The Ice Truck Cometh

You’ll see several ice cream truck gags (“Good Rumor” trucks, mainly) in Tex Avery cartoons, but he pulls an ice truck gag in One Cab’s Family.

The truck driver is motoring along blithely, then sees Junior the hot rod coming at him.



Avery indulges in a transformation gag. The collision sends the ice hauler out of the frame, and turns the truck into something related when it lands.



The short was released May 15, 1952. Avery tried the same kind of cartoon a year later with Little Johnny Jet. We’ve mentioned before the story has similarities to Friz Freleng’s Streamlined Greta Green, released by Warner Bros. in 1937 when he and Avery were working for Leon Schlesinger. More on that tomorrow.

Rich Hogan and Roy Williams are the credited story people, with animation by Mike Lah, Grant Simmons and Walt Clinton, and voices by the wonderful Daws Butler and June Foray.

Playing the Palace

When Rochester answered the phone and described Jack Benny as “star of stage, screen and radio,” it was not like Benny being cheap or driving a Maxwell. He didn’t do either of those things in real life, but he actually WAS a star. Prior to beginning a radio career in 1932, he headlined on stage at the Palace in New York and, in 1931, also toured the U.S., Canada and Europe.

One of the things I’ve noticed in reading reviews of his vaudeville act in the 1920s and into the ‘30s was he almost always won the approval of critics.

There really is oodles of print material about Jack in New York in 1931, but I’ll stick to reviews in Variety. They go through the whole bill, so I’m dropping some non-Benny parts in the interest of brevity. This is from the Show Biz Bible of February 11:

CAPITOL
New York, Feb. 7.
Loew’s “Bits of Wit” unit, current with the Greta Garbo talker, “Inspiration,” follows the new trend away from standard stage band presentation toward the less decorative, but also less stereotyped variety formation.
Jack Benny is starred over the unit and works in between the numbers as a gagging m. c., later bringing part of the pit crew to the stage for some comedy band biz. He formerly used the same number in floor shows and vaude. That almost completes the cycle for this particular bit and even so it held up here.
Garbo was bringing them in opening day, forcing the Capitol to five shows, all capacity. They were standing up almost to the finish of the last performance at night and into the midnight straight picture show. That gave Benny five full houses to talk and play to Friday and at the last one he made mention of the hardship on his pipes.
Capitol, a big place empty or filled, is unlike the intimate vaude and revue theatres to which Benny is accustomed. By the night show he apparently has struck the right chatter system, (or they were getting his light comedy banter in the rear), giving this single the entire audience to juggle. The average talking act coming from the smaller theatres to a place of the Capitol’s size generally finds itself potent with only about half the audience, Benny’s stuff landed all over.
Mrs. Jack Benny is on the program as Marie Marsh for her dumb dora foiling bit with her husband. She has two chances, one including a song.
Benny’s flip talk, fiddle solo and band stuff were meant to stand out. They do, and manager to carry the unit. Bige

Jack wasn’t through with this particular show. Among other venues that booked it were the Valencia in Jamaica, New York, and Loew’s Jersey City before heading to other cities in the east.

He was back in New York at the May, but wasn’t the star. That honour went to another one of Fred Allen’s buddies. No less than the founder of Variety wrote the paper’s review on May 31.

