Now, amazingly, the middle of the year is upon us and Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog realizes that May 31 and June 1 brought the world two blazing comedy greats, Fred Allen, born on this day in 1894, and the funniest blonde not named Marion Davies to ever hit the silver screen, Marilyn Monroe, born on June 1, 1926.
The mindbogglingly witty Fred Allen, performer/satirist/writer supreme, personified comedy genius on radio.
Only always, this dyed-in-the-wool comedy aficionado marvels at how Fred and his pal Jack Benny consistently do with radio what Kovacs subsequently did with television.
These guys and their pals George Burns & Gracie Allen mastered the art of radio comedy as expertly as Jack's hero, Isaac Stern, rocked the Stradivarius. They even appeared in a couple of movies together (Love Thy Neighbor, It's In The Bag), thanks to their popularity on radio.
The only way Jack's radio show can be equalled is with the absurdist feature film, It's In The Bag (1945), starring Fred Allen, Jack Benny and a slew of hilarious character actors in a storyline that anticipates the Mel Brooks film The 12 Chairs made 25 years later.
After his Allen's Alley radio show went off the air in 1949, Fred made numerous appearances on television, most frequently on WHAT'S MY LINE, during the early days of the medium. While he was imaginative and funny on TV, radio comedy was Allen's strong suit.
Nonetheless, Fred Allen and Groucho Marx together on What's My Line is a comedy grand slam.
Had Fred, who passed at 61 on March 17, 1956, lived another decade, it is likely he would have left his distinctive satiric mark on television, possibly in the American version of That Was The Week That Was.
After one doozy of a week, we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog were wondering what the next blog post would cover. Thankfully, the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum and favorite authors Kliph Nesteroff, Ben Ohmart and Keith Scott have provided said topics for us! Turns out tomorrow is the natal anniversary of comic character actor and all-time great cartoon and radio voice artist Walter Tetley.
Mr. Tetley is best known today as the voice of Mr. Peabody's intrepid boy assistant Sherman.
He's also the voice of Felix The Cat in the Van Beuren Studio's Disney-fied revival in the Rainbow Parade series, the Walter Lantz Studio's Andy Panda, UPA's Dusty of The Circus for The Gerald McBoing-Boing Show and PG&E's energetic singing spokes-electron, the ELECTRIC Reddy Kilowatt, who should have played a solid body electric guitar featuring a bolt-on neck.
It would be a grotesque understatement to state that Walter Tetley was one of the hardest working radio actors not named Mel Blanc. He was a scream appearing with Jack Benny, Bob Hope and Burns & Allen, on satirist Fred Allen's Town Hall Tonight, as a key driver of the comedy in The Great Gildersleeve and as the not-so-secret weapon, a cleanup hitting laugh-getter, on The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show.
In addition, he has brief but very funny cameos in a gazillion movies, such as this one in the Abbott & Costello vehicle Who Done It.
The aforementioned and formidable Kliph Nesteroff penned, as one of his many excellent articles for WFMU's Beware Of The Blog, Credit Castrated: The Voice of Walter Tetley, a very good overview focusing on Mr. Tetley's numerous hilarious turns as radio's "mean widdle kid" and both varied and prolific work on records. (NOTE: posters on OTRCAT and YouTube have done us comedy and OTR fans a massive favor by compiling devastatingly funny turns in the Walter Tetley Radio Collection, including his memorable appearances on The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show)
Expert on old time radio and mid-20th century pop culture Ben Ohmart, with OTR archivist Charles Stumpf, penned an outstanding book, Walter Tetley: For Corn's Sake on the voice artist's life and times.
The description of Walter Tetley: For Corn's Sake elaborates: WALTER TETLEY (1915-1975) was the quintessential kid voice of radio. His distinguished voice career began in the early 1930s and lasted until radio s final years in the 1950s. He was also a very private person who never gave interviews, instead choosing to immerse himself in charity and voice work throughout most of his life. For the FIRST time in print finally a complete biography on one of radio s most beloved character actors. Including many RARE PHOTOS and THOUSANDS OF CREDITS, most of which have never been seen or discussed in any article or book. That is because this biography has been written with the aid of Walter s personal scrapbooks! From The Great Gildersleeve to Rocky and Bullwinkle's Peabody and Sherman and beyond. Includes a detailed account of Walter's 1930's public appearances.
