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.

A Hole in the Ground

Ah, yes, the old cartoon gag of lifting up or moving a hole. Here’s an example from the early days of sound in Walt Disney’s The Picnic (1930).

This scene features a rabbit with one of those belly-buttons beloved in cartoons in the 1920s. and an early version of Pluto (named “Little Rover” here). The fun is in the dog`s woozy expression after crashing into the ground.



The little birds that fly around from a dot, shrink back into one, which becomes exploding lines.

There’s a lot of dancing and cycle animation in this cartoon, starring Mickey and Minnie, and that turn-of-the-century favourite song, “In The Good old Summer Time.”

Being a Cartoon Musician

Is there any doubt that Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf was the most popular song written for a cartoon short in the 1930s?

It was composed by Frank Churchill with Ann Ronell. Churchill went on to write “Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho,” “Whistle While You Work” and “Some Day My Prince Will Come.”

It would seem there would be no better person to talk about cartoon music to Tempo magazine than Churchill. This feature story is in the January 1938 issue.

Cartoon Comedy Scores
How They are Written And Synchronized
by Frank Churchill
(As told to Charles Gant)
THE music for a cartoon comedy is planned when the story is prepared and written, before the cartoons are drawn. I start by getting together with the writers—“story men,” we call them—in a conference in which we sit around and discuss the plot and its characters. The music must suit the characters emphasized in each scene or sequence and the next step is to lay out a “break-down” in which the sequences are separated into footage-shots. The secret of synchronization, one of the most important items in our type of work, where the characters usually perform in rhythm with the music, is merely a mathematical problem. We know how many frames of film fall to the bar of music and write the music accordingly. Of course, this method has its difficulties, but nothing that can’t be overcome with knowledge and experience. It is a matter of timing the tempos and rhythms to correspond with the proper number of frames of films.
It is possible to use any kind of time 4-4, 2-4, 6-8, even 5-4, providing the fundamental beat is kept in synchronization with the proper number of frames. When this is done it is a relatively simple matter for the animators (those who make the series of drawings that give movement to the figures) to keep their characters in time with the music. For example, a horse is to gallop with his hoofs moving in time with the music. The animator contrives that the horse’s movements coincide with the required number of frames and there’s no chance for error.
Recording

The music may be recorded without even seeing the picture, though we often make piano soundtracks to use with the rough tests just to check up. In recording, the conductor, and many of the musicians wear earphones, through which they get a beat supplied from a mechanical device which supplies a beat adjusted to fit with the film when it is run. The rhythm section always wears earphones.
Composing
When I joined the Disney company, about a year after the advent of sound-pictures, it was customary to use excerpts from familiar—often too familiar—sources. I was engaged to adapt music of this kind and discovered very soon that it was impossible to avoid hackneyed themes of the well known “spring song” and “flower dance” type. It was sometimes difficult to synchronize these themes with the action, so I started composing original scores. Since that time I have batted out some 75 complete scores, not to mention countless sequences discarded because of changes in the picture during production, which necessitated turning out new music to go with the new sequence. For me, writing has become easier as the time went by, each score seeming to supply ideas which could developed rapidly for the next one. After a number of years of this kind of work it gets to be just another routine job to the writer who spends so many hours a day at it, but I believe I find the work as interesting as that of any of the studio music writers. However, when I’m through with the day at work I rarely feel like attending a concert or listening to the radio. I’d rather sit down to a game of poker or go to a prize fight.
Songwriting
For the score of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I did, in addition to most of the background music 10 songs (lyrics by Larry Morey), two of which were cut out of the picture but which will be published along with the others. Some of these I wrote as much as three years ago when we first started work on Snow White. Tune writing has always been easy for me. It’s just a knack, I guess, that some people have and others don’t.
One of the best known studio composers, who has turned out some outstanding scores, can’t write a tune to save his life. I have some tunes among the Snow White songs that I think arc pretty fair melodies. One of the best I wrote in five minutes. If some of the Snow White songs go over as well as I hope, I may devote more time to songwriting in the future.
Recording Musicians
The musicians we use for recording dates have to be thoroughly schooled men, all-round performers who can “cut” anything at sight, and in addition they have to be handy at putting in the odd effects we use in cartoon music, and doing them in the right way. The cartoon comedy music calls for the same high degree of ability necessary for any studio musician and often a little more. Many of the odd effects you hear in cartoon comedy music sound as though they had been produced by novelty instruments, and while we do use “jug bands” and other novelty instruments at times, many of the effects are just standard instruments playing the “trick stuff” we write for them. A knowledge of how to write these effects into the music, and an ability on the part of the musicians to play them, are important features in this kind of work.

