The Animated Universal Classic Monsters

PROLOGUE

It might be instructive to note here how this book was assembled, i.e. why were some cartoons included and others not? First, a few ground rules:

1. No differently-named parodies. (Sorry Count Duckula/not sorry.) Diminutives, such as Drac, Wolfie, Frank, Frankie, or Franken will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Frankie Stein, Frank N. Stein, and Frank Enstein, e.g., will not.

2. Nothing featuring only monsters’ relatives or pets (Sorry Frankenstein Jr./not sorry; sorry Catula/not sorry.)

3. No robots, including, especially, Frankenstein’s Monster. Monsters must be in the flesh. (Sorry Bosko’s Mechanical Man/not sorry.) Presumably, in some cartoons for kids, the idea of a Frankenstein that is cobbled together from dead body parts is considered unsavory, hence the frequency of robotic monsters.

4. No mere references without an actual appearance by an animated monster.

5. Artistic depictions of the monsters within cartoons, e.g. drawings, paintings, or sculptures, are included (still pictures are OK as long as they are not photos, but live action film is not); as are characters dressed as the monsters (e.g. for Halloween or a masquerade party.)

6. Any of the above rules may be broken by the author.

My definition of the monsters comes from Universal itself. There are seven major monsters who are featured in the studio’s massive boxed set, Universal Classic Monsters: Complete 30-Film Collection (2018), although there are actually a total of nineteen monsters in the movies. We consider about a dozen of them. (Unlike the politically incorrect contemporaneous advertising for the films, we do not consider human beings to be monsters just because they suffer from mental illness or kyphosis.)

Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Invisible Man (1933), and Phantom of the Opera (1943) are all based on novels which have by now passed into the public domain, so anyone may use the characters (although Universal still controls some aspects, as we shall see). Adaptations of these that derive from the original novels, or another source, such as video games, are not examined here. The Mummy (1932), The Wolf Man (1941), and Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) have no direct literary source or textual basis. These properties are trademarked by Universal, and trademarks are forever, unlike copyright, which expires eventually, at least in theory. This means filmmakers must either get permission from Universal to use these characters or go through often elaborate machinations to avoid infringement.

Animated Draculas considered herein are mostly based on Bela Lugosi’s performance of the character, albeit in many instances loosely and several generations removed. A few, especially in anime, may be caricatures of John Carradine. Traditionally, Dracula wears evening dress, a black cape with a red lining, and a medallion around his neck. Sometimes Dracula’s skin is green, or blue, or purple. That’s fine. Some have facial hair. OK. Some Draculas no longer drink blood from people’s veins, they drink plasma or tomato juice or whatever. That’s all right, too. We don’t deal herein with parodies of Gary Oldman’s Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). Sons of Dracula (Alucards) would have been reviewed had they been based on the Lon Chaney Jr. model, but I didn’t find any.

A brief digression here: Why do so many Dracula imitators, both animated and live action, say, Bleh (or Blah or Bluh)? This is something Bela Lugosi never did, at least not as Dracula. Some who have apparently never seen the movie claim Lugosi said it in Vampire Over London (1957) as a mispronunciation of blood. However, a viewing proves that Lugosi never utters the word at all, and that he doesn’t even play a real vampire, he is a criminal dba The Vampire.

The movie was re-released as My Son the Vampire (1964), with a title track by Allan Sherman. When Sherman screams, Blood! it does, indeed, sound like Bleh! However, this is not the earliest instance of the usage.

Lenny Bruce is sometimes credited with first saying it, again, by people who have probably never listened to him. In a recording of his bit Enchanting Transylvania, circa 1962, he says to his son, All right, shut up and drink your blood. He nails the pronunciation of blood and sticks his landing on the d sound. However, intriguingly, when he enters, he says, Permit me to introduce myself. Then he makes a sound with his tongue that might be transcribed as, Buddaluddaluddalum. Bruce’s acquaintance and fellow standup comic Adam Keefe may have beaten him to the punch. As early as 1961, Keefe was on television imitating Lugosi saying, Allow me to introduce myself. Bluh! In the ferment that was standup comedy in New York City in the late 50s-early 60s, comedians sometimes borrowed from each other. Both Bruce and Keefe were notorious for this.

They were also preceded by Gabe Dell, the former Dead End Kid who graduated to become part of the stock company on several shows hosted by Steve Allen. Dell performed his Dracula/Lugosi imitation several times. In an unidentified clip, he rises from his coffin and says, What a wonderful day’s sleep! Now for a little breakfast! I will go into the village, capture an unsuspecting victim, bite him on the neck, and drink his bluh! These Gabe Dell sketches are the earliest known instances of this usage. Dozens (thousands?) of hacky comics and cartoon voice actors have followed.

Frankenstein’s Monster, AKA Frankenstein, the Creature, and many other names, will be called Frankenstein’s Monster by this author as a default. Sometimes in cartoons, he is not named at all, but we can extrapolate that it is he. As stated above, he must be flesh (and in this case, also blood). Monsters are based on the Boris Karloff or Glenn Strange model. (I don’t know of any animated Frankenstein’s Monsters that imitate Bela Lugosi or Lon Chaney.) Some traits that are original to the Universal portrayal are looked for here. Electrodes (not bolts) are allowed, nay, encouraged, but not required. If they are on the neck, so much the better, but anywhere is fine. Flat head and green skin likewise. Some Monsters are pink or blue or purple. That’s okay. A common joke in these cartoons is that body parts drop off of the Monster. Some speak in perfect British stage speech, like Karloff did in real life (and probably close to the way Mary Shelley wrote it), others speak in grunts and groans, as Karloff originally played the role. Many are animated walking with their hands in front of them. This was not something Karloff did, this was a specialty of Glenn Strange (although Chaney did it originally and Lugosi followed), who succeeded him in the role and was trained by Karloff. Since it seems highly unlikely anyone will ever write The Animated Boris Karloff—certainly not I—his Kar-toon caricatures out of makeup, or sometimes half in makeup, not in support of any other monster, as in Porky’s Road Race (1937), are included here. Bela Lugosi and Glenn Strange would be afforded the same courtesy if there were any toons of them in mufti. Vincent Price, the second Invisible Man, is included herein.

