Potrzebie
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
The Good Duck Artist unmasked
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By the time Carl Barks reached the age of 60, his identity was still unknown to the readers of Walt Disney Comics & Stories, even though his work had been published in that title since 1943. He was simply known as the Good Duck Artist to his readers.
However, in 1959, John and Bill Spicer wrote to Western Publishing and received an answer from editorial associate Zetta DeVoe who gave them Barks' name and address. They were unaware that movie memorabilia collector Malcolm Willits was also tracking Barks' identity that same year. Barks first heard from one of his readers in April 1960 when he received a letter from John Spicer. (See below.) In the summer of 1960, the Spicer brothers traveled to visit Barks at his home in San Jacinto, 75 miles east of LA.
A year later, Barks gave a printed salute, inserting the names "Spicer" and "Willits" into a panel in Walt Disney Comics & Stories #249 (June 1961). Meanwhile, because of their discovery and contact with the cartoonist, the name Carl Barks was becoming known throughout the land beyond Disneyland. And a few years later, Bill Spicer began publishing Graphic Story Magazine.
On April 11, 1960, John Spicer wrote the following to Carl Barks:
Believe it or not, I have been planning this letter for about four or five years. I have been kept from doing so for the simple reason that I knew not your name or address. I tried several times, however, but all were in vain. I recently moved from Los Angeles to a small burg on the Monterey Bay (Aptos). During this move I hit upon a somewhat unscrupulous scheme (to put it frankly, a big fat lie) for getting this information, and it worked!
Now you're probably wondering why I'm writing this letter. The reason is: I admire you, or better put, your work. Like most kids, I bought and read comic books when I was young (I'm 16 now). I started collecting comics about 1950 and I collected everything. Throughout the years, however, my collection has dwindled down to a point where it could be referred to as a collection of your works. I have every Uncle Scrooge ever printed, and all the Walt Disney's Comics from 1950. I also have W.D.C. in the years of '44, '45, '46, '47, '48, and '49, but they are not complete. All this plus several D. Ducks in the older years make up my collection.
If I may say so, you are the best comic book artist I've ever seen! Your work stands out among the rest. Your work employs art, imagination, and humor which brings the comic book to an intellectual level. I notice that a number of your stories are based on real history. Are you a historian, or something? I have checked up on many names, dates, and places in your stories (for example: Francisco de Ulloa and the Seven Cities of Cibola in 1539) and have found that they are usually true!
Have you ever lived in the Burbank-Glendale area? In many of your stories Burbank is mentioned. Come to think of it, though, in one of your later stories the 'Riverside County Relief' is pictured, and I think San Jacinto is in Riverside County?
Here are some questions: Have you been drawing W.D.C. since they began in 1940? When did Donald Duck Comics begin, and what years did you draw? Do you have complete collections of the previous mentioned? Do you have any you wish to sell, or know where I could get old issues? Have you done any art which has been published other than W.D.C., D. Duck, and Uncle Scrooge?
Well, this is about all I have to say. By the way, I have a brother who lived in Glendale and is somewhat of an artist himself. Like I, he enjoys your work. Also, he has an almost complete collection of old rare E.C. Horror, Science Fiction, etc. comic books, if that's any interest to you. It is possible that you might get a letter from him, I don't know. I would appreciate it if you wrote me, if only to answer my questions. Thank you...
Yours truly
John Spicer
Wary of a prank, Barks replied a few weeks later:
After eyeing your letter with dark suspicion for several weeks, I have decided to answer it on the assumption that it could be a genuine fan letter.
You see, I have a friend in Oceanside who just loves to play practical jokes, and writing phony letters to his chosen victims is one of his jokes. It so happens that your letter and his letters to his chosen victims seem to have been written on the same typewriter, there being a number of remarkable mechanical similarities. Also, the location of Aptos, only two putts of a jaguar from Carmel Valley, where Dennis the Menace's gang have their workshop, lends fuel to the suspicion. My friend writes gags for the daily and Sunday Dennis newspaper feature. His name is Bob Harmon, and if the name of John Spicer happened to fit one of the Dennis artists at Carmel Valley, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.
