Forgotten celebrities in old cartoons

[williamtheday]

Ever watch a cartoon like 'Porky's Road Race' and wonder who the heck the other racers were suppsed to be? Boris Karoff, Charlie Chaplin, and W.C. Fields should be easy enough, but others like Edna Mae Oliver, Freddie Bartholomew, Leslie Howard were a mystery (at least for me untill I got older and also get more info from books and later on, the internet). How about you?

[AndrewCrossett]

Ever watch a cartoon like 'Porky's Road Race' and wonder who the heck the other racers were suppsed to be? Boris Karoff, Charlie Chaplin, and W.C. Fields should be easy enough, but others like Edna Mae Oliver, Freddie Bartholomew, Leslie Howard were a mystery (at least for me untill I got older and also get more info from books and later on, the internet). How about you?

Yeah, I had to look up a lot of those. Stepin Fetchit, too.

By the 1940s "all star" cartoons I was usually able to recognize about 75%.

[caj]

This may be off-topic from the thread, but there was a Bugs/Yosemite Sam cartoon where Sam is banging on a door and yells "Open the door!!!!". Then he looks at the audience and says "Notice I didn't say 'Richard'."

I had to ask my parents what that meant. Turns out, "Open The Door, Richard" was a song from the 1940s.

[WebLurker]

That old Looney Tunes cartoon "Hollywood Steps Out" is just a series of then-celebrity cameos that make no sense unless you know who they are (and not very many of them have stayed household names).

Even more recently, I'm sure that a good number of the impressions that Robin Williams did as the Genie in Aladdin are starting to become forgotten references (if they haven't already among younger viewers) -- although I think, unlike other examples, his work still remains funny even if you don't know who he's riffing off of.

[williamtheday]

This may be off-topic from the thread, but there was a Bugs/Yosemite Sam cartoon where Sam is banging on a door and yells "Open the door!!!!". Then he looks at the audience and says "Notice I didn't say 'Richard'."

I had to ask my parents what that meant. Turns out, "Open The Door, Richard" was a song from the 1940s.

Yeah, I only found out about that a few years ago.

[K7P5V]

This may be off-topic from the thread, but there was a Bugs/Yosemite Sam cartoon where Sam is banging on a door and yells "Open the door!!!!". Then he looks at the audience and says "Notice I didn't say 'Richard'."

I had to ask my parents what that meant. Turns out, "Open The Door, Richard" was a song from the 1940s.

LOL! I had the same problem with that Elmer Fudd joke about Bing Crosby's horse from "The Old Grey Hare" (1944).

But thanks to this link, I finally got the joke: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037147/trivia

When Elmer reads a newspaper from the year 2000, there is an article with the headline "Bing Crosby's Horse Hasn't Come in Yet". Crosby was well known as a horse breeder whose horses seldom finished in the money, and the line "Crosby's horse finally came in" was a popular gag line.

[The True Detective]

1st one to come to mind was the guy they quoted a lot in Looney Tunes, I still don't know his name and am too lazy to look it up right now. The character would have a thing curled moustache with messed up teeth and say, for example, "Piggy's are the craziest peoples!" They'd say it in an accent that sounded Easter European. Anyone else remember this gag or know who the guy is?

[Riv86672]

This may be off-topic from the thread, but there was a Bugs/Yosemite Sam cartoon where Sam is banging on a door and yells "Open the door!!!!". Then he looks at the audience and says "Notice I didn't say 'Richard'."

I had to ask my parents what that meant. Turns out, "Open The Door, Richard" was a song from the 1940s.

^^^just yesterday the pilot of FRIENDS was on, and Ross mentioned the song, “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero”. I laughed because I got the reference, then realized I’d never actually heard the song. I looked it up on YouTube and it wasn’t half bad in folksy, depressing but catchy way!

On topic:
A couple of months ago, my youngest son came up to me and showed me an article on the passing of Larry King.
I told him I’d already heard about that, and he said no, he wanted me to confirm or deny that he’d seen Larry on Gravity Falls when he was younger.

[AndrewCrossett]

1st one to come to mind was the guy they quoted a lot in Looney Tunes, I still don't know his name and am too lazy to look it up right now. The character would have a thing curled moustache with messed up teeth and say, for example, "Piggy's are the craziest peoples!" They'd say it in an accent that sounded Easter European. Anyone else remember this gag or know who the guy is?

Jerry Colonna.

[DrNewGod]

Jerry Colonna.

Yeah. If I remember right he was Bob Hope's wingman on his old radio show.

[williamtheday]

1st one to come to mind was the guy they quoted a lot in Looney Tunes, I still don't know his name and am too lazy to look it up right now. The character would have a thing curled moustache with messed up teeth and say, for example, "Piggy's are the craziest peoples!" They'd say it in an accent that sounded Easter European. Anyone else remember this gag or know who the guy is?

Just looked it up: it was comedian Lew Lehr (1895-1950) who was known for his catchphrase "monkeys is the cwaziest peoples!"

[Jim Kelly]

When I was a little kid, the T.V. station in Bellingham, Washington, broadcast FRISKY FROLICS and FUN-O-RAMA. One was in the morning and the other was in the afternoon, but I'm not sure which was which. This was an anthology of cartoons and I would guess all the cartoons were from the 1930s and 1940s. I watched those cartoons every day, from as far back as I can remember. I somehow became familiar with all the old-time celebrities in those cartoons and knew who they were. Of course, this was in the early 1960s and only about twenty odd years removed in time. And even if I didn't know them right off the bat, my parents certainly did and would shout out their names.

[Jackalope89]

The New Scooby-Doo Movies were great for it. Harlem Globetrotters, 3 Stooges, Andy Griffith, Adams Family, etc.

[Scott Taylor]

Most of those cameos were pretty inane even if you did know who it was. The only show that did cameos in a truly funny way was the Batman TV series.

[AndrewCrossett]

Just looked it up: it was comedian Lew Lehr (1895-1950) who was known for his catchphrase "monkeys is the cwaziest peoples!"

Yeah... he was the one with the crooked teeth. He and Colonna had similar styles. Colonna got parodied a lot in the Looney Tunes too. But Red Skelton was probably the single most "borrowed from" comedian when it came to gags in those cartoons.