Did Someone Put a Curse on the Columbia Cartoon Studio?

We at the Tralfaz blog sometimes watch cartoons so you don’t have to.

Today, we have, with mouth wide open in astonishment over how bad it is, sat through yet another six-minute waste of time from Columbia/Screen Gems, a black-and-white “Phantasy” from 1944 called As the Fly Flies.

Narrator John McLeish needed someone like Chuck Jones to keep him under control (as in The Dover Boys (1942). At Columbia, he must have thought the more over-the-top you are, the funnier it is. His wild overacting is unnecessary and irritating.

Ed Seward’s story is a zero. The main character, Professor Puzzlewitz, for no discernable reason, hides, rides a unicycle, wears a Napoleon hat, and looks through a pipe like a periscope because, well, I guess Ed Seward thought it was funny.

The professor shows off his invention. It’s a house that kills houseflies. He explains a Rube Goldberg contraption, where a phoney female fly lures its victim through a door. That results in a match lighting a wheel of fireworks, which sets off an ancient gun, where its bullet (more like a ball) is shot around inside a French horn and lands on a button, which activates a conveyer belt that moves the house and smashes it.



The cartoon is half over. Having spent all this time setting up this machine, it doesn’t figure into the story. Instead, Puzzlewitz spends the rest of the cartoon shooting at a fly with his blunderbuss (because they look funny!). He aims at machinery. Could the end result be telegraphed more? We all know what’s going to happen.

His “palatial estate” (which looks like an observatory) destroyed, Puzzlewitz crazily yells he’s killed the fly. Cut to the fly, very much alive. Why did he think it was dead? Wait. I’m expecting a Columbia cartoon to make sense?

Howard Swift directed this mess. Grant Simmons is the credited animator, who went on to work on to work with Tex Avery (talk about outhouse-to-penthouse). Puzzlewitz sounds like a Harry Lang voice but this cartoon has left me so unmotivated, I won’t go through Keith Scott’s book to check.

Eventually, Columbia put some good cartoons on the big screen. They were made elsewhere and starred Mr. Magoo.

Not Quite a Candlelight Dinner

Tom was one of the great pantomime cartoon characters of all time. The expressions the crew of animators gave him (and Jerry) over top of Scott Bradley’s scores is what made them shine on the screen.

Here’s an example from The Mouse Comes to Dinner, released in 1945. Jerry sets up the situation.



Check out Tom’s varied expressions.



Huh?? He’s seen something and turns to check it out.



He realises. There’s an eight-frame (half-second) stare at the camera as the flames rage, just long enough to register with the audience. Then the reaction (some random frames).



If you’re looking for a logical story in this one, forget it. The maid sets out a full dinner, then disappears. She’s gone so long, Tom has time to call a girl over to join him to eat it. But where are the dinner guests? Who leaves a dinner sitting on a table that long to get cold? Why doesn’t she hear the noise Tom and Jerry are making (like she does in other cartoons)?

Oh, well. The cartoon exists so Tom and Jerry can show off their range of expressions (and the cat can get beat up), and Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera’s animators were able to draw excellent ones for a good many years.

Pete Burness is part of the H-B unit on this short, with Ken Muse, Ray Patterson and Irv Spence.

I Wanna Be On a Game Show

If you watch game shows from TV’s black-and-white time, you’ll notice contestants are pleasant but without an awful lot of personality; even Let’s Make a Deal started out reasonably sedate.

There was a reason for it.

The Quiz Show Scandal of the ‘50s was a great cleanser. People got morally outraged, the shows they were outraged at were taken off the TV schedule, and then they carried on watching game shows as if nothing happened.

NBC’s game shows in the ‘60s were, I believe, for the most part filmed at Rockefeller Centre. This gave producers plenty of potential contestants from New York or New Jersey to pick from.

The philosophy behind screening potential prize winners was revealed in several newspaper articles of the day. The first one below caught my attention because of the cartoon that went with it; I wish it were of better quality, without the print bleed-through from the other side of the page. The story below appeared in a Sunday edition of The Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction, Colorado, March 6, 1961. There’s no byline and it’s written like a sales pitch, so I’ll bet it came from the NBC publicity department.

