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Finding the perfect book for the beloved animation fan in your life can be a big challenge, but these gift-book ideas will inform and inspire anyone who loves animation and drawing.

55 years ago today: "Rocky & His Friends" premiered.

Animation legend Jay Ward produced such cartoons as Rocky & Bullwinkle, Mr. Peabody & Sherman and George of the Jungle. Besides having a fine sense of humor, it turns out that he was a lovely human being, too. Cartoon researcher ‘Don M. Yowp’ uncovered this story published in a 1962 edition of the Abilene Reporter-News:

Linda Dill is a senior in Baird High School. She fell in love with the Bullwinkle nonsense when it came along, and since she has marked artistic talent, she made some tiny dolls to represent the characters, wrote a script for them and let them “perform” for various Baird classes. One day, she bundled up her Bullwinkle dolls and mailed them to Jay Ward. That started a friendship-by-mail. Jay wrote that the dolls were on exhibit in his Hollywood studio. He sent Linda a Bullwinkle clock and a battery-operated Bullwinkle figure. Linda, in turn, got up a “petition” in Baird seeking statehood for Moosylvania.

Then it developed that Jay Ward would be in Dallas for a show in mid-November and he wrote an invitation to Linda to drop by if she could. Linda would have but six-weeks exams conflicted and she had to decline the invitation. On Wednesday evening last week a long distance call came to Baird from Jay Ward at Dallas. He asked to speak to Linda. Then he learned. Linda is deaf, her mother told Jay…

Grab some Kleenex and read the rest of the story on the Tralfaz blog.

Animator Darrell Van Citters is following up his most-excellent making of Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol book with a new book on The Art of the Jay Ward Studio. As Ward employed many ex-UPA artists, Van Citters uncovered much Ward material researching his Magoo book, realizing that Ward “more than any other studio, tried to keep ‘funny’ alive in TV animation.” Apparently Classic Media and the Ward estate have given their blessing on the project.

Van Citters is quick to point out that his book won’t be another history of the Jay Ward studio – Keith Scott’s thorough examination of the Jay Ward studio, The Moose That Roared, “has already covered that topic and covered it exceptionally well. This is meant to be a visual encyclopedia of the art created by some of the industry’s most talented designers and boarders within the context of TV animation’s golden age”.

Van Citters is putting out the call to any and all collectors of Jay Ward original art, soliciting scans of their pieces for use in the book “in order to make it as complete as possible. This call includes original storyboards, model sheets, layouts, cels, backgrounds, pitch art for unsold pilots, promotional art, ad art, the Bullwinkle comic strip and comics, etc. I realize that much of the early Ward production work was done in Mexico making it extremely difficult to locate, if in fact it still exists.” If you’re a collector of Jay Ward production art or know someone who is, or know family members of artists who worked at Jay Ward, contact Darrell via his website. He’s hoping to have this book published next year. If it’s half as good as his previous volume, we’re in for a treat!

Animator Darrell Van Citters is following up his most-excellent making of Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol book with a new book on The Art of the Jay Ward Studio. As Ward employed many ex-UPA artists, Van Citters uncovered much Ward material researching his Magoo book, realizing that Ward “more than any other studio, tried to keep ‘funny’ alive in TV animation.” Apparently Classic Media and the Ward estate have given their blessing on the project.

Van Citters is quick to point out that his book won’t be another history of the Jay Ward studio – Keith Scott’s thorough examination of the Jay Ward studio, The Moose That Roared, “has already covered that topic and covered it exceptionally well. This is meant to be a visual encyclopedia of the art created by some of the industry’s most talented designers and boarders within the context of TV animation’s golden age”.

Van Citters is putting out the call to any and all collectors of Jay Ward original art, soliciting scans of their pieces for use in the book “in order to make it as complete as possible. This call includes original storyboards, model sheets, layouts, cels, backgrounds, pitch art for unsold pilots, promotional art, ad art, the Bullwinkle comic strip and comics, etc. I realize that much of the early Ward production work was done in Mexico making it extremely difficult to locate, if in fact it still exists.” If you’re a collector of Jay Ward production art or know someone who is, or know family members of artists who worked at Jay Ward, contact Darrell via his website. He’s hoping to have this book published next year. If it’s half as good as his previous volume, we’re in for a treat!

Alex Anderson, partner of Jay Ward and instrumental in the creation of Crusader Rabbit and the characters of Frostbite Falls, has passed away.

Anderson, a native of Berkeley, California, came from a family of creative artists and in 1938 started working in animation with his uncle Paul Terry in New York at Terrytoons. During World War II, Anderson was a U.S. Navy spy, his wife said in Kansas City Star, and in 1946, he returned to Terrytoons to work full time. Two years later, he pitched the idea to create cartoon characters for television to his uncle.

Rebuffed by Terry, Anderson returned to Berkeley where he and childhood friend Jay Ward teamed up to pioneer animated series production for television, creating Crusader Rabbit for NBC in 1949.

Anderson was also part of the creation of Dudley-Do-Right and The Frostbite Falls Review, which included the characters of Rocky and Bullwinkle. In 1996, Anderson reached an out-of-court settlement with Jay Ward Productions over rights to Bullwinkle, Rocky and Dudley-Do-Right. Anderson spent most of his career in advertising, creating slogans for Berkeley Farms, Skippy Peanut Butter and Smucker’s. He died Friday at a home in Carmel, Calif. He was 90.

Here is the first episode of Crusader Rabbit:

(Thanks, Karl Wilcox)