A Goofy Golf Swing

I’m not a Disney fan. The endless product hype, studio superiority complex and self-love, including the deification of Walt Disney and “princesses,” has annoyed me for decades.

Other than some of the earliest Mickeys, about the only other Disney shorts I enjoy and will watch over and over star Goofy, all of them directed by Jack Kinney. Motor Mania is a great cartoon and will ring true to viewers so long as there are jerks on the road. And the “how-to” cartoons are good, too.

Tex Avery had some funny stick figures in Porky’s Preview (1941). Kinney employs some in the Goofy cartoon How To Play Golf (1944). A stick-figure version of Goofy appears to show him fix his really bad swing.



The stick-Goofy steps through the maze of stick-golf clubs to go over to provide some instruction.



Not only does the animator give us Goofy multiples and dry-brush, the blue background is treated like paper that the stick-Goody falls through, creating a hole.



This is sure better than some unintelligible duck who needs anger management squawking at some chipmunks.

At least Paul “Woolworth” Terry gave his directors a screen credit in 1944. Mr. Tiffany Disney didn't.

A Few Words About Phil Harris

Phil Harris started his career with Jack Benny as just another bandleader and ended it as a unique character that followed him the rest of his life.

Jack spent his early years at odds with the guys who led the orchestra on his show—in one, he and whiny-voiced Frank Black had a duel—and it was no different when Harris replaced Johnny Green. The studio audience in the early Harris shows seems awkward as Jack is petty and childish toward him; the laughter is very uncomfortable at times. But Benny and writers Bill Morrow and Ed Beloin were no dummies. They decided to expand on the lady-killer aspect they had given Harris’ character and turned him into a relaxed party hound, one who reveled in bad jokes, cheerfully self-congratulated himself and was oblivious to his inability to spell or read.

This was a new kind of character on radio. Benny and the writers had to be careful not to upset the network by glorifying drinking. Harris was never, ever drunk on the show. Effects of any imbibing were commented on some time after the fact, all of them ridiculous. How much of this reflected this real Harris has been debated; but he loved the easy lifestyle of hunting, fishing and golfing. And he was known to have a drink or two.

This improved Harris was loved by listeners. When he married Alice Faye, he still had his eye for the ladies, but more characteristics were piled on. Their young daughter was smarter than he was and commented on his preening and extreme self-confidence. He parlayed all that into a show of his own, first as a summer replacement for Kay Kyser, then as a permanent replacement for Cass Daley on The Fitch Bandwagon. Walt Disney picked up on the easy-going, carefree part of the Harris character about 20 years later and started casting him in feature cartoons.

Here are a couple of random Harris stories. The first one is part of a column in the Lincoln Sunday Journal and Star of November 27, 1949.

Radio In Review
BY REX L. GRIMMELL
PHIL HARRIS is a very busy man every Sunday evening. He not only appears on succeeding programs, but must dash from one studio to another to do it. He is featured on the Jack Benny show at 6:00 over CBS and then stars in his own NBC show at 6:30.
Since the two studios lie three-tenths of a mile apart on a crowded thoroughfare, this would seem to pose a problem. But, through the co-operation of Jack Benny, Harris appears during the first half of the former's show and is free to leave by 6:15.
It then takes him about four minutes—via the parking lots which separate the studios—to reach the rear door of the NBC building. Thus, by 6:20, he is on his own stage performing the all-important task of "warming up" his audience. Next year will be different. Because of the heavy competition of the CBS Sunday night lineup, NBC is planning to switch Harris to Tuesday nights. There, his audience will be all set up for him—he'll follow Bob Hope and Fibber McGee and Molly.

If you’re wondering about the distance from NBC to CBS, check out this map.



Harris seems to have settled down to a family life in Palm Spring with Alice and the kids (he forsook a television show) when he and Bing Crosby (or whomever) weren’t armed with reels after elusive trout or British Columbia salmon. There was a time before that he, like Benny until his death, took to the road to put on some shows. In August 1940, he and his band appeared in Fort Worth, Galveston and Amarillo. At the time, he was appearing in a half-hour late-evening music show on the Texas Quality Network/Mutual Broadcasting System. Philsie was front page news in these towns. The paper in Lubbock even announced the time of his brief stop at the local Santa Fe station. This story is from the Galveston Daily News from Aug. 12, 1940.

