Kiss My...

Van Beuren cartoons are at their best when weird stuff happens out of nowhere. Not an awful lot weird happens on In the Park, a 1933 Tom and Jerry.

If this were a Fleischer cartoon, there would be a sense of danger as the hero tries to rescue a wayward child toddling into perilous situations. In this one, Tom and Jerry spend the cartoon trying to keep the baby quiet.

There is one Fleischer-type gag. The child is hanging from its baby gown (what is that called, anyway?) on a tree branch. Suddenly, a safety pin pops over and the child’s diaper falls down.



All is not lost. A helpful leaf on the tree pulls the diaper back up.



The end gag is, literally, an end gag. A cop has been making time with the baby’s nurse. After the cop kisses the nurse, the kid falls into his arms. He goes to kiss the nurse again, but just about kisses the baby’s butt before he opens his eyes.



Boy, is his face red! Or would be if the cartoon were in colour.



Tom and Jerry chortle to bring this tame short to an end.



Frank Sherman and George Rufle get the "by" credit. They handled the next two Tom and Jerrys before the series was brought to an end.

I Don't Care What You Say

Here we have an eight-frame cycle of a camel chewing on, well, I’m not quite sure. Note the spacing of the drawings. There seems to be barely any movement at one point.



This is the cycle slowed down, which gives you an idea of how the mouth moved.



Yeah, I know. Not the post interesting of posts, unless you are into timing of poses and in-betweens. The director is Friz Freleng, and the cartoon is Hot Spot, a 1945 Snafu short. The gag is an example of how everyone borrowed from Tex Avery. In fact, the short is like an Avery travelogue in places.

In this scene, the narrator (the Devil, played by Hal Peary, complete with Gildersleeve laugh), informs us “Here, the native beast of burden, the camel, is the only one who doesn’t mind the heat.” After chewing a bit, the camel (Mel Blanc) turns to the viewing audience and says “I don’t care what you say, I’m hot,” and resumes chewing.



Say, that gag is familiar, isn’t it? Let’s think back to Avery’s Wacky Wildlife (1940), where a camel is strolling across the desert. Narrator Bob Bruce informs us the camel “plods over scorching desert sands, in terrific heat, never once desiring a cool, refreshing drink of water. The camel (Mel Blanc) turns to the viewing audience and says “I don’t care what you say, I’m thirsty,” and resumes strolling.



Say, that gag is STILL familiar. That’s because Avery used a variation of it earlier in the year in Cross Country Detours. In this one, a polar bear is shown on a chunk of ice. “Mother Nature has provided him with layer upon layer of fat, plus a thick coat of heavy fur, to keep him good and warm,” says the narrator. The camera moves in and the bear (Mel Blanc) tells us “I don’t care what you say, I’m cold.”



Is it any wonder that Avery came up with the idea of footage of real animals with superimposed cartoon mouths that made wisecracks. The idea ended up at Jerry Fairbanks Productions, which made the Speaking of Animals series for Paramount. If the “I don’t care what you say” routine was one of the gags in those shorts, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

What about the end gag of Hot Spot, you ask? Thanks for reminding me. The short has emphasized how hot it is in Iran, hotter 'n Hades as they used to say. The short finishes with the Devil discovering the camel is now in his office in Hell. The camel turns to him and casually remarks, “I don’t care what you say, I’m cool.” It resumes chewing to end the cartoon.



None of the artists who worked on this are given screen credit.

Before Aunt Harriet

I’ve always enjoyed Madge Blake on the Batman TV series. She gave fine performances as the naïve but kindly Aunt Harriet.

Considering the huge impact the show had on kids when it debuted, it’s hard to realise Blake made regular appearances on TV shows before that.

At the time, some of her roles were proudly profiled in local newspapers. Here’s a feature story form the Modesto Bee of May 7, 1961. She had been appearing periodically on The Real McCoys at the time. It explains why she got into acting late in life.

