Just Your Average Orchestra

An old friend, Linda Glover, has alerted me to what is the most bizarre cartoon I have ever seen.



This is a frame from a five-minute commercial for Telefunken radios made in Germany in 1930 by UFA. A Minnie Mouse knock-off hires an orchestra for her society party. A harp is made from some cow horns. The cat-musician’s tail detaches and becomes frizzy.



Another cat takes a turtle, twirls an opening on its belly button and creates a banjo. The cat develops blackface, while the turtle sings along with him.



The singing is so bad, the cat’s music stand grabs the sheet music and walks away.



A fish is a saxophone.



Minnie throws them out. My wild guess is a different animator handled this scene.



Rather than post more frames, you can watch the cartoon below.

Blowing (Up) A Nose

George clamps a washtub over a little flame, then tells Junior to grab the flame when he lifts up the tub (the thought Junior might get burned doesn’t seem to occur to him).



But the flame is four or five steps ahead of the Red Hot Rangers (from the cartoon of the same name). Sticks of dynamite are found in the most convenient places in the Tex Avery world, and the flame just happens to have one.



Naturally, you can guess what happens. Junior grabs the dynamite, not the flame, and shows off his captured item to George.



Thanks to a convenient ashtray in the woods, Junior helpfully puts out the smouldering nose.



Avery and writer Heck Allen have a couple of running gags. One is Junior bending over and being kicked in the butt by George. Avery finds different ways for Junior’s butt to react.



The running gag has a post-script. The flame crosses the screen from right to left every time he puts one over on the two, with Avery and Allen finding different ways for him to move.



There’s a turnabout to the running gag at the end of the cartoon.

The characters were designed by Irv Spence, with animation by Preston Blair, Ed Love, Ray Abrams and Walt Clinton. Johnny Johnsen painted the fine backgrounds on this 1947 MGM release.

Why We Need Jack Benny

Quite a number of young people in the sex, drugs and rock-and-roll era, I suspect, thought of Jack Benny as old and outdated. Tastes, however, change over time, and the people who were teenagers and young adults some 50 years ago are Benny fans today.

Back then, one newspaperman wrote an editorial about why America needed someone like Jack Benny. I’ll get to it in a moment, but I want to post another article from the same period about the Benny Appeal.

The entertainment writer for the Copley News Service indulged in that necessity amongst columnists—reusing old material when the well is dry. You can read the original column from 1963 in this post. Seven years later, it was dredged out of the water, given a new coat of paint (how’s THAT for mixing metaphors?) and put on display in print once again.

This appeared in paper starting around December 5, 1970.

Benny in separate class
By DONALD FREEMAN
Copley News Service
HOLLYWOOD — Twenty years of television, two decades rich in comedy, and how many years was it on radio before that? And before that in vaudeville?
For Jack Benny, still 39 at heart, it's been a remarkable career.
Aside from his incredible longevity, Jack Benny is a rarity among the funnymen, a comic who has never to my knowledge cracked a joke in public.
WHAT JACK BENNY has created, along with his characterization of the lovable but petulant skinflint, is an enduring, irrepressibly fresh comic spirit. Jack Benny—the sight of him, his walk, stare, his manner and attitude, the way he has of mirroring our own petty failings—makes you feel good. Jokes don't necessarily do this.
Once, in an interview, I asked Benny about the wellspring of his public character, with his stinginess and vanity, this endearing composite of all the human frailties.
Benny nodded thoughtfully. "You know," said Jack Benny, "there's a lot of everybody in Jack Benny."
But such a comic character, an archetype that is also inimitably original, can never be manufactured.
As Benny said, "You can't say, ‘Look, fellas, let's invent this cheap, vain guy who drives a Maxwell, keeps his money buried in a vault and has a butler named Rochester and wears a toupee’—actually, it would be funnier if I really wore a toupee, which I don't. But all of this adds up to ‘Jack Benny.’
IT ALSO ADDS UP TO more than 50 years of laughter and, as I say, a special kind of humor that creates affection and warmth along with the laughs.
The laughter always stems from character. One of the longest laughs in Benny’s career, for instance, flowed from the situation but even more than the many years of our acceptance of Benny’s character.
In this one, an example of pure radio humor, Benny is confronted by a holdup man [played by Eddie Marr] poking a gun in his ribs.
Holdup Man: "Your or your life."
Benny: (Long pause).
Holdup Man: "Quit stalling. I said your money or your life."
Benny: I’M THINKING IT OVER!"
ONLY JACK Benny could have won 20 seconds of studio audience laughter—and that’s a sizeable amount—with the following bit, from an old TV show, with Mary Livingstone:
Mary: “Jack, why don’t you stop being so stingy?”
Jack: “Mary, I’m not stingy and you know it.”
Mary: “You’re not, eh? Last year when you were going to have your appendix removed, you wanted Rochester to do it.
Jack: “I DID NOT. I merely asked him if he knew how.”

