The Cat Concerto was a tour de force for Ken Muse, who seems to have animated at least half of the Oscar-winning cartoon.
The frames below can’t give the subtle animation of head rolls, bows and sweeps as Tom plays the piano, but you can get an idea of some of the expressions he gave to Tom.
Later, there’s a scene where Jerry has actually taken over playing the piano from inside, and the melody switches from Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody to Johnny Mercer and Harry Warren’s “On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe” (from the MGM musical The Harvey Girls). Tom is delighting in the song until the realisation take that the music has changed.
The only that bugs me about Muse’s animation, and you can see it in the frame above, is he draws Tom’s head like Jerry’s head at times. This happens in other MGM cartoons.
I couldn’t tell you if Harvey Eisenberg was the layout artist on this as Harvey was never credited at MGM. Same with whomever provided the backgrounds. Muse, Ed Barge and Irv Spence receive animation credits. I believe this was made when Ray Patterson was in England working for David Hand.
MGM sound department records exist (I imagine Keith Scott went through them) and show Calvin Jackson was the pianist, and recorded his work on April 8, 1946. Jackson was an assistant director of music at MGM, scoring musicals at the time the cartoon was made. Jackson got no screen credit; it all went to Scott Bradley, and the pianist’s identity was a mystery and subject of speculation for years. Part of it stemmed from a story which appeared in the Venice (Ca.) Evening Vanguard on April 1, 1946:
Famed pianist John Crown, professor of piano forte at University of Southern California, was featured this week with the MGM symphony orchestra playing the 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody for “Cat’s Concerto,” Tom and Jerry cartoon co-directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Scott Bradley, MGM cartoon music director, conducted.
The Hollywood Reporter of Dec. 6, 1946 had the short at the top of the list of 16 MGM cartoons on the 1946-47 schedule, adding 14 were at Technicolor for prints, but not naming them.
Why is there a moose in the jungle? I’m not quite sure, but Popeye battles one in Wild Elephinks (1933).
The in-betweeners must have had fun coming up with fight drawings.
Here are eight drawings forming a cycle. It was animated on ones.
Sammy Timberg's score includes “Tiger Rag,” which would have made a great Fleischer Screen Song with the Mills Brothers, and Friz Freleng’s favourite, Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody.
Keith Scott has done animation fans a great favour by publishing his two books on actors in the Golden Age of Cartoons, one delving into studio histories and the other listing individual cartoons and the actors in them.
A plea has come from Keith for anyone with information, especially about the three main East Coast studios—Fleischer/Famous, Terrytoons and Van Beuren. Most of the major players have received some publicity over the years, but studio records have either been destroyed or are missing.
Without gumming up this post with talk about whom we know, here’s one that no one seems to know anything about.
The New Rochelle Standard-Star of March 12, 1932 reported on Paul Terry bringing some of his cartoons to a benefit for the American Legion post in Larchmont. Musical director Phil Scheib spoke as well. By this point, Terry was including original songs and this called for professional singers. “[T]he very best singers are hired for quartet work and for solos,” the paper quoted Scheib. I’ve read this kind of vague comment before, but then came this revelation:
"Mr. Scheib introduced Miss Hazel Dudley, the Animated Voice of the Terrytoons. She sang “Morning,” “Her Gown,” “The Newlyweds,” and a song from “Her First Egg,” one of the comedies shown."
Hazel Dudley?? Who’s that??
Well, it’s time to turn to trusty old newspapers and census records to try to find out.
It can be really dangerous to make assumptions—I’ve seen it time and time again on “databases” and “pedias” where animation fans guess incorrectly—but I’m going to go out on a limb on this one. In the 1930 Census for Brooklyn, we find one Hazel A. Dudley, single, age 25, with an occupation of “singer,” specifically at a church. She’s the daughter of Birdsell and Florence Dudley, her father being a broker at a fish market.
