Topic: I Can't Believe There Aren't Any Joe McDoakes Websites

[locoboymakesgood]

Before my father passed, TCM was showing a marathon of some old comedy shorts. Genuinely funny, I couldn't help but love them. My dad told me all about them, being Joe McDoakes. I thought they were hysterical. This was a few years ago. Today I saw something on The Jetsons DVDs and it immediately triggered something, since the voice of George Jetson was Joe McDoakes. Other than an extremely weak Wikipedia page, I can't find any info on these! Let alone, no DVDs. I'd snatch these up in a second.

Does anyone have any resourceful information? Any good websites? For that fact, anyone else a fan? It'd be nice to talk to somebody that has seen these.

[Pilsner Panther]

All I've got is this: The DVD of the Marx Brothers' "A Night In Casablanca" containes the Joe McDoakes short "So You Think You're A Nervous Wreck" as a bonus (along with the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Acrobatty Bunny").

[Dunrobin]

I did a character search for "Joe McDoakes" on Internet Movie Database (imdb.com), and found 63 entries:

• So You Don't Trust Your Wife (1955)
• So You Love Your Dog (1953)
• So You Never Tell a Lie (1952)
• So You Think You Can't Sleep (1953)
• So You Think You Need Glasses (1942)
• So You Think You're Allergic (1945)
• So You Think You're Not Guilty (1950)
• So You Think You're a Nervous Wreck (1946)
• So You Think the Grass Is Greener (1956)
• So You Want a Raise (1950)
• So You Want a Television Set (1953)
• So You Want an Apartment (1948)
• So You Want to Be Popular (1949)
• So You Want to Be Pretty (1956)
• So You Want to Be Your Own Boss (1954)
• So You Want to Be a Baby-Sitter (1949)
• So You Want to Be a Bachelor (1951)
• So You Want to Be a Banker (1954)
• So You Want to Be a Cowboy (1951)
• So You Want to Be a Detective (1948)
• So You Want to Be a Gambler (1948)
• So You Want to Be a Gladiator (1955)
• So You Want to Be a Handyman (1951)
• So You Want to Be a Muscle Man (1949)
• So You Want to Be a Musician (1953)
• So You Want to Be a Paperhanger (1951)
• So You Want to Be a Plumber (1951)
• So You Want to Be a Policeman (1955)
• So You Want to Be a Salesman (1947)
• So You Want to Be a V.P. (1955)
• So You Want to Be an Actor (1949)
• So You Want to Be an Heir (1953)
• So You Want to Be in Pictures (1947)
• So You Want to Be in Politics (1948)
• So You Want to Be on a Jury (1955)
• So You Want to Be on the Radio (1948)
• So You Want to Build a House (1948)
• So You Want to Build a Model Railroad (1955)
• So You Want to Buy a Used Car (1951)
• So You Want to Enjoy Life (1952)
• So You Want to Get It Wholesale (1952)
• So You Want to Get Rich Quick (1949)
• So You Want to Give Up Smoking (1942)
• So You Want to Go to a Nightclub (1954)
• So You Want to Hold Your Husband (1950)
• So You Want to Hold Your Wife (1947)
• So You Want to Keep Your Hair (1946)
• So You Want to Know Your Relatives (1954)
• So You Want to Learn to Dance (1953)
• So You Want to Move (1950)
• So You Want to Play the Horses (1946)
• So You Want to Play the Piano (1956)
• So You Want to Throw a Party (1950)
• So You Want to Wear the Pants (1952)
• So You're Going on a Vacation (1947)
• So You're Going to Be a Father (1947)
• So You're Going to Have an Operation (1950)
• So You're Going to a Convention (1952)
• So You're Going to the Dentist (1952)
• So You're Having In-Law Trouble (1949)
• So You're Having Neighbor Trouble (1954)
• So You're Taking in a Roomer (1954)
• So Your Wife Wants to Work (1956)

I'm not going to try to reproduce all of the links for those, but if you click on the link in the beginning of this post, you'll find them all.   

[Pilsner Panther]

I should add, based on watching the one short on the "Night In Casablanca" DVD, that I like George O'Hanlon a lot. It's truly ironic that he became famous for doing a cartoon voice, because he's an excellent physical comedian, with all kinds of little takes, tics, and reactions. There's an influence of both Buster Keaton and Eddie Cantor in his pop-eyed facial expressions.

If the other Joe McDoakes shorts are as funny as this one, I'd definitely like to see more.

 

[BeAStooge]

Other than an extremely weak Wikipedia page, I can't find any info on these! Let alone, no DVDs. I'd snatch these up in a second.

All I've got is this: The DVD of the Marx Brothers' "A Night In Casablanca" containes the Joe McDoakes short "So You Think You're A Nervous Wreck" as a bonus.

