And The Number One Show Is...

Does anyone remember Hitz and Dawson? Walter Blaufuss? Phil Stewart?

In 1935, all of them made the top ten in their categories among radio listeners in a nation-wide survey. The number one name, the most popular star on radio, is someone you DO remember.

Jack Benny.

There were many surveys—the New York World-Telegram conducted one of radio editors in Canada and the U.S. through the 1930s—and while Benny fans likely know the Waukegan Weasel, as Fred Allen called him in jest, was at the top, they may not know who else made the list. Let us stir some old-time radio memories with this story from the Birmingham News of June 23, 1935. Though the 1940s seem to be the decade that is most familiar to OTR fans, some of the names will be recognisable, as many had long radio careers.

FOLLOWING The ANTENNA
WITH ANDREW W. SMITH
Radio Editor, The News-Age-Herald
Jack Benny, comedian of air, stage and screen, has been voted the most popular performer in radio in a nation-wide contest. Voting was conducted to determine the favorites in six divisions of radio including the leading performer, dramatic performer, musical program, orchestra, team and announcer. A total of 1,256,328 votes were cast on 209,388 ballots.
Winners, respectively, in the five latter groups were One Man Family, Show Boat, Wayne King's orchestra, Amos ‘n’ Andy and James Wallington, Both King and Amos ‘n' Andy are repeaters, having led their divisions in the 1934 contest.
The listeners voting revealed a marked new trend in audience taste. A higher level appreciation was reflected not alone in the selection of the winners but also in the choice of runners up, many of whom nearly dislodged eventual leaders.
A comparison to results of the previous contest discloses that the day of the so-called low comedian is passing and that the subtle jest is mightier than the pun and the gag of doubtful character. A similar elevation of taste in dramatic and musical presentations also was revealed.
Running a close second and third to One Man’s Family were the erudite [Lux] Radio Theater and the scholarly March of Time broadcasts, a marked difference from the last year's voting in which material of much lighter nature made the best showing.
The improved public state in programs was not revealed alone in these classifications, however. Analyzation of the final tabulations reveals some surprising new names in all divisions, particularly among the performers, where Eddie Guest was a close finisher and Will Rogers and Don Ameche, Frank Parker, tenor, and Lanny Ross, were among the 10 leaders.
One notable disclosure was the poor showing made by the much-discussed children’s programs, none of which approached a front position at any time during the 10 weeks of voting. Lighter comedy sketches also fell far back of those devoted to standard dramas and those prepared especially for the microphone.
At one stage of the voting the Jack Benny program and its stars led in the three of the six divisions, Benny himself among the performers, the broadcast as a whole among the musical programs and Jack and Mary Livingstone among the teams. Only heavy last minute voting, more than 50,000 ballots being recorded during the final week, kept this group from sweeping half the field.
Don Wilson, announcer on the Benny program, was runner-up to Wallington [photo to right] in their classification.
The following tabulations show the relative standings of the first 10 in each division.
Performer — 1, Jack Benny; 2, Lanny Ross; 3, Eddie Cantor; 4, Bing Crosby; 5, Joe Penner; 6, Fred Allen; 7, Frank Parker; 8, Will Rogers; 9, Edgar Guest; 10, Don Ameche.
Musical Program — 1, Show Boat; 2, Rudy Vallee's program; 3, Jack Benny's program; 4, Himber’s Champions; 5, Fred Waring’s program; 6, WLS Barn Dance; 7, Beauty Box Theater; 8, Town Hall Tonight; 9, Breakfast Club; 10, Pleasure Island (Lombardoland).
Dramatic Program — 1, One Man's Family; 2, Radio Theater; 3, March of Time; 4, First Nighter; 5, Dangerous Paradise; 6, Today's Children; 7, Red Davis; 8, Mary Pickford Stock Company; 9, Myrt and Marge; 10, Death Valley Days.
Orchestra — 1, Wayne King; 2, Guy Lombardo; 3, Richard Himber; 4, Ben Bernie, 5, Jan Garber; 6, Kay Kyser; 7, Don Bestor; 8, Fred Waring; 9, Rudy Vallee; 10, Walter Blaufuss.
Teams — 1, Amos ‘n’ Andy; 2, Burns and Allen; 3, Jack Benny, Mary; 4, Myrt and Marge; 5, Lum and Abner; 6, Hitz and Dawson; 7, Mary Lou and Lanny Ross; 8, Block and Sully; 9, Marion and Jim Jordan; 10, Easy Aces.
Announcers — 1, James Wallington; 2, Don Wilson; 3, Harry von Zell; 4, Ted Husing; 5, David Ross; 6, Milton J. Cross; 7, Phil Stewart; 8, Don McNeill; 9, Tiny Ruffner; 10, Jean Paul King.


And when Jack Benny and his famous troupe go on the air over NBC and WAPI Sunday, they will be observing Mary's birthday. As a special concession Jack is going to let Mary give the world premier reading of "My Birthday, a narrative poem she wrote for herself especially for the occasion. Mary expects birthday presents from everybody except Bestor. When Jack gives his wife a birthday present, he does it up in good shape. Today he will present her with just a little old 16-cylinder limousine.

We note that the World-Telegram poll conducted the same year had Jack Benny as the favourite programme, followed by Fred Allen. They were one-two in the favourite comedian category. Jimmy Wallington was still the top studio announcer, with Don Wilson fifth and former Benny announcer Alois Havrilla in seventh place.

Jack’s ratings dipped in the war years—I have my opinions about why—but the radio show snapped out of it, climbed toward the top and stayed up there until, more or less, there were few ratings to be had. Something named television came along.

A Busy Brown

Some of the top radio actors on the West Coast found uncredited regular employment on the Jack Benny show. Two that come to mind are Herb Vigran and Elvia Allman. And a couple of the top radio actors on the East Coast did the same.

