Ever See a Dog Fly?

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit disappears for about half a cartoon in The Quail Hunt (1935). Perhaps he wanted to avoid being connected to this sorry effort that was co-written by Walter Lantz.

The nominal star of this short is Elmer the Great Dane, who is Oswald’s hunting dog. The quail he’s hunting turns sympathetic and saves Elmer’s life, enabling him to appear in more lacklustre cartoons. A hawk comes into the picture to try to capture the quail, and it’s Elmer’s turn to save a life.

In the most surreal situation in the cartoon, Elmer manages to grab the hawk by the tail and pull him off a tree. They roll backwards and crash into another tree.



When the dust disappears, Elmer now has the hawk’s feathers. Not only that, he has developed wings and can fly!



This was a pretty fallow period for Lantz. He tried to make stars out of three chimps, a turtle doing a bad impression of Rochester from the Jack Benny show and a panda he eventually took off the screen and put in comic books.

The animators on this one are Ed Benedict, Ray Abrams, Bill Mason and Fred Kopietz.

Milk and Money Backgrounds

Tex Avery enjoyed a left-to-right pan over a background drawing whenever it fit in with one of his cartoons, both at Warners and MGM.

That’s how he begins the 1936 Porky Pig short Milk and Money.

It starts with an overlaid cel of trees.



The trees are pulled away from the actual background, which also has animation of Porky’s dad hoeing the garden to the strains of “Home Sweet Home.”



The background artist is uncredited, but we know who it is, thanks to a newspaper article of the day. It was John A. Waltz, who sandwiched in some time at Leon Schlesinger’s studio in between stops at Walt Disney. You can read a partial list of his credits at Warners in this post.

Making Alvin Safe For Children

Ross Bagdasarian got a lot of mileage out of a novelty record.

In 1958, he assumed the guise of David Seville and, with his voice sped up as a chorus, made the goofy love song “Witch Doctor” a number-one hit for Liberty Records.

A real inspiration struck Bagdasarian. Why not turn his sped-up chorus into a novelty trio of chipmunks (named for Liberty executives)? They debuted on Liberty the same year with a Christmas novelty song.

Milking the idea didn’t stop there. After The Flintstones became a prime-time success in 1960, television networks looked around for more potential night-time animated hits. Right in front of them was Bagdasarian and his Chipmunks (drawings of which had been limited to album covers). Animals make perfect cartoon characters. The Chipmunks were already popular. They could even sing funny songs. A recipe for a TV comedy success.

So it was The Alvin Show debuted, with Format Films contracted to make the half-hour series. Format had been set up by Herb Klynn and others who walked out of UPA during the making of the Magoo Arabian Nights feature. Bob Kurtz designed the characters for animation, and the company hired good writers including Tedd Pierce and Dale Hale.

But Bagdasarian (whose name became a musical tag at the end of each show) mother-henned the series, at least in his version of events.

Here’s Chuck Wheat’s column in the March 12, 1962 edition of the Tulsa World. Wheat didn’t like other cartoons on CBS; I presume he must have meant Terrytoons. It’s odd he would think they had less animation than TV cartoons.

“Clean up your plate, dear . . . remember the starving Armenians.”
Ross Bagdasarian can’t tell his kids that mossy axiom . . . he breaks up in laughter every time he starts it. Ross (I’ll call him by his first name—save plenty money on type) and his cousin, William Saroyan, should be called gorged Armenians.
Together sometimes but most often separately, they have parlayed their madness into piles of long, green currency. Ross talked by telephone this week on his latest gambit, “The Alvin Show” on CBS.
After almost a season, Alvin and his fellow chipmunks seem pretty healthy — at least their sponsor is satisfied. It’s a show that surprised me, because quite frankly I am sick to death of shabby cartoon work icing down a rancid cookie of had situation comedy. Most of the animated shows on The Eye are peculiarly lacking in real animation.
Alvin, however, very often glimmers. The mischievous chipmunks are mostly enjoyable, but I get a hoot out of Clyde Crashcup, the professor who invents old things.
“Did you notice how Crashcup and his sidekick Leonardo look like Virgil Parch [sic] drawings?” asked Ross. “I hope they look utterly deadpan in their insanity—like VIP drawings.”
Ross’ cuckoo-bird mind comes up with some real odd stories on the weekly show, just as cousin Saroyan’s mind came up with wacky stories and plays that delight and confuse.
“Bill lives in Paris, but we get together once in a while,” says Ross. “Are we crazy, you ask? We’re the SANE ones in the family.”
In order to justify my call to Ross I asked him to tell us how a cartoon half-hour show comes on The Eye. Here is his description:
First the story line is written, based on ideas Ross throws out. The writers also draw sketches, much like magazine or newspaper cartoons. The story line is a phrase under each picture.
Once this “story board” is finished, Ross checks it and if he likes it, everybody troops to a recording studio where the show’s sound is put down. Then the sound recordings go to a director and layout man who turn it on for the animators. They make the action fit the noises just recorded.
You don’t call this lipsynch—this isn’t the recorded voice while the real singer pants silently and moves her lips. This is facephake—the real voice and the recorded singer.
This whole process takes about four months, according to Ross, and costs about $65,000 for a half-hour show. He hastens to explain that by now the Alvin show studios are an assembly line with a one-a-week output at least.
“The Alvin Show” moves to 5:30 p.m. Sundays next season (or maybe sooner—I’m not certain on this point) and Ross is satisfied. Or maybe oblivious—since his jobs on the show include creator, writer, boss animator, director and voice—and oh yes, he owns the show, too.
“One thing I’d hope you’ll get across,” he said. “I’ve got kids of my own and Alvin is never going to be a little skunk (ha ha, chipmunk but no skunk)—his tricks better not be destructive or dangerous.
“I once found my 5-year-old getting ready to fly off our garage because he saw Superman do it.”
Television could do with more madmen like Ross Bagdasarian. I hope he has hysterics all the way to the Armenian National Bank of America.

