Here’s
what’s wrong with the world today: We
don’t have enough dancing cows. Make
that dancing and whistling cows,
where little black eighth notes come floating out of their round lips.
I blame
the cartoon producers. It used to be you
could watch any number of cows with giant nostrils, dancing in ruffled aprons,
to a great old jazz song, like “Holiday for Strings.” Mice in tiny vests would scamper about to a
Brahms Hungarian dance, while Bugs Bunny would conduct Von Suppe and pigs would
play tubas. Liszt’s rhapsodies,
Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”, Strauss, Rossini—they were all part of a happy
childhood where equally dazzling animation brought every note to life.
Most of these classics were
made in the 1930s-1950s, but they continued to entertain into the 1970s,
when—WHAM! Cartoons suddenly became all
about taking over the world. The humor
dropped out, the animation became stilted; it was as if all the writers and
artists had died, and left cartoon-making to control freaks with Etch A Sketches. Marketing departments saw how much money they
could make selling action figures, lunchboxes, bedsheets, and backpacks, and
kids were fed a steady stream of programming that led them to purchasing.
Not only that, but
scientists discovered kids weren’t playing make believe with as much
imagination, anymore. Their toys stayed
in the same character dictated by the cartoon shows, and storylines stayed in
the same rut of vanquishing the enemy (cue the explosions). Soon videogames popped up, even more violence-based
than cartoons, and well, soon the only place you could find a cow was in the
form of a Big Mac.
Gone are the incredible
voices of Mel Blanc and Clarence Nash (the original Donald Duck). I had the privilege of interviewing Mel Blanc
when I was in college, and he actually took on the appearance of the Warner
Bros. characters he voiced, from Bugs Bunny to Yosemite Sam. It was incredible.
Clarence Nash was the uncle of my good
friend, Cynthia Rhine, and I had the pleasure of meeting “Uncle Clarence,” as
well. Dapper, beaming, a twinkle in his
eye—always eager to entertain kids for the sheer joy of it.
Not only that, but the cartoon
characters stopped singing. Those same
dancing cows used to croon like Bing Crosby, and squirrels sang in Barbershop
quartets.
Gone also are the clowns and
captains of yesterday’s cartoon shows, as well.
Remember them? They would
interview children, give them prizes, and introduce the next exciting Looney
Tune. This was actually St. Bob’s first
job in television. When he was only 15,
he dressed up as an Emmett Kelly-style clown and everyone thought he was a
grown man, introducing cartoons on KPLC TV in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
There was something lilting
and light about yesterday’s cartoons.
The whimsical animation, the dramatic classical music. It was dreamy, that’s what it was. And you never hear anyone say that, anymore.
Check
out Pinholes Into Heaven, one of my
books, here. It’s a literary coming-of-age novel set in
the same time period.
The other day I came across a
stash of old photos and newspaper clippings about him. Kids would gather around at the studio (think
of the Howdy Doody crowds) and Bob would interview them, joke around, and
basically just be himself.
Kids joined his fan club: 
In
the pile of adorable fan letters were valentines and letters from girls who undoubtedly loved No Name.
