A Tour With Walter Lantz

There may be more information available from the past about animators and animation studios than ever before, thanks to the internet. Some of it is even free.

Unfortunately, some of it isn’t in the best of quality. One example is old newspapers. Their source may be scans of microfilm, which are photos of newspaper pages. Resolution was pretty poor way-back-when (I started researching through old papers in the late 1970s and the microfilm was pretty beat up back then).

That brings us to this post, which is a transcription of a full page article in the Nov. 16, 1946 edition of the Valley News, embracing the San Fernando Valley. The paper loved profiling its celebrity residents and one was Walter Lantz. The News had several stories about him that year, but this one looked at his studio and how it made cartoons. Unfortunately, the photos—which I suspect were supplied by Walter Lantz Productions—reproduced below are not too viewable. But you can get a bit of an idea of how things were done.

You can chuckle at the insistence that cartoon characters don’t go strike, and so on. It’s a cute statement, but doesn’t take into account the people who made the cartoons could strike. Ask the other Walter. And the idea Lantz “created” Krazy Kat or the Katzenjammer Kids is an engagement in semantics.

Picture one shows Bugs Hardaway at the right; whether that’s Milt Schaffer at the left, I don’t know. Picture 2 shows Dick Lundy. Picture 7, I guess, is Fred Brunish. It certainly isn’t Terry Lind.

Woodpecker And Panda Amuse All
There are some movie stars who are never tempermental [sic], indisposed, or suffering from contract trouble. They are not concerned about strikes or picket lines. They even work through fire and water, and they provide diversified and invigorating entertainment for millions of movie fans.
Some of these popular and indestructable movie stars perform for Walter Lantz at his studio in Universal City. Walter located there eighteen years ago and in the interim he has created, among others, such intrepid performers as “The Katzenjammer Kids,” “Maude the Mule,” “Krazy Kat.” His latest creation shows “Andy Panda” and “Woody Woodpecker” in Chopin’s Musical Moments, combining some of the world’s best music, cinema art and animation. The negative cost alone of this production was $50,000 and 25,000 drawings were used. In silent days about 2500 drawings were used and the negative cost was about $3000.
Walter and 22 of his employees live in the Valley and some of them have been in this area long enough to witness sensational developments in their business and the communities in which they live. These Valleyites include such luminaries as Darrel Calker of North Hollywood, Ben “Bugs” Hardaway of North Hollywood, and Fred Brunisch [sic]. Calker is the musical director and a well-known composer-arranger. His “Penguin Island” was performed at the Hollywood Bowl, and he was one of Andre Kostelanitz’ arrangers when the conductor’s style was first set. Hardaway is recognized as one of the best sketche[r]s of a cartoon story in the business. He created the present day character, “Bugs Bunny,” and many others. During World War I he served with President Truman in the Field Artillery. Brunisch, background artist, is a prominent California portrait painter and scenic artist.
Thirty years ago Walter, at the age of 18, quit his job as an assistant artist for the New York American to become Gregory La Cava’s assistant in a new enterprise, motion picture cartoon business. Greg at that time was a well known newspaper cartoonist; today he is one of Hollywood’s top directors. Their productions have proved an important, artistic and entertaining part of the entire motion picture industry, and their characters have helped to alleviate the worries of millions of people in all parts of the world.
Of the original group of men who entered the intricate cartoon industry, Lantz is tbe only one who stayed long enough to become a producer and continue in the animated business. He still sketches and takes an active part in every phase of Walter Lantz productions. Every afternoon he spends at least an hour or two “in the back” of the studio, sitting in story conferences, chatting with background artists, watching animators, or helping in the cutting room.
Today, as president of the animated cartoon producers associaition, Lantz has the admiration and respect of everyone in the business. He knows all there is to know about the business at present, but that does not stop his continual research and experimentation.

1. The story department at Lantz Productions. Writers dicussing a scene from a musical picture, where action must be made to fit the music.

2. When the script is completed the director analyzes each picture to see if additions or deletions are necessary. The long sheet he is using gives full details on the particular sequences of the film it explains.

3. The layout man gets the sequence next, and he works out such important details as close-ups, medium, and long-shots.

4. All drawings are pencilled on celluloid; key drawings are made by the animator while assistants do fill-ins.

5. The inkers go over the animator's work.

6. She colors the inked drawings. Large number of jars contain carefully blended paints.

7. The animator creates action for the film while another artist paints backgrounds.

8. The checker examines each drawing for mistakes. Too few drawings will result in jerky movements of the characters.

9. For the finished motion picture animated cartoon a special type of camera is used. Frame by frame the picture is photographed.

10. "Dubbing in voices and recording the music. Musical Director Darrell Calker conducts the orchestra. Recording for cartoons is tricky business.

11. Job of the film cutter is to assemble sound, music, and picture tracks, make them one.

12. Producer Walter Lantz gives the picture a final once-over.

Dr Ruth

People don’t like talking about sex. That’s part of our culture, a Puritanical hang-up that hasn’t altogether been shaken.

One person tried to shake it, very publicly.

That was Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who has passed away at age 96.

Her frankness and humour took her from a late-night programme on a community radio station to fame through a national television talk-show audience. A wonderful feature story was written about her in June 2012 by Adam Geller of the Associated Press; you can read it for free at this site. Below are two stories written about her in 1984. The first comes from the White Plains Journal-News of January 15, the second from the Nyack Journal-News of Feb. 16.