The “Studio Briefs” item referred to in the photo reads:

Reorganization of the music department for Universal’s Walter Lantz productions (Oswald Rabbit Cartoons) brought in Nat Shilkret as musical director, Frank Churchill (see Page 6) as composer, Frank Marsales as arranger and sound technician. Lantz office said purpose of new set-up was to give productions musical background of the highest possible character. It is also rumored that Shilkret has contract for music on an ambitious series of commercial cartoon pictures to be sponsored by a toothpaste company.

Lantz seems to have decided to cough up a good deal of money around this time, also hiring Burt Gillett to direct and Willy Pogany to paint backgrounds.

Why Churchill left for Lantz after Snow White may be told in some Disney history book, but Lantz began to have money troubles and Churchill returned to write for Dumbo and Bambi. The stress of work, perhaps coupled with alcohol, got to him. ”My nerves have completely left me,” he wrote in his suicide note to his wife. He died May 14, 1942, age 40. Neal Gabler’s book on Disney says:

Always sorrowful and sensitive, he had no doubt been further depressed by Walt’s ongoing dissatisfaction with his work on Bambi. (Churchill had written a great score for the “musical circle of Hollywood,” Walt griped, but one that was monotonous and did not provide the excitement the movie needed.)
Churchill’s last request was that “Love Is a Song,” which he had written for Bambi, be dedicated to his wife, Carolyn, who had been Walt’s personal secretary from June 1930 to January 1934, when she married Churchill. But even that was denied since the song had already gone to the publisher.

The incomparable theatrical cartoon movie expert Daniel Goldmark deserves thanks for this post, alerting me that a number of old music publications are available on-line, albeit behind a paywall.

I don’t want to end this post with a suicide, so here’s a low-resolution photo from Tempo of July 1934. This may be the only shot of Carl Stalling with Art Turkisher. It shows they worked together on films at Iwerks.


The copy accompanying the photo reads:

ARTHUR TURKISHER
Born in New York City, Turkisher is the youngest musical director in any motion picture studio. Prior to his coming to Hollywood he was employed in the New York Paramount Studio, where he assisted in the scoring of pictures when sound was first adopted in the studios.
He has appeared with the Columbia Broadcasting Company and secured an assignment at Fleischers to assist in the technical direction and synchronizing and scoring of animated cartoons. He has acted as musical director on more than 130 pictures.
For the past fourteen months, he has been employed by UB Iwerks as musical director for scoring and arranging, and directed many Flip the Frog,” “Willie Whopper and “ComiColor” cartoons.
Turkisher is a concert cellist.

CARL STALLING
Born in Lexington, Mo., Carl Stalling had his own orchestra in Kansas City for ten years, during which time he specialized in the pipe organ which he played in conjunction with his orchestra work in Kansas City, Chicago and other cities in the Middle West.
Stalling joined UB Iwerk’s [sic] animated Pictures Corporation studio in Beverly Hills about three years ago and has created innumerable scores for animated cartoons, many of which have been played over national radio networks, this with particular reference to his original musical creation of “The Little Red Hen” which was played over the Pacific Coast network on an average of twelve times a day for a period of three weeks when the picture was released.

Turkisher never got screen credit on Jungle Jitters (released July 28, 1934). He seems to have had the same relationship with Stalling that Milt Franklyn did when Stalling replaced Norman Spencer at the Schlesinger studio.

Turkisher was back in New York by 1938 as he was on the executive of AFM Local 802. You can read more about him in this post. One thing not included is a piece from the Santa Barbara Morning Press of July 3, 1934:

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Morley Fletcher of Los Angeles are the guests of Charles Hinman Graves for a few days. Mr. Fletcher, well known for his color prints done in the Japanese manner, but essentially a portrait painter, has just refinished a life-size canvas of James Culhane, prominent moving picture director, and Mrs. Culhane. His portrait of the young Hungarian ‘cellist, Arthur Turkisher, given its first public showing in Los Angeles recently, was enthusiastically received by critics in the southern city.

