Cycling Hillbillies

Friz Freleng turned out some really uninspired cartoons in the mid-1930s. One of them was When I Yoo Hoo (1936).

Poor Friz was hamstrung with having to shoehorn a Warner Bros.-owned song into his Merrie Melodies. In this case, the choice was “When I Yoo Hoo in the Valley,” written by Henry Russell and Murray Martin. Whether it was heard in a Warners feature before the cartoon was released, I don’t know. It did show up afterward, in Republic’s 1940 "puttin'-on-a-show" musical-comedy Village Barn Dance, sung by Scotty Wiseman and John Lair, with a cast that included Don Wilson, Vera Vague, and Scotty and Lulubelle.



The lyrics pretty much forced Freleng and the writing staff to put the cartoon in a hillbilly setting, which makes it a natural for a send-up of the Hatfield-McCoy feud. Tex Avery did the same thing in A Feud There Was (1938), but he found some funny things to put in it. This one is just weak. One gag is a clod-dancing cow is wearing a flour sack for underwear.

Friz even reverts back to the days at Harman-Ising when Warners cartoons had cheering crowds in cycle animation. He does it a couple of times in the cartoon. Here’s an example. Sixteen frames on ones. It’s been slowed down to see the drawings better.



We again pass on the reminder from Jerry Beck that cartoon release dates in the Golden Age were official in name-only; if a cartoon came in to the exchange before then, theatres could show them. The release date for When I Yoo Hoo was July 26, but newspaper ads show the cartoon was shown in Salt Lake City as early as June 20. The ad to the right is for a theatre in Tyler, Texas, on June 28. Who’s this Bogart guy?

Norman Spencer (with his ever-present woodblock) is responsible for the score. Interestingly, the fight sequence doesn’t have Spencer taking the title song and double-timing it, like he did in other cartoons. He tosses in “The William Tell Overture” and Von Suppe’s “Poet and Peasant Overtre,” which fit quite well.

Bob McKimson and Don Williams are the credited animators in this short. I couldn’t tell you what scenes they did. Someone miscalculated the animation to the background in one scene. The fight referee with an accent that comes and goes (I think it’s Tedd Pierce in a kind of falsetto) is supposed to be standing on the mat of the ring. His feet, though, are a little below it.



Now, for your listening pleasure, here are Scotty and Lulubelle singing the title song from a 1939 recording.

Laughs From a Rolling Pin

Only one comedienne made the Radio Stars list of “the nine greatest women in radio” in 1934. Twenty years later, she was still making audiences smile, but now on television. The laughs only stopped when she decided it was time to get out of show business.

We’re talking about Gracie Allen.

Nanette Kutner’s piece on Gracie read:

She may be light, she may be flimsy, but she too has her definite place. Gracie Allen is without a doubt the foremost of all radio comediennes. She set the style for Portland Hoffa, for Mary Livingston. Here again radio proved its microscopic tendencies. For years Burns and Allen had been in vaudeville and for years Gracie rattled off the same sort of nonsense she gives you over the air. Yes, vaudeville audiences laughed at her. They laughed politely. But they never laughed the way the radio public did after they once heard that funny little voice of hers. Radio does things wholeheartedly and never, never by halves. It picked up that voice, tossed it into the air, chuckled over it, adored it, and made Gracie Allen the queen of goofiness. If there is a why to it all, here it is: The average person likes to think he is smart. Gracie Allen never fails to give him this opportunity. She caters to the superiority complex in every audience. They love to catch her mistakes . . . to anticipate them . . . to outsmart her. She is the sop for their conceit and Gracie Allen, with one of the keenest minds in radio, knows this. Contrary to the nutty character she portrays, she is nobody’s fool.

Through the ‘30s and into the ‘40s, somebody found a great way to get publicity for Gracie Allen. First she began showing up unexpected in the middle of other radio shows looking for her brother (NBC finally objected to a CBS star getting publicity at their expense). She was the subject of a movie based on a book—The Gracie Allen Murder Case. And in 1940, she stumped across the U.S. in a phoney bid for the U.S. presidency as a candidate for the Surprise Party (and “wrote” a syndicated newspaper column simultaneously).

