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.
This blog now transitions from our favorites Ernie (Kovacs) and Edie (Adams) . . .
To favorites named Stubby, Soupy, Pinky and Andy!
We're big fans of the chubby yet dapper entertainer Stubby Kaye. Here's the irrepressible Stubby extolling the accomplishments of "Jubilation T. Cornpone" in the 1959 movie of Al Capp's comic strip Lil' Abner.
Now watch Stubby crush it as Nicely Nicely in Guys & Dolls!
Stubby was so cool, he recorded an album titled Music For Chubby Lovers. As a short chubby guy (and much closer to resembling Stubby than Frank Sinatra of Songs For Swingin' Lovers fame) I think this is great!
Vividly recall seeing a game show for kids on TV back when I was 8 years old - and did not see said program again until 61 years later on YouTube. This elaborate kidvid program was titled SHENANIGANS and sponsored by toy-meisters Milton Bradley. The host was - drum roll - Stubby Kaye!
Was there anyone who hosted kids' shows at that time this blogger liked as much as Stubby Kaye (including local San Francisco Bay Area TV hosts Mayor Art, Marshall J and Captain Satellite)? Heck, yeah - the goofy and always wacky Soupy Sales!
Soupy packs an impressive quantity of 100 proof silliness into the briefest of bits - and sustains the unabashed lunacy over a half-hour show.
Soupy very likely was inspired to enter by the popular kidvid shows by the alarmingly energetic but upbeat and likeable burlesque comedian and tap dancer Pinky Lee.
Pinky was something of a king of kidvid in the 1950's and often booked interesting acts on his show, such as the gal here with her trained dogs.
As fate would have it, one of the films I have sought out to spring on a unsuspecting Psychotronix Film Festival audience (but never actually landed) was the 1937 Educational Pictures 1-reeler Dental Follies starring Pinky Lee and directed by Christie Comedies mainstay William Watson. It's not as funny and unrelentingly bizarre as the three Jefferson Machamer's Gags N' Gals 2-reelers produced by Al Christie for Educational in 1936-1938 but still pretty good.
A competitor of Soupy and Pinky in the kidvid universe was Andy's Gang, hosted by Andy Devine.
A favorite bit from Andy's Gang is the Squeaky's Circus segment.
For some reason, Andy Devine and Andy's Gang get me thinking of . . . Andy Kaufman.
There was a meeting of one of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog's all-time favorite movie directors and favorite comedians when Andy was a guest on an unsold pilot, Orson Welles' talk show. Not surprisingly, Orson, an avid fan of comedy and comedians, is a very good interviewer and manages to disarm Andy.
Welles, a magician and provocateur himself, understands and respects Kaufman's derring-do as an actor, comedian and performance artist, so this the only time this writer has ever seen a talk show which offers a glimpse of Andy the person as opposed to Andy the performer.
And then, while fondly remembering Stubby Kaye, Pinky Lee, Soupy Sales, Andy Devine and Andy Kaufman - and with apologies to late-night TV sidekick supreme Andy Richter and Mack Sennett Studio/Columbia Shorts Department slapstick king Andy Clyde - we now direct the spotlight to Paul Reubens a.k.a. Pee-Wee Herman, star of the greatest kidvid show in the history of television, Pee-wee's Playhouse and member of The Groundlings. Do we believe Pee-wee was profoundly influenced by Pinky Lee, 1950's kidvid and 1930's radio comedian Joe Penner? Yes.
The gang at Way Too Damn Too Lazy To Write A Blog regard the epic feature comedy Pee-Wee's Big Adventure as a high holy water mark for both Mr. Reubens and director Tim Burton.
Pee-wee's appearahces on late night TV, especially with David Letterman and Conan O' Brien, were invariably memorable.
Want to see the following documentary, Pee-wee As Himself very much. Like the late, great Mr. Reubens, it looks like tons of fun.
What's the best way to follow up these clips? With the first episode of Pee-wee's Playhouse!
