Good Evening, Mr. Benny, Profiling a Writer, I See

Emergency! Crisis in radio’s top-ranked show!

In 1936, Jack Benny was number one in radio listener opinion polls. That satisfied just about everyone except Harry W. Conn. He was Jack’s writer, and publicly beefed he was hugely responsible for Benny’s success and demanded equal pay with the star.

It eventually became a case of I quit/No, you’re fired. Jack tried putting together some scripts on his own, but it was clear he needed help. To the rescue before the end of the 1936 season came a pair of scribes named Bill Morrow and Ed Beloin. Jack remained on top. Harry who??

The two evidently had AFRA cards as they occasionally appeared on the show. Beloin was on more than Morrow. I liked him as Radcliffe the diner counter man (paired with Frank Nelson as Gilroy), but he may be best known as Jack’s boarder, Mr. Billingsley, full of nonsense and non-sequiturs (and alcohol on occasion).

A few years after pairing with Jack, Beloin added a side-career. He co-owned an inn in Maine. The Portland Press Herald caught up with Beloin in a feature story published July 23, 1939. He talks about himself, Benny and the Benny show. The photos (sorry for the poor scans) are publicity shots from Hollywood supplied to the paper.

Script Writer For Jack Benny Tells What Makes Famous Comedy Program Click; Now in Maine Visiting Camden Shore Property
By Betty Foxwell
Special Despatch to Sunday Telegram
Camden, July 22.—Running over to Maine from California for the week-end is more than a gag in the life of Eddie Beloin, ace script writer for Jack Benny,—for Eddie recently became the owner of attractive shore property on Route 1 in this town, and has just arrived here from California for a few day to supervise the finishing touches on the Inn which his father built and opened this month. Speed and Eddie are practically synonymous.
From College To Top Rank
From college, in one jump, he landed in “Best Short Stories of 1933” with the first short story he had ever written, entitled “Baby.” Next he became script writer for radio comedian Fred Allen, and shortly after, at the age of 24, found himself at the top of the list of script writers with his partner, Bill Morrow, working with Jack Benny on his program, where he has remained for four years. (It would be interesting to hear those two wise-cracking gentlemen on the subject of whether Eddie’s jump from Fred Allen to Jack Benny was forward or backward!)
Speaking of speed, last Summer Eddie drove a stock car from New York to Hollywood in three and a half days, driving 16 hours a day. Figure out for yourself what his speed was.
But Maine’s winding roads were too much even for him this morning, this Interview being carried on at an average rate of 30 miles an hour with Eddie at the wheel, sight-seeing Camden and vicinity. Sandwiched in between comments on the Snow Bowl, Turnpike Drive and other scenic points the following data was gathered.
Seventy-five laughs to 18 minutes of continuity is the average for the Benny Sunday night radio program. But the funniest sketch of all the drama of the way the program is put together, has not yet been put on the air.
This “Rhapsody In Everything Except Blue,” starts “lento” on Monday morning when Beloin and Morrow, who usually live in adjoining apartments, get together and discuss the general idea for next Sunday’s program; whether it will be a stooge spot, sketch or continuity. About Wednesday, the pace is “allegro con moto” with Beloin and Morrow taking turns at the typewriter and striding back and forth about the room, writing seven or eight pages of script. (Incidentally gags are written backwards, the answer coming first and the “first line is the hard line.”
Thursday or Friday the tempo becomes accelerando and the volume “crescendo,” when, with much animation and enthusiasm, Beloin and Morrow take the script to Jack Benny and try to “sell” it to him. Benny is a great editor of humor. Instinctively he knows what will get over to the audience.
Now it is “presto” and “appassionato” as Jack Benny, Eddie, Bill Morrow and Jack’s secretary, Harry Baldwin, pull out the stops for the climax. Harry Baldwin, incidentally, seems to be something of a phychic [sic] phenomenon, writing down the script from the amazing repartee which goes on between the other three men, knowing instinctively which of the three has the line in its final polished form.
Benny, Eddie and Bill are now too keyed up Lo remain still, they must keep in motion physically, Ba1dwin and his notebook keeping up them.
Work In Different Place
Each week they work in a different place. At Ensenada, Mex., the natives were once startled to see four men in sun helmets and shorts, riding bicycles around and around the village, three of them shouting gags at each other, while the fourth man took them down in a notebook.
Sometimes they do roadwork to keep Benny’s waistline within specified limits, and then to the tour gentlemen in motion in added a fifth, Harvey Cooper, Benny’s trainer. Harvey is a great Charlie McCarthy fan and practices imitating Charlie’s laugh, so the wisecracks of the Benny troupe are followed by the derisive McCarthy laughter.
Occasionally the script is written while they are swimming, with Harry Baldwin, in bathing suit, with notebook, sitting on the edge of the pool. Here Jack Benny’s line is “Dive down for a gag, boys.” Out of this slightly insane symphony a program emerges, for which by 10 o’clock Saturday morning there is an informal rehearsal.
The Benny programs are tops because of their spontaneity and sparkle. One reason for this la the way they are fashioned, as outlined above. Another reason is that there is no rehearsal. Except for this informal rehearsal Saturday morning, none of the cast has seen the script till it goes on the air Sunday night.
When the radio audience hears Mary, or Don Wilson, or Kenny Baker or members of the orchestra laugh, it is because the gag is as new and funny to them as to the audience. Jack, Eddie and Bill are the only ones who know exactly what the script is to be.
Inspects Snow Bowl
Time was taken out here in the interview, while the summer quarters of the Snow Bowl were inspected. Back in the car more information about Eddie was requested.
Eddie met his partner, Bill Morrow, by chance, in a Detroit hotel room. They tried out a script together, found they synchronized, and have teamed together ever since.
His hobbies are collecting wood carvings, reading and playing badminton. He is unmarried, but Winchell predicted that he would be married on his arrival in New York last week, and Winchell usually hits it pretty close.
Among the movies he and his partner have written are “This Way Please,” “Artists and Models” “Artists and Models Abroad, “College Holiday,” and “Man About Town.”
The movie title “Buck Benny Rides Again” has been sold to Paramount and work starts on it Oct. 15. Eddie and his partner work best under pressure, and write on the set, sometimes hammering out additional lines while a scene is actually being shot. They are known as “additional dialogue writers” and work very closely with the director on the picture, polishing up the lines and giving them sparkle.
Turning the questions from the subject of Eddie to Jack Benny, it was interesting to this Benny fan to learn that Jack, who is always being kidded on the radio about pinching pennies, is in actual life extremely generous and pays double the salaries to his staff that other radio headliners pay.
Likes Hot Weather
Benny, who likes his weather hot, is taking a cruise through the Panama Canal this Summer. Later he wi1l probably take an auto tour through the United States, indulging in his pet hobby of stopping at hot dog stands. In contrast to Eddie who gets [to] places quickly, Jack is an extremely cautious driver, having been known to wait five minutes for another car to approach before making a left turn.
On Sept. 1, Jack goes on a vaudeville tour, appearing at the San Francisco World’s Fair and large Eastern cities.
Jack, Eddie and Bill are taking turns this Summer listening to tenors, as Kenny Baker is leaving to go on another program this Fall.
In June, Eddie and Phil Harris attended the wedding of ‘Rochester,’ who plays the part on the radio of Jack’s colored valet and is in real life a gentleman of color, named Eddie Anderson. The wedding for which the cream of Los Angeles colored society turned out, was a very formal affair, with receiving line, until the gin was served, when all formality was dropped!
What makes the Benny program click? For one thing, because it is original and spontaneous. And one guesses, too, that here is a team of four brilliant and keenly humorous men. Benny, Beloin, Morrow and Baldwin, who physically speaking, are so sensitive to each other’s thoughts that they automatically work together as one personality. Such teamwork, plus the Benny slant on the radio, is what is responsible for the program’s winning for five years the “Radio Guide” fan poll, and for six years the World-Telegram national radio editors poll.

