Joe McDoakes
Encyclopedia
Live action
In filmmaking, video production, and other media, the term live action refers to cinematography, videography not produced using animation...
comedy one reel short subject
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
s released between 1942
1942 in film
The year 1942 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest of all time, Casablanca.-Events:...
and 1956
1956 in film
The year 1956 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 5 - The Ten Commandments opens in cinemas and becomes one of the most successful and popular movies of all time, currently ranking 5th on the list of all time moneymakers * February 5 - First showing of documentary films by...
. The Joe McDoakes shorts are also known as the Behind the Eight Ball series (for the large eight ball
Eight ball
Eight-ball is a pool game popular in much of the world, and the subject of international professional and amateur competition...
Joe appeared behind in the opening credits) or the So You Want... series (as most of the films were titled). The character's name comes from "Joe Doakes," which was a popular American slang term for the average man. (The term "Joe Blow" is now more common.)
The theme song of the series is "I Know that You Know" (music by Vincent Youmans
Vincent Youmans
Vincent Youmans was an American popular composer and Broadway producer.- Life :Vincent Millie Youmans was born in New York City on September 27, 1898 and grew-up on Central Park West on the site where the Mayflower Hotel once stood. His father, a prosperous hat manufacturer, moved the family to...
) from his Broadway musical Oh, Please! (1926), used later in the M-G-M musical Hit the Deck
Hit the Deck (1955 film)
Hit the Deck is a 1955 musical film directed by Roy Rowland and starring Jane Powell. Tony Martin, Debbie Reynolds, Walter Pidgeon, Gene Raymond, Ann Miller, Russ Tamblyn,and Vic Damone. It was based on the musical of the same name.-Cast:...
(1955).
The entire series was produced and directed by Richard Bare (d/b/a
Doing business as
The phrase "doing business as" is a legal term used in the United States, meaning that the trade name, or fictitious business name, under which the business or operation is conducted and presented to the world is not the legal name of the legal person who actually own it and are responsible for it...
Richard L. Bare Productions) and distributed by Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
under their Vitaphone
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...
brand. George O'Hanlon
George O'Hanlon
George O'Hanlon was an American screen actor, comedian, and voice actor.-Early life and career:George O'Hanlon was born in Brooklyn, New York City on November 23, 1912....
, who would later provide the voice of George Jetson
George Jetson
The following is a list of major characters in The Jetsons. The Jetsons is an animated television comedy produced by Hanna-Barbera and first broadcast in prime-time on ABC as part of the 1962–63 United States network television schedule. Additional episodes were produced from 1985–1987, with the...
, starred as Joe McDoakes. These one-reel shorts were co-written by Bare and O'Hanlon, although Bare usually received sole screen credit as writer. Art Gilmore
Art Gilmore
Arthur Wells "Art" Gilmore was an American voice actor and announcer whose voice has been heard in radio and television programs, movies, trailers, advertising promotions and documentary films.-Biography:...
, through 1948, served as the narrator of Joe's humorous efforts to accomplish the activity that was the focus of the short. Gordon Hollingshead
Gordon Hollingshead
Gordon Hollingshead was an American movie producer, associate producer and assistant director....
, who won five Academy Awards for producing other short subjects for Warner Brothers, was also credited as a producer on the series until his death in 1952, although his role on this series was primarily as liaison between the studio and the director.
History
The series began with So You Want to Give Up Smoking as a project by Bare to teach his students at the University of Southern CaliforniaUniversity of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
the fundamentals of making a movie. It was picked up by Warner Bros. for $2500 and became the first of a series of short subjects. Only one more short was produced before World War II caused it to be suspended, but production resumed in 1945 with So You Think You're Allergic.
These first three shorts were filmed silent, with narration added in post-production, in the manner of the popular Pete Smith
Pete Smith (film producer)
Pete Smith was a film producer and narrator of "short subject" films from 1931 to 1955....
shorts, made at MGM from 1931 to 1955. They also resembled the Smith shorts in that they addressed actual, everyday problems (giving up smoking, caring for the eyes, coping with allergies) in an instructional but humorous way.
In 1946 the series began using live sound recording, and the addition of dialogue gave the films a new dimension. Now the action was being played strictly for laughs, with many familiar character actors adding to the fun. Fritz Feld
Fritz Feld
Fritz Feld was a film character actor actor who appeared in over 140 films, both silent and sound. His trademark was to slap his mouth with the palm of his hand to create a pop sound.-Biography:...
