by E.O. Costello

Glossary

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

Glossary

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

Glossary

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

Glossary

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

Glossary

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

Glossary

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

Glossary

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

Glossary

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

Glossary

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

Glossary

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

Glossary

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

B-19

Plane mentioned by a hypnotized Bugs at the end of Hare-Brained Hypnotist (Freleng, 1942). Mentioned again by Bugs again in directing Beaky Buzzard’s crash landing in Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid (Clampett, 1942), and by Porky as air traffic controller in Baby Bottleneck (Clampett, 1946). Incidentally, it is also mentioned in the song sung by Red in Red Hot Riding Hood (Avery at MGM, 1943) and worn on the uniform of the giant ballplayer in Batty Baseball, made by Avery for MGM in 1944.

While the B-19 never flew in combat, it did have a public history. Actually designated the XB-19, designed in the late thirties and manufactured by Douglas, it was the largest aircraft built in the United States until the Convair B-36 was built in 1946, outstripping even the huge B-29 Superfortress in size, with a wingspan of 64 meters.

In 1940 the Army Air Force recognized that the XB-19 had lost most if not all of its military importance -- it was widely viewed as being underpowered and vulnerable, and the B-19 was removed from the list of its secret projects. The plane became a hot item in the popular press as a radically new long-range bomber to protect America against its foreign foes. The prototype was completed in May of 1941, and made its maiden flight from Clover Field in Santa Monica, California on June 27, 1941, three years behind the original schedule. The plane quickly faded into obscurity, as more practical planes like the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-24 Liberator took over the primary bombing roles for the Army Air Force.

BABY SNOOKS

Character created and played by Fanny Brice on her radio show of a mischief-making little girl. Snooks is one of the stars -- the little one -- that Daffy Duck sees after getting clouted on the head by a studio cop in Hollywood Daffy (Freleng, 1946). A caricature of Fanny Brice as Snooks is seen in Malibu Beach Party (Freleng, 1941) covering Ned Sparks in sand. The little daughter quail in Quentin Quail (Jones, 1946) is based on the Snooks character.

BACALL, LAUREN (“BABY”)
(1924-fl. 1996)

Highly attractive actress who popularized “The Look” -- a suggestive, “come on” twinkle in the eye -- and livened up the screen in a number of roles opposite Humphrey Bogart in films such as Key Largo, Dark Passage, and The Big Sleep. She married Bogart in 1945 and the couple had a devoted twelve-year marriage.

Bacall’s debut, the 1944 film To Have and Have Not, is parodied in Bacall to Arms (Clampett, 1946), including an unforgettable variation on the famous line, “If you want anything, all you have to do is whistle.” Some of the footage in the cartoon seems to have been rotoscoped from the film. Bogart also appears in Slick Hare (Freleng, 1947) which also uses the whistle line, trying to get fried rabbit for “Baby,” who is seen at the end -- after Bugs volunteers to be her dinner. Strangely, the artists drew Bacall as a blonde in this short.

Bacall is also listed as one of the reasons Daffy Duck came to Hollywood in his entrance in Hollywood Daffy (Freleng, 1946).

BACKUS, JIM
(1913-1989)

Radio and television actor who played Thurston Howell III on Gilligan’s Island and was a player on the Mel Blanc radio show in the 1940s. His best-known cartoon work is probably as Mr. Magoo for UPA.

Backus played the voice of the high-spirited genie in A Lad in His Lamp (McKimson, 1948), basing it on his Hubert Updike character from the Alan Young radio show, using the “Heavens to Gimbles!” line of that character as well.

BALDWIN, HOWARD

Story writer at the Schlesinger studio around 1938, whose sole on-screen credit is for Porky’s Hare Hunt (Hardaway/Dalton, 1938).

BANK NIGHT

During the Depression, movie theaters, in a desperate effort to attract paying audiences, tried a number of marketing schemes. These included everything from giving away dishes to raffle-type promotions such as Bank Night, in which the holder of the winning ticket would win a cash prize. Of course, one had to be there to collect the prize, which was why the wild cat in Avery’s A Day at the Zoo (1939) was so mad.

One of the banks robbed by Killer Diller in Thugs With Dirty Mugs (Avery, 1939) is labeled Bank Night.

BARBER, RED
(né Walter Barber, 1908-1992)

Well-known sportscaster from the early 1930s until his death. Barber, known as “The Old Redhead”, was one of the most familiar figures in sports broadcasting, particularly through his calling of World Series matches for NBC. A rather unfunny Japanese version of Barber can be seen in Tokio Jokio (McCabe, 1943).

BARNYARD DOG

Usually a victim of Foghorn Leghorn who, most of the time, manages to get his own back toward the end. Never actually named in the cartoons, just usually referred to by Foggy as “Dawg” or “Br’er Dawg.”

BARRYMORE, JOHN
(1882-1942)

Famed stage idol throughout the early decades of the 20th century, best known for his Shakespearean roles, one of which is parodied in Malibu Beach Party (Freleng, 1940), in which he buries Caesar -- Romero, that is.

