Sunday, 22 January 2023

Larry Adler on Jack Benny

Jack Benny had his radio gang—Mary, Phil, Dennis, Rochester—but he had another gang, too.

During the war, Jack entertained troops in various spots around the world, but his radio cast didn’t come with him. He had singers and others, but one person stood out—harmonica player Larry Adler.

Adler did several tours with Jack, so Benny must have liked him. Adler seemed to have liked Jack; he wanted to tour in Korea with him in the ‘50s but was rejected by the U.S. government as Adler had fallen under the Blacklist and moved to England.

Not surprisingly, Adler wrote about Jack in several places his autobiography “It Ain’t Necessarily So” (1985, published in London by Fontana). One story has been repeated in other publications, but Adler was a witness.
In general Jack Benny was mild-mannered, anything for peace and quiet. I saw him angry just once, after we had done an open-air show in Benghazi. Halfway through, a sand storm started, blowing directly into our faces and completely ruining one of my few good mouth-organs. (They were made in Germany and, once the war began, the supply of mouth-organs stopped.) After the show we had coffee and doughnuts in a Red Cross canteen. After such an unpleasant experience, coffee and doughnuts lacked something. A lieutenant came over and, without invitation, sat at our table. When he opened his mouth his heavy Southern accent made Stepin Fetchit sound like Abe Lincoln.
‘Hiya, Jack’, he said, pronouncing it ‘jay-yuck’.
‘Hi’, said Jack, wearily.
‘Hey, Jay-yuck, how come y all didn’t bring Rochestah?’ (The black man who was Jack’s butler on his radio show.)
Jack said that Rochester had commitments at home.
‘Thay-yuts a goddam shame, pahdon mah French’, he ‘said. ‘Y’know, back home in Tallahassee, m’wife and me, ‘we listen in evah Sunday night, wouldn’t miss it foh the world. But s**t, man, that Rochestah, whah, he’s ninety percent of yoah show.’
‘Sure do! Not to say y’all ain’t veh funny, Miz Benny, but s** man, m’wife and me, we just crazy ‘bout that Rochestah.’
‘Okay’, said Jack, ‘now let’s suppose we had brought him. He'd be sitting at this table with us. How would you like that?’
‘Now just you hold on one minute’, said the lieutenant. ‘Ah’m from the South!’
‘That’, said Jack, ‘is why I didn’t bring Rochester.’
One story shows that the line about Jack needing his writers to respond is a canard. Adler was hired for Sensations of 1944, got into high dudgeon and walked off the picture.
That summer, at Guadalcanal, I saw Sensations scheduled for an afternoon showing for the troops. Jack Benny came with me to see what the film world had lost by my obstinacy. There was a circus scene that featured Pallenberg’s Bears. At one point a bear kept riding a motorcycle around a ring.
‘Look at that,’ I said to Jack, ‘that poor bear’s in a rut.’
‘It’s worse than you think’, said Jack. ‘That animal, through no fault of his, is now type-cast. In every picture, he’ll have to be a bear.’
Here are three stories Adler tells in succession. The first one is prefaced with a long story involving two typical Jack Benny traits: he fell down laughing at other people’s jokes, and he thought everything was the best. There are all kinds of tales about “this is the best coffee I ever had” or “these are the softest sheets I ever had.” Adler made a quip that Jack decided made him the funniest man in the world. Adler wasn’t crazy about it, but George Burns seized on the lame line and Jack’s reaction, and added that to his talk-show repertoire. The story concludes with Jack trying to help Adler, again something he did for friends.
The second story is typical off-mike Mary.
The third story is a downside of Jack’s many, many attempts to reach friends and families of servicemen overseas to reassure them they’re okay. Adler knows his readers can read between the lines.
When we returned from the African trip in 1943 Jack Benny told John Royal, a vice-president of NBC, that I should write and star in my own comedy programme. Because it was Jack who said it, Royal had to take it seriously. He phoned me, I met him at his office in Radio City, and when he told me what he proposed, in line with Jack’s suggestion, I panicked.
‘My God’, I said, ‘I can’t do that! It’s one thing to write a programme around Jack. Hell, anybody could do it, with all his stereotypes, the stinginess, the bear, Rochester, and stuff. But I couldn’t write for me — I haven't any personality.’
John Royal didn’t press the idea. I may well have been an idiot but I do not think I could have done it.
In Omdurman, during the African trip, Jack and I visited the best PX (Post Exchange) I’ve ever come across. Julie Horowitz, an Army captain, who was in charge of it, had ivory, African wood-carvings, Egyptian sandals, all sorts of things such as I’ve never seen in any other PX. We bought things for our wives and Julie arranged to have them shipped back.
At the Stork Club in New York, several months later, Mary Benny asked Eileen, ‘Tell me, honey, did Larry send you back the same lot of s**t that Jack sent me?’
Jack had promised Horowitz he’d phone his fiancée who worked at Macy’s in New York. I was with Jack when he phoned her.
‘Miss Cohen? This is Jack Benny.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said.
‘I’ve just returned from the Middle East. I ran into your fiancé, Julie, in Omdurman.’
‘Oh, did you?’ said Miss Cohen. She was making it tough going.
‘Julie’s looking fine’, said Jack, ‘and he sends you his love.’
‘That’s nice’, said Miss Cohen. ‘Was there anything else?’
“Well – uh – no, I don’t think so.’
‘Thank you’, said Miss Cohen. ‘Nice of you to call. Goodbye.’
Jack just looked at me after he hung up.
Naturally, Adler spends a fair portion of the book dealing with the ridiculous and odious blacklist. He decided to sue a woman who wrote a letter to her local paper that he was pro-Communist and his pay from a local event would go to Moscow to be used to destroy America.
The blacklist intimidated just about everyone (except people making money from it). Including Jack Benny when it came to Adler’s court case.
But Jack Benny called me to his house to tell me that he had been advised by his business manager — who was also his brother-in-law — that he must not appear. He was commercially sponsored and could lose that, were he seen to be lending support to a leftie - a pinko - a Red, or whatever. Jack seemed distressed as he said this; I think he would rather not have said it and, on his own, | don’t think he would have said it. But I had never intended to call Jack, I knew how vulnerable he was. Sponsors don’t like knocking letters and just a few can cause a performer to be taken off the air. I doubt whether that would have happened to Jack Benny, but I wouldn’t put him on the spot.
Adler lost the case.

