After watching a bunch of very funny Snub Pollard 2-reelers produced by Hal Roach and directed by Charley Parrott Chase, plus Universal Jokers co-starring goofball comic Billy Franey and (frequent Chase co-star) Gale Henry, some directed by William "One Shot" Beaudine, the gang here is thinking of silent era cartoons - especially all-time favorite Felix The Cat, that gem from the inspired pen of the incomparable Otto Messmer (1892-1983).
Author, animator and Messmer expert John Canemaker elaborates.
Have devoted entire blog posts to Messmer and Felix. Our family even had an amazing and playful tuxedo cat named Felix!
The blog has posted numerous Felix cartoons but somehow missed the very first entries in the series.
So, here, submitted for your approval, are first two Felix The Cat cartoons, made back in 1919.
While Messmer's essential and trademark minimalism is there from the beginning, Felix' design is different and more angular in these early cartoons.
Since the awaited Blu-ray release of Rainbow Parade Cartoons volume 2 by Thunderbean is just around the corner, must find a spot in today's post for the following 35mm scan of Bold King Cole, one of the three Felix cartoons from RKO Radio Pictures' Rainbow Parade series.
Am under the impression that Otto was not involved in the making of the Van Beuren Felix cartoons; no surprise there, as Messmer's magical cat is, while enjoyable, a bit sanitized in the Rainbow Parades. He did go on to animate the lights fantastic in Times Square - on that more later.
How do we show proper respect for Mr. Messmer and Felix? With a few more cartoons featuring cats, beginning with one produced by the Van Beuren Studio that looks a tad like those last Felix cartoons from 1930, but features a much better and downright jaunty music track, courtesy of the excellent Gene Rodemich. The co-star, Countess Cat, sounds like the Betty Boop voice who preceded Mae Questel in the boop-oop-a-doop part and also played Olive Oyl when Ms. Questel was unavailable, Margie Hines.
SASSY CATS is one of Columbia Pictures' Scrappy cartoons, created by three all-time animation greats, Dick Huemer, Art Davis and Sid Marcus, for the Charles Mintz Studio. The gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog finds the outrageous pre-code cartoons and animation of Heumer, Davis and Marcus hilarious.
Davis and Marcus ended up at Warner Brothers; the former would be a head animator with both Frank "Tish Tash" Tashlin and Friz Freleng, while the latter collaborated with Bob McKimson both on creating The Tasmanian Devil and such cartoons as The Hole Idea (1955).
After leaving the Mintz Studio in 1933, Mr. Huemer spent decades as a top Walt Disney Productions storyman, working as a team with Joe Grant, contributing to Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, etc. He was, on record, not a fan of his Mintz cartoons.
Speaking of the Charles Mintz Studio, the crew there led by Ben Harrison and Manny Gould were among those to bring the Krazy Kat from comics and the universe of George Herriman (1880-1944) to animation.
The Harrison Gould production team did this once and it's a pretty darn good attempt at George Herriman's Krazy, as opposed to the rubber-hose generic Krazy seen in the previous Mintz Krazy Kat cartoons.
In the opinion of this cartoon fan, the 1936 Mintz cartoon comes closer to capturing the George Herriman universe than the WW1 era Krazy Kats produced by International Film Service, Inc. (a.k.a. Hearst).
The ever-inventive Gene Deitch also made 34 episodes of a series based on Herriman's Krazy Kat in the 1960's at his Prague studio, no less. Many can be seen on the Comic Kings YouTube channel. Perpetual wiseguy Ignatz Mouse is played by none other than Paul Frees.
Given the difficulties translating the otherworldly qualities of George Herriman's comic strip to animation, still find the early 1960's take on Krazy and Ignatz quite entertaining.
These are among the more clever made for TV cartoons. "Stoned Through The Ages," second one in the following Krazy compendium, was definitely dope back in 1966!
Gene, thankfully, did us the favor of writing about such key collaborators on the 1960's Krazy Kats as Al Kouzel in his ROLL THE CREDITS series.
