Professor William Frawley is the Yankee Doodler!

[GoSadistik]

Anyone mentioned this is a Spike Jones song and they're playing the music?

[Marvilkiller]

lol thats a good song



[cmania26]

Who knew they had mini skirts in the 1940s

[TuberOnTheLoose]

@cmania26 - The 1940's? You should search for "Flappers" and take a look at what they were wearing back in the 1920's. Or you could look for a Betty Boop cartoon. She was modeled after Helen Kane, one of the most popular women entertainers of the '20's and her cartoon attire is pretty accurate.

[vitoduval]

He was in Sons of Guns and She's my baby, Reagan had the same balls during the cold war battle against the USSR

[illnsp08]

hahhas..this is funny!

[rudcalder]

must win war and kill facist maniacs 

[flooflox]

Only knew William from his role on I Love Lucy. Just looked him up on Wiki to find he had a very interesting and full career. Thanks for posting this.

[mkrobinson95]

@flooflox - You are welcome!

[storrs19]

@flooflox He played "Bub" O'Casey on My Three Sons for 5 seasons also. Check him out on there. He is a riot! Bill Frawley was a fine song and dance man as well as comedy but then in vaudeville one had to do everything.

[mkrobinson95]

@storrs19 - his full name on the show was Michael Francis 'Bub' O'Casey : ) He was mad as hell when they replaced him with William Demarest ... he didn't want to retire. The last thing he did was a special quickie appearance on The Lucy Show ...

[nakamichiguy]

He looked so young in comparison to the Lucy years! Pretty cool.

[mcfrdmn]

Excellent video clip of William Frawley in his younger years (Before I Love Lucy)

[wygtam]

This is wonderful! Thank you so much for posting this. If you investigate William Frawley, you will find a seasoned Vaudeville performer who, amazingly, introduced "Mammy" and "Melancholy Baby" . Every word in this "soundie" is punctuated by some physical action and the message gets through quite clearly.

[mkrobinson95]

@wygtam - Thanks for the nice comment!

[calixa]

OFF THE MAP SNEAKY JAP? woah

[mkrobinson95]

@calixa - Yes, and this was the PERFECT description too! I think it's safe to say America as a whole was 'pissed' at Japan for their 'sneaky' preemptive attack on the United States' naval base at Pearl Harbor on 12/7/1941. Demonizing the enemy was KEY to promoting the war effort. We should do more of it today.

[CatapultYourMom]

@mkrobinson95 What MKR said!

[mkrobinson95]

@CatapultYourMom - thx! : )

[verbusen]

Thanks for posting! I bet the audience was singing along! Was reading about I Love Lucy and I didn't know Fred and Ethel in real life disliked each other, lol. She disliked having a husband in the show that was 22 years older then her and he heard her say that and never forgave her. Glad I didn't know about all this gossip when I was watching the show growing up, it would have hurt my affection for those two characters. The internet can be a two edged sword, sometimes its TMI.

[anarchist316]

love will frawley

[bjoh249]

I mean I know it WASN'T a TV commercial since that came along after war. Sorry for the typo.

[bjoh249]

What was this?? Was this a movie or one of those reels they used to have before movies?? I know it was a TV commercial since that came along after the war.

[mkrobinson95]

@bjoh249 - this is a "soundie" from 1942. The title is "The Yankee Doodler" and was directed and produced by Oscar winner Herbert Moulton.

[DadBlameIt]

Oh my this is the most educational film I've seen in a long time. How far we have fallen since then! Our nation is so totally divided now. I long for the day when we weren't so politically correct! Now we have Americans in leadership who think that Hitler was an okay fella. Muslims are the rag-head threat we should see them as. Our fathers called them as they saw them and now we are wimps ready to turn our keys over to nations that want to destroy us, starting with the enemy within. BHO.

[MrDeCorey]

William Frawley is a legend!!!!!!!

[littletimes]

What a great ole' clip! Love Bill Frawley! Thanks for sharing!

