The Teenager Who Would Be Disney

In 1960, he had a cartoon studio on Cahuenga Boulevard and invented a caveman named Fred.

Bill Hanna? Joe Barbera? Dan Gordon or Harvey Eisenberg, maybe?

No. The cartoonist in question is Earle Nimmer Lemke, Jr.

Earle was a teenager who wanted to be the next Walt Disney, though he kind of started out like Hanna-Barbera. He was profiled in the Van Nuys News, August 12, 1960. When we originally posted this article on GAC, a picture accompanied it. Unfortunately, it’s not available now.

Animated Cartoon Field Beckons to Local Teen
Cartoonist and Sherman Oaks resident Earl Lemke 19, is not only a very talented and creative young man, but a most determined one who so far appears to be leaving no stone unturned in carving his own career—that of producing animated film cartoons.
Earl will graduate from Montclair College Preparatory School in January.
Set for SC
After this he plans to attend University of Southern California to major in cinematography, with supplementary courses at an art school and a stint of practical experience at a major film cartoon studio.
However, even though his higher education is well in view, he already has launched upon the career which he forsees as “in full operation, financially successful” by the time he emerges with his college degree.
Up to this time “entirely self-educated” in his chosen field, Earl says he avidly started, at the age of 13, to read everything and anything on the subject of motion picture making and, more specifically, cartoon filming.
He lives with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Earl Lemke, at 15925 West Meadowcrest Road, Sherman Oaks.
Up to four months ago the home had more or less become converted to a production studio, his acquired and handmade equipment having taken over Earl’s bedroom, the garage and most of the rest of the house.
Then he decided to open his own production studio, “Earl Lemke Productions,” at 3491 Cahuenga Blvd [photo at right].
Own Studio
Here Earl has underway, a single man operation, a cartoon film, producing studio where the visitor will note everything from neat rows of filing cabinets to rows of “rough” drawings lining one wall, and from drawings traced and painted on cellulose [sic] (called “cells”) [sic] to a monster-looking “animation stand.”
Getting ready for business, Earl Lemke Productions has already produced one pilot film to show what can be done and with the aim of getting orders for one-minute television film commercials and eventually, full-length cartoons.
He recently completed his first educational film cartoon—a three-minute feature illustrating the principles involved in good public speaking and featuring pre-historic characters named “Fred,” “George” and “The Chief”— with Max the Dinosaur thrown in for good measure.
Script and planning were done with Mrs. Joann Simpson of Montclair where the film will be used in the fall for an illustration of “do’s and don’t” in public speaking, making Montclair the studio’s first bonafide “customer.”
Earl already has had two of his character creations copywrited — “Geemo the Lion” and “Zeek.”
Gemo took some three months to perfect to Earl’s satisfaction. Zeek, devised simply to accompany Geemo, was created in one day. Earl credits his English teacher, Joan Kirkby, with getting him started on animating his cartoon subjects.
Does Project
She suggested that for a classroom project he draw an English squire for the “Canterbury Tales”—with the result that he did enough drawings of the Squire to make a “flip book.”
Earl’s idol is Walt Disney, whom he has never met but whose biography he has read from cover to cover and whom he hopes to meet sometime at what he anticipates as “the greatest thrill in store for me.”

Drawings of GeeMo the Lion and Zeek were copyrighted October 7, 1959 and Geemo the Lion as found in some publication was copyrighted October 14, 1960. The following year, Lemke produced a six-minute colour film called “A Boogle, Da Moogle, Da Clug.” It was copyrighted on August 14, 1961. What it was about, I have no idea. His name is found in one more copyright catalogue, dated June 16, 1964, for three poses of a character named Gary Goose.

His company was still listed in the directory of the SMPTE of March 1974. But what became of Earle and his dream are bits of information we have yet to discover.