Jack explained the logic behind his humour, and an editorial writer explained why it was needed. Granted, the writer in The State of Columbia, South Carolina, of March 10, 1971, seems to echo what some people say today—that comedy was so much better in the “good old days” when you could make the same old jokes about minorities, instead of soulless corporations or anything to do with that sinful s-e-x.

However, Jack’s humour in the “good old days” was the same until the day he died—directed at human foibles wrapped up in a fictional version of himself. Fred Allen’s humour was different. He loved puns, some extremely clever, others wincingly bad, and took shots at needless ridiculousness and hypocrisy, mainly involving the industry that made him a fortune. It’s still the kind of humour (setting aside the contemporary times aspect of Allen’s targets) that can work today.

‘Tain’t Funny, McGee
JACK BENNY, whose violin solos began as part of his comedy routine, now plays for concert audiences, raising money for good music. No matter how much money he raises for musical charity, it can never match his priceless contribution to humor. When there was little to laugh about in America, Benny and Fred Allen and other truly funny radio comics made us keep our sense of humor.
The kind of hilarity Jack Benny represented is one of the greatest contemporary needs. We have, as a nation, almost forgotten how to laugh, except in a sick, almost pathological way. Ethnic humor, for example, an important constituent in the comedy of melting pot, has become a grievance to be redressed by civil rights groups; we only laugh nowadays at double-entendres or when Don Rickles kicks us in the gut.
To laugh in this way is to laugh without purging the spirit. We laugh, not despite our anxieties, but because of them. Air pollution makes us sick, and we worry about the environment; we thus are gratified when Johnny Carson takes a swipe at Con-Edison. But are we amused? Not really. We laugh because it pleases us to imagine the loathsome enemy writhing in pain.
Man needs to laugh. He needs to laugh most when it is hardest to do. That is why great comedians like Jack Benny are such an asset, and why the nation owes Benny and his Depression-era colleagues a debt it can never pay, and why it almost makes you cry to hear imitation today’s funny-men work over an audience.

Rickles, today, does not get a free pass for his insult humour from some younger people. It is a tribute to Jack Benny that he can still attract fans, and inspire other comedians, almost 50 years after his death. Many aspects of his humour are timeless. How many former vaudevillians could say the same thing?

Not Plane, Nor Bird, Nor Even Frog

This was going to be a post about Wally Cox’s cartoon career. But it won’t be. You can blame Wally Cox.

Somewhere, I thought, Cox might have been interviewed about his role as Underdog, Total TeleVision’s big entry into Saturday morning cartoons beginning October 3, 1964. Maybe TTV, I hoped, issued a news release quoting Cox in an attempt to get publicity for the show. If any of this happened, I haven’t found it. Perhaps it’s no surprise. Saturday morning cartoons were generally ignored by the press because they were aimed at kids, and what kid reads a newspaper?

United Press International put out a story about Cox in November 1964, but there’s no mention of Underdog in it at all. Such is the respect Saturday morning cartoons got in the mid-‘60s until the kids who watched them became adults who wrote books and newspaper columns about them. Unless there was an angle (studio profits, “educating” children, etc.) for mom and dad, the news columns were silent. TTV did get some ink around this time, and we’ll get to that in a moment because I do want to write something about Cox.