Warner Home Video has released several of the McDoakes shorts as bonuses on its film classics DVDs, usually in the "Warner Night at the Movies" feature. They're in box sets (as noted below), but most, if not all, are sold separately too...

THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRE MADRE (1948) - The Warner Legends Collection
Contains SO YOU WANT TO BE A DETECTIVE (1948)

WHITE HEAT (1949) - The Warner Brothers Gangsters Collection
Contains SO YOU THINK YOU'RE NOT GUILTY (1949)

A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA (1946) - The Marx Brothers Collection
Contains SO YOU THINK YOU'RE A NERVOUS WRECK (1946)

THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER (1942) - The Bette Davis Collection Vol. 2
Contains SO YOU THINK YOU NEED GLASSES (1942)

THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS (1957) - The Jimmy Stewart Signature Collection
Contains SO YOUR WIFE WANTS TO WORK (1956)

THE HASTY HEART (1949) - The Ronald Reagan Signature Collection
Contains SO YOU WANT TO BE IN PICTURES (1949)

ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT (1942) - The Humphrey Bogart Signature Collection Vol. 2
Contains SO YOU WANT TO GIVE UP SMOKING (1942)

Fred Kelsey was a regular McDoakes supporting cast member in the 1940s, usually cast as a cop or other authority-type character. In 1948, Phyllis Coates ('Lois Lane' # 1, THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN) joined the cast as 'Alice McDoakes.'

[FineBari3]

I can't believe I have never heard of this guy before!

Someone please give a description of his character?

[Bruckman]

Joe McDoakes, as his name implies (Robert Benchley also used "Joe Doakes" as a character name in some of his shorts) is a kind of Everyman character, plagued by a corrupt world. Not for nothing does each short begin with Joe coming out from behind a gigagntic eight ball - then receding behind it again. McDoakes' ambitions are usually of a proletarian level jacked up to a nihilistic absurdity - e.g., taking ownership of a diner advertising "Our Food Untouched by Human Hands", he finds the short order cook is a gorilla. Many of the shorts employ satire (SO YOU WANT TO BE A DETECTIVE spoofs various 40s crime dramas, e.g. THE BIG SLEEP, THE LADY IN THE LAKE, THE MALTESE FALCON, etc.) or topical humor (SO YOU WANT TO PLAY THE PIANO pokes fun at the Liberace craze of the mid-fifties). Most of the shorts feature narration (by Art Gilmore) "explaining" whatever it is Joe is up to, in the manner of the Pete Smith explanatory shorts of the same era.  ("All right Gilmore, I've had enough of that corny narration....") Like the Warners cartoons of the same period the McDoakes have a sharp sense of the narrative conventions of various film genres and of the documentary short subject genre too.

I've only seen a handful (maybe 4 or 5 out of the 60-odd) and it seems I've always viewed the most noteworthy ones, but have to agree w/above observations: O'Hanlon makes a great, dry-witted comedian, never questioning the absurdity around him. 

[FineBari3]

Thanks for that great description!

Sounds like a Harold Lloyd kind of character to me...

[sgt ladylove]

 

http://raincloud.warnerbros.com/wbol/us/whv/med/marx_brothers/five_dvd/nervous_wreck_boss_fear_qt_100.mov?fromsite=vm

That's great!  I've never seen him before, but the voice was instant recognition.

He reminds me a bit of Maxwell Smart. 

[shemps#1]

That clip is a riot. It'd be nice if they released a set of the McDoakes shorts for us classic film dorks.

[Pilsner Panther]

That clip is a riot. It'd be nice if they released a set of the McDoakes shorts for us classic film dorks.

That's only one scene from a hilarious short, which also includes a "showdown at the O.K. Corral" Western dream sequence brought on Joe by a Phil Van Zandt-type mad doctor who tries to cure him of neurosis (only, the actor isn't Phil, but he's just as over-the-top). It's reminiscent of Ernie Kovacs's Western spoofs— only this came first, by a few years.

 

[locoboymakesgood]

Well, I really appreciate all of the useful information, gents.

I have the Marx Bros. DVDs, I honestly haven't watched them all yet which is why I didn't catch that. Even still, these are so funny.. they should definitely do these justice and release them all on DVD. It wouldn't be more than a few discs, but I'm sure these need some restoration.. and a few bonus features wouldn't hurt..

When TCM showed them, they used to run mini-marathons.. they ran atleast half of them. Every one that I saw was great.

I'll have to inquire about these over at the Home Theater Forum..

Edit: I used TCM's Suggest-a-Movie feature and expressed my interest in seeing these on the network again.. it's been awhile since they played them. If some of you would like to see these, take the same steps I did.