Jack Doesn't Do Dallas

It was the show Jack Benny never gave.

Jack had signed to perform in Dallas on October 19, 1974 to raise money for the Southwestern Medical School at the University of Texas. Instead, his only appearance was in a hospital.

Nostalgia and fun memories always seemed to be stirred up in the press whenever Benny was coming to town. The Dallas show was no different. The Star-Telegram of Fort “We’re Not Dallas” Worth had this reminiscence in Elston Brooks’ column of August 30, 1974.

JACK BENNY'S RETURN TRIGGERS OLD TALES
Jack Benny has been signed to return to Dallas Oct. 19 as the star of Neiman-Marcus’ Japanese Fortnight in the Fairmont Hotel.
And since Gisele MacKenzie, his co-star on a celebrated 1954 show over there, is currently in town, and so is Charlie Meeker, who produced that Dallas show 20 years ago, this seems like a good time to relate a funny story that concerned all three of them.
Meeker, who now runs Fort Worth's Charlie's Place, recalls he was producing the State Fair Musicals more than 20 years ago when he suddenly got the idea to star Benny in "The Seven Year Itch" over there.
"I phoned Jack and almost sold him on the idea of the role being a departure from the Benny image," Meeker said, "but Jack had misgivings about playing a show like that in the cavernous Music Hall.
"I'd phone him continually, thinking I was about to convince him but then he'd back away again. Finally, his agent phoned me one day and said, ‘Jack wants you to quit calling him. He just doesn't know how to tell you no.’ "
FERRER'S AID DOESN'T HELP
Meeker had one more inspiration. He phoned Benny again, saying, "Look, I know Jose Ferrer lives a couple of doors from you. Jose just finished playing the Hall. Phone him, and get his opinion."
Charlie phoned Ferrer and asked what he had told Benny. Ferrer reported he told Jack that the first time you step on that sprawling stage you're scared to death, really frightened. But, after 24 hours, you get used to it and things are fine.
It didn't work. Benny didn't sign. But, flashing forward, Meeker was able to entice Benny to the same hall in 1954 to do the show with Gisele and the Will Mastin Trio, which was Sammy Davis, Jr., his father and his uncle.
"I flew out to Jack's home to sign the contract," Meeker continued. "We were having breakfast in his Beverly Hills house, and I was prompted to ask him why he hadn't signed for that first show."
Meeker went into his Jack Benny voice to give Benny's reply:
"WELL it's this way, Charlie. I called Joe Ferrer and he said it was a frightening place, but you got used to it after 24 hours. But the more I thought about it, Charlie. I figured, why, with my money and at MY AGE, why should I be FRIGHTened for 24 hours?"
AND NOW ONE FROM THE 'BENNY-FIT'
Gisele laughed when she heard the story. "It's so like him," she said. "He's such a wonderful man."
"I've got a story that goes along with it," I volunteered.
Mine occurred in 1966 when Benny had come to Fort Worth as guest violinist with the Fort Worth Symphony. It was called a "Benny-Fit," and the $100 tickets were marked down to $99.95 The $3 seats were going for $2.99. Riding in with him from the airport, we talked about that 1954 show he had done in Dallas with Gisele and Sammy Davis Jr.
"You know what?” Benny asked me. "As big as he is now, Sam said he'd play the show again with me for the same dough."
"What did you tell him?" I asked.
"I said it wasn't quite fair. The last time I got his father and uncle, too!"

This column is about all the comedy from Benny the locals got. The Associated Press sent out a story on Oct. 19 saying “Benny was in his dressing room at the Fairmont Hotel when a hotel employe found him ‘in extreme pain.’ Three doctors from the audience advised him not to perform.” Because he was at a benefit for a medical school, the audience was filled with doctors.

A later dispatch from the wire service reported Jack was in his stateroom off the main stage at the hotel “complaining of numbness in his arms and hands,” and that an employee “gave him some ice and took him to his room. Thirty minutes later he was rushed to the hospital.”

The AP quoted someone at the hospital saying Jack was supposed to remain for a few days to determine what was wrong, but was instead flown to Los Angeles and admitted to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital that day.

United Press International noted conflicting opinions in one of its stories. “Benny was examined by two doctors at his hotel room and ordered hospitalized over his protests,” it reported. “They said he had suffered a mild stroke. However, doctors at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, where Benny was taken in a private car, said Benny was suffering from an unconfirmed illness, ‘definitely not a stroke.’”

Hundreds of newspapers in the U.S. picked up the story, some putting it on their front page. It wasn’t relegated to the entertainment section.

Jack walked out hospital on Thursday, and was greeted by reporters. He said he had spent Saturday in Dallas walking and felt fine, then had “a terrible stomach ache” before the show. He went on that he told doctors he “could talk and play the fiddle,” but they insisted he go to the emergency ward. He joked he hadn’t seen the hospital bill “but when I do, I’ll then ache.”

