Pegbar Profile: Bob Wickersham (Sneak Peek)

For the better part of his life—about a half-century—Robert (Bob) Wickersham carried a multifaceted portfolio throughout his professional career: newspaper cartoonist, animator, storyman, director, comic book penciller, and maker of animated TV commercials. 

Robert Lysle Wickersham was born on August 5, 1911, in Colima, Mexico, to Gordon Vail Wickersham (1875-1949) and Louise Catherine Levy (1880-1954).1 When Bob was two years old, his family boarded the Newport in Mexico and landed in San Francisco on December 27, 1913. By 1918, the family had moved to Ventura County, where Bob’s father worked as the manager of the Hueneme Wharf Warehouse Company.2 The family settled in Los Angeles by 1920—Bob lived with his older sister, Elizabeth Louise, and his uncle, Carlos Levy.3

In the spring of 1923, The Los Angeles Times inaugurated “The Junior Times,” a Sunday supplement where teens could submit their artwork, writing, and poetry to the newspaper.4 Its editor, under the pseudonym “Aunt Dolly,” founded the Times Junior Club, which became a springboard for several young artists soon to enter the animation business. At age twelve, Bob’s sketches were submitted and published by the Times. Wickersham’s talents soon paid off when he received a $10 first prize for one of his cartoons.5 As membership grew, the Times Junior cartoonists created their own selection of weekly comic strips. Wickersham began a recurring feature in 1926 with a humanized dog character, Fido Bark. 

Fido Bark's debut strip in the Junior Times, May 9, 1926.

 

The local press noticed Wickersham’s cartooning when the Oxnard Press-Courier reported on April 2, 1927, “Though young, [Bob] is remarkably clever with the pencil, and since being in Los Angeles, has attained quite a reputation with his drawings.” In 1928, Bob—nicknamed “Wicky” by his Times peers—was elected vice-president of the Times Junior Club.6 He continued cartooning at Polytechnic High, illustrating for the school newspaper, The Poly Optimist, with his classmate and fellow Club member, Isadore “Izzy” Ellis (later a chief animator for Bob Clampett). The following year, Bob became assistant editor of the Optimist. 

As a Poly student, Bob joined other extracurriculars like the track team and glee club (a local newspaper called him “an all-round athlete, and a mighty good singer to boot.”)7 He also served as president of the publicity board, the Scholarship Society, and, for one term, as a finance board representative. (Photo, above left, from the Junior Times, dated Sept. 12, 1926.)

By late summer 1930, Bob entered the field of animated sound cartoons when producer Charles Mintz, who struck a distribution deal with Columbia Pictures, hired Wickersham at $25 a week.8 The building, located on North Western Avenue, had a pool hall in the lobby; the Mintz operation was on the second floor. It housed two animator/director units: Ben Harrison and Manny Gould, with a series of Krazy Kat cartoons, and the trio of Dick Huemer, Sid Marcus, and Arthur Davis, who migrated from Max and Dave Fleischer’s New York studio. The Huemer-Marcus-Davis triad created Toby the Pup, a Mickey-type protagonist, for Mintz to release through RKO. Bob was brought into the “Toby” unit as Dick Huemer’s assistant. When Toby retired after twelve cartoons in 1931, the threesome developed a series with a little round-headed boy named Scrappy.

Within six months, Bob acclimated to animation production and took time to help beginners. In one instance, he taught a young hire named Carl Urbano how to draw in-betweens.9 Dick Huemer counseled his young assistants as they ascended to become qualified animators. Dick offloaded scenes for them to animate on their own. While their subordinates toiled away, Huemer and the other top animators went downstairs to the pool hall below.10 Carl Urbano remembered in a 1977 interview that Huemer “developed a good assistant like Bob Wickersham who could draw very well, could work, and was a good animator, so Dick Huemer was glad to leave him every bit that he could.”11 Wickersham continued as an animator at Mintz for the next two years. 