In closing today's post, we express appreciation for the chuckles, chortles, guffaws, laughs and good entertainment provided by Stubby, Soupy, Pinky, Andy and Pee-Wee. As the talented, funny and reliable performers George Wendt (of Cheers and Second City Chicago) and comedienne/cartoon voice artist Ruth Buzzi passed recently, the world's rations of belly laughs have taken a most unwelcome hit at the worst possible time.
Still enjoying extended binge-watching of TV shows starring Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams!
Every time it seems like an overdose of Ernie & Edie is imminent, one finds, watches and loves a few more absolutely amazing sketches.
The Ernie & Edie musical sketches are invariably amazing.
"Take A Good Look", still the weirdest of all game shows, absolutely floors me!
Even the commercials crack me up!
Also still flooring me after countless viewings: pretty much everything in the 1961 Kovacs ABC specials which followed Take A Good Look and aired at 10:30 p.m. on Thursday nights.
After first discovering Ernies last TV series back in the 1970's thanks to the Best Of Ernie Kovacs shows, the gang here finds Ernie and crew - Edie Adams, Bill Wendell, Jolene Brand, Bobby Lauher, Joe Mikolas, Maggi Brown - genuinely surreal while hilarious and at times, such as the following piece, also evocative and dramatic.
Ernie and Edie's musical sketches are some of their very best. Here, the dynamic duo skewers "Tannhouser."
Have a funny feeling that Mel Brooks and Madeline Kahn saw Edie's bravura rendition of Victor Herbert's "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life."
Here, Edie does her best impersonation of the staggeringly tone-deaf vocalist and socialite Florence Foster Jenkins. Could Flo have been the actual prototype for Citizen Kane's doomed (and even more staggeringly tone deaf) Susan Alexander?
Edie went on to host two variety shows in 1962-1964.
Here's Edie and The Edie Adams Show feature talented comics Don Rickles, Dick Shawn) and excellent jazz ensembles.
Edie introduces Duke Ellington!
Is there any film clip that includes Don Rickles, Laurindo Almeida AND Stan Getz? Yes, this one from the Here's Edie show!
Of course, with both series, Edie starred in vintage Muriel Cigars commercials.
Edie went on to appear as a guest star on mid and late 1960s variety programs, including The Dean Martin Show.
She continued as the spokes-model for Muriel Cigars, which led to more terrific commercials.
In the early 1980's, Edie appeared on Late Night With David Letterman several times during its first two seasons on NBC. I give Mr. Letterman tons of credit for having numerous comedy greats on his many programs, starting with his 1980 morning show.
Ernie's announcer and periodic sketch player from his 1950's NBC shows, Bill Wendell, was also the announcer for Late Night With David Letterman.
As he did on the NBC Ernie Kovacs shows, Bill Wendell got to make on-camera appearances.
In closing, here's KOVACS ON MUSIC, the Association For Recorded Sound Collections' centenary tribute to Ernie, presented by Kovacs-philes Seth B. Winner and Ben Model.
"Some years ago I had a complete nervous breakdown, was dead broke and had to be put in a charity ward with 30 others. I was there 18 months and doctors didn`t give me long to live. So now each day to me is a special dividend, so I live it to the hilt". Ernie Kovacs
Remembered most for his remarkably inventive TV work, in front of and behind the camera, Ernie Kovacs (1919-1962) possessed a unique sensibility and gag mind that was out of the box, WAY out of the box, in another universe - and frequently on the dark side.
Even Ernie's unique game show Take A Good Look, featuring ace Kovacs Show repertory players Bobby Lauher and Jolene Brand, was the most mind-bending interpretation of that format imaginable.
Kovacs was also quite funny in the handful of movies he appeared in.
Then, in the 1950's - early 1960's and now, Ernie remains the unequalled jedi master of the "orthicon tube". No one has even come close.
These micro-musicals were in Ernie's last series of eight specials for ABC, produced in 1961. His co-stars include the aforementioned Bobby Lauher and Jolene Brand, along with Joe Mikolas and Maggi Brown: comedy heroes all.
