Blow the Man Up

The Ub Iwerks’ ComiColor short Sinbad the Sailor tries to end with a gag involving exploding cigars. First, Sinbad, then his parrot are caught in the blasts.



Carl Stalling received a musical credit on this cartoon, but the score seems really pieced together. There are no animation credits.

This cartoon was released June 26, 1935. Only a few days earlier, Paramount had announced that it would be releasing a two-reeler starring Popeye taking on Sinbad. The Popeye cartoon is superior in every way to the Iwerks effort.

Jack and George

George Burns and Jack Benny were practically lifetime friends. The two first crossed paths in vaudeville in the early 1920s. In 1974, Jack gave his final wire service interview before his death with George Burns chiming in. Burns replaced Benny in the film The Sunshine Boys when Jack died.

New York gossip columnist Cindy Adams talked to the pair about each other in a feature story published in the May 1963 edition of the TV Radio Mirror. Despite the click-bait style sub-headline, there’s no trash talking. Just funny stories and a demonstration of how close the two were.

Jack Benny & George Burns
what they say to each other's face!
what they say behind each other's back!
I first met George Burns a couple of years ago, when he was starring at Harrah's Club, one of the classier saloons and gambling emporiums in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Being that Burns and Allen had been a team since the Stone Age. and being that this marked Burns' debut as a solo performer without Allen, this naturally was what the man was expected to talk about, breathe about and think about. Therefore, I naturally expected this would be Topic A in conversation.
"George," I said, "the songs and jokes you do all by yourself are wonderful. The audience adored . . ."
"Yeah," said George. "Jack was here for the opening, you know. Mary, too."
"Jack?"
"Jack Benny."
"Well, I'm sure he loved the act because it's so terrific that . . ."
"Yeah," said George. "Jack helped with the act, you know. Let's face it, he's reasonably successful, so sometimes I listen to him."
During this, George, a sun-worshipper, was cutting a dashing figure at poolside with a peaked cap on his head and a soggy stogie in his mouth. Neither ever got removed. And never once did the cigar impede the talk. George Burns can squat for twelve years at a stretch and never run out of anecdotes. The only thing he runs out of are characters. All his stories center around Jack Benny.
It seems that, 'way before Mary entered the picture, Jack knew Gracie. Back some four decades ago (George: "It's exactly 38 years." Jack: "It's exactly 40 years."), Jack dated a girl whose assets included a roommate named Gracie Allen.

Although they worked few shows together (Jack: "Maybe a half dozen times in all." George: "Just once at the Palace Theater in Indianapolis."), Jack and George were already devoted buddies who knew one another from hanging around the same booking offices, the same hotels and the same girls.
"In those days, Jack was making $450 a week in vaudeville and," gags George, "I think he's getting more now. Incidentally, he was doing those same stingy jokes, even then. We enjoyed one another right away. Besides, he used to laugh me up and, since he was earning more than me, whenever he laughed I thought I was a hit!"
Meanwhile, back at the unemployment office, Gracie was looking for someone to team up with in a comedy act. She told this to her roommate who told it to Jack who told Gracie he had a friend. George, who was working with someone who might just be what the doctor — or, at least, Gracie — ordered. Gracie came. She saw. But she conquered George, not the other fellow. And so, a couple of years later, between shows in a theater in Cleveland, George Burns took unto himself the wife that he'd already taken as a partner and — like it says in the storybooks — they've laughed happily ever after.
The cigar in George's molars bobbles overtime when he describes his wedding night: "Jack was working in Omaha (Jack: "Kansas City.") so he wasn't present for the ceremony. Gracie and I were earning $250 a week. We lived strictly in two-bucks-a-day hotels, but for our honeymoon we figured we'd go the whole route and blow $7 a day. We checked into the Statler at four in the morning, but the desk-clerk explained our day officially started at six.
"Well, we weren't gonna pay no extra seven bucks, so we sat in the lobby for two hours.
"The wedding was scheduled for eight that morning. But the justice of the peace was furious because he'd planned to go fishing that day, and he married us so fast that it was eighty cents on the taxi meter when we pulled up — and ninety cents when we left. He wasn't going to let any marriage kill his fishing.
"Anyway," grins George gleefully, "we were dead tired from sitting in that lobby, so we went to bed early. At two A.M., the phone rang. It was long-distance. It was Jack. Now I know his voice, see, so the minute he said 'Hello,' I said, 'Will you have the waiter send up another order of ham and eggs, please,' and I hung up. Four o'clock the phone wakes us again. It's Jack. All he said was, 'Hello . . . hello,' and I said, 'I'm still waiting for the eggs.' Not another word and I hung up."
George, who, as Jack Benny says, "is conceded by most comedians to be the funniest man in the business," continued with his crackling dry wit. "I always hang up on Jack. Always. In the middle of any conversation, I suddenly hang up. It started once when he talked so long I couldn't stand it. So right in the middle of a comma, I hung up on him. He thought it was a riot. Next time, I did it again. I did this three times in a row, and each time he got hysterical. Finally I figured it isn't funny anymore, so I stopped. Well, he was hurt. He thought I was mad at him. Since then, I hang up on him every single time we talk on a phone. It isn't funny anymore, but I don't want him to think I'm mad."