By March 1933, the American economy had bottomed out in the worst days of the Great Depression. While many animation factories offered artists paying jobs in the Depression’s darkest period, producers slashed their salaries to stay afloat. The Mintz studio was no exception. When each of the five major animator/directors—Ben Harrison, Manny Gould, Dick Huemer, Sid Marcus, and Art Davis—learned about Mintz's budget cuts, the group marched out to negotiate with Columbia. Mintz then quickly promoted his pool of assistants to permanent animators. This may have included Bob Wickersham. Meanwhile, the negotiations between the deserting artists and Columbia were unsuccessful. Dick Huemer left Mintz and, one month later, was hired by Walt Disney. Shortly after these events, Bob withdrew from Mintz and took a job at Ub Iwerks’ studio.12 His stay at Iwerks lasted only a few months before Wickersham moved to the Disney Studio (seen below left) near the end of 1933.13

At first, Bob was assigned small bits of animation for shorts featuring the iconic Mickey Mouse. David Hand, one of Walt’s top directors, assigned Bob to extended introductory scenes on numerous Silly Symphonies, which used new characters in almost every cartoon. This allowed Wickersham to handle pivotal sequences that defined a character's personality: the titular character in The Flying Mouse (1934) and his determined (but failed) attempts at flight as he tests makeshift wings out of leaves; Ambrose the kitten playacting as a highwayman with his toys, and his indignation when he’s summoned by his mother to take his bath in The Robber Kitten (1935); and the trio of abandoned kittens who enter a house for warmth and shelter, and later, their antics in a nursery in Three Orphan Kittens (1935).14

The animation historian Michael Barrier provided a detailed memo in which Walt gave “constructive criticism” on the skills of thirteen animators, dated June 1, 1935. Disney’s analysis of Bob Wickersham’s work was used as an example. 

“It has been observed that you lack an understanding of the proper portrayal of gags. The development of showmanship is a valuable thing and plays a great part in one’s analytical ability. Your sense of timing is limited and needs to be developed. Likewise, your resourcefulness in handling a personality has need of improvement. There is an approaching danger of a laxity in the general systematic handling of your work.  Be sure to watch for every opportunity of making your drawings foolproof, from the assistant’s and inbetween’s standpoint. Don’t lose sight of the fact that confusion at any point in a scene’s progress, be it on your board or the assistant’s or the inkers, makes for loss of time and an increase in animation cost.”15

By 1936, Dave Hand and another director, Wilfred Jackson, had supplied Bob with more ambitious sequences. For Elmer Elephant, directed by Jackson, Bob’s animation set up the dilemma of its titular character: a gang of children teases poor Elmer for his long nose as they form a parade beside him with ad hoc elephant trunks. In Three Blind Mouseketeers, directed by Hand, Wickersham animated every scene of its eponymous heroes in the first half, when they introduce themselves in song and their evasion of Captain Katt’s many deadly traps.16 Bob seemed to improve his animation, as if he had heeded Walt’s advice; his key poses became broader, which strengthened the pathos and comedy in both respective films. Meanwhile, the studio paired Bob with a young assistant named Jack Bradbury.17 The two coordinated on one of Mickey Mouse’s true classics. 

In Thru the Mirror (1936), directed by Dave Hand, Bob was assigned to work on the entire opening set-up and finale, which lasts 208 feet—over two minutes of screen time—in the final film. Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice novels, Mickey’s “dream self” rises from his slumber and passes through a mirror, where he enters a strange, illogical world. Later, the Mouse eats a walnut offered by a nutcracker, who keeps only the shells, which causes Mickey’s body to shrink. The tiny Mouse then engages in a pointless conversation with a desk stand (or “candlestick”) telephone, which lets Mickey use the phone cord as a jump rope to “skip it.” For its ending, Bob animated an additional 80 feet (nearly one minute): Mickey flees the King of Hearts’ army of playing cards; his body regains its normal size as he escapes. The Mouse’s “dream self” dives back through the mirror and returns to his sleeping body.18

Animation veteran Mark Mayerson, in his critical essays of Thru the Mirror, specifically highlighted Bob’s work: “Wickersham knew how to draw appealing poses. His drawings don't have the same strong rhythm as Fred Moore’s, but the proportions are very pleasing, and the poses are well-balanced. Wickersham's Mickey is also extremely flexible, and he has a functioning brain. If you keep your eye on Mickey during these opening scenes, you see that Mickey reacts to everything that happens to him in a variety of subtle ways.”19

