Staircase Cycle

Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera didn’t come up with the idea of cycle animation for their TV cartoons. They used it much earlier. Here’s an example from the second Tom and Jerry cartoon, The Midnight Snack. There are 12 drawings (a half foot) of film to this cycle, which we’ve slowed down.



The character you see descending the staircase is voiced by Lillian Randolph. Contrary to what you may have read, there is no indication the character had a name in the MGM cartoons. Radio historian Chuck Schaden asked her about it in an interview in August 1976:

CS: Did you ever do any voice work for any of the animated cartoons on TV or in the movies?
LR: You know Tom and Jerry?
CS: Yes.
LR: Well, you know, remember the legs, the striped stockings and the big feet of the cook and that was all you could see? That’s my voice.
CS: That was you. The legs made the...
LR: The legs and big feet. (laughs) Oh, listen. The funniest thing. I saw that cartoon in Japan.
CS: You did?
LR: With a Japanese woman doing it. I laughed! I’m telling you, I was sitting in a theatre. It was real funny. And they still show it over there.

Randolph also revealed in the same interview she was “taught Negro dialect by a Caucasian” when she first appeared on a radio show called “Lulu and Leander” a number of years earlier.

Unfortunately, Randolph never received screen credit for this or any other MGM shorts. Roughly six weeks after this cartoon first appeared, Randolph would begin a long-running role as a maid on the radio show The Great Gildersleeve that lasted into the mid-‘50s.

39 Times 2

On radio, Jack Benny celebrated the same birthday over and over again. In print, Benny columnists celebrated, too. There always seems to have been a Jack Benny column around February 14th of each year.

Incidentally, Jack Benny did not spend all of his life at the age of 39. He didn’t turn 39 on the radio until 1948, some 16 years after he began broadcasting. But the programmes of the late ‘40s may have been the most popular, and certainly the aspects of his personality developed in those years stuck in people’s minds as if they had always been there.

Benny would be dead less than three years after this column appeared in papers on his birthday in 1972.

By the way, I thought the Bennys owned a home in Palm Springs. Perhaps they had one built but sold it by the time this story was published.

Happy 39, Jack Benny
By VERNON SCOTT
UPI Hollywood Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD (UPI) — Jack Benny’s done it!
He’s 39 years old again.
Today is his birthday. Valentine’s Day.
And the remarkable comedian has started on his second 39th birthday.
The accomplishment is noteworthy because Benny was stock at age 39 for most of his adult life. It was one of his trademarks. Now he is double that age and going as strong as ever at age 78.
Appears at Benefits
Benny is hale. His blue eyes — ever a favorite topic with him, and always good for a laugh — are clear and filled with mirth. Few men have devoted as long and tireless a lifetime to making people laugh as has Jack Benny. And few have done so much for symphony orchestras. He continues to appear at benefit concerts sawing away on his Stradivarius, an instrument he plays surprisingly well.
He also appears at benefits for organizations raising money to fight diseases, for worthy causes and for friends retiring from show biz.
Retirement is the farthest thing from Benny’s own plans.
He makes regular appearances at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, starring in his own nightclub show three times a year.
“I have to keep working in Vegas because I like to be paid once in a while," Benny quipped. His phony penury also has been a staple of his comedy routines on radio, television and clubs down through the years.
Plays Lots of Golf
Benny rents a home in Palm Springs and plays golf almost every day when he is in the desert. He occasionally sees Frank Sinatra there.
“Frank really seems to enjoy being retired," Benny said. “But I have no idea of fully retiring myself. I just couldn’t do that.
“Maybe I might limit my appearances to concerts. As long as I’m doing something. But these damned benefits keep me from retiring. I can’t say no to good causes. So I do about one a week all over the country."
Then in the inimitable Benny fashion, accompanied by a sly glance, he concluded, “most of my symphony benefits are for the musicians pension fund.
“I don't like to say it." said musician Benny with the snapper, “but that’s my favorite charity."

A Little Note of Thanks

There’s a link on the side to a blog authored by a young man named Kamden Spies. Every two or three days, he’ll post about things connected with animation that he enjoys ferreting out in old newspapers and other sources.

Kamden put up a Top 15 list of “Best Websites for Animation Lovers,” and he has picked this blog (and our companion blog) as number two. That’s very kind of him.

