George Hill has exactly two existing screen credits at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio. One’s on
Mouse Menace, released in late 1946. It was the second cartoon put into production by the new Art Davis unit. The first (
The Goofy Gophers) and third (
The Foxy Duckling) have no writer credit. Dave Monahan is credited with the story in the unit’s next four cartoons, then Hill returns for a final time with
The Pest That Came To Dinner, released in 1948. That’s it. By the time it was in theatres, Hill had been fired months earlier.
Hill just vanishes if you go by movie trade papers or credits on cartoons. Yet he was still around. Just not in Hollywood.
We’ll get to that in a moment. First, let’s paste together some background on George Rogers Hill.
Hill was born in Long Branch, New Jersey on March 11, 1905 to George B. and Josephine (Rogers) Hill. His father disappears from the picture fairly quickly—he was apparently a horse trainer who died in a police jail in New York City in 1912—and young George was raised by his mother at her widowed mother’s home.
Hill got a job reporting for the local paper; his first wife was employed there as the social columnist until her death in 1937. His byline appears until 1935. In September that year, he was the subject of a story when he got mugged in New York City (he is referred to as a “Long Branch artist”). Presumably he was working for the Fleischer studio, judging by the time-line about him in a 1939 article stating he had worked on
Gulliver’s Travels and had been with Fleischers for about four years.
In October 1940, we find Hill and his second wife Sally in Alhambra, California. He is unemployed. The next year, he copyrighted a song called “We’ll Guard America For You” (it was apparently unpublished).
We’ll skip past his Warner years to 1952, where a photo caption in the
Asbury Park Press in New Jersey shows he is now employed at the Evans Signal Laboratories, and has won a second consecutive award from the Freedom Foundation “for outstanding contribution to the cause of freedom” for a film strip he had made. He was in the right-wing propaganda business, much like John Sutherland Productions on the west coast.
He won again the following year, and the August 23, 1953 edition of the
Press had another photo and the following article:
Freedom Foundation Award Winner Began Cartoon Career on Wallpaper
LONG RABNCH [sic] —George R. Hill, artist-cartoonist who last month accepted his third Freedom Foundation award in as many years, has no idea of starting work on next year's entry—until next year.
A great believer in "deadline pressure," the illustrator who has worked on some of the movie cartoon world's most famous characters turned out this year's prize-winner in less than a week.
Mr. Hill, born here, lives at the old family home, 201 Union Avenue, but he has seen plenty of the country since getting his first cartooning job with the famed Bill Nolan, the Kraxy Kat [sic] creator, here, in 1923.
Drew Famous Characters
He has worked for Warner Bros., Paramount and Universal Pictures on such well-known figures as Pop-eye, Little Lulu, Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Betty Boop, Elmer Fud [sic], and Porky Pig.
This year's Freedom Foundation prize-winner was a cartoon character named Elmer, a smarter-than- average Kansas mule who was lend-leased behind the Iron Curtain. In a series of sketches the hard-headed mule gives his impression of life behind the curtain, compared with American life.
Mr. Hill, 48, claims that altho movies may not be better than ever—as the ads claim—they are well on their way. Some companies are even giving the three-dimensional fever second place to the search for better stories, he claims.
When he first began, he recalls, the story was unimportant. People were so fascinated by animated cartoons that no story was needed to draw crowds.
TV Using Cartooning Skills
Television is taking advantage of animated cartooning skills, he notes. It is taking many top illustrators from Hollywood. It is also taking the old story-less cartoons—like the Farmer Gray series.
Mr. Hill's career began at home—on the family wallpaper. His mother, an amateur landscape painter, discouraged artwork on the living room wall, but she led young George into the field of art.
After Chattle High school and a few years or art instruction in New York, he was drawing Popeye and Betty Boop for Max Fleischer. Then came "Gulliver s Travels." Then came unemployment, when the Fleischer enterprise folded.
Heads for Hollywood
He took his new bride to the West Coast and began with Warner Bros. For three days he sat and watched Warner cartoons in a company studio. He liked it and went to work.
Then came Paramount and Universal Pictures.
Warner's Bugs Bunny is still his favorite, however, "because his personality is a wonderful thing and he is so unpredictable."
Moviegoers can blame Mr. Hill for many of the Hollywood Cartoon plots, he admits. He was a story and a layout man. A "story" in Hollywoodese is a series of sketches by the cartoonist illustrating the action of the proposed film.
Many feature movies are laid out similarly by illustrators. Television is relying on the method exclusively, he notes.
Now working in the art section of the photographic division at Evans Signal Laboratory, Wall Township, Mr. Hill can't explain where he got most of the ideas that excited the kiddies.
It's Labor
"The work is labor," he says. "You either dream up a story or you don't get paid. That's a pretty convincing argument, so you dream up a story.”
His first Freedom Foundation prize came in collaboration with Miss Anne Stommel, Rumson Road, Little Silver. His second had a clever old owl as its subject, and Elmer was featured in the most recent one.
