Stan; Ollie; Walt and Two Little Pigs

by Tracy M. Tolzmann

Tracy is the long-serving Grand Sheik of the Block-Heads Tent of Minnesota, which was only the third tent to be foundered in our wonderful organisation, The Sons Of The Desert. He is a regular contributor to the Beau Chumps Tent website and also to the Beau Chumps email bulletins that Chumps Grand Sheik, Mike Jones, sends out. This article was published in the Spring 2021 edition of ‘The Intra Tent Journal’, but is too good not to spread further and we hope that you enjoy it!

This is a really interesting article in which there is lots to learn, and it is very kind of Tracy to let us reproduce it here. As usual, should you have any thoughts, questions or comments, please leave them in the reply/comments box at the end of this, and Mike will make sure Tracy gets them. We thank you!

As a big fan of Laurel & Hardy, Walt Disney, and organ grinding, I was delighted when I stumbled on a drawing that incorporates all of these interests. I wondered how the artwork happened to be rendered in the first place. My knowledge of classic films would help serve me in answering this thought. Items from Oliver Hardy are very rare in that Babe and his wife Lucille had downsized their household in the early 1950s and ultimately moved-in with her mother as the rotund half of the popular comedy duo suffered ill health, thus necessitating the disposal of many personal items. I knew that a similar ink-and-watercolor drawing by Walt Disney had been presented to Stan Laurel which he proudly displayed in his office for many years. This drawing had been sold in a 2013 auction of memorabilia from the collection of Stan’s daughter, the late Lois Laurel Hawes.

Stan, Walt Disney, Hal Roach and Babe at the Hal Roach Studios’ 20th anniversary party, held on December 7, 1933.

Walt Disney was a big fan of silent film comedies and in his formative years as an animation pioneer, he
routinely patronized movie theaters to get inspiration for his early cartoons. Charlie Chaplin was probably his biggest influence, but he undoubtedly saw the early solo films of Stan Laurel and Oliver “Babe” Hardy, among many other comedians. The slapstick style of those early comedies is reflected in the crude comedy and knockabout replicated in the Disney cartoons at the time. As his studio grew, Disney assigned his animators to watch Laurel & Hardy and Chaplin films to help them learn the comedy movements and expressions of the renowned pantomimists.

When Walt Disney finally achieved independent success with his creation of Mickey Mouse in 1928, his fortunes changed, and he became a familiar figure in Hollywood. Disney had the opportunity to meet many of the comedians he had idolized on screen and adapted to his cartoons, and Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy became familiar friends, along with their boss Hal Roach. The four would meet again at the Academy Awards in November of 1932 (Above right) when the comedy team’s movie “The Music Box” won the award for Best Live Action Comedy Short Subject of 1931-32 and Disney won the Oscar for Best Animated Short with the first color cartoon “Flowers and Trees.” (The cartoon was actually the first commercially released movie in the new three-strip Technicolor process.) They would meet again when Disney was a guest at the lavish 20th anniversary celebration of Hal Roach Studios in 1933.

A quartet of cells from Mickeys Gala Premiere

With the prosperity that his studio had achieved, Disney started paying homage to these inspirational comedians and other celebrities by putting animated likenesses of them in his cartoons. Soon, Mickey Mouse was interacting with Stan & Ollie, Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, the Frankenstein Monster, and all the popular stars of the silver screen in cartoons like “Mickey’s Gala Premiere” (1933).

The drawing depicting Oliver Hardy as an organ grinder and Stan Laurel acting as his monkey also features “Fifer and Fiddler Pig” (their brother “Practical” – who built his house of bricks – is absent), two of the stars of Disney’s Academy Award winning 1933 cartoon “The Three Little Pigs” (see the drawing at the head of this article) . The hit 8-minute cartoon made $250,000.00 – more than 11 times its cost – big money in the Depression-ravaged mid-1930s! The subjects of the drawing would suggest that the illustration was done at about that time, but a little more digging revealed that this was not the case.

The success of the cartoon crossed-over into live-action comedy when Hal Roach produced the Laurel & Hardy feature “Babes in Toyland” (1934), based on the 1903 Victor Herbert operetta. The film depicts apprentice toymakers Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee in the storybook land of nursery rhymes. Disney’s Three Little Pigs appear, accompanied by their familiar signature tune “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,” and Mickey Mouse is featured, too, played by a costumed capuchin monkey. The song, written for the cartoon by Disney composer Frank Churchill, became an anthem of the Depression and would have a resurgence during WWII as a symbol of America’s resolve against Adolph Hitler and the hardships of war. Disney’s close friendship with Roach found him waiving royalties for the use of the characters and song – an unheard-of agreement even in 1934! Roach responded in kind allowing Disney the free use of Laurel & Hardy’s theme song “Ku Ku” to accompany his frequent depictions of Stan and Ollie in his cartoons.