No taboo topic for Dr. Ruth, just good advice
By JAYNE STOGEL
Radio Columnist
The key to the success of Dr. Ruth Westheimer may be a little like my Bubbi's (grandmother's) recipe for chicken soup: A little bit of 'dis, a little bit of 'dat, and it couldn't hurt.
Dr. Ruth (as she is commonly referred to by her devotees) bubbles with the right combination of stock that makes people rave. She and her show are a mixture of candid, entertaining and intelligent conversations about two previously taboo topics sex and relationships (sexual or otherwise).
"I think it's really a combination of things that has led to the program's success," said Dr. Ruth. "I'm well trained and willing to talk straight and directly. I'm an older woman with an accent (her parents sent her to Switzerland where she was able to escape the Nazi massacre of Jews and where she was orphaned as a result of Hitler's concentration camps) and I made sure that the radio program would be a combination of fifty percent talk about relationships and fifty percent talk about sex.
"The questions really run the gamut," she continued. "I don't think there's a question that hasn't been asked."
And don't let her size (four feet seven inches) fool you. She is a powerhouse of energy, activity and ambition that has led to the success of "Sexually Speaking," her WYNY live call-in program. "Sexually Speaking" began as a taped, public affairs program 2 ½ years ago for WYNY Radio in New York and has snowballed into an hour-long show in New York and Los Angeles Sunday nights at 10 p.m. She is also heard in Europe and is currently testing the Chicago radio market.
She has written a number of books, her most recent "Dr. Ruth's Guide to Good Sex," and hosted her own television program for WNEW-TV.
Her listeners and readers may be looking for advice, but Dr. Ruth really sees herself as an educator, perhaps as a result of beginning her professional career as a kindergarten teacher.
"This is not therapy on the air," she stresses. The radio program answers 20 to 25 calls on Sunday nights, but attracts between three to four thousand callers. "I try to give an educational answer that an aunt might give. The program is really an attempt to increase sexual literacy."
And hows [sic] does Dr. Ruth feel about the notoriety that has led to interviews with Johnny Carson, David Letterman and recognition wherever she travels?
"I like it. People are really nice," she said.
Dr. Ruth's life is filled with lots more people than those on the WYNY telephone lines. She loves to travel, hikes in the summer and skiis in the winter.
As part of her New Year's list of resolutions, Dr. Ruth will be taking some of her own advice.
"In order to keep relationships and friendships going, you have to cultivate them," she said. "I talk a lot on the telephone and make sure to visit people whenever I travel. I work a great deal, and for 1984 I'd like to take a little more time for fun. Sometimes I talk much, but I am a good listener."
While her two children were growing up (her daughter now lives and works in Israel and her son is a student at Princeton University) she made a rule not to ask personal questions, but to be open with them when they asked questions.
With her program "Strictly Speaking" Dr. Ruth does not hesitate to ask personal questions, but it is her ability to listen that provides the right combination of talking and listening that has aided her program's success.

'Dr. Ruth' pulls no punches in sex talk at Ramapo
By T.M. PURVIS
Standing only 4 foot 7 inches tall with neatly coiffed, blondish hair, Dr. Ruth Westheimer looks more like your best friend's mother or a very young grandmother than a radio talk show host.
Her popular program, "Sexually Speaking", which airs on WYNY-FM (97.1) every Sunday evening at 10-11 PM, is the number one program in its time slot in the tri-state area. In September, the successful talk show will celebrate its third year.
"Dr. Ruth," as her radio callers address her, candidly told a full auditorium at Ramapo College in Mahwah this week that "There is a need for such a program. Or there wouldn't be other programs (similar to it) and it would have lost its ratings."
Dr. Ruth is able to answer only 20 or so of the between 3,00 and 4,00 [sic] calls she receives per hour during the show. A one-woman crusade for "sexual literacy," she firmly believes that "The more we educate, the less we will need sex therapists...Sex education must be a combination of parents, church, synagogue and schools working together."
The practicing sex therapist and professor of human sexuality at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center became interested in her present field while working for Planned Parenthood in 1967. Her academic credentials include a master's degree in sociology from the New School and a doctorate in education from Columbia University.
"We are a very strange society; we have the technology to send a man to the moon, but we don't have an effective contraceptive," announced Dr. Ruth in her high-pitched, thick German accent, quite unlike any DJ's voice currently calling the Top 40.
Born in Frankfurt, Germany, she was sent to a Swiss orphanage in 1939 by her parents, who feared the impending holocaust. That was the last time she saw them and she believes they died in an Eastern European concentration camp. After emigrating to Israel at the age of 16 and returning to Europe some years later, she came to the U.S in 1956.
Referring to advertisements commonly found in college newspapers, Dr. Ruth said that it upsets her to see abortions advertised and then underneath in smaller print mention of counseling and contraceptives, which should, in her mind, take priority, and which would help prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Unwanted pregnancies are the result of ignorance, she told her audience, saying that she remembers coathanger abortions and fears that, if illegal, abortion would then become, as it once was, available only to the wealthy. "Abortion must remain legal."
What is Dr. Ruth's appeal? She is honest. "When I don't know, I will tell you I don't know." She is quick to refer sexual problems warranting a closer examination to a physician's or a therapist's care and has a refreshing sense of humor in dealing with extremely delicate sexual problems that seems to put the nervous questioner at ease.
It is possible, she says, to "teach human sexuality with all the data and facts, and with humor."
Dr. Ruth's candor and attentive manner on the air and in person are proof of this. Answering questions posed by her radio audience or written on cards and read anonymously at a speaking engagement, she remains serious, clinical, even when a not-so-serious question is accompanied by snickers and giggles, as were some at Ramapo. Still she believes that someone out there might need the answer because everyone needs to know that he or she is not alone or abnormal.
Dr. Ruth doesn't mince words. Before the lecture, she sounded off a list of words, the jargon of a sex therapist, as if she were reading a grocery list. As some in the audience squirmed and blushed, Dr. Ruth, in her mid-50s, stood coolly at the podium, clearly aware of the adolescent reactions she prompted.
Newly elected as a fellow to the New York Academy of Medicine, Dr. Ruth has an opinion on most everything and has indeed heard most everything from her patients and audiences.
To the Ramapo College audience Dr. Ruth expressed her thoughts on:
● The Squeal Law (proposed legislation that would require federally funded clinics to report to the parents of minors seeking health care) — "I'm against it."
● Pre-marital sex — "For some people it is right to wait until the wedding night."
● Masturbation — "There is nothing wrong with it and there are no ill effects."
● Sigmund Freud — "Sexually illiterate about female sexuality."
● G-spot — "I'm not saying there is no such thing....(just that) we don't have enough data."
● Homosexuality — "One homosexual thought doesn't make a homosexual."
● The Pill - "I have been against the pill... We don't know enough about it. I recommend the condom and the diaphragm."
● To those who feel they must tell all to a lover or mate — "Keep your mouth shut; not everything has to be shared."
Is sex all there is? "Not for a moment do I think sex is everything in a relationship."
Do drugs improve the quality of sex? No. All one needs is "a good partner and imagination in making sexual activity enjoyable."
Dr. Ruth, who ends most radio dialogues with "Have good sex!" is a mother of two and married to Fred Westheimer. And does her husband ever attend the lectures?
The petite, motherly sex therapist quipped, "I never let my husband come to my lectures because he would raise his hand and I'd have to recognize him. And he'd say, ‘Don’t listen to her. It's all talk.’”