Phil Harris Delights 15,000 With Concert
BY BOB NESBITT.
Phil Harris, fugitive from Jack Benny's Jell-O program and the nation's No. 1 band leader in the eyes of many Galvestonians made yesterday afternoon memorable on Galveston beach with another of his swing concerts which delighted possibly 18,000 people who gathered at the beachfront center around the Buccaneer Hotel and Murdoch's pavilion.
The personable, smooth-talking orchestra maestro was neatly attired in a tan coat, gray trousers, sport shoes and red socks, but he soon got around to shedding his coat and loosening his tie.
It wasn’t too hot, though, for the crowd, fortunately shaded by the tall, majestic Buccaneer, was cool.
But Harris who apparently had more fun than anyone else more fun than anybody else, chooses to lead his easy-to-listen-to hand by the jump and jive method rather by the less strenuous process of wielding a baton. That he should shed his coat soon was inevitable.
Not only that, but he had many of his audience swinging to his rhythms — moderately, of course — shortly.
Though booked as a swing concert for the enjoyment of alt who could crowd within ear's range of the canopied bandstand on the upper deck of Murdoch's, the occasion was actually Harris’ home-coming from the minute Mayor Brantly Harris (no relation to Phil) introduced the leader and his band to the crowd as “a man who is as much a part of Galveston as the sea breeze, the beach and the one-piece bathing suit.”
After experiencing difficulty edging himself to the microphone through the rows of closely arranged chairs on the bandstand, Galveston’s genial, portly chief executive presented the famous bandsman with a special card as Galveston's ambassador of goodwill.
The mayor set a record for himself by saying not a word about Galveston's pleasure pier plans, but this may have been just an oversight on his part.
Responding, Harris, who is now nationally known as comedian Jack Benny's irrespressible and ungrammatical stooge over the nation's airwaves on winter Sunday nights, said that he owes a lot to Galveston because it was here he got his real start to success about nine years ago and that it was in Galveston too that Jack Benny first called upon him to appear on the Jell-O program.
Starting with a tricky arrangement of "The Wolverine Blues," the Harris aggregation made the hour between 4:30 and 5:30 appear very short indeed. Aided by Ruth Robin, girl singer, and Harry Stevens, banjoist-singer from Georgia, Harris put on a fast-moving show.
Although his orchestra was at its best, Phil was even better. A smooth artist before the microphone, he seemed to enjoy himself thoroughly yesterday afternoon and the audience ate it up.
Best of all was Harris' presentation of several of the songs for which he is best-liked here. These included "My Galveston Gal," a nationwide hit in 1933, "That's What I Like About the South," and "Nobody."

Less than five week later, actress Marcia Ralston was granted a divorce from Harris, claiming he never took her anywhere and “embarrassed her” socially. His marriage to Alice Faye ticked away for more than 50 years until his death in 1995.

His departure from the Benny show in 1952 was under circumstances that may be considered cloudy because there were several explanations at the time. One was Harris now had an exclusive contract with NBC which covered television; Benny was on CBS. Another was radio was dying; the big sponsors moved their money into television and cut radio budgets, including salaries. Harris wouldn't talk about it at the time. Bob Crosby was brought in. He had a very low-key CBS television show. He was very low-key with Benny. Benny didn't need low key. He needed Phil Harris. His radio show was never quite the same.

Cartoon Commercials of 1960 and Ray Patin

Cartoon studios were already cutting back operations in the late 1940s. MGM and Warner Bros. closed units, Screen Gems was shut down altogether and Walter Lantz stopped production for a little over a year.

Meanwhile, television was growing, especially in New York and Los Angeles, and as stations signed on, advertisers jumped on board. One thing they found was they could get their message across using animation (they didn’t believe the hooey that cartoons were only for kids), so a number of the Golden Age animators set up their own studios, providing places of employment for former co-workers through the 1960s.

I love animated commercials of this era. Thousands were made but only a handful seem to be out there to view. Amid Amidi’s wonderful book Cartoon Modern examines the period.

