Snafuperman Snafu

In cartoons, arms, hands, legs or bodies sometimes disappear, and it’s not because an anvil has been dropped on someone. It’s because someone screwed up and the animation checker didn’t notice.

You know how it works. Part of a character may remain still for a few drawings while other parts move. The other parts are on separate cels. Occasionally, one of them is forgotten when the scene is photographed and no one spots it.

That happened in the military cartoon “Snafuperman,” animated by the Freleng unit at Warners. For two frames, part of Snafuperman is missing.






This hit military screens in February 1944, so Gerry Chiniquy, Virgil Ross, Manny Perez and Dick Bickenbach were probably in the unit at the time. Paul Julian drew the backgrounds.

Fleischer Cartoon Ads, 1935

The Fleischer studio had the best-looking and funniest cartoons out of New York. When the 1930s began, the Fleischers presented the world with some of the oddest-looking characters in stories that were interrupted by little routines (some of which had little to do with what was going on screen) or took a sudden left turn into strangeness. As the decade wore on, the cartoons mellowed. Experts blame the Production Code of 1934, a strike, a move to Florida and a case of D.C.D. (Disney Cutsey Disorder), not necessarily in that order.

Here are some full-page ads from The Film Daily from 1935. The designs in the Color Classics ad look like the great goggle-eyed characters of the early ‘30s. The Popeye two-reeler didn’t come out until late 1936 (and “Sinbad” inherited an extra “d” in his name). I’m of the vintage who first saw the cartoon on TV in the black-and-white days but it’s truly spectacular in full colour. And I can only presume that Betty Boop was saddled with newspaper comic strip characters in an attempt to make lightning strike twice in the same studio. The Fleischers successfully adapted Elzie Segar’s Popeye to the screen after a try-out on a Boop cartoon. Henry, the Kaztenjammer Kids (who later bombed at MGM) and the Little King (who had an earlier appearance at Van Beuren) failed. Someone could have sued for false advertising for gluing the moniker “the Funniest Living American” on Henry. Only the last word appears to be correct.

How to Write a TV Show

The variety show hosts of radio’s great days in the 1940s didn’t stand in front of a microphone and make up a half-hour show on the spot every week. There were highly-paid writers, though some stars had a reputation of treating them like crap and leaving the impression they were the fount of all comedy creativity on their shows.

Some of the stars got involved in the writing process. Jack Benny was one, though he didn’t sit there and come up with the jokes. And just as Benny let his cast get the funny lines, he generally let his writers do the writing. No wonder his writers stuck with him all those years.

The San Mateo Times TV columnist put together a how-they-write-the-Benny-show story on March 16, 1957. Jack’s radio show was off the air by then, but his radio writers were still with him and adapted some of their radio routines for Benny’s television show. It was a little difficult, partly because radio is not a visual medium, and partly because some of Benny’s radio cast didn’t move with him to TV, or appeared only occasionally. But the method of writing the TV show was exactly the same as it was for the radio show in the mid-to-late ‘40s. And the writers still had the one main cog of the Benny radio show—Benny himself. His radio persona was so well defined, moving it to another medium was simple. And now his fans could see him stand there and react to all the things that used to happened to him on radio. The laughs poured out. It sure made writing easy.

