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.
Today's topic is MGM musicals. We'll start with an all-time favorite from It's Always Fair Weather, combining the marvelous dancing of Cyd Charisse, a snappy tune, ace character actors worthy of Guys & Dolls, Nat Hiken's You'll Never Get Rich and Car 54 Where Are You and stellar direction by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly.
Do we love Cyd, one of the greatest dancers to ever appear in motion pictures, whose natal anniversary is right around the corner on March 8, our enthusiastic response is yes, yes and YES!
It's a tough call, but the favorite MGM musical of the gang here is still The Band Wagon. How can one not love Vincente Minnelli's imaginative direction, the incredibly creative set designs and costuming, all-time greats Astaire and Charisse rocking the terpsichore within a Freed unit style noir based on Mickey Spillane?
Now this brings this post to the animation part of the program? Who do we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog like almost as much as Cyd, Fred, Gene and such terpsichorial heavyweights as Vera-Ellen? Jerry the freakin' mouse, that's who! Jerry gets the nod because Droopy, Red Hot Riding Hood, The Wolf and the rowdy "Peter Arno grandmother" never appeared in an MGM musical.
In all these years and years of writing this blog (1382 posts), never posted that great clip of cartoon stars
Tom & Jerry w/ the swimmin' musical star and MGM aquababe Esther Williams. Let's rectify that oversight right now, shall we?
As part of our post last July on Bill Hanna, we extolled the virtues of the splendid live-action meets animation musical Invitation To The Dance (1956).
We dearly love the animation, cool Cartoon Modern design and Gene's dancing in the Sinbad number of this outstanding film.
In closing, shall bring your attention to a terrific piece that author Greg Ehrbar, the man on all things Hanna-Barbera, posted on Cartoon Research about Gene Kelly, Jerry Mouse and the Columbia recordings based on Anchors Aweigh.
Mr. Ehrbar does amazing work as usual - and, like the great MGM musicals, animation, art, music and classic movies in general, we need all of the above more than ever in unrelentingly off-the-rails 2025.
There are lots of natal anniversaries at this time of year for luminaries this blog and blogger are crazy about. Kicking off the Happy Birthday list: British stage, screen and radio actress Madeleine Carroll, star of British and American movies, including The 39 Steps, Secret Agent, The Prisoner Of Zenda and My Favorite Blonde, who chucked a lucrative and successful showbiz career for the callings of humanitarianism and international activism, born on February 26, 1906. The life story of Madeleine Carroll is covered in detail by John Pascoe's book Madeleine Carroll: Actress and Humanitarian, from The 39 Steps to the Red Cross.
The comedy kings born on February 26 include Tex Avery.
That's right, Tex Avery, a.k.a. The King Of Cartoons, the ringleader of Termite Terrace who brought Bugs Bunny from bucktoothed chortling grotesque to the suave Oscar-winning rabbit.
Turns out this blog somehow overlooked TWO February 26 birthdays. First and foremost, forgot all about the great New Orleans pianist, vocalist, songwriter and entertainer Fats Domino (1928-2017), who brought the boogie woogie riffology of pianists Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis into 1950's rock n' roll and led countless music lovers to his fellow New Orleans entertainers Professor Longhair, Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, James Booker and The Meters. Here's an excerpt from the American Masters documentary Fats Domino & The Birth Of Rock & Roll.
My favorite TV program in the early 1970's, hands down, was Johnny's.
Love the Pops & Johnny rendition of the 1930 Louis Armstrong & Jimmie Rodgers recording of Blue Yodel #9!
As Fats Domino did, Johnny Cash had an extended career, stretching into the 21st century. For more on the man in black's music, check out the Johnny Cash Archive on YouTube.
All of the above stalwarts born on February 26 (and several more who, unfortunately, slipped our minds - Godfrey Cambridge, Erykah Badu, Marilyn Michaels, Alan Bridge, Bob Hite and Mitch Ryder) merit mucho thanks and appreciation for making the world a better place.
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.
Trying to cheer up, mostly unsuccessfully, the pissed-off and snowstorm-addled reprobates at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are watching Toby The Pup cartoons.
Seven of the 12 Toby cartoons remain in the lost film Twilight Zone. The Tobys are less gritty in design and sensibility than the Scrappy series, and in some sequences resemble Ben Harrison and Manny Gould's contemporaneous Krazy Kat, also produced by Charles Mintz.
