Baseball Bowling

The pitcher in Tex Avery’s Batty Baseball (1944) winds up, and his baseball turns into a bowling ball.



He bowls down the “lane” (once found in all major league parks).



The sound effect and position of the pitcher tell you he got a strike.



The umpire, catcher and batter are re-set as pins and then pop into human shapes.



Rich Hogan gagged this cartoon with Avery. The animators are Preston Blair, Ray Abrams and Ed Love. Johnny Johnsen is the background artist.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: Peter Cottontail

UPA’s animated TV commercials are full of striking and appealing designs, interesting movement, with a gentle dash of humour.

The studio came up with a couple of seasonal shorts designed, I guess, for television stations. Unlike the pretentions of too many of their theatrical cartoons, these are fun to watch.

One is Peter Cottontail, made in 1951. The poses and designs are strong, and there are some really creative animation touches, including outline characters and effects animation when a shotgun goes off.

There’s very little about this short on-line, such as the artists responsible (Art Babbitt? Pat Matthews? Grim Natwick?). Hill and Range copyrighted the song by Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson in January 1950.



Forgive the bug put on the film by its uploader, as it shouldn’t spoil the enjoyment.

Another Record For Benny, the Wichita Wow

For years, the Jack Benny show, on both radio and TV, featured a routine where Jack and his gang took a train from a station where he was verbally harassed.

While it’s true they did travel by train to get to performances in different parts of the U.S. and Canada, after World War Two, air travel was far more feasible and common. They were able to fly to a different state in between Sunday radio broadcasts.

That’s just what happened in the middle of May in 1950.

The Benny show pulled off two performances on a Tuesday in Wichita, Kansas. Actually, they did three—one was for a group of veterans at a hospital.

How the show actually came about isn’t altogether clear. Jack told a Mrs. Mary Floto that she could designate the charity that was to receive 10% of the gate. She chose the Institute of Logopedics.

At the time, Jack was carried on KFH in Wichita, which was owned by the Wichita Eagle. This did not hurt publicity for the event.

Here are several stories that appeared in the paper on May 17, 1950. We note that Eddie Anderson got to do his “Sunny Side of the Street” number that he later performed on television. And there are a couple of references to Sammy Weiss, the orchestra drummer who remained with the show when Phil left (guitarist Frank Remley stayed as well, which reportedly caused some friction with Harris).

8,200 at Show in Forum
Jack Benny's Troupe Plays As Radio Audiences Like It
By TED HAMMER
(Eagle Staff Writer)
If Wichita dads are asked soon to repair the roof and rafters of the Forum, blame the Jack Benny-Phil Harris show which played there to two standing-room-only audiences Tuesday night, setting a new stage attraction attendance record. More applause and laughs were provided by the show than ordinarily might come from a good season of top attractions.
The principals just played themselves as radio audiences have learned to like them. Jack Benny appeared hurt when numerous performers declined to let him accompany them on his violin, he finally got to play "Love in Bloom," and Phil Harris showed him how to play a love scene. Eddie (Rochester) Anderson was brought on after a telephone bell interrupted a Benny speech, just as it happens on the radio every Sunday night when the CBS show is broadcast by KFH, KFH-FM here.
Benny found the easy way that if he doesn’t get a new radio contract and doesn't click in television, he can return to his old time single act, a monologue. And Wichitans loved Jack just as they did back in 1922 when he played at the Orpheum, before he became famous on screen and radio.
There just wasn't time enough for Harris to satisfy the audience with his southern style songs, but he had to sing four of them before he and Benny started a new routine to stop the applause. Vivian Blaine of the films did three songs which proved why she has been given her own television show next fall. And Rochester demonstrated that his singing and dancing are just as good as his gags spoken in the crackly, high pitched voice which radio fans enjoy so much.