BARRYMORE, LIONEL
(1878-1954)

One of the members of the great American theatre clan of Barrymores, along with brother John. Lionel Barrymore was famous as a character actor on radio and on screen, usually playing crusty, cantankerous types. His roles as Dr. Gillespie in the Dr. Kildare films and as the evil banker Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life are some of his best-remembered roles; though he also won an Oscar for his performance in the 1931 film A Free Soul. A combination of arthritis and a leg injury confined him to a wheel chair for the last 15 years of his life, but did not slow down his busy acting schedule.

Bugs Bunny does a brilliant imitation of Barrymore in Hot Cross Bunny (McKimson, 1948) referring to the Dr. Gillespie role, but mimicking the crusty, heart-of-gold role that Barrymoore played in the radio show Mayor of the Town, broadcast mostly on CBS throughout the forties. The character usually helped people in trouble, such as the “poor boy going to prison” mentioned by Bugs.

BARUCH, BERNARD M.
(1870-1965)

Prominent financier, philanthropist and government adviser for much of the first half of the twentieth century. Baruch was famous for a customary seat on a park bench in New York City, which was spoofed in Rebel Rabbit (McKimson, 1949).

BASEBALL BUGS

Classic 1946 Freleng cartoon which has Bugs being taken up on his offer to beat the Gashouse Gorillas singlehanded, which he does. The basic plot, and seemingly some of the animation, was re-used for the Robert McKimson Bobo short, Gone Batty (1954).

The cartoon is clearly set in New York City since the game supposedly takes place at the Polo Grounds, the great Manhattan stadium that was once home to the New York Yankees, Giants, and Mets baseball teams. (The stadium was torn down in the mid-sixties.)

As in Boulevardier from the Bronx (1936), director Friz Freleng seems to have considerable trouble keeping baseball scores tallied correctly. Before Bugs fills in for the Tea-totallers, the scoreboard shows that in the first four innings, the Gorillas have scored 10, 28, 16 and 42 runs, which total 96. Yet in the ninth inning, the score is read out by the announcer and shown on the scoreboard as Bugs Bunny 96, Gas House Gorillas 95. What happened to the 96th run?

BEAKY BUZZARD

Minor character of Robert Clampett who was, for reasons which remain unclear, quite prominently featured in merchandising during the 1940s. Clampett also called him “The Snerd Bird” because of his voice, which owed something to the country bumpkin character of Mortimer Snerd created by ventriloquist Edgar Bergen.

Kent Rogers provided the first voice for Beaky. Later cartoons featured Mel Blanc in the role.

Filmography:

• Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid (Clampett, 1942)
• The Bashful Buzzard (Clampett, 1945)
• The Lion’s Busy (Freleng, 1950)
• Strife with Father (McKimson, 1950)

BEALS, DICK

Voice of Ralph Phillips in the Chuck Jones cartoons From A to Z-Z-Z-Z (1954) and Boyhood Daze (1957). Beals also had other animated roles, including a number for Hanna-Barbera in The Jetsons, The Flintstones, and so forth.

BEANS

Cat who was one of the Our Gang-like characters introduced in I Haven’t Got a Hat Freleng, 1935) in an effort to create a lasting star. (Only Porky Pig would actually make it.) One of the few distinctions of the character is that he starred in the first cartoon directed by Tex Avery at the Studio.

Filmography:

• I Haven’t Got a Hat (Freleng, 1935)
• A Cartoonist’s Nightmare (King, 1935)
• Hollywood Capers (King, 1935)
• Golddiggers of ’49 (Avery, 1935)
• Alpine Antics (King, 1936)
• The Phantom Ship (King, 1936)
• Boom Boom (King, 1936)
• Westward Whoa! (King, 1936)

BEAR FEAT

Three Bears cartoon directed by Chuck Jones, 1949. The cartoon uses a plot very similar to that of the Fleischer Popeye cartoon Puttin’ on the Act (1940), in which what turns out to be a mistaken reading of a show business journal inspires the revival of a vaudeville routine.

BELIEVE IT OR ELSE

Tex Avery cartoon from 1939 which was a spoof of Robert Ripley’s Believe It or Not! newspaper feature and radio show. As Beck and Friedwald point out, some of the jokes are spoofs of specific Ripley features, such as the matchstick gag. The Ripley penchant for travels to exotic corners of the world is also grist for spoofing in the cartoon.

Ironically, Ripley produced a number of live-action short subjects for Warner Brothers in the early 1930s based on subjects in his feature.

BELL TURTLEPHONE

Sign seen outside a phone booth in Tortoise Beats Hare (Avery, 1941) which is an ace parody of the Bell Telephone logo.

BENADERET, BEA
(1906-1968)

Voice actress on radio and in cartoons. Benaderet is most visible in two roles at Warner Brothers: as Mama Bear (of the Three Bears) and as Granny, the nemesis of Sylvester. Granny was also voiced by June Foray and Julie Bennett (see next entry).

Benaderet was a supporting player on the Jack Benny radio show, playing, among other characters, the telephone operator Mabel Flapsaddle. She also had roles on the radio shows of Mel Blanc and Dennis Day, as well as on Fibber McGee and Molly and The Great Gildersleeve. She is well remembered for her role in Petticoat Junction, and credited with providing the voice of Betty Rubble on The Flintstones.

