Terms Which Have Disappeared

[HoosierDaddy]

Bring it...

 

[p51]

About the cartoons, I had to explain to other kids in school where the slogans, "Now you're cooking with Gas" and "Next time, take the train" came from, from them seeing them on cartoons...

 

[ChiTownScion]

The wide distribution of Warner cartoons from the late 1950s thru the early 1990s were pretty much the only thing keeping elements of 1940s popular culture alive during that period. A lot of '80s kids will recognize Red Skelton, Jerry Colonna and Lou Costello catchphrases to this day, without having any actual idea whatsoever of where they really came from. "I'm only thwee and a half years old!" "I dood it!" "Silly, isn't he?"

They were a great tool for teaching history. I remember when I was about 4 (late 1950's) asking my dad why they would yell, "Turn out that light!" in the cartoons and hearing about World War II blackouts. It came full circle when I was watching a Bugs cartoon (mid 1990's) with my preschool son. Bugs was flying a crashing plane, only to come to a screeching halt a few feet from the ground because he was out of gas. "Yeah, you know how it is with these A cards!" The discussion of wartime rationing ensued. And the classic Warner Brothers "Russian Rhapsody"- featuring those "gremlins from the Kremlin," got laughs from the two kids we adopted from Russia... the older one recognizing the Stalin caricature gremlin as well as the ranting cartoon Adolf Hitler.

 

[Zombie_61]

If it wasn't for early Warner Brothers cartoons, I wouldn't know today what half of the slang of the 40s meant.

Not to mention all of the wonderful music that was composed and/or arranged by Carl Stalling. Stalling allegedly had an encyclopedic knowledge of music, and could think of a song to fit almost any scenario the writers, directors, and/or animators could come up with.

 

[52Styleline]

International Harvester trucks (IH is now Navistar International Corporation) were once popular in the logging industry and were commonly referred to as "Cornbinders". Haven't heard that term in years.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I've only ever heard the term combine. As in a combination of harvesting, reaping, & winnowing.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And the classic Warner Brothers "Russian Rhapsody"- featuring those "gremlins from the Kremlin," got laughs from the two kids we adopted from Russia... the older one recognizing the Stalin caricature gremlin as well as the ranting cartoon Adolf Hitler.

There are dozens of layers of jokes in that particular cartoon, from the Walter Winchell parody radio commentator who introduces it, to the "New Odor" banner at the Nazi rally, to the "frankfurter mit der sauerbraten und der Vat's Cookin' Doc?" fake German when Hitler is speaking to the poses he strikes as he speaks, which are caricatured directly from "Triumph of the Will." And then the Gremlins themselves are all caricatures of the cartoon's production staff, and their sequence is full of inside gags that only the cartoonists themselves would have gotten -- the best of which is the Leon Schelsinger caricature knocking a Ray Katz caricature in the head with a hammer. (Schlesinger was the owner of the studio, and Katz was his oppressed business manager and brother-in-law.)

Holding up the Stalin mask are assistant producer Henry Binder, animator Bobe Cannon, and director Chuck Jones. Adolf is about to rear back and scream in terror -- in a piercing woman's voice, dubbed by Bea Benederet.

At the end of the cartoon, Hitler rises from his grave and declares "Gwemlins is der cwaziest peoples."

Here he's suddenly become Lew Lehr, the dialect comedian who hosted the humorous stories for Movietone News, where he often declared that monkeys was der cwaziest peoples.

Although Lehr appeared in hundreds of newsreels over a period of more than a decade, the only reason he's remembered at all today is because of his many non-sequitir caricature appearances in Warner Bros. cartoons -- which led, remarkably, to a non-sequitir caricature appearance in "South Park" several years ago parodying those cartoon gags.

"Terrorists is der cwaziest peoples!" -- Osama Bin Laden Lehr. Popular culture survives by eating itself.

 

[Fading Fast]

The wide distribution of Warner cartoons from the late 1950s thru the early 1990s were pretty much the only thing keeping elements of 1940s popular culture alive during that period. A lot of '80s kids will recognize Red Skelton, Jerry Colonna and Lou Costello catchphrases to this day, without having any actual idea whatsoever of where they really came from. "I'm only thwee and a half years old!" "I dood it!" "Silly, isn't he?"

Even though I was a very young fan of classic movies, I first met Cary Grant (as Cary Granite) and some other classic Hollywood stars as characters on "The Flintstones." I remember making the connection backward when I started to see them in their movies.

 

[LizzieMaine]

All of Hanna-Barbera's productions were full of that kind of stuff, especially when it came to character voices, which were often based on popular celebrities.