Another brief digression: Many parodies of Dracula and Dr. Frankenstein, animated and live action, are accompanied by a henchman. He is frequently hunchbacked, often named Igor, and sometimes talks (and giggles insanely) like Peter Lorre. Dracula had Renfield, who was not hunchbacked and didn’t talk like Peter Lorre. Frankenstein had Fritz in the original film, a hunchback who did not talk like Peter Lorre. In fact, both roles were played by Dwight Frye, who would go on to play similar roles in four more Universal Frankenstein films (he was cut from two of them). In some of the later Frankenstein movies, there is a character named Ygor, but he is disfigured from a botched hanging, not Scheuermann’s disease, and he doesn’t sound like Peter Lorre, but Bela Lugosi, who, in fact, plays him. There are other hunchbacks in the series, none of them named Igor or personated by Lorre. The idea people have of Peter Lorre as Igor in Universal movies seems to be an example of the Mandela effect, a collective false memory. It is unclear how it began, but the answer, once again, probably lies with hacky comics. I am without a question of a doubt the most imitated man in night clubs, Lorre once said. It isn’t difficult to imagine a comedian riffing on Frankenstein one night and using the Lorre voice for an easy laugh, then being imitated by fellow standups and voice actors ad infinitum.

The Invisible Man is rarely seen in cartoons, but when he is, he usually wears bandages, sunglasses, and/or clothing. Not all men who are invisible are THE Invisible Man, and although any called Griffin get extra points, we are not that concerned with the names because even in the original series, there were five different ones (two of which, including the Invisible Agent, were played by the same actor, Jon Hall; and one of which was a woman.) Character voices range from the sublime (Sydney Greenstreet) to the ridiculous (Hugh Herbert), few if any vocally imitate Claude Rains (or Vincent Price or Jon Hall or Arthur Franz). Unlike the first two books in this series, we are more concerned with the movies and less with celebrity voice imitation (although we will obsess on that, too, where apropos).

Similarly, although there are a few cartoon nods to Phantom of the Opera (1943), no one does Rains. Spooks (1930), an Oswald the Rabbit cartoon from Universal itself, more or less directly parodies Lon Chaney Sr. in the original film of Phantom of the Opera (1925), which is not included in the boxed set, even as an Easter egg. This is somewhat surprising, since the black and white silent not only was one of the first Universal monster movies, it is better known and more highly regarded than the remake in color with sound. The Oswald cartoon was likely a reaction to the popularity of the 1930 reissue of the original with a new synchronized score and effects track, as well as new dialogue sequences and scenes in color. The re-release grossed a million dollars and directly spawned the movies in the boxed set. Chaney père as the Phantom makes animated appearances in other movies we discuss here anyway because they include one or more of our other subjects.

The Mummy made his debut in 1932. Mummies are as ubiquitous in cartoons as hunchbacks named Igor, but it is THE Mummy, AKA Imhotep or HoTep or Ardeth Bey or Kharis (or Klaris, but I didn’t find any Klar-toons), that concerns us here. Some voice actors imitate Karloff, some don’t, and sometimes he is not identified for legal reasons. We don’t discuss cartoons or games associated with the remakes. Unlike the movies, mummies in cartoons often use their bandages as ropes.

Similarly, werewolves are omnipresent in animation as bulldogs named Spike, but we are interested in THE Wolf Man, AKA Wolfman or Wolf-Man or Talbot but sometimes anonymous or pseudonymous. Again, no remake need apply. Cartoon Wolf Men often have the pricked ears and the long snouts of actual wolves and an anthropoidal, if very hairy, body. They also frequently exhibit powers that Lon Chaney (son of the original Phantom) never had, like super speed, strength, and agility; and they sometimes eat ravenously.

Gill-men, like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, are not as common in toons as lycanthropes or embalmed Egyptians, but are not infrequently seen, and less frequently name checked. The default reference here is Gill-Man to avoid confusion with Frankenstein’s Monster/ Creature. Most of the unidentified mummies, werewolves, and gill-men herein appear in tandem with another name-brand monster and so are included anyway.

I have tried to keep naming conventions consistent within each entry, e.g. if a monster in a certain cartoon is referred to as Frankenstein or Wolfie or Gillman, he is usually called that all the way through.

The Elsa Lanchester character in Bride of Frankenstein (1935) is a special case. Although she is not one of the Big Seven, I have included her solo cartoon appearances not in support of another monster. Famous for her tall, teased, knotted-looking hair with white streaks, she will be referred to hereafter as the Bride. She is no more the Bride of Frankenstein than the Monster is Frankenstein. The bride of Frankenstein is Elizabeth (Valerie Hobson in the sequel, Mae Clarke in the original). Other monsters in this book include (maybe) Henry Hull’s Werewolf of London (1935); Lugosi’s eponymous werewolf, Bela, from The Wolf Man (1940); and perhaps The Invisible Woman (1940).

1 THEATRICAL UNI-TOONS

. . . . . . . . .

Mickey’s Gala Premier (July 1, 1933)

Walt Disney Productions. Director: Burt Gillett. Character Design: Joe Grant. Producer: Walt Disney. Cast: Walt Disney (Mickey Mouse), Marcellite Garner (Minnie Mouse), Jerry Lester (Maurice Chevalier/ Ed Wynn/Jimmy Durante/Eddie Cantor).

. . . it was all started by a mouse. - Walt Disney

AFTER SERVING AS an ambulance driver in post-World War I France, Walt Disney returned to Kansas City, where he worked as an apprentice artist at the Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio and met fellow artist Ub Iwerks. Later, he founded Laugh-O-gram Films with Fred Harman, and hired Ub Iwerks, Rudolf Ising; and Fred’s brother, Hugh. Disney had a tame mouse at his desk, and Hugh Harman drew some sketches of mice around a photograph of Disney. In 1923, the studio went into bankruptcy, after Disney had moved to Hollywood, where his Alice Comedies ended up being distributed by Charles Mintz.