Variety announced on June 9, 1943 that Beloin was leaving Benny to write for the movies. He and Morrow moved on before American Tobacco took over sponsorship of the Benny show but, occasionally, broadcasts they had written in the General Foods days were lifted in part, or reworked, by the new writers.

Beloin wrote and produced films and television until he retired almost three decades later. He died in Florida on May 26, 1992 at age 82.

Let Me Tell You About Bullwinkle

It took a little time, but newspaper columnists slowly discovered a cartoon series starring a moose and a squirrel bathed in send-ups and puns.

Production delays pushed back the start of Rocky and His Friends on ABC until November 19, 1959. The Copley News Service profiled the show, and producers Jay Ward and Bill Scott, in a column published in a newspaper in Ontario, California on July 24, 1960. The writer doesn’t seem to have watched the show at all up until that point.

Scott’s story about leaving the Warner Bros. cartoon studio is pure fiction and written for laughs, though he didn’t have anything good to say years later about producer Ed Selzer, who fired him.

Unlikely Pair Plan Adult Cartoons For Next Season
By DONALD FREEMAN
HOLLYWOOD (CNS)— Animated cartoons for adults as well as children are going to be big on television next season. One such series is “Rocky and His Friends,” the brainchild of two unlikely young men named Jay Ward and Bill Scott. The show itself was on the air for 26 weeks last year, in the coming season it will grace the American Broadcasting Co. on Sundays and Thursdays.
Who are Jay Ward and Bill Scott?
To begin with, both are on the plump side and each, confiding to you, expresses the solemn view that the other looks exactly like a bespectacled fire hydrant.
In common with everyone I have ever bumped into in the animated cartoon field, Ward and Scott are blessed with minds that shoot off in — well, unusual directions. This is illustrated at the mindset by the nature of their hero — Rocky, the star of the cartoon, is a flying squirrel.
Now, conjuring up such an animal demands special gifts and both Ward and Scott (with their wild, wild eyes behind their respective glasses) breathe such gifts in abundance.
“We work well together,” said Ward, who takes delight in the fact that he drives a 1948 Packard, “because I am nearsighted and Scott is farsighted. We discard our glasses and we see things quite differently. However, we agree on food — our favorite combination is pizza and popcorn. Brainfood, you know.”
Actually, Ward and Scott have excellent track records in animated cartoons. Scott, who calls himself a “heavy-bottomed Puck,” and “the world’s oldest callow youth,” broke into the cartoon writing business with Warner Bros. in 1946.
“I was writing clever dialogue for Okapis, fruit bats and other odd beasts,” Scott recalled. “After a year of this I got into a terrible fight with an aardvark over the way a scene I’d written should be played. When I found out the aardvark carried more weight with the producer than I did, I left in high dudgeon.”
Later Scott worked on “Time for Beanie” and then moved to UPA studios as a writer and by 1956 was the assistant producer of the “Gerald McBoing-Boing” show. Among others, he has written scripts — yes, even cartoon people must have scripts — for the nearsighted Mr. Magoo and the redoubtable Bugs Bunny.
As for Ward — “I was born in San Francisco with a silver spoon in my mouth. Fourteen years later someone suggested that I remove it. Naturally, I was dropped from the Social Register, but I at least lost my boyhood nickname of ‘The Mumbler.’
Professionally, Ward was co-producer of “Crusader Rabbit,” first cartoon series filmed expressly for TV and, two years ago, he joined forces with Scott to concentrate on “Rocky and His Friends.” They are also at work on other TV cartoon shows, among them being one called “Super Chicken” starring Louis Nye and Don Knotts from the Steve Allen repertory group.
Among the cohorts in “Rocky and His Friends” are such nature’s noblemen as Peabody, a Genius Dog, who adopts an orphaned boy (“The judge,” explained Ward, “ruled that if a boy can have a dog, a dog can have a boy”) and Bullwinkle the Frog [sic], who reads poetry aloud.
I was curious about the plots that would unfold and the creators of the show were quick to relate several of them. “First shot out of the box,” said Scott, “Peabody the Genius Dog invents a time machine and this starts us off on a whole series of improbable histories. For instance, we have one about Gen. Custer. In our story, Gen. Custer is captured by a famous Indian chief, but thanks to Peabody’s culinary skill, Custer manages to escape, just in time for the battle of Little Big Horn...
“We have many more improbable histories, including the story of how Ponce de Leon finds the Fountain of Youth — but his men overdrink and this causes certain problems with the Indians. And there’s one about Napoleon suddenly finding himself helpless in battle, someone having stolen his suspenders. Napoleon therefore is unable to salute, to draw his sword or order his troops forward.
