Were Bob and Ray a Success?

If you think about it, no one had a more odd career than Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding after they left local radio for the Big Time in 1951. Critics loved them and they had a loyal fan base. But management never seemed to know what to do with them. NBC shoved them around all over the place on radio and TV. They seemed to work incredibly long hours. But they never really stayed in one slot long enough to develop a large audience.

They also rose to fame at a time when just about everybody who was anybody was transported from dying network radio into TV. Bob and Ray’s humour wasn’t of the baggy-pants variety show, or of the honey-the-boss-is-coming-over sitcom, which was about all you saw on the tube then. They may have been a little bit early for television.

Here’s a piece from the Philadelphia Inquirer of June 30, 1952 about one of their TV efforts. Audrey Meadows had been in the supporting cast but left and had been replaced by Cloris Leachman at this point.

Screening TV
Bob and Ray Succeeding In Difficult Task of Satire
By MERRILL PANITT
Of all the various kinds of comedy, satire is the least likely to succeed with a mass audience. Henry Morgan proved that a number of times by failing to click with a whole succession of radio and television shows.
Morgan's sometimes harsh burlesquing of the current scene won him a large group of fans—large, but not large enough to satisfy sponsors who think in terms of millions of viewers.
TWO UNINHIBITED LADS
The cause of satire on TV now is in the capable hands of Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding, a couple of uninhibited lads who have long since inherited the Morgan radio audience. They've tried TV before without too much success but are back in a Saturday night half hour on NBC stations—including Channel 3 here.
It may be that Bob and Ray will have better luck than Henry Morgan. Their satire is broader and often funnier than the Morgan brand. They also have a knack of kidding without seeming bitter.
TAKEOFF ON DRAGNET
Last Saturday night, as an example, they did a takeoff on Dragnet, which is easily the best TV crime program. Their version was called Fishnet, and was a very funny hunk of business.
Aping the rapid-fire, monotone delivery of the Dragnet cast, Bob and Ray—assisted by Cloris Leachman—dramatized "a true story from the files of the Gloucester, Mass., police department." The names of all characters were revealed, by the bye, "so that their relatives might suffer."
'KILLER' FINALLY GIVES UP

This was the case of a fish killer, a man who had fired a sawed-off shotgun 20 times at close range and murdered a fish. It was the fifth such killing in a week.
Needless to say, the killer—Bob—finally gave up, but not until every pat phrase from Dragnet had been used, including, "Blood all over the place," "What do you think," and "I'm innocent." He confessed after the smelliest third degree in history, during which a waitress reeled off the names of scores of fish dishes on her menu and finally thrust a live lobster into Bob's face to prove he hated fish.
Another high point in last Saturday's show was a miniature program produced to increase the sale of stamps in post offices. It opened with Ray, dressed in a page-boy's box cap, intoning, "Call for Philatelics, call for Philatelics!”
NEW STAMP INTRODUCED
After Stamalong Cassidy had told kids to be sure to try a roll of three-cent stamps for dessert, Bob and Ray introduced a new series of stamp creations to the tune of "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody." A scantily dressed girl would parade out with her face framed in a stamp outline. As she paraded, one of the two comics would intone:
"Miss three cent stamp.
"Petite and sweet — designed for the working man.
"And the elite.
"She's beautiful, demands inspection.
"Wouldn't you like her in your collection?"
SOME FUNNY, SOME NOT SO
There were other sequences—some funny, some not too funny. The one during which Ben Grauer sang a song in Spanish while typing, answering phones, and being a busy convention reporter, was one of the funny ones.
TV's got to have some good satire to balance all the slapstick comedy of the regular season. Bob and Ray seem to have the formula. Let's hope they make the grade with a sponsor and a regular once-a-week program during the cool weather.

Dogs Catch On

The cat laughs and mocks at the stupidity of a pack of dogs in Tex Avery’s “Ventriloquist Cat.” The dogs suddenly realise they’ve been had. Check the poses. Grant Simmons is responsible for the first drawing.



The dogs chase the cat from the horizon past the camera.



You can view the hair take before the chase at this post.

Pop Up Rabbits

“Delightful whimsical satire on Johann Strauss and the composition of his famous waltz, ‘Tales of the Vienna Woods’,” is how Variety termed the George Pal Puppetoon “Mr. Strauss Takes a Walk.”

Strauss turns into a human metronome at one point in the cartoon but the most interesting part to me was how rabbits popped up out of the ground. Not out of a hole. They just grew up out of the ground. And they obey the rules of squash and stretch. These are eleven consecutive frames.



