Mark Kausler’s CatBlog

Here’s part two of my tribute to Dandy, Handy and Candy, the original Sugar Crisp Bears. Read about their escape from a shark, many years before “Jaws”, and then listen to this old children’s record about the bears. See if you can guess who is the principal singer on the record: http://www.zshare.net/audio/72056233966bcdac/. The scratches, pops and ticks are from more than 50 years of well-loved play!

Felix this time is from 8/24 to 8/30/1936. It’s a spooky week in the forest for Danny and Felix as they encounter an elephant, a lion, a crocodile, a monkey and an ostrich, all beautifully designed by Otto Messmer. The Sunday features Snobbs in a big dog suit, as he once again becomes Felix’s enemy. Oh, what a short memory has Snobbs, and how ungrateful he is for past favors!

In the Kat this time, (from 2/12 t0 2/17/1940) Offissa Pupp just can’t win. First he is continuously fooled by the ruse of storing bricks in Ignatz’s big Beaver hat, then, even Joe Stork is in league with Ignatz as he smuggles in a brick hidden in his “bindle” (2-17).

It’s a full week of Patrick this time, from 11/15 to 11/20/1965. Patrick is a pretty big brat, but you will notice that in 1965, no “time outs” for bratty kids. In the 11/19, Patrick is standing in the corner, feeling the stars from being spanked. No “Nanny-911″ necessary for this incorrigible boy.

Notice the link over to “Yowp” over to the right. Click on it, and visit a great blog devoted to  pre-Iwao Hanna-Barbera cartoons, when the world was safe for the silly puns of Charlie Shows, and the designs of Ed Benedict and Dick Bickenbach, not to mention the animation of Ken Muse, Carlo Vinci, Ed Love, Lewis Marshall and many others. Yowp writes in a very entertaining and non-worshipful fashion about these cartoons. He likes some of them and is dismissive of others, but it’s heartening to read his analysis of the stories and the tricks that the animators used to liven up the limited animation of the late 1950s and early 1960s. He singles out Carlo Vinci for the extra effort he put into making funny extremes, for instance. Yowp also points out how powerful a two drawing cycle or just a “pop” to a strong pose can be in limited animation. It was Ward Kimball who once defined animation as “the difference between two drawings”, and there are numerous examples of the power of two drawings on Yowp’s blog.

The best part of Yowp’s blog is his emphasis on the stock music that these cartoons drew on, and the stories behind the composers like Jack Schaindlin and Geordie Hormel. You can listen to the musical clips without effects or dialogue over them. Find the music that accompanied the Augie Doggie cartoons, by Bluestone, Cadkin and Phil Green; it’s quite appealing and even moving.  Of course, I think the theatrical cartoons of the 1930s and 1940s are the very best, but there is a dusty little corner of my heart and my brain where the early H-B Enterprises cartoons reside. Yogi Bear, Huck Hound and Quick Draw McGraw were like old friends to me, and the cozy, 1950s library music that Bill and Joe used for chases, like Jack Shaindlin’s “Toboggan Run” or “On The Run” played endlessly in my head as my brother and I rode our bikes fast through old St. Louis neighborhoods. These cartoons were on at a time of my life when I responded strongly to animated TV comedy, the watershed was Magilla Gorilla. When Magilla came on, I enjoyed them, but I knew that something was missing. Daws Butler was not the star voice anymore, for one, and the stock music that I loved was no longer there. I better quit blabbing about H-B stuff before Mike Barrier throws his computer at me, but I was a fan, so what.

      By the way, I wish Yowp could teach me how to embed sound files in this here WordPress type blog, then I wouldn’t have to use ZShare! Oh well, head on over there and tell Yowp that I sent you.

It’s been cold and very wet here in old Glendale this past week. Let’s look at some dry comics, shall we? This Sugar Crisp ad is posted (Post’s) by request of old friend Marc Schirmeister. He wanted to see the original bears, Dandy, Handy and Candy, before they were merged into the singular Sugar Bear we know today. This was clipped from a Boy’s Life comic section of the mid-1950s. The bears encounter a Martian robot and are lucky that he likes Sugar Crisp. This was before “sugar” became a dirty word in cereal-land, now the product is called Golden Crisp. Rosemary Clooney had a hit record for Columbia of “Dandy, Handy and Candy” in the early 1950s, which was about the home life of the bears, maybe I’ll link to it next “Post”.

Felix is from 8/17 to 8/23/1936 this time. Danny Dooit is determined to rough it by camping in the woods with Felix. Snobbs and Socky follow Danny and his cat around with treats and luxuries, embarrassing him. In the 8/22, Danny and Felix encounter a Messmer elephant as they try to sneak off into the woods. I love Messmer’s elephant drawings. The 8/23 Sunday page punctures Snobbs’s dignity as he takes a dip in the old swimmin’ ‘ole on his “awfternoon h’off”.