Ward put in, “And we’ll also have what we called ‘Fractured Fairy Tales,’ such as our version of ‘The Princess and the Pea.’ In this one the court jester, known to everyone as ‘Million Laughs Charlie,’ tries to put over a fake princess on the unsuspecting king. Fortunately, the jester’s scheme backfires and the true princess is found.”
“And,” Scott pointed out, “there’s Bullwinkle’s poetry. In ‘Wee Willíe Winkie,’ for instance, Bullwinkle ‘runs upstairs and down, in his night gown’ — until the police begin to wonder.”

Ward couldn’t sell Super Chicken to the networks in 1960 and he brought back the idea as a segment of George of the Jungle in 1967. The voices were re-cast. This is all covered in Keith Scott's book, "The Moose That Roared."

The Modesto Bee of Aug. 28, 1960, gave potential viewers a bit more about the series, including a couple of lines about the directors of some of the cartoons; both died in the 1960s. There’s also mention of Marvin Miller, who did a lot of narration for industrial films, for UPA, and appeared on The Millionaire. He didn’t work for Ward, as far as I know. Hans Conried was hired for Fractured Flickers (1963) and the animated Hoppity Hooper (1964).

Rocky and His Friends Are Virtually Unknown—So Far
By Pat Morrison
Rocky And His Friends is called a subliminal cartoon series by its producers Jay Ward and Bill Scott, because apparently nobody has ever heard of it though Rocky has been on the air since November.
The sponsors do not seem to care about publicizing it and apparently are happy about the children who do watch the bi weekly productions—Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5 PM on channel 7 and 5:30 PM on channels 3 and 47.
Rocky, a flying squirrel, is helped immeasureably by Bullwinkle, the Moose, Boris and Natasha, a couple of delightfully “sneaky type spies from Pottsylvania, Cloyd and Gibney, two moonmen currently doing a socko duo on the nightclub circuit and Mr. Peabody and his boy, Sherman—”every dog should have a boy.”
Each half hour segment contains two episodes of the adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, usually bring pursued by Boris and Natasha in a manner that makes The Perils of Pauline look like a Sunday picnic. Each stanza is appropriately titled and subtitled—Below Zero Heroes or I Only Have Ice For You, The Snowman Cometh or An Icicle Built For Two and The Boundary Bounders or Some Like It Shot.
The first saga is followed by a Fractured Fairy Tale as related by Edward Everett Horton. The moose comes on for his sally into culture with Bullwinkle’s Corner, a stab at poetry and classic tales, appropriately animated. Mr. Peabody and Sherman, with the help of the way back machine, illustrate segments of Improbable History and the half hour closes with another cliff hanging chapter with Rocky and Bullwinkle.
Although the show is being televised on a national scale, it so far has not reached the heights of Huckleberry Hound or Quick Draw McGraw. But producers Ward and Scott feel as long as the sponsors are happy they are in business. But the sponsor did try something. Rocky And His Friends was put on at a later time, 7:30 PM. in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the squirrel walked off with a whopping 30 rating.
By simple deduction the producers feel with a time change and a little publicity, Rocky might jump into the limelight. However, no changes are in sight.
Their main problem is just to get the cartoons out and they go about this in a strange way. For instance, their animating plant, with 70 workers, is situated in Mexico City. The idea, of course, is to put out shows at a lower cost. The writers think up the stories in Hollywood and the animators do the drawing below the border.
With the success of Huckleberry Hound and other cartoons, Scott feels the TV cartoon industry can only grow. He only wonders where the new talent is going to come from.
Most of the staff members of Jay Ward Productions have put in time at UPA, Disney or one of the movie cartoon series. Scott is a former writer for Mister McGoo [sic], Gerald McBoing-Boing and Bugs Bunny. Ward created the first TV cartoon series, Crusader Rabbit, director Pete Burness handled many McGoo shows and director Bob Cannon won two Academy Awards plus those from Venice, Cannes, and Edinburgh.
Probably the most familiar thing about the Rocky shows is the voices. The nervous voice of Edward Everett Horton lends itself to the Fractured Fairy Tales. Hans Conreid, Marvin Miller, Don Knotts and Louis Nye can be heard.
Besides these, add the two of the most talented voice men in Hollywood, Daws Butler and Paul Frees And as the credit line at the end of each show will tell you, “these are only some of the people who make this show impossible.”