When Fred Allen went off the air for health reasons at the end of the 1942-43 season, Jack “borrowed” two actors who appeared regularly in Allen’s Alley—John Brown and Minerva Pious. It is still odd to my ears hearing the Pansy Nussbaum voice given to other characters on Benny’s show (the Grape Nuts era is not my favourite period) but Brown fits in quite well. Two roles that come to mind are an enthusiastic NBC usher who sings about Grape Nuts Flakes to the Rinso White jingle, and as a clueless Vancouverite who hasn’t heard of the city’s tourist attractions.

Brown, whose Alley character was New Yorker John Doe, returned during Allen’s last season in a promotional appearance for The Life of Riley as Digger O’Dell, the Friendly Undertaker, perhaps his best-known radio role (he used the Doe and O’Dell voices in the Tex Avery cartoon Symphony in Slang).

Here’s a profile of Brown from the New York Herald Tribune of Dec. 7, 1941. Brown talks about television, which was already filling the air with civil defence programming. That would dominate the tube in New York during shortened broadcast days while the war was on.

Protean Artist Of Radio Finds Doormen Cold
John Brown, Who Performs in 7 Shows Weekly, Still Is a Stranger at Studios
By Elizabeth S. Colelough
John Brown, one of radio’s funniest straight men, is a man of parts—and that is not intended as a joke. At present, he is playing in seven regular radio shows and has a list of successes behind him as long as the evils of mankind. His schedule taken from Sunday to Sunday runs something like this:
As Shrievy, the cab driver for Dr. Watson, he maintains the comedy interest in “The Shadow,” chiller-thriller heard on WOR at 5:30 p. m. every Sunday. In “Lorenzo Jones” he enacts the role or Jim Baker at 4:30 p. m., on WEAF from Monday to Friday.
On Tuesday he contributes his services to the “Treasury Hour” over WJZ at 8 p. m. Every Wednesday, the high point of his week, he is Mr. Average Wise Guy and other comic-relief characters in the Mighty Allen Art Players on Fred Allen’s programme. He has been with Allen’s show since it sprang, like a low—comedy Minerva, from the Allen cranium in 1934.
Figured in “Feud”
Brown unwittingly has become an innocent figure in one of the chapters of the Fred Allen-Jack Benny “feud.” Benny once presented an autographed photograph to Brown on which was inscribed “How long are you going to be with Allen?” Allen constantly accuses Benny of trying to steal Brown from him. Whenever he brings his show to New York or Brown goes to the coast Benny finds a part for him. When asked why he wouldn’t take Benny’s offer he said: “I like New York. I have a house in Croton—and, besides, I don’t want to leave Fred.” That, you feel, is the real reason.
Thursdays he plays the high school principal in the “Aldrich Family” on WEAF at 5:30 p. m.
Brown ends his week with two Saturday morning shows, “Lincoln Highway” and “Vaudeville Theater,” both on WEAF.
One of the busiest and most sought-after actors in radio, he find[s] it hard to get time off for a vacation. He had his first, two weeks, last summer, and that took plenty of finagling and adjusting. He had to be written out of eight shows. One script writer forgot and put him in. That almost ended the vacation before it began.
Brown has worked as straight man or stooge for virtually every top comic on the air. Among them are Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, Eddie Cantor, Jack Haley, Ed Gardner, Al Jolson, Ken Murray, Robert Benchley, Jerry Lester, Rudy Vallee, Fanny Brice and many others. On Oct. 30 he was Lord Beaverbrook’s voice on the ‘March of Time.”
Though many times a featured player, Brown has never been starred in a radio show. He is almost too versatile. He is like the department-store saleswoman who was so good in her job and brought so much money to the store that she never was promoted. However, he likes his life. In appearance he is unassuming. He says he looks less like an actor than any one he knows. Sandy-haired and quiet-mannered, he looks like hundreds of Americans you see every day in the subway and on the street. His sense of humor is keen. His blue eyes shine as he tells a joke on himself. Eddie Cantor, he said, once told him, “You look like a grocer, but you’re the best actor in radio.” Even though he has been in radio for eight years and has ridden miles in N. B. C. elevators, the page boys still ask him for tickets of admission. They won’t believe he works there.
Born In England
Brown was born in Hull, England, on April 4, 1904, began his education in London, continued it in Melbourne, Australia, and finished it in New York public schools. He now is an American citizen.
His first job was that of secretary to Frank Campbell, of the Funeral Church. He had several secretarial jobs after that, but was graduated in due course to office manager with a music-publishing firm. From there he went to real estate selling, and later became a counselor at boys’ camps. It is impossible to follow Brown’s career step by step. Before going into stock and the Broadway theater, he worked in summer resorts and various little-theater enterprises.
His personal life is happy. He is married to June White, former stage actress, and has two children—a girl, 1 1/2 years old, and a boy, 5. They live in a rambling old house overlooking the Hudson at Croton, N. Y. While he was courting the present Mrs. Brown, he sent her a telegram when she opened in the Broadway play, “Achilles Had a Heel.” It read in part, “And so has June.” She married him anyway.
Foresees Television
He feels that stage experience is valuable in radio work, but not essential. He cited the case of Ann Thomas, Goodman Ace’s pert secretary, who tried out for a part in a Broadway show lost season. She “fell into the part so easily at the first reading that the director and producer were amazed. Radio actors have to fit into parts on short notice—no six weeks’ rehearsal to smooth off the corners. He also believes they have the edge on their stage brethren because they are not typed so rigidly.
“What do you think about the average radio actor when television hits its stride?” the interviewer asked. “Any actor who doesn’t investigate or isn’t ready for it is crazy,” he said. “The change will be as revolutionary as the evolution of the silent movies into sound.
“Radio brass hats will have another problem also,” he continued. “They will have to figure out some way for the housewife to watch the shows while she cooks and cleans. The daytime show will be the biggest problem. I don’t know how they will solve it but I know television will bring an entirely new technique into the radio field.”