I certainly wouldn’t rank either blog that high. The Yowp blog, if you read it, has a very, very narrow focus. I happen to like the stock music in the original Hanna-Barbera cartoons and I set out to try to identify it. The blog has expanded from that and, to be honest, has just about run its course. This blog doesn’t even deal with animation all the time; you’ll notice posts about old radio and TV shows and stars from contemporary sources, pretty much of the comedy/variety vein. It started as a place to put up frame grabs (like the one from an Iwerks cartoon on the right). I haven’t done much here all year, to be honest. In January, I banked almost a full year of posts through to Christmas. My personal life isn’t allowing me the spare time to post.

Neither blog is terribly weighty. Other people are better at that kind of thing.

It’s a shame that a number of blogs I used to read have fallen by the wayside. David Gerstein always seems to have found information no one else could about some early cartoons. Andrea Ippoliti posted some fine reviews of old cartoon shorts that I occasionally go back and re-read. That’s just to name two blogs that are no longer active.

Kamden has named Jerry Beck’s Cartoon Research as the number one. I’m really not a list person, but I’d probably rank it there, too. I’m not interested in all the topics on it, but someone else will be, so there’s a nice eclectic mix. And I enjoy any posts involving actual, dig-around-and-find-it, cartoon research where I can learn something about a studio or someone who worked in the industry in the olden days.

This gives me a chance to thank all those people who take the time to post about the animation industry for all to read (for free!) and Kamden for his nice thought.

Oh, Magoo, You've Sold It Again

UPA went from a studio that was about expanding the art form of the animated cartoon into being all about the bucks.

You can thank new owners for that. Hank Saperstein was not an artist or an animator. He was a distributor of a TV bowling programme when he took control of the studio in 1960. His interest in UPA’s main asset, Mr. Magoo, was solely how much money he could suck out of it.

Here’s a story from the July 6, 1964 edition of Sponsor magazine. Magoo is treated as both a product and a seller of products. No love is expressed for animation or entertainment, other than how it can be used to make money. But it’s an interesting look at how one cartoon series was sold and then marketed.

Actually, here are three stories. Two sidebars accompanied the main article.

Still, just because management’s sole interest is counting beans doesn’t mean creative people are banished to the Old Animators Homes. Some solid people worked on the series, including Abe Levitow, Bob McKimson, Jacques Rupp and the staff at Grantray-Lawrence (the Ray Patterson-Grant Simmons studio). And Marvin Miller, Paul Frees and Howie Morris were hired to provide voices.

Inside Magoo — or, what makes a top tv sales personality click
Without seeing a pilot, NBC-TV signed for a new Magoo show for fall, sold half of it to Libby, McNeill & Libby. General Electric will renew its Magoo campaign
■ HE’S HARDLY a “typical tv star.” Elderly, dogmatic, somewhat crotchety, old-fashioned, forthright, a Rutgers “old grad,” and so myopic he often can't see the side of barn (and much less hit it), he’s the opposite of the clean-cut, clear-eyed male protagonist.
Yet Quincey Magoo — born as anonymous supporting player in a 1948 UPA theatrical cartoon called “Ragtime Bear”—is carrying a king-sized load of advertising dollars on his shoulders this fall.
• He’ll have his own half-hour weekly series, in color, on NBC-TV (Saturdays, 8-8:30 p.m.) starting September 19. Libby, McNeill and Libby, making a return to nighttime network tv programing (in which LML has been relatively inactive since it was a sponsor in the 1950's of the Sid Caesar-Imogene Coca series), will be the major sponsor, having signed for an alternate week position.
• He’ll also continue as the star merchandising symbol for the household lamp activities on tv of giant General Electric, which plans a network-and-spot tv campaign built around Magoo which will cost in excess of $1 million (see page 46).
The fact that there is a Magoo series at all on NBC-TV during the 1964-65 season proves the point that a successful entertainment property, particularly one involving a highly characterized personality, can bypass the usual drawn-out process whereby a pilot film or tape must be produced and shown to a network before the show will be bought. The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo was sold on a sight-unseen basis.