Disney created the animated character of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (qv) for Mintz, who distributed the character through Universal Studios. In spring 1928, he asked for a budget increase. Although the character was doing well, Mintz insisted Disney take a 20% budget cut, reminding him that Universal owned the character, and informing Disney that Mintz had already signed most of Disney’s employees, including Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and Robert McKimson, but not Ub Iwerks, to a new contract. Disney produced the shorts he contractually owed Mintz, and vowed to never again create a character to which he did not own the rights.

At his new studio, Walt Disney asked Iwerks to come up with a funny animal character. Iwerks drew a horse and a cow (these later became Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow), dogs and cats, and a frog. The origin of Mickey Mouse is unclear, although it is known that Iwerks initially drew him for Walt, perhaps inspired by Harman’s sketches from the Laugh-O-gram days. He was first named Mortimer until Disney’s wife, Lillian, persuaded Disney to change it. The character made two false starts before his official debut in Steamboat Willie (1928). Walt Disney originally voiced the character. Mickey Mouse spawned a spate of imitators, but none of them ever eclipsed his star power, and few if any are going strong today.

Joe Grant was a caricaturist at the Los Angeles Record, where he was discovered by Disney and brought to this project. He became supervisor of the Character Model Department. Animated cartoons containing celebrity caricatures are almost as old as film itself. Felix the Cat, the first animated star, was the first to interact with caricatures of movie stars in Felix in Hollywood (1923). The same characters tended to appear over and over again in these shorts. Some are still famous, like Greta Garbo, much mocked for supposedly having big feet. Others are virtually unknown today, although they represented certain archetypes: Hugh Herbert was a giggly nut who said, Hoo hoo, Ned Sparks was an old grouch, Edna May Oliver was a spinster. I wonder if it ever crossed the minds of these stars of yesteryear that many would remain alive in the public consciousness through the cartoons they were caricatured in.

Animation expert Michael Barrier says, It’s, I’m sure, hard to grasp how popular celebrity caricatures were in the 1930s. They were everywhere. Magazines and newspapers ran page after page of them. People like Miguel Covarrubias and Al Hirschfeld were very popular then, and, of course, Hirschfeld did that for many years.

At Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, all the stars are out. The Keystone Kops (Ben Turpin, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, Harry Langdon, and Chester Conklin) sing the title song. Wallace Beery arrives with Marie Dressler. Lionel Barrymore (as Rasputin) shows up with brother John and sister Ethel. Laurel and Hardy are there, as are the Marx Brothers. Maurice Chevalier sings, as do Eddie Cantor, dressed as The Kid from Spain (1932); Jimmy Durante; an unlikely trio of Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, and Bette Davis; and an even less likely quartet of Harold Lloyd, Clark Gable, Adolphe Menjou, and Edward G. Robinson. Sid Grauman tears tickets from George Arliss, Joe E. Brown, and Buster Keaton, while Charlie Chaplin crawls past without a ticket. A morbidly obese Groucho Marx waddles up, and Sid asks him how he is. Chico, Zeppo, and Harpo Marx pop out of Groucho’s jacket, answering, Oh we’re fine, even the mute Harpo, and they scatter. Mae West tells Sid, Come up and see me sometime. Sid melts. Finally, Mickey rolls up with his crew: his girlfriend Minnie, his dog Pluto, Horace, and Clarabelle.

The show begins, Galloping Romance. In the cartoon-within-the-cartoon, Mickey is playing on his wheeled xylophone while Minnie tickles the ivories. She is mousenapped by Mickey’s feline arch-nemesis, Peg-Leg Pete, who escapes on horseback. Mickey gives chase on his marimba, then by turtle, five-legged mollusk (pentapus), and finally kangaroo. He dispatches Pete with cannon shot and rescues Minnie.

In the audience, Bela Lugosi as Dracula, Fredric March as Mr. Hyde, and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster laugh it up demonically. Oddly, Joe Grant seems to have modeled Karloff ’s look on an unused pre-production test shot by makeup artist Jack Pierce. The monster has fleshy folds on his forehead held by semi-circular clamps. Grant has replaced the clamps with safety pins and attached retractile cords to his electrodes.

Will Rogers pulls Mickey onstage with his lasso. The audience, which has inexplicably found this to be the funniest film of all time, congratulates Mickey. Greta Garbo showers him with kisses. Mickey wakes up to find he is actually being licked by Pluto!

Other celebrities caricatured include Helen Hayes, Joan Crawford, Edward G. Robinson, Ed Wynn, Wheeler & Woolsey, Douglas Fairbanks, John Gilbert, Rudy Vallee, William Powell, Will Hays, Janet Gaynor, Constance Bennett, Gloria Swanson, Marlene Dietrich, Warner Baxter, Chester Morris, and Walt Disney.

FUN FACTS: Mickey’s Gala Premier was the last show on the BBC Television Service before it stopped broadcasting on September 1, 1939, two days before the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. It was shown in its entirety. It was thought that the VHF signal from the broadcast would serve as a homing beacon for the enemy planes closing in on London. On June 7, 1946, the BBC resumed broadcasting with Mickey’s Gala Premier. The story that the 1939 broadcast was interrupted and the 1946 broadcast picked up where the first left off is an urban legend. The continuity announcer, Jasmine Bligh, introduced the cartoon by saying, Now then, as we were saying before we were so rudely interrupted.

Reedited and released for home exhibitions under the title Movie Star Mickey (1933). New animation is included in Galloping Romance. Galloping Romance has never been available as a stand-alone cartoon.

Some sources (including the DVD menu for Mickey Mouse in Black and White [2002]) would have it Mickey’s Gala Premiere, but the actual title card lacks the final e.

AVAILABILITY: On the DVD boxed set Mickey Mouse in Black and White (2002).

A Mad House (March 23, 1934)

Terrytoons. Directors: Frank Moser, Paul Terry. Writer: Paul Terry.

What ultimately became Universal Pictures was founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle and others to make program pictures for rural audiences, with an occasional prestige picture, such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1913). Laemmle made his secretary, Irving Thalberg, head of the studio when Thalberg was 21. In 1923, Thalberg produced The Hunchback of Notre Dame, with Lon Chaney using his mastery of makeup to create the first unforgettable Universal Monster. This was to be followed up by The Man Who Laughs, with Chaney as Gwynplaine, but the rights to Hugo’s novel were unavailable. Chaney was allowed to name his replacement film, and he chose The Phantom of the Opera (1925), which set the template forever to be used in Universal horror. As we have seen, the rerelease in 1930 with color and sound revived interest in horror movies. Lon Chaney also did many macabre pictures directed by Tod Browning, including London After Midnight (1927). The studio hoped Browning would direct the sound film of Dracula, despite the fact that the studio’s readers said no audience could stand it.