Husband George Burns related that ratings for the radio show had dropped off, so he came up with a solution—he and Gracie would stop being single. They would play a married couple, a fake version of themselves. Comparing shows of the ‘30s with the ‘40s, Gracie is still off-beat but is a more mature character. Instead of silliness or a non sequitur, Gracie would respond to a line with something kind of related to it, but it either made no sense, or had a double meaning. And when the show migrated to television, Gracie’s character seemed more real. You could actually see her having the conversation that she put off the rails.

I wish I could find more interviews with Gracie talking about her career. A few are out there. Here’s one from 1941 which appeared in papers in early November.

Gracie Allen Is Funny When She's Serious
By ROBBIN COONS
HOLLYWOOD—The company was coming in from the back lot to resume shooting on Stage 12.
Gracie Allen was in a portable dressing room having her hair done. The sign on the door said "Mr. Post”, and it all seemed very fitting for a professional scatterbrain to be ensconced in the wrong quarters.
But Gracie knew everything was not as it should be.
"Would you mind waiting a minute,” she called out. "My house isn't here yet. I think it'll be over soon."
I didn't mind at all. I was thinking how wonderful it was that a movie actress, especially a professional "dizzy," couldn't talk in somebody else's “house,” especially when Mr. Post—William Post of the stage—wasn't around. But that was how it was, and just what you'd expect from Gracie.
Gracie seldom is "in character. She's never looking for her "long-lost brother," and she doesn't give uproariously dumb answers to civil questions.
Gracie came out and we found a couple of fancy chairs from the set, uncovered them, and sat down. Just then, with a great rumbling and creaking, a little tractor rolled in pulling Gracie’s "house" but Gracie now felt that we were comfortable enough and could talk, even without a house around us.
"Mr. and Mrs. North," she said, was really the second picture she'd done without George (Burns), her husband. She made "The Gracie Allen Murder Case." remember, and George wasn't in it. Now, as then, she felt funny and lost the first few days of shooting, having no George around. George was busy working up their radio act, and be came over to the set often.
By this time, I was trying to stifle unruly, quite uncivil laughter, and several others within earshot were not bothering to stifle it. It's the Allen voice that's always in character high and babyish, evoking risible pictures of the lame brain that is Gracie’s air and screen character.
"It's really quite a help," laughed Gracie herself. "I can get by with more things. Crazy hats. The crazier the better, because people just laugh and say—'Oh, it's Gracie!’ If I make a faux pas, as I often do, I'm forgiven. Oh, it's just Gracie. There was a time when I could walk into a store and order a couple of yards of blue ribbon and the clerks would laugh and giggle as if I'd said something really funny.
"That doesn’t happen so much now—maybe they're more used to me. But I had a funny experience in New York once. We had a cook who was so wonderful at pastries and she asked me to buy her a rolling pin. So I went to Macy's and asked for one and before I knew it the clerk was giggling and telling all the other clerks and I was in the middle of a gathering crowd. Suddenly it dawns on me that they're shrieking because Gracie Allen is buying a rolling pin—for George!"
Gracie had to excuse herself then to do a scene with Postman Lucien Littlefield outside by her apartment mailbox. She rattled on about how excited she'd been since they (the Norths) found a murdered man in their liquor closet last night. This caused Postman Littlefield to do a double-take.
It caused me to slip quietly to the door, happily hysterical because the Allen voice, at least, is always in character.

Fans got more of Gracie than she wanted to give. She kept trying to retire. She finally convinced George to let her leave show business in 1958.

She talked about two years later to an Associated Press reporter. I cannot find a version with a byline. It appeared in papers starting at the end of September.