What stories or gags did Bagdasarian throw out? He gave some examples in a wire service interview, published December 11, 1961.

Alvin Can Do No Wrong
By JOE FINNIGAN
UPI Hollywood Reporter
ALVIN THE CHIPMUNK’S mentor is keeping an eye on the trouble prone animal to keep him from leading youngsters astray.
Given half a chance, Alvin might start a juvenile revolution that could –upset many of the nation’s households.
But Bagdasarian, apparently a fellow who doesn’t believe in overthrowing homes or governments by force, keeps a tight rein on the squeaky voiced Alvin.
“This is one of the most important things,” said Ross, explaining his reluctance to let Alvin run loose. “We joke a lot but we won’t lot any of the characters do something wrong which kids think is okay. We have a responsibility to people who watch, especially the kids.”
BAGDASARIAN built Alvin’s CBS-TV show from a phonograph record to a multi-million dollar business. Alvin and his two brothers, Simon and Theodore, are created at Format Films, where Ross oversees the whole operation.
It’s difficult to think of rascally Alvin as a pillar of any community, but that’s almost what Ross would like. Bagdasarian keeps tabs on the show’s writers to keep any vicious image of Alvin from getting on the air.
“There was a script that had Alvin giving one of his brothers a hot foot,” said Ross, cringing at the thought. “It played very funny to adults, but kids would think it’s okay to do that.
“In another script, Alvin was sitting in the car and drove it through the garage wall.”
Ross almost groaned thinking about the consequences of that little trick and said, “We could see kids in the family car going through their own garage.”
In both instances, Ross edited the scripts so Junior wouldn’t get any ideas.
IT’S FAIR to assume that Bagdasarian, who has three children, was also thinking of himself when it came to the hotfoot and automobile wreck scenes. His own youngsters might have gotten some ideas and taken one of Dad’s high powered cars for a joyride through the garage wall.
‘We’d rather have the show go off the air than maim thousands of kids,” said Ross, expressing one of TV’s nobler sentiments.
Ross admits that Alvin has no halo over his head. But he insists the little fellow is no switchblade delinquent.
“Alvin is a very delicate character,” Ross said. “He goes against authority because he feels he had a better way of doing something. He’s not a precocious brat.”

Bagdasarian’s “What about the children” attitude didn’t keep the series on the air. The prime-time animation fad disappeared as fast as it arrived as the ratings numbers just weren’t there. What looks like a CBS-TV release in newspapers starting June 2, 1962 announced The Alvin Show would debut on Saturday mornings on June 23 and would leave prime time on September 12.

That was a momentary blip. The Bagdasarian family conjured Alvin 2.0 with new records, new cartoons, new characters, new huge profits.

There’s still something to be said about The Alvin Show, despite the creaky songs turned into music videos and a title character who wasn’t likeable some of the time. Nobody had really tried a musical comedy format, so the series broke some ground. And a show with a Steven Bosustow-lookalike selling Crashcup noses in Crashcup Land can’t be bad.

Re-Writing For Benny

Jack Benny was born on this date in 1894 (insert your own “39” joke here) and through his TV years, columnists found a way of marking it.

This time, we’re going to skip those kinds of columns and go back to one published on his birthdate in 1937 by the Los Angeles Times.

There’s no mention of his birthday. Instead the story involves writing the Benny radio show for the 4 p.m. (Pacific) broadcast, and then re-working it for the live repeat show for NBC red network stations in the West at 8:30 p.m., based on what got laughs on the broadcast heard elsewhere in the country.

The columnist also briefly mentions how Ed Beloin and Bill Morrow were hired by Benny, avoiding the reason Jack was “fresh out of material and writers.”

