Farewell, Lucille Bliss

You see to your right two of the best-known cartoon voice actresses around the first decade of the modern era of television (1948 and later). At the left is wonderful June Foray. Sitting in the chair is someone whose career in TV animation actually pre-dates June’s. She’s the original voice of Crusader Rabbit, Lucille Bliss.

The photo is by noted Hanna-Barbera collector Dave Nimitz, a close friend of the two. He’s passed on word that Lucille has died at the age of 96. Facebook friend Doreen Mulman has learned Lucille had pneumonia and a staph infection.

Lucille was working in television children’s programming in San Francisco when Alex Anderson and Jay Ward had an idea to create a cartoon show specifically for TV. Thus Crusader Rabbit was born. Lucille then headed to Los Angeles and found theatrical cartoon voice work for Disney, MGM and Warner Bros. More importantly for this blog, the sound of some Hanna-Barbera cartoons could have been quite different had Lucille been able to keep jobs as Ruff in Ruff and Reddy and Elroy Jetson. But circumstances (and people) worked against her. She told what happened to an interviewer with the Archive of American Television. You can read what she said about Ruff and Reddy here and the Jetsons here.

Lucille later worked on Hanna-Barbera’s Space Kidettes (1966-67), more a curiosity today than anything, and then on shows long past my childhood such as The Smurfs and Invader Zim. She also lent a voice to one of the kids in the Flintstones’ episode “The Good Scout” (1961). To the right, you can see her as drawn by Carlo Vinci (I love Art Lozzi’s backgrounds in this one).

It sounds trite to say that was liked and respected by people in the animation industry but that was the case, as best as I can tell. You can see all of her interview mentioned above HERE and if you want to hear her story about how she didn’t get in on the ground floor at Hanna-Barbera because of some corporate hardball, watch below.

His Girl Elroy

The first few Hanna-Barbera prime-time shows beloved by fans would sound a lot different if some of the original casting decisions had been carved in, um, Flintstone. (I’m allowed one bad pun. It’s my blog, after all). Bill Thompson and Hal Smith as Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. Michael O’Shea as Top Cat. Morey Amsterdam and Pat Carroll as George and Jane Jetson. All of them did voice tracks that were later scrapped, with footage that was presumably re-animated, because the roles were given to the people we associate with them today.

There was one other change as well. Lucille Bliss, best known for her role as Smurfette in the original Smurfs cartoon series, was hired to play the part of Elroy Jetson. Five years ago, Lucille sat down with the Archive of American Television to discuss her career. We transcribed part of her interview about how she was manoeuvred out of Ruff and Reddy here. We promised then we’d get around to giving you her story about her short life as the youngest Jetson. Here’s what she told the Academy about her hiring and firing.

A heartbreaker, okay? I worked for six weeks on The Jetsons. I was Elroy. And the shows were done and everything. And I had Miles Auer, who was the best agent at that time, and Miles, I liked him very much, was Daws Butler’s agent. Daws was a dear friend of mine and we worked together so much. Daws drove me around when I first came down here [from San Francisco] to help me; I’d go on auditions with him so that I’d get acquainted. And then he said “You ought to have my agent.” And my agent talked to me and heard what I did, he said “I’ll take you immediately. I don’t take usually other people. I have Daws but I’ll take you.” [Yowp note: Auer was also Stan Freberg’s agent].

So Jetsons came along and everything was going wonderful and they loved me. But—who was the director on that?—he was the son of this movie actor [Alan Dinehart]...he said to me “They think you’re a little boy, Lucille. Madison Avenue wanted a real little boy and we sent your tape in. And we called you Little Lou Bliss. L-o-u, Lou Bliss. And you should see the letters, they are crazy about this apple-cheeked little six-year-old boy, Little Lou Bliss. But you must never, ever, ever, divulge your name. You’ll lose your job.”