Matching this to other records and information, we find Hazel Alberta Dudley was born in Brooklyn on August 8, 1904. The New York Tribune relates on Dec. 30, 1911 an amateur child performer named Hazel Dudley appeared at the 39th Street Theatre, performing “specialties.” She appeared in a “Fight TB” benefit in 1915. We’ll skip some childhood news stories and go into listings of the early days of radio. On July 21, 1924, she is a soprano on WOR, singing on two shows of 15 minutes (in those days, it’s very likely she was not paid). She moved to WEAF in 1926 and then WOV in 1928. Miss Dudley was also an early television star, performing on a 15-minute programme on W2XAB (the CBS station) in 1931 and 1932. It would appear to be a happy coincidence she sang on the radio and was, we presume, the voice of the girl mouse in the 1932 Terrytoon Radio Girl (frame to the right).
On July 15, 1934, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle announced her marriage to a George Leadbetter. The 1940 Census has her and her husband living with her parents in Baldwin, Hempstead, Long Island. Her occupation is “clerk, telephone company.” There’s a newspaper reference in 1963 to her being on the board of the Nassau County Welfare Employees Association. She died on Long Island in April 1973. So far, I have been unable to find an obituary for her.
If nothing else, perhaps another cartoon voice mystery has been solved.
Jack Benny had two kinds of tours. One was kind of an extension of his vaudeville career, except he was the one who packaged a revue and took it on the road. He was doing this very early in his radio days. The other was his charity concerts to aid symphony orchestras, their homes and the pensions of the musicians who played on them.
Quite a number of his stops were in cities where he had performed in the 1910s and 1920s.
One was Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he brought his performers in June 1950. Benny had recorded his last show of the radio season on May 11. The pair of Scranton performances were on June 5, a day after appearing in Carnegie Hall for the Runyon Cancer Fund.
Here’s how the Scranton Tribune reported on the event the following day:
7,000 Attend Benny Show in Youth Center Comedian Ends Busy Day Here With 2 Performances
Paced by a 19-piece orchestra that filled the huge Catholic Youth Center to the last echo, Jack Benny, Phil Harris and gravel-voiced Rochester delighted two large audiences last night in their last personal appearances before going to England and Scotland this week.
It was a long night for the performers. Mr. Benny arrived at the CYC about 6 p. m.—an hour before the first two-hour show was to begin. He did not leave until soon before last midnight and immediately took a plane back to New York.
Nearly 3,000 attended the first show and there was a crowd of nearly 4,000 at the second.
The large audiences were receptive and gave the performers thunderous ovation.
The pattern for the show was based essentially on Jack Benny’s Sunday night broadcast. Missing, however, were Mary Linvingston [sic] and Dennis Day, both of whom are chief supporters to Mr. Benny’s running gags on stinginess.
An improvised stage had been especially erected opposite the Jefferson Ave. entrance. Curtains were draped and wings had to be improvised. This was not exactly a hardship, but it was definitely different from performing on a regular theater stage.
It was the second time for Jack Benny to play in Scranton in nearly 30 years. The first time was when he played vaudeville with his own act, which he described as “Just Jokes and I played my violin,” as he paced ceaselessly back and forth back-stage preparatory to responding to his many cues.
Hovering nearby was City Detective Leo Marcus who had been assigned to the famous comedian for the entire time he was in Scranton. He stayed with him until he boarded his plane for New York early this morning.
It took only a couple of gags to warm up the audience and from that moment on, Benny, Harris and Rochester just about had them rolling in the aisles.
Benny said that a lot of the stuff he pulls on the radio is not actually true. For example, he said, “I’m always gagging about being 39 years old. Humph. I’m not 39—but I can wait.” He said furthermore he is not stingy. And added, “yeah?”
He announced that he will dabble in motion pictures, but as a producer. He said he’s had experience as an actor. His first show will be Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in “The Road to Dunmore.”
Phil Harris and Jack Benny exchanged running fire gags with the latter on the butt end. During a serious point, however, Mr. Harris said that yesterday marked his 14th year with Mr. Benny.
