That Modern Artist, Paul Terry

The Terrytoons of 1952 aren’t very avant garde. They don’t look sophisticated compared to Warner Bros., or even Walter Lantz, let alone UPA or stylised TV commercials coming into vogue. But the work of artists—we suspect Art Bartsch and Carlo Vinci were included—got a showing in America’s Fine Arts Capital, New York City, that year.

The owner of the Woolworth’s of animation seems to have had a publicity machine as effective as any other studio. Someone got Terry some ink in Parade, a magazine supplement found in weekend newspapers all across the U.S. This was published (with the Terry photo) on April 13, 1952. Certainly you can’t deny Terry’s longevity in the business.

They All Laughed
Editor's Note: This year Paul Terry will turn out his 1,000 entertainment film. That's more than any one man has ever made in the movie industry. His rib-tickling "Terrytoons" are famous all over the world. Here Terry reminisces about how his career began:
BY PAUL TERRY
Back in 1915, I was a "struggling pioneer" in the field of animated cartoons. I had spent four months completing my first cartoon movie. I called it "Little Herman." I did 1,000 drawings for it myself and photographed them, too. But I couldn't find a buyer. Producers were skeptical then about the idea of ‘moving cartoons.’
● I went all over New York trying to sell "Little Herman"—without luck. Just when I was ready to give up and go back to newspaper work, I heard of a producer-exhibitor in New Rochelle, about 15 miles away.
He Didn't Have Train Fare
I remember very well the day I saw him. It was a beautiful spring morning and I had to borrow money for the train ride. When I reached his office, the producer said he'd prefer to look at my picture with an audience! I rushed out into the street, but there wasn't an adult in sight. I finally rounded up a group of youngsters. They weren't too eager to come.
● As "Little Herman" appeared and went into a magic act, the kids tittered. Then they giggled. At the end they were howling with laughter. The producer roared, too, and "Little Herman" was sold on the spot.
● That was 37 years ago, but I've never forgotten the importance of capturing the attention of children. There is something wondrous about a child's laugh. Wherever it rises in a theater, adults are bound to join in!

Well, Mr. Terry, that’s unless adults are having a smoke or getting concessions to avoid your third-rate Terry Bears or Dingbat.

Terry’s PR department also managed to get the United Press to talk with him about his exhibit. This appeared in papers starting around March 27, 1952.

Pioneer Of Animated Cartoons Has Show In Noted Art Center
By JACK GAVER
NEW YORK (U.P.)—The works of Paul Terry are not exactly collectors’ items but he's had his innings at the Museum of Modern Art.
"I don't think the event did Picasso any harm and I'm surely too set in my ways to have been influenced by the surroundings," commented the pioneer master of the animated cartoon.
The father of the Terrytoons, the movie short subjects that feature such characters as Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle and the Terrybears [sic], was honored by the museum with a week's showing of representative pictures he has made in the past 30 years. There were nine shorts in the program, including Terry's latest release which is his 1,000th cartoon.
"Of course, we work well ahead of release at our plant in New Rochelle," Terry said, "and this particular picture was finished months ago. I imagine that by now we are probably working on the fifteenth film beyond the thousand mark.
“That’s a really accurate figure too. I've kept close track of them from the very beginning. I thought when we reached the 500th picture years back that it certainly was a lot of cartoons but here we are more than double that figure and still going.
“There’s one thing about cartoon short subjects in the movie theaters. Our market runs contrary to the trend of movie business. I mean, when feature films may be off the cartoons are more in demand than ever.
“Cartooning is a really amazing thing when you stop to think about it. I'm including all cartoon work strips—comic strips, comic books, animation—every phase. I don’t imagine that the number of creative workers in the whole field reaches 5,000.
“Now in what other medium will you find a group so small touching the lives of so many millions of persons? It isn't true of the movies, radio or anything else I can think of. Those mediums may reach as many persons but they have many thousands of workers creating their product.”
In addition to the museum’s Terry program, the first such recognition ever given an animated cartoon product, the artist was honored with a testimonial luncheon by the National Cartoonists Society.