This wasn’t Pal’s only encounter with the noted composer. He finished work on “Bravo, Mr. Strauss” around the start of 1943 and was so busy, a third sound stage for him was being built. Within five years, his stop-motion shorts got too expensive to produce.

Plug Plug Plug

Plugola on radio comedy shows was good for everyone, it seems. A company got a free plug. Audiences got laughs. Writers got freebie gifts in return.

For a period of a few years, no comedian seemed to take advantage of this more than Jack Benny. He had a sure-fire laugh formula based on his character being cheap. Someone on his show would mention a product, then Benny would joke that the mention would result in him getting the product for nothing. One show topped it by turning it into one of Benny’s great running gags that always came out of nowhere—Frank Nelson played a man who interrupted a scene later in the show by delivering the product.

Script writer Milt Josefsberg explained in his book about the Benny show that situation wasn’t quite as it played out on radio. Benny would rarely take advantage of the plug, he said; the company getting the freebie would generally send alcohol to the writers.

It seems the idea of inserting plug-gags on a radio show didn’t always originate with its writer. Witness this interesting column that appeared April 8, 1948:

Radio Full of Ad Plugs Sugar-Coated as Gags
By ALINE MOSBY
United Press Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD
The radio shows are getting so shot full of sneaked-in ads, disguised as gags, that you wonder how they have time for the commercial the sponsor is paying for. These plugs most listeners don't know about.
They hear Jack Benny make a crack about which end of a Studebaker you get into. Or Bob Hope spiel about somebody who combs his hair with a Mixmaster. They yak at the gags and figure the trademarks got there by accident.
Not in this bright commercial age. . . . The plugs are out-and-out ads. But neither Benny and Hope, their writers, nor the networks get paid for 'em. The only guy who does is the "script plugger." He takes dough from companies to get their names mentioned in a gag on a radio show.
Gift-Sending Part Of Ad Plugging
Script pluggers, we always thought, were mole-like characters who pulled slick deals with customers in the back booths of dim bars on Vine St. We found one sprinting around in broad daylight.
"This is strictly on the up-and-up," says Joe Gardner.
"We do not," he added indignantly, "pay writers to plug our clients in their scripts. Of course, we send them gifts, but that's just to cultivate their good will . . ."
He operates this way: He takes a script-writer for the Benny show, say, to lunch.
"Got a great gag on a Studebaker," he barks to the writer, and tells it to him. The gag's good. The writer says thanks, he'll use it.
"Everybody's happy," beams Mr. Gardiner. "My client gets a plug on a radio show that would cost him thousands if he bought it as a sponsor. He gets the plug for practically nothing—just the few hundred he pays me.
"The writer's happy. He has a good gag and a bottle of scotch I send him. Benny likes the gag, too."
Free Merchandise Helps Get Plugs
Hey, what about the networks, we said. After all, they're in business to get paid for the ads they broadcast, aren't they?
"Sure, the radio boys raised a fuss for a while," grinned Mr. G.
They shut up, he whispered, after the "script pluggers" began furnishing free merchandise for give-away shows. If the radio folks had to buy all the prizes they hand out to giggling contestants, they'd be out a few million bucks a year.
The give-away show is where Gardiner operates best. He loads 'em down with prizes like ball-bearing lipstick (for making-up under water), things to bake potatoes in atop a stove, egg beaters with low and high gears, shoulder pads for coat hangers, etc., etc.
Each time the master of ceremonies gives one of these treasures away, he lovingly describes it. The lady gets her prize that the show didn't have to pay for, the company gets a cheap plug, and Gardiner collects his commission.
There's only one guy who doesn't profit by this neat arrangement—the sponsor who pays for the show. Why he hasn't kicked up a storm yet, we don't know. Once the sponsor of a give-away show took a test. The ladies in the studio audience were asked to tell what the show advertised. Each carefully listed the brand names of all the fantastic prizes. Not one remembered the company that only shells out several thousand dollars a week so the housewives can win those things!

The most famous plug on the Benny show likely occurred on November 27, 1949:

JACK: And Rochester, the evenings are getting chilly so don't forget to plug in my General Electric blanket.
ROCH: Boss, boss, we haven't got a General Electric blanket.
JACK: We've got one now. (laughter and applause) I'm (ad-libs) oh, brother, will my home be full of General Electric blankets. (resumes script) I'm going into the den and read now.
ROCH: Are you gonna walk or shall I drive you in a Cadillac?
JACK: Let's not over-do it.