It happened soon after the start of 1964, when NBC-TV program executive Ed Friendly and UPA executive producer Henry G. Saperstein were having a meeting (actually, they were driving in a car and just talking) about future program plans. A UPA-produced special, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, had recently had its second annual exposure on NBC, and had drawn both ratings and critical acclaim.
Friendly wanted to know if Saperstein had another special up his sleeve. Saperstein didn't — at least, not exactly. He had been thinking about a possible Magoo series, in which the near-sighted, animated old gentleman would play pivotal roles in adaptations of literary classics.
Friendly liked the idea, and asked Saperstein if he could deliver a series on short notice. Saperstein replied that if NBC management would green-light the project before January 15th, he could do it.
Friendly carried the idea to a reality stage before the deadline, and the deal was on, even though no pilot was ever filmed.
Libby, McNeill and Libby, through J. Walter Thompson, bought the show on the basis of a “presentation film” which was a semi-pilot. In reality, it was a cut down version of Christmas Carol, edited to a half-hour show to demonstrate how Magoo would operate as a character in literary master piece.
Magoo’s own strong image—he’s probably as defined in the public's mind as most “personality” actors are ever likely to be—can do an image-building job for others, or so tv executives associated with Magoo projects believe.
“Our company has been considerably revitalized recently, and has image-building to do as well as to sell food products,” Sponsor was told by Walter Kaiser, assistant ad manager of Libby, McNeill and Libby. “We have an aggressive new president (Ed. Note: Robert L. Gibson, Jr.) who is determined to shake us out of any doldrums. He’s solidly behind our stepped-up campaign. We plan to spot-light a number of our key food products - such as tomato juice, fruit cocktail and corned beef hash — on the Magoo tv series, and backstop it with spot tv in a dozen markets where we feel we need the push.”
In the big Chicago food packing firm bothered by the possibility of “waste circulation” in the Magoo tv audience, since youngsters are known to be fond of the near-sighted cartoon character and are a sizable component of audiences for the 8 p.m. slot in which Magoo is scheduled?
Not at all.
“Our commercials, which we plan to film in color, will be aimed at women as the principal buyers of our products,” said LML ad-man Kaiser. “We’re aware that kids have a lot of control of tv sets at time periods such as the one we’ll occupy. However, we feel that lots of adults — particularly mothers — will be watching on an ‘over-the-shoulder’ basis with the kids and that we’ll reach the audience we want.”
Henry G. Saperstein, executive producer of the new network Magoo series, put his views on the show's audience-attracting capabilities to Sponsor in these informal-but-pointed words:
“We're going to do the big job on Saturday nights in our time period. We'll get the young adults of 20 to 35, and their kids of five to 12. On ABC-TV Outer Limits will be reaching the teenagers, and on CBS-TV Jackie Gleason will be reaching the nostalgia clique. We'll have the audience that really counts for our sponsors.”
Saperstein's optimism is based in fact, as far as he's concerned — the fact of Magoo’s dollars-and-cents success is an entertainment personality. He is no stranger to tv audiences, even apart from five seasons of General Electric “Magoo” commercials. For the past four years, UPA has syndicated its own series of five-minute Magoo cartoons, made specifically for tv. Latest market count: 139 U.S. markets, plus 14 foreign countries.

Magoo is an established success in theatrical motion pictures. More than 50 color cartoons have produced and distributed, several of which have won awards up through the Oscar level. There has been a successful Magoo feature-length cartoon. Also, Magoo's services have been available for public service films.
Although Magoo animated films don't have any budget problems for sets and other inanimate production values ("If we need a prop, we just draw one," says Saperstein), they're far from inexpensive. A small army of artists, animators and other production staffers — some 250 in all — are required to produce the new tv series. Costs are "comparable," according to Saperstein, between the half-hour Magoos and star-name situation comedies, i.e. about $60,000 per episode.
Breaking even on such a big nut is not easy, Saperstein admits. “Syndication is an absolute must on this series,” he told Sponsor. “Our first network run is expected to be a no-profit situation on the new series, but we're confident that the profit will be there in the long haul through syndication, and through foreign sales. We have already sold the new series in Japan, England and Australia, and have orders pending for Latin America and Germany.”
UPA has a built-in source of revenue in the Magoo series: tv commercials. “So far, the sponsors for the new series aren't merely in favor of using Magoo in commercials — they insist on it as part of the deal. He'll be available to Libby, McNeill & Libby and to all other ‘substantial’ purchasers of the show for commercials and for other promotional tie-ins.”
Saperstein, incidentally, is the one who makes the decision on whether a sponsor is spending enough to warrant being granted the use of Magoo as a direct sales weapon. There's no firm yardstick as to what is, or isn't, a substantial purchaser of the show, but Saperstein says “it won't be a short-term advertiser buying something like alternate-week minutes.”
Sponsors have a tendency to stick close to Magoo in tv. Timex for instance, sponsored the 1962 and 1963 showings on NBC-TV of Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol via Warwick & Legler. Timex will again sponsor a 1964 exposure (on December 11, 7:30-8:30 p.m.) as part of a five-year deal the watch company has for the special. Not generally known is the fact that General Electric and Libby, McNeill & Libby both made offers to Timex to buy part of the Christmas season show. GE, in fact, is understood to have offered to pay up to three-fourths of the costs for half the show, but Timex declined with thanks, preferring to maintain its full sponsorship identification.
UPA feels, despite this clear-and-present evidence of a bullish market in Magoo, that the little near-sighted cartoon character is a long range investment and should be treated with care.
“We don't want to milk Magoo for a fast buck,” says Saperstein. “We’re in no hurry to arrange ‘character merchandising’ deals all over the place, even though ancillary benefits are important to tv producers. There’ll be some books, records, a few toys, some clothing items this fall, but there’ll be no flood of Magoo merchandise around during the Christmas season. We think his value as a performer, and as a sales personality, is greater if we keep careful control over his exposure.” ■