There was other free, national publicity for Terry and his cartoons that year. The New Rochelle Standard-Star reported on January 10th:

TERRY SEEN ON SHOW WITH ARTHUR GODFREY
Terrytoons Inc., of 38 Center Avenue, figured in a television viewing last night over a national network. Paul Terry, president of the New Rochelle firm, appeared as guest on Arthur Godfrey’s Show over CBS narrating a film which showed how the cartoons are made in the studio here.
The film which was made at the plant here showed many local people who are involved in the process of making a "Mighty Mouse" cartoon. Among those shown were Philip A. Scheib, musical director; Tom Morrison, head of the story department; Conrad Rasinski, director; Joseph Rasinski, cameraman; Carol Vinci [sic], animator; Anderson Craig, background artist; George McAvoy, film editor; Arthur Bartsch, head of layout department, and several others.

And this unusual Terry appearance, recorded by the Linton Daily Citizen on the front page of its Feb. 7, 1952 edition.

School Gets $230 From ‘Strike It Rich’
The Music Department of the Edwardsport (Indiana) high school today was awarded $230 on the “Strike It Rich” program conducted by a nation-wide broadcasting company.
One of the Edwardsport pupils wrote to the program saying that when the school building burned most of the band instruments had been destroyed.
Paul Terry, creator of the Terry-Toons, animated cartoons, acted as “guest contestant” in behalf of the Edwardsport school, and won the $230 as the school’s share of the award money given away today.

Would this have made him a humani-TERRY-an?

About a week later, Terry asked some local kids “Won’t you be my valentine?”



The caption on this photo in the Feb. 15th is “PAUL TERRY, creator of Terrytoons, proves [sic] the central figure, above, while entertaining children in Bellevue Hospital at a recent Valentin’s Day party. About 200 children laughed at cartoons drawn by the famous illustrator. They munched on lollipops provided by the visitors and admired gifts. In addition, Bob Kuwahara and Jim Tyer, of the Terrytoon staff, drew Terrytoon characters for the children.

Oh, and Terry made one more on-location appearance, this one on March 22, 1952. Two days before, the Standard-Star published this story and picture:

TERRY TO BE GUEST FOR JR. JOY SHOW
Paul Terry, cartoon creator of Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, the talking magpies, and Dinky, will appear at Loew’s Theater Saturday morning to demonstrate animated cartoon work. He will speak at the Junior Joy Show sponsored by the PTA Council.
The show committee announced that Mr Terry will exhibit a 20-minute short subject, with personal narration designed to illustrate how his cartoons are drawn and processed at Terrytoon Fableland in New Rochelle.
The feature film, selected from the Children’s Film Library, will be the “Francis,” (the talking mule) starring Donald O'Connor. Two Terrytoon cartoons, Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle, will also be shown.
Theater doors will open at 9:15 A.M. with the show beginning at 9:45.
Mr. Terry, whose office is at 38 Center Avenue, has been in the animated cartoon field for 37 years. Last week a luncheon was given in his honor by the National Cartoonist Society in recognition of his pioneer work. The Museum of Modern Art in New York City designated last week as an All Paul Terry Show week, showing his early and recent cartoons.



Within a couple of years, Terry sold his studio to CBS, which brought in a creative supervisor named Gene Deitch, who wasn’t interested in children’s laughter but might have hoped for a MOMA showing for his grown-up Terrytoons. His career there was scuttled before he got that chance, but that’s a story for another time.

Hanging Wolf

Walter Lantz’s contribution to the “wolf’s side of the three little pigs story” cartoons was The Hams That Couldn’t Be Cured (released in 1942).

The story by Lowell Elliott and Bugs Hardaway has Algernon Wolf, about to be hanged for harassing the pigs, explaining how he was just a kindly music teacher whose happy home was destroyed by the jiving pigs.

The wolf changes his voice from an Eddie Robinson hoodlum type to quiet and gentle in relating his tale of woe. The old West-style sheriff in charge of the hanging believes him and orders an instant posse of townspeople to capture the pigs.

