Vanishing Popeye

How do you draw violent animation? Simple. You have no animation.

Here’s an effect in Shape Ahoy, a 1945 Popeye cartoon. The animation shows the impact of the blows by having the characters disappear for two frames. Here’s an idea of what the scene looks like.



Multiples, held cels and dry brush are used, too. These are consecutive frames.



Jim Tyer and Ben Solomon are the credited animators.

Unreal Benny

Perhaps it’s a tribute to his acting ability, but Jack Benny was able—quite easily, it seems—to convince listeners what they heard on his show was a biography, not a sitcom full of fiction.

On more than one occasion, he was dumbstruck by how intelligent people really thought Rochester was his butler and Dennis Day mowed his lawn as part of his weekly salary.

He complained in print a number of times that he was forced to leave huge tips so people wouldn’t think he was really a cheapskate.

Here’s a piece from the Detroit Free Press of May 27, 1950. Jack was whistle-stopping in the Midwest in the latter half of the month.

Air Role Embarrasses Lots-of-Jack Benny
BY JAMES S. POOLER
Free Press Staff Writer
Jack Benny the comedian embarrasses Jack Benny the man.
As a comedian known for throwing a fast half-nelson on a dime, he causes waitresses to faint when he lays down a buck tip in real life.
They are slow to pick it up. They think Benny has it attached to a rubber band up his sleeve. So fine has Benny etched his radio character of the tightwad, the feudist with Fred Allen, the perennial 39-year-old, that everybody takes that for the real Benny.
BENNY, AN affable, easy-going guy, related when he visited the Free Press Friday how he is haunted by his radio ghost—like Scrooge by Marley—wherever he goes.
When he gave a hat check girl in Earl Carroll's cafe a buck tip she pushed it back. "Please, Mr. Benny," she said, "leave me with one illusion."
Everybody assumes he really drives around in a Maxwell and every press agent thinks he is the first to meet Benny at the station with a beat-up Maxwell. Detroit-ers, undoubtedly, would like to know that the real Benny travels in a Cadillac convertible, for which he paid.
PEOPLE THINK Rochester works in Benny's house. Rochester's got a house—and butler—of his own. Every novelty manufacturer in the country keeps writing Benny that he's got a great idea for a toy—a little safe that creaks and makes a sounds like Benny's radio vault.
When he toured the fronts in the war his hardest job was mustering up a "big take" and a big laugh for the same gag: Every outpost thought it was the first to put up a sign saying "Welcome, Fred Allen."
"I don't think I ever disappointed the kids," he said. "But after a few hundred times it was rugged always being surprised by the same old thing."
OLDSTERS ALWAYS cackle when they meet him and say, "I'm the same age as you—39." Even the Veep, although he varied it, was guilty of giving Benny the same old stuff.
When they met recently in Washington, Vice President Alben W. Barkley cracked, "If you're 39, I won't be vice president for 12 more years."
Halfway around a swing of 21 cities in 21 days with his Detroit appearance, Benny admitted he was weary. Maybe you have an idea now of what helps make him tired.

Woody: Made in Japan?

For a guy who plead poverty, Walter Lantz sure travelled a lot.

We’ve posted a number of stories about the cartoon-maker travelling to foreign countries or on a tour of the U.S. Lantz’s stop this time is the fabulous Orient, back when you could still call it that. He left his staff in 1960 to carry on making cartoons with Fatso Bear and Gabby Gator while he made a jaunt overseas.

The Valley Times of North Hollywood talked to Lantz about it. We’ll omit his comments about Hong Kong as they had nothing to do with animation. As you might expect, Lantz griped about money, a common topic in his newspaper interviews (besides the ever-changing story about how Woody Woodpecker was invented).