, Ralph Sanford
Ralph Sanford
Ralph Sanford was an American film actor. He appeared in over 200 films between 1930 and 1960.He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and died in Los Angeles, California.-Selected filmography:* In the Dough...
, Philip Van Zandt
Philip Van Zandt
Philip "Phil" Van Zandt was a Dutch actor of film, stage and television. He made over 220 film and television appearances between 1939 and 1958.-Career:...
, Fred Kelsey
Fred Kelsey
Frederick Alvin "Fred" Kelsey was an American actor, film director, and screenwriter. He appeared in 404 films between 1911 and 1958, often playing policemen or detectives . He also directed 37 films between 1914 and 1920...
, and Leo White
Leo White
Leo White was a stage performer and appeared as a character actor in many Charlie Chaplin films. He started his film career in 1911 and in 1913 moved to the Essanay Studios. In 1915, he began appearing in Chaplin's comedies and continued through Chaplin's Mutual Film comedies...
made frequent appearances; semi-regulars were Clifton Young
Clifton Young
Robert Howard "Clifton" Young was an American film actor.-Career:Born Robert H. Young, the child actor played "Bonedust" in nineteen Our Gang films from 1925 to 1931, his most notable film being School's Out...
and later Del Moore
Del Moore
Del Moore was a comedian, a television and movie actor, and a radio announcer.Born Marion Delbridge Moore in Pensacola, Florida, he began his career in radio before moving to television. In 1952, he appeared in the first of several So You Want To . . . Warner Bros. comedy shorts with George O'Hanlon...
as Joe's loudmouthed pal Homer, Rodney Bell as dumb-bell "helper" Marvin, and Ted Stanhope as an all-purpose authority figure (desk clerk, salesman, businessman, etc.). Many of the shorts are domestic comedies, with "the original hard-luck kid" McDoakes insisting on carrying a project through, with often disastrous consequences. So You Want to Build a Model Railroad has Joe so engrossed in the hobby that it overruns his entire apartment; So You Want to Be a Cowboy has Joe going to a movie, and creating a disturbance when he envisions himself as a cowboy hero; So You're Going on a Vacation has Joe struggling with a camping outfit.
Warner contract player Jane Harker co-starred as Joe's wife, Alice, in eight comedies, beginning with So You Want to Play the Horses in 1946 and ending with So You Want to Build a House in 1948.. Phyllis Coates
Phyllis Coates
Phyllis Coates is an American film and television actress. She is perhaps best known for her portrayal of reporter Lois Lane in the 1951 film Superman and the Mole Men, and during the first season of the Adventures of Superman television series.-Early life and career:After graduating from high...
would start her screen career by taking up the role of Alice later that year in So You Want to Be in Politics. Coates had married producer/director Bare that same year. The working relationship between Coates and Bare would survive their divorce. Coates gave up the role to play Lois Lane
Lois Lane
Lois Lane is a fictional character, the primary love interest of Superman in the comic books of DC Comics. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, she first appeared in Action Comics #1 ....
in the first season of Adventures of Superman
Adventures of Superman (TV series)
Adventures of Superman is an American television series based on comic book characters and concepts created in 1938 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The show is the first television series to feature Superman and began filming in 1951 in California...
. Former singing star Jane Frazee took up the role beginning in 1954 with So You Want to Be Your Own Boss, but Coates returned to the role in 1956, and played the part the in the final installment So Your Wife Wants to Work. Harker, Coates, and Frazee each displayed a fine sense of comedy as Joe's long-suffering mate. While the Alice character would appear in most of the shorts, the actress playing her would not be billed, and unless the story required Joe to be married, not only would Alice not appear, but Joe could even be a bachelor again, as there was no continuity between installments.
Star O'Hanlon and director Bare shared the same crazy sense of humor, which ran all through the series. So You Want to Be a Detective kids the daylights out of the detective mystery The Lady in the Lake
The Lady in the Lake
The Lady in the Lake is a 1943 detective novel by Raymond Chandler featuring, as do all his major works, the Los Angeles private investigator Philip Marlowe.-Introduction:...