Comedy Is A Real Science: Writers
By BOB FOSTER
For Sam Perrin, George Balzer, Al Gordon and Hall Goldman [sic], the talk about the high mortality rate among comedy writers is just so much talk. They know nothing about such things.
The talented, and lucky, men are the four who pick each other’s brains each week to come up with eomedy material for Jack Benny on his twice monthly show. Perrin and Balzer have been pounding a typewriter in the Benny outfit for fourteen years, while Gordon and Goldman have been around, happily, for seven years or so.
Most comedy writers last about two years with a comedian. They, used up, drift into another show with another star and a different format—or sometimes wind up as difficult producers and directors.
THESE FOUR GUYS think they have the formula for longevity. This week they told the secret. In case any budding young writers might be looking over my shoulder, here’s part of the secret.
The first ingredient necessary for the concoction of this humorous pies [sic] is of course the basic idea. The idea may come from Jack, anyone of the four writers, members of the cast or even an actual event that may have occurred to any of them.
FIRST OF ALL, the four work as two teams. Perrin and Balzer work as one team, while Gordon and Goldman work together. Most of the time they split a show in half. One team will work on the monologue and that tag that comes at the end, the other team writing a skit that comprises the body of the show.
Occasionally they all pitch in and work a show together for its entire length.
Being funny is hard serious work, they all claim. Perrin says, “We work in our shirt sleeves” and he added, “we quite frequently are exhausted by the time a show is put on.”
TO THESE FOUR, comedy writing is an exact science. “All of us have studied comedy writing, we hope we know what makes people laugh and what makes them cry,” one of the men said.
A Benny show starts with a story conference during which the basic ideas is placed before the writers. Then begins the grim business of turning a basic idea into a side-splitting 30-minute television show.
One of the writers might begin by saying “all right fellows, here is the situation. Jack decides he’s getting too fat and has to go on a diet.”
From this moment on, all the writers start throwing fat man gags and the dietetic situations, all tailored to the Benny style of comedy. This conference may last for an hour, maybe all day, but when the writers split into teams they have the show on its way.
A COUPLE OF DAYS LATER the boys get back together with Jack who listens to the rough script and makes suggestions. Occasionally he and his writers disagree. In most cases however, Jack defers to their judgement, proven by many years Jack has had one of the nation’s top comedy show.
A few days later they all get together again for a first read through with the cast. Another day or two of rehearsal during which gags that didn’t quite come off are changed. The script is polished and the show is soon on the air.
During the actual broadcast the four writers sit in the control room. They laugh at some of their own jokes, and grimace at others. If the audience reaction is good they go away feeling good. If not they are depressed. After a few comments about the show, a hand shake from Jack, they immediately start a new show. It’s a vicious circle, but it pays off.

Snoppyquop and Animated Cartoons

Winsor McCay invented the animated cartoon character. At least he did in a syndicated newspaper story, first published March 22, 1924.

This unbylined feature story gives a capsule version of the making of cartoons (silent in those days, of course) and opens with a couple of historical notes.

The story is one of the componants of a children’s page (complete with its own masthead) offered to newspapers by some syndicate. There are stories (some historical or instructional), jokes and a comic strip. Also included is a panel titled “Snoppyquop.” It has a relationship to the story below. The artist is Feg Murray, a sports cartoonist known in later decades for “Seein’ Stars,” a newspaper feature with caricatures of people in Hollywood, accompanied with a biographical caption.

The drawing with the fake film strip is signed “Wm. Roberts.” I wonder if he’s Bill Roberts who animated and directed at Disney. He had been an animator at the Carlson studio in New York in 1919.



HOW FIRST ANIMATED CARTOONS WERE MADE
Animated cartoons do not move! Of course, they appear to move, but that is only an illusion. The action in an animated comic is produced because the cameraman shows still pictures of the different stages of a certain movement in such rapid succession that you think you see the movement itself.
Gertie, a dinosaur, had the distinction of being the first animated cartoon heroine. Windsor McCay [sic], an artist, about fifteen years ago hit upon the idea of making moving cartoons, so he worked out the story of Gertie, a prehistoric animal, who walked along a bank, only to be hit on the head by a cocoanut which a monkey in a tree threw at him. Mr. McCay went to about ten times as much work as was necessary in making this cartoon series, for each picture he made was a separate drawing with a background sketched in. He also attempted to figure out the action by mathematics. Said he: “If the monkey pitches the cocoanut when the dinosaur begins to walk forward, where will the dinosaur be when the cocoanut strikes him?” It was just like a problem in arithmetic and took a great deal of figuring to get the answer.
The animated cartoonist today would work the action backward. He would first make the sketch of the cocoanut hitting, then draw the picture just before it hit, then the one previous to that, till he had worked back to the first one, where the cocoanut started to fly through the air. And the pictures today of the action would be drawn on celluloid and each photographed over one single picture of the setting which was drawn on paper. Moreover, only the part of the picture which, moved would be redrawn each time. If the head moved, the same body would be kept for all the head movements.
Wallace Carlson had an animated cartoon which created a sensation in 1914 during the time the Boston Braves played the Philadelphia Athletics for the World Series title. He showed moving cartoons of the games as they were played each day within twenty-four hours alter they took place. Such a great deal of work is involved in the making of an animated cartoon that people marvelled how this stunt was done. The truth of the matter is that the drawings had been made weeks ahead with two endings for each picture. If the Braves won, the other ending was thrown away. Any unusual plays that were made on a certain day were quickly drawn up and inserted.
In an ordinary movie a foot of reel is shown per second. There are sixteen pictures to the foot, so you can figure out the number it would take to make a story lasting ten minutes on the screen. In animated pictures, however, each drawing is photographed twice, so that the artist makes eight pictures for a foot of reel. Animateds can be a little more jerky than ordinary pictures and it only makes them funnier. If one person by himself made the entire drawings for one of the weekly animated animal stories you see on the screen, it would take all his time for about ten weeks. But the artists who produce these have helpers. With a dozen workers and by using the present celluloid method, the cartoonist is able to turn out an animated funny for each week’s theatre audience.
----
Now you know how animated cartoons are really made. The artist is a Snoppyquop, consisting mainly of a bottle of ink. Ideas come into his head out of an old jug, and he draws with his finger, which is a pen. When he draws one “frame” on the movie film before him, he turns the crank and up moves another. He draws the next one a little different, and then cranks her up again. That's what’s the matter with the movies, they’re run by cranks. His nose throws a little light on the subject of his work, but doesn’t if he sneezes, for then he blows his fuse out. He can’t go on turning put work forever, either, for he's limited in ideas, ink and film.