Air Comedian’s Gags Metered For Laughs
If Joke Rolls ‘Em in Aisles, It’s “B.W.;” Studio Audience Response to Jack Benny Humor Graded by Script Writers
By CARROLL NYE
Radio Editor
If you crash the control room at N.B.C. during a Jack Benny broadcast and peer over the shoulders of Bill Morrow or Ed Beloin, the Jesters ace writer you’ll find them making “chicken tracks” on their script.
What they actually are doing is grading the gags according to the response of the studio audience. Top rating is “B.W.,” which signifies (pardon my French!) “belly wow.” Lowest grading is “S.,” standing for “snicker,” and the intermediate ratings are “G.,” for “good,” and “V.G.,” for “very good,” with variations of plus or minus for all.
MARKED TWICE
The scripts are marked in pencil during the afternoon broadcast; then remarked in ink during the repeat broadcast for the West. When gags get the same response on both shows they are marked “D.,” for “ditto.”
A survey of Benny’s last three “report cards” reveals that Mary Livingstone leads the parade of comics in the classroom with an average of B-minus, and Kenny Baker is tied with Benny with a rating of G-plus. Don Wilson’s rating is low because he’s friendly to Jack, while Phil Harris’s score goes up every time he tiffs with the star. Andy Devine’s first appearance on the program brought him a B-plus mark, but he subsequently slipped into a straight “G.” groove.
TOPICAL JOKES
In general, the survey discloses that topical jokes and “ribs” on personalities in or out of the cast are the consistent “B.W.” getters—which is gratifying to all concerned because the success or failure of the series has always hinged on that type of humor.
Puns or epigrammatic lines are only good for a snicker, and a subtle shaft of humor doesn’t get a stronger reaction unless it is linked with a situation. In any event, no gag is expected to stand on its own—nor will the writers inject a series of unrelated gags. “Those methods were good in vaudeville,” said Morrow, “hut the ‘bang-bang-bang’ comedy is a total loss in radio.”
ALLEN FEUD REGISTERS
Benny’s feud with Fred Allen is apparently accomplishing its purpose, because every mention of the “Town Hall Tonight” star in the script is followed by a B-plus. An example was Jack’s line: “I should stoop to arguing with a toothpaste salesman.”
I rapped on the door of Morrow’s Hollywood apartment last Wednesday evening and we enjoyed some chitchat until Allen’s program came on the air. In the hour that followed, my host listened intently—knowing that he’d have some special work cut out for himself if Allen did a particularly good job of putting his boss on the spot.
After listening to that “rib” I gather that Morrow and Beloin started burning the midnight oil. Anyhow, we’ll hear the result today.
PUT HIM ON SPOT
“We should worry,” said Morrow. “We put Fred on the spot when Jack announced last Sunday that he’d lost his violin, and made the drawling comedian rush out a new routine.
“In fact, we never let ourselves worry about our show because it is impossible to write good comedy under pressure. We’re serious, but relaxed—and that’s the way Jack expects us to work.”
The pair of writers goes into a huddle with the headman after the Sunday night broadcasts to map out a general plan for the next week’s show. Sometimes they evolve a routine for broadcasts two or three weeks hence.
THINK IT OVER
On Monday the writers think about working but seldom do anything about it. Tuesday, Beloin Invades Morrow’s apartment (next door to his) and after a few hours of friendly wrangling they fill one “spot,” which is taken to Benny for acceptance, changes or rejection.
Other situations are usually worked out on Wednesday, and by Thursday they give the boss a rough draft of the whole script. However, they often leave holes that aren’t filled until the reading rehearsal Saturday, when the star comedian reads the parts for every member of the cast and injects new gags as they come to him.
Carole Lombard, their best and severest critic, hears most of the jokes while they are in the process of formulation, and Don Wilson’s spontaneous laugh is Benny’s barometer at the reading rehearsal.
It is something of a coincidence that Beloin and Morrow became Benny’s writers. Ed peddled his first comedy script 1ast winter to Allen, who passed it up because he writes his own material. However, Benny, being fresh out of material and writers, took the script at first reading.
Benny got in contact with Morrow, who had just finished a season writing for Phil Baker and Eddie Dowling, and the three of them met two weeks later in Detroit.
Beloin and Morrow locked themselves in a hotel room and turned out their first script—as a team. Jack accepted it, sent the lads to Hollywood and now has them under contract.

There’s no mention of another writer Jack relied on around this time and who died in 1937. Homer Canfield’s column in a number of southern California newspapers on June 19, 1937 gave him a brief tribute.

Hollywood, June 19—
WHERE THERE’S LAUGHTER THERE ARE ALWAYS TEARS. THE death that came to Al Boasberg in the quiet lonesomeness of Friday’s early hours was a terrific shock to Jack Benny. As a result, plans for his Sunday program are still somewhat unsettled. But in true trooper fashion, it is expected the show will go on. (KFI, 7:30)
Benny not only looked on Boasberg as the tops in gagmen, but as a close personal friend. It will be hard not to read tragedy into his funny lines.
As the red light flashes “on the air,” radio’s No. 1 comedy program will flood through the network. Jack will joke people will laugh at a dead-man’s humor. And will continue to laugh for years to come.
Boasberg’s prolific sense of the ridiculous gave birth to enough material to keep comedians supplied for yeara to come. It will be redressed and used many times over. like Charlie McCarthy, most funnymen need to have someone else throw the words in their mouths.
Just what was Al Boasberg’s connection with the Jack Benny program?. . . Haven’t we read so often that Ed Beloin and Bill Morrow were Jack’s scriptwriters? are a couple of questions I’ve had to answer over and over today. True, Beloin and Morrow wrote the comedian’s scripts. But Boasberg was the seasoning. After the script had been completed, he was called in as the gagman. Throughout the program he would plant lines to assure laughter. His was the touch that lifted the show out of the good program class to the top of the heap. May he find as much laughter on the other side as he gave here.

In our next Benny post, we will check in with one of his two writers, who will spill more (rather lame) gossip about Jack and putting together the show.

Two Silver Spoons

John Brown’s hipster tells John Brown’s Noah Webster he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Webster tries to imagine it.



So comes the first visual pun in Tex Avery’s Symphony in Slang, released by MGM in 1951

The gag wasn’t a new one. You can see it in Friz Freleng’s Confederate Honey, released by Warners in 1940. The narrator (John Deering, not John Brown) tells us Colonel O’Hairoil has a daughter, Crimson, who was born the same way.



Cut to reveal the gag.



This was the first cartoon made by Freleng after he escaped from MGM and accepted an offer from Leon Schlesinger to return. It’s a parody of Gone With the Wind with rotoscoping, effects animation, lots of overlays at the beginning, radio references, racial stereotypes, Mel Blanc as a Hugh Herbert caricature, and Elmer Fudd. Freleng’s next release for Warners, The Hardship of Miles Standish, features at least the latter four.

Ups and Downs For Jim J. Bullock

Overnight successes are generally people who have been around the entertainment business a lot longer than overnight before getting cast in a regular, breakout role.

Then there’s Jim J. Bullock.