BENNET, JULIE

One of the vocal actresses who provided female voices for Warner cartoons, most prominently as one of the three voices of Granny, the others being Bea Benaderet (see previous entry) and June Foray.

BENNY, JACK
(né Benjamin Kubelsky, 1894-1974)

Perennially popular star of stage, radio, screen and television and -- in The Mouse That Jack Built (McKimson, 1959), for which he provided his own caricature’s voice, appearing briefly in live action -- also of cartoons. Warner Brothers artists loved to put him in the cartoons, possibly owing to a close relationship Benny had with voice man Mel Blanc, a key member of his radio troupe.

Benny is the victim of a dead-on caricature in Malibu Beach Party (Freleng, 1940) in which all of the traits of his radio character -- huge ego, cheapness, bad violin playing, &c. -- are trotted out. In Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur (Jones, 1939), Casper Caveman uses a Benny-type voice, and one or two of Benny’s mannerisms, including saying “Goodnight, folks!”. A recent article by Keith Scott in Animato! #33 indicates that the voice of Benny in both these cartoons was provided by Jack Lescoulie.

Benny is seen briefly in Hollywood Daffy (Freleng, 1946) as the figure trying to get an Oscar out of an old-fashioned toy shovel game machine. The attempts by Benny to get an Oscar were a long-running gag on his radio show.

Appearances as “Jack Bunny” can be seen in I Love To Singa (Avery, 1936) and Slap Happy Pappy (Clampett, 1940). Benny is one of the four down-on-their luck stars snubbed by Elmer Fudd in What’s Up, Doc? (McKimson, 1950), in which Benny is the second star, and is of course playing the violin.

BERLE, MILTON
(né Mendel Berlinger, 1908-fl. 1997)

“Uncle Miltie” is best remembered for his work on The Texaco Star Theatre in the early days of network television from the late 1940s. Berle had, however, had a career in vaudeville, as well as a relatively lackluster career in radio in the 1930s.

Berle is caricatured as Milton Squirrel in The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos (Tashlin, 1937).

BERNER, SARA

Radio actress of the 1930s and 1940s. Berner played various characters on the Jack Benny radio program including Gertrude Gearshift, one of the telephone operators at NBC, and Benny’s erstwhile girlfriend Gladys Zybisco. Berner also did cartoon work. Hames Ware in Animato! #28 notes that Berner was credited by Walter Lantz as one of the voices of Andy Panda.

The best known role of Berner at Warner’s would be as the Yiddishe-Mama mother of Beaky Buzzard. Berner may also have provided the voice of Sniffles at one point or another. She has been identified by Keith Scott as being the voice of Katharine Hepburn in cartoons like Daffy Duck in Hollywood (Avery, 1938) and Dangerous Dan McFoo (Avery, 1939). Scott also credits her as the voices of the Garbo and Lamour caricatures in Hollywood Steps Out (Avery, 1941).

BERNIE, BEN
(né Bernard Ancelowitz, 1891-1943)

Popular bandleader, known as “The Old Maestro” who, with “All the Lads,” was a fixture on radio in the 1930s and early 1940s. Known for his catch-phrase “yowsah”, and his long running pseudo-feud with columnist Walter Winchell, which was played for laughs in the movie Wake Up and Live (1937). It was also played for laughs in the Warner Brothers cartoons The Coo-coo Nut Grove (Freleng, 1936) and The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos (Tashlin, 1937). In both cases, Bernie is referred to as Ben Birdie.

BESSER, JOE

Bald, rotund comic with a high-pitched voice and precious mannerisms who was, for a time, one of the post-Curly Three Stooges. He had long been a successful nightclub comic. “Ooohhh, you craaaazy!”, delivered with a flip of the wrist, was his trademark.

Various Warner Brothers characters utilise Besser’s mannerisms. The elephant in Rabbit Fire (Jones, 1951) that pounds Fudd into the ground (“You do and I’ll give you SUCH a pinch!”) is one such example, also the goose pulling the same poison bone con job that Daffy wants to do at the end of Birth of a Notion (McKimson, 1946), the little tuba-playing pooch who confronts “Leopold Bowkowski“ in Hollywood Canine Canteen (McKimson, 1946), the character of the studio cop in Hollywood Daffy (Freleng, 1946); the use by Daffy of the “you craaazy” tagline during the rapid-growth scene at the start of Nasty Quacks (Tashlin, 1945), and Bugs’ line “you and your old shotgun, you crazy!” in The Unruly Hare (Tashlin, 1945).

BIG MO

Nickname for the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63), on whose decks the surrender of Japan was signed in 1945, ending the Second World War. An insect version of the same is seen in Ant Pasted (Freleng, 1953).

BILLY GOAT

Caricature of Billy Jones in The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos (Tashlin, 1937).

BINDER, HENRY

Administrative assistant to Leon Schlesinger in the 1930s and early 1940s. Judging from available accounts, Binder seems to have been fairly well respected by the animators at the studio, unlike his colleague Ray Katz.