Springtime For Thomas Backgrounds

It’s a shame the background artists were never credited in the Tom and Jerry cartoons through the ‘40s. As far as I know, Bob Gentle was the background artist in the Hanna-Barbera unit and would have painted these in “Springtime for Thomas” (1946).








Gentle goes for muted colours for the most part, but turns to darker ones for the scene where an alley cat is in a rundown back lane.

Flip the Wolf

What’s the difference between Tex Avery at Warner Bros. and Tex Avery at MGM? Well, in his first cartoon for Metro, “Blitz Wolf,” he has his animators pull off stuff that I don’t recall seeing his Warners crew try, even though he had adept people like Bob McKimson, Virgil Ross and Rod Scribner.

There’s a nice-looking scene where Adolf Wolf (voice by Bill Thompson) does a reverse 270-degree turn in mid-air.

It starts with some standard ‘40s cartoon stuff—a pop culture reference (the Myrt line from radio’s “Fibber McGee and Molly”) and a hotfoot. Adolf hangs up the phone. He’s smug. There’s a nine-drawing hold on the wolf while the fire burns.



The wolf realises something (I’ve skipped posting two anticipatory blink drawings). Then a surprise look to the camera. Nice rubbery animation. These are on ones.










Adolf sees the fire.



Up he goes. Here are a few of the drawings to give you an idea. Notice the hands in perspective at the camera.







Avery’s timing couldn’t be better. The force of gravity slows down the wolf as he goes higher; the background drawing moves vertically at shorter increments. When the wolf reaches the apex, the background is only held for two frames but parts of the wolf are still moving.

Down he comes.









Ray Abrams did the flip part, according to an animator draft in the Mark Kausler collection. Irv Spence, Preston Blair and Ed Love also get screen credits. A fine crew.

The Six Year Old Who Loved Shari Lewis

I remember when television disappointed me for the first time. It was the day that Shari Lewis suddenly wasn’t on Saturday mornings any more.

Almost 50 years later, I have no idea why NBC cancelled her show. And it seems at the time, Shari wasn’t told, either. All I know is at age six, I was confused and sad about it. She was like the nice older girl down the street.

What’s maybe even more confusing is why it took anyone so long to give her a network show in the first place. It wasn’t until 1960. By then, Shari had achieved a measure of fame from her local broadcasts in New York starting seven years earlier. Eventually, New York-based national newspaper columnists tuned in and liked her work. (Earl Wilson wrote in a 1955 column that Pinky Lee wanted her for his show. That’s like an outboard motor wanting to power a Cadillac). And the ink translated into appearances on nighttime TV shows starting in 1957. After a visit on the “Tonight” show with Jack Paar on June 24th, International News Service TV columnist Jack O’Brien called her “a delightful ventriloquist, best we’ve ever seen, with a fresh, spanking brightness and by far the class of the show.” Steve Allen, Pat Boone, Patti Page, Garry Moore, Perry Como, Andy Williams, Arthur Murray, “Your Hit Parade,” she appeared on them all. That’s only a few of them. She hosted a Thanksgiving Parade (not Macy’s; Gene Rayburn and Bill Wendell handled that one). She even showed up in Canada on CBC’s “Show Time,” all before she had her own Saturday morning slot on NBC.

