Okay... brain-teaser time again...!!!

[Sogturtle]

Alright Brainth are ya ready...??? Are ya sure?

Okay here goes...

What (and when) was the FIRST appearance of Witch Hazel?? ;)

[Matt Yorston]

I'm guessing it was in 1952 in the Disney Donald Duck cartoon, "Trick or Treat".

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by Matt Yorston
I'm guessing it was in 1952 in the Disney Donald Duck cartoon, "Trick or Treat".

A good try Matt, buuuuut I'm sorry no cigar for you ;)

[lislebartman]

Umm, wouldn't that be in "Bewitched Bunny"? We are talking about Warner 'toons only, right?

[Jack]

Originally posted by lislebartman
Umm, wouldn't that be in "Bewitched Bunny"? We are talking about Warner 'toons only, right? But, would Sogturtle really make it THAT easy? :p It's probably some obscure character from a 30s cartoon.


Jack :bosko:

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by lislebartman
Umm, wouldn't that be in "Bewitched Bunny"? We are talking about Warner 'toons only, right?

Good point Lisle (is that a good abbreviation for you?). But actually no again. Chuck Jones indicated once that he viewed HIS character as being nicked off from Disney. Buuuuut we just covered Walt.

This is a brain teaser... Might take a few more tries or a while... ;) :D ;) :bosko: :)

[Matt Yorston]

Sogturtle,

I have a question (and I had this in mind earlier). Are you referring to how Chuck Jones borrowed the name "Witch Hazel" from an alcohol rub? Thus, Witch Hazel's first "appearance" would be as a bottle of alcohol rub (Sorry, don't know the year). Is this what you're referring to?

[Paul Penna]

I assume we're talking about animated cartoons, not the related (but oft-talked about here) subject of comic books. In that case, it would be in John Stanley's Little Lulus. Among my personal favorites, BTW.

[Sogturtle]

Group answer ;) Jack, Paul Penna, Matt Yorston~

No Jack, her first appearance is not in an "obscure" cartoon at all... It's in a very well animated toon owned by a major Hollywood studio...

And no, Paul. this is purely (or impurely) limited to animated cartoons. Whether John Stanley borrowed the concept or name in 1952 is anybody's guess. But this Witch Hazel far-pre-dates Disney's or Stanley's...

Onward to Matt Yorston... It appears you have about a third to half of an answer there... ;) :) :wakko: :bosko:

[Jack]

Was there a bottle of Witch Hazel in the the MGM cartoon "Bottles?" It's been a while since I've seen that cartoon, so I don't recall.


Jack :confused:

[J Lee]

Yes, there was, and her line "Death stalks the night" would be reused by Hanna-Barbera for the voice coming out of the radio in "Scaredy Cat."

But I don't know if that's the same WH that Soggy's talking about....

[Daffyfan2002]

Actually, I had "Bewitched Bunny" in my mind too. It never occured to me to think outside of Warner Bros. By the way, this is a different question but some sources give Bea Bendaderet credit as Witch Hazel in "Bewitched Bunny" others say that June Foray did her voice for Warner Bros. the whole time. Which ones are right?

[J Lee]

Benaderet did almost all the Warner's female voices before the studio closed for J.L's 3-D period, while June Foray at that time was mostly working for Disney and MGM (and for Shamus Culhane on those Ajax commercials). Foray did do one or two pre-closing voices for WB, but Benaderet's voice is the one heard in "Bewitched Bunny."

After the studio reopened, Bea apparently couldn't get down to the studio enough working around the schedule of "The Burns and Allen Show," and so Foray became the main female voice actress for the studio through about 1960. So in the last three Witch Hazel cartoons (including McKimson's in 1966) , she did the voice, which was pretty much identical to the one she used for "Trick or Treat" at Disney and "The Flying Sorceress" at MGM, except that Hazel had a much better sense of humor. ;)

[Daffyfan2002]

Thanks, J. Lee. I was wondering about that because Bendaderet and Foray's Witch Hazel voices sound a lot a like. It's a bit weird because I know they both did Granny. Bendadaret's Granny was a bit squeaky and twittery and Foray's was deeper (like the one we hear today).

Anyway, back to Sogturtle's question, I still don't know yet. I'll have to do some research on that when I have time.

[Sogturtle]

Welllllll the black cat's out of the bag!! Congrats to Jack for the guess and Matt Yorston for the half-guess, and J. Lee too. The first appearance of 'Witch Hazel' as an animated cartoon-character witch is indeed in Harman-Ising/MGM's 1936 "Bottles".

Tho fellerth, what that really meanth ith that history has to be re-written...!!! Annnnnd that neither Disney's Jack Hannah-Ralph Wright nor Chuck Jones-Michael Maltese (nor John Stanley) are to credit for the creation of "Witch Hazel" in any form in 1952-53. But that instead the credit has to be given where it is REALLY due, namely to (of all people) HUGH HARMAN a whopping sixteen to seventeen years earlier (it was released Jan. 11, 1936).