Harris and Benny had several sharp exchanges, but the one that brought down the house was Mr. Harris caricature of Mr. Benny’s role of great love with Vivian Blaine as the love interest.
Thrusting Mr. Benny aside, Mr. Harris took over in the love department and said to Benny: “Dad you’re old enough to be playing with the Scranton Miners.”
Climax of the smartly-paced show was the appearance of “Buck” Benny and his Beverly Hill Billies. This troupe consisted of several members of the band and Miss Blaine with “Buck” Benny attired in blue overalls over red underwear as the leader.
The costumes were moth-eaten and the very appearances of the bedraggled musicians provoked gales of laughter.
To add an element of variety with fine entertainment there were the Wiere Brothers and the Peiro Brothers.
The two shows last night wound up an almost feverish pace for Mr. Benny and his two costars. Arriving at Avoca Airport, about 1 p. m., Mr. Benny was escorted to City Hall and a welcome by Mayor James T. Hanlon, and then appeared before several hundred at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon where he described the LIFE program as [“]one of the finest community efforts I have encountered in my tour of 21 cities.[”]
Gordon Evans, past president of the C of C and chairman of LIFE’s Business Division, was chief speaker. Attorney John R. Lenhan was toastmaster. Anthony Koveleski presented Mr. Benny with a miniature model of a Maxwell car, the counterpart of the decrepit car he owns.
On Friday Mr. Benny, Mr. Harris and Rochester will sail for London to play the Palladium, and later will appear at the Empire Theater in Glasgow.
The Scrantonian-Tribune Charity Foundation Fund received $600 from the proceeds of the two shows—$300 from Mr. Benny and $300 from the Buddy Club, sponsor of the shows.
The Tribune had several sidebar stories, including the seemingly-obligatory one that Jack wasn’t really like he was on radio. There was one praising Benny’s comedy.
Pick Benny as Top Radio Showman In Past 25 Years
Jack Benny has been acclaimed “the greatest radio personality during the latest 25 years” in a questionnaire poll of 330 of the nation’s leading radio editors by Radio Daily.
In selecting Benny, numerous editors polled by Radio Daily also wrote in their non-commercial choice. This honor went to the late Franklin Delano Roosevelt, of whom one radio editor said: “He relied almost entirely on radio to instill confidence, faith, and courage in this nation.”
Many editors supported their choice of Benny with comments on his master showmanship and his consistently top comedy programing over the years. Second choice was Bing Crosby who ran close to Benny in the balloting.
Honors for third place among the commercial radio artists were divided evenly between Bob Hope and Amos ‘n’ Andy.
Among the varied comments on Benny were:
“Jack Benny for his personal accomplishments and those he has helped to stardom.”—Nat Lund, Seattle Times, Seattle, Wash.
“Jack Benny is not necessarily the best or the greatest judge in terms of pure talent—but he deserves the title of the ‘greatest’ in the sense that his radio characterization has not only become a national tradition, but has maintained itself as such in the top levels of public acclaim longer than any other.”—Ben Gross, New York Daily News.
“If by radio persontlity [sic] you mean entertaining personality, I’d say Jack Benny.”—Peg White, San Diego Journal, San Diego, California.
“If F. D. R. is barred from competition, I’ll throw my vote to Jack Benny who had led the way so many years.”—John Crosby, New York Herald-Tribune.
The following story may be the most interesting of the additional ones. It was told a number of times in later years.
Taylor Vet to Remind Benny Of Narrow Escape in Europe
Jack Benny, the funny man, is going to have some pictures presented to him (if he’s willing) when he arrives in Scranton—pictures which almost spelled tragedy to his troupe while touring Germany in 1945. Benny & Co. appear tonight at the Catholic Youth Center.
The pictures are in possession of Tom Burdett, 25, 142 South Main St., Taylor, now a first sergeant of Tank Co., 109th Infantry Regiment, Pennsylvania Guard.
It all happened, according to Tom, when Benny, Ingrid Bergman, Larry Adler and Martha Tilton, were driving in a big, black car from Stutgart to Waiblingen, Germany.