But, as I stated above, I'm going to write this letter on the assumption that John Spicer is a genuine, on-the-level young man with a better than average discerning eye for differences in art and writing styles. Ninety-nine readers out of a hundred think Walt Disney writes and draws all those movies and comic books between stints with his hammer and saw building Disneyland. It is a pleasure for us ghost writers and artists to meet an occasional sophisticated person who knows that he doesn't quite.
I might be justified in wondering how you know my stuff from the other guys' work, but I have met people before who know that difference, and not all of them professional comic bookers. I always try to write a story that I wouldn't mind buying myself. Maybe that is what distinguishes it from the writings of those who try only to get a story past the editors.
You ask some questions. I shall try to answer them:
The historical dates used in many stories are dug out of the Encyclopedia Britannica. I like to use long ago locals and gimmicks. They have a built-in reader interest, inasmuch as most young people study about them at some time of their school work.
Yes, I've lived in the Burbank-Glendale area. North Hollywood and Los Angeles, to be exact. Worked 7 years at Disney Studios in the story department. Was one of the mid-fathers at the birth of Huey, Louie, and Dewey, but not Donald. He was before my time. I've lived in San Jacinto, in Riverside County, since 1942. The climate is better here than in smoggy L.A.
W.D.C. used only reprints of newspaper comic strips in its first few years. Their first original stories using Donald Duck in 10-pagers began in 1943 I believe. The first one may have been the story of three crows trying to eat Donald's garden (April 1943). I did the drawing on that, but not the scripting. All but a few of the 10-pagers since that date have been my product, script and art.
Donald Duck Comics began as a one-shot in 1942 called Donald Duck finds Pirate Gold. I did part of the art on that one, but none of the writing. The second one was Donald Duck and the Mummy's Ring, in 1943 - all mine. The Donald Ducks appeared irregularly as one-shots until around 1950 or '51 when the book went on a regular publication of every second month. I did most of the art and stories during those early years. Some of the titles: Frozen Gold, Volcano Valley, Terror of the River, Ghost of the Grotto, Christmas on Bear Mountain (in which I invented Uncle Scrooge), The Old Castle's Secret, Sheriff of Bullet Valley, The Golden Christmas Tree, Lost in the Andes, Voodoo Hoodoo, Luck of the north, Ancient Persia, Pixilated Parrot, The Magic Hourglass, Big Top Bedlam, Dangerous Disguise, No Such Varmint, Land of the Totem Poles, In Old California, Christmas in Shacktown, The Golden Helmet, The Gilded Man.
You say you have all the Uncle Scrooges ever printed - good! Glad to meet a customer. There are some bad spots in some of those stories that I wish could have been done over. The climax fight in the recent 'Paul Bunyan' theme could have been improved with a half-page spread of Scrooge's and the B. Boys' giant machine hacking each other to pieces, but I was afraid the editors would delete such a scene as being too violent. The 'Larkies' in the story of The Golden Fleece had to be so named because the editors objected to Harpy, a 'Harpie' being a slang version of street walker.
I have done very little in art or writing that hasn't been for the Disney Studios or Western Printing and Litho.
Concerning extra copies of old W.D.C.s etc. I have only one copy each of most of the older issues. None for sale or trade at this time, I'm sorry. I sometimes meet a kid who has a collection going back to Adam. Next one I see, I'll give him your address, in case he is willing to trade.
Well, it was nice getting a fan letter. The front office tells me they get many letters, but over the past 17 years they have shown me only three. Two of which were pan letters that left me cringing for weeks. I suppose it's just as well I don't get much mail. Writing and drawing these comics is a full-time job 7 days a week. I would have little time to answer.