He spent four years in Los Angeles after leaving Odessa, Texas, where he appeared in a Permian High School production of Bye, Bye Birdie (in Paul Lynde’s role), then in college productions of Godspell and A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Bottom (I am resisting any comment), and in the cast of a Christian Broadcasting Network series called Sunshine Factory.

A large percentage of that four years did not involve The Bright Lights of Hollywood. He was employed for a year at Bob’s Burger Bar, then at Victoria Station (tips were better). He found part-time work at a bank, then jobs as a corporate messenger and a mall Santa. As far as show biz, nothing happened for him until success on a Monday pot-luck night at Mitzi Shore’s Comedy Store, which led to a contract at ABC and his first appearance on Nov. 25, 1980 on Ted Knight’s series Too Close For Comfort.. Two days before the episode aired, the Odessa American crowed that Bullock’s character would become a regular. He was a sudden success at age 25.

Here he is talking about his role to a syndicated news service column dated May 15, 1982.

How JM Bullock Copes With Success
By BOB LARDINE
New York Daily News
HOLLYWOOD—It happens to a lot of nobodies in this town. One day they’re a whisper away from the unemployment line, and the next day they’re pulling down $6,000 a week or more on a top television series.
Some performers go berserk with that kind of money. That’s what happened to JM J. Bullock. At 26, he had never earned more than $200 a week in his life. The most notable thing about him was that he dropped the ‘i’ from his first name, Jim, just to be different. And then, suddenly, he turned up as Monroe on CBS’s [sic] hot series, “Too Close for Comfort.” He was making big bucks and was an instant star.
“I went crazy with all the money I was making,” he admits. “I spent $50,000 in a flash, and to this day I still can’t tell you where it all went. I know I did go out and buy a new Datsun 280-ZX, but I don’t know where I spent the rest. I was afraid to tell my father (an executive with a small oil company in Odessa, Texas) that I had gone through so much money, but somehow he understood when you’ve gone without for so long and then come into a lot of money, you tend to go out and enjoy spending it.”
Bullock manages his money much better these days, but he’s still pouring out the cash. A couple of months ago he splurged on a brand new home in the Hollywood Hills, which cost him half a million dollars. The house is enormous — 4,000 square feet that includes four bedrooms, 4 1/2 baths and a kitchen so huge you could put a basket at each end and call it a basketball court.
The actor lives in the spacious triple-deck home all by himself. “Sure, it’s big,” he says, “but I need a large house because I’m a party person, and I intend to have tremendous get-togethers with my friends. It’s going to be party, party, party from now on.
Somehow, you don’t expect that kind of revelation from a deeply religious person who was brought up a Baptist in Texas, and who still goes to church every Sunday. But Bullock is a strange guy, almost like the character he portrays on “Too Close for Comfort.” He’s constantly seen in gorilla or chicken outfits, and always plays an idiot on the show who is a constant irritant to the series star, Ted Knight.
Bullock gained a spot on the show after it had aired twice in 1980. He was appearing at The Comedy Store, a showcase for young comics, and was recommended to ABC. “But the network didn’t know what to do with me,” he says. “First, they tried to get me on Mork & Mindy,’ but I wasn’t right for them.
“Then ABC sent me over to the ‘Too Close for Comfort’ producers. Arne Sultan and Earl Barret. They hated me. I weighed 215 at the time, and decided I was too fat. I dropped 45 pounds in four months, and ABC decided that I should have another shot at ‘Too Close for Comfort.’ But Sultan and Barret wouldn’t hear of it. ‘We don’t want him,’ they said. ‘We’re looking for a Woody Allen type, a short guy with horn-rimmed glasses.’ ABC insisted that they let me read for them. They did, reluctantly, and after hearing me, they gave me the role.”
Bullock sounds like Paul Lynde, looks like Steve Martin and forever seeks to be the fool. But there’s another side to this young actor, who spent the first three years in Hollywood waiting on tables.
“I’d like to be seen more realistically on the show in the future,” he says. “I’d like to get away from being such a cartoon character, and be given a chance to reach other levels. I’d like to show other sides of my personality other than just the silly side.”
He enjoys working on the show, and claims he is closest to Nancy Dussault.

Bullock gave a lot of interviews around this time. In some, he went into specifics about the second Too Close For Comfort audition. This was related by Stacy Jenel Smith of Editor’s News & Features International. It reminds me of the behaviour of another TV character—Ted Baxter, snivelling to Lou Grant.

“I was blazing with confidence,” he recalls. “I had the strangest feeling I would get it.”
Nevertheless, the ABC executives kept him waiting 45 minutes for the interview. When he was finally called into their inner sanctum, he angrily stormed in, threw his script on a desk and yelled, “Don’t you ever keep me waiting like that again! I’m calling my agent!” and stormed out. Only to return on his knees a second later, pleading their forgiveness.
That was followed by his grabbing executive producer Arne Sultan by the ankle, kissing his feet and begging, “Pleeeeease, Pleeeeease, give me the job.”
Such outrageous behavior is by no means unique with Bullock, nor is it always associated with his work. For Instance, on a recent cross-country flight, he got the urge to entertain, cut eye holes in an air-sickness bag, put it over his head and made his way down the aisle asking passengers what they’d like to drink — as “The Unknown Steward.”



Jump ahead about 10 years and Bullock’s interviews were quite different. He survived a storyline change on Two Close For Comfort but it didn’t save the show. His career and personal life were up and down. This is from the Los Angeles Times syndicate, Dec. 19, 1995.