Dracula, the novel by Bram Stoker, was filmed as a silent movie, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922) by F.W. Murnau in an unofficial and unauthorized adaptation. Murnau changed many details of the novel, but the Bram Stoker estate sued on behalf of his widow, Florence, and won. The studio, Prana Film, went into bankruptcy and was ordered to destroy all prints of this, its only picture. (A few copies escaped this fate.)

To fund her legal battle and protect the copyright, Florence Stoker commissioned a stage adaptation of the book by Hamilton Deane, which toured for three years before settling into a London run in 1927. Deane had originally planned to take the title role, but instead he played Van Helsing. When the play crossed the Atlantic and opened on Broadway in 1927, Dracula starred a then-unknown Hungarian actor named Bela Lugosi. It ran for a year on Broadway and two more on tour, breaking all previous records for any show put on tour in the United States. Horace Liveright, the producer, retained journalist/playwright John L. Balderston to adapt the script for the American stage. Deane, who played the title role in Peggy Webling’s dramatization of Frankenstein, hired Balderston to adapt that for the American theater. This was never produced onstage, but the rights were bought by Universal Pictures and James Whale used it as the basis for his 1931 picture of the same name. Balderston also wrote a script for Whale’s The Invisible Man (1933) which was not used.

In 1929, Carl Laemmle gave the studio to his son, Carl Jr., as a 21st birthday present. Junior, raised on German folklore, wanted to film Dracula. Carl Sr. refused unless he cast Chaney in the title role. Chaney, however, was terminally ill with lung cancer, and died in 1930. Junior considered other actors, including Ian Keith, before screen testing Lugosi, who settled for a salary one quarter that of David Manners, the actor that played Jonathan Harker. The movie’s success helped give Universal its only profitable year during the Great Depression.

Lugosi then rejected the role of the monster in Frankenstein (1931), which at that time was to be directed by Robert Florey, clearing the way for Boris Karloff to play the part. He made his bones in Hollywood with the movie, although the scene where he drowns the little girl, Maria, in the lake was censored at the time. He would limn the role two more times, in Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939). He replaced Bela Lugosi in Cagliostro, which Balderston, a former journalist who had covered the opening of King Tut’s tomb, turned into The Mummy (1932).

In 1933, James Whale finally made The Invisible Man with a script by R.C. Sherriff, starring Claude Rains. In a famous blooper from this movie, the naked Invisible Man steps into the snow, leaving an imprint of a shoe. Rains would go on to play the title role in the remake of Chaney’s The Phantom of the Opera (1943), making him and Karloff the only actors to originate two Universal Classic Monster roles. (Lon Chaney Jr. lobbied for the role his father originated, but he didn’t get it.) Terrytoons (originally spelled Terry-Toons, sometimes spelled Terry-Toons), located in the K Building in downtown New Rochelle, NY, produced theatrical animated cartoons from 1930 to 1971. Founder Paul Terry said, Disney is the Tiffany’s in this business, and I am the Wool-worth’s.

In 1932, Terry decided to class things up by producing some of his shorts as musical mellerdrammers and others, like this one, as comic operettas. Almost the first three minutes are spot gags with dancing skeletons. One is a piano-playing skeleton with a hat and a big cigar, sort of a Fats Waller without the dietary fats. Finally, a mad scientist stomps into the house from the snow. He brews a potion and feeds it to a cat, who is literally skeletal. The cat drinks it and fleshes out. The mad scientist puts three drops of another fluid on the cat, who disappears, except for his paw prints. The mad scientist then pours the invisibility potion on himself. He disrobes and walks outside. Here the cartoon makes the same error as The Invisible Man (1933). When he steps into the snow, his prints are of a shod foot. Perhaps this is intentionally spoofing the movie, which had just come out a few months earlier, perhaps it is just a mistake.

Two dogs, knockoffs of Pooch the Pup and his girlfriend, are skating and singing when she gets bitchnapped by the mad scientist, who is invisible and naked but for, inexplicably, one glove, years before it was fashionable. Pooch chases them back to the mad scientist’s lair. The mad scientist has tied the girlfriend to a table and he drinks a formula to render himself visible. The pooch brains the mad scientist with a mallet and they escape. God only knows what the mad scientist was going to do with a female dog.

AVAILABILITY: Reference copy on the DVD Terrytoons, Volume 4 for sale at CartoonResearch.com.

Wax Works (June 25, 1934)

Universal Pictures, Walter Lantz Productions. Director: Walter Lantz. Writers: Walter Lantz (story), Victor McLeod (story). Producer: Walter Lantz. Cast: Bernice Hansen.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was created by Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney at the Walt Disney Studio. George Winkler took over for Disney and hired Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising to animate.

Walter Lantz was a newspaper cartoonist, who started animating at various studios in New York City. Eventually, he moved to California, where Carl Laemmle, President and founder of Universal Pictures, asked him to set up a cartoon studio on the lot. Lantz did the Oswald series for Universal, and he brought in his own animators and Harman and Ising were out of a job.

A baby, who can walk and talk perfectly well, is left by his poor penniless Mother on the steps of Oswald’s Wax Works, a museum, along with a note requesting a good home for him. Oswald briefly resists, then takes him in. After the baby tells Oswald he doesn’t need to use the salon, they go to bed.

A common trope of these cartoons is that at midnight (or whenever), books, or toys, or in this case, art comes to life. The baby decides he needs to use the salon, and grabs a candle. Afterwards, he asks Venus de Milo to button him up, then The Thinker. Nero fiddles. A discus hits Cyrano de Bergerac’s nose, and he plays it like a 78 rpm record.

Romeo climbs to the top of the balcony to see Juliet, but Groucho Marx pushes him to the ground. Not tonight, Romeo. Stripper Sally Rand dances with peacock feathers. Napoleon seeks to make whoopee with her, but Groucho pushes him away. Not tonight, Josephine. Napoleon shoots him in the head. He uses a pop gun, but it still knocks Groucho cold.