Near-sighted Magoo was far-sighted GE tv buy
■ Not only is Quincey Magoo far from the pattern of tv's hero types, he's hardly what you'd expect optometrically as a top salesman for a product like General Electric light bulbs. But, in a manner befitting Gilbert & Sullivan's "ingenious paradox," Magoo — who is classically nearsighted — manages to sell the concept of better sight through better light so well that GE is a prime Magoo booster.
“We've had excellent consumer and dealer response to our Magoo television commercials, ads and promotions,” Norman Townsend, supervisor of GE's residential lamp advertising, told Sponsor. “We’ve had a phenomenal use of point-of-purchase Magoo material, especially in food stores, in fact, the pickup by dealers has been over 90 percent.”

This fall, General Electric will roll into its fifth season of Magoo commercials. There'll be a total, according to Townsend, of 10,000 Magoo-GE tv spots in 200 markets, plus participations in NBC-TV’s Tonight and a quartet of daytime television shows. (The only reason GE didn't buy into the new Magoo nighttime series, according to both GE and UPA, is that GE’s budgets were fully committed before the show deal was made.)
Budgeting for the Magoo tv promotions (including the follow-through at point-of-purchase) occupies "considerably more than half" of the total advertising dollars GE spends for its light bulbs.
The successful commercial blend of Magoo and GE came about largely by accident. It happened five years ago when BBDO’s Arthur Bellaire was casting around for some kind of theme to tie all the GE bulb promotions in one package.
“There were lots of sales features in the bulb line, but we needed an interest element, a character to relate everything,” Bellaire recalls. “I felt that Mr. Magoo would be ideal for this purpose. I’m glad to say our client thought so, too.”
The only initial problem BBDO and GE had when the Magoo campaign was first proposed was whether or not Magoo's nearsightedness would be improved by the use of GE bulbs. One faction felt it should be; others didn't.
Final upshot, which has the basic “gimmick” in GE commercials to the present: Magoo achieves quite obviously everything he wants in the way of improved lighting with GE bulbs — only it doesn't work for him.
It works, however, for GE.
The new fall campaign for Magoo will revolve around a presidential election tie-in. Magoo will function as campaign manager to "Betty Bright," a pert woman presidential candidate. In typical Magoo fashion, he never lets the poor girl get a word in edgewise — although the GE sales message comes through loud and clear. Four years ago, during the last presidential election, there was also a spoof campaign of “Magoo For President.” Nobody took it very seriously—until the results came in. It turned out some 40,000 had been cast for the little cartoon character. ■



The man who makes like Magoo

"There's no problem in playing it straight when it comes to adapting literary classics for our new Magoo series," executive producer Henry G. Saperstein told Sponsor last week. "We just give Backus a straight line, and when he reads it, it usually comes out funny. Around the studio we say that he 'Magoo's' it."
The man who "Magoo's" the most straight-forward English prose at the drop of a director's signal is an accomplished actor in his own right. He is Jim Backus, a Clevelander who has been in the theater since the age of 14 when he had a bit part in a "White Cargo" production that starred the late Clark Gable.
He has been in countless radio shows, including a two-year stint as star of his own comedy program. He has made nearly 100 pictures. He has been the voice of "Magoo" from the start.
This fall, he'll again voice Magoo.
He'll also be seen on CBS-TV in another new show, Gilligan's Island, thus becoming the first tv actor to be launched in two new series at that same time in the same season.

Moospies

Spies can be anywhere, as America’s military members were told in the Snafu cartoon Spies (1943). Even the moose heads hanging above a bar are working for Adolf. These are consecutive frames. Look at what their antlers form.