Having the Last Laugh
After a Rough Stretch, Jim J. Bullock Is Back at Work and Has Managed Not to Lose His Sense of Humor
By ERIC SHEPARD
Times Staff Writer
Forgive Jim J. Bullock if he doesn’t apologize for shouting to the world that he’s 40 and gay.
When you’ve lost as many things in your life as Bullock, including money, self-esteem and countless friends, being honest is an easy challenge.
“There might have been a time when I would have carefully watched what I said or what I did, but that day has long passed,” said Bullock, a comedy actor best known for his portrayal of the nerdy character Monroe Ficus on the television sitcom “Too Close for Comfort” in the 1980s. “I’ve been through too much to act like somebody I’m not.”
When the program was being put together for the play “End of the World Party,” which Bullock is currently starring in at the Celebration Theatre in Hollywood, director Bob Schrock couldn’t believe the bio sketch his lead actor turned in.
Bullock nixed listing his credits and accomplishments—including an about-to-air TV talk show he is co-hosting with Tammy Faye Baker—opting instead for the simplified “I’m 40. I’m queer. I’m here. Thank God.”
Strangers may think Bullock is being arrogant or looking for attention with such a statement, but friends know otherwise. They know it’s nothing more than a way to laugh off what has been a difficult period.
After his six-year run on “Too Close for Comfort,” Bullock became a regular on a new version of the “Hollywood Squares,” hosted by John Davidson. That lasted 2½ years and was followed by a season on “Alf.”
For those 10 years. Bullock was one of Hollywood’s more recognizable faces, with his Texas accent, streaked blond hair and big eyeglasses.
But when Bullock finished his work on “Alf” in 1989, he began a four-year stretch of unemployment. He lost his manager and his agent. His 4,000-square-foot home in the Hollywood Hills went into foreclosure and he filed for bankruptcy.
“I was surrounded by people who told me I had nothing to worry about,” said Bullock, who studied music and acting at Oklahoma Baptist College.
“Everyone kept telling me that I was terrific and that I’d be working for years. I will never trust my whole career in the hands of others again.”
The lack of work drove Bullock into a deep depression. His friends rarely saw him, and when they did his trademark sense of humor was almost non-existent.
With a few remaining personal possessions, Bullock moved into his boyfriend’s one-bedroom condominium in West Hollywood to start over. He gained 40 pounds and five inches around his waist but didn’t have enough money to buy new clothes, and he was contemplating taking a job as a bartender at a nearby restaurant.
Then in the fall of 1992, Joan Rivers called and asked Bullock to appear on an episode of her talk show that was going to reunite the cast of “Hollywood Squares.” There was a long pause on the other end.
At first, Bullock said no. He didn’t want to face people from happier times. But in the end, he agreed.
When Rivers asked Bullock on the air what he had been up to, he replied: “I’ve been in foreclosure,” and got a big laugh.
Big enough, in fact, to impress talent agency owner Cheri Ingram, who was watching the show and called Bullock the minute he returned to Los Angeles.
“I had heard Jim hadn’t been doing well, but when I saw him on that talk show I could see that he was still the great guy so many people had loved all those years,” Ingram said. “I thought he still had a lot of life in him, and I wanted to be the one to get it out of him.”
Ingram promised Bullock work within 90 days, but two weeks later she got him a regular role on the syndicated comedy “Boogie’s Diner,” which was produced in Toronto and was a big hit in Canada. In the United States, it aired on the Family Channel.
Bullock left that show last year after securing a deal to host the new syndicated talk show with Tammy Faye that will debut in many markets Dec. 26. In Los Angeles, the station and start date have yet to be determined. The hourlong show is being billed as an alternative to the popular “Regis and Kathie Lee” morning show.
“Yes, I really am working with Tammy Faye,” Bullock says with a smirk. “Everyone thinks it’s a joke, but it’s legitimate. Actually, we’ve been having a blast.”
Despite a busy production schedule, Bullock is earning about $14 a performance portraying the character of Hunter in “End of the World Party,” about six gay men who share a summer party house on Fire Island in New York. The friends find it increasingly difficult to let loose and have fun with AIDS hanging over the house like a storm cloud.
Bullock’s character is the 38-year-old den mother of the group who deflects everything with humor. The part seems tailor-made for a man who likes to tell jokes but has also lost his share of friends to the deadly virus. Although the play has been extended through January, Bullock will leave this week, when the play goes dark over the holidays, in order to have more time to take care of his boyfriend who’s battling AIDS.
“I had sort of a rough summer, and this play came along at a time when I needed to lift my spirits,” Bullock said. “It isn’t easy being a gay man in the ‘90s, but it’s important not to lose your sense of humor. This play has helped me keep a smile on my face.”
The play was written by Chuck Ranberg, who earlier this year won an Emmy Award for comedy writing with partner Anne Flett Giordano for an episode of “Frasier.” Ranberg said the play won’t be the same without Bullock.
“The minute I saw Jim’s audition tape I knew he was perfect for the part,” Ranberg said. “He brings a humor and wit that’s very difficult to find. An even with the things going on in his life, he’s always the one who keeps the rest of the cast up and laughing. I wish we could keep him forever.”
Such words are a comfort to Bullock.
“I’ve been to the bottom, and I know what it feels like,” he said. “I’m grateful to get a second chance because life’s too short to take for granted. Life is certainly not a dress rehearsal.”

There’s a cliché about gays and drama. Unfortunately, more drama than in a Bette Davis movie followed Bullock after this story was published. Tammy Faye got sick and the re-cast show limped along for only a few months. His husband passed away from AIDS. He was outed in the National Enquirer as being HIV-positive. All this triggered a crystal meth addiction that he was able to overcome after several years.