There is another reference to Jack, though it mainly involves his wife Mary Livingstone. There are fans of the Benny show who "know" her solely based on her radio performances. They think she’s wonderful and angrily dismiss any untoward comments about her life off-the-air. Mary was not popular among some people who actually knew her personally. Adler was one.
I took Ingrid [Bergman] to a party at Jack Benny’s. She came to me in a panic. L. B. Mayer kept trying to paw her and she couldn’t stand it. She wanted to leave but Jack’s wife, Mary, made such a scene about it that we stayed.
Jack Benny had the idea of ‘love me, love my friends’, and often tried to bring me together with his group, really Mary’s, who were mainly right-wing. After a preview in Jack’s projection room, showing Double Indemnity, I started to congratulate Barbara Stanwyck (for British readers that is Stan-Wick, not Stannick). She cut me short. ‘Jack’s told me about you and your liberal bulls**t; I hope we're not going to have to listen to that crap all evening.’ . . .
Jack, Mary, Eileen and I went to a Jerome Kern concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Eileen drove in Jack’s car, Mary with me. Mary asked: ‘Tell me, Larry, when you were with Jack on these tours, did he cheat?’ I was appalled. ‘Oh, come on, it’s just between us. I’d never say a word to Jack.’ I said the question was revolting, she should never have asked it and, were she not Jack’s wife, I'd have asked her to get out of the car. Relations were distant after that. Some time before, she was in her car with the top down; I in mine, also with the top down. At a traffic stop, our cars side by side, she bellowed an intimate question about Ingrid to me. A lot of people must have heard her and I’m certain she did it deliberately. Not a nice lady.
Perhaps the most interesting revelation about Jack’s character goes back to one of the war-time excursions. An emergency signal came from a military base in Africa for the Benny plane to land. The plane was too big for the airstrip and there was a crash landing. Everyone was okay. Then the signallers revealed that there was no emergency; they knew Benny was on the plane and they wanted to see his show. Adler was outraged because everyone on the plane could have been killed. He refused to perform. But Jack did. Adler pointed out that Jack was always good-natured.

It simply confirms what his fans have thought all along.

Saturday, 21 January 2023

The Teenager Who Would Be Disney

In 1960, he had a cartoon studio on Cahuenga Boulevard and invented a caveman named Fred.

Bill Hanna? Joe Barbera? Dan Gordon or Harvey Eisenberg, maybe?

No. The cartoonist in question is Earle Nimmer Lemke, Jr.

Earle was a teenager who wanted to be the next Walt Disney, though he kind of started out like Hanna-Barbera. He was profiled in the Van Nuys News, August 12, 1960. When we originally posted this article on GAC, a picture accompanied it. Unfortunately, it’s not available now.