Wolfie laughs “Did those saps fall for it! And what a bunch of....” His self-satisfaction is quickly snuffed out as he accidentally leans on the lever that opens the trap door on the hanging scaffold.



The final scene has the wolf crying for help. There’s perspective animation as the wolf swings in mid-air.



Don’t ask how the rope went from the wolf’s neck to his tail. Same as you shouldn’t ask why in one of the music scenes, a harp sounds like a piano and a tuba sounds like a bassoon.

Alex Lovy and Ralph Somerville are the credited animators but Lantz didn’t have units then and it was all-hands-on-deck when it came to making a cartoon. There may have been seven or eight animators on this short, possibly including La Verne Harding, Frank Tipper, Bob Bentley, Hal Mason, George Dane and Les Kline. (Today’s trivia: when the Lantz studio temporarily shut down at the end of the 1940s, Kline worked as a packer at a wholesale tomato operation).

The same kind of plot was done (better in my estimation) at Warners in The Trial of Mr. Wolf (Freleng, 1941) and The Turn-Tale Wolf (McKimson, 1952).

The ill-fated Kent Rogers provides the voice of the wolf and sheriff. The dialogue includes the wolf emulating FDR’s Fireside Chats by saying “My friends,” to the assembled townsfolk awaitin’ the hangin.’

Distaff Car of Tomorrow

Tex Avery’s Car of Tomorrow (released in 1951) has some topical gags making fun of the Hudson (step-down car) and the Studebaker (front is same as back), as well as some tried-and-true oldies (mother-in-law).

And the man who brought the world a sexy Red Riding Hood also gave us sex in a car.

Avery and writers Rich Hogan and Roy Williams concoct a sequence about a feminised car, with the clichéd description recited by June Foray. It’s a “stunning Paris creation...in a delicate shade of seashell pink.



The camera cuts to a close-up of the window curtains “in polka-dot Swiss organdy.”



There’s another close-up cut to what looks like pansies in the fender, but the narrator (or, in the ‘50s was she a “narratrix”?) informs us they are “Peruvian poppies.”



Cut to a longer shot of the side of the car with a description of the white lace, and then there’s another cut and a pan-down shot of the front of the car with a plunging neckline gag “revealing almost the entire fan.” This was a time when Faye Emerson “plunging neckline” gags were big.



Avery cuts back to the side view of the car and pans across revealing it has a butt “in a flattering bustle effect.” (He also pulled off a car/butt gag in One Cab's Family).



Background artist Johnny Johnsen saves money for producer Fred Quimby in this sequence. There is no animation at all, just camera movement over his paintings.

This was the second in Avery’s “Of Tomorrow” series, which began with The House of Tomorrow (1949), continued with TV of Tomorrow (1952) and ended with The Farm of Tomorrow (1954).

What's Ahead For TV in 1962?

The only reason for this post is because of this great drawing outlining the history of television to date. It’s the work of Dick Hodgins, Jr. of the Associated Press and accompanied the article below.

What was the trend on TV 50 years ago? The A.P. spoke with Mike Dann who, at this point, was at CBS. He had jumped from NBC, where he was part of Pat Weaver’s regime when Today was put on the air. He later pulled the Smothers Brothers off the air (he seems to have regretted it in later years) and was nervous about the idea of Mary Tyler Moore being divorced on her new sitcom (she was changed to being single but newly-dumped).