Tom was then a member of Hq. Co., Second Battalion, 398th Infantry, 100th Division, which outfit had check points at two main points in town.
Benny and his troupe were stopped by the battalion CO. After conversing, the group left. Benny, Bergman and Adler were in the back seat of the car.
Miss Tilton was in the front seat with the chauffeur.
The chauffeur failed to heed a command to stop at the second check point. The guard drew his .45 and fired directly at the car!
The bullet went through the rear of the machine and was deflected by the steel slats behind the seats, Burdett, who was a member of the investigating party, said.
The Benny chauffeur stopped after that shot was fired.
Burdett said that had the guard had an M-1 high powered Army rifle, Adler, no doubt, would have been killed.
Tom has two pictures of the “big, black car,” bullet hole and all.
The incident didn’t get any publicity but Tom’s sure that Benny will remember that close call.
And if the funnyman’s willing, Tom will be around the Hotel Casey today and present him with the pictures just to remember.
Jack appeared in Scranton in 1925. The ad for the show is to your left. In promoting it, the Scranton Republican said: “Jack Benny will have the special comedy attraction position. He will appear in joyful moments with himself. His work is always along original lines and it has evoked laughter whenever given. He is expected to go strong with Capitol audiences.”
After the show opened, the paper reported: “He is seen and heard in ‘Joyful Moments,’ an act broad enough to enable him to do his cleverest in several lines of vaudeville work. He had his audiences with him from the start and received a welcome which must have warmed his heart. He is one of the big cards of the week.” Then the next day: “Jack Benny is a lone worker who has developed the art of comedy to a nicety and is responsible for a continuous ripple of laughter.”
It would appear audiences in the city felt the same way 25 years later.
Is there something about the cat’s expression that looks familiar?
This is from the rather weak Spike and Tyke cartoon Scat Cats, released by MGM several weeks after it closed its cartoon studio. The expression reminds me of Sourpuss or some other character at Terrytoons. That’s no coincidence.
One of the animators of this short was one of Paul Terry’s former star animators, Carlo Vinci. The “surprise” look by the cat on the right also resembles something in a Mighty Mouse cartoon.
(You know, if you put a blue bow tie on that orange cat, he’d look awfully familiar).
This post isn’t intended as a biography of Carlo Vinci. You can find that elsewhere on the internet. This is a collection of random items found here and there. Carlo was born Carlo Vinciguerra, but decided to shorten his name. When? The answer is to the right. It’s a legal notice printed in the New Rochelle newspaper during his time at Terrytoons. You can click on it to read it.
Carlo spent the last six years of his life in Ventura County, passing away at the age of 87 on September 30, 1993. Before that, he and his wife lived in Van Nuys. He was born February 27, 1906 in New York.
He recalled to historian Harvey Deneroff that he was an in-betweener at the Van Beuren studio in New York. Perhaps his biggest accomplishment there lay elsewhere. Joe Barbera, in his autobiography, told of his first day at Van Beuren. He was given a desk next to another in-betweener, who noticed Barbera’s bewilderment of the whole animation process. "You don't know anything about it, do you?" said his roommate, who was one Carlo Vinci. Barbera got instant quick lessons from Carlo on the rudiments of making characters move.
Before long, Barbera and Vinci became assistants to animator Reuben Timmins, who had worked in the early ‘30s for the Fleischers. “Timmins would rough out — and I mean rough — the animation. Carlo and I would do the breakdowns and the in-betweens as well,” Barbera wrote. “We also had to clean up Timmins’s roughs, making sure they were neat.”
Van Beuren closed in mid-1936. Both Barbera and Vinci were hired at Terrytoons. Barbera left about a year later when Fred Quimby was looking for people to start the MGM cartoon studio. Vinci stayed.
