On His Farm He Had an Igloo

I’ve loved Duck Amuck ever since I first saw it, but it’s been analysed so much over the years, I’ve avoided writing about it.

This is Chuck Jones’ ultimate “characters know they’re in a cartoon” cartoon, and another one of Mike Maltese’s stories with a perfect ending.

Jones was the Jack Benny of directors. Like Benny, his characters would stop and pose for the audience. Here are some examples from Duck Amuck. The background artist keeps changing the scenery. Daffy carries on until he realises something is wrong, turns around, looks at the audience, then stalks off stage left.



I love Daffy’s “The show must go on!” attitude. The 1950’s Daffy realised he was a trouper and developed a huge ego because of it. Jones and Maltese (and Friz Freleng and Warren Foster) used Bugs, Porky and other characters to take him down a peg because of it.

Thad Komorowski says the backgrounds are provided by layout artist Maurice Noble, screen credits notwithstanding, with animation credited to Ken Harris, Ben Washam and Lloyd Vaughan.

The official release date of the cartoon is February 28, 1953. This is yet another cartoon that showed up in theatres well before that. The ad to the right is from a Vermont newspaper of January 18, 1953.

The Exhibitor of February 11 that year rated it (and Freleng’s A Mouse Divided) as excellent. And gave away the ending. Well, today we all know what the ending is but watch the cartoon regardless for its fun and humour.

War-Time Comedy

Animated cartoons during World War Two made fun of the enemy, but they also had war gags on the home front. Businesses shut down because of material being used for the war effort, food was being diverted to soldiers overseas, travel was discouraged so soldiers on leave could visit family, purchases of gas and other goods were restricted by rationing.

What’s Buzzin’ Buzzard (1943) is built around this. There’s a food shortage, so two vulture pals spend much of the cartoon trying to eat each other.

Near the start, there’s a food shortage gag combined with a factory closure gag when one of the vultures opens his mouth.



But there is food out there. Tex helps us out with an informative sign.



He tops it with a ration-point gag.



The vultures manage to catch the rabbit after he suddenly re-appears toward the end of the cartoon. But he becomes part of a war-time restriction, too. The rabbit points out the reason neither vulture can eat him.



The iris starts to close on the cartoon. But it’s not over. Tex has one more war-time gag, referring to an earlier shot in the cartoon when one of the vultures fantasized about eating a steak (difficult to obtain due to restrictions). A gong sounds, a title card appears and hitherto unheard announcer John Wald cries to the theatre audience: “Ladies and gentlemen, just a moment please. Due to the numerous requests received in the last five minutes, we’re going to show you the steak again.” The card slides to the side to reveal the steak, as Scott Bradley plays “Auld Lang Syne” in the background to end the cartoon.



Ed Love, Ray Abrams and Preston Blair are the credited animators. There is no story credit.

TV Mother, Reluctant Film Star

Her graduating class of the Professional Children’s School in May 1936 included Florence Halop, later of TV’s Night Court, Jackie Kelk, later of radio’s The Aldrich Family, and Peter Donald, later the battling Irishman Ajax Cassidy in Allen’s Alley. Donald received a medal for mastering French. He had already appeared on Broadway.

Also among the 34 grads was a young lady called Nan Barto. You’ll probably know her better under a different name.

Nancy Walker.

To some, Walker came out of nowhere to play Rhoda Morgenstern’s meddling mother on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It was only natural she would continue the role on a regular basis when Rhoda was spun off into her own sitcom.

But Walker had been around show biz long before that

Her first major piece of publicity was amusing, although maybe not altogether complimentary. Leonard Lyons wrote about her in his column of March 13, 1937. There’s some age-shaving going on here as Walker was 14 at the time.

JUST A HAM TO HER
Dewey Barto of Barto & Mann is the father of Nan Barto, 8 years old—who refuses to wash her hands. "Look," he reasoned with her, "your father is a big star, and it's shameful for a big star's daughter to have dirty hands. If anybody asks you why, you answer: ‘My father is a big star, so I must wash my hands'’' . . . Two days later he discovered that his lesson had been ineffective. He took her across the street from the Paradise restaurant, showed her the sign "Barto & Mann," and stated: "See that? Your father's name is up there in lights. As the daughter of a star, you must wash your hands." Again he admonished, "If anybody asks you why, you answer ‘My father big star, so I must wash my hands’, Now tell me, Nan anybody asks you, what'll you say?" "I'll say: ‘My father," Nan replied, ‘is ham!’"