Let’s peer at a couple of stories before Shari broke onto the network scene. First, we have the syndicated “TV Key” column (with no other byline) from July 16, 1956.

Shari Lewis Delights Youngsters
NEW YORK—Most cheerful recent addition to New York’s programming schedule for kids is the “Children’s Newspaper of the Air,” presided over by a petite, bouncy ventriloquist-magician named Shari Lewis.
Shari is best known to moppet viewers around the country for her stint on “Captain Kangaroo,” where her red hair was done up in pigtails and her face peppered with freckles.
“I played Uncle Greenjeans twelve-year-old niece,” said Shari, who’s actually 22. “I looked I like a live female Howdy Doody.”
• • •
NOW, WITH her own show Shari can act her age. Like Bob Keeshan, who would rather keep youthful interest with games and educational features than bloodshed or pie-in-the-face comedy.
“My parents were both teachers,” Shari explained, “and I remember how they used to shudder at the comic books I read and movies saw. I guess it rubbed off.”
Happiest facets of Shari’s half hour with the kids are her animated conversations with a pair of puppets known as “Lamb Chop” and “Charley Horse.”
“I don’t write gags for the puppets,” she explained. “We just ad-lib together, trying to get across a point And being animals—sort of cartoons brought to life—they can say things to the children that I can’t.”
• • •
ON A RECENT show, Shari stressed water safety by reasoning away the fears of “Lamb Chop,” who timidly avoided going swimming. She received the thanks of parents, who had been trying to get the same message through to their own youngsters—but without benefit of a friendly puppet to ask all the right questions.
“What is most amazing about the puppets,” Shari noted, “is that they have begun to take on facets of my own personality. There’s something rather mystical about it. More and more I find myself with the same devotion I show an animal like my bull terrier puppy.”
Shari told me about one puppet into which she’d put months of work—then discarded.
“I called her ‘Taffy Twinkle.’ She was brash, cheeky, pushy, had terrible grammar and worse diction. I suddenly realized that these were all the traits I hated most when I saw them in myself.”
• • •
AT PRESENT, Shari’s lively “Children’s Newspaper” can’t be seen outside the New York metropolitan area (although Shari herself can, with a featured role in the film, “Somebody Up There Likes Me”). But, based on sponsor and viewer delight with the diminutive redhead, there’s a likely chance of a network slot next fall.

John Crosby of the New York Herald Tribune syndicate was enchanted by Shari. So much that radio/TV vet Arlene Francis was relegated to the second half of his column of December 16, 1957. At the risk of making this post too long, I’ll leave in his comments about Arlene’s show.

‘Hi, Mom’ Star Wins Over Critic
NEW YORK, Dec. 16—“Hi Mom” may be the most revolting title for a television program since “Okay, Mother” but the show itself is a delight. Telecast daily by WRCA in New York, “Hi, Mom” is, I guess, aimed at entertaining and instructing both pre-school kids and their mothers—a difficult assignment.
The main chores on “Hi Mom” are shouldered by a girl named Shari Lewis, who is all eyes and mouth and charm and talent. She’s a ventriloquist who sings songs, tells stories, and is too good for your pre-school children. She should have a show aimed at older children like, say me. “Hi, Mom” is that rare thing, a service show, which have all but disappeared in the mad push for ratings and sponsors.
TIMELY ADVICE
When Miss Lewis isn’t entertaining, there are all sorts of hints for mother on child care and cooking and so forth. The other day there was a lesson, appropriately, on what sort of toys you ought to get for your baby and, more important, what kinds of toys you should not give him. A registered nurse named Jane Warren pointed out that some toys can be awfully pretty and attractive and still be booby traps for the baby. She showed a rabbit whose button eyes came out and would probably be quickly swallowed, and whose whiskers could cut the baby’s skin.
There was a baby on the show who played contentedly with his rattle while this lecture was going on. Moving on to toys for older children, there was a demonstration of the very latest in train gadgets. This train set has a hobo who is chased by a railroad cop, a commuter who marches up and down impatiently, rotary radar antenna, and other wonders guaranteed to keep all the lathers up half the night putting them together.
FRENCH MOUSE
From there, Miss Lewis returned to tell a charming story about a French mouse named Anatole to one of her hand puppets—singing a couple of songs in the process. After that there was a visit to something called Josie’s Kitchen in which Josie McCarthy explained how to make banana chiffon cake—in case you want to know how to make a banana chiffon cake.
Altogether it was a very solid, useful, and entertaining hour. I have only a couple of complaints. In the middle of an otherwise blameless hour, Miss Lewis gets on the phone for some kind of contest in which a viewer is rewarded with loot in return simply for looking at the show. The other was that the commercials for a butter sponsor seemed, roughly, to go on forever.
Directly following “Hi, Mom” which, incidentally, won the Mennen Award for its authoritative advice on baby care, comes the Arlene Francis show. Miss Francis’ old show, “Home,” was just about the best daytime show on TV. Her new show is something else again. “Home” offered all sorts of advice on homemaking, gardening, cooking, child psychology, and every kind of culture you could name.
The new show is aimed at entertainment, and it achieves it only once in a while. I happen to think Arlene Francis is just about the brightest, wittiest and warmest personality on television, and I consider it a terrible waste of her talents to be tossed into fifth-rate sketches, singing duets with cast members and talking nonsense with Hugh Downs.
NOT ALL BAD
Of course, anything with Miss Francis on it can't be all bad. Guests do come in for interviews, and then the program picks up intelligence.
The other day she had Jack Hawkins, the British actor, aboard, and the conversation had great wit and style about it. Miss Francis also gave an unqualified rave notice to Mr. Hawkins’ film, “Bridge on the River Kwai,” which it thoroughly deserves. It takes courage to go overboard on a movie that has not been released.
But then Miss Francis started reading letters just like Dorothy Dix. Should a husband and wife have joint bank accounts? Should women wear hair curlers, in bed? Her answers are forthright, anyhow. On the question of hair curlers in bed, she’s unhesitatingly in favor.