With the huge success of Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney was constantly working to improve the medium of animated films, reinvesting nearly all his profits in experimental projects that would lead to innumerable innovations in the industry, among them the first animated feature cartoon, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” which went into production in 1934. Walt Disney was a very hands-on producer involved in every aspect of the films that bore his name – he even recorded the falsetto voice of Mickey Mouse in 125 cartons from 1929 to 1947 – and therefore had very little time to answer his voluminous mail and requests for his autograph. At about this time, a young artist from Albion, New York joined the studio. Henry “Hank” Porter arrived to become a member of the vast stable of animators at the studio. His first project was to animate the “Heigh Ho” sequence in “Snow White.”

Another of Porter’s many duties was also to work in the Disney Publicity Art Department where he became one of only a few artists at the studio to be authorized to reproduce Walt Disney’s signature. Porter’s chief responsibility at this point was to reply to the innumerable requests for Disney’s autograph from the public and to produce “personalized” commemorative items on behalf of Walt that would be presented to visiting dignitaries, politicians, celebrities and the like. Mickey Mouse and other Disney cartoon characters were illustrated on these items, and many were customized for special occasions. These were dutifully drawn and inked by Porter who then hand-painted them with watercolors. The inscription and signature were not Walt’s, but the stylized “Disney script” that Porter had actually designed which continues as the trademark of the Disney dynasty to this day! Walt’s real signature bears only a little resemblance to the familiar logo.

In April of 1934, Disney released a sequel to the enormously successful “The Three Little Pigs.” It was at this time that the organ grinder art (and the similar “twin” above that had been sold at auction in 2015) were rendered by Hank Porter and sent to Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel. Babe was so pleased with the artwork, he sent Walt Disney a cheerful reply (right) two weeks before the release of the sequel cartoon. (Hardy was not known for his letter-writing – he left all the correspondence to his slender partner Laurel, who wrote thousands of letters.)

Disney used real life as inspiration for many of his cartoons. Hal Roach played polo for recreation. Walt Disney joined his good friend’s team, and soon a cartoon was created depicting “Movie Stars” versus “Mickey Mousers” in “Mickey’s Polo Team” (1936). Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, and Harpo Marx played against Mickey, the Big Bad Wolf, Donald Duck, and “the Goof” (now known as Goofy). Disney made another sequel to “The Three Little Pigs” in 1936, and the trio appear in the polo cartoon in the company of an animated Shirley Temple. Stan & Ollie play an integral role in the film as well, astride horses with Laurel & Hardy-like countenances! (Disney suffered a serious injury playing polo, an accident that caused him much pain the rest of his life.)

Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin and Chico Marx in “Mickey’s Polo Team” (1936).

The Hardy-owned artwork attributed to Walt Disney but actually rendered by Hank Porter was placed in a 2017 Heritage Auctions sale and sold for $5,019.00 (including buyer’s premium) on July 1, 2017. (Who owned the item is a mystery, but the current owner has it offered for sale.) The price was a relative bargain when compared to the sale of the drawing’s twin — while not identical, it is perhaps fraternal, as it also depicts L&H with the Three Little Pigs. It was purchased in November of 2013 from the Lois Laurel auction by the late Larry Leventhal, a prominent Minneapolis attorney and the Vice Sheik of the Twin Cities’ Block-Heads tent, Oasis No. 3. He paid an astonishing $12,500.00 for the item! The high prices are a testament to the collectability of animation art and Laurel & Hardy memorabilia.

One of Porter’s greatest artistic contributions was the design and production of over 1,000 emblems and insignias used by innumerable armed services branches throughout WWII. Starting with a few commissions Disney ordered as favors for military associates who had a prominent presence in all of the Hollywood studios, requests for the custom military art flooded the studio and Porter was eventually joined by three other artists in rendering the works. Following the war, Porter continued working at Disney and did freelance art for other interests. His career was cut short when he succumbed to cancer in October of 1951, at the age of 50.

In Stan’s Den at Fort Laurel in the forties – note the Disney drawing in between him and Babe

While organ grinders were certainly a fast disappearing reminder of yesteryear even when Porter created these unique and charming drawings on behalf of Walt Disney, the combination of Disney characters with Stan & Babe captures the whimsy and joy of those simpler, bygone days for us modern-day enthusiasts who like to relive the past.

— fin –

I hope that you enjoyed Tracy’s scribblings as much as we did and, as above, please leave them in the box below and each will receive a response on this page.