Rocky was clever and fun, but the show's attitude shows you how times have changed. The series made fun of the stupidity and incompetence of the U.S. government and military, but it was all good-natured. Today, satire on the same subjects is angry and denigrates into personal insults, more so than the acrimony of the Nixon years. I prefer the Ward/Scott way better.

That Pitch is Dynamite!

In the war years, Tex Avery and Bob Clampett were known for large takes. Frank Tashlin tried it on occasion, too—the sexually-laden ram’s horns in I’ve Got Plenty of Mutton comes to mind.

Here’s a fairly modest one in The Unruly Hare (1945). Tashlin was working in colour and had begun using Bugs Bunny.

In this scene, trickster Bugs turns into a baseball catcher, treating Elmer Fudd like a pitcher and a stick of dynamite as a ball.

Elmer winds up for the pitch, then realises what’s actually going on.



No, Elmer does not blow up here. Instead, writer Tubby Millar sets up a war reference. When the dynamite explodes, it begins laying ties and tracks for a railway to the melody of... well, you can guess this one. A train almost runs over Fudd. Bugs is on it, but jumps off, reminding Americans they shouldn’t be doing any unnecessary travelling (leaving train travel to vacationing or returning soldiers).

Unfortunately, the still frames don't give you the timing of the take, which is very good.

There’s a Jerry Colonna reference and a Joe Besser reference.

Carl Stalling’s soundtrack includes “What’s Up, Doc?” and one of his favourites, J.F. Barth’s “Frat” during the phoney relay and baseball footage.

Hey, I've Got a Gag

One of the big baseball stories of 1946-47, besides Jackie Robinson breaking the race barrier, was the attempt by the Mexican League to raid the majors of its players.

That was considered cartoon fodder for John Foster, who wrote Mexican Baseball for Terrytoons as a vehicle for that lovable two-some, Gandy Goose and Sourpuss.

And, in his own way, Foster conducted a raid of his own, lifting a joke from Mike Maltese at Warner Bros.

Warners had its own baseball cartoon, Baseball Bugs, released on February 2, 1946. In it, the Gashouse Gorillas smack the ball to the sound of “Ahi Viene La Conga,” then director Friz Freleng cuts to a conga line.



Mexican Baseball was released more than a year later, on March 14, 1947. Foster had loads of time to borrow the gag, with Phil Scheib providing a conga tune as the Mexican bulls bat around.



One thing the Terry cartoon has the Warners’ cartoon doesn’t is Sid Raymond voicing a number of parts.

Fans of the Terry Splash™ will not be disappointed in this cartoon.

It Ain't Over Until...

There are vast numbers of Americans, it seems, who love sentiment mixed with patriotism. And there are people who are adept at dishing it out to engage in another love in the U.S.—making money.

Such describes Kate Smith.

Well, only partly. She had (at least, in my opinion) a lovely singing voice. Since few of us go back to the early 1930s, when she made a name for herself on network radio, most people who remember her connect her to hockey’s Philadelphia Flyers, for whom she sang “God Bless America” before each game at the Spectrum.

But back to radio.

Smith fronted a number of musical shows in the 1930s and into the war era, sponsored by General Foods. The company forced Jack Benny and her to switch products between Grape Nuts Flakes and Jell-O (one of the reasons Benny got miffed and dumped the company for American Tobacco). After the war, she had settled into a chatty weekday show where she served up buckets-full of warm fuzziness (and, occasionally, recipes), as her manager Ted Collins hitched along for the ride.

Radio satirist Henry Morgan took a jab at Smith’s “Hello, everybody” greeting to fans. Radio columnist John Crosby wasn’t quite as cynical, but he gave his assessment of Smith’s show in his syndicated column of January 29, 1947. Smith never married, let alone had children, which Crosby notes in her continued gushing about motherhood.