Madge Blake Of The Real McCoys Visits Son In Merced
By Richard Watry
McClatchy Newspapers Service
MERCED, Merced Co. — Madge Blake is a wonderfully warm actress-mother whose theatrical star orbited when she was cast as the delightful Flora MacMichael on the highly popular The Real McCoy's television show witch features the venerable Walter Brennan.
Mrs. Blake has been here on a brief visit with Ted Blake, one of her two teaching sons. Blake is a science instructor at Merced High School. His other brother, Jim, teaches in a Southern California high school. And while in Merced the past few days Mrs. Blake found time to drop in at El Capitan High School to be guest lecturer in Alice Osborn's drama class.
Madge Blake — that is her real name — did not stumble into acting but entered it late, only 12 years ago. The daughter of a Methodist circuit riding minister, she always had a bent for the dramatics.
"But my father was a true hell bent for the Lord type of a man who would tolerate no smoking, lipstick, late hours or dramatics," she said.
However, living alone after her sons went into military service in World War II, Mrs. Blake worked for Cal-Tech in the chemistry division, a post for which "I guess they felt my one year of high school chemistry made me eminently qualified to do the task." Nonetheless she was given a special citation for her tasks in the war effort.
Not readily recognizable was her developing talent in little theater work "which I did to fill the vacant hours".
It was the late Fanny Brice who triggered the countdown for Mrs. Blake's eventual recognition as character star material. She had seen a performance by Mrs. Blake and subsequently was instrumental in landing the latter the role of mother to Spencer Tracy in Adam's Rib.
This was in 1949 and Mrs. Blake credits Katherine Hepburn also with "aiding and abetting my career". Miss Hepburn, also in that film, kept building up Madge Blake's part by tossing her some unauthored dialog which Director George Cuker [sic] left in the script.
Since then Mrs. Blake has done some 50 to 60 films and more than 300 professional shows.
And gilding the lily, so to speak, was her selection to play veteran actor Andy Clyde's sister Flora in The Real McCoys for television. She was just right for the sweet, soft spoken foil to Brennan.
It is a tribute that wherever she goes young and old alike hail her as Flora MacMichael instead of Madge Blake.
Even greater theatrical heights are in sight for her this fall when the Joey Bishop show is scheduled for a weekly run. She already has signed contracts to appear as his mother. And Jack Benny wants Mrs. Blake to join him once again for his summer show in Las Vegas because of her success with the show there last year.
Mrs. Blake has no affectations. She is in real life much like Flora McMichael who sat in this reporter's home until 1 in the morning eating ice cream, munching cookies and dispensing with some warmly amusing bon mots about her love affair with the theater.
She lives alone in Pasadena, her place of residence the past 24 years. In her younger days she lived in the Dinuba and Reedley areas while her father was in the ministry. How does this belated film and television activity affect her?
"Well,” she remarked, "I just love it. I am glad I had smaller roles and a chance to develop into character parts gradually. I love to cook and do some entertaining. And, of course, the pride of my world is not the acting profession but my four delightful grandsons in Southern California.
"I enjoy visiting in Merced and meeting Ted and Millie's friends. And I do love the theater. I just hope I can go on and on and on and I am looking forward to my new series with Joey."

The “new series with Joey” wasn’t as permanent she might have hoped. The series went on, but Blake was dumped after the first season as Bishop tinkered with the sitcom’s situations. Here’s Blake speaking to the Merced Sun-Star of May 12, 1962.