GRACIE ALLEN IS ENJOYING RETIREMENT
Hubby George Keeps On As Active Comedy Attraction
HOLLYWOOD (AP)—Comedienne Gracie Allen quit show business two years ago to let hubby George Burns take complete charge of the bread-winning.
Happy About It
She's quite happy about the whole thing.
"Unless we lose the house, the cars and the everything," she says, "I'll never go back again."
Didn't she enjoy making the dumb blonde remarks, hearing the laughter and applause explode around the team of Burns and Allen?
"I didn't know any better,” she says. "I was just brought up working all my life. I wanted to stop about five years ago, but every year George would sign a new contract.
Completely Adjusted
"I never knew how much money we got. I never thought to ask him. I must do that."
Gracie says she's completely adjusted to the quiet life.
“If they ever called me up on the stage, I would die, just die. I'm just like I've never been in show business."
And, she insists, George is doing better without her.
"Now he's come into his own,” she says. “He always gave me the funny lines and submerged his own personality."
Opened Show
George recently opened a stage show with Bobby Darin in the outdoor Greek Theater in Los Angeles.
Gracie says she was "as nervous as a hen" while sitting with friends in the audience—it’s like your child up there."
She reports the show a hit.
"He was wonderful," she says. "And besides, he is a very nice man—and I'd say so even if he were not my husband."
Retirement to Gracie means many things—visiting her children and grandchildren, "taking care of my house for the first time" although she leaves the more physical aspects to others.
Likes Good Food
"I don't like anything about the kitchen except good food that comes out of it,” she says. “And I don't dust anything. I just don't want any part of it.
"If don't want to get up early, I don't get up early. If I want to go back to bed after breakfast, I do it.
"I belong no women's groups, no anything. I don’t care to have to go someplace at a certain time. I've done that all my life—to a show, a rehearsal, to an interview.
"'Everyone says, ‘You must have a hobby.’ I don't. And it is just divine."

Gracie got out of show business because of continuing heart problems. I’m sure you know that Gracie was right. After a bit of a false start, George did just fine as a solo, carving out a nice Oscar-winning film career, writing a ton of books and promoting them on the talk show circuit, growling out old vaudeville stories peppered with corn and his sugar-throat brand of singing.

1964 was a tough year for George Burns. Long-time colleague Eddie Cantor died. So did fashion designer-cum-gossip Orry-Kelly, whom George and Gracie hung out with back in the vaudeville days in New York. And that’s the year George lost Gracie, too.

Life in the Future: 1976

Name this cartoon.



There’s a good chance you have never seen it before. It is from A Kitchen Cavalcade, a 1956 industrial short produced for General Motors’ Frigidaire division by John Sutherland Productions.

One of the fascinating things about this combination animation-live action film is it was the second short made by Sutherland in 1956 that was set in the future. The other was Your Safety First, a look at cars and life in the year 2000. This one spends part of its time in the year 1976.

Both are reminiscent of The Jetsons. But the writers of the Hanna-Barbera series weren’t the only ones grabbing science magazines and coming up with concepts of the future. It was not difficult for anyone with an imagination. As narrator Marvin Miller says in this short: “These things are based on actual trends, and following those trends to their logical ends.”

There are no flying cars in this short, but there are ones with bubble tops. They are self-driving. This gives more time for playing cards, reading the newspaper or talking to the wife on a bigger screen than a cell phone camera.



Here’s the home of 1976. No box-like condos. No Space Needle-esque Sky Pad Apartments. Like Green Acres, there’s land spreadin’ out so far and wide.



The House of Tomorrow has an indoor sandbox.



It has a push-button meal-maker. And a visi-phone. The Jetsons stole it!!! (No, they didn’t. See Marvin Miller’s narration above).



Sheets? Dishes? Use them once and throw them away. Environment? What’s that?



The boss is coming over for dinner. Just like on the...well, you know. Rosie isn’t hear to serve a pineapple upside-down cake, but there is dinner music on a concealed reel-to-reel tape machine (which isn’t much of an advancement from 1956).



And just like the you-know-whos, the bed comes out of the wall. The climate is controlled by the always-appealing “overhead radiation.” And there’s a built-in overhead television, too. Not to watch Johnny Carson, but to spy on the brat. Hey! Two people, but no separate beds!



The most gut-busting moments are in the live action parts. My favourite is when a housewife fantasizes about being in her dream kitchen. “Just as she sees herself its owner, its mistress, and its queen.” The Sutherland people resisted having a crown pop onto her head. Maybe because it would remind people of margarine.



And while the young co-ed dreams of a future by marrying the boy next door, what does he dream of? A car. Some things never change. (No doubt, it’s a concept car by film-backer General Motors).



The story is by True Boardman, who I gather also directed the live action portion. George Gordon is the animation director. The credited animators are George Cannata, Ken O’Brien and Tom Ray. Layouts by Bernie Gruver. Tom Oreb was responsible for the designs and the backgrounds are by Joe Montell, who had a futuristic pedigree working on Tex Avery’s The Farm of Tomorrow. There is, oddly, no music credit.

Sorry for the low-resolution and the reddish frames (there’s no mention of Technicolor on the print), but perhaps Steve Stanchfield will find a better copy some day and get it out on a disc with his well-restored Sutherland cartoons.

