Mirandy

Wildlife is frolicking or resting around a sleepy mountaineer at the start of the Walter Lantz cartoon “Pass the Biscuits, Mirandy.”



The hillbilly wakes up and starts a-firin’ his rifle.



The animals freeze in panic for 19 frames (see first drawing below) while he shoots off another bullet. Then they get out of the scene. These are consecutive drawings, one per frame.



Paul Smith is the only person to get an animation credit.

The name “Mirandy” in the title song of the cartoon seems to have been inspired by Mrs. Marjorie Edith Bauersfeld, a former Chautaqua gospel singer and Mack Sennett comedienne who played Mirandy on a Los Angeles radio show in 1930 as a member of the singing Beverly Hill Billies. She later appeared on other radio shows as a kind of Ozark philosopher, as well as with the Gilmore Circus, and was an early star on KECA TV, hosting a gardening show. A dark red rose was named for her character in 1948 (Marian Jordan, radio’s Molly, played Mirandy on the National Farm and Home Hour in the late ‘20s; Bauersfeld apparently took her place).

The song “Pass the Biscuits, Mirandy” was penned by Carl Hoefle and Del Porter. The pair sold the song to Republic for use in the film “Hi Neighbor” (Variety, April 21, 1942). Walter Lantz then bought it for final Swing Symphony cartune of 1942-43 series (Variety, January 18, 1943). Bugs Hardaway was editing the story by February (Variety, March 1) and the short was due to be released in July (Variety, July 8) but apparently didn’t get a national release until August 23rd. Porter was with Spike Jones’ orchestra, among the many who recorded the song. Porter sings on the cartoon and the goofy-sounding chorus is provided by the voice of Goofy, Pinto Colvig.

Grabbing Betty

Betty Boop tries to get away from the circus ringmaster (William Pennell) but trips over a rock outside her tent in “Boop-Oop-a-Doop” (1932). The ringmaster simply reaches out, grabs the crying Betty by the butt and hauls her back in.



Fortunately, Koko the Clown comes to her aid. No one can take Betty’s boop-oop-a-doop away. Except the Hayes Office in 1934, which didn’t quite approve of scenes as above.

Tonight For the First Time

By all rights, the debut of the “Tonight” show on September 27, 1954 should have been a smooth success. After all, it didn’t just pop onto the screen. It had been hyped by NBC’s president for seven months. It had been on the air in New York for over a year as “The Steve Allen Show.” Allen and his people simply picked up and moved over to the network, adding an hour at the end and five minutes at the beginning. What could possibly go wrong?

An awful lot, it appears.

Some of it was out of the control of Allen and his production team. Stations across the network joined the show in progress, much like they did on the “Today” show which made for multiple, and awkward, sign-ons. Getting affiliates to sign up for “Tonight” had been difficult and time-consuming (local stations had already spent money on old movies they could run instead and not share any commercial revenue with the network). And Knickerbocker Beer, the main sponsor of Allen’s local show in New York, demanded a local show. So Allen was forced to do 15 minutes on WBNT before going on the network and taking WBNT along with him.

New York Herald Tribune writer John Crosby watched the network debut and outlined every failure in his syndicated TV column. As a side-note, Wally Cox appeared on Martha Raye’s show on NBC the following evening. Raye was supposed to appear on the “Tonight” debut to plug her season-opener but never showed up.

Allen in Dark But He Makes ‘Tonight’ Shine
By JOHN CROSBY
NEW YORK, Oct. 6—“Tonight,” the latest of Sylvester L. Weaver's brain children, exploded all over the midnight air from here to Omaha the other night and from the exasperated noises emitted by its proprietor, Allen, I guess everything went wrong that could go wrong. Still, if Allen can be that funny when things get fouled up, I hope they never them straightened out.
“Tonight” (NBC-TV, 11:30 p. m. to 1 a. m. EST Mondays through Fridays) is the companion piece of “Today” and “Home” and like those two shows it embodies what Mr. Weaver is wont to call the magazine concept of selling. In brief, that means that instead of being assaulted by one sponsor, we are assaulted by about eighty-three. As a matter of fact, “Today” in 1953 did have exactly eighty-three sponsors ranging from General Motors to Appian Way Pizza Pie Mix.
Allen's Humor.