Culhane and Turkisher worked together at Iwerks.

Mickey's a Hit

So much has been written about Steamboat Willie that I am loath to say much about it on this blog. Mind you, I said that the last time I briefly posted in 2018 about its debut.

However, I came across a 1928 clipping from Kansas City where, I’m sure you know, Disney and a slew of people involved in animation came from. It’s about a showing at the Madrid Theatre at 38th and Main.

Ads for the Madrid in the Kansas City Star for the week ending Saturday, December 1 don’t mention any cartoon at all (with the exception of a Fable shown on the Monday). The newspaper did publish an article about it on December 2. The name of the cartoon isn’t given, so I can only guess it is Steamboat Willie. The story is not bylined.

A Madrid theater audience last week was entertained with a well-appreciated although unadvertised short subject from the Walter Disney studios. It was an animated and synchronized cartoon, “Mickey Mouse,” and marked the entrance of three Kansas City men—Mr. Disney, Carl W. Stalling and H. O. Wheeler—into the synchronized animated cartoon field.
Synchronization of such a subject differs from that of a legitimate movie. All the cartoons must be drawn and photographed, the score written, and then the accompanying music played by an orchestra and recorded. In the case of “Mickey Mouse,” the picture was made in Hollywood and the music recorded in New York. The score was written by Mr. Stalling, who also directed the orchestra. Mr. Wheeler assisted in the arrangement of the music.
Trade papers have given the Disney synchronized cartoons most flattering reviews. The Disney studios are synchronizing on the Powers Cinephone, but the records are made on both film and record and are interchangeable with Phototone, Movietone and Vitaphone.

If I have to explain who Carl Stalling is, you are reading the wrong blog. Henry O. (Harry) Wheeler died in Kansas City in 1940. He was a music teacher and band leader there for decades and, at one time, the arranger for the Newman Theatre Orchestra, the theatre where Disney drew the animated Laugh-O-Grams before going west.

Considering the torrents of publicity Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney and his studio have flooded the public with over the generations, it’s surprising to see very little talk about them in the studio’s early months. Unfortunately, newspapers then didn’t always list the cartoons they were showing. And some haven’t been scanned well to show the correct text on-line.

The Mark Strand Theatre at Fulton and Rockwell in Brooklyn (“The House of Talkies”) showed Mickey Mouse cartoons toward the end of 1928 and into 1929. Newspaper theatre stories conflict but it would seem Steamboat Willie played a week starting on December 29, 1928, with The Gallopin' Gaucho appearing on screens beginning January 12, 1929.

There are some reviews. Willie was advertised with the Warners all-talking On Trial starting January 13, 1929 at the Fabian (“The House of Sound Talking Pictures”) in Paterson, New Jersey. The Morning Call of January 18 had this to say:

One of the latest novelties that has been produced with sound accompaniment is a Walt Disney cartoon, making this individual subject the most popular subject on the program. It is the first time since the sound motion pictures have been at the Fabian that great applause has greeted any one subject.

The Wilmington, Delaware Every Evening of January 29, 1929 simply said “Sound has been added to comedy cartoons and in ‘Steamboat Willie’ now at the Aldine, there are many original laughs.”

The Buffalo Times of Feb. 4, 1929 announced it was being shown with the H.B. Warner-Louise Fazenda “100% Talking Picture” at the Great Lakes Theatre (another Warners house). Its review:

One of the outstanding features on the bill is a cartoon, “Mickey Mouse,” in sound. The ink comedies that always drew laughs before the advent of sound pictures, now throw the audiences into a paroxysm of mirth with such incidents as a mouse “razzing” a cat, and a goat who swallowed a sheet of music, singing “Turkey in the Straw.” It is as entertaining as it is unique.

With favourable comments like these and theatres in early 1929, perhaps reluctantly, realising sound pictures were here to stay, is it any wonder that the Fleischers started production on the Screen Songs, both Oswald the rabbit (Lantz, sound was announced in Exhibitors Daily Review on Nov. 19, 1928) and Krazy Kat (Mintz) began making noise, and Van Beuren added music and effects to the Aesop’s Fables in May (against the wishes of Paul Terry, who was fired).

