“This is the story of Gerald McCloy and the strange thing that happened to that little boy.” So begins the whimsical, funny, touching tale of Gerald McBoing-Boing, the classic cartoon short from United Productions of America (UPA), celebrating its 75th anniversary this fall.
Directed by Robert Cannon, with John Hubley as supervising director, and narrated by Marvin Miller, it tells the story of the title character, a young boy who, at the age he is supposed to start talking, instead just makes the sound “Boing! Boing!”
His parents, in a panic, call a doctor, but he is as shocked as the parents and announces that he has no cure. Months pass and not only does Gerald keep going “Boing! Boing!,” but he begins to make other sound effects, like an explosion that scares his father out of his chair and sends him clinging to the chandelier.
The parents think that the cure is to send Gerald to school, but that doesn’t work, and Gerald is sent home almost immediately with a note pinned to his jacket, stating that there’s nothing that the teacher or school can do for Gerald.
The other kids in the neighborhood tease poor Gerald, “Your name’s not McCloy, your Gerald McBoing-Boing, the noisemaking boy.” So sad and desperate, Gerald runs away from home and is discovered by a man who recognizes Gerald’s unique ability and offers the young boy a job at his radio station.
With that, Gerald finds success creating the sound effects for a Western radio drama, becoming quite the celebrity as the short ends on a happy note.
Gerald McBoing-Boing started life as a children’s record album written by Theodore Geisel, known to the world as Dr. Seuss, and read, in the author’s comforting rhyme, by actor Harold Peary, credited on the album cover as “The Great Gildersleeve,” a very popular character on radio that Peary played at the time.
The story came to UPA (who had recently found success with their new character, Mr. Magoo) when Geisel had lunch one day with Phil Eastman a writer and storyboard artist at the studio – who had worked with Geisel during World War 2. From their conversation, Geisel brought the record to the UPA Studio to discuss the possibility of adapting it for animation.
Producer Steve Bosustow, one of the founders of UPA, listened to the album and quickly purchased the rights.
The subsequent short Gerald McBoing-Boing proved to be a landmark for both the UPA Studio and the animation industry. UPA had been founded by former Disney Studio artists who sought to create animation that was innovative in terms of story and style.
Gerald McBoing-Boing most definitely accomplished this, eschewing the realism found in films from studios like Disney and instead using a bold, graphic look in this and their other short subjects that went on to inspire animation at other studios, and became indicative of this era of animation.
In his book When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA, author Adam Abraham wrote that with Gerald McBoing-Boing, “… everything coalesced – all the ideas and experiments on which UPA’s artists had been working for five years or more. Walls in the backgrounds disappear; spaces are defined by a random piece of furniture or two; chandeliers dangle in midair. The character designs are flat, two-dimensional – unequivocally, they are drawings, not meant to be mistaken for anything else. The animation is precise and balletic, and the colors shift from scene to scene, expressionistically.”
The distinctive style of Gerald McBoing-Boing, thanks to design by Bill Hurtz, and color by Herb Klynn and Jules Engel, highlights all that the story (adapted by Bill Scott and Eastman) holds. The animation of the stylized characters, from a team that included Bill Melendez, Rudy Larriva, Pat Matthews, Willis Pyle, and Frank Smith, brings the humor, heart, and emotion in the short to life. A scene in which Gerald, in despair, can’t turn to anyone, including his parents, plays out as Gerald ascends the staircase, which seems to float in space, underlying the loneliness of the moment and packing quite a punch.
From “Gerald McBoing Boing on The Planet Moo” (1956) directed by Bobe Cannon
Sixty-five years later, the original, artistic vision, coupled with a universal theme of how we all have our unique gifts, has helped Gerald McBoing-Boing secure its place in animation history. In 1994, the short was placed at number nine in Jerry Beck’s book, The 50 Greatest Cartoons.
In it, there’s a quote from a 1952 interview John Hubley conducted with The New York Times, where he summed up Gerald McBoing-Boing perfectly, saying, “It started a revolution in animation. We proved with Gerald that a short can cut across the whole of the audience and can be made attractive and entertaining to both adults and youngsters.”
Michael Lyons is a freelance writer, specializing in film, television, and pop culture. He is the author of the book, Drawn to Greatness: Disney’s Animation Renaissance, which chronicles the amazing growth at the Disney animation studio in the 1990s. In addition to Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research, he has contributed to Remind Magazine, Cinefantastique, Animation World Network and Disney Magazine. He also writes a blog, Screen Saver: A Retro Review of TV Shows and Movies of Yesteryear and his interviews with a number of animation legends have been featured in several volumes of the books, Walt’s People. You can visit Michael’s web site Words From Lyons at: 
luv luv LUV it!!! I so wonder , tho, why clips of the (short-lived) tv never did / can exist anywhere!!!
Gerald Mc Boing Boing still resonates with kids today. I read the story to a group of ninth graders as part of a unit on children’s books, and they rated it as one of the better books out of several that were shared in class. I guess the story of an underdog who eventually triumphs is timeless and universal.
There is one more cartoon short featuring Gerald that didn’t get mentioned above. “Magoo Meets McBoing Boing” focuses more on the antics of Magoo, who is called upon to babysit by Gerald’s anxious parents, and proceeds to mistake Gerald for the family dog, and vice versa. The short implies that the McCloys exist in the same universe as Mr. Magoo and that they are acquainted with each other. I believe this is one of a handful of Magoo shorts that were originally developed for theatrical release but then ended up on television as part of the Mr. Magoo Show. While not particularly distinguished or remarkable, it makes for an interesting crossover appearance, and by the end it looks as if nobody is the wiser about Magoo’s mistake, save for the audience–and most likely Gerald.
The boy did learn to speak real words a little later, when he appeared in Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. Not only does Gerald utter the immortal words of Tiny Tim, “God bless us every one,” but he also sings. I wonder how Dr. Seuss felt about that.
There’s also a “Gerald McBoing Boing” Little Golden Book featuring the UPA artwork. On the cover it says: Based on the Academy Award winning motion picture by Dr. Suess.
Also, Gerald McBoing-Boing got his own animated show in 2005 on Cartoon Network’s Tickle U.
What a fascinating look back at Gerald McBoing-Boing! It’s amazing how a simple idea—a boy who communicates entirely through sound effects—sparked such innovation in animation. The creativity of UPA and the unique visual style really set it apart from anything else at the time.