Genius, Crackpot, Keep Out
It was Jimmy Durante who first remarked, "Everybody wants to get into the act.”
The Schnozz might have been referring to "The Price Right, seen weekdays and Thursday evenings on KREX-Tv. Not only does everybody want to take part, quite few succeed.
This assistance is a source of pleasure to host Bill Cullen who, despite a staggering work load (25 hours a week of broadcasting), insists, “I’m basically lazy. I'm happy for all the help I can get.”
Cullen believe that the real stars of "The Price Is Right,” are the contestants, who vie for merchandise on the show.
“The reason they have so much appeal is because they are amateurs," he explained. Contestants on our show are selected from the.studio audience. We don’t go looking for geniuses or crackpots.”
Cullen also appreciates the assistance of statuesque redhead June Ferguson and vivacious blonde Toni Wallace.
“June does most of the fashion modeling, fur coats and the like, while Toni’s our demon driver,” noted Bill. "They sure brighten the scenery, eh?”
Another contributor to this team effort is announcer Don Pardo, whose mellow voice describes each lavish prize. A strapping six-footer, Don isn’t seen during the telecast but, before air-time, he’s the center of attention as he warms up the studio audience. He does this atop a ten foot Iadder, the only way the entire audience at NBCs huge Colonial Theatre in New York can see him.
“Don gets the audience so wound up, it’s sometimes tough to restrain them," continued Cullen. "But this is the way we like it. The enthusiasm of the crowd, encouraging the panelists, is part of the show.” The ides, insists Cullen, is to get as many people working as possible.
"The logical conclusion will be reached when I can sneak into my dressing room during the program and take a nap,” he said.
“Time was when shows went looking for unusual, off-beat people,” said Cullen, "The kind of folks who might be termed ‘kooky.’ You know, like a fellow who fights alligators or a 90-year-old woman who owns her own locomotive and three miles of track.”
Then television producers discovered that viewers enjoy sympathizing with contestants who are much like themselves. The result was "The Price is Right,” and other programs in which the contestants are plucked directly from the studio audience.
“We don't want publicity seekers, exhibitionists, or those with a personal axe to grind,” Cullen explained. “I remember one chap who used to show up in the audience every day with a crow sitting on top of his head. We saw him, but he never had a chance of getting on.”
The first rule for eligibility as a "Price is Right” contestant is, of course, to attend the telecast in New York. Tickets can be obtained by writing to Tickets NBC-Tv, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y.
After each telecast, fifty to seventy five of those who have indicated a desire to appear, are interviewed briefly. This group is narrowed in more comprehensive interviews.
"FinalIy, we're down to three people, and that’s it,” said Bill.
'Why these three?
“Usually, they are people who balance each other. If we're having an elderly man on the show, we might want to put a pretty young girt beside him. If one of the contestants is from Alaska, another might be from Florida. The idea is to get a representative group so that each will react differently on the air.”
“The Price is Right” looks for lively, animated folks. But extroverts and showoffs are quickly dismissed.
"They're the first to clam up during the show,” explained Cullen.
The same goes for people whose interest in appearing is predicated purely on the fact that lavish prizes are given away.
"These folks usually turn out to be sore losers,” explained Cullen. “The fun of the show is in the bidding and all that goes with it. The prizes, no matter how stupendous, are secondary.”
Which gets us back to the first question—how to get to be a contestant.
“Be yourself,” said Cullen. “That's the key. Don’t act up or clown around because you think you’ll be noticed. You will . . . but in the wrong way. We’re interested in good natured, friendly, intelligent people.”
In other words, you could be next!



This Associated Press story from July 23, 1961 broadens the field a bit.