Animated Cartoon Field Beckons to Local Teen
Cartoonist and Sherman Oaks resident Earl Lemke 19, is not only a very talented and creative young man, but a most determined one who so far appears to be leaving no stone unturned in carving his own career—that of producing animated film cartoons.
Earl will graduate from Montclair College Preparatory School in January.
Set for SC
After this he plans to attend University of Southern California to major in cinematography, with supplementary courses at an art school and a stint of practical experience at a major film cartoon studio.
However, even though his higher education is well in view, he already has launched upon the career which he forsees as “in full operation, financially successful” by the time he emerges with his college degree.
Up to this time “entirely self-educated” in his chosen field, Earl says he avidly started, at the age of 13, to read everything and anything on the subject of motion picture making and, more specifically, cartoon filming.
He lives with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Earl Lemke, at 15925 West Meadowcrest Road, Sherman Oaks.
Up to four months ago the home had more or less become converted to a production studio, his acquired and handmade equipment having taken over Earl’s bedroom, the garage and most of the rest of the house.
Then he decided to open his own production studio, “Earl Lemke Productions,” at 3491 Cahuenga Blvd [photo at right].
Own Studio
Here Earl has underway, a single man operation, a cartoon film, producing studio where the visitor will note everything from neat rows of filing cabinets to rows of “rough” drawings lining one wall, and from drawings traced and painted on cellulose [sic] (called “cells”) [sic] to a monster-looking “animation stand.”
Getting ready for business, Earl Lemke Productions has already produced one pilot film to show what can be done and with the aim of getting orders for one-minute television film commercials and eventually, full-length cartoons.
He recently completed his first educational film cartoon—a three-minute feature illustrating the principles involved in good public speaking and featuring pre-historic characters named “Fred,” “George” and “The Chief”— with Max the Dinosaur thrown in for good measure.
Script and planning were done with Mrs. Joann Simpson of Montclair where the film will be used in the fall for an illustration of “do’s and don’t” in public speaking, making Montclair the studio’s first bonafide “customer.”
Earl already has had two of his character creations copywrited — “Geemo the Lion” and “Zeek.”
Gemo took some three months to perfect to Earl’s satisfaction. Zeek, devised simply to accompany Geemo, was created in one day. Earl credits his English teacher, Joan Kirkby, with getting him started on animating his cartoon subjects.
Does Project
She suggested that for a classroom project he draw an English squire for the “Canterbury Tales”—with the result that he did enough drawings of the Squire to make a “flip book.”
Earl’s idol is Walt Disney, whom he has never met but whose biography he has read from cover to cover and whom he hopes to meet sometime at what he anticipates as “the greatest thrill in store for me.”


Drawings of GeeMo the Lion and Zeek were copyrighted October 7, 1959 and Geemo the Lion as found in some publication was copyrighted October 14, 1960. The following year, Lemke produced a six-minute colour film called “A Boogle, Da Moogle, Da Clug.” It was copyrighted on August 14, 1961. What it was about, I have no idea. His name is found in one more copyright catalogue, dated June 16, 1964, for three poses of a character named Gary Goose.

His company was still listed in the directory of the SMPTE of March 1974. But what became of Earle and his dream are bits of information we have yet to discover.

Friday, 20 January 2023

Silhouettes and Auto Workers

Art styles were changing in animated cartoons in the late ‘40s, and there are some good examples in the John Sutherland Productions industrial short Why Play Leap Frog? (copyright March 1, 1949).

In this scene, characters are in silhouette while the background painting of the auto factory is fairly representational, though not as abstract as some artwork would become in the ‘50s.

The Sutherland cartoon cartoons contained some gentle humour to off-set their propagandistic nature (the shorts were pro-big business because big business paid to have them made). See what happens to the auto workers on the assembly line as parts are lowered through the ceiling.



A “What the...?” reaction.



The writer (True Boardman?) ends the scene making fun of gaudy hood ornaments of the era.



A deal was worked out with MGM to put the Sutherland cartoons in theatres. An ad in the Motion Picture Herald of September 2, 1950 says there were 5,025 bookings for this cartoon so far. One theatre manager complained to the publication “These should not be sold as cartoons...there is certainly no humor to them.” The CIO News of March 26, 1951 called it “a sly attack on wage increases.” We’ve talked before here about the controversy surrounding one Sutherland animated short that was accused of criticising U.S. government policy, with MGM subsequently deciding to stick only with Tom and Jerry, Droopy and Barney Bear. Joe the factory worker was out.