Allen Rich
Listening Post & TV Review
Woody Aids Foreign Relations
Mr. Walter Lantz has just returned from a six-week goodwill tour of the Orient on behalf of Woody Woodpecker, the noisy little fella that made him a millionaire.
Mr. Lantz created Woody in 1940. The cartoon is now in its 147th consecutive week on the air (KTTV, 6 p.m., Thursdays), pecks away on screens in movie theaters in the U.S., Canada and 72 foreign countries, and the sale of Woody’s cartoon books has now reached 32 million a year in this country alone.
The producer-creator-narrator of the cartoon series visited Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Honolulu during his junket.
While in Tokyo as guest of Toho Radio and TV, a company quite anxious to introduce Woody to Japanese TV audiences, which are already more than familiar with the little fellow on Nippon theater screens, Mr. Lantz suffered a bit of disillusionment.
It seems the Japanese government restricts its TV stations from paying more than $500 for a half hour program. Such an amount would hardly pay for Woody Woodpecker’s hemlock trees, or whatever a woodpecker chews on, so it was no deal.
“But,” said Mr. Lantz sagely, “the government eventually is going to have to up the ante. The stations need' programs badly. Then we will do business."
According to Lantz there are seven TV stations in Japan and about million receiving sets. The government collects a license fee from set owners periodically.
“But there are also more than a million illegitimate sets. These have inside aerials, the government is perhaps not aware of them, and the owners get away from paying the fee,” informed Lantz.
Most television in Japan is live. There’s lots of sword play and violence, but due to low budgets the live dramas are usually played against a backdrop, a couple of chairs as props.
Favorite American programs seen on Japanese TV are “I Love Lucy,” “Perry Como Show” and “Leave It To Beaver.” Explanatory titles are super-imposed and Japanese voices are occasionally dubbed in, although the latter is a pretty expensive and time-consuming proposition. (Wonder what Lucille Ball sounds like in Japanese?) . . .
In [a] more serious vein Lantz expressed as his opinion that Woody and others of his feather and ilk in cartoon form, have done a very great deal to promote friendly relations between this country and the Orient.
"It is something they all can understand. I was treated like visiting royalty everywhere. Not because of me, but because in those countries producers, directors and writers are accorded more homage than stars. They had seen me for many years in the theater cartoons and knew I had created and produced Woody," he explained.
If Mr. Kennedy hasnt filled the post yet, how about Woody Woodpecker as the next Ambassador to Japan?
Ah, so?

Syndicated columnist Eve Starr had a chat with Lantz about his journey as well. Her column found in one newspaper of Jan. 1, 1961 read, in part:

Walter Lantz, creator of the Woody Woodpecker cartoons, just returned from Tokyo, Hong Kong and Thailand and tells me in Thailand, “They have two sets of sub-titles on the pictures, most of which are imported from the U. S. They run them with English sound and captions in both Chinese and Siamese. The titles run up half the picture, so that you can’t see what you're watching, but people don't seem to mind."
About cartoons in Japan, Walter and Mrs. Lantz, who is the voice of Woody, say, "they go in for real-life subjects, with no laughs. They are really very life-like, and quite good. Over four years ago some men from Japan visited Hollywood studios to learn techniques. I saw these same men and they are turning out two features a year—in wide-screen yet."
"In Japan," Lantz said, "people think more of the directors, writers and producers, than they do of the star. A Hitchcock will have a blown up picture of Hitch outside the theater, and large picture of directors and writers, then in small print the name of the star.

The visit to Toho is interesting. There are people well better versed in what was called “Japanimation” (okay, the first reference I’ve found to the term is from May 1986) so they will correct me, but my impression was the company was still into the monster business in 1960 and not animation.

Walter and Grace Lantz’s arrival in Hawaii was noted in the Honolulu Advertiser of Sept. 29, 1960, but it waited until Feb. 13, 1961 to report on the reason Lantz was sniffing around Tokyo. Shideler Harpe’s “Backstage” column revealed: “After a trip to Nippon, Walter Lantz has decided to make some cartoons there. A job that costs him $30,000 to make in Hollywood can be turned out in Japan for $6,000 without sacrificing quality.”

