MLB 2025 Has Begun - Play Ball And Watch Baseball Cartoons!

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.

Spring Training 2025

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.

Classic Cartoons Round The Bases

We're thinking about baseball, MLB's tribute to the Negro Leagues and the incomparable Willie Mays but also returning to this blog's emphasis on classic cartoons and movies. Kicking this off with a baseball-centric Screen Song cartoon produced by Famous Studios.



Terrytoons had to get their two cents in, and they did just that with this opus, directed by Mannie Davis and starring Gandy Goose and Sourpuss. In the 1940's Terrytoons-Lantz-Screen Gems tradition, this one proves quite a bit funnier than one expects it to be. Love the concept of baseball played by a team of bulls and the Terrytoons crew does a nice job with it.



Any further cartoons about baseball which this blog posted here more than five years ago? Yes. Posted Tex Avery's 1944 MGM cartoon BATTY BASEBALL back in 2016. Having passed the 5 year Statute Of Limitations, we can post it again! It's on the dark side even by Avery standards and acheived a certain immortality for a quite literal interpretation of the phrase "kill the umpire."



In the "Fleischer Studio Does It Right" department, here's a cartoon we posted here back in 2018, Popeye in The Twisker Pitcher. The spinach-swilling sailor remains to this very day in 2024 the only big league hurler to throw pitches like that and not require multiple Tommy John surgeries.



The Cartoon Research website covered, as part of an excellent and comprehensive post on the insanely busy Famous Studios in the early 1960's, the very enjoyable animated adaptation of Eddie "The Old Philosopher" Lawrence's record Abner The Baseball. Here's the original record.



This fan of Famous Studios' Modern Madcaps series finds the Abner The Baseball cartoon to be terrific and one of the frequently clever and inventive director/storyman Irv Spector's best.



We tip our well-worn San Francisco Giants baseball cap to "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).

Farewell to The Say Hey Kid, The Logo and The World's Tallest Deadhead

"He's the best center fielder who ever lived, no question." Monte Irvin
"The All-Star Game was invented for Willie Mays." Ted Williams




Once in eight or nine blue moons, this blog, mostly obsessed with classic films, comedy, vintage television and animation (and to a lesser degree music), delves into sports. Today, we must do this, with the news that the incredible Willie Mays has passed at 93.









The passing of Willie Mays happened as this movies and sports aficionado has been, with difficulty, processing the losses of basketball stars Jerry West on June 12, Chet "The Jet" Walker on June 8 and Bill Walton on May 27. While it is no fun being "the R.I.P. blog," that's the reality of today.



Have a soft spot for Willie Mays, a.k.a. the Say Hey Kid, a trailblazer on and off the diamond.





Mays was the best outfielder, the fastest runner, a singularly brilliant baseball strategist, as well as a coach on the field, often trusted by managers to relay the latest and greatest signs to his teammates from his roving outfield post.



There have been great hitters (Ted Williams, Barry Bonds), paragons of consistency in the unparalleled excellence of their all-around game (Henry Aaron, Stan Musial, Joe DiMaggio), base-stealing and baserunning daredevils (Jackie Robinson, Maury Wills, Lou Brock, Bobby Bonds, Ricky Henderson, Vince Coleman) who changed the nature of baseball, guys who inspired with clutch hits, amazing throws from the warning track and sheer swagger (Mickey Mantle, Frank Robinson, Roberto Clemente). None combined all of the above quite like Willie Howard Mays.



Willie began his career playing with the Birmingham Black Barons at Rickwood Field and was the last living player to have swung the bat in the Negro Leagues. He faced freakin' Satchel Paige, for cryin' out loud!



Willie lived long enough to see the stats from the Negro Leagues officially added to MLB's database.



Willie Mays hit 660 homers (including an inside-the-park grand slam) and would have beat the Babe for the all-time HR record way back when had he not spent 1952-1953 in the U.S. Army, won 12 Gold Gloves, played in 24 All-Star games, stole 339 bases, scored from first base on a bunt, slammed four round-trippers in a game - and was the epitome of cool.



Saw Willie get his 3000th hit at Candlestick Park on July 18, 1970!



The top announcers of MLB were in agreement about Willie.





Willie's 80th birthday at the ol' ballpark in 2011 was a special occasion.



For more, read 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid.

As floored by Willie's passing as we are here, we have also been hit hard by the losses of Jerry West and Bill Walton, two greats of college and pro basketball.