Unfortunately there are no credits on the short, so we don’t know the artists. We do know the background music composer, because his name is mentioned in the copyright registration. It’s former Disney composer Paul Smith. The copyright office lists names for some of the cues: “Walking Theme,” “A Raise,” Farm Theme,” “Charts,” “Trouble,” “Production Theme” and “Main Title,” all copyrighted September 26, 1949.

Bud Hiestand is the narrator (evidently the cartoon was reissued because there’s a change in quality of the soundtrack in one version dealing with prices), Frank Nelson provides a couple of voices and I have not been able to discover who played Joe, who starred in the earlier Sutherland cartoon Meet King Joe.

Thursday, 19 January 2023

The Old Pepper Gag

Felix the Cat probably wasn’t the first, but he was among the silent cartoon characters to drag out the pepper/sneeze gag that got good mileage in cartoons for decades into the sound era (ie. starting in 1928).

In Felix Gets Broadcasted, he winds up in Egypt and is chased by what was then described as a Nubian. He rushes onto the Sphinx. Trapped!

Some expressions.



He looks up at the Sphinx’s nose and gives his “Aha!” take. Two extremes are below.



He pulls out the you-know-what.



The gag works every time.



Felix thanks the Sphinx and it’s off to the next scene.



The M.J. Winkler studio was distributing the Felix cartoons on a State Rights system every two weeks. This one was released June 15, 1923. It was preceded by Felix the Globe Trotter and followed by Felix Strikes It Rich and then the fun Felix in Hollywood, according to the Motion Picture Booking Guide of Oct. 1923. Film Daily of Feb. 17, 1924 gives the date as Sept. 1, 1923. The Motion Picture News lists it on the bill at the Stanley Theatre in Philadelphia on the week of July 1, 1923. It was still being screened at theatres as late as 1927.

Wednesday, 18 January 2023

The Irritating Jack Carson

Jack Benny evolved a “gang” type comedy and a character in the early 1930s that others were stealing more than a decade later.

One of them was Jack Carson, a Warner Bros. contract actor who is pretty much forgotten now. He managed to hold out on radio until 1956, doing a 25-minute show on weeknights in his final season. Carson has a star for television on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but he didn’t exactly have a long career on the tube. He died in 1962.

To be honest, there wasn’t a great deal of originality in comedy on the radio, as John Crosby pointed out in his syndicated column of November 4, 1946. The most interesting thing about the column is one of radio shows he felt should be made has the same plot as The Pruitts of Southampton, Phyllis Diller’s 1966 sitcom that nine-year-old me adored.

The episode Crosby is reviewing is from October 30, 1946. The hypochondriac character was played by Irene Ryan, who performed the same character on Bob Hope’s radio show a few years later. The “South American tamale” is an uncredited Veola Vonn. She is supposed to be from Brazil, but she speaks Spanish. On this episode, to add to the Benny connection, he has jokes about both the May Company and Jell-O. And Del Sharbutt’s spots always talk about “table butter.” Is that different from ice-box butter?