How To On Get A Quiz Program
EDITOR'S NOTE — If your profession is exotic, your hobby odd, your past dismal and your future bleak — you've got an excellent chance to be selected as a contestant in a TV game show. Assuming, that is, that you have a happy, wholesome, average American face.
By BERNARD GAVZER
NEW YORK (AP) — Critics may deplore and sociologists analyze TV's quiz and game shows, but most fans have only one question when they visit the TV capitals of New York and Hollywood: How do you get on a show?
The Answer
Here's the answer.
The field is wide open. There are 20 game-quiz type shows. Some are strictly variations of games played in parlors in olden days before TV—and you can win prizes even if you haven't enough talent to tie your shoelaces (“Video Village”). Some are pseudo-cerebral, requiring a degree of brain-work (“Concentration”). And others seem to be designed for hardluck characters who would break a tooth biting whipped cream (“Queen For A Day”) or who have strange and bizarre occupations or claims to fame (“What’s My Line?”, "The Groucho Show”).
Since the great scandal, operators of games and quizzes have been extremely sensitive. In a way, this has worked to the advantage of dreamers who want to win their way to riches and glory. To show that everything is on the up-and-up, and that no amount of pull can get you on most of the shows insist on picking contestants from the audience.
This is true, for instance, of "The Price Is Right," biggest quiz in popularity and prizes. NBC gets requests for 60,000 tickets each month for daily daytime telecast and the night show, hosted by amiable Bill Cullen.
Ticket holders are giving cards to fill out when entering the studio. While the show is on, staff members cull the cards for likely candidates. Hometown, birthplace and occupation have something to do with choice since the producer likes to get variety in background.
The Prizes
The prizes on the nighttime show have total price tags ranging from $16,000 to $23,000. That's one reason so many people try to get on it.
In shows like "What's My Line?" and "To Tell The Truth," being in the audience has nothing to do with getting on. The nonpanelists are ferreted out by staff people. Publicity men get into the picture by trying to get clients on such shows, not for the prizes but for the publicity.
Staff workers on shows like "Camouflage" and "Play Your Hunch" do a lot of random searching beside selecting from the audience, figuring they can find suitable people in any crowd.
At a recent telecast of "Play Your Hunch," Merv Griffin finished the show, addressed a few pleasant remarks to the audience, and then an associate producer took over.
"If there are any couples who wait to be contestants and who will be here until Monday," he said, emphasising Monday, "please remain in your seats. Also, if there is anyone who wishes to be a challenger, remain seated." Most of audience of about 200 cleared out, but there were six couples remaining, as well as a mother and three children. All were out-of-towners. The producer spoke with each of them briefly, and then selected one couple as contestants to standby for a show being taped that afternoon. One boy was picked as a possible challenger. All challengers get a flat $20.
The kind of people sought vary according to the general pattern of the show. You wouldn't be likely to see one of Jack Bailey's "Queen For A Day" potentials trying to exchange patter with Hugh Downs on "Concentration.” "Queen” contestants are picked from the audience. They fill in cards stating their big wish and telling something about themselves. About 21 are selected for quick interviews, and then four finally are picked. The Bailey show travels, so it could practically come to your doorstep.
"Concentration" is a different kettle of fish. You apply, just as though you're looking for a job. There's a quiz, just to see if solve a picture and word puzzle. And then there are personal interviews.
The Factor
Well, some of them like to get expectant mothers, so expectant there's an element of suspense. Others go for people of foreign birth, but not with heavy accents, unless it is British. Off-beat occupations have a particular lure.
It helps if you're attractive, "not good-looking, but looking good, since we don't want beauty queens and matinee idols."

Hammered On the 20-Yard Line

One of Tex Avery’s spot-gag cartoons starts off with a silhouette-enhanced gag behind the opening titles.

Screwball Football (1939) opens with rotoscoped gridiron action going on in the background.



This is a little tough to see, but there’s a standard tackle—then Avery changes direction and has one player wallop the other on the head with a mallet.



Tubby Millar is the credited writer this time, with Virgil Ross getting the rotating animator credit. The narrator on this short is Reid Kilpatrick, who also voiced Friz Freleng’s Sports Chumpions.

Hand-y Situation

Can anyone answer this question?

In The Milkman (1932), Flip the Frog determines a crying waif is hungry. He has an idea. He removes his glove.



The glove conceals a hand. With fingernails!



He’s a FROG. Why does he have a hand?

Mind you, you may be asking why a frog has a glove. Yeah, let’s skip it.

Flip puts his glove on a bottle of milk and the kid sucks away. Meanwhile, Flip has grown a new glove!