PALACE
(St. Vaude)
Way over the average entertaining bill of eight acts at the Palace, currently. It is headlined by Dr. Rockwell and none of those coming or going actors known as stooges.
To Jack Benny goes the mark for holding up and sending the show over the average. Without him it would be just a good show. With Benny it’s a beaut bill. To prevent squawks by others it may be said that no m. c. excels Benny, letting it go at that. Which also takes him in as a single talking turn.
For the first time an m. c. vaudevillian or any other stage person has found how to pull a gag out of news reel. Benny is doing it this week with Pathe sound news. In the reel is a sound scene of artillery practice. The reel on the sheet goes blooey in this scene. It is a natural guess of a break in the booth. Benny steps out, saying the house wants him to fill in the wait. He asks the orchestra leader for a violin and starts to play “Mighty Lak a Rose.” He’s barely started when the reel behind him resumes. He continues playing during the heavily sounded gunnery with the horses tearing headlong out of the sheet and over Benny’s head. That ends the news reel, with Benny’s playing now heard. It might be made known who picked this spot in the reel for a gag. It was perfect and tells what a comedy vision he had. Probably Benny.
Nearly all of the standard acts are return dates here, excepting Armida, single, who isn’t standard yet, and perhaps the first two turns. Benny made a gag out of that also. No. 2 is a Chinese act, the Joe Wong turn. Benny entering after it for the first time, to announce he is the announcer, mentioned it seemed strange for a Chinese act to be on No. 2. “Generally,” he said, “it takes two Japs to open.” Then he added: “Anyway, I’m glad to see a Chinese act. It’s the first time there have been Gentiles up here in months.”
Armida seems to have enough to make the single turn grade, but perhaps would make it more solidly and quickly if turning the joke she indulged in with Benny later into a literal fact. Benny asks the Mex girl if she isn’t a Gus Edwards protege and how does she like Gus. “I like him,” she answered, “but he holds me down.” That’s for the purpose of the Lincoln car gag, etc., for a laugh. But that holding her down may be so, in so far as Armida might do several things better if permitted to frame her own turn, at least in part.
During Benny’s own act which wasn’t, [tap dancer Jim] Barton broke in on it to have the orchestra leader rehearse his waltz music, and again Armida stepped out, neither noticing Benny with both interrupting him, and Armida mentioning she had forgotten to thank the audience for her reception. Armida did a nice bit with Benny here. Sime

Benny stayed for another week. Wrote “Bige” in the June 2 edition: “Levoda brought some action, opening the second part, after Jack Benny had soothed ‘em with his smooth m. c.’ing during a first part that came in last. Benny is the only holdover currently, which sets a modern record for the Palace.”

The headliner was Georgie Jessel, who replaced him as the Palace emcee the following week. But there was a surprise. As The Billboard put in on June 13: “While Jessel was carrying on, Jack Benny sprung a real surprise by coming on for a corking bit, giving the impression that he had forgotten his engagement as emsee ended the night before.”

The two were on the bill again on June 21 at the Friars’ Frolic at the New Amsterdam Theatre. Jack played his violin with Phil Baker on the accordion, as they kibbitzed.

Jack’s next big tour took to the Palladium in London, where he worked out a contract signed in 1927. Variety stated he opened August 10 and stayed a week, rejecting a two-week appearance to return to New York. From the edition of Variety, Aug. 11:

London, Aug. 10
Jack Benny, billed as “the world’s most famous master of ceremonies” proved a revelation at the opening show today, scoring immediate popularity. He did an m. c. for the bill.
Benny objected to the billing, with the program merely announcing his as being “direct from Carroll’s ‘Vanities.’”
Remainder of the bill is not up to standard. It’s lucky Benny is there.


Back in New York, Jack had another week at the Palace. Some of the acts on the bill with him are familiar. One was singer Kate Smith. The other was bandleader Abe Lyman. The two appeared with Benny on his show of March 27, 1938. “Bige” in Variety wasn’t altogether impressed. He wrote in the paper’s September 8, 1931 edition:

CAPITOL
(St. Vaude)
Show against show, act versus act, the current layout can complete with the bill that just completed seven weeks. In several ways, especially as a variety program, it’s superior. But it just didn’t blend like the other one did, while Benny wasn’t as funny Saturday as [Lou] Holtz had been for seven weeks previously.
The show’s worst handicap, no doubt, was a mental one. The house decided to spend $13,000 in salaries to duplicate the long run. It must have placed the acts under a strain. This was evident in Benny’s work all through the opening performance. Some bad breaks, mechanical and otherwise, didn’t make things easier for this usually smooth m.c.
Benny also might have done some thinking or some buying. The two bits he relied on most were used by him at this house several times before, and the last time not so long ago. Through a muff in the projection room, one of them went wrong. The other one has been used here by Benny so many times before, it’s now a clause in the lease.
In between-the-acts bits, Benny and [William] Gaxton were shaky at the first show. As the week progresses, so should the m.c. team. A fortunate discovery of an unbilled boy who can do a Holtz in everything but looks gave Benny and Gaxton their best chance of the afternoon. Everybody got it.