(We can also now suspect that since 1952-3 has the "creation" of Witch Hazel in three separate places very likely means that all of the principals at Warners and Disney and John Stanley were exposed to a viewing of the same 1936 cartoon).

[Paul Penna]

Originally posted by Sogturtle
(We can also now suspect that since 1952-3 has the "creation" of Witch Hazel in three separate places very likely means that all of the principals at Warners and Disney and John Stanley were exposed to a viewing of the same 1936 cartoon).

I'm going to be a pedantic pain in the posterior and say that it's most likely closer to the truth to say that Hugh Harman was the first to take cartoonic advantage of the perhaps inevitable pun on the substance "witch hazel." This, a medicinal liquid made with an extract of the plant of the same name, had long been a common staple of home medicine chests, and was for some time thereafter (hence its presence in a 1930's neighborhood drugstore in "Bottles"). When I was a comic-book devouring young lad in the early- to mid-fifties, I was probably as familiar with the lotion (from motherly applications thereof) as I was with Witch Hazel the character in Little Lulu comics. I can't remember which I heard of first. So I doubt there's a _direct_ connection between the Harman character and the later ones of the same name. Certainly there's no personality similarity at all.

The Disney/Jones connection is pretty solid, as June Foray mentions in an interview here:

http://www.teemings.com/shorts/disney/years/1952/trickortreat.html

My guess about Stanley's Lulu Witch Hazel, though, is that he, like Harman originally, merely capitalized on an obvious pun.

In a way, this whole thing is like a replay of the Van Beuren "Tom and Jerry" vs. the Hanna-Barbera characters.

Fun brain-teaser, though. Keep 'em coming.

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by Paul Penna
I'm going to be a pedantic pain in the posterior and say that it's most likely closer to the truth to say that Hugh Harman was the first to take cartoonic advantage of the perhaps inevitable pun on the substance "witch hazel." This, a medicinal liquid made with an extract of the plant of the same name...So I doubt there's a _direct_ connection between the Harman character and the later ones of the same name. Certainly there's no personality similarity at all.

The Disney/Jones connection is pretty solid, as June Foray mentions....

My guess about Stanley's Lulu Witch Hazel, though, is that he, like Harman originally, merely capitalized on an obvious pun.

In a way, this whole thing is like a replay of the Van Beuren "Tom and Jerry" vs. the Hanna-Barbera characters.

Fun brain-teaser, though. Keep 'em coming.

Actually Paul...

With all due respect to you and to June Foray (whom I had the pleasure to meet very briefly once) on this she is sadly verrrrrry much in error. "Bewitched Bunny" was of course made with Bea Benadaret and so Bea would have been the one to ask... But anyway...

At this point I'll try to explain a little better... Chuck Jones and June Foray have (30 or more years after the fact) muddied the waters more by mentioning a relationship between the cartoons. Disney's 1952 cartoon "Trick Or Treat" was indeed released waaaaaay-first on Oct. 19, 1952, while the Warner toon not till July 24, 1954... Buuuuuut things are often not nearly as simple as they seem and this is again a case of that at work. Here's how it plays out... Chuck's first 'Witch Hazel' toon ("Bewitched Bunny") was actually copyrighted on AUG. 29, 1953 (almost a full year before release). BUT you all say "that's still nearly a full year after the Disney cartoon came out!!". Here's the rub... I've mentioned before the fact that Warner's giant backlog caused cartoons to be "in notice" with the Copyright office one or more YEARS before the actual date of copyright and then release. Since "Bewitched Bunny" received full copyright (without an "in notice" filing) during the confusion of the 1953 closure it is verrrrry hard to tell whether it had been sitting completed on the shelf for a year (or even two) or not. Even iffffff it was copyrighted IMMEDIATELY on completion (extremely unlikely in the closure chaos) then it would mean it began production in Feb. 1953 or much more likely back in 1952 or even 1951. Chuck was a very, very smart man, would he REALLY leap at the notion of partial-plagiarism of a character only 4 months after the Disney release??? I don't believe that to be at all likely. Hence my earlier belief that all three "creations" of "Witch Hazel" were most likely tied to some or all of the men responsible being exposed to a showing of "Bottles" in 1951-52. I'll have to check MGM release lists to see if there was a re-release around that time.

And on Tom and Jerry's naming it is well documented by Joe Barbera as having had NOTHING to do with Van Beuren's Tom and Jerry. But was the result of contest in which animator Jack Carr won a $50 prize for suggesting the names...