“My, God,” I said, “I’ll never divulge it, I’ll never go to New York anyway for the show, anyway, but I’ll never divulge it. Not to my best friend.” So, what happened is, Miles said “What the hell is this ‘Little Lou Bliss’ crap?” He said “You’ve made your name as ‘Lucille Bliss,’ what are they doing to you, calling you ‘Little Lou Bliss?’ He’s going to get big and famous and who the hell is he? It’s you. That can’t go on.”

I said, “Miles, please, Miles, Miles, Miles, just leave it alone, I’ll lose my job.” “Aw, you won’t lose your—” “Yes,” I said, “I will. I heard it from the director himself. He said it must be a secret, Hanna-Barbera’s keeping it a secret. Don’t tell them, please.” He said “No, that’s ridiculous.” I said “Miles, I want to work, I don’t want to lose the series. I got a lead in it, for God’s sakes leave it alone.”

He didn’t. He went to Hanna-Barbera and said “First of all, she gets more money. Secondly, I want to see ‘Lucille Bliss’ on there.” I got the pink slip two weeks later. And it broke my heart. And they couldn’t find an Elroy so they started with Billy Barty. And that didn’t work. And then they started with somebody else and that didn’t—oh!—I think Morey Amsterdam even read for it, don’t quote me, but I think he did. That didn’t work. But then they got Daws Butler. And the only thing they could do is, he couldn’t be six years old, he had to be nine years old because Daws couldn’t get that young so they had to make him older. And I got the pink slip. And I went to pieces. I really did. I’d think “You know, you can take so many disappointments in one career.” And then, my God, there was, of course, my disappointments turned out good but, still, I lost the one with Bergen, I lost that one, I lost another one, and now comes this one. And this would have been a big series and I was furious. So, maybe I did the wrong thing, but I let Miles go. ...

Six weeks of shows I had done. They had to destroy it. That didn’t make Joe Barbera very happy. And I tried to tell him “Well, I fired the agent, what can I do?” And he says “Well, now they know that it’s not a little boy. So that’s the end.”

The story is an interesting one but it leaves a bunch of questions. How did Alan Dinehart and/or Joe Barbera think no one would learn the identity of Elroy’s voice actor? Certainly something like that couldn’t be kept secret, I suspect not even by Hanna-Barbera’s vaunted and busy publicity machine. And if Madison Avenue was so intent on a little boy, why would the wonderful (but somewhat older than nine) Daws Butler be acceptable to agencies but not Lucille Bliss? And what about the fact that three years later, Lucille had no problem being billed as “Lou Bliss.” Take a look at this title card from her next H-B endeavour, the best-forgotten Space Kidettes (1965).



To sidetrack a bit, this wasn’t the first time she and Janet Waldo worked together. Kind of. The two did a cerebral palsy telethon in June 1952 that was broadcast on KGO-TV, San Francisco. Janet was in Los Angeles with stars like Cliff Arquette (Charley Weaver), while Lucille was in the City by the Bay along with host Jack Webb and guests such as “the vivacious Dorita” (now there’s a study in contrasts).

Lucille was “Auntie Lou” on KRON-TV, San Francisco, in 1951. The spelling of her alter ego seems to have varied depending on the newspaper reporting. The Hayward Daily Review had this little profile of Lucille in its Video Notes column by T.R. Temple of August 13, 1952. The picture you see is from the paper and indicates it is Lucille and not someone attempting Joan Crawford on stage at Finnochio’s.