If in the future you notice a dropping off in quality of my stories, don't be surprised. The mind is not a bottomless well of new ideas, and mine is about pumped dry. Recently I have re-vitaminized some of my old plot formulas around new gimmicks or vice versa in a desperate effort to keep ahead of the deadlines. This mechanical formation of the stories may eventually supplant my old method of writing by inspiration. I will always keep striving, though, to come up with bright new plots, even though the characters and props comprise the same old stable of professors, pot-bellied cannons, voracious crocodiles, ill-tempered birds, animals, and strong-jawed women. The recent story of Uncle Scrooge among the asteroids was one of my better flashes of inspiration. I feel kind of good about that one.
I hope the stories you have read in the duck and Scrooge books have helped to give you a broader understanding of life, as well as entertainment. But I've tried to keep off the shop-worn cops and robbers kick that depraves so much of TV and other mediums these days. If more of my readers grow up to sit in the Senate chamber than to sit in the gas chamber, I'll have been richly rewarded for trying to turn out a good product.
Best wishes to you, Sir Fan!
Sincerely,
Carl Barks
A few months after the Spicer visit, Barks was visited by Joseph Cowles. See "Memories of Meeting the Master".
Walt Disney Comics & Stories #249 (June 1961)
By the time Carl Barks reached the age of 60, his identity was still unknown to the readers of Walt Disney Comics & Stories, even though his work had been published in that title since 1943. He was simply known as the Good Duck Artist to his readers.
A year later, Barks gave a printed salute, inserting the names "Spicer" and "Willits" into a panel in Walt Disney Comics & Stories #249 (June 1961). Meanwhile, because of their discovery and contact with the cartoonist, the name Carl Barks was becoming known throughout the land beyond Disneyland. And a few years later, Bill Spicer began publishing Graphic Story Magazine.
On April 11, 1960, John Spicer wrote the following to Carl Barks:
Believe it or not, I have been planning this letter for about four or five years. I have been kept from doing so for the simple reason that I knew not your name or address. I tried several times, however, but all were in vain. I recently moved from Los Angeles to a small burg on the Monterey Bay (Aptos). During this move I hit upon a somewhat unscrupulous scheme (to put it frankly, a big fat lie) for getting this information, and it worked!
If I may say so, you are the best comic book artist I've ever seen! Your work stands out among the rest. Your work employs art, imagination, and humor which brings the comic book to an intellectual level. I notice that a number of your stories are based on real history. Are you a historian, or something? I have checked up on many names, dates, and places in your stories (for example: Francisco de Ulloa and the Seven Cities of Cibola in 1539) and have found that they are usually true!
Have you ever lived in the Burbank-Glendale area? In many of your stories Burbank is mentioned. Come to think of it, though, in one of your later stories the 'Riverside County Relief' is pictured, and I think San Jacinto is in Riverside County?
Here are some questions: Have you been drawing W.D.C. since they began in 1940? When did Donald Duck Comics begin, and what years did you draw? Do you have complete collections of the previous mentioned? Do you have any you wish to sell, or know where I could get old issues? Have you done any art which has been published other than W.D.C., D. Duck, and Uncle Scrooge?
Well, this is about all I have to say. By the way, I have a brother who lived in Glendale and is somewhat of an artist himself. Like I, he enjoys your work. Also, he has an almost complete collection of old rare E.C. Horror, Science Fiction, etc. comic books, if that's any interest to you. It is possible that you might get a letter from him, I don't know. I would appreciate it if you wrote me, if only to answer my questions. Thank you...
Yours truly
John Spicer
Wary of a prank, Barks replied a few weeks later:
After eyeing your letter with dark suspicion for several weeks, I have decided to answer it on the assumption that it could be a genuine fan letter.
You see, I have a friend in Oceanside who just loves to play practical jokes, and writing phony letters to his chosen victims is one of his jokes. It so happens that your letter and his letters to his chosen victims seem to have been written on the same typewriter, there being a number of remarkable mechanical similarities. Also, the location of Aptos, only two putts of a jaguar from Carmel Valley, where Dennis the Menace's gang have their workshop, lends fuel to the suspicion. My friend writes gags for the daily and Sunday Dennis newspaper feature. His name is Bob Harmon, and if the name of John Spicer happened to fit one of the Dennis artists at Carmel Valley, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.