Drug-free, Bullock got what he might call “a third chance.” He returned to the stage (in several companies of Hairspray among them) and, presumably, cashed residual cheques from Too Close For Comfort

Jim J. Bullock is 70 now and enjoying the warmth of Palm Springs. And, we hope, the warmth of fans.

Out-Foxed Background

Johnny Johnsen has a few long backgrounds in MGM’s Out-Foxed (released in 1949), including a painting with overlays that opens the cartoon and owes its life to the Warners cartoon Of Fox and Hounds (released in 1941).

Here’s another one. My apologies that the colours don’t blend after putting the frames together.



Like Johnsen, The layout artist is uncredited.

The fox is named “Reginald” even Daws Butler’s voice evokes Ronald Colman.

Avoiding the Boot

The greatness of the early Tom and Jerry cartoons relied on a number of things. One of them was the expressiveness of the characters. Audiences knew what they were thinking.

In this scene from Puss Gets the Boot, Tom is creeping away from the housekeeper, who has threatened him with eviction if he breaks anything else in the house. Almost instantly, he smacks into a table with a vase. The table wobbles. The expressions speak for themselves.



The last frame shows his annoyance when he hears Jerry behind him laughing at his plight.

Interestingly, when Tom is finally booted “o-u-w-t” of the house, it happens off-screen. That saves money-consuming animation. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera did this time, and time, and time again in their TV cartoons (which, at least, involved a camera shake, which is more than what happens in this short).

Today marks the 85th anniversary of the cartoon’s official release date. You can read about the short in this transcription of the January-February 1940 edition of the MGM internal magazine “Short Story” in this post. The characters, according to Metro publicists, were named Jasper and Pee-Wee (with appearances by “the housekeeper,” who never had a name in the whole series).

Judging by the trades, the cartoon showed up somewhere in MGM’s release schedule between the start of October and the beginning of December 1939. The story remains to be found or told about how Hanna and Barbera managed to convince someone in power to let them join forces to direct a cartoon at what had been a studio full of internal politics since opening in 1937.

"Ferdinand" Blanc

Mel Blanc enjoyed fishing. And, like a fish story, Blanc’s tale of how he came to be hired by the Leon Schlesinger cartoon studio grew and changed over the years.

This Week was a newspaper magazine supplement A feature story on cartoon voice actors published October 13, 1946. This may be the earliest version about his hiring. We posted this a number of years ago on the GAC site.

Look Who's Talking!
You don't know them but their voices are famous. They give life to cartoon characters.
SUZANNE V. HORVATH
The success of every animated cartoon depends on the talents of a highly specialized group of people—the men and women who speak for them. ...
Moviegoers everywhere know the Hollywood artists and the product of their magic inkwells. But it’s to the unknown “voices,” on these pages, that cartoon studios turn when a new character pops up.
These people get no special training, have to depend on their imagination and a talent for mimicry. The artists or directors can’t be of much help, beyond a vague request to “talk like a rabbit,” or “say this like a timid ghost.”
In 1928 Walt Disney had a brain storm and brought forth a “Mouse.” A year later Mickey made his first noise and Disney hasn't stopped talking for him since. Then there is Popeye, whose years of popularity make Bob Hope look like a Johnny-Come-Lately. But in recent years many favorites have come along to where they get top billing, have their own following of fans: Warner Brothers have Humphrey Bogart and buck-toothed Bugs Bunny, whose box-office rating adds up to a mint of carrots. Famous Studios have under contract, besides Popeye and his troop, Little Lulu and a small newcomer called Casper, the Friendly Ghost. Tom and Jerry, the cat and mouse, are friendly enemies at M-G-M. Terry Toons made stars of two magpies.
For each of these, and others, a man or woman plays a major role. All are talented mimics and work into the animated-cartoon world quite casually.
Bugs Bunny’s Mel Blanc, for instance, was writing radio shows when he got a call from the office of Treg Brown of Warner Brothers’ cartoon department. “Can you play a drunken bull?” asked Brown. “My best friends call me Ferdinand,” replied the surprised Mel.
The drunken bull is now a forgotten character, but Mel has become one of the animated cartoon world’s greatest talkers.

Gee, nothing about dead casting directors or wallowing in pig-pens. A “surprise” phone call sparked it all.

Whether Mel was writing for radio shows at the time of his hiring, I can’t say. But he was certainly appearing in them. You can probably find a number of these series on old-time radio websites.

The Oregon Daily Journal ran down some of Blanc’s radio career to date in a feature story printed June 23, 1946. It’s an overview, so don’t expect to find specific dates of shows. One thing it doesn’t mention is Blanc played a character named Sylvester on the Judy Canova Show. Warners borrowed the name and voice for a certain cat. The radio character was more over-the-top than the cartoon character.

Mel was to start his own network radio show within a few months. All his voices couldn't save it. The show ran for one season.