It's tough to know where to start or where to end with Walter Tetley's career, given how, in addition to countless radio show roles, his cameos in movies and voice-overs on records are numerous. Among said credits, Walter was a favorite of Stan Freberg's. He's a hoot as the hipster in Yankee Doodle Go Home, from Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America volume 1: The Early Years (1961).
Wikipedia adds: In 1973 Tetley made an appearance on Rod Serling's radio series The Zero Hour. He could be heard in the "Princess Stakes Murder" episodes beginning the week of November 19.
So, a day before his birthday, Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog respectfully tips the battered showbiz top hat to the great Walter Tetley. Along with Mel Blanc, Danny Webb, Kent Rogers, June Foray, Bea Benaderet, Sara Berner, Don Messick, Daws Butler and Bill Scott, to name just a few, he is paramount among the ace voice-over artists we LOVE in classic cartoons!
The unparalleled queen of the animated screen - made of pen and ink, she will win you with a wink, ain't she cute, boop-oop-a-doop, sweet Betty - will be back on the big screen tomorrow afternoon, in new restorations of classic cartoons.
Sunday June 2nd at 3:00p.m. PST, our pals at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum present a classic Fleischer cartoon matinee, Betty Boop For President. Purchase tickets here.
Everybody's favorite flapper not named Clara Bow or Colleen Moore shall rock the Edison Theater in a selection of classic Max Fleischer Studio cartoons. Max' granddaughter Jane Fleischer hosts.
The program includes short presentations about the development of the design of Betty Boop and the inventiveness and creativity of Fleischer Studios by Ray Pointer, animation professional and author of The Art and Inventions of Max Fleischer: American Animation Pioneer, a superlative tome covering the filmmaking career, art and technological innovations of Max.
Today we respectfully tip the Max Linder top hat to one of the all-time greats from the cartoon voice world, the super-talented character actress Janet Waldo (a.k.a. Janet Waldo Lee), born on this day in 1919.
The cornucopia of clips presented here barely scratch the surface regarding her 5+ decade career in radio, television and as, along with June Foray, Martha Wentworth and Sara Berner, one of the top female voice artists in animated cartoons.
While diehard animation fans know all about the numerous roles Janet Waldo crushed in animated cartoons, especially those of Hanna-Barbera Productions, what is less known is that she also had a prolific career as an on-camera character actress in television and guest starred, as she had on radio, in many programs.
Lucille Ball was definitely a Janet Waldo fan and cast her in both I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show.
Fortunately, Janet lived to be 97 and did lots of interviews over the decades.
Pondering the links between animated cartoons and the Golden Age of Radio today.
Radio was a cornerstone of numerous cartoons, especially those of the B-studios. Terrytoons' The Nutty Network stars a simian-staffed equivalent of NBC, ABC and CBS, along with the studio's Bert Lahr lion, in a spoof of Orson Welles' War Of The Worlds broadcast.
It would be an understatement to note that the cartoons of the Charles Mintz Studio frequently featured caricatures of stars from movies and radio. This was the Columbia cartoon studio's stock in trade. Included in the 1938 Color Rhapsody THE BIG BIRDCAST: Rudy Vallee, Jack Benny, Walter Winchell, Eddie Cantor, Joe Penner and Ben Bernie.
Joe Penner in particular is caricatured in numerous 1930's cartoons and would be the prototype for bumbling Merrie Melodies star Egghead.
The Fleischer Studio featured radio and movie stars in the Screen Song series.
These included such early 1930's radio regulars as Arthur Tracy a.k.a. The Street Singer.
Spiders, ghosts, ghouls and skeletons run their own radio station in the Fleischer Studio's Halloween-themed BOO BOO THEME SONG.
None of this is surprising, as the Fleischer Studio got into the broadcasting ring early, notably with the 1929 Talkartoon RADIO RIOT.