You can watch the short below, thanks to Indiana University.

The Loving Bug

The final sequence of The Bug Parade (1941) involves a spider who loves little flies. Not only does he have Billy Bletcher’s evil laugh, but I really like his design. Here are some drawings.



The spider assures us “I just love little flies!” The gag is that he literally does.



He looks at the audience watching the cartoon. “I told you I love little flies, didn’t I?”



Iris out.

Reviewers in 1941 called the cartoon “The Bug Parade” but it was copyrighted that year as “Bug Parade.”

The Showmen’s Trade Review called it “clever”:

In a manner that has marked this series [Merrie Melodies] as one of the most entertaining on the cartoon market, “The Bug Parade” delves into the various habits and peculiarities of many well-known insects. The Technicolor subject is replete with subtle gags which should make it popular with adult audiences. Leon Schlesinger produced.

The story credit went to Dave Monahan and animation to Rod Scribner. Director Tex Avery was omitted; he was at MGM when this cartoon was released.

What Word Do We Use Here?

One of Jack Benny’s many quips on the air involved his utter dependence on his writers. Like the ownership of a polar bear, it was fake. It’s pretty clear, even in interviews with his writers in later years, that Jack was involved in the writing process of his radio show and had the final authority of everything written for broadcast (okay, outside of network censors and meddling ad agencies and sponsors).

This is confirmed in a column by Zuma Palmer of the Hollywood Citizen-News of June 4, 1935. She returned from a first-hand look to report of her readers. Her readers would have known Don Wilson from his radio career in Los Angeles before going to New York and eventually auditioning for the Benny show when General Tire took over sponsorship.

The timing, the smoothness and precision with which one act follows another, the sound effect contraptions, the movements and facial expressions of the entertainers make a broadcast most interesting to watch. But, it does not compare with a rehearsal for there one sees a program in the building. Saturday night I was invited to the NBC studios on the RKO lot to hear the cast of the Jack Benny broadcasts work on their dialog for the next day's radio appearances.
Sitting informally in group were Mr. Benny, Don Wilson, Mary Livingstone, Frank Parker, Cecil Underwood and others. Hovering near every now and then was Harry Conn, gag writer. As the lines were read, Mr. Benny teetered back and forth on two legs of his chair, chewed a cigar, with which he gesticulated occasionally, and waved a pencil when emphasis was needed. He knew the word effect, the voice inflection he wanted. He seemed to sense whether or not gag would go over A word, phrase would be added or deleted, the length or necessity for a sound effect discussed. It was rather amazing at times what result would be obtained with small change. When the scripts were corrected, actors took their places before the microphones and went through the routine. After almost two hours, another rehearsal was called for 1:15 Sunday. Apparently not satisfied with the script, Jack Benny, Harry Conn and one or two others went into huddle to go over it again. The atmosphere of the rehearsal had been friendly, calm and quiet. There was nothing superior or temperamental about Mr. Benny's direction. He realizes that he must keep alert, do the very best he can to stay at the top of his profession. Comedy is no easy field and the competition is keen.
Don Wilson did not need to say that he enjoyed being in this series of programs. His eyes, his smile, his interest and enthusiasm tell you that. His success in New York has not changed him one iota. Mary Livingstone, who rightly very proud of her husband, Jack Benny, likes it out here and is enjoying working in Hollywood as much as she did in the East. That is well since the broadcasts may continue to originate out here when they are resumed in the fall. The programs will leave the air in July.
It may be interesting to know that the script used on Sunday was considerably different from that rehearsed on Saturday night, probably the result of the huddle aforementioned.

Palmer was right in that Jack abandoned New York as his permanent base of operations, thanks to his movie career and technological improvements that made broadcasting from the West Coast to the full NBC network practical.

In case you’re wondering about Cecil Underwood, he was with NBC. In 1925, he was hired by KHQ in Spokane, then brought to NBC San Francisco as an announcer in June 1929. He was made assistant programme director for the Western Division in April 1934 then put in charge of production at the new NBC studios in Hollywood that August. He later went on to direct Fibber McGee and Molly and produce The Great Gildersleeve.