Shari’s first network show was a half hour sponsored by the Girl Scouts called “Adventuring in the Hand Arts,” which debuted January 11, 1959. Her own show (in colour) premiered on October 1, 1960. It received universal praise. But it lasted only three seasons, despite Cynthia Lowry of the Associated Press writing in a column in February 1963 that the show had been renewed. That changed within a few months. This column is from June 23rd.

Shari Lewis Show Is Regrettable Casualty
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
AP Television-Radio Writer
NEW YORK—(AP)—One of the regrettable casualties of the current television season is the pending demise of NBC’s “The Shari Lewis Show," for the past three seasons a delightful Saturday morning musical treat for children.
Childhood’s loss, however, may well turn out to be a gain for adult audiences. Miss Lewis, a tiny red-haired young woman who sings, dances, and is one of the most skillful puppeteers and ventriloquists in the business, expects to find time to launch a career as an actress, with a play on Broadway in the fall.
It will undoubtedly come as a great shock to the summer theater audiences who go to see “Indoor Sport” to find Shari, the perpetual ingenue with pony tail hairdo, playing a young matron with divorce on her mind—and without a note to sing or a hand puppet named Lamb Chop or Hush Puppy to talk to.
Cancellation by NBC of “The Shari Lewis Show,” however, does not necessarily mean the end of her special type of entertainment. Negotiations are already in progress to continue her show elsewhere.
Shari is realistic about the windup of the program.
“I think that in network television, there is a real, basic lack of interest in children’s shows,” she said earnestly. “I think, for one thing, it shows in the categories for the ‘Emmy’ awards.
“And to me, it’s a shocking thing that after 10 years of such a splendid children’s show as ‘Captain Kangaroo,’ it has never received an Emmy from the television industry.”
“Just think, out of 30 odd categories, there is just one for children’s shows, and you find in that such ridiculous situations as ‘Captain Kangaroo’ or my show placed in competition with Walt Disney’s programs, each of which costs $100,000 or more to produce."
Miss Lewis believes that her program was canceled for simon-pure economic reasons.
“In order to put on a good television program,” she reflected, “you must spend money. We worked on a budget of something under $10,000 a week, but obviously the network could do better than that—like a cartoon show for children which will cost them about $3,000 a week.”
One of the constant subjects of debate inside the dollar-conscious, sales-conscious industry is the value of young television viewers as customers.
“Actually, I'm convinced that kids are good customers, and I’ve got sponsors who think they are, too, and are willing to follow me wherever I go,” said Shari. “I think children are an important influence on what their parents buy.”
Shari at 28 is a real veteran of show business, having become incurably infected at the age of 18 months when she was allowed to act as mistress of ceremonies for a show at a summer camp.
At 17 she was studying to be a ballet dancer when a broken ankle put an end to that ambition. While recuperating, she studied ventriloquism and practiced with a hand puppet. Within three months she was a winner on Arthur Godfrey’s “Talent Scouts.”
This was followed by a series of television shows, featuring Shari as a puppeteer, but also giving her a chance to sing, dance and even play violin a little.
She writes much of her own material. She has written several children's books, cut phonograph records, guest starred on all the top variety shows and even, a couple of years back, played a dramatic part in a television comedy. Somehow, amid all this activity, she finds time to be a wife—her husband is a New York publisher--and mother to Mallory, a red-haired girl almost 1 year old.
Actually, Shari’s relationship with NBC is already terminated, because she has finished taping all of her shows. One of the most interesting will be the final program next Saturday: “Cinderella” with original music and with the puppet Lamb Chop playing the fairy godmother.
Although Shari’s immediate future is concerned with playing a mature woman in a sophisticated comedy for adult audiences, she is still thinking about her small fry fans.
Earlier this month she appeared at the Portland, Ore., Rose Festival with a brief one-woman act which she hopes to bring to Broadway for a limited engagement around Christmas time, It is especially created for children and is designed, she explained, “to give kids a sneak preview of what it's like to be grown up.”
“Actually, I enjoy performing for children,” explained Shari. “But that’s not all there is to it. I really enjoy anything that results in a good show—for adults or children.”
“Television is really very frustrating because you work hard for a short period to do a half-hour show7—and it’s gone: I’m looking forward to appearing in one play for ten weeks, touring and perfecting my part. It should be very satisfying.”

