Mister Lookit

Bill Golden’s lasting contribution to television is the CBS Eye logo. But he's also behind Mister Lookit.

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Radio References in the South

Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera indulge in some radio star references in The Goose Goes South, a 1941 non-Tom-and-Jerry short.

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Rabbititus!

Hare Tonic is a funny cartoon that seems lost when praise is heaped on Chuck Jones’ outings involving Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.

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But Wait! There's More!

They’re the TV shows everyone knows, they’re ridiculed constantly—and they make an awful lot of money.

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Notes to the Mills Brothers

The Mills Brothers make some creative entrances in Dinah, a 1932 Fleischer screen song. At the start of the cartoon, jigsaw pieces fly onto the screen to put them in the frame.

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Birthday Bunny

Is it true that 81 years ago today, Tex Avery pretty much erased the memory of any other cartoon rabbit that Warner Bros. had offered to movie houses?

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Questions and Answers With Norman Lear

Norman Lear almost didn’t change the face of North American television.

Comedy on television in the ‘60s was either of the but-honey-the-PTA-is-coming-tonight variety or the my-daughter-is-a-reincarnated-Egyptian-cat type. Lear took an idea that wasn’t his, modified it for the U.S., then had trouble selling it.

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Daffy's Surprise Package

Daffy Duck woo-hooing and running around is always lots of fun to watch.

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Sneaking in a Commercial

Jack Benny loved making commercials a part of his show. He was one of the first to do it in 1932 on radio and carried on into the late 1960s when he hosted television specials.

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Why Reinvent?

Below is Yogi Bear.



At least that’s what he looks like on this blog, but that isn’t what he’ll look like in a new series coming to American streaming service HBO Max. Read more here.

How Sound Changed Cartoons

Walter Lantz was a survivor.

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Cartoon Outline

The Last Mouse of Hamelin starts with an interesting premise—suppose the Pied Piper didn’t remove all the mice from Hamelin. Suppose a music-hating mouse plugged his ears and stayed behind.

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Goosed her Rooster

The sun rises in the Flip the Frog cartoon The Milkman (1932) but the rooster isn’t crowing.

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Durante

He moved to Hollywood in 1932 but Jimmy Durante never lost that 1920s New York speakeasy entertainer atmosphere about him, even four decades later.

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Inki Backgrounds

Chuck Jones’ unit was experimenting with various kinds of backgrounds during the war years. Some consisted of geometric patterns but all were not literal.

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Lassoing a River

Life was not easy for pioneers heading West, we’re informed by the narrator of Homesteader Droopy (1954). “There were wide rivers to cross.” Director Tex Avery and gagman Heck Allen toss in a sight gag.



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Canada's Million-Dollar Composer

It’s a tune that may be more Canadian than “O Canada.”

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Flintstones Weekend Comics, January 1965

You don’t think of dramatic artwork when you think of the Flintstones comic strips. But occasionally it shines through, such as in the colour comic that appeared in newspapers on January 3, 1965 (a day earlier in Canada).

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Knowing Jack Benny

I suppose the question “What’s Jack Benny really like?” is a legitimate one. A writer for one of the dailies in Los Angeles tried to answer it.

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Women and Walt

Women can’t handle being animators. Walt Disney was convinced of that. It was pointless for women to even apply for the job at his studio. He wouldn’t consider it.

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Three Part Harmony

There was a time when Disney cartoons had little bits of impossible fun in them.

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I'll Take the Shovel

A hunting dog bashed by another hunting dog agrees to same fate in Out-Foxed, a 1949 Tex Avery cartoon.

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Don Jurwich

It’s sad to receive word about Hanna-Barbera veterans passing away, and we’ve heard from reader John Semper, Jr. that layout artist Don Jurwich died on July 13th in Westlake Village at age 87.

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Bob and Ray Offers

Were irreverent publicity handouts a big thing at one time?

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Potted Conductor

A pun on a finger-wave opens one scene in the Walter Lantz cartoon Hollywood Bowl (1938).

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Highland Dancing Times Two

Friz Freleng featured Scottish characters Highland Dancing in two 1937 cartoons, Dog Daze and September in the Rain. So, was the animation re-used?

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New Look But Same Old Benny

There was an odd time on television where old stars simultaneously made fun of young people while kissing up to them.

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Rudy's Boots

Time for a tough-to-see inside joke from Tex Avery’s The Peachy Cobbler. Read about it here.

Butt Biting

Van Beuren could put Molly Moo Cow out to pasture.

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Mutiple Eyes

Don Williams provides some beautiful animation in the not-all-that-exciting A Hick, a Slick, a Chick, a 1948 one-shot by the Art Davis unit at Warners.

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A Walk With Fred Allen

Fred Allen complained.

Fred Allen also liked to walk. And perhaps that made him a little more reflective.

Here’s a story from the Bell Syndicate.

How Not To Catch a Chicken

George tries to explain catching a hen using a leg-hold trap to Junior in the 1946 Tex Avery cartoon Henpecked Hoboes.

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Fake Mickey

Let’s see...round ears, wears pants and shoes, speaks with a falsetto. Can it be?



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War is Wet

It wasn’t limos and luxury hotels for the stars entertaining Allied troops and visiting wounded personnel during World War Two. Larry Adler and Jack Benny could tell you.

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The Looney Tunes Mystery

Cartoon producer Leon Schlesinger realised in late 1934 that Buddy wasn’t working out as a starring character.

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Fourth of July Mouse

The expressions are what makes Tom and Jerry cartoons enjoyable to watch.

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Canada's Glamorous Ghoul

She played opposite Clark Gable and a host of dramatic stars on the big screen for more than two decades. But you know her for being married to Herman Munster.

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