Four years later, Walker was no longer Nan Barto, and was appearing on Broadway. Columnist George Tucker had this to say on October 28, 1941:

D'ju get a load of that Nancy Walker kid in "Best Foot Forward?" Her pop's the little half of Barto and Mann, in ‘Hellzapoppin,’ and I understand she "was born in a trunk (figuratively) and has been trouping around with the old man ever since. This is Nancy’s first stage assignment and the reason she clicked is that the Abbott office liked her but not having a part for her, said, "Look, kid, you're a blind date—now make people believe it!" She just acted natural-like, she claims; loves to face audiences; doesn't want to go Hollywood because her ambition is to be the "No-Glamour Girl of the Year'." Doesn't use make-up. "It doesn’t do any good. Age 19.

Edwin Schallert’s column in the Los Angeles Times of Dec. 11, 1941 reported MGM had signed her to a contract. So much for no to Hollywood.

Metro found films for her to appear in, but Walker wasn’t happy. Let’s jump ahead to a Times feature story of January 10, 1954.

Nancy Walker Returns to Films
‘The Boys Have Gotten to Work,’ Star Finds After 10-Year Absence
BY PHILIP K. SCHEUER
When I went out to meet the "Look, Ma, I'm Dancin’!” girl, darned if that wasn't what she was doin'—dancin’. The studio was Warner Bros, and the picture was "Lucky Me." Nancy Walker was kicking up her heels with Doris Day, Phil Silvers and Eddie Foy Jr. in a number entitled "The Bluebells of Broadway" (“Oh, where, tell me where, has my Highland laddie gone? He's gone to join that jazz band up on 52nd St.”).
It was Nancy's first Hollywood film stint in a decade, and she returns to find herself CinemaScoped. When I asked what changes she has noted here, she retorted promptly, "More population—and less sham! The boys have gotten to work."
She was under long-term contract to MGM for years, the studio having spotted her in "Best Foot Forward," the college musical, and hustled her out to do a repeat in the movie version. At the same time she doubled into "Girl Crazy"—and then was left idle for a year. "Broadway Rhythm" followed, but Nancy couldn't stand the all-or-nothing pace and said so, loudly.
"If you love it" she explained, "seven years can go by like seven minutes; but if you hate it, it seems a whole lifetime. I screamed a lot so they let me out.
Couldn't Stand Pace
"I was also unhappy within myself," she confessed. "I was fresh from New York and 19, and I couldn't stand the tempo of work out here. It drove me nutty: ‘Hurry up!’—and then you sit for six months. Every chance I had I'd get back to Toots Shor's Restaurant in New York; in fact that's where I took my studio calls!
"There's a very different feeling on this lot; the tempo seems right. Besides, when you get older—I'm 31—you start to mellow a bit. Not only that. My part's more restrained in this; tamer. I'm finally out of college. People used to seeing me wearing pompons and Peter Pan collars are due for a shock."
Even before departing MGM for keeps, Nancy sneaked back to Broadway and "On the Town," a hit. "Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'!"—an even bigger one for her—established her as a star. A period ensued during which she lost her voice—"partly a mental block, maybe"—but it was restored through the ministrations of David Craig, a good-looking young vocal coach recommended by friends. Nancy was so delighted she married him. (A brief, earlier union with Actor Gar Moore didn't pan out.)
She became Mrs. Craig on Jan. 29, 1951. A daughter, Miranda, was born last June, and both Miranda and David have been here with her in recent weeks.
Appeared in “Pal Joey"
Nancy's most recent Broadway play before her arrival at Warners was the revival of "Pal Joey." It was Jack Donohue, the dance director who becomes a full-fledged director with "Lucky Me," who persuaded the studio to sign her for this initial effort of his.
"At first I said I couldn't accept because I was going to have the baby," Nancy recalled. "But they kept postponing the starting date for so long that the baby was born anyway—early. When I did come out in September, they sent me back! "I finally went to work Oct. 1."
Resembles Judy Garland
Nancy, who has slimmed down to 110, bears a greater resemblance to Judy Garland offscreen than on. She is 4 feet 11 inches tall (or small), has black eyes and brown hair and a voice a good deal like Judy's in tone and inflection. "I don't think I'm like her all," she sighs, "but I get it all the time."
She was born Nan Barto, daughter of one-half the vaudeville team of Barto and Mann, in Philadelphia in 1922, and has spent practically all her life backstage. In 1950 she came all the way out here especially to appear in a comedy, "Horace," which she had tried out at the Princeton Playhouse. It had a short-lived run at Las Palmas Theater, after which she hastened back to Manhattan and her husband-to-be.
With no new plays or pictures in immediate prospect (though she has "kept busy on TV. till I'm blue in the face,”) Nancy anticipates an early voyage to England and the stage there.
"Compared to New Yorkers, the English have a far greater appreciation of personalities, rather than simply the quality of a play—a more civilized approach. I don't mean by this that I want to be good in bad plays, but you get the idea. In New York," she concluded, "they either love you or loathe you—which makes you either a star or a bum."