The only credit on this short is Ub Iwerks’.

These screen grabs do not come from the new Flip Blu-ray discs. If you don’t have the set, order it from Thunderbean Animation.

The Television Question

Television’s takeover of the living room from radio was gradual but steady. After the end of the war, new stations came on the air. Television sets began to be manufactured again. Stations added programming and signed up for networks. By fall 1948, all four networks were on at night, though there were blocks—even in prime time—that were filled with local programmes. And then Milton Berle became a sensation and is credited with giving the industry a huge boot.

Radio stars saw it coming. They realised it was inevitable that network radio would die and TV would replace it. The question was—what should they do about it?

Jack Benny had appeared on what was essentially a closed-circuit broadcast in the mid-‘40s, hauled in front of a camera in Minneapolis after a stopping in the city. He mulled over TV, and agreed to a limited schedule of appearances in 1950 (he ended his television career the same way with occasional specials). Fred Allen was already caustically and bluntly joking about media morphing on his radio show. Jack did it, too, in this piece for Radio Life magazine of August 8, 1948. The title of the article is misleading, as it doesn’t question what will happen “After Television,” but looks at leaping into the media itself.

Jack Benny's Own Story of How His Friends In Show Business (Including a New Young Comedian Named Hope) Are Shaping Up for The Coming Trials by Television Camera
By Jack Benny
IT SEEMS that every radio comedian I bump into these days is worried sick about television. What will it be like? How will it affect them? What will be the reaction of the public when it can see as well as hear these comedians? For the actor, it means learning a new medium; mastering a different technique. No more reading from scripts; every line must be memorized. The sudden transition will not be easy. We few, who won't be affected by television, can't help but notice the fear in the faces of those less fortunate actors. It's like a Frankenstein monster that haunts the m until they can't see or think straight.
Cantor Bears Up
Only recently, I had lunch with Eddie Cantor, a case in point. He spoke about Ida; his five daughters; the new picture he's producing; a play he has coming up on Broadway. He told me a few stories (which I had already heard from Jesse]) and raved about some song he was doing next week on the air. But, not once did he mention what was upper most in his mind —television. Cantor is always acting, but he couldn't fool me. I knew that underneath his apparent gaiety — the hand-clapping, the eye-rolling, the jumping up and down —he was trying to find escape —escape from the morbid fear that was sapping his strength and confidence.
Of course, with me, it's different.
But, I couldn't help wondering how I would feel if I were in poor Eddie's spot.
As we left the restaurant, I tried to cheer him up. I shook hands with him and said, "Don't worry, Eddie."
He said, "Worry about what?" Pathetically, he pretended he didn't know what I was talking about. And as the chauffeur opened the door and little Eddie stepped into his big Cadillac, I knew that during that long drive to his forty-room home in Beverly Hills the one thing on his mind was that terrible dread of television.
Then, there's Burns and Allen. I played golf with George Burns and he pulled the same act as Cantor.
He made out that he didn't have a worry in the world. He purposely played a better game of golf than I did, just so I wouldn't see how upset he was. On the way back to the club house, he kept laughing and telling me the same jokes Cantor told me (which I had already heard from Jessel) and all the while I knew his nerves were at the breaking point; that the specter of television gnawed at every fiber of his being. I kept thinking how fortunate I was —that I wasn't in the same position. Poor George, and Eddie, and Bob Hope, too.
Hope Is Brave
I met Hope at N.B.C. the other day, and he was carrying on worse than Burns and Cantor. Naturally, Bob is younger. He's just getting his break, and television will hit him harder than the others. There he was, standing in the lobby surrounded by a crowd of G.I's, signing autographs and cracking the same jokes that George Burns told me, that Cantor told me, (which I had already heard from Jessel). And when Bob called out, "Hello Jack, I'll be with you in a second," I knew immediately from the timbre of his voice that television was making a nervous wreck out hi m, too. But, I've got to hand it to Hope. In spite of the heartbreak, the fear inside of him, not once did he let down or allow his actions to betray his real feelings. He was brash and breezy, eyes sparkling, full of pep, but when I inadvertently mentioned what television would do to some radio comedians, that got him. His reaction was instantaneous. His face sobered. His manner softened. He put his arm around my shoulder, and for a brief moment I thought I saw a tear in his eye. At that instant I hated myself for having let those words slip out. How it must have hurt the boy!
He said, "Buck up, Jack. It'll work out somehow." Poor Bob. He didn't want me to worry about him.
Poor Allen
'Then I got to thinking about the others. Fred Allen, for instance. What must be going on in his mind? In spite of what everybody thinks about Allen, we must admit he is intelligent. He realizes what television will mean to him. He shaves every morning. He knows what he looks like. I tuned in on his program accidentally one Sunday, and it was pitiful. He told the same jokes that Bob Hope told those G. I.'s, that George Burns told me after Cantor told me (which I had already heard from Jessel). I never felt so embarrassed for anybody in my life. The only thing that saved Allen's program was the audience. They were so sorry for him, they laughed continuously all through the show. You can't fool the American public. The people know television is just around the corner, and it was just their way of saying, "So long, Fred. You did a great job."
Last night, I went to bed, but I couldn't sleep. I kept tossing and turning. Every time I closed my eyes I saw poor little Eddie Cantor, Burns and Allen, Bob Hope, Fred Allen; and all those other radio comedians less fortunate than I. It was a never-ending parade. Fibber McGee and Molly, Edgar Bergen, Red Skelton, Jack Carson. Yes, even "The Great Gildersleeve." All of them potential victims of television. And as I lay there wide awake in bed, I knew what they were going through —sleepless nights, tossing and turning, wondering what the future held in store for them. The uncertainty — the agony of waiting! The feeling of complete helplessness as, moving ever closer, television crept to engulf them and relegate them to the past.
It doesn't seem fair. Why doesn't science leave well enough alone? Radio is all right the way it is. Television can wait. Another twenty years won't make any difference. I'm willing to make the sacrifice. I'll relinquish my high-place if it will help others less bestowed.
Let's not forget the human equation. Let's remember that the backbone of civilization is charity and kindness. So I say, hold off television. Science be dammed! Long live radio!