There is another connection with Jack Benny. Brown appeared, uncredited, in Benny’s self-trashed film The Horn Blows At Midnight in 1945. The same year, he was in Allen’s It’s in the Bag. He had a connection with Jack once-removed; he had a regular role on Dennis Day’s radio show. A list of his credits would be impossible, but I’ll mention one other. He was the lazy boyfriend Al on My Friend Irma; creator Cy Howard told a fan magazine how Brown would get miffed for pulling him away from poker games with Lud Gluskin’s musicians during rehearsals (Howard semi-joked Brown likely made more money than he did).

When television “hit its stride,” Brown was there, playing Harry Morton on the Burns and Allen show in 1951. Then, he wasn’t playing Harry Morton. Brown got caught in the blacklist. He had been named in Red Channels the previous June. Historian Liz McLeod relates:

Brown's "Red Channels" dossier, found on page 30, consists of precisely two items: he participated in three events sponsored by the Progressive Citizens of America in 1947, and he signed an Amicus Curiae brief seeking a review of the convictions of two members of the Hollywood Ten.

He appeared before a House Un-American Activities Subcommittee in November 1953. He plead the Fifth Amendment. At the time, he was appearing as Thorny on the radio version of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. His union, AFTRA, caved in to the witch-hunters. The following February, despite denials he was a Communist Party member, and taking the union’s loyalty oath, he was told he would be suspended if he didn’t testify before the Committee in 90 days. His career was over.

You’d never know any of this reading his obituaries in Variety or the Associated Press or United Press, or Ozzie Nelson’s autbiography. There is no mention of it. Several obits pointed out his time on the Benny and Allen shows. He died of a heart attack in 1957 at the age of 53.

The Felix Arch

Animated cartoons are entertainment and, like any entertainment, a cartoon that appeals to one person might not appeal to another. It’s visceral. That means there may be no explanation as to why someone likes or dislikes animation on a piece of film, any more than someone can explain why they like or dislike eggplant.

Despite this, there is plenty of commentary and analysis of cartoons out there, varying in tone. One book I have seems to have been an exercise of filling it with words no one uses in any kind of conversation. Others treat the subject casually.

Here’s an early attempt to analyse cartoons. It’s in a book written by an Englishman named Huntly Carter and published in 1930 called “THE NEW SPIRIT IN THE CINEMA. An Analysis and Interpretation of the Parallel Paths of the Cinema, which have led to the present Revolutionary Crisis forming a Study of the Cinema as an Instrument of Sociological Humanism.”

Fantasy, which has for so long been accepted as an expression of the whimsical state of mind, is, of course, within the legitimate sphere of the Cinema. On the screen it is seen at its gayest and best in a small line that assumes thousands of fantastic shapes that compose the Cartoon. In the Cartoon, which is one of the most popular and in some respects the best medium of cinema expression, the human atom and its belongings, undergo whimsical changes that cause a continuous stream of images to form in the mind, and that throw an abundance of rich crumbs to the imagination. But the Cartoon never departs from the actual. It consists of an elastic line in evolution. Shapes grow out of it with which we are familiar even though they are distorted and battered by a sort of recurrent earthquake.

In other words, the Cartoon of the Mickey Mouse, the Krazy Kat, the Felix the Cat, the Inkwell, the Adventures of Sammy and Sausage, or the Oswald Sound Cartoon kind, is simply the caricaturist playing with a line that has the elasticity of gas. It shrinks and expands, collapses and recovers, behaves like a spring winding and unwinding, and at the same time assumes the shapes and characteristics of human beings, animals, insects, of animate things, and inanimate ones made animate. These extraordinary puppets of all sorts, that fall to pieces in heaps and reunite, and outdo even an india-rubber ball in diversity of shapes, that speed through space with a velocity that has no parallel outside the Cinema, have a distinct sociological value. They exhibit man in society caught in a network of events undergoing or trying to escape the consequences. They are in fact a comment, a very witty instructive and biting comment on the absurdities of Man and other living things seen in the light of materialism. At the same time they are human, tragic and comic.

According to Mr. W. O. Brigstocke, of the Education Department of the Liverpool University, the Cartoon has a valuable educational side owing to its elasticity. He has suggested that the moving line of a Felix Cartoon can serve to teach architecture. " Felix could illustrate in a film such difficult conceptions as that of thrust in architecture. Suppose the teacher turned two other Felixes into pillars at his side and then constructed a Felix arch. It would be easy and amusing for him to show stresses and how they could be met. You would see the arch sagging at the knees or wherever it would sag. Gothic cathedrals which demonstrated in the sight of all men where they were weak and where they were strong, by bending, writhing, and even falling down promise infinite amusement. In the same way what could not be done with maps? Let Felix be taken up to a great height and let him behold all the kingdoms of the world with their pomps and vanities not to speak of their trade and transport; then drop him a given number of feet, or let him use up one of his nine lives and drop him all the way; in this manner it would be easy literally to see what scale means, both in space and times values. When one thinks of Felix and mathematics — cones sliced in lovely sections, curves developing in a panopoly of perpendiculars, and tangents to illustrate the secrets of growth and motion and form — why, on these lines we could have all the joys of Felix, Professor Einstein and the Zoo simultaneously."[Footnote]1 Einstein in the Zoo? Some persons would say by all means.
1 The Observer, May 8, 1927

Some of you may find this kind of analysis intellectually stimulating. Others may find it a bore. It’s all subjective, the same as the way you feel about cartoons themselves.

The (Bat) Swingin' Cuckoo

A cat driven insane by a cuckoo clock (from the cartoon of the same name) “knew it meant murder.” Unfortunately, Tex Avery’s generic cat fails in every attempt to silence the cuckoo inside the clock.

First, he tries a baseball bat.



The cuckoo listens as the cat crashes to the floor.



The bird does a little two-step as it is transported back to its home in the clock. Avery did the same thing to the same drum beat with a dog in another cartoon. Does anyone remember which one?



The story in The Cuckoo Clock (1950) is by Rich Hogan, with animation by Grant Simmons (I think he did the bat scene), Walt Clinton and Mike Lah.

