That Ain't the Way I Heerd It

In the mid-1930s, when theatrical animation on the West Coast had reached the point where studios needed professional actors to voice their characters, they had a ready-made talent pool at radio stations.

It was not only still a time of dialects but the rise of impersonations, as someone imitating the voice of a talking picture or vaudeville star got laughs on the air.

One of these radio actors who got side-work in cartoons was Bill Thompson.

His show business career started as a boy. Here’s a pretty good radio career summary from the Hollywood Citizen-News, March 10, 1952.

‘OLD TIMER’
Bill Thompson Does Various Characters
Millions of listeners to NBC radio's “Fibber McGee and Molly Show" know him as Wallace Wimple, shy, henpecked little man who studies his beloved bird book when not dodging his "big, fat wife, Sweetyface."
Or, as the Old Timer, who repeats old, trusted jokes at the drop of a hat.
Or, as Horatio K. Boomer, whose pockets are constantly crammed with all manner of strange devices.
Or, as Nick Depopolis, past master of the old Greek art of English mispronunciation.
Or as Bill Thompson, 'off-mike.'
Or, if there's a need for formal identification, William Henry Thompson, Jr.
Whoever or whichever, Mr. “Bill’s Good Enough" Thompson is one of the cleverest and most versatile young men in the business of radio dialects.
Brown-eyed Bill was literally born into show business — and practically smack on an international border. Shortly before his birth, his mother, then on a vaudeville tour in Canada with his father, was obliged to return to Terre Haute, Indiana post-haste, so Bill could be born in the United States. They arrived just under the wire!
Young William Henry's first stage appearance came six weeks later, when he was carried onto a Terre Haute stage by his proud and beaming papa. And hardly two years had gone by before Bill began his professional career with his parents by doing a tap dance with their act.
Even attendance at Chicago's Lemoyne Grammar School and Lakeview High School didn't keep the active young man off the stage. Each year, until he was 12, he toured the variety circuits with his mother and father, fitting into their set by dancing and telling dialect stories and jokes.
One of the high spots of his public appearances came in 1919 when he was awarded a citation by Secretary of the Treasury Carter Glass, for having sold more than $2,000,000 in Liberty Bonds!
In 1934, while an usher at Chicago's Century of Progress Exposition, gleeful Bill won an NBC audition and was put under contract to the network. His first appearance on a network show was on the National Farm and Home Hour.
After playing various radio shows in the Windy City for two years, Bill joined the ''Fibber McGee and Molly" program. He's been with the popular network show ever since, except for a two-year cruise in the Navy, from 1943 to 1946.
Today, Bill's greatest interest outside his radio activities is his work with the Boys Club of America.

Fibber McGee and Molly originated in Chicago. When Jim and Marian Jordan were signed to a film contract by Paramount in 1937, they moved the show to the West Coast. And there it stayed. Thompson came along.

It would appear, if I’m reading Keith Scott’s books properly, Thompson’s first cartoon was for Walter Lantz in Arabs With Dirty Fezzes in 1939. He took his Horatio K. Boomer voice to Warners Bros. for two appearances as W.C. Fieldmouse opposite Little Blabbermouse. Then, it was to MGM, where Tex Avery cast him as Adolf Wolf in Blitz Wolf and then as Droopy in Dumb-Hounded; that voice was more-or-less the same as Wallace Wimple's.

The story above indicates Thompson enlisted for war duty; a feature article in the June 5, 1945 edition of the Akron Beacon Journal stated he entered naval training at Great Lakes in February 1944 and became SP (A) William Thompson, U.S.N. The story went on:

The "A" in his navy title does not mean "Actor" . . . He is a part of the athletic department of the navy . . . originally commanded by Gene Tunney . . . which is similar to the Special Service corps of the army . . . His job as a physical instructor is putting men through athletic drills and entertaining.

Thompson had to put his radio and cartoon careers on hold. It’s thought Tex Avery himself voiced Droopy during the interim. Fibber brought in other characters instead of trying to duplicate Thompson's voices (though the old-timer was originally played by Cliff Arquette).

He returned to radio and cartoons after the war, finding a good chunk of work in features and shorts for Walt Disney in the 1950s. Radio was dying and NBC slowly dismantled Fibber McGee and Molly until all that was left were the two title characters. He had to find a new career.