The World of Ward, 1967

Am I the only one who regrets there were not more cartoon series from Jay Ward Productions?

Perhaps it’s just as well, because they may have just kept repeating that they had done before. But what they had done before was fun, and smart kids picked up on the humour. The cartoons were never a straight narrative. Characters commented on the action. They commented on the dialogue. They commented on the TV network. They talked to the narrator or the viewing audience. They playfully punned. They were irreverent, not in-your-face just to be rude. Each cartoon was half the length of an old theatrical short, so the pace quickened, adding to the humour.

Jay Ward and Bill Scott’s last hurrah was George of the Jungle in the 1967-68 TV season. Some fans feel the Super Chicken segments were funnier than George. Super Chicken had a rather lengthy gestation period, as we read in this feature story from the Bell-McClure Syndicate, July 5, 1967.

Super Chicken Helped Jay Ward Conquer Censors
By Richard K. Shull
THE name has been changed out of professional courtesy to all network programing executives everywhere, but Hunt Strongbird, jr., finally made his debut on network television.
The tale behind Strongbird (no pun intended) is itself the makings of a major TV drama.
It started back in the early 1960s when James T. Aubrey, jr., was the reigning president of CBS television and Hunt Stromberg, jr., was his West Coast programing executive.
In reaching around for shows calculated for bigger and better ratings, the CBS executives had their attention captured by Jay Ward, the zany producer of such items as Bullwinkle Moose and Fractured Flickers, kiddie shows with an irreverent adult sense of humor.
Ward was commissioned to do an hour-long pilot film for CBS of something to be called Jay Ward's Nuthouse—a gathering of human and cartoon characters in blackouts and sketches reminiscent of the old Olsen and Johnson and Spike Jones routines.
Ward labored mightily and produced an hour of what he thought was great good humor. Then the CBS minions sank their hooks into it.
Out went a brief act in which a bespectacled pitch woman stepped on stage and declared “I’d like to show you the new Maidenform bra,” while she shucked her blouse.
Also out went all the scenes in which a gorilla walked through with the CBS eye attached to his derriere.
Also out went a sketch in which a poor commuter was trampled flat by the far-out habitues of a subway coffee house.
And still more. When the censors had finished snipping, less than half of Ward’s show remained.
Also out were any hopes for a weekly series, although CBS did get salvage money by broadcasting a tamed-down version of Ward’s pilot film on a hot August evening when only Ward’s immediate family was watching TV.
It was about this time when Ward got an idea for a new cartoon series—Super Chicken, with an addlepated rooster named Hunt Strongbird, jr. Merciful heavens, Ward denied, there was no connection between his disastrous relationship with CBS executives, such as Stromberg, and the new cartoon series.
But even the other networks shied away from Super Chicken a year ago. Possibly the executives saw a little of their own images mirrored in the gleam in Ward’s eyes.
Now, Super Chicken, with a new name, finally has been purchased and is scheduled to go on ABC’s Saturday morning line-up next fall, but not even the title is seen in the program logs.
Super Chicken has been submerged and concealed as a segment within a new cartoon series titled George of the Jungle, a take-off on Tarzan with a narcissistic boob in a leopard skin.
But how can anyone who knows the story, as you do, ever look at Super Chicken, without thinking of Hunt Strongbird, jr.?