West, with GM Bob Myers and Coach Steve Kerr, would be among the key architects of the Golden State Warriors team that won four championships.



Jerry, a.k.a. The Logo, was an incomparable player who followed his amazing on-court career with a record as an executive and team-builder (for Lakers, Grizzlies, Warriors and Clippers) still unmatched in sports.



Bill Walton? An incredible player for UCLA, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Boston Celtics - and arguably my all-time favorite sportscaster.





Bill Walton could talk both sports and music all day and all of the night, and that was part of his charm.



No doubt it would have been fun to talk music, sports, current events, history, philosophy, the sciences, whatever with Bill! His favorite band did pay tribute to the redhead in a concert the day after his passing.



All of these gentlemen of sport were unbelievably talented and made miracles on the field and the court. Farewell - and thanks for the memories!

April 8 and 15: TCM Presents Baseball Movies

While wishing fervently for a Star Trek teleportation device to make attending today's San Francisco Giants home opener at A T and T Park possible, this blogger will be watching baseball flicks on Turner Classic Movies. Thrilled and delighted to hear TCM hosts Eddie “The Czar Of Noir” Muller and Ben Mankiewicz talk baseball movies on the April 2 edition of Marty Lurie’s Podcast on KNBR, source of San Francisco Giants radio broadcasts.



The night of April 8 will feature a triple bill of Angels In The Outfield (1951), Bull Durham (1988) and Take Me Out To The Ball Game (1949).



While we also like the 1994 version of Angels In The Outfield starring Danny Glover, the 1951 film, directed by Clarence Brown, has got it all - Paul Douglas and Bing Crosby for Madame Blogmeister and Janet Leigh, baseball player cameos, Keenan Wynn and Harry Ruby for the Blogmeister.



On the surface, Ron Shelton's Bull Durham is a randy, raunchy and Rabelaisian rom-com that sneaks profound baseball knowledge within a storyline about what it takes for players to get to the major leagues and then stay there, the dynamic between minor and major league teams. . . and, of course, groupies. It would be the first of Shelton's explorations (White Men Can't Jump, Tin Cup, Cobb) of sports as narrative.



Bull Durham reflects that TCM has expanded its reach to films that, while made quite a long time ago, are more in line with the sensibility of present-day 21st century movies than the cinema of 1929-1949. At Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, often wrap our addled psyches around the fact that movies we saw first run on the big screen are 40+ years in the rear-view mirror.

Bull Durham will be followed by the 1949 Busby Berkeley directed MGM flick, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, co-starring real-life baseball fan Frank Sinatra, dancin' Gene Kelly, aqua-queen of the MGM lot Esther Williams and quintessential stage and screen musical comedy gal Betty Garrett.






Appropriately, on Jackie Robinson Day, April 15, The Jackie Robinson Story will lead a baseball-packed TCM triple bill which includes The Natural and The Pride Of The Yankees.



Jackie, along with Larry Doby and Monte Irvin, were among the intrepid, tough and fearless men who broke the color line and paved the way for arguably the greatest baseball players of the 20th century, perennial MVPs and fellow Hall of Famers Willie Mays and Hank Aaron.



Åll MLB players will wear #42 to honor him. And Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog will find time to see the excellent movie 42 again.



THE NATURAL makes a terrific Robert Redford 1-2 with his 1992 film A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT and is, with A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN, FIELD OF DREAMS, the aforementioned BULL DURHAM  and (our favorite) EIGHT MEN OUT among a slew of very good baseball flicks produced in the 1980's.



Tough to top Pride Of The Yankess, although this movie buff frequently thinks of Coop doing his John L Sullivan impersonation in the Hoawrd Hawks masterpiece BALL OF FIRE!



Any additions we'd make to the TCM baseball film fest? Yes! Joe E. Brown in ELMER THE GREAT and ALIBI IKE!

Tomorrow, Baseball Season - Not Duck Season or Rabbit Season - Begins!

Given the choice between posting about April Fool's Day, National Ferret Day (April 2) or the soon approaching first day of baseball season, we At Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog go with MLB opening day. So, to end March, the baseball fans at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog go hog wild with baseball cartoons!



In Buddy's Bearcats, the always scintillating "Mr. Excitement" and star of Looney Tunes from the early days of the Leon Schlesinger Studio, Buddy, is the hometown hero of his baseball team. While some of the gags are more than a tad grotesque, the snappy action combined with Norman Spencer's uncharacteristically jaunty musical score makes for an enjoyable cartoon.

