Sunny California

Tex Avery sets up Cellbound with a simple premise: escaped prisoner Spike is trapped in the warden’s TV set and has to enact something on the screen so he won’t get discovered. What we don’t know is how Spike will do it.

The warden looks through his newspaper’s TV listings. “Ah, horse racing,” he says.



Reaction take.



Spike reacts with a convenient watering can (filled with water) and a sign.



“Sunny California,” mumbles the warden. And it’s on to the next gag.

The Avery unit was gone almost 2 ½ years before this cartoon was released. Avery used his regular gagman, Heck Allen, and layout artist, Ed Benedict. But his animators were gone, except Mike Lah, who finished up the picture as Avery looked for work. The Hanna-Barbera unit’s animators were brought in—Irv Spence, Ken Muse and Ed Barge, with Lah animating as well.

Writing For Benny

Jack Benny was regularly on radio or television for 33 seasons and, unlike pretty much every comedian on a variety show, only used a handful of writers.

After Benny and his first writer, Harry Conn, parted very unamicably in 1936, the majority of those who came afterward stayed with him for years.

One of them, Milt Josefsberg, wrote a book about his time with Benny, while George Balzer gave a number of interviews over the years. Both had nothing but good to say about Jack, and Jack had nothing but good to say about them.

Here’s how he put it in a column that appeared in papers starting July 1, 1964.

TV Comedy Writing Is Serious Business
For at least 38 of his 39 years, Jack Benny has been a regular visitor in the nation’s living rooms. He will be around again next season, returning to NBC after a lengthy sojourn at CBS. Here Jack, in an unaccustomed serious vein, gives tribute, where at least part of the credit is due, to his writers. Still, without Benny and his fabulous sense of comedy timing, those writers would not be a part of an American institution, “The Jack Benny Show." Today Jack Benny is the writer—as a guest for Cynthia Lowry, who is on vacation.
By JACK BENNY
Written For The Associated Press.
HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—We have many guest stars on my program. But before these personalities are scheduled to appear, I get together with my writers and we come up with a point of view that will fit each one. Actually, we always start out with a clear slate—we let ideas grow, tossing them back and forth.
The one program that is the exception—one that we pretty well know about ahead of time—is the annual show we do with James Stewart and his wife Gloria, my neighbors in Beverly Hills.
As almost everyone knows, the business of writing comedy is a serious one. Those who doubt this need only visit my set on Stage 2 at Revue Universal Studios. Look for the saddest-appearing men around. They will be my writers. They get together to play with ideas. They call me after a while and say: “Jack, we’ve got it. This is fine. We think we have a good story-line now."
They tell me where they are going with the show—what the script will be. We spend a great deal of time editing. We never let a show reach the cameras exactly the way it was first written.
But when you stop to think about it, my four writers have good reason to be happy fellows.
In addition to their unprecedented tenure with me, their love of life can be explained by the two Emmys and six Emmy nominations they have received from members of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
They have the opportunity to write lines for some of the biggest names in the entertainment business.
They have an employer who bears no resemblance to the miserly figure they have created.
My writers are Sam Perrin, George Balzer, Al Gordon and Hal Goldman. I think their team work is a record lifespan for a group of comedy writers. Perrin and Balzer have been writing for me for 22 years. Gordon and Goldman can chalk up 17.
I can be fooled more easily than my writers. Sometimes I make the mistake of reading a script and saying, “Fellas, I don’t think this is very funny. I think the lines should be changed.” Every time I do that, I spend more time apologizing than you’d believe.
But once I was adamant. I was sure that I had them this time. I kept arguing, and one of my writers said: “Jack, you may be right, the four of us could be wrong." Well, it turned out to be the same old story, and I wound up saying: “Sorry Fellas.”

Benny seemed to have a sense of when a gag had worn itself out. By the 1970s, he was telling reporters he was downplaying the “age 39” gag because he felt it wouldn’t work on television when he was in his mid-70s. George Balzer elaborated on this in what looks like a PR release from Benny’s production company or CBS. It appeared in newspapers starting Jan. 11, 1964.