Recently, Steamboat Willie itself has taken a back seat to all the chatter about going into the public domain, but it’s not only a significant cartoon in the history of animation, I think it’s still a fun one.

Darkness Visible

Director Wilfred Jackson goes for dark-light visuals in a shoot-em-up scene in the Mickey Mouse cartoon The Klondike Kid (1932).

Here’s an example from when Pete opens fire in a saloon.



Next scene.



Wait a minute!



Mickey and beer?! Yeah, that wouldn't fly today. Think of the children.

How Cartoons Are Made – 1930

Disney has always dominated discussions about animation. There was a minor bit of hoopla amongst critics in the early 1950s about the “anti-Disney,” UPA, but by the time I was growing up in the 1960s, it was long forgotten. It took “Of Mice and Magic” to bring some knowledge of other cartoon studios to public knowledge; film publications of the ‘70s were doing the same thing to a more academic group.

There were many articles on cartoon studios during the sound era of theatrical cartoons, some of which were designed to satisfy the curiosity of how they were made.

Below is a story from the Los Angeles Times, dated April 13, 1930. It was published elsewhere. Most of it is about Disney, with a brief list of other studios. Several are not mentioned. Harman-Ising and Iwerks were just starting out, as was Paul Terry on the East Coast, whose first release was in February that year.

This was transcribed on the old GAC site in May 2009.

COMICS MEAN HARD LABOR
Creator of Mickey Mouse and Other Animated Cartoons Works Harder Than Composers
BY JACOB COOPER
A comic-strip artist and a master musician go into a huddle, and—Presto!—we have the animated sound cartoon. Or, rather, this is an abbreviated picture of what goes on in the little studio which hugs the small, green hills on Hyperion avenue, where Walt Disney directs the lives and fates of those droll zoological which his fertile brain creates.
Walt, you know, is, among other things, the daddy of Mr. Michael Q. Rodent, otherwise and affectionately known to his screen public as Mickey Mouse.
Besides the latter, Disney also produces the Silly Symphony series, and after seeing the involved process which goes to make up this one-reeler, it would be safe to wager that it carries behind it more anguish of soul a work-day minute than Tschaikowsky labored under during the creation of his Symphonic Pathetique.
PAINSTAKING DETAIL.
There is more than a keen sense of the humorous needed in the production of this type of opus, although this is one of its main ingredients. There is infinitesimal, painstaking detail to be done on the part of the thirty some odd persons engaged in the studio. Consider the fact that it takes about 6000 drawings to make up one reel of film, and you have an idea of just what these many people are doing. They must possess an understanding of movement involving every situation in which the human or animal body may find itself—an authoritativeness surpassing Michelangelo’s on the self-same subject. Then every person is expected to contribute to the fund of gags and droll situations as the ideas occur to them—and they are funny to the point of tragedy.
On the whole, the entire procedure is somewhat on the same order as any company may use in production of the over-famous back-stage revue. There is the scenario, in this case both written and drawn, in which the scenes are laid out according to the tick of the clock. The sets are drawn on pasteboard. The background of a scene need never be recopied; it is only the characters which move that have to be put through their copius [sic] gestures. These are first drawn on thin paper—one drawing for each frame of the film—and are then traced on a sheet of transparent celluloid. The celluloid drawing is then filled in with the necessary blacks and whites and superimposed over the background which has been placed under a hanging camera.
The cameraman’s job is no grind; far from it. He can only click one frame at a time and at this rate hardly ever exceeds an output of fifty feet per day.
There is very little cutting to be done on this type of film; it is almost in sequence when the exposed film is removed from the camera.
SOUND PREARRANGED
Then comes the musical and sound part. This has all been prearranged even before the drawings are made. In fact, many of the subjects are based on a musical idea. But this is no job for a thoroughly canonical musician. He must suffer to see Liszt made ludicrous, Bach a buffoon, and Debussy delirious. Whistles, horns, drums and perversions of the human voice add to this barnyard bedlam and Mickey Mouse and the Silly Symphony venture forth into the world equipped with the utmost in risible accoutrements.
Then, lest we forget, there are the other cartoons which help fill our moments of frivolity. Two others are being produced in Hollywood: Mintz's "Krazy Kat," and Walter Lantz's "Oswald"—the latter being originally the creation of Walt Disney. It is rumored that Van Beuren's "Aesop's Fables," which now claim New York as their habitat, will move out to Hollywood. The eastern metropolis also sends forth Max Fleischer's "Talkatoons" and "Song Cartoons," declaiming and warbling into the world.