The September 1 Variety revealed Benny each received $2,000 for the week, Gaxton got $2,600, Harriet Hoctor, $2,500 and Lyman and the orchestra $4,500. The bill was held over for a second week.

Jack was still under contract to Earl Carroll, and Variety of Oct. 6 reported the road version opened that evening at Ford’s in Baltimore. There were difficulties with Carroll. Variety revealed:

Chicago, Dec. 21
Before leaving with ‘Vanities’ for Milwaukee, Jack Benny, featured principal in the Carroll show, indicated he would ask for a release immediately. Prior to the show’s closing at the Erlanger, Carroll ordered a general cut in the payroll, one reason for Benny’s balk.
Publix is negotiating with Benny for the Ambassador, St. Louis, now held by Wesley Eddy. If Benny opens in St. Louis it will be after Jan. 1 on a minimum run of four weeks with usual options.

Carroll relented, with the trade paper explaining Carroll held off the cash slash after “gratifying results” in Milwaukee over the Christmas period.

Jack’s future appeal on radio may actually be found in a 1931 edition of Variety. In reviewing the act of singer comedian Freddie Bernard at the Academy Theatre, a Loew’s house on East Houston St. in the Lower East Side, “Earl” wrote on Oct. 13:

He tells the umbrella gag, which Jack Benny recently told at the ace Palace, and got nothing. Benny socked ‘em with it. Difference in delivery and knowing how.

Perhaps this is why you’ve heard of Jack Benny and not Freddie Bernard.

Bernard, by the way, emceed for years in Miami after the war, then in Atlanta until the mid-1960s. The “clown prince of show biz” had a Benny story from the days when they worked the Orpheum together.

“Lots of show world comedians get off their best lines off the stage, like for instance once I was working in Winnipeg with Jack Benny. The audience was stony. No laughs. Afterward we were walking back to the hotel in dismal silence when Benny stopped in his tracks and pointed to a child with an expressionless face.
“ ‘My God, no wonder we can’t get laughs from these people,’ Jack groaned. ‘That kid has a face like a frozen lox.’ ”

He couldn’t ad-lib without his writers? That was something else Benny made up. Ater ditching Earl Carroll in 1932, radio audiences would begin to find out.

Made Of Pen and Ink

There was a time when animated cartoons were promoted with full-page ads in the trade newspapers. It’s been a while since we posted some, so let’s pass along a few for the Fleischer studio’s greatest creation—Betty Boop.



Betty started out as a great character, even when she was dog-ish. Dizzy Dishes, Snow-White, Betty Boop, M.D., Minnie the Moocher, all great cartoons. She put in an appearance in Bimbo's Initiation, another enjoyable, creative cartoon. There are others, too.

Critics, starting with Leonard Maltin I guess, blamed enforcement of the Production Code in 1934 for the decline of Betty. But there was more to it than that. By 1934, flappers were a thing of the past. Their lifestyle belonged in the ‘20s when you couldn’t (legally) get booze, not in a time when you couldn’t get employment.

Dave Fleischer and the writers had to do something. So we got Pudgy. We got Grampy. We got Buzzy Boop. Then we got Sally Swing. This is from Paramount's internal newsletter in 1938.



Sally Swing’s invention made sense. Boop-oop-a-doop songs were passe. Swing and jitterbugging were now in. Why not have a character who reflected that?

The problem was Sally could sing and dance and...well, that’s about it. Betty had a personality. Sally Swing was one-note. (And her hair colour changed from Myron Waldman's drawing above).



But let's go back to the start of 1933. Betty was big. There was merchandise (and department store promotions). There was a radio show. There was a comic strip. There was a lawsuit filed by Helen Kane claiming Max Fleischer and Paramount stole her act and put it in Betty. On the screen, Betty had run for president, complete with impressions of Herbert Hoover and Al Smith. Theatres had “Betty Boop Booster” clubs to try to attract kids to Saturday matinees; at least one in Shreveport did.