Thompson had other interests, as we learn in this story from the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, March 25, 1962. It's interesting the columnist would know about Droopy. Thompson never received screen credit for the role and this was a time before animation history books

Old Timer Known for Aid To Boy Clubs
BY ELSTON BROOKS
The announcement said W. H. Thompson Jr. of the Union Oil Company would speak on "Juvenile Decency" at the First Methodist Church meeting of the North Side Kiwanis Club—and it certainly didn't sound like amusements column fodder.
But that wasn't just W. H. Thompson up at the rostrum Friday. It was Wallace Wimple and Horatio K. Boomer and the Old Timer and Nick DePopolous—and even Droopy, the hangdog pup of the Metro cartoons.
Bill Thompson, one of the most famed voices in show business, has been hitting the luncheon club circuit full-time in behalf of his beloved Boys' Clubs of America ever since Fibber McGee and Molly dropped their Tuesday night stranglehold on network radio in 1956.
"IT'S NOTHING NEW, this work for Boys' Clubs," he told us in his rarely heard normal voice. "I was doing it for 20 years before I quit showbusiness. Three days a week it was radio, four days it was work with Boys' Clubs."
Oddly enough, Thompson has never had a boy of his own, nor a "mean ole Sweetie Face," as Wallace Wimple used to describe his wife. At 49, Thompson still is a bachelor.
"I guess it's that I always wanted to be a Texas Ranger when I was a kid back in Indiana. But you can't always go on a police force, and I found out I could help in other says back when we did the Fibber McGee show in Chicago. "I saw a need for club activity for boys—not just gangs. I’ve been in the work ever since, continuing it when we moved the show to Hollywood."
• • •
TODAY, THOMPSON is public service representative of the Union Oil Company, a West Coast firm that allows Thompson to make his good will talks around the country. Herbert Hoover has appointed him national director of the Boys' Clubs of America, and Thompson, in turn, is elated at landing his old boss, Walt Disney, on the board.
"I did a lot of work for Walt," the diminutive, red-haired actor recalled. "I was the voice of the white rabbit in 'Alice in Wonderland,' and Mr. Smee, the pirate, in 'Peter Pan,' and the Scotty in 'Lady and the Tramp' . . ."
"And, of course, Droopy, the pooped pup," we reminded.
Thompson laughed, and came up with his most famous voice: "That's pretty good, Johnny, but that ain't the way I heerd it. The way I heerd it, one feller says to the other feller, sa-y-y-y, he sez . . ."
We felt obligated to ask another question, because the Old Timer rarely finished one of his stories. We asked him for a match—and got the response we were hoping for.
"Match, match, let's see," said Horatio K. Boomer in that W. C. Fields voice. "Here's a poem I wrote once, and a check for a short beer. Well, well, whaddya know? No match."

Thompson had a couple of cracks at stardom. ABC gave him a half-hour sitcom, opposite the Carnation Contented Hour and the Gulf Screen Guild Players. It lasted from March 4 to May 27, 1946 before the network cancelled it.

And then there was the lead role in an animated sitcom. He had a wife named Wilma and a neighbour named Barney, who was played by Hal Smith. Smith explained what happened in Tim Lawson’s book ‘The Magic Behind the Voices’:

Bill Thompson was a good actor, but he had something wrong with his throat. He couldn’t sustain that gravel they wanted in Fred, so Mel [Blanc] and Alan Reed started rehearsing. We had already recorded the first five episodes, and finally, we were recording one night and Bill would cough and he would stop and he’d say, ‘I just can’t keep that gravel,’ Joe Barbera was directing, and he called us in and said, ‘You know, this isn’t working.’ And I said, ‘Well, it really isn’t. It’s difficult for Bill Thompson to hang onto his voice like that because he just doesn’t have it.’ So he said, ‘Well, Mel and Alan have been rehearsing and practicing this, so I think we’re going to let them do it.’

Hanna-Barbera still had a spot for Thompson. He went on to the far less memorable role as Touché Turtle in the early ‘60s.

Thompson’s animation career didn’t last much longer. He had just turned 58 when he died on July 15, 1971.

Scary Jerry

The Lonesome Mouse (1943) is an unusual cartoon in some ways. In the early years of the series, Tom and Jerry battle each other, but when the maid comes into the room, she only yells at Tom, while Jerry hides somewhere. In The Lonesome Mouse, the housekeeper actually interacts with the mouse.

Jerry is supposed to be scaring her, but his expressions are more goofy than frightening.



Cut to the “pull up multiple skirt” gag. I don’t have these cartoons memorised so I can’t tell you which other cartoon re-used this. I’m pretty sure one of them did.



The other unusual thing in this short is there is dialogue between Tom and Jerry to drive the plot. It doesn’t seem right to have the characters talking. I thought Cal Howard was doing Tom’s dopey voice—it’s speculated he played the dog in the Screwy Squirrel cartoons and was writing for the Hanna-Barbera unit—but Keith Scott says it’s Harry Lang. Lillian Randolph is the maid, and even gets to sing a few bars of “How About You?”, written by Burton Lane and Vancouver-born Ralph Freed (his father owned a furniture shop) for the 1941 feature Babes on Broadway.

