ITEA Journal Volume 48 Number 3 (Spring 2021)

Tubby the Tuba
By Douglas Yeo

More Than a Melody-More than Oompah

Figure 1. George Kleinsinger and Paul Tripp, Tubby the Tuba (© Cosmo, 1945), The Further Adventure of Tubby the Tuba (© RCA Victor, 1947), The Tubby the Tuba Song (© General, 1950; © assigned to RYTVOC, 1955), Tubby the Tuba at the Circus (© Decca, 1950), Tubby the Tuba Goes to Town (© Golden Crest, 1960).

Editor's note: Douglas Yeo's comprehensive article about Tubby the Tuba appears serialized in eight consecutive issues of the ITEA Journal throughout 2020 and 2021.

PART 6-Tubby the Tuba films and books

The success of the first recordings and performances of Tubby the Tuba spawned tellings of the tale in two other major media: films and books. The story was a logical candidate for both.

Figure 2. George Pal [Julius Gyorgy Marczincsak]; model of Tubby the Tuba (plaster with plastic eyes) and the Bull Frog (plastic) for the Puppetoon film, Tubby the Tuba (1947). Courtesy Division of Cultural and Community Life, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Long before the stop-action clay animation television shows and movies that featured Gumby (1955), Davy and Goliath (1961), and Wallace and Gromit (1989), George Pal (1908-1980), who was born Julius Gyorgy Marczincsak, pioneered replacement animation films using small models. This was a time-consuming, labor intensive process in which all characters in the film were made plaster, wood, or plastic. After a frame of the film was shot, a part (or a new part all together)-such as a head, or arm, or leg, or eyebrow-that was positioned in a different way was inserted into one or more characters and another frame was captured. With the shooting of each subsequent frame, various parts were replaced, and when the frames were combined in real time, the effect of motion was achieved. By some estimates, up to 9,000 different character parts were used in a single short film. Pal, who was born in Hungary, moved to Germany in 1931, and emigrated to the United States in 1939, produced his first replacement animation film in 1932 and went on to make many stop-action short features-dubbed Puppetoons-for Paramount Pictures. Of these, eight were nominated for an Academy award, including two based on stories by Dr. Seuss-The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, 1943, and And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1944)-and his final Puppetoon, Tubby the Tuba (1947). [1]

Figure 3. George Kleinsinger and Paul Tripp, Tubby the Tuba; film by George Pal (© Paramount, 1947).

George Pal's Puppetoon version of Tubby the Tuba was released on July 10, 1947 and is generally faithful to the original story and music. Pal engaged Victor Jory to narrate the film which tied the cartoon closely to the original release of Tubby on Cosmo Records. Yet while Jory sang the two songs on the Cosmo release, a few small bits of dialogue and the two songs-Tubby's soliloquy, "Alone am I," and the bullfrog's song, "Bug-gup! Bug-gup!"-were cut (the film is 9:34, considerably shorter than a typical performance or recording of the piece, which is usually around 14 minutes long) and new music-the Puppetoon theme-accompanies the opening credits (in which George Kleinsinger's name is both abbreviated and misspelled as "G. Kleinssinger") and the final "The End" frame. The opening and closing scenes of the cartoon take place on a set that is reminiscent of the Hollywood Bowl, and, as we have seen to be the case on so many recordings of Tubby the Tuba, the tuba soloist is uncredited. [2]

Figure 4. George Kleinsinger and Paul Tripp, Tubaen Toby ; film by Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (© NRK, 1965).

On April 12, 1965, Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation's primary television channel, NRK1, broadcast a film of Tubby the Tuba, titled Tubaen Toby. The production was broadcast in black and white and the animation was by Anna Aronsen and Arne Kr. Nyberg. NRK's Kringkastningsorkesteret was conducted by Øivind Bergh and the story is narrated and sung by Lasse Kolstad. The tuba soloist was uncredited, but it may have been Per Galborgen, who played the tuba solo part on a 1970 Norwegian release of Tubaen Tobby andTubaen Tobby På Sirkus ( Tubby the Tuba Goes to the Circus) on Lunde Forlag (LP 1001) that featured the same orchestra, conductor, and narrator as the film. The film received a single showing on Norwegian television and was available on the NRK-TV website for many years, but it has since been removed. [3]

Figure 5. George Kleinsinger and Paul Tripp, Tubby the Tuba ; film by Alexander Shure. Theatre promotional poster (© New York Institute of Technology, 1975).