The baby is caught by the Hunchback of Notre Dame, who lives in the Horror Chamber with Bluebeard, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, Mr. Hyde, and the Invisible Man—all four of the Universal Classic Monsters that existed at the time! The baby snaps the Invisible Man’s garter and makes a run for it, accidentally turning on a blow torch, which he uses to melt Bluebeard and chase the monsters until the Invisible Man grabs it and covers the baby with wax. Oswald hears the Invisible Man cackle, and rushes to investigate. The Invisible Man threatens to pour wax onto Oswald, as the other monsters cheer him on. Oswald wakes up to find the baby dripping candle wax on him. It was all a dream!

The reissue is called The Wax Museum, and lacks the title song.

AVAILABILITY: The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection, Volume 2 DVD boxed set.

Toyland Premiere (December 7, 1934)

Walter Lantz Productions. Director: Walter Lantz. Writers: Walter Lantz, Victor McLeod. Cast: Tex Avery (Santa).

Oswald sends a telegram to Santa inviting him to the big Toyland Premiere parade and reception at City Hall. There, Santa meets the gang: Johnny Weissmuller (as Tarzan) with his real-life wife, Lupe Velez; Shirley Temple, Laurel and Hardy, Eddie Cantor (in blackface), Bing Crosby, and Frankenstein’s Monster. Fat Oliver Hardy tries to steal a cherry from the cake. Frankenstein’s Monster utters his first word in a Universal Picture: Scram!

Stan and Ollie dress up like a dragon to steal the cake. Tarzan faints, and Lupe carries him away. The rest duck, but Frankenstein’s Monster emerges to say, Boo! and scare away the dragon. Santa summons his toy infantry, cavalry, and air corps to chase away Laurel and Hardy, who surrender. In the original print, Santa blows the chocolate cake into their faces, but this is cut from the only available version, an edited reissue, apparently because it is turned into a racial joke. The Kid from Spain, however, stays in the picture.

AVAILABILITY: Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection, Volume 1 DVD boxed set.

Porky’s Road Race (February 6, 1937)

Warner Bros. Director: Frank Tashlin (as Frank Tash). Writer: Tedd Pierce (story). Cast: Elvia Allman (Greta Garbo/Elaine Barrie), Dave Barry (Leslie Howard/Freddie Bartholomew/George Arliss/Edna May Oliver), Billy Bletcher (Borax Karoff ), Joe Dougherty (Porky Pig), Tedd Pierce (W.C. Fields), Mel Blanc (Hiccuping Car).

Warner Bros. was the cartoon studio, more than any other, that specialized in parodying celebrities, according to animation historian Keith Scott. Friz Freleng said that was because most of the people who worked there were old show biz buffs themselves. Friz Freleng was an old Vaudeville buff.

Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising took the character they created, Bosko, a Negro boy, with them when they left Warner Bros. in a money dispute with producer Leon Schlesinger. Director Robert Clampett called his replacement, Buddy, Bosko in Whiteface. New directors came in, including Friz Freleng, Tex Avery, and Chuck Jones. Warner Bros. launched a new series with animals in an Our Gang-type premise. They expected that Beans the Cat would rise to the top, but it was Porky Pig who became their first breakout star. This was a Looney Tunes cartoon.

All the characters in this picture are strictly phoney! Any fancied resemblance to any living person is the bunk! Any incident portrayed is pure fiction! says the card before the title.

A banner reads,

PORKY’S ROAD RACE. FIRST PRIZE . . $2,000,000.00

LESS TAX . . . . $1,999,998.37

NET . . . . . $1.63

Porky works on his car while other Hollywood celebrities do, too. Laurel and Hardy pump up an inner tube with a seesaw. Charlie Chaplin does the wrench bit from Modern Times (1935) with W.C. Fields’ nose. Fields pours hooch into the radiator of Edna May Oliver’s car, making it hiccup. The car’s sounds are made by Mel Blanc. Here he is not even credited, but soon he would contractually be the only billed voice actor in Warner Bros. cartoons, and he would play Porky, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Pepé Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, Taz the Tasmanian Devil, Dr. Peter Lorre—all the major male characters. Greta Garbo is at last alone under a car with only her big feet sticking out. Charles Laughton, dressed as Captain Bligh from Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), has a car with its engine in a tub of water. In a shed marked KEEP OUT, Borax Karoff, a hybrid of the Frankenstein’s Monster and a parody of the actor who played him, lubes the V-42 engine of his car.

The race begins and all the cars speed off, except for Stepin Fetchit’s Knee Action Special. I dunno why everybody’s in a big rush. The Cheerio Special with George Arliss, Leslie Howard, and Freddie Bartholomew breaks for tea. John Barrymore’s car, Caliban, is pursued by Ariel, driven by his then-wife, Elaine Barrie. These nicknames from Shakespeare’s The Tempest were bestowed upon them by the press.

Karoff throws tacks out his window to puncture the tires of the other cars. Laughton picks them up with a magnet on a fishing pole. Karoff launches a torpedo, which sinks the engine in Laughton’s bathtub. Laughton, of course, calls it mutiny. Clark Gable tries to thumb a ride, à la It Happened One Night (1934).

Karoff covers the road with glue and then oil, which eliminates all his competitors except the plucky Porky, who switches cars with Karoff in a tunnel and wins by a nose. Edna May Oliver, in her bloomers, steals his crown.

AVAILABILITY: Looney Tunes: Golden Collection, Volume 3 (DVD).

Hollywood Picnic (December 29, 1937)

Columbia Pictures. Directors: Arthur Davis, Sid Marcus. Writers: Ben Harrison, Sid Marcus. Producer: Charles Mintz.

On the heels of Disney’s success with the Technicolor series Silly Symphonies, other studios came out with their own imitations, and Columbia’s was Color Rhapsody.