The Narrow Circle
Radio In Review

BY JOHN CROSBY

Jack Carson, a great broth of a fellow in the movies, is somebody else entirely in radio. On his radio series, (CBS 8 p.m. E. S. T. Wednesday), Mr. Carson, is as stingy as Jack Benny and as unsuccessfully rakish as Bob Hope. His laughter is as raucous as the Great Gildersleeve’s and he is the butt of most of the jokes like, well . . . any radio comedian.
Carson's a character, in fact, is as skillfully blended as the Campbell Soup he advertises; it contains all the successful ingredients.
Besides Carson's composite personality, you get Arthur Treacher of the movies, who acts as his a butler and severest critic, just like Mr. Benny’s Rochester; Tugwell, Carson's radio nephew, who has Henry Aldrich’s personality but performs Mary Livingston's function, and a lot of the minor characters that wander in and out of small town comedy series such as Fibber and Molly and Gildersleeve.
The Carson show is a particularly irritating example of the inbred nature of radio because it happens to be a darned good comedy series. It is leisurely, well-directed, and extremely well acted. But virtually every bit of it has been borrowed from somewhere else. Mr. Carson, a much more likable fellow in radio than in the movies, has borrowed not only Mr. Benny’s stinginess but also his method for projecting it. The other night, for instance, Mr. Treacher asked him about the coke situation—that’s the drink, not the fuel—for a party Mr. Carson planned that evening. Did he think two bottles would suffice six people? “Yes—I think so. . . . We have plenty of straws.” The resemblance to Benny was acute not in what was said but how it was said, with a long, expert, laugh-provoking pause between the first and second sentences.
It doesn’t come over very well in print, but it was sound character comedy. Stinginess, as Harry Lauder demonstrated, can amuse a lot of people over an indefinite period of time. But aren’t there any other traits in human nature that could be exploited in radio? As a matter of fact, comedy of character is far more suitable for radio than gag comedy. Radio burns up gags by the barrel and, after all, you can only say so many things about the meat shortage and even the Sinatra gold mine is going to run out sooner or later. Comedy of character is infinite but it hasn’t begun to be exploited.
When you look, around there are only about four characters in radio—misers, flighty teen-agers, bumble-headed Gildersleeves, and wide-eyed young men like Alan Young. Radio script writers must have a limited acquaintance. I’d like to introduce them to an engaging, middle-aged couple I know who have upheld the appearance of wealth with great good humor since 1929 (when they lost it all) in a vast, draughty apartment on Park Ave. To my knowledge they haven’t any money or any income at all, but they have successfully outwitted the landlord, charmed their bill collectors, and amused themselves by a sort of necromancy which I find considerably funnier than Gildersleeve’s laugh.
Or, if you boys would drop into my Third Ave. saloon, I’d like you to meet a frayed but still elegant Englishman who has contemplated the same lady for 22 years without ever managing to determine whether her virtues, which are manifold, outweighed her defects, which are also manifold, to the extent where his family, which he hasn’t seen for 27 years, would approve of her as his wife. The lady in question has enough comedy quirks to stock a dozen radio series.
Or, if you're looking for comedy domestics, I know a maid who covers herself with cellophane to keep out witches and another girl . . . well, let’s cut out the wishful thinking and get back to Mr. Carson.
Besides the characters enumerated, the program boasts a couple of reasonably original characters. One of them is played by Norma Jean Nilsson, who is 8 years old, but whose comedy is extraordinarily elevated for her years.
When she meets a South American tamale of the sort that says in broken English, “You American men are so amusing," her comment is: “Hmmmmm," which is exactly what mine was. There is also a spinster named Miss Bryan [sic], who runs a novelty store and whose special quality is hypochondria. Unless I am mistaken, she is the first hypochondriac in radio. One of the writers must have done some prowling around outside his normal, limited circle.


Perhaps the most interesting columns of this week by Crosby were two on the “growing obsolescence of top radio stars.” The problem, as Crosby saw it, the stars had been stars for too long and were becoming too old. He made several interesting proposals. Of course, television soon came along and many radio stars simply ran their course as time progressed, Bob Hope and Jack Benny being notable exceptions. These columns were published on November 6 and 7.

It seems every executive in media—radio networks, ad agencies, electronics manufacturers—had an opinion about the future of television in 1946. Innumerable articles were written. Crosby’s column of November 8 quoted NBC vice-president John Royal, who had been shuffled out of his job in charge of radio programmes in 1940 and banished to an outpost job dealing with shortwave, fax and television programming. Few expected television would grow, but it did and Royal ascended again within NBC.

The November 5 column deals mainly with the Dick Haymes show. Crosby also talks about an improvement in the Phil Harris-Alice Faye show, into its second season for Fitch. The columns will grow when you click on them.


Tuesday, 17 January 2023

It's Not Chicken Salad

No plot, but there’s lots of dancing and musical synchronisation in the barnyard in Musical Farmer, a 1932 Mickey Mouse cartoon.

There’s one scene in a chicken coop where hens are laying and clapping in time to that public domain favourite, “Turkey in the Straw.”



Cut to one poor, despondent hen who just can’t do it.



I looked to the left of the background and wondered what frozen snow was doing there. Then I realised what it really was. (I grew up adjacent to, but not on, a farm).

There are a few things I like in this cartoon, mainly because Walt isn’t obsessed with the Illusion of Life™. Check out these spaghetti-limbed sheep you’d never find in Fantasia.



After the hen finally lays a huge egg and alerts the other animals, a cow sticks its oversized head out of birdhouse.



And Mickey’s camera stand becomes human-esque and starts chasing Pluto.



The cartoon ends Mickey using too much powder with his old-timey camera and blowing the feathers off all the hens when it explodes.

We never find out about the egg. If this had been a Tex Avery or Frank Tashlin cartoon, the egg would have cracked open with a “THE END” sign popping out. Instead we get Mickey smiling as the iris closes.