Binder makes numerous appearances in Warner Brothers cartoons. He is seen at a table with Leon Schlesinger in Hollywood Steps Out (Avery, 1941). He is referred to during the Hitlerian rant at the start of Russian Rhapsody (Clampett, 1944), and is caricatured later in the same cartoon as the gremlin who sleeps while plane parts are sawn around his head. Binder, in live action, is the man throwing Porky bodily out of the sound stage in You Ought to be in Pictures (Freleng, 1940). A lion tamer named Clyde Binder is seen in Circus Today (Avery, 1940).

BLANC, MEL
(né Melvin Blank, 1908-1989)

“The Man of a Thousand Voices” -- a title he and Freleng parodied in Curtain Razor (1949) with the vocalist turtle. Blanc, from his first work for the studio in 1936, right through to his death in 1989, provided a staggering variety of voices for cartoons. His vocal characterizations of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester, Porky, Tweety, Pépe le Pew, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Henery Hawk, and others define the way we think about these characters, and went a long way toward giving the spark to these characters that made them so successful.

Blanc made the boast that he could do them all, and with the exception of Arthur Q. Bryan’s Elmer Fudd, and a handful of other, lesser characters, Blanc really did do them all. Blanc did voice Fudd -- reluctantly, by his own account -- after Bryan’s death, as in Pre-Hysterical Hare (McKimson, 1958).

Blanc was also a standout on radio as a virtual one-man rep. company, starring on the Jack Benny radio and television programs as the Maxwell, Professor LeBlanc, Carmichael the Polar Bear, a parrot, the railroad station announcer -- originator of the famous Cucamonga gag -- and the Si/Sue “Little Mexican”. Blanc also worked on a number of other radio programs, including the Joe Penner radio program as the voice of Goo-goo the duck, the Judy Canova show, and, for a while in the late 40s, his own radio show. Blanc borrowed his Happy Postman character for use in Easter Yeggs (McKimson, 1947).

Blanc also created Woody Woodpecker’s distinctive laugh, which the proto-Bugs does a version of in Elmer’s Candid Camera (Jones, 1940), and provided the voice of Woody until he signed an exclusive contract with Warner’s in the 1940s. Blanc sued Lantz over the use of his voice, eventually settling out of court. Blanc also supplied the dialogue for Gideon, the cat in the Disney feature Pinocchio (1940); however, except for a hiccup, all of his dialogue was deleted in the final cut.

Blanc wrote an autobiography entitled That’s Not All Folks! Some of the statements in the book are open to question, such as whether Blanc supplied the voices for Schlesinger and Mike Maltese in You Ought to Be in Pictures (Freleng, 1940), whether Sylvester was modeled on the jowly John Burton, and whether the phrase “I tawt I taw a puddy tat” was an ad-lib. Be that as it may, Blanc was a one-of-a-kind, and undeniably a key player in WB’s greatness.

“BLESSINGS ON THEE, LITTLE MAN”

In Ain’t That Ducky (Freleng, 1945), Daffy approaches the obnoxious, crying little duck and says “Blessings on thee, little man, barefoot duck.” This is a parody of a James Whitcomb Riley poem that begins “Blessings on thee little man/ Barefoot boy with cheeks of tan.”

BLETCHER, BILLY
(1894-1979)

While Bletcher appeared in a small number of live-action movies, he made a significant mark in animated cartoons as a voice actor -- Maltin refers to him as “ubiquitous”.

The best known Bletcher role at Warner Brothers was as Papa Bear, opposite Stan Freburg’s Junyer Bear and Bea Benaderet’s Mama Bear in the Three Bears series directed by Charles M. Jones.

Bletcher is credited in Beck and Friedwald with voices in the following cartoons:

• Little Dutch Plate (Freleng, 1935) as the villainous vinegar bottle
• Boom Boom (King, 1936) as enemy soldiers
• Alpine Antics (King, 1936) as a bully fighting Beans the Cat
• Little Beau Porky (Tash [Frank Tashlin], 1936) as a Foreign Legion commandant
• Porky of the Northwoods (Tashlin, 1936) as off-screen trapper villain
• Pigs is Pigs (Freleng, 1937) as the Mad Scientist
• The Lyin’ Mouse (Freleng, 1937) as the lion
• Porky’s Tire Trouble (Clampett, 1939) as Porky’s walrus boss

Schneider credits Bletcher as one of the voices of Peg Leg Pete at Disney. He also worked for the Lantz studio, as for Boy Meets Dog, and the Iwerks studio, as for Little Boy Blue.

Live-action credits for Bletcher include:

• Deadline at Dawn (1946) as aWaiter
• Chatterbox (1943) as “Black Jake”
• Destry Rides Again (1939) as a Pianist
• Babes in Toyland (1934) also known as March of the Wooden Soldiers, playing the chief of police

The obituary for Bletcher in Variety noted that he was also the voice of the Lone Ranger on radio (one of many, if true), and appeared in a number of Christie Comedies and Laurel and Hardy films.

BLONDIE

Long-running comic strip created by Chic Young, which was transferred to the screen and to radio, both versions starring Arthur Lake as Dagwood and Penny Singleton as Blondie. Lake, incidentally, did voice work for Warner Brothers as Mr. Hook.