Guy Kibbee, George Raft, Charles Laughton, Mae West, Jimmy Durante, Clark Gable, George Arliss, and Wallace Beery ride a merrygo-round. Laurel and Hardy play on the seesaw. Shirley Temple swings and sings. Fannie Brice dances. Sausage vendor W.C. Fields sells the same heated canine on a string to Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins. At the ballgame, Joe E. Brown pitches, the Marx Brothers bat—all at once—and the Three Stooges catch—all at once. The umpire is Herman Bing. Groucho, Harpo, and Chico Marx get a hit and use a motorcycle to round the bases twice on an empty diamond before hitting a tree. Next up is Stepin Fetchit, who whiffs on Joe’s fastball.

Edward Arnold rings the triangle dinner bell and exhorts everyone to Come and get it. The hungry actors pick the platters clean. Stepin has watermelon. John Barrymore unsuccessfully tries to eat his peas with a knife. Hugh Herbert gets good results by slathering sauce on his cutlery, which makes the little legumes stick. Edna May Oliver threads hers with a sewing needle. Greta Garbo inhales them. Raft flips each one into his mouth. Raft was known for flipping a coin in Scarface (1932). No matter what Ned Sparks eats, it tastes the same to him. Katharine Hepburn hiccups. Martha Raye sings for Eddie Cantor and Gable. Everyone dances, led by Irvin S. Cobb, Edward G. Robinson, Sparks, and finally Boris Karloff.

AVAILABILITY: Reference copy available on the DVD Columbia Cartoons #11 from CartoonResearch.com.

Have You Got Any Castles? (June 25, 1938)

Leon Schlesinger Studios. Directors: Frank Tashlin (as Frank Tash), Friz Freleng (archive footage) (uncredited). Writer: Jack Miller (story). Producer: Leon Schlesinger. Cast: Mel Blanc (Town Crier/Praying Baby/ Rip Van Winkle/Emily Host/Alladin), The Four Blackbirds (Vocal Group), Delos Jewkes (Old King Cole), Tedd Pierce (W.C. Fields), Georgia Stark (Whistler’s Mother/Heidi).

A Merrie Melodies cartoon. Merrie Melodies were usually, but not always, one-offs, whereas Looney Tunes usually, but not always, showcased a star character, like Porky Pig. Even this slight distinction vanished completely in 1944.

At midnight, books come to life. Alexander Woollcott, The Town Crier, is best known today, if at all, for being a friend of Harpo Marx, but in 1938, he bestrode the entertainment world like a colossus. He wrote books, columns, and articles, and he appeared on radio, stage, and screen. Here, he introduces the monsters: Dr. Jekyl [sic] and Mr. Hyde, Fu Man Chu [sic], The Phantom of the Opera (the literary version, not the Chaney portrayal and certainly not the 1943 Claude Rains one), and Frankenstein (a reasonable facsimile of the Karloff Monster.) They emerge as the spines of their books raise like stage curtains. They growl ferociously, then do a fey little dance to Françoise-Joseph Gossec’s Gavotte, to the cheers of other book characters. Karloff played Fu Manchu in 1932, and would go on to play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a 1953 Universal film. The Hyde here is based on Fredric March’s 1931 version.

The Good Earth, an anthropomorphized globe, prays to Papa Leon and Uncle Ray, references to Leon Schlesinger and his brother-in-law, Raymond Katz. (There is a fanciful book on the shelves called The Six Hour Day, by Ray Katz.)

The Invisible Man, in top hat, bow tie, gloves, and shoes, does a tap dance. Ditto the unseen ghost of Topper. Bill Bojangles Robinson tap dances down The Thirtynine Steps [sic]. So Big is turned into a joke about Garbo’s huge dogs. On the cover of The Green Pastures, jazz performer Jimmie Lunceford scats. The book opens, and Cab Calloway and his orchestra perform Swing for Sale in footage recycled from Friz Freleng’s parody, Clean Pastures (1937). Heidi sings Calloway’s song, Hi De Ho.

William Powell as Nick Charles emerges from The Thin Man and walks into The White House Cook Book. He comes out as the steatopygous man. This and other footage is reused from Tash’s Speaking of the Weather (1937). Little Women (three Jane Withers caricatures) and Little Men (three Freddie Bartholomews) sing with Old King Cole, who sounds like Eugene Palette. The House of Seven Gables features a septet of Clarks. At The Story of Louis Pasteur, Paul Muni blows himself up and goes to Seventh Heaven. Mutiny on the Bounty features Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh. Ned Sparks as Rip Van Winkle talk-sings, Old King Cole was a noisy old soul, and steals the scissors of The Valiant Little Tailor to snip a bit of hair off Uncle Tom. Tom’s hair is like cotton balls, and Rip stuffs it in his ears. Oliver (Dickie Moore) twists.

The Ritz Brothers as The Three Musketeers sing the titular song. Emily Host, a parody of etiquette maven Emily Post, tries to correct the table manners of Henry VIII (Laughton again). Edward Arnold appears as Diamond Jim. W.C. Fields is on the cover of So Red the Nose, a pun on So Red the Rose. The Ritz Brothers mount a nag and become Three Men on a Horse. They steal Seven Keys to Baldpate and free The Prisoner of Zenda. A good Samaritan yells, Help! Jailbreak! and gets coldcocked by one of the Ritz Brothers. The camera pulls back to reveal the title of his book: Alladin’s [sic] Wonderful Lamp. Lamp means to hit or beat (someone). Yeah, I didn’t know either. Victor McLaglen as The Informer tells Little Boy Blew [sic], who blows his horn until he is blue in the face to summon the troops, posse comitatus be damned. Soldiers from The Charge of the Light Brigade and Under Two Flags respond, as do others.

Robinson Crusoe blasts away at the escapees, as does the cannon of All Quiet on the Western Front. Why don’t they let me sleep? gripes Ned Sparks, who unleashes Hurricane [sic]. (The movie starred Jon Hall and John Carradine, who played the Invisible Man and Dracula, respectively, twice.) Everyone is Gone with the Wind. Woollcott gets the last word, as he usually did. All is well. Indeed, Ned Sparks has gagged the cuckoo.

AVAILABILITY: On the DVD Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 (2004).

FUN FACT: Titles seen on the shelves include Murder in the Rue Morgue [sic], made into a 1932 Universal horror movie; and The Werewolf [sic], a seminal 1896 horror novel by Clemence Housman.