Dr. Ruth’s legacy goes beyond sex, or even being honest about sex. Far beyond. Last November, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced Dr. Ruth would become the state's honorary ambassador to loneliness. This may seem trite or ridiculous, but, to repeat her message in the newspaper story above: “Everyone needs to know that he or she is not alone or abnormal.”

That message from Dr. Ruth is a message that people very much need today.

Today's Drink Special

There was something at one time called an “egg phosphate.” It was made at drug store soda counters and consisted of a raw egg, lemon syrup, soda water and phosphate. It sounds crazy. Or in the case of the Mintz cartoon Soda Poppa, “krazy.”

I presume that’s what soda jerk Krazy Kat is making in this 1931 cartoon. He is stopped after cracking the egg by something inside it—an old, mini-chicken (how old is that egg, anyways?)



The bird gives him the bird.



The bird un-cracks the egg, and then it's on to the next scene.



Perhaps the notable part of this cartoon is we hear the lyrics to the Krazy Kat theme, as Krazy and his girl-friend sing them to each other. I can’t make them out but they start “You are the cat’s meow” and end with “Poo-Poo-Pa-Doo.”

Ben Harrison gets the story credit, with Manny Gould as the animator. Joe De Nat does a nice job of synchronising the sound and I really like the backgrounds in the wolf’s penthouse. They're more attractive than a lemon soda with a raw egg.

Granting a Wish

“I, I wish I was in the sultan’s palace,” says Aladdin to the genie of the lamp. And it happens, thanks to the effects animation department of the Ub Iwerks studio. In Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp (released August 10, 1934), the hero turns in the centre of the scene and a whirlwind envelopes him. Animated swirls appear and, subtly, the background changes from the lamp-sellers dungeon to the palace.



Aladdin appears to be a little too small in the shot above.

The cartoon boasts excellent colour, which I imagine looked better in its original release. The Film Daily proclaimed the cartoon “very good” and called the colour “vivid and appealing.”

There’s not a lot of drama in the story, but we’re treated to silhouette animation of the lamp bouncing around inside the sultan.

Grim Natwick and Berny Wolf receive screen credit for animation and Art Turkisher supplied the score.

The cartoon has some history. Motion Picture Daily, on its front page of August 16, 1934, reported:

First certificate of compliance with Production Code Administration standards issued to a producer not a member of the Hays association goes to P. A. Powers, as producer, and “Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp,” an animated cartoon, as the picture.
The Hays office, at the same time, stressed the point that the approval, Certificate No. 154, was in conformity with the “association’s purpose to to afford all producers, whether or not members, the opportunity to use the facilities which the association has developed to help assure the highest standards of picture production.”

Evidently the Hays people felt the scene where Aladdin lands in a tub with the bathing princess was chaste enough to be okayed.

Being Served, the English Way

Television comedy from England has run the gamut from broad (the bust-chasing Benny Hill) to surreal (the brilliant Monty Python) to the somewhat satiric (the clever The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). We Canadians, being part of the Commonwealth, may have been exposed to more of it than Americans, who had to rely mainly on PBS importing the shows.

I could name quite a number of them I have enjoyed viewing over the years, but I will pick only one at random to bring up today—the multi-seasoned Are You Being Served?