After this poolside chat, I didn't see George for two years. Our next meeting was at his office. He was the talk of the industry because he'd just discovered the rising star, Ann-Margret, and had just packaged a CBS-TV series, "Mister Ed," so this naturally was what the man was expected to talk about, breathe about and think about. Therefore, I naturally expected this would be Topic A in conversation.
"George," I said, "you're doing so well without Gracie that ..."
"Yeah," said George, "Gracie would have quit even sooner if not for Jack."
"Jack?"
"Jack Benny."
"Well, in any case, you're doing so sensationally that . . ."
"Yeah," said George, "You know, Gracie wanted out of the business for four years before she finally retired. She'd been working all her life, and she was tired. I hated to cancel a sponsor who was offering us forty weeks of TV plus twelve weeks of repeats. Besides, I was afraid that, without her, I'd have to quit, too. And I love to work. That's the reason, when I okayed that final year, I called Jack and Mary to break the news for me. Gracie was staying at their Palm Springs house. Jack and Mary helped a lot. They explained how wonderful it was for us and how ordinarily actors throw parties when their options are picked up. I'm certain that, if not for them, she wouldn't have done that last season."
As long as Jack Benny has been alive — "thirty-nine years" — the Bennys and the Burnses have been a close quartet. Even the wives have much in common. They were married within a year of each other. The Burnses became Mr. and Mrs. thirty-seven years ago. The Bennys, thirty-six years. Both wives teamed with their husbands professionally. Both women wanted out. Both women are out.
The two couples occasionally vacation together. They've gone to New York, Europe and Vegas together. The Burnses live within four blocks of the Bennys in Beverly Hills. They see each other constantly. The womenfolk have been known to lunch or shop together. Come a holiday or birthday, they exchange lingerie, nighties or "some inexpensive little doodads like silverware, glasses or something for the house," since each decided long ago that the other has practically everything.
Although the men began the friendship, it's well-known that the ladies could have finished it. It's an accepted fact that not only can women change the face of a foursome, but down through the centuries the frail li'l female of the species has rechiseled the destinies of whole families . . . whole countries. Take Helen of Troy, the Duchess of Windsor, Elizabeth Taylor. . . . However, both men disagree that the wives could kill off their friendship, because it is far too enduring. However, they agree that the parallel of their wives' theatrical background — and now retired foreground — makes for a tremendous closeness.