G-Man Jitters (March 10, 1939)

Terrytoons. Directors: Eddie Donnelly, Connie Rasinski. Writer: John Foster (story). Producer: Paul Terry. Cast: Arthur Kay (Gandy Goose).

Gandy the Goose (1938) marked the first appearance of Willie the Goose, played by Arthur Kay in imitation of Ed Wynn. Kay, born Albert Kalfus, sold fine leather goods through his company Kalfus-Mond Inc., and is frequently conflated with contemporaneous composer/arranger Arthur Kay (AKA Arthur Kaye, which we will call him to avoid further confusion.) During the period of 1938-41, when Kalfus was voicing Gandy Goose and other characters in New Rochelle, Kaye was busy on the other coast with a few movies that did pretty well, like Gone with the Wind (1939) and Citizen Kane (1941). Conventional wisdom is that Willie, created by John Foster, was meant to be a one-off, but he showed potential, so they changed the name and re-branded him.

Gandy is reading a book on How to Be a Detective. He shoots the pendulum of his clock with a pop gun. He looks at a picture in his book of Sherlock Holmes smoking a gourd Calabash. Gee, I haven’t got a pipe. The picture answers, in a most un-Sherlockian voice, How about your father’s pipe? Gandy steals the pipe from his sleeping father’s mouth. The fumes knock him out, and he has a dream.

Mrs. Jones, seeing the freshly-baked gumshoe, tells him she heard strange noises in her house last night. Gandy investigates and encounters ghosts. Then, a Frankenstein-type monster plods out of a room. He and Dracula steal Gandy’s magnifying glass. He boots them down the stairs. The FTM and ghosts chase Gandy through the house. Meanwhile, a mouse spooks Mrs. Jones, and he is soon chasing her and the ghosts and the FTM. Gandy catches the mouse and is hailed as a hero. He leaves, but tosses the mouse back into the house, causing Mrs. Jones, the FTM, and the ghosts to chase him. The FTM grabs Gandy but trips, exposing his clockwork insides and the fact that he is not THE Frankenstein’s Monster. The Monster’s pendulum hits Gandy, who is awakened by his own clock’s pendulum hitting his head.

AVAILABILITY: Terrytoons Volume 11––1938-39 from CartoonResearch.com.

FUN FACT: Colorized footage from this cartoon was used in Fortune Hunters (1946) (qv) and King Tut’s Tomb (1950) (qv).

Porky’s Movie Mystery (March 11, 1939)

Warner Bros. Director: Robert Clampett. Writer: Ernest Gee (story). Producer: Leon Schlesinger. Cast: Mel Blanc, Billy Bletcher.

A Looney Tune. The card after the titles reads, Any resemblance this picture has to the original story from which it was stolen is purely coincidental. An expository radio broadcast by Walter Windshield (a parody of real-life correspondent Walter Winchell) informs us of a mysterious phantom on the lot of Warner Bros. The headline screams, STUDIO POLICE HUNT PHANTOM. A tiny policeman interrogates Frankenstein’s Monster, who won’t talk. We see the Phantom slip into a dressing room marked The Invisible Man. He takes off his cloak and he is—wait for it—invisible. He is bitter that he only starred in one picture. (There would soon be many Invisible Man movies.) A headline blares, AROUSED PEOPLE DEMAND MR. MOTTO. Another says, SORRY, MOTTO ON VACATION. The head of the Studio PD demands Motto anyhow.

Motto, a parody of Peter Lorre’s character Mr. Moto, is reached on a desert island reading a book on jujitsu. He uses an outboard motor to take the island to a waiting plane, which he crashes through the roof of the Studio PD. He goes hunting for clues with his oversized magnifier, which has no actual glass in it. The Invisible Man, wearing only shoes and a hat, poses next to a poster of a fictive Warner Bros. picture, Great Guns, starring Lotta Dimples. Mr. Motto walks on by, and the Invisible Man kicks him in the butt and then swings an axe at him. Mr. Motto uses jujitsu and decks him, then sprays him with anti-invisible juice, revealing him as Hugh Herbert, who utters his trademark, Hoo hoo! Hoo hoo!

FUN FACT: Herbert previously played a detective in Sh! The Octopus (1937), featuring a spectacular unmasking of the titular villain, which this cartoon may be referencing. Or not.

AVAILABILITY: On the Laserdisc Guffaw and Order, Looney Tunes Fight Crime (1993?)

Sniffles and the Bookworm (December 2, 1939)

Leon Schlesinger Studios. Director: Chuck Jones. Writer: Rich Hogan (story). Producer: Leon Schlesinger. Cast: Mel Blanc, Margaret Hill-Talbot (Sniffles), Cliff Nazarro.

Sniffles, the rodent with the post-nasal drip, was created by Chuck Jones as a possible new star for Merrie Melodies, and designed by Charlie Thorson, basically a knockoff of his own titular mouse he designed for Disney’s The Country Cousin (1936). Sniffles would make eleven cartoon appearances, often with the bookworm, but they never caught on. Another character created by Thorson the previous year, a rabbit, would become Bugs Bunny.

Midnight-ish at the bookstore and the books . . . are asleep. As is Sniffles, resting up against the cover of a book. A bookworm burrows through the board. They see each other, and the bookworm flees and wakes up the Pied Piper, who is sleeping in his book, and he describes the mouse in hand symbols as gigantic. The Pied Piper gets backup from a Viking, who is sleeping in his book. They see Sniffles, who is actually tiny. The bookworm slinks away in embarrassment.

The Pied Piper starts playing jazz on his clarinet. Mother Goose and other nursery rhymes join in. The bookworm plays his trumpet, which awakens Frankenstein, or actually the Monster. He is sleeping in the novel, but he is based on Karloff ’s Creature, not Mary Shelley’s. He begins lumbering toward the swinging group. Most of them flee when they see the Monster, but he manages to sneak up behind the bookworm and menace him. Sniffles sees and yells, Stop! The bookworm faints, and the Monster begins to advance upon Sniffles. Sniffles runs to the edge of the shelf and hides behind a book. When the Monster comes, Sniffles trips him and he has a great fall. The bookworm kisses Sniffles.