This story appeared on May 6, 1962

Trends Guide TV Programs
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
Associated Press TV-Radio Writer
NEW YORK (AP)—"I don't know,” says the television fan sadly, "something’s happened to television. They don't make the shows as good as they used to.”
Then he ticks off favorite programs that he doesn't enjoy as much as he used to. And he blames it on the shows, of course. But the truth is, he has been watching these shows—and shows like them—so long he has just plain gotten tired of them.
He's getting ready for a change—and pretty soon he makes it. And if you multiply that one viewer by satiated millions, you've got a new TV trend in the making.
When the 1961-62 season was but two months old—in November—it was obvious the public's fancy had been caught by another type of program.
Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare, both hour-long shows, had caught on immediately. Because they were pretty much alike in form—both about young, handsome, dedicated doctors, both with hospital backgrounds and both had disease as the principal villain—it appeared that the "new" television trend would involve a fresh set of copy-cat clinical dramas.
Not necessarily so, says Michael Dann, a CBS vice president whose job is putting together entertainment programs and arranging schedules. The current trend involves “character dramas,” which includes the two doctor series but also embraces “The Defenders,” which is about a father-son lawyer team.
After all, there have been TV doctors before (Hennesey, a comedy series, centers on a doctor). There certainly have been lawyer stories around for many seasons—Perry Mason, The Law and Mr. Jones, Harrigan and Son, and Lock Up, to mention a few. But—according to Dann's analysis—the focus on and development of the characters in the three new shows are the things that make them fresh and therefore attractive to the home audiences.

It is the peculiar nature of television to leap from trend to trend, with the newest knocking out all but the very best of the old.
The first big trend in programs was discernible in 1949—a year after TV really got moving. Since then there have been some seven types of programs that have moved up to peaks—and then quietly slipped down again.
By 1949, according to Dann's charting, people were caught by the hour-long, live dramas. Those were the days of Philco Playhouse, Kraft Theater, Robert Montgomery Presents and all the rest.
About a year later, a rival came roaring onto the home screen—the big, brassy, raucous comedy-variety show. For the next few years it appeared we couldn’t get enough of Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason, Ken Murray, Sid Caesar. But again people cooled off and fingers started turning the dials—to the panel shows. What's My Line?, Who's The Boss?, The Name's The Same, Masquerade Party, and on and on.
By about 1956 the panel show was beginning to make way for still another type of program: The big-money quiz show. Who can forget The $64,000 Question, Twenty-One, and all the lesser imitators.
Actually, the quiz craze was waning when the TV scandals broke in 1959 and wiped them off the air—so it was just a question of time anyway.
Riding into the picture was the hour-long western—the so-called adult western—that started with Gunsmoke and Wagon Train. But soon the cowboys and the marshals were looking nervously behind them. Private eyes and heroic policemen, with hour-shows, were gaining fast.
Eventually, they overtook the horse operas and it was the time of the "action" trend—77 Sunset Strip, The Untouchables, and similar stuff. But they started to fade, and this season were overcome by Casey, Kildare, and company. "Next season?" asked Dann. "There is a pretty good balance of programing coming along. And it is one of the few seasons in which it is almost impossible to find a strong trend."

Dann likely didn’t realise it, but the tube was headed toward comedy, the more outlandish, the better. The number one show in 1962-63 was The Beverly Hillbillies; a show Dann claimed in his autobiography he refused to watch after the pilot. It was soon joined by Gilligan’s Island, and high-concept shows like I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched and the beloved My Mother the Car. None of these had much in common with family comedies like Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best.

And they had nothing in common with the “socially-relevant” comedies that would swamp TV toward the end of the Vietnam War.

Snafu Will Snore But It Isn't a Bore (For the Male Audience)

A sex gag starts off The Goldbrick (1944). Private Snafu is snoring.



The camera pulls back to show the effect of the snoring on a pin-up.



Like many of the Snafus, the dialogue is in a Seuss-like rhyme. We even get a Seuss-like incidental character flying out of an apple tree. (An apple tree? In the South Pacific?)



The cheescake is courtesy of director Frank Tashlin. This appeared in the Army-Navy Screen Magazine in September 1943.

Dancing For 40 Days And 40 Nights

For a little while after sound was added to cartoons in 1928, it was entertaining enough to see characters dance in time to the beats of the music. (It took time before theatres converted, in some cases due to the expense and in others because theatre managers viewed sound as a fad).

In Van Beuren’s Noah Knew His Ark (1930), the wind-up gag is the animals swim away from skunks because, as we all know, skunks in cartoons smell.