At the risk of a verbose post, let’s jump ahead again. Walker (rightfully so) garnered an Emmy nomination for her debut guest performance as Ida Morganstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Producers would have been nuts not to include her in a Rhoda spin-off in 1974. But it seems, before that happened, Walker was known to people mainly for something other than series television. This story from the King Features Syndicate was published around August 1, 1973.

Nancy Walker Among Those Wasting Talent
By CHARLES WITBECK
HOLLYWOOD—The waste of talent in this town is a subject no one likes to dwell upon because contemplation leads to deep drink, depression and maniacal freeway driving.
The problem has always been around. The amount of high-grade material is skimpy compared to the number of hungry, skilled performers. And too many artists sit because Hollywood doesn't know how to use them properly.
A good example is Nancy Walker, the Broadway sketch comedienne who is now on TV doing towel commercials out of a diner and playing the maid Mildred on "McMillan & Wife," and Mrs. Morgenstern on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."
Hollywood producers have never really known what to do with Nancy ever since the funny little fighter with the snapping jaw arrived at MGM in 1943, along with June Allyson, fresh from George Abbott's Broadway hit, "Best Foot Forward." A hot 19 at the time, but trained by the best including her father, Dewey Barto of vaudeville's Barto and Mann, Nancy pattered around in "Girl Crazy," "On the "Broadway Rhythm" and Metro's version of "Best Foot"—her humor and timing always completely wasted.
Looking back recently, Nancy shudders. "What do you do when the biggest studio in the world says, 'Come to us!’ Do you say, 'Justa sec'?
"I used to try to get out of my Metro contract and sneak back to New York where I belonged in the theater, but my agent kept renewing my option. So I sat, and drove to the beach at night to keep my sanity."
After five years of client badgering agent with pleas to let her out, the option was finally dropped by the moguls. "And my agent was upset,” Nancy added. "Then it occurred to me, nobody listens out here."
The 30-year puzzlement over what to do with Nancy Walker continues but with a shade more insight. "I think 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' comes the closest to me with the role of Rhoda's mother. I've only done three shows which isn't much but people talk about Mrs. Morgenstern as if I were on all the time. We have a good one being filmed in August. Mary and Rhoda come to New York for the marriage of Rhoda's sister."
Last year as maid Mildred, Nancy appeared in all eight episodes of "McMillan & Wife," and will do another batch this season with her good friend Hudson whom she calls Roy.
"I love that show," she said. "Everyone is so pleasant. I was asked in the beginning to take a chance in the small part. My role is well defined. It's the wasp and the elephant.”
Asked if she ever knew a maid with Mildred's bite, Nancy said, "I had one in the theater who drove me up the wall. She would come in with a beauty every night. 'Oh you have a new dress. Aren't you the selfish one! Always buying things for yourself.’
"The little sweetheart was once Bea Lillie's maid," the comedienne continued. "And she knew how to stick the knife in with lines like 'I never did like that second act.’ Bea finally wrote a great sketch based on the charmer." Nancy recently made use of the character while taping a musical segment of the forthcoming Carroll O'Connor special. She plays the wardrobe mistress who tells O'Connor to mind his own business when he comes backstage to learn his daughter (Barbara Sharma) is appearing in a nudie.
The Walker towel commercial, seen everywhere in the country except California, is the chief source of the comedienne's fame these days.
"I'm the lady who runs a diner and keeps telling you how great the towels are," said Nancy. "There's little variance, but I've done 15-a-year for three years and have just signed for another three. I fly back to New York, and we go out to a New Jersey diner and shoot all day. Don't ask me why we go to Jersey. All I know is that when I'm in New York, and I'm shopping with my daughter, Miranda, salesladies look up, say and call for Mabel. I'm mobbed because of the towel thing."
With revues out of fashion, few sketch material writers around, and fewer comedy directors, Nancy must go with the times and take bits in TV, and in films like “40 Carats." Asked about concocting a show of her own, since nobody else knows what to do with her talents, Nancy acknowledged that she had been thinking about it. She might also go into comedy directing, having filmed an ABC pilot with England's Frankie Howard.
"I won't attempt anything unless I know I can do it well. If I know I'll do it badly I won't try. And the problem with television is that you don't have time, and that's why it's often distressing."
Nancy paused, then concluded. "The whole world's mediocre, why not TV!"