The Ottawa Citizen of March 11, 1961 reported “A Tokyo film company invited him to set up his operations at their studios.” Yet, despite the cash savings, Lantz kept making cartoons with his small group in Los Angeles. Hanna-Barbera had considered the same thing in 1959, with animation and inking to be done overseas, but decided against it because, as Variety reported, the studio crunched the numbers and found the cartoons would actually cost more to make.

For Lantz, it may have simply boiled down to his employees. By all accounts, he was loyal to those who had been with him a long time, even though the cartoons they made became increasingly mediocre and cheap-looking. His employees liked him. In Hollywood, that's an accomplishment in itself.

Heraus, Mouse

An old plot gets reused in Runaway Mouse, a 1953 Terrytoon. Little Roquefort the mouse walks out on Percy the cat. But then the mouse misses the cat and the cat misses the mouse. They get back together at the end and the chase resumes.

Roquefort gets balletic as Percy chases him with a makeshift baseball bat. The scene has some stretch in-betweens.

Tom Morrison is responsible for the story and Mannie Davis is the director. I think Terry fans can guess whose animation this is.

I'm In a Cartoon

One of the appealing things about Tex Avery cartoons is the characters (at least in some of them) know they’re acting in front of a theatre audience.

An example I’ve always liked is in A Feud There Was, released in 1938. A hillbilly gets his beard shot and shortened. He looks down at it and at us, and quips “The old grey hair, she ain’t what she’s used to be.”



Gramps cracks himself up with his line.



His joke gets no reaction. He looks down and at us again and remarks, “Well, it sounded funny at rehearsal anyway.” As if cartoons are real movies/plays with a rehearsal.



Later a chicken comments on the action to the viewers, and a member of the theatre audience (in a typical Avery silhoutte) shots at a feudin' enemy on the screen.

The usual theatre-manager/correspondents to the Motion Picture Herald were happy with Avery’s efforts. “A very good cartoon. It is one of the best ‘Merrie Melodies’ that I ever saw,” “Vitaphone colored cartoons are usually very good and this one was no exception,” “A very entertaining cartoon in color showing the feuds that go on in the timberlands in a risqué and humorous style.” Conversely, another bluntly made this assessment about Mickey’s Parrot: “These Disneys are not getting better. We like the Merrie Melodies just as good and they don’t cost as much.”

Avery’s cartoon released prior to this was Cinderella Meets Fella and Daffy Duck in Hollywood came next; both fine shorts.

The cartoon was re-released in 1943 and 1952.

Sid Sutherland is the credited animator, with Tubby Millar receiving the rotating story credit.

He'd Be Considered Tame Today

There are two words that will derail any discussion amongst fans of the original What’s My Line?

Hal Block.

If What’s My Line? were an immaculate Park Avenue penthouse, Hal Block would be an unmade bed. He was burly man with numerous nervous tics who people either loved or hated. He could either be clever or tacky. After a while, “tacky” didn’t cut it any more on a show that aimed for sophistication and good taste, and Block was cut loose.

By profession, Block was a radio comedy writer who realised the people who wrote the words for Bob Hope didn’t get paid as much as the man who spoke them, and decided to do something about it. The time was right because network television had arrived in earnest and needed new talent on the air.

What’s My Line? debuted in 1950 and producer Mark Goodson, a former radio announcer and host, realised after the first show changes had to be made quickly. Arlene Francis was put on the panel on the second week and Block joined her a week later (Dorothy Kilgallen was on the premiere, Bennett Cerf came later). Block was still on the show when radio/TV writer Ben Gross penned this column in the New York Daily News, August 2, 1952.