At the very outset Mr. Allen, looking decidedly harassed, announced: “Boy, have we ever been making last minute changes around here. I admit that's not funny in Omaha. We were going to show you the Empire State Building. The Hudson River was going to flow the other way—but somebody goofed. This is ‘Tonight’ and I want to give you the bad news right now. This show is going to go on and on and on, forever. This is the Hudson Theater. I think it sleeps 800 people. This show—well, it’s not a spectacular. It’s kind of a monotony. And if this show is anywhere near as successful as ‘Today’ and ‘Home,’ they’re going to put on another show called ‘Son of Tonight’.”
That's the kind of humor Allen has—a sort of late at night, earthy, “Aaah, the hell with it” kind of humor that is entirely suitable to that hour. Apparently, NBC had sent out a Cadillac with a remote unit aboard that was supposed to bring in something or other but the driver got pinched or something. “This is the first network that ever got a ticket.”
Stations kept either latching on to the program or dropping it at fifteen minute intervals and Allen kept hopelessly saying hello to the newcomers and goodbye to the others and trying to explain what it was all about to the new arrivals. “I’ve never done such a confusing program in my life. I think we started about noon.” And he tried to explain again to the people in the midwest about that Cadillac, concerning which we in the east were already hopelessly confused. “We’re all going to hold hands and have a community sleep. Synchronize your sleeping pills.”
Long Schedule.
Allen had a long, impressive schedule on a clipboard which he kept riffling through to find out what was supposed to be happening at that precise moment—but none of the things that were supposed to be happening were happening. His guest star, Wally Cox, appeared with his copy of the schedule and said: “I’ve been looking at this schedule and I guess I better leave.” Cox started to walk off but Allen got him back. “No, that would be giving you short shrift,” said Allen. Then he added: “Short shrift—that’s a good name. General Foods ought to put out something called Short Shrift. Buy a box of Short Shrift.
“Or you could buy a box of Long Shrift and have it shortened,” suggested Cox—and then went into his “Gee, what a crazy guy routine which is about as funny as anything can be.
Every so often, the out-of-town stations dropped the show for one minute to sell things and this left Allen with one minute of time and his New York audience and nobody else. It’s a tough assignment, one minute. “I’ve got some 34-second jokes,” he announced. “And I’ve got a dance that takes 42 seconds. But I haven’t got any 57-second jokes.”
During the rest of the hour and a half, Allen played the piano; a girl singer named Pat Marshall sang “Fine and Dandy;” Gene Rayburn gave the news and participated in a sketch with Allen; and there was an interview with Willie Mays, the most interviewed man since Charles A. Lindbergh. But mostly it was just Allen. At one point, wandering through the audience, he asked a young lady if she wanted to wave at anyone at home.
“No, I guess they're all asleep,” said the young lady.
“Thanks,” muttered Allen. “Thanks a lot. There goes a $4,000,000 advertising account.”
For future shows we are promised big name stars, and interviews with theatrical folk, and service features—and, oh, all sorts of things. I expect eventually everything will be neat and tidy and run like clockwork. But it won’t be nearly so much fun.

Whether everything was eventually “neat and tidy” and “run like clockwork” is a matter of definition. Allen’s “Tonight” show didn’t become the homogenised, overly structured late night show that you see today. It was organised—even live TV has to have some organisation—but always spontaneous, meaning just about anything could happen. Incidentally, “Tonight”’s long-time director under Allen, Bill Harbach, was interviewed about his career by Kliph Nesteroff on his Classic Showbiz site. You can read all three parts HERE.

You may be wondering why critic Crosby didn’t mention the Man on the Street interviews or sketches involving his stock players. That came later, when Allen went into prime time on Sundays against Ed Sullivan. Next week, we’ll hear from one of those stock players.

Into the Picture

Here’s a perspective sequence from Tex Avery’s “What Price Fleadom” (1948). A bulldog is chasing a flea. Then the dog starts hopping exactly the same way as the flea, which is pretty funny. Next, Avery gives a little perspective bonus in an old gag to theatre audiences. The flea hops into a picture on the wall.



The bulldog chases after him, initially filling the screen. I’ll bet this surprised the theatre audience.



Avery’s unit was in transition around this time. Walter Clinton, Robert Bentley and Gil Turner received the animation credits.

A Familiar Gag

You know the joke. A musical instrument is rigged to blow up whenever Bugs Bunny hits the right note on the old song “Endearing Young Charms.” Bugs always plays the wrong note and the frustrated Sam or Daffy or whoever shoves him out of the way to show him how to play the song correctly and—well, you know the gag.

Here’s the end result from “Show Biz Bugs.”



