The Magic Fluke Background

An opening pan of the nightclub scene off Broadway opens The Magic Fluke, the second UPA cartoon designed for theatrical release.

See more here.

Crying at the Coo Coo Nut Grove

Friz Freleng pans up in The Coo Coo Nut Grove (1936) and it turns out we’re seeing Helen Morgan crying while singing Warren/Dubin’s “The Little Things You Used To Do.”

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Hale and Hale

Alan Hale was available for interviews before and after the debut of Gilligan’s Island. Syndicated columnists didn’t ask him about the show—instead, they wrote stories saying “Gee, he looks just like his dad.”

Read more here.

Jolly Roger Speaks

A pirate flag uses its own bones as telescopes in the 1935 Ub Iwerks ComiColor short Sinbad the Sailor.

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The Eyes Have It

A pair of eyes do a little travelling to get a closer look at The Lady That’s Known as Lou in The Shooting of Dan McGoo, a Tex Avery cartoon released in 1945.

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Life of Benny

It’s a long journey from being kicked out of school to becoming a loved entertainer for decades. But that’s the journey Jack Benny went on.

Read more here.

Finding a Columbia Favorite

How can I describe the Columbia cartoon studio?

Unique, maybe?

Read more here.

Dancing Drunk Dwarves

The Merry Dwarfs (1929) is an exercise in timing everything (namely dancing) to music.

See more here.

Good Night, You All

Tex Avery tries to repeat an idea Bad Luck Blackie in Billy Boy, but fails.

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Moore Goes Big Time

Nestled amongst the serials and game shows on daytime TV in the ‘50s were low-key variety shows. One of them was hosted by Garry Moore.

Read more here.

The Good Egg Isn't So Good

There are some really messed up characters in Chuck Jones’ The Good Egg (1939).

See early Jones here.

Truth is Stranger Than Cartoons

Friz Freleng used Tex Avery’s format and a few of his standard gags in his spot-gag short Sports Chumpions.

See more here.

Flintstones Weekend Comics, November 1964

Betty Rubble got the short shrift in the Flintstones newspaper comic strips, but she makes a quick one-panel appearance on the November 8th comic, one of five that month in 1964.

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Dispelling the Benny Myths

Jack Benny was a great actor. People listened to his radio show and some of them believed it was a documentary, the real life Jack Benny.

Read more here.

Another Looney Tunes Background Mystery

We solve the case of the mysterious phone number. See it here.

Today's 1939 Radio Reference

A couple of related radio references highlight the ho-hum Hardaway/Dalton effort Hobo Gadget Band, released by Warner Bros. in1939.

See them here.

Mad Cat

“I was going mad, insane, out of my head, cracking up, crazy, cuckoo!” says the tormented cat to himself, and the realises it’s the cuckoo clock in the house that’s turned him into a wreck.

See more frames from this Tex Avery cartoon here.

$64,000 Feldon

Resting prone on a tiger-skin rug and purring about some hair product isn’t the accepted model to make your TV career take off.

Unless you’re Barbara Feldon.

See more here.

Mice on an Endless Move

Paul Terry was sure obsessed with two things in the early sound days—mice and cycles. He’s littered Club Sandwich with them.

See them here.

Opening Night Kiss

The great thing about the Fleischer cartoons was something unexpectedly coming to life and pulling off some odd gag.

I wish it happened more in the Van Beuren cartoons, but here’s an example in Opening Night, the 1933 debut short for Cubby Bear.

See more here.

Script Helper to the Star

Several members of Jack Benny’s staff would show up on his radio show and one of them actually made the jump to television.

Read about Jack's script assistant here.

Playhouse's Ford Dog

Some of the cleverest and best-looking animation in the 1950s was on TV commercials.

See more here.

Scrambled Aches Backgrounds

Settings in the Roadrunner cartoons became increasingly representational. Here are some examples from Scrambled Aches, released by Warners in 1957. Maurice Noble laid out the cartoon, with Phil De Guard painting the backgrounds.

See more here.

A Cab Ride With Tex

Droopy warns the escaped con wolf not to move. Of course, we know what’s going to happen.

He gets in a cab that makes a wild perspective 180-degree turn. Here are some of the frames.

Toreador, That Allen's Not a Bore

Fred Allen took aim at the radio advertising industry when he found the chance, but he didn’t leave it at doing a phoney commercial.

Read about one show here.

The Show Must Go On

Fire is destroying Andy Panda’s piano but he is determined to finish Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu Opus 66.

See more here.

Octopopeye

An octopus becomes a weapon as Popeye and Bluto fight over an immobile treasure chest under water in Dizzy Divers (1935).

See more of the scene here.

Looking Forward — Except for Dinner

You can’t be bright and cheery all the time.

Jack Benny wasn’t.

Read his 1972 interview with a Florida newspaper here.

The McKimsons Go North

K-E-Double-L...

Mr. Jinks may have been better on commercials than he was in the TV cartoons.

See more here.

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Willie's Jungle Mate

Hmmm. Yes, they’re there. They’re there even in poorly drawn in-betweens.

Find out what, here.

Dixieland Droopy Opening

Tex Avery loved opening a cartoon with a pan of a background with an overlay on top of it to give it a 3D effect. He did it at Warner Bros. and carried on doing it at MGM.

See frames from Dixieland Droopy in this post.