Yogi Bear = Art Carney as Ed Norton
Snagglepuss = Bert Lahr
Wally Gator = Ed Wynn
Doggie Daddy = Jimmy Durante
Hokey Wolf = Phil Silvers
Morocco Mole = Peter Lorre
Peter Potamus = Joe E. Brown

and so on and on. Not all the celebrities, most of whom were still alive and working at the time, appreciated the appropriation of their characterizations. Bert Lahr, in particular, resented the copying of his vocal mannerisms, especially when they were used in commercials featuring the Snagglepuss character, and filed a suit against Hanna-Barbera to stop it. The suit ended in a compromise where impersonator Daws Butler was given an on-screen credit to ensure that nobody thought it was Lahr himself doing the endorsements.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I also remember the MGM Tex Avery 'toons of the era creating quite an impression on the cousins' pre- school kids. I'd put a tape of them into the VCR (1990's), they'd sit on the floor, and it would keep them quiet for hours. Screwy (Screwball) Squirrel and the Red Hot Riding Hood gal of Avery were quite a hit with them.

I remember Red featured in "Swing Shift Cinderella" that was filled with World War II and other era references.. including riding to her job at the Lockweed Aircraft plant on a bus filled with wolves.

Their granddad (a World War II vet) got a hearty laugh out of one gag ("The Screwy Truant") which featured a little blue school house with the notation, "Technicolor Red Has Gone to War!"

 

[ChiTownScion]

Even though I was a very young fan of classic movies, I first met Cary Grant (as Cary Granite) and some other classic Hollywood stars as characters on "The Flintstones." I remember making the connection backward when I started to see them in their movies.

I picked up on the similarities between Fred and Wilma, and Ralph and Alice Kramden, at a very early age.

 

[HudsonHawk]

International Harvester trucks (IH is now Navistar International Corporation) were once popular in the logging industry and were commonly referred to as "Cornbinders". Haven't heard that term in years.

I used to own a Binder!!!! Well a Scout, to be exact. Loved that vehicle. I want another, but they're getting very hard to find, and ridiculously expensive. "Binder" is still common in the IH enthusiast circle, but it's a small circle.

 

[2jakes]

As a kid, these ”toons” were my introduction to Armstrong and Calloway.

To say it was “grand” would be an understatement .

 

[kaiser]

International Harvester trucks (IH is now Navistar International Corporation) were once popular in the logging industry and were commonly referred to as "Cornbinders". Haven't heard that term in years.

My Dad used the term cornbinders when refering the IH trucks, though mainly old ones. I seem to rember that this term was common among older farmers in north eastern Indiana as well.

 

[kaiser]

I used to own a Binder!!!! Well a Scout, to be exact. Loved that vehicle. I want another, but they're getting very hard to find, and ridiculously expensive. "Binder" is still common in the IH enthusiast circle, but it's a small circle.

I had a scout too, very good solid vehicle, better than the Jeep CJ5 I had a couple of years later.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I had a scout too, very good solid vehicle, better than the Jeep CJ5 I had a couple of years later.

I had a bumper sticker on my Scout that read "It's NOT a !@#$% Jeep!"

 

[Zombie_61]

I picked up on the similarities between Fred and Wilma, and Ralph and Alice Kramden, at a very early age.

The Flintstones was most definitely Hanna-Barbera's version of The Honeymooners set in the stone age. Jackie Gleason wanted to sue Hanna-Barbera, but friends convinced him it would be bad for his image and his career if he became known as "the man who killed Fred Flintstone".

 

[LizzieMaine]

What most people don't remember is that the Fleischer brothers did a series of cartoon shorts in 1940 called "The Stone Age" which had a premise very, very similar to that of The Flintstones -- the idea that cave people lived a parallel to 20th Century life using materials available to them to duplicate modern technology. Just about every "cave technology" gag in "The Flintstones" can be found twenty years earlier in these Fleischer shorts.

The series was not popular, largely because the cartoons were basically just strings of weakly-plotted spot gags -- although they did do occasional "Stone Age celebrity" parodies just as the Flintstones did, along with a recurring family called "The Stonebrokes" -- and the formula wore thin after a year. But they offered a rich source of gag-mining, and at least one Flesicher animator who worked on the Stone Age series would work for Hanna-Barbera on The Flintstones.

 

[tonyb]

...
That's still the system I use today -- I throw what little actual food waste that I generate over the back fence into the junkyard where creatures take care of it for me. As long as there's seagulls, skunks, and raccoons, my solid-waste issues are easily resolved. The Circle Of Nature and all that.

Seattle is thick with possums and raccoons (I've spotted 'em smack in the middle of downtown) and, alas, rats. Urban gardeners and chicken raisers and the like often discover they are inadvertently creating splendid conditions for vermin. I once lived with people who kept rabbits. I had to bring to their attention the rats that fattened up at the rabbit feeders at night.
I've yet to see a rat in almost two years in greater Denver. Mice, but no rats. Hope it stays that way.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We have rats here the size of a small dog -- wharf rats. The last night I lived in the Elegant Tourist Town down the road from here, my cat caught one and dragged it into the kitchen as a "let's not move, the hunting here is great" offering. Fortunately, she had the courtesy to kill it first.

I've spotted rabbits in the junkyard, but I think the coons have driven them out in recent years. Foxes are also not uncommon, but rabies is spreading among them and usually when you see one during the day it's diseased.