As fate would have it, Major League Baseball on Thursday announced its master 2021 Major League regular season schedule, which will begin with all 30 Major League Clubs playing on (that's right) April 1 - April Fool's Day. Can this blogger wait? No!

This writer's first experience of baseball well preceded his first pilgrimage to windy and always "chill" Candlestick Park to see the San Francisco Giants (Mays! McCovey! Marichal! Perry!). It was reading the celebrated comic strip Peanuts, in which Charlie Brown's woeful team was considerably worse than the execrable 40-122 New York Mets of 1962. Eventually the softball saga from the daily comics found its way into paperback reissues and the second animated version of the gang. Still love the comics of Charles M. "Sparky" Schulz.




The Schulz comics certainly had a genuine cuteness factor, served with dry wit, and once in a blue moon (or three, or eight) a Warner Brothers cartoon strayed, unwittingly or reluctantly, into that "Disney cute" territory.



Usually an uncharacteristically cute Merrie Melodie cartoon would be directed by Chuck Jones, but in this case the director is the guy who arguably was the greatest animator ever to work at Warner Brothers Animation - Robert McKimson.

It is stretching it to call this a baseball cartoon, as Hobo Bobo's pachyderm protagonist yearns to play ball, but does not swing the bat and rival Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig during the 6:38 running time, but who cares - love that elephant!



We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog believe strongly that ultra-goofiness within a totally off-the-wall cartoon universe constitutes a vision as much as a high-falutin' French New Wave flick, so here's a cartoon by our friends at the Van Beuren studio.

No studio could combine primitive animation with delirious, off-the-grid wacko ideas quite like Van Beuren in the early 1930's. They stick with the off-the-wall program - perfection be damned!




There are good, bad and indifferent cartoons about baseball and the following, The Ball Game, a "bugs swinging bats" opus from the Aesop's Fables series, manages to be all three of those simultaneously . . . and also is quite funny. We note that one of the usual suspects from the studio's often hilarious Tom & Jerry series, animator, storyman and sometimes director George Rufle, is in the opening credits.



Speaking of Friz Freleng, the director of Baseball Bugs, arguably the greatest film about baseball ever made, he and his Merrie Melodies crew produced a terrific cartoon about the national pastime 10 years earlier.

That would be Boulevardier from the Bronx, based on the charming song and dance number performed by Jack Oakie and Joan Blondell in the Dick Powell - Ruby Keeler musical Colleen.

The baseball team's (literally) crowing star pitcher is cocky in more ways than one, and elements of this cartoon recall Disney's Silly Symphony Cock Of The Walk. While Friz Freleng's cartoons were in the process of moving away from the Silly Symphonies Lite seen in much of the industry, this would be an instance of his Merrie Melodies matching the Disney studio in their genre, on a fraction of the budget. Baseball fans will note the reference to pitcher Dizzy Dean.

This cartoon was so good that a bunch of the animation from Boulevardier from the Bronx got used again for Freleng's 1940 Looney Tune Porky's Baseball Broadcast.

Released theatrically on January 27, 1936 - eight months before Boulevardier from the Bronx - was the Walter Lantz studio's Oswald Rabbit cartoon Soft Ball Game. Expanding upon the concept of arachnid baseball seen in the Aesops Fable cartoon, not only rabbits and insects play ball but gorillas, porcupines, turtles and octopi. The ideas throughout are very clever. It's a standout among the later Ozzie The Lucky Rabbit cartoons.

OSWALD THE LUCKY RABBIT - SOFT BALL GAME 19365


This would not be the only Walter Lantz opus about baseball.

The early and enjoyably grotesque "goony bird" design of Woody Woodpecker (before Shamus Culhane and Art Heineman came along to give the Woodster a makeover) inadvertently and impudently ends up on the diamond in The Screwball.

We close with an ingenious mashup of bits from two of this blogger's favorite animated cartoons about baseball. The following poster on DailyMotion combines HOW TO PLAY BASEBALL and BASEBALL BUGS, two masterpieces.

Play Ball!

Psychotronic Paul Talks Baseball - And Baseball Movies - on Labor Day

This writer loves baseball as much or more than psychotronic movies, jazz music, classic rock n' roll and a strong hot cup of coffee. Reside in Ulster County, NY now but still follow the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics.



Love baseball and baseball movies as much as watching The Day The Earth Stood Still, watching Ernie Kovacs, Monty Python or SCTV, listening to Jaki Byard playing the piano or Mel Torme singing "Born To Be Blue".