RADIO IN REVIEW
By JOHN CROSBY
Big Ray of Sunshine
There was a time not so many years ago when Kate Smith was as important to the gag-writing profession as John L. Lewis is today. (“I once made a non-stop flight around Kate Smith.”) Today a joke about the golden-throated contralto with the impressive architecture would be almost profane.
Some idea of Miss Kate’s standing in the community can be gained from the titles of her two radio programs, “Kate Smith Speaks” (C. B. S., noon, Mondays through Fridays), and “Kate Smith Sings” (C. B. S., 6:30 p. m., Sundays). Like the phrase “Garbo Laughs,” the titles of these programs are the simplest possible statements of what goes into them and nothing else is required. You have to be a national institution before a simple subject and predicate explain your activities so completely as to be understandable to every one.
Miss Kate is now rated as radio’s top feminine entertainer, which is a misnomer. The gentle, folksy, harmless and overwhelmingly sentimental banalities which she voices in her soft, homespun voice on her daytime program are not so much entertainment as heart balm and solace to millions of housewives. She and Ted Collins, her manager—or Svengali, as he is referred to by the more cynical Broadway characters—simply chatter for fifteen minutes about any folksy news item that gives Miss Kate an opportunity to say at some point, though not in these words, that God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world.
. . .
A news item from Columbus, Ohio, announcing that a survey revealed 51 per cent of American women prefer the kiddies and the dishes to careers will send her into paroxysms of sentimental delight, which sound a little odd, coming from a woman whose career is one of the wonders or broadcasting.
“No career on earth could give any woman the warm satisfaction of watching her little child at play. Nothing gave me more pleasure than this survey in Ohio. The American home is safe” she will cry. Any one who can say “The American home is safe” without making a parody of all home life is unquestionably a genius of some sort.
The sanctity of the home, mother and America are Miss Kate’s constant themes. Any criticism of America, no matter how slight, will bring down her wrath and also that of Mr. Collins. Recently, for instance, a French expert had the temerity to suggest that American women used too many rich fats in their cooking, fried too many meats, overcooked their vegetables.
“I hope he survives his visit,” said Mr. Collins with withering sarcasm.” “It would be awful if he starved to death over here.”
“I feel sorry for this visitor,” said Miss Kate. “I wonder if he’s ever tasted a hot apple pie made with cinnamon or Maryland fried chicken or sugar cured hams or apple pan dowdy.”
. . .
Food, housekeeping, children and clothes are probably closest to the American housewives’ hearts and Mr. Collins, who does the thinking on this program, sees to it that they make up the bulk of the chit-chat. However, Miss Kate, an excellent cook and a hearty eater, can summon up more enthusiasm for food than anything else, which is just as well since she’s sponsored by General Foods.
The news that English war brides in Chicago were taking cooking courses to learn how to bake doughnuts brightened her whole day. She gave the project unqualified blessing, which is as close to knighthood as you can come in this country. “Cooking,” she will say, as if she’d just thought it up herself, “is the way to a man’s heart.”
When she isn’t exulting over new recipes, Miss Kate likes to tell cheerful little stories about the lame, the halt, the blind and the orphaned. Speaking of an orphanage run by the Loyal Order of Moose, she said: “It’s pleasant with all our unhappy headlines to contemplate this school built on love.” Right there is not only the root of her philosophy but the secret of her success. Her fans have had enough of the unpleasant headlines: they want a little sunshine and Miss Kate is bursting with sunshine. They will even forgive her for saying “sumpin’” for something and for her frequent redundancies (“and et cetera”) because her heart is pure.
. . .
Even her evening program is pervaded with optimism. When “Kate Smith Sings” her sentimental contralto sounds best in ballads, particularly the ones that shout to the world that it’s great to be alive, especially in America.



The rest of the Crosby columns for the week:

Monday, January 27: A comparison between shows aimed at rural listeners to CBS and NBC.
Tuesday, January 28: One of Canada’s radio exports to the U.S., besides Alan Young and Gisele MacKenzie, was an obscure programme of music and stories called Once Upon a Tune (above, top). Crosby’s description makes it sound like a children’s show, but he doesn’t call it that. DuMont briefly broadcast a television version in 1951 with different writers.
Thursday, January 30: Odds and sods, partly dealing with a doctor’s conclusion about high blood pressure and radio (above, bottom). Apparently, Gabriel Heatter was bad for your health. Ah, there’s no good news tonight!
Friday, January 31: One of daytime radio’s evergreens that wasn’t a soap opera was Galen Drake (right), whose gimmick was a club called “The Housewives Protective League.” Drake began in the late ‘30s and carried on until the dying days of network radio in the early ‘60s, with his show finishing its run on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

You can click on the stories to enlarge the copy. Cartoons are from the Daily News in Los Angeles.

Why the Squirrel Didn't Go To School

Tex Avery and writer Heck Allen find a convenient way to end The Screwy Truant (1945).

At the start of the cartoon, Screwy calls kids going to school “a bunch of chumps” and grabs a bamboo fishing rod from behind a tree. For the next six minutes, he harasses a dullard truant officer determined to bring him in.

But fishing had nothing to do with the truancy. At the end of the cartoon, Screwy reveals he has measles.



A typical Avery reaction.



I like this in-between.



It turns out the measles are highly contagious. They spread to the truant officer and then the “The End” sign in the background to end the cartoon.



Don’t ask why Screwy showed no signs of measles before this. He’s screwy, you know.