Alas, the Toby The Pup cartoons were so unloved that several in the 12-entry series remain lost almost 100 years later.
One urban legend goes that producer Charles Mintz was so incensed by the failure of the Toby cartoons to score a boffo Mickey Mouse style mega-hit for RKO Radio Pictures in 1930-1931 that he had all the original 35mm negatives and prints buried! That's a great story, but seems unlikely. . .
Produced by the Charles Mintz Studio for RKO Radio Pictures release, the Tobys were made by the same crew that subsequently produced Columbia's Scrappy series.
That crew would be led by the highly imaginative Dick Huemer, supported by his fellow ex-Fleischer animators Sid Marcus and Art Davis. The jaunty musical scores were by Joe De Nat, who re-used the Toby The Pup opening a few years later as main title theme for Columbia's Color Rhapsodies.
Huemer, who ultimately spent three decades working for Walt Disney Productions as part of a prolfic story writing team with Joe Grant, regarded his Mintz Studio cartoons as dreadful at best, an embarrassment. No surprise there: he subsequently worked on Pinocchio and Fantasia.
In this writer's cartoon-crazed opinion, the Tobys equal or surpass the wacky Fleischer Studio hijinx from the same period and also rival the contemporaneous Disney cartoons for animation technique, early 1930's "rubber hose" style.
Serge Bromberg of Lobster Films has found heretofore lost Toby cartoons with French titles. Hence, it is possible to compare two versions of Toby in The Museum.
The Toby cartoons never got distributed to U.S. television and were largely unseen for several decades. They were mentioned in Radio Pictures' print ads, presumably with some expectation that the cartoons would give Mickey Mouse at least a bit of competition for the Depression-era moviegoing audience.
Watching a very odd entry from Republic Pictures' low-budget Jerky Journeys series brings to mind the topic of very odd animated cartoons. We'll start with the most inexplicably odd but hilarious cartoon from Tex Avery's lengthy career, the Walter Lantz opus SH-HHHHH, supposedly based on a popular - and very odd - comedy recording (The Okeh Laughing Record).
Ted Eshbaugh's classic cartoons, especially his 1933 take on The Wizard Of Oz, are wonderful while invariably a bit odd.
Ted Eshbaugh's oddest cartoon may be his Cinecolor tale of a truly abominable snowman. The title character is not a nice guy!
Arguably both among the oddest but most beautiful animated cartoons is John Hubley's "Frankie & Johnny" sendup and ultra-stylish post-modernist musical Rooty Toot Toot.
Entirely on the other side of the artistic spectrum is this very odd one-shot Aesop's Fable from the Van Beuren studio, frequent producers of the oddest of the odd from early 1930's Cartoonland. It's primitive. weirdly imaginative and weirdly compelling; saw the audience at one of the Psychotronix Film Festivals give the 1933 cartoon, as well as Eshbaugh's The Wizard Of Oz, a rousing response.
The only cartoon to feature a caricature of Oscar Levant and also spoof the Information Please radio show, THE HERRING MURDER MYSTERY is another favorite. Dun Roman, later of Jay Ward Productions, directed this wonderfully odd musical one-shot with originality and panache.
Another very odd one-shot from the Columbia Color Rhapsodies series, THE DISILLUSIONED BLUEBIRD, is a calypso musical. The main character is a jerk - that may be why this cartoon is a one-shot - but the music carries the day.
Less musical but also clever and definitely odd is the film noir spoof Flora, just one of a slew of very odd cartoons written with perverse glee by wacky Screen Gems Studio storymen Cal Howard and Dave Monahan.
Do we have favorite post-1940's cartoons that precede Futurama and the first SNL bits by Robert Smigel's TV Funhouse but follow Super Chicken, Tom Slick and George Of The Jungle? Yes. Several were produced by Marv "Bambi Meets Godzilla" Newland and International Rocketship Limited.
Especially love SING BEAST SING, which features excellent work by several all-time favorite animators and a tres cool soundtrack by Chess Records stalwart Willie Mabon. Is the character of Vern a young Tex Avery?
The music is just one of the amazing singles Willie waxed for Chess way back when.