The earliest mention of him I’ve found is in Bert McCord’s column on New York’s café life in the January 5, 1949 edition of the New York Herald Tribune. Cox made his professional debut that night on the stage of the Village Vanguard. Several days later, Danton Walker of the New York Daily News explained: “Max Gordon has gone into the talent-discovering business again at his Village Vanguard. His latest is an ex-dogface with a professorial appearance who is a silversmith by day and, by the grace of Gordon, an impressionist by night. Wally Cox, 24-year-old who designs costume jewelry, has been painting word portraits of typical neighborhood characters (the candy store owner, the ex-pug, et al) at parties for several years. Max attended one of his performances at a village soiree recently, and en[j]oyed it well enough to insist the young man try his humor out on his sophisticated customers at the Vanguard. Net result: A new discovery and a new career.”

Before the end of the month, Cox was cast on the DuMont network’s School House, along with Arnold Stang and “schoolmaster” Kenny Delmar (a last-minute replacement for Peter Donald, who decided to pass on the show). It was a disaster. Cox emerged to star in a non-disaster at NBC, Mr. Peepers, followed by The Adventures of Hiram Holiday (featuring the Capitol Hi-Q production library).

Let’s skip ahead to Underdog. There is no better source on Total TeleVision Productions than Mark Arnold’s book. It quotes TTV’s Tread Covington as saying “We were delighted to get Wally Cox. We wanted a shy, timid character and he had been on a successful series for a while, and wanted that kind of personality for Underdog. By that time, we were established. I called Wally Cox’s agent, and we got together....

“We enjoyed having him work for us very much. He was very friendly and nice and easy to work with. I think he was sort of typecast in his personality. We told him at the outset, we wanted Underdog to be a nerd-like character. I don’t know if nerd was a word then—a nerd-type character that would come to the rescue at the last minute and do heroic things. If he was aiming for a perfect landing, he’d hit the wall instead. Anyway, everything always worked out. Then he was sort of authoritative in spite of all the screw-ups along the way. So a lot of it really was the way Wally was and his interpretation was one that we liked.”

Cox extremely disliked Mr. Peepers and, in interview after interview, wanted people to forget the Peabody Award-winning show. Evidently, Cox had a higher opinion of Underdog than Peepers. An unbylined story, apparently from the Copley News Service, in 1970 noted that whenever Cox was introduced in the warm-up for Hollywood Squares, he would quote Underdog’s famous motto: “There’s no need to fear. Underdog is here!” Children in the audience would cheer. Adults, it ruefully noted, thought of Mr. Peepers.

The only other quote I’ve found from Cox about the cartoon is in a 1972 syndicated “TV Answer” column. He purportedly said he “had been an underdog” all his life and that was it. No source was given.

One person who did talk about Cox was Peter Piech, who was part of Producers Associates for Television, the company behind the financing of Rocky and His Friends and later the executive producer of Underdog through his part-ownership in Total TeleVision. This unbylined story appeared in several newspapers in March and April 1965.

There's No Set Pattern For Writing Children's Humor
“There is no set pattern or guideline for writing humor for children, particularly in cartoons. The only thing we are concerned about is producing a good cartoon sequence.”
So says Peter Piech, executive producer of NBC-TV’s color cartoon series, Underdog.
One of the most experienced men in cartoon production, Piech has produced approximately 3,000 minutes of cartoons since 1959, more, he claims, than any other animation studio in the world. Among his creations are Rocky, Tennessee Tuxedo, Leonardo the Lion [sic], The Hunter, and Go, Go Gophers.
Piech believes that both children and adults are fascinated by the supernatural and super powers. Underdog fits into both of these categories because of his super abilities and the supernatural powers of his enemies.
While he feels that there are no guidelines for writing humor for children, Piech is quick to add that there are definite elements that a cartoon should have to capture their interest and imagination.
“Children are paradoxical in that they are captivated by both the familiar and the unknown,” says the cartoon producer. “They know, for instance, that Underdog is always going to catch the bad guy and bring him to justice in the end. They also know that he is going to rescue the heroine, Polly, from the teeth of a whirling circular saw or from the beam of villain Simon Barsinister’s snow gun. That they know this doesn’t make the final rescue any less exciting.”
Kids love repetition, according to Piech, “but a producer can’t just come up with one formula and then keep using it indefinitely. However, repetition is important, because it takes awhile for a child to identify with a personality, whether he is live or animated.”
The producer also maintains that children appreciate the same elements of humor that makes adults laugh. They love Wally Cox as the voice of Underdog because it is very comical to hear such a meek voice coming from such a super-powered hero.
They also like the unexpected situation that pops up, and this too is an element in all forms of humor.
Says Piech, “Children today are much more sophisticated than they used to be, and demand more from cartoons than they used to, because they want to use their knowledge more. It’s no longer enough, to give them a Felix the Cat or a Farmer Brown musical cartoon with singing flowers and cows that kick over milk buckets. Today’s kids are science-oriented and they want to use this knowledge. They can do this while watching Underdog fight the underwater Bubble-Heads and their tidal wave machine, but they can’t if all they see is Felix trying to catch a mouse.
Piech is adamant is his feelings that there are many topics that cannot be animated, and anything that can be done using live actors and live situations should not be done in cartoon form. “In cartoons, everything is much bigger than life, very exaggerated,” he says.
“Can you imagine Underdog being played by a real dog, like Lassie?” asks Pete. It would be impossible! And it would be just as ridiculous if Mr. Novak were a cartoon instead of a live person.”