The AP quoted him that doctors kept examining him and couldn’t find anything wrong. He wrote it off as stomach trouble.

But it wasn’t. He had cancer of the pancreas. Doctors couldn’t find it. The pains came back. Almost two months later, Jack Benny was dead.

Plugging Cartoons

The best newspaper ads for cartoons in theatres way-back-when are the ones featuring drawings of the characters in them. Some of the artwork was supplied by the studios, in familiar poses in some cases. Others seem to have been traced (sometimes very poorly) by an artist working for the paper.

To the right you see an ad for a kids show with a number of cartoons; I’ve seen some ads promising 20 of them (Capitol Theatre, Hazelton, Pa., Dec. 1952). The “Lion and Mouse” cartoon was a 1943 Terrytoon. And the ad copy butchers the Woody Woodpecker short The Barber of Seville. (Note: It didn't dawn on me this was the 1944 Terry cartoon called The Butcher of Seville because I don't remember seeing it before. Thanks, S.P. for the info).

Here are a few more random ads. One theatre seems to be warning children it will be showing Good Night Elmer.



Here’s a neat piece of artwork from the December 6, 1941 edition of the “Showmen’s Trade Review.” It tried to help theatres along with suggested promotional gimmicks, things like displays, ad slogans and, in this case, newspaper ad layouts. They’re pretty attractive but I don’t believe I’ve seen these used in any newspapers. Andy Panda looks more like his dad in the drawing below. “Old Doc Layout,” writer of the article, is a pseudonym for Hank Harold.

Play Up the Fun-makers Who Star in Cartoons
These Layouts Prove It’s Practical and Profitable to Headline Short Subjects
For that "kid" appeal which should be an important consideration of every showman's show building as well as exploitation, there's no surer way to inject the necessary element in the newspaper ads than to give a "play" to cartoon characters you may be presenting in a short. Consequently, Old Doc is back with some more suggestions for layouts you will find practical from a standpoint of utilizing all your available space without handicapping the "punch" selling of your ad — which, of course, must always be your top feature's title, stars and catchlines.
You will note that the layouts below concentrate on the cartoon characters. You will also recall that every survey of reader-interest shows that cartoons have the ace pulling power of all elements editors can put into their newspaper pages. The comic strips top all in reader interest. If they can do that — you are hitching your wagon to a real star when you inject the likeness of some cartoon character in your ads. So try some of these suggestions.



Someone at MGM finally realised there was money to be made in Saturday matinee showings of cartoons, so it cobbled together a bunch of used shorts, connected them together and sent The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Festival to exchanges to be booked as one complete show.

There’s something different about seeing a cartoon on a theatre screen than on a computer or TV at home. The first time I saw Tex Avery’s Magical Maestro was in a theatre. The perspective of the magician’s rabbits jumping from the sides of the frame into the middle isn’t the same as watching it on home video; in the theatre, it caught me completely by surprise. And I think people laugh at cartoons more when they’re in a theatre with a group of people.

The days of a theatre programme with a feature, cartoon and newsreel are long gone. But there are still animation festivals here and there, screening cartoons old and new. So long as there’s an audience, and people interested in putting together a programme, cartoons will appear on the big screen.

Car Bites Car

Hugh Harman’s writers were no doubt sitting around, pondering. They had put Bosko in an auto race cartoon against a Pegleg Pete-style, cheating villain. It’s the climax scene. Bosko’s little car can’t get past the Champion’s. What to do? How is Bosko going to win the race?

The solution? Bosko’s putt-putt model develops a face and bites the villain’s car, which also develops a face, in the trunk.



The villain’s car leaps into the air in pain. Bosko’s car scoots under it for the win and Bosko is crowned Speed King.



Hmm. If this is a Bosko cartoon, there must be a piano somewhere, right?



Why, yes there is!

I can’t believe the only versions available on-line of some of these Bosko (and Buddy) cartoons are overly-pixilated ones that come from a poorly-tracked VHS recording of a TV cable channel. Granted, this isn’t a great cartoon, but Bosko deserves a lot better.

Frank Marsales’ soundtrack include Warren-Dubin’s “Young and Healthy,” the old Billy Murray favourite “In My Merry Oldsmobile,” and Mel Kaufman’s cat-drowning song “Me-Ow” that Carl Stalling was putting in Warners’ cartoon scores into the 1950s. Listen to a pie-anny version below.



Friz Freleng and Paul J. Smith are the credited animators.

