Word: weatherwax
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Lassie's bosses are getting plenty of biscuits. The Red Heart Dog Food show brings Owner-Trainer Rudd Weatherwax at least $500 a week. As for MGM, which holds the collie's movie contract, the broadcasts are helping to make their cinemutt the most celebrated dog since Cerberus...
Every Sunday before broadcast time (3 p.m. E.D.T., ABC), to "warm up" the studio audience, Lassie yips, yowls, quivers, limps, rolls over and generally works himself into a lather (which Weatherwax wipes off with a clean handkerchief). Then he bounds onto a table, squats with his snout a professional six inches from the mike. "On-the-air" is signaled, Lassie barks, the show...
Lassie (as Weatherwax signals): "Yipe Yipe! Yipe...
Since Lassie's radio venture, the demand for his autograph has increased so greatly that Trainer Weatherwax has decided to have the dog fitted with an inked paw-pad bearing his picture. Consumption of Red Heart Dog Food has also increased, at least in the Weatherwax household. Once Weatherwax even fed some Red Heart sandwiches to unsuspecting guests...
Lassie's remarkable portrayal of exhaustion, fear, resolution were produced simply by Trainer Weatherwax's verbal commands. Roddy McDowall and Lassie had nothing to do with each other, off the set, until it was time to shoot the home-coming scene. In preparation for that, Lassie spent a week with Roddy at his home, then was taken away and isolated the night before. Since Roddy was the first human being Lassie was allowed to see the next day, the dog was delighted to greet Roddy and the scene was strictly a one-take affair. Some ice cream smeared...