The first baseball movie the blogmeister ever saw was the 1937 Fleischer Studio cartoon THE TWISKER PITCHER, which confirms that Popeye The Sailor had a devastating four pitch arsenal and would easily command a $200+ million contract as a free agent now.



Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog covered the MLB in films and cartoons topic in a post penned on this blogger's 60th birthday. Today, for the most part, we'll spotlight a few baseball movies we either didn't get to in the April 17, 2016 post - starting with the 1951 version of Angels In The Outfield (not the 1994 film) starring Paul Douglas.



While there was a terrific movie made of Bang The Drum Slowly in the 1970's, it was preceded, two decades earlier (during the heyday of live TV and anthology series) by a version co-starring Paul Newman and Albert Salmi.



At Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we are big fans of the films about two of the most incredibly talented and over-the-edge characters to play baseball, Jimmy Pearsall and Dock Ellis.



I don't know how Jimmy felt about seeing Anthony Perkins playing him and serial killer Norman Bates, but Fear Strikes Out is a terrific movie.



And then there was Dock Ellis, a brilliant pitcher and something of a rock and roll star among athletes.



Saw Dock face off against the Giants a few times in 1970's.



Even if Mr. Ellis, then with the Pittsburgh Pirates, was, as he described "higher than a Georgia pine" on the mound, he was a helluva talent and fun to watch. Not unlike another super-talented guy this writer saw in person, the great Robin Williams. . .



Have not seen it, but hear there's a documentary about former Red Sox and Expos pitcher Bill "The Spaceman" Lee, wackiest left-hander and best interview in MLB.



What's the greatest film about the national pastime ever made? No contest - Baseball Bugs, just one among several devastatingly funny cartoons Isadore "Friz" Freleng and his ace animators at Warner Brothers produced in 1946.



In 2018, the San Francisco Giants are a banged-up, bandaged-up M*A*S*H unit, while the Oakland A's, possessing blazing lightning bolts in a bottle this season, will be going to the playoffs. And we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog love baseball, win or lose, good season or bad!

And This Blog Loves Baseball Movies

Thinking about Jackie Robinson and watching the documentary about his life that aired on PBS last week brings to mind baseball movies, as well as the question of why Your Correspondent does not have a Blu-ray of Pride Of The Yankees.



There are a zillion baseball flicks, many of which this classic movie obsessed MLB geek has not seen, listed in detail on the Boston Baseball website. Today's post will not get into latter-day baseball movies, even some pretty darn good ones with a 20th century pedigree - although it's a good bet I will be watching the following films again before the MLB season ends.







Other writers, especially the late Roger Ebert, have covered this territory quite well. That said, what Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog will get into, as usual, is curios, cartoons, comedies, short subjects and, as inevitably as death and taxes, trailers.



And, of course, commercials.



While the greatest film about the national pastime ever made, hands-down, is Baseball Bugs, just one among several devastatingly funny cartoons Isadore "Friz" Freleng and his crew at Warner Brothers produced that year, the very first baseball movie this writer ever saw was the following Fleischer Studios cartoon, The Twisker Pitcher. This confirms that Popeye The Sailor had a helluva screwball and would easily command 30+ million buckaroos a year in 2016!



Neither offering that wonderful gritty New York City factor seen to great advantage in 1930's Fleischer cartoons nor quite as hilarious as Baseball Bugs but still damn funny, is Tex Avery's twisted take on "play ball", Batty Baseball.



It's a good bet Tex saw Goofy in How To Play Baseball and concluded that he could top it.



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 Joe E. Brown.



Joe both worked as a broadcaster for the New York Yankees and starred in two immensely entertaining baseball comedies, Elmer The Great and Alibi Ike.







Another beloved comedian was Shemp Howard, who, between stints as one of The Three Stooges, may well have been the hardest working man in showbiz at Vitaphone. Here's the opening from Dizzy and Daffy, a Vitaphone 2-reeler intended to spotlight St. Louis Cardinal stars and "Gas House Gang" luminaries Jerome and Paul Dean. Although Shemp shares the film with both the MLB stars and stuttering comic Roscoe Ates (a funny guy but no Mel Blanc), he is a riot, as usual, as a nearsighted pitcher.



When it came to comedy, as a Stooge or a supporting player with the likes of W.C. Fields, Olsen & Johnson and Abbott & Costello, Shemp Howard unquestionably had The Right Stuff. Another superb comedian with The Right Stuff was Ernie Kovacs, who shall prepare yours truly for Giants vs. Dodgers later tonight and be our intimidating flame-throwing "closer" for today's post. Play Ball!

