Walter Does Walter

By the 1960s, Walter Winchell’s name evoked the past. He had been hired to narrate “The Untouchables,” a TV show set in the 1920s, because his time was of another era. And it wasn’t an era too far past. Television slowly killed off newspapers and forever changed radio, the two media which brought Winchell his fame and power.

Winchell was parodied occasionally in animated cartoons but probably the most directly in the Walter Lantz short “Termites From Mars” (1952). A crazed radio newscaster is a Winchell caricature. Here are some of the expressions as he shouts about Martians.



You’ll notice the “WLP” on the mike for “Walter Lantz Productions.”

Don Patterson was the director of this cartoon. There are some great effects here to bring out an extra dimension of depth, such as background colour changes (to shades in the red spectrum) and shadows around the characters.

Paul J. Smith, La Verne Harding and Ray Abrams are the animators. There’s no story credit.

Bugs, Thugs and a Union

Ah, those subversive trade unionists at Warner Bros! Irv Wyner fits in a reference to the Screen Cartoonists Guild’s Hollywood local in the background of “Bugs and Thugs.” (Was this scene animated by Virgil Ross?)



Something’s that’s not quite a hidden gag is found in a background drawing earlier in the cartoon when Rocky’s car passes by a billboard.



This isn’t quite an ad for Lucky Strike cigarettes, but the pack on the billboard has the Lucky Strike red bull’s eye. I suppose Wyner wanted some kind of symbol that evoked the idea of cigarettes and, except maybe using a drawing of a camel, the target would do it without being a real ad.

As usual, Hawley Pratt was responsible for the layouts.

Cantor on Allen

Fred Allen didn’t have a real feud with Jack Benny or any other radio comedian. But he didn’t hold back about the ones whose acts he didn’t like and why. Milton Berle was a target, and so were others on television whom he saw as presenting warmed-over vaudeville acts (despite the fact Allen was nostalgic for vaudeville). And he didn’t have much good to say about a few of them on radio, like Eddie Cantor. Here’s what he wrote in “Treadmill to Oblivion” about Cantor’s show:

The big comedians felt that if they entertained the studio audiences their radio success was assured. Eddie Cantor wore funny costumes, pummeled his announcer with his fist and frequently kicked his guest star to obtain results. A Cantor show would open with the announcer shouting “And here comes Eddie! Eddie’s wearing fifty balloons tied to his coat! Ha! ha! Eddie hopes he’ll get a break tonight. Ha! ha!”

Allen’s point was the audience at home was confused by the studio’s audience’s reaction to something visual the comedian was doing to get a huge yuck. The listener at home couldn’t see what was happening. Allen hated pandering to the studio audience. But he did it himself, most notably in the “King For a Day” sketch (May 26, 1946) where the studio audience goes out of control with laughter because it can see what the listener can’t—Jack Benny’s clothes being taken off.

It appears Cantor didn’t appreciate Allen’s point. Cantor had a newspaper column handled by the Bell Syndicate and here’s what he wrote that appeared in papers of January 14, 1955.