Thanks, Ernie - and a big time thanks to Edie Adams for her outstanding onscreen contributions to The Ernie Kovacs Show and equally outstanding (and tireless) efforts she made decades later to preserve Ernie's pioneering work in television. She was a brilliant performer, comedienne and vocalist, but also a hero of film preservation.
One wonders just how many Ernie Kovacs Show and Here's Edie videotapes she personally rescued from being taped over or tossed in the East River!
We raise our mugs, tumblers and Percy Dovetonsils approved champagne flutes to Ernie and Edie! In closing, the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog must note that we absolutely LOVE Ernie's song Hot Cakes & Sausage, a great, witty and jaunty tune to start any day with.
Who's the individual cited most often here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog? The unimaginably imaginative Ernie Kovacs.
Here's an excerpt from Ernie's first version of The Silent Show.
Ernie's Howdy Doody sendup, The Howdy Deedy Show, features hard-drinking host Miklos Molnar.
LOVE "The Kapusta Kid in Outer Space," seen here on the NBC Morning Show that aired on December 19, 1955.
Ernie's NBC shows still exist, largely thanks to the tireless efforts of the late, great Edie Adams.
Edie, who married Ernie in 1954, was the intrepid co-star and musical guest throughout the NBC years and up through the unorthodox ABC game show, Take A Good Look. Her rendition of Davy Crockett, King Of The Wild Frontier in the style of Marilyn Monroe never fails to get me ROFL.
Here's The Ernie Kovacs Show from July 2, 1956
And July 16, 1956
And July 30, 1956
And August 6 1956
And September 3, 1956
Too bad Kovacs' 1954 DuMont Network programs remain lost kinescopes. At least Ernie Kovacs' 1961 ABC specials exist; these express Ernie's unique sensibility, much along the lines of an animator or experimental filmmaker and very different from the approach of his TV comedy contemporaries (Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Milton Berle).
Today's post shall be devoted to films which debuted on April 17, which in godawful 2025 has been one awful day. Shall start with a U. S. Department of Agriculture short subject distributed by the U.S. Forest Service, starring Laurel and Hardy, with narration by MGM's Pete Smith.
Headliners from Famous Studios this writer actually likes: the wiseguy duo of Tommy Tortoise & Moe Hare.
Closing: the April 17, 1937 release Porky's Duck Hunt, a Termite Terrace piece-de-resistance directed by Tex Avery, featuring the first appearance of Daffy Duck and Bob Clampett's uninhibited animation.
Since comedy actors and standup comedians who also did voice work on animated cartoons remains a frequent topic here, it's surprising that we hadn't spotlighted Don Adams (April 13, 1923 – September 25, 2005), well known as Secret Agent 86 from Get Smart, in over 1380 posts. Here's Don on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson.
Alas, the blog forgot the Agent 86 centenary last year but posts on Don Adams' 101st today to both rectify that error and say missed it by that much.
Don Adams began his career as a standup comic, first seen nationally on The Steve Allen Show in the 1950's.
Comedy and 20th century pop culture historian Kliph Nesteroff elaborates at length in his 2014 article Don Adams, Joey Bishop and the Steve Allen Scandal: Television Comedy in the Early 60s. While we love Don Adams, it appears he was to some degree the Carlos Mencia of his day, albeit infinitely funnier, and was also why Bob Newhart became a standup comic and decided to be the only performer of his own material. That said, Don's appearance here as Mr. Surfboard is hilarious.
My sexagenarian and septuagenarian contemporaries first became familiar with the distinctive voice of Don Adams via the 1963-1966 Saturday morning cartoon Tennessee Tuxedo & His Tales.
Still enjoy the Total Television series and its excellent voice work by Adams, Bradley Bolke, Larry Storch, narrator Kenny Delmar and others.
The storylines were IMHO the best of Total TV shows (King_Leonardo and His Short Subjects, Underdog, Klondike Kat) and the Phineas J. Whoopee segments, featuring the Frank Morgan-esque voice characterization by Larry Storch, were always entertaining and informative.
And that, dear readers, brings us to Get Smart and the indisputable fact that instead of doing his homework, the guy who writes this blog watched the series' first episode on TV on September 18, 1965 and ended up ROFL.
