George Pal Rareties

Jazz enthusiast (and Harry Von Zell devotee) Leonard Maltin just found this rare 1946 album, Artie Shaw’s Pied Piper and kindly shared the cover with me (below, click to enlarge). As you can see it was illustrated by none other than animator George Pal! This was new to me!

Not only that, Leonard tells me the record features Arthur Q. Bryan (Elmer Fudd) as the voice of the Mayor of Hamlin!

While I’m at it, I might as well post these two rare stills (below, click thumbnails to enlarge); I’d never seen either until recently.

The first, at left, is of Paramount’s star Dorothy Lamour holding the Pal Puppetoon figure of herself, used in the 1941 short Hoola Boola; at right, courtesy of Mark and Seamus at Screen Novelties, is a beautiful publicity pose of George Pal himself surrrounded by his most famous Puppetoon figures; The photo’s caption on the back (center thumbnail) gives a mini-bio and dates the picture to 1943.