The idea of a full-length, animated motion picture version of Tubby the Tuba would seem to be a stretch, given the tale's relatively compact story line. But in 1975, Alexander Schure did just that: he produced an 81-minute-long film of Tubby the Tuba that was released in theaters on April 1, 1975. In order to fill out the story, Paul Tripp-who wrote the film's screenplay-conflated Tubby the Tuba with Tubby the Tuba at the Circus and Kleinsinger and Tripp's The Story of Celeste to create a new plot line. Readers who are familiar with those works in their original form would quickly notice the differences. The original Tubby the Tuba story begins and ends the movie. Seven minutes into the film, Tubby leaves his orchestra rehearsal, humiliated by the other instruments. Fast forward to the film's final eleven minutes, when Tubby finally comes to the river and encounters the bullfrog and finds a melody to play with his orchestra. In between those seventeen minutes of the original Tubby the Tuba story, Tubby goes on a quest for personal significance. Tubby's alter ego (the character identifies itself as "Tubby's idea"-taken from Tubby the Tuba at the Circus) leads Tubby into a series of adventures. Tubby first joins the circus where his oompahs are embraced by a group of dancing elephants (led by Mrs. Elephant) in tu-tus. The circus ringmaster makes Tubby and the elephants the star of his show, but here, the plot diverges from the original Tubby the Tuba Joins the Circus story line. In the film, Tubby's success goes to his head and he is fired. This is quite different than the redemption of Tubby's oompahs that occurs in the original version of Tubby the Tuba at the Circus. Dejected by his firing and humbled by his by then deflated ego, Tubby's friend, Peepo the Piccolo (who is renamed Peewee in the film), takes him to The Singing City (which looks very much like The Emerald City, Oz, in the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz), he is introduced with Siegfried's famous horn call from Richard Wagner's Götterdämmerung, and he befriends Celeste. Since Tubby did not appear in the original version of The Story of Celeste, the plot diverges once again. When Celeste is locked in a closet by Miss Squeak, the nasty head of a home for "orphan tunes," Tubby (rather than the helpful mouse in the original Celeste story) rescues her. Tubby then takes her to Prince Cello's royal ball where the Prince is looking for a tune of his own. In The Story of Celeste, the Prince chooses Celeste's tune, but in the film, Tubby declares that he has chosen Celeste's melody for himself. However, while Tubby and Celeste dance to her melody-slowly played by Tubby in the low register-Tubby and Celeste trip and fall in front of the Prince. Embarrassed, Tubby tells the Prince that Celeste should be his, and he sadly leaves the ball. From there he meets the bullfrog and the film concludes with Tubby happily playing his new tune with his orchestra, cheered on by the bullfrog, his "idea," and Mrs. Elephant.

This mashup of three Kleinsinger and Tripp stories was supported by an all-star cast of voices, including Dick van Dyke as Tubby, Pearl Bailey as Mrs. Elephant, famed English character actress Hermione Gingold as Miss Squeak, Jane Powell as Celeste, and Australian actor Cyril Ritchard (who had starred as Captain Hook opposite Mary Martin in the original 1954 Broadway production of Peter Pan) as the Frog. Ray Middleton-who in 1948 narrated the first recording of The Further Adventure of Tubby the Tuba (more on that in the next installment of this article)-was the voice of the circus ringmaster, the Great Pepperino. Paul Tripp's wife, Ruth Enders, took voice of the Haughty Violin and Tripp was the film's narrator. The tuba soloist, once again, is not credited. George Kleinsinger was not involved in the movie; additional music was composed by Lehman Engel and several new songs were composed by Ray Carter. Yet, despite this impressive lineup of talent, the film was not a commercial success. It was one of the the lowest grossing theatrical release of 1975 (out of 156 films, it grossed only $300,000; compare this to the top release of 1975, Jaws, that grossed $252,500,000), and it received mixed reviews.[4]