What's the best way to wrap this cat-packed post up? With an extremely funny Warner Brothers cartoon in glorious Cinecolor directed by one of those fellows responsible for Scrappy at the Charles Mintz Studio, the great Arthur Davis.
The cat, Louie the parrot's pal Heathcliff, may qualify as the single dumbest character ever in an animated cartoon.
For the next Feline Follies, there are many more options, including the Hugh Marman MGM cartoon THE ALLEY CAT, Terrytoons' Little Roquefort, Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera's Tom & Jerry in CinemaScope, and especially Bob Clampett's WB masterpieces The Hep Cat (1942) and Gruesome Twosome (1945), that could be added.
Unfortunately, did not find a complete print of Irv Spector's enjoyable Modern Madcap cartoon Cool Cat Blues (1961), featuring stellar voice work by impressionist Will Jordan, as all transfers on YouTube and Daily Motion appear to be missing footage for some reason. This cartoonologist prefers the satiric qualities of the 1960's Modern Madcaps to the more formulaic 1950's Famous Studios cartoons.
After almost 19 years writing Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, this is post #1400.
While, admittedly and embarrassingly, I deleted at least two or three posts due to laughably egregious errors, shall proclaim this Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog entry to officially be the 14 hundredth! Yay!
How does the blogmeister feel about writing post #1400? Feel like Virginia O'Brien, the deadpan diva, in this great song from PANAMA HATTIE, which should begin with her slapping overbearing Red Skelton across his overacting kisser (and, bear in mind, we like him as Red Skeleton in the Tex Avery MGM cartoon WHO KILLED WHO).
So this blog shall celebrate post #1400 without bubbly (thanks T2 diabetes, ya rat bastard). We'll start with some supercharged improvisational proto-metal British rock from Deep Purple, live in Belgium. Yes, indeedy, Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord and Ian Paice had chops.
How will we celebrate the silver screen stuff we love, while also kicking ourselves for missing the 80th anniversary of the execution of Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci on April 28. With a respectful nod to the enduring classic movie genre that broke big time during World War II, film noir.
The Burt Lancaster starring vehicle Brute Force is an inspired cross between Jimmy Cagney style caper thriller and film noir.
Nearly eight decades after noir's heydey, celluloid heroes Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame still bring the heat.
Don't recall any other noirs featuring larger-than-life Charles Laughton (except the harrowing tale of evil he directed, Night Of The Hunter), but the following classic, THE BIG CLOCK, is a chiaroscuro dilly and post 1400 worthy.
Prominent in the "silver screen stuff we love" category is silent era comedy. Here are several all-time favorites from all-time favorite silent movie comedians, starting with Buster Keaton in ONE WEEK.
Next up: vintage musical short subjects from way back when Sammy Davis, Jr. thrilled vaudeville as a ridiculously talented child entertainer and Frank Sinatra was studying the phrasing of Bing Crosby and Russ Colombo. Especially love those pre-Code musical short subjects, especially Vitaphone's Melody Masters series.
Here, in the 1932 Vitaphone musical classic, The Yacht Party, the mindblowingly limber Melissa Mason does her best terpsichorean triple-jointed impersonation of the even more mindblowingly limber and quadruple-jointed comedienne Charlotte Greenwood. All we can say is "go, Melissa, go!"
The following Vitaphone 1-reelers present absolutely amazing and talent-filled mini musicals, the glaring preponderance of 1920's and early 1930's style racial stereotype bits notwithstanding. That's The Spirit stars the comedy team of Flournoy Miller & Mantan Moreland (yes, that guy, Sidney Toler's sidekick in Charlie Chan flicks), The Washboard Serenaders, powerhouse singer/tapdancer/actress Cora La Redd and Noble Sissle's red-hot swing band.
Alas, as there was still a color line, big time, in 1932, Cora La Redd, who would have mopped up the floor with all tapdancers not named Eleanor Powell and given the Sophie Tuckers of the world a run for their money, did not subsequently get to appear, even briefly, in RKO, Paramount and MGM musicals.