Shaping The Character Of Jack Benny
Comedy has changed noticeably in the past two decades and so have comedians—even Jack Benny.
Benny, whom almost everyone knows as the one man in the world who has made time stand still and who hasn’t spent a dime foolishly in all his 39 years, nonetheless has undergone a subtle metamorphosis.
This comes from a fellow who should know. He is George Balzer, a comedy writer who has helped shape Benny’s public character for more than 20 years and who continues behind the scenes with “The Jack Benny Program” on the CBS Television Network.
The fact is that some of the things consistent with Benny’s character simply aren’t appropriate today, Balzer says.
"Take money, for example. Today, Jack will spend money almost recklessly if there's a good reason for it—a reason like, say, he's under hypnosis and not accountable for his actions,” smiles Balzer.
Too, in the old days, Benny never would give Rochester, his companion and Man Friday, a day off.
“Now,” says Balzer, “he’ll cut Rochester for high card to see who does the housework.”
Jack Benny couldn’t drive a Maxwell today, Balzer says, because “a Maxwell would be too expensive to maintain.”
Therefore those wonderfully evocative Maxwell jokes, like the rear tires being recapped with old tennis shoes and Jack feeling that someone was sneaking up on him when he drove on dark nights, are confined to the files. Balzer and his fellow writers—Sam Perrin, Al Gordon and Hal Goldman—are keeping Benny a cheap and vain character, but in terms of the 1960s.
But, Balzer says, “He wants the entire cast to get laughs. Sometimes he’ll change funny lines we’ve given him and give them to another character.”
One thing about Benny never changes, Balzer points out: “He always wants to be the butt of the jokes—the fall guy.”

Balzer wasn’t in the writers’ room when Jack put together his final TV show in 1974. Hal Goldman and Al Gordon were. So was Hugh Wedlock, Jr., who wrote off-and-on for Benny with partner Howard Snyder starting in 1936, though neither got credit in the radio days. There were a few age jokes, a bunch of cheap jokes, and references to Mary Livingstone and Rochester. The writers’ material still worked.

Walter Lantz Goes High Class

Walter Lantz had a bonafide star in Woody Woodpecker. But as World War Two was ending, he wanted something more.

The “something more” wasn’t Andy Panda. Even Lantz understood Andy’s potential stardom was limited. He talked about it to the United Press in this story from June 22, 1946.

Children Favor Cartoon Figures Which Get into Mischief
By PATRICIA CLARY
HOLLYWOOD—(UP)—Cartoon Producer Walter Lantz believes that children like brash cartoon characters because they get away with mischief that would bring the youngsters a spanking.
That's why, Lantz said, his cocky Woody Woodpecker was more popular than gentle Andy Panda, and why noisy Donald Duck outdraws Mickey Mouse.
"Seeing cartoons is what you might call psychological sublimation for the kids," he explained. "They wish to do the things Woody Woodpecker does, but they can't get away with it. So they let off steam by watching him get away with it."
Lantz has other ideas for the children, however. He's going to improve their musical intelligence with cartoons based on famous classical pieces.
"I think that the time is ripe for good music," he said, "but it has to be presented in an understandable way. The stories behind our music will not necessarily have anything to do with the opera, for instance, from which it is taken. But the stories will bring the moods of the music to life."
His animators are having plenty of trouble filling an assignment like that. But they've been well trained for it. It takes nine years, he told us, to train a topflight animator. And there's no way to learn except by working. "We worked out a careful analysis of our training periods in order to help the many veterans who are working as cartooning apprentices under the GI Bill,” Lantz said.
"A first class animator, for instance, starts with an idea and roughs out sketches here and there in the continuity to illustrate his idea.
“Then the class-two animator gets the idea from that and draws every other sketch. The apprentice animator consequently has a close pattern to follow when he draws the in-between panels."
Sometimes, Lantz said, his animators get so well-trained at drawing animals that they forget how to draw humans. Then he tells them to take a week off at art school and get back in form.
But there won't be any human characters in Lantz's cartoons. Not any longer. One pretty—a Latin miss—was enough.
"The censors got after me," he said. "Said she swung her hips when she walked. Who doesn't?"
"I'll stick to animals," he said. "You can't offend them."

The way Lantz is talking, you’d think he had mini-versions of Fantasia in mind. Of course, that kind of animation would be expensive, but Lantz, musical director Darrell Calker and his writers found ways to incorporate gags around a framework of classical music.

Universal released The Poet and the Peasant as an Andy Panda cartoon on March 16, 1946, though Variety reported on June 15, 1944 that cutting had been completed. The cartoon was nominated for an Oscar. Lantz decided to go ahead with a Musical Miniature series, though it doesn't appear all the cartoons bore that title:

Musical Moments from Chopin, (Universal, February 24, 1947, Oscar nominated).
The Overture to William Tell, (Universal, June 16, 1947).
The Bandmaster, (United Artists, December 22, 1947).
Kiddie Concert, (United Artists, April 21, 1948).
Pixie Picnic, (United Artists, May 28, 1948).

The Chopin cartoon was ready well before its release. It was previewed in an interview with Lantz in the Valley Times, October 15, 1946, who explains how they were made.