Through Eddie Cantor's Eyes
Fred Allen Gets Too Analytical
By EDDIE CANTOR
I'm wondering what my teacher at Public School 1, Catherine Luddy, would think if she know I read two books in two days. Even though she predicted a very black future for me, I was crazy about Miss Luddy. I would have married her except for the difference in our ages. I was older than my teacher. Teacher? I was older than the principal. To get back to the books: One of them was “Treadmill to Oblivion” by Fred Allen. In it you get a lot of “Allen’s Alley” and “Allen’s allergy.” He simply cannot stand the human race—particularly those comedians who are too busy being successful in the various mediums of show business to stop and analyze them. As a contemporary of Fred, I've often noticed that he gets analytical when he should be just comical.
I’ve been an Allen fan for 25 years. I still laugh out loud every time I think of his description of an American in Paris. Here is a sample: “The American arrives in Paris with a few French phrases he has culled from a conversational guide, or picked up from a friend who owns a beret.
“He speaks the sort of French that is readily understood by another American who, also, has just arrived in Paris. The minute, however, the American attempts to make linguistic contact with a native, verbal bedlam ensues. The Frenchman talks as though his nouns and verbs are red hot and he has to get the words out of his mouth before they blister his tongue.
“As the American gains confidence, he will occasionally risk a cluster of French consonants in public. This often proves embarrasing. One American who had planned to buy a set of andirons found, when he left the antique shop, that he had bought two old ladies, one of whom was in poor condition.
“Another tourist, speaking import French, rattled off something to a waiter at Maxim’s. When translated, he found that he had said, 'Who is playing the trombone under my potato salad?' As the American 'ouis' and 'mercis' his way in and out of shops and cafes, he finds that to get what he wants, he invariably has to point. The ‘American in Pans’ finally learns that to speak French, he doesn't require a tongue—all he needs is a finger.” This is good Fred Allen.
In his book, “Treadmill to Oblivion,” Fred would like to believe that all comedians merely pass through on the way to the “big nowhere.” It may be true, but let’s face it—while on that treadmill, the comics, including Fred Allen, not only pick up a million or more dollars, but experience and soul-satisfrying [sic] knowledge that millions of people who enjoy their particular brand of humor have been made happier.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t quite get Cantor’s point. He never really explains why Allen shouldn’t be analytical. In fact, a good portion of his column is taken up by a piece of Allen’s analytical humour. His final line, after admitting Allen may be right, doesn’t deal with analysis by Allen at all. I suspect Cantor’s wagging a disapproving finger at Allen for something that’s not stated in the column at all—he’s annoyed about Allen publicly criticising his on-stage antics during a radio career which, by the time the review was written, was over.

The Drinks are on the ...

“The drinks are on the house,” says narrator Frank Graham. “The drinks are on the house,” repeats wolfie Frank Graham. And we see everyone in the Malamute Saloon literally enact the words. The camera pans up to the gag.

Just another of an endless stream of puns you can’t help but like from Tex Avery’s “The Shooting of Dan McGoo.” Heck Allen gets the story credit. Preston Blair, Ed Love and Ray Abrams are the credited animators. Johnny Johnsen handled the backgrounds uncredited.

A Man Inside an Elephant

Cartoons of early 1930s are a land of bizarre sight gags. Plot? Who cares! Look at the warped stuff going on.

Here’s an example from “The Bandmaster,” a cartoon put together by the Charles Mintz studio not too many months after it moved across the country from New York to Los Angeles. The characters have that great New York design with shaved round stomachs and belly-buttons. The cartoon hums along, then stops for a weird gag with worms in a bedroom inside an acorn. And then things get really strange.

An elephant cop is whistling “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Suddenly, his uniform parts to reveal a criminal inside a jail cell—in his body. What?!!



The criminal breaks out by pulling the bars apart and runs away.



But the cop casually and rhythmically finishes whistling the tune then shoots the crook dead in the distance.



How did they think up this stuff back then?

Ben Harrison gets a story credit while Manny Gould is the only animator listed. Joe De Nat contributes a clever arrangement.

To your right (click to enlarge), you see an ad from the Albany Evening News, October 3, 1930, revealing this cartoon played with “Madame Satan.” Burning zeppelin? Woman in horned mask? Cartoon with a guy in an elephant? Sounds like a great night at the movies to me.

My thanks to Milton Knight for posting this cartoon on the internet (and Craig Davison for this cleaned-up version), and others which I’d never seen before. Until recently, my exposure to cartoons from 1930 or so was limited to Warner Bros. and Fleischer releases. But there’s so much more from that time—Van Beuren, Terry, Columbia, Lantz—which deserve to be seen and appreciated.

Jack Benny Looks Back Again

There appears to have been a preponderance of newspaper interviews by a pyjama-clad Jack Benny during the latter years of his life. This one is from October 2, 1970.

I’ve mentioned before than there’s a bit of a paradox when Jack tells a reporter that he doesn’t look back on the past. He relies on the past to bring in his audience, and it’s likely an audience that wants to go back to the past and laugh yet again at the funny routines he polished on radio years earlier. Something seems amiss when his “gang” isn’t there. And I admit I’m one of those who enjoy his radio show more than his television efforts, even when his radio routines are dug out of the files and lifted word-for-word.