The first cartoon about radio this blogger recalls seeing on TV (with the "Wheeler & Woolsey in the soup pot" bit excised for obvious reasons) was the 1933 Merrie Melodie, I've Got To Sing A Torch Song.
Among the celebrities caricatured in the first post-Harman and Ising Merrie Melodie cartoon were radio sensation and soon-to-be Hollywood movie star Bing Crosby.
Even us boomers who know our Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Bob Hope, Burns & Allen and Bob & Ray - and have actually tried to find episodes of Joe Penner's Baker's Broadcast shows - can be periodically stumped by the radio star caricatures in animated cartoons. This writer knew who Ed Wynn was before starting kindergarten because of repeated viewings of I've Got To Sing A Torch Song!
Did not know the extent to which I've Got To Sing A Torch Song was infamous in the history of Warner Brothers animation until decades later. It was at first deemed too terrible to release and eventually remade and re-tooled extensively by Friz Freleng after Leon Schlesinger fired director Tom Palmer.
This wasn't even the first WB cartoon to feature radio as a main character. Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising produced Crosby, Columbo & Vallee, in which braves are horrified by the extreme popularity of radios and crooners with squaws on the reservation. As is the case with many entries from the first season of Merrie Melodies cartoons, it is mostly an excuse for the ever-peppy protagonists to bounce around to the jaunty Frank Marsales score.
Don't know how star of vaudeville, the Ziegfeld Follies, movies and radio Will Rogers, arguably the best known 1930's Hollywood luminary who was a Native American, regarded cartoons along these lines. An excellent caricature of Rogers was featured, following radio star Eddie Cantor and preceding Ed Wynn, in Harman and Ising's 1933 Merrie Melodie, I Like Mountain Music, the first in the "book and magazine covers come to life" genre seen in WB cartoons directed by the likes of Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Frank Tashlin and Friz Freleng.
Harman and Ising would go to this well frequently, combining it with a radio theme in the 1934 MGM Happy Harmonies cartoon Toyland Broadcast. The incredibly bad taste moment at 6:20 ended its inclusion in TV broadcasts, along with such fellow and jaw-dropping MGM Happy Harmonies as The Old Plantation (1935).
And, as is also the case Tashlin's wonderful 1938 Merrie Melodie Have You Got Any Castles? it's difficult not to love a cartoon featuring a caricature of Alexander Woolcott.
An intrepid expert on radio and classic movies posting under the name radiobov has painstakingly gone through the entire cartoon, start to finish, annotating every movie and radio star appearance, in many cases with their star turns in other movies. This is fantastic work, and the gang here encourages the poster named radiobov to upload more.
Any look at the relationship between animation and radio brings to mind George Pal's puppetoons.
George Pal's career in animation began with a series of theatrical commercial films selling Philips radios.
George Pal's 1934 film The Ship Of The Ether is innovative - and all about selling those radios.
The Ship Of The Ether was just one of a series of elaborate mini-musicals George Pal's studio produced for Philips.
Several of the George Pal Philips films are included in Arnold Leibovit's two Puppetoon Movie Blu-ray sets.
Although Bob & Ray’s very funny and most original radio show, filled with spoofs of other radio shows, was never re-imagined as a cartoon, the droll duo starred in a series of terrific animated beer commercials as Bert & Harry Piels.
Prepared for this post by visiting Radiomuseum and listening to Jack Benny and Fred Allen master radio comedy. They played this genre as expertly as Jack's hero, Isaac Stern, worked that Stradivarius.
The only way Jack's hilarious radio show or these cartoons about radio can conceivably be topped is with the absurdist feature film, IT'S IN THE BAG (1945). Fred Allen, Jack Benny and a slew of very funny character actors star - and are incredibly funny, even by jaded and oh-so-hip 2022 standards.
Having been propelled (with supercharged turbo jets) by ridiculous current events to the more benign ridiculousness of ducks, vaudeville, cartoons, 1930's movies and radio, we kick off today's post with Gus Visser and his singing duck.
Comedian Buddy Hackett had a few choice works about ducks with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. Yes, he kept his act clean in this instance, as difficult as that could be for a legendary "dirty comic" such as Buddy.