Are these more of Bobe Cannon’s stretch in-betweens? This cartoon was made at Warners by the Chuck Jones unit.

He's Crazy

“You’ll like this guy,” the deadpan prison warden says to his happy suburban housewife. “He’s crazy.” And the prisoner hiding in their TV set demonstrates the warden is right.



So ends the final scene of the final cartoon directed by Tex Avery at MGM. Cellbound was co-directed by Mike Lah, who animated it along with the Hanna-Barbera unit. Avery and his unit had been let go by the studio two years before its release in 1955.

Philosophical Fred

Fred Allen was universally respected as a witty humourist when he passed away in 1956, though his wit had been pretty much reduced to the occasional ad-lib on a TV panel show. It was a far cry from being the star of a long-running variety show where he skewered insipid husband/wife radio morning shows and dropped topical observations in the mouths of denizens of an alley.

For someone known for being able to say something clever off the top of his head, Allen spent an inordinate amount of time writing, rewriting and again rewriting his weekly show to the point of burn-out and deterioration of his health. Whatever he did worked. Allen was a success on radio from his debut in 1932, despite ad agencies and network executives trying to tell him what to put on the air.

Here’s a feature story from the May 1934 edition of Radio Mirror. Allen had been on the air for roughly a year and a half at that point. He debuted on the Columbia network on Sunday, Oct. 23, 1932 at 9 p.m., replacing “Dramatic Laboratory.” Incidentally, for several months, Jack Benny followed him on CBS at 10 p.m., but this was long before the Benny-Allen feud. The photos you see in this post accompanied the story. In hindsight, it’s odd to see the one cast member singled out to be in a photo is Irwin Delmore, especially with Minerva Pious and Jack Smart part of the cast. Delmore left the show to go into law and eventually became a judge before the ‘30s were done.

IT PAYS FRED ALLEN TO BE FUNNY
by R. H. ROWAN
IF you could happen along one of the streets of New York right now and should encounter a tall, serious-faced fellow, with bland blue eyes, a set mouth and a serious demeanor you might at first think him a country product in from the sticks to find out for himself if the blades of grass do sprout up along Madison avenue in the springtime to give you that certain April nostalgia.
That is, at first you might think him a homemade product from the rural spaces. But then if you got a good look at him, caught that crinkly twitch of flesh below his eyes, a sudden upward twist of lips as though he were having a laugh all by himself, you'd know you were facing a philosophical man. And if you'd happen to see a photograph of Fred Allen you'd realize after a hesitation that you were gazing at the famous comedian who came to the airwaves last year to repeat the sensational success he had on the stage.
Fred Allen, the trouper and Fred Allen, the private citizen are the same. There is so little of the actor and so seldom the attitude of posing about this fun-maker that it is difficult to differentiate between his leisure hours and his microphone moments.
The first thing that strikes you about him is his understanding kindliness. Or perhaps that should come second for he is fundamentally the humorist who brings out the fun in an amusing situation rather than the brief laugh in a smart gag. He has unjustly been accused of being a sophisticated type of comedian and, rightfully, he resents that. The fact that he doesn't descend to lowbrow cracks, to obvious jokes; that he is an astute student of human nature, born to brighten life for people of more sombre mien and that there is a keen philosophy in all his funny business has caused an erroneous impression to get round about his work.
He gets his material from an analytical appreciation of the ordinary happenings but admits quite frankly he is an ardent reader of his own extensive — and expensive — library of old joke books.