The first time I met Jack was a year-and-a-half ago, when he taped several television shows from New York. The night before, he'd taken over the Automat on 45th Street and Fifth Avenue for a black-tie party. In line with the professional Benny "stinginess," he personally handed each guest a $2 roll of nickels. To see Helen Hayes in a floor-length gown and elbow-length gloves jockeying apple pie from a glass window, or to catch Arlene Francis carrying ermine and diamonds and a tray of corned beef, was a beautiful sight. Naturally, it had been a tremendous party, and naturally I figured this would be the major topic of discussion.
"Jack," I said, "it was so funny at your party when . . ."
"Yeah," Jack said, "too bad George wasn't there."
"George?"
"George Burns."
"Well, I'm sure he'd have howled the way you . . ."
"Yeah," Jack said. "But he'd have deflated me somehow. He always does. It's very easy for George to make me laugh. Mary can be quite witty at times, too, but mostly we three just sit around and scream at him."
He explained how he prepared Mary for her first introduction to George — who, although straitlaced Gracie doesn't sanction it, is known to toss off lavender verbiage. True to form, George teed off this meeting with a few four-and five-letter words that not even Webster knows — "Just so Mary could get used to how I talk real fast." George explained later.
"It's just that everything he does breaks us up, and he knows it. As a result, he's always planning how to make me laugh." continued Jack. "Like at the Command Performance last year. We were walking down a dark London street at two A.M., and George stopped to look into a basement window. A little further on, he bent down to look into another one. Each time I stooped down, too, but I saw nothing. The third time. I ran over to ask what he saw. And he said, 'Nothing. But I'm in England and I don't want to miss anything.'
"Once, we were at somebody's home when an opera singer was giving a recital. Everything was fine until George sat down behind me. He didn't do anything. He just whispered. 'Now whatever you do, don't laugh.' That's all I needed. Just his power of suggestion. Before you know it, my shoulders heaved and I couldn't control myself. I had to leave."

The fact that Jack is wildly susceptible to George is best illustrated by the time Jack said to him. "Now, listen, don't try to be funny today." Being an Eagle Scout, George didn't try to be funny. Suddenly, Jack started to guffaw maniacally. George looked startled. "I didn't say anything," he said. "Yeah," giggled Jack, "but I know what you're thinking!"
The upshot is that Jack is always trying to make George laugh, and George's always deflating him. "Once," grins Jack, "he was in Minneapolis and I was so desperate to break him up that I concocted a really hysterical telegram. I worked hard on it. I threw everything I could into it. It was about fifty words, and it was really a riot. I got a return wire from him. All it said was, 'Don't worry. I won't show your wire to anyone.' "
(Author's Note: When George told the story, the wire was "over two hundred words." When Jack was told Burns' version, he giggled happily and said, "That's George. The world's biggest liar.")
During my visit to Benny's dressing-room, he sat slumped in a chair while the makeup man was pretending he was a Rembrandt and Benny's beautiful, familiar face was a canvas. Between the artiste crayoning his eyebrows, and this interviewer recording his adlibs, and the fact that he was due to face millions on television in three minutes, Mr. Benny was so high-strung and nervous about the whole thing that he was yawning altogether.
At the end of the hour's discussion on George Burns, Jack said, "By the way, just what was it you wanted to interview me about?"
"George Burns," I said.
"Oh, my God, honey," yawned Jack as he sauntered onstage, "We've been friends for so long I couldn't possibly think of anything to say about him!"
— Cindy Adams
"The Jack Benny Program" is seen on CBS-TV, Tues., at 9:30 P.M. EST.

The Cartoon Sophisticate

The 1960s were just horrible for theatrical cartoons. If your local movie house ran them at all, you were subjected to Honey Halfwitch, Cool Cat or, if you were really unlucky, the Beary Family. But there was one theatrical series that was a real bright spot.

The Pink Panther.

Friz Freleng, Hawley Pratt and the other creative people who came up with the idea hit on the right combination. Instead of the aging concept of funny animals chasing each other, the Panther was plunked into a human world. Making him a pantomime figure instead of a lippy Bugs Bunny type caused John Dunn and the other writers to rely on sight gags enhanced by Friz’s (and Pratt’s) perfect timing. The gags were pretty imaginative. And the use of Henry Mancini’s Panther movie theme as the main background music gave each short a sly and jazzy air.

Here are a couple of stories about how the Panther cartoons came about. The first is from United Press International, February 4, 1965, the second from the Los Angeles Times syndication service, originally published December 24, 1964.

The Panther series kind of petered out in 1971 but theatrical cartoons continued to be released into 1977.