Heard But Not Seen Makes a Living
By TOMMY HOXIE
(Special to The Journal)
There is a voice in Hollywood that is heard by more radio listeners than that of any other comedian . . .
one that pays off to the tune of a figure well up in the six-digit bracket—and that’s not counting the two ciphers to the right of the decimal point, either.
Yet the name of the owner of that voice won’t be found listed in any schedule of daily radio programs, for it’s Mel Blanc, the “one-man-crowd” of radio.
* * *
AND IT’S MEL’S flexibile voice that portrays Pedro and Roscoe Wortle on the Judy Canova show; the cigar store clerk and the melancholy postman on George Burns and Gracie Allen’s broadcasts; and Scottie Brown, Cartoony Technicolorovich and the chronic hiccougher of the Abbott and Costello show.
For the Jack Benny broadcasts, he portrays the train announcer, the French violin teacher, the loquacious parrot, the news reporter and Benny’s English butler. It was the latter bit of acting that won for Melvin Jerome Blanc the nomination as one of the outstanding bit parts in radio for 1945.
In addition to his four weekly radio broadcasts, Mel is busy on the Warner Bros. lot, where the voices of 90 per cent, of the masculine cartoon characters are dependent on his versatile vocal chords. It was he who devised the stuttering voice of Porkie Pig and the belligerent one of Bugs Bunny. And his new contract with Warner Bros. gives him screen credit for his voice characterizations, the first time this distinction has been given an actor in cartoons.
* * *
“PORTLAND and San Francisco both claim me,” said Mel in an interview following the rehearsal of a recent Judy Canova program. “Portland claims I was born in San Francisco, and San Francisco claims I was born in Portland.”
Actually, the man who plays so many parts on the air and on the screen was born in the Bay City 38 years ago, but moved to Portland at the age of 7.
Fellow classmates at Lincoln high school will remember Mel as the lad who began producing and directing amateur vaudeville shows at school. And in writing the skits for these shows he usually managed to feature himself as comic. It was then that Mel first to show an inkling of the career that would some day make him famous.
AS A BOY, WHEN MEL studied the violin, he never suspected that he would one day portray the role of Jack Benny’s French violin teacher. But he did know that he would never win much acclaim as a violin virtuoso in his own right. So, after eight years of study, he packed his violin away and turned his time to the tuba. With his big horn, Mel joined the staff hand at station KGW, played with some of the Northwest’s leading dance bands and filled a spot with the Portland Symphony orchestra.
It was for Portland radio listeners that Mel first aired his amazing voice dexterity when on KGW-KEX’ famous “Hoot Owls” and “Cobwebs and Nuts” broadcasts, he occasionally put aside his tuba to step up to the mike in one of a score of voices and dialects.
Some time after this, Mel began writing, producing and acting in a show of his own. But not content with putting in as many as 16 hours a day on a six-day-a week, 52-weeks-a-year job, he spent the seventh day writing the Portland Breakfast club scripts.
* * *
“IT WAS in 1935 that I left Portland for Hollywood,” Mel reminisced, “and, believe me, things weren’t easy for a while. For the first two years, I was lucky to do one show a week.
“Finally, I started getting chances at auditions and wound up with a spot on a network show. From then on, I’ve been pretty busy.”
That network show was with Al Pearce—and “pretty busy” is putting it mildly. By 1943, Mel was appearing in 14 radio shows a week and already becoming widely recognized for his movie cartoon voice characterizations. And with a half-hour radio show requiring a full day-and-night schedule.
“I finally just dropped everything except the four network shows I do now and the cartoons.”
* * *
“OH, AND BY the way,” he explained, “I never see the cartoons at all, you know. I merely do the voice part as prescribed by the script, and then later the artists draw the characters. Facial expressions and body movements are animated to match the dialogue.”
Mel can portray 57 different characters, sometimes doing as many as 8 or 10 on a single program. But his own favorites are the Burns and Allen postman and salesman Roscoe Wortle.
It was while he was doing the latter at the Judy Canova rehearsal that I saw he marked his script with a mechanical pencil with four colors of lead—a different color for each voice change.
“I always carry this pencil and a fountain pen,” he remarked. “The pencil is ideal for coding the script, and I save the pen for signing contracts.”
IT IS NOT ONLY his voice that Mel uses in his radio characterizations. His whole body fits into character as he strives to inject into each one a complete naturalness. When he assumes the character of the lazy Pedro, he slouches at the microphone and cocks his head to one side. Then on the same show, when he returns as Roscoe Wortle, he stands erect and straightforward.
In the few recreational hours his busy schedule allows. Mel fishes, plays with 7-year-old son Noel and does the buying for a successful Venice, Cal., hardware store which he started as a hobby. His merchandise features sporting goods with an accent on fishing equipment. His father-in-law operates the business while Mel operates his larnyx.
It is at their ocean-view home at Playa Del Ray, near Santa Monica that Mrs. Blanc (Estelle) and Noel listen to the radio so that when he comes back from the studio they can serve as critics to Daddy.
“I get a little homesick for Portland now and then,” Mel said as we left the studio,” “and maybe one of these days I’ll be able to take Estelle and Noel and go back there. You see they have the best fishing up there, and all the time I lived in Portland I never went fishing. Now it is my hobby, and I’d really like to try out my tackle on some of those big ones that get away.”

Blanc’s hiring by Treg Brown came at a time when the Schlesinger studio had decided to bring in professional actors; after all, Warner Bros. owned KFWB radio with all kinds of actors at its disposal. Billy Bletcher is probably the best known of the earliest pros. Not too much later came Danny Webb and Elvia Allman, joining seamstress-turned-actress Berneice Hansell. That early group seemed to find work at most of the West Coast studios. Blanc’s voice can be easily spotted in cartoons produced by Charlie Mintz for Columbia, and almost every cartoon fan knows he was the original voice of Woody Woodpecker for Walter Lantz (and, later, on children’s LPs).

Mel Blanc outshone all the others. His expressiveness, accents, even singing, was perfect for animated comedies, where Warner Bros. had become the top dog (or, bunny, perhaps). The dialogue got better and better as the 1940s wore on. In turn, Blanc’s performances got better and better. No doubt he inspired many, many others who followed. Mel Blanc really was the best cartoon actor of all time.

