Blitz Wolf Zoom

Words form on the screen in a scene from “Blitz Wolf” (1942). First, a bomb turns into a bottle opener to rip the top off a tank. Adolf Wolf quickly escapes.



Then it blows up with a “boom.” We know that because the cartoon tells us.



And here’s another letter formation in the next scene.



Devon Baxter via Mark Kausler tells me this is a Ray Abrams scene. Ed Love, Preston Blair and Irv Spence also get animation credits in this great Tex Avery short.

Blitz Wolf Background

There’s a pan shot near the start of Blitz Wolf (1942) from the ersatz Practical Pig’s trench through the blue-ish forest and ending on a black battle ground with scarlet skies. I can’t snip it together from frames in the cartoon because it appears Jack Stevens or whoever was operating the camera darkened the scene at the pan continued. The colours don’t match. And a tree and its branches are on an overlay that is panned at a different rate than the background.

However, here’s a part of it, showing the house of sticks, the house of straw, and the edge of the forest (the large leaves are on the overlay).



Tex attracted a lot of loyalty. When he left Lantz for the Leon Schlesinger studio, animators Virgil Ross, Sid Sutherland and Cecil Surry went with him. When he left Schlesinger for MGM, writer Rich Hogan and background artist Johnny Johnsen joined him (Hogan tried to get out of his contract early to go to Metro). You see Johnsen’s work in this cartoon and, as far as I know, all of Avery’s shorts in the 1940s.

Nazis Destroy Outhouse

Outhouses in the distance showed up in a number of Tex Avery cartoons at MGM—The Screwy Truant, The Last Angry Bad Man, The House of Tomorrow. And there’s one in Blitz Wolf (1942).

This is the one where the Big Bad Wolf is Adolf Hitler. He signs a peace treaty with two of the Three Little Pigs. Well, everyone in 1942 how trustworthy Hitler was.

The wolf uses a machine to blow down the first pig’s house of sticks. You know the story. The first pig runs to the second pig’s house of sticks. “The wolf’s coming,” he yells and points. (Note the dry brush to quicken the animation)



The pigs run off before the bomb hits the house. Avery uses a yellow colour card to emphasize the light from the explosion.



MGM’s effects department is at work here.



The flames burn out, leaving just charred sticks. They collapse, revealing the outhouse. After enough time for you to notice the burned outhouse, it collapses as well.



Preston Blair, Ray Abrams, Ed Love and Irv Spence are the credited animators.

Yes, it is, Tex

You know the story of the Three Little Pigs. First pig, house of straw, huff and puff, etc. Ah, but if you set it during World War Two, a few new touches are added.

The Big Bad Wolf becomes Adolf Wolf and, since a war is underway, he has to use an instrument of war. However, since this is taking place in Tex Avery’s Blitz Wolf (1942), some ridiculous contraption has to be invented.



Because it’s a Tex Avery cartoon, we’re left with a typical Tex Avery sign.



The camera pans over to another sign. Hey, where did it come from? It wasn’t in the earlier shot.



Ah, best not to ask questions in a Tex Avery cartoon and just go along for the fun.

A “Gone With the Wind” sign gag appeared again in Avery’s “Swing Shift Cinderella."

That Sinking Feeling

In a gutsy bit of pacing, Tex Avery pans up the barrel of a rocket launcher for 23 seconds, stopping at this drawing unexpectedly stating the obvious.



The pan continues, quicker this time, and for only a few seconds. The gun fires.



Some prints of Blitz Wolf cut suddenly to a scene with the Hitler wolf. That's because a gag has been edited out. The cartoon actually cuts to a shot of Tokyo and perspective animation of a shell sinking it and then the red sun (there was similar arcing perspective animation of a tomato smushing into wolf earlier in the short).



A sign drops into the ocean, referring to Admiral James Doolittle, as “Yankee Doodle” plays in the background. By the time this cartoon had been released in August 1942, Doolittle had commanded air raids on Japanese cities in retaliation for the Pearl Harbor attack.



After the war, this gag would have been a little tacky, so it was snipped from prints. Hitler, however, remains a target of derision for the ages, so cartoons featuring him are just fine.

Oh, “dood it” was a catchphrase of the Mean Widdle Kid character on the Red Skelton radio show. It seems to have gotten a workout at most cartoon studios at the time.