HOME IN MERCED FOR MOTHER’S DAY
Veteran, Twinkling Star in Appearance at Merced High
Madge Blake's large expressive eyes twinkled and a warm, friendly smile flashed across her face as she offered this bit of advice:
"If you want security in your life's work, don't go into show business. Become a dressmaker or a plumber."
Mrs. Blake, known to tele-viewers as the loveable and flustered mother of Joey Bishop on the television comedy show of the same name gave a few hints about show business in a brief talk Friday afternoon before Merced High and El Capitan High Schools drama students.
"Show business isn’t really as glamorous as it appears looking in from the outside," she told the students. "You have to put in many long hours and work awfully hard.
"I know that some days I came home and am so exhausted I wonder if I'll be able to get up the next morning."
Mrs. Blake is in Merced for Mother's Day and is staying with her son, Ted Blake, who is a teacher at Merced High School.
The actress told the students she got into show business at the end of World War II after working at a number of other jobs, including a two year stint at Cal Tech, Pasadena, in experimental chemistry and as a salesclerk in a large well known Southern California department store.
"After the war ended and my two sons came home I became interested in acting and went to the Pasadena Playhouse," Mrs. Blake related. "I just had to learn to act because it seemed like a challenge.
"In the years that followed I learned that much hard work has to go into an acting career and I had many bit parts and good breaks in a number of films.
"I learned, for instance, that in comedy, timing is the important thing. A good scene can go down the drain if an actor isn't aware of the importance of timing."
Mrs. Blake recalled that she played the part of Spencer Tracy's mother in the film Adam's Rib.
"When Spencer learned that I was to play that part, he was considerably annoyed," she continued. "I am younger than him and he felt that it wouldn't work out.
"I told him that in the movie I play the part of a rich woman who has no worries and said that the woman holds her age well and looks young. He seemed satisfied with that and we got along wonderfully."
She also was in the casts of "I Remember Mama" and "The Long, Long Trailer."
"Lucille Ball, one of the stars of "The Long, Long Trailer," told me recently that she saw that film in New York," Mrs. Blake remarked. "She said the scene where I got so mad when the trailer rolled over my garden evoked a lot of laughs.
"I've never been in New York in my life but apparently my shadows rocked the walls of a movie theater there."
She also has been in the production of "The Happiest Millionaire," "Bell Book and Candle," and "Harvey."
Mrs. Blake said that when young persons who aspire to be actors and actresses ask her for advice she tells them this is her recipe for success in show business:
"Develop the hide of a rhinoceros and add a little rubber to your diet so you can bounce back if you get knocked down."
She explained that the new format of the Joey Bishop show next season will probably mean she will appear less in the program.
"Joey plays the part of an entertainer who has his own show," she noted. "This is really what he enjoys doing the most. He's a talented man and is a darling to work with."
Mrs. Blake said she doesn't know what all she will be doing during the next season but imagines she will be working on different programs.
She has had the part of Grandpa's girl friend in "The Real McCoys" and will be seen next week in the "Dr. Kildare" series. After this weekend, Mrs. Blake will return to her home in Hollywood.

In these interviews, Blake comes across as a down-to-earth, rather gentle person. I hope that’s an accurate assessment. I’ve enjoyed her in many different roles over the years. It’s a shame ill health (and a focus on Batgirl and some preposterous villains played by Barbara Rush, Rudy Vallee and Milton Berle) prevented her from doing much on Batman after the second season. She passed away on Feb. 19, 1969 after a heart attack.

Bobby Sherman

Let’s get the phrase out of the way right now.

Teen idol.

You’ll see those words on any story dealing with one of 16 Magazine’s greatest salesmen of all time: Bobby Sherman.

It was long before social media, when publicists for David Cassidy, Donny Osmond and other young men battled for space in Tiger Beat and every other publication aimed at teenaged girls. There you could learn Mark Lindsay’s super secrets, or the food Davy Jones found yucky.

Sherman’s initial fame came from Jimmy O’Neill’s Shindig, ABC’s attempt to grab teen eyes with a pile of guest musical artists packed into a half-hour (a syndicated story by Charles Witbeck in September 1964 doesn’t even mention Sherman). Staking out fame was a little difficult because, at the same time, there was a stand-up comedian with the same name.

But he must have stuck out. 13-year-old Lucie Arnaz gave her opinion to the Los Angeles Times of Sept. 18, 1964: “Bobby Sherman was the best thing in it,” she proclaimed, then chastised confused columnist Cecil Smith. “EVERYONE,” she said, “knows Bobby Sherman!!”

This would have been quite an accomplishment because Sherman was plucked out of nowhere with Donna Loren to be the regular singers. We learn about Sherman from columnist Harrison Carroll, who wrote on June 18, 1963 about a 16-millimeter art film being produced and funded by Sal Mineo.

A new young singer, Bobby Sherman, will play the lead. They are locationing in Sacramento at the La Sierra High School.

How Mineo and Sherman met isn’t clear. But it certainly wasn’t at the beach party given by Mineo for the cast of The Greatest Story Ever Told. Columnist Harrison Carroll wrote on August 21, 1963:

Bobby Sherman, the boy who plays the lead in Sal’s independent movie, was a hit singing at the party. Sal is putting him under contract to his record company.

It took a year before Sherman was hired for Shindig. This is from the Women’s News Service, appearing in papers around May 15, 1965.