[Paul Penna]

Originally posted by Sogturtle
Chuck was a very, very smart man, would he REALLY leap at the notion of partial-plagiarism of a character only 4 months after the Disney release??? I don't believe that to be at all likely. Hence my earlier belief that all three "creations" of "Witch Hazel" were most likely tied to some or all of the men responsible being exposed to a showing of "Bottles" in 1951-52. I'll have to check MGM release lists to see if there was a re-release around that time.

How does that square with your comment earlier in the thread, "Chuck Jones indicated once that he viewed HIS character as being nicked off from Disney."?

There's yet another cartoon witch named "Hazel," from Will "The Spirit" Eisner, who introduced one named "Hazel P. Macbeth" in 1941.

Given the differing personalities of all these comic creations, it seems to me that the issue here is not one of "borrowing" the _character_ so much as the _name_, if even that. As I and others have pointed out, naming a witch "Hazel" is rather like taking a ready-made pun off the shelf. Certainly, it's conceivable that a hypothetical viewing of "Bottles" served as a reminder of this to the others, but I think it's equally possible that the 1952 flurry was the result of either serendipitous coincidence or of immediately contemporaneous cross-pollination. (Translation: the 1952 guys either just happened to hit on it independently, or one or the other of them happened to see what another one of them had just done - viz. the Chuck Jones comment above.) It would indeed be interesting to see if there had been a re-release of "Bottles" at the time, but I don't think that this would have been at all necessary to explain yet another use of "Hazel" as a name for a witch.



And on Tom and Jerry's naming it is well documented by Joe Barbera as having had NOTHING to do with Van Beuren's Tom and Jerry.

Well, that's actually what I was driving at, as a parallel to the seeming direct connection between the Hazels here.

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by Paul Penna
How does that square with your comment earlier in the thread, "Chuck Jones indicated once that he viewed HIS character as being nicked off from Disney."?

There's yet another cartoon witch named "Hazel," from Will "The Spirit" Eisner, who introduced one named "Hazel P. Macbeth" in 1941.

Given the differing personalities of all these comic creations, it seems to me that the issue here is not one of "borrowing" the _character_ so much as the _name_, if even that. As I and others have pointed out, naming a witch "Hazel" is rather like taking a ready-made pun off the shelf. Certainly, it's conceivable that a hypothetical viewing of "Bottles" served as a reminder of this to the others, but I think it's equally possible that the 1952 flurry was the result of either serendipitous coincidence or of immediately contemporaneous cross-pollination. (Translation: the 1952 guys either just happened to hit on it independently, or one or the other of them happened to see what another one of them had just done - viz. the Chuck Jones comment above.) It would indeed be interesting to see if there had been a re-release of "Bottles" at the time, but I don't think that this would have been at all necessary to explain yet another use of "Hazel" as a name for a witch.

Well, that's actually what I was driving at, as a parallel to the seeming direct connection between the Hazels here.

Hi Paul~

My earlier quote about Chuck does square with the later one. Chuck was very highly intelligent but just like all of us he suffered from what's been termed "the vagaries of human memory". From what his daughter Linda told Friz Freleng back in 1989 it appeared that Chuck had a problem with "implanted memories" i.e. he would tell a fanciful story once them come to believe it as gospel-fact. I am sure that Chuck had already been confronted with the Disney witch being allegedly earlier, and not remembering the precise specifics simply took it that he had borrowed from Disney (like back when starting as a director in '39), and went with it. We have to keep in mind that during the '53 Warner closure Jones had briefly worked at Walt's which I would suspect have aided confusion on Chuck's part.

And yes, as far as character or personality traits each "Witch Hazel" is decidely distinct. BUUUUT they are all cartoon witches based on the same pun and issuing forth at darn-near the same time... George Harrison thought his "My Sweet Lord" was decidedly distinct from the much earlier "He's So Fine", but the trial judge tended to think otherwise... Harrison was convicted of "subconsious plagiarism" and paid millions in damages.

And yes you're right on this... The name "Witch Hazel" is quite like a "ready-made pun on the shelf". The catch is that prior to the 1936 film no-one (as far as I know) had thought to actually create a witch character (of whatever sort) based on that pun, let alone in an animated cartoon. Undoubtedly Will Eisner's witch is indeed a separate independent creation as he created a markedly different full name.

The hive of 'Witch Hazel' appearances in the '52 era is of course POSSIBLY an example of "cross-pollination" but then again it gets back to witch :D came first... For random chance to be credited for it is rather analagous to throwing sevens in any game using dice. Once is pure chance, twice consecutively is "Wow what a coincidence, boy you're lucky", three is "hey...wait a minute!!!". The fact that all three 1952 era "creations" are in cartoon mass-media makes it extremely unlikely that random chance is to be credited.

All of which suggests to my little mind what my next brain-teaser may be... ;) :D