Word has reached us that the legendary voice actor and kids' show host Allen Swift has died at the age of 86. A whole generation of children who grew up in New York knew him as Captain Allen Swift, host of the Popeye cartoons (and others) on WPIX in late fifties, and for years, he was probably the most prolific mimic and performer of funny voices in that part of the country. His cartoon credits included Underdog (he was the villainous Simon Bar-Sinister), King Leonardo (he was Odie Cologne, Itchy Brother and Tooter Turtle) and the movie, Mad Monster Party. He did hundreds of commercials, cartoons, on-camera appearances and even a few jobs on Broadway…but some will always hail him as the man who saved Howdy Doody.
He did that twice. In 1952, the host "Buffalo" Bob Smith fired several of the performers in a salary dispute, thereby rendering many of the show's recurring characters speechless since the actors who played them were gone. Allen Swift came to the rescue, assuming those roles and he was soon dubbing most of the key players of Doodyville…all except for Howdy. Bob Smith himself would pre-record the voice of Howdy. Smith had done it himself in the show's earliest days when the budget wouldn't allow for another actor. He kept doing it after that because the voice was established and they were convinced no one could replicate it.
Then in 1954, Smith had a heart attack and was off the show for many months. Again, it was Swift to the rescue. Allen took records home over a weekend, learned to do the voice and thereafter supplied it so Howdy could continue to appear on Howdy Doody. In fact, Swift did it so well that when Buffalo Bob returned to the program, Swift continued to speak for the star of the show.
These are just a few of the staggering number of credits in the career of Allen Swift. He leaves behind an amazing legacy of work…and a lineage that is carried on by his gifted son, Broadway star Lewis J. Stadlen. Talent sure ran in that family.
I get a great many e-mails asking me to write about other great cartoon voice actors besides the ones covered here. Alas, I don't really know enough about some — like Paul Frees, to name one — to do their careers justice. Or take Allen Swift, for instance. For a few decades, Swift was to New York-based animation what Mel Blanc was to Hollywood. He lent his voice to a staggering percentage of all cartoons that were recorded in Manhattan, did loads of commercials and kids' records and even had a couple of good runs in live children's television. He was a vital part of The Howdy Doody Show, and some called him the man who saved the show…twice.
Swift was not a part of the original cast but, just before Christmas of 1952, most of the actors quit or were fired (pick one), leaving all those puppet characters without voices. Swift came in and did an uncanny job matching the sounds of Flubadub, Mr. Bluster and others — all except Howdy himself, whose voice was pre-recorded by the show's host, "Buffalo" Bob Smith. Later on, when Smith had a heart attack and was off the show for months, Swift saved the day again, learning how to replicate Howdy's voice. This enabled the title character to appear with the various guest hosts who filled in while the Buffalo recuperated.
Later on, Swift gained a young, loyal following hosting Popeye cartoons from 1956 to 1960 on WPIX, channel 11, in New York. The photo above is him in his "Captain Allen" character, as cribbed off the cover of a kids' record he made at the time. Of the many TV cartoons he did, he is probably best remembered for playing Odie Cologne (the skunk) and Itchy Brother on King Leonardo, most of the villains (including Simon Bar-Sinister) on Underdog, and Tooter Turtle in cartoons that ran on both those shows. Mr. Swift is still (happily) with us, occasionally doing a voiceover or playing an on-camera role. He had a small part in Safe Men, a barely-released feature of a couple years back, for instance.
And his genes are well represented on the Broadway stage. His son is Lewis J. Stadlen, one of the funniest stage actors of our generation. Stadlen rose to prominence playing Groucho Marx in Minnie's Boys and A Day In Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine. More recently, he played opposite Nathan Lane in Laughter on the 23rd Floor, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and The Man Who Came to Dinner, and was in the short-lived Neil Simon comedy, 45 Seconds From Broadway. (Stadlen has a long history with Neil Simon. Years ago, he also played one of those Hispanic flight attendants in Simon's female version of The Odd Couple that we mentioned here a week or two ago and before that, he played the nephew in the original production of The Sunshine Boys.)
He is said to be the leading contender to play Max Bialystock in the about-to-start-touring company of The Producers. I'm not sure anyone could ever top Mr. Lane in the role but I'd sure like to see Allen Swift's kid try it.
A first for this blog: Something about a Groucho Marx impersonator who isn't Frank Ferrante…
This is an Aqua Velva commercial from the early seventies that was done with Groucho's blessing and, I assume, compensation. The gent doing the great impression is Lewis J. Stadlen, who did it in the short-lived Broadway show, Minnie's Boys. The show was not a hit but Stadlen got great reviews, including many a compliment from the man he was playing.
Stadlen had impersonations in his blood. His father, Allen Swift, was a leading voice actor in cartoons and commercials made in New York (also the host of a kid's show back there) and was often called upon to mimic voices. Lewis went on to become a top Broadway star. He was seen most recently in The Nance, which starred Nathan Lane. The show has closed but before it did, it was recorded for posterity and for a Live From Lincoln Center broadcast some time this year on PBS. Don't ask me why it's on Live From Lincoln Center if it was recorded last year…probably the same reason Jimmy Kimmel Live is not live.
The lady at the end of this commercial is also of interest. It's Erin Fleming, who was Groucho's controversial lady friend, manager, caregiver and crazy person. Erin was an unsuccessful actress who…well, if you care about this, you know the story. If you don't, my pal Steve Stoliar — who worked in Groucho's house during the Fleming regime — has written a splendid book about his experiences there. If you don't have a copy, click here to get one. There's also a Kindle version and a lot of people like the audio book for which Steve not only reads his words but does impressions of the leading players.