The Comedian Who "Hates" His Audiences . . . That's Hal Block, the gag-spouting panel member of "What's My Line?" (CBS-TV, Sundays, 10:30 P. M.; NBC-radio, Wednesdays, 8 P. M.). But don't get the wrong idea. For Hal's "hate" is really akin to love and it's merely an expression of his will to succeed.
"Other comedians may find it easy to win their listeners, but I have to do it the hard way," he will tell you. "Show business is an extremely cruel one. People are ready to destroy a performer the minute he pulls his first boner.
Don't Be Afraid . . . "So when I come on, I must reason that I may get the worst of it. I never feel that listeners are with me from the start. I've got to win 'em over with one or two quick yoks. Once any performer shows that he's afraid, he's licked. It doesn't matter who he is—and remember, I've written material for some of the most popular comedians in the world."
But if a performer strides on in a combative mood, doesn't that antagonize his audience?
"No," Hal says. "There's only the finest line separating love and hate. And, because of this, when an actor once proves himself, people loosen up and take him to their hearts. In other words, every new performance presents the problem of conquering the listeners. Others may have their own methods; mine is to come out fighting."
A Writer You can see by this that Hal is not only an articulate fellow but also one who has studied the psychology of his art. Maybe that's because, in addition to being a performer, he is a writer. In fact, a few years ago, Block was unknown as a comedian.
For years he had a reputation as one of the best gag and situation comedy concocters in the business. From his facile typewriter came the jokes and the skits which helped to build the reputations of funsters as Jack Benny, Fred Allen. Eddie Cantor. Red Skelton, Olsen and Johnson, Ken Murray, Burns and Allen, Edgar Bergen and—yes—even Milton Berle.
The listeners and viewers of "What's My Line?" may look on Hal as primarily a laugh-winner, a professional funny man, but he regards himself as a mere panel member.
Do you intend to become a full-fledged comedian?" he was asked the other day.
“I might,” he said, “if I could find a good writer!"
Studied Law . . . Block, who was says he was born 37 years ago, had good preparation for the quick give-and-take technique of his profession. For in 1933, he began to study law at the University of Chicago and eventually became captain of its track team. His bout with Blackstone and his foray into athletics developed powers of argument and of perseverance.
Then, in 1935, when Block started his show business career, he came to another conclusion. Deciding to become a gag writer for America’s top clowns, he said to himself: “In order to get along in this business, a fellow also has got to have guile, irresponsibility and a hell of a lot of stick-to-it-iveness.”
Baker's Brushoff. . . . . Both Hal and his partner at the time, Phil Cole, a school chum, showed plenty of these qualities when they called backstage at the Chicago Theatre where Phil Baker, the comedian, was headlining. "We're writers," they announced.
Baker, who had heard this story before, said: "Sure, sure; come to see me when I'm in New York. Next time you're there, look me up.”
They knew it was a brushoff, but accepted the challenge—by coming to New York! Here the boys were shooed away successively and emphatically by the comedian's personal manager, his agent and his radio program's ad agency representatives.
Crashed Home. . . But did that down the fighting gag men from Illinois? Not so you could notice it; for they hired themselves out to Mamaroneck, where Baker dwelt, and crashed the comedian's home. There they proceeded to display their wares and Baker finally gave them $30 for a joke he wasn't even certain he would use. But use it he did on his radio show and it convulsed the listeners.
That started them and by 1937, Hal Block was creating the singing commercials for Baker's gasoline sponsor. But an ad agency vice president was ready to tear down every idea submitted. And here's where Hal guile came into play, for he made the comedy star his ally and together they triumphed over the v. p. That is why even today, Block loves to quote Fred Allen's famous description of an advertising agency vice president:
"He's a Dartmouth graduate with a crew haircut who comes to the office every morning at nine. When he walks in he finds a molehill on his desk, and he has until five to make a mountain of it!”
Says He Won't Marry. . . . Hal is one of those superstitious fellows. For instance, if he’s forgotten something, he won't turn back for it—even if it’s his wallet. One evening, bound for one of his shows at the studio, be entered a cab and discovered he was without money. The driver took him to be a chiseler and he almost missed his performance. Luckily, a passerby recognized Hal and paid his 95 cents.
It's not superstition, however, that causes Hal to remain a bachelor. He simply refuses to get married, why?
"Because most women have no sense of humor," he says, "and besides, show me one of them who wouldn't insist on editing my gags!”
Note to the Gals—Remember, it’s Mr. Block who said that—not this writer.