[mkrobinson95]

@littletimes - My pleasure! Thx for commenting

[travis7310]

It's amazing how Mr. Frawley always looked about the same no matter how young or old he was. Of course, I've only seen him in "I Love Lucy", "My Three Sons" and a few shows and movies from the 40's, and even 10 years before "I Love Lucy", he still looked the same. He had a pretty good voice too.

[stonethemason]

Great!!!

[ThrashisBack6]

The girl on the left looks pretty cute

[MsSunidaze]

This was great. Thank you for posting. I love William Frawley.

[MrDeCorey]

This is the best video Iv ever seen

William Frawley do this is great!!!!!!!!!!

[SeeburgMusic]

LOL @ SNEAKY JAP HAHA

[OutsideTheRopes]

It's jack up that he said sneaky jap now when you look at it, but these were the days of wwII and pearl harbor. Japan had attacked America on our turf.

[storrs19]

Damn right! Anybody who attacks us is the enemy. It is amazing how stupid some people are. They have been brainwashed by the PC police and anything that doesn't kiss everybody and be all lovey dovey is terrible. This was during World War II people. Bill Frawley was a great vaudevillian who could do just about anything. Thanks so much for sharing with us.

[michaeljayklein]

You'd NEVER think of Frawley as being much of singer, but in fact, he had a very sweet tenor voice. Thanks for bringing us this rarity.

[mkrobinson95]

Truth be told, someone else had this posted originally and I liked it so much I downloaded it for my own video collection. Then it had been removed, so I posted it so others could enjoy. Thanks for the nice comment!

[akoustix131]

lmao...sneaky jap...i always liked his scruffy deep voice

[mkrobinson95]

Too bad we can't demonize the enemy like we used to ... it helped get the country behind the effort ... you can't think of the enemy in terms of people with families, etc. ... they are the enemy and they will kill you if you don't get them first ... it's just a fact.

[dwdyer]

This is very odd -- a fusion of Yankee Doodle and Schnitzelbank.

[mkrobinson95]

I had never heard the term "Schnitzelbank" before your post ... but looked it up. Thanks for sharing this ... I learned something new!

[josephmendoza16]

William Frawley is f-ing awsome! Since I heard this I cant get this song out of my head

[Ilovelucyclassics]

lol I feel you

[storrs19]

Excellent propaganda piece here. Go United States! This is nice and it really shows off Mr. Frawley's many talents. Being a vaudevillian he was used to doing a "one man show" and this one is very catchy and will stick with you.

[manofmanyinterests]

Hi, Just this Sunday, 2/8/2008, I purchased an original 16mm film print of this Soundie. If THIS song doesn't make you sing along, tap your foot or step in time (and give you a profound sense of Patriotism), then NOTHING will! Thank you, Professor Frawley! God Bless America!

[SFValleyDweller]

Could it be more awesome than Bill Frawley as the Yankee Doodler! I think not! What a performer!

[SFValleyDweller]

Yeah man! We won that war!

[AntoinePancakes]

I've watched this about 100 times since I found it. It's almost like a cartoon, and I think William Frawley was already 65 years old coming out of the womb in 1887! Excellent excellent love it love it!

[ibestevie2]

That was back in the day when our nation had the b*lls to confront an enemy. Now we are weak and doomed. Bin Laden laughs at the paper tiger which is now the US. I wish I had been born in Frawley's generation when this nation stood for something.

[mkrobinson95]

Wow, maybe I'll copy your message and paste it over my description of this video ... you said it ALL! Thanks for the comment.

[ElizabethTalbot]

Great comment, thanks.

Today, we seem to lack the will to confront our enemies within and without. I definitely feel I was born way too late.

[ErinGoBraless]

Don't forget those b-lls belonged to young men who had them blown off in the wars you're so rah-rah about. Will you put on a uniform and go to Iraq, sir? Woops, wait, the terrorists are in Afghanistan and Pakistan, sorry.