But, as I stated above, I'm going to write this letter on the assumption that John Spicer is a genuine, on-the-level young man with a better than average discerning eye for differences in art and writing styles. Ninety-nine readers out of a hundred think Walt Disney writes and draws all those movies and comic books between stints with his hammer and saw building Disneyland. It is a pleasure for us ghost writers and artists to meet an occasional sophisticated person who knows that he doesn't quite.
I might be justified in wondering how you know my stuff from the other guys' work, but I have met people before who know that difference, and not all of them professional comic bookers. I always try to write a story that I wouldn't mind buying myself. Maybe that is what distinguishes it from the writings of those who try only to get a story past the editors.
You ask some questions. I shall try to answer them:
The historical dates used in many stories are dug out of the Encyclopedia Britannica. I like to use long ago locals and gimmicks. They have a built-in reader interest, inasmuch as most young people study about them at some time of their school work.
Yes, I've lived in the Burbank-Glendale area. North Hollywood and Los Angeles, to be exact. Worked 7 years at Disney Studios in the story department. Was one of the mid-fathers at the birth of Huey, Louie, and Dewey, but not Donald. He was before my time. I've lived in San Jacinto, in Riverside County, since 1942. The climate is better here than in smoggy L.A.
W.D.C. used only reprints of newspaper comic strips in its first few years. Their first original stories using Donald Duck in 10-pagers began in 1943 I believe. The first one may have been the story of three crows trying to eat Donald's garden (April 1943). I did the drawing on that, but not the scripting. All but a few of the 10-pagers since that date have been my product, script and art.
Donald Duck Comics began as a one-shot in 1942 called Donald Duck finds Pirate Gold. I did part of the art on that one, but none of the writing. The second one was Donald Duck and the Mummy's Ring, in 1943 - all mine. The Donald Ducks appeared irregularly as one-shots until around 1950 or '51 when the book went on a regular publication of every second month. I did most of the art and stories during those early years. Some of the titles: Frozen Gold, Volcano Valley, Terror of the River, Ghost of the Grotto, Christmas on Bear Mountain (in which I invented Uncle Scrooge), The Old Castle's Secret, Sheriff of Bullet Valley, The Golden Christmas Tree, Lost in the Andes, Voodoo Hoodoo, Luck of the north, Ancient Persia, Pixilated Parrot, The Magic Hourglass, Big Top Bedlam, Dangerous Disguise, No Such Varmint, Land of the Totem Poles, In Old California, Christmas in Shacktown, The Golden Helmet, The Gilded Man.
You say you have all the Uncle Scrooges ever printed - good! Glad to meet a customer. There are some bad spots in some of those stories that I wish could have been done over. The climax fight in the recent 'Paul Bunyan' theme could have been improved with a half-page spread of Scrooge's and the B. Boys' giant machine hacking each other to pieces, but I was afraid the editors would delete such a scene as being too violent. The 'Larkies' in the story of The Golden Fleece had to be so named because the editors objected to Harpy, a 'Harpie' being a slang version of street walker.
I have done very little in art or writing that hasn't been for the Disney Studios or Western Printing and Litho.
Concerning extra copies of old W.D.C.s etc. I have only one copy each of most of the older issues. None for sale or trade at this time, I'm sorry. I sometimes meet a kid who has a collection going back to Adam. Next one I see, I'll give him your address, in case he is willing to trade.
Well, it was nice getting a fan letter. The front office tells me they get many letters, but over the past 17 years they have shown me only three. Two of which were pan letters that left me cringing for weeks. I suppose it's just as well I don't get much mail. Writing and drawing these comics is a full-time job 7 days a week. I would have little time to answer.