The characters are archetypes of the English, whose class system and formality at work are foreign to us in North America. The actors couldn’t have been better cast. David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd (the latter spending a season as a writer/performer on Laugh-In) filled scripts with cleverness, silliness and, as you would expect on an English programme, “naughty” double-entendres. It debuted in 1972 and enjoyed life as a feature film and continued life as an inferior sequel.

The cast members were interviewed over the years, especially John Inman. You’ll have to indulge the length of the post as I transcribe three of them. First is from the Liverpool Echo of Oct. 20, 1979.

THE VERSATILE CAPTAIN
By SYD GILLINGHAM
IF there’s a more fascinating exercise for box-watchers than to accompany Frank Thornton when he pops into a department store to do some shopping, then I'd like to hear about it. Fascinating? That's probably putting it mildly. For “Are You Being Served?”, the continuing saga of the Grace Brothers emporium, returned to our screens last night and once again Captain Peacock—Frank Thornton, of course—was laying down the law from his lofty position as floorwalker. Not that Londoner Frank—he was born in Dulwich 58 years ago—makes a habit of popping into department stores. “It's a chore,” he says, he could well do without.
But just what does happen when he goes to buy, say, a pair of socks? “Well, assistants might come up and ask: ‘Are you being served?’ Then they say: ‘Oh dear, dear, dear,’ as they catch themselves coming out with the phrase for real.
"Because the odd thing is that, because of the series, hardly any shop assistant uses that phrase now.
“And they always recognise one of the characters from the series. They tell me, for example: ‘We've got a Mr. Humphries downstairs you know!’
Captain Peacock, Mr. Humphries, Mrs. Slocombe and the rest of the Grace Brothers stalwarts are the result of inspired casting by production (and co-writer) David Croft. He laid precisely the same magic on "Dad's Army," of which he was also producer comedy and co-writer.
"You can't imagine any other bunch of actors doing ‘Dad's Army’ as well as the bunch he got together," says Frank.
"I worked for him first about 1962—I did a couple of things in ‘Hugh and I’—and then again in 1965. And it was seven years before worked for him again in ‘Are You Being Served?’
"I’m not complaining. What I'm saying is that he had nothing which suited me. But when he had the idea of ‘Are You Being Served?’ and wanted to cast the toffee-nosed floorwalker, he thought of me.
"Obviously, from then on there's development of the characters as a result of mutual inspiration between the writers and the actors.
"He casts you because he knows the role will fit you—although I hope I'm not such a pompous twit production (and co-writer), as Captain Peacock!"
Does Frank Thornton, who has an impressive touch of theatrical track record behind him (notably Michael Bentine’s “It’s a Quare World" as far at TV comedy series are concerned), want to escape from the shadow of Captain Peacock and similar roles to take on more serious, dramatic parts?
"Well I love the old boy," he says, "but every actor likes to move around. And, in fact, we moved around more than some people notice, perhaps.
"We normally do six or seven or eight weeks work at BBC-TV for ‘Are You Being Served?’ and that doesn't keep you going, so you have to go off and do something else, whether it's in the theatre, or making television commercials, or whatever.
"We exercise our versatility in moving from job to job. Look at Donald Sinden. From ‘Two’s Company’ to ‘King Lear’ and now ‘Othello’ at Stratford.
About five years ago, for instance, I was at Stratford for a season and played Duncan in ‘Macbeth’—which is a very different cup of tea to Captain Peacock, isn't it?
"Now I am about to appear In Tom Stoppard's play, ‘Jumpers’—a serious play with a lot of comedy in it. And it's quite a challenge for me because it's a very long part.
"The thing is, people can see that most actors are a little more versatile than often they are given credit for."
Frank Thornton was all of five-years-old when he decided he wanted to be an actor. “I suppose I knew I was incompetent at anything else," he laughs. But the need to earn a living saw him working first of all as an insurance clerk.
"At the same time I took evening classes in drama at the London School of Dramatic Art," he says, "and got my first jab on the stage on April Fool's Day, 1940.
"I joined the R.A.F. in 1943, came out in 1947—and started my career in the theatre all over again.”
Home for Frank and his wife, Beryl—they have a married daughter, Jane, and two grandsons—is a house in south-west London.
Working harder
"My wife and I seem to be working harder now than ever before," he says. "We have absolutely no help at all, and there's the house and the garden to look after.
"My wife is a keen gardener, and I've decorated the whole house. I'm a very good paperhanger, you know, if anybody needs me! I've got all the tools, and I restore the odd bit of furniture too."
It seems that in the new series of "Are You Being Served?" Captain Peacock has more than his share of problems.
There's a vacancy in the menswear department and so the management advertise for a junior but the only suitable applicant is Mr. Goldberg (played by Alfie Bass), who until recently owned a small tailoring business.
The fly in Captain Peacock's particular ointment is that Mr. Goldberg happened to be in the Army with him—and his memory of events is a little different to that of the gallant captain!

The series didn’t get off to an auspicious start, as we learn in this interview with the Liverpool Daily Post, Dec. 28, 1976. There are references to the British custom of Panto, a comedy stage production that may consist of some kind of fairy tale, fable or legend, aimed at both children and adults.