Valley Cartoon Master Believes in Artistry
By HAZEL FLYNN
The other night at a preview I saw an unusual cartoon called “Chopin’s Musical Moments.”
Here for the first time was some of the world’s great music combined with cinema art and animation.
The leading character was a cute little fellow, Andy Panda. Andy sat down to play a concert in the barn and was doing nicely when a saucy red-haired chap, Woody Woodpecker, came in to polish the piano. Deciding he could play too, he joined in and soon such selections as “Fantasy Impromptu” and “Scherzo" began to emerge.
Imaginative
Then it waxed dramatic. A fire started and the flames took over, evening running up and down the keys. But did the intrepid performers cease playing? They did not until note of the Polonaise had died away.
It was humor and it was culturally satisfying. I knew at once that it had Academy Award possibilities, so I decide[d] to find out more about it.
Yesterday I met the producer and creative artist back of “Chopin’s Musical Moments"—Walter Lantz. Mild-mannered, greying at the temples, he admits being 46 and one of the industry’s pioneers line.
Valley Studio
At his Valley studio he has turned out literally hundreds of animated subjects. A former New York American employe he created “Colonel Heezaliar," one of the earliest silent cartoons more than 27 years ago. He worked for the famous Bray studios. Ask mother or dad about the early Bray cartoons, such as “Out of the Inkwell”). Lantz was brought to California by the late Carl Laemmle to start a department at Universal . . . He’s been here ever since . . . What is more, he can still draw—which cannot be said of many producers in the same game.
Besides creating Andy and Woody he publishes the Walter Lantz New Funnies magazine, one of the best read comic books in the country. He gets thousands of fan letters from kids who want to know what Woody and Andy eat—whether they are kept in cages, etc. Naturally, he never intends to lose this audience if he can help it.
The Chopin picture is one of the series he calls “Musical Miniatures.” Another uses Rossini’s Overture to William Tell, with a 45 piece orchestra performing. Still another will incorporate the Zampa overture and he may soon do one based on “Die Fledermaus" as well as “The Nutcracker Suite.”
Music Comes First
He has an odd way of doing these “Miniatures." He picks the music first, then has the story tailored to fit—a difficult job, he admits.
The classics are never distorted in Lantz cartoons, for he feels that in making use of them he is doing something which will prove educational as well as entertaining, especially to youth.
Lantz lives in Encino in a ranch house with his wife, the former Grace Stafford, star of the Henry Duffy players for seven years, two great Dane dogs and the "only indoor barbecue in the Valley which doesn’t smoke. He figured out a way to prevent the smoking and paid through the nose to have his plan followed.
Smoke-abater Lantz is president of the Cartoon Producers’ association and he regrets that the cartoon is still underrated. He points to how this type of film has improved in the past ten years. Whereas 2500 drawings were used in silent days, a cartoon today may use more than 25,000. The artists are better. Most of the artists and animators today are art school graduates. The cost of Chopin's Musical Moments” is another example of how they have improved. The negative cost alone was nearly $50,000.
Appreciation Lack
Yet, he says, the average cartoon is still billed as an also-ran, even in critical comment. He hates those "also on the bill" cracks. And the revenue derived from these important portions of the theater program has not increased either. He says cartoons have not benefited from lush easy money, war days.
Perhaps with elimination of “B” pictures the situation will change. Walter Lantz hopes so. He also feels that the vogue for introducing cartoon sequences in big features may help exhibitor appreciation. He did one of the first of these sequences in technicolor for Paul Whiteman’s "King of Jazz."
Another thing which would help the cause would be a new name, he feels. Just imagine, he says, if full length pictures were billed as “longies." The term might run patrons right out of the theaters. Therefore, he’d like a word to substitute for the term "short.”
If you can think of one, let Walter know. He’s pitting his lance on the side of cartoons for culture—and more cash. And don’t you dare call them "shorts," either.

Whatever you want to call them, they had top animators working on them—Freddy Moore, Pat Matthews, Emery Hawkins, Ed Love, among them—and former Disney animator Dick Lundy directing. They may not have been as funny as, say, Rhapsody Rabbit, but they’re enjoyable enough to watch. Hawkins fans, especially, should love his work on The Poet and the Peasant.

This was a high period for the Lantz studio which ended before the decade was out. Lantz’s deal with United Artists went sour and he shut down his operation for over a year, spending his time touring. Erskine Johnson’s column of Feb. 15, 1949 talked of a Woody Woodpecker feature when Lantz returned. When Lantz’s stripped-down studio re-opened, there was no feature. And the Musical Miniatures were finished, too. You can read more about them in this post and enjoys Devon Baxter's examination of one in this entry at Cartoon Research.

Mouth of Oswald

Oswald the rabbit’s girl-friend hears music. She wants to hear it better. Here’s the gag.



Cut to an overhead shot of Oswald and his banjo. Oswald pokes his head toward the camera, like Van Beuren did in its cartoons a few years later.