Television Age magazine came out monthly and not only published news about the commercial houses (live action and animation) but provided frames from the spots. It’s a shame the issues available on line are low resolution so you can’t get a great view of what the artwork looked like, but here are some examples from the May 16, 1960 edition.


I won’t try to go through a dissertation about the companies mentioned above; all top-flight operations. Off the top of my head, Adrian Woolery of UPA was the man behind Playhouse, with Bill Melendez as one of the directors. Jack Heiter—who is still out there—was one of the people behind Pantomime. Pelican was one of the companies which put Jack Zander in charge of its animation. Earl Klein was behind Animation, Inc., but Irv Spence and Ed Barge were there, too. Abe Liss, formerly of UPA, started Elektra (it was responsible for the NBC “Living Color” Peacock animation). Ray Favata had designed spots for several studios, including Academy Pictures in New York. And Ray Patin had been a Disney striker.

Among the stories about commercials in this edition:

Two designers for Robert Lawrence Animation two weeks ago exhibited close to 50 of their paintings at the company’s studios, just to prove, apparently, that there’s no conflict between art and commercialism. Both men—Cliff Roberts and George Cannata—design animated tv commercials during working hours. Mr. Roberts, who holds five awards for designs of commercials and industrial films, is also a book illustrator, and he recently held a one-man show at Long Island University. Mr. Cannata has had his paintings exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art three times since 1955. He was cited for his designing of a Lestoil commercial at the International Advertising Film Festival at Cannes in 1959 and has also won numerous Art Directors Club awards.
Ray Patin Productions is producing a series of semi-abstract animated color spots for Hudepohl Beer (Stockton, West, Burckhart, Cincinnati). The spots, to be telecast in color, will be seen in regional broadcasts of the Cincinnati Redlegs baseball team.
The first annual International Animation Film Festival will be held in Annecey, France, from June 7 to 12.
Several appointments have been made by UPA Pictures, Inc. Jerry Hathcock has been named supervising director for all animation, Errol Gray has been appointed to the post of production supervisor, and Robert F. Kemper has been signed as mid-western representative for the company. Mr. Kemper, who will also continue to represent Jerry Fairbanks Productions, headquarters in Chicago.
A number of new series of Ford commercials, including one introducing the “Linus” character to television, is being prepared by Playhouse Pictures. In addition to the “Linus” spot for Falcon, they include two two-minute “Peanut” spots and two more “Shaggy Dog” commercials. All are in color. The agency is J. Walter Thompson, New York.
Format Films, formed by Herbert Klynn last year, now has more than 40 employes and is preparing to move into a new studio in Studio City. The company has just completed six more spots for Folger’s coffee (Fletcher, Richards, Calkins & Holden, San Francisco) utilizing a coffee-bean character.
Animation, Inc., is producing two more spots featuring a talking cow for the Michigan Milk Producers Association (Zimmer, Keller, & Calvert, Detroit). The first in the series won a Chicago Art Directors gold medal last year.

We’re going to make a left turn away from ‘50s commercials because I found some stuff on Ray Patin I want to pass along. The story below was published in the Lafayette, Louisiana Daily Advertiser of March 28, 1930. Patin and his parents had been in Los Angeles for 11 years at this point. He was working as a clerk at an car dealership.