Cartoon Panther Is A Box Office Tiger
By Vernon Scott
HOLLYWOOD—UPI—If you have been to the movies recently you have probably noticed the comeback of an old theater standby, the animated cartoon. With the increasing disappearance of double features, theater owners are filling out the bill with animated hijinks.
Moviegoers will be seeing more of Woody Woodpecker, Bugs Bunny and the ubiquitous Tom and Jerry. They will also be entertained by a skinny and malevolent character named the Pink Panther.
The Panther made his debut when the credits flashed on the screen more than a year ago for the feature film thriller-comedy, The Pink Panther, starring Peter Sellers. Audiences enjoyed the animal's rapscallion adventures almost as much as the phenomenally successful film.
Director Blake Edwards, along with David Depatie and Friz Freleng (who created the animated prologue), saw gold in the Pink Panther and forthwith turned him into a star in his own right.

Depatie-Freleng Enterprises have been contracted by United Artists to turn out 13 Pink Panther short subjects a year.
Thus far they've produced three, all with the theme music from the Pink Panther movie; all without dialogue of any kind.
“We think of the Panther as an adult cartoon character, but geared for children, too,” said Depatie at his cartoon headquarters near Warner Bros. studio. “But our dilemma is whether to give him a voice or keep him in pantomime.”
His partner, Freleng, added, “we were as surprised as everyone else with the Panther's popularity.
“He captured public imagination because here was a character fussing around with the credits of a movie which are supposed to be a serious undertaking. He was the first cartoon 'personality' involved in main title credits and was therefore, different.”
Depatie and Freleng hope to stockpile more than 100 Panther cartoons and dump them on the television market which gobbles up cartoons faster than it does old movies.
According to Freleng, adults enjoy cartoons in theaters as much—or more so—than their offspring, but will not admit it.
Freleng is an old hand at fathering cartoon characters, having originated Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Sylvester and Tweetie Pie, Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales. He foresees as big a future for the Panther as any of his previous children.
“The Panther is egotistical, effeminate, affete, [sic] chic, and very pink,” said Depatie.
“He's not in-step with the regular pattern of a cartoon cat chasing a cartoon mouse,” Freleng said. “We're staying out of the trap of creating another Bugs Bunny.
“You could say the Panther is sophisticated.”

New Craze Started by ‘Pink Panther’
DePatie and Freleng Reveal Story Behind Cartoon Series
BY PHILIP K. SCHEUER
Times Motion Picture Editor
Having flipped over “The Pink Phink,” an animated cartoon being released with “Kiss Me, Stupid,” I hastened to call a high-level conference with its creators—primarily two chaps with the arresting names of David H. DePatie and Friz Freleng. They had introduced their Pink Panther, who reappears in “The Pink Phink,” in the picture of that name—behind the opening credit titles. Since almost everybody thought the credits deserved more credit than the picture, the Mirisch Corp. and Blake Edwards urged DePatie-Freleng to keep the sly young fellow alive in a series.
“The Pink Phink” is the first. Four others are ready: “Pink Pajamas,” “We Give Pink Stamps,” “Dial P for Pink” and “Sink Pink”—in which the PP is refused entrance to Noah’s Ark “because there’s only one of you.”
Friz Freleng, older of the pair, is roundish, bald and mustached. (Actually, he apparently served as the model, consciously or not, for the only other character in “The Pink Phink.”) “My real name is, of all things, Isadore,” he explained. “There used to be a cartoon-strip character called Congressman Frizby—and years ago, at Warners, they somehow hung the tag on me.” DePatie is taller and has curly black hair.
Pair Partners For 10 Years
Both are veterans of the cartoon field, only Friz is a veteran veteran. He came west from Kansas City about the same time Walt Disney did and went to work for him in 1927, later moved on to MGM (“Krazy Kat”) and Warner Bros. (“Looney Tunes,” “Merrie Melodies”), for whom he originated such characters as Porky Pig, Sylvester, Tweety Pie, Yosemite Sam, Speedy Gonzales and Daffy Duck. Eventually he tied up with DePatie, who had begun his career as a film editor at Warners and returned there later as head of the studio’s commercial department. They have been partners for 10 years.
When, in May of last year, Warners decided to drop its commercial and animation divisions the pair took them over—as DePatie-Freleng Enterprises. “But now,” Friz said, “we have resumed for them with a contract for 39 cartoons—this in addition to our other work. This includes titles for other pictures (‘A Shot in the Dark,’ ‘Sex and the Single Girl,’ ‘The Satan Bug,’ ‘The Best Man,’ ‘How to Murder Your Wife’ for Ross Hunter and, coming up, ‘The Great Race’), a trailer for ‘John Goldfarb’ and the pilot for a Screen Gems TV series, ‘I Dream of Jeanie,’ with Barbara Eden.
He’s a Natural For Animation