A Hole in the Ground

Ah, yes, the old cartoon gag of lifting up or moving a hole. Here’s an example from the early days of sound in Walt Disney’s The Picnic (1930).

This scene features a rabbit with one of those belly-buttons beloved in cartoons in the 1920s. and an early version of Pluto (named “Little Rover” here). The fun is in the dog`s woozy expression after crashing into the ground.



The little birds that fly around from a dot, shrink back into one, which becomes exploding lines.

There’s a lot of dancing and cycle animation in this cartoon, starring Mickey and Minnie, and that turn-of-the-century favourite song, “In The Good old Summer Time.”

He's Not Tom Ewell

“Spot the character actor” was a fun game to play when watching TV in the 1960s. There were plenty of them who worked on different shows but would be on the screen regularly.

“There’s Henry Jones!” was one exclamation from young me. I saw him in the films Support Your Local Sheriff (he appears to have filmed a string of Westerns in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s) and The Girl Can’t Help It. Where I spotted him first in the ‘60s, I really don’t remember. Offhand, I remember him on Bewitched. Oh, and Lost in Space.

Besides a pile of guest character shots, there was one series where he was actually a co-star. There was a short period of “relevant” TV dramas in the early ‘60s that tackled issues of the day. One of them was Channing. No, it was not about a “Hello, Dolly” star playing a daffy blonde. It was about issues surrounding a college.

Alan Patureau of Newsday wrote about it in the paper’s Sept. 18, 1963 issue.

Racial discrimination, exam cheating, Communist influences and all sorts of meaty subjects COULD be treated on ABC-TV’s new college campus series, “Channing” debuting tonight—and perhaps they will, says star Henry Jones, if some good scripts can be found.
“Our first purpose is to be entertaining,” Jones chuckled the other day on a trip East. “As the great George S. Kaufman said, ‘If nobody comes, who gets the message?’”
Not that “Charming” is to be a retread of the treacly old “Halls of Ivy” series, Jones said. “We’ll have no rah-rah stones, no panty raid capers; some of the scripts are real rockers.”
“Channing,” which is the name of a small, mythical Midwestern university, bows tonight at 10 PM on Channel 7, and Jones has the top role as kindly Dean Fred Baker.
“Negroes have taken two speaking parts in the series so far, and are seen in every classroom shot, so ‘Channing’ definitely intends to portray campus life—outside the South—as realistically as possible, with no more cowtowing to timid Sponsors,” Jones said.
“Channing” is rara avis in TV-land. It has been in production a full year and there are 15 one-hour episodes in the can. None of the too-common, frantic last-minute filming and script patching here. The series was spun off from Fred Astaire’s “Alcoa Premiere,” where it appeared as a one-hour drama in March, 1962, with its current stars, Jones and Jason Evers.
How was Jones lured into a TV series after 28 years on Broadway and in movies?
“Simple,” he said, peering over big bifocals. “In show business I’m known as the guy who looks like Tom Ewell. With weekly exposure in a major TV series, I hope to gain true star status—become a boxoffice draw. Ewell can be the guy who looks like Henry Jones. I’ve gone as far as I can go in the theater without a boost from another medium.”
“Channing” is being shot at Revue Studios, one of Hollywood’s busiest TV mills. In one corner is a small-scale reproduction of World War II (for the “Combat!” series) and in the other is the set for Channing U., replete with quadrangle, football stadium, the whole works.

The comparison to Ivy is a little unfair, as it was mainly a comedy show, though there was one marvelous episode on radio where it attacked racism very straight, something completely unexpected in a 1950s sitcom.

The syndicated column below published Nov. 9, 1963 delves into Jones’ career.