Judging by her failed sitcom Blansky’s Beauties and a director’s job in the ridiculous Village People movie Can’t Stop the Music!, Hollywood still had problems figuring out what to do with Walker. But overall, she had recognition and a long, steady track record on stage, films and television. That should be pleasing to any star.

Celebrity in a Jam

Betty Boop falls through a shaft into Blunderland in (as if you haven’t guessed the title) Betty Boop in Blunderland, a 1934 cartoon by the Fleischer studio.



It seems Betty knows the Production Code would soon be enforced (on July 1; this cartoon was released on April 6) so she covers up her exposed underwear, thanks to a wooden clothespin on a line across the shaft.



On the way down, she grabs a jar of jam and opens it.



The jam turns into a head. A celebrity head!



Why, it’s Ed Wynn. He says “so-ohhhhhh” like he used to do to announcer Graham McNamee on his radio show of the time.



Betty decides to leave Ed behind on a convenient statue and continues her journey downward to Blunderland. The real Wynn supplied the voice of the Mad Hatter in Disney's version of Alice in Wonderland, released in 1951.



“Did You Ever Hear a Dream Walking?” is played on the soundtrack during this scene. And this is yet another animated cartoon where Franz Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody is heard.

Doc Crandall and Tom Johnson are the credited animators. Mae Questel does not play Betty in this cartoon.

Screen Gems' She-Wolf

Columbia cartoons may have had problems with stories (Tangled Television and Kongo-Roo anyone?) but the animation was generally pretty good.

Here’s a neat transformation scene from Simple Siren (released Oct. 25, 1945). Man-crazy Vera Vague of the Bob Hope radio show inspired this story by Ed Seward of a homely siren trying to snare a shipwrecked sailor. When the she spots the sailor, she turns into a female wolf.



Wonder whose animation this is? When the siren backs up, you can tell. The multiple eyes and snouts are Don Williams’ stock-in-trade. He gets screen credit on this short, as does Volus Jones.



She transforms back.



Consecutive drawings on twos.



Paul Sommer directed the short, rated “poor” by Film Daily: “The laugh content of this animated cartoon is very limited indeed.” The ending is an Avery-like iris gag which may be the best part of the short.

Sara Berner does her Vera Vague impression as the siren, and John Ployardt/McLeish shows up at the end as a cop. I can't tell if the sea bird is Harry Lang. (A late note. Keith Scott has confirmed it is).

P.S. Thanks to Craig Davison for posting this cartoon on YouTube. The version's been edited; there's an odd fade-out a little more than a third of the way through.

Star of Stage, Screen and Casinos

In a way, Jack Benny never gave up vaudeville.

Vaudeville bills in the early part of the 20th century were, more or less, variety shows. There would be comedians, musicians, dancers, acrobats, trained animals, sketches, a host of different acts put together by talent manager of various circuits, such as the Orpheum or Pantages. In the 20s, an emcee was added to bind things together. Among them was Jack Benny.

After Jack got into radio in 1932, he went on what were called “personal appearance.” The stops in various cities mimicked vaudeville, except the producer was Jack Benny. He had supporting acts of different kinds on the bill with him. Some interacted with him, others did not.