Ray Patin, Former1y Of This City, Making Good Progress On The Road To Art Fame
Engaging in drawing as a side-line occupation for the present but intending to adopt it as his profession later, Ray Patin, formerly of Lafayette, now residing in Los Angeles, California, has already made considerable progress along the road that leads to fame in art.
Many Lafayette citizens will remember Mr. Patin as a boy. His father was at one time a local newspaperman.
“As much as I like art work I haven’t yet gone into it professionally,” Mr. Patin writes a friend here. “However, I am preparing myself, through night study, and all the spare time I can find, to some day make a big splash into it and bat s thousand per cent from the start. My greatest ambition is to become a strip artist, not of the ‘slap stick’ variety, but the ‘Big league’ type with drawings and stories of real value, educationally and entertainingly. However, it’s mighty hard to say just what type of art work I will fall into. It’s easy to say you’ll do a thing but still another proposition to ‘put out the stuff’ and prove you’re all that you boast of yourself. I’ll keep plugging though, and if ‘stick-to-it-iveness’ is the right road to success than I should stand some chance, as I have led to buckle down real seriously to the work that has always been my hobby.”
Born in Breaux Bridge, Mr. Patin, who is 24 years of age, spent eight years of his early childhood in Lafayette. The family then moved to the west, and eventualy [sic] located at Los Angeles.
“We like it out here an awful lot but we can never forget our old friends and my dear relatives in Lafayette and Louisiana,” Mr. Patin states.
The young artist received most of his training as a cartoonist on the staff of the paper published at the high school he attended In California, to which he contributed a cartoon weekly. Far [for] a while he also drew a weekly comic strip in the Junior Secetion [sic] of the Los Angeles Times but was forced to disctontinue [sic] this for lack a time. He was submitted to the Los Angeles Herald seven or eight cartoons, most of which have been accepted. One is reproduced on this page. He has also turned to more serious themes than cartoons, and has produced a series of etchings of southern California missions.
“I have always liked to draw,” the former Lafayette boy declares. “In fact, the desire to have a pencil in my hand and something to draw on put me into quite a few ‘pickles’ at school when friend found something else behind a geography book besides an inattentive pupil.”
Mr. Patin comes by his artistic talents naturally, for his father Maurice Patin, is well-known to many residents of this section as an able writer. and also skilled as an amateur artists. The father was for several years connected with the former Daily press here and later with the Lafayette Gazette which was purchased by the Daily Advertiser.

Patin’s first animation commercial on television appears to have aired on June 25, 1948, back when Los Angeles still had only two stations. The Times wrote:

A telecast over KTLA at 7:14 tonight by Security-First National Bank will probably be the first commercial television program sponsored by a bank, the Financial Republic Relations Association said today.
The program will be an animated film on checking accounts made by Ray Patin, former Disney artist, under the supervision of Foote, Cone and Belding.

The “program” would have aired during the Judy Splinters Show. Considering the air time and the fact an ad agency was overseeing it, as opposed to an industrial client, I presume it was a commercial.

While this was going on, Patin was drawing a daily strip for a group called the Artists Associated Syndicate. This appears to have been a joint venture of some animators—Gus Jekel (Patin’s designer), Gil Turner, Dick Moores, Fred Jones, “Mitchell” (ex Warners writer Dave Mitchell aka Milt Kahn?), Jerry Hathcock and “Bob Dalton” (Bob McKimson and Cal Dalton?) were among the artists; most, but not all, the small papers that picked up the strips were in California. This one is from Feb. 20, 1948.



Milford, by the way, was an animated character. Patin had him star in TV spots that ran in the early 50s during Industry on Parade on a station in Oklahoma City (whether Milford was on the KTLA commercial, I don’t know).

Patin also designed a character for a beer can. Ray Patin Productions animated commercials for the Rainier Brewing Co. that aired in the Pacific Northwest.

Work began drying up for animated commercial studios as the 1960s wore on. Clients switched to live action, which had become less expensive. Patin’s operation, which had been at 6650 Sunset Blvd., ended up at 3425 Cahuenga Blvd., almost across from Hanna-Barbera’s new brand-new studio. In 1967, 45 members of H-B’s commercial and industrial division moved to the other side of the street into the now-empty Patin building. When Patin Productions closed, I don’t know.

Patin died January 17, 1976 in Panorama City, age 69.

I was just about to put this post to bed, but have discovered Ray Patin's daughter Renee has a website. She's written an autobiography. You can check out her site at this link.

So Which One is the Peasant?

A wild ending of fox vs. ballerina duck greets viewers of the Walter Lantz classical musical The Poet & Peasant (1946).

The fox chokes the duck. The duck quickly turns things around and clobbers the fox. Look at the expressions.



Dick Lundy directed this cartoon and the pacing is a lot more frenetic than I'm used to in his work at Lantz.



These four frames are almost consecutive. The action’s fast and Lundy cuts further back in the final frame.



Finally, the duck blows the horn and rides the fox into the background.

Paul J. Smith and Les Kline receive screen credit for animation, but could this be anyone's scene but Emery Hawkins'?