Backing actress of stage and screen, vocalist and dancer Nina Mae McKinney, star of King Vidor's Hallelujah, Eubie Blake's band headlined the following 1932 Vitaphone short. The super-talented kids whose exceptional dancing brings this Vitaphone Melody Master to a rousing finish:
The Nicholas Brothers.
Another of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog's all-time favorite films is Smash Your Baggage (1932), starring Small's Paradise Entertainers. Jazz legend Roy Eldridge is in the band!
Lupe's co-star in this terrific comedy is the fast talking EPITOME of pre-Code. . . the one, the only Lee Tracy.
Also on hand: the familiar croaking voice of Eugene Palette.
Of course, the pre-Code flick we REALLY want to see is Convention City (1933).
The phrase pre-Code and the names of splendid actresses, Aline MacMahon and Ann Dvorak mean the gang here is watching this movie! And it features screen immortal Lyle Talbot, two decades before Plan 9 From Outer Space, as an oily rat bastard!
Of course, we also love pre-Code cartoons, even those Ub Iwerks Studio productions starring Willie Whopper!
Watching Iwerks Studio cartoons, must extend kudos, bravos and huzzahs to animators Grim Natwick, Shamus Culhane, Berny Wolf and music director Carl Stalling.
Also love the very pre-Code version of Tom & Jerry by New York's Van Beuren Studio.
Any Fleischer Talkartoon featuring Betty Boop, Koko and Bimbo is sure to be a winner.
Always liked this 1932 Screen Song featuring Betty Boop as a mermaid and using a certain Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby ditty from the Marx Brothers opus Horse Feathers.
What's the best way to finish post #1400? Warner Brothers cartoons!
Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog extends multiple hat tips to the directors of these cartoons, Bob Clampett and Frank "Tish Tash" Tashlin. Love those guys!
It's the sincere hope of the gang here that we shall be lucky enough to still be alive, kicking (even slowly) and blogging for post #1500 down the road.
The baseball season is on, so let's celebrate with some classic cartoons, starting with two rarities from Japan.
From the "Fox" series of shorts directed by Satoshi Morino, with animation by Osamu Satomi, KITSUNE NO HOMERUN-O.
Continuing this compendium and traveling from Japan to New York City, here's a Paramount cartoon featuring comedian/monologist Eddie "The Old Philosopher" Lawrence, ABNER THE BASEBALL (1961). Have spotlighted it here on Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog two consecutive years!
Thanks a million, "The Old Philosopher" and Irv Spector, as well all involved in creating and researching the Cartoon Research post including Abner The Baseball (Jerry Beck, assisted by Ken Layton, Mike Kazaleh and Paul Spector).
Two decades earlier, the animators at Paramount, working for Max & Dave Fleischer, made a baseball opus as part of the 1940 Stone Age Cartoon series.
An all-time favorite from Warner Brothers Animation is Gone Batty, directed by Robert McKimson.
Gone Batty was also included as the opener of an excellent episode of Cartoon Network's TOONHEADS (#203), which also includes Batty Baseball (1944 Tex Avery MGM) and Baseball Bugs (1946), the Friz Freleng crew's piece de resistance.
In closing, from Disney's 1946 compilation feature Make Mine Music, Casey At The Bat.
From the history of animation, one of the luminaries who intrigues the dyed-in-the-wool cartoonologists at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog most of all is gagman, story sketch artist, writer, animator, sometimes director, voice actor, comic books artist and recipient of an Annie Award for Lifetime Achievement in animation Cal Howard (March 24, 1911 – September 10, 1993).
Did anyone else in the history of animation work on a writing team with Allan My Son The Folksinger Sherman and ridiculously prolific TV comedy writer Stan Burns (who, with Mike Marmer, wrote many Get Smart episodes and countless sketches for The Carol Burnett Show)? Did anyone else work on idiosyncratic mid-1940's animated cartoons AND wacky mid-1960's sitcoms (Camp Runamuck) for Screen Gems? Well, none that I can think of, offhand.