Recent polls, localized and national, have proven the popularity of the Fred Allen broadcasts. The air comedian and his material are familiar to millions. He writes all his own stuff and every week turns out a skit that might be the bright spot in any Broadway hit. A famous producer, listening in to one of Fred's programs recently said, "It's a tragedy that this sparkling dialogue should go on the air for fifteen minutes and then go right into the ash-can when it might be repeated for months in a theatrical show."
In spite of his repetitious weekly successes, Allen approaches each new script with fear and doubt. Even after his broadcast he is uncertain of its reception and will humbly turn to a bystander with the anxious remark, "Do you think it was any good?" That isn't an act, either. He means it. Sometimes he's amazed when a chance comment of his, a typical Allen retort, will bring loud laughter in an informal conversation.
Not that it is such an effort for Allen to be funny. Humor flows with his most casual speeches, spontaneous and sparkling — not in a glib conceited fashion, but as a natural, un-premeditated utterance of the unique turn his thoughts are always taking. That doesn't mean his broadcasts are extemporaneous because, most of the time, he is so unaware of how funny he is that he works as hard over his material as the comedian whose humor is his job and not his own personality. He will struggle along for a week over a program and then tear it up because he thinks it's dull — start over again and in a few hours turn out a script he thinks will be all right.
Allen was born to work and started in at it the earliest age when he could earn his livelihood. But he never knew until audiences started laughing at his lines how interesting and pleasant a job could be — and how lucrative as well. He's a product of New England and he was baptized John F. Sullivan thirty some years ago. He has a reticence about having his age known so we'll just say he's in his early thirties and you can form your own opinion as to whether we're giving him the break of a couple of years. The day he first opened his eyes, the ground hog went right back into his hole and it was cold Massachusetts winter for the young Sullivan many years until at last he hit Broadway and the Main Stem paid tribute to his talents.
He tried out many jobs while he was still mastering the elementary branches of an education and though his schooling has been limited he is an avid reader and has that mellow, rich learning which comes from varied and wide experience with all sorts of people and experiences.

As a small boy he worked in the public library in Boston and had a penchant for planning his future career from whatever book he happened to pick up. If it was a volume of travel he was going to far places, if it was a thesis on bridge building then that's what he wanted to do — for the moment. It was natural therefore when one day he came upon a book which minutely described the art of juggling he should immediately consider himself an embryonic juggler and so seriously did he dwell on this outlook that eventually he became a very bad throw-and-catch-'em artist in small time vaudeville. His manipulations of thevarious instruments were so inexpert and so coldly received that he interpolated funny lines to cover his fumblings, gradually developing into a comedian, and leaving the shiny balls to those who could catch them better.
He served in the A. E. F. during the World War and after the armistice returned to New York to hunt a job and marry Portland Hoffa, his present wife and professional stooge, and to struggle along for years until a chance in a big Broadway production brought his clever routines to the attention of those who make stars out of road-show strugglers. What Fred Allen did in the way of keeping the first "Little Show" audiences laughing is still theater history. And what Fred Allen did, in that era, by way of making brilliant successes out of after-theater parties and social soirees is still talked about, too. He was the stellar guest of all those gatherings that included Noel Coward, the Alfred Lunts and other lights.
He had a grand time himself, too, until he realized that staying up late at night and getting up early the next morning made him more amusing socially than he might be professionally. Then, as is typical of Fred Allen, he immediately did an about-face. He gave up the parties because his work was so much more important and now-adays if you hear of the Fred Allens being among those present at any of the big social events you may rest assured Fred's there because of an old friendship or because he's so inherently kind he couldn't find a "no."
The Allens' existence, away from the radio, is an uneventful one if judged by the activities of most other microphone celebrities. Fortunately for Fred, Portland likes the quiet ways. Though, I suppose, she's so much in love with her husband, even if she weren't the quiet, retiring sort of person she is, whatever Fred said would be right.

Allen lives by a routine of physical exercises and careful adherence to a sane diet so that he is in better condition this year than he has been for many theatrical seasons. He has all sorts of gymnastic equipment in his own home and if you see a picture of Fred in his living room, slouched in a comfortable chair with a glass in his hand, you may be sure it contains milk. He walks miles every day and visits a New York gym several times a week. He keeps regular hours, works all day and as a result not only writes his own material, scribbles off syndicated letters and humorous articles for any number of publications but concocts the stuff for other comedians whose names are as well known as his. Many a quip that has brought a coast-to-coast laugh has originated in the fertile mind of Fred Allen and we don't mean it finally reached the public by the pilfering route either, because a part of Allen's income is derived from contracts to provide the continuities for other stars. During months between theater engagements he once served as a production man in Paramount's Long Island studio where he brightened the dialogue of many a dull scenario. And if any of you vaudeville fans of other years recall a funny fellow named Fred James who long ago made you laugh, that was Fred Allen, too. Only he changed his name to Allen after he'd changed John Sullivan to Fred James.
HE'S an old married man now, judging by Broadway matrimonial seasons but he's still so crazy about Portland Hoffa he'd rather you complimented her than his own humor. His generous spirit extends to other members of his radio cast, too. He doesn't hog the catch lines. He'll often give the funniest speeches to somebody less important than he when he writes the script because to him it's the act that comes first — not Fred Allen. That, any executive or actor will tell you, is the height of professional generosity.