The three Wiere Brothers, who also have been in pictures and are internationally famous, could have stayed on the stage another half hour with their violins dancing and comedy. They proved more than equal to advance billing as top jugglers, with some hat and stick feats new to Wichita theatregoers. The Harris band was responsible for much of the show's success.
The Stuart Morgan Dancers, three fellows and cute girl, did some breath taking adagio which made the audience believe Benny when he said he went to a lot of trouble to get them.
Closing the show was a musical routine featuring Benny and Miss Blaine with members of the Phil Harris band. Dressed in weird costume, they provided "mountain music,” with Benny as director and violinist, while Miss Blaine played it deadpan. Sam the drummer and Frank Remley, guitar player, were in this group, the "Beverly Hillbillies."
Good as the others in the cast are, it was Benny-Harris show marked by gags and songs of the type for which they're famous—even including the band leader's "That's What I like About the South" and "Is It True What They Say About Dixie?"
The Wichita shows were attended by more than 8,700 with some 100 persons allowed to buy standing room, to set a new record. Extra seats were placed down in front and in corners at the last minute to accommodate a few more persons, according to Mrs. Mary Floto who handled the ticket sale.

Benny and Company Make Vet Patients Noisy with Mirth
A hollering houseful of patients at Veterans hospital Tuesday saw a funfest fostered by Jack Benny and his company.
In the end they found that Benny, the consummate master of ceremonies, can really play the violin. Hot violin, too.
He’s no Joe Venuti, but he can finger the fiddle. With confidence and savoir-faire that best can be described simply as Benny-like, he finally fiddled after frustrating interruptions by Phil Harris, Rochester, and Vivian Blaine. The latter interruption was most welcome to Benny and audience.
An eight-man outfit from the Harris orchestra pulled the curtain ahead of schedule and entertained the ex-GI’s with improvisations that added up to Dixieland. The drummer, a bigger man than Broderick Crawford, used a folding chair and a tissue box for traps.
Benny entered to assure the vets that he isn't stingy. "I throw money away. Not very far, but . .”
Harris interrupted for a routine with the boss and then did "Preacher and Bear” and "Darktown Poker Club." The boys found out that Harris is not good, but perfect, and that he has to be a lot faster than it sounds like on the phonograph.
Vivian Blaine insulted the be-junior out of the boss with a frank appraisal of his sex appeal— zero—then caressed the patients with two numbers, including a job on "You Made Me Love You” that created a lot of hot but harmless humidity.
Then came Rochester, who apologized for making the boss look like a cheap skate. (“I have all the luxuries. Shoes, bread . . .”)
Rochester, of course, stopped the show with "Sunny Side of the Street” and a return to his original occupation hoofing that gave the lads a laugh with every lunge.

It's Informal But Lively at Rehearsals
In rehearsals of the Jack Benny-Phil Harris show, it's "Phil, or Curly" when members of the band or cast address the leader. And everyone calls Benny "Jack" or "Jackson." The latter is the nickname used by Harris since they became associated 14 years ago.
When the drummer was called to the telephone during rehearsal at the Forum Tuesday, Harris took his place, even going through a number he was to sing in the show.
While Harris handled much of the musical rehearsal, Benny took care of "business” and timing. When Vivian Blaine asked Benny If she could use a different opening song than previously rehearsed, he told her "fine” and she ran through it with the band.
"After all, Wichitans don’t know that we had the other number ready," Benny said as he resumed his chair in a corner of the Forum stage. He was on his feet a moment later to hurry back and forth, making suggestions.
Once, while Miss Blaine, Benny and Harris discussed a bit of business, the drummer called out, "Let’s go, we’ve got a show to do tonight.” Show time was four hours away, but everybody laughed.

In less than a week, the show was in Scranton. We'll have that story in a future post.

Bob Gribbroek and Background Reruns

Television in the 1950s was ready to be spoofed. Radio comedians had been doing it. Jack Benny, for example, had one show where he was tuning in a television set and got nothing but Westerns. In fact, Screen Gems joked about the video box in a theatrical cartoon as early as 1940 with Tangled Television.

Over at Warner Bros., writer Tedd Pierce figured there were shows on the air that could stand a gentle kidding. Thus Superman inspired Stupor Duck (1956), Boston Blackie gave birth to Boston Quackie (1957), and You Bet Your Life, You Asked For It, Liberace and several shows (as well as KTTV in Los Angeles) found themselves lampooned on Wideo Wabbit (1956).