The Worm Family

Mickey Mouse led a band. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit led a band. But the oddest of the other 1930s “band” cartoons may be The Bandmaster starring Krazy Kat, a 1930 offering from the Ben Harrison-Manny Gould unit of the Winkler (Charles Mintz) studio.

There’s a great gag about a prisoner escaping from INSIDE an elephant cop. And I like this Fleischer-type bit. Squirrels are trying to crack an acorn to the beat of Sousa’s The Stars and Stripes Forever. We’ll let the gag tell itself.



There’s lots of early ‘30s imagination going on in this quirky short, with the story attributed to Ben Harrison and the animation to Manny Gould. Musical director Joe De Nat gets away from Sousa and into some jazz for the last 40% of the cartoon. Mickey Mouse got the highest profile (and space) in trade ads for Columbia cartoon releases of 1930, but I’ll take this one over Disney.

Wacky Bwush

An unsung hero (or heroine) in Bob Clampett’s The Wacky Wabbit (1942) is responsible for the dry brush work during the cartoon.

Here are some frames from the climax when Elmer Fudd is wrestling Bugs Bunny for his gold tooth.

I don’t know how this works but I presume an animator indicated some movement and someone in the ink and paint department supplied the finished product.

Sid Sutherland is the credited animator, with Warren Foster getting the story credit.

Some Notes About Ray Favata

A birthday notification came in to my Facebook account that Ray Favata would be 100 years old today.

Ray passed away about 5½ years ago. You can read his obit here. By the way, neither of the characters to the right are Favata. They are Bert and Harry Piel. They sold beer. They worked for Ray. Or vice-versa.

I feel very flattered and honoured whenever someone in the animation industry sends a friend request on social media. I never worked in animation, but admire the people who did, though I may not be crazy about some of their cartoons.

About all I knew about Ray was he worked in commercial studios in New York, and his name appears in some credits in the Gene Deitch-era Terrytoons. As a little memorial, and because I had a bit of spare time to reappear on this blog, I thought I’d go through some clippings.

Ray grew up in New York and after graduating from high school, he worked for a glass company in Paterson, New Jersey. He was stationed at Camp Lee during the war and drew a comic strip in the camp’s weekly newspaper. It starred quartermaster trainee Homer E. Jones, who hailed from Okmulgee, Oklahoma. That would seem to be an odd choice of a home-town, but Homer’s co-creator, Staff Sgt. Paul Lefebre, had lived there and liked it. The Okmulgee Daily Times was delighted, and profiled the two on its front page of October 22, 1943.


Favata was promoted to sergeant and received more notice near the end of the war. The Richmond Times-Dispatch featured several Camp Lee artists in a story on May 20, 1945. The story described Ray as “a black-haired, energetic lad who paints posters for the Technical Training Servicre of the Army Service Forces Training Center. The non-com evoked camp-wide splitting of seems recently by depicting the plight of camp officials when a shortage of green paint developed. Green, being General Horkan’s favorite color, the ‘brass’ were shown gnashing their teeth, pulling their hair and committing suicide. To a civilian, cartoons of this type may have little meaning: to a soldier at Lee, it is a funny-bone tickler.”



Ray found work in 1951 at Tempo Productions, a New York commercial studio run by Dave Hilberman and Bill Pomerance. Art Direction magazine of May 1953 mentioned among his commercials being exhibited were for Plymouth, Standard Brands and Jackson Brewing (Jax beer). It became a victim of the insidious blacklist. He spoke a bit about his career and commercial animation philosophy with Art Ross of Back Stage, a trade tabloid, in its July 17, 1981 issue.

Ross: How does animation work to create and motivate product purchase?
Ray Favala: Animation art, especially the kind that employs characters as salespeople, becomes a playful but powerful tool to sell products. Fantasy entertains, fantasy creates an innocent world in which consumer disbelief is suspended. In such a playful environment you can sell just about anything, providing, of course, the product lives up to the “Promise.”
Ross: How do you arrive at the correct character design?
Favata: We analyze the copy and the storyboard, confer with the agency creatives, and then start to develop characters in keeping with the message we wish to convey. We generally have to go through lots of experimentation and dozens of sketches, before the final character emerges.
Ross: How did you get into animation, Ray?
Favata: I started as a freelance artist doing storyboards and designs for one of the large animation studios in New York. When, in an emergency, their layout designer had to leave, he gave me a one week cram course in layout and film techniques. That’s how it began.
Ross: What is the basic advantage of regular animation over the computer?
Favata: Regular animation is an art form that depends primarily on the particular artistry and acting ability of the animator. Each animator imparts a very personal quality to his work that cannot be duplicate. The work of Steig, Blechman, Tytla, Pintoff—to name a few—is unique, giving their commercials (and the products advertised) a “specialness” that consumers react to at the sales register. Computer animation has its advantages, to be sure, but it is still a highly cold, mechanistic approach compared to regular animation.
Ross: What commercials are you currently working on that you feel are special?
Favala: My two most recent favorites are the Yoo-Hoo Chocolate Drink “New Wave” tv spot “introducing the Yoo-Hoos,” which features a great New Wave rock group track singing the praises of Yoo-Hoo. The visual is the funniest and most colorful we’ve done in years, playing an animated Yogi Berra off against the rock group. The other one we’ve just completed for Magic Mountain Iced Herb Teas is a very soft romantic fantasy approach called “From The Land of Magic Mountain.” For this campaign, we created a lovely Disney-esque fairy princess who gathers her herbs and spices in this mythic animation land for Magic Mountain No-caffeine All-natural Iced Herb Teas. It’s what we call “soft hard sell”—and it has a fantastic music track created by Bernie Hoffer of Mamorsky, Zimmerman and Hamm. Both of these spots should do tremendous selling job—the first, to kids and teenagers the second, to women who prefer the tasteful benefits of natural herb teas.