Here’s another story from 1935 about putting together the script, from the Los Angeles Times of June 4. It’s mainly an interview with Harry Conn, who has calls Jack Benny a “reader” before more self-promotion. He’s pretty dismissive of Mary Livingstone, too. That was a dangerous thing to do because Mary could play hardball if she wanted to. (Conn’s wife famously told Mary her husband’s brains paid for Mary’s fur coat. Conn must have been a marked man after that, if he wasn’t before). Conn spent time in 1935 and 1936, more or less, taking credit for Benny’s success and complaining to whatever columnist who would listen that he deserved more accolades and more money.

BENNY RATES "TOPS" AS DIALOGUE READER
Harry Conn, Jack’s Comedy Writer, Reveals That Radio Gags Are Funnier Because Actor “Leans on His Lines”
BY CARROLL NYE
Tonight at 7:30 o'clock, If you dial KFI, you’ll hear some dialogue which will go something like this:
Don Wilson: “Now, on Mother's Day, we bring you Jack Benny."
Jack Benny: "I don't like the way you say that, Don. After all, I'm not a mother. Don't let my photographs fool you."
What! You're not convulsed? Harry W. Conn, Benny's comedy writer, didn’t anticipate you would get much of a bang out of it when it appeared in cold type—and more than he expected to panic me with the gag when pulled the first sheet of this script out of the typewriter and shoved it under my nose.
GOOD DIALOGUE MAN
"Only Jack Benny could read that certain line and get anything out of it," Conn remarked. "There isn't a comedian in the business who can touch him as a reader of comedy dialogue.
"Jack hasn't told four jokes in as many months on the air, yet he is rated top radio comic. He's the center pole of the circus. Instead of playing 'straight' for his stooges, as it may appear to some listeners, his stooges are merely ‘guy ropes.’ It takes little more than a grunt from Benny to build the other actor's gag into something that will give the audience a laugh. In the parlance of the theater, Benny is a master at ‘leaning on a line.’
Conn's understanding of Benny's forte is the keynote of his own success. The comedy writer has turned out Benny's scripts ever since the suave comedian has been on the air, and their teamwork has resulted in a steady climb to the top. The forthcoming Crosley report rates Benny 10 points above his nearest competitor.
MANY SCRIPTS WRITTEN
Conn has written 245 radio shows, dating from the time he started turning out scripts for Burns and Allen. Previously, he admitted, he was a "street-corner wag."
"Peddling gags along Broadway was profitless," he declared. "Nobody took me seriously. They thought I was at my funniest when I asked for a job. Now that I have one, I save the humor for the scripts.
"I don't need a gag library for my material because I have a 'hoke' mind that makes it easy for me to get comedy out of almost any sort of situation.
“Since I have the mind of the average ‘mug,’ I can write stuff that appeals to the average listener. You can't cater to any particular class in writing comedy for radio. The 'stuffed shirts’ laugh as loud as anyone at a bit of hokum. It takes the starch out of them.
SATIRE ON SHAKESPEARE
"I turned out a satire on ‘Romeo and Juliet’ for Jack's broadcasts, but I don't know a thing about Shakespeare. The idea probably would have been a flop if I had been a student of his plays.
“On the whole, however, we rely on topical material to keep alive the interest in the broadcasts. Today it's Mother's Day that gives us the backbone of the broadcast. Perhaps it'll be the soldiers' bonus later.
"In the way we never got stale. If we use catch lines we drop them before they die.
Although Conn follows a formula that is planned several weeks in advance, the actual preparation of the shows is inspirational and spontaneous. He bats out a script on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday he and Benny go over It together. Jack makes changes here and there at the reading; often ad libs during the broadcasts, but to date he hasn’t rejected any of Conn’s scripts as a whole.
SPONSOR CHECKS IT
Conn injects comedy into the commercial blurbs and turns the script over to the sponsor on Friday to give him a chance to turn thumbs down on the commercials or the comedy. The advertising is handled so adeptly that it is never obtrusive.
(Incidentally, I was surprised to find that the sponsor's product was mentioned thirty times during last Sunday's broadcast. I would have guessed that the "shimmy sauce" had been plugged four of five times.)
"Jack Benny inspires the writing of good material," said Conn. "In addition to his showmanship, he's a swell audience. If anyone springs a gag on him that strikes him right, he'll roll on the floor convulsed with laughter."
Conn calls Mary Livingstone (Mrs. Benny) an "indifferent comedienne." He has written a Mother's Day poem for her to intone today. "I don't care how I write them,” he said, "and she doesn't care how she reads them so, between us, we get a laugh."