Jay Ward had more to say to Mr. Shull, who set it aside for another column published in mid-October. Ward griped for the umpteenth time the network suits didn’t like his shows and avoided putting them on the air. (Fractured Flickers, for example, aired in syndication).

A Reaction to Funny (but Frustrated) Jay Ward
Tears of Mirth, Tears of Miffed
By RICHARD K. SHULL
HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—Take a visit to Jay Ward's little loonybin on Sunset Strip and you come away with tears on your cheeks. There are tears of mirth because Ward and his crew are funny men.
There are also tears of anguish because Ward and his wildmen never get a chance to show their stuff on prime network television time.
After nearly a decade of trying, Ward has concluded the networks are trying to tell him something. His problem is that he's unpredictable, he's genuinely funny, and he's never content to cash in on someone else's cliche.
For each and all of those reasons, he's a dangerous man so far as the networks are concerned.
OR HAVE you taken note that the nets go for the "Gilligan's Islands" of the industry, those nice, lathery little situation comedies in which every outburst of the laughing machine is as predictable as Old Faithful?
"The real trouble with TV is that everyone is trying to please someone else," Ward said, sitting on the back of an armchair with his feet in the seat where his seat should have been.
"We've stopped going to the networks. They're friendly and nice, but we never get an affirmative answer. I really can't blame the network men. I go in to see them with some far-out thing and they have so many nice, slick shows from Universal or MGM. They go the safe route.
"Any idea you take to a network has to go through 15 guys. Fourteen of them may like it, but if the 15th says no, they all want to hedge and take a second look. If it's something wild, they back off.
"THEY NEVER give upon Westerns. If one bombs, they try something else the next time until they get one that sticks. But, on original comedy, if one fails, that kills it for all of them," Ward said. He was laughing all the way of course, but then, Ward would see the humorous aspects of his own funeral.
Mind you, he's not completely washed out of the business. His animated cartoon, "George of the Jungle," is a Saturday morning feature on ABC, and his "Bullwinkle Moose" and "Rocky and his Friends" shows probably will play forever.
"I think maybe the kids are the most intelligent audience for TV anyhow. We go our happy way with our cartoons," he said.
His fortunes how are tied to the Quaker Oats Co. which sponsors some of his cartoon shows on the air and uses his characters on the cereal packages.
"They're gentlemen with a sense of humor," Ward said.
Ward was making his observations as we sat in his office, a second floor apartment in a Moorish apartment building down the street from an old house which is his studio, which is around the corner from the minuscule reception office on Sunset Boulevard, a prestige address.
(He's not allowed to have an office in the apartment building where it is located, but so far, the landlord hasn't been able to prove he does any business.)
IN ADDITION to his cartoons—which, if you've ever noticed, play at two levels with amusement for the kiddies overlaid on swinging adult humor—Ward is busy putting together a feature film from the great moments in Buster Keaton's silent pictures.
And he's also in the mod record business. That division of his enterprises is called the Snarf Co. which records under the label of Mother's Records. That division of his enterprises is called the Snarf Co. which records under the label of Mother's Records.
"My first record was by Teri Thornton," Ward said. "I put Laurel and Hardy on the cover of the jacket and a scene with Rudolph Valentino and Vilma Banky on the back.
"But the kids wouldn't buy it. They like the record but it's serious business to them. We changed to a plain wrapper and they began, buying."
Actually, you can't blame the networks entirely for their failure to recognize Ward. He brought some of it on himself. For example, there was the time when the N. B. C. brass wouldn't see him. So he hired some bums, put them in Salvation Army uniforms, gave them musical instruments, and camped them outside the N. B. C. headquarters in Rockefeller Center to serenade the network.
And then there was the time when a deal with C. B. S. fell through. At the time, the network's West Coast vice-president for programming was a fellow named Hunt Stromberg Jr. Coincidentally, a short time later Ward had put together a cartoon series titled "Super Chicken.” The hero was named Hunt Strongbird Jr.
But, for his over-all outlook on T.V., Ward says, "Actually, we aren't making shows anymore. We're trying to track down Nielsen's 1,100 rating families."
Network television may not yet be ready for Jay Ward, but they need him.