This is from Rival Romeos (1928), one of the Disney Oswald shorts. A theatre manager in Manitoba told one trade paper: “Excellent cartoon. Best in some time.” Chester J. Smith of the Motion Picture News put it: “The various characters are put through a series of evolutions that should provoke considerable mirth.” I guess he means it’s funny.

Peter Marshall

He was heralded as part of the second coming of Martin and Lewis. About the only thing Peter Marshall had in common with them is he and his nightclub partner split up.

Neither Dean or Jerry starred in La Cage Aux Folles, but Marshall did. He appeared on stage in Vancouver as part of a touring company, though he missed a performance to fly to Los Angeles to tape a TV commercial.

Comedian. Actor. Singer. Those labels will likely never be applied to Peter Marshall. He’s known to just about everyone as the “master” of Hollywood Squares.

Like just about everyone in show biz, it was a slow rise to fame for Marshall. His first appearance on television I can find is on September 21, 1949 on KBNH’s “Hollywood Premiere Theater.” Wrote columnist Zuma Palmer: “A top act was that in which Tom Noonan and Peter Marshall took off various types of radio programs, among them man-in-the-street interviews and Mr. Anthonys.”

Noonan and Marshall puttered around nightclubs, including La Martinique in New York in 1950. They were booked into the New Golden Hotel-Bank Club starting June 11, 1952. “The meteoric rise of the Noonan-Marshall comedy duo has been nothing short of phenomenal,” wrote the Reno Gazette, “meteoric” evidently meaning three years. “Disciples of wholesome, family-style comedy, they climax each performance with their now famous “Television Chef” routine. Their performance was one of the highlights of the Warner Brothers’ recent movie production, ‘Starlift.’ In addition to their wholesome comedy as a team, Peter Marshall departs from his ‘straight-man’ role to sing several of his recent recording vocal renditions.”

After Martin and Lewis split, Twentieth-Century Fox figured the world was ready for a replacement, so in 1959 it cast Noonan and Marshall in the feature The Rookie directed by someone no one thinks of as a film director—the voice of George Jetson, George O’Hanlon. In 1961, they made one motion picture—Swingin’ Along, written by former animation director Jerry Brewer. The same year, Marshall and Paul Gilbert shot a failed pilot for NBC called Shore Leave.

Then came Hollywood Squares.

Marshall admitted in his autobiography he took the job because he didn’t want Dan Rowan to get it. Noonan was suffering from a brain tumour (he died in 1968) and Marshall felt Rowan was being a Dick Martin (subtract the word “Martin”) to his former partner. The game show was a huge success and Marshall was now a name.

Here’s a piece from the Associated Press that appeared in papers in October 1969.

A DAYTIME HOLLYWOOD SQUARE
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
AP Television Writer
Peter Marshall has an identity problem. He is not related to the late chaplain of the U.S. Senate whose name was the same. Nor is he related to Russell Nype or to Gene Rayburn, with whom he is sometimes confused.
This Peter Marshall is the man who has been serving for four years as host on one of NBC's more popular daytime game shows, Hollywood Squares, and is, as a consequence, better known to the distaff side of the audience.
• • •
MARSHALL WAS born Pierre LaCock and grew up with his sister Joanne in New York City. When Joanne got into modeling, her agent renamed her Joanne Marshall. When Pierre decided to get into show business, he simply translated his first name into English and adopted his sister's modeling surname. Then, just to make everything good and mixed up, Joanne moved on to Hollywood where director Howard Hawks renamed her Joanne Dru, under which name she became a star.
Although no one has, as yet, developed an adequate tag for that small band of television performers who ride herd on game and panel shows—"host" or "M.C." are commonly used and neither really fits—the ones who are assigned to successful network ventures of the genre are in clover.
The compensation is excellent, the hours are superb—Marshall and his troupe tape a week's worth of shows in one day—and the exposure to the public is subtly beneficial. Marshall has the other four days of the normal work week to pursue other interests, including acting, singing—he just cut an album—and business.
Perhaps the greatest of these is business, because Peter Marshall's most lucrative a vocation involves commercials. As a matter of fact, it was the commercials that got him into television, Hollywood brand.
• • •
"I WAS DOING a show in New York—playing with Julie Harris in 'Skyscraper,' " Marshall recalled. "My agent asked me if I'd like to do some television commercials."