I Can't Bear Those Eyes

One of the things Tex Avery seems to have wanted to accomplish with All This and Rabbit Stew was to pick up the pace from the Bugs Bunny-Elmer Fudd short A Wild Hare the earlier in the year. There’s a lot more running and chasing in this cartoon, though the short starts with the hunter shuffling and ends with Bugs wearing his clothes and imitating him.

Shuffle runs after Bugs into a darkened cave and, eventually, all you can see is eyes. He thinks he’s caught the rabbit and, judging by the eyes, starts shaking him. A third set of eyes appears and we hear the familiar “What’s cookin,’ Doc?”

\

Shuffle’s eyes look back and forth between the two other sets. A match is lit.



Now he can see what’s in the cave. A bear. Here’s the take.



The hunter turns into a red ball of flame and zooms out of the cave and into a hole.



One of the stations around here which aired the AAP Warners cartoon package in the morning and afternoon over and over for years used to air this one. I found the hunter dull and his voice annoying. I preferred Elmer Fudd. In fact, Bob Clampett re-used the log/cliff gag from this short (and re-worked the drawings) with Fudd a few years later in The Big Snooze.

Virgil Ross gets the rotating animation credit, while Dave Monahan’s name appears on screen next to “story.”

It's the Metaphors

Fibber McGee and Molly had a wonderful run on radio for over 20 years, though the show was slowly dismantled as the 1950s wore on and the big money of sponsorships moved into television. NBC turned it from a half-hour weekly sitcom into a 15-minute daily semi-serial, with no studio audience, no orchestra, no Harlow Wilcox (he was replaced with John Wald) and a limited number of secondary players. Eventually, it was turned into a short and pretty lifeless dialogue segment on Monitor.

Writer Don Quinn was long gone by this point. Quinn was praised in the press through the 1940s (and the following decade for his work on Ronald and Benita Colman’s radio series, The Halls of Ivy). Critic John Crosby felt the writing was the reason for the success of Fibber, though in the column below from December 11, 1946, he doesn’t find room to mention Quinn.

RADIO IN REVIEW
by JOHN CROSBY
79 Wistful Vista
The task of saying anything coherent about Fibber McGee and Molly is made extremely difficult by the fact that millions of people know them even more intimately than their own relatives and are as familiar with the goings-on at 79 Wistful Vista as they are with the gossip at the local cake sale. In fact. Fibber and Molly's great contribution to the listener is another set of neighbors to add to the ones they already have.
About the only things different in the Fibber and Molly show this year are the metaphors, which are as weird and unlikely as ever, and Fibber's own brand of home-grown insult. "You smell like a fracture ward and you have the manners of a Zulu," he says to Doc Gamble. Fibber has been insulting the Doc for a great many years and this is only the 1946 variant.
He has lots of other variants including "bandage bandit," "medical misfit" and "witch doctor," and the good doctor refers to him variously as "bean brain," "droop snoop," "limber lip" and "parrot face."
"A curt nod of dim recognition to you, you low bucket," the Doc is likely to greet him.
"Listen, you bandage bandit," Fibber will reply, "you're just a human telephone extension with a bag of benzedrine attached. As a psychoanalyst you'd make a good cottontail moccasin."
He doesn't reserve this patter entirely for Doc Gamble. His other old friend, Mayor La Trivia, gets his share, too, and gives as good as he gets. "How are things down at City Hall, La Trivia?" Fibber will inquire. "You stealing much? You're as well groomed as an alley cat and smell like a livery stable and have the manners of an underprivileged water buffalo. Yow family tree is such a slippery elm you couldn't hang a horsethief on it."
All those metaphors sound a little strained in print The McGees get away with it on the air only because they take a lusty delight in kidding themselves. Even Molly, a much cooler head than her husband, delights in the far-fetched metaphor.
"You get in more jams than an ant at a picnic," she says. She refers to her own dear friends as "that little group of public enemies I play bridge with."
The McGees can also get by with, in fact, go out of their way to indulge in, some of the corniest jokes on the air. "The fellow who tried to sell me a Doberman turned out to be a Pinscher himself," cracks Fibber.
" ‘Taint funny, McGee," says Molly, and laughs at it anyhow. That's the secret of it all. It may not be funny but it's extraordinarily human.
“Aren't you Fibber and Mrs. McGee?” asks a floorwalker at the Bon Ton Department Store.
“No, I'm Mr. Molotov and this is Catherine of Russia. We're shopping for an iron curtain,” replies Fibber.
People still pop in and out of 79 Wistful Vista like fleas at a dog show (now he's got me doing it) and some of the faces are reasonably new. There's a beauty parlor operator who speaks pure Brooklynese:
“When she came in she was the spittin' image of General Grant but we took years off her age. When she left she looked just like General Eisenhower.”
And, of course, there's always Mr. Wimple, a sort of Cal Coolidge with a dash of Titus Moody. "How's your wife?" Fibber inquired of him the other day.
"I've never seen her in better shape. She's been in bed for a month."
"Touch of flu?"
"No, touch of a truck."
Then there's Marian (Molly) Jordan's characterization of an extremely literal little girl whose humor is extremely hard to put into print. Her father, she said, won a turkey in a wrassle, and it turns out that's just how he won it.
Don't bother your heads about the plot. There isn't much. Currently, most of the jokes revolve around Mayor La Trivia and Doc Gamble's pursuit of a toothsome babe named Fifi Tremaine, who never appears. This can go on indefinitely and probably will just as Fibber will forever be remarking:
"Where's that muffler? Oh yes, right here in the hall closet."
"No, no, McGee! I haven't had a chance to" . . . . . . . .
But I guess everyone knows what happens then.