Sidney Skosky's "Tintypes" column in the New York Daily News of January 16, 1933 was devoted to Betty and her best-known voice, the likeable Mae Questel.

BETTY BOOP. She's the handiwork of 100 artists working full time for five weeks when you see her on the screen. Plus that she's the voice of Mae Questel, who also works from four to five weeks.
For the synchronization takes that long. It is started when the animation is completed. An actual orchestra is used for the synchronization—music, sounds, singing, etc. It is done with the aid of a metronome which the performing artists follow meticulously.
It was eighteen months ago that Betty Boop emerged from the inkwell of Max Fleischer. Then she was merely one of the characters. But she booped her way to stardom.
Although the cartoon appears for only a short time on the screen, it necessitates tedious work. Fleischer took a year to finish his first six-minute subject. It consisted of 12,000 separate drawings.
The penciled lines were then traced over on celluloid and filmed in. Then they were photographed by a still camera. Synchronization followed and the finished product was ready for exhibition.
The same process still is followed, but instead of one artist, 100 are used. Fourteen chief artists draw the key scenes. The other action scenes are put in the hands of subordinate sketchers.
Next time you're watching one of these cartoons notice how many times a certain scene in passes review again and again as the action flies by. Those are the key scenes.
Betty Boop enjoyed only mild popularity until Mae Questel got the job. Then she became a favorite with the movie fans. Miss Questel almost looks like Betty Boop.
She is 5 feet 1 inch in height, has black, bobbed hair and sparkling eyes, and talks like Helen Kane.
In fact she began her theatrical career in an amateur impersonation contest in a Bronx theatre and won a prize for mimicking the boop-a-doop gal.
Up to that time she had been teaching elocution privately. So the voice you hear in that animated cartoon is that of an elocution teacher.
But after she won that amateur contest Mae deserted the classroom for the stage. She started out in vaudeville doing a single and later appeared with Waite Hoyt and Fred Coots when that act played the Palace. She also played in Nancy Carroll's flicker "Wayward." Played the role of the cute, fresh chorine.
It was when Max Fleischer was looking for a new Betty Boop—he had tried a number but they all failed—that she was sent to him. She was found to be perfect for the part. She was Betty Boop.
Fleischer will tell you she isn't Betty Boop, but that Betty Boop is Mae Questel. That's how good he believes she is.
In her job she must sing in German and French. She speaks French, German, Polish and Spanish. She got a medal at school for Spanish. She can and does do impersonations of Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier, Fannie Brice, Lyda Roberti, Rudy Vallee and others. There's no telling when, as Betty Boop, she may be called upon to do any of those characters.
She doesn't care that the audience only hears her but doesn't see her. She doesn't insist on being that type of a star. Now, however, all her friends and her boy friend call her Betty Boop. She's only 19, went to Morris High School, and is Russian-Polish.
She buys her clothes wholesale and is not individualistic in her style. Blue is her favorite color, for it brings out the color of her eyes. She has a scar on her right cheek, hardly perceptible. She received it when she fell down a flight of stairs when a kid.
She wears flannel nightgowns and sleeps alone. On cold wintry nights she wears woolen socks in bed.
She smokes, takes a drink now and then, and chews gum constantly. Often while she is recording a number for the cartoon she forgets herself and keeps chewing gum.
Her voice is the remarkable thing about her, which is why she's so good in a job where she's only a voice. The ability to change her voice allowed her to take eleven parts in one reel.
When she goes to the movies she likes to see those animated cartoons. Mae Questel's favorite is not Betty Boop. Just tell her where Mickey Mouse cartoon is playing and she'll be there.

By the way, Mae was 24 when the story was written.



Betty still has an audience today. Canadian David Foster has composed a musical that is apparently coming to Broadway. Why not? Betty sang in her cartoons, including on a theatre stage (1932's Stopping the Show). And her name is based on a line from Helen Kane’s famous song “I Wanna Be Loved By You.”

I don’t have time to watch cartoons much these days, but I took about eight minutes today to immerse myself in a 91-year-old animated short—Betty’s Snow-White. I defy anyone to say it’s not a brilliant cartoon. Bravo Betty.

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.