How can one follow a fabulous cartoon like that? By going to Chicago, not for Second City troupe improv comedy, modern jazz (especially The Art Ensemble), Cubs baseball or Da Bears but for some serious blues, courtesy of the great Willie Mabon and Hubert Sumlin.
Willie and Odie Payne toured Europe and rocked the house wherever they played back in the 1970's.
The 2025 edition of the Noir City film festival at Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre is on and pays tribute to the genre's formidable femme fatales, many of whom were interviewed onstage by festival programmer/curator/film preservationist and Czar Of Noir Eddie Muller. TCM's Alicia Malone (seen in the Noir City 22 poster) co-hosts this weekend's shows.
Noir City returns to Oakland's spectacular art deco movie palace, the Grand Lake Theater on 3200 Grand Avenue, with a great lineup of classic movies.
Today we pay tribute to one of the most important figures in 20th century pop culture: vocalist, songwriter, producer, civil rights activist and recording/music publishing entrepreneur Sam Cooke (January 22, 1931- December 11, 1964).
Second only to Elvis Presley as a maker of hit records at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s, Sam Cooke was poised at the time of his death to be one of the kings of show business.
How big was the Cooke phenomenon in the late 1950's and early 1960's?
He appeared multiple times on THE TONIGHT SHOW (in this instance on February 7, 1964).
Here's Sam with fellow titan of early rock, pop and soul Jackie Wilson.
Cooke was also a passionate advocate on the front lines in the civil rights movement.
This is reflected powerfully in Cooke's best known and most covered song, A Change Is Gonna Come.
Sam Cooke began his career as the star of the top gospel ensemble The Soul Stirrers and would be among the few to successfully transition from gospel to r&b and pop.
The following interview with Dick Clark indicates the direction Sam Cooke was going in at the time of his death, as head of a record company that produced hits with a roster of artists as Berry Gordy had begun doing at Motown/Tamla Records.
Sam had been running his own L.A. label (SAR Records), as Curtis Mayfield would do a few years later, as part of a team that ran Curtom Records, but did not live to see his ambitious expansion plans come to fruition. One wonders if organized crime and sleazy music industry individuals joined forces to make sure Sam did not succeed A.K.A. rub him out.
There are a several documentaries, all worth watching and more than a bit sad, on the life, times and tragic demise of Sam Cooke.
The sordid circumstances of the still unsolved murder of Sam Cooke at the seedy Hacienda Motel couldn't be more fishy if they were a massive catch (no doubt including flounder) left out in the sun to stink. Why there was NO investigation, we can only imagine.
In closing, will spotlight the Sam Cooke recordings. A favorite record of the r&b aficionados at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog is Cooke's classic Live At The Harlem Square Club.
While Cooke's music tended to be more in a pop vein than soul, the incendiary sounds of Live At The Harlem Square Club rock the house with blazing r&b and look forward to Otis Redding's devastating set from the 1967 Monterey Pop festival.
While thinking of those affected by the Southern California wildfires and suggesting Operation USA as a good place to donate, we turn to the topic of today's post, cartoons appropriate for National Milk Day, an event originated in India and now set on January 11. We'll start with Toby The Pup.
While perusing the Borden Dairy Products Commercial Archive on YouTube, we continue with a cartoon which is not a milk commercial per se but got a second life when Borden's Milk re-issued it. Produced by Ted Eshbaugh's studio for RKO Radio Pictures as part of its Rainbow Parade series, The Sunshine Makers is an all-time favorite and a most jaunty tale of happy dwarves and sunshine milk which instantly cures depression and literally glows. What's in that sunshine milk and how can I procure some?
There actually is an ad for SUNSHINE MILK. . . and it's powdered milk, something familiar to those of us who grew up in the 1950's and 1960's and greeted the product without as much as a hint of anticipation or enthusiasm.
Since this blog showcased animated commercials last October 19, October 12, October 4 and September 9, here are a bunch of ads appropriate for National Milk Day, beginning with American Dairy Association and its little animated BUTTER fellow that resembles a piece of bread.
Responding to tough guy Pet Milk Pete, must admit that evaporated and/or condensed milk is pretty darn good for use in pumpkin pie filling.
This cheesiest of cheesy ads hails from New Zealand.
In closing, here are some stylish John & Faith Hubley Storyboard ads in the Cartoon Modern tradition.