Marshall drew himself to his full height and announced he would not like—"I am an actor."
The agent, however, was persuasive, and the reluctant Marshall did one commercial spot for a cereal company. The result was a three-year, exclusive deal.
Before Hollywood Squares, Marshall packed in a lot of show business experience. After serving as an NBC page, he teamed up with comedian Tommy Noonan and, as a straight man for 13 years, played clubs all over the country.
"I think those years as a straight man were the most valuable asset I had when Hollywood Squares came along," Marshall said. "In one sense, the host on a game show is a straight man."
After Noonan died, Marshall had the male lead in the London company of "Bye, Bye Birdie" and continued in musical comedy with the Julie Harris vehicie. In between, he was appearing in minimusicals in Las Vegas—as far back as the 1950s—with occasional excursions into stock.
• • •
MARSHALL ENJOYS working with the regulars on Hollywood Squares who include Cliff Arquette, Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Rose Marie, Paul Lynde and Jan Murray.
The game, physically based on tic-tac-toe, has the stars answering questions, in comedy style, with members of the studio audience winning small prizes by deciding whether the answers are true or false.
There was a small rhubarb when it was learned that some of the stars received "help" on the answers to the questions, but since the help had nothing to do with the winning or losing by the audience contestants, the producers had not announced it on the show. Now there is a printed notice to that effect.
Marshall says most of the stars do receive what he calls "hokes" to leaven their answers.
He, his wife, and their four children live in the San Fernando Valley.
Marshall, in some of that dandy spare time, has written one film play, “Mary Jane,” and recently has collaborated with Dick Gautier on another, “God Bless You, Uncle Sam,” a black comedy which will soon go into production.
"In a way," he said, "it all really started with those commercials I didn't want to do. That's where the producers of the game show first saw me. I'm glad I was persuaded to sell cereal."

Marshall talked a bit more about the show in this Dec. 1971 feature story from the TV Key syndicate.

Peter Marshall, the handsome host of NBC's long-running game show "The Hollywood Squares," was a juvenile until he turned 40. "I had to go around the track once before I matured," he said. "Something like an actor I know who was refused a role because he was too pretty. The producer said he had the kind of face that needed a scar. I guess that was my problem. And now that I've aged properly, I'm straight man for a game show board of screwballs, but I'm good at it."
Marshall's appraisal of his performance on "Squares" is an honest one. He claims he has seen himself turn in some terrible acting jobs, but when he watches "Squares," he is convinced they got the right man for the job.
"To my way of thinking," he said, "all game show hosts should be compared to Bill Cullen and Monty Hall. They're the top, and you grade down from there. But on 'Squares,' I'm in a slightly different arena. I have no way of knowing what kind of line the stars are going to throw at me — even if it's a prepared gag, I'm not told — and I have to be ready to react or counter with an appropriate straight line. I was a working comedian for many years — all to prepare me for 'Squares.' "

NBC is so pleased with Peter, Charlie Weaver, Paul Lynde, Wally Cox and the semi-regulars who fill out the board, that people over there renewed the show for five years and ordered extra editions to be syndicated nationally for nighttime viewing. The deal is such a lucrative one that Peter has gone into the game show business on his own hoping to make a nice profit by reinvesting his extra cash.
"I have a children's show idea at NBC which looks pretty good," he said. "It's based on a process I have taken an option on which makes drawings seem to talk. I used it for a children's quiz."
If Marshall occasionally looks over his shoulder, it's because he expects to be arrested for stealing. He still considers doing "Squares" great fun and the "work" schedule is ridiculous.
"I meet a few friends one afternoon a week, and we throw a few jokes back and forth while NBC tapes two episodes," Marshall said. "Then we go out for dinner, laugh like crazy, come back and tape three more. Naturally, by now we've worked so hard that we go out, drink and have a party. And we're being paid?"
Prior to "Squares," Pete was a successful comedian and actor. He appeared in musicals on Broadway, and the experience is now paying off in unexpected dividends. When the summer stock season rolls around, everybody in the business knows that Paul Lynde is big box-office in middle-America, but Marshall proudly reports that he is closing in.
"I did tremendous business in 'The Music Man' last summer in St. Louis," said Marshall, "and I'm looking around for something to try this season. Suzanne Pleshette and I are thinking of teaming up to tour in Frank Gilroy's play 'Only Game in Town.'"
Unlike may people who've been doing the same thing professionally for some years (I'll discuss Monty Hall in the near future), Pete Marshall hopes "Squares" runs forever. He paid his dues on the nightclub circuit, stock companies and just knocking around, although he proudly asserts that his handsome, juvenile face was rarely unemployed.
With "Squares" requiring only one day a week, he busies himself writing (an original story of his is being made into a film), packaging TV shows and doing guest shots.
Born in West Virginia but raised in New York, Marshall now lives with his wife and four children in California. His eldest son, Peter Leacock Jr. [sic] (apparently Peter Marshall and his sister, actress Joanne Dru, were originally named Leacock) is a highly touted outfielder in the Chicago Cubs' farm system, and Pete expects to be seeing the boy in the major leagues very soon.