Here are a few clippings that track parts of his career:

● April 28, 1954: Sutherland Productions’ new studio in New York “has signed Dan Gordon, formerly with Transfilm, and Ray Favata, ex-Tempo, as a liaison team to assist agencies in planning commercials.” (Variety)
● Nov. 3, 1956: “The Screen Cartoonists Guild has assigned a couple of committees for its upcoming ‘Animation One’ festival . . . The design committee has Ray Favata, Paul Kim and Earl Murphy.” (Billboard)
● April 10, 1957: “Terrytoons, the CBS animation subsid, is completing a $300,000 modernization and expansion of its New Rochelle plant, and expanding the personnel side as well. Added to the staff are Dave Tendlar, formerly with Famous Studios; Eli Bauer, ex-Ray Patin Productions; Tod Dockstader of UPA Burbank; Ray Fatava or Academy Productions and Jules Pfeiffer, ex-Transfilm.” (Variety)
● August 10, 1959: “Ray Favata forms and assumes presidency and creative directorship of Ray Favata Productions, Inc., commercial film firm. Carleton Reiter joins him as vp and manager. Address: 165 W. 46 St., N.Y. 36.” (Broadcasting)
● May 19, 1961: “Every three years or so (and there’s a sound explanation for it) a rash of new animation studios start up . . . this year’s crop includes Gryphon, with Carlton Reiter and Ray Favata, at 40 East 49th. (Back Stage, Lew Gifford column).
● Sept. 1, 1961: “Look for some waggish animation commercials selling Charming Tissue, executed by Gryphon Studio’s Ray Favata. Very nice track work got the spots off to a good start (voices by Alan Swift, Charlotte Rae, assorted real kids) and the production, supervised by Benton & Bowles’ Bill Mc Hale, brings home the bacon. Spots have been tested on Bonanza. (If test is successful, Ray Favata will be allowed to keep his new-born-last-week, 8 pound son, Ronald. Otherwise it’ll be Ronald Charmin! Harsh deal perhaps, but animation is a rough business.)” (Back Stage, Lew Gifford column).
● Dec. 15, 1961: “Animation director Ed Seeman [who worked at many New York commercial houses, including Ray Favata Productions] has joined Gryphon Productions Inc. as a partner, it was announced by Ray Favata, President of Gryphon Productions, an animation studio located at 40 E. 49th st.” (Back Stage, Stanley Kreshower column)
● Oct. 19, 1962: “Ray Favata of Gryphon Prods. Inc., reports that his firm has been very busy. Recently they have turned out three spots for Proctor & Gamble plus institutional documentary one minute spots for the First National Bank of New Haven. Now they will be turning their attention to some Millbrook Bread spots. Gryphon Prods are at 40 East 49th st.” (Back Stage, Stanley Kreshower column)
● June 28, 1963: Back Stage listing to right. The studio moved again in 1966.
● May 13, 1966: 68 Clio awards handed out. Favata and partner Seeman (as designers) with an award for Beech-Nut “Hot Shots.” Jerry Friedland is the art director. (Back Stage)
● Dec. 17, 1968: “At Gryphon, designer Ray Favata got the task of adapting [independent designer Tomi] Ungerer’s drawings into animation layouts and Seeman handles overall art direction.
“Some of the other commercials that have been recently produced by the Seeman-Favata team at Gryphon are the award-winning Luden’s ‘Big Squeeze,’ the Tang ‘lettering and live’ campaign, Ocean Spray ‘Election’ commercials for Cranapple and many others.” (Back Stage)
● June 5, 1970. Favata signed by 25th Frame Film Production Company in Canada. (Back Stage)
● Sept. 4, 1970. Favata directs an animated spot for Texaco through 25th Frame. (Back Stage)
● Aug. 22, 1980. “Ray Favata, designer/director, has joined Fandango Productions. . . . His accounts have included Sugar Bear, Honeycombs, Alpha Bits, Livesavers and Hardies.” (Back Stage)
● June 10, 1982: Daytime Emmy “Outstanding Individual Achievement In Children’s Programming—Graphic Design. Ray Favata, Michael J. Smollin, graphic designer, Opening Animation, The Great Space Coaster #93, October 9, 1981, Syn.” (Hollywood Reporter)
● Jan. 31, 2008: “McCartee’s Barn, 23C East Broadway, Salem. An opening reception for a new exhibit, ‘RED HOT,’ featuring the work of Cambridge animation artist Ray Favata and Hebron ceramics sculptor, Bob Nopper.” (Glens Falls, Post-Star)



We end this post with something I had completely forgotten about when I started writing it. Morten Eng has posted a documentary on Favata. You can see it (with all the stuff I didn't mention here) at this link along with a number of of his commercials.

Have You Seen These Cartoons?

Regular readers of this blog will likely know I’m a real fan of animated industrial films of the 1950s. Some fine artists who worked on theatrical cartoons found employment in the many companies which made them.

Probably my favourite industrial studio is John Sutherland Productions, which employed people like Tom Oreb, Emery Hawkins, George Gordon, Maurice Noble, Carl Urbano, Bill Scott, Eugene Poddany and many other names familiar to fans of Warners or MGM cartoons of the 1940s. Unfortunately, too many of the company’s shorts are, well, I won’t say “lost,” but are not available for fans in general to view.

Business Screen Magazine profiled a number of the Sutherland shorts—Sutherland bought full page ads in the publication—and, periodically, I find references to ones I have not seen. Leafing through several editions starting with February 1954 (Issue 1, Volume 15), I came across references to a number of animated or partly animated shorts, so I thought I’d pass them along. Unfortunately, there aren’t screen grabs for all of them.