We’re going to make a detour from Cox and Underdog. Besides Piech, the connection between Total TeleVision and the Jay Ward Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons is Gamma Productions in Mexico. It animated some of the Ward cartoons, especially the earliest ones, and just about all of TTV’s output. One of the syndicated newspaper services came out with a story about Gamma about how it made its cartoons. This appeared in a paper, pre-Underdog, on June 8, 1964. You can chuckle over the spin about why the cartoons were made in Mexico.

Zebra Stripes - - - A Mexican Import
By JACKIE PETERSON
Copley News Service
MEXICO CITY—How many stripes has a zebra?
What shape is a walrus tail?
Does a porcupine have lashes?
Sounds like shop talk at the zoo, but it's all in a day's work at Gamma Productions, an animation studio here.
Behind the austere facade of an office building, three Americans and 77 Mexicans are busy plotting laughs for millions of children (and adults) in the United States.
Gamma Productions turns out 11 serialized cartoon shows for coast-to-coast U.S. television now and is preparing two more.
One of these efforts, a series about Tennessee Tuxedo, a penguin with a bow tie, has a nationwide standing of No. 2 on the Neilsen kiddie ratings.
Bullwinkle, a moronic moose with an erudite story line, has—much to Gamma's amazement—college fan clubs in the United States.
Surprisingly, only five of the people at Gamma speak English.
Co-owners of the 24-hour-a-day operation are Harvey Siegel, a former New York conmercial artist, and Jaime Torres Vasquez, a Mexican.
Siegel, who still maintains he's "just an artist," runs the production end of the business while Torres acts as the firm's traveling troubleshooter.
Siegel says his principal reason for locating Gamma here is the known dexterity of Mexican workers who do the intricate drawing and inking.
"People probably thought we came here for cheap labor," he says.
“But the fact is our drawers and inkers, paid on a piecework basis, earn up to 100 pesos ($8) a day, far more than other youngsters of their age usually earn in Mexico.”
Other aspects of production costs are somewhat lower than in the United States. Customs duties and time-consuming red tape involved in doing business south of the border virtually wipe out these advantages or any tax gain that might actually accrue from a venture in a foreign country.
Gamma has stepped up its viewing time to 12 minutes a week and is heading toward a goal of 18 minutes.
It takes about 2,500 drawings, approximately 150 scenes, to make a nine-minute cartoon. At the current rale of speed, the studio turns out a daily average of 1,000 "cells" or drawings in color on celluloid squares.
Gamma can't take all the credit for its stable of stars. They are "discovered" by writers in Hollywood and New York, where the shows are written.
Gamma gets a phonograph of the sound track— the animals may have such distinguished voices as those of Hans Conreid, Edward Everett Horton or Wally Cox—plus a long work sheet giving the scene-by-scene direction and rough drawings of the characters.
The studio takes it from there, deciding on the visual personality of its menagerie of actors, dubbing in special sound effects and background music, and shipping off the completed movie to the TV networks in New York.
After getting some sketch ideas from the boss himself, the disc, direction sheet and a Spanish translation of the story line go to Joe Montell, layout and design chief, who formerly worked with Metro-Goldwyn Mayer in a similar job. He composes the frame of the film, insuring for example, that characters are drawn in scale for close-ups and long shots.
Then the package moves to the drawing board of Sam Kai, a native of San Francisco, Calif. Kai, with 20 years in the business, has worked at Paramount Studios on such personalities as Popeye.
“You have to go overboard on movements and gestures for cartoons," Kai says. "Far more so than in a live-action comedy."
Once these details are set, the film is ready to be drawn, inked and colored. The deft young Mexicans who turn out the sketches wear gloves on their drawing hands so they won't fingerprint the "cells."
The figure then goes to the background department, and finally to the camera.
Problems like the number of the zebra's stripes are settled easily without reference to zoology books.
The animated cartoonist, naturally, would put polka dots on the zebra, a tail-concealing Brooks Bros, suit on the walrus, and, yes, the porcupine will wear dark glasses.