NBC cancelled Hollywood Squares in 1980 and the show's syndicated run ended a year later. Marshall got a chance to sing on television on his own syndicated variety show while Squares was still in production. I don't recall if he ever sang a bar or two on the game show, but he recorded its original theme song (Bill Loose was asked to write a similar tune, which replaced "The Silly Song").

Once Upon a Time

Bob Clampett goes for atmosphere in the opening of Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943). Even in this print, you can see the shadows and (Ace Gamer’s?) effects animation of the fire.



The cartoon contains silhouette animation, and moody, dark-bluish woods, apparently painted by Mike Sasanoff.

Clampett’s war-era energy is on display, as characters zip around in the frame, sometimes “past the camera.” Rhyming dialogue gives the cartoon some rhythm. There’s rubbery animation aplenty (Rod Scribner gets the revolving animation credit, Virgil Ross once talked about his animation on it). And while Tex Avery had Red strut on stage over at MGM, Clampett has So White waving her butt in the air in this Schlesinger cartoon.

The cartoon ends the way it started, with the same at-the-fireplace animation, and without cutting to the usual rings as the end titles appear.

McHale, Movies and Merman

United Press International columnist Vernon Scott began a story in 1964 with the words: “Never, never take an actor’s words at face value.”

He should have taken his own advice.

That year, Scott wrote several columns about McHale’s Navy. Maybe the most fascinating interview was with the show’s star, Ernie Borgnine. Ostensibly, the column was about the series graduating to feature film status. But it took a detour to talk about what became a very uncomfortable subject—Borgnine’s pending marriage to Ethel Merman.

I suspect if you’re a reader of this blog, you’re up on show biz history enough to know the union was one of the biggest disasters in Hollywood. It lasted 38 days. Stories abound (we’ll skip the specifics) that leave you with the impression the marriage was doomed before it happened.

However, when Scott penned his column, that was all in the future. Everything was happiness and rainbows, at least if you want to believe Borgnine’s comments. The story appeared on March 28, 1964.

McHale Navy Sails Into Films
By VERNON SCOTT
HOLLYWOOD (UPI)—Out at Revue Studios they're so pleased with "McHale's Navy" a movie is being made starring the same raucus [sic] crew of the television series.
Ernie Borgnine, bungling skipper of the raffish PT boat swabbies, is as pleased as he is punchy.
"We could be the only outfit in history that makes a series of movies and television shows at the same time," he said, pushing his naval officer's cap to the back of his head.
"Yes sir, we could become a perennial like the 'Andy Hardy' movies were. I think we're the first ones to try it anyhow."
Jack Webb tried it once with “Dragnet" and fell right on his Sergeant Friday badge. But Borgnine's enthusiasm is catching.
"We're flattered they chose our little old half-hour comedy to be made into a picture," he said, sprawling out on the couch of his spacious dressing room on the Revue lot.
“We’ll have it working both ways for us. People who like the TV series will go to see the movies. And people who go to see the movie will want to tune in the series. How about that?"
The big fellow's optimism is understandable. He’s about to become a bridegroom for the third time and if that doesn't qualify him as an unreconstructed optimist, nothing will. He and actress Ethel Merman become Mr. and Mrs. June 27.
"This is going to be a wonderful marriage," he said. "Ethel's a terrific girl and were really in love."
Ernie is already looking ahead to the time when "McHale's Navy" is scuttled by the ratings, an unlikely event in the foreseeable future. But if and when it is deep-sixed, the Oscar- winning actor (Marty) would like to see Ethel and Ernie co-star in a series.
"We could be sort of a modern 'Min and Bill,’ you know, like Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery. Not that Ethel has anything in common with Marie Dressler. We could have a lot of fun with a show like that."
The movie version of "McHale's Navy" will take four-weeks to complete, compared to the three-day schedule for the video segments.
"We're getting the ‘A’ treatment now,” Borgnine grinned. "They're calling me Mr. Borgnine instead of Ernie and they brought the portable dressing room right on the stage for me. What's more they're paying me top regular movie salary, which runs into six figures.
"I think the public will flip for this picture. It's a great script and it's being shot in color. We even had a bigger PT boat built for the movie."
New and expensive sets have been constructed for the picture. They will be kept for future use in the series.
"It's a big boost financially and psychologically for everybody connected with the show," Ernie concluded, "even if it does mean I'll only have six weeks for a honeymoon instead of four months."

Honeymoon for six weeks!!? The marriage didn’t even last that long. (Columnist Earl Wilson revealed after the two separated he had received a card from a very happy Merman on her honeymoon. He learned he shouldn’t have taken that at face value, either).

The feature film contained an irony. Part of the plot involved Borgnine’s McHale trying to get out of a pending marriage.



