Salt Water Tabby Part Two, Twinkle


calling-all-kids-_7-cover.jpgtwinkle-and-the-ski-tow-2-59-crop.jpgtwinkle-_7-1.jpgtwinkle-_7-2.jpgmike-3-11.jpgmike-3-12.jpgmike-3-13.jpgmike-3-14.jpgmike-3-15.jpgmike-3-16.jpgkrazy_vintage7-31.gifkrazy_vintage8-1.gifkrazy_vintage8-2.gifkrazy_vintage8-3.gifkrazy_vintage8-4.gifkrazy_vintage8-5.gif

Hello readers! This week I’m featuring Part Two of my draft to “Salt Water Tabby“:

Jerry running, Tom in with bucket, plops it over Jerry, takes it off revealing bucket-shaped sand pile, Tom up with shovel, slices off chunks of sand pile rapidly, no Jerry, Tom digs in sand fast, sand comes in on top of him from screen right–Lah

Jerry digging sand with shovel fast, covers Tom in hole, Jerry jumps on sand to compact it, jabs shovel handle in sand, Tom’s head out of sand, Jerry lets the shovel slam into Tom’s face, exits–Lah

Jerry runs in, jumps in basket, Tom in, looks around, gets banana out of basket–Muse

Tom peels banana, revealing Jerry hiding inside peel, Tom looks at him, Jerry snaps catch on beach umbrella, snaps on Tom, Jerry opens little patch on umbrella, jumps out left–Muse

Jerry jumps into soda bottle, stuck, Tom runs in, grabs bottle(?)

CU Tom shakes bottle, truck in to Jerry-(?)

CU Jerry shoots out of bottle (?)

Jerry tumbles through air, hits clam shell in water, opens shell, mad, grabs sea weed and burnt stick–(?)

Jerry throws seaweed over pylon, draws eyes on pylon with burnt stick–(?)

Tom grabs sandwich and chicken leg from picnic basket, hears yell for help, looks right–Lah

Jerry yelling by disguised pylon–Lah

Tom does heroic antic., runs out, right–Barge

Tom runs, dives to pylon–Lah

Tom smashes head first on pylon, wave in, pan over, wave recedes revealing Tom with a big lump on his head–Lah

Tom runs on pan–Lah

Jerry jumps on bucket, reaches up to toy sea horse, unfastens catch on air intake, sea horse flies off right fast–Lah

Tom stops run, open mouthed take, swallows horse, air propels Tom off right fast, suit comes off-Lah

Tom sails to and from camera in the air as sea horse deflates inside of him–Lah

Jerry hides in Tom’s bathing suit–Lah

Long shot, Tom flies up in air–(?)

Tom runs out of air, starts to fall, long vertical pan–(?)

Tom hits the water, Tom up our of hole in the sand on re-inflated sea horse’s back, does take screen left–Lah

Jerry sails away in basket, using Tom’s suit for a sail–Lah(?)

As you can see, there are 7, possibly 8 scenes that I can’t positively identify. Especially the “soda bottle” sequence, students?

This week in comics, I present “Twinkle, the Star That Came Down From Heaven” from CALLING ALL KIDS #7, February 1947.  I first encountered the character in the old HUMPTY DUMPTY’S MAGAZINE in the 1950s, it was only later that I found out the character goes back to 1945. He was always published by Parent’s Magazine, since they did both CALLING ALL KIDS and HUMPTY DUMPTY’S. I have a crude photo of a couple of pages from a Twinkle story of 1959 in HUMPTY’S, so that the styles can be compared. The Twinkle I used to read, was much more like a children’s book, very stylized, black and white drawings with captions. The original Twinkle was very much a 1940s Funny book, looking to be a production of an East Coast comics “shop”. This Twinkle story looks very much like a Famous Studios animator drew it. In coming weeks, I will re-print a story that Marty Taras drew for this issue of CALLING ALL KIDS, as well. Twinkle was a little God, who came down from Heaven to solve the little problems of the insect and animal cast. I think the design for Winky Dink was stolen from Twinkle, both star-headed characters. If any of you cartoon scholars can guess who drew this Twinkle story, let me hear from you.

This just in, I noticed that Elliott A. Caplin was the Publisher of CALLING ALL KIDS comics! Elliott Caplin was Al Capp’s brother, and later published Toby Comics, and wrote several long-lived daily comic strips such as Abbie N’ Slats, The Heart of Juliet Jones, Big Ben Bolt, Dr. Kildare and even wrote Little Orphan Annie for a time after Harold Gray passed away. It’s interesting that the caterpillar’s name in “Twinkle” is Eliot, maybe Elliott Caplin wrote this story and slipped himself in disguise into the action! Perhaps Elliott worked on CALLING ALL BOYS, CALLING ALL GIRLS and POLLY PIGTAILS, which were all magazines that Parent’s published featuring comics. They were all out in about the same span of years, 1946-1949, except CALLING ALL GIRLS dates back to 1941. If anyone can check their copies for his credits, let me know, I don’t have any issues of the other Parent’s Magazine comic books.

       As you know from the comments on last week’s post, MyToons.com is no more. I received two one-line emails from them the night before they closed, one saying that they were closing down, the other saying that my check was in the mail. To their credit, I did receive a check, for four dollars. We had about 7 paid hits, thanks to all of you who tried it. I actually am very sorry to lose MyToons, not so much for the money it generated, but because of the advertising and web presence it had. They really did a LOT of advertising and promotion. Greg Ford and I are considering other options for “It’s ‘The Cat'” on the Internet. If any other streaming cartoon sites are around, paid or not, and if you are interested in “It’s ‘The Cat'”, please let us know.

     In comic strips this week, Marvelous Mike (3/11 to 3/16/1957)’s dad Cliff finds out that Mr. Kimball’s daughter Peggy is a juvenile delinquent who swipes Kimball’s car and drives recklessly all over town. Of course poor Cliff is fired by Mr. Kimball for telling him about his daughter’s split personality. Mike seems to have the solution, see the next post! Krazy Kat (7/31 to 8/5/1939) is mostly about the “Bird on Mrs. Kwakk-Wakk’s Hat”. The bird scandalizes both Ignatz and Offissa Pupp, in a sequence that seems to hark back to old time melodrama. Walter Lantz based one of his Nellie “Mello-Drama” cartoons on the Bird on the Hat theme, titled “The Bird on Nellie’s Hat”.  As always, thanks for your comments and support, folks. I really appreciate hearing from you.

Recent Posts


Archives