Jack Benny, 76, Keeps Working; Reflects on His 50-Year Career
By DAVID ELLIOTT
Chicago Daily News Service
CHICAGO—Jack Benny, dressed in robe and pajamas, is slumped so low in his chair that he looks like the baby Dalai lama on coronation day. But as we approach, he unleashes kingly smile that cuts right through the sleepy haze in which he finds himself.
“Sorry if I'm not quite awake,” he apologizes. “I just got up. Did my first show at Mill Run theater last night. God, that's a nice house. A great audience too, one of the best I've ever had.”
To measure that compliment, consider that in just two years Benny will be twice as old as he has been for the last 37 years. He is now 76, has been in show business for more than 50 years, and though he no longer claims to be 39—at least not so loudly —he is one of the few men his age who could do so without seeming absolutely foolish.
He carries the luggage of years almost disdainfully. “I have no feeling of nostalgia,” he says. “I only think about last week, or last night, or what I'll be doing next week. You know, some people like to tell me they liked me better on radio. Well, I don't care. Let them think so. I like best whatever I'm doing now.”
On Nov. 16 he will celebrate his 20th anniversary in the medium with a big special for NBC. Dinah Shore, one of his first guests in 1950, will be there, and so will. . .
“Let's see. I'll have most of my original people. You know, Don Wilson, (Rochester) Anderson, the rest. And my wife Mary—this is the first time, believe it or not, I've gotten her to come on. Bob Hope will be there. Frank Sinatra will do a few bits. Except for one little thing from my first show, it'll all be new material.”
Will it be his last special? “No, definitely not. I think when I do my last show, I'll do three or four of them, like Maurice Chevalier. Of course, as the years go by, I'll do less and less. But as long as I can get audiences I'll keep working.”
Television is not one of his major activities—nightclub dates and benefit concerts for symphony orchestras are more prominent on his calendar.
“I don't watch much TV, except the ball games,” he says. “But it's a fine medium.”
He believes that TV humor, like humor in general, has not changed much: “Not the humor, just the situations.”
Out of age or simple inclination, Benny has not performed in Vietnam, although he admires Bob Hope's effort there. (Hope apparently has had trouble recently in Vietnam, where some of the young soldiers have been high on marijuana and low on his brand of humor.)
“Well, I would find it difficult to perform under those conditions,” Benny reflects. “You've just got to give them a good show, because they're not going to be impressed simply because you bothered to come. But if it's really like Bob says, I can see how he wouldn't really know what to do.”

The Jerky Journey of the Jerky Journeys

Once sound came in, the big movie studios all had cartoons as part of their release schedule. The Poverty Row studios didn’t—with one exception.

Republic Pictures made two brief attempts to release cartoons. The Film Daily announced on June 25, 1946 it had signed a deal with Bob Clampett Productions for 12 cartoons. The trade paper’s next word on the subject was over a year later, when it reported on August 27, 1947 the deal with Clampett was down to four cartoons. “A Grand Old Nag” was made it to screens in December and that was it.

In the meantime, someone else had approached Republic about cartoons, someone without long experience in animation like Clampett. This is from The Film Daily of November 19, 1946.

Impossible Lowers Costs With New Cartoon Technic
Impossible Pictures feels that it has almost done the impossible with its first effort, "Romantic Rumbolia," Prexy Leonard Levinson pointed out yesterday in explaining why he and Vice-President David Flexner had entered the cartoon field at a time of spiralling costs and inadequate rentals.
Levinson said that despite the added expense of making the cartoon short in Anscocolor, company was able to achieve economies by using a different approach both in technique and in subject matter. "Rumbolia," he observed, is the starter in a series of 12 "Jerky Journeys" a year, to be distributed by one of the majors. Negotiations get under way this week.
Levinson's background has been mostly in radio — he originated "The Great Gildersleeve" show, and for three years co-authored "Fibber McGee and Molly." Flexer operates a chain of 14 standard theaters in the South, plus two drive-ins. By 1949, he plans to operate 23 more. Flexer has been in exhibition since 1932. Before that he had been a UA salesman in the Pittsburgh territory.