Of course, Daffy Duck was duckier, especially in the following cartoons by animation directors Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Frank Tashlin, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng and Arthur Davis and their respective crews at Warner Brothers.
One may not know Penner's name, but certainly comedy and old time radio geeks are familiar with his distinctive voice and catchphrases: "Wanna buy a duck?", "Don't never doooooooo that" and "You naaaaaaasty man" in particular.
After appearing in vaudeville and a series of Vitaphone comedy shorts, Penner hit the big time with a guest appearance on Rudy Vallee's radio show on July 13, 1933. The comedian's catchphrases and duck were already cornerstones of his comedy. Three months later, Penner got his own show, the Baker's Broadcast, soon the biggest program on radio. He was, rather briefly, the most popular comic in showbiz. Joe and his duck sidekick soon received the ultimate tribute, sendups in animated cartoons!
At Warner Brothers, Tex Avery and his production crew created a character named Egghead who was entirely based on Joe Penner.
The rise to fame was so meteoric, Joe and duck sidekick Goo Goo soon inspired official toys.
Although Penner's subsequent radio programs did not duplicate the success of his Baker's Broadcast programs of 1933-1934, his popularity on radio got him signed to appear in movies produced by Paramount Pictures and RKO. Joe had starred in 2-reelers in 1930-1932, but these were actual feature films and not Poverty Row quickies.
This writer finds the following musical interlude from College Rhythm, in which Joe serenades Goo Goo, funny and oddly sweet at the same time; the character genuinely loves his feathered friend and that is what puts the scene over. That said, co-star Lyda Roberti is not exactly thrilled about getting thrown over for a duck!
In the latter 1930's, Joe went on to star in a series of enjoyable comedy programmers for RKO.
We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog find the lil' duck guy, if supported by a halfway decent script and solid supporting players, likable, funny and weirdly endearing, especially in The Day The Bookies Wept. It's a minority opinion, but we really like him and do not agree with the many who dismiss him as a no talent flash-in-the-pan. Would have liked to see Penner and Frank McHugh appear together in a Warner Bros. film and riff off each other, maybe with Allen Jenkins there as well to make it a trifecta.
Along with The Ritz Brothers and quite a few silent film comics, Joe Penner remains a bit of a Rorschach Test for comedy buffs.
As is the case with silent movie comedians Larry Semon and Harry Langdon (mostly due to their not-of-this-earth appearance), Penner often gets singled out even among comedy fans with such reactions as "he has never made me laugh" and "I don't find him funny at all".
Those who do like him (this writer included) and find Joe's work in radio and movies amusing are hard-pressed to explain just why Penner gets laughs, and for that matter what the heck was funny about another Rorschach Test comedian Penner influenced decades later, Paul Reubens a.k.a. Pee-Wee Herman. While Penner's approach to comedy is not easy to describe or categorize, the "wanna buy a duck" man, especially on the Baker's Broadcast series, based on his ultra-cartoony voice and the offbeat nuances and pauses in his comic timing, gets laughs with a musical sensibility.
As the Ritz Brothers get laughs, not with rapid-fire jokes and Groucho Marx style witty repartee, but with the way they dance and move, Penner's humor derived from his sound, dynamics and delivery. This was also also the case with such popular contemporaries on radio as Ed Wynn, Harry Einstein, a.k.a. Parkyakarkus and Jack "Baron Munchausen" Pearl.
It would not be long before humor on radio, stage, screen and nightclubs changed dramatically with the rise of Bob Hope, the beginnings of standup comedy, Jack Benny's character-based radio program (which had just started two years earlier) and the sophisticated and satiric Fred Allen. To some degree, this development left even talented and very funny comics who relied on catchphrases in the dust. Jack Benny and Burns & Allen also got the opportunity to further develop, refine, improve and polish their comedy programs and personas through lengthy runs of success on radio, then television.
It is just as well that Penner's wide-eyed duck lovin' innocent did NOT meet the anarchic and up-to-no-good duo of Bobby Clark & Paul McCullough during his stretch making movies for RKO, as demonstrated by this closing scene from Everything's Ducky (1934), which cements C&McC's rep as the darkest and disturbing of movie comedy teams in talkies, as Kalem's grotesque "Ham & Bud" easily take the "most despicable duo" crown in silents.