In the meantime, the second half of the cartoon is dancing and little else.

Noah dances.



Ostriches dance, for a time with their legs detached.



The ostriches lay eggs. The eggs hatch and dance.



Cut to elephants dancing. Whoever animated this scene did a fine job, especially for 1930.



Cut to a different animator. Check Noah’s weird right hand (I imagine this is an in-between).



Monkeys dance and scratch.



Hippos twist and turn in terpsichory.



Van Beuren had this thing about putting a tail in the mouth and playing it.



Sundry animals dance in the next scene. Note the high-quality drawing. Watch out, Walt!



There’s a cut to the ark. Even it dances.



There are a lot of re-used drawings in these scenes, but not a lot of humour. By this time, in another part of New York City, the Fleischers were adding little gags to their cartoons. Van Beuren never really caught up to them.

I can’t tell you the name of the song in the background of the dance, but the next one is Wendell Hall’s theme song from radio’s late 1920s: “It Ain’t Going To Rain No More.”

John Foster and Mannie Davis get screen credit for this short, along with musical director Gene Rodemich.

This cartoon remained on theatre screens into 1931. Van Beuren went bust in 1936 and the cartoons were sold by a distributor for home, school and community group use. We've found a school in small-town California in 1944 that screened it. And kiddies in Los Angeles on February 10, 1949 could catch it at 7:30 p.m. on KTSL.

How To Concoct A Jack Benny Radio Show in Early 1936

Research is valuable and invaluable. Unearthing long-lost or previously undisclosed information can change things.

Until Kathy Fuller-Seeley started her very thorough research, Jack Benny’s first writer was considered merely as an arrogant jerk, a victim of karma in later years. All this, as far as I’m concerned, is still true, but Kathy’s examination of scripts, newspapers and other sources has added a dimension. Harry Conn deserves some credit for moulding Benny-on-the-air into the basis of the character that made him popular for years, and helped create a form of radio copied through the 1930s and ‘40s.

One of Conn’s responsibilities until a final blow-up in mid-March 1936 was to ghost-write articles in the printed press. We’ve transcribed several here over the years. During an appearance in Pittsburgh at the start of that month, Jack “wrote” articles for two of the daily papers. We transcribed the one from the Pittsburgh Press IN THIS POST. This article is from the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph of March 3rd. Jack did a Jell-O broadcast from the city on the first, then had a several-shows-a-day performance at the Stanley Theatre that week. It included Mary Livingstone, Kenny Baker, George Metaxa (who also appeared on a Benny show from Washington, D.C. that month), the Stuart Morgan Dancers and, I suspect, the Chicken Sisters as Blanche Stewart, Vi Kline and Kathrine Lee were on the Pittsburgh broadcast.