Blondie and Dagwood are drawn as dogs in good Chic Young style in Hollywood Canine Canteen (McKimson, 1946). Tables are reserved for Dagwood, Blondie, and Baby Dumpling -- their son, who later became Alexander -- as well as a fire hydrant for Daisy, their dog in the Avery cartoon Hollywood Steps Out (1941). Ali Baba Bound (Clampett, 1940) features a mama camel named Blondie and a Baby Dumpling camel.

BLUE, BEN
(1901-1975)

Ephraim Katz, in his film encyclopedia, describes Ben Blue as a “sad-faced, rubber limbed deadpan mime, comedian and dancer of stage, screen and TV.” Blue did short subject work for Warners, and it may have been from these shorts that Chuck Jones drew the inspiration for the Conrad Cat character used in the early forties.

“B.O.”

Rendered in a long, drawn-out “beeeeeeeooooooohhhh,” this was the tagline for Lifebuoy soap. (It stands for “body odor”.) Examples of its use include the pseudo-Hawaiian verbiage given by Bugs in Wackiki Wabbit (Jones, 1943) and by the Mad Russian-like dog in Hare Ribbin’ (Clampett, 1944), right after he has sniffed the armpit of Bugs Bunny.

BOBO

Little elephant who appeared in a handful of McKimson cartoons, mostly in silent roles.

Filmography:

• Hobo Bobo (McKimson, 1947)
• Gone Batty (McKimson, 1954)

The latter cartoon is something of a remake of Freleng’s Baseball Bugs (1946).

BOGART, HUMPHREY
(1899-1957)

Iconic tough guy of the screen, Bogart had made a false start or two before his breakthrough performance in The Petrified Forest (1936), which only came about because Leslie Howard, the star, insisted on it -- something for which Bogart was ever thankful. The roles Bogart played in The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, Key Largo, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The African Queen (for which he won his only Oscar) all served to develop his now-legendary tough-guy image.

His role in Sierra Madre is caricatured in a running gag in 8 Ball Bunny (Jones, 1950), reciting a line from the movie: “Pardon me, but could you help out a fellow American who’s down on his luck?”.

Another good caricature is the slightly menacing portrayal in Slick Hare (Freleng, 1947) in which Bogart seeks to get an order of fried rabbit -- guess who -- for “Baby”, his wife: Lauren Bacall. The Bogart-Bacall relationship is caricatured in Bacall to Arms (Clampett, 1946), specifically parodying their first movie together: To Have and Have Not.

A poster for To Have and Have Not with Bogart on it is defaced by Daffy the Mustache Fiend in Daffy Doodles (McKimson, 1946). Bogart, along with George Raft and Jimmy Cagney, pitches pennies in Hollywood Steps Out (Avery, 1941).

Some prints of Slick Hare have a live-action clip of Bogart at the end, but this was not part of the cartoon as originally produced.

BOMBSIGHTS

One of the secret weapons of the Allies during World War II was the Norden bombsight, which supposedly made strategic bombing so accurate that a bomb could be dropped in a pickle barrel. Actually, it was not a very well-kept secret -- the Germans reconstructed them from crashed bombers and even had the plans, which they had obtained from a spy before the war. It was also well-known to the public, as evidenced by the references to it in The Weakly Reporter (Jones, 1944) as the item being obtained by feminine wiles in a UPA-like segment, and in The Wise Quacking Duck (Clampett, 1943) when Daffy bombs Mr. Meek with an egg.

BORGE, VICTOR
(fl. 1997)

Danish-born entertainer famous for his comic classical music routines. He is, in fact, a highly skilled pianist. A canine version of him (a Great Dane, natch) can be seen in Dog Tales (McKimson, 1958) under the name Victor Barky.

BOSKO

Truly the first Warner Brothers cartoon star. In Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid, the pilot film made by Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising in 1929 that earned them the backing of Leon Schlesinger and Warner Brothers, Bosko was a caricature of a little African-American boy. He soon transformed into a not-specifically-human character who bore something of a resemblance to the Fleischer studio’s Bimbo. It was in this form that he appeared in most of the early Looney Tunes. He usually, but not always, appeared with his girlfreind Honey. The Bosko cartoons are generally quite peppy and upbeat.

Bosko’s voice was provided by animator Carmen “Max” Maxwell. It has been argued that while Steamboat Willie may have been the first cartoon to use sound effects and music successfully, speech was not pioneered in animation until the Bosko shorts.

When Harman and Ising split with Schlesinger in 1933, Bosko went with them to MGM and, along with Honey, morphed back into a recognizably human character. The MGM Bosko cartoons were not particularly successful, and the character eventually faded from view. The Schlesigner studio went on to feature Buddy in a long series of shorts in an attempt to create a viable “star” character identified with the studio.

Contemporary Warner Brothers cartoonists have loosely imitated the design of characters like Bosko in designing the Animaniacs, who were supposedly created around the same time Bosko was.

BOULEVARDIER FROM THE BRONX

Freleng cartoon from 1936, one of those featuring Emily, the foolish, love-starved chicken, and Claude, her country-bumpkin boyfriend.