This cartoon has, like all the Screwys, great gags. The roll of phoney squirrel tail may be my favourite.

Ever See a Dog Fly?

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit disappears for about half a cartoon in The Quail Hunt (1935). Perhaps he wanted to avoid being connected to this sorry effort that was co-written by Walter Lantz.

The nominal star of this short is Elmer the Great Dane, who is Oswald’s hunting dog. The quail he’s hunting turns sympathetic and saves Elmer’s life, enabling him to appear in more lacklustre cartoons. A hawk comes into the picture to try to capture the quail, and it’s Elmer’s turn to save a life.

In the most surreal situation in the cartoon, Elmer manages to grab the hawk by the tail and pull him off a tree. They roll backwards and crash into another tree.



When the dust disappears, Elmer now has the hawk’s feathers. Not only that, he has developed wings and can fly!



This was a pretty fallow period for Lantz. He tried to make stars out of three chimps, a turtle doing a bad impression of Rochester from the Jack Benny show and a panda he eventually took off the screen and put in comic books.

The animators on this one are Ed Benedict, Ray Abrams, Bill Mason and Fred Kopietz.

Milk and Money Backgrounds

Tex Avery enjoyed a left-to-right pan over a background drawing whenever it fit in with one of his cartoons, both at Warners and MGM.

That’s how he begins the 1936 Porky Pig short Milk and Money.

It starts with an overlaid cel of trees.



The trees are pulled away from the actual background, which also has animation of Porky’s dad hoeing the garden to the strains of “Home Sweet Home.”



The background artist is uncredited, but we know who it is, thanks to a newspaper article of the day. It was John A. Waltz, who sandwiched in some time at Leon Schlesinger’s studio in between stops at Walt Disney. You can read a partial list of his credits at Warners in this post.

Making Alvin Safe For Children

Ross Bagdasarian got a lot of mileage out of a novelty record.

In 1958, he assumed the guise of David Seville and, with his voice sped up as a chorus, made the goofy love song “Witch Doctor” a number-one hit for Liberty Records.

A real inspiration struck Bagdasarian. Why not turn his sped-up chorus into a novelty trio of chipmunks (named for Liberty executives)? They debuted on Liberty the same year with a Christmas novelty song.

Milking the idea didn’t stop there. After The Flintstones became a prime-time success in 1960, television networks looked around for more potential night-time animated hits. Right in front of them was Bagdasarian and his Chipmunks (drawings of which had been limited to album covers). Animals make perfect cartoon characters. The Chipmunks were already popular. They could even sing funny songs. A recipe for a TV comedy success.

So it was The Alvin Show debuted, with Format Films contracted to make the half-hour series. Format had been set up by Herb Klynn and others who walked out of UPA during the making of the Magoo Arabian Nights feature. Bob Kurtz designed the characters for animation, and the company hired good writers including Tedd Pierce and Dale Hale.

But Bagdasarian (whose name became a musical tag at the end of each show) mother-henned the series, at least in his version of events.

Here’s Chuck Wheat’s column in the March 12, 1962 edition of the Tulsa World. Wheat didn’t like other cartoons on CBS; I presume he must have meant Terrytoons. It’s odd he would think they had less animation than TV cartoons.

“Clean up your plate, dear . . . remember the starving Armenians.”
Ross Bagdasarian can’t tell his kids that mossy axiom . . . he breaks up in laughter every time he starts it. Ross (I’ll call him by his first name—save plenty money on type) and his cousin, William Saroyan, should be called gorged Armenians.
Together sometimes but most often separately, they have parlayed their madness into piles of long, green currency. Ross talked by telephone this week on his latest gambit, “The Alvin Show” on CBS.
After almost a season, Alvin and his fellow chipmunks seem pretty healthy — at least their sponsor is satisfied. It’s a show that surprised me, because quite frankly I am sick to death of shabby cartoon work icing down a rancid cookie of had situation comedy. Most of the animated shows on The Eye are peculiarly lacking in real animation.
Alvin, however, very often glimmers. The mischievous chipmunks are mostly enjoyable, but I get a hoot out of Clyde Crashcup, the professor who invents old things.
“Did you notice how Crashcup and his sidekick Leonardo look like Virgil Parch [sic] drawings?” asked Ross. “I hope they look utterly deadpan in their insanity—like VIP drawings.”
Ross’ cuckoo-bird mind comes up with some real odd stories on the weekly show, just as cousin Saroyan’s mind came up with wacky stories and plays that delight and confuse.
“Bill lives in Paris, but we get together once in a while,” says Ross. “Are we crazy, you ask? We’re the SANE ones in the family.”
In order to justify my call to Ross I asked him to tell us how a cartoon half-hour show comes on The Eye. Here is his description:
First the story line is written, based on ideas Ross throws out. The writers also draw sketches, much like magazine or newspaper cartoons. The story line is a phrase under each picture.
Once this “story board” is finished, Ross checks it and if he likes it, everybody troops to a recording studio where the show’s sound is put down. Then the sound recordings go to a director and layout man who turn it on for the animators. They make the action fit the noises just recorded.
You don’t call this lipsynch—this isn’t the recorded voice while the real singer pants silently and moves her lips. This is facephake—the real voice and the recorded singer.
This whole process takes about four months, according to Ross, and costs about $65,000 for a half-hour show. He hastens to explain that by now the Alvin show studios are an assembly line with a one-a-week output at least.
“The Alvin Show” moves to 5:30 p.m. Sundays next season (or maybe sooner—I’m not certain on this point) and Ross is satisfied. Or maybe oblivious—since his jobs on the show include creator, writer, boss animator, director and voice—and oh yes, he owns the show, too.
“One thing I’d hope you’ll get across,” he said. “I’ve got kids of my own and Alvin is never going to be a little skunk (ha ha, chipmunk but no skunk)—his tricks better not be destructive or dangerous.
“I once found my 5-year-old getting ready to fly off our garage because he saw Superman do it.”
Television could do with more madmen like Ross Bagdasarian. I hope he has hysterics all the way to the Armenian National Bank of America.