Jack Benny Batting Says:
Batting for Karl Krug
By JACK BENNY
Hello, folks, this is Karl Benny—er . . . Jack Krug—er, I mean Jack Benny. That's it, this is Jack Benny batting for Karl Krug . . . Whew! I'm glad I got that straightened out. I'm just a little nervous writing a feature column, AS THIS IS NOT MY RACKET. No kidding, I'd sooner walk out on a stage and face 50 people—no more, no less—than write a column.
But I'm in no mood to dicker. I did try to get out of it by explaining to Karl that I had five and six shows a day at the Stanley Theater, in addition to preparing my radio program, which leaves me just about enough time to eat. But he just looked at me, smiled, and said, “Oh, yeah? Well, thanks, Jack. I'll expect you to have that column ready by 4 o'clock Monday.”
Jack as Good a Gambler as Actor
Well, after all, folks, if Karl Krug can prepare a column EVERY day, I guess I can by it once. I'm just as good a gambler as he is. Now a lot of people given this opportunity would start right in by mentioning all of their friends. I am no exception.
To begin with, I think that Mary Livingston (not because she's on our program) is a great artist and (not because she's my wife) a line woman. I also think that Johnny Green (not because he conducts our orchestra) is a great musician, and Kenny Baker (not because he's our tenor) has an excellent voice.
Benny Gives Formula For High-Class Broadcast
I have been asked through fan mail and other sources, how to prepare a successful broadcast. Well, there really is no formula. However, I can give you a recipe which the sponsor will not get wise to for at least 13 weeks, and here it is:
Take a few well-seasoned Sally Rand jokes and mix them with essence of stooges. Beat the stooges thoroughly and add a joke about the Dionne Quintuplets, then put in one chorus of "Music Goes Round and Round," a pinch of ad lib, and stir with microphone till it comes to a croon. You then add one commercial plug and serve within half hour. If it happens to be an hour program, you beat the stooges even more thoroughly, add a bit of slightly used repartee and then serve.
Mary Finally Gets Poetical Opportunity
Well, I guess my half hour is up now. . . .
Mary—Oh, Jack, Jack.
Jack—What is it, Mary?
Mary—Aren’t you going to put in my poem about Pittsburgh?
Jack—I don't think so, Mary. This column is long enough. And anyway—
Mary—Well, I think it's the least you can do after all the trouble I went to.
Jack—All right, Mary, let's hear your poem. You say it's all about Pittsburgh?
Mary—Yes.
Jack—Go ahead.
Mary—New York City, New York City,
It's great be to back here again.
And see the same faces
In the same places
On Broadway, where men are men—
Jack—(Mary, I thought this was about Pittsburgh.)
Mary—I'll get to that later.)
Jack—(All right, but hurry up.)
Mary—Where are the stars of yesterday
Like Sam Bernard and Eddie Foy,
Weber and Fields, Caruso, and Shakespeare,
Who thrilled us when Dad was a boy.
Jack—(Mary, I'd get Pittsburgh in there if I were you.)
Mary—(I'm coming to it.)
Jack—(Oh!)
Mary—Where are the theaters like Wallacks and Daly's
Who played all the stars that were great?
Where is Old Hammerstein’s,
It’s gone—alas!
That’s why we’re going to play Loew’s State.
Jack—(I’m a little embarrassed, folks)
Mary—But don’t be downhearted, old Broadway
As a Main Stem you are still okay—
Jack—Mary, what about Pittsburgh?
Mary—Here it is . . .
Dear old Pittsburgh, dear old Pittsburgh.
What a city you are, hey hey . . . .
That's all, Jack.
Jack—Hm! Good-night, folks.
(Note: The conductor of this column flatters himself that such pitter and patter as he may come upon in his daily quest of the elusive item is of more interest than a press agent-written "guest" column. However, a rule was broken today to permit Jack Benny, now vacationing in Pittsburgh, to say his say. Jack really wrote it himself; after reading it, perhaps you will be of the opinion that it might have been better had Harry Conn (Jack's writing man Friday) been the author. Anyway, it gave me the first chance in two years to clean out my desk.—Karl Krug).

The claim is Conn wasn’t responsible for this. Yet Conn bragged he was responsible for all of Mary’s poems. Would Jack misspell his wife’s last name? On top of that, a squib in the entertainment column in the other paper noted that Jack was writing the radio show for March 1st in between performances at the Stanley with two men taking notes. How he could have time to write a column under these conditions?

There is an unanswered conundrum: who were the two men with notepads? Was Conn one? Who was the other?

Kathy’s research found Conn abandoned the Benny show in Baltimore before a March 22nd broadcast and an issue of Variety soon after claimed Benny wrote the April 5, 1936 show because Conn was “sick.” That was the same excuse Jack gave on the air at the end of the season. It wasn't true.

The Benny show became better and better without Conn. New writers added the party-hound version of Phil Harris, Rochester, Kenny Baker then Dennis Day, the Fred Allen feud, the vault, the Maxwell, Jack’s age of 39, violin lessons with Professor Le Blanc, Frank Nelson’s “Yehhhhhhhs?” and many other things we associate with Benny today. Because of this, Jack still has a fan-base that enjoys his radio and television shows, almost 50 years after his death. You don’t need research to tell you that.