SO NOW IT'S ARE YOU BEING RECOGNISED?
says PHILIP KEY
SHE RETURNS breathless from a shopping expedition around Liverpool, a stylish turban atop her head. Then comes a look of alarm as she notices you have beaten her to the stage door appointment.
“Oooh . . . . I am sorry I’ve kept you waiting,” she says (she’s just one minute late). “Come up into my sitting room.”
The sitting room is a 1950’s-style effort just off her dressing room in the city’s Empire Theatre, and home for the next five weeks or so for actress Mollie Sugden.
Mollie—whose Mrs. Slocombe in the telly series Are You Being Served is one of the great comic creations—is playing her first panto season for 30 years.
And that first episode, she points out, wasn’t exactly a classic. It was at Oldham Rep, and took a week to rehearse and a week to play, she remembers.
On that occasion, she was the principal boy. This time around she’s the dame.
Mollie admits frankly that she done big-time pantomime before the simple reason being that no one bothered to ask her. Mrs Slocombe put paid to that.
This year, Liverpool wasn’t the only place that wanted her.
It all began, she says, when she appeared some years ago in the television comedy series Hugh and I as the snooty next door neighbour.
Actress and mum
Then came the Liver Birds written by Carla Lane in which writer John Chapman was called in to help work on the scripts. Carla has just created this role of Sandra’s snooty but basically working class mum.
Chapman said he knew just the person . . . and Mollie got the role.
Then when David Croft came to write department store series Are You Being Served, he too remembered Mollie.
“It’s been a tremendous,” she smiles, “but not right from the start. At one time, the cast thought the show was finished.”
Its pilot in the Comedy Playhouse series was suddenly put on the screen without publicity or warning. It was an amazing five years ago during the Olympic coverage in Munich and the tragic massacre there left a blank evening on the screens. The show was put in at the last minute.
“We really thought that was it, then it was put out again, and that time against another popular comedy series on the other side.
“But when it went on a third time it was up against something like This Week, so people thought: ‘What’s on the other side? The viewing figures shot up and they’ve been there ever since.”
It’s been quite a heady success for Mollie after years in what many would call the theatrical wilderness. She was playing what she called “small but lucrative roles”—mainly North Country women.
Now she admits gleefully to enjoying the fruits of success which includes instant recognition in the street. “Perhaps in Liverpool more than elsewhere people aren’t reticent about talking to you.
“I love it. You know, people in stores will tell me ‘ooh—we’ve got a Mrs Slocombe here, or a Mr Humphries. The only trouble is when I get home. I find I got half the things I went out for!”
Mollie is married to Coronation Street actor William Moore and has 13-year-old twin sons, all of them up in the city for Christmas.
Another funny face
She reckons she manages to combine the role of actress and mum okay, especially when she’s doing television work. “I can see the twins off to school, go and rehearse, and then they see me ironing in the evening, so I must look like a mother to them,” she laughs.
But what about those naughty lines in Are You Being Served, I wonder?
Mollie laughs again and says the great thing about Mrs Slocombe is that she realise doesn’t saying she’s naughty things with double-meanings, and that’s the way she plays it.
“The writers know just how far to go, and I’ve had people coming up to me saying: ‘Oooh, I love your show—it’s so CLEAN’.”
Mollie born in Keighley, Yorkshire, but now settled in Surrey, has had a hectic work schedule since television success.
There’s been a long summer season of the stage version in Blackpool, more filming for the Liver Birds, now the panto, and then on to making more Are You Being Served shows in February.
And although she admits to some luck in her career (“something leads to something else, and that leads on to another thing”), she’s willing to come out behind a bushel and it’s says not ALL luck.
“After all, people aren't going to be laughing at you today because you had a bit of luck 20 years ago.”
Mollie pulls another funny face—she peppers her conversation with highly amusing mugging that has you giggling most of the time—and heads off for some more rehearsal.

Perhaps the most-liked character on the show was Mr. Humphries, played by John Inman. Humphries was a “Whoops, my dears!” stereotype that didn’t go down with some gay people in the 1970s, who thought they were being ridiculed. Inman, like almost anyone in that era, was coy about his own sexuality because of homophobia but, many years later, let it be known he had been in a relationship with a man since before Are You Being Served? appeared on British television.

The difference in attitude back then can be seen by the word gay being in quotation marks (even during the mass AIDS deaths in the 1980s, a Canadian wire service insisted on using the word “homosexual” in its copy, except in direct quotes).

This story comes from the Evening Star, published in Burnley on Jan. 12, 1979.