I think it's also safe to assume that Erin got the job in the commercial because Groucho made that a condition of obtaining his permission. Or maybe that the ad agency offered her the role figuring that she wouldn't let Groucho say no. Either way, here 'tis. By the way, Aqua Velva is a great after-shave if your mustache is painted-on…
The mainstream press is finally running obits for Allen Swift.
I'm informed that comic book writer-editor Bill DuBay passed away on April 15 from colon cancer. Dubay was best known for his long runs on the Warren magazines including Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella, though he worked for almost every publisher in existence in the eighties. I barely knew Bill and really don't know enough about him to write a proper obit here.
A memorial service will be held Saturday, May 15 for our friend Eddie Carroll, who passed away April 6. Details can be found at his website. I'm going to do my darnedest to be there.
Voice legend Allen Swift passed away last weekend but so far, I haven't seen an obit in any major news source. I'm sure they're coming…but in the meantime, Barry Mitchell has assembled a video of some of Swift's work on the Howdy Doody show. As I noted here, Swift joined the cast when several of the actors were hired and he used his gift for mimickry to give new voices to various denizens of Doodyville — for a time, most of the important males except for Howdy. The show's star, "Buffalo" Bob Smith voiced Howdy…but then Smith had a heart attack and Swift took over that job. The producers were so happy with how he did it that when Buffalo Bob returned to the show, Swift continued to speak for Howdy. Here's a sample, along with Swift doing an on-camera role…
Well, how about an episode of Diver Dan? Any of you remember Diver Dan from when you were a kid? I don't. If it ever ran on Los Angeles television, I managed to miss it. 104 of these were produced in 1960 and they aired in various cities in various formats — sometimes interspersed with cartoons, sometimes as a whole half hour of Diver Dan adventures.
The series was created by a cartoonist named J. Anthony (John) Ferlaine, who drew a comic strip I've never seen called Fish Tales. Ferlaine produced a couple of puppet shows starring characters from his strip and this project eventually morphed into Diver Dan. One of the writers on the show — you'll see his name in the end credits if you last that long — was Joseph Bonaduce, father of Danny Bonaduce.
The outstanding talent on Diver Dan was Allen Swift, who provided all of the puppet voices. Mr. Swift was a legend in kids' TV in and around New York, hosting Popeye cartoons for years as Captain Allen Swift on WPIX in that city. He was also the voice of many characters on Howdy Doody including, at times, the title character and he was heard in about half the cartoon shows ever recorded in Manhattan in the fifties and sixties. (He was a regular on Underdog and King Leonardo, to name two. On Underdog, he voiced Simon Bar Sinister, among other baddies.) He probably made his fortune — and set some kind of industry record — by doing voiceovers for a staggering number of radio and TV commercials…and I think he's still working.
Are you a fan of Allen Swift? Then you might be interested in a lengthy, fascinating interview with him that's been posted to YouTube. I'm not going to embed it because it's four parts, each of which runs a little over twenty minutes. But if you want to see it, here's a link to Part One and you should be able to find your way from there. I haven't watched the whole thing myself yet but I'm guessing that somewhere in there, he makes mention of his son, who is a brilliantly funny actor named Lewis J. Stadlen.
So here's an episode of Diver Dan. It runs about seven minutes. I don't find it all that much fun but I bet I'd have enjoyed it when I was eight.
Andrew Leal, who is the Webmaster for Toonjunkies.com sends the following to continue our discussion of New York cartoon voice actors. And isn't this a lot more important than discussing who's going to be the Democratic nominee for president?
Very much intrigued by the present discussions on your site regarding New York voice actors on records and in cartoons. Since Frank Milano has come up, I've sometimes wondered which sources are correct regarding Mr. Lizard myself, especially since most of the other times that I've heard Mr. Milano, they haven't been dialogue roles. From the 30's through the 50's, Frank Milano appears to have worked semi-frequently in radio as an animal imitator, and much less frequently in speaking dialect roles (usually Greek or Italian). He played Flush the Dog in an early New York broadcast of The Barretts of Wimpole Street on Lux Radio Theater and according to radio historian John Dunning and others, was the resident animal specialist on the kids western Bobby Benson and the B-Bar Riders, as various cattle, panthers, dogs, and Bobby's horse Amigo. Also played cats in episodes of Suspense and CBS Radio Workshop. In television, UCLA's film and TV archive identifies him as providing "special vocal effects" on the Wally Cox sitcom Mr. Peepers along with Donald Bain, another (and judging from most radio memoirs, far more active and better known) radio animal imitator. All sources seem to agree on his having worked on the early puppet show Rootie Kazootie as well, puppeteering and voicing Little Nipper and the villainous Poison Zoomack.
It strikes me as just possible that Mr. Milano may have performed a similar capacity on the Total TV production(s), since I do seem to recall an occasional animal sound being needed, but not certain. I don't know if anyone could or has contacted Allen Swift or Jackson Beck (who appear to be the only survivors from the Total TV troupe) to see if either might be able to shed some light on this.
As for Gilbert Mack, he was part of the New York dubbing group that handled so many 60's Japanese imports. Fred Patten has identified him as the voice of Bob Brilliant in Gigantor, and most sources identify him as Pauley Cracker in Kimba the White Lion (last time I saw the latter series, it was in Spanish, so I can't judge for myself). Some sources suggest that he was also amongst the several actors to impersonate FDR on March of Time (a roster which also the late Art Carney and Bill Johnstone, one of the post Welles portrayors of The Shadow). Not certain about this myself, since those particular texts were rife with errors, but fairly likely that he might have played it once or twice, in as much as most New York actors worked the show at some point and often a supporting cast member would have to "understudy" if FDR or another world leader happened to figure in a sudden news bulletin before air time, and the regular performers were unavailable for the broadcast, or whatnot.
