Ward Kimball Videos

CartoonBrew just noticed that quite a few Ward Kimball-related videos were posted on Youtube this weekend. Don't forget to check them out this morning.





These clips prompted Jim Korkis to send me the following email:

[Concerning the Kimball You Bet Your Life:

Seven days after this show aired in 1954, TOOT WHISTLE PLUNK AND BOOM received an Oscar (Kimball directed the Disney short.) This same year, Kimball started work on the Tomorrowland MAN IN SPACE show. He was already a celebrity thanks to Firehouse Five Plus Two. He had even been profiled in ESCAPADE magazine (a PLAYBOY imitation).

Regular folk were the usual contestants on the show, but sometimes there was the occasional celebrity—Jack Benny, Liberace, Edgar Bergen (with young daughter Candice) and Ray Bradbury among them. Nobody really watched You Bet Your Life to see people win fabulous prizes because there were quiz shows that had much bigger prizes. People tuned in to NBC on Thursday nights to see Groucho and what he would say.

DeSoto sponsored YOU BET YOUR LIFE ("Tell ‘em Groucho sent you"). Walt Disney appeared in two DeSoto newspaper ads in 1939 but never drove one. They told him if he appeared in the ad they would give him a free DeSoto. Walt said he didn’t need a car but his mother Flora said “your father and I need one” so Walt appeared in the ad. In one of the ads, he is sitting in a lawn chair by the car and over to the left is a butler with a tray of drinks.]

Also worth the detour are the new posts on Toons at War.