A Giant Mouse?!

Mr. Terry! Mr. Terry! I have another great idea for a cartoon.

Read more here.

The Great Lov-aire

Charles Boyer’s Oscar-nominated performance as the womanising Pepe Le Moko in Algiers (1938) inspired a lot of Boyer impressions (almost always including the word “Casbah”).

Read more in this post.

From Van Dyke to Hartman to Cosmic Cow

A number of actresses popped up somewhat regularly on television in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Some of them got starring or featured roles on comedy shows.

Read more here.

I Can't Stand Me

Dog/trees. “Well, I’ve been sick.” “I don’t care what you say, I’m (fill in blank).” Man-on-man greeting. All of them Tex Avery gag favourites, and all found in Wacky Wild Life (1940).

Read more in this post.

The Background Balloons of Balloon Land

One of the most creative cartoons that came out of the Ub Iwerks studio was Balloon Land (1935) where the balloon characters gang up on the evil Pincushion Man.

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A McNulty in the Life of Dennis Day

Jack Benny’s radio show in the 1930s was incredibly popular, even without the elements that people today consider an essential part of it.

Read more here.

Aquasmoke and Ogden T. Baloo's Mongoose

Jay Ward sent out the best news releases.

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That Cow's Twisted

Walt Disney’s The Ugly Duckling (1931) sticks to the basic premise without a lot of gags.

Read more here.

If Tex Avery Can Make One of These...

The Mintz studio goes for Warner Bros. style humour in Scrappy’s Added Attraction, with credits given to future Warners cartoon staffers Art Davis and Sid Marcus.

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Lou's Boss

There were two things I noticed about Lou Grant when the show first aired. One was it was a drama, meaning it wouldn’t be including cameos by Ted Baxter or Rhoda Morgenstern. The other was a familiar voice had a body that was being seen on camera.

Read more here.

Out-Foxed Background

Tex Avery’s Of Fox and Hounds (1940) at Warner Bros. opened with a pan shot of a fox hunting club, with trees, a sign and a stone fence.

Avery’s Out-Foxed (1949) at MGM begins the exact same way.

See more in this post.

Flintstones Daily Comics, Dec. 1961, Pt. 2

The Flintstones daily comics for the last half of December 1961 were pretty much centred around Fred and Wilma. Pebbles hadn’t been invented, so she couldn’t be the focus of the gags.

See them here.

Can You Play in "Signal Ahead" Tempo?

Bugs Bunny’s in for a shock when he checks the sheet music in Rhapsody Rabbit.

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Creating Jack Benny

Jack Benny went from a man whose comedy had never been done before, to a man whose comedy had always been done before.

Jack talks about putting together his weekly TV show in this post.

A Little Lundy

In the Disney lore, Dick Lundy was the one who came up with the quintessential Donald Duck, angry and ready to fight, hopping up and down with his fist extended.

More in this post.

Piccolos and Birds

Van Beuren’s cartoonists just didn’t have it in them in 1932.

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If It Worked At Warner Bros....

Fans of Tex Avery’s cartoons at MGM likely know he took ideas he used at Warner Bros. and incorporated them into shorts at his new locale.

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How Green Acres Survived

Television critics in the 1960s tended to lump together shows where characters spoke with country-fied accents. But they generally didn’t really have anything in common.

More in this post.

Toby's Dressed Up

The Milkman is a cartoon with three not-all-together acts.

More on this Toby the Pup cartoon in this post.

He's My Hero

Daffy Duck is ecstatic Dick Tracy (in his comic book) has nabbed the criminals. There’s a fun scene where Daffy leaps around for joy. Here are some frames.

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Jack Benny Every Week

Leave it to George Burns to explain why his buddy Jack Benny changed his mind about television.

Read more here.

The Man Behind The Scrappy Scenery

The Little Match Girl is, arguably, one of the finest animated shorts to come out of the Charles Mintz studio for release by Columbia Pictures.

Read more here.

Playing My Theme Song

Walter Lantz’s theme song for the Oswald cartoons was sung by Oswald himself in Mars 1930.

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Up To Mars

Two cartoons with wonderfully weird Martian landscapes made appearances around the same time in the early days of sound.

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Have You Heard The One About...

Pop culture references always provide laughs.

Read what one critic says about them here.

Cat, Paper, Scissors

The Cat That Hated People (from the cartoon of the same name) meets up with a disembodied hand with scissors chasing a piece of people and trying to cut it.

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The Monster of Wackyland

Porky reacts after hearing a slobbering, screeching monster comes out of the umbrella trees in Porky in Wackyland (1938).



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Type O Gag

Is a gag from Tex Avery’s Uncle Tom's Cabaña left over from the war?

More on the question here.

Praise For Scott Bradley

Carl Stalling ranks first among cartoon composers for quite a number of fans, but other composers have their champions, too.

Read more here.

The Chevrolet Program

90 years ago tonight, Jack Benny made his radio comeback.

Read more here.

Saving Walter's Money

Animating frame-by-frame takes time. That costs money. It’s only, natural, therefore, that studios look at ways of cutting down on animation to keep within a budget.

See more here.

It's a Bird. It's a Plane. It's St. Elmo!

Distinctive voices decorated the landscape of the Golden Age of Radio, people you’d never mistake for anyone else. The same unmistakeable voices gravitated to animated cartoons, where the actors have achieved unexpected longevity, if not an almost immortality.

Read more here.