One TV series in the ‘50s was so popular, Pierce was sparked to write three cartoons based on it. The show was Jackie Gleason’s The Honeymooners (1955-56 season). Pierce came up with the idea of turning the characters on the show into mice. That was pretty much the gag. There wasn’t any real exaggeration of the Gleason series. The mice had close proximities to the voices, thanks to Daws Butler and June Foray, and repeated the same catchphrases, but that was about it.

The first short was The Honey-Mousers (Dec. 8, 1956), the second Cheese It, the Cat (May 4, 1957) and the last Mice Follies (Aug. 20, 1960).

The plot of the second cartoon was similar to Frank Tashlin’s A Tale of Two Mice (1945) where Abbott and Costello knock-off mice try to get past a cat to get cheese from a refrigerator. Pierce did a fine job as the Abbott mouse, but Warren Foster’s story is superior in gags and the animation is far more exaggerated and fun in the older short. Bob McKimson oversaw Cheese It and was the most lacklustre of the three directors at the Warners studio in 1957.

While art styles had become more abstract by then, McKimson employed the most literal background people possible. Dick Thomas painted the settings for The Honey-Mousers, then after leaving the studio (he ended up at Disney), was replaced by Bob Majors; whose hiring was announced in the April 1956 edition of the Warner Club News. His replacement, Bill Butler, was first mentioned in the News the following August.

It doesn’t appear Majors did all the work on Cheese It. McKimson re-used some of Thomas’ paintings, a practice unheard of at Warners. Any changes were slight.

Check and compare.


The Honey-Mousers


Cheese It, the Cat


The Honey-Mousers


Cheese It, the Cat


The Honey-Mousers


Cheese It, the Cat

The first interior shot. Majors seems to have given Bob Gribbroek’s layout a new paint job.


The Honey-Mousers


Cheese It, the Cat

Here’s some of Majors’ work from Cheese It. It’s reminiscent of Thomas’ work in the earlier cartoon. Gribbroek’s layouts utilise thimbles, match boxes, postage stamps, a spool of thread and other small household items as furniture; Tom and Jerry cartoons of the ‘40s had the same thing of thing.

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Ajax comes in a box, apparently.



The lady of the house doesn’t keep a box of Tide detergent.



An inside joke. Ed Selzer ran the cartoon studio, retiring March 1, 1958 after 28 years with Warners and 14 years overseeing the animation department. He couldn’t draw. He’d been a PR flack on the main lot.



Here’s an inside joke in Thomas’ background in The Honey-Mousers. I’m under the impression Tedd Pierce preferred martinis over beer.



We provided some information about Dick Thomas on the Yowp blog and Bob Majors in this Tralfaz post. I thought I had posted a biography of Bob Gribbroek but cannot find it on the blog. At the risk of lengthening this post, let me pass along a few notes:

Robert Carter Gribbroek was born in Rochester, New York, on March 16, 1906. His grandfather owned a grocery store that employed four sons, including Gribbroek’s father. In 1915, one of the sons was found shot in the head. The wife of one of the other sons was charged with murder but cleared due to lack of evidence.

In his ‘20s, he became interested in New Mexico and its native population. In 1929, while art director of the Hutchins Advertising Company in Rochester, he spent a month among members of the Pueblo, painting portraits and scenes. By then, his parents had separated (his father died in Los Angeles in 1935).

In the 1930s, he was living both in Taos and Rochester, with his work in oil and charcoal being exhibited in both cities. A story in one New Mexican paper reports about a gallery exhibit: “As part of the entertainment, Robert Gribbroek danced the Varsoviana and a Schottish with Mrs. Esco Leibert.” In 1940, he was working for the New Mexico State Assessment Authority. His draft card dated that year has a note in pencil that he moved to Hollywood. We find him and his mother in the Los Angeles directory for 1942, where he is listed as an “artist.” A squib in the Los Angeles Times of April 25, 1943 reveals he and six others from the Taos Art Colony (he was a founder of the Transcendental Painting Group in 1938) were working in Southern California war factories. After his service, he returned to live with his mother.