Milt Schaffer and Bugs Hardaway get the story credit. Darrell Calker did a fine job with the music. There is no dialogue. Terry Lind is the background artist.

The short was nominated for an Oscar.

Killing Technology

Flip the Frog built a robot. Scrappy built a robot. Bosko built a robot. In all cases, they became uncontrollable monsters. Well, you wouldn’t have a cartoon plot if they didn’t.

In Bosko’s Mechanical Man, our hero desperately launches a small barrel of TNT at his metallic creation. That takes care of him. I like the greys in the explosion scene.



The end result.



There’s no post-script with Honey going “My hero!” and the robot chugging to life for a final indignity before the iris closes. It just ends with the scrap metal and a cuckoo bird. I guess Hugh Harman thought that was enough.

By the way, can someone answer this?



This, as any Bosko fan knows, is Bosko with his dog Bruno.



So what dog is this one, the one with the squeak-toy bark?

Friz Freleng and Tom McKimson are the credited artists on this short, released in 1933.

The Silent Film Star Who Was a Roaring Chicken

It is impossible to dislike Edward Everett Horton.

I am of the vintage where my exposure to him was as the wonderfully quirky narrator of the Fractured Fairy tales on Rocky and Bullwinkle. He enjoyed his words. He chuckled at his words. He groaned at his words. He was unique among narrators.

With age came exposure to those wonderful musical comedies of the 1930s—The Gay Divorcee, Top Hat, well, I needn’t go on. Despite all this—and his career starring in two-reelers in the silent days—he struck me as a man of the theatre. He just had that bearing.

Setting aside the Jay Ward-Bill Scott cartoons, Horton’s first regular television series was “F Troop”. To me, the series was too broad to be a good fit for him and he wasn’t on it very long.

You might be surprised to read about the television role he wanted to play but never got. Here’s syndicated columnist Margaret McManus in a feature that appeared in papers around September 19, 1965.