As Don's frequent writing partner was standup comedian Bill Dana, the origins of the Maxwell Smart character can be seen in The Bill Dana Show, which also co-starred Jonathan Harris (later the sniveling and pathetic Dr. Zachary Smith in the Irwin Allen TV series Lost In Space).
As the intrepid (and much smarter than Max) Agent 99, Get Smart co-star, actress Barbara Feldon, brought wit, understatement and style to the series. Could another actress pull off the role of Agent 99 as gracefully? Probably not.
There were five seasons of Get Smart and numerous ties to 1960's pop culture beyond 007 and Inspector Jacques Clouseau. While episode one was penned by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry - and both would contribute to season one episodes - a good number of talented scribes penned very funny scripts through the entire run of the series.
Stan Burns and Mike Marmer, subsequently writers for Carol Burnett Show, made their mark on the series. Allan Burns and Chris Hayward, terrific Jay Ward Productions writers, penned many Season 4 episodes, often collaborating with Arne Sultan and producer Leonard Stern. Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso, the writing team from The Monkees, penned many Get Smart episodes. Also among the writers: The Tonight Show's ultra-zany Pat McCormick.
After a stretch returning to stand-up comedy, Adams re-emerged with the Don Adams Screen Test show in the mid-1970's.
He also appeared as Agent 86 in TV ads.
There would be a big screen revival of Get Smart in 1980, the feature film The Nude Bomb, penned by Mel Brooks, Buck Henry and Arne Sultan. While this Agent 86 adventure has its moments and an appearance by 1940's movie queen Rhonda Fleming, the absence of Barbara Feldon as Agent 99 is much felt. The fact it doesn't include scenes featuring numerous individuals much better looking than Maxwell Smart victimized with naked aggression by The Nude Bomb does not help.
The next comeback for Don Adams, after three seasons of the Canadian sitcom Check It Out, would be a very successful return to animation - and portraying a much more formidable sort than Agent 86 - in the 1980's TV series Inspector Gadget.
The Don Adams version of Agent 86 would return in 1989 for the TV movie Get Smart Again! (prior to subsequent 21st century revivals starring Steve Carell), this one a lot more successful than The Nude Bomb, in large part due to the presence of Barbara Feldon. Enjoy!
Alas, instead of preparing for this weekend's National Raisin and Spice Bar Day and National Caramel Day, the gang here has been watching the stock market party like it's 1929, crash like a motor sports catastrophe and plummet like a cheating knuckleballer's 78 mph pitch laden with foreign substances. Even Bert Lahr is losing it!
All we can think of (as we bite what's left of our nails) is the movies and cartoons of the Great Depression, a time no sane person wants to return to. Among the best: Frank Capra's 1932 film American Madness, starring Walter Huston.
One of the most memorable of the short subjects that tackled the Depression was Charley Chase in the Hal Roach comedy THE PANIC IS ON (1931).
A slew of animated cartoons from the early sound era directly address the Depression. Ub Iwerks' Flip The Frog series frequently places our cartoon heroes on the streets and in bread lines.
Even the always plucky Oswald The Lucky Rabbit got hit by hard times.
The Charles Mintz Studio practically specialized in topical cartoons in the early 1930's.
THE FLOP HOUSE is as much an excuse to go-for-broke in the wacky sight gags department as social commentary. Were destitute cartoon animals, no doubt wiped out by the stock market crash, living in flop houses? Yes. Did the ever-enterprising Scrappy run a flop house? Yes.
Eventually, the extended hard times led to a sub-genre of cartoons, known as "let's beat that darn Depression with good will, hard work and a happy song." Hugh Harman & Rudy Ising's jaunty musical from the MGM Happy Harmony series, Hey-Hey Fever (1935), brings the Great Depression and its devastation to Mother Goose Land!
The epitome of this sub-genre remains the Ben Harrison & Manny Gould crew's Color Rhapsody LET'S GO (1937). Even insects got clobbered by the 1930's!
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!