, with the action in the first person and the camera representing everything tough-guy Joe sees. In So You Want to Be in Pictures, McDoakes is listening to a record that is providing an acting lesson, and when the telephone rings the record tells him to answer it. Later in that same short, McDoakes is hired to serve as a stunt double at a movie studio. The job turns out to be a George O'Hanlon comedy (the clapboard identifies it as So You Want to Hold Your Wife), and Joe takes a pie in the face from Jane Harker! So You Want to Know Your Relatives turns into a wicked satire of This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life is an American television documentary series broadcast on NBC, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience including friends and family.Edwards...
, with Joe as the reluctant recipient. Joe occasionally punctuates the end of a scene by looking straight into the camera to speak to (or commiserate wit) the movie audience.
The series hit its stride in the late 1940s, gaining three consecutive Academy Award nominations in the category of Short Subjects, one-reel
Academy Award for Live Action Short Film
This name for the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film was introduced in 1974. For the three preceding years it was known as "Short Subjects, Live Action Films." The term "Short Subjects, Live Action Subjects" was used from 1957 until 1970. From 1936 until 1956 there were two separate...
for So You Want to Be in Pictures, So You Want to Be on the Radio, and So You Think You're Not Guilty. for 1947, 1948, and 1949. For most of the series's run, the McDoakes shorts were the only live-action comedies offered in the 10-minute length, making them handy for theater owners to include in their programs. The series ran until 1956, when the demise of the studio system
Studio system
The studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in Hollywood from the early 1920s through the early 1960s. The term studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture studios producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under...
brought an end to the production of short subjects by Warner Bros. and the other Hollywood studios.
Cast and crew
Note: Appearance credits for non-billed actors may be incomplete or incorrect due to inaccurate sources.Billed cast and crew
- George O'HanlonGeorge O'HanlonGeorge O'Hanlon was an American screen actor, comedian, and voice actor.-Early life and career:George O'Hanlon was born in Brooklyn, New York City on November 23, 1912....
- Joe McDoakes - Art GilmoreArt GilmoreArthur Wells "Art" Gilmore was an American voice actor and announcer whose voice has been heard in radio and television programs, movies, trailers, advertising promotions and documentary films.-Biography:...
- Narrator (1942–48) - Richard Bare - Director/Producer
- Gordon HollingsheadGordon HollingsheadGordon Hollingshead was an American movie producer, associate producer and assistant director....
- Producer
Character actors with 10 or more appearances
- Rodney Bell
- Fred KelseyFred KelseyFrederick Alvin "Fred" Kelsey was an American actor, film director, and screenwriter. He appeared in 404 films between 1911 and 1958, often playing policemen or detectives . He also directed 37 films between 1914 and 1920...
- Ted Stanhope
- Clifton YoungClifton YoungRobert Howard "Clifton" Young was an American film actor.-Career:Born Robert H. Young, the child actor played "Bonedust" in nineteen Our Gang films from 1925 to 1931, his most notable film being School's Out...
Guest cast notable for other roles
- Arthur Q. BryanArthur Q. BryanArthur Quirk Bryan was a United States comedian and voice actor, remembered best for his longtime recurring role as well-spoken, wisecracking Dr...
, the voice of Elmer FuddElmer FuddElmer J. Fudd/Egghead is a fictional cartoon character and one of the most famous Looney Tunes characters, and the de facto archenemy of Bugs Bunny. He has one of the more disputed origins in the Warner Bros. cartoon pantheon . His aim is to hunt Bugs, but he usually ends up seriously injuring...
, appeared on screen in So You Want to Build a Model Railroad and filled in for Art Gilmore as the narrator in So You Want to Be a Policeman. - George ChandlerGeorge ChandlerGeorge Chandler was an American actor best known for playing the character of "Uncle Petrie" on the television series Lassie...
and Ronald ReaganRonald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
, both of whom would later be President of the Screen Actors GuildScreen Actors GuildThe Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
(SA), appeared in the same short, So You Want to Be in Pictures. - Iron Eyes CodyIron Eyes CodyIron Eyes Cody was an American actor. He frequently portrayed American Indians in Hollywood films. In 1995, Cody was honored by the American Indian community for his work publicizing the plight of Native Americans, including his acting in films...
offered a "scalp" treatment to Joe in So You Want to Keep Your Hair. - The screen duo of Doris DayDoris DayDoris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...
and Gordon MacRaeGordon MacRaeGordon MacRae was an American actor and singer, best known for his appearances in the film versions of two Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, Oklahoma! and Carousel and films with Doris Day like Starlift.-Early life:Born Albert Gordon MacRae in East Orange, New Jersey, MacRae graduated from...
has a cameo in So You Want a Television Set. - Charlie Hall, who served as the foil in many Laurel and HardyLaurel and HardyLaurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
shorts, had his last screen appearance in So You Want to Play the Piano. - Lyle TalbotLyle TalbotLyle Talbot , born Lisle Henderson, was an American actor on stage and screen, best known for his long career in movies from 1931 to 1960 and for his frequent appearances on TV in the 1950s and '60s, including his decade-long role as Joe Randolph on television's The Adventures of Ozzie and...