Bugs Gets the Idea

Yosemite Sam tells Bugs Bunny, in a pot, where he’s going to get the rabbit for rabbit stew. “We’ve already got the rabbit. Get the idea?” Sam replies before guffawing.

Bugs repeats the line and guffaws before a take.



Bugs doesn’t do a lot in Rabbitson Crusoe, released in 1956. The cartoon is mainly Sam versus a funny shark. About this time, Warren Foster’s stories contained gags about Sam vs. a camel, or Sam vs. a dragon, but a lot of the time, it was Sam vs. himself (he lost). Bugs doesn’t even show up until 2 ½ minutes into this cartoon.

Papa Penguin Kaput

A penguin paces in Frozen Frolics, a 1930 Van Beuren cartoon.



A stork emerges from the chimney. You know what a stork means. The penguin hears a noise and a stream of identical baby penguins emerge from the igloo.



They do a little dance together until papa penguin releases more and more children are coming out of the igloo. That’s the end of him. The Van Beuren artist draws stars forming from lines coming out of his body.



Gene Rodemich supplies the score. The cartoon is directed by John Foster and Harry Bailey. (Sorry for the fuzzy frame grabs, that’s the way the cartoon looks on the DVD).

Swingin' Sammy and His Bopping Boombase

The way it was told on the Jack Benny show, the members of Phil Harris’ band were petty thieves and cons. They weren’t, of course, but one of them sounded like he could have been.

Drummer Sammy Weiss was born on New York’s Lower East Side, and he had a flat voice like a mugg who was doing the strong-arming for the “boss” before a heist.

Sammy was referred to on the show for a number of years, but finally got to go in front of the microphone in the last season, 1954-55. For years, Phil Harris fronted the band on the show, then Bob Crosby took over in 1952. But in reality arranger Mahlon Merrick did the bulk of the work; Harris and Crosby had become characters. Benny didn’t really need Crosby. So in the final season, Crosby simply didn’t appear very much and the “musician” gag spot on the show was taken up by Merrick, pianist Charlie Bagby or Sammy the drummer. Sammy didn’t sound like a professional actor, which made him even funnier. It sounded like he’s right off the Benny bandstand, which he was.

His family was poor. After success had come to him, he met Eddie Cantor at a Radio Hall of Fame event and thanked him for something 25 years earlier. Cantor had taken him out of the tenements and gave him a free two-week vacation at the Surprise Camp for Boys in the mountains. Cantor said he could repay it with a donation to help other poor boys. Sammy readily coughed up $25.

I don’t know when Sammy joined the Harris aggregation but he had worked with some of the top bandleaders—Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman among them. He was a member of the Johnny Guarnieri Trio in the ‘40s. He cut Jewish novelty records with Mickey Katz. He made the front page of the April 15, 1939 edition of Billboard when he was drumming with Merle Pitt’s studio band at WNEW. The story had nothing to do with music. It talked about Sammy becoming the father of twins. His wife phoned him with the news an hour after the birth. Sammy asked where she was. “I’m in Whelan’s drug store having a Coca-Cola!!!” she responded. It must have been an easy birth. (In May 1951, the birth of a daughter to Sammy became part of the script of the Benny show).

Here are a couple of stories about Sammy. The first is from the Hollywood column of the Universal Radio and TV Features Syndicate dated February 2, 1953.

TV-RADIOLOGIC
Weiss Is Unusual Ad Libber-He Does It on the Drums
By TOM E. DANSON
HOLLYWOOD — One of the quickest men in Hollywood with an ad lib is Sammy Weiss. But Sammy is an ad libber with a difference— he does it on drums! Sammy plays with orchestras too—with Bob Crosby and the Jack Benny program, and with Irving Miller on the Bob Hawk show—and he's one of the best in the business. But it’s the unrehearsed stuff he does that captures and fractures the audiences, and has led to Benny considering him more a member of the cast than of the orchestra. For example, when Benny walks across the stage, Sammy may play footsteps in time to Benny’s pace. Or, as the comedian approaches the microphone, Sammy may give a drum roll like they do in circuses when the guy is about to dive 80 feet into a pail of water. Or he may express his critical opinion of a flat joke by drumming out a noise that sounds like a Bronx cheer.
MANY SUCH SOUNDS
He has a hundred or more such sounds that he can throw into a show, and the regular soundmen are considering picketing any day now on the grounds that he’s taking over their racket.
But the point is, the star of the show never knows when to expect Sammy to cut in, and frequently is caught with his lines down. When you can do that to Benny or Hawk, you're good!
It’s real disconcerting, some times.
However, the audiences love it, and what audiences love must be put up with.
Sammy, the drummer, as he’s called from coast-to-coast, wasn't always that way, but almost. He started drumming when he was 12, with sticks made from rungs of an old chair, just as Spike Jones did.
GIANT OF MAN
Physically, Sammy is as impressive as he is musically. He’s a giant of a man, 6-feet, 4-inches tall, with huge shoulders, hands and arms.
Everybody in Hollywood knows him, and even trying to walk, from one studio to another with him is often painfully slow, for everyone he passes, stops to talk. Right now he's busily writing a book about himself, tentatively titled, “What Makes Sammy Drum.” I say the title is tentative, because he’s also considering naming it “I’ll Take the Drumstick.”