Channing’s Dean, Henry Jones, Has A Sense of Humor
By RUTH E. THOMPSON
It’s a tossup who has to deliver a longer list of credits to rate his job, a real university dean, or Henry Jones — actor — who’s starring as Dean Fred Baker in ABCs “Channing” (Wednesdays, 10:00 PM).
“Incidentally I certainly would not have taken the role.” Henry says cheerfully, if by any chance they’d gone in for the stereotype of a stuffy, pompous dean. As a matter of fact every one I’ve known has had a considerable sense of humor and problems.
“But I’m not really a dean, remember, I’m no authority on education. I’m art actor.” A pretty well-educated actor, however, and definitely an authority in his field (500 television shows, a dozen films, countless Broadway appearances). He’s also an authority on sense-of-humor. He started developing his own early through his some quixotic schooling.
“My mother sent me to boarding school in Canada for the seventh grade so I could learn French . . . but none was spoken there at all. She’d neglected to check. It was an English language institution.”
He thereafter also went to Georgetown Prep and to St. Joseph’s College in his home town of Philadelphia. Though he admired his surgeon-father, he had no desire to emulate him and hot-footed off instead to Jasper Deeter’s legendary Hedgerow Theatre where he swept floors, worked as a stage hand, learned the switchboard and — against his wishes — honed the sense of humor some more.
“For a while, in fact, it looked as though I was doomed to be a comedian. No matter what I did on stage, people laughed.”
His first speaking part was in the grim war epic, “Journey’s End.” “Since it was about Englishmen, I worked on an English accent then in my role as a coward I chirped out, ‘I cawn’t go on.’ The audience broke out laughing and nearly broke my heart.”
But along came another role (again a coward, the locale a submerged submarine. Came his moment, tense, dramatic. He snarled, “If you don’t let me go. I’ll kill every one of you with my hare hands.” Comments Henry further, “Only trouble was they looked like a bunch of football players. I’m five-ten. Unintentional comedy again.”
During the winter he thought maybe he’d try his hand at business and sell oil-burners door to door. The firm’s star salesman was resting. Finally he shared his wisdom. “Nobody has ever sold a heater here in this season.”
Henry was actually relieved. Business was not for him. The theatre life had its own challenges and rough spots, but this was really his dish, this he could handle and back he went to Hedgerow to learn both acting technique and show business.
This time he also house-managed. “In fact I did every job at that theatre except box office. There were about six kinds of tickets; regular, subscription, students, press. Some were subject to federal tax, some to local, some to none.” His head for business being what it was it was agreed the theatre would be money ahead if somebody else handled the arithmetic and the cash.
Then in 1938 he debuted on Broadway in a minor role in Maurice Evans’ five-hour “Hamlet.” Successive role grew bigger, then in 1942 he was drafted into the Army which promptly drafted him into its camp show (later a movie) “This Is The Army” which played bases the world over.
“Solid Gold Cadillac” with Josephine Hull was his first lasting post-war role. Then came “Bad Seed” in which he was so good as the sneaky janitor he was afraid for a while he’d be typed as a psychotic. However, that blooming new medium television saved his “sanity” as well as his reputation for flexibility.
“I played 50 different roles in one year, then I realized,” he says with a smile that lighted up his sage humor again,” that the greater the exposure, the less they were paying! So, I started appearing less often and in longer programs.”
Meanwhile, back on Broadway Henry Jones was becoming more and more a name to reckon with. He walked off with the 1958 Tony award for best supporting actor for his Louis McHenry Howe role in “Sunrise at Campobello;” and in 1960 he got star billing in the Broadway production of “Advise and Consent.”
Though he suttled [shuttled?] back and forth for a time between New York and Hollywood for movie commitments, the “Channing” schedule keeps him in Hollywood except for an occasional trip East on network business or to visit his children 17-year old David and 13-year-old David [sic, it should read Jocelyn]. Divorced now, Jones lives a bachelor life when he is in California.
“Any series is very hard work but I find ‘Channing’ satisfactory all around. And you know, I like our not limiting our stories just to the campus. By going afield in flashbacks, or by following a crisis in a person’s life and tieing in with his days at Channing University we are able to show the long range influence of education and of college memories.
“Then too we have good guest stars. It was good to work with Wendell Corey again, he was Hedgerow, too, you know. And Gene Raymond was just great.”
And where is Channing University? “In the mythical town of Channing of course.” And with an interesting guy like Henry Jones as its leading light, it’s a school and town we should keep hearing about.

ABC had a decent Wednesday night line-up that season: Ozzie and Harriet, Patty Duke, The Price is Right, Ben Casey and then Channing. But this was CBS’ year and Channing ran 26 episodes. Howard Heffernan of the North American Newspaper Alliance wrote at the time that Jones “was permitted in the earlier episodes to drift in and out,” suggesting TV producers wanted to go with the more photogenic Evers to attract an audience. But ratings fell and Jones was shoved to the forefront. It didn’t help and the show was replaced over the summer with reruns of 77 Sunset Strip (featuring the photogenic Kookie and his comb).

So it was that Channing did not give Jones “true star status.” He went back to character parts (and a regular role on the sitcom Phyllis) and acted until the early 1990s. He died May 17, 1999 at age 86.

Nutsy Blur

Confusions of a Nutsy Spy (released in December 1942) is full of angled shots and varying perspectives in a war-time tale of a really stupid Porky Pig trying to capture a bomb-carrying Nazi spy.

There’s also a pan shot reminiscent of the Fleischers in the late 1930s. To simulate speed, the pan is blurred. Not by the camera pan itself but by brush work over the background painting. I can’t snip this together to give you the full background, but here are some frames that may give you an idea.



The backgrounds are likely by Dick Thomas.

Norm McCabe directed this war short, which has some of the most tedious and obvious puns you can find in a Warners cartoon, supplied by Don Christensen.