By January 1953, Block was “on hiatus” and after a brief return, shown the door. Syndicated columnists Tom O’Malley and Bob Cunniff summed up the situation. This column is from June 15, 1954.

A Jinx Trails Dimples Block
NEW YORK—Bumped into Hal Block the other day. Remember Dimples Hal? He's the guy who used to get most of the laughs on "What's My Line" until he fell into disfavor with his employers and got the ax. It's been two years since he was bounced from the quizzer’s panel and people are still asking why.
Actually, Hal's heave-ho was due singly to a clash of personalities between himself and Producers Goodson and Todman, Dorothy Kilgallan, New York columnists and, to a lesser degree, John Daly.
Co-Producer Todman told these reporters: “Hal had a peculiar way of thinking verbally that he was responsible for the success of the show. It has even been printed that he originated 'What's My Line?’” and was its producer."
Block to the defense: "Am I crazy enough to claim I produced 'What's My Line?’ Everybody and his sister knows who Goodson and Todman are. They reel their names off at the end of every program—big as life."
According to Block, the controversy over his "taking credit for the show" flared up over an ad he took in Variety.
"They mis-read the ad," says Block, "so that it looked to them like the big type read 'Hal Block's What's My Line.’ It didn’t. It actually read ‘What's Hal Block's Line?’ Any way they got sore and wanted me to print a retraction, even though in the very same ad I paid them a tribute. Now what are you gonna do?"
SAYS BLOCK, "One night the panel was told by Todman before showtime to be very careful with our mystery guest for that evening. Well, as it turns out the guest was Margaret Truman and I displeased the boys again. You know what my question was? I asked, 'Are you adorable?’ Margaret loved it, but after the show I was reprimanded for saying it."
There were other tussles between the producers and Block—once over who should receive a TV award for the program. Says Hal: "The committee wanted me to accept. Says G & T: “Hal did the asking, not the committee. CBS chose us for the presentation."
It was no secret in the trade that Dorothy Kilgallen avoided Dimples Block—plague like. She hit his tenderest spot once in her syndicated column. It was an item about Hal—uncomplimentary—in which she referred to him as "a certain TV panelist." Block admitted he was crushed at the double slam, especially from a fellow panelist.
About the apparent cold war between himself and Dorothy, he says, "I wish I knew the reason myself."
Other columnists have freely taken snipes at Block. One wrote that Hal was working in a Detroit burlesque house billed as "Dimples Block, Star of What's My Line" after he had been dropped from the show. In reality he was playing an exclusive Michigan country club—and without such billing. (“I could have sued,” insists Hal.)
JOHN DALY, the show's emcee, had a few peeves against Hal, mostly minor. Urbane John died a little each time Block quipped his oft-repeated occupational guess—to wit, "I think he removes that the warts from pickles." Daly thought this classically unfunny.
Stormy petrel Hal left New York and went to Chicago (his home town) last October to begin anew. He latched on to his own local TV show there. But the Block jinx held sway. He was fired by the station a few weeks ago for kidding an M. D. guest on his informal program. Seems Hal pulled out a hot water bottle for a joke and waved it before the doctor. Complaints rolled in and he was out of work again. Bad taste, said the station managers.
Block is currently dreaming up another TV format on which to drape his ad lib talents. His friends still feel he should shuck the performer's garb and go back to being a gag poet, an occupation that has always paid him a fancy figure. Meanwhile Hal is taking some consolation that "What's My Line's" rating has dropped since he left. Something like a million less viewers than before.
It's doubtful Block is the sole reason for the slump, but a guy can be wistful, can’t he?

But Block may not have been responsible for his “ad-libs” which irked the panel. A case can be made to put the responsibility on the Goodson-Todman staff. Here are O’Malley and Cunniff again, from Jan. 20, 1955.