The literally cocky Dizzy Dan is probably a reference to the contemporary St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Dizzy Dean, who was a notorious braggart.

Animation from this cartoon was re-used in Porky’s Baseball Broadcast (Freleng, 1940).

The cartoon ends with Claude hitting a grand slam to win the game 4-3. Or did it? Recall that the score was 2-0 in the first. Another run is scored by the dog that can stretch itself between bases, and Dizzy Dan hits an inside-the-park home run. This made the score 4-0. Somebody evidently lost track of the score.

BRADBURY, JACK

Animator for Freleng in the early 1940s. He is the animator given credit for Jack Wabbit and the Beanstalk (1943) and Meatless Flyday (1944).

Bradbury is also credited as the illustrator on one of the Bugs Bunny books, published in 1951 (Library of Congress registration B 60932).

BRAY-HURD PATENTS

At the end of some of the earliest Merrie Melodies, there is a reference to a license granted under the Bray-Hurd patents. These patents were essential to the animation process, being connected with the use of celluloid sheets which revolutionized animation, making large-scale production possible.

J.R. Bray patented a background process (Patent No. 1,107,193 granted August 11, 1914). He met up with Earl Hurd, the inventor of the cel process by which sheets of celluloid were laid over backgrounds, enabling the animator to redraw only those parts of the image that moved. The two formed the Bray-Hurd Processing Company in 1914. (Hurd, about whom relatively little is known, had by far the more important of the two innovations.) When Bray obtained another patent in 1916, the firm had a virtual monopoly on the animation process, which led to a long series of lawsuits with cartoon producers. The most important patents expired in 1932, as Bray had failed to make significant improvements on them, and the animation process entered the public domain.

BREAD AND BUTTER

A slightly superstitious phrase along the lines of “Step on a crack/break your mothers back”, in the sense that speaking it is triggered by an event. If two people are walking down a street, and a pole or other obstacle happen to come between them, this phrase is uttered, the idea being that the butter (the object) could not really separate the bread (the two people). Used in A Day at the Zoo (Avery, 1939) with the two big cats pacing in a cage separated by a tree, and at the start of Hare Trigger (Freleng, 1945) with the trains passing each other, telegraph poles in between.

BRENDA AND COBINA

In Goofy Groceries (Clampett, 1941) two rather unattractive spinster cows, upon spotting the handsome bull on the Bull Durham tobacco package, address each other as Brenda and Cobina, and point out the bull, one of them exclaiming, “Look, a man!”

These characters were based on the Brenda and Cobina characters on the Bob Hope radio program. The characters on radio were played by Blanche Stewart and Elvia Allman. (According to Wertheim, the characters were named for two society debutantes of the era: Brenda Frazier and Cobina Wright.) The two had shrill, funny-sounding voices, and they would chat about their frustrated love lives. Their opening lines were “Hey, Brenda!” “What is it Cobina?”, as used by the cows in the cartoon.

BRICE, FANNY
(née Fannie Borach, 1891-1951)

Possibly best remembered today as the creator of the character Baby Snooks, a mischievous little girl on a long-running series of radio programs. Before radio, Brice was highly successful in vaudeville, and was featured in numerous editions of the Ziegfeld Follies.

Brice is caricatured as Snooks in Malibu Beach Party (Freleng, 1940) covering Ned Sparks in sand. The Snooks character was used as a model for the little girl quail in Quentin Quail (Jones, 1946).

BROWN, BERNARD B.
(d. 1981)

Along with Norman Spencer, musical director at Schlesinger’s studio from 1933-36, between the tenures of Frank Marsales and Carl Stalling.

Brown had been instrumental in convincing Jack Warner to convert to sound-on-film in favour of the synchronised-disk Vitaphone system. Brown would later develop a ten-track sound system for the film 100 Men and a Girl (1937). He was also the first sound engineer to use a separate recording room for singers, pioneering film dubbing techniques.

The obituary for Brown in Variety notes that he won an Oscar in 1940 for When Tomorrow Comes in the Sound Recording category, won one additional unspecified Oscar, received 11 nominations, and 3 technical achievement awards. His obituary does not refer to his cartoon work.

THE BROWN DERBY (“The Brown Turban”)

The Brown Derby was a famous eatery in Hollywood for many decades, housed in a building shaped like a derby hat. The Brown Turban in A Lad in His Lamp (McKimson, 1948) spoofs this landmark. A not-dissimilar gag can be seen in The Isle of Pingo-Pongo (Avery, 1938), with the natives patronizing the Dark Brown Derby. The restaurant is further spoofed in Goo Goo Goliath (Freleng, 1954), in which a giant baby wears the landmark.

BROWN, TREGOWETH (“Treg”)

Sound-effects wizard for decades at the Warner Brothers cartoon studio -- starting in 1934 -- who was greatly admired and appreciated by the artists. (See the tribute by a grateful Chuck Jones in Chuck Amuck, pp. 190-1.) Billed, for some reason, as “Film Editor” when he was credited at all.

Brown had held a variety of jobs before his tenure at the cartoon studio, including a stint as a guitarist and vocalist for Red Nichols and His Five Pennies.