The cartoon opens with a rather low-key violin and clarinet version of “Hey Doc!” by Edgar Sampson and Kim Gannon. You can hear a different version below.

How To Escape From the Moon

Tex Avery’s nameless black cat (Pat McGeehan using a Durante voice) has had enough of abuse on the Moon and wants to return to the abuse of Earth (specifically, the United States of America) in The Cat That Hated People.



But how to get off the Moon when your space ship that crashed into a heap of metal? It’s easy when you’re in a Tex Avery cartoon. “A body can do just about anything,” said one of his characters when Tex was still at Warners. In this case, the cat pulls down a backdrop of a golf course, sets himself on a tee, yells “Fore!” (to nobody in particular, but that is what one does at a golf course), and swats himself toward Earth.



You can check out frames from the next scenes in this post.

Heck Allen gets a story credit, with Louis Schmidt, Bill Shull, Grant Simmons and Walt Clinton credited as the animators.

Blintzes and Bets

Jack Benny celebrated his birthday in Toronto in 1943, and then returned to the city seven years later in a stop on his one-night-stand tour. This time, he didn’t broadcast a live show; his radio season was already transcribed for release at a more convenient time.

The first trip was set up to sell Victory Bonds, and his some of his radio cast was with him. There was some charity work as a sidebar to the second appearance, which was a variety show and included two of the people listeners heard on the air (via Buffalo; Toronto stations and others in Canada did not run the Lucky Strike show).

Here’s a story from the Toronto Star of May 31, 1950 about an unusual news conference. Something doesn’t ring true to me, as if this was something put together by Benny’s writers. Eddie Anderson and Phil Harris seem to be in character, and Vivian Blaine’s comments sound like something she would say on a radio show.

Sold Out Everywhere Benny’s Not Hungry But Only Pretending
By A. O. TATE
Star Staff Correspondent
Buffalo, May 31—Jack Benny will be wondering today if those cheese blintzes were really as good as they were cracked up to be.
Jack was here yesterday with Rochester, Phil Harris and Vivian Blaine. The famous radio comedian was torn between sadness and gladness, and when it came time for lunch Jack said he wasn’t hungry. He just wasn’t hungry.
“I’m not hungry . . . I’m not hungry . . . I’m not hungry,” he said in three directions.
When Miss Blaine, who is a very appealing blonde movie star and radio singer, appealed to Jack to think of his stomach, Mr. Benny responded with only a sardonic smile.
“But boss . . .” Rochester began.
“ROCHESTER!” Jack yelped.
“But Jackson,” Phil Harris dared.
“PHIL,” Mr. Benny gargled, “I’M NOT HUNGRY!”
Jack Benny is on a tour of one-night stands which brings him to Toronto for a Maple Leaf Gardens show tonight. He is minus Mary Livingstone and Dennis Day, but along with Rochester, Phil Harris and Vivian Blaine are the Wiere Brothers, Harris’ orchestra and a cast of 40. At lunch time yesterday Jack was very sad about Buffalo, and exceedingly happy about Toronto.
“Six thousand . . . twenty-five thousand,” he muttered into his lap while people swirled about him in his suite’s living room. “Six thousand . . . twenty-five thousand.”
Jack Benny is doing one-night stands for the first time in his long show-business career.
“Just for Fun”
“I didn’t have to start out on this,” he said to someone who was standing nearby. “I’m just doing it for fun. And I’ve got a good show . . . a fine show . . . a terrific show. If Jack Benny, Rochester and Phil Harris can’t pack ‘em in—well, nobody can.”
Even in the old days of vaudeville, before he went into radio about 20 years ago, Jack Benny never did one-night stands. When he showed up in a theatre with his violin and his gags, he was there for a week. One night stands are rugged.
When the reporter and photographer entered the suit they saw Jack Benny in conference with three other men. The conference, over the next hour or so, clustered about one chair after another as Jack moved restlessly about.
Occasionally it would disappear briefly into one of the bedrooms. When it would re-appear, Jack might be in a figured silk dressing gown, or back in his plain tan sports jacket.
Once, when the conference was in a bedroom, a bellboy came in and put a basket of fruit on a living room table. When Jack saw it first he made a quick move in its direction—only to remember, suddenly, he wasn’t hungry.
“I’m Not Hungry”
Three Buffalo radio people came into the room with a tape recorder and yards of wire. When the conference and the radio people tangled in mid-floor a couple of times, the conference disintegrated and Jack sat down and looked at his publicity man, Irvine Fine [sic]. Irving had just come in.
“How about some lunch, Jack,” said the unsuspecting Irving.
Mr. Benny eyed Mr. Fine for a moment and then said, quietly: “No thank you, Irving. I’m not hungry.”
Then the tape recorder was ready to go. Someone went out to find Rochester. A few minutes later Vivian Blaine came in. Phil Harris had gone to a ballgame.
“Oh Jack,” Vivian breathed at Mr. Benny. “Phil and I had the most wonderful food. Really, Jack, we’ve never eaten more wonderful food. We had cheese blintzes as light and tender as . . .”
“Cheese blintzes?” Jack whispered.
“Jack, cheese blintzes like we’ve never eaten before. And Jack, what do you think? A girl came over to me in the restaurant. She said her boy friend says you are his favorite comedian. He listens to you every Sunday night. Nothing interferes with that. But she said he said he didn’t have enough money this week to take her to see your show. There are two people, Jack, two people who would give anything to see your show.”
“Could Pretend”
“You can’t go by what one or two people say, Vivian. This afternoon, the day before the show, there is a $25,000 advance sale. What have we got here on the day of the show? A $6,000 advance sale. What’s the reason? What’s the answer? The cheese blintzes were good, eh?”
“Oh, Jack, they were . . .”
“Jack’s not hungry,” Irvine Fine reminded Miss Blaine.
When Jack and Rochester and Vivian were interviewed for the tape recorder, Vivian said she had just had the most wonderful food just a short time earlier. She gave the name of the restaurant, the street and number.
“We call this show ‘Tape it or Leave it’,” said one of the radio people. “Pretty corny, don’t you think, Jack?”
“No,” Jack said, laughing heartily. “I like that. I also like Vivian’s commercials. Cheese blintzes, yet.”
After a while Jack Benny slowed down long enough to be photographed. “Why don’t youm” he asked the photographer, “take my picture with a great banana. That one right there. I could pretend to be eating it.”
Two bananas later Jack posed with a banana.
“Toronto’s a great city,” he said. “A great city. By tomorrow night the Gardens will be sold out. Buffalo and Pitsburgh. Yipe. In Wichita we sold out. In Pasadena, where they’ve seen me a million times, we sold out. We’re going to London in a month or so. The Palladium is practically sold out now.”
Outside Jack’s suite a number of ‘teen agers waited around hoping for his autograph.