And this is from the King Features’ TV Key column of July 19, 1962.

TV Keynotes
Drummer Has Fun With Boom
By CHARLES WITBECK
HOLLYWOOD--Ever hear of a boombase? It’s not a dance, a disease or a kid’s candy, but an ancient musical instrument that is currently delighting movieland celebrities at parties when played by happy Sammy Weiss, Jack Benny’s drummer for 17 years.
The instrument, which looks like it was made in a dirty cellar, consists of a broomstick on a spring saddled with a tambourine, a cowbell, and one wooden block tapped by two cymbals. A drumstick is needed to whack out the heat on the various knobs and that’s it. Weiss estimates average boombase technique can be picked up in five minutes, so there’s hope for everybody.
The boombase had been in oblivion until Sammy saw one in a music store window. He took the noble instrument home, made a copy of it and returned the original. Now Sammy’s main occupation in Hollywood, when not playing in the Benny band, is leading small combos at private parties. He works about a hundred a year entertaining stars and society folk. Sammy shows up with his boombase, and wanders from table to table, beating out “Never on Sunday” to delighted fans.
Hit With Listeners

The Shah of Iran heard him recently and immediately wanted one. Tammy Grimes thought the boombase noises so lovely she wants Sammy to do boom base background music for her next album. Red Skelton fell for the instrument and intends to use it on his hour show next fall. Actor Cliff Robertson thinks the boombase fad will soon replace the Twist.
The first sounds of the boombase—bonk, clink, clank, boom, boom are not irresistible, but when played by Sammy, something happens. He can even play it on the street and not send dogs off howling. In his day, Sammy has drummed for Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Dizzy Gillespie to name a few, cutting records with most of them, so he can get music out of a tree trunk and he makes the boombase really swing.
“You know what?” says Sammy. “I'm swinging better now than I did 25 years ago.”
But the main thing is Sammy’s personality. A big man, with a red, shining face usually wearing a grin, Sammy just makes people feel better as he bounces around whacking his boombase. After watching Sammy perform on “Truth or Consequences,” a midwestern company which happens to make boombases to practically no market at all, signed Sammy up to sell the thing. From now on it’s going to be known as “Sammy’s Boombase.”
Sammy has just been playing the gadget for fun, but, judging from the way it’s going, this boombase fad may get out of hand and turn into a big deal.
“I’m just happy playing drums in our little bands,” says Sammy. “I’ve been through the best band years, I’ve brought up three kids and I've stayed straight. Now look what’s happening. I feel I’ve got it made. I have a few good years left and I’m going to ride the boombase out.”
Last year Lawrence Welk’s band played for the Hollywood TV Emmy party. Because of the boombase craze Sammy got the nod this year. Bookings are increasing. He already has three parties booked one summer night soon.
“This presents a problem,” says Sammy. “People might think I’m getting bigger and thus too expensive, and maybe they’ll get some other hand instead. I don’t want that to happen.”
As a drummer Sammy wangles a few commercials, but there’s not a massive call for the sound. Since he fiddles with sticks, it’s assumed he can shake anything correctly, and on one commercial Sammy was called in to rattle money.
“I get a whole bag of quarters, halves and dimes and then I shake this dough,” he says. “I tell you, things are lookin’ up. “Drummers are coming back and so are big bands. You know why? The Twist. People who have never danced are out there wiggling. It’s good exercise. “Take the Shah of Iran and his Queen. She does a beautiful twist I tell you the Twist has changed everything. Maybe the boombase will be next, hey!”

Sammy led his own band and appeared at the Racquet Club in Palm Springs, the setting for a number of Benny radio shows over the years. A sadder connection with Benny is this—the two of them died of pancreatic cancer. In Sammy’s case, it was on December 17, 1977. He was 67.