Drunk On Moonlight Bay

The best drunken fish in cartoons have to be in Porky's Duck Hunt (1937). The nascent version of Daffy Duck takes a back seat as the fish swim through hootch that leaked through a barrel, then get in a boat and sing “On Moonlight Bay.”

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Flintstones Daily Comics November 1961 Part 2

Fred Flintstone gets to be a hypocrite AND a letch in the daily comics during the second half of 1961.

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The Night They Raided Jack Benny's Show

A combination of factors managed to put Jack Benny in the radio business, and he reminisced about them in 1963 as he was returning to New York.

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Those Offensive Cartoons

In a way, it’s amusing seeing old films and TV shows given anything but a “G” rating. That’s because all that ancient stuff was vetted by prudes at the time it was made.

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Today's Radio Reference

Radio references found their way into countless cartoons. Some were indirect, some were borrowed catchphrases, and some were direct takeoffs or impressions of personalities on the air.

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The Doors of Tomorrow

“Why, it even has a separate entrance for each member of the family,” says narrator Frank Graham before Jack Stevens’ camera pans over a Johnny Johnsen background of The House of Tomorrow.

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Meatball Man

He was a star on the stage, he was an award-winner, he was all over television 50 years ago. But anyone who saw him back then likely doesn’t know his name.

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Western Cliche Time

Directors of Westerns found different ways to set up shots of scenes leading up to the climax gun battle. In their hunt to avoid clichés, they created clichés.

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Duck Shoes

Want a gag out of nowhere from Walt Disney? We’ll go back to the silent days for one.

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No Watergate For Benny

If you listen to Jack Benny’s radio show, there’ll be reference to current political events on occasion. But they were the same kind of jokes everyone else was doing.

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Goodbye, My Baby

In a corner of the internet called “Facebook,” there is circulating a 1964 newspaper column by someone named Paul Jones upset at the Beatles appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show. He goes on to burn Sullivan for “catering to screaming teen-agers.” Read more here.

There's Always Room For Jerry Jello

Mouse-flavoured Jello?

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Eyes of a Dog

With the sound of Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse” in the background, Wellington the cat stamps dog paw prints all over the room, as he tries to have Roscoe the hound tossed out by the mistress of the house (played by Bea Benaderet).

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It's Up and Down the Dial

Ask anyone who has been in radio any length of time, especially before two or three ice-cold and antiseptic corporations took over the industry, and they will likely tell you they worked with some of the characters on WKRP in Cincinnati.

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Accidents Don't Happen

Ambulance chasers Tom and Jerry think they have an accident victim they can sell insurance to in Trouble, but that's not quite what happens.

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Brrrr

The Warner Bros. brought the world the feature film Dames (1934), with Guy Kibbee, Zasu Pitts, Hugh (Woo-Hoo) Herbert and the songs “I Only Have Eyes For You,” “The Girl at the Ironing Board,” “Try to See It My Way,” “When You Were a Smile on Your Mother’s Lips,” and the title tune (Dick Powell and Joan Blondell sang it).

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Flintstones Daily Strips, November 1961 Part 1

We’re back with another month of daily newspaper comics starring Fred Flintstone. Pebbles hadn’t been invented yet, so the strips revolve around Fred and Barney or Fred and Wilma.

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Anyone Can Be 39

Why did Jack Benny lie about his age?

He did it for you.

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MGM Odds and Ends Part 4

Some time in December 1956, the top people at MGM decided to close their cartoon studio.

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Three Cheers For the Sextopus

A squid decides to surface under Farmer Al Falfa’s raft in Robinson Crusoe (1933).

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Dat's My Boithday Who Said Dat

Over the course of time, Jimmy Durante went from enthusiastic hokum in the 1920s with songs like “If Washington Needs Me, I’ll Answer the Call” to sentimental schmaltzy hokum in the 1960s with songs like “Smile” and “September Song.” I love the former and will forgive the latter simply because it’s Jimmy Durante.

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Spinning Wolf

At MGM, there were lots of titles with “little” in them—Two Little Pups, The Little Mole, The Little Bantamweight, and Little Gravel Voice.

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Fern Fan Dance

Nobody in Hicksville knows who famous hotel guest Miss Glory is, including Elmer the bellhop.

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Now I Will Make a Black Eye Appear

Popeye employs something a little less than magic to get revenge for deadbeat Bluto splashing mustard on his face in We Aim To Please (1934).

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Roasting Benny

Show biz people moved from New York to Los Angeles, so it was only appropriate that parts of show biz should move with them. So it was the Friars Club was started in California by Milton Berle and his compatriots in 1947.

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Can You Guess the Gag?

Puny Express was the first cartoon Walter Lantz made after his studio shut down for a period around 1949-50.

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No Skunk For Bunny

Tex Avery was known for outrageous cartoon takes but he didn’t use them all the time.

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Triangles, triangles

A novel way of opening a cartoon can be found in the Ub Iwerks ComiColor short The Headless Horseman.

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Florence Halop

Short with huge glasses and a voice from a Brooklyn frog pond. That’s how everyone remembers Florence Halop, who had a short but memorable career on Night Court in the mid-‘80s.

She certainly didn’t look like she did when she appeared on a 15-minute show on WSGH in Brooklyn in 1929.

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Jeeper's Creepers Backgrounds

Appropriately creepy backgrounds take up a good portion of the first third of Jeepers Creepers, a 1939 cartoon from the Bob Clampett unit.

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