The idea for their new beastie was born when Blake Edwards approached them and said, “I have a picture that is a natural for animation, ‘The Pink Panther.’” Continued Friz, “Edwards and the Mirisches gave us complete freedom—and now all the other producers who wouldn’t, want us.”
DePatie nodded agreement. “The pinks are being geared for the adult intellect; kids will watch anything that moves. Our first give are in pantomime only—far more difficult to do, by the way, than with a voice. But since they may later be put together three at a time for a half-hour TV show—and TV won’t sustain without dialogue—we are using dialogue in No. 6. The panther will speak with a kind of Rex Harrison voice—knowledgeable, the ultimate in sophistication. In the past the industry has missed by making cartoons that adults might enjoy but that were a little immature. The exceptions were Disney, in some of his, and UPA.”
I asked how they thought they compared with Hollywood’s Saul Bass and Maurice Binder, in Europe, as creators of opening titles. “They use more abstract designs and graphics; we’re more character animation.” The most successful big-scale commercial title makers are Pacific Title and National Screen Service. On the financial side, they estimated from $17,500 to $18,000 as the cost of their own title-making for a picture. Pretty reasonable, since they figure their opener for “The Pink Panther” has added $1.5 million to its gross—“gives people something to talk about.” Another by-produce that could develop into a bonanza is merchandising. United Artists in New York has been making tie-ups for the Pink Panther in comic strips and joke books, toy manufacturers, etc. He is, incidentally, the first new character to be invented for theater exhibition in eight years.

The Changing Pianist

There’s humour—intentional and unintentional—in cartoons made by New York’s C-list studio, Van Beuren.

In Mad Melody (1931), notice what happens when the camera cuts to a closer shot. The pianist doesn’t even look like the same character. The lion has tousled hair, a huge collar and teeth (or a tooth) in the second frame.



That’s the unintentional humour. The intentional is how the lion sings in a female soprano, then changes his voice in what’s supposed to be bass. His body drops as his voice drops.



Alright, maybe it’s not that amusing. But you can’t dislike a cartoon where a piano suddenly gets up and paces, or where a monkey assistant sweeps up notes that tumble out of the open piano and throws them back in (and a note jumps out to conk him on the head and knock him out).

There are no credits on this cartoon other than Gene Rodemich for synchronization.

He Was SO Thin...

In his Bobby Sox days, there were some standard jokes about Frank Sinatra. One of them was how unhealthily thin and anaemic he was. Tex Avery and his uncredited writer tossed some into Little 'Tinker (released 1948).

The Sinatra disguised skunk is so thin, he falls through a hole in the wooden planks on stage. Notice how he looks down at his predicament.



He’s as thin as the microphone stand.



He’s lighter than a feather.



The other gags are self-explanatory.

The Sinatra singing voice, according to Keith Scott who knows this stuff, is Bill Roberts, who you will best remember from the Warner Bros. cartoon One Froggy Evening. Oddly, MGM layout man Dick Bickenbach had done a Sinatra-esque singing voice in other cartoons but wasn’t called on for this cartoon. Bick was an accomplished amateur singer.

Louis Schmitt provided layouts for this cartoon (at least he designed the characters), while the animators were Bill Shull, Grant Simmons, Walt Clinton and Bob Bentley.

His Heart Picked Peas

Tennessee Ernie Ford may have been the only person whose TV show lost a potential sponsor because of his name.

He was hosting a revival of Kay Kyser’s old radio show College of Musical Knowledge on NBC in October 1954 when he decided he wanted to be billed as “Tennessee Ernie Ford.” That was quite unsatisfactory to a company looking at paying the bills for the show, and it walked away. The company was General Motors.