April 15 Is Jackie Robinson Day!

Every April 15, after waking up to George Harrison singing Taxman, this writer stops whatever he's doing to remember Jackie Robinson and reflect on his life and legacy. All MLB players will wear #42 to honor him today. Next year on April 15 will be the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson making his major league debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers.



Here are some insightful interviews. Leading off: Jackie's widow, Rachel Robinson, followed by Jackie's contemporary and key mentor to Wilie Mays, the great Monte Irvin, the manager and power-hitting first baseman of the Kansas City Monarchs (with whom Jackie played after he lettered in four sports at UCLA), John Jordan "Buck" O' Neil and, like Jackie, a Hall Of Famer and outstanding multi-position player, Ernie Banks (a.k.a. Mr. Cub).








This blogger enjoyed the following film about Jackie Robinson a great deal and will be watching the new Ken Burns/Florentine Films documentary tomorrow evening.



Around the world, we tip our caps with the utmost respect to the great Jackie Robinson - who, among numerous off-field accomplishments, participated in the March On Washington - as well as all those who continue the fight for civil rights. Here's to you, #42 - and to Rachel Robinson, too!

World Champion San Francisco Giants Hoist The Flag

Since the last DEAR SPAMMERS: GO AWAY blog posting was, rather laughably, greeted with approximately 14,073 spam comments, none actually relating to a single topic, thought, word or syllable posted, ever, on Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, might as well give up and celebrate something close to Mr. Blogmeister's heart: the ceremonial raising of the pennant flag by the 2012 World Champion San Francisco Giants. Big thanks to everyone involved with The San Francisco Giants and to Comcast Sportsnet for the following cool footage.



And triple thanks to Mr. Blogmeister's late father for taking him to hundreds of Giants games, many when the team's stars were Willie "Mr. New York and Mr. San Francisco" Mays, Willie "Stretch" McCovey, Juan "The Dominican Dandy" Marichal and Gaylord "The Dry Look" Perry.

Congrats To The 2012 San Francisco Giants!

Congratulations to the 2012 San Francisco Giants, who swept the heretofore mighty Detroit Tigers to earn their second championship in three years.



The ceremonial parade down Market Street takes place at 11:00 A.M. Pacific Standard Time.



While there are many people who don't go for professional sports in any way shape or form, IMHO, even the momentary diversion from daily life problems one's favorite team and game can provide is a wonderful thing.

Thinking about baseball, with Thursday's long overdue tribute to the Negro Leagues and Willie Mays, who passed at 93 on June 18. Foghorn Leghorn elaborates:



What animated cartoons about baseball have we not posted on this blog before? Here's one from Famous Studios.



Terrytoons had to get their two cents in, and they did just that with this opus starring Gandy Goose and Sourpuss. In the 1940's Terrytoons-Lantz-Screen Gems tradition, this one's funnier than one expects.



Any further cartoons about baseball which this blog posted more than five years ago? Yes. Posted Tex Avery's 1944 MGM cartoon BATTY BASEBALL back in 2016, so the Statute Of Limitations means we can post it again. It's on the dark side even by Avery standards and acheived a certain immortality for a quite literal interpretation of the phrase "kill the umpire."



In the "Fleischer Studio Does It Right" department, here's a cartoon we posted here back in 2018, Popeye in The Twisker Pitcher.

The Cartoon Research website covered, as part of a comprehensive piece on the insanely busy Famous Studios in the early 1960's, the very enjoyable animated adaptation of Eddie "The Old Philosopher" Lawrence's record Abner The Baseball. Here's the original record.



The cartoon is one of the best ever produced by Famous Studios in its lengthy and checkered history. Must tip our well-worn San Francisco Giants baseball cap to the frequently clever and inventive Famous Studios director/storyman Irv Spector, Eddie "The Old Philosopher" Lawrence - and all involved in creating and researching this Abner The Baseball post (Jerry Beck, assisted by Ken Layton, Mike Kazaleh and Paul Spector) on Cartoon Research.







In the opinion of this blogger, the greatest animated cartoons about baseball were the Friz Freleng masterpiece BB and GOOFY in HOW TO PLAY BASEBALL, directed by Jack Kinney

Not The Worst Comedy Teams Ever

All this talk of bad comedy teams - Mitchell & Durant, Noonan & Marshall, Sacco & Vanzetti - gets me realizing that boy, do we all need laughs (and plenty of 'em) and also pondering various vaudeville and movie funmakers who, in my estimation, weren't so bad after all. One example: The Ritz Brothers.