Total TeleVision produced The Beagles for the 1966-67 and (in repeats) 1967-68 seasons, then could sell nothing else to the networks and closed. As for Cox, he died at age 48 on Feb. 15, 1973 of a heart malfunction. At the time, Underdog was still in reruns, and carried on living through home video.

The Mad Hatter Backgrounds

The Mad Hatter (1948) was the second cartoon by the Walter Lantz studio released by United Artists.

Ken O’Brien and Freddie Moore from Disney got their first animation credits for Lantz in this short, but the backgrounds were by veteran workhorse Fred Brunish. His paintings always suit the story for the Lantz cartoons.

A couple of interiors of Woody’s house. The closet door is on an overlay.



Wally’s hat store. The window at the right and the wood exterior below it are on an overlay.



City exteriors. Whoever was doing Dick Lundy's layouts gives us some angles on the scenes. The theatre downtown is playing Andy Panda cartoons.



Exteriors of a field. The first frame is part of a longer background.



Shots of the “B” Pictures studio lot.



Here’s part of a longer background. I can’t add anything else to the right because the colours don’t match when I put the frames together. The fan blades are on a cycle of three drawings, on ones. The garbage can is on an overlay.



Brunish returned to the Lantz studio after it shut down for over a year when the U-A contract expired. He died on June 25, 1952 of cirrhosis of the liver. He was 49.

Leaping Mouse Ears

How often did Walt Disney have an “ear take” in one of his cartoons?

It isn’t something that would be funny very often, but it’s pulled off to nice effect in the early Mickey Mouse short Plane Crazy (1928).

First, the frightened Minnie Mouse pulls back on Mickey’s ears.



She pulls back on Mickey, the steering wheel of the plane is pulled off.

Mickey seems something up ahead, off screen. While his body is held on a separate cel, His ears leap up, exchange places in mid-air and fall back onto his head.



If only the mouse ears they sold at Disneyland catapulted like this.

The next scene is pretty good, too, as we see things from Mickey’s perspective, driving toward cars and posts on a road before the plane lifts into mid-air. I’d rather watch this than the Corporate Symbol splashing around with a seal in a bathtub.

Animator Ub Iwerks gets a screen credit. The music, as you likely know, is by Carl Stalling.

Think With Bob and Ray

1960 was a good year and a bad year for Bob and Ray.

It was bad because CBS dumped their 15-minute Monday through Friday radio show on June 24th, replacing it with reporter Ron Cochran conducting interviews with people in the news. And critics panned their April 7th TV special where the two hopped around New York City nightclubs, with interruptions by Mike Wallace.

It was good because they released an LP of comedy sketches to favourable reviews. And, even if network radio didn’t like their humour, critics did.

Here’s the New York Daily News TV and radio column of April 27th. “Dr. Stanton” refers to the president of the network. The gag is Frank Stanton was not a medical doctor so he wouldn’t make house calls anyway.