To be fair, the movie seemed doomed at the start, apart from the curious choice to release the film on April 1, April Fools' Day. Producer Alexander Schure was a successful millionaire and founder of New York Institute of Technology, but he didn't know anything about film animation. [5] As the movie's costs ballooned due to the slow pace of traditional, hand-done animation (among those who did the animation work were students at New York Institute of Technology who were supervised by cartoonist Sam Singer; Singer also directed the film), Schure brought in Edward Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith-both later went on to found Pixar Animation Studios-to explore the possibility of using the then embryonic technique of computer animated graphics. In the end, the movie was completed using traditional animation techniques-Catmull and Smith pulled out of the project and Singer asked that his name be taken off the credits-and the result was not up to the standard of animated features by Disney and other top animation studios. Catmull later said, "It was awful, it was terrible, half the audience fell asleep at the screening. We walked out of the screening room thinking, 'Thank God we didn't have anything to do with it, that computers were not used for anything in that movie!'"[6] Well, it wasn't that bad. But the expanded story line was probably to blame as well, as it diverted attention from the impact of the important points of the original stories. Some things just work better as a fourteen-minute work for solo tuba, orchestra, and narrator.

Tubby the Tuba books

Figure 6. George Kleinsinger and Paul Tripp; illustrations by George Maas, The Tale of Tubby the Tuba (© Vanguard, 1948).

It did not take long for Tubby the Tuba to find its way to print. Paul Tripp's story, having been made into a wildly successful recording and an Academy Award-nominated cartoon, easily made the transition to book form. Vanguard Press issued the first Tubby the Tuba book in 1948 and it carried Tripp's early title for the story,The Tale of Tubby the Tuba. [7] With a cover price of $2.00-about $21 in 2019 dollars-the book's price point was high. But Vanguard knew it had a best-seller on its hands. The illustrations by George Maas portray Tubby as droopy eyed, double chinned, and with a stylish mop of hair, and all of the instruments of the orchestra have anthropomorphic features. The book also includes the music to part of the song, "Alone am I," and all of "Bug-gup! Bug-gup!" [8] With some music included, the book carried a dual authorship credit to both Tripp and Kleinsinger. The book's flyleaf reported that the recording of Tubby the Tuba had sold "well over" 300,000 copies.

Figure 7. Paul Tripp; illustrations by Chad, Tubby the Tuba (© Treasure Books, 1954).

In 1954, Treasure Books (then a division of Grosset & Dunlap and now part of Penguin Random House) published a less expensive, smaller formatTubby the Tuba book. [9] Similar in size to the popular Golden Books series, the book featured sparkling illustrations by the pseudonymous "Chad." [10] Chad's portrayal of Tubby is bright-eyed and fully anthropomorphic, with engaging facial expressions. But the other instruments of the orchestra, while they have arms and legs, do not have faces.

Figure 8. Paul Tripp; illustrations by Henry Cole, Tubby the Tuba (© Dutton, 2006).

Fifty years later, Penguin published another Tubby the Tuba book, this time with a companion compact disc recording. [11] In 2006, Dutton Children's Books (a division of Penguin Young Readers Group) combined Tripp's story with illustrations by Henry Cole (who, the book's inside back cover explains, "does not play the tuba, but he loves Tubby"), and the CD recording of Tripp's narration of Tubby the Tuba that had been issued in 1996 by Angel Records. That recording, first issued as Tubby the Tuba and Friends, featured the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (listed as The Radio Orchestra of Bratislava on the disc's tray card and insert) conducted by Stephen Gunzenhauser.[12] Of the three Tubby the Tuba book incarnations, Cole's illustrations are the most detailed, and his depiction of Tubby as a cherub-faced, red-sneakered little boy tuba is charming. His illustrations and Tripp's recording came in for high praise in the American Library Association's journal, Booklist, where Carolyn Phelan wrote:

Cole's colorful retro-style artwork endows the instrument-characters great emotional expressiveness. He uses the large format to good advantage, creating scenes that are varied in their effects and show up well from a distance. The accompanying CD, which slides into a pocket inside the back cover, features Tripp reading his story with orchestral accompaniment, as it was meant to be heard. Sometimes paired with Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf , this child-friendly introduction to the orchestra looks very appealing in Cole's picture-book version. [13]

Published four years after Tripp's death in 2002, the book's flyleaf claimed that recordings of Tubby the Tuba had "met with instant success, and it went on to sell 13 million copies," and it carries a touching posthumous dedication from the author to the love of his life, his wife, Ruth Enders: "For Ruth-always-P.T."