If in the future you notice a dropping off in quality of my stories, don't be surprised. The mind is not a bottomless well of new ideas, and mine is about pumped dry. Recently I have re-vitaminized some of my old plot formulas around new gimmicks or vice versa in a desperate effort to keep ahead of the deadlines. This mechanical formation of the stories may eventually supplant my old method of writing by inspiration. I will always keep striving, though, to come up with bright new plots, even though the characters and props comprise the same old stable of professors, pot-bellied cannons, voracious crocodiles, ill-tempered birds, animals, and strong-jawed women. The recent story of Uncle Scrooge among the asteroids was one of my better flashes of inspiration. I feel kind of good about that one.
I hope the stories you have read in the duck and Scrooge books have helped to give you a broader understanding of life, as well as entertainment. But I've tried to keep off the shop-worn cops and robbers kick that depraves so much of TV and other mediums these days. If more of my readers grow up to sit in the Senate chamber than to sit in the gas chamber, I'll have been richly rewarded for trying to turn out a good product.
Best wishes to you, Sir Fan!
Sincerely,
Carl Barks
A few months after the Spicer visit, Barks was visited by Joseph Cowles. See "Memories of Meeting the Master".
1940s magazine gag cartoons by Carl Barks
Labels: carl barks, disney, spicer, willits
¶ 11:51 AM 4 comments
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Under the Sea
In the summer of 1979, I signed on as the film columnist for Heavy Metal, then edited by Ted White. Ted wanted to use an unusual title on the column, something different from the familiar words associated with films and filming. After some thought, I coined the word Flix, which I had never seen in print anywhere. Ted introduced the magazine's new quartet of columns (on music, film, sf, underground comics) in the January 1980 issue.
The column installment below, based on my interview with the Disney artist Nino Carbe (1909-1993), was published in the April 1980 issue. As you'll see if you read it, I chose an enigma-wrapped-in-a-riddle approach with more than a few convoluted Cornell Woolrich-styled twists. As the deadline neared, just when I completed that column, an envelope arrived from Carbe with a color transparency of his beautiful 1944 Little Mermaid painting. (As noted on the DVD of Disney's The Little Mermaid, Disney first began pre-production art on this in the late 1930s.)
I passed the transparency on to John Workman, the Heavy Metal art director. When I received the printed magazine, I was stunned to see that Workman had destroyed Carbe's magnificent painting by chopping it in half and running it on two facing pages. If anyone wanted to clip it, they could not. It could have looked spectacular if displayed large on a single page. Using Photoshop, I've joined the two halves together so it can at last be seen correctly and at a large size.
I once wondered if Disney executives in the 1980s were prompted to locate the long-ago forgotten 1930s project after seeing Carbe's painting in the April 1980 issue of Heavy Metal. The official story is that after The Little Mermaid went into production in 1985, the Disney staff accidentally found Kay Nielsen's visual development materials for the earlier proposed film.
The huge success in 1989 of The Little Mermaid may have saved Disney from going bankrupt. The thought persists that Nino Carbe's Little Mermaid bubbled to the surface just when Disney was sinking. Something to ponder. Note that Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) began when an executive remembered reading the 1940s Classics Illustrated adaptation and brought a copy of the comic book into a meeting.
To see Carbe's paintings, illustrations and costume designs, go to Nino Carbe.
Carbe also did backgrounds for Clair de Lune, the segment which was deleted from Fantasia (1940). It was re-edited and re-scored as the Blue Bayou segment in Make Mine Music (1946). When a workprint of the original Clair de Lune was discovered, it was restored and released as a Disney short subject (1996).
©2010 Nino Carbe
The column installment below, based on my interview with the Disney artist Nino Carbe (1909-1993), was published in the April 1980 issue. As you'll see if you read it, I chose an enigma-wrapped-in-a-riddle approach with more than a few convoluted Cornell Woolrich-styled twists. As the deadline neared, just when I completed that column, an envelope arrived from Carbe with a color transparency of his beautiful 1944 Little Mermaid painting. (As noted on the DVD of Disney's The Little Mermaid, Disney first began pre-production art on this in the late 1930s.)
