Fred Brunish, Inventor

We all know Fred William Brunish (named for his father and grandfather, incidentally) was a background artist for Walter Lantz and also made stop motion films for him during the war.

He was a tinkerer, too, and filed for a patent for an automatic slide projector in 1934.

Here's a link to his patent application. It's not all that exciting, but what do you expect from a patent application?

Brunish was born in the Bronx on Dec. 18, 1902. The 1920 Census reports he was a 17-year old fashion sketcher (a 1925 classified ad in the New York Times is below). In 1930, the Detroit city directory gives his occupation as the vice president of the Consolidated Advertising Corp. He didn’t remain in Detroit long. The next year, his family was living in San Diego, where was employed as Consolidated’s art director. He was living in Los Angeles the following year. The City Directory in 1933 lists him as “artist,” and various Voters Lists from 1936 onward give his occupation as “art director.” He was the chief sound engineer and art director for the Royal Revue Film Studio in Hollywood in 1938. Brunish belonged to the Laguna Beach Art Association and there were showings of his work in the mid-1930s.


The 1940 Census says “cartoon picture studio artist.” Walter Lantz cartoons didn’t credit any background artists until 1944 and Brunish’s name doesn’t appear ON screen until the end of 1946, when he is credited on The Wacky Weed. However his 1942 Draft Registration states he was employed at Lantz, and the photo of him above is from when he was working on war-time films for the studio. Late Note: Devon Baxter mentions Joe Adamson's notes state Brunish started work at Lantz on Oct. 24, 1937. Joe wrote a fine biography of Lantz, so he would know.

That year, he was involved with the Motion Picture War Chest drive that year. He also contributed in 1942 to “Communique,” a weekly publication by the Hollywood Writers Mobilization for Defense in cooperation with the Office of Emergency Management. Brunish designed posters alongside Cy Young, Tom McKimson, Frank Tipper, Ozzie Evans, John Walker, Chuck Whitton (both at Lantz) and Ed Starr (later of Screen Gems and Sutherland). In 1947, his watercolour “Sunset on the Pacific” was displayed at the Screen Artists show at the Los Angeles Art Association galleries. Other artists who exhibited works may be familiar from various cartoon studios, including Starr, Ralph Hulett, Basil Davidovitch, Barbara Begg and George Nicholas.

The Lantz studio shut down because of a cash crunch in 1949. In the 1950 census, dated April 5, Brunish is listed as a cartoonist who wasn’t working. When Lantz resumed full operation, Brunish was back. The last cartoon with his name on it was The Great Who-Dood-It, released Oct. 20, 1952 (one of his backgrounds is reconstructed below).


Brunish died on June 25, 1952 of cirrhosis of the liver. His Los Angeles Times obit mentions nothing of his patent or his film work; it lists him as a "landscape artist" and that he left behind a widow, a son and a sister.

Note: this is a reworking of a post that appeared on the late GAC forums.

Horning in on a Gag

Here’s a stretch in-between drawing from the Little Roquefort cartoon, No Sleep For Percy (1955). The mouse is trying to jar himself loose after Percy the cat rolled up a car window, with Little Roquefort’s head stuck at the top.



The mouse lands on the horn. The sound is pretty weak, at least on versions of the cartoon in circulation. Maybe they didn’t want to drown out Phil Scheib’s atypical score.



The horn is evidently loud enough to wake Percy. Here are random frames of Jim Tyer’s spasmatic animation. Heads that shrink and expand (and do it several times for emphasis), expanded fuzzy fur, eyes that are different sizes, it’s all here.



Percy gets up to chase after the mouse. The cat’s butt is on the ground. Tyer gives him impossible anatomy.



This is just in case theatre audiences mistook this for Tom and Jerry.



This was the final cartoon with Little Roquefort and Percy. Connie Rasinski was the sole director for well over a year and a half and new characters, like Good Deed Daily, were being tried out. Paul Terry hadn’t sold out to CBS yet, but when that happened, Gene Deitch came in to run the creative part of the studio, and another set of new characters arrived.

Take Off, Wolf

What’s more delicious than roast wolf? Or fried woodpecker?