Krazy this week is from 2/5 to 2/10/1940. No real continuity this week. I love the Kat Langwitch in the 2/8, Krazy mangles the names of famous men, “Watchin’ Ton”, “Cizza” and “Hanna Bill”, remarking on their “crossmints”. Then the famous Chicken Who Crossed The Road shows up to deflate K’s hero “wort-ship”. The Chicken makes a repeat appearance in the 2/10, note the elegant little umbrella Krazy’s carrying in the last panel.

Patrick this week is from 11/8 to 11/12/1965. Panel two of the 11/8 almost looks like a Schulz drawing if you don’t look at it carefully. Patrick is no Charlie Brown, however, he is a master of psychological warfare and is a really “mean” baseball player. He’s a funny character, but ultimately doomed to a short run in the newspapers. Being a real mean little kid is a bit one-dimensional and it’s tough to sustain a run of years in a comic strip without a sympathetic character. Until the next time, don’t leave any newspapers out in the rain.

To start out  this time, Felix dailes and Sunday from 8/10 to 8/16/36. Doin’s at the Dooits continue, as Felix is constantly put out and taken in. The 8/13 has a funny finish as Mr. Dooit is banished to the dog house by the Mrs. for burning a hole in her beautiful rug. “Move over, Cat,” says Mr. Dooit to Felix in the final panel.

Krazy is from 1/29 to 2/3/1940 this time. Mostly cartoonist in-jokes this week, as Krazy erases an extra Ignatz in the 1/29, and fills Ig up with ink in the 1/31 so he won’t be so “trensperent”.  I love the Kat language in the 2/2: “Dizzy Poinkmint”, sounds like Mint flavored Pork.

Patrick by Mal Hancock is from 11/1 to 11/5/1965.  Patrick is such a cynical little kid, witness his attitude toward friends in the 11/4, “Not ONE SINGLE FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WORLD, sure hope I can keep it that way…” This almost feels like a W.C. Fields line. My friend and reader Jerry Beck likes the “Patrick” strip so far, keep readin’ Mr. Beck! By the way, the reason there are five instead of six dailies in this collection, is that my Dad didn’t work on Saturday, so he didn’t bring home the evening Post-Dispatch that night. Hence a lot of my clipped runs don’t have the Saturday episodes, I was too poor in those days to buy any papers for myself. So far there have been about 20 hits on my recorded “stories”. Not an overwhelming response, but better than no listeners at all. I’ll try to do another one maybe next month.

If y’all can lay off the spirits long enough to read my blog, here’s the last of my Webb Smith articles from Aug. 21st, 1927 called “Premier Foils Sol on Sword”, originally published in the Los Angeles Examiner.

Felix is from 8/3 to 8/9/1936 this time. Snobbs the butler’s troubles with Mrs. Boo’s baby continue, and Felix goes fishing with Mr. Dooit. The Sunday 8/9 page is beautifully drawn as Socky the bodyguard gets in to the act, punching out Joe the Tailor, who has to prove his identity the hard way!

Krazy Kat is from 1/22 to 1/27/1940 this time. Mrs. Kwakk-Wakk and Ignatz fool around with the pun: “You Can’t Shoo (shoe) a Horsefly”. This same line was used in the Max Fleischer Color Classic of 1940, “You Can’t Shoe A Horsefly”, featuring the song of the same title by Sammy Timberg. My guess is that the gag was started on radio in 1939! The next two days are taken up by a visiting ventriloquist who makes eggs and bricks talk, and then some brick gags. Ignatz gets a rare sock on 1/26.

Here are the first 5 “Patrick” daily strips by Mal Hancock, carefully cut from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by yours truly. These are almost certainly from 1965, 10/25 to 10/29. Mal Hancock drew several daily strips, Patrick was the second one he did, it lasted until 1969. I thought of it as the “Anti-Peanuts”, Patrick was mean and maladjusted and proud of it. I love the cartooniness of the drawings, and how Hancock uses lettering as almost another character in the strip. Mal or Malcolm Hancock, was born in 1936 and died of cancer in 1993. He suffered an accident as a teenager which paralyzed him from the waist down. He evidently was in quite a lot of pain throughout his short life, which may have influenced the sardonic tone of his humor. He was best known for his magazine cartoons for the National Review, and other magazines. This shows what the Post-Dispatch comic section did to a lot of the dailies; they printed them in color! I spent a lot of time (too much time) cutting these out and storing them in envelopes. At least you can see them in good scans and in color this way, instead of (ugh)  microfilm!