“Jerky Journeys” was an appropriate name. The cartoons didn’t feature the fluid animation of Disney or even low-budget Terrytoons. They were limited animation. And cheaper animation, something that suited a Poverty Row studio just fine.

The Film Daily mentioned in its issue of May 13, 1948.

Impossible's Cartoons Get Rep. Distribution
"Jerky Journeys" cartoon produced by Impossible Pictures, Inc., headed by Leonard Levinson and Dave Flexer, will be distributed, starting July 1, by Republic, deal being announced jointly yesterday by Herbert J. Yates and Levinson. Four of the shorts, in Trucolor, will be made in the first year of the agreement, which runs for seven years with annual options. Frank Nelson, from radio, will do the narration for the shorts which stress camera animation rather than figure animation.

Besides being a comedy writer, Levinson was a promoter. He’d already been advertising the cartoons on a satiric local radio show in September 1947. Like Jay Ward about a dozen years later, he sent out funny news releases and organised an unusual promotional junket for reporters. Here’s a piece by Thomas F. Brady in the New York Times of November 30, 1947:

Come On In
Leonard L. Levinson, who formed a film company named Impossible Pictures early this year, left Hollywood three weeks ago with a print of the company's first animated cartoon in an improbable series to be called "Jerky Journeys." Mr. Levinson's destination was New York City, but apparently he never arrived. The other day this department received the following telegram from David Flexer, vice president of Impossible: "Leonard L. Levinson, our president, refuses to take one step beyond Paterson, NJ, until THE TIMES heralds his arrival in New York City. Wish you could do something, as we need him here for negotiations with film distributing companies on our 'Jerky Journeys.'" Shriek, oh whistles! Mr. Levinson shall cross the Hudson.

Still, it took some time for the cartoons to make it to screens. Erskine Johnston’s column of November 11, 1948 had this squib:

HOPER for: Len Levinson winning some sort of Academy recognition for the new technique in his Republic cartoon series. An average eight-minute cartoon requires 10,000 individual drawings. Len does it with only 500. The Three Minnies, is clocking 10 laughs a minute at sneak previews.

The facetious “Oscar” hunt was expounded on by Aline Mosby of the United Press in a January 24, 1949 column in which Levinson joked “the society for the preservation of cigar store Indians in Bellevue, Wash., has honored ‘The Three Minnies’ as the best picture about cigar store Indians made in 1948.”

Here are some full columns that came thanks to Levinson’s press agentry. First, an Associated Press column from February 17, 1949.

Sights and Sounds From Hollywood
By GENE HANDSAKER
HOLLYWOOD—Leonard Louie Levinson is a moon-faced gent who does screwball things. Actually, he's screwy only in the way a fox is. At Christmas he sent war-surplus dust-respirator masks to the 15 city councilman of haze ridden Los Angeles. A card wished them "a coughless Christmas and a smog-free New Year".
Levinson heads a new movie cartoon concern called Impossible Pictures, Inc. He issues publicity bulletins like the following exclusive: "The film called 'No Title Yet' is 15 days ahead of schedule before it started—because we cancelled the picture."
Levinson, 44, a former writer for Lum ‘n’ Abner, Fibber McGee and other leading radio shows, enjoys poking pins in Hollywood’s self-worshipping stuffiness. "Holding a cracked mirror up to Hollywood procedure," he calls it.
He is president, publicity director, movie director, writer, personnel department and paymaster of his firm. It occupies a cluttered nine-by-nine room whose biggest wall sign says, "Don't go away mad, just quietly". He calls it Impossible Pictures because he set out 20 months ago to do several things which established cartoon producers said were impossible.
"They're just breaking even," Levinson says. "I decided to find excuses for not using animation."
An Impossible eight-minute cartoon requires about 400 sketches against 30,000 for a comparable Disney.