What stories or gags did Bagdasarian throw out? He gave some examples in a wire service interview, published December 11, 1961.

Alvin Can Do No Wrong
By JOE FINNIGAN
UPI Hollywood Reporter
ALVIN THE CHIPMUNK’S mentor is keeping an eye on the trouble prone animal to keep him from leading youngsters astray.
Given half a chance, Alvin might start a juvenile revolution that could –upset many of the nation’s households.
But Bagdasarian, apparently a fellow who doesn’t believe in overthrowing homes or governments by force, keeps a tight rein on the squeaky voiced Alvin.
“This is one of the most important things,” said Ross, explaining his reluctance to let Alvin run loose. “We joke a lot but we won’t lot any of the characters do something wrong which kids think is okay. We have a responsibility to people who watch, especially the kids.”
BAGDASARIAN built Alvin’s CBS-TV show from a phonograph record to a multi-million dollar business. Alvin and his two brothers, Simon and Theodore, are created at Format Films, where Ross oversees the whole operation.
It’s difficult to think of rascally Alvin as a pillar of any community, but that’s almost what Ross would like. Bagdasarian keeps tabs on the show’s writers to keep any vicious image of Alvin from getting on the air.
“There was a script that had Alvin giving one of his brothers a hot foot,” said Ross, cringing at the thought. “It played very funny to adults, but kids would think it’s okay to do that.
“In another script, Alvin was sitting in the car and drove it through the garage wall.”
Ross almost groaned thinking about the consequences of that little trick and said, “We could see kids in the family car going through their own garage.”
In both instances, Ross edited the scripts so Junior wouldn’t get any ideas.
IT’S FAIR to assume that Bagdasarian, who has three children, was also thinking of himself when it came to the hotfoot and automobile wreck scenes. His own youngsters might have gotten some ideas and taken one of Dad’s high powered cars for a joyride through the garage wall.
‘We’d rather have the show go off the air than maim thousands of kids,” said Ross, expressing one of TV’s nobler sentiments.
Ross admits that Alvin has no halo over his head. But he insists the little fellow is no switchblade delinquent.
“Alvin is a very delicate character,” Ross said. “He goes against authority because he feels he had a better way of doing something. He’s not a precocious brat.”

Bagdasarian’s “What about the children” attitude didn’t keep the series on the air. The prime-time animation fad disappeared as fast as it arrived as the ratings numbers just weren’t there. What looks like a CBS-TV release in newspapers starting June 2, 1962 announced The Alvin Show would debut on Saturday mornings on June 23 and would leave prime time on September 12.

That was a momentary blip. The Bagdasarian family conjured Alvin 2.0 with new records, new cartoons, new characters, new huge profits.

There’s still something to be said about The Alvin Show, despite the creaky songs turned into music videos and a title character who wasn’t likeable some of the time. Nobody had really tried a musical comedy format, so the series broke some ground. And a show with a Steven Bosustow-lookalike selling Crashcup noses in Crashcup Land can’t be bad.

Re-Writing For Benny

Jack Benny was born on this date in 1894 (insert your own “39” joke here) and through his TV years, columnists found a way of marking it.

This time, we’re going to skip those kinds of columns and go back to one published on his birthdate in 1937 by the Los Angeles Times.

There’s no mention of his birthday. Instead the story involves writing the Benny radio show for the 4 p.m. (Pacific) broadcast, and then re-working it for the live repeat show for NBC red network stations in the West at 8:30 p.m., based on what got laughs on the broadcast heard elsewhere in the country.

The columnist also briefly mentions how Ed Beloin and Bill Morrow were hired by Benny, avoiding the reason Jack was “fresh out of material and writers.”