Radio Has Its Virtues If Only Bob & Ray
By KAY GARDELLA
People reckless enough to interview Bob and Ray—Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding soon feel like a pigeon caught in a phenn game. If this sounds confusing, we've already proved out point.
The two comedians, stars of CBS Radio's nightly "Bob and Ray Show," act and look like sober, successful businessmen, until you start asking questions. "You'll have to excuse me," said Ray, a tall, elegant gent with a resonant voice. "I may not be at my best today—a crisis at home, you know. Our pet peeve was eaten by a giant slalom last night, and the kids. . . . well, they’re all broken up."
There was a glint of a tear in Ray's eyes, while Bob, medium-sized, sandy-haired and tweedy, clucked sympathetically. "This just doesn't seem to be our day,” No said. “Did you hear about the crisis here at CBS just half an hour ago? They have an emergency case in Studio 25 when Young Dr. Malone (a daytime serial) dropped his pince-nez during a delicate operation. They tried to reach Dr. Stanton, but he was out on a house call.
Adult Humor
This type of whimsical, irreverent humor, delivered in a dry, matter-of-fact tone, has gained innumerable fans for Bob and Ray among that rapidly growing number of people who prefer an adult type of comedy—comedy with a point of view, comedy with purpose, yet without a hard-sell "message."
Their radio program has a cast of dozens of weird and wonderful people—all portrayed by Messrs. Elliott and Goulding. Thus, it was no wonder a few weeks ago when exactly half of the cast suddenly had colds—Bob’s cold, to be exact. Among the most popular characters is Wally Ballou, a peerless special events reporter whose pompous nasal intonation is being imitated by kids all over the nation and whose remote broadcasts usually end in near disaster. Or take Kent Lyle Birdley, a has-been radio announcer of the Thirties now on his third come-back attempt; Mary McGoon, an elderly admirer of the two; or Webley Webster, a gruff, yet amiable gent with marbles in his mouth.
Inspire Boys' Leagues
These fanciful folk help to present some of the most off-beat features ever heard on the air. Take the "Bob and Ray Gourmet Club,” for example, a regular offering which takes listeners to a glittering affair where the “Mystery Celebrity Sandwich of the Month” is being unveiled. After a tension-filled period of anxious waiting, described by two ever-awed special events reporters, the sandwich is unwrapped amid fanfares and usually turns out to be a prosaic ham-on-rye.
To come back to the aforementioned phenn game, the boys recently invented this “ancient sport” which they claim originated in far-off Beluchistan. To their listeners they solemnly explained that “the old controversial outfield-in-phenn rule has been suspended by the 12-second double-rush period.” But, in true Bob and Ray fashion, they never got around to describing the game itself. The result was that college and high school boys who are among Bob and Ray's most loyal fans are now starting to organize phenn leagues, making up their own rules as they go along.
This brand of humor is possible only in radio, Bob and Ray explained. “On our show we can slip in and out of character in a moment, without a costume change,” Ray said, “and the glittering grandeur of our Gourmet Club would cost a fortune if we had to build a set." Added Bob: "But that doesn't mean we are neglecting television. We had our own TV series and have made many guest appearances on various programs. Before long, we will have a new animated cartoon series titled 'Bob and Ray’s Hollywood Classics,’ and are now working on a pilot film for it.”
Meanwhile, they’re also on radio and TV in various parts of the country by means of commercials, which they themselves produce—all beating the unmistakeable brand of Bob and Ray humor. Also, they have just put some of their funniest routines on a record album. "Bob and Ray on a Platter," which they hope will become a hit.

The animated cartoon series with Ed Graham, who co-owned their agency that provided commercials, didn’t come off. Here’s what the Associated Press had to say about their record. The column showed up in newspapers starting in mid-March.

Bob & Ray: Funny Business, Their Game
By HUGH A. MULLIGAN
AP Newsfeatures Writer
Who is Wally Ballou and what is he really like?
For the answer to this question turn to RCA Victor's "Bob and Ray on a Platter," another hilarious album of dead pan satire on broadcasting foibles by two of the funniest men alive.
You'll find Wally Ballou, mythical man with a mike, interviewing a cranberry grower who didn't know cranberries can served as cranberry sauce with turkey or crushed into cranberry juice. In the background, sirens wail, shots ring out, people go screaming and rushing about, but Wally Ballou doggedly sticks to the business at hand, probing the cranberry bogs for pithy quotes.
You’ll also meet Bubby Burkhouse, describing the between halves color of a Saturday afternoon televised football game. "Gee, it's a thrill to be here," he begins, while down the field boys riding elephants and antique automobiles signal the start of the half-game festivities. Soon a dirigible, made by the science department, appears overhead and 1,100 ROTC students bail out in parachutes made by the sewing department in the old school colors.
Bob and Ray also bring you a radio sports and weather show, sponsored by Rudy and Irma's Dance Studio, that gets so bogged down in commercials time runs out before they can give the other half of the Ohio State score.
Expertly satirizing Ed Murrow's "Person to Person," Ted Malone's poetry reading sessions, TV Westerns and TV program awards, Bob and Ray are in the groove all the way, delivering 40 minutes of deftly executed mimicry and satire that beats anything else around today.