Conn and Benny very unpleasantly split after Conn abandoned the show in Baltimore before a March 22, 1936 broadcast. Conn went on to obscurity. Benny went on to increasing fame with new writers who created most of the situations people associate with Benny today (in Conn’s time, there was no Rochester, no Phil Harris, no Dennis Day, no Mel Blanc, no Frank Nelson, no Sheldon Leonard, no “39”, no Maxwell, no vault, the list goes on and on).

Conn deserves credit for helping to lay the foundation of the show. But as Zuma Palmer found out, and George Balzer and Milt Josefsberg confirmed in later years, the show's writing was ultimately controlled by Jack Benny.

Cat Concerto

The Cat Concerto has the distinction of being a cartoon that won an Academy Award before almost anyone saw it.

Its official release date was April 26, 1947, but the cartoon must have had a special screening some time in 1946 to be eligible. I have not been able to find out where or when. Showman’s Trade Review on January 4 reported “Fred Quimby, head of MGM’s short subject department, has selected ‘The Cat Concerto,’ a Tom & Jerry cartoon, as his entry for the Academy Award for 1946.”

The Motion Picture Academy’s Jean Herscholt announced on January 26 the cartoon had been nominated for an Oscar. It won on March 13.

Even before the nomination, the Motion Picture Herald obliquely referred to the screening, writing on January 25 “Due to the favorable reception accorded MGM’s Technicolor cartoon, ‘The Cat Concerto,’ Fred C. Quimby, head of the studio’s short subjects department, plans to produce a series of similar cartoons featuring well known musical compositions. The musical score for the second in the series will be based on Johann Strauss’ ‘Tales of the Vienna Woods’.” This was likely another PR puff piece by Metro announcing cartoons that never got made, but Hanna and Barbera did use the same idea later, creating Johann Mouse, released in 1951.

The Cat Concerto was not copyrighted until April 10, 1947.

The short seems to have been in the planning stages for some time. Variety reported on January 2, 1946:

Jose Iturbi is virtually a stand-in for a tomcat these days. No offense—his finger movements are being copied for transfer to the tomcat who plays the Second Hungarian Rhapsody in Metro's "Tom and Jerry" cartoon.

Iturbi appeared in the MGM feature Anchor’s Away but not in the same scenes as Tom and Jerry. That didn’t stop MGM’s PR people from sending newspapers photos of Iturbi watching Tom and Jerry at the piano.

Variety printed this blurb on March 27: “John Crown recorded 88 work on the 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody yesterday at Metro for ‘Cat's Concerto’.”

Crown was a professor of piano forte at University of Southern California. An earlier posting on this blog mentions that MGM sound department records show Calvin Jackson was the pianist, and recorded his work on April 8, 1946. Jackson was an assistant director of music at MGM, scoring musicals at the time the cartoon was made. Meanwhile, the Hollywood Reporter of July 17, 1946 ran an unsourced item that “Chopin’s 24th Prelude will serve as a background for ‘Cat’s Concerto’.” This is possible; Bill Hanna wrote in his autobiography that Chopin had been considered as the musical background for the cartoon.

MGM sent out the usual publicity materials for columnists. I’ve found this in several papers, including the Salt Lake Deseret News on March 14.

JERRY MOUSE SHOWS MAESTRO CAT LIVELY TIME IN NEW MGM CARTOON
To the names of Joseffy, De Pachmann, Rubinstein, Schnabel and other immortal pianists, must now be added that of a new impresario—Maestro Tom Cat, concert pianist extraordinaire. Tom gives an exhibition of his virtuosity in the new M-G-M Tom Jerry Cartoon, "The Cat Concerto" and it is a performance that has to be seen and heard to be believed.
Tom makes his appearance before the concert audience and begins what he hopes will be brilliant rendition of the Liszt Second Hungarian Rhapsody. Resplendently dressed in white tie and tails, he is a picture of classical dignity, and with a grandiloquent bow, he begins to play. But what Mr. Liszt didn’t reckon with when he composed the immortal Rhapsody was the presence of a mischievous Jerry Mouse inside the keyboard of the piano. To Jerry's anti-symphonic ear, music is nothing more than a lot of noise and he registers his disapproval by trying to break up the concert.
In the ensuing riot of music and mayhem, no piano ever took more punishment—and no pianist ever was so harrassed. Chords turn into discords; arpeggios, trills and cadenzas become embroiled in a series of flying piano keys and hammers as Jerry goes to work to systematically plague the pianist. Tom responds with his usual alacrity.
Since Jerry can keep thinking up more ways to annoy his perennial foes than could be imagined, the antics of the feuding duo keep things humming at a hilarious pace until the number has come to a finish that has exhausted the palpitating pianist. In the end, it is a triumphant Jerry Mouse who takes the bows and receives the overwhelming ovation of the audience. Fred Quimby produced “The Cat Concerto” which won a special Academy Award last night.