Talking to Mr Humphries of TV fame . . .
A gentle hint from John . . .
By ALBERT WATSON
“WHETHER I’m gay or whether I’m what they call straight is nobody’s business but mine,” said John Inman. “I just get on my work, and I expect other people to do the same.”
It was a gentler rebuke than it looks in print, gentler than the dishonesty of my question—“Does it bother you that many people assume you are gay”—deserved.
But John Inman is a gentleman, and a very gentle man. Years of having the “mickey” taken have left him cautious, jealous of his privacy, but not bitter.
In voice and mannerism he is very like Mr Humphries, the dapper department store assistant he plays in the successful BBC TV comedy series “Are You Being Served?” which has been described by bisexual Elton John as “an insult to homosexuals.”
“That kind of comment really upsets me,” John Inman told me during a break in rehearsals of the show. “I don’t think I’ve done a bad turn to ‘gays’; in fact, I think I have helped to make them more acceptable.
“There is now a gay character, Mr Humphries, on a mass-appeal television show and people don’t seem to be offended by him.”
Indeed, such is the skill with which John Inman has made the character sympathetic that he frequently gets away with “gay” lines which from the mouth of many other actors would cause outrage.
“Yes,” he agrees. “but we always leave a ‘way out,’ an alternative of understanding the line. If it is too much for you, you can tell yourself that it really meant something else.”
Like Larry Grayson, with whom he can in some ways be compared, John Inman claims a high percentage of female fans. “In fact, I think I’m the only performer to have brought largely female audiences to the Windmill Theatre in London,” he says.
Inman starred for 14 months at the theatre, famous for its nude revues and sex plays, in “Let’s Get Laid” during which time “Are You Being Served?” became popular.
“When we opened, the audience was 99 per cent men; by the time I left, the men were outnumbered,” he told me.
John Inman was born in Blackpool, where he visits his mother as often as he can, and made his stage debut at the South Pier Pavilion at the age of 13.
Later in repertory theatres he tried singing and straight acting, but soon discovered that comedy was his forte.
He moved to London to appear in the stage musical “Ann Veronica,” but the inevitable “resting” periods came and, during one of them, John worked as a window dresser in a men’s store.
He says that Mr Humphries is based on people he met there, but immediately adds: “You know, people who work in stores always say how real the characters in the show are—but its never actually them.
“I have met middle-aged, well-corsetted ladies with purple hair who reckon they know a Mrs Slocombe on the next counter.”
“Are You Being Served?”—along with the spin-off movie, stage shows, and the offers John has had as a result of his success in the series—has served John Inman well.
One of the things he would like to do with his new financial security is to move from his London home into the country—but that plan is hampered by the fact that he can’t drive.
“I’ve tried,” he told me. “but I’m so nervous. I’m wet through before I get in the car—so I've given up and decided to keep death off the road. I’m a good passenger, though—I’m so ignorant of how it all works that I put complete trust in anybody clever enough to make the car go and get it around corners.”
Theatre
Occasionally this lack of mobility can be a real disadvantage, as John discovered when he turned up at an hotel in Norwich late one night and realised next morning that he didn’t know the way to the theatre in which he was to appear.
“I asked for directions and started walking,” he said, “then this Corporation dustcart stopped next to me and the driver asked for my autograph. I said ‘Swop you—my autograph for a lift to the Theatre Royal’ and that’s why I turned up at the theatre in a Corporation dustcart.
“The manager was disappointed; he said if had known he would have got the Press in.”
For the third year in succession, John Inman will be playing Mother Goose in pantomime this winter. “I don’t play her anything like Mr Humphries,” he insists, “though I do get the kids shout ‘I’m free. .’.” Next year he hopes fulfil an old ambition playing “Charley’s Aunt” on tour, and possibly in London. The part, of course, could have been written for him.
And if the BBC asks him to do yet another series of “Are You Being Served,” he will be willing, and none of this nonsense about being restricted by playing the same part for years.
Besides, he seems genuinely to like, and be liked, by the rest of the cast of the show. As our interview came to an end, Trevor Bannister, alias Mr Lucas, came into the room pointing out that the gang was going down to the pub and would John like a lift?
Assured that I had all I wanted, he replied: “I’ll be right down, Trev. Thanks a lot, love.”
And with one bound he was, dare I say it, free.

Most comedies suffer as the years go on. The dynamic wasn’t the same, nor as good in my opinion, when cast members began leaving. It may not be the best British sitcom of all time, but it still entertains audiences, and that’s the goal of any TV show.

Owl of Tomorrow

Tex Avery fills T.V. of Tomorrow (1953) with quick gags, some of them one-liners.

This example lasts five seconds. Avery supplies a darkened room. The only animation is some eye blinks and a flickering television. Narrator Paul Frees sets it up with the line: “Of course, TV does keep you up late for those night-owl shows.”



The lights quickly come up to reveal a pun.



The only animation is the flickering light from the TV. The human and owls are immobile on a background painting or cel.

Avery used five animators: Mike Lah, Ray Patterson, Bob Bentley, Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons. Ed Benedict designed the characters.

Incidentally, there is no mother-in-law joke in this cartoon.

A Safe Gag

The last new Bugs Bunny cartoon shown in theatres is full of familiarity. False Hare (1964) features a wolf resembling Ralph Wolf/Wile E. Coyote (except with bloated cheeks), Mel Blanc doing his standard “nephew” voice and a bunch of gags that were variations of ones used time and time again in Warners cartoons.

Here’s one that’s a switch on the “Endearing Young Charms” gag that Friz Freleng was endeared with. Character sets up a musical trap. Bugs doesn’t do the right thing to activate the trap. Character gets frustrated with Bugs’ inability, demonstrates how to do it correctly and BAM!

In this case, Uncle Big Bad has rigged a knife to a desk clerk’s bell. When the bell is rung, it cuts a rope keeping a huge safe aloft. The safe falls on top of the ringer.

In olden days, Bugs didn’t need to have advance knowledge. He was the good guy so, naturally, the bad guy (eg. Yosemite Sam) lost. In this case, writer John Dunn has Bugs clue in by looking up and seeing the safe.



We all know where the gag is going. Bugs deliberately avoids using the little button to sound the bell.



Big Bad doesn’t hit the bell, either. His hand goes past it. That’s because the bell is on Bob Gribbroeck’s background painting. At one time, the button would be animated, but that would cost more money.