I passed the transparency on to John Workman, the Heavy Metal art director. When I received the printed magazine, I was stunned to see that Workman had destroyed Carbe's magnificent painting by chopping it in half and running it on two facing pages. If anyone wanted to clip it, they could not. It could have looked spectacular if displayed large on a single page. Using Photoshop, I've joined the two halves together so it can at last be seen correctly and at a large size.
I once wondered if Disney executives in the 1980s were prompted to locate the long-ago forgotten 1930s project after seeing Carbe's painting in the April 1980 issue of Heavy Metal. The official story is that after The Little Mermaid went into production in 1985, the Disney staff accidentally found Kay Nielsen's visual development materials for the earlier proposed film.
The huge success in 1989 of The Little Mermaid may have saved Disney from going bankrupt. The thought persists that Nino Carbe's Little Mermaid bubbled to the surface just when Disney was sinking. Something to ponder. Note that Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) began when an executive remembered reading the 1940s Classics Illustrated adaptation and brought a copy of the comic book into a meeting.
To see Carbe's paintings, illustrations and costume designs, go to Nino Carbe.
Carbe also did backgrounds for Clair de Lune, the segment which was deleted from Fantasia (1940). It was re-edited and re-scored as the Blue Bayou segment in Make Mine Music (1946). When a workprint of the original Clair de Lune was discovered, it was restored and released as a Disney short subject (1996).
Labels: disney, heavy metal, nino carbe, ted white
¶ 5:51 PM 0 comments
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wood Chips 20: Hansel and Gretel
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There were only two issues of Harvey Kurtzman's Trump, and Wood had only three contributions, short satires on Candid Camera, Elvis Presley and Disney. Hansel and Gretel is from the first issue (January, 1957), scripted by cartoonist Ed Fisher. The trapper Troldheim is a caricature of Senator Joseph McCarthy, with the Troldheim name suggesting he is a menacing troll lying in wait to ensnare anyone.
There were only two issues of Harvey Kurtzman's Trump, and Wood had only three contributions, short satires on Candid Camera, Elvis Presley and Disney. Hansel and Gretel is from the first issue (January, 1957), scripted by cartoonist Ed Fisher. The trapper Troldheim is a caricature of Senator Joseph McCarthy, with the Troldheim name suggesting he is a menacing troll lying in wait to ensnare anyone.
Labels: disney, ed fisher, gretel, hansel, kurtzman, trump, wood, wood chips
¶ 8:37 AM 1 comments
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Mickey at the microphone
In 1938, Walt Disney had his own NBC musical variety radio series, The Mickey Mouse Theater of the Air. Sponsored by Pepsodent with a weekly budget of $10,000 to $12,000, it was broadcast from the Disney Little Theater on the RKO lot, airing on Sunday afternoons from January 2 to May 21, 1938. Disney was both the host and the voice of Mickey Mouse, along with Donald Duck (Clarence Nash), Goofy (Stuart Buchanan), Clarabelle Cow (Florence Gill) and Minnie Mouse (Thelma Boardman). Scripted by comedy writer Bill Demling and radio actor Eddie Holden, the series also featured Old King Cole (Billy Bletcher), Clara Cluck (Florence Gill) and other Disney characters. Others heard on the series were Mel Blanc and Walter Tetley (later famed as nephew Leroy on The Great Gildersleeve and grocery boy Julius on The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show).
The opening theme was "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?", and the Felix Mills Orchestra (with 33 musicians) supplied the music. Also heard was Donald Duck's Swing Band and Donald Duck's Webfoot Sextet (with cowbells, bottles, a car horn and a meat grinder creating Spike Jones-like effects), plus a 12-voice female choir (with four members who supplied the whistling for Minnie Mouse's Woodland Bird Choir) and an eight-voice male choir. John Hiestan was the announcer. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs opened February 4, 1938, and this radio series was created to promote the film. So after the debut "Robin Hood" episode, "Snow White Day" was heard January 9. The 20 episodes included "Ancient China," "Sleeping Beauty," "Who Killed Cock Robin?" and "William Tell".