Going through the popular press at the time, reaction to the cartoon was electric. Before it was released, Hedda Hopper wrote on March 20 “It’s as sensational as Walt Disney’s ‘Three Little Pigs,’ and should be just as popular.”

This is from the May 28, 1947 edition of the Syracuse Herald Journal

ON THE SCREEN
Tom and Jerry Oscar Winners
By MARJORIE TURNER
WHEN FRANZ LISZT wrote his immortal Second Hungarian Rhapsody he probably never expected it to inspire loud and long laughter, but there is nothing sacred, it seems. The Liszt composition was worked into a Tom and Jerry cartoon by MGM's Fred C. Quimby, and it took an Academy award this year as the best cartoon production of the year.
"THE CAT CONCERTO," which completes the bill of "The Yearling" at Loew's this week, is a bit of rapid fire nonsense which translates human emotions through the cat and mouse principals. Tom Cat goes swanky, puts on tie and tails, and proceeds to give a highbrow concert. Jerry Mouse is outraged at his presumption, and sets out to embarrass him and spoil the show. It's as simple as that, but the humor and the art which went into the mysterious process of the animated cartoon put it at the top of the list for the drawing board funny men. This is the fifth year that Mr. Quimby has produced a prize winning nonsense film.
ANIMATED cartoons have a definite place in the motion picture world, a place which has been established not alone by the technical development of that branch of motion picture making, but by certain characters which amount to a legend with children—and grownups. After all, if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science thinks cartoons are that important, and if 7,000 kids will trek downtown on any Saturday morning to see an all cartoon show, it is a force to be reckoned with.

From the Akron Beacon Journal, May 9, 1947:

'Cat Concerto' Superb Cartoon
By BETTY FRENCH, Theater Editor
OSCAR SMITH, music-lovers, and just plain movie-goers, please note:
Don't miss "The Cat Concerto," at Loew's.
That's the cartoon which won this year's Academy award. It stars Tom and Jerry, the feuding cat and mouse who have scampered off with five Academy awards in the past seven years—a record unmatched by any other cartoon characters.
And it contains the most delightful portrayal of a concert pianist in screen history.
* * *
The role of the pianist is played by Tom, the puss whose composure Jerry, the mouse, loves to ruffle.
Tom never has been more composed, and more majestic than he is at the start of this picture.
In immaculate full-dress, he comes on stage, bows, and seats himself at the piano with greater dignity than Rubenstein and Horowitz combined.
His expression of benign superiority is priceless. His mannerisms are perfect, even to lifting his coat-tails, rubbing his paws, and wiping them daintily with his handkerchief.
* * *
Then he starts playing—Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsody. His technique is excellent. M-G-M does not credit the real pianist, but it might even be Iturbi, who is on the Metro payroll.
Tom's playing awakens Jerry, who has set up housekeeping in back of the keyboard. He begins to try to break up the concert. He doesn't break it up but he joins in, wears out Tom, the virtuoso, and takes the bows himself.
* * *
THE CARTOON runs for seven minutes, and is a pleasure every one of the seven.
Throughout the seven minutes it has a continuous background of piano music. Tom keeps playing—with his hind feet when his fore-paws are busy bashing Jerry.
And Jerry helps him out by adding improvisations of his own, including boogie-woogie, by jumping about on the keys or by pounding them with the piano's own hammers.
The cartoon contains not a word of dialog, not even a squeak or a meow.
Whereas most cartoons have many shifts of scene, and bring in many different props for their characters to use in attacking each other, "The Cat Concerto" uses only Tom, Jerry and the piano.
Yet it has speed and variety. It is a masterpiece of unity, ingenuity, and humor.