He thanks Maj. Gen. Kirke B. Lawton, commanding officer at Fort Monmouth, for helping to make the owl famous. General Lawton sent a photostat of the sketches to Washington. They are being used in booklet and film form to illustrate Army educational material.
Works on New Character
Altho he isn't worrying about next year's Freedom Foundation entry, he is card at work on Chico, a character of his own invention. Chico is not an animal—he is a Mexican lad—but he'll have plenty of animal friends, says Mr. Hill.
Cartoonists thrive on animals, he observed. He ended up with Elmer, a mule. But so did his famous and early employer, Bill Nolan. Mr. Nolan has been occupying his time recently making Hollywood's Francis a "talking mule."
Hill was never credited on any cartoons Walter Lantz made for Universal.
He continued to pile up awards, as we see from the
Daily Record of February 22, 1954.
George Hill Wins Fourth Freedom Award For Serious Titled ‘Cub Reporter’
An artist illustrator at Ft. Monmouth who previously drew such popular movie cartoons as Bugs Bunny, Popeye and Porky Pig, receives today his fourth award from the Freedom Foundation at Valley Forge, Pa. The only four-time winner known, George R. Hill of 201 Union Ave., Long Branch, is being awarded second prize in the general category for his "story" board series of a "Cub Reporter's Story"
Just as all four of his awards have been second place in the toughest category, which includes thousands of entries on movies, TV shows, editorial cartoons, radio program, and many others, all of Hill's cartoon stories concern animals.
In his ’53 prize winning effort for the Freedom Foundation, which addresses the American Way of Life, the cub is a reporter covering the happenings in his town to other animal “citizens.”
The series of some 30 cartoon depicts how the big bear pays a visit and, as a stranger, immediately becomes a menace in telling them how to run the town better.
As a political tycoon, the bear put the pressure on the town citizens and eventually deprives them of voting rights, personal properties and civic benefits. He makes the town a “one-bear" dictatorship.
The cartoon story concludes as a warning, "Don’t let this happen here", or guard our privileges in the American way of life.
In last year's prize winner, Hill's animation of "Elmer's Story" depicted a Kansas mule lend-leased behind the Iron Curtain giving impressions behind the curtain as compared to American life.
Hill's entry in 1951 to the Freedom Foundation was a "Bird's Eye View", a migrating owl comparing conditions around the rest of the world as to those in America.
The commanding general at Ft. Monmouth, Maj Gen. K. B. Lawton, impressed by the subject, had photostats of the cartoon forwarded to Army headquarters. As a result, Troop Information and Education are now using this series in booklet and film form to illustrate Army educational material.
The year before, he split a $1,000 award with another Ft. Monmouth worker. Hill's drawings were titled, "What's in it for Me", showing the benefits of an average worker in this country. His partner wrote the story.
[Prior to this career, Hill] was drawing cartoons for Max Fleischer in New York on Betty Boop and Popeye. Later with Warner Brothers on the West Coast, he did cartoon stories on Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, among others.
At Ft. Monmouth, Hill works in the school text section of the Signal School drawing schematic diagram and other training aids and material for the student.
Now, let’s back up to his Warners career, or what little we know about it.
The Warner Club News of March 1945 reveals Hill arrived from New York to team with Warren Foster and write for Bob McKimson. The June 1945 issue stated Hill and Hubie Karp would be doing stories for Art Davis, who had taken over the Bob Clampett unit, starting with
Bacall to Arms (which also has no screen credit for story); Davis denied doing much work on that cartoon.
Writer Lloyd Turner
revealed in a fine interview with historian Mike Barrier about why Hill’s career at the studio crashed and burned. Hill had worked with Foster and Mike Maltese at Fleischer’s, but he wasn’t getting along with director Davis in Turner’s remembrance.
One day, George had a session with Artie, and Artie stripped him of his pride, or whatever. George went out the back door and across the lot, and out, past the guard. Everybody liked George, except Selzer; nice guy, there wasn't anything not to like there. He was not a predator like Ted. So he went over and he got all tanked up. He's staggering back onto the lot, and he gets right at the gate, and here comes Eddie Selzer, in his chauffeur-driven car, coming in. George is standing there talking to the guard, blasted out of his head. The guard grabs George and shoves him down in his guard shack and says, "Stay there." Pushes him down below that little counter. Eddie drives up, and for some reason stops and talks to the guard for a minute. George gets up, and [thumbs his nose and gives Selzer the razzberry]. So, when he gets back, of course, "George Hill, office." He was let go, instantly. It was a great relief. I talked to him afterwards, talked to his wife, and she said, "We've got to get back to New York. He hasn't been happy since we've been out here." So they left, and I never heard any more about him.
Lloyd Turner isn’t around to read this story and thus hear any more about him. Hill isn’t around, either. On October 3, 1962 he fell on the street and suffered a brain haemorrhage. Someone found him on the pavement but it was too late. Hill was only 57.
Note: Harry McCracken has been of great help assembling this biography.