Terrytoons were “the crassest of unadulterated crap” in the eyes of Gene Deitch, who determined to modernise its cartoons when he arrived in the later 1950s. And working conditions weren’t any better. Tom Sito’s book “Drawing the Line,” an examination of unions at cartoon studios, relates how Vinci and four other artists were fired on May 16, 1947; this was after a two-week labour dispute involving 36 employees “ended” earlier in the month. The Screen Cartoonists Guide set up picket lines. Unfortunately for the union, Terry held all the high cards in this game. He had finished cartoons on shelves waiting to be released. Sito relates the locals in New Rochelle thought Terry was terrific and yelled “You dirty Reds! Go home to Russia!” at the strikers. Summer came. Fall came. Winter came. The striking employees’ bank accounts shrunk. Says Sito: “Terry had secret meetings with a number of key animators. He told them he was old and was planning to retire. He promised them that if they broke ranks and went back to work, he would sell them his studio. On November 15, Terry's remaining striking regulars—Jim Tyer, Joe Rasinski, Carlo Vinci, and Theron Collier—crossed the picket line and went to work. The rest of the strikers thundered and called for expulsion and fines, but they were helpless.”
Carlo carried on working under Paul Terry, perhaps hoping the old man wasn’t lying when promising to make him part-owner of the studio. While carrying on with his animation, he also continued his education in the field of art. The picture to the left is from the Sept. 15, 1948 edition of the Standard-Star of New Rochelle. You can see the back of his head.
The same paper reported on Aug. 24, 1949 that Carlo was fined $10 for speeding; he was going 44 miles an hour.
Vinci never got screen credit for any of his work on Terrytoons. And he never got ownership of the studio. Variety reported on Dec. 28, 1955 that CBS was wrapping up the purchase of all assets of Terrytoon, Inc. for $5,000,000. Terry got every cent (after taxes). It was about this time Carlo got out. Animation author Thad Komorowski has remarked there was still some bitterness against Carlo for crossing the Terry picket line in 1947.
Margaret Vinci related her life story on reaching 100 years of age to the Ventura County Star on April 14, 2012. She and Carlo met at a dance in 1938 and married a year later. She talked about going to California: “Leaving my family behind didn’t bother me while we were traveling, but once we arrived in California, I went into a deep depression. My husband said ‘Let’s try it for two years, and if you still feel that way, we’ll go back.’”
They didn’t.
The inexperienced animator he once mentored, Joe Barbera, was now the top cheese with Bill Hanna at the MGM studio and offered Vinci a job. Daily Variety reported he was hired February 15, 1956. The first production Vinci was assigned to was No. 313, Give and Tyke, released on March 29, 1957. At MGM, Carlo was criticised privately by his own assistant animator, who remains unidentified. Dan Bessie’s autobiography of his time at MGM and elsewhere in animation, “Reeling Through Hollywood” (published, 2006), quoted the assistant “that his animator, hired on from Terrytoons, ‘draws all his Toms like the alley cats chasing Mighty Mouse, so I spend all my time changing them.’” Vinci isn’t mentioned by name, but it couldn’t possibly be anyone else.
Carlo’s timing wasn’t that great. MGM announced at the end of 1956 it had a huge backlog of cartoons, so it was going to wrap up the operation. Dick Bickenbach claimed to historian Mike Barrier he was laying out Ruff and Reddy during the last week of the studio’s existence, so it’s obvious Joe and Bill planned to go into business for themselves. The story goes that Barbera got Walt Disney to hire Vinci to work on the Disneyland TV show until Hanna-Barbera Enterprises got off the ground.
He also found freelance work at a commercial studio owned by Paul Fennell; the studio designer was Ed Benedict, who had landed there after the MGM closure. Thanks to Mike Kazaleh, here is a Vinci spot for Ipana.
H-B Enterprises went into business on July 7, 1957. On December 14, Ruff and Reddy debuted on NBC. Carlo Vinci settled in for the long haul.
I like a lot of his work on the first season (1958-59) of The Huckleberry Hound Show. There are fine poses in a number of Huck cartoons, including Hookey Daze, and he invented Yogi Bear’s butt-waving bongo walk. His animation is distinctive and easily recognised. Perhaps the H-B cartoon most people talk about when they mention Vinci is The Flintstone Flyer (aka “The Inked Disaster,” according to Jack Gould of the New York Times), specifically the tippy-toes bowling scene.