I haven't gotten around to contacting Allen Swift or Jackson Beck, but I probably should. (At least one other regular cast member from the Total Television troupe is still with us. George S. Irving is still performing. Here's a link to an interview from a couple years back.)
I seriously doubt Total Television hired Frank Milano just to make a few animal sounds. One of the things you learn in researching cartoon voice work is that studios are always…well, I was going to say "cheap" but it's not always cheap to hire as few actors as you can get away with. Until the late sixties when a change in union rules altered the pay structure, you did a cartoon with a tiny stock company. Most of the non-primetime Hanna-Barbera cartoons were performed by two guys — Daws Butler and Don Messick, Daws Butler and Doug Young, etc. There were a few that were just Daws Butler. They minimized female roles (or had men do them) because that would have meant spending a whopping $25-$50 to hire a third person. H-B never hired anyone to make an occasional animal sound. They'd have one of the actors doing a regular character also do it, like Mel Blanc doing the barks for Dino along with playing Barney Rubble.
I'm going to research this a little more and get back to you all. Milano may have been one of the Narrators on the King Leonardo show. But thanks for the info, Andrew. Nice to know so many folks besides me care about these things.
My chum Earl Kress — and I know enough not to doubt him about this kind of thing — says both I and most reference books are wrong. Frank Milano, he says, was not the voice of Mr. Wizard the Lizard on the "Tooter Turtle" cartoons seen on the 1960 King Leonardo cartoon show. Earl is certain that voice was supplied by Sandy Becker, the famed New York kid show host. I think Allen Swift played Tooter, so I don't know what voice on that series might have been done by Mr. Milano, if he even did a regular character at all. But his name appeared in the credits.
Interesting Note: The company that produced King Leonardo and His Short Subjects, as the show was originally called, was Total Television. Total later produced a number of other shows including Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales (1963), Underdog (1964), The Beagles (1966) and Go-Go Gophers (1968) that featured new cartoons wrapped around reruns from their previous shows. As a result, Frank Milano, who passed away in '62, was credited as a voice actor (and presumably paid decent residuals) on shows produced years after his death. Nice work if you can get it…
David McLallen went to see The Producers and here's what he sent me…
Saw the current touring cast in Denver last night and I must say I was surprised & impressed. Not so much by Lewis Stadlen, although he was really good. I expected that. He is, after all, an old Broadway hand. But "Max" had the show stolen right out from under him…by Leo. Alan Ruck, who for so many years played the slimy, smarmy Stuart on Spin City, can sing! His voice, his acting, made him a perfect Leo Bloom! I was pleasantly stunned!
Ths show, of course, was precisely what one would expect — hilarious, side-splitting, laugh-out loud funny. But hey, it's Mel Brooks, the man who turned farting into an art form in Blazing Saddles. Charley Izabella King was a really good Ulla, (the tour's former Ulla moved to the Broadway company) although there were a few times when her "Swedish" accent got so thick that she was hard to understand. Lee Roy Reams as Roger, and especially Josh Prince as Carmen Ghia were fantastic. I know Reams is no kid, but he more than kept up with a very demanding role. (His bio on imdb indicates that he's actually 61!)
I came away with a stomach ache from laughing so hard, and the very appreciative audience awarded the show an instant standing "o" the moment that Ruck & Stadlen appeared in the curtain call. What a great show!
It is, and I wish I could see it with Lewis J. Stadlen, who is one of my favorite Broadway performers. If you ever get to see the DVD of the recent production of The Man Who Came to Dinner with Nathan Lane, watch for Stadlen. He doesn't show up until the third act but when he does, he proceeds to walk off with the entire play and most of the scenery.
And I wonder how many folks know that Stadlen is the son of Allen Swift, the great cartoon voice actor I mentioned in the previous posting. Swift was a New York kids' show host and also the voice of many a character on Howdy Doody. Anyway, thanks, David! Wish I could have been there.
Coming soon to my bookshelf and probably yours is a book called The Walt Disney Records Story, detailing the history of Disney record albums. It's by Tim Hollis and Gregory Ehrbar, and I am delighted to reprint this e-mail from Gregory telling me more in my eternal quest to find out about the Sandpipers…
As it happens, I can add to the Sandpipers story. Bob McGrath is a friend of mine and he said Mike Stewart was not the Broadway librettist, but a vocalist and vocal contractor who was responsible for getting him early work. Mitch Miller directed the early Golden Records with a group called The Sandpipers or the The Sandpiper Quartet. Mitch also played oboe occasionally on them. Jimmy Carroll was the arranger for Golden Records and Miller's Columbia sing along LP's.
The singers' names you have listed are accurate. Sally Sweetland, by the way, is now in her 90's and along with her husband Lee, still teaches and sings in California. Tim Hollis and I contacted her for our Disneyland Records book.
I think many of the Bugs Bunny vocals were done in NY also by Gil Mack, who was a frequent actor on the CBS Mystery Theater radio show. Frank Milano (Odie Colognie on King Leonardo) did a couple of Yogi Bear LPs too.