At 77, Horton’s TV ‘Rookie’
By MARGARET McMANUS
NEW YORK — The week past, and this week coming, the television screen is dancing with comparatively new names and unfamiliar faces. It is the time of beginnings.
Which new names and faces will come into fame and familiarity, everybody wishes they knew. They dare not even guess.
Among the unknown and the hopeful, and the already well established fixtures on television, a man stands tall and strong. He wears the buckskins and feathers and black wig of an Indian medicine man but no viewer could deny him. His face, his distinctive voice, his gestures, have been part of the entertainment scene for 57 years. Edward Everett Horton, at the age of 77, is going into his first television series. He will play Chief Roaring Chicken in ABC's Western spoof, “F Troop,” 9 p. m. Tuesdays, with Forrest Tucker as the star.
AT THIS beautiful age, Horton takes the pleasure of saying what he thinks. He is a witty man, enjoying the luxury of honesty. He no longer has to feint and dodge and reach for the diplomatic word.
"I don't watch much television, I mean, if you have the thing on, you have to get up from your comfortable chair to turn it off," he said. "A nuisance. But I'm going to watch “F Troop.” I'll watch if it kills me.
"There are two things about television I like. If I'm working with a good director and he is pleased with my performance that is satisfying. I don't need a big audience. All I really need is a mirror.
"The other thing is they pay you so well. There's no applause, but they keep asking you to come back for more money."
EDWARD EVERETT HORTON, who prefers to be called Edward to Eddie, is here in New York to appear in a revival of "Carousel," at the City Center.
At the end of the month, he will go on tour with the show until January. He has filmed five episodes of “F Troop,” and he hopes to get back to the coast on intermittent days to film more.
He looks forward to the tour. The days are often a terrible drag. He has trouble filling the time, but for him, the price is still right.
"I never tire of acting," he said. "I've never wished to do anything else. If you have your moment on the stage, and when the show is over, you step forward and take your bows, you can go back to the loneliest, dreariest hotel room, and you still feel the day has been worth something."
HORTON HAS another compensation while on the road. Over the years, he has built up his own stable of tennis pros. In whatever city he is, he has a tennis pro engaged to play with him at eight o'clock each morning.
"We play my rules," he said. "I call them the King of Sweden rules. They have very little to do with the game of tennis.
"I want absolutely nothing at the net; no backhands; and the ball has to come directly to me. I don't run.
"The object for the pro is to make it look as if I'm playing. That's in case anybody comes to watch. I like them to think the old boy is in there trying."
He said when his agent telephoned to ask him to make the pilot of “F Troop”, he at first refused.
"They didn't ask me to do the only series I ever wanted to do on television," he said. "I wanted the part of Vivian Vance's husband on ‘I Love Lucy,’ but I wasn't asked. I must say they seem to have done well enough without me. "However, my agent coaxed me a little and I agreed to do the pilot. Then I forgot all about it. I never dreamed it would get on the air, but I had some fun with it. It's an amusing part."
HORTON SAID his role in "Carousel," that of the star-keeper, is small but satisfying.
"Let me not pretend that I like having a small part," he said. "I'd much rather be carrying the entire responsibility of the show on my shoulders, but I'm not, and that's the way it is.
"One must be philosophical. I prefer to be working, than not to be working at all."
HORTON IS INCLINED to live in the past, to be sweetly nostalgic. He likes to remember back when, and he has theatrical anecdotes beyond number.
For instance, he recalls that on the first job he ever had, as a chorus boy in a light opera production on Staten Island, the boy in the line next to him was Wallace Beery and he remembers that Beery had the biggest hands and feet he had ever seen. He has no plans to write his memoirs.
"I've been on television for years, telling everything I know," he said. "There's nothing left to tell. This week I was on Today. They asked me to be on with Douglas Fairbanks to reminisce about his father. Well, we started out that way, but we ended up reminiscing about me."
THE PLAY MOST identified with Horton is, of course, "Springtime for Henry," which he played for more than 2,000 performances in New York, and in road companies. (He repeated it this Summer during his annual visit to Canal Fulton Summer Arena.)
The movie role he remembers most fondly was in "Lost Horizon," and one of his most favorite directors is Frank Capra, who directed that movie.
HORTON WAS BORN in Brooklyn, went to City College in Baltimore, where his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather were born, and attended Columbia University.
He never married, and for the past 30 years, he has lived in Van Nuys, in a 17-room southern colonial- house, furnished with English antiques.
Until her death a few years ago, Horton's mother made her home with him. He has two brothers, one a teacher, one a builder, and a sister, Mrs. J. D. Grant. His sister, now a widow, has moved into the Van Nuys house.
"I'm not sure she believes all my English antiques, but she accepts them," he said. "I made nine films in England during the thirties and I never brought any money home. I spent it all there. All somebody had to say was 'This was a table that belonged to Mary Queen of and I'd buy it.
"My friends know it's perfectly safe to buy antiques in England. I've already bought all the junk."
NOW THAT HE has himself a television series, Horton may be in the market for some more of the same kind of ‘junk.’ If only he can force himself to watch the show. It doesn't seem fair and square to him to be part of a series you don't watch.
There is a point, however, where he draws the line. He will absolutely not watch himself on old movies.
"If I see myself coming on the screen, I turn it off fast," he said.
"That's like reading old love letters. Either you're reminded of days you wish weren't over, or you're reminded of things you would rather not remember, like lousy notices. There's nothing to be gained.”
Doesn't sound like a man living absolutely in the past.

Horton continued to work in theatre. And television casting directors still wanted him, as we read in this Associated Press story of March 18, 1970.