Monday, 16 January 2023

Oops! Not Done Yet

The good news was Leon Schlesinger had finally rid movie screens of Buddy in 1935. The bad news was he was replaced by Beans. Tex Avery was told to star him and feature some of the rest of the “I Haven’t Got a Hat” gang in his directing debut for the studio in 1935.

It’s interesting watching how Avery approached certain things, because he never would have done it the same way later at MGM when he picked up the pace.

Here’s an example. In one sequence of Gold Diggers of '49, Beans follows the old western movie cliché of bursting into a saloon and yelling he’s discovered gold. Some of the boozers and the bartenders high-tail outside.



That background drawing is how the scene ends. And Avery aims the camera at it for 2½ seconds. Why? In later years, he and Heck Allen would have come up with a gag (in fact, he did in the 1944 Droopy short The Shooting of Dan McGoo, where the bartender ran off to reveal he was standing in front of the picture of a sexy woman with no body).

Later in the sequence, Avery does come up with a gag, and it’s a variation on one you’ve seen in other cartoons. A barbershop quartet is in the middle of “Sweet Adeline” when Beans yells that gold has been discovered. They run off into the distance, but then realise they haven’t finished their song, so they run back, complete it, and (in re-used animation) zip back into the distance. In the last frame, the spaghetti-armed guy looks like he’s floating in mid-air.



The ending follows the Avery credo of doing something you don’t expect. It may not be as entertaining as many of the shorts he made later, but considering Friz Freleng was stuck in the musical/overcome-the-villain template on the Merrie Melodies, but it was a good start to Avery’s directing career.

Sunday, 15 January 2023

Miltie and Donzie on Jack

Jack Benny’s comic abilities were lauded by everyone and so was his kindness and charity. That includes praise from some people in show business who weren’t universally praised.

An editor with the Charlotte Observer put together a column that dealt with Jack in a few places after getting calls from Los Angeles. The Observer isn’t exactly one of America’s Great Newspapers in terms of circulation. You have to wonder how many newspapers got similar treatment.

Milton Berle had his detractors (Fred Allen was one). The editor asks him a question, seemingly out of the blue, about Jack. The other correspondent is Don Wilson, so talking about the Benny TV show was almost a given. Around this time, Wilson seems a little annoyed he was known only as an announcer, so he tried some acting jobs. He’s trying to give his acting career a little push through this interview.

The paper was published on November 1, 1959.

INTERVIEWS
Berle And Wilson Talk Over Shows
By DICK BANKS
Observer Arts Editor
Milton Berle, on one occasion, and Jack Benny's Don Wilson, on another, called last week to talk about television shows they are appearing in today.
Berle said his guests will be Desi and Lucy in a comedy situation show: Berle is working in a Las Vegas hotel. Desi is his orchestra leader. Lucy is along. Berle forgets his wedding anniversary.
Lucy persuades him to buy a stolen diamond to square things. And a couple of racketeers after the diamond thicken the plot.
Berle said in an average day he's at the office at 8:30, home at night at 7, with the time in between going into interviews, the business of his own production company, discussions of properties he’s producing. "Then there are beneficial funds, and everything, tapes, speeches, you know . . .
"I'm taking it easy. Next week we're going to Switzerland to see our daughter Vicki [missing words] in school there. Have to take time out for family life.
“How come overexposure hasn't got Jack Benny?"
That's something for Jack Benny to answer. Then he's not on every week, is he? And Jack Benny didn't come into the television picture until quite late. Radio? Oh that's another story."
Berle said his favorite comedians of the current crop are Mort Sahl, Buddy Hackett and Mike and Elaine. His comment on pay-TV brought the only wisecrack of the interview: "I think a lot of people these days should get paid to watch TV.”
As to the trends in comedy: "It all revolves in a cycle. When television started, there was just me and Hopalong Cassidy, right? Now it's back again to 'Gunsmoke.' I don't think basic comedy will change, never will."
Berle said about the only unfulfilled ambition he could think of at the moment was to have another baby with his wife Ruth. "The father instinct is pretty strong, I guess."
Don Wilson said Jack Webb will be guest on the Benny Show tonight.
Benny as Charlie Chan will be running a Chinese laundry. His Number One son will turn out to be Jack Webb. Together they will team up in Dragon-Net to solve a mystery.
Wilson says he's doing other things these days besides announcing for Benny, guest appearances, for instance.
In the Death Valley Days series Wilson plays an itinerant gospel speaker, Gates Ajar Morgan, a real bum. But after helping rob Wells Fargo he reforms and turns out to be a good guy. "You know the good guys always have to win."
But before his reformation he gets into a fist fight and is thrown out of a saloon. "It was a lot of fun doing it.
"The fellow who plays my son on the Benny Show isn't really. He's an actor, a young fellow who works at the Pasadena Playhouse, handles lights and directs some things.
"My wife on the show is my real-life wife, a professional of long standing in the theater, Lois Corbet.
"Last summer we played in summer stock, did 'The Great Sebastians," Got wonderful reviews. It was a vindication for Lois. She hadn't appeared in a play in 22 years. Showed she still holds on to her acting techniques.
"What Is Jack Benny really like?
"Well the character in the show is only done in fun. In real life he is quite the contrary, thoughtful, tolerant, generous.
"Benny has a deep-down-in consideration and thoughtfulness for what other people do.
“For instance when I was appearing in a play on Broadway, 'Make A Million,' Benny managed so I could come on his show once a month. Set the whole thing up with my manager so I could get a lot of publicity.
"We've been 20 seasons together, I think he's a great man in our profession. Just tops."