[mkrobinson95]

Are you suggesting that Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo should have been left to tyrannical ways? The U.S. and it's allies fought the spread of tyranny and now those countries are democracies, more or less. Yes, then we had the balls to fight for freedom ... not just ours, but for millions of others worldwild.

[SlappyFrankenstein]

@ibestevie2 I suggest you walk into a platoon of US marines and tell them all how "weak" they are. Make sure you get it on video. Should be interesting.

[mkrobinson95]

@SlappyFrankenstein - I don't think ibestevie2 meant our military is weak ... but that our rules of engagement are counterintuitive, tying our hands behind out back when we should be wiping out the enemy ... in that sense, it makes the US (today) appear weak ... our military has to be concerned about being court-martialed for doing their job ... and that makes them certainly less effective warriors ... don't you agree?

[SlappyFrankenstein]

@mkrobinson95 I have to say i do. I once read the only way to achieve "victory" in a war is to utterly devastate the enemy, to punish them so thoroughly and relentlessly that they accept any terms at all in exchange for a cease-fire, such as happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Within two weeks, Japan surrendered. THAT'S the way you win a war.

[mkrobinson95]

@SlappyFrankenstein - you are so right

[kalonji5446]

wow Fred sounds pissed. "sneaky jap" I bet you couldn't say that on tv today.

[mkrobinson95]

Hey, I think it's safe to say America as a whole was 'pissed' at Japan for their 'sneaky' preemptive attack on the United States' naval base at Pearl Harbor on 12/7/1941. Demonizing the enemy was KEY to promoting the war effort. We should do more of it today.

[dmoreno91]

That. Was. Brilliant. Thanks!

[mkrobinson95]

Thank you! I appreciate your message!

[longlivethe80s]

thank God we this clip available!

[ElizabethTalbot]

I couldn't think of a better video than this to watch on the 64th anniversary of D Day.

Thanks again for posting!

[Italiagirl1]

YA MAN WIN THIS WAR!!!1

[ElizabethTalbot]

Great video--thanks for posting.

Them's fightin' words in the very best sense.

[mkrobinson95]

Thank you for your comment ... and nice wishes to my mother on my other video!

[kestrel5151]

Thank you for posting. I wish we had the same today to win.

[mkrobinson95]

Amen

[louienye]

I have his 1958 LP, "Bill Frawley Sings the Old Ones." He looks like he's having a ball in this clip. I now refer to moustaches as "pans."

[storrs19]

This is great! I have never seen it before and it really shows how good a song and dance man Bill Frawley was from all those years in vaudeville. Very interesting. Thanks for posting it.

[jaybb]

i heart this.

[jenkins88]

This is a true classic...sneaky jap...hahahahaha

[dekal22x]

ROFL.... I was just watching I love Lucy, and said to myself... Fred Mertz is pretty gangsta.. then i looked up his background and found this video... it just reaffirmed my belief Fred Mertz (William Frawley) is a gangsta

[LornaDoone63]

Could the presence of the two women BE any more gratuitous? They do absolutely NOTHING! Hahahahaha

[dekal22x]

haha

[mkrobinson95]

During WWII, the U.S. had Hollywood's full cooperation in supporting the war effort. We had to paint the enemy as "the enemy". It was important to dehumanize our enemy so as to rally our country around the horrific threat to freedom and peace by Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo. The point of this song was to make fun of our enemies. The term "sneaky Jap" was commonly used during WWII. Enter "News Parade: Bombing of Pearl Harbor (1942)" in Youtube search and you'll see what I mean.

[taiggur]

sneaky jap?

[LornaDoone63]

Anyone has to admit that the attack on Pearl Harbor was nothing if not sneaky. Just a fact.

[Muellerdon]

A fascinating piece of historical film!

[ePhilosopher]

lmfao

[johnnyronstadt]

Good Ol' Bill! I love Him! They don't make actor's like that anymore-SAD!

[maxsoeth]

hahahahahhaha we watched this in social studies yesterday!:P

[Stevericky]

i love this :)

[masstax]

Thanks for this Gem.

[lucilleballrules1]

Awesome video thanks for posting