When Miller went on to great success at Columbia, Jim Timmens conducted most of the early 60's Golden records with a group either called the Sandpipers, the Glow-Tones, or the Golden Singers/Chorus. They are distinctive by the Timmens sound he used for Terrytoons and some Lantz TV stuff. Listen for lots of woodwinds and a mellower tone. One of his frequent singers was Rose Marie Jun, whose Broadway demos for some huge shows are now on CDs called Broadway First Takes. She was also in Needles and Pins with Streisand.
Speaking of CDs, your readers will be delighted to learn that many Golden Records were reissued on CD. Drive Entertainment bought the library and worked with them on compiling discs and writing notes. They actually did about two dozen, but only a handful were released initially. You can find an my amazon listmania list at this address.
When Drive Entertainment folded, Image Entertainment / Liberty International got the masters and released even more Golden LP's, but were not told about my involvement (that's showbiz), so their CDs were retitled and contain little clue about which Golden Records were their sources. They're on amazon and towerrecords.com too, almost all under confusing and inaccurate names.
All interesting…but I was under the impression that Allen Swift was the voice of Odie Colognie and that Frank Milano was Mr. Wizard the Lizard in the "Tooter Turtle" cartoons on the King Leonardo show. I do own at least one Yogi Bear record from the Golden folks that credits Milano for voices. Anyway, thanks to Gregory for the info and when his Disneyland records book is available, I'll sure plug the hell out of it here.
In 1967, the Rankin-Bass studio brought forth an odd stop-motion animation movie called Mad Monster Party. It was allegedly co-written by the brilliant cartoonist who created Mad Magazine, Harvey Kurtzman. Kurtzman later claimed that he only worked a brief time on it and that little of what he did was used, but others involved in the project say he was underestimating. There is no doubt however that his associate, the equally-brilliant Jack Davis, did a lot of the character designs, and that the voices were provided by Boris Karloff, Phyllis Diller, Gale Garnett and — most of all — Allen Swift.
The resultant film has moments of wacky wonderment though, like all movies involving stop-motion animation, I find it hard to watch from start to finish. In increments, however, it's too weird not to like. So I'm ordering the brand-new, just-released DVD and if you'd like to do so, click here.
And if you'd like to learn more about the film, here's a banner ad to a website that seems to know all, except how to spell Allen Swift's first name…
Over at the Cartoon Research website, there's an article by Devon Baxter about the comic book work of Owen Fitzgerald. Owen's name is barely known in the comics community, in large part because it almost never appeared on any of the hundreds of comic books he drew. As far as I know, he only got credit on about three comics he ever worked on, all of which were written and edited by me…and I had to talk him into letting me do that.
It's a good article but Baxter couldn't fit in all the impressive things about Owen. The one I would have tried to find room for is that when he worked for DC, his work was occasionally inked or assisted by a kid in the DC Production Department — a kid who went on to become one of the world's great cartoonists himself. The kid, who told me he considered Owen a mentor and a teacher, was Mort Drucker.
Owen passed away in 1994. Quiet guy that he was, we didn't hear about it for a while and it wasn't until the 2/9/96 issue of The Comic Buyer's Guide that I was able to devote a column to telling folks about him. This is a slightly abridged (but still quite long) version of that column. I will meet you on the other side of it with some additional information…
It has been called to my attention by absolutely no one so far that I occasionally tell stories in which the editor of a comic book is the bad guy. And I'll admit: Though I have occasionally had the title of Editor hung on myself, my heart is ever that of a freelancer. And I don't even like to think of myself as a writer-editor…I prefer to be called a writer who occasionally edits. In the interest of Equal Time though, this column is about editors and how they can sometimes be victimized…how the freelancer (writer or artist) can sometimes be the villain.
A new editor had just been hired by the company and given a book to write and edit. It was a comic with a large cast and therefore quite the challenge to any artist. The editor got lucky when he managed to secure his first choice for the art assignment. The end-result was on-time and rather well-drawn.
But the editor was new at this and didn't realize that he should have had #2 well in the works as the art for #1 was being completed. At first, he didn't worry for the artist he'd picked was super-fast and reliable.
But then, the super-fast and reliable artist announced that he was leaving for a lengthy cruise on an ocean liner. He was willing to take work along — and he certainly would have gotten it done swiftly — but he wouldn't be anywhere he could mail pages in for at least six weeks. This clearly would not do and the editor began looking for a new artist.
He needed someone just as fast and just as reliable so he studied all the likely candidates and settled on one who was known for having both these qualities. The editor called the artist, quoted top dollar, warned him about the tight schedule and offered him the job. The artist thought it over for maybe ten seconds, then agreed. He also said he'd have no trouble making the deadline.
A cause for celebration! The editor finished his script quickly and sent it winging to the artist, along with reference on the characters.
A few days later, he called the artist to see that the package had arrived safely. "Got it," the illustrator announced. "Great script! I've already got it all broken-down and I've even got a few pages done. As for meeting your deadline…no problemo."
The editor exhaled, thanked various deities and relaxed for the first time since he found out Artist #1 was signing aboard the Love Boat.
Over the next week or ten days, the editor periodically called the artist. He liked the reassurance that the work was proceeding on schedule and, each call, the artist told him what he wanted to hear. If you've ever worked in comics, you've no doubt already guessed where this is leading.
The artist was to deliver a finished book — penciled — by the 15th. That was the day it had to go to the letterer and the inker and, from there, to a colorist, then through production and on to the engravers. As a general rule, a good editor would never cut it that close; he'd have a little "pad" in the schedule so that if someone got sick or slow, it would all still get to the printers on time. But the editor had gotten lucky on #1 and, well, he was young. He would, however, soon be growing older at an alarming rate.