1964 may have been the climax for McHale’s Navy. A female equivalent series (produced by McHale’s creator, Edward J. Montagne) called Broadside debuted that year. It had a fine cast, but survived only one season of 32 episodes. Another McHale movie came out the following year—but without McHale, as Borgnine was tied up on another film.

The series switched locations from the South Pacific to Italy for the final season, but that couldn’t save it from the ABC axe in 1966. In glancing through Scott’s columns that year, it doesn’t appear he got a follow-up from Ernest Borgnine. Or Ethel Merman.

Don't Ask Questions

In the climax of Wags to Riches (1949), Spike lathers Droopy with shaving cream to make it look like he’s a rabid dog, foaming at the mouth.



Cut to Spike calling the dog catcher on the phone. Cut back to Spike and Droopy, with a fan blowing the “mad dog” foam onto Spike.



What’s that? Some cartoon fan is saying “How did that fan and table get there?”

It’s very simple. This is a cartoon.

Tex Avery could have put the fan there to begin with, but it would have been in the way of the staging of the gag.

Below is what happens to people who take cartoons too literally.



Just enjoy Tex Avery’s work, okay?

Jack Cosgriff and Rich Hogan are credited with the story in this one, while Bobe Cannon was still animating for Avery at this point.

Biscuit 1, Axis 0

Walter Lantz had the perfect aggressive cartoon character to take on Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo. For some reason, the Lantz studio never pitted Woody Woodpecker against the leaders of the Allies’ enemies. Instead, it was left to hillbillies in the Swing Symphony Pass the Biscuits, Mirandy (1943).

The first two-thirds of the cartoons involve the cliché of a feud amongst mountaineers set to the title song, with Darrell Calker’s brass and boogie-woogie piano arrangement in the background. The biscuits in question are as hard as rocks. The short takes a turn, a la the Gary Cooper film Sergeant York (1941) where the hillbilly menfolk are told to sign up for war. Mirandy does, too.

Look who shows up in a tank.



The uncredited director cuts to re-used footage of Mirandy being grazed in the butt and using a garter as a slingshot to launch one of her boulder biscuits.



Mirandy’s a crack shot. With one biscuit, she blows up the Axis tank.



An old animation trick of flashing colour cards to emphasize the explosion.



Bugs Hardaway and/or Milt Schaffer pull a switch on the food gag where Popeye punches a steer and beef products fall from the sky, or when a car hits a pig and a chicken and hams and eggs on a plate drop from above. Let’s see. We have a German, an Italian and a Japanese guy.



The title song irises out to make a familiar wartime push.



There’s more about the song and the cartoon in this post.

Teeth, Eggs and 39

How often is a star’s birthday front-page news? Especially if it’s not a milestone, like 90 or 100, but the same old birthday, year after year.

Well, it was in the case of Jack Benny.

Jack didn’t just get laughs when he claimed he was 39 when it’s obvious he wasn’t. He got publicity. It seems whenever February 14th rolled around (Jack began the “39” claim in 1948), at least one of the wire services wrote about his birthday. We’ve reprinted a number of these columns in this blog.

I’ve stumbled across another one, a rather short piece written for the Associated Press which hit the wires on the 14th and 15th of February 1964. It was picked up in papers from Honolulu to Portland, Maine. Remarkably, I’ve found it on the front page of the San Pedro News-Gazette in California, the Buffalo Evening News, the Daily Star-Journal of Warrensburg, Missouri and the Glens Falls Times in New York, to give you several examples. It shows you how much Jack Benny was enjoyed across the U.S., almost 32 years after he had begun his radio show.

The story echoes something George Burns used to tell about Benny—how Jack would rave, almost to the point of embarrassment, that he had just had “the best coffee I ever tasted” or “the best shoeshine I ever had.”

Oldest 39-Yr.-Old
Guess Who Is Not Really 39
By JAMES BACON
AP Movie-Television Writer
HOLLYWOOD (AP) — Jack Benny, the oldest living 39-year-old, celebrates his 70th birthday today.
He doesn’t look it or feel it.
He makes one comment:
“Thank God, I haven’t had a sick day in my life.”
The other day he had a polyp removed from his nose but that was just a minor interruption in his busy television schedule. The doctors asked him what anesthetic he was allergic to.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I’ve never taken any before. I’ve never even had a tooth pulled.
Enthusiasm is the key to Benny’s secret Fountain of Youth. No man in town enthuses about or remembers the little things of life as does Jack.
Once when he attended a party at the White House during the Truman administration, he and a friend decided to wind up the evening with a walk. A few blocks from the White House, they stopped in a little diner and ordered ham and eggs.
“You know,” enthused Jack, “these are the greatest ham and eggs I’ve ever eaten in my life.”
Five years later, the same two attended a White House party given by President Eisenhower.
Jack’s after party comment:
“I want some more of those ham and eggs.”