The Selma Times-Journal of May 4 concluded its story with “A melange of melody, mirth and mayhem follows to make ‘The Cat Concerto,’ an unique and memorable bit of musical tomfoolery.

And the literary section of The Age published in Melbourne, Australia, on Aug. 27, 1947 had this to say:

TRIUMPH of the CAT CONCERTO
Although full animated features such as Fantasia and Snow White took leading places, deservedly, in their years of release, it is not often that an animated short has claims to rank among the first ten. But I think when the show down comes the cartoon, Cat Concerto, will be there for 1947.
This crazy but utterly delightful fantasy in color which is being screen at the St. James is, I think, easily the best thing of its kind that has yet been made. It is one item on a supporting programme of shorts. The feature film, Fiesta, is worth seeing, but if there were nothing else than The Cat Concerto showing it would be worth full admission prices to see it alone.
The cartoon is one of the famous Tom and Jerry series, all of which have been good, but this one, which won an Academy award, deserves half a dozen Oscars instead of one only. In it Tom is Maestro Tom Cat in full evening dress, oozing dignity at every pore—and paw. He makes a perfect platform entrance, and crosses to a grand piano. There his bow before he takes his seat is a gesture of rare beauty. Then there is some entrancing business with a snowy handkerchief as he wipes his hands. With one hand poised over the keyboard he glances towards the unseen conductor, and bursts into the Liszt Second Hungarian Rhapsody.
Hackneyed as it is, that composition never took such a beating from an artist as from Maestro Tom Cat. What Tom did not know was that Jerry Mouse was asleep inside the piano. Jerry resented the interruption of his slumbers, and the vengeance he took on Tom, Liszt and the piano made the performance something unforgettable.
Despite Jerry's fiendish devices to wreck Tom's composure and dignity, Tom sticks to the keyboard with heroic fortitude. The battle which lasts for ten minutes' playing time, is that much highly concentrated hilarious fun in which the piano battles with the laughter of the audience for a hearing. Last seen the perspiring and exhausted maestro is standing back, while the impenitent Jerry takes the spotlight.
It is claimed by the studio that the making of the cartoon occupied its artists for seven months. Few who see it will doubt the statement. Its creation demanded a reckless sense of humor, patience, elastic imagination and an intimate knowledge of the innards of a piano, combined with first-class artistry in every department. But everyone connected with The Cat Concerto may be justly proud of his or her share in the creation of a masterpiece.

It is worth repeating the insight of Jerry Beck that cartoon release dates in the trades had nothing to do with when films arrived at an exchange, and they could be booked once they did. In other words, cartoons appeared on screen before the official release. On April 2, a newspaper ad for the Fox in San Bernadino read “SCOOP” and announced the cartoon was appearing that afternoon with Sinbad the Sailor, starring Doug Fairbanks, Jr. On April 10, it was booked into Loew’s Palace in Washington, D.C. and Loew’s State in Cleveland. And “Extra!” read an ad for the Boyd in Philadelphia on April 18. It had been added to the bill.

The cartoon did not appear in New York City until May 7. The Hollywood Reporter revealed it would only be seen at the Broadway with Monsieur Verdoux but the Tom and Jerry short Salt Water Tabby would debut that same day in 30 Loew’s theatres in the city. That’s how you treat an Oscar winner?

Meanwhile, the Interstate Theatre chain controlling 160 houses in Texas and New Mexico, was making arrangements to screen a 90-minute programme made up of nine shorts from various studios, tied together with narration by Mel Blanc. The Cat Concerto was one, so were Tex Avery’s Hound Hunters and the Warners cartoon Birth of a Notion, according toThe Hollywood Reporter of May 7. Interstate was the theatre chain which employed Besa Short, the woman credited with getting Fred Quimby to get MGM to put out a second Tom and Jerry cartoon after Puss Gets the Boot.

If you want to learn more about this Oscar-winner, you can do no better than to read Thad Komorowski’s diggings in this Cartoon Research post.

I shy away from embedding videos in this blog because links can very easily go dead. However, I will link to a couple of versions of the cartoon, thanks to Devon Baxter, the finest young researcher out there today. The first is from a DVD featuring a commentary by animator Eric Goldberg. The second one gives a breakdown of the animators and their scenes. As you know, Ken Muse did a masterful job in much of the cartoon, but there is uncredited footage by Don Patterson and Dick Bickenbach, who may also have laid out this short.