On the tenth, he phoned the artist and was told, "I just have a few pages to go…you'll have it on the fifteenth, no problemo."
"Could you send me the first half of the book?" he asked. "I can get the inker started."
The artist hemmed and hawwed. "Uh, I don't actually have too many finished pages…see, when I work, I like to jump around and finish panels randomly 'til it's all done. But you'll have it on the fifteenth. No problemo."
The editor grudgingly agreed to wait…and he didn't worry a lot when he got off the phone. The artist was a pro and a pro delivers when he says he's going to deliver. At least, some do.
Came the fifteenth and there were no pages on his desk. He called the artist. "Just need another day," he was told. "I had to redo the first page…you would have hated it."
"I wouldn't have hated it if it were here," the editor responded. This was a Friday and the artist promised to have it in on Monday. "No problemo," he said seven or eight times.
Monday morn, there was a problemo: Not a page in sight. The editor called. No answer. No answer at the artist's number all day.
No answer on Tuesday.
By Wednesday, the letterer was coming by, asking the editor when that book would be in. The inker, who was holding himself available for the job's imminent arrival, also was inquiring. "Any day now," the editor told them…for indeed, that is what he believed.
Thursday arrived. The pages didn't.
Nor were there any on Friday, at least in the morning. He dialed the artist's number every ten minutes all day. Finally, long after quitting time, someone picked up.
"I'm coming over for the pages," he told the artist.
"No, don't," said the artist, who had only answered his phone, thinking it couldn't be the office calling at this hour. "I don't have them all done yet."
"You were almost done a week ago."
"Yes, well, I had some problems…personal things. I'd rather not go into them. But I can have it all in on Monday."
"Fine," said the editor. "Get me the last pages on Monday but I'm coming over now for whatever's done." It was a two-hour drive to the artist's house — four hours, both ways — but things had gotten desperate.
"No," the artist barked. "I don't have enough to make it worth your while."
"I'll take whatever you've got," the editor said. "How many have you got?" The book was twenty-four pages.
"Well, let me see…" The artist went through the sounds of apparently counting out a number of pages. "I only have ten finished," he said.
"Okay…I'll drive out and get the ten."
The artist gulped. "Well, they're kind of rough…"
"I'll live with it. The inker can tighten them up."
"Oh no, I wouldn't want an inker to do that."
"I'll pay him extra," the editor said.
The artist's voice grew firmer. "I'll tighten them up and have the whole job to you by Monday. No prob-"
"I know, I know — no problemo! Well, I have a problemo. The inker has been sitting around with no work for a week. He turned down another job because you assured me the pages would be here for him last week. So he's already lost a week's pay. And the production department is ready to burn me in effigy. I have to have those ten pages. I'll be there in about two hours."
"Well, I don't really have ten pages," the artist said.
"A minute ago, you had ten pages."
"I just counted again and I guess I miscounted."
The editor raised his voice, ever so slightly: "How many do you have?"
The artist paused and answered, "Two."
"Two?"
"Two."
The editor queried how "almost finished" had turned into ten pages and how ten pages had now turned into two. "I think you're using the wrong end of the pencil."
"I have it all drawn…but only in my mind. I can put it on paper real fast. If you'll give me until Monday…"
"I'll be there in two hours," the editor said. "I hope the two pages haven't turned into one panel by then."
The editor jumped in his car and started driving, pondering en route just what he was going to do. After a while, he stopped thinking about what he was going to do to the artist and began wondering what he was going to do about getting a book to press. He decided that trusting this artist to have anything in on Monday would establish new high scores on the Stupidity Meter.
Eventually, he found his way to the artist's house. It was dark and there was no answer when he rang the bell. A manila envelope was on the porch. It contained the script, which meant that the artist was not going to attempt to draw any more of it. There were also two penciled pages — not good but not bad. The editor got the distinct impression that all or most of them had been drawn in the past two hours while he'd been on the freeway.
There are few feelings more awful than sitting there with a deadline long past and no way to meet it. The editor felt more than a little helpless that night as he returned home late and paced the floor of his home, alternately fuming at the fibbing artist and pondering how to get twenty-two pages drawn in record time. He momentarily considered publishing a reprint instead but didn't figure that the readers would be too thrilled to have the second issue of this comic be a reprint of the first issue of this comic.
The next morning — a Saturday — he began phoning artists, looking for someone fast who could do some or all of the pages of this book with the huge cast. One after another proved unavailable…but then one of them said that he'd heard somewhere that Owen was looking for work.
Suddenly, there was sunlight…
"Owen" was Owen Fitzgerald. When I started this tale, I intended to keep everyone unnamed but, as I wrote, I recalled the feeling of helplessness that overwhelmed me that night — yes, I was the naive editor of our tale — and I remembered the way Owen saved my hind quarters, as he saved so many in his long, incredible career. For most of that career, he was utterly anonymous and, in gratitude, I decided I shouldn't keep him anonymous here…even if it means admitting to you that I was the guy who was so stupid as to get himself into this predicament.
Owen Fitzgerald
Owen Fitzgerald was the fastest artist I've ever known.
And I know about fast artists: I've worked with Jack Kirby, Dan Spiegle, Pat Boyette, Alex Toth and others who have been hailed as the fastest ever. Many say that my best buddy Sergio Aragonés is the fastest artist alive and in a recent column here, I suggested that the late Mike Sekowsky might be due that honor. I forgot about Owen when I wrote that.