Walter Lantz tried to answer those questions in several cartoons in the mid-1940s, as Woody Woodpecker and the cleverly-named Wolfie Wolf tried to eat each other (the wolf name is from model sheets).

One is Who’s Cookin Who, another cartoon where a personified starvation is staring Woody in the face. The first one is Pantry Panic (1941) and, in a way, this short is a reworking of that cartoon by writer Bugs Hardaway (who gagged the earlier one), cohort Milt Schaffer and director Shamus Culhane.

Since it is now the mid-‘40s, Culhane’s pacing is quicker than the earlier short. In one gag, it takes a handful of frames to get the wolf flying out of the scene.

The first drawing below, the wolf is held while Woody and his bellows boost a fire. Then the wolf realises he is being roasted and leaps up and out of the scene. It takes Culhane six frames. The cross-eyed drawing is held for two frames (as well as the smoke, fire and bedsprings), with only Woody and the bellows moving in the second frame. The next four drawings are consecutive.



You can see the wolf’s head jerking toward the camera (great DVNR, huh?). Culhane liked doing this in his Woody cartoons, sometimes with part of the head out of the frame. You can’t see it unless you freeze-frame it, but you get the feel of it watching the animation.

Showmen’s Trade Review reported on July 7, 1945 the cartoon was being animated, while the Hollywood Reporter of November 8 said Darrell Calker was about to write the score. The cartoon was finally released June 24, 1946.

Les Kline and Grim Natwick are the credited animators, and La Verne Harding and Paul Smith were also at the studio at the time. Terry Lind provided backgrounds.

The almost-expressionless voice of Woody is provided by Hardaway. Will Wright is the voice of Wolfie, while Keith Scott has confirmed Jack Mather has a line as a grasshopper.

Here's Our Next Contestant

Game shows appeal to people for various reasons. One is viewers like to see ordinary people get something for nothing. It’s something they can identify with.

Another is the viewers like to see if they can guess the answer to a question by the host (this applies to the more intelligent of the shows).

Still another is, if TV or movie stars are involved, they enjoy seeing and laughing with the celebrities.

And another is, sometimes, there’s a quirky contestant that the viewers can’t help but like. Some are a little clueless. Others say things that come out of nowhere.

All this goes back before television, into the Golden Days of Radio. That’s where today’s story takes place.

Herald Tribune syndicate columnist John Crosby was bemused by one particular episode of a Monday through Saturday daytime game show called Give and Take. These kinds of programmes give and the contestant takes, if they’re not too much of a dullard. One contestant seems to have got things backward, among other unexpected oddities and non sequiturs that the poor emcee, who had radio and TV experience in 1947, had to roll with.