First on our list is Take a Look at Tomorrow, copyrighted on Sept. 26, 1952. The Copyright Catalogue summary is, unfortunately, bereft of any credits. Here’s what Business Screen tells us:

Kaiser Aluminum Takes "A Look at Tomorrow"
Sponsor: Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp.
Title: Take A Look At Tomorrow, 20 minutes, color, produced by John Sutherland Productions
♦ Faced with the problem that the other two major aluminum companies had made a number of pictures dealing with aluminum production, the Kaiser Aluminum Company needed to find a new way of presenting the aluminum story on film. That it did find a fresh approach is shown in the film Take A Look At Tomorrow, a combination cartoon and live action 20 minute color movie which pretty well covers the aluminum production story.
The picture opens with a gay color cartoon sequence starring "Al Luminum" as a circus performer and magician. He stretches and twists, he's the light weight champion, and he's glamorous—outdistancing by far his competitors. Iron man McGinty and Chief Copperhead.
The cartoon sequence also shows how aluminum is mined, extracted from the ore, and brought to the Kaiser plants.
Live action then takes over and shows aluminum processing. Some of the plant shots which show the aluminum pigs bring rolled, drawn and extruded are magnificent. There is one shot made from a traveling crane along the length of one of the huge rolling mills that is particularly outstanding from a production and lighting standpoint.
Also shown are the many uses to which aluminum is put, from its use in structural I-bars, through the innumerable cast and molded parts that are made of aluminum, down to the microscopically thin aluminum foil for household use. The film is very well produced throughout, in beautiful color, and will be enjoyed by all kinds of audiences. Distribution is being handled by the Kaiser sales offices and warehouse distributors throughout the country.

This is a re-write of a review in the February 1953 edition.

The issue also mentions a couple of films Sutherland made for Texaco. Animators had something to with one of them, but they didn’t animate anything. We’re referring to some of the staffers of Walt Disney’s studio who were part of a musical aggregation. Says Business Screen:

This year, the Texaco spring meetings are based entirely on films — five motion pictures are used, each designed to do a real job on one particular subject. All in color, the films start out with Sell More in 54, 13 minutes, a wonderfully jazzy preview of Texaco advertising plans (produced by John Sutherland Productions) and featuring the Firehouse Five Plus Two band.
The second film (also by John Sutherland) is called Take a Look, George, 5 minutes, and it points up the importance of "Registered Rest Rooms" in making and keeping steady customers.

Here are a couple of full-page ads from John Sutherland promoting award-winning shorts. A is For Atom (1953) has some great designs from Lew Keller and Gerry Nevius of atom-head characters from the periodic table of elements, while It’s Everybody’s Business (1954) features designs from Maurice Noble and a fine score by Les Baxter and Gene Poddany. It was co-written by Bill Scott, who gritted his teeth at some of the stories he had to come up with for Sutherland’s clients, such as this one which equates capitalism with patriotism. Both films have been on-line for years.



Let’s turn away from the Sutherland studio for a moment and look at two other animated cartoons.

Walter Lantz released his cartoons, with the exception of a brief period at the end of the 1940s, through Universal (later Universal-International). But it seems “U” didn’t deal with him exclusively. An industrial cartoon short called Rip Van Winkle Returns is mentioned in the Business Screen edition we’ve been talking about. The article about it doesn’t mention Universal, or a theatrical release, but a cartoon by that name was copyrighted by Universal Pictures on Oct. 5, 1953. The Motion Picture Herald of that period reveals a ten-minute short by that name was released as part of the “Variety Views” series on Oct. 5, 1953.

Could it be possible there were two short films, the same length, with the same name, made around the same time? It’s dangerous to make assumptions, but I believe they’re one and the same. Here’s a snippet from Business Screen’s edition:

Animated Cartoon Helps General Mills Tell Story of Corporate Corporate Growth to Shareholders
♦ Rip Van Winkle was re-awakened for the benefit of General Mills, Inc. stockholders recently. The champion hibernator of the Catskills popped up in a busy color cartoon featured during regional stockholder meetings....
Vocal financial reports were highlighted by color slides employing fractional and full screen chart symbols, and by ten minute animated film, Rip Van Winkle Returns, produced by Dudley Pictures Corporation, Beverly Hills, Cal. ...
When a cordial, jet travelling cartoon “General” Mills aroused cotton-bearded Rip to the fact that the mill from which Rip acquired a stock certificate in 1928 now is considerably more than a mill the audience of stockholders was awakened to an articulate interest in the means by which the management plans to make use of its frontier.

There is no accompanying frame grab, and no other information about the cartoon. However, see the comment from Evan Schad. Dudley seems to have grabbed some people on a freelance basis, like designer Gene Hazelton (who may have been between gigs at MGM and Grantray-Lawrence) and Lantz's composer Clarence Wheeler. It also looks like MGM's Ken Muse handled some of the animation, judging by the expressions on Rip and his dog at 2:15 (and other places).

Finally comes a cartoon I thought I had profiled on Tralfaz, as I spotted the wonderful frame of the moustached dragon some time ago. It appears not. There is a John Sutherland connection here, as animator Norman Wright moved on to NBC in 1955 to come up with some short films for Howdy Doody, then was hired for Sutherland’s writing department. He is responsible for the story for Your Safety First, a 1956 cartoon about the future that will remind you of The Jetsons, produced by Hanna-Barbera six years later. Wright, a former Disneyite, had his own company by 1961.