Edward Everett Horton: 84 and ‘good another 20’
By GENE HANDSAKER
HOLLYWOOD (AP) — Edward Everett Horton is 84 today alert, vigorous and he says; “good another 20 years, easily.”
Retire? “Never. An actor retires only when there’s no further interest in his work. Fortunately, it seems, life begins at 84."
Brooklyn-born, the nearly 6-foot comedian with the jittery mannerisms and anxious face went on the stage 60 years ago. Since 1920 he has made more than 100 movies but has lost count of his plays.
There were more than 2,000 performances in “Springtime for Henry" alone.
Recently he guest-starred in episodes of television's “Nanny and the Professor” and “Love American Style.”
The honorary governor of the San Fernando Valley—so titled by its various chambers of commerce—received a reporter Tuesday for a pre-birthday interview in his 17-room, three-story home. It's the only house on block-long Edward Everett Horton Lane—named as a tribute from Los Angeles city officialdom two years ago.
Horton built the rambling house gradually as his screen career prospered. The furnishings are English antiques, some dating back to 1580, purchased during performing trips abroad. He sleeps in a four-poster on the top floor. A younger brother, George, a retired chemistry teacher, lives on two acres adjoining Horton’s two.
Horton lighted a fire in the massive fireplace of an enormous living room. His widowed younger sister Hannabelle, who shares the house, had prepared delicious chicken salad. Horton—lively of voice, big-beaked, his wrinkled face pink, hair a thick, silvery eruption poured white wine. The blue eyes twinkled with humor.
His birthday? Just about like other days, he said. “Up about 7:30, hop under the ice-cold shower, setting-up exercises on the porch, then a little breakfast." No party was planned.
Part of the day would be spent answering 212 birthday cards and letters “from people all over, who’ve seen me in pictures. But I never considered myself a movie actor. I’m a stage actor, happiest on the stage in a good play.” The state of today’s sometimes nude theater? :You’ve got to give the people what they want.”
Why had he never married?
“Hard to say. You become so mesmerized by work that the idea of socializing you rather resent. I had some lovely romances, but now I'm in a very comfortable rut.”

Well, in 1970 it was “hard to say” why he wasn’t married.

Horton, alas, didn’t live another 20 years or even live out the rest of 1970. He died on September 29th. It’s pretty safe to assume you can enjoy some of his old films—maybe even F Troop—on home video. Personally, I think I’ll pull out a disc and listen to him “Once Upon a Time” about Sleeping Beautyland.

Consistency? Who Needs It?

The sheer ineptness of the Van Beuren cartoons can provide you with unintentional laughs.

Here are examples from the Cubby Bear opus Love's Labor Won (1933). All cartoon studios had unmatching shots from scene to scene, but Van Beuren’s are a little jarring. These are two consecutive drawings as Manny Davis or Harry Bailey cuts from one scene to the next. They’re not even close.



After a bit of business with some escaping wolf dentures, there’s another cut. Again, the action isn’t even close.



I still like this cartoon. There’s a wiener dog used as a jump rope, a stuffed living room chair that begins singing, a creature with a top hat living in a snail’s shell that doubles as a tuba, some pretty good music courtesy of Gene Rodemich and his musicians (I wonder if he used his own orchestra?) and bulrushes that pretend to be the NBC chimes.

Poor Cubby got chucked out of the studio (along with Rodemich and a bunch of artists) a year later when Burt Gillett arrived from Disney and inflicted Toddle Tales on theatregoers.

Falling Meathead

Tex Avery got his gags across with economy. At MGM, he didn’t believe in excess dialogue and movement. Backgrounds were clean enough to see the characters (and the gags).

Here’s a scene from Screwball Squirrel (1944). All Screwy says is “Hands up!” The drawings tell the rest. Screwy is held; there’s no need for him to move. The background has no clutter. All the attention is on Meathead. When he’s out the picture, Screwy can go to from pose to pose to finish the gag.



Ed Love, Preston Blair and Ray Abrams are the animators, while Heck Allen worked with Avery on gags.

They Have To Be Real

Jack Benny’s radio show started in New York and migrated to Los Angeles only because major film companies signed up comedians to star in motion pictures.

Even after his film career dried up, Jack never had the temptation go back to New York permanently. It wasn’t just a case of he had settled down in Beverly Hills. He explained why to Orrin J. Dunlap of the New York Times. This column was published April 28, 1940.

Jack also dissects his radio show in this story, and explains why Eddie Anderson was never billed under his real name (for that matter, neither was Mary Livingstone, who finally accepted her character’s “Mary” as her legal name).