The Ears Have It

In the 1930 Disney cartoon Wild Waves, there's an awful lot of repetitious action. We see four penguins dancing on a beach. Then they go through the same steps a second time. Same with Minnie Mouse trying to escape some high waves.

There's an interesting take that I don't believe was used very often. Mickey sees a fishing net he can turn into a harp (which sounds like a piano). He's so excited about it, his ears detach in a three-drawing take (one per frame).



The first half of the short is Mickey rescuing Minnie, the second half is characters dancing or singing.

The internet can’t make up its mind when this cartoon was released. We have this report from New York by Phil M. Daly, Jr. of the Film Daily of Jan. 16, 1930; it was in theatres by then:

Charlie Giegerich is happy over the treatment given “Wild Waves,” Celebrity cartoon, at the premiere of “Hit the Deck” the other night at the Earl Carroll.

Celebrity was Pat Powers’ company and Giegerich was his right-hand man. Later in the year, Powers would poach Ub Iwerks.

Here's Variety's review of Jan. 22nd:

“WILD WAVES”
Disney Cartoon
8 Mins.
Carroll, N. Y.
Columbia
Fast-moving comedy cartoon, which isn’t on long enough to bore many, no matter if it isn’t always laugh provoking. Doesn’t rank with the best of the recent crop, but will fit any program.
It’s one of the Mickey Mouse series, unwinding the usual antics of the cartoonist’s imagination. Most of the action attempts to keep the rhythm of the synchronized score, but the resultant gag maneuvers not being overly strong. Some of the cartoons are mimicking the voices of the figures in certain spots, a mistake, as it rudely interrupts any illusion the drawings may have previously invoked. That’s overdoing the sound thing.
The cartoon one-reelers are riding in front at present, with a wealth of material to pick from to make it tough to offset their strength. Carelessness and an attempt to turn ’em out too fast can undermine as fast as the novelty of sound and a couple of great ideas sent them out as pace makers. Their main asset is that they’re built for laughs, and people primarily go to the theatre for that purpose. Sid

The uncredited director is apparently Burt Gillett.

Who Likes Van Beuren Cartoons?

In the early 1930s, three East Coast animation studios were trying to entertain audiences on the big screen. The Fleischer studio was at the top of the heap, with the Talkartoons, Screen Songs and Betty Boop cartoons featuring neat gags and drawn well characters. Some steps below Max and Dave Fleischer were the Terrytoons of Paul Terry and Frank Moser, and the Aesop Fables (and, eventually, the human Tom and Jerry) made by the Van Beuren Corporation.

If nothing else, Terrytoons had longevity. CBS continued making the cartoons into the late 1960s, long after Terry eased out Moser, then sold out in the mid-50s. Van Beuren, on the other hand, came out with shorts that weren’t always well drawn, with stories that weren’t always well-structured, and gags that made you think “What did I just see?”

Watching them, you may think they were just thrown together, but that wasn’t the case if you buy what’s in a syndicated newspaper story that appeared in February 1931:

Odd facts and figures concerning the production of Aesop’s Sound Fables, animated cartoons produced by the Van Beuren Corporation, have been compiled by George Stallings, for many years a member of the Fables’ animated staff—
Forty artists make 26 animated cartoons a year.
Each cartoon averages 6,000 drawings.
Each drawing is handled five separate times: Penciling, Inking, Black, White and Gray opaquing.
152,000 drawings are animated in one year.
152,000 drawings are worked on 760,000 times in one year.
The drawings make 18,200 feet of film.
All of this, one year’s work of 40 men, can be shown on the screen in 3 hours and 2 minutes.
In addition to the above figures which deal with artist work alone, here is some more interesting data:
Four gag men are employed to supply necessary comedy bits.
One tap dancer [Jack Ward] for devising special steps and instructing animators on matters concerning dance technique.
One musical director [Gene Rodemich] devotes his entire time to adaptation and composition of music and effects.
Sixteen musicians are employed for synchronizing.
Two cameramen work continuously photographing drawings.
There are approximately 150 positive prints distributed on each subject in the United States and 53 distributed in the United Kingdom.
Aesop’s Fables are shown in every country of continental Europe, North and South America, Australia, South Africa, as well as may sections of Asia.
An average audience of 1,750,000 sees the cartoons each day in the United States alone.
The staff employed in making a Fable cartoon is approximately twice the staff on an average seven-reel picture, excluding extras.

Irene Thirer of the New York Daily News of Sept. 27, 1931 devoted part of her column to the studio and its alleged attempts at realism.

We learn from the Van Beuren Corporation that a thorough research is being conducted at the New York Zoological Gardens, the Museum of Natural History and the New York Public Library under the personal supervision of John Foster.
Working models are being made of numerous specimens in order that the artist may have the greatest possible selections of types in the making of their animated cartoons. An extremely difficult phase of the research work, Mr. Foster informs us, is the cataloguing of the correct animal sounds as well as their mannerisms in their native habitat.

The biggest publicity Van Beuren got that year, unfortunately, came March 30, 1931 when it was reported Walt Disney was suing the company for its ersatz versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, with Stone Age Stunts being named in one wire service story. Roughly two months later, Disney got a temporary injunction against Van Beuren and distributor Pathé. Read about it in this post.

What did people other than Uncle Walt think of the Van Beuren cartoons? We have some reviews from Film Daily you can hunt down on this blog. Let’s pass along the words of one critic published in The Billboard, which reviewed shorts until the start of March 1931.

“The King of Bugs”
(AN AESOP SOUND FABLE)
(PATHE)
STYLE—Animated sound cartoon.
TIME—Nine minutes.

Bugville in medieval times, settings and characters denoting that period, is all set for the annual joust and tourney before the king and princess of insectdom in this Aesop Sound Fable, The King of Bugs, a Van Beuren Corporation production. The main event at the tourney, after the gala arrival of the king and his entourage, is a race between the hare, the turtle and a ferocious-looking spider, sort of a new twist on the ancient mythological tale. The spider easily puts his racing adversaries out of the way and triumphs in the race, winning the praise and admiration of the king and his populace. But the race is razzed by the court fool, which angers the spider, who tries to kill him. The princess rushes to the jester’s rescue and is herself abducted by the angry spider. Overcoming all his pursuers, the spider is finally conquered by the fearless bug jester of the king, who revives in time to rescue the princess.
Action, continuity and synchronization of this animated cartoon is up to the usual high Aesop Fable standard. Treatment and theme of the story is a bit different than the usual run of cartoon and should be enjoyed by most spectators. C. G. B. [Jan. 10]

“A Toytown Tale”
(AN AESOP SOUND FABLE)
(PATHE)
STYLE—Animated sound cartoon.
TIME—Eight minutes.

By far one of the best and most ingenious of the present crop of animated sound cartoons is this short, A Toytown Tale, one in the series of Aesop’s Sound Fables produced by the Van Beuren Corporation for Pathe release. The theme is that of a toymaker who closes shop for the night, and the toys which come to life while he sleeps, a favorite situation with many another story.
A mechanical policeman is left on guard by the toymaker, but he falls in the glue. While he extricating himself a whole series of dramatic events takes place before he can restore order. A wooden lieutenant and his company of wooden infantrymen march off to war, but the officer is attracted by the flirting eyes of a beautiful dolly. Flirtation leads to love, but the soldier proves unworthy by his inability to defend her against a ferocious Tinker elephant and a somersaulting mechanical gorilla. Little Boy Blue and his flock of sheep prove the right to the love of the beautiful doll by effecting a thrilling rescue of the distressed damsel. The mechanical policeman finally emerges from the glue in time to restore peace in the toyshop and to restrain the nervous excitement of the Jack-in-the-Box. An entertaining reel, with complicated action, background and synchronization. C. G. B. [Jan. 17]