The Draggin' of Obsolescence
A New Cincinnati Milling Machine Co. Film Gives Fresh Slant on Industry-Wide Problem
"As far back as anyone can remember, people have wanted progress, and have wanted to get rid of anything that might be a drag on progress.”
WITH that innocent remark for a starting point, The Cincinnati Milling Machine Co. has launched an entirely new approach to an old problem through the medium of a fourteen-and-a-half minute fully animated Technicolor cartoon entitled 'William Johnson and the Draggin'. Produced in Hollywood by Wilding Picture Productions, Inc., written by Samuel Beall; animated by Norman Wright.
A deft combination of fantasy, reality, hilarity, and serious exposition in a timeless setting, the picture once more brings together the knights of old and the ideas of today with what should be a bombshell effect upon the nervously conventional field of industrial advertising.
Points Up Critical Need
The story drives home a nationally serious point so entertainingly that it should certainly have its intended commercial effect, too.
which is to make the buyers of capital goods equipment for industry more acutely aware of the nature and inherent villainy of obsolete equipment.
It is already being aggressively borrowed by top managements of some of our largest corporations to show not just to their buyers, but to everyone in the their respective companies.
Memo to Industrial Users
It’s that universal. The gist of this essentially complex industrial-economic message is presented so simply and clearly that it is easily translatable, by any audience, into a personal message. William Johnson is seeable and enjoyable by anyone with access to a sixteen millimeter sound movie projector. If you have no projector, just get in touch with any of the real-life William Johnsons in Cincinnati Milling’s field offices or agencies, all of whom have or can get you a projector and print.
It’s impossible to say whether the story takes place today, in yesterday's setting, or yesterday, in today's setting, but the presence of Draggin', today or yesterday, is sensed by King Customer The First, who is in a natural position to sense it. As any monarch worth his salt will do, he forthwith offers the hand of his daughter to any fortunate knight or commoner who can get rid of the Draggin'. That's what brings William Johnson into the courtroom, along with his Draggin' Locator — a combination of Geiger counter, television set, and electronic computer that behaves like a dedicated bird dog.
In a ludicrous series of sequences which have a deadly accurate aim, William Johnson exposes the Draggin’, all right, and wins the King's daughter. But an odd twist to this story is that he doesn't get rid of the Draggin’, and for a very good reason.
If you must know why, the only thing you can do is take a look at the picture, surrounded by friends. Don’t wait for it to show up on television; the color is something new in animation techniques and shouldn’t be missed.
Prints are loaned free from any of The Mill's direct or agency outlets or from headquarters: The Cincinnati Milling Machine Co., Cincinnati 9, Ohio.

Perhaps these cartoons will surface some day along with many others that could give us a better look at industrial animation from the 1930s onward.

Joe Flaherty

Was there a more brilliant comedy show to come out of Canada than SCTV?

What started out as a half-hour, made-in-Toronto, low-budget, sometimes-set-less parody of a day of a television station blossomed into 90 minutes of running sketches with layers of satire, populated by a cast of characters who interacted perfectly, played by a young troupe of stage actors.

Most of them were from Ontario. One was from Pittsburgh, and older than the rest. He was Joe Flaherty, who passed away on April Fools Day at the age of 82.

The show, originally called Second City Television, had a Canadian flavour at first. Flaherty played serious newsman Floyd Robertson, a play on CBC-later-CTV newscaster Lloyd Robertson. As time progressed, he became more rounded. He was an alcoholic who was forced to host a late-night horror show as Count Floyd, where the movies were anything but scary (finally admitting to his kid audience they were not after trying to sell them, using the lamest imitation of Bela Lugosi possible, on their nightmarish quality). Using one person to perform several jobs was a money-saving device used by cash-poor SCTV owner Guy Caballero, also played by Flaherty. (Multiple jobs done by one person is not unheard of in broadcasting).

Flaherty was talk show host Sammy Maudlin, full of Hollywood B.S. He was Big Jim McBob, a farmer who liked to blow up things real good just for the sake of it (such as Dustin Hoffman playing Tootsie). He created other roles, too, and wrote them as well. Much of that time the show was shot in Edmonton, because that’s where their financial angel had his base of television operations (and a medical practice).

You never see it on the screen, but creative people are bound to clash. Flaherty told Ron Base of the Toronto Star in 1981:

“People get short fuses—we’re paying a price for doing a 90-minute show...One other producer came here for the first segment, and we sent his ass out of town. This group can freeze you pretty damn fast, make you feel uncomfortable. We’ve had some high-ranking (NBC) officials up here and it’s a question of fighting them off.
“So in came Barry [Sand, who went on to produce Late Night With David Letterman]. All he does is mediate the fights between us. It’s tough to take criticism from fellow cast members. We do a scene, there’ll be a playback. Someone will say do it again; someone else will say no. It’s worked somehow, but it takes its toll. You’ve got to develop a tough hide, and I don’t think any of us have. Yet you can’t do good stuff unless it’s held up to scrunity.”

Even the best shows come to an end, and SCTV petered out. Here’s Flaherty being interviewed by his home-town paper after the series was cancelled. This was published Dec. 27, 1984.