From reading about Cal, derive an emphatic impression that he was a fun guy to be around and must have been a blast to interview. IIRC, Mike Barrier and Milt Gray got the opportunity to do just that when researching the comprehensive and epic HOLLYWOOD CARTOONS book.
Arguably best known today for his work as a storyman and co-director of Merrie Melodies at Leon Schlesinger's Studio, Cal was a buddy of Tex Avery's at the Walter Lantz Studio who followed him to Termite Terrace.
Prof. Klein's article adds: "And the Universal animator who most shared Tex’s love of provocation was Cal Howard, who—a bit shorter in stature and more slight-of-frame—might have seemed like an Avery sidekick. These two men were a prankster duo who prowled for victims, offering daily hijinks in the midst of the work at Universal. They were both gag-initiators. They punked their colleagues and they were in equal measure considered among the best gag contributors to the Oswald cartoons.”
Cal collaborated off-hours with Tex (while working days at the Walter Lantz Studio) on the storyboard for GOLD DIGGERS OF ’49, the first Schlesinger Studio cartoon that Avery directed - and a Looney tune on which Tex, Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett receive screen credit.
How many Tex Avery WB cartoons did Cal write gags and sketch storyboards for?
It's a good question, since, IIRC, Tex drew his own boards and hired such storymen as Cal, Rich Hogan, Heck Allen and others as sounding boards to talk sight gags with. Whatever the case is, Cal spent a significant chunk of his career working with Tex at both Lantz and Schlesinger's.
Cal got screen credit for writing Tex Avery's Merrie Melodies cartoons "Little Red Walking Hood" and "The Sneezing Weasel."
A major claim to fame for Cal Howard at Warner Brothers would be the three cartoons he co-directed in 1938 with prolific animator Cal Dalton.
RE: A-Lad-In-Bagdad, there is something about Egghead's Joe Penner voice and goofy sensibility that gets me ROFL, only every time.
Here, from the Archive.org Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies archive (which quite literally starts with the 1929 pilot for the Looney Tunes series), is ths writer's personal favorite cartoon of these cartoons credited to Cal Howard, the oddly charming collegiate musical KATNIP KOLLEGE, featuring stellar singing by swing band leader Johnny "Scat" Davis and comedienne Mabel Todd.
After leaving Schlesinger's, there was a pit stop at Lantz (1938), followed by a stretch, along with fellow artist/voice actor Tedd Pierce, at the Fleischer Studio in Miami (1938-1942), where he was a storyman and voice actor on GULLIVER'S TRAVELS.
There at Fleischer's, he got to play his second shrill character named Gabby, as Howard was the voice of the equally unmemorable and soon abandoned Looney Tunes co-star Gabby Goat at Warner Brothers.
Then it was on to MGM (1942-1945) and Screen Gems (1945-1946). Several articles and sources, including the MGM cartoon wiki, have named Cal as one of the storymen on Tom & Jerry, a series that did not credit writers.
Would need studio drafts to determine once and for all whether Cal wrote stories and gags for the Bill Hanna & Joe Barbera crew.
And then, inevitably, there's the hated Screen Gems Studio, where Cal Howard wrote a bunch of cartoons in the Phantasies and Color Rhapsodies series and contributed voice work to many of them.
This scribe may be the only person who has ever written pieces about animation who actually likes them! IMO, it has become fashionable to trash the Columbias and make sure everyone knows how much you hate them.
The cartoons Cal wrote stories for Screen Gems include some that this writer finds both enjoyably bent and hilarious, others that don't quite work and others (Lo The Poor Buffal) that really, really don't work but at least have periodic moments that are extremely funny.