Irv Spence, Ed Love, Preston Blair and Ray Abrams are the credited animators. Tokyo is by an uncredited Johnny Johnsen.

More Tex

The country wolf sums up the reaction of Tex Avery fans when the world was told there would finally (!) be a Blu-ray release of some of his MGM cartoons. Animation fans couldn’t order it fast enough.

Now, Jerry Beck has revealed the Warner Archive people will be releasing Volume 2. When? Well, with the pandemic situation the way it is, the time line is a bit in doubt but it’ll be before the end of the year.

The revelation was made yesterday on the Stu’s Show podcast.

A few other things mentioned by the inimitable Mr. Beck:

● There were supposed to be 20 cartoons on Volume 1, but one was left off because of some temporary skittishness somewhere within Warners (in offices of entertainment companies, skittishness is practically an incurable pandemic). However, this cartoon will be included in Volume 2. Jerry left enough clues that the cartoon in question is Happy Go Nutty (1944). The cartoon contains an explosion/blackface gag cut out of other video and television releases.



I’m very pleased Warner Archive is releasing the cartoons uncensored. You’ll get to see a fully-restored version of the gag above along with some very funny stuff (including Avery’s end-title card turnabout).

● There will be more than 20 cartoons on this Blu-ray. Jerry didn’t say which ones but, in his opinion, this release will be better than the last one. There are so many great Avery cartoons, I’ll be happy with whatever is put on disc. I am looking forward to a restored Magical Maestro, though it’s best seen at a theatre because of Avery’s use of corners of the frame. It would be a treat if the original ending of Lucky Ducky somehow could make it onto the release. And Blitz Wolf, Avery’s first MGM release, is a huge jump from much of what he did at Warners, and it will have its war-time gags restored (some anti-Japanese animation was either changed or deleted). And there are so many more.
● The door is open to possible bonus materials. The impression I get from Jerry is Warners is like any huge conglomerate. It owns all kinds of things but they’re all separate and apart. So just like profits from Disneyland aren’t used to shore up some ABC streaming channel, Warner Archive can’t just put its hand out and get cash from Warner Home Video or any of its other entertainment companies. It’s a small operation that has to make it on its own, or at least well enough so the corporate hierarchy doesn’t dissolve it. This is a windy way of saying Warner Archive doesn’t have the money for frills. Assembling a little professional-looking video, even limiting it to stills and voice-over narration, takes time and some expense. Perhaps Jerry and Mark Kausler or Keith Scott could be induced to do commentary tracks. Even .png files of the MGM cartoon synopses from the Library of Congress would be welcome. Keith, incidentally, is responsible for what really is the bonus material for the first Blu-ray, though it’s not on the Blu-ray itself. He wrote about the voice actors on Volume 1 at the Cartoon Research website.
● Eventually, all of Tex’s MGM cartoons will be released.
● Other Warner Archive projects are taking a proverbial back seat (in the Car of Tomorrow?) for now. Sorry, fans of the churn-‘em-out, 1950s Famous Popeyes, it means you’ll have to wait because...sing along now:
I’m full of bravery
But let’s see Tex Avery
Says Popeye the Sailor Man
(Toot Toot. Eyebrow goes up and down)

By the way, if you want to hear animator Bob Jaques and Thad Komorowski examine each of the cartoons on Volume 1, tune into their podcast here.

Again, my thanks and appreciation to Jerry Beck for making these sets finally a reality.

Hmmm...It's a Possibility

It would seem appropriate that Adolf Hitler’s personal Hell would be an eternal land populated by Jews. I doubt Tex Avery was going for anything that weighty or symbolic in his MGM cartoon, “Blitz Wolf.” He was merely using a catchphrase from Kitzel on “The Al Pearce Show” in the cartoon’s final scene where Adolf Wolf is blown to you-know-where.



This scene is the work of the great Preston Blair. Irv Spence, Ray Abrams and Ed Love were the other animators in the first Avery cartoon released by Metro in 1942.

Shooting Adolf Full of Holes

The three little pigs (they're in the Army now) fire at Adolf Wolf, who ridicules them. "You didn't even touch me!" he yells. Wrong again, Adolf.



Tex Avery and his writers (Rich Hogan in this case) used the same sort of gag, usually involving drinking water and then the water flows out of holes in the body.