Joe Flaherty ponders TV
By Barbara Holsopple
The Pittsburgh Press
The question mark in Joe Flaherty's future creeps into his voice as he ponders various fates.
The Pittsburgh-born comedian-actor-writer spent a comfortable, if hectic, eight years with "SCTV," but the series is canceled now.
Just as he must examine his own future, another constant in Flaherty's life faces uncertainty. It is as if fate dealt him a double blow.
"The Pirates are for sale," he says, a quizzical look on his face. "I have season tickets. My accountant thinks I'm crazy, because I don't get back here that often."
But how could he not have season tickets?
"We used to catch the streetcar from Homewood into Oakland, buy a hot dog and wait for the seventh inning, when they raised the gate at Forbes Field and we could get in for free. Frank Thomas was my idol.
"I loved baseball . . . it drove my family nuts. If the Pirates leave, it's gonna be traumatic for me. I come to Pittsburgh and get off the plane and go right to the ballpark."
It is as if the Pirates' uncertainty symbolizes his own life.
"I'm doing odd jobs here and there," he says, a sense of wonder in his voice. "I was asked to be the grand marshal in WPGH's Thanksgiving parade and I thought might be fun.
"I'm a presenter for the Juno Awards, which are like Canadian Grammies for recording artists. I've never done that before.
"I find myself . . . I've never considered myself a personality, but television is a business of personalities, so I'm trying to refine that, to get out more in public . . ."
His words taper off, as he struggles with a definition for himself. The interviewer is tempted to help: Does he consider himself primarily a writer or an actor?
"I don't know. I really don't know," he says, the words emerging slowly. "I guess both. I don't think I could depend on either one, to make a living. I like doing both, so neither gets boring. It's hard for me to separate the two."
Until recently, Flaherty never had to separate the two. He enjoyed the happy status of writer-performer on one project, with occasional forays into one job or the other. But for nearly a decade, Joe Flaherty's being was tied into one major effort.
First he was a member of Second City, Chicago's improvisational troupe famed as a springboard for such stars as Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Alan Arkin, Gilda Radnor and others. He is co-author of a Second City 25th anniversary show to air next year on HBO.
Second City spawned "Second City TV," a syndicated series spoofing television. Flaherty was a moving force behind the formation of Second City's Canada troupe and the TV production, first in a Toronto studio and then in Edmonton.
For five years; the show was syndicated weekly on U.S. stations. In 1981, NBC picked it up for late-night runs as ''SCTV Network 90."
NBC canceled "SCTV" after two seasons, but the show was eagerly embraced by cable TV's Cinemax.
This summer, "SCTV" ceased production. It remains in reruns, shown here on WPGH weeknights at 12:30 a.m.
Flaherty blames the death of "SCTV" on the "erosion of cast members" and escalating salaries and production costs.
"When NBC dropped us, that sort of led to the erosion. We lost John Candy, Catherine O’Hara, Dave Thomas, Rick Moranis. Cinemax was good, but Lord, that's a small audience.
"We were down to four cast: members Andrea Martin, Eugene Levy, Martin Short and myself. The workload was tremendous. We couldn't do as many characters as we wanted because there was not enough time in the makeup chair.
"I think the problem with 'SCTV’ ultimately was our failure to get new cast members. They always said 'no' to new members.
"Most producers wouldn't ask, most producers would run the show totally, but Andrew Alexander was never one to do anything without asking us. The 'SCTV' cast had so much autonomy. It worked in our favor creatively, but in the long run it hurt us.
"It was the strength and weakness of the show—a cast so strong and a producer who wouldn't come in and lay down the law.
"The cast was always conservative. When we had the offer to go to NBC, they (the cast) balked. Once we did it, NBC discussed musical guests and they (the cast) balked at that.
"And Andrew put himself in a bad position because he never had people under contract. People began making outrageous salary demands. You can't keep renegotiating salaries at the end of every season.
"From a business point of view, the show must have been unlike any other. We kept getting saved. We shut down for a year in 1979 and then that guy from Edmonton came along. Then NBC came along. And then Cinemax.
"We'd been doing the show since 1976 and when we went to Cinemax I thought we'd open it up and get some of that pay-TV feel in it. I was disappointed.”
But Flaherty is quick to point out that he's "generally pleased" with the work he's done for the past eight years. "I watch the reruns and it's not a show that makes you want to cringe and hide."
When "SCTV" expired, Cinemax issued a statement saying that its remaining cast was working on a new series.
"Cinemax asked for a show, but they wanted the best of our show," Flaherty said. "Andrew and I got called in and they said, 'Those movie parodies really worked.’ Andrew and I kind of liked the idea, but then Cinemax wanted a continuing element that could be carried over from week to week.
“We tried it, but I couldn’t come up with anything that was satisfying. The Cinemax deal isn’t dead yet, I don’t think, but . . . I would rather let 'SCTV’ go. If I'm going to write to order, I'll go to a (film) studio for big bucks.
"Brandon Tartikoff (president of NBC Entertainment) wanted us to write a baseball movie. It was his idea and we pitched some stuff and it just sort of died." Flaherty mixes his discussion with "we" and "they" when talking about "SCTV." Loyal to his fellow writers and performers, he does not say he argued with them about the need for new cast members or contracts. It is evident only as he separates "we" from "they.”
He takes pleasure in listing the new projects of his fellow "SCTV" staffers.
Two of the non-performing members of the "SCTV" writing staff, Flaherty's brother Paul and Dick Blasucci, "just had a meeting with Mel Brooks to help punch up a film Brooks is writing," he says.
"They're also writing a movie with Moranis and Don Rickles, about an aging Clint Eastwood-type who does all these action films he's too old to do.
"Another 'SCTV’ writer, Bob Dolman—he's Andrea Martin's husband—has written some pilots. John Candy is shooting a movie, ‘Volunteers,’ with Tom Hanks. Dave Thomas has a kids' show on Canadian TV called 'Rocket Boy.’ Andrea is doing a series pilot for Ed Weinberger (“Taxi”).
"John Candy and I and Dick and Paul have a project, a comedy mini-series that's sort of a take-off on 'Masterpiece Theatre.’ We're also talking with Graham Chapman and we may do it in conjunction with the Monty Python people."
Flaherty also is "still working on" a film about the Pirates' Roberto Clemente, who lost his life in a plane crash. Like other writers and producers before him, he's finding the Clemente personality elusive.
Aside from the Clemente script, Flaherty hopes to remain a writer who acts in own work as much as possible.
"If you can do a project and act in it, see it through, that's best. Of the two, writing's more difficult because of the discipline involved. And both are pretty low on the totem pole in the industry. Actors are treated like the proverbial beef and writers are even lower.
"The system won't change. It's been like that forever and it won't change and I like it."
Even the memory of the movie he wrote and lost to a big studio's interpretation does not dim his enthusiasm.
"Even when I was doing 'Berserk,’ as bad as that experience was, I thought, ‘I used to sit in movie theaters in Pittsburgh wanting to do this, and now I’m doing it.”

Flaherty went on to other things, somewhat quirky and cultish as befitting a graduate of SCTV. Shows like Maniac Mansion and Freaks and Geeks. (For other projects, consult your local search engine). They were lesser shows, but SCTV would have been tough to surpass.

Some years ago, in my voice-over days, I was asked to do a commercial sounding like Count Floyd. I thought I had done a pretty good imitation of Flaherty deliberately doing a bad Lugosi. I asked the spot’s writer about my steller performance, and he paused to choose some diplomatic words then said, “Well, you got the essence of Count Floyd.”

I should have known better. There was only one Count Floyd. And there was only one Joe Flaherty.