They say that if a woman listens to Mozart when she's pregnant, her child will grow up to be a musician. He or she may not be a great musician but the music that seeps through Ma's belly and into the uterus will somehow orient that fetus in that direction. I don't know if that's true but when my mother was carrying me, she says she watched a lot of Time for Beany. It was a very funny, addictive show.
That was the puppet version which starred (originally) Daws Butler and Stan Freberg. Later, there was an animated version which I enjoyed outside the womb. Both were produced by a clever gent named Bob Clampett, who I would later get to know well. Bob had a grand career. Before Time for Beany and the cartoon Beany & Cecil, he was one of the best directors of Warner Brothers cartoons. Some would even argue he was the best. I liked Bob and I liked darn near everything he ever did.
A few years ago, a superb DVD came out that mainly covered the animated Beany & Cecil but it was crammed full of special features about Bob's life, including materials from his vast files. The man saved everything and his son Robert Junior, in assembling the DVD, dipped into those archives and offered up some gems. I can't think of another animation-related DVD I've ever bought that gave you more for your money. Alas…maddeningly…it was not a big success. It did not spawn a whole mess of other volumes and it went out of print and became hard to find.
So now we have two happy announcements. One is that Volume Two has been assembled anyway and it'll be out next month. The other joyous news is that the Clampett Studio, run by his family, has stumbled across a few boxes of Volume One in the warehouse. So if you didn't get one, you can get one now when you order this new collection. It has my highest recommendation and I can't imagine that the new volume won't, as well.
Go here. Click. Enjoy. You will.