Ernie had been billed as plain old “Tennessee Ernie,” which he had adopted when he headed to the West Coast after the war and worked as a radio announcer, first in San Bernadino and then at a small station in Pasadena catering to fans of western and country music. The big star at the station was Cliffie Stone, who became Ernie’s manager. Pretty soon, Ernie was playing gigs, signed a record deal by Capitol and then got an insanely huge break in 1954 by appearing on two episodes of I Love Lucy.

And all this happened before the biggest thing in career—a monster record in 1955 called “Sixteen Tons.” That led to his own NBC variety show. He didn’t have to worry about General Motors. The show was sponsored by the Ford Motor Company (the programme was actually named for the carmaker).

One of the main reasons behind Ernie’s success over the years was he came across as a down-home folksy guy, not a Hollywood phoney. He was helped by his countrified similes. He came across as rural as a passel of hoot owls nesting in a barn loft in the Ozarks. Columnists loved his turns of phrase and included them in stories.

Here’s one from the June 12, 1954 of the Chicago Tribune, from the city as windy as a politician stumping 24 hours before voting day.

COUSIN ERNIE HOT AS FOX IN PEPPER PATCH
BY ANTON REMENIH
COUSIN ERNIE: Ernie (Tennessee Ernie) Ford is now in the process of transformation from a caterpillar into a butterfly, if metaphor may be a bit strained.
Ernie is the hillbilly character who appeared on two successive I Love Lucy shows as “Cousin Ernie” a few weeks ago and emerged as a new comedy find.
Up to that assignment he had (1) never acted on stage, and (2) never been cast formally as a comedian. Tennessee Ernie is an incredibly successful hillbilly singer who has told more than 4.5 million records in four years. His “Shotgun Boogie” has sold more than a million disks.
That he should score a hit in a new field in his first try is as unusual as if Toscanini clicked as a cigaret huckster.
“I’m as happy as a peach orchard hog,” says Ernie, who comes from the Tennessee hill country. “That Lucy thing created quite a stink (fuss), and the smell ain’t gone yet.”
● ● ●
FOX IN PEPPER PATCH: Four years ago Ernie earned $87.50 for a 40 hour week as announcer with KXLA, Pasadena, Cal. Today he grosses close to $100,000 annually, and the biggest loot is ahead because, to crib a phrase of his, Tennessee Ernie currently is as “hot as a fox in a pepper patch.”
Drawl talkin’ Ernie came to town this week to entertain for his radio (WBBM, 6 p.m., week days) sponsor. He starts his first network TV show July 4 at 6 p.m. over NBC-TV-WNBQ. The program is the old Kay Kyser College of Musical Knowledge.
Ernie, whose ultimate ambitions is to quit work to “fish ‘n’ hunt,” likes to hark back to his boyhood days at Bristol, Tenn. The state line between Tennessee and Virginia runs down the middle of the main street.
Bristol has two city councils, two mayors, and two police forces, and both states are “dry as chips.” Yet occasionally a drunkard who had been sampling his own “grape squeezins” in the hills wandered into town. If the cops on one side of town chased him he escaped by staggering across the main street.
● ● ●
WALK THE LINE: “But once cops from both forces chased one at the same time,” says Ernie. “He tried to get out of town by walking the white (state) line down main street. This was a mistake. He wavered heroically for a few yards, then gave up without a fight. He’d flunked the line test in front of both police forces. As they dragged him off to jail, he moaned, ‘I got no more chance than a tied mink in a smokehouse.’”

In some circles, Ernie was as admired for his descriptive use of the vernacular as a blue ribbon steer on the closing day of the County Fair. A fine example was given by the Herald Tribune syndication service in a story of June 12, 1957.