The safe doesn’t squash Big Bad, either. The cel with the safe on is slid down in front of a stationary cel of the wolf, just like in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. That saves money, too.



The cartoon was made by the Bob McKimson unit. There’s a cameo at the end by McKimson’s Foghorn Leghorn but even the dialogue, I SAY EVEN THE DIALOGUE, sets it up that you can see that coming, too. TOO, THAT IS.

Jack Benny, 1935 Version

It’s a little hard for old-radio fans to picture Jack Benny without Rochester, Dennis Day, the Maxwell and being something other than 39 years old. But not only was Benny on the air for a goodly number of years without them, he was number one in radio popularity polls.

We’re talking about the Jack Benny of 1935. Don Wilson was around then, touting the real fruit goodness of Jell-O (“twice as good as ever before”). Mary Livingstone was more prone to dizziness and poetry than sarcastic cracks of later years. At the start of the year his singer was Frank Parker, who had appeared on radio in the early ‘30s but was elevated to stardom by the Benny show. Don Bestor was his bandleader (no Phil Harris yet).

Here are two pieces marking Jack’s 190th and 200th shows, both in 1935. First up is a column from the Pittsburgh Press, July 14. Unfortunately, the broadcast mentioned is not available for listening. It aired before the Benny-Allen feud existed.

Vacation Days Are Here For Jack As Fourth Radio Series Is Ended
Benny Plans Return In Autumn With Schlepperman
By S. H. STEINHAUSER
Jack Benny, the ginger ale-automobile-tire and desert salesman, will do his 190th coast-to-coast broadcast at 7 o'clock tonight, then leave the air until September, when he will return for the same sponsor. Fred Allen will be tonight's guest star. Since May, 1932, when he made his radio debut he has had four sponsors, three of the firm names beginning with the word General but strangely enough, he has never acquired the nickname General. His friends know him as Jack. Mary Livingstone, his wife, calls him “toots” off the air and on. He calls her Sadie, because that's her name.
In almost two-hundred broadcasts, Jack has never once wavered in the slightest from wholesome fun. On an October Sunday night he started to comment on one of Frank Parker's songs "That's darn good" and his tongue slipped and he said "damn." Jack has never ceased being sorry about that. He's that kind of a person.
In every survey of the past year Jack has been voted almost unanimously radio's outstanding entertainer.
Jack's story is one of the rise of a vaudeville ham to a weekly radio salary of $6,500, a stage Income of $10,000 per week and a movie contract calling for $70,000 per picture. He has just finished one talkie and is starting another. And with their fortune, Jack and Mary remain the same folks they were when the going was not so soft. They have an apartment in New York and employ one servant. Mary likes to cook the things she knows Jack likes best. When they are at home the maid is not permitted to answer the door. They do that.
Evenings at home are "family affairs," with Gracie Allen and George Burns from across the hall in, to compare adopted babies. Drinking is at a minimum. An occasional cocktail is the limit.
Their engagement is one of the funny stories of radio. It would make an ideal skit for a broadcast. Jack was courting Mary's sister and Mary always gave Jack the bird. In fact she bribed some of her pals to go to a theater where Jack was playing and to refrain from laughing or applauding.
If you take Jack's story, on a certain Sunday he proposed to Mary, on Monday Mary said "Yes," on Tuesday the engagement was broken, on Wednesday she changed her mind, on Thursday the engagement was off again, and on Friday they were married and life became just one gag after another.
* * *
Jack's own story begins like this, "To begin with, I used to be dumb. Then Mr. Marconi invented radio and it became unpopular and I quit fiddling while a blond girl thumped a piano, to become a vocal sandwich man. It was the toughest step I ever took in my life, to rehearse in private, then to walk into a studio where everyone looked like they wanted to hang me, then to spring gags on George Olsen's band and Ethel Shutta and hope they would laugh. The waits were terrifying."
Jack skipped too much territory. His career started when his father gave him a violin and a wrench and told him to become a plumber and a violinist. By the time Benny Kubelsky (that's Jack) was 16 he had thrown the wrench away and was playing the violin in a Chicago orchestra—and he didn't play "Love in Bloom."
A year later he went professional and started a vaudeville tour with a pianist. Come the war, and Jack joined the navy. Officers who knew of his fiddling drafted him for seamen's shows. His violin got no laughs and no money for seamen's benefits, so he started to wisecrack. That was actually the beginning of one of radio's greatest careers. Jack Benny the ace clown of radio is a war product.
The war over, Jack returned to the stage, talking and telling jokes, and without his fiddle. He broke a record of eight weeks at a Los Angeles theater, landed a contract as a master of ceremonies, met Mary and her sister, married Mary. They went east on their honeymoon, were invited to a show by Earl Carroll, joined the show—the Vanities stole the show with Jack as the star and Mary acting his dumbell secretary. And there was born a radio idea—a comedian husband and a dumb wife. But if you think Mary's dumb, you're crazy. She's dumb enough to collect $1,000 per week for her radio services and Jack isn't telling how much he pays her for stage work. She keeps out of the movies.
With all of the talk, scandal and divorce business in the entertainment world, Jack and Mary are outstanding examples of the other side of the story. They are madly in love. Their eighth wedding anniversary was observed in Pittsburgh. Soon after leaving here they adopted a baby. Some day, they say, they'll adopt more.
* * *
To make his story more unusual Jack, although the star, has always made himself the goat for his associates' jokes but with all that has kept his lead on them. Yet he has added fame to the careers of Don Bestor, Frank Parker, Don Wilson and Sam Hearn "Schlepperman’s" “Jake sent me."
When Jack went to the coast he was wondering what to do about "Schlepperman." He had promised Sam Heam, portrayer of the role, that he would be needed in Hollywood within four weeks but Schlepperman never got into the skits. Jack decided that "Jake sent me" was a thing of the past for the current season. So Schlepperman went on an Eastern stage tour and is still packing them in and drawing down more than $2,000 per week.
A wire from Jack assures our readers that Schlepperman will positively rejoin him when the Benny troupe returns to work in Radio City next September. There will be a grand reunion on the first broadcast of the next series, with Frank Parker and Hearn both on the job.