Click below to hear seven episodes, beginning with ''Snow White", followed by "Mother Goose Land," "Cinderella," "King Neptune" (with Bea Benaderet as Miriam the Mermaid), "The Pied Piper" (with Hans Conried), "The Old Woman in the Shoe" and "Old MacDonald" (with Cliff Arquette in the title role and Mel Blanc as the hiccuping farmer's daughter). From the fourth episode on, the voice of Mickey was not Disney but was supplied by comedian Joe Twerp. And when Walt was too busy to host, he was impersonated by announcer Hiestan!
http://archive.org/details/MickeyMouseTheateroftheAir
When I was a child, I regularly bought three magazines, Dell's 1000 Jokes (edited by Bill Yates), Radio Mirror (which later became Radio and Television Mirror and then TV Radio Mirror) and Radio Best (in a large bedsheet size, as I recall). In the 1920s, MacFadden published Radio Stories. During the 1930s, listeners could choose between Radioland, Radio Mirror, Radio Guide and Radio Stars. The Radio Mirror at top is the April 1938 issue. The Radio Best here is dated April 1948.
The monthly radio magazines made it possible to see what the radio performers looked like. But their program listings were frustrating because the magazines went to the printer so far in advance, they could not list specific episodes. General listings in magazines just could not compare with the daily newspaper radio listings, and some newspapers ran entire pages about radio with photos, columns, features and extensive listings.
Because Walter Annenberg published newspapers, he was aware that daily radio logs brought many readers, so in the early 1940s he did publish a weekly, Movie-Radio Guide, with a 21-page program guide (just titles, but it did give playlists on some classical music programs). It even included a short wave page with "War News in English" (times and stations in Mexico City, Berlin and many other cities) and "Programs for Our Troops Overseas". ("Clip out this column and send it to a soldier friend abroad.") By early 1943, he gave it up and went to a monthly schedule, but a decade later, this weekly magazine became the forerunner of TV Guide, which Annenberg started in 1953.
The opening theme was "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?", and the Felix Mills Orchestra (with 33 musicians) supplied the music. Also heard was Donald Duck's Swing Band and Donald Duck's Webfoot Sextet (with cowbells, bottles, a car horn and a meat grinder creating Spike Jones-like effects), plus a 12-voice female choir (with four members who supplied the whistling for Minnie Mouse's Woodland Bird Choir) and an eight-voice male choir. John Hiestan was the announcer. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs opened February 4, 1938, and this radio series was created to promote the film. So after the debut "Robin Hood" episode, "Snow White Day" was heard January 9. The 20 episodes included "Ancient China," "Sleeping Beauty," "Who Killed Cock Robin?" and "William Tell".
Click below to hear seven episodes, beginning with ''Snow White", followed by "Mother Goose Land," "Cinderella," "King Neptune" (with Bea Benaderet as Miriam the Mermaid), "The Pied Piper" (with Hans Conried), "The Old Woman in the Shoe" and "Old MacDonald" (with Cliff Arquette in the title role and Mel Blanc as the hiccuping farmer's daughter). From the fourth episode on, the voice of Mickey was not Disney but was supplied by comedian Joe Twerp. And when Walt was too busy to host, he was impersonated by announcer Hiestan!
http://archive.org/details/MickeyMouseTheateroftheAir
When I was a child, I regularly bought three magazines, Dell's 1000 Jokes (edited by Bill Yates), Radio Mirror (which later became Radio and Television Mirror and then TV Radio Mirror) and Radio Best (in a large bedsheet size, as I recall). In the 1920s, MacFadden published Radio Stories. During the 1930s, listeners could choose between Radioland, Radio Mirror, Radio Guide and Radio Stars. The Radio Mirror at top is the April 1938 issue. The Radio Best here is dated April 1948.