It was easy to forget about Owen. He was quiet and unassuming…and he talked with a slow, Arkansas drawl that didn't suggest he could do anything quickly. Still, put a pencil in his hand, blink, and you totally missed the creation of the picture.
Owen worked mostly in animation. He'd worked at Disney, worked at DePatie-Freleng, worked everywhere. In director Chuck Jones' autobiography, Chuck Amuck, there's a group shot photo of all the artists working with Chuck at Warner's at the time. Even Chuck forgot about Owen and had to identify him in the photo caption as an unnamed "Talented layout artist."
When I met Owen, he was the all-purpose trouble-shooter at Hanna-Barbera. Whenever a show was in deadline trouble, they'd put him on it and the show would suddenly be on or ahead of schedule. His work was so good, he'd have been hired anywhere, had he been one-tenth the speed. His velocity was an extra bonus as was his versatility. Some guys can draw humor but not adventure, some can draw adventure but not humor. Owen could do it all.
He was a layout artist and in animation, the work of a layout artist is measured in scenes: "How many scenes did you do today?" A good, competent layout artist ought to be able to do forty scenes in one week. A fast one does fifty or maybe even sixty. There were tales of Owen doing well over a hundred without breaking a sweat and that's with extra-long lunch breaks. All he needed was a pencil, paper, his cigarettes and an unlimited supply of Coca-Cola.
At one point when H-B was producing Jana of the Jungle, two episodes had to be done quickly and simultaneously. The supervisor put seven artists on one of the shows; on the other, he put Owen along with Jack Manning. (Jack was another fast artist; in fact, he was the guy who drew #1 of my comic and then got on the cruise ship.) Owen and Jack finished first. And they were both in their sixties, whereas the seven guys on the other crew were all in their twenties or thirties.
Owen worked occasionally in comics, mostly in the fifties. He was the first artist on DC's Bob Hope comic book. He also drew Ozzie and Harriet and a few issues of The Fox and the Crow. For a time, he assisted Hank Ketcham on the Dennis the Menace Sunday page and ghosted those wonderful, unsung Dennis the Menace comic books. Shortly before his death, he drew the Bugs Bunny newspaper strip for a while.
That Saturday morn, when I heard Owen might be available, I did figurative cartwheels. I got his number, called him and explained my predicament. "Can you draw this book and can you jump on it right away?"
In his slow, measured way, he asked, "Would Monday morning be okay?"
I gasped. "You can't start until Monday?"
"Hell, no," he chuckled. "I'll finish by Monday." I would never have thought that humanly-possible…but this was Owen.
I drove out and met him at noon in a parking lot midway between his home and mine. I ran some errands afterwards and when I got home at three, there was a message from Owen on my answering machine: "Hey, this is easier than I thought…already have three pages done. I'll have it finished by tomorrow afternoon, easy." Darned if he didn't.
For the issue to be done at all in that time was amazing but as it happens, he also did excellent work — no short-cuts, no cheating. It didn't look at all like a rush job.
By now, I'd learned my lesson. I quickly wrote #3 and gave it to Owen to draw. He took his time on this one. He took three days. I could have gotten the whole first year of the comic done in a month if Owen hadn't gotten another animation job and declined further comic book assignments. In the year or two following, he occasionally had a few days free and I'd rush out a script for him. I am said to be a very fast writer but Owen could draw 'em faster than I could write 'em.
Laff-a-Lympics #3 – Art by Owen Fitzgerald and Scott Shaw!
I was sad to hear he'd passed away recently…and not just because I might someday need his services again. I was sad because he was a very nice man and he came to my rescue in a desperate hour of need. Wherever he is today, I'll bet their comics are all on schedule.
Okay, that's the story and by now you've figured out that the comic book all this panic was about was Hanna-Barbera's Laff-a-Lympics. The inker, letterer and colorist were — in that order — Scott Shaw!, Carol Lay and Carl Gafford. They were also all heroes in getting #2 and #3 done and off to press in a hurry.
Still, through no one's fault but mine, #2 got in two weeks late. When I published this article originally, I left out part of the tale because I thought it might be in bad taste just then. Enough time has passed that I think it's okay to share it here…
This, of course, is a story about me screwing up and engaging in much panic and worry about the consequences. The main consequence I was worried about was not me getting fired. It was me getting yelled at by John Verpoorten. My job as an editor in the Hanna-Barbera Comic Book Division in Hollywood was to deliver a publishable, ready-to-print comic book to Mr. Verpoorten, who was the Production Manager for Marvel Comics back in New York.
John Verpoorten
Mr. Verpoorten was a much-beloved gentleman who was very good in the thankless job of getting freelancers to hand in their work on time. He handled so many comics that probably every day of his life for years, he dealt with much the same problem I had.
I suspect that part of the reason he was hired for that position was that he could look very menacing. He was large — taller than me and I'm 6'3" and he was even wider than me. When he was perturbed or it was necessary to get tough with a tardy writer or artist, he could sport a really chilling scowl and be a very effective Bad Cop.
I was really afraid of him. I'm not sure specifically what I was afraid he would do. He was 3,000 miles away from me so I didn't think it would be physical but…well, let's just say I was dreading the phone call demanding to know where the hell the issue was. Really dreading it.
Okay, so let's scroll back to the point in the story where Owen has drawn the comic over the weekend. I have Carol and Scott working madly on finishing it with Carl standing by but it's still going to be late…perhaps two weeks late. I decide that instead of waiting for that call, it will be more professional and less painful if I call John and tell him the book's going to be late. "Might as well get it over with," I muttered to myself. And also, I didn't want to do to him a version of what Mr. "No Problemo" had done to me.