This column appeared on January 23, 1947.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By JOHN CROSBY
Mrs. Caniff Goes to Town
To the student of human nature, audience participation shows generally reveal only that a great many citizens are hopelessly greedy and totally misinformed. However, on rare occasions, the master of ceremonies will unearth a gold mine of personality and character. I'm speaking specifically of Mrs. Caniff, who appeared recently on a program called "Give And Take" (CBS network 2 p. m. Saturdays and 10 a. m. Mon.-Friday outside of New York.)
Before we get into Mrs. Caniff's unique personality, it might be well to describe "Give And Take." It’s a quiz program presided over by a good-natured gentleman named John Reed King, an ornate handle that would look better on a supreme court justice than on a master of ceremonies. As I understand it. Mr. King invites members of the audience to come up and help themselves to tablesful of loot. The only requirement is that they answer a few questions, most of which would insult the intelligence of your ten-year-old son. Was Washington’s birthplace in Massachusetts or Virginia?)
* * *
You can’t miss on this program. Mr. King, for instance, asked one contestant whether the title page of a book was on the left or right hand side of the book. The man guessed the left side. After informing him that this was the wrong answer, Mr. King asked the second contestant whether the title page of a hook was on the left or right hand side of the book. The second guy got it right. Process of elimination, you see.
Well, that’s just background. The real heroism of this story is Mrs. Caniff, whose accent suggests she lives in New York City. Mr. King asked her a question which comes up on all these giveaway programs. “Where are you from?” inquired Mr. King.
“De Far East,” said Mrs. Caniff happily.
“The Far East!” exclaimed Mr. King.
“Foist Avenoo,” explained Mrs. Caniff.
Right there, Mr. King appeared to take stock. You run into a lot of problems as emcee of an audience participation show and the worst problem of all is a participant who has more personality than you have. Mrs. Caniff was one of those problems. “Now, Mrs. Caniff, just look over those tables and tell me what you’d like to have. How about that toaster over there — chromium plated, automatic.” . . .
“I got three toasters at home,” said Mrs. Caniff benignly. “I give you one.”
Mr. King explained hopelessly that he gave away on this program; he didn’t get them. "Let’s look over some of the other things. Forget the toaster. There’s a wonderful assortrnent of.” . . .
“I’m expecting a baby,” said Mrs. Caniff.
“You’re . . . uh . . . when?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!”
“Not tomorrow,” said Mrs. Caniff briskly. “I have company coming in tomorrow.”
“Look, Mrs. Caniff, time is running short. We have come to the point in this program when” . . .
“Don’t you ask me questions?” inquired Mrs. Caniff anxiously.
“I’m trying to . . .”
“I like the bedspread.”
“Good!” shouted Mr. King. “The bedspread! Now listen carefully, Mrs. Caniff. Tell me” . . .
“And the layette. Right there—the layette.”
“You said the bedspread. No, you can’t have them both. Now listen carefully, Mrs. Caniff. Tell me what is wrong with this sentence. ‘A horse divided against itself cannot stand.’ What is wrong with that sentence?”
* * *
Silence fell on the program, as Mrs. Caniff wrestled with the problem. ‘A horse divided against itself cannot stand,” repeated Mr. King. “What is wrong with that sentence?”
“I need my glasses,” said Mrs. Caniff.
“She needs her glasses,” muttered Mr. King. “Now why on earth . . . . Well, she’s GETTING her glasses.” Again silence enveloped the program while Mrs. Caniff got her glasses and put them on. “A horse divided against” . . .
started Mr. King.
“House,” said Mrs. Caniff promptly. “House is de woid. Not horse.”
“That’s correct,” shouted Mr. King. “And here is the bedspread. No, we haven’t got a coffee-maker, Mrs. Caniff” . . .

The rest of the Crosby columns for the week:

Monday, January 20: A special series of programmes by Norman Corwin about world unity. Evidently Crosby was impressed with Corwin, as this was the second column in two weeks which mentioned the series.
Tuesday, January 21: The early days of radio advertising. Crosby plugs a book.
Wednesday, January 22: The Count of Monte Cristo is on Mutual. Crosby mentions television for a second time, though he focuses on baseball, which isn't played in January. New York had three stations at the time (plus one experimental outlet no one counted), Los Angeles had a pair, Chicago was getting by with one, as were Schenectady, Washington and Philadelphia.
Friday, January 24: Another dramatization of the news, this one on Mutual.

You can click on the stories to enlarge the copy. Cartoons are from the Daily News in Los Angeles.

No Dice, Snafu

Thanks to a little devil-esque character, Private Snafu doesn’t save any money for post-war necessities, like a suburban home, with wife and child in Pay Day, a finely crafted cartoon from the Friz Freleng unit at Warner Bros.

Every time Technical Fairy First Class shows up with a bank teller’s window so Snafu can make a deposit, some beckoning smoke tempts him away, and he spends money on souvenirs, a night in a whore house and, finally, gambling.

The smoke forms a hand with a pair of dice. Technical Fairy tries to push and pull Snafu away from the crap game. Snafu does a little dance-walk (Gerry Chiniquy?) and we see Snafu’s butt.



Now come the visual puns. Snafu rolls box cars (two sixes), then rolls a pair of ones (snake eyes).



Carl Stalling puts a drum roll on the soundtrack as Snafu shakes the dice. Just before Snafu bets it all and gets set to roll the dice, Stalling inserts that five-note “You’re a Horse’s Ass” tune.