Bobby Sherman Shuns Beatles, Aims to Revive ‘American Sound’
By JEANNE SAKOL
NEW YORK (WNS) — Bobby Sherman may bring back the "American Sound" to popular music.
The tall, slim, fair-haired singing star of television's "Shindig" began his career July 4th when he was discovered at a California beach party given for Hollywood's younger set by movie star Sal Mineo.
Bobby refuses to wear the Beatles-style haircut that has become uniform among rock 'n' roller performers. Instead, he wears his hair "American-cowboy" style, short on the sides, longish in back and leaving the forehead bare. It is possible that he is the only teenage favorite who does not shake his head from side to side when he sings.
* * *
"The 'Liverpool sound' is fading," Bobby predicted during a three-day stay in New York.
"The old rock 'n' roll is coming back — only with some differences. The kids will love it. After all, the English pop music is all based on old rhythm and blues and gospel music from America in the first place.”
The young singer's strong American feelings may be tied to the trick of fate which took him to Mineo's party last Independence Day. Bobby didn't know his famous host but was brought along as the escort for a girl who had been invited.
Famous faces were all around him, Natalie Wood, Jane Fonda, Roddy MacDowell [sic] among them. While the Peppermint West band played, the guests danced in the sunshine, swam in the Pacific and played beach games.
When his date led him up to the bandstand and insisted he help entertain by singing, the gates of stardom began to open. By the time the party ended, Mineo had arranged to have his own manager meet Bobby.
* * *
About that time, auditions for "Shindig" were being held in Los Angeles, Bobby Sherman, again keeping in mind the American sound, belted out his own version of "Back Home In Indiana," and got the job.
Not that Bobby comes from Indiana.
Now 19, he was born in Van Nuys, Calif., where his father, Robert Sherman, owns a dairy. Bobby is a graduate of Birmingham High and spent a year at Pierce College, Canoga Park, taking physics and electronics courses.
His Russian is sketchy, he admits, but he does know enough to get the gist of Russian speeches at the United Nations and Russian commentators on news reports of space flights.
Electronics interest him far more than languages.
He plays eight musical instruments and makes his own sound tracks with a home studio fitted out with recording devices.
That way, he can record drums, trumpet, French horn, trombone, bass guitar, harmonica and piano at one time and blend them together for a one-man orchestra accompanying his own voice.
* * *
He's built his own closed circuit television system at home, too. He televises himself and sees the results on his own monitor.
"This isn't as crazy as it may sound," Bobby said.
"Television is far more demanding than records, movies or personal appearances. I have to see how I look and how I sound — on television — before I actually appear. Teen-agers are a very hip audience. They don't want you unless you're right in there. With it."
The first teen personality to be created by television alone, Bobby would appear to be very much with it. He will star in the "Shindig" movie being filmed this month and is signed to top billing for next season's program. Some 500 letters a week ask for his autograph, advice and picture.
Girls ask mostly for pictures, boys for fashion tips.
“I guess you’d call my clothes 100 per cent U.S.A., too,” the singer smiled. “I believe in wearing a conservative suit and a tie for meeting people and doing business, turtle-necks and velour pullovers for casual wears.” His favorite actor is Marlon Brando and, like his hero, Bobby Sherman may often be seen driving a motorcycle, wearing black pants, motorcycle jacket, boots and goggles.

Pop culture changes as people age. Teenagers become adults, kids become teenagers and they find their own stars. If they didn’t, today they’d be listening to Rudy Vallee.

Here’s a feature story from about May 4, 1980. Sherman appears to taken his fall from a life of constantly coping with screaming girls fairly well. The writer is playing up Sherman’s status on Here Come the Brides. David Soul didn’t come out too badly.