Lucille Bliss, who is known to several thousand kids as Aunty Lu, is one of those studies in contradictions.
When she was a teen-ager in radio (not so long ago), she was usually cast in adult roles. Now that she’s reached the voting age, she often plays a little girl—or boy.
Just to keep the thing interesting, she got a part in Edgar Bergen’s show in Hollywood — but performed it in San Francisco. She also won a role in Disney’s Cinderella through a Bay Area audition—and played it in Hollywood.
Was she Cinderella? Wrong again. Disney liked her voice as “Anastasia,” the nasty old stepsister, so gentle Lucille wound up as a villain. She also continued in this part for the RCA record album of the tale.
NO STORY
Newspaper writers are always looking for a twist on the familiar, but actually Miss Bliss has one of those open, blameless faces that really goes with an innocent character.
She loves children, and kids, being sensitive, respond to her.
You can watch this unrehearsed psychology at work on her program every Thursday when KRON-TV puts on her “Happy Birthday To You.”
Miss Bliss has no eccentricities. She is not a stage personality, and seems completely unspoiled by success. Which in itself is something unique in this crass world.
HOW TO GET ON TV
For aspiring young actresses, Lucille has this advice: appear on an audition. Everything came easier after she got up the nerve to make an appointment some 12 years ago with a San Francisco station.
Mind you, success didn’t come rapidly, but at least the studios knew who she was, and would phone her now and then for bit parts.
What does she do between “Birthday” programs? Makes regular trips to the Disney studios. Her most famous “voice” was that of a character named Crusader Rabbit, heard on TV stations all over the country.
It seems a bit strange to make a career of imitating little furry animals’ voices — but then, no more strange than hunting for paradoxes in normal, healthy people.

Back to the interview, now. Lucille’s memory about Morey Amsterdam being in voice sessions is certainly bang-on. We’ve mentioned Morey was the original voice of George Jetson. You can read more here.

She goes on about how losing the role started to affect her health, and then she turned things around again. Certainly she was busy in the months ahead as she recorded ‘Peter Cottontail’ for Disneyland Records (released in 1963).

If you’re wondering how Lucille would have sounded as Elroy Jetson, you can get a bit of an idea by going to the interview here. The portion about The Jetsons starts at 5:12. Granted, Lucille was 90 when she talked to the Academy—she’s 95 now—but you can get a flavour of what Elroy could have sounded like.

A Yowp P.S.: Lucille told Jeff Kisseloff in The Box, An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961 (Viking Press, 1995) “I also did ‘Tom and Jerry’ and ‘Droopy’ cartoons.” If anyone knows more about that, please post a comment. I’m at a loss to figure out which specific cartoons she voiced for MGM.

Get Set! Get Ready! Here Come Lucille and Reddy!

It’s pretty well the established story that Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera got their notice to leave MGM (from an accountant), planned their own studio, took their MGM staff with them, hired Daws Butler and Don Messick, sold Ruff and Reddy and began a multi-billion-dollar television animation industry.

Well, not quite.

For one thing, not everyone came over from MGM; former Disney artist James Escalante vanished somewhere after leaving Culver City. It seems Bill Hanna, for a brief time, had his own separate company, as revealed by historian Keith Scott in ‘The Moose That Roared.’ And Don Messick was not the first choice for one of the starring roles in Ruff and Reddy. Lucille Bliss knows who was. She was.

Lucille Teresa Bliss is a remarkable 94 years old. She may be best known to one generation for her role in The Smurfs. She may be known to a later one for Invader Zim. She may be known to an earlier one as Crusader Rabbit. She appeared in Walt Disney’s version of Cinderella (1950).

Five years ago, Lucille was interviewed for the Archive of American Television about her career. The site is a wonderful treasure of information about the Golden Age of Television told by the people who were there. The interviews are more interesting than what’s on television today.

She tells a fascinating story about the man who wrestled Crusader Rabbit from Jay Ward and Alex Anderson—Shull Bonsall. Lucille had been the rabbit’s voice in the original cartoons in 1950-51 and Bonsall decided to play a game of hardball to get her to return for his 1957 version. Bonsall told her his was going to be a non-union shop and she’d get a $30 fee and no residuals.

Let’s pick up her story. Here’s a transcription of the interview:

And then Hanna-Barbera called me the next day, and said “We’re starting ‘Hanna-Barbera.’ They were leaving MGM, they had left. “And we’re going to do a show called ‘Ruff and Reddy.’ We want you as our Ruff and we’ll pay you $50,000 for four years, exclusivity.”