How did the act go? The Star’s Jack Karr, in the June 1 edition, gave a summary. He tagged it with an example of Jack’s real-life un-stinginess, the declaration made by Canada’s best-known newsman-turned-announcer who, in a few years, would become America’s best-known Cartwright.

The Jack Benny jackpot at the Gardens last night was a happy piece of entertainment . . . even for those who don’t worship at the Sunday evening radio shrine. For this trek into the hinterlands, Jackson has surrounded himself with a program full of talent, some of which, if subjected to the applause meter, would climb quite a few decibels higher than Benny’s own rating. And that, you’ve got to admit, is a pretty brave thing for any top-ranking comic to do.
* * *
By saying that Benny doesn’t hog the show doesn’t mean, however, that anybody walks away with it from under his nose. He sees to it that his presence is liberally sprinkled throughout the evening simply by taking over the master of ceremonies job. But he has also seen to it that there isn’t a dud act on his supporting bill and that each of these various acts gets a chance to show off its stuff under the best of conditions. And that’s smart showmanship. So the net impression left is of a fine evening’s entertainment all provided through the courtesy of Mr. B. “You can’t say I don’t provide you with the best,” he reminds his audience a couple of times during the show.”
And “the best” includes his radio mates, Phil Harris and Rochester, as well as a gorgeous hunt of Hollywood womanhood named Vivian Blaine, the screwy Wiere Brothers, the juggling Peiro Brothers, and an adagio act known as the Stuart Morgan dancers. These, with Harris’ orchestra in the background, add up to a very solid vaudeville program.
* * *
While no special attempt has been made to make the Benny in-person show conform to the pattern of the Benny radio show, a great deal of the latter has very naturally crept in.
The Benny character—the one developed in nearly 20 years on the networks—is established early and is allowed to grow through the evening; the tightness, the bad violin playing, the infirmities of advancing age that are creeping up on him, his vanity and school-boyish petulance, his notion of being a lady’s man, and his hurt when the glamour dolls won’t take him seriously. He is continually heckled by Phil Harris and he, in turn, heckles Harris. “Did you see how he leads that band?” Benny asks. “Harris is the only man in the world who leads a band as though he has to go some place.”
Harris, in fact, doesn’t lead the band at all. When he is singing his standbys, “That’s What I Like About the South” or “Preacher and the Bear,” he occasionally attacks it in the manner of a cheerleader with a hot-foot, but he seldom conducts it.
* * *
For her part in the performance, the blonde, low-cut Miss Blaine sings a couple of bouncy songs and a couple of torchy ones, and then becomes stooge to Benny’s and Harris’ demonstrations in technique of love-making to much audience hilarity.
The Stuart Morgan dancers—a girl and three men—have the most violent adagio act these eyes have caught in some time. One late-coming lady member of the audience, walking past the front of the stage, almost lost her balance when she ducked at the sight of the girl in the act coming hurtling out in her direction.
The Peiro Brothers have a very fast juggling act . . . and the Weire [sic] Brothers, three clowns who occasionally use violins with their nonsense, are show-stoppers in the real sense of the word.
And then there’s Rochester—Eddie Anderson—who occupies a special spot of his own on the program and who sings in a voice like a fingernail on a blackboard with a great deal of raucous good humor. Rochester is obviously looked upon with a good deal of affection by the Benny regulars, and they eat it up when he sasses Boss Benny.
* * *
At the conclusion of last night’s performance, there was a special announcement from Lorne Green. During his Toronto stay, Jack Benny made a trip out to Variety Village, the school for crippled boys at Scarboro, operated by the Variety club of Toronto.
Jack Benny has offered to completely furnish one of the rooms in the school as a gesture of friendship for the reception he was given here.

