The USC Cinematic Library (thanks, Ned Comstock) continues to supply us with copies of Warner Club News – with which we extract the monthly column written by the staff in the Cartoon Department. This year, sound effects editor Treg Brown does the writing chores. We don’t have columns for every month – we’re missing four months (January, February, March and September) in 1949 – but there’s plenty here to ponder.
April 1949
Treg describes the noon-hour square dance parties… Lots of babies being born (this literally was “the baby boom”)… and all about animator Herman Cohen. Did Paul Julian ever publish a book called We Went To The Zoo?
May 1949
Ruth Cavert become “Queen For A Day”… Bill Melendez leaves for UPA… Phil Monroe and George Grandpre provide illustrations…
June 1949
Cool cover image related to My Bunny Lies Over The Sea, drawn by Abe Levitow… All about animation checker Paul Marron… and a report from Paris by “Queen” Ruth Cavert.
July 1949
The baby boom continues… Mr. Selzer thinks Freleng’s forthcoming His Bitter Half is the best Daffy Duck cartoon ever made… The Looney Tunes softball team beats the UPA team to a pulp.
August 1949
We learn here that Friz Freleng vacations in Detroit… and Mike Maltese apparently can assume the personality of any of the characters – except Inki!
October 1949
A Chuck Jones cartoon called “A New Lease on Life” was screened… Methinks that was the original title for So Much For So Little. I don’t know what else it could be. They also watched A Fractured Leghorn (which was released a year from now).
November 1949
A recipe for Cheesecake.
December 1949
Jerry Beck is a writer, animation producer, college professor and author of more than 15 books on animation history. He is a former studio exec with Nickelodeon Movies and Disney, and has written for The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He has curated cartoons for DVD and blu-ray compilations and has lent his expertise to dozens of bonus documentaries and audio commentaries on such. Beck is currently on the faculty of Cal Arts in Valencia, UCLA in Westwood and Woodbury University in Burbank – teaching animation history. More about Jerry Beck [
The Wood drawings, mentioned in the Oct. edition, can be found here starting at pg. 22: https://books.google.ca/books?id=yEkEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Selzer is not too far off the mark about His Bitter Half and I suspect had more on the ball than many give him credit for…
“His Bitter Half” is a CrackerJack of a cartoon!
Sure is..I wonder who played the bitchy fat she-duck..?
Martha Wentworth provided her voice.
Who is Ruth Cavert and who accompanied her on her trip to France? (June 1949 issue.) I ask because she says she/they were interviewed by Maurice Chevalier and the Mayor of Monte Carlo; given gifts; and had hundreds of photographs taken of them. It sounds like it was a press tour of some sort to drum up business, doesn’t it? I’m going to guess she’s married to a big-wig administrator, director, or animator?
OOPS! My bad! I should have read the May 1949 issue before I read the June issue, then I would have known that she won a contest and the prize was a trip to France and to be treated like a queen while she was there.
What unit was Herman Cohen in? Did he ever come back after he took a leave?
Shame on Treg Brown for misspelling Max Flesichers’s name. Not that it was being seen around very much at the time…