The other Crosby columns for the week:
December 9, 1946: Bill Paley at CBS waves the flag as he responds to radio’s critics.
December 10, 1946: “The Falcon” and “Big Town.”
December 12, 1946: Mutual’s “Exploring the Unknown” and “Crimes of Carelessness.”
December 13, 1946: Moss Hart takes on the New York Daily News’ John Chapman on “Broadway Talks Back,” a local New York radio show.
Click on each column below to read them. (The artwork in this post accompanied the Crosby columns in the Los Angeles Daily News).

You've Been Canned

Porky Pig has no hair, but that doesn’t stop a wimpy Indian from trying to scalp him in Nothing But the Tooth (1948).

The two are in a river. Director Art Davis cuts twice to a predictable gag.



Cut to a waterfall (background by Phil De Guard).



Over they go.



Now Davis cuts to the oddest gag in the whole picture. Salmon are swimming up the falls on their way back to the spawning grounds. Porky and the Indian copy them. Why? It’s a cartoon, don’t ask.



The Indian is caught along with some salmon. Off to the cannery. Carl Stalling, surprisingly, writes his own music as the machinery chugs away; Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse” is not to be heard.



The cartoon, unfortunately, has a weak ending, like something from an early ‘60s Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Porky chases the Indian into the distance. That’s it? The cartoon has been pretty much one long chase to begin with.

Dave Monahan gets a story credit. Davis had Bill Melendez, Don Williams, John Carey and Basil Davidovich as his animators.

Familiar Dialogue, Isn't It?

We’re set up for a familiar Warner Bros. gag in Sports Chumpions (1941).

A group of cyclists circle around and around the track over and over as Carl Stalling repeats the same two bars of music for 17 seconds.



The cyclists then stop, turn to the audience and say “Monotonous, isn’t it?” They then resume their endless cycle.



The same line can be heard from a mouse Wacky Wild Life (Avery, 1940) and the sphinx Crazy Cruise (Avery/Clampett, 1942). As far as I know, the “Isn’t it?” gag originated on radio with Jerry Colonna.

Mike Maltese is the credited writer in the Friz Freleng attempt to channel Tex Avery. And, say, is that rotoscoping I see? Is it? Is it? Hmmmm....could be!

An Old, New Network For Jack

It was a callous firing. At least, the way it’s revealed in Bob Metz’s “CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye” (Playboy Press, 1975).

Jack Benny was, for all intents and purposes, grabbed by the network’s Bill Paley from NBC radio to move his show to CBS at the start of 1949. Benny slid into television and kept right on going.

That is, until 1964. CBS now had a president by the name of Jim Aubrey, who, as Metz put it, “seemed to relish telling stars they were washed up.” He went on: “When Aubrey kissed off Jack Benny, one of America’s all-time favorite entertainers, he did it with an emotionless ‘You’re through.’ This saddened Paley, but he couldn’t dispute Benny’s waning popularity. For if Paley had wanted Benny to stay, he certainly could have intervened.”

Paley put it this way in his autobiography, “As It Happened,” “I think Jack was hurt when CBS did not renew his contract in 1964, but he never said anything about it to me. One of the very sad things about all entertainment stars is that like athletes every one of them knows his or her career must end someday; but when that day arrives, it is very hard to accept the inevitable.”

A biography by manager Irving Fein puts it this way: “Our contract with CBS had only one more year to run, and they had an option to renew but had to do it a year in advance. Before the season started, we sent them a wire reminding them that the option time was coming up and we wanted a yes or no answer by September 1, the date called for in the contract. They wanted to wait until the season started and the ratings were in, but after consultation with MCA, owners of our company, we decided to stand firm, and as soon as the option had expired, we signed a one-year contract with NBC for the 1964-65 season.”

The impression Fein leaves—and so did the print media at the time—was it was Jack’s decision not to renew with CBS and jump to NBC.