Ed Love, Preston Blair and Ray Abrams animated this cartoon. Blitz Wolf was the first Avery cartoon released by MGM.

That Ain't the Way I Heerd It

In the mid-1930s, when theatrical animation on the West Coast had reached the point where studios needed professional actors to voice their characters, they had a ready-made talent pool at radio stations.

It was not only still a time of dialects but the rise of impersonations, as someone imitating the voice of a talking picture or vaudeville star got laughs on the air.

One of these radio actors who got side-work in cartoons was Bill Thompson.

His show business career started as a boy. Here’s a pretty good radio career summary from the Hollywood Citizen-News, March 10, 1952.

‘OLD TIMER’
Bill Thompson Does Various Characters
Millions of listeners to NBC radio's “Fibber McGee and Molly Show" know him as Wallace Wimple, shy, henpecked little man who studies his beloved bird book when not dodging his "big, fat wife, Sweetyface."
Or, as the Old Timer, who repeats old, trusted jokes at the drop of a hat.
Or, as Horatio K. Boomer, whose pockets are constantly crammed with all manner of strange devices.
Or, as Nick Depopolis, past master of the old Greek art of English mispronunciation.
Or as Bill Thompson, 'off-mike.'
Or, if there's a need for formal identification, William Henry Thompson, Jr.
Whoever or whichever, Mr. “Bill’s Good Enough" Thompson is one of the cleverest and most versatile young men in the business of radio dialects.
Brown-eyed Bill was literally born into show business — and practically smack on an international border. Shortly before his birth, his mother, then on a vaudeville tour in Canada with his father, was obliged to return to Terre Haute, Indiana post-haste, so Bill could be born in the United States. They arrived just under the wire!
Young William Henry's first stage appearance came six weeks later, when he was carried onto a Terre Haute stage by his proud and beaming papa. And hardly two years had gone by before Bill began his professional career with his parents by doing a tap dance with their act.
Even attendance at Chicago's Lemoyne Grammar School and Lakeview High School didn't keep the active young man off the stage. Each year, until he was 12, he toured the variety circuits with his mother and father, fitting into their set by dancing and telling dialect stories and jokes.
One of the high spots of his public appearances came in 1919 when he was awarded a citation by Secretary of the Treasury Carter Glass, for having sold more than $2,000,000 in Liberty Bonds!
In 1934, while an usher at Chicago's Century of Progress Exposition, gleeful Bill won an NBC audition and was put under contract to the network. His first appearance on a network show was on the National Farm and Home Hour.
After playing various radio shows in the Windy City for two years, Bill joined the ''Fibber McGee and Molly" program. He's been with the popular network show ever since, except for a two-year cruise in the Navy, from 1943 to 1946.
Today, Bill's greatest interest outside his radio activities is his work with the Boys Club of America.

Fibber McGee and Molly originated in Chicago. When Jim and Marian Jordan were signed to a film contract by Paramount in 1937, they moved the show to the West Coast. And there it stayed. Thompson came along.

It would appear, if I’m reading Keith Scott’s books properly, Thompson’s first cartoon was for Walter Lantz in Arabs With Dirty Fezzes in 1939. He took his Horatio K. Boomer voice to Warners Bros. for two appearances as W.C. Fieldmouse opposite Little Blabbermouse. Then, it was to MGM, where Tex Avery cast him as Adolf Wolf in Blitz Wolf and then as Droopy in Dumb-Hounded; that voice was more-or-less the same as Wallace Wimple's.

The story above indicates Thompson enlisted for war duty; a feature article in the June 5, 1945 edition of the Akron Beacon Journal stated he entered naval training at Great Lakes in February 1944 and became SP (A) William Thompson, U.S.N. The story went on:

The "A" in his navy title does not mean "Actor" . . . He is a part of the athletic department of the navy . . . originally commanded by Gene Tunney . . . which is similar to the Special Service corps of the army . . . His job as a physical instructor is putting men through athletic drills and entertaining.

Thompson had to put his radio and cartoon careers on hold. It’s thought Tex Avery himself voiced Droopy during the interim. Fibber brought in other characters instead of trying to duplicate Thompson's voices (though the old-timer was originally played by Cliff Arquette).