That's (Crash! Boom! Tinkle! Zorp!) Oswald

Sound in cartoons was still a fairly new concept in 1929. The Adirondack News explained how it worked in this syndicated piece published February 9, 1929.

You’ll notice the absence of any mention of dialogue in this story. Either there wasn’t any or it was recording separately.

As the last Disney Oswald was released in April 1928 and the first Lantz Oswald appeared on screens in September 1929, this would have been the period when the Winkler studio on the West Coast were making the cartoons. The first synchronised Oswald was “Hen Fruit,” released on Feb. 4, 1929.

GHOSTLY BANDS PUT SOUNDS IN MOVIES
Snores and Snorts Linked to Pictures at Night
Hollywood, Calif.—It is middle of the night and the great studio sprawls like a town of fantastic shadows between the dry river bed, and the barren hills. One supposes there is a night watchman somewhere on the lot, but apparently be does not see the dim figures slinking one by one toward a barnlike structure, each carrying something, and each disappearing through the same small door in the building.
Heading away from the studio, they might have been taken for burglars escaping with their loot, but under the circumstances it is more reasonable to guess they are conspirators of another sort.
The interior of the building is dimly lit, but by mingling casually with the crowd one can see very clearly what they carried in—two saxophones, a galvanised-iron washtub full of tin cans, a cornet, a tuba, a clothes wringer, three phonographs, a school bell, several cowbells, a band-operated alarm gong, three sites of electric bells, innumerable tin, brass and wooden whistles, many assorted pieces of wood and metal, half a dozen panes of window glass and a metal cylinder of compressed air.
Jolly Looking Conspirators.
Obviously these are not the paraphernalia of arsonists or dynamiters; and, besides, even in the dim light, the conspirators have a jolly look. It begins to look more like preparations for an old-fashioned charivari. Before one can ask who was married, however, the head conspirator explains everything: “Our job tonight,” says he, “is to synchronise Oswald the Rabbit.”
Oswald, one learns, is the pen-and-ink hero of an animated cartoon which, in keeping with the modern craze for screen sound, must be embellished with music and noise-effects.
Six musicians, skilled in leaping nimbly from tune to tune in harmony with the action on the screen, take their places under one microphone.
Another microphone bangs near the table where all the bells and whistles are spread. A large man in overalls sits near the tubful of tin cans with a wooden paddle in his hands, as if waiting for the cauldron to boil; the other conspirators stand here and there between the microphones, ready to make the right noises at the right times.
Rehearse at Showing.
They rehearse with the picture running on the screen in front of them. As the main title of the comedy appears on the screen the orchestra leaps into an overture, while the other sound-smiths stand tensely waiting for their cues.
When the opening scene discloses Oswald sleeping in his bed, the orchestra dodges quickly into a cradle song while a lad within whispering distance of a microphone snores rhythmically and another specialist imitates the squeaking of the bed by running sole leather through the clothes wringer.
After each rehearsal the recording engineer in the sound-mixing booth, who hears all this as it will sound to an audience, suggests improvements.
And again and again the mixed symphony of harmonies and discords is rehearsed; then, “This is the picture, boys,” and they go through it once more, with the sound-recording apparatus registering everything on celluloid.
Along about sunrise the sound-smiths call it a night and go home, tired and hungry, but with a little glow of pride at the thought that their artistry has made it possible for the world to bear as well as see Oswald the Rabbit.

Climbing Mannequins

Sylvester gets ready to climb the department store mannequin tower he’s built to capture Tweety in “Bird in a Guilty Cage” (released in 1952). It’s a variation on a gag found in a bunch of Sylvester and Tweety cartoons, usually preceded by Sylvester tippy-toeing from one side of the screen to the other accompanied by Carl Stalling/Milt Franklyn’s pizzicato strings.

The layout is by Hawley Pratt and the background by Irv Wyner.

Night Owls

Bullrushes sway to the “Moonlight Sonata” to open Walt Disney’s “Night” (1930), then are joined by waves on a lake and a la-la-la-ing moon (in falsetto) as the song changes to “The Blue Danube.”

The scene switches to a pair of owls in a typical gag of the era. The male and female owls dance together, but the female draws the line at kissing. You can see what happens next. I’ve never tried to count the Disney and Harman-Ising cartoons where a character flips up a rump in contempt.



Disneyshorts.org reports seven animators worked on this.