"Romantic Rumbolia", one of four completed "Jerky Journeys", shows a Latin seaport at the siesta hour. With everybody asleep, no animation is required. The camera mopes into the capitol building and traces the country's history on the murals. In "Bungle In the Jungle", an animated lion swallows the camera, blacking out the screen. The story goes on in still pictures supposedly made with a box camera—more animation saved.
Levinson has introduced what he calls a picture pun. A character is described by the narrator as having "a raft of friends". Sure enough, he's standing on a group of floating people lashed together. When Capt. Kidd sacks the city of Nisatra—Sinatra spelled sideways—he stuffs it into sacks. The hero of the "Three Minnies--Sota, Tonka, and Haha"—is Watha-hia a backward Indian brave.
Levinson expects to call back his dozen full and part-time employees soon for a ballet cartoon inspired by "Red Shoes" He'll call it "Loose Tights". Or maybe he's only kidding.

As for the junket, here’s a United Press story from 1949.

Junket for Newsmen Not Usual Thing
By ALINE MOSBY
HOLLYWOOD, May 25 (UP)— The Hollywood press, which is feted at lavish movie premiere junkets from Texas to Paris, has just returned from the shortest, smallest and cheapest junket in history—a premier on a streetcar.
This ail-expense-paid trip was staged by a little cartoon company, Impossible Pictures, Inc., whose slogan is, "if it’s a good picture it’s Impossible."

"This is the poor man's McCarthy junket," announced Impossible Chief Leonard Levinson. "Not being able to compete with Glen McCarthy, who moved half of Hollywood to Texas for his premier, we are doing the opposite."
Forty-six travelers (McCarthy had 600) gathered for this excursion at the Hollywood Brown Derby, where dessert was served. Impossible Pictures could not afford a full-course meal, Levinson explained.
Then a bus took the junketers seven blocks to a streetcar named Impossible, which was parked in the shadows of RKO and Paramount studios, home of flashy premiers. A battery of two cops held back the teeming crowd of 15 citizens who waved goodbye as the party hopped aboard. A television camera recorded this event.
Each traveler was furnished with one (1) sack of popcorn.
"This is crazy," observed one cop.
The Los Angeles transit lines had lavishly appointed the streetcar by yanking out hanging-on poles so the view of the riders would be unobstructed. "This Is Impossible" was painted on the side of the trolley and a pair of crossed-eyes decorated the front. The movie screen was taped onto the fare box behind conductoress Virginia Hill, who said she'd never done anything like this before.
As the streetcar dinged through traffic, film critics settled back for four eight-minute cartoons appropriately titled, "Jerky Journeys," or "Authentic Travelogs About Imaginary Places."
The movies also were viewed by a convoy of startled motorists and at stop lights by pedestrians who undoubtedly now believe all streetcars show movies.
The two-mile junket halted 45 minutes later in the wilds of downtown Los Angeles, a faraway point at least to the Hollywood press. Then a bus took everybody home again.
"The junket cost only $118" beamed Levinson. "McCarthy spent half a million. My next premiere will be on an elevated train in New York."

According to Boxoffice magazine, “Beyond Civilization to Texas” was released March 15, 1949, “The Three Minnies” on April 15, 1949, “Romantic Rumbolia” on June 1, 1949 and “Bungle in the Jungle” two weeks later. The Boxoffice review of the latter mentions it “has the voice of radio’s Senator Claghorn,” the 1949 Copyright Catalogue mentions Claghorn in its summary and an AP story on Levinson’s studio dated December 12, 1948 insists it’s Delmar, though there’s no voice credit on the cartoon. Frank Nelson gets a narration credit on the other three. Artists Art Heinemann, Pete Alvarado, Paul Julian and Bob Gribbroek get screen credits in addition to Levinson. Those names should all be familiar from Warner Bros. cartoons.

Unfortunately, the late ’40s were not a great time for the animated cartoon and things wouldn’t get better. Columbia closed its studio. Warners and MGM got rid of units. Almost everyone was reissuing old cartoons to fill release schedules. No doubt a smaller studio like Republic felt it no longer could afford the luxury of even limited animation so the option on the Jerky Journeys was dropped. Republic’s foray into animation remains an obscure trail in the road network of Golden Age cartoons.

