Fighting the Mouse

Why, look! It’s a sort-of familiar mouse watching the champ work out in time to the music in The Big Cheese, a 1930 Van Beuren cartoon.



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The Old Ball Game

“Let’s see you drive it right down my throat,” says Foghorn Leghorn to Widder Hen’s brainiac son in an attempt to get him to hit a baseball.

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Ed Asner

Ed Asner was irascible. Lou Grant was irascible. Maybe that’s why Asner will always be associated with the newsman he played on TV for a dozen years.

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Listen, Mac!

Jack Benny hired many of the top secondary players in radio—Bea Benaderet, Mel Blanc, Sara Berner, Joe Kearns, Frank Nelson, Elvia Allman, Blanche Stewart, among them—to play a variety of characters. All of them were radio veterans. But he hired someone in the 1950s for his radio show whose career had been mainly in feature films.

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How To Make a Van Beuren Cartoon

Sound cartoons were still reasonably new in 1930 and Popular Mechanics decided to satisfy the curiosity of its readers by explaining and showing how the cartoons were made now that characters talked and played musical instruments on screen.

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Jelly and Eels

Who dreams about jellyfish that come out of a jelly jar? Betty Boop does.

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Not the Jetsons

Hanna-Barbera always knew a good idea when they saw it. And so did someone before them.

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Hands of Burns

They survived 30-plus years of vaudeville, radio and television, and their act broke up solely because Gracie Allen wanted to retire.

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Ding Dog Dud

There are times when Pinto Colvig’s Goofy voice is funny in other cartoons. Little Rural Riding Hood comes to mind. Ding Dog Daddy doesn’t.

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You Know, There's a Bird in There

The cat has swallowed the canary in Counterfeit Cat.

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Tralfaz Sunday Theatre—March of Time Forum Edition

A jug-eared man steps to the microphone at the “end” of a radio soap opera and yelps “Time Marches On.”

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Sorry, No Seder

A number of tales have grown up around Jack Benny—in some cases, repeated by Benny himself—which simply are not true.

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Ub Moves Along

It was 1936. Ub Iwerks was in trouble.

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Before Chopper

Voices! We need voices!

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Buzz Buzzard Take

Buzz Buzzard is apparently talking to us but all we hear is unintelligible noises that don’t match the mouth movements at the start of Wet Blanket Policy (1948).

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Today's Forecast: Funny

California’s weather became a tired subject for radio comedy writers in the ‘40s. And in cartoons, too.

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Laugh-In No. 100

Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In was running out of steam by the start of the 1971-72 season.

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Widdy Widdy Widdy Widdy Da Wah

I have no idea the title of this post means. They’re lyrics in Willie Whopper’s Robin Hood, Jr.. released in 1934.

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Wise Quackers Take

The basic principles of animation are at work in these consecutive frames from Wise Quackers, a 1949 cartoon from the Friz Freleng unit at Warners.

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Next Stop, Kokomo

Phil Harris may have been born in Indiana and sponsored charity work there until his death, but his old boss Jackson helped benefit the state, too.

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Death to Terrytoons

Terrytoons died because the dollar signs didn’t add up.

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Drunken Camel

A rubber-legged camel decides to drink some beer in Mickey in Arabia (1932).

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Response of the Coo-Coo

A large-headed parrot uses sex to lure a coo-coo bird in Columbia’s The Coo-Coo Bird Dog (released in 1947).

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America's Pinocchio

It was called The Chase and Sanborn Hour, but nobody except maybe some agency people and the sponsor called it that. To everyone else, it was “The Charlie McCarthy Show.”

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Just Who Is In That Egg?

Here’s where fanboys get whipped up into a frenzy.

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Firey Sandwich

A smouldering cigarette creates a cute little flame that starts cheerily destroying everything in the forest in Red Hot Rangers.

More from this Tex Avery cartoon here.

Leftover Aspirin Available

Some stars know the value of good publicity. That means being organised and not being a jerk.

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The Buzz About the Bees

The Harman-Ising short Honeyland (1935) is an exercise in overkill.

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A Few Frames of Huck and the Gang

One of the fun parts about the Hanna-Barbera shows for Kellogg’s were the little cartoons in between the cartoons. Various characters got to interact and promote the next cartoon.

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Cartoon Familiarities

Time for a game! Put on a bunch of Harman-Ising cartoons from the early ‘30s.

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Backgrounds from UPA's Spring

Can anyone explain who was supposed to be entertained by the “Ham and Hattie” series from UPA?

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Fan Mail From Some Flounder

Does anyone send fan mail anymore?

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Screwy

Screwy Squirrel wants to know from Meathead if he’s the guy who chases the screwy squirrels that bust out of a mental hospital?

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Squiggly Fears

An old animation trick to show fear was to draw characters with wavy outlines and alternate the drawing with another with smooth outlines.

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Tobacco Leaf Carusos

It was a case of advertising the advertising.

“Have you heard the chant of the tobacco auctioneer?” asked print ads in 1938 for Lucky Strikes.

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