THE radio comedian has a license to go crazy, but basically his performance must be real; the audience must believe everything. That is Jack Benny’s evaluation of broadcasting. After the show is over it doesn’t matter whether listeners believe or not, but believe they must while the show is on.
Benny is a firm believer that the “early bird catches the worm.” He doesn’t like to work at night. That is the time for refreshment and sleep. Morning offers the most productive hours for work, he contends, whether writing a broadcast script or making a movie. He finds that in the morning the mind is fresh. At breakfast, therefore, is a good time to interview him, while he is in the East visiting on Manhattan Island.
* * *
How do you account for the success of your radio formula? he was asked.
First, he exp1ained, the formula provides that every performer becomes an established character with the audience. Every line must be written to fit each mouth. In this way every character in the broadcast becomes such a part of family life from coast to coast that the listener can sense what each one is about to say.
“I try to make my character encompass about everything that is wrong with everybody,” continued Benny. “On the air I have everybody’s faults. All listeners know some one or have a relative who is a tightwad, show-off or something of that sort. Then in their minds I become a real character. I don’t have to depend upon jokes. What I say from ordinary experiences In life sounds funny to the listeners because they experience the same things.
“We try to keep Mary as the little fresh dame who knows me well and is never afraid to say what she thinks. Phil Harris is a typical fresh guy found in every town, and for some reason or other people seem to love that type of fellow. Then, of course, we must have at least one nice character. That’s Don Wilson. And for the exact opposite of Phil Harris is the tenor Dennis Day, a very naive character. Rochester (Eddie Anderson) is the valet. I lead with my chin to get replies from him, but he knows I like him, and no matter what he says or does he knows I won’t fire him. Rochester is a good reader of scripts; he once played bits in vaudeville. He never tries to overdo, but he gets the laughs. Never is he supposed to be an actor or a part of the program. Always the audience thinks of him as my valet. That is why we never mention his name in the cast. The trick is to keep him in character.
“Andy Devine is a lovable, friendly character who comes in from the country, but he can appear only occasionally. And once in a while we cut Rochester out too, because, no matter how good an actor, it would be an error to use him in the broadcast if the script didn’t need him.
“What we really try to do is take the Amos ‘n’ Andy formula, ‘Easy Aces,’ or any good serial, make it broader and depend more on jokes. You can’t go wrong with that format; it’s a success. It is taken from life.”
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As soon as one broadcast is over the next program must be put together. Benny and his two writers, Bill Morrow and Ed Beloin, meet on Monday to discuss the approaching Sunday show. They may have a definite idea; they may not.
Then on Tuesday or Wednesday morning the three meet and write from 10 o’clock to noon. Thursday they go over it again. Friday they spend a couple of extra hours on it, and that evening or Saturday noon the entire cast assembles for the first reading of the script. The program is then rewritten from start to finish.
Sunday noon the script again is read by the cast. Parts of it are rewritten for a final polishing and at 2:30 a real rehearsal is held. At 4 o’clock (Hollywood time) the gong strikes and the show is on the air.
Immediately after the broadcast much of the script is rewritten; the gags that did not pay off are cut out of the repeat performance at 8:30 o’clock, Pacific Coast time. his revision also helps the actors; it gives them different lines to keep them keyed up and the show does not sound rehearsed or cut-and-dried.
While broadcasting from New York, Benny finds the pace is more hectic. He explains that people listen to the 7 o’clock show in New York and then come to the studio at 11:30 to see the performance. It is tough, he explains, to get the laughs from a studio audience that has heard the program earlier in the evening.
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“Why do you pay so much attention to the studio audience when your real audience is invisible?” the interviewer asked.
“Well, if we don’t get laughs from the studio audience, listeners think the show is no good,” said Benny. “The stronger the laughter, the better the show in the minds of listeners. I wouldn’t want to put on a comic show without a visible audience. It would sound dead, especially when a program depends upon jokes.
“It’s amazing to me how the youngsters understand the show. But I guess today kids are smarter, plus the fact that while our show is fairly sophisticated we keep the characters real, and have them do human things that all ages understand. We endeavor to make the program typically American, not Broadwayish or topical.
“That is why I wouldn’t want to go on the air from New York for a whole season,” continued Benny, as he lit up a fresh cigar. “We couldn’t be as rural or homey as we are in California. Out there we all feel that we are in a small town and can go places and do things as the people all do. It’s all right to come to New York for two or three weeks. But in the East we find ourselves acting like tourists. I’d never get a feeling for my Maxwell car or going to the country in New York.
“I like California as long as I know I can get back to New York when I feel like it!”