For a couple of years, Joe Penner, especially as the star of Baker's Broadcast, was a smash hit, cheering up radio audiences across the country during the darkest days of the Great Depression. For more info on Joe, check out The Joe Penner Project.
It's inevitable that this blog, currently on quite the radio comedy kick (Stan Freberg, Bob & Ray, Henry Morgan), would take a trip to the unique universe of the Firesign Theatre.
It is a short distance from The Goon Show and the intrepid and literate writing staff of Jay Ward Productions (Bill Scott, Lloyd Turner, George Atkins, Allan Burns, Chris Hayward and Chris Jenkyns) to the indescribable combo of Firesign Theatre: literature + pop culture parody + current events + satire + stunning wordplay + amazing voice work + character acting + one-liners + Psychedelic era references.
While Second City were the kings of the improv troupes in Chicago and Toronto, and Jonathan Winters was a troupe in himself, Firesign Theatre - Philip Proctor, Peter Bergman, David Ossman and Phil Austin - took Southern California (yes, seriously bent even then) by storm, beginning as live radio performers on L.A. radio stations KPPC-FM and KPFK. Their delirious, extemporaneous, repartee-packed satire would spawn a series of concerts and recordings.
Their ranks in Los Angeles would soon be followed by The Credibility Gap (featuring Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, David L. Lander and Richard Beebe - notable for their classic A Date With Danger sketch) and, a few years later in the 1970's, such troupes as Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre.
As big fans of both film noir and the fiction of Raymond Chandler that inspired it, Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog finds Firesign's gumshoe character Nick Danger irresistible.
There were also very memorable offshoot albums from Firesign Theatre members. Here are Philip Proctor and Peter Bergman at UCLA's Royce Hall on January 23, 1974. This gives a good of the pair's dynamism and linguistic prowess in person. The breathless performance includes bits from their album "TV or Not TV".
As the stalwart comedians and comediennes from SCTV often appeared on each other's subsequent projects, so did members of Firesign Theatre.
Firesign Theatre did make an appearance on Evening At The Improv in 1981 and we do enjoy the fact that the troupe is introduced by Avery Schreiber of Burns & Schreiber.
While Peter Bergman passed away in 2012, the other troupe members continue.
Check them out - still brilliant, still funny and still riffing - at Firesign Theatre Radio.
Just in case one does not have a 1975 issue vinyl copy of the Firesign Theatre albums handy, there is a YouTube channel under the appropriate title Firesign Theatre Complete Works which features all their records.
One can also buy a wide range of cool audio rarities, transcriptions and books directly from the Firesign Theatre website.
In closing, Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog notes, Dear Readers, don't forget, under penalty of satire, we are all Bozos On This Bus.
In one of those eerie coincidences, the scribe who pens Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog had been thinking a great deal about comedian, satirist, writer, puppeteer and cartoon voice artist supreme Stan Freberg in the past 24 hours and planning to write a tribute.
Had no clue Mr. Freberg was ailing, but was pondering which extraordinary wit could complete a Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog trifeca that started with the blazing radio comedy team of Bob & Ray and the ever-cantankerous "Sultan Of Sarcasm" Henry Morgan.
So, with, the news that Stan passed this morning at 88, here's today's (admittedly, hastily thrown together - and to be edited and expanded soon enough) posting.
Could anyone in the world of comedy be considered the predecessor of such far-flung yet currently active comedians and entertainers as Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Jon Oliver AND "Weird Al" Jankovic?
Before Allan Sherman, before Tom Lehrer, before the Dr. Demento show and 25 years before Weird Al, it was Stan The Man who wrote and performed a plethora of dead-on and frequently satiric song parodies.
Stan Freberg was also the last comedian to have a radio show that was actually on one of those "Big Three" networks (we know Bob & Ray continued on PBS for years, but they were the Last Comics Standing on radio).
Mr. Freberg could be regarded as part of a trend towards a sophisticated approach to comedy that began with Fred Allen, Henry Morgan and Bob & Ray in the 1940's.