Brown won an Oscar for his sound effects for The Great Race (1965).

Brown received a tribute in One Froggy Evening (Jones, 1955): the building in which the hapless construction worker deposits Michigan J. Frog, and from which the Frog is retrieved by a 21st century construction worker, is named the Tregoweth Brown Building. Fish and Slips (McKimson, 1962) also refers to Treg Brown as the fisherman featured in a TV news clip.

BRUCE, ROBERT C.

Credited by Beck and Friedwald in their first edition as being the narrator for Land of the Midnight Fun (Avery, 1939). Bruce provided off-screen narration for the numerous cartoons of the late thirties and early forties that used it, including a number of the Private Snafu shorts. Bruce was a regular on the KFWB radio program The Grouch Club, a show which also featured, among others, Arthur Q. Bryan.

BRYAN, ARTHUR Q.
(1899-1959)

Note: some sources list his last name as “Bryant”. I follow Schneider’s spelling in this instance.

The man who provided the inimitable voice of Elmer J. Fudd. Bryan had actually done the voice prior to its being associated with Fudd in Dangerous Dan McFoo (Avery, 1939) and Nutty News (Clampett, 1942). In A Pest in the House (Jones, 1947), Bryan not only provides the voice of Fudd, but, using his real voice, plays the tired hotel guest who is relentlessly harassed by Daffy Duck. With the exception of The Scarlet Pumpernickel (Jones, 1950), Bryan would continue to provide the voice of Fudd until his death.

Others tried to do Elmer’s voice, including Mel Blanc (reluctantly, by his own account) and Daws Butler, but none ever captured what Schneider has called the “simpy charm” that Bryan brought to the character.

Bryan also provided a physical model for Fudd around 1941-1942, when a chunkier, rounder Fudd was used in a few cartoons.

Curiously, the best known role of Bryan on radio was as a much more aggressive character, the feisty pseduo-intellectual Doc Gamble on the Fibber McGee and Molly program. Bryan also played Floyd the Barber on a spin-off of that show, The Great Gildersleeve.

“BUB”

As in “What’s all the hubbub, bub?”. Spoken by The Little Man From the Draft Board in Draftee Daffy (Clampett, 1945), and by Bugs to the Gremlin in Falling Hare (Clampett, 1943).

This expression probably derives from the Titus Moody character played by Parker Fennelly on Fred Allen’s radio show. Moody was a rustic New Englander, who often would greet Allen with a “Howdy, bub.” Incidentally, Fennelly also played the rustic country store proprietor in Pepperidge Farm commercials clear into the 1970s.

BUCK ROGERS

Comic strip that debuted in 1929 and blazed the trail for many science fiction stories to follow, reaching the height of its artistic acheivement in the 1930s. The full title, “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century”, is the inspiration for Duck Dodgers in the 24-1/2th Century (Jones, 1951). Avery parodies the character, depicting him as effeminate in Believe It Or Else (1939). Clampett supplies the elderly Fudd with a “Buck Rogers Lighting-Quick Wabbit Killer” in The Old Grey Hare (1944).

BUDDY

Described by Robert Clampett as “Bokso in whiteface”, Buddy was a song and dance character used in a series of entirely forgettable Looney Tunes in the years immediately following the departure of Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising from the studio in 1933. Buddy was usually seen with his girlfriend Cookie, and a dog named Towser.

Filmography:

• Buddy’s Day Out (Palmer, 1933)
• Buddy’s Beer Garden (Duvall, 1933)
• Buddy’s Show Boat (Duvall, 1933)
• Buddy the Gob (Freleng, 1934)
• Buddy and Towser (Freleng, 1934)
• Buddy’s Garage (Duvall, 1934)
• Buddy’s Trolley Troubles (Freleng, 1934)
• Buddy of the Apes (Hardaway, 1934)
• Buddy’s Bearcats (King, 1934)
• Buddy the Detective (King, 1934)
• Buddy the Woodsman (King, 1934)
• Buddy’s Circus (King, 1934)
• Viva Buddy (King, 1934)
• Buddy’s Adventures (Hardaway, 1935)
• Buddy the Dentist (Hardaway, 1935)
• Buddy’s Pony Express (Hardaway, 1935)
• Buddy’s Theater (Hardaway, 1935)
• Buddy of the Legion (Hardaway, 1935)
• Buddy’s Lost World (King, 1935)
• Buddy’s Bug Hunt (King, 1935)
• Buddy in Africa (Hardaway, 1935)
• Buddy Steps Out (King, 1935)
• Buddy the Gee Man (King, 1935)

Buddy’s voice was provided by animator Jack Carr.

BUGS BUNNY

Bugs is deserving of a Companion devoted solely to his exploits. Though he was not the studio’s first major star, he certainly was the character who, in the 1940s, made Warner Brothers the number one studio in short-subject animation, at least in terms of popularity. Bugs regularly won popularity polls throughout the 40s, 50s and 60s.