Air Comedian’s Gags Metered For Laughs
If Joke Rolls ‘Em in Aisles, It’s “B.W.;” Studio Audience Response to Jack Benny Humor Graded by Script Writers
By CARROLL NYE
Radio Editor
If you crash the control room at N.B.C. during a Jack Benny broadcast and peer over the shoulders of Bill Morrow or Ed Beloin, the Jesters ace writer you’ll find them making “chicken tracks” on their script.
What they actually are doing is grading the gags according to the response of the studio audience. Top rating is “B.W.,” which signifies (pardon my French!) “belly wow.” Lowest grading is “S.,” standing for “snicker,” and the intermediate ratings are “G.,” for “good,” and “V.G.,” for “very good,” with variations of plus or minus for all.
MARKED TWICE
The scripts are marked in pencil during the afternoon broadcast; then remarked in ink during the repeat broadcast for the West. When gags get the same response on both shows they are marked “D.,” for “ditto.”
A survey of Benny’s last three “report cards” reveals that Mary Livingstone leads the parade of comics in the classroom with an average of B-minus, and Kenny Baker is tied with Benny with a rating of G-plus. Don Wilson’s rating is low because he’s friendly to Jack, while Phil Harris’s score goes up every time he tiffs with the star. Andy Devine’s first appearance on the program brought him a B-plus mark, but he subsequently slipped into a straight “G.” groove.
TOPICAL JOKES
In general, the survey discloses that topical jokes and “ribs” on personalities in or out of the cast are the consistent “B.W.” getters—which is gratifying to all concerned because the success or failure of the series has always hinged on that type of humor.
Puns or epigrammatic lines are only good for a snicker, and a subtle shaft of humor doesn’t get a stronger reaction unless it is linked with a situation. In any event, no gag is expected to stand on its own—nor will the writers inject a series of unrelated gags. “Those methods were good in vaudeville,” said Morrow, “hut the ‘bang-bang-bang’ comedy is a total loss in radio.”
ALLEN FEUD REGISTERS
Benny’s feud with Fred Allen is apparently accomplishing its purpose, because every mention of the “Town Hall Tonight” star in the script is followed by a B-plus. An example was Jack’s line: “I should stoop to arguing with a toothpaste salesman.”
I rapped on the door of Morrow’s Hollywood apartment last Wednesday evening and we enjoyed some chitchat until Allen’s program came on the air. In the hour that followed, my host listened intently—knowing that he’d have some special work cut out for himself if Allen did a particularly good job of putting his boss on the spot.
After listening to that “rib” I gather that Morrow and Beloin started burning the midnight oil. Anyhow, we’ll hear the result today.
PUT HIM ON SPOT
“We should worry,” said Morrow. “We put Fred on the spot when Jack announced last Sunday that he’d lost his violin, and made the drawling comedian rush out a new routine.
“In fact, we never let ourselves worry about our show because it is impossible to write good comedy under pressure. We’re serious, but relaxed—and that’s the way Jack expects us to work.”
The pair of writers goes into a huddle with the headman after the Sunday night broadcasts to map out a general plan for the next week’s show. Sometimes they evolve a routine for broadcasts two or three weeks hence.
THINK IT OVER
On Monday the writers think about working but seldom do anything about it. Tuesday, Beloin Invades Morrow’s apartment (next door to his) and after a few hours of friendly wrangling they fill one “spot,” which is taken to Benny for acceptance, changes or rejection.
Other situations are usually worked out on Wednesday, and by Thursday they give the boss a rough draft of the whole script. However, they often leave holes that aren’t filled until the reading rehearsal Saturday, when the star comedian reads the parts for every member of the cast and injects new gags as they come to him.
Carole Lombard, their best and severest critic, hears most of the jokes while they are in the process of formulation, and Don Wilson’s spontaneous laugh is Benny’s barometer at the reading rehearsal.
It is something of a coincidence that Beloin and Morrow became Benny’s writers. Ed peddled his first comedy script 1ast winter to Allen, who passed it up because he writes his own material. However, Benny, being fresh out of material and writers, took the script at first reading.
Benny got in contact with Morrow, who had just finished a season writing for Phil Baker and Eddie Dowling, and the three of them met two weeks later in Detroit.
Beloin and Morrow locked themselves in a hotel room and turned out their first script—as a team. Jack accepted it, sent the lads to Hollywood and now has them under contract.

There’s no mention of another writer Jack relied on around this time and who died in 1937. Homer Canfield’s column in a number of southern California newspapers on June 19, 1937 gave him a brief tribute.

Hollywood, June 19—
WHERE THERE’S LAUGHTER THERE ARE ALWAYS TEARS. THE death that came to Al Boasberg in the quiet lonesomeness of Friday’s early hours was a terrific shock to Jack Benny. As a result, plans for his Sunday program are still somewhat unsettled. But in true trooper fashion, it is expected the show will go on. (KFI, 7:30)
Benny not only looked on Boasberg as the tops in gagmen, but as a close personal friend. It will be hard not to read tragedy into his funny lines.
As the red light flashes “on the air,” radio’s No. 1 comedy program will flood through the network. Jack will joke people will laugh at a dead-man’s humor. And will continue to laugh for years to come.
Boasberg’s prolific sense of the ridiculous gave birth to enough material to keep comedians supplied for yeara to come. It will be redressed and used many times over. like Charlie McCarthy, most funnymen need to have someone else throw the words in their mouths.
Just what was Al Boasberg’s connection with the Jack Benny program?. . . Haven’t we read so often that Ed Beloin and Bill Morrow were Jack’s scriptwriters? are a couple of questions I’ve had to answer over and over today. True, Beloin and Morrow wrote the comedian’s scripts. But Boasberg was the seasoning. After the script had been completed, he was called in as the gagman. Throughout the program he would plant lines to assure laughter. His was the touch that lifted the show out of the good program class to the top of the heap. May he find as much laughter on the other side as he gave here.

In our next Benny post, we will check in with one of his two writers, who will spill more (rather lame) gossip about Jack and putting together the show.