Here’s a version along those lines as reported by syndicated columnist Margaret McManus, who wrote a number of feature stories on Jack. We’ve reprinted some from 1955, 1957 (two), 1958, 1959, 1960 and 1969. This one is from October 10, 1964; Benny’s season premiere had been on September 25th. Jack’s lead-in was Jack, at least partly. He appeared on a Bob Hope special. Following him was the man he had NBC put on their radio network as a summer replacement—Jack Paar.

It’s interesting McManus writes Jack “remembers the date” of his first NBC show. He didn’t. It was actually May 2, 1932.

Indestructible
Jack Benny Just Likes Good Shows
By MARGARET McMANUS
Fifteen years ago Jack Benny was the first of the big radio stars to leave NBC for CBS. He led the way. He started a parade, and CBS, then an inconsequential baby in the broadcasting field, took that parade and turned it into a rivalry which has kept NBC quivering on its toes ever since.
This season Jack Benny has returned to NBC TV (9:30 PM Fridays), though reruns of his show are on CBS-TV at 5 PM Sundays.
It has been 32 years since his first NBC radio show. Jack remembers the date easily, May 10, 1932. Whether or not he will start another parade in the opposite direction remains to be seen.
BENNY, AT the age of 70, looks closer to 50. He has had all the success a man could ask for, and he has the fame and the money to prove it. From his movies, his personal appearances, the reruns of his television shows, there is scarcely a country in the world where his face is unfamiliar.
He owns all the baubles of extreme success, a Rolls Royce, a house in Beverly Hills, a house in Palm Springs, a Stradivarius violin, if you could call such a treasure a bauble. The gray tweed in his sports jacket is fine and soft, and the blue of his shirt and tie do indeed make his blue eyes bluer.
IN SPITE of his treasure, Jack Benny is still vulnerable. He is very human. How he feels toward CBS is his own secret, but anybody can make a guess. He spent 15 years there and he made an enormous contribution to their growth. CBS, of course, could well say the network much for Benny.
However when his contract was running out last season, nobody rushed in to persuade him to stay. When NBC came up quickly with a good deal, Benny accepted it, just as quickly.
He is philosophical.
“A change is good,” he said. “My show won’t be changed that much. I have the same people with me—Don Wilson, Dennis Day, the same writers. But it’s a whole new environment and that’s good. They take you for granted when you’ve been around too long. I’m very happy the way things worked out.”
AT LUNCH in the Oak of the Plaza in New York, Benny ate his scrambled eggs and sausages and tried to be impervious to the four women lunching at the next table who made no attempt to hide their piercing stares nor their audible comments.
“I don’t mind it," he said. “I have a lot of friends who claim to hate being recognized, but after all these years I’d be a little frightened if I went somewhere and nobody recognized me.
“Have you heard the wonderful story Bob Hope tells about going to Russia and sitting down at this impressive state dinner and he's trying to make conversation with the lady on his right and suddenly she said to him, ‘Mr. Hope did you bring your violin?’”
Benny, with the reputation as the comedian who is the best audience for other comedians, doesn’t actually laugh. He smiles broadly and chuckles. When he’s telling another comedian’s story, he always gives a credit line. He ordered coffee, very hot, and this reminded him of a line of his closest friend, George Burns.
“George Burns once said to a writer in Lindy’s. ‘I want coffee so hot that if you can carry it in, I don’t want it.’” Benny smiled very broadly. He got his coffee scalding hot.
JACK AND his wife, Mary Livingston, live in Beverly Hills, next door to Lucille Ball and her husband, Gary Morton. They're all good friends, Jack and Morton play golf together, Jack and Lucy guest on the other’s television show on opposing networks.
Benny said when he Mary recently bought Tom May house, which is a real show place in Palm Springs Mary said to Lucy:
“Can you imagine, Lucy, I used to sell hosiery in the May Company and now Jack and I own the house of the man who owns the May Company.”
And Lucy said:
“Whaddya mean honey, can I imagine? I used to be an extra at RKO and now I own the whole studio.”
A COUPLE of weeks, Jack Benny, born Benny Kubelsky, went back to his home town of Waukegan, Ill., to give a violin concert with the Milwaukee Symphony to raise money for a local music center. The concert was in the auditorium of a new modem school, West Campus High. Benny went to Central High for just one year.
Although he has raised $3,500,000 for various musicians’ charity funds across the country, this was the first time he gave a benefit concert in his home town.”
“I can’t say I feel any nostalgia about Waukegan,” he said. “It’s a part of me. You never completely get over your home town. Sometimes when I go back, I like to take a look at one house where we lived. Sometimes I walk past the spot where my father had a little clothing store, but it’s all so long ago. I have no family there. I have just one sister and she lives in Chicago.”
JACK BENNY continues to take great pride, meticulous care, and pleasure in his work. It is as much a part of him as Waukegan. It is both a compulsion and habit. His real joy, however, is in playing the violin and in the benefit concerts he gives with symphony orchestras around the country. He has already willed his Stradivarius and another fine violin he owns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
“Once in a while I think if anything ever happened to these two fingers and I couldn’t play the violin, everything else, television, everything, would go down the drain. Isn’t that crazy, for me to think such a thing?”
One of the highlights of Benny’s visit to New York was hearing Jascha Heifetz. Among the distinguished musicians, one of his closest friends in Isaac Stern, the master violinist. His friends run the scale. They do not run to type or profession. He enjoys them all, musicians, comedians, writers, politicians, golfers.
Golf is second to the violin as a relaxation to Benny and he likes very much to go out and play nine holes all by himself.
"I bought a cart but the caddy rides in it more than I do,” he said. “I just use it for a couple of steep hills.”
“I don’t worry about ratings,” Benny said. “I worry about shows, good ideas for shows. The scripts are easier if the idea is good.
“After 30 years you worry less. They can't throw me out now. It’s too late.”