The gag was also used in “Ballot Box Bunny” (with Yosemite Sam), “Rushing Roulette” (a Format Films Roadrunner-Coyote short) and “Booby Traps” (a 1944 Snafu cartoon). It may have been in others; it sure seems like it. The musical gag was probably concocted by Warren Foster. He wrote “Ballot Box Bunny” and “Show Biz Bugs” and likely “Booby Traps” (it was animated by the Clampett unit and Foster had been writing for Bob Clampett). Foster had run a music studio in New York City before he got into animation.

Frank Nelson on Jack Benny

He made his fame out of one word—“Yes.”

Of course, it sounded like more than a word when he got through with it. Radio and TV audiences howled with laughter as he stretched the word like a rocket of silly putty, screeching it into the air.

Frank Nelson was a fine dramatic actor and announcer (Lux Radio Theatre), but people loved his “Yes” character on the Jack Benny show and eventually he wound up doing some variation of it on other comedy shows.

Like just about everything on Benny’s show, the character evolved over time. Nelson began appearing on the programme in the mid-‘30s periodically doing a non-masculine floorwalker who got huffy with Jack. From this came the man who was ostensibly there to serve Jack Benny—a ticket taker, a real estate agent, a clerk, and so on—but insulted him instead, beginning with an enthusiastic “Ye-e-e-e-e-s?” whenever Benny tried to get his attention.

Nelson gave a number of interviews about his career to old-time radio show hosts, but I’ve found a newspaper piece he did while his Benny career was still going strong. This is from the Knickerbocker News of Albany, New York, May 20, 1961. The sidebars accompanied the main story. Nelson gives his opinion about why Jack Benny remained so popular for years. His observations in the sidebar about Jack Paar, who was an 18-week summer replacement for Benny in 1947, are interesting.

THE HAPPY HECKLER
Nelson Finds Jokes Few, Laughs Plenty In 27 Radio-TV Years With Jack Benny
By WALTER HAWVER
FRANK NELSON figures he's had “a fair run” on the Jack Benny Show—27 years. “I hope it will last,” he laughed.
Chances are it will last as long as Benny does. And the way this eternal 39-year-old is going—three Emmys in three years—this could be some time.
Nelson is one of a long list of characters who are as much a part of the American comedy scene as Benny himself. Only announcer Don Wilson has been with Jack longer.
You know most of the others whose careers at one extended time or another were intertwined with Benny's: Eddie (Rochester) Anderson, Jack's long-suffering vallet [sic]; Mel Blanc, the man of many voices; singer Kenny Baker and, more recently, Dennis Day; Artie (Mr. Kitzel) Auerbach; Sam Hearn, the "Hey, Rube" figure; Sheldon Leonard (now producer of the Danny Thomas Show), the cliche gangster; Benny Rubin, the tout; bandleader Phil Harris, and, of course, Mary Livingstone.
It's easy to see why Benny has stuck with the same general group of people. As Nelson points out:
“Going back to the radio days (Jack started in 1932), the script hasn't changed. Analyze his scripts. Read his dialogue. You'll seldom find a joke. He relies on situations that turn into funny things.
“Mention money. Anything free. You know what Jack's reaction is going to be.”
As Allen Sums It Up
Nelson might have added as Steve Allen did in his book, "The Funny Men:"
“The first reason we laugh at Jack is, of course, that we have been conditioned for over 20 years to do so. A thousand and one examples of this sort of emotional conditioning come readily to mind. If a motion picture director wants to terrify us, he need only present Boris Karloff. A composer need only to change a major chord to minor to change our mood from pleasant to sad. Jack reaps tremendous rewards from this simple truth.”
Nelson's role as a happy heckler is part of this conditioning.