While well aware that Leonard Maltin and other historians describe the Screen Gems product as "pale carbons of WB cartoons" (and some titles indeed are, especially those attempting to emulate Friz Freleng's "cat chases bird/mouse" cartoons), for the most part, I don't agree with that assessment. The Phantasies and Color Rhapsodies from the mid-1940's are frequently downright WEIRD and completely unlike Warner Brothers cartoons, especially those directed by Robert McKimson and Friz Freleng.
This writer regards the mid-1940's Screen Gems cartoons less as copycats but more as unconventional, very odd, oddly constructed and even more oddly timed fever dreams which start on a premise of producing something vaguely in the vein of Warner Brothers and MGM cartoons. Granted, while one finds no masterpieces a la the Bob Clampett crew's THE GREAT PIGGY BANK ROBBERY or BOOK REVUE in the group and none of the Phantasies and Color Rhapsodies are in the same league as mid-1940's Avery, Jones, Tash and Friz at their best, this animation aficionado will still take the off-kilter Columbias over the substantially less odd and more sensical contemporaneous cartoons from Terrytoons and Famous Studios.
Even the Screen Gems cartoons that feature Howard and Dave Monahan's truly head-scratching stories and try crazy ideas, but clearly fall short, still make this animation buff laugh. . . and that is even after conceding that offbeat comic timing and characterization (or lack of it) are recurring problems.
Bob Clampett was there at Screen Gems ever so briefly in 1945 and found an alarming absence of esprit d' corps, but also (in a conversation a gazillion years ago with the writer of this blog) praised director Sid Marcus for his originality.
Don't know if Mike Barrier and Milt Gray asked Bob specifically about working with Cal Howard at Screen Gems.
The following Color Rhapsody cartoon bears the mark of director/gagman Sid Marcus and, like UP N' ATOM, features specific gags and extremely wacky ideas seen in Marcus' other Columbia cartoons. This is a partial remake of A HELPING PAW, a particularly aggressively bizarre Color Rhapsody cartoon involving a hallucinating drunken dog. Is it funny? Yes, definitely, provided one is not losing a battle with alcoholism/drug addiction and suffering with delirium tremens!
Such Screen Gems cartoons with stories by Cal Howard as Mother Hubba-Hubba Hubbard definitely made a strong effort to emulate the ultra-zany style of Cal's friend Tex Avery's MGM cartoons, not so much the Warners approach.
Phantasies with stories by Cal Howard include Snap Happy Traps (1946) and The Schooner The Better (1946), the last black & white cartoons produced by a Hollywood or New York cartoon studio. They are atmospheric, Gothic, unusual and, as was the house style for the pre-UPA Columbia cartoons, unapologetically bizarre.
The most disliked of all the last B&W cartoons from Screen Gems remains the Columbia Phantasy (in more ways than one) Kongo Roo, set in the outback with main characters including a pygmy and a kangaroo. It's in very, very bad taste even by 1946 standards. Generally, even the historians and 1940's animation buffs hate, loathe AND detest this cartoon, but, for this writer, there's something about the "what the hell - let's try this and see what happens - it's a freakin' cartoon for cryin' out loud, not WAR & PEACE" modus operandi that appeals to this Monty Python's Flying Circus fan.
Cal Howard was among the very few, along with Bob Clampett, to leave cartoons and go directly to working in television as far back as the 1940's. Warner Brothers Wiki elaborates: "In 1949, Howard moved from California to New York City, to work on NBC's Broadway Open House and Your Show of Shows. When Broadway Open House ended he was hired by Pat Weaver to be an associate producer and writer for the development of NBC's Today show. He left NBC early in 1952 to return to California and work with Ralph Edwards."
Is there anything we can offer in this post not seen in the afirementioned historians? Yes, thanks to film collector/curator/historian Ira Gallen of TV DAYS, a complete episode of Broadway Open House! Co-starring comic Jerry Lester and blonde bombshell comedienne Dagmar, it was THE first late-night show, years before Steve Allen, quite funny and offered a mix of early TV and vaudeville. The spiritual descendents of Broadway Open House are less the 1950's and 1960's late-night gurus Steve Allen, Jack Parr and Johnny Carson, or wannabees Joey Bishop and Jerry Lewis, than the much more freewheeling comedy sensibilities of David Letterman and Conan O' Brien, decades later.