The story (by Mike Maltese and Tedd Pierce?) is really clever. Each time Snafu wastes his money, there’s a cut to a drawing of his post-war dream where things disappear as he loses money to buy them. The animation is good, too. The Snafu cartoons have no credits.

There’s no dialogue until the end of the cartoon when a mouse living in a hole in what had been Snafu’s home answers a phone. Mel Blanc ends the cartoon by borrowing from the song “Annie Doesn’t Live Here Any More” by Johnny Burke, Joe Young and Harold Spina.

This short appeared in the Sept. 1944 edition of the Army-Navy Screen Magazine.

Never Trust a Nazi

Blitz Wolf isn’t just another Tex Avery fairy tale send-up. There’s a war on, so it’s a propaganda cartoon, too. Considering what a detestable individual Adolf Hitler was, ridiculing him was completely warranted. At the end of the short, the wolf Hitler-stand-in is blown to Hell, which, for him, is populated by Jews (doing their version of the Kitzel catchphrase from the Al Pearce radio show).



Avery, being the anti-Disney, uses Disney’s Three Little Pigs as a starting point, even utilising the voice of the Practical Pig, Pinto Colvig, to repeat his performance.

The story by Rich Hogan has a warning at the beginning—that even good people can be sucked in by the promises and talk of Fascists. The army-fatigued practical pig warns his brothers to be prepared for the invasion of the Big Bad Wolf, and pulls out a newspaper with the story.



Cut to a close-up and downward pan.



The delusional pigs don’t believe the mainstream media. It doesn’t reflect their beliefs as fact. “He won’t hurt us, ‘cause we signed a treaty with him!” They pull out the treaty. Cut to another close-up and pan, then the camera trucks in a little closer to get the signature and seal.



No sooner does this happen than the tanks start rolling in. The scene soon switches to the Blitz Wolf (Bill Thompson with a German accent) shouting to the pig inside the straw house that he’ll huff, etc. “But Adolf, that would break our treaty,” says the pig. “You’re a good guy. Why, you hate war. You wouldn’t go back on your word!” The wolf leans in and says “Are you kiddin’?” and laughs knowing he has snowballed them with his lies.



A little over a month after Pearl Harbor, The Hollywood Reporter revealed “As his first cartoon supervising chore at MGM, Fred ‘Tex’ Avery will handle ‘Blitz Wolf,’ a new animated character for the studio’s shorts” (Jan. 16, 1942). The paper announced on June 2 the cartoon was “in last stages of work” and on Aug. 19 it was “winding up production.” It wound up pretty fast as the same day, the Academy of Motion Pictures screened it at the Filmarte Theatre.

In fact, it was already in theatres, as an ad from the Portsmouth (Virginia) Herald issue of Aug. 16 shows. (Come for Bing. Stay for the Nazi).

This brings us to the oft-told tale that Fred Quimby thought Hitler might win the war and wanted the cartoon to be a little less violent. Did he really say that?

You’d think maybe the famous 1975 animation issue of Film Comment might have mentioned the quote. Or Joe Adamson in his interview with Avery in Tex Avery, King of Cartoons. Or Michael Barrier in his lengthy book Hollywood Cartoons.

It appears the story started circulating from an interview Chuck Jones did on the Mark and Brian radio show in Los Angeles in 1996 as related in the book Chuck Jones Conversations (2005, University of Mississippi Press). I quote Jones, quoting Avery, quoting Quimby.

And he [Quimby] went on, he said, “I was just looking at the storyboard of the Blitz Wolf” and he said—“you think,” this is 1944, right in the middle of the war [sic]—and he said, “Do you think you're being a little rough on Mr. Hitler? ‘Cause we don't know who's going to win the war.”

I have a hard time believing Quimby said this, even if he were joking (Quimby was not known for having a sense of humour). Hollywood—as was all of America—was awash with extreme anti-Axis patriotism. And Jones was not exactly known for a kindly attitude toward cartoon film producers (Disney, excepted).

Blitz Wolf was nominated for an Oscar. Three other war-related animated shorts were nominated, with Uncle Walt picking up the statue for Der Fuehrer’s Face. Fortunately, his face, and the rest of him, was gone in three years.