It appears Bob and Ray sent out gag mailers to newspapers to get publicity (Jay Ward Productions did the same thing around this time). We’ve transcribed a few of them before. Here’s one picked up by The Atlanta Journal on January 30, 1960. It looks like the two were anticipating the 1-900 phone numbers of the ‘90s.

Bob, Ray Plan Thought of the Month Club
Bob and Ray will shortly establish the Bob and Ray Thought of the Month Club (BARTOTMC).
This new service of the Bob and Ray Enterprises Co., Inc., will supply thoughts for all occasions on a subscription basis to people whose busy schedules prevent them from cerebral exercising.
Under the slogan, "Leave the Thinking to Us," BARTOTMC will ship five thoughts a month, plus a free bonus thought every three months, to its subscribers with the guarantee that unused thoughts may be returned after 10 days.
TWO GROUPS of thoughts, couched in attractive language and produced by a trained staff, will be available.
One, in a lower price range, will consist of easy-going conversational-type thoughts (Group A Plan); the other, at a slightly higher fee, will comprise high-level, provocative thoughts (Group B).
If desired, the two plans may be intermixed.
Following are some thoughts which will become available beginning next February:
Group A:
"I think it’s not the heat, but the humidity.”
“I think it’s impossible."
“I think I need a haircut.”
“I think it’s a shame.”
“I think I go home.”
GROUP B:
“I think that true reality, expressing itself through all things, is a blind impelling force which manifests itself in individuals as a will to live.”
“I think that instrumentalism holds that various modes and forms of human endeavor are instruments developed by man to solve his problems.”
“I think that objective reality is known only insofar as it conforms to the essential structure of the human mind.”
“I think that, in the mechanics of relativity, the mass of a particle is determined by assuming that the actions of a system of particles do not change the total momentum with respect to a given system.”
SUBSCRIBERS to the Combined Group A and B Plans have a choice of either any three (3) of Group A and any two (2) of Group B; or any four (4) of Group A and any one (1) of Group B, plus an extra bonus thought every two (2) months.
Members of the Group A plan have the privilege of purchasing individual Group B thoughts at nominal fees.
Eventually, Bob and Ray plan to establish the Bob and Ray Thought of the Month Club Emergency Telephone Service (BARTOTMCETS) which will supply instantaneous, personalized thoughts at all hours.

1960 became 1961, and Bob and Ray carried on, though not on CBS. They continued to make appearances on Monitor on NBC radio, and hosted a Thanksgiving TV special on ABC. And one station continued to repeat Bob and Ray routines twice every weekday—CJBC, the CBC station in Toronto.

A Ton of Bricks

The challenge facing Tex Avery and his MGM writers, Rich Hogan or Heck Allen—find as many gags to fit within the storyline of their cartoon. They managed to do it time after time. And in Avery’s best cartoons there’s something unexpected at the end which makes the cartoon even more satisfying.

A great example is Bad Luck Blackie, officially released by MGM on Jan. 22, 1949.

The gags work around two premises—a black cat crossing your path means bad luck, and if someone needs help, all they need to do it blow a whistle. About two-thirds of the way though the cartoon, the sadistic snickering bulldog (played by Tex himself), grabs the whistle and uses it to entice the black cat to show up and thereby exact some revenge.

It doesn’t work. One gag features the two of them at a construction site. The cat continues to cross his path and stuff continues to fall from the sky on the dog.

A model sheet for the cartoon is dated Dec. 30, 1946. Two trade publications revealed on July 19, 1947 the cartoon was intended to be released in the 1947-48 season (that is, before Sept. 1948). The cartoon was re-released twice, once on Nov. 9, 1956 and again in the 1966-67 theatrical season.