Awwwgh! 50 thousand. I’d never had that much money in my life. I thought “My God, to be at Hanna-Barbera, oh, this is fab...” I had worked commercials for them at MGM. I thought “This is wonderful.”

Well! I didn’t realise that Bonsall called again and said, “You are our rabbit.” But I said “I don’t want to do it.” “But you belong to us.”

So I went to the union. They had a lawyer there and I didn’t understand. I understand the game now. Shall we say that when somebody says “You help me and I’ll help you, and I’ll help you, you help me and I’ll help you, mainly I’ll help you” you think “It’s my big brother and he’s going to help me.” But he means “You’ll pay me, baby, and then I’ll help you,” but—

Well, I didn’t get the message. I was too dumb, I mean too ignorant. I didn’t know things like that. I was [unintelligible], I was innocent and ignorant. And I didn’t know what he meant; I thought I got a big brother.

Nothing happened. And Bonsall kept calling. And I said “Wait a minute. What about, you know, uh, what’s happening with me?” “Well, so far, it’s hard to do, honey, it’s hard to do.” So, nothin’.

So then, I got a call—wait a minute, that was the other call from Hanna-Barbera, from Bill Hanna. He said, “Lucille, we want you. We’ll make it up to you. We can’t touch you because Bonsall is a rich, wealthy man, a successful man, he owns part of the L.A. Times, he owes somethin’ else, and somethin’ else, and he’s so rich and so powerful in L.A. If we go against him, Hanna-Barbera will never get off the ground. We can not use you. But we will make it up to you some day.” And they did later. 20 years. Joe [Barbera] said to me 20 years later, they made it up with Smurfette.

But, anyway, so—I couldn’t work. Any time I went to a studio, they said “Oh, you’re supposed to do Crusader Rabbit, aren’t you?” And I said “Well, no, I won’t work. I’m union. It’s non-union.” “Well, sorry, hon.” I could not work for three months, either.

Then I got a call from Shull Bonsall saying “This is Shull Bonsall.” And he said “We’ve got now Ge-Ge Pearson. She’s understudying you. She’s going to be the rabbit. And we’ve got all your tapes, so we’re going to use a lot of your dialogue and very little of hers’.” I said “How can you—” “Ha, ha, ha!” He says “We can do that and that’s what we’re going to do. So, go out now and get a job.” I said “Go out now? After three months and you ruined the best deal with Hanna-Barbera I ever could have had?”

“Well,” he says, “Honey, all you’ve”—and I’ll never forget—“All you’ve got is a phone call to prove it.” And then he burst into wild ‘ha-ha-ha-haaa’ laughter and hung up.

And so it was that Hanna-Barbera went with Don Messick as Ruff. Whether he had been hired to do other roles on Ruff and Reddy at that point is unknown.

Incidentally, Joe Barbera didn’t wait 20 years to hire Lucille Bliss. She appeared on the best-left-forgotten Space Kidettes (1965), along with people I’ve, well, forgotten because I haven’t seen the show in 45 years.

What’s odd is Hanna-Barbera didn’t hire her when opportunities came up after the Bonsall incident. In the first season of the Huck Show in 1958, it sounds like Ginny Tyler was brought in for a couple of cartoons. The following year, Jean Vander Pyl was hired. Then Julie Bennett. Then Bea Benaderet (after June Foray was brought in for a Flintstones test reel). Then Penny Singleton (after a brief go-around with Pat Carroll) and Janet Waldo. In fact, Lucille reveals later in the interview she landed a role in The Jetsons—as Elroy. But perhaps we’ll transcribe that interesting story at another time.

If you’d like to hear this part of the interview, you’ll find it here. The Archive also conducted a conversation with Joe Barbera, with the established story we all know. Minus what you’ve just read.