, a founding member of SAG, was in So You Want to Be Your Own Boss.
Shorts
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Home video availability
Warner Bros. has released the entire series of 63 shorts in the DVD-R format, as The Joe McDoakes Collection. Individual shorts can also be found as extras on DVDs of classic Warner Bros. films of the period:- So You Want to Be an Actor is on the DVD of My Dream Is YoursMy Dream Is YoursMy Dream Is Yours is a 1949 musical romantic comedy film starring Doris Day, Jack Carson and Lee Bowman.The film is perhaps best remembered today for an extended dream sequence combining animation and live action which featured a cameo appearance by Bugs Bunny, dancing with Jack Carson and Doris...
. - So You Want to Learn to Dance and So You Want a Television Set are on the DVD of By the Light of the Silvery MoonBy the Light of the Silvery Moon (film)By the Light of the Silvery Moon is a 1953 musical film. It is the sequel to On Moonlight Bay. Like its predecessor, the movie is based loosely on the Penrod stories by Booth Tarkington.-Plot:...
. - So You Want to Be on the Radio is on the DVD of Adventures of Don JuanAdventures of Don JuanAdventures of Don Juan, known in the United Kingdom as The New Adventures of Don Juan, is a 1948 adventure Technicolor romance film made by Warner Bros...
. - So You Want to Give Up Smoking is on the DVD of All Through the NightAll Through the Night (film)All Through the Night is a light-hearted thriller film released by Warner Brothers in 1941, starring Humphrey Bogart and directed by Vincent Sherman.-Plot:An elderly baker named Miller is murdered by a sinister stranger...
. - So Your Wife Wants to Work is on the DVD of The Spirit of St. LouisThe Spirit of St. Louis (film)The Spirit of St. Louis is a 1957 biographical film directed by Billy Wilder and starring James Stewart as Charles Lindbergh. The screenplay was adapted by Charles Lederer, Wendell Mayes, and Billy Wilder from Lindbergh's 1953 autobiographical account of his historic flight, which won the Pulitzer...
. - So You Want to Be in Pictures is on the DVD of The Hasty HeartThe Hasty HeartThe Hasty Heart is a 1949 British-American co-production film based on the play of the same name by John Patrick. It tells the story of a group of wounded Allied soldiers in a mobile surgery unit at the end of World War II who, after initial resentment and ostracism, rally around a loner, a...
. - So You Think You Need Glasses is on the DVD of The Man Who Came to DinnerThe Man Who Came to DinnerThe Man Who Came to Dinner is a comedy in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. It debuted on October 16, 1939 at the Music Box Theatre in New York City. It then enjoyed a number of New York and London revivals. The first London production was staged at The Savoy Theatre starring Robert...
. - So You Think You're a Nervous Wreck is on the DVD of A Night in CasablancaA Night in CasablancaA Night in Casablanca was the twelfth Marx Brothers movie, starring Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, and Harpo Marx. The picture was directed by Archie Mayo and written by Joseph Fields and Roland Kibbee, and is generally considered one of the better of the Marx Brothers' later films.-Plot:Set in...
. - So You Think You're Not Guilty is on the DVD of White HeatWhite HeatWhite Heat may refer to:In film:* White Heat , a British film directed by Thomas Bentley* White Heat , an American film* White Heat, a 1949 film starring James CagneyIn music:...
. - So You Want to Be a Detective is on the DVD of The Treasure of the Sierra MadreThe Treasure of the Sierra Madre (film)The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a 1948 American film written and directed by John Huston, a feature film adaptation of B. Traven's 1927 novel of the same name, in which two Americans Fred C. Dobbs and Bob Curtin during the 1920s in Mexico join with an old-timer, Howard , to prospect for gold...
.