What’s that, you say? This is a perfect opportunity to plug Keith Scott’s two-volume history of actors in animated cartoons, you say? Why, indeed this is.

I can’t say enough good things about this set, which needed to be written. Only Keith, with his meticulous research and attentive ear, could write it. Check out the BearManor Media site for more. Keith has the full Mel Blanc story. Without any fish.

When the Government Controls Everything

John Sutherland Productions quite happily aligned itself with big business and its anti-big government, anti-Communist sentiments in a number of well-animated cartoons produced for Harding College, a private, right-of-centre school based in Searcy, Arkansas.

Daily Variety reported on October 8, 1946 that Sutherland had received approval of script on the animated, Technicolor short "Private Enterprise" from Harding College, and shooting was to start that week. There was no cartoon released with that name, so this may have been the working title of Make Mine Freedom, its first cartoon for Harding. Sutherland managed to find a theatrical release, with MGM revealing on February 6, 1948 it would put Make Mine Freedom into theatres. That happened the following month.

There’s no subtleness in this short. John Q. Public (who sounds like Stan Freberg at least some of the time) urges representatives of labour, management, government and farmers to try the “Ism” being peddled by Dr. Utopia (played by Frank Nelson).



After glugging down the “Ism,” the picture fades into a fantasy sequence of what America would turn into.



A factory worker (voiced by Billy Bletcher) protests working conditions imposed by the government. The huge hand of government clamps a ball and chain on him. “The state forbids strikes,” says the ominous off-screen voice (Bud Hiestand). When the worker threatens union action, the hand stamps him with a government union mark.



When the tycoon objects to having his business taken over and threatens to sue, the hand appears again to tell him “The state is the Supreme Court” and tosses him out of his former factory. “No more private property. No more you.”



When the government takes away the pigs and corn of the farmer, he pledges the “farm vote” will put a stop to it. The voice tells him farmers don’t vote any more, and after clamping an iron collar on him, informs him “the state will do the planning from now on.”



The scene swirls into the Congressman (John Brown?) in a concentration camp, calling for a fight “to regain our freedom.” The hand squashes him and turns him into a propaganda record player, repeating over and over “Everything is fine.”



Not surprisingly, reactions to the cartoon varied depending if you were on the left or the right side of the political fence. Hearst columnist George E. Sokolsky wrote on May 8, 1948:

I saw a movie short, done after the style of Walt Disney, which is humorous, colorful, bright and yet explains why the United States is an excellent place in which to live—in fact a better place than those proletarian heavens that are so widely advertised by the seekers of utopias. The short is called “Make Mine Freedom” and it was prepared by the John Sutherland Productions, Inc.
The reason why I like this short so much and call it to your attention so that if your movie house shows it, you will go to see it, is that it is the first of its kind that is wholly affirmative. It does not apologize for the American civilization: it rather challenges anyone to produce a better one. And while the nine–minute short is full of humor, it nevertheless hits the nail squarely on the head. In this country, we have freedom, and that is worth more than anything else in all this world.

On the flip side was this review by Herb Tank of The Daily Worker, May 6, 1948.

SEEING MOST of the nonsense that concerns this department at press previews saves me from the short subjects that often plague the neighborhood film goer. But now and then I get trapped. The last time was by Metro. The short in question was a little animated item that struck me as particularly phony.
The short: Make Mine Freedom. The subject: political. The viewpoint: strictly NAM [National Association of Manufacturers].
If this color cartoon is an example of the film capitol’s [sic] sense of public responsibility A. T. (After Thomas) I’ll take Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Compared to Make Mine Freedom, the mouse and the duck stand out as veritable elder statesmen.
. . .
THE OBJECT of this film is to sell a non-existent status quo which it lightly labels the American way of life. This it does with all the deftness of a full page ad by the NAM on why price controls are un-American. Says the film, with appropriate cartoon images: America is ... the cracker barrel philosophers in Crabtree Corners. And it’s the tycoons on Wall Street. Then it lists our freedoms, some of which we have yet to win, and some that are disappearing at an alarming pace.
BUT THE MAIN ACTION in Make Mine Freedom takes place in a park. Here we find presumably four fifths of America in vigorous conflict. The final fifth, of course, comes in later. He saves the day.
The four fifths are represented by labor, management, farmer and politician. During their argument an olive-skinned individual dressed in a violet zoot suit breaks up the conflict by offering to sell them each a bottle of Dr. Utopia’s Ism.
Each takes a sip and discovers the horrible things that will happen to people who listen to speeches about ------ism on street corners. Comes then the resolute final fifth of America, John Q. Public, who is neither farmer, worker, manager, or politician and he saves the day. Under his leadership and united, the others chase Dr. Utopia out of the park, belting him over the head with bottles of Ism. I presume they damn well made him go back to where he came from!
. . .
MAKE MINE FREEDOM, in its content and method, its obvious pandering to a mentality certainly short of the usual 12-year-old level, is an insult to the audiences who will have to see it along with the full-length feature that brought them into the theater. Particularly obnoxious is a cartoon in it depicting people of other nations in much the same way as the Nazi Streicher once did in his anti-Semitic magazines.
. . .
APPARENTLY the makers of Make Mine Freedom felt that the term Ism was sufficient to identify socialism and communism.
I’m not so sure. After all there are also such Isms around as capitalism, imperialism, nationalism, chauvinism and fascism . . . all Isms that are embodied one way or another in this film.

Certainly, it MUST be about those Commies. Individual freedoms couldn’t be taken away under capitalism. Could they?