Shari’s show went into summer reruns and left NBC on September 28, 1963. And she was right. She was replaced by a cartoon show for children, “Hector Heathcote.” Nothing against Hector, thought I, age six, but why was Shari gone? She was great. She should go on forever.

My childhood was gone in the ‘70s, but Shari came back to TV for someone else’s. And she was back again in the ‘90s, too. Shari Lewis passed away in 1998 but now that almost-one-year-old daughter Mallory is grown up, and touring North America with Lamb Chop. After all, someone else has a childhood. And, you know, Shari Lewis may go on forever after all. There’s an old six-year-old boy who hopes so.

Red Riding Hoodwinked Backgrounds

“Say, it’s a Honeymooner catchphrase, and, oh, what? The cartoon’s over? That’s it?” That’s how Friz Freleng’s “Red Riding Hoodwinked” leaves me.

The analogy has been comparing the toning down of rambunctious Warner Bros. cartoons as the post-war years rolled on to the toning down of America; how the fighting men of World War Two were, by 1955, relaxing with their pipe and slippers watching Arthur Godfrey on TV.

“Hoodwinked” demonstrates the slide of the Warners cartoons. The end gag has no punch (ironically, it’s about a punch) and you watch the cartoon thinking much of it is awfully familiar. And it has those block-headed human designs by Hawley Pratt that I’ve never liked. Still, it’s got a funny twist on a Tex Avery sign gag and Friz’s fine timing.

Irv Wyner handles the backgrounds from Hawley’s layouts. They’re not as stylised as what you’d find in the Chuck Jones unit but they’re not as literal as Paul Julian’s work for Freleng only a few years earlier. Here are some exteriors.








And some interiors of grandma’s house. The doors are on separate cels; they’ve been digitally removed from the bottom two drawings.





Getting the animation credits here are Artie Davis, Gerry Chiniquy and Ted Bonnicksen. Virgil Ross was playing the piano in Los Angeles when this was being made; Ken Champin had gone to work in commercial animation.

Bonnicksen soon ended up in the McKimson unit; whether Freleng didn’t like his work, I don’t know. The internet tells us he was born September 18, 1915 in Illinois to Hans Madsen and Marie Mathilda Bonnicksen, the youngest of six brothers and sisters. His father was a grocery clerk in Waukegan who died in 1918. His mother remarried but the sons kept their original surname. Ted was in Libertyville, Illinois in 1935 but apparently begun his career with Disney by 1940, as we find him in the census that year as “animator, motion pictures” (at $1800 annually) and living with fellow cartoonist Manny Gonzales. During the war, Bonnicksen was a private stationed at Camp Crowder, Missouri where he spent part of his time designing scenery for plays. It’s unclear when he ended up at Warner Bros.

He had a lengthy career in animation up until his death; he was suffering from leukaemia when he was working on “Fritz the Cat.” He died July 22, 1971.