In a way, they did throw him out. Jim Aubrey counter-programmed the Benny show with Gomer Pyle, USMC, which turned out to be the ratings winner. NBC cancelled Benny after one season. But Jack was still popular enough for a solo sponsor to bear the expense of paying for a Benny special. Occasional television seemed to suit him just fine. It gave him more time to play benefits with symphony orchestras, his real love now.

Another “Farewell Special” was in production when Benny died in December 1974. CBS broadcast its own farewell tribute three days later. Jim Aubrey, disgraced and fired, was long gone.

Making Mutt and Jeff

Mutt and Jeff had staying power.

They were in the newspapers for more than 75 years, another comic strip that outlived its creator. There was a stage play on Broadway. And the term “Mutt and Jeff” became a popular way of describing men that were complete opposites, especially in size.

There were several animated incarnations of the duo in the silent film era. Bob Coar had a fine summary in this post on Cartoon Research so I won’t rehash it. They were well-known enough that some of the silents were re-traced, colour and a soundtrack added, and appeared on TV into the 1960s.

The Boston Globe took up about 2/3rds of a page in its Sunday paper of June 4, 1922 to describe how the cartoons were made. Manny Davis, later of Terrytoons, is quoted. The Bud Fisher studio at the time was near Fordham University and the head animator was Burt Gillett, later with Walt Disney.

ANOTHER INSIDE STORY OF FAMOUS MOVIE STARS—MUTT AND JEFF
Globe Reporter Sees How Famous Fisher Comedians Are "Animated" For Filmland
By MARJORY ADAMS
NEW YORK, June 2—They are among the best-known motion-picture actors in the world. They work every week with only a few days' vacation throughout the year. hey do stunts that would make Larry Semon and Douglas Fairbanks and Tom Mix break their contracts and turn to selling shoestrings or giving Chautauqua lectures. Yet they never receive a cent of salary.
Mutt and Jeff, the Bud Fisher comedians, who amuse the world in weekly animated motion pictures, are among the hardest worked of all motion picture stars. They bob up cheerfully every week, however, and so far have never struck for higher wages or less work.
Famosu Golbe Twins [sic]
Is there any one so benighted, so steeped in ignorance, that he never heard of Mutt and Jeff, the famous Globe twins?
The Long and Short of It—that is what they are called by thousands of Globe readers. Millions more know their misadventuires [sic] on the screen. Who hasn't wept tears of sympathy for poor little Jeff, and rejoiced when Mutt got hit with a custard pie or the hoof of a mule. Jeff generally gets the worst of it, but sometimes Mutt loses out, and then there is rejoicing indeed on the part of the Mutt and Jeff "fans." Sometimes they both get "stung," but the next day they are furnishing entertainment for the multitude, just as cheerfully as ever.
There are few persons in the world quite as important as Mutt and Jeff. That is why a Globe reporter was sent all the way to Fordham, to interview the two famous comedians. She found them very much at home in a studio of their own.
The Setting
It is a treat to visit the Mutt and Jeff studio. Very few visitors are allowed in the busy place. One walks up a flight of stairs and straight into a big room that looks like a newspaper office or a pleasant factory.
Every one is bent over his desk, very busy (where do they have newspaper office like that, Marjory?) with no time for amusement.
In the big room all the drawing and other work is done, with the exception of the photographing. The camera is placed in a smaller room in fact, there were two cameras in the photographic room.
An office for the officials of the company, which is also used for a projection room, and Bud Fisher's own private office completes the Mutt and Jeff studio.
They Work for Fun of It
"The set for the first scene calls for a circus ring surrounded by several hundred spectators."
When the ordinary motion picture director in Hollywood or Long Island reads this specification he tears his hair and then orders the chief property man to dig up a circus and $2000 worth of "extras" and some trick acrobats and a dozen other props. "It is going to be an expensive picture," he mourns.
There isn't the faintest bit of mourning in the Bud Fisher studies at Fordham, however, when Joseph Pincus, studio manager, or Burton F. Gillett, chief animator, reads such a specification in the first scene. Before the morning is half over one of the studio "animators" brings in such a set, all nicely drawn in pen and ink, with as many extras as are needed. A few more or less make no difference in the cost. "Extras" work for nothing in the Fordham studios, just the way the stars do. Elaborate sets don't cost any more than do hovels and Mutt and Jeff don't care whether they do their stunts in a palace or in a carpet tack factory. It is all in the day's work and a scene at Monte Carlo costs the producers no more than the salary of the animator who draws it. But there are other troubles which the ordinary motion picture director doesn't know a thing about.
But They're Temperamental
The Mutt and Jeff animated cartoon pictures started in as a novelty, but now are a real business and are used in competition against regular motion picture comedies. They must be as perfect as a real comedy, yet they require endless care and a tedious, exacting attention to detail. "Mutt and Jeff are as temperamental as any actors you ever saw," said Emmanuel Davis, assistant director and animator, "and sometimes when you think they are going to be very good in a picture they turn out to be very bad indeed, and we have to scrap the film. It all depends on the animator."
The Globe reporter found that even in New York it is believed that Bud Fisher himself draws all these cartoon-pictures. If Mr. Fisher spent every minute of the 24 hours a day for seven days he would be unable to make one film. It takes 10 animators, and 20 more planners, tracers, cleansers and other persons to finish one 500-foot picture in five and a half days. These 30 people work at top speed in order to finish the film. And between 3000 and 4000 are required for every photoplay.