“Red Riding Hood”
(AN AESOP SOUND FABLE)
(PATHE)
STYLE—Animated sound cartoon.
TIME—Eight minutes.
The Van Beuren Corporation, maker of the Aesop Sound Fables, will continue as the peer in animated cartoon product, despite competition from other companies attempting to cash in on the pictures, and while there is no definite conflict or competition between the various types of caricatured strips, and there appears to be plenty of room in the field for all of them, and more besides, Aesop’s Fables will always stand out as one of the first, if not the original, animated drawing on the screen.
In this reel the Red Riding Hood theme is twisted and made to fit the mood of the cartoonist, and to place a bit of humorous travesty behind the nursery story. Riding Hood blithely trips thru the woods, followed by a ferocious wolf riding a stealthily creeping roadster, and upon being asked where she was going she informs the wolf her destination is grandma’s. Grandma’s doctor in the meantime has given the sick old lady a new jazz tonic, which completely rejuvenates her into a vivacious flapper, and when the wolf arrives he determines to merry the old gal. Riding Hood arrives just as they are about to depart for the church, and she quickly summons the old wolf’s wife and horde of wolfish brats. The wedding ceremony is nipped in the bud, with hundreds of wolves at the door. This will hold up as a filler. C. G. B. [Feb. 14]

“The Animal Fair”
(AN AESOP SOUND FABLE)
(PATHE)
STYLE—Animated cartoon.
TIME—Nine minutes.

A well-known march song. The Animal Fair, which has served as nursery material for many a generation, is the basis for the cartoon animation of this Aesop Sound Fable of the same name. The march melody and rhythm introduce a parade of fabletown’s gentry down the main street to the fairgrounds, where a multitude has assembled for the big show. Much of the action is concerned with the milling crowds outside the big tent, one incident being where a sneak thief steals the sheriff’s trousers and beard. A long-winded harangue by the side-show barker results in a wild rush for the entrance. Within the tent a vaudeville show is progressing. A two-piano clog act gets by nicely until a fat dame crosses downstage and immediately the whole act flops. A pansy duck. pulling the nance tra-tra-la business, brings a vegetable and missile bombardment from the audience, ending the show and the reel. A few scattered laughs to the reel, which is fair-filler material. C. G. B. [Feb. 14]

“Cowboy Blues”
(AESOP SOUND FABLE)
(PATHE)
STYLE—Animated cartoon.
TIME—Eight minutes.

Another animated cartoon in the Aesop Sound Fable series made for Pathe release by the Van Beuren Corporation. Cowboy Blues is up the quality entertainment value of preceding items. Gene Rodemich, who handles the sound and musical synchronization for these shorts, deserves special mention for the expert manner in which sound and musical accompaniment fits in with the complicated action of the caricatured animals.
In this Milton Mouse finds himself on the Western grazing lands, where he is paying court to his mousie sweetheart under difficult odds and rivalry from a tough gink called Bad Egg Cat, who robs the cafe in which the girl is employed as a singer. Of course, Milton Mouse rescues the girl, saves the plunder and metes out dire punishment to the bad guy. Goodly share of laughs. C. G. B. [Feb. 28]

And from Variety from various issues in 1931 come these critiques:

“OLD HOKUM BUCKET”
Cartoon
7 Mins.
Mayfair, New York
Pathe
One of the Aesop Fables series, but below par for originality or laughs. For the intermediate or lesser spots as filler.
Simple theme of a bunch of animals falling for some pep pills and cutting up into a final fadeout after musical gyrations in the usual fashion. Shan. [April 1]

“RADIO RACKET”
Aesop Fable Cartoon
8 Mins.
Strand, New York
Pathe
Animals broadcasting and animals listening. A jungle burlesque on the air. As such it has some parts the funniest ever caught in a cartoon.
The hippo singing a high soprano and the bombardment on a return wave gets fans of all inclinations laughing until they reach the edge of the well known chair. Waly. [April 1]

“CINDERELLA BLUES”
Cartoon
8 Mins.
Cameo, N.Y.
Pathe
A fair cartoon of the familiar yarn with just enough trimming and novelty to give it appeal.
For about two minutes in this one the music runs ahead of the drawings, otherwise the synchronization and drawings are perfect.
Not many laughs but a few smiles. [April 29]