Because Walter Annenberg published newspapers, he was aware that daily radio logs brought many readers, so in the early 1940s he did publish a weekly, Movie-Radio Guide, with a 21-page program guide (just titles, but it did give playlists on some classical music programs). It even included a short wave page with "War News in English" (times and stations in Mexico City, Berlin and many other cities) and "Programs for Our Troops Overseas". ("Clip out this column and send it to a soldier friend abroad.") By early 1943, he gave it up and went to a monthly schedule, but a decade later, this weekly magazine became the forerunner of TV Guide, which Annenberg started in 1953.
Labels: clarence nash, disney, radio, radio best, radio mirror
¶ 6:55 AM 0 comments
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Snow White: The Sequel
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This is the first installment of the eight-part Snow White: The Sequel (2007), a feature by Picha (Jean-Paul Walravens), who made Tarzoon: Shame of the Jungle. Unreleased in the USA, this co-production (France, Belgium, Poland, UK) is narrated by Stephen Fry. The English dialogue was scripted by Tony Hendra (Lemmings, Spitting Image, National Lampoon, Spy). Sally Ann Marsh is the voice of Snow White, and British comedian Rik Mayall provides voices for the Seven Dwarves. The singing voice is Anaïs. Go to YouTube for all eight sections.
If you liked the Wally Wood/Paul Krassner Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster, then perhaps you'll find Picha's film amusing. Here's the Twitchfilm review.
This is the first installment of the eight-part Snow White: The Sequel (2007), a feature by Picha (Jean-Paul Walravens), who made Tarzoon: Shame of the Jungle. Unreleased in the USA, this co-production (France, Belgium, Poland, UK) is narrated by Stephen Fry. The English dialogue was scripted by Tony Hendra (Lemmings, Spitting Image, National Lampoon, Spy). Sally Ann Marsh is the voice of Snow White, and British comedian Rik Mayall provides voices for the Seven Dwarves. The singing voice is Anaïs. Go to YouTube for all eight sections.
If you liked the Wally Wood/Paul Krassner Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster, then perhaps you'll find Picha's film amusing. Here's the Twitchfilm review.
Labels: anais, disney, picha, snow white, stephen fry, tony hendra
¶ 4:28 PM 0 comments
Thursday, November 06, 2008
SIGGRAPH 2007-08
Control click heading above to hear The Mickey Mouse Theater of the Air as broadcast March 13, 1938 on NBC. Walt Disney was the voice of Mickey.
Here is Alejandro Meludis' The Moving Eye, created for a Mexican arts festival and shown at SIGGRAPH 2007.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), founded in 1947, did its first computer graphics conference in 1974 in Boulder. Known as SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques), these conferences are held annually in different major U.S. cities, and this year SIGGRAPH branches off with an additional conference outside the U.S.
Above is a preview of the first SIGGRAPH Asia Computer Animation Festival upcoming in Singapore on December 10-13. An international display of state-of-the-art animation, it features animated shorts, visual effects, interactive CG art, scientific visualization, machinima, games, real-time graphics, lectures, studio presentations, panel discussion and an awards presentation. For better resolution on the preview trailer, go here.
SIGGRAPH 2008 was last August in Los Angeles. Here's the Maxon demo reel shown at that fest:
Here is Alejandro Meludis' The Moving Eye, created for a Mexican arts festival and shown at SIGGRAPH 2007.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), founded in 1947, did its first computer graphics conference in 1974 in Boulder. Known as SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques), these conferences are held annually in different major U.S. cities, and this year SIGGRAPH branches off with an additional conference outside the U.S.
Above is a preview of the first SIGGRAPH Asia Computer Animation Festival upcoming in Singapore on December 10-13. An international display of state-of-the-art animation, it features animated shorts, visual effects, interactive CG art, scientific visualization, machinima, games, real-time graphics, lectures, studio presentations, panel discussion and an awards presentation. For better resolution on the preview trailer, go here.
SIGGRAPH 2008 was last August in Los Angeles. Here's the Maxon demo reel shown at that fest:
Labels: acm, animation, asia, cgi, disney, maxon, meludis, mexico, mickey mouse, siggraph, singapore
¶ 8:10 AM 0 comments
Thursday, March 15, 2007