Scene I
In the first place a real scenario is written. The senario [sic] is based on Bud Fisher's actual cartoons, only it is more elaborate and with more detail and action. Last week the studio director had just completed a new photoplay, "Falls Ahead," a burlesque on the rescue scene of "Way Down East." Here is the way the first scene was plotted out.

"Scene 1. Exterior of Mutt and Jeff's blacksmith shop. Mutt and Jeff with blacksmith apron on. Old man with a mule says, 'Look out for him. He swings a wicked Mutt and Jeff take mule inside."

There are between 10 and 14 scenes in the scenario. But the first scene took just two days to complete. The other scenes weren't so difficult. The animators are the high-paid members of the staff and they do what Bud Fisher would do if he were the sole member of the drawing staff. These men draw the pictures on a transparent drawing board. They work over electric lights, as every line is important and must be drawn exactly in place. Every drawing is done on paper punched with two holes. The paper fits over two little pegs and thus there is no chance of anything going awry.
Sets, and Cells and Such
The animators don’t draw every picture completely. Far from it. Otherwise it would take much longer than a week to complete a 500-foot reel. The "set," or part that doesn't move, is first transferred to celluloid. The circus ring, for instance, with the hundreds of cheering people, was transferred at once from the drawing on paper to a sheet of celluloid just the same size, with the same two little holes punched at the top to keep the sheet in place. This set doesn't change for several pictures.
In the case of a recent picture showing a circus scene, three celluloid sets were made. In one scene the people were sitting apathetic, in another they were beginning to cheer, in the third they were cheering madly.
These were used with more than 25 drawings representing Mutt and Jeff doing a stunt in the middle of the circus ring. Then the celluloid sets were placed over each separate drawing of Mutt and Jeff, thus completing the picture and making it ready to be photographed by the motion picture camera.
The first set, showing the audience apathetic and not much interested, was used with the first five or six pictures of Mutt and Jeff doing their riding stunt. Then the next "cell" (in studio parlance) was placed over the next drawings—maybe for 10 or more times.
The final "cell," showing the people cheering madly and throwing their hats in the air, was placed over the last scenes in which Mutt and Jen conclude their involuntary stunt of riding on a goat. These "cells" save endless drawing and tracing and make the Mutt and Jeff cartoons possible.
Making Mutt Talk
Not only are the “sets” drawn in on celluloid, but also the parts of the picture that remain stationary for any length of time. Suppose Mutt is haranguing Jeff. Perhaps the only part of Jeff's figure that moves is his mouth, as it drops and drops while listening to Mutt's talk. Jeff's figure is drawn in with the mouth lacking. The figure is then transferred to celluloid, and the different drawings done by the animator are only that portion of the mouth which moves. The "cell" is then fitted over the drawings of the mouth and the picture is complete. When it is photographed it looks the same as if each separate picture had been drawn in completely and not just in part. The same “cell” is used for as many pictures as possible.
These “cells,” or celluloids, are used over each drawing. Sometimes one or more are perfectly blank—sometimes each one of them has drawings and parts of drawings on them. But it is necessary to use the three "cells" to give "tone to the picture."
Flip Flipped
When the animators complete the 3000 drawings and partial drawings, then the pictures are "flipped" by the director to see that the action is continuous and nothing Is lacking. The pictures then go to the planners. The planners are the people who plan the rest of the mechanical work. Much of the work is purely tracing, and the animators don't do that.
They are paid for being able to make the little figures of Mutt and Jeff “real”; the tracers are those who trace certain parts of the animators' work and leave out or put in lines that are necessary to the action.
One set, for instance, showed Mutt and Jeff being driven in state to a palace. In some of the scenes a certain line was necessary, in others the figures of Mutt and Jeff interfered with it. The tracers traced from the original set the same scene, but left out as much of the line as was necessary. Both "sets" were on celluloid and when the figures interfered with the line on the first set then the second celluloid set was used in photographing.