“MAD MELODY”
Cartoon
7 Mins.
Mayfair, N. Y.
RKO-Pathe
One of the Aesop Fables. Excellent as a filler for any type house.
Diversity is offered from the usual caricature route of such subjects in that good vocal voices are heard in operatic burlesque as animal characters gyrate to music and otherwise. Funny all the way.
Idea concerns an orchestra leader with musical idiosyncrasies. These are coupled with the classical attempts of various hippopotami and small animals in staging “La Za Za.” Shan. [April 29]

“SCHOOL DAYS” [GOOD OLD SCHOOLDAYS]
Cartoon
8 Mins.
Trans Lux, N. Y.
Pathe
Getting so with these animals and insects that they repeat all of the old tricks and still entertain, providing the locale is different. This time the motif is school.
All the old time school songs are rendered in solo and quartet formation. A class orchestra with instruments denoted by legs and arms comprise the witticisms which are interspersed. Waly. [June 2]

“PLAY BALL”
Cartoon
8 Mins.
Globe, N. Y.
RKO-Pathe
Quite evident that if it weren’t for those razzberry blowers many a short wouldn’t know what to do with itself. This is such a one. Makers of these cartoons will eventually realize that continuous use of the British “bird” is no longer funny. That the light should have dawned six months ago is beside the point, for they’re still hanging the berry on all and sundry at the least provocation. To hear it flop the way it did at the Globe may be the only cure.
‘Play Ball’ is one of the Van Beuren Aesop Fables. It revives, as the title indicates, the diamond pastime in a game between monkeys, elephants and hippoes. No unusual wrinkles as even the outfielder hopping a bike to chase a fly is revived, plus the windup parade around the bases.
Rodemich scored the reel and the arrangement calls for some dialog. Latter is bad and does much to disrupt. Diction put into the mouths of these cartoon characters invariably sounds out of place. When it doesn’t jibe, the damage is irreparable. Grunts, cries and, exclamations have often been made to register, but the producers generally overdo it by delving into the conversation. The verbatim angle has robbed many a cartoon of its effectiveness and numerous of these one reelers are still just getting by for that same reason, when they should be solid hits.
Hence, “Play Ball” is just an ordinary short. It’s in a Broadway house on a base on balls from the home office and will find its best chances in the cheaper priced neighbs. Sid. [June 2]

“PALEFACE PUP”
Cartoon
7 Mins.
Strand, N. Y.
RKO-Pathe
An Aesop Fable with a good share of laughs. Okay all around.
Has a cowpuncher going for a squad followed by the inevitable chase by the chief. Romps back and forth in grossly exaggerate western form and amuses all the way. Sid. [July 14]

“MAKING 'EM MOVE”
Cartoon
7 Mins.
Mayfair, N. Y.
RKO-Pathe

Smart idea kiddingly given an insight on how animated cartoons are made. Before it gets through it has clearly outlined the technical principles, without going into too much detail, while striving for comedy. Worthy of any screen because of the interest involved, besides which it has a share of snickers.
Leads to finish by secondary screening of a drama in which the audience of animals cheer the hero and hiss the villain in the saw mill drama climax. Sid. [July 14]

One person who eventually gave the cartoons a bad review was Amedee Van Beuren himself. Out went George Stallings. Out went Gene Rodemich. In came Burt Gillett from Disney. In 1936, out went Gillett and in came Disney and the real Mickey Mouse. RKO decided to release cartoons made by someone else. Van Beuren continued making shorts including the Grantland Rice Sportlights and Vagabond Adventures with Alois Havrilla, but he was out of the cartoon business.

Mouth of Oswald

Oswald the rabbit’s girl-friend hears music. She wants to hear it better. Here’s the gag.



Cut to an overhead shot of Oswald and his banjo. Oswald pokes his head toward the camera, like Van Beuren did in its cartoons a few years later.



This is from Rival Romeos (1928), one of the Disney Oswald shorts. A theatre manager in Manitoba told one trade paper: “Excellent cartoon. Best in some time.” Chester J. Smith of the Motion Picture News put it: “The various characters are put through a series of evolutions that should provoke considerable mirth.” I guess he means it’s funny.