I put it off until Wednesday I think but that morn, I steeled up all the meager courage I ever possess (about a gerbil's worth) and dialed Marvel's number in New York. An operator answered and I told her, "Mr. Verpoorten's office, please." She said she'd connect me. It rang and another woman answered, "Production Department." I asked for John Verpoorten. She asked who was calling. I told her and then she said…
"Oh, Mark, I guess you haven't heard. John died over the weekend."
In my life, I have never celebrated or even grinned at the death of another human being; not even folks who have seriously wronged me…not even serial killers or torturers or people who call you up and tell you they're with Microsoft and you have a virus on your computer which they can remove if you give them remote access. I have never been happy when anyone dies…
…but for just one moment there after I heard what the lady on the phone told me, I did a little mental fist bump and went, "Yessssss!"
Then I settled down into proper reverence along with the guilt about the mental fist bump. I sent in the second issue as soon as it was done and no one said anything. Not a word. We got #3 done A.S.A.P. and then…
Well, remember how the artist on the first issue, Jack Manning, drew it and then left on a cruise? I had a couple days before he left so I wrote two Laff-a-Lympics scripts in two days and gave them to him to take along and to draw on the boat. Around the time we finished #3, Jack got back from his trip and he turned in the pencil art for the two issues so I had #4 and #5 all drawn…and plenty of time to find a new artist and get him to work on #6. (Jack was too busy to do any more just then.) I remained well ahead of schedule for the rest of the book's run. Almost.
Anyway, that's the story of how Owen Fitzgerald saved my hide when I made just about the dumbest mistake a boy comic book editor can make. If you ever become the editor of a comic book, don't count on anyone bailing you out the same way. They don't make 'em like Owen anymore.
So…uh, what happens if the Supreme Court is 4-4 until the next president can nominate someone…and the high court has to decide this year if Ted Cruz is eligible for the presidency?
How about if there's a Bush v. Gore style dispute over the election in November?
Or if another Supreme Court Justice dies or steps down? (I guess the answer to that depends on whether we're left with four liberals and three conservatives or four conservatives and three liberals. Whichever it is, everyone's going to have to change their position in a hurry about whether Obama can nominate someone.)
Some legal scholars are saying Obama could make a recess appointment while the Senate isn't working and put a ninth justice on the court if he acts swiftly. There would doubtlessly be legal challenges to this but who would settle it? A tied Supreme Court?
Lastly for now: What if he appointed Bob Newhart to the Supreme Court? Everyone loves Bob Newhart. How could anyone vote against Bob Newhart? Plus, he's 86 so he'd probably die or resign in a year or so, by which time there'd be a new president to appoint his successor. It's a win/win, I tell you.
This appeared here during a supermarket strike in Los Angeles in December of 2003. It was on 12/11/03 to be specific. When the strike was settled, the local news was filled with stories that the markets regretted allowing it to happen; that they lost way more than it would have cost to settle, including a lot of steady customers who migrated from the struck stories to the unstruck. A few years later, perhaps as a means of luring back those shoppers, Ralphs got a lot better than it had ever been…and I wasn't the only one who noticed that.
Each year at the Comic-Con International in San Diego, I host this fun panel called "Quick Draw." We get Sergio Aragonés up there and Scott Shaw! and two other swift cartoonists and I throw challenges at them. It's kind of like Whose Line Is It Anyway? with drawings and without Drew Carey, Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, Wayne Brady and a very large staff of comedy writers billed as "Creative Consultants." Anyway, the cartoonists in the "Quick Draw" panel have overhead projectors putting what they sketch up on large screens so everyone can see. This year, kidding around during set-up, I started sticking items from my wallet under the lens and I projected my Ralphs Club card. For those of you who don't have the privilege of membership in this esteemed organization, it's a card you flash when you go to a Ralphs market. You get a few items at a discount and they get to chart a profile of your buying patterns. Deep within the Ralph's corporate headquarters, there's a computer that knows exactly how many Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches I've purchased there and what flavors.
Sergio, being Sergio, grabbed my card and in about 1.8 seconds added the little editorial cartoon you see below. Since then, when I hand the checker my Ralphs Club card, I've gotten a wide array of snickers and giggles, plus some odd reactions. One checker actually asked, "Is that the guy from MAD Magazine?" Another insisted on calling the Manager over and showing it to him to make certain that we had not voided the card with Sergio's enhancement. (The Manager laughed out loud.)
It turns out Sergio was anticipating my recent experiences with Ralphs. There's a supermarket strike on in Los Angeles and it's not going well for anyone, except maybe the markets that aren't on strike. The union struck the Vons chain which is part of a coalition with the other two major retail outlets, Albertsons and Ralphs. The latter two locked out the union workers and the strike was on. After a month or so of no progress, the union withdrew its pickets from Ralphs, figuring that it would put pressure on the other two markets if their main competitor wasn't suffering as much. The move does not seem to have made much of a difference. A month later, the strike remains deadlocked and Ralphs has lost $145 million in third quarter sales because of the strike. This may be because even without pickets, customers don't want to go to a non-union market…or it may be because they've gone and discovered that Ralphs is now a terrible, terrible market.
I've always done most of my shopping at Gelsons anyway, but Ralphs is handier for a few items. Last week and today, I stopped into different outlets and found, first of all, that the shelves were only about half-filled. The Ralphs I went to last week was out of most kinds of bread. The one today didn't have any carrots. These are not exotic items. At the one last week, I bought a chicken and while the date stamped on it was still in the future, the chicken turned out to be seriously past-tense and went into the garbage as soon as I got it home.