Yes, you are reading that right. Don Wilson was on Broadway. He was in the opening night cast of “Make a Million” on October 23, 1958. He was replaced along the way; perhaps his TV commitments precluded him from working in New York. He appeared on camera in various roles on rare occasion, and then relaxed in Palm Springs where he and Lois had a local TV interview show until the station went in a “different direction.” Meanwhile, Uncle Miltie was less than a year away from emceeing the ever-popular Jackpot Bowling. Jack Benny carried on with a regular TV show and then specials, along with his humanitarian work, until his death in 1974.

Saturday, 14 January 2023

Life of Lantz

Walter Lantz always strikes me as a decent enough man, even though his cartoons left a lot to be desired as time went on.

He had an extremely long career, turning out inventive live action/animation combinations during the silent era, then being handed Oswald the rabbit from the hands of Charles Mintz and given a cartoon studio to run by Universal. He manoeuvred through the Golden Age, striking upon his own raucous cartoon character during the height of their popularity, then successfully managing to re-package his cartoons for television, complete with insightful little segments about how cartoons were made.

As the theatrical era wound down, Lantz set up charitable groups to help young people. He even went to Vietnam to meet with soldiers, not exactly something animation studio heads are known to do.

Here’s a full-page profile in the Motion Picture Exhibitor of May 8, 1957. He was soon to embark on a TV career, hosting a half-hour show a la Walt Disney.

Walter Lantz: Dean Of Cartoonists
Producer Walter Lantz, dean of the animated film cartoonists, is going strong in his 41st year of motion picture production.
Lantz broke into the animated cartoon business in 1916, at age 16, he got a job with the late Gregory LaCava in New York, when the cartoon industry was in its infancy. At that time, Lantz was an ambitious art student without professional experience. For the old-timers who remember such early, and jerky, film cartoons as The Katzenjammer Kids, Happy Hooligan, Krazy Kat, and Mutt And Jeff, Lantz played a prominent part in the films’ production.
Later, the J. R. Bray studio offered Lantz a better deal than the $10 a week he was making with LaCava, and he started making films for Bray. Among the best-known cartoons which Lantz created and directed for Bray were Pete The Pup, Dinky Doodle, and the most famous of them all, Colonel Hezza Liar [sic].
In these early films Lantz conceived the idea, which has been copied many times, of combining animation with live action. And, to cut costs, Lantz usually played the actor’s role himself. That was in 1922. Today the producer enjoys many a chuckle as he sees himself cavorting on a television screen when the late shows reel off the old cartoons. In Hollywood, the “Lantz Luck” is a well-known phrase. His “luck,” however, really started in 1928 when he traveled across the country for a short vacation in Hollywood and Carl Laemmle offered him the job of running Universal’s animated film cartoon department. Lantz stayed with Universal until he decided to form his own company at the time that Universal was considering closing out its own cartoon department. The two got together and set up a deal whereby Lantz would produce cartoons on his own and Universal would handle the distribution. For the past two decades, this arrangement has been mutually profitable.
Today, Lantz owns his own ultra-modern studio in the heart of Hollywood. Staffed by a creative group of artists and technicians, it turns out 13 cartoons a year for Universal release. Seven of the 13 films are Woody Woodpeckers.
In keeping with the “Lantz Luck,” there never would have been a celluloid Woody Woodpecker if it hadn’t been for Lantz’ wife, former actress Grace Stafford. To capsule a long story, a real woodpecker was driving Lantz crazy some years ago by knocking holes in the producer’s mountain cabin. Completely exasperated, Lantz finally got out his gun and was about to blast the noisy and destructive bird when Grace interceded with the observation that the woodpecker would make a good cartoon character.
So, the woodpecker’s life was saved and Lantz used him as a model for today’s Woody Woodpecker who, from his first public screening, zoomed to stardom and has remained popular ever since, to such a degree that when one thinks of Walter Lantz he automatically is reminded of this top cartoon character, the ace of the producer’s menagerie of mirth and merriment. Woody has been the star as well as the top money-maker of the stable since his creation a decade ago, and it appears that his popularity will not wane for many more years to come.