By the 1950s, resort casinos were springing up in Nevada and owners had plenty of cash to bring in top talent. Among them was Jack Benny. But Jack didn’t appear on his own. Again, he gathered other performers to take the stage, just like in vaudeville.

One of Jack’s shows took him to the 700-seat South Shore room at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe in August 1960. This was a big deal. There were 200 press writers and dignitaries to greet him when, according to the Nevada State Journal, he landed on a United Airlines flight at Reno airport on Saturday, August 20 at 2:30 (yes, the paper gave the actual time). The Journal pointed out the day before it would be Jack’s theatre-restaurant engagement of the year.

Among at the acts with him was 19-year-old singer Diana Trask who, the paper said, was “the highest priced Australian act to work in that country” and had been part of Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr.’s shows there.

If you want to know what Jack’s act was like, here’s the review from the Journal, published August 27.

JACK BENNY PROVES NITERY COMIC TALENT
A legend has come to life on the South Shore of Lake Tahoe!
Jack Benny, a legendary all-time comedy great to millions upon millions of radio listeners and television viewers, showed opening night patrons at Harrah's South Shore Room that he is just as tremendous a performer in person as he has been on the airwaves.
Benny opened a 17-day engagement at Harrah's Monday night that marks his first and only theatre-restaurant date of the year. Some 600 people filled the South Shore Room to welcome the comedian to western Nevada and applaud the efforts of the fine troupe that join in making it perhaps the top floorshow offering of the season.
Pictured as a “tightwad” through the years on radio and TV, Benny continues the “illusion” in his nightclub stint. Explaining how he allots himself money for gambling, the comedian rolls off a dozen or so quips that has his audience holding their collective sides.
And another “illusion”—that he is a poor violinist—is shattered. Despite a hilarious “assist” from an over exuberant stage hand in tossing his violin on stage, Benny displays an entertaining ability with the stringed instrument that draws generous response.
Top-flight comedian though is, Benny displays in his Harrah's show that he also has the talent for surrounding himself with other preformers [sic] who will bring out the best in him. For example, he introduces for the first time in this area a lovely singer by the name of Diana Trask. Miss Trask is a tall, voluptuous redhead who helps "prove" that Benny is no slouch with the ladies. Their kissing scene borders on the hilarious.
An "impromptu" visit by the Jack Benny Fan Club—Truckee, Calif., chapter proves to be the show-stealer when the elderly female-types making up the contingent bring out their own instruments and rock into a swing session with Benny. "Swanee River,” "When The Saints Come Marching In," and "Col. Bogie March" have never before been played in the South Shore Room like they are by the "Truckee" Benny boosters.
Benny gets serious with the violin for a bit, and does a real cute duet with pretty teenager Charlotte Motley. They join in "Getting To Know You" before Benny goes into a taped monologue while he plays "Good Night Sweetheart" and "See You In My Dreams." His radio and TV side-kick "'Rochester" makes a surprise appearance in the monologue.
Pretty Miss Trask, when she takes over the center stage spotlight alone, shows off the voice that has made her the highest-paid performer in her native Australia. A rocking "Let's Face the Music and Dance" is followed by an appealing "Turn To Me." But a torrid "Well Alright, Okay, You Win" draws the most applause.
Benny[‘s] compliment to the pretty singer "you're not only beautiful, but you're talented, too," is shared by all the South Shore Room audience.
During her kissing sequence with Benny, she sings "Mr. Wonderful," and concludes her highly successful debut with "Gypsey in My Soul.”
The Dorothy Dorben Singers and Dancers, with an assist from Leighton Noble and his orchester [sic], get the show rolling at the outset with a production number to the tunes of "Love Is Sweeping the Country," and “Love In Bloom." Singer-dancer Charles Grey does an applause-winning tap that marks him as a show-buziness [sic] "comer."
Before bowling off stage, Benny introduces some celebrities at ringside including his close pals—George Burns and Gracie Allen, and his wife Mary Livingston [sic].

Jack got plenty of mileage out of the “Getting to Know You” routine, starting, I think, with Gisele MacKenzie on TV and then with a number of other women or girls over the years. Somehow, considering people in Tahoe plunked down good money to watch Jack in person, I doubt that they minded seeing it again one more time.