Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Obituary - Alexander Anderson Jr.

Saw this in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday:

Animator Alexander Anderson Jr. died on October 22 at age 90. Mr. Anderson is credited with creating the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon characters, as well as Crusader Rabbit and Dudley Do-Right. He was the nephew of Paul Terry of Terrytoons, the studio that created Mighty Mouse.

The article mentions that he started with Terrytoons in 1938, then went into the US Navy (as a spy!) and returned to the studio in 1946. He suggested creating cartoons for TV but the studio wasn't interested as they were producing cartoons for the movie studios at that time. So Mr. Anderson went out on his own (with the apparent permission of his uncle) and began producing cartoons with his friend Jay Ward.

In the 1990's Anderson discovered that Ward was the sole holder of the copyrights for Bullwinkle, Rocky and Dudley Do-Right, and he filed suit. In 1996, a settlement was reached which recognized Anderson as the creator of the characters.

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