Hey Folks, it’s story-telling time once again! I thought I’d kick off 2010 by telling you one of my favorite stories from the book “Short Stories for Short People” by Alicia Aspinwall. Alicia was a great fantasist, and unjustly forgotten today. “Short Stories” was published in 1896, and was in it’s 24th printing by 1929. The story I will read to you is called “Tula Oolah”, the story of a tiny elephant that Celia and Soft-Eyes the seal found on the beach. (Original illustration by Marie L. Danforth):  This is my clumsy way of trying to preserve the oral tradition in story-telling. Our world is so media-cluttered that I fear we are losing our ability to just sit down with each other and tell stories. I have so many favorites that will never have a chance to be filmed or animated, so maybe I can spark your imaginations in this way. “Short Stories for Short People” was introduced to me by our beloved Bristol School (Webster Groves, Mo.) librarian, Miss Bedell.  Miss Bedell read to us, as I remember, several times a week in her magical school library in a special period, usually at noon. She didn’t teach a class formally, but just tried to give us a love of literature. She was a stern, strict disciplinarian who ruled by sharp looks and a commanding voice. She often stayed after school, re-binding the books herself with special cloth and glue. Her indoctrination into books didn’t quite work on me, I love literature, but it’s mostly antique juveniles that fill my cup with joy. How many of you remember collections of stories like “Told Under the Magic Umbrella”, or Andrew Lang’s “The Blue Fairy Book”? I hope you enjoy “Tula Oolah”, I’ve recorded it with a new digital microphone, with as few mistakes as possible: http://www.zshare.net/audio/707198640d964d03/.

Enjoy! We’ll see you again soon.

Hi Readers,

For all those who don’t get our Christmas card through the mail, here’s a color copy of it. It’s patterned after the famous “Le Chat Noir” French poster by the artist Theophile Steinlen. The poster was designed to advertise the Paris night club “Le Chat Noir” in 1896, one year before the club closed it’s doors. The pioneer animator Emil Cohl was a frequent customer, as were the cartoonist Caran D’Ache and one of my favorite composers Erik Satie.  The card is a subtle way of reminding people that the next “Cat” cartoon short should be making appearances next year in festivals. It’s very close to production photography, but still a few weeks or months away.

I sketched this giant Teddy Bear outside the Tea Room at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena on the 5th, as Cathy did an Artist-In-Residence demonstration. She painted a still life of apples sitting in front of another painting she made of tomatoes: I’m not invited to paint when Cathy is at the Langham, so I fill the time by sketching. I tried to get the values in the room, it was dimly lit, with the main source of light coming from the fixture on the wall. The stuffed Bear was really large and his fur was quite dark as well, so lots of cross-hatching was called for.

Felix this time is from 7/27 to 8/2/1936. Snobbs has a perpetual job of sitting Mrs. Boo’s baby. Felix gets a lot of laughs from Snobbs’s troubles in the 7/30 and 7/31. In the 8/2 Sunday page, Snobbs is forced to put Felix out by Mr. Dooit, and it’s clear that Felix and Snobbs are getting to be friends. Felix sympathizes with Snobbs when he has a conflict between Mr. and Mrs. Dooit in the final panels of the page.

Krazy from 1/15 to 1/20/1940 is a miscellany of Ignatz frustration gags. Krazy’s dialect in the 1/16 is especially delectable, “Toot-Pigg”, “Pentsil Witla” and “Piggits”.

 I enjoy reading aloud and Christmas time doesn’t seem festive without a story. So I dusted off my volume of “Christmas Tales For Reading Aloud” and found a story that fits the Cat Blog, “The Mouse Who Didn’t Believe in Santa Claus” by Eugene Field. Field was born in St. Louis, in fact his house has been preserved in downtown St. Louis. At Christmas time, the house is decorated and they have warm cider for the tourists who visit there. Field’s most famous poem for children is “The Duel” or “The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat”. He also wrote “Little Boy Blue” and “Wynken, Blynken and Nod”. This story: “The Mouse Who Didn’t Believe in Santa Claus” is a lot less famous. It is condensed from the story “The Mouse and the Moonbeam” (1912). It is really a pretty grim little tale, not really appropriate for the very small child, or those easily frightened. The moral might as well be, “You’d better not pout, you’d better not cry, or you die.” I recorded the story on the computer microphone, and you may have to boost your volume a little to hear it properly. It runs about 9.5 minutes, and I really enjoyed reading it to you. I hope to record more stories some time, if I get any reaction from this one, including tips on improving the recordings technically. Listen at:  http://www.zshare.net/audio/7012671401b8f2a1/ . This is on a file-sharing site called ZShare. It is ad supported, so you may get some pop-ups if you go over there, also some of the ads displayed on the page are a little bit “R” rated, so use caution if that offends you. If any of you know how to embed a player in this here Blog, let me know.

Ya know, come to think of it, The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat both are destroyed by the end of that poem, so Field never flinched from the grim and gruesome. Kids really love the stuff, anyway.

The best and the warmest wishes of the season to all you loyal readers out there in the “Internets”. This blog couldn’t exist without you; Happy New Year, too!