He returned to radio and cartoons after the war, finding a good chunk of work in features and shorts for Walt Disney in the 1950s. Radio was dying and NBC slowly dismantled Fibber McGee and Molly until all that was left were the two title characters. He had to find a new career.

Thompson had other interests, as we learn in this story from the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, March 25, 1962. It's interesting the columnist would know about Droopy. Thompson never received screen credit for the role and this was a time before animation history books

Old Timer Known for Aid To Boy Clubs
BY ELSTON BROOKS
The announcement said W. H. Thompson Jr. of the Union Oil Company would speak on "Juvenile Decency" at the First Methodist Church meeting of the North Side Kiwanis Club—and it certainly didn't sound like amusements column fodder.
But that wasn't just W. H. Thompson up at the rostrum Friday. It was Wallace Wimple and Horatio K. Boomer and the Old Timer and Nick DePopolous—and even Droopy, the hangdog pup of the Metro cartoons.
Bill Thompson, one of the most famed voices in show business, has been hitting the luncheon club circuit full-time in behalf of his beloved Boys' Clubs of America ever since Fibber McGee and Molly dropped their Tuesday night stranglehold on network radio in 1956.
"IT'S NOTHING NEW, this work for Boys' Clubs," he told us in his rarely heard normal voice. "I was doing it for 20 years before I quit showbusiness. Three days a week it was radio, four days it was work with Boys' Clubs."
Oddly enough, Thompson has never had a boy of his own, nor a "mean ole Sweetie Face," as Wallace Wimple used to describe his wife. At 49, Thompson still is a bachelor.
"I guess it's that I always wanted to be a Texas Ranger when I was a kid back in Indiana. But you can't always go on a police force, and I found out I could help in other says back when we did the Fibber McGee show in Chicago. "I saw a need for club activity for boys—not just gangs. I’ve been in the work ever since, continuing it when we moved the show to Hollywood."
• • •
TODAY, THOMPSON is public service representative of the Union Oil Company, a West Coast firm that allows Thompson to make his good will talks around the country. Herbert Hoover has appointed him national director of the Boys' Clubs of America, and Thompson, in turn, is elated at landing his old boss, Walt Disney, on the board.
"I did a lot of work for Walt," the diminutive, red-haired actor recalled. "I was the voice of the white rabbit in 'Alice in Wonderland,' and Mr. Smee, the pirate, in 'Peter Pan,' and the Scotty in 'Lady and the Tramp' . . ."
"And, of course, Droopy, the pooped pup," we reminded.
Thompson laughed, and came up with his most famous voice: "That's pretty good, Johnny, but that ain't the way I heerd it. The way I heerd it, one feller says to the other feller, sa-y-y-y, he sez . . ."
We felt obligated to ask another question, because the Old Timer rarely finished one of his stories. We asked him for a match—and got the response we were hoping for.
"Match, match, let's see," said Horatio K. Boomer in that W. C. Fields voice. "Here's a poem I wrote once, and a check for a short beer. Well, well, whaddya know? No match."

Thompson had a couple of cracks at stardom. ABC gave him a half-hour sitcom, opposite the Carnation Contented Hour and the Gulf Screen Guild Players. It lasted from March 4 to May 27, 1946 before the network cancelled it.

And then there was the lead role in an animated sitcom. He had a wife named Wilma and a neighbour named Barney, who was played by Hal Smith. Smith explained what happened in Tim Lawson’s book ‘The Magic Behind the Voices’:

Bill Thompson was a good actor, but he had something wrong with his throat. He couldn’t sustain that gravel they wanted in Fred, so Mel [Blanc] and Alan Reed started rehearsing. We had already recorded the first five episodes, and finally, we were recording one night and Bill would cough and he would stop and he’d say, ‘I just can’t keep that gravel,’ Joe Barbera was directing, and he called us in and said, ‘You know, this isn’t working.’ And I said, ‘Well, it really isn’t. It’s difficult for Bill Thompson to hang onto his voice like that because he just doesn’t have it.’ So he said, ‘Well, Mel and Alan have been rehearsing and practicing this, so I think we’re going to let them do it.’

Hanna-Barbera still had a spot for Thompson. He went on to the far less memorable role as Touché Turtle in the early ‘60s.

Thompson’s animation career didn’t last much longer. He had just turned 58 when he died on July 15, 1971.