The temptation is to compare The Ritz Brothers to the Marx and Howard boys and find them wanting. Don't - their acts are completely different from each other.


 
And besides, I take Mel Brooks' claim that Harry Ritz was the funniest guy onstage ever seriously!







Supporting Mel's assertion: the following Ritz Brothers clips.







In Irving Berlin's On The Avenue, Harry is dressed as Alice Faye (he enters at 4:35).



While characterization is definitely not their strong suit, if regarded as a musical dance act rather than as movie comedians in the same sense that Laurel & Hardy, The Marx Brothers, Wheeler & Woolsey, Abbott & Costello and Clark & McCullough are, then Harry, Jimmy and Al Ritz definitely have their charms.



Here are some darn good caricatures of The Ritz Brothers by the brilliant animators of the Walt Disney Studio.



Bringing to mind the question "if one took a trip through the literary, jazz and rock n' roll worlds and eliminated any artist who met a tragic end, who who you have left?" are the comedy team of Bobby Clark and Paul McCullough.



Although the team generally is widely disliked by 21st century classic comedy buffs, largely due to both Clark's over-the-top style and Paul McCullough's gruesome suicide in 1936, this blogger finds them quite funny, even in the worst of their existing films for Fox and RKO.



Of course, the guys who spelled comedy for RKO from 1929-1938 were the outrageous, randy and unfailingly cheerful Bert Wheeler & Robert Woolsey - and among the numerous star cameos in the following 1931 fundraiser short, The Stolen Jools.



And as far as the following Masquers Club short goes, I wonder if anyone, including the intrepid archivists of UCLA, The George Eastman House and The Library Of Congress has seen this since 1935!



Also at RKO, but later on, in the 1940's: Wally Brown and Alan Carney, a surprisingly good low-rent answer to Abbott & Costello.





In such "chills and spills" comedies as Zombies On Broadway, the team were consistently funny .



Unfortunately, Brown & Carney did not get to do a picture at RKO with Orson Welles. That's everyone's loss, including Orson's, who could have definitely used a laugh or two at that time and never did direct a comedy - and who knows, he may well have very much enjoyed the experience.



Not surprisingly, Brown & Carney got some serious competition in the "most lowbrow 1940's comedy team" department from the Columbia Comedy Shorts department. With high hopes to come up with another series as popular as The Three Stooges, producer/director Jules White experimented with all kinds of casting combinations - some good, some dreadful - through the 1930's and 1940's and even into the 1950's. The following 2-reeler, High Blood Pleasure (1945), with the team of Gus Schilling and Richard Lane, is among the better and most mayhem-filled efforts along these lines.





In the latter 1920's, Paramount Pictures teamed Ziegfeld Follies headliner and master juggler W.C. Fields with Mack Sennett Studio knockabout star and all-around schlemiel Chester Conklin. We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog love both comedians without reservation, but cannot fathom what possessed Paramount's grand poobahs to do this. Fields in a silent movie is like a mixed drink without tequila, rum and vodka! It took sound to bring the glorious 100 proof Fields to the silver screen.



I love the ultra-zaniness of Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson. Their success onstage in Helzapoppin' was quite the showbiz phenomenon in the 1930's.



Although the Olsen & Johnson mojo never quite translated 100% to movies or TV (the one existing live episode of All-Star Revue they hosted, unfortunately, bears this out), the team's features, like those of Abbott & Costello, definitely have their moments.





Ole and Chic deserve an esteemed place in the yuckster pantheon for Helzapoppin' and Crazy House alone.





Viewing the "flying O&J" animation gag, it disappoints that an official collaboration between Universal Pictures comedians and animation producer Walter Lantz, at the top of his game in the 1940's, did not happen.



Between memorable stints at the beginning and the end of The Golden Age Of Stoogery, the great comedian Shemp Howard was teamed with various partners.



Among the funniest of Shemp's non-Stooge appearances were the mid-1930's Vitaphone 2-reelers in which he co-starred with diminutive yet zany, ever-feisty Australian comedienne Daphne Pollard. Here's Shemp and Daphne - enjoy how they let 'er rip!



And speaking of let 'er rip, then there were these guys. . .







And two guys who cleverly and shamelessly copied another comedy team to the letter and got sued for it!