While Jack was visiting disabled young people, Rochester and Phil Harris decided to check out the ponies. Eddie Anderson owned a stable of race horses and one famously came in last at Churchill Downs in 1943. The Star’s Sports Editor, Milt Dunnell, has the story. I do not understand why he gave Anderson an Amos ‘n’ Andy dialect. A Canadian should know better.

Rochester’s Horse Didn’t Co-operate
THERE was one new record at Woodbine yesterday that won’t appear in the books. Eddie (Rochester) Anderson, an afternoon refugee from Jack Benny, broke all existing marks for autographing programs. Tom “Long Boy” Ellison, the happy-go-lucky colored clocker, gaped in awe as Rochester “stole” his public. Long Boy had been ticking off winners and non-winners for years on the programs of these same people. They practically trampled Tom under foot in their haste to get Rochester’s signature.
Phil Harris, Benny’s bragging (on the air) band-leader, made the mistake of sitting back of Rochester and Mrs. Rochester in their box. That made Phil the pivot man in passing paper. The play was from public to Phil to Rochester; then from Rochester to Phil to public. Harris soon tired of it and got himself a front row seat breaking up the combination.
Rochester made one trip to the paddock, but was button-holed by so many fans that he was shut out when he finally went make a wager. After that, he remained in his seat and sent down bets with his chauffeur.
Rochester is a “just even” player and owner. He likes the bangtails too well to admit they cost him money. A steed named Whiffletree got him “even” in the seventh. He’s just about “even” in his operation of a modest collection of beetles. His pride and joy was Burnt Cork, which he bought at the Saratoga sales and which he ran eventually in the Kentucky Derby. At least, he entered the colt in the Kentucky Derby. Whether it ran is a matter of argument. Some students of the thoroughbred claim Burnt Cork still would be somewhere on the back stretch at Churchill Downs if he hadn’t got hungry. The Kentucky hardboots were miffed. Such a grazing gluepot, they sniffed, had no place in the Derby.
Kunnel Rochester disagrees. Burnt Cork might not have won he admits, but sure enough, he’d have been in the dough, if the race had been run according to instructions.
Did he mean the jockey disregarded instructions? No, the jockey rode to instructions, but Burnt Cork refused to co-operate. He didn’t like to come from off the pace. So after a mild canter, he spit out the bit and said “to hell with this nonsense.”
“When the race is over, he’s not as tired as ah am right now,” Rochester lamented, shifting his cigar and wagging his noggin.
Eleven days later, Burnt Cork was dead. Killed in a spill while driving down the stretch?
“Naw,” Rochester gloomed. “Died of nee-monia.”

Back to the States went Jack for a June 4th performance at Carnegie Hall for the Damon Runyon Memorial Fund for Cancer Research (tickets were $1.80 to $6.00, tax included). Something else was added to the regular Benny show that evening—another round of the feud with Fred Allen. But that’s a story for another time.

From Horse to Hefner

Quick, the answer the question: Who played Irving, the Unemployed Horse? (No coaching from Greg Ehrbar, please).

The correct answer is Allan Melvin.

Irving wasn’t a cartoon character. He was the star of an MGM children’s record put on the market in 1947. Columnist Leonard Lyons noted in Sept. 26 that year that Melvin played 37 different roles on the record (two double-faced, 10-inch 78s). Melvin was 24 years old at the time.

Before his long TV career, in animation and live action, Melvin got his break thanks to the audience of Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts on CBS radio. Like Art Carney, Melvin began his career as an impressionist, and won the amateur contest on the Oct. 15, 1946 show. He hit the cabaret scene the following year, appearing at the Café Society in Greenwich Village; Lew Sheaffer’s column in the Brooklyn Eagle of Nov. 14, 1947 mentioned he impersonated Humphrey Bogart and Frederic March.