Howard subsequently worked at NBC as a gag writer for "The Johnny Dugan Show" and then became an early associate producer and writer for the "Today Show". At the end of the 1950's, he resumed working on cartoons as a freelancer,beginning with Format Films. Thus, Cal ended up working on the last gasps of both the Warner Brothers and Lantz studios, before returning to Disney in the 1970's. Alas, the budgets and production schedules were tight on these 1960's WB (produced by Bill Hendricks) and last Woody Woodpecker cartoons, but not nearly as tight as a certain unsold pilot for a TV show among numerous films in the Cal Howard Archive. . .
And with that psychotronic moment from the unsold pilot The Adventures Of Superpup, we close and tip our fedora once worn by Tex Avery to Cal Howard and realize we barely scratched the surface of his five decade career in show business. Again, mucho thanks for your stellar research Devon, Tom and Don!
St. Patrick's Day 2025 is right around the corner, on Monday. We know many will be getting hammered as they raise toasts to Jimmy Cagney and Pat O'Brien on Sunday night.
This blog's suggestion to young hard-partyin' folks (decades younger than this old geezer teetotaller blogger is), by all means, DON'T drink green beer, especially that Green Rooster stuff from Neptun/Carlsberg!
Trust me on this, don't drink St. Patrick's Day green brew - you will live to regret it!
Pondering what's best for St. Patty's Day viewing always involves cartoons. Famous Studios made several Noveltoons starring a bunch of freakin' leprechauns. Of these cartoons, The Wee Men (1947) is tops!
Always liked Phony Baloney, Terrytoons' tall tale tellin' Irish answer to Baron Munchausen.
Of course, it is required by law that all leprechaun-laden cartoons be followed by cheesy St. Patrick's Day commercials.
The first sign that you really got blasted on St. Patrick's Day is that you want to eat Lucky Charms.
Alas, I'm compelled to admit it - I WANT a Shamrock Shake!
Animated St. Patty's Day fun invariably begins with the question, "remember that Porky Pig cartoon with the leprechauns?" I do - and here it is, followed by an excellent review of this Chuck Jones classic from Anthony's Animation Talk.
MLB spring training has started in Scottsdale, not far from where the Arizona Diamondbacks play, but all I can think of is that episode of The Munsters in which Herman swings the bat.
Significantly less big-budget than Pixar's recent baseball-related TV series WIN OR LOSE but equally satisfying is Pantomine Pictures' funny and satiric Roger Ramjet.
The Roger Ramjet cartoons were produced back in the 1960's halcyon days when MLB Hall Of Famers Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Frank Robinson and Mickey Mantle were tearing it up on the diamond.
We love a lesser known albeit genuinely charming classic from the Looney Tunes Merrie Melodies archives, HOBO BOBO (1947).
The knowledgeable and entertaining Toon Heads at Anthony's Animation Talk reviewed this very enjoyable cartoon, directed by Robert McKimson.
Friz Freleng and his talented crew made several outstanding baseball cartoons.
Arguably the greatest of all animated cartoons about the sport is BASEBALL BUGS (1946), still unsurpassed after all these decades.
Not as well known but also wonderful is Freleng's 1936 Merrie Melodie The Boulevardier From The Bronx.
Its star is a rooster variant on flashy St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Dizzy Dean.
When the topic of baseball comes up, the first person from the world of entertainment one thinks of is Buster Keaton.
Knowing Buster's love of the game, it seems rather amazing that Buster did not devote an entire feature film to baseball. Hollywood legend has it that the first question in a job interview with Buster Keaton Productions was "do you play baseball?" One imagines an incredible action-packed comedy feature co-starring Buster with his mentor Roscoe Arbuckle, Roscoe's ever-acrobatic and quadruple-jointed nephew, Al St. John, and the ever-menacing Big Joe Roberts as the umpire.