Editor's note: Part 7, The Further Adventure of Tubby the Tuba and The Tubby the Tuba Song, will appear in the Summer 2021 issue of the ITEA Journal .

Douglas Yeo (yeodoug.com and thelasttrombone.com) is lecturer of trombone at his undergraduate alma mater, Wheaton College, Illinois. From 1985 to 2012, he was bass trombonist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and he served as professor of trombone at Arizona State University from 2012-2016. In 2014, he was the recipient of the International Trombone Association's highest honor, the ITA Award. He is the author of several books including Mastering the Trombone (co-authored with Edward Kleinhammer, Ensemble Publications), The One Hundred: Essential Works for the Symphonic Bass Trombonist (Encore Music Publishers), and Serpents, Bass Horns, and Ophicleides in the Bate Collection (Oxford University Press), as well as dozens of articles for many music journals and magazines. His newest books, Homer Rodeheaver and the Rise of the Gospel Music Industry (co-authored with Kevin Mungons, University of Illinois Press) and An Illustrated Dictionary for the Modern Trombone, Euphonium, and Tuba Player (Rowman & Littlefield) will be published later this year.

Acknowledgements

My long obsession with Tubby the Tuba was made all the more enjoyable by interactions with many people who provided help and encouragement along the way. I am especially grateful to David Tripp and Suzanne Tripp Jurmain, and Fred and Jane Kleinsinger, children of Paul Tripp and George Kleinsinger, for providing me with both personal insights as well as invaluable source materials and photos from their family collections. David Tripp also served as a liaison with the Library of Congress which then provided a number of items that are part of the Paul Tripp Papers. I am also grateful to Louise Eastman Weed (RYTVOC) who generously gave permission to quote lines from the Tubby the Tuba story scripts and provided other helpful information. As a trombonist, I am quite aware that some might view me as an interloper in the world of tuba research, despite the fact that during my long career as an orchestral player, I sat next to and enjoyed unforgettable collaborations with some of the finest tuba players in the business, including David Fedderly, Chester Schmitz, and Mike Roylance. To this end, my good friend, Jerry Young, was particularly encouraging and helpful when I wanted to know who I might contact in the tuba universe to get a bit of information and if what I was writing was on the right track. Jerry is a fount of information and wisdom; I'm deeply grateful for his friendship and support. And Benjamin Pierce, editor of the ITEA Journal , didn't even blink when I proposed submitting one of the longest articles to ever appear in the Journal. I am also thankful for the help of many others who joined me along the way, including:

Eli Aharoni, Lori Azim, David Bonner, Darren Britting (Philadelphia Orchestra Personnel Department), Bridget Carr (Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives), Chatfield Music Lending Library, Brianna Cregle (Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library), Ron Davis, Andrew Duncan, Scott Friedman, Scott Hansen, Don Harry, John Van Houten, Jr., Andrea Immel (Cotsen Children's Library, Princeton University), Marco Katz, Susan Kleinsinger, Paul Krzywicki, Mike Mashon (Library of Congress), Rosa Mazon (Los Angeles Philharmonic Archives), R. Winston Morris, Kevin Mungons, Eli Newberger, Gary Ofenloch, Kay Peterson (Smithsonian Institution), Gene Pokorny, Mike Roylance, Chester Schmitz, Peter Shrake (Circus World), Jim Self, Stephen Shoop, Leonard Slatkin, Andrei Strizek (Music Theatre International), Gabryel Smith and Sarah Palermo (New York Philharmonic Archives), John Taylor, John Tomasicchino (The Metropolitan Opera Archives), Deanna Swoboda, Herbert and Barbara Wekselblatt, and the helpful staff at Buswell Library, Wheaton College (Illinois).

Unless otherwise indicated, all images in this article are from my personal collection; copyrights are held by the individual copyright owners.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Herbert Wekselblatt (1927-2019), Tubby's first tuba voice.

back to top
back to table of contents

Advertisement

Latest Journal

ITEC 2023

Advertisement

ITEA News Headlines