Ward had other programmes in development, but nobody wanted to put them on their network. And pretty soon, he gave up producing commercials for Quaker Oats because he thought the fun went out of them.

In some ways, Ward is enigmatic. Producers like Fred Quimby and Eddie Selzer are, correctly, not praised for the cartoons from their studio. Yet Ward is, even though he couldn’t draw and, creatively, merely sat in on voice sessions. He was alternately an introverted man and an extroverted promotor. Ward’s main contribution, in reading Keith Scott’s wonderful book on his studio, was creating an atmosphere of fun and silliness which fostered creativity and humour. That accomplishment deserves praise for him and his wonderful little cartoons.

An Unrestored American Worker

Here’s the reason why Steve Stanchfield and his team at Thunderbean Animation are needed.



The poor frame you see above is from Going Places, a 1948 cartoon from John Sutherland Productions. It’s a piece of pro-business propaganda, but was also released theatrically by MGM. After all, distributing a ready-made cartoon was less expensive than having the Mike Lah-Preston Blair unit create one with Metro’s money (Sutherland cartoons, more or less, replaced the unit).

Sutherland was a minor player in animation. But Steve decided some of the studio’s shorts were worth restoring and has put them on home video, including my favourite, Destination Earth, and A is For Atom. Steve made a business decision that people want to see—and will buy—theatrical animation that isn’t from the A-list studios. He and his little group have very painstakingly and lovingly restored cartoons that don’t get a lot of love—series from Ub Iwerks and Van Beuren that were relegated to the public domain. Other small companies, such as Tommy Stathes’ Cartoons on Film, have done the same thing with niche cartoons.

To get back on track, a beat-up print of Going Places uploaded more than 20 years ago in low resolution to the Internet Archive has been copied and re-uploaded hither and yon. This one deserves a restoration job, too. It’s a typical Sutherland short of the period about building profits, lowering prices for consumers and how this benefits the American Worker through a higher standard of living.

There’s an interesting sequence where a factory worker strolls along in a walk cycle where he swings his fists back and forth. The backgrounds change as he moves along. The warehouse dissolves into the front office, where he accepts his pay.



Our worker, having received his “high wages” (thanks solely to management), is able to take a vacation (on a women-only beach, it appears), and deposit the remainder of his salary to a smiling bank teller. Note the diagonal changes in backgrounds.



And, thanks to his “comfortable, colorful working conditions,” he is able to own his own home. The bank background dissolves into his front yard.



There are no credits on this short, but the music is unmistakeably by Darrell Calker as it is arranged and scored similar to his cartoons of the late ‘40s for Walter Lantz.

The book “Sometimes in the Wrong, But Never in Doubt” quotes a 1961 New York Times article that Going Places had aired on 63 of the 107 TV stations in the U.S, reaching at least 6.7 million people through television. It will reach even more if Thunderbean, or some similar outfit, scopes out a good print and goes to work on it for home video.