Lantz had quality people on his staff over the years. In a 1954 photo accompanying the article, you can see Mike Maltese in the front left, Don Patterson standing at the front right and Tex Avery in the back right. In the ‘40s, he hired good radio actors to supply voices when Blanc became tied to Warners, including Jack Mather, Will Wright, Walter Tetley and Lionel Stander. In the ‘50s, he brought in Daws Butler and June Foray and actually put their names on the screen.

A few of the Lantz cartoons I like:

Mars (1930). Weird things can happen in the early Lantz sound cartoons. In this one, Oswald the Rabbit ends up on Mars where bizarre combination creatures exist. The short boots along at a merry pace. Oswald sings and plays his theme song; mercifully, he’s not doing a Mickey Mouse falsetto.

Woody Woodpecker (1941). The closest thing to a Warners cartoon. Mel Blanc’s voice is all over the place as Woody and Dr. Horace N. Buggy are both nutcases, though without the energy of the early, screwed-up Daffy Duck.

Abou Ben Boogie (1944). The second of the Miss X cartoons. Pat Matthews animates a marvellous dancing camel as well as the sexy harem girl. Fine brassy score from Darrell Calker, who did good work on the other Swing Symphonies.

Musical Moments From Chopin (1947) Calker wasn’t only adept at swing, he was an excellent classical arranger. A drunken horse (again, Pat Matthews) and little living flames highlight this cartoon. Another classical cartoon, The Bandmaster (1947) has another fine score from Calker and more great animation from Matthews of a drunk on a high wire with pink elephants. Matthews gets my vote as the most unsung animator of the Golden Era.

Real Gone Woody (1954). The addition of writer Mike Maltese from Warner Bros. could even improve the tepid direction of Paul J. Smith. He puts down Guy Lombardo, parodies Johnny Ray and satirises the school sock-hop culture. We get a switch on his cake gag from Rabbit Hood.

The Legend of Rockabye Point (1955). Tex Avery directed four shorts for Lantz. This one has variations on Avery’s theme of “Don’t-make-noise-to-disturb-other-character,” including a gag with a clarinet and sheet music. Avery’s other Chilly Willy short, I’m Cold (1954), includes an even more laconic version of his Southern wolf at MGM with solid scenes. Dal McKennon supplies a good voice for the Old Salt.

Things went downhill from here, with increasingly lacklustre characters, one after another. There was nothing innovative. Gabby Gator? Inspector Willoughby? The Beary Family? Mrs. Meany? Did anyone laugh at them? Smile, even? Still, Lantz remained in business, keeping a loyal crew employed into the early ‘70s and supplying theatres with something, albeit watered-down slapstick.

Lantz complained endlessly about the lack of money he was getting from theatres to turn a profit. Despite that, he lived a comfortable lifestyle. He did find the money to come up with many enjoyable cartoons at his own studio, and was responsible for some entertaining shorts reaching back to his days with Dinky Doodle for the Bray studio in the ‘20s.

Walter Lantz was recognised over the years for his accomplishments. And deservedly so.

Friday, 13 January 2023

Four-in-One Mouth Time From Van Beuren

What would a Van Beuren cartoon be without mouths joining together in song?

One of them is the 1932 short Stone Age Error.

What is the error? A caveman (a dog, I believe) is in love with a cavegirl (a cat, I think). The girl is more interested in dancing on the back of a tiger. He throws the tiger out of the picture and suddenly they decide to get married (don’t expect logic in a Van Beuren cartoon).

The two say their “I do’s” and are yoked together in a stone with cut-out heart shapes for each of them. The bird chorus now launches into the comedy part, singing to the caveman “Your Wild Days Are Over,” a 1918 song by Rubey Cowan and Lew Brown.



The caveman fails to run away and sings forlorn lyrics, resigning himself to his fate of his wife running his life to end the cartoon.

Whoever supplied the voice for Cubby Bear is the singing voice of the caveman. John Foster and Mannie Davis get screen credit, along with musician Gene Rodemich. One of the gags involves a pet dinosaur that behaves like a dog. Cartoon fans would see that again in about 30 years.