Bobby Pays the Kids Back
By NANCY ANDERSON
Copley News Service
HOLLYWOOD — "God less the kids!" Bobby Sherman cried piously. "They made it all happen."
What the kids did was, first, make Bobby a teen idol by way of “Shindig” and “Here Come the Brides.” Then, more or less concurrently, they made him prosperous and experienced enough to become a successful record and film producer and a director.
"There's nothing in show business I don't enjoy doing," Sherman declared. “But I'm not one of those people who feels that he always has to be in the limelight."
Possibly because of this modesty, Sherman hadn't worked as an actor for a while before he was cast as an insecure rock star in the Operation Prime Time production, "The Gossip Columnist."
He referred to the casting is "a comeback if you can call it that."
Yet, though he's been off screen, Sherman has never been away from show business, because, unlike less fortunate former teen idols, he was prepared to shine behind cameras once he and his groupies grew up.
The first personality to star in three television series before he was 30, Bobby made his initial impact as a singer in "Shindig" when he was 18. Then, for two years, as a Bolt brother he was the superstar of "Here Come the Brides," though his status hadn't been anticipated. But it was Sherman who stirred female viewers to mania and who, when the brides had come and gone, got his own series.
The weekly attraction produced post-"Brides" to star Sherman was "Getting Together."
However, it failed to get enough rating points together to become a television staple.
Sherman survived this disappointment nicely, since he had a 16-track recording studio in San Fernando Valley where he was helping other young artists get their sounds on discs and where he was also making his own music. He's still doing both.
"I'll find a group with no record contract and no demos," he says, "and take them into the studio and help them cut something. Then I'll try to get them a record contract."
So far, none of his proteges has set the music world on fire, though Bobby hopefully describes some as "up and coming."
Through his Phase I Productions Co., Sherman has developed a mobile unit which he's used in the production of commercials and industrial films.
He's also into television and motion picture production having produced the "ABC Movie of the Week," "The Day the Earth Moved," for which he composed and performed the score.
Further, he has "a couple of things in development, one for Universal."
Holder of a dozen gold records. Bobby enjoys writing music but not under pressure.
"I can't just sit down and say I'm going to write a song," he says. "I wait until something triggers an idea for one. Writing music is easier when it's done by chance."
He is on the board of directors of the San Fernando Valley Child Guidance Clinic and has generously underwritten cancer research through the Bobby Sherman Cancer Research Fund.
The fund came about through his appreciation of his fans.
"I'd done a concert in Memphis," Sherman explains, "and was packing to leave town when a pair of the city's finest knocked or my hotel room door.
"The policemen told me that they'd brought someone who wanted to meet me, the mayor."
The mayor told Bobby that he wanted him to go or a mission and that, if he declined, he'd have him arrested.
"So, since he put it that way, I went," Bobby laughs. The mission, as it turned out, was no laughing matter, for Bobby's escorts took him to the bedside of a fan, a girl who'd missed his concert, because she'd just lost a leg to cancer.
Bobby was so moved that he determined to learn more about the disease which hi discovered was a major killer of young people.
“Young people had done so much for me that I wanted to do something for them,” he says.
And thus was born the Bobby Sherman Cancer Research Fund.
When Sherman exclaims, “God bless the kids,” he’s not just talking.
He puts his money where his mouth is.

The sad irony is Sherman’s wife announced he had Stage 4 cancer in March.

Sherman had been helping young people for a long time. In 2011, he set up a foundation in Ghana, which provides education, health, and welfare programs to children in need. Before that, he trained as an emergency medical technician and was a reserve officer for the Los Angeles Police and San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

Whatever you think much of bubble gum music, Bobby Sherman entertained. And when the bubble gum ran out of flavour, he helped the community at large. That’s a pretty good legacy.

Where's Bugs?

Bob McKimson’s early Bugs Bunny cartoons as a director baffle me.

There’s potentially good animation that’s lost in the odd staging. Whether McKimson was responsible or layout man Cornett Wood was responsible, I don’t know.

Here are a few examples (and there are more) in A-Lad-in-His-Lamp (1948). In the frame below, the genie, who was on the right half of the screen, has gone back in the lamp.



There’s a take as Bugs sees Caliph Hassen Pheffer coming for him. But the take is off-screen. You can’t see the animation.



McKimson’s cartoons go from huge open mouths to teeny mouths like the drawing below.



Bugs leaps into the air before running away. I really don’t get the point of having Bugs in mid-air when you can’t see the top half of him. It seems like a waste of an animator’s work.



McKimson’s shots can be either too close or too far. Below are consecutive frames. Look at the dead space in the second one. You can’t read the expressions later in the scene.



McKimson liked perspective animation in his earliest cartoons. You’ll see characters running toward the camera and back. Here’s a perspective example from this cartoon.



The genie is a fun character and would have got more laughs in 1948 as he was recognisable to audiences then. His character was lifted from the Alan Young radio show, the upper-crust, East Coast millionaire Hubert Updyke III, complete with catchphrases. This was Jim Backus' first cartoon appearance.

Chuck McKimson, Phil De Lara, Manny Gould and John Carey are the credited animators. Dick Thomas went from forest to caliphate in his backgrounds.

Shotgun Non-Wedding

“The worst thing about these nosy people is, they’re always interferin’ with somebody’s love-life,” says the voice of The Cat That Hated People (from the cartoon of the same name).

Further dialogue isn’t needed, like many fine gags in a Tex Avery cartoon. Animation tells all.



The animators in this cartoon are Walt Clinton, Grant Simmons and two ex-Disney artists soon to leave the Avery unit, Bill Shull and Louie Schmitt. The title character is played by Pat McGeehan. The short was released in 1948.