Hollywood Studio Magazine of July 1969 reveals a side benefit Carlo received at Hanna-Barbera. He won two first-place prizes in the studio’s third annual employees art show, one in the Portrait and Figure category (a self-portrait) and the other in the still life category (his painting was called “Still Life”). Judging took place in Bill Hanna’s office and Hanna handed Vinci two $50 cheques.
Carlo was also one of the veteran animators hired by Ralph Bakshi to work on Heavy Traffic, released in 1973. One of the more junior members of the crew was one of the animation world’s most helpful people ever, Mark Kausler.
Any post on Carlo Vinci cannot ignore his top-rate animation for Paul Terry. Whenever a dance was required, especially one involving a sexy female character (almost always a mouse), Vinci was handed the footage. His animation holds its own with anyone’s. One of the remarkable things about Vinci’s dances is their variety. No two are the same. Here are two collections of his work.
Listen to old-time radio comedy/variety shows and you’ll find laughter or applause any time Brooklyn is mentioned, especially on programmes based in New York. In fact, people like Bob and Ray, Fred Allen and Henry Morgan did jokes about studio audiences guffawing about the borough.
Evidently, cartoon writers thought whatever anyone found funny about Brooklyn was transferrable to their medium, the same as jokes on the radio about Cucamonga.
An example of that comes from the Columbia/Screen Gems studio. In Kongo-Roo (1946), writer Cal Howard, director Howard Swift and background artist Ed Starr start the cartoon with a pan across a painting of nature. The camera pans past a sign that sets up the gag.
The camera stops on the gag sign. Okay, it’s not “Brooklyn.” But it’s a sign over a flat bush. Get it? Flatbush! It’s in Brooklyn!
And here’s the gag topper. A tree pops up, accompanied by the usual Screen Gems spring sound effect.
Look! The tree is growing in a flat bush! It’s like that novel “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” Get it? Brooklyn! It’s a funny woid!
Actually, if I may go out on a limb (a limb of a “flat bush” in this case), there’s almost nothing funny about Columbia’s Phantasies or Rhapsodies or whatever series Kongo-Roo is in. The cartoon has a weird ending, with characters shrinking and being eaten by an ostrich, and gags that go for Warner Bros. zaniness (the old one with “No Sale” signs in the eyes shows up here, while the hunter turns and talks to the audience like Elmer Fudd would).
Grant Simmons is the credited animator, with layouts by Bill Weaver, who worked for Ted Eshbaugh in New York at one point. Eshbaugh was a block and a half from Times Square, which is not in Brooklyn.
Want to slice a character into little slabs but not make it seem painful?
Just add some peppy music from Frank Marsales. (Do people say “peppy” any more?)
Here are examples from Bosko’s Store (1932). First, a dachshund runs through an electric fan, getting sliced like a salami, to the sound of a bassoon and tuba melody. Don’t worry. He reforms on the other side.
Later in the short, Wilbur the bratty cat falls into a meat grinder, with drips coming out forming mini-Wilburs (a gag going back to the silent Oswald days) that run into each other to re-form one, solid Wilbur.
The jumpy music is “I Love To See the Evenin’ Sun Go Down” by Maceo Pinkard and Jack Palmer, which ends the cartoon. Some other tunes: “There’s a Rainbow on the River” (Bosko sings while washing the window); “Doggone, I’ve Done It” (Bosko answers phone, gets baloney to slice); “Having a Good Time, I Wish You Were Here” (Mouse dials phone, asks about dry fish); “In the Hills of Old Missouri” (Bosko sweeps the wooden sidewalk in ¾ time); “How Can You Say No” (Bosko and Honey dance to player piano).
Bob McKimson and Friz Freleng are both credited as animators. Despite that, it’s a pretty lacklustre cartoon. There’s dancing, dancing and more dancing, all for the sake of dancing.
