Radio Round-Up is back, and today we bring you Baby Snooks and Daddy!
Born in New York’s Lower East Side in 1891, Fanny Brice began her show business career as a teenager in amateur nights. She performed in a Yiddish accent, reflective of her Jewish immigrant parents. Brice moved on to burlesque where noted impresario Florenz Ziegfeld heard her sing in a talent contest. In 1910, he recruited her for his Ziegfeld Follies, where she appeared in as a regular headliner throughout the 1910s and 1920s. In 1933, Brice transitioned to radio in her guest appearance on the Fleischmann Yeast Hour, which starred popular crooner Rudy Vallee. Brice’s style of humor proved problematic for NBC. The network’s Continuity Acceptance Department sent numerous memos and script alterations concerning her style of humor, which included suggestive double-entendres. In turn, Brice chose to implement her comedic sensibilities over the airwaves in the persona of a precocious four-year-old girl.
Snooks – with Hanley Stafford
In 1940, the NBC program’s title changed to Maxwell House Coffee Time, while the precocious little Snooks continued to irritate her father and outmaneuver different authority figures in a seemingly innocent fashion. One of Snooks’ trademarks was her inquisitive nature, incessantly asking “Why?” to her father during many of their interactions, which often led to frustration or at worse, a loud outburst. Another trademark was Snooks’ loud wailing whenever she is not given what she wants or is the recipient of a spanking.
Snooks became a radio favorite in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and references to the father-daughter relationship from the weekly broadcasts soon appeared. With the debut of Walter Lantz’s new character in Life Begins with Andy Panda (1939), he gave the little panda a baby voice similar to Snooks. In the film, Poppa Panda (voiced by Danny Webb) takes his son on a nature walk, where the dialogue is largely a take-off on the interactions between Snooks and Daddy. Andy continued to speak in a Snooks-esque voice in his next two cartoons Andy Panda Goes Fishing and 100 Pygmies and Andy Panda (both released 1940).
“Malibu Beach Party”
Later, around early 1944, director Chuck Jones’ main writer Tedd Pierce worked on a story built entirely around the Snooks-Daddy relationship, entitled Quentin Quail—a rather provocative title based on Californian slang law about minors (“San Quentin quail”). Pierce voiced the father quail, with Sara Berner playing “Toots”. Berner recorded her dialogue track for the cartoon in March 1944, and in a later session the following May, before the film’s March 1946 release.
After four seasons of Maxwell House Coffee Time, Brice moved to CBS in September 1944, where Snooks appeared on weekly broadcasts of Toasties Time, sponsored by General Foods. The show’s title was changed to The Baby Snooks Show the following year, with Sanka Coffee as its sponsor. The program switched its sponsorship to Jello until 1948, when Brice took a hiatus for a year and a half. Baby Snooks returned to NBC in November 1949, sponsored by Tums, which Brice remained until her death from a cerebral hemorrhage on May 29, 1951. During the show’s broadcast on that date, Hanley Stafford delivered a touching eulogy: “We have lost a very real, a very warm, a very wonderful woman.”
Here’s a video showcasing references to the Baby Snooks program in animated cartoons. There is not too many, but as usual, please excuse any discrepancies.
Clips included: Mother Goose in Swingtime (Mintz/1939), Quentin Quail (WB/1946), Life Begins with Andy Panda (Lantz/1939), Robinson Crusoe Jr. (WB/1941), Malibu Beach Party (WB/1940).
(Special thanks to Keith Scott and Eric Costello for their help with this post)
AN UPDATE: For those who would like to know about my progress on working with Thunderbean: in the past month, I have finished clean-up on Bulloney (1933) with Flip the Frog, and two Noveltoons—Cilly Goose (1944) and The Bored Cuckoo (1948).
There’s one more film in the batch — a stop-motion animated short — before I send everything back to Steve Stanchfield for another. I have also set up a Patreon page, which will contain exclusive research articles and sneak previews of current restorations if you are willing to contribute. More information about other projects can be read on the page, as well. Tune back in for more Radio Round-Up!
DEVON BAXTER is a film restoration artist, video editor, and animation researcher/writer currently residing in Pennsylvania. He also hosts a 
Fanny Brice appeared onscreen as Baby Snooks (non-animated) with Judy Garland in “Everybody Sing” (1938).
This is a great piece. I only wish that more clips of Fanny Brice performing in her younger years actually existed, and I wonder if she enjoyed her animated counterparts. Was that really her making a cameo appearance in that classic BETTY BOOP cartoon?
My favorite imitation, though, has to be Sarah Berner, both in “QUENTIN QUAIL” and “LIFE BEGINS FOR ANDY PANDA”, the latter of which has to be the most over-the-top but charming bit of baby talk, inserting a “w” even in words that don’t contain an “l” or “r” (EXAMPLE: “Dwaddy, I wanna be inna newsweew!“).
Brice, along with some other Follies vets, appears as herself in “The Great Ziegfeld”. She comes on stage in a glamorous gown to sing a ballad, but Ziegfeld insists she wear rags. “Even in burlesque I was middle class,” she says sadly.
In “The Ziegfeld Follies” she voices a stop-motion caricature of herself in the prologue; then appears in a sitcom-level comedy sketch.
There were a couple of movies about her life. Forgot who played her.
I don’t know if it’s Nancy Cartwright or the writers, but Baby Snooks “Why?” seems like was used in every Mindy and Buttons cartoon (from Animaniacs) when Mindy didn’t know why the answer to life’s complicated questions (it’s towards the beginning):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyK4aiOybfI
Quentin Quail was one of those cartoons that used to play all the time on TV but is now all but unknown. It’s one of those low key Chuck Jones efforts that are more about character interaction than big gags. Back when it was released, most of the laughs must have come from recognition of Baby Snooks and her Daddy; it still plays well today, but likely not as much as when the show was still well known.
I have wondered whether Ned Sparks was the inspiration for the voice of Squidward.
Not really animation-related, but from 1970-75, Gold Key published a series of comic books about a toddler-aged elephant, “Baby Snoots”. Despite the similar names, there was precious little in common between the two characters. I always wondered if the editor(s) expected their juvenile audience to understand the reference, coming almost twenty years after Snook’s final appearance.
I remember that comic book. With Uptight Mouse. Yes, at the time I would not have heard of Baby Snooks. I tend to think the editors knew we wouldn’t know the reference. Gold Key had some very charming original characters.
In the seventies, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises was planning to make a cartoon out of it, but it never got made.