As the 1950's progressed this list would expand to include Ernie Kovacs, Tom Lehrer, Bob Newhart and the intrepid writing staff of Jay Ward Productions. The Jay Ward connection is no accident, as hilarious supporting performances by Rocky & Bullwinkle Show voice artists June Foray and Daws Butler, are all over Freberg's recordings and radio shows.
One of the last Freberg pieces I remembered seeing was his 1982 PBS special. IIRC, it only aired once, so we are pleased to see that it's up on YouTube.
"If Fred Allen bit the hand that fed him, Henry Morgan tried to bite off the whole arm." Gerald Nachman, from Raised On Radio
"Henry's 1/2 hour radio shows with sketches, an orchestra, supporting cast and studio audience were good, but they were nowhere near as funny as the early Here's Morgan shows where Henry sat by himself in front of a microphone and just basically bitched for 15 minutes." Gerry Orlando
"He was ahead of his time, but he was also hurt by his own disposition. He was very difficult. He was so brilliant that he'd get exasperated and he'd sulk. He was a great mind who never achieved the success he should have." Ed Herlihy
"Whenever it is quiet in Washington, you can count on the Un-American committee to issue a report. Maybe sometime later, when it has a chance, it will start gathering the facts." Henry Morgan (1915-1994)
Today is the centenary of the birth of humorist Henry Morgan. A supreme irony remains that, although his primary claim to fame was as panelist for the popular TV game show I've Got a Secret, Morgan's enduring legacy is as a biting social critic. His sensibility followed the gentle but prescient comedian-actor-commentator Will Rogers by two decades and preceded the take-no-prisoners (and even more prescient) political satirist and "standup philosopher" Bill Hicks by four decades.
There were amazing, innovative, brilliant and creative artists working in radio, from dramatist Norman Corwin to (the topic of yesterday's post) Bob & Ray to, a bit later, Stan Freberg and even, on WABC-New York, the great Ernie Kovacs.
First and foremost, let's hear a little of Henry's work as a radio writer-performer. In an era of disposable, transitory entertainment, Morgan's essential edge, intelligence and love of language still hold.
Author and pop culture historian Kliph Nesteroff wrote a dead-on article (including the following graphic), Henry Morgan: Fuck The Sponsor, posted in July 2007 on WFMU's Beware Of The Blog. In something akin to the W.C. Fields tradition, Morgan was bilious, curmudgeonly, cranky, had no use for American culture in general, really did not respect authority and, even more than Sam Kinison decades later, teed off on women (unfortunately and alarmingly, both on and off the radio). Not surprisingly, Mr. Morgan regarded the brass ring of media stardom with contempt.
The piece by Nesteroff of the Classic Television Showbiz blog succinctly zeroes in on Morgan's career as a wit, intellect, iconoclast and shit disturber from a time - The McCarthy Era - generally not known for such things (at least outside The Four M's of Modern Jazz at the time - Miles, Mingus, Monk and Max Roach).
Morgan explored the terrain broken by the previous generation of radio comics - ESPECIALLY Fred Allen - and could also be considered a dyspeptic, rather Oscar Levant-like take on such "guy, a studio and a microphone" broadcasting staples as Arthur Godfrey. Radio and animation expert Don M. Wowp wrote about Morgan on his Tralfaz blog in an August 2012 post, Good Evening Anybody.
One trait we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog love the most about Henry Morgan was his willingness to razz and humiliate the sponsor - always with rapier-like wit - at all times.
His swan song, after several showbiz comebacks, each ending with him walking off a program in disgust and usually insulting someone in the process, would be the 1994 memoir Here's Morgan! The Original Bad Boy of Broadcasting, which presents Henry's numerous stories and escapades, of course, with delightful trademark vitriol.
One imagines Morgan and Corwin collaborating on just such a radio series: The Life And Times Of Henry Morgan, Bad Boy Of Broadcasting, a careening travelog filled with one-liners worthy of S.J. Perelman.
Indeed, it is a fitting epitaph that - and, yes, this is a stretch - one could also draw parallels between Morgan, in his wonderfully caustic 1940's and early 1950's heydey, and the defiantly cantankerous Mark Twain.