Today, the checker mixed up my purchases. I bought one can of cranberry sauce and was charged for two. But then I also bought a can of soup for which I wasn't charged, so it almost balanced out. I bought twelve packages of luncheon meat, got down to the car and found they were not in my bags but about six items I hadn't purchased were. I took them back and the bagger realized he'd mixed my purchases in with the lady after me, who went home without her flour or her dishwashing liquid but with a dozen packets of honey-roasted turkey she may not have wanted. There were a few other screw-ups but basically, it was a pretty unpleasant place to market. No wonder they're down $145 mil.
While I'm at it, I might as well mention that I have a pre-strike bone to pick with Ralphs. Last July, I won a prize in their "Great Escape" promotion, which gives me two free nights in a hotel in one of 38 cities. I was given a voucher and told to either mail it in with my choice of city or phone the "Reservations Center." The voucher told me I had to do one of these two things by August 15 and I would receive my prize. It further said, "All travel must be completed by December 15, 2003." So I tried phoning the Reservations Center for two weeks and received naught but busy signals. Finally, around August 6, I got a recorded announcement that said they were no longer processing vouchers via phone and that I should mail it in. I mailed it that same day and that's the last I've heard of my free vacation. When I called the Reservations Center throughout September and October, I got a new recording that said that prizes would soon be mailed out. Mine has never come, the Reservations Center number is now a disconnect, and when I recently called the main Ralphs office, I got a lady who said she didn't know anything about any contest and that everyone there who might was too busy because of the strike to talk to me. I'm hoping they're out stocking the shelves with bread and carrots.
Dougie McCoy never quite "made it" as a professional cartoonist, at least to the extent that his enthusiasm and passion seemed to warrant. He actually drew pretty well and his work was very popular in small press publications and on local projects in and around Nebraska. Sadly, he was trapped in that sad Twilight Zone of talent: Too good to give it up and not quite good enough to get the kind of work he wanted to do. So he continued to support himself working at a fast food restaurant — I think he was even the manager there — and he drew in his spare time. Correct that: He drew and he drew and he drew and he drew…
He was a lovely and funny man and he drew lovely and funny people along with lovely and funny animals, all very much alive and colorful. He'd save up to go to cons and diligently show his most recent work, of which there was always plenty, to cartoonists he admired like Sergio Aragonés, Scott Shaw! and Stan Sakai. He even went so far as to ask me for advice.
I don't do many critiques. You squander time on too many kids who don't want to listen and/or learn…whose attitude is along the lines of "Yeah, yeah, just tell me what I need to do to get hired." Dougie wasn't like that at all. He listened to everything, strained to understand it, and you could tell that he was going to race home and do his darnedest to apply what he'd learned. I remember sitting with him for an hour at one con in Kansas a few years back, examining his latest efforts, telling him what I thought he'd done right and wrong. There was plenty of right — enough that I figured he wasn't too far from getting steady work in his chosen profession. Sad to say, he hadn't quite made it there when he died over this past weekend at the age of 50.
Doug came out to the Comic-Con in 2009 and something happened there which Mr. Shaw! just mentioned on Facebook and said was possibly the high-point of Dougie's life, at least as far as cartooning was concerned. It happened at Quick Draw!, that event I host where we get three of the swiftest cartoonists up to sketch rapidly and rise to challenges in front of an audience. That year, I tried a new stunt which involved bringing three more cartoonists up for a few minutes. I'd arranged for the second three to be there in the audience — Bobby London, Stan Sakai…and there was a third but that person was a no-show.
I needed another cartoonist in a hurry and I saw Dougie sitting in the front row and thought, "He'd do fine." Unlike the other two, he hadn't expected to be called to the stage. He was just one of about 3,000 people we had in that room as spectators. I walked up to him, turned off my microphone for a moment and asked him if he had the courage to get up there and draw alongside Scott, Sergio and Floyd Norman. It wouldn't have surprised me if he'd said no but he didn't. He gulped and said, "Yes," pronouncing that word in about five syllables. That did take guts and as you'll see in the video below, he did fine, easily holding his own alongside five top pros who were up there with him.
After the event, there was milling and much signing of autographs. I was scribbling my name on program books, comics, I.O.U.s and confessions of sex crimes when Dougie politely made his way up to say thanks for his inclusion in the game. He muttered something about how he hoped he hadn't embarrassed himself since he wasn't in the same league as the others. I told him, "Nobody thought that. Up there, you were just one of six good cartoonists."
Just then, as if to prove my point, something happened…something small but it's a moment I'll never forget and I'd bet my house Dougie never did, either. There was yet another kid standing there with a program book and a pen, and Dougie assumed he wanted my signature. He stepped back and waved the kid towards me…but the kid turned to Dougie and said the most wonderful thing…
He said, "No, I don't want his autograph. I want yours."
I'm sure Doug had been asked for his autograph before. He was a very visible celeb among the comic fan community in Omaha, always participating in charity sketch events and jam sessions and doing drawings for anyone who asked. But this was the first time he was ever asked for his autograph as part of an event where he was one of those guys he'd always wanted to be. He not only signed for the young man, he did him a helluva cute little drawing. And that wasn't easy for Dougie because he was actually crying with joy as he did it. Why the hell does a guy like that have to die before he realizes his full potential?
Here's that segment from the Quick Draw! at the 2009 Comic-Con International. It's Dougie McCoy, who's spent way too long on a little farm team, finally getting an "at bat" in the majors…