The impressions led to a role in the stage production of Stalag 17 (Comedy in a POW camp? That can’t be possible!), which opened at the 48th Street Theatre in New York in May 1951 with Melvin’s character giving impersonations of Hollywood celebrities. A story in the San Francisco Examiner in 1952 reported Gary Cooper thanked Melvin for his version of him in the road show version in Los Angeles.

Melvin couldn’t get out uniform for a while. He jumped to TV as Sgt. Henshaw on the Phil Silvers show starting in 1955, played Rob Petrie’s army buddy in a number of episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show and appeared as Staff Sgt. Hacker off-and-on on Gomer Pyle, USMC.

The military roles led to cartoons. Melvin’s first animated voice roles were in the 1963 syndicated Beetle Bailey cartoons, where he played Sgt. Snorkle and Zero opposite Howard Morris. Those animated roles led to cartoon stardom a year later in Hanna-Barbera’s Magilla Gorilla opposite Howard Morris.

All this is before his better-known, non-Army TV roles—appearing periodically as Sam the butcher in The Brady Bunch and Archie’s buddy Barney Hefner in All in the Family and Archie Bunker’s Place.

Sam gets bypassed in this feature story about Melvin on the Associated Press wire, June 6, 1981.

Allan Melvin: From Al the Plumber to Barney Hefner
By JERRY BUCK
AP Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP)— Allan Melvin has played Archie Bunker’s best friend since 1972, but it didn’t start off as a chummy relationship.
The very first time Melvin appeared on “All in the Family,” it was not as Barney Hefner, best friend, but as Sgt Pete Pulaski of New York City’s finest.
“The fun of that episode was that Archie came down to the police station and was making remarks about the Polish,” he recalled. “Somebody says, ‘Oh, yeah, tell that to Sgt. Pulaski’ — and I throw Archie into the can.”
It was a few months after that that Melvin was reincarnated as Barney Hefner. He remained with the CBS show when it was changed to “Archie Bunker’s Place,” and only Carroll O’Connor, has been with the series longer.
Melvin, who got his start as a stand-up comic and mimic and then played on Broadway in “Stalag 17,” has had a long and profitable career in television as the foil to the leading man.
A lot of that time was spent in uniform. On “The Phil Silvers Show” he was Cpl. Henshaw, who was Sgt. Bilko’s partner in his attempts to bilk the other soldiers. He was Dick Van Dyke’s old Army buddy on his show and Sgt. Hacker on “Gomer Pyle.” He also had recurring roles on “The Joey Bishop Show” and on “The Andy Griffith Show.”
“I went in the same season from Pulaski to Barney Hefner,” he said “I think thy make allowances for the fact that the audience will accept certain changes I guess they figure since it was a one-shot I wasn’t that established I’ve been Barney ever since.”
Melvin recalled that during the making of “The Phil Silvers Show” in New York, the technical adviser assigned to the show was a captain named George Kennedy.
“He would beseech Nat Hiken for a role,” he said. “Finally Nat made him an MP and let him stand by the door and wear a helmet. He was thrilled. Did I ever think he’d become an actor? No way.” Kennedy, of course, not only became an actor, but went on to win the Academy Award as best supporting actor.
Melvin is also well known as Al the Plumber, a character he has played for 14 years on the Liquid Plumber commercials. Less well known is the fact that he does many cartoon voices. He has been the voice of Bluto on the “Popeye” cartoon for the past four years. He’s also done the voice on “Magilla Gorilla” and has done many impressions for “The Flintstones.”
In fact, the day after the interview he was due to spend the day at Hanna-Barbera studios, recording voices.
Few characters on television ever seem to have jobs, but Barney Hefner is a bridge inspector. Not that he ever works at it. “He never really inspects any bridges,” said Melvin. “He just says they’re all unsafe. That’s how he can spend so much time at Archie’s Place.”
As Archie’s oldest friend they are very similar. “He’s very much like Archie in his thinking and his values. But not to the extreme that Archie goes. He’s more temperate.”
Melvin was born in Kansas City, but was raised in New York and New Jersey. He and his wife now divide their time between their home in Brentwood and one on Monarch Bay in Laguna. He also spends much of his spare time on the golf course.
His own oldest and closest friend is author Richard Condon, who wrote “The Manchurian Candidate.” Condon wrote an early children’s record that Melvin recorded and wrote a night club act for him. It was that night club act that caused the producers of “Stalag 17” to alter the role of Reed to fit Melvin’s background and his act.

27 years later, the same wire service led off his obituary with his time consorting Alice the maid where “his place in pop culture will be fixed.” Brady Bunch fans had now grown up to pen newspaper obits. Irving the Unemployed Horse was forgotten.

We haven't forgotten. If you are interested in hearing Melvin narrating the story of Irving, someone had digitised it. Listen below.