This It the Way It Goes
I asked him to describe the role that has become his career:
“I'm the fellow that heckles Jack. Wherever Jack goes and runs into trouble, he usually bumps into this fellow.
“It's not known to the general public, but when he calls me anything, it's usually 'Mr. Nelson.' Mostly, he says: 'Oh, it's you again.' And I give him a long drawn out, 'Y-e-e-e-sss.”
This association with Benny has proved limiting though profitable to Nelson. In radio, he was able to do many characters — “leads, heavies, dialects, things of this nature.” But, in TV:
“People see and associate my face with a voice and I'm trapped. Few producers will take a chance on casting me any other way. It's simple enough for a Red Skelton to take on a serious role. The producer just announces that a star is going to try something different and the public eats it up. This isn't the case with a rank and file actor.”
Nelson has tried to break away from his “typing.” He shaved his mustache and got himself a butch haircut. “The only person I made an impression on was my wife,” he said.
“She was annoyed.”
Benny Is Easy to Work For
What's Benny like to work for?
“Very easy. He knows what you want and expects you to do it. Never in the years I've been with him have I heard him get mad at a performer, or lose his temper. In the radio days, the cast all knew what they were there for, knew what he wanted from them. We spent very little time in rehearsal. In TV, of course, the problems are greater and we work longer, but, even then, rehearsal time is reasonably short.”
Frank worked more often when the Benny show was on radio. “In those days, I did 25-30 shows a year. Now I do six or seven.”
What about the in-between times? “I work as all actors do. I did a lot of Lucy shows, Our Miss Brooks, Joan Davis, Eddie Cantor, Donald O'Connor, anything that comes along—Ann Sothern, Danny Thomas. But always the same character.”

Paar Hits Par
A fellow named Jack Paar once took over the Jack Benny Show for two weeks. It's said this was the turning point in his career but Frank Nelson recalls that Paar didn't come off well at all.
“It was right after the war, I guess about '46, '47, somewhere in there. Paar was an odd sort of fellow even in those days and didn't come off very well with the audience. When they didn't react to his jokes, he'd lecture them. This just made them withdraw more.
“He didn't do any radio for about two years after this experience. The kind of show he does today, he's fine for, but to me he's an unsure individual. He shouldn't be, but he is.”

Look-Alikes Confuse Fans
Frank Nelson and Mel Blanc look quite a bit alike. Their hair lines are the same, both have mustaches, both are on the heavy side. This can prove confusing to their fans.
“We were walking out of the studio one day,” Frank recalled, “when two young ladies rushed up with autograph books. One looked at me, then at Mel and gasped: ‘Why, they're two of you,’ Mel said ‘I’m his brother.’ I agreed and they walked away satisfied.”

Coming Up Next, Boys and Girls...

There was a time, you youngsters reading here today, when local TV stations had kids shows in the afternoon with a live host. He’d ad-lib silly things and introduce some cartoons. Some of these shows were among the funniest things ever put on TV. Ever. If you get your hands on Tim Hollis’ book Hi There, Boys and Girls!: America's Local Children's TV Shows, you can learn about them.

Kids couldn’t get enough cartoons but, after a while, TV stations in the early ‘60s felt they needed to do something besides run the same packages of Warner Bros. and Popeyes over and over and over. So syndicators, looking at the success of Hanna-Barbera in the TV field, offered new cartoons to fill time. Hanna-Barbera, itself, was among them, producing the Lippy the Lion/Touché Turtle/Wally Gator shorts. Not only could the cartoons be used individually on a kids show with a live host but, stations could turn them into 15-minute, half-hour or any-length blocks to fit holes in morning or late afternoon programming. Ingenious, those syndicators.

A couple of cartoon series offered in 1962 and 1963 were at the opposite ends of the scale. “The Funny Company” was an outgrowth of criticism of cartoons by do-gooder groups that felt all children’s programming should be like a school house. So producer Ken Snyder offered a series with an educational component.



Sponsor reported on August 19, 1963 that WOR-TV in New York was going to spend a million dollars advertising the cartoons which it planned to air in a 90-minute block. Ah, but a problem cropped up. Mattel had exclusive advertising rights. And the FCC said “no.” Said Sponsor on September 23, 1963:

Sponsor must be identified, FCC rules on Mattel case
FCC last week put its foot down on proposed exception to the sponsorship identification requirements by a kiddie cartoon series. In response to a request from California toy manufacturer, Mattel, for a waiver of the rule in the “Funny Company” program, FCC said Mattel sponsorship would have to be announced by stations carrying the series. Commission says present instance is similar to the “Living Should be Fun” program offered in 1961, not overly sponsored, but in effect underwritten by Foods Plus, in exchange for spot announcements by stations. FCC rules the sponsorship had to be acknowledged. Mattel bought exclusive distribution rights in U.S. and Canada for the “Funny Company” program, helped finance pilot film. Through its advertising agency, the company has offered to take adjacent spots at a cost that will reimburse the stations for the cost of rights to use the program. FCC holds this as the same as sponsorship. Also, Mattel has exclusive rights to merchandise toys, games, et al, based on the program characters. The toy company wanted to let stations offer the program to other sponsors, but if Mattel has to be named, fewer stations would use the program, it claimed. FCC was not beguiled by reproachful argument that the commission would, in effect, be discouraging sorely needed “good children’s programs.” The law is the law: identify, says FCC.