P.S.: Our thanks to Jerry Beck for the picture at the start of this post. His old web site has an informative post on the Jerky Journeys, though a link to one of the four cartoons is now dead.

Artists in the Background

Paul Julian liked inserting names of staff members in backgrounds of a number of cartoons he made for Friz Freleng’s unit at Warners, and a really good example is “Ballot Box Bunny” (released 1951).



The first one comes about a minute and a half into the cartoon. There’s animator Virgil Ross. And you’ll remember Fearless Freep from Freleng’s “High Diving Hare” (released 1949). Freep wasn’t a person. Bob Clampett told animation writer Jim Korkis: “Freep is a word we used at Warners which meant a cross between a Freak and a Creep.”



Maybe someone has some insight into who Hinkle and Ames were. The name “M. Hinkle” makes a background appearance in Chuck Jones’ great cartoon “Chow Hound” (released 1951).



Animator Manny Perez.



On the statue’s plaque are the following: Warren Batchelder (Ross’ assistant animator), Ken Champin (animator), Sid Farren (assistant animator), Julian, Sam Nicholson (assistant animator), Perez, Hawley Pratt (layout artist) and Ross. Art Davis also animated on this cartoon, but I haven’t spotted his name anywhere.



A building to the right is named “Frizby” for Friz Freleng. In front of that is a welding shop with writer Warren Foster’s name.



Paul Julian owns a yard something-or-other store.



Finally, a parade passes at the intersection of Colfax Avenue and Kling Street. Such an address actually exists in North Hollywood. It’s not the site of the Warners’ cartoon studio; it’s a residential area. Who lived there at the time this cartoon was made, I don’t know.

A Right Purdy Leg of Lamb

Mike Lah inherited Tex Avery’s Droopy and southern drawling wolf when he was handed a unit at the MGM cartoon studio. But he and designer/layout man Ed Benedict came up with their own characters, too. Like this leggy female lamb in “Sheep Wrecked.”



The chorus girl lamb is revealed after the wolf pulls off her wool with a toilet plunger attached to a cord.



Notice the two background drawings are different. They’re the work of Fernando Montealegre. Animating on this were Ken Southworth, Irv Spence, Herman Cohen, Bill (Victor O.) Schipek and Jim Escalante, who had been an effects animator. The cartoon was released in February 1958. By then, the MGM cartoon studio was but a memory. Lah, Schipek and Monty were working at Hanna-Barbera, making Ruff and Reddy.

The Lie Detector

A hundred years ago, people played parlour games at home. So what’s wrong with doing the same thing on television?

That’s the question I probably would have put to syndicated columnist John Crosby.

On radio, there were noisy game shows that were unnecessarily hyper and showered a cascade of goods on contestants who didn’t need to be too clever. Crosby somewhat sourly pointed out the shows’ lack of wit in several columns, much like Fred Allen was doing on his radio show as it played out the string. But Crosby did the same thing with at least one quiz show on television and I don’t necessarily agree with him.

Crosby aimed his disdain in his column of May 25, 1960 at “To Tell the Truth,” somewhat suggesting something more enlightening should be broadcast in its stead. But “To Tell the Truth” is just like an old-fashioned parlour game where people can use their own sense of logic to deduce an answer. What’s wrong with a pleasant little diversion involving a bit of mind-power?

Perhaps Crosby wanted a panel show akin to “Information, Please” with queries on fine arts mixed with popular culture. That show may have been a little more intellectually rarefied but always came across to me as dry; even a wit like Oscar Levant drones out his drolleries too much of the time for my liking. I’d rather take guessing games like “What’s My Line” and “To Tell the Truth” which feature interesting people and friendly interaction amongst the various panellists who are neither too urbane nor too low-brow.

Crosby’s critique does present something besides disregard. He gives us a little insight into talent screening on “To Tell the Truth.” However, his analogy involving Diogenes isn’t quite apt. While the lamp-bearing Greek continually failed to find an honest man, staff at Goodson-Todman found a truthful person in one of three contestants every time.