As discussed in the entry for Creation and Development, the question of who created Bugs is very complex. There are a number of contenders for the title of “Creator” of Bugs, including the directors J. B. “Bugs” Hardaway (after whom the character was named), Charles M. Jones, (Bugs is first identified by name onscreen in a Jones short, 1941’s Elmer’s Pet Rabbit) and Robert Clampett. The author follows the school of the thought that it was director Tex Avery in A Wild Hare (1940) who first put together the elements of design, movement, and characterization to form the rabbit we all know.

In spite of the many classic cartoons starring Bugs, he received very few Oscar nominations, and was eventually awarded only one. The nominated cartoons are A Wild Hare (Avery, 1940), Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt (Freleng, 1941), and Knighty Knight Bugs (Freleng, 1958). Only the last of these actually won.

The author recommends Joe Adamson’s Bugs Bunny: Fifty Years and Only One Grey Hare, an in-depth study of the character and his films. The book provides much fascinating information on the character, in far greater detail than is within the scope of this document. (The author does invite the reader to examine relevant entries, such as Cross-dressing.)

BURMA SHAVE

Shaving cream which, starting in 1927 and continuing for decades, had a distinctive method of advertising, using billboards along highways that told a comic rhyme in four panels, the fifth inevitably saying simply “Burma Shave”. For example:

 
    He played a sax
 
    had no B.O.
 
    But his whiskers scratched
 
    so she let him go
 
    Burma Shave.
 

The Cat’s Tale (Freleng, 1941) and Rabbit Seasoning (Jones, 1952) each have a series of signs like the Burma Shave signs, with gags built around them.

BURNESS, PETER (“PETE”)

Animator in the McKimson unit during the late 1940s. Burness had been an animator in the Hanna-Barbera unit at MGM prior to his stint at Warners, and would produce some of his best known work after leaving as a director at the UPA studio in the 1950s on the Mr. Magoo series and other cartoons.

BURNS, BOB (a.k.a. “Bazooka Bob” or “The Arkansas Traveler”, 1893-1956)

Burns was a homespun comedian of the 1930s, best known for playing a bazooka, a sort of combination kazoo and trombone (which lent its name to the World War II antitank rocket launcher, named by Major Zeb Hastings in 1943). Burns often spoke of his Uncle Fud in Van Beuren, Arkansas -- his home state -- hence his title “the Arkansas Traveler”. Burns was the host of the 1938 Academy Awards ceremony.

A caricature of Burns is seen at the beginning of Speaking of the Weather (Tashlin, 1937) playing “Plenty of Money and You” on the bazooka. Uncle Fud is referred to in the map being read by the title character in The Major Lied Till Dawn (Tashlin, 1938). A hillbilly-type character is seen playing the bazooka on the cover of the sheet music for “Arkansas Traveler” in Book Revue (Clampett, 1946).

MR. BURROWS

Name given in Person to Bunny (Freleng, 1960) for the caricature of Edward R. Murrow. The title refers to the Murrow show Person to Person, on which he interviewed notable personalities.

BURTON, JOHN
(d. 1978)

Burton was the production manager at the Warner Brothers studio for 27 years, leaving in 1960. He was involved with much of the camera work, including the camera work necessary for the studio’s only 3-D cartoon, Lumberjack Rabbit (Jones, 1954). Burton was an executive after 1960 at Pacific Art & Title, the same firm at which Leon Schlesinger had been an executive before opening his cartoon studio.

In his autobiography, Mel Blanc made the uncorroborated claim that the jowly Burton was the model for Sylvester.

A sign for “Burton’s Ale” can be seen in the background in Deduce You Say (Jones, 1956).

The obituary for Burton in Variety notes that he originated the card stunt device in which cards could be flipped to show images during his stint as a student at UCLA.

BUTLER, DAVID
(1894-1979)

Light comedy and musical director from the 1920s through the 1960s for various studios, including Warner Brothers. Butler directed the feature Two Guys From Texas (1948) which featured an animation sequence by Friz Freleng. Interestingly, Chuck Jones chose to call the bombastic director shooting a feature in the Pépe le Pew short Past Perfumance (1955) “David Butlaire”. A mocking tribute, or something done out of affection?

BUTLER, DAWS

Voice actor closely associated with the Hanna-Barbera cartoon studio, for whom he provided dozens of voices, including Huckleberry Hound (who sounds, incidentally, like the Wolf used in some very late Tex Avery cartoons).

Butler also did work for Warner Brothers in the 1950s, providing one of the voices of Elmer Fudd after the death of Arthur Q. Bryan. He provided various other voices as well, including that of the Ed Norton-like Honeymouser.

Warner Brothers cartoons with Daws Butler voices include

• The Honey Mousers (McKimson, 1956) as Ned Morton
• Wideo Wabbit (McKimson, 1956) as Groucho Marx and Art Carney
• Go Fly a Kit (Jones, 1957)
• Cheese It, the Cat (McKimson, 1957)
• A Waggily Tale (Freleng, 1958)
• Backwoods Bunny (McKimson, 1958)
• The Dixie Fryer (McKimson, 1960)
• Mice Follies (McKimson, 1960)

The author is uncertain which of the post-Bryan Fudds was performed by Butler. Pre-Hysterical Hare (1958) was done by Blanc. It is possible that Person to Bunny (1960) was Butler.