Ernie Ford's Phrasing Called Equal to Bard's
By MARIE TORRE
FROM the bright lexicon of TV's hayseed performers streams a pithy new language that we've all too quickly dismissed as corn pone and molasses badinage. The most prolific of these philologists is Tennessee Ernie Ford ("They've got me squirmin' like a worm in hot ashes"), and from now on Mr. Ford's verbal output draws this pillar's utmost respect because it's just won the wholehearted approval of that Shakespearean scholar, Dr. Frank C. Baxter.
Lo and behold, Dr. Baxter says Mr. Ford's colorful use of language is almost Shakespearean, a conclusion he arrived at after sitting in on rehearsals for an appearance on the "Ford" show tomorrow night.
"Ernie and Shakespeare," said Dr. Baxter, and his tongue wasn't in his cheek, "share a common ability to say things in fresh, new ways."
Showing the extent of his interest in the Ford gems, Dr. Baxter took the trouble to make notes during rehearsals and he offers some notable comparisons between Shakespeare's sterling lines and Ernie's hominy grits utterances.
"On the subject of a man's charm, for instance," Dr. Baxter continued, "Shakespeare used the phrase, 'A lion among ladies.' Ernie would say, 'He's like a rooster in the hen house.' To indicate indecision, Shakespeare wrote 'I am a feather for each wind that blows.' Whereas Ernie would say, 'I'm like a puppy in a room full of rubber balls'."
Among Dr. Baxter's jottings on "Ernieisms" are:
"Flat as a gander's arch."
"Hotter'n a bucket of red ants."
"Tear off a quill and write me a letter."
"I'm hogtied to you."
"These," says Dr. Baxter, "are truly brilliant in the imagery they evoke. If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd be proud to have written such a line as, 'He's as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs'."
????????? That's what the doctor said!

I suspect NBC or Ford’s ad agency sent the list of Ernie’s sayin’s endorsed by the astute Dr. Baxter to media outlets hither and yon. The Albany Knickbocker News of June 8th has many of the same sentences and Bumpkinville observations in an unbylined story but gives a comparison:

POSITION: SHAKESPEARE – As upright as the cedar (The Winter’s Tale). ERNIE – Flat as a gander’s arch.
HEAT: SHAKESPEARE – As cold as any stone (King Henry V). ERNIE – Hotter’n a bucket of red ants.
SIMILARITY: SHAKESPEARE – As like as eggs (The Winter’s Tale. ERNIE – As like as hams on a Hampshire hog.
CHARM: SHAKESPEARE – A lion among ladies (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). ERNIE – He’s like a new rooster in the hen house.
INDECISION: SHAKESPEARE – I am a feather for each wind that blows (The Winter’s Tale). ERNIE – I’m like a puppy in a room full of rubber balls.

“This,” according to Baxter, “is truly brilliant in the imagery it evokes.”

In 1961, as Variety put it, “There's no longer an Ernie in Ford’s future.” The Ford show finished the season ranked 24th but Ernie wanted to spend more time on his ranch and cut his weekly TV load in half. The car company decided to sponsor Hazel instead the following season. Ernie worked out a deal closer to his home in the San Francisco Bay area, spending three days a week taping daytime shows that ran daily on ABC for several seasons and jetting down the coast for occasional guest shots. His recording career, especially in the gospel realm, continued as his fan base aged.

Alcohol caught up to Tennessee Ernie. It killed him on October 17, 1991. He mused on his popularity to the Associated Press in a 1990 interview, saying: “I met families at state fairs and they seemed comfortable around me and gave me a warm feeling. They’d say, ‘I feel like I know you.’ It was the greatest compliment you could get.”

Hot-Cha-Cha Cat

A starfish decides to stay stuck on Tom’s head in Surf-Board Cat (1967). And look! He turns into Jimmy Durante, complete with show-biz playoff music by Dean Elliott. The cat even says “Hot-cha-cha-cha-cha” like Durante used to do in the ‘30s.



Bob Ogle came up with this one along with some camera stares and crash gags that were done by Chuck Jones and Mike Maltese in the Roadrunner shorts at Warner Bros. Carl Bell and Hal Ambro animated this cartoon along with Phil Roman, Dick Thompson, Ben Washam and Don Towsley. Abe Levitow directed. Elliott tosses in some ersatz-groovin’, “It’s Happening Now ‘67”-type music that sounds like old people trying to be hip.

Bunny Kaye

Bugs Bunny pulls off a Danny Kaye-like scat routine in Hot Cross Bunny, a cartoon directed by Bob McKimson and written by Warren Foster (who had written a similar routine for Daffy Duck in Bob Clampett’s Book Revue).

Bugs thrusts himself at the camera for emphasis in a scene by Manny Gould.



See more about the animators on this cartoon at the Cartoon Research site.