Television And Radio
By JOHN CROSBY
Chief Ingredient: Lying
One of the increasingly lucrative professions in what Walter Lippmann calls our purposeless society is time wasting. The great merchant princes of time wasting are Goodson & Todman, who have expanded time wasting into a commercial empire.
One of the flowers of this great empire is “To Tell the Truth,” which is the very model of a quiz show. That is: Empty-headed.
It requires nothing of the observer but the temporary exercise of his eyeballs. It’s cheap. That means it can sell cigarettes and beauty products at a marvellously small cost per thousand.
And it occupies a splendid half hour of prime evening time on an important network, thus successfully preventing that half-hour from being put to any important use, which is the highest aspiration of the time wasting profession.
Ah, when you think of 30 million pairs of eyeballs fixed on “To Tell the Truth” successfully getting through another half hour of eternity without a flicker of thought of a motion of the use of a muscle you realize the suburb achievement of the Messrs. Goodson & Todman in the fine 20th century profession of wasting other people’s time and charging them money for it.
Quiz shows, in the opinion of some philosophers, have supplanted the chewing of gum as the great nirvana of the masses.
Now then, the chief ingredient of “To Tell the Truth” is lying. That is, three people are gathered together, two of them to lies about who and what they are, to a panel consisting of Kitty Carlisle, Polly Bergen, Tom Poston and Don Ameche.
The Liemeister for the show is a man named Willie Stein, associate producer of the show. Years ago, before Congress took a dim view of the matter, we had schlockmeisters who gathered loot for the giveaway programs. Now we have liemeisters who gather liars for “To Tell the Truth.”
I don’t know what posterity is going to say about this—that a grown man could earn his living looking for liars.
Just as Diogenes went through the streets looking for an honest man with a lantern, Stein goes out looking for liars; but whereas Diogenes couldn’t find any honest men, Stein finds a lot of liars.
There’s a commentary on our civilization in there somewhere, but I haven’t time to look for it. Goodson & Todman have murdered time as Macbeth murdered sleep.
Anyhow, Mr. Stein was queried the other day about his curious profession, the procuring of liars. He’s an unlikely guy to be in such a job—an unassuming gentleman with a raging honesty.
“I hate dishonesty, although I teach liars,” he said. “I was always taught to tell the truth, because sooner or later the lies would catch up with me.
“We keep a file on all the people who want to be on the show. I got a wonderful letter two years ago from a woman who said her husband was the most wonderful man in the world—intelligent, handsome and a former Olympic champion.
“Today for the first time I had the right spot for him, so I called her. ‘We’re not married any more. You can call the bum if you want to. He’s not very smart.’”
Stein shook his head at the changeableness of women.
“Women are better liars than men,” he said. “We made a list of statistics and the women’s average is 65 per cent and the men's is 50 per cent. Children are the best liars.
“Some people are so intent on playing the game they forget who they really are. Now we give each guy a card with his real name on it. Twice already, people at the end of the show couldn’t think of their own names.
“I feel anyone can be taught to lie. I hate to say this, but I think the best educated people are the best liars. It’s not only what they’ve been taught, but what they’ve accumulated.
“We had a man on the show who had to pretend to be president of the Republic of Panama. By show time he knew more about the Panama Canal than the president of Panama.
“The worst liars are men and women between 40 and 50 years of age. They’re home life, their own reality, must be too important to them. They’re the worst imposters.”
Mr. Stein was asked how he felt about the state of television when so much creative energy went into creating such triviality as “To Tell the Truth.”
He said: “It’s sad. It’s hard to tell people just how much work and how much ideas you have to put into a panel show.
“I call my mother after each show and ask her how she liked it. She usually says, ‘It was o.k.’ It kills me when I think of the work I do just to make it o.k.”

“To Tell the Truth” has a nice, long jog on the airwaves. It debuted on December 18, 1956 and carried on until September 6, 1968. Then it returned in daytime syndication the following year and ran through most of the ‘70s. If millions of people wasted their time on it, they must have enjoyed doing it.