AVAILABILITY: Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles: The Chuck Jones Collection (2012), Disc 1 Blu-ray, DVD.

The Invisible Man Returns (January 12, 1940)

Universal Pictures. Director: Joe May. Writers: H.G. Wells (characters), Joe May (story) and Curt Siodmak (story), Lester Cole & Curt Siodmak (screenplay). Associate Producer: Ken Goldsmith. Cast: Vincent Price (Geoffrey Radcliffe), John Sutton (Dr. Frank Griffin), Cecil Kellaway (Sampson).

The face of Jack Griffin (Claude Rains) is revealed when he dies in bed at the end of the original The Invisible Man (1933). For Griffin’s death scene, the pillow with the indentation in it was made of plaster, and the bedclothes were papier-mâché. There is a long, slow lap dissolve to a real skeleton, then another to a roughly-sculptured dummy of Rains’ features, and a further series of dissolves with slightly more finished dummies and one finally to the real actor himself. John P. Fulton handled the special effects. Remember that name, it will be on the test.

As we all know, the death or destruction of a Universal monster does not preclude a sequel, or even a re-appearance by that same monster. In this case, Jack Griffin does not rise from the grave, it is his brother Frank who injects wrongly-accused Geoffrey Radcliffe with invisibility fluid, enabling him to escape from prison just before he is to be hanged for his brother’s murder. However, Frank is unable to come up with an antidote for invisibility. Sampson of Scotland Yard figures out early on what went down, but he and his crack squad are unable to catch Radcliffe, who gets the real murderer to confess on his deathbed. Radcliffe is wounded in the course of events, but Dr. Griffin discovers a transfusion is actually the antidote to invisibility. We first see Radcliffe’s vasculature, then his nervous system, his muscles, and his skin, and finally, by God, it’s Vincent Price in that bed. The special effects are animated, and Fulton, still with the Tricks Department, was apparently in charge. His personal forte was miniatures, but presumably animated transitions would have been under his purview.

AVAILABILITY: On the DVD boxed set Universal Classic Monsters: Complete 30-Film Collection (2018).

Hollywood Steps Out (May 24, 1941)

Warner Bros. Director: Tex Avery. Writer: Melvin Millar. Producer: Leon Schlesinger. Cast: Dave Barry (Cary Grant/Clark Gable/James Cagney/Bing Crosby/Lewis Stone/Ned Sparks/Groucho Marx), Sara Berner (Greta Garbo/Paulette Goddard/Henry Fonda’s Mother/Dorothy Lamour), Mel Blanc (Jerry Colonna/Peter Lorre), Kent Rogers (Jimmy Stewart/Mickey Rooney/Henry Fonda).

From the Merrie Melodies series. This is the Duesenberg of 1940s Who’s that star? celebrity caricature cartoons. At Ciro’s nightclub in Hollywood, Cary Grant says, What a place! What a place! Why, it’s as pretty as a picture! But if I ever told my favorite wife the awful truth, I’d land right on the front page, referencing several of his movie titles. Cigarette girl Greta Garbo sells him a pack of smokes and lights one by striking a match on her really big shoe.

Edward G. Robinson asks Ann Sheridan, The Oomph Girl, how she is, and she answers, Oomph oomph oomph oomph oomph oomph oomph oomph oomph oomph. Oomph. The camera pans past Leon Schlesinger and his assistant, Henry Binder. Johnny Weissmuller checks his coat with Paulette Goddard, revealing himself in only his Tarzan outfit. Sally Rand checks her fur, presumably leaving herself naked. James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, and George Raft pitch pennies. Harpo Marx gives Greta Garbo a hotfoot, and we all know how big those feet are. However, she barely reacts. Bing Crosby introduces longhair conductor Leopold Stokowski, whose orchestra strikes up a conga. The music does something to Dorothy Lamour, who wants to dance with Jimmy Stewart. Stewart runs away, leaving a sign on the table that says, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (the title of one of his movies). Tyrone Power dances with Winter Olympic medal-winner Sonja Henie, who is wearing ice skates.

Frankenstein’s Monster does the Robot. Since Karloff swore off the role after 1939, and he appears a few seconds later sans the makeup that took hours to get off, who is this? Lon Chaney Jr. warming up in the bullpen? (Chaney would play the role in 1942’s The Ghost of Frankenstein.)

The Three Stooges smack and poke each other. Oliver Hardy is so fat, he dances with two women. Cesar Romero and Rita Hayworth, two of the best dancers in the movies, dance awkwardly in real life.

Mickey Rooney as Andy Hardy is dining with Judy Garland and gets the tab. He asks his movie father, Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone), for a heart-to-heart. They end up washing dishes. Der Bingle introduces the stripper Sally Strand, who changed her name since she checked her coat to avoid a lawsuit. Sally performs her bubble dance. William Powell, Spencer Tracy, Ronald Colman, Errol Flynn, Wallace Beery, and C. Aubrey Smith wolf-whistle at her. Peter Lorre purrs, I haven’t seen such a beautiful bubble since I was a child. Karloff, Arthur Treacher, Buster Keaton, and Mischa Auer sit glumly. Ned Sparks says, You boys having a good time? They answer monotonically, Yes. Finally, Harpo Marx literally bursts her bubble with a slingshot, revealing that she is wearing a barrel.

Clark Gable, who has been following a comely blonde all night, finally catches up with her and asks her for a kiss. It is Groucho Marx in drag. In the original ending, Gable kisses Groucho anyhow. I’m a bad boy! This was cut when Gable complained it would hurt his career.

Other celebrities appearing include Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, Adolphe Menjou, Norma Shearer, Jerry Colonna, Henry Fonda, Kay Kyser, and J. Edgar Hoover. Tex Avery asked Ben Shenkman to design the characters. Shenkman had done this type of work for Mother Goose in Swingtime (1939) at Columbia and was brought to Warner Bros. by Friz Freleng to do Malibu Beach Party (1940). Production reportedly took eighteen months, which may partially explain why Douglas Fairbanks, who died in 1939, appears. While long-dead famous people are fair game, recently deceased celebs are rarely seen in this type of cartoon. Walt Disney cut Will Rogers from Mickey’s Polo Team (1936) when the movie