When the tracers get through with their work the rest is purely mechanical. The cleaners removed smudges and lines, the blackeners "black in" the necessary parts.
Ha! . . . the Exposer
"There isn't any way of getting these figures blackened in except by doing it by hand," said Mr Gillett. After the figures are blackened then the pictures are "matched up" and numbered to make sure that they will go before the camera exactly right.
In real movies people can move fast or slow. When Mutt and Jeff motion pictures are made each picture is taken separately and therefore the action has to be timed. The average motion picture camera takes 16 pictures a second. Thus the Mutt and Jeff producers attempt to "time" their pictures so that 16 exposures will be run through on the camera in one second.
The "exposer" is a very necessary person in the Bud Fisher studios at Fordham. He figures out how many times each picture should be exposed. Each exposure means one pressure of the button, which takes a picture. The Mutt and Jeff cartoons are not taken on the ordinary motion picture camera which a crank is used, but on a special camera in which a pressure of the button means that one picture is taken. Sometimes the same picture is exposed three times, sometimes twice, sometimes more times. The "exposer" figures it all out and then makes out a chart which looks like a problem in calculus and tells the photographer exactly what to do. It tells him which "cells" to use for every picture, and how many times to "click the button," before he changes the "cells" or the drawings. It looks very complicated, but the photographer is evidently quite used to it.
Mutt and Jeff Framed!
The camera which is used in the studio is clamped firmly into place. The pictures are placed on the table, with the holes of the "cells" and the drawings holding them in place so there is no chance of their moving. They are brightly lighted from beneath and above. The photographer clicks the camera and removes and replaces drawings and celluloids as calmly and as mechanically as if he were making buttonholes in an overall factory. No romance here—it's all plain hard work.
After the picture is completed it is tried out in the private office where a curtain and small projecting machine occupy prominent positions. Then comes the "cutting." In some cases only one little picture or "frame," as they call it, is removed. In regular motion picture one "frame" is never removed, it's always cut by the number of feet. But "Mutt and Jeff" cartoons are made by so tedious a process and so much detail is necessary in producing them that it is not strange that the same accuracy an detail is used in the cutting.
Marjory Sees Show for Nothing
The Globe reporter was given a special showing of Mutt and Jeff cartoon-pictures in the office of the manager. Some scenes that looked very simple were said to be very difficult and required days to complete while the very spectacular scene in which some falls that l[o]oked as impressive as Niagara and roared and splashed most realistically were said to have been made with only three drawings, changed every exposure.
"We don't know what we've got until we see the completed picture," said Mr Pincus. "Perhaps we have a fine story and everything seems wonderful. Yet we really can't tell until it’s all done. We write the scenarios from Mr Fisher's cartoons. Mr. Davis, Mr Gillett and myself are the scenario writers and directors as well. But the finished picture is the only proof we have that our ideas were good. A clever animator, however, can make even a bad idea very funny."
Mr. Pincus also explained the more technical points in making three and four different "actions" on the screen at once. It was interesting but it would take an expert photographer to follow the various processes. He showed several sample pictures, in which the number of drawings necessary for as action were illustrated. It took eight drawings for a man to open a door, and three different celluloids, for instance.
Made ln Three Rooms
The Mutt and Jeff movie cartoons were first made five years ago. They are made in three rooms in a small studio in Fordham, right near the Fordham Elevated station. Fordham University is across the square.
The pictures were first made as a novelty, and now are used often in place of regular comedies. Although the studio has been at Fordham for five years, the producers will soon move to New York city itself, to be closer to the Fox Films Corporation, with which the company is affiliated.
"It's the only studio in the world where there are no extra lists, casting directors or stages," said Mr. Pincus.