient period of time. SAVE—with a NEW Chevrolet.
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