Did You Notice?

Layout artist Maurice Noble buried a gag in the design of the interior of the space ship in Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century.



Dodgers’ control panel is a piano keyboard.

Noble and painter Phil De Guard came up with some fantastic backdrops for this Chuck Jones cartoon; Jones analysed some in depth in his book Chuck Amuck. Exhibitor magazine, on July 29, 1953, caught a preview and called the cartoon “excellent.” Jones had some winners in the 1952-53 theatrical season, including Duck Amuck and Bully For Bugs.

The official release date was July 25, 1953, the same day Warners released another short called Ride a White Horse (narrated by Art Gilmore, directed and written by Owen Crump, music by Howard Jackson and edited by Rex Steele) in the Sports Parade series. No one clamoured for a sequel to that one reeler, but there was one for Duck Dodgers. Mike Maltese was brought in to write it. Mike Kazaleh has a copy of the original storyboard, created in June 1979, and you can get the story behind the storyboard in this post on Jerry Beck’s history site. (Incidentally, we have found newspaper ads for showings of the original cartoon at the Lyric Theatre in Ft. Collins, Colorado as far back as June 5th).

Maltese told the Los Angeles Times in 1979: “I really didn’t want to go back to work. I was enjoying my retirement, but Chuck called me and it was hard to say no. He’s such a nice guy—I’d like to punch him in the mouth, he’s so nice.”

As for the original cartoon, he said: “One day, 26 years ago, I had a Daffy to do. We’d done story adaptations before, like putting Porky and Daffy in ‘The Scarlet Pumpernickel,’ so I though, hum, Buck Rogers, Daffy Duck, ‘Duck Dodgers’! We just decided to do that. It could have been anything.

“The funny thing is that we never thought these things would last. We were just doing a job because we had rent to pay, babies to raise. We did a cartoon, they released it and we forgot it. Now, years later, it comes back to haunt us like an antique.

“It was a lot of fun working on those shorts,” Maltese went on. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a stuntman. I wanted to be in pictures so bad and those cartoons gave me a chance to act, to dance, to write, to do all those things. They gave my show-off ego a chance to express itself.”

The animators on the cartoon were Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris and Ben Washam, with Harry Love handling effects. Carl Stalling drops “Powerhouse” onto the soundtrack, but the music over the titles is one of his original tunes (See note in the comments below).

Predicting the Jetsons Predicting the Future

I chuckle a bit when I read how “The Jetsons invented (fill in the blank).” The Jetsons didn’t invent much of anything. The show itself was a time inverse of The Flintstones, some of the settings owed something to World’s Fairs in Seattle and New York, and the “inventions” can be found in “Popular Science” and similar magazines that the writers brought to the studio for gag ideas.

They can also be found in the John Sutherland industrial cartoon Your Safety First, produced for the Automobile Manufacturers Association in 1956. It has a number of things in common with The Jetsons, which first aired in fall 1962.

There’s no food-a-rack-a-cycle, but the family in this cartoon enjoy a meal that is in pill form. The dinner tray is wheeled in automatically, just like those robot vaccuums of today.



Hmm. How to spend the evening (at home, of course).



In a clever gag, the covering of the dinner tray acts as a vacuum and inhales the table cloth and the dishes. Wheeling itself somewhere, the table lifts up to become a big screen TV as the chairs around the table re-arrange themselves so the family can watch. Where are the cries of “John Sutherland invented the big screen TV?”



Because this cartoon was made in the 1950s and not the future, there is a 1950s gag about the ubiquitousness of Westerns on television.



Your Safety First also features Jetsons-like bubble-top cars and the George-like father complaining that his four-hour work day of the future is too long.

No, the father isn't voiced by George O'Hanlon. It's Marvin Miller doing his Captain Cosmic voice from Destination Unlimited. Gerry Nevius and Charles McElmurry are the layout artists and likely had a hand in the designs. Neither worked on The Jetsons.

It's a shame a reddened, battered print is the only one in public circulation.