His first credit in a Warner Bros. cartoon was in Chuck Jones’ Hare Conditioned, released August 11, 1945, where he painted the backgrounds from Earl Klein’s layouts; it doesn’t appear Jones’ cartoons had full credits before this, but Gribbroek’s picture is in a staff photo montage dated April 1945. His last credit for Jones was in Don’t Give Up The Sheep, released Jan. 3, 1953. He was replaced by Maurice Noble and it appears he left the studio. He is not listed in the studio staff birthdays in 1954 in the Warner Club News. More of his artwork was being exhibited in New Mexico in 1955. This wasn’t his only cartoon work. His name is on the credits for The 3 Minnies: Sota, Tonka and Ha-Ha, the second of the four Jerky Journeys cartoons made by Impossible Pictures for distribution by Republic, and released April 15, 1949. Gribbroek was also an illustrator, providing art for Howdy Doody’s Island Adventure (Whitman, 1955).

Jones recalled Gribbroek had begun training as a bullfighter in New Mexico but, after one lesson, realised he could not get away fast enough from a charging toro, so quickly gave up the idea (Gribbroek was gone from the studio when Jones made Bully For Bugs). He also said Gribbroek had lived in an adobe house in Taos, but used green hay that sprouted flowers every spring. The Warner Club News of January 1955 featured a picture of Gribbroek and chinchillas he was raising in Taos.

Gribbroek was also an accomplished amateur chef, winning a $10,000 prize from Kaiser Aluminum in November 1959 for his Pork Tenderloin Javanese. He had written the paper in Taos the previous August, saying his car had been hit by a driver who turned left without signalling and had been left with whiplash that used up his sick time and vacation days, though he had just started working on the Bell System Science Series film on Genetics that had an impossible deadline.

He returned to the studio after Noble left in 1953, handling layouts for Two Scent’s Worth, released on Oct. 15, 1955. After three more cartoons for Jones, including One Froggy Evening, he was transferred to Bob McKimson’s unit, with The High and the Flighty the first cartoon to be released on Feb. 18, 1956. Into the ‘60s, he began to handle both layouts and backgrounds for McKimson. His last Warners cartoon was the final Bugs Bunny short, False Hare, released on July 16, 1964. By then, he had been hired by Walter Bien’s SIB Tower 12 Productions to re-join Jones, who was making Tom and Jerry shorts for MGM. His first was Is There a Doctor in the Mouse? He also did some moonlighting at Hanna-Barbera as a background designer on the feature Hey There, It's Yogi Bear (1964).

In August 1970, the local paper reported he had moved back to Taos after five years in Barcelona and Sitgas, Spain, where he had worked on an animated feature and as an actor in TV commercials and four feature films. He died there on October 13, 1971.

To get back to a possible reason Thomas’ backgrounds were re-used after he left the studio, Bob McKimson may have dropped a hint in an interview with historian Mike Barrier.

I had a layout man—he was a very good layout man—who was a queer, and a background man at the same time who was a queer, and they were just at each other's throats all the time. So finally I had to get rid of the background man.

As Dick Thomas was quite heterosexual, we leave you to draw your own conclusions about whom McKimson is referring.

More of the Crazy, Darn Fool Duck

Daffy Duck somersaults forwards and backwards and twists around for director Tex Avery in Daffy Duck in Hollywood (1938). A few drawings in order.



This may be the one Hollywood cartoon without celebrity caricatures, though the producer is clearly based on Leon Schlesinger, with his double-breasted suit and carnation in the lapel. Daffy was the most frantic character on the big screen at the time. Avery and the duck worked well together; Porky’s Duck Hunt, Daffy Duck and Egghead and this short are all fine cartoons. Bob Clampett glommed onto Daffy and started livening up the Looney Tunes series with him.

Dave Monahan gets the rotating story credit, while Virgil Ross is credited with animation (Paul J. Smith, Sid Sutherland were also animating in the unit at the time).