I was going to end the post here but decided to hunt around and see if anyone else wrote about Jack’s birthday on Feb. 14, 1964. The answer is “yes.” There were several columns, all praising Benny. I’ve decided to reprint a feature story from Newsday.

Benny's 70 Today—What's His Secret?
By Shirley Wood
Newsday Special Correspondent
Hollywood—Quit? Are you kidding? Jack Benny, celebrating his 70th birthday today, has no intention of quitting. Not only is the comedian entering his fifth year of doing a weekly show on television but he also has elevated his violin from a joke to a second career. Show business is one of the most difficult fields in which to stay at the top, but Benny has been one of its top moneymakers for 30 years. Other and younger stars have fallen into semi-retirement or lesser roles in entertainment. But Benny goes on and on.
How does he do it? His secret in escaping the effect of time consists of careful preparation for growing old. This is evidenced in two ways: by maintaining a careful watch over his physical activities and by remaining alert to changes in the public's taste in comedy. Consequently, the Jack Benny Show seems ageless even though its star has in fact long since passed his perennial 39.
Cheats Father Time
Benny's appearance, to be sure, lends substance to the jest about his age. In face and carriage, in the quickness of his step and the sparkle in his blue eyes, he gives the impression of man no more than 50. "A woman cheats on her age a little bit and it's okay," Benny remarks. "Instead of cheating a little, I cheat a lot."
He is certainly not one to let his actual age interfere with his activities, but Benny has imperceptibly but effectively altered his pace to suit the advancing years. The comedian has always taken care of himself and is taking better care himself as he gets older.
"Jack was never one to live high," says Irving Fein, producer of the Benny program, "so he never developed any bad habits to abandon. But he is watching himself more carefully these days. His doctor tells him what he should weigh and he gets more than one or two pounds over, says, 'Oh no, I'm putting it on,’ and he diets moderately until he's back down again.
Regular medical checkups have been another part of Benny's recognition that time continues its march. He knows the unprejudiced eye of doctor can often spot a condition that a patient would ignore. So far Benny has had no extreme medical problems. Sunday he underwent surgery for removal of a benign polyp at the back of nasal passage. But his surgeon reported afterward that the comedian's condition was good. He went home Tuesday and is now convalescing without apparent ill effect.

In keeping his TV program apace with the times, Benny is a constant and serious student of the humor business. He watches new comedians in action and remains sensitive to changes in the public mood. He keeps his material up-to-date and alternates the many fundamental gags he has developed over the years, always presenting them in different ways.
Many stars of show business have succumbed to "over exposure" and Benny's type of weekly show is considered an easy medium in which to contract this frustrating ailment. One reason Benny has escaped this problem is his concept of what his own place in the show should be.
The Jack Benny Show without its star is inconceivable, but he isn't a camera hog. Over the years he has functioned on the basis of building up guest stars and members of his cast in the interest of the show as a whole. "You know," Fein says, "Jack has had whole shows without a really funny line for himself. If things work out so that Don Wilson or Dennis Day or Rochester get the big laughs, that's great." Benny describes his method this way: "I never have time for jealousy. To have a good show, you have to keep everybody happy."
Almost from the beginning of his days on radio, the Benny show had one quality that was unusual (and is even rarer today in television): continuity of personnel. This quality makes possible the smoothly functioning organization that allows Benny, at 70, to do a weekly show. There are key people, such as the producer, director, writers, announcer and half a dozen cast members, any one of whom could cause a minor upheaval if he were to depart. On the Benny show they don't leave. Fein, the producer, has been with Benny for 18 years. The two "new" writers, Al Gordon and Haln Goldman [sic], arrived three years later, joining Sam Perrin and George Balzer, who have been writing for Benny since 1941 [actually 1943].
Serious Joke
Benny used to play the violin purely for laughs. About six years ago he did a skit in which he dreamed he was a concert violinist. One of the studio violinists gave him a few lessons to add realism to the skit. To his amazement, Benny found that he could make music that wasn't bad. Now he practices as much as two hours a day. His concerts, in which he plays a little and clowns a lot, have raised nearly $3,000,000 for debt-ridden symphony associations all over America.
Jack Benny, at 70, looks to the future: "Doing my show gets easier every year," he declares. "I've never had a year that wasn't easier, and more fun, than the one before."

Even though Jack stopped joking about “39” toward the end of his life—he told reporters the gag had outlived itself—fans still associated it with him when he passed away. The venerable Los Angeles Times, in its obituary in 1974, simply wrote: “He was 39.” 50 years later, the gag lives on.