Regardless, “The Funny Company” settled into the WOR schedule, listed for 90 minutes every weekday beginning at 3:30 p.m. Despite that, the local-area TV station which ran the cartoons when I was a kid inserted them as part of its animation blocks in the morning and afternoon. I don’t recall any mention of Mattel.

Down the dial at WPIX Channel 11, “The Funny Company” was going up against another cartoon series from 4:30 to 5. It wasn’t educational in the slightest, unless you wanted to learn how to make comically bad cartoons. “The Mighty Hercules” was “A Trans-Lux Television presentation produced by Adventure Cartoons for Television, Inc.” Trans-Lux had scored a TV success in the late ‘50s by reviving Felix the Cat, thanks to the help of veteran New York animators, and Famous/Paramount studio stalwarts Jack Mercer and Win Sharples. Weekly Variety, on February 7, 1962, announced the series (then called “The Amazing Adventures of Hercules”) would consist of 130, 5½ minute cartoons. Again, New York animators were paid to sit at their lightboards, and Jack Mercer and Win Sharples were brought in.

Some animation historians say it looks like those New York animators had copies of the Superman model sheets from their Fleischer studio days as the Man of Olympia’s design (attributed to George Peed) looks a lot like the Man of Steel. Despite the extremely limited animation, there must have been cost problems. Mercer and David Hartman, who played Hercules, disappeared, and their voices replaced with Canadian (read “cheaper”) talent from Montreal. TV hosts Jimmy Tapp and Helene Nickerson (“Miss North American Van Lines” of 1960) and CFCF radio programme director Gerry Bascombe took the roles. Nickerson’s performance as the evil villainesse is unintentionally hilarious; she sounds like she’s spent her life smoking five packs a day. In fact, “unintentionally hilarious” aptly describes the cartoons, right from the get-go with Johnny Nash wailing about “Iron in his thighs.” Just don’t try to watch more than a couple in a row. A couple in a row, Herc, a couple in a row.



If you’re wondering what else was for sale to cartoon-hungry stations, Sponsor listed the 18 distributors at an NAB trade exhibition in its April 1, 1963 edition. The trade publication pointed out close to all syndicated film sales were being made directly to stations. Here’s what was being offered:

CBS Films: Deputy Dawg (third series).
Desilu Sales: Rod Rocket, 130 3½-minute cartoons with authentic space background.
Jay Ark Film: Bozo’s Cartoon Storybook, 52 cartoons, featuring lead-ins by Bozo, in color.
King Features Syndicate: Beetle Bailey-Barney Google & Snuffy Smith-Krazy Kat, 150 new cartoons based on the comic strip, in color; Popeye, 220 tv cartoons starring Olive Oyl’s boyfriend, in color.
MGM TV: MGM Cartoons, 135 fully animated cartoon comedies.
NBC Films: Astroboy, 52 half-hour cartoon series.
Official Films: Cartoons, 41 cartoon: Little King, Bunny Bear [sic], etc.
Screen Gems: Top Cat, 30 half-hours animated cartoons, produced by Hanna-Barberra [sic], wall [?]; Hanna-Barbera Cartoons: Touche, Wally, Lippy, 156 five-minute cartoons in color.
Trans-Lux Television: The Mighty Hercules, 30 5½-min. cartoons about Hercules and his enemy, Daedalus; Felix the Cat, 260 four-minute cartoons starring the well known cartoon character.
United Artists Associated: Popeye Cartoons, 234 theatrical animated Popeye cartoon adventures; Warner Bros. Cartoons, 337 theatrical animated Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and others.
Video House: Out-of-the-Inkwell, 100 5-minute cartoons created by Max Fleischer, featuring Koko the Klown in colour.
Walter Reade-Sterling: Capt’n Sailorbird Cartoons, group of 184.



Of course, there were others being syndicated and then there were cartoons on networks. And that brings us to our last photo from Sponsor in 1963. People were employed to dress up in large cartoon character costumes and make appearances at department stores, fairs, TV stations and so on. Hanna-Barbera promoted Yogi, Quick Draw McGraw and even Wally Gator this way. But I feel sorry for the poor young guy who was forced to wear a huge Mr. Magoo head at a bowling alley.



I’d rather watch 50 “Hercules” cartoons in a row than be forced to wear that.

Well, maybe not.