That said, this entry from Buster's mid-1930's series of Educational Pictures comedy shorts, One Run Elmer, threadbare budget notwithstanding, has its charms. It's impossible for Keaton to be anything but fascinating onscreen.
Another baseball-loving movie comedian was vaudeville star, singer and rubber-legged eccentric dancer Joe E. Brown.
He's best known today for his key role as "wild and crazy guy" Osgood Fielding III in Some Like It Hot (1959).
Joe both worked as a broadcaster for the New York Yankees and starred in immensely entertaining baseball comedies, Elmer The Great and Alibi Ike.
The latter is my favorite of the two and a terrific showcase for the gangly but athletic comic.
Both yours truly and Madame Blogmeister did our civic duty and voted by mail last month.
Then we kicked back and relaxed with the following favorite election-themed tune, courtesy of intrepid Swing Ticket candidate Louis Jordan.
It's true - every presidential election, this way too well-informed for his own good political junkie and diehard classic comedy aficionado MUST watch the hilarious Moe, Larry and Shemp in Three Dark Horses!
No matter how many times I see this Three Stooges opus in which our knucklehead heroes unwittingly work for super-corrupt griftin' grabbin' graftin' slimeball politicos, the result, invariably, is me ROFL and LMFAO.
The 1952 Columbia 2-reeler opens with the line, "what we need are delegates who are too dumb to think and will do what we tell them." Could we get exponentially more stupid and politics even sleazier in the 72 years since slap happy Jules White and the Columbia Shorts Department produced this? YES!
To decompress after a ghastly and interminable election cycle, it is now time to watch a few classic animated cartoons, starting with the 1950's Famous Studios version of Popeye the Sailor.
In Popeye For President (1956), as usual, the voice acting by Jack Mercer (credited for story on this cartoon), Jackson Beck and Mae Questel is stellar.
Ever since I first saw it on TV way back in the 1960's enjoyed the musical cartoon Olive Oyl For President (1948). Voice actress and comedienne par excellence Mae Questel delivers the song with considerable gusto.
Little did I know, Olive Oyl For President was a very creative cheater, some it re-using ideas from the Fleischer Studios cartoon (which, incidentally, we post for EVERY election), the imaginative, clever and funny Betty Boop For President (1932).
What classic cartoon can we finish an Election Day post with? This one: Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam in BALLOT BOX BUNNY, directed by Friz Freleng.
Here, having voted via absentee ballot, the guy responsible for 1,368 posts (!!!) at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog sits quietly in front of NYC's Russ & Daughters, anticipates the absolutely amazing food within, and remembers the blazing greatness and mindblowing musical talent of the recently passed bandleader/composer/arranger/producer/brass virtuoso Quincy Jones.
Among a list of accomplishments way too lengthy to recount here, Quincy Jones led an astounding big band (especially astonishing on the two Live In Paris albums) in the early 1960's.
Not surprisingly, brilliant, inventive and memorable arrangements by Quincy Jones, as well as rip-roaring musicianship, are the order of the day.
Quincy leads a star-studded killer big band - and the existing footage of it in concert rivals The Atomic Count Basie for hard swingin' goodness.
Quincy's superlative arrangements would be heard a few years later when Mr. Jones conducted the Count Basie Orchestra for the epic Sinatra At The Sands concert album.
Any and all interviews with Mr. Jones are worth checking out.
Ranking high on the short list of great moments in television: Quincy's appearances on Late Night With David Letterman.
Quincy Jones also appeared on Conan O'Brien's show, our favorite of the more recent (post-Johnny Carson, post-NBC David Letterman) late night TV programs.
At Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we extended a hat tip to the maestro of maestros in the following March 2021 post, which noted
that perennial favorites Albert Einstein, Steph Curry, Michael Caine and Quincy share a March 14 birthday.
We wish readers of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog a Happy (and safe) Thanksgiving!