But things changed. Parker got his own show on CBS and was replaced with Michael Bartlett, who didn’t last two months, then Kenny Baker was brought in. Jack was in the movies now. Bestor wanted to remain in the east so he was replaced with Johnny Green.

Jack’s 200th broadcast was on December 1. A transcription of it does not exist, but it was touted as a tribute to the first show on May 2, 1932, with current cast members re-enacting parts performed by the original players. The only thing is the premiere broadcast consisted of music, and Jack making quips to the home audience. There were no comedy routines.

The first bandleader on the show was George Olsen. The Chicago Tribune caught up with him.

We’ve reprinted an interview with Olsen from the 1950s where he took credit for Jack Benny being hired for the show. In this story, he takes credit for an idea that turned out to be a success (but disliked by the show’s sponsor). As Benny, soon with Harry Conn, wrote the Canada Dry show, and Olsen did not, you can take the claim however you want. The first show exists, and you can hear the orchestra play “That’s How We Make Music” and Olsen botch Benny’s name.

OLSEN RECALLS 1ST BENNY SHOW ON ANNIVERSARY
Idea of Kidding Sponsor Was George’s
BY LARRY WOLTERS.
Oddly enough, the New York Philharmonic Symphony; orchestra and Jack Benny are both putting on their 200th broadcast this afternoon. The symphony will present an all request program. Jack Benny will turn back the clock (6 p. m. on WENR) and recreate his very first program. In that show, Incidentally, George Olsen and Ethel Shutta were probably regarded as the stars by radio listeners since they were already well acquainted with them. But they soon decided that Benny was good, too.
George recalled some of the amusing incidents at the College inn the other evening in connection with that first broadcast. The Idea for the program was Bertha Brainerd's, the NBC executive. George and Ethel were selected to provide the music. A comedian was wanted and Benny was finally picked as one who ought to click on the air.
Kidding Product, Olsen's Idea.
And here's something for which millions of radio fans have George Olsen to thank. The idea of kidding the sponsor and the product was his. When it was suggested to the sponsor he said, “Go as far as you like." The rest, of course, is history. That suggestion has had a mighty effect in radio. In the three Intervening years the heavy, stodgy hand of many a sponsor has been eased because of the success of the foolery over the sponsor's wares initiated on the Benny program.
The first Benny show went on from the old "Midnight Frolics on the Amsterdam roof In New York In April, 1932. There was an audience, but a glass curtain separated them from the performers.
Benny Introduced as Denny.
Olsen Introduced Benny thus: “Ladies and gentlemen, Jack Denny, the Canada (pause) dry humorist." (Denny was a favorite band leader that season. What's become of him now?)
To which Jack retorted, "Jack Benny is the name, Lopez." And so the show was off amid a welter of confusion, prevailing to this day.
Ethel Shutta sang "Rockabye Moon” and "Listen to the German Band," two numbers which are almost her trade marks now. Olsen recalls that his crew played "That's How We Make Music."
In order to make the laughter spontaneous the Olsen bandsmen were not allowed to hear Benny in rehersal. In a few weeks the program became so popular that Olsen was besieged by players from other bands who wanted to join his outfit just to hear the comedy. Bob Rice who sat fairly near the microphone laughed so loudly during the first broadcast that they had to move him back. Listeners wrote in complaining that the one fellow roared so boisterously that he obviously was a stooge. But it was really the spontaneous reaction of Rice.
How Mary Got In.
Mary Livingstone didn't even see Jack's first broadcast. She listened in on the radio. She was first introduced as a New Jersey fan who had written a letter asking Benny for a job as secretary. Her first big laugh line came when Jack asked her whether he might take her home and she retorted that Dick (later Hotcha) Gardiner, one of the orchestra men, was taking her.
Ethel encouraged and coached Mary a lot. George and Ethel were working for NBC at the time and when the sponsor moved to CBS after 26 weeks because he found a better spot they were forced to drop out. Mary then took over the leading feminine part and Ted Weems was engaged to do the music.
For his first series Benny got $1,250 for two programs a week. Now he is reported getting $7,000 for one program a week. His band masters after the two mentioned above: Frank Black, Don Bestor, Jimmy Grier, and Johnny Green. Other soloists: Andrea Marsh, James Melton, Frank Parker, Michael Bartlett, and Kenny Baker.

It’s a shame so few programmes from 1935 are around to be heard. Fans have to satisfy themselves with reading the scripts, all of which are intact, and re-printed by the fine folks at BearManor Media. Editor Kathy Fuller-Seeley, about as knowledgeable as anyone about this period of Benny’s show, provides valuable insight and context.