The Big Panel Shows, They Legit?
NEW YORK—Should the public be let in on television secrets? Is it wise for viewers to be tipped off on the backstage devices used by panelists? Are rehearsed ad-libs kosher?
These questions are getting renewed airing since Mark Goodson, co-producer of the panel show empire known as Goodson-Todman Productions (I've Got A Secret, What's My Line, Name's The Same), finally conceded in a recent magazine article that his panelists have been supplied with pre-fab questions, all loaded for yocks.
Ever since Hal Block used to flex his dimples and pop up with apparently innocent "double entendres" week after week on What's My Line, there has been a general skepticism about the legitimacy of panel shows. The television trade has known the facts all along.
For some reason, however, the public at large has doubted the legitimacy of the answers, rather than the questions. When we worked on a television publication a few years ago, the mail poured in almost daily, criticizing the intuitive powers of Dorothy Kilgallen or Bennett Cerf for nailing down the mystery lines with such distressing regularity.
Actually, it was the man who seldom unbuttoned the guest's occupations, Hal Block. Yet he was never accused, we doubt that Miss Kilgallen—especially Miss Kilgallen—was even approached in connection with a "rigging." The game the thing with anchor girl Dorothy.
As producers, Goodson and Todman are concerned principally with maintaining a spirited parlor game. The show can be a howling success, even if the contestants flub on every subject. On the other hand, a group of monotonously accurate panelists could sink the show into oblivion.
Frankly, we believe Goodson made a mistake in allowing that his charges are plied with ready-made quarries. Columnists and critics have been raising the question of panel show legitimacy for years, but for some reason they have failed to sway a healthy slice of Americana.
All Goodson has done is make a pronouncement that has dashed any lingering hopes that the critics might be a pack of over-suspicious meanies. When the head man admits it, there's no more to be said.
Actor Hal Block was fired from What's My Line many months ago, we approached him and asked him point blank if all was up-and-up with the show. He was a bitter man then. He felt he had been done wrong. He had lost his most valued possession his fame as a performer.
Nobody recognized Hal Block the gag writer. They did recognize Hal Block the panelist, however and he liked this role immensely. Yet even in his embittered frame of mind, Block wouldn't admit a rigging. Of course he was protecting himself, but he also maintained he felt duty-bound to protect the property from which he was bounced.
Now a few million suspicions have been confirmed that maybe dimpled Hal, as well as Steve Allen, Robert Q. Lewis, Bill Cullen, et al. weren't so funny after all. Too bad, Mark.
Now even the spur-of-the-moment laugh lines will look suspicious. Say it ain't so, boys, say it ain’t so.

Despite the revelation, the gag-line feeding carried on. The late Paul Lynde still gets praise for his catty quips on Hollywood Squares. They were all written for him.

As for Block, he drifted into obscurity. Perhaps the biggest headline he made after leaving the game show was in 1962 when sideswiped six cars in Chicago, telling police he took sleeping pills instead of reducing pills and got into his car. The Associated Press story called him a “former television personality.” He died in 1981.

I have mixed feelings about Block. Fred Allen was a natural humourist. Steve Allen would have something pop into his mind and blurt it out. Too much of the time, Block seemed forced, like he was trying too hard to be funny. There were other occasions where I liked what he came up with. But What’s My Line? was probably better without him. After he left, viewers watched the show for another 14 more seasons.

Spaghetti Mouse

Ah, the world of rubber hose animation, and a time when characters’ body parts stretched and curled for the amusement of the audience.

Let’s check out a mouse from the start of the Fleischer Screen Song A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight (1930). The mouse’s arms and legs wave around, spaghetti-like. The mouse even stretches out his nose.



He turns his tail into a spring.



Next, he stretches and curls his neck, then blows air over the rolled-up poster he's carrying.



Having hung up the poster, he congratulates himself. Another mouse pulls him inside the Town Hall, leaving shoes behind. The shoes then follow him back into the building to end the scene.



Dave Fleischer gets the only screen credit.

The early Screen Songs have lots of imagination (and Billy Murray). They deserve restoration.