Next, Bob tackled another long continuity of scenes for Dave Hand. In nearly three minutes of screen time, Wickersham’s animation in Little Hiawatha (1937) takes the viewer along as the diminutive warrior paddles upstream in his birch canoe on his venture out into the forest: Hiawatha slips and falls into the water just as he touches land, which sends the woodland creatures into taunting laughter; the little hunter sneaks into the forest with his trusty bow and arrow and chases the animals without success; then, Hiawatha tracks and corners a grasshopper, which spits in his face. These scenes also establish the cartoon’s running gag: when Hiawatha readies his weapon, his pants fall down—exposing his bare buttocks to the audience—and he pauses to lift them up. (Bob’s work concludes when Hiawatha chases after a little rabbit up a tree stump.)20

For The Old Mill (1937), a landmark Silly Symphony directed by Wilfred Jackson and Graham Heid, each character animator assumed different “roles” in the film. Bob animated every scene of the owl that sleeps in the mill—again, with Jack Bradbury’s assistance.21 Graham Heid entrusted Bob with a larger sequence in Wynken, Blynken, and Nod (1938), in which the three children reel in luminous “star-fish” with candy canes, and their struggle to capture a single obstinate star-fish that lands on their shoe-boat.22 Bob worked on more Disney shorts, contributing only small chunks of animation, such as Lonesome Ghosts (1937), Mickey’s Parrot (1938), Polar Trappers (1938), and Donald’s Golf Game (1938). 

From there, Bob Wickersham worked on the Studio’s first feature-length project, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In the final film, Bob received no screen credit since he contributed only 28 feet of animation—18 seconds—found in Sequence 4D (“Spooks”). Bob also worked on a 16-foot scene of Happy sewing in Sequence 11B (“Bed Building”), a section ultimately deleted from the picture.23    

In January 1938, a few weeks after Snow White held its grand premiere, production moved forward on The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a “comeback” vehicle for Mickey Mouse (originally planned as a short before its inclusion as a segment in Fantasia). James Algar, the director of Sorcerer, handed out scenes for animation after Leopold Stokowski’s recording of Paul Dukas’ score was approved. As one of its key animators, Bob animated the scenes of Mickey’s attempts to bail a deluge of water, tossed in bucketfuls by a massive army of brooms, which then submerges the Mouse underwater. Wickersham handled a scene that occurs moments later when Mickey, atop the Sorcerer’s book of spells, gets swept along by a current.24

Bob left the Disney Studio during mid-production on Sorcerer, and his scenes were reassigned to other animators. Milt Schaffer, a fellow Disney animator who worked alongside Wickersham back at Mintz, suggested Bob’s departure was brought about by a palpable restlessness.

[Bob] was very volatile, apt to be upset, high-strung, and very nervous… He was very good while he was there, but he was just driven to make more money, accomplish more, and do all kinds of things. He was a kind of person that jumped around a lot, so when he figured there was nothing more at Disney's for him, and then I think Walt got down on it too, because he was pressing for money, and they thought, “Well, you should be interested in art and not the money. We'll give you the money, but don't worry about it. Get that animation.” That was the thing. So he left there.25

A compilation of scenes/sequences animated by Bob Wickersham during his time at Disney.

On June 12, 1938, Al Eugster, an associate of Bob’s from Mintz and Disney, wrote in his journal: “We visited the Wickershams in Westwood. Bob now working for Ub Iwerks.”26 

By the time Wickersham returned to Iwerks, Ub withdrew his business relationship with his producer, Pat Powers, and rebranded his Beverly Hills studio as Cartoon Films, Ltd. Under his new corporation, Ub subcontracted several Color Rhapsodies for Charles Mintz, while development ensued on a series of twenty-four color cartoons starring “Gran’pop,” a ginger-haired ape popularized on postcards and several appearances on Collier’s magazine by illustrator Lawson Wood (1878-1957). By December 1938, production on the series had ceased, with only four “Gran’pop” cartoons completed.27 Later, Cartoon Films, Ltd. concentrated on one-minute theatrical animated commercials (”playlets”) sponsored by Kellogg’s, Shell Oil, Lever Brothers, and Kraft Cheese, among other clients, without Ub’s involvement.

Bob’s second stint at Iwerks marks an enigmatic period in his career. Paul Fennell, who assumed Ub’s managerial role at Cartoon Films, Ltd., recalled in an interview that Bob Wickersham worked on the Gran’pop films.28 The 1939 Van Nuys city directory lists Bob’s occupation as a “motion picture director,” which may suggest a directorial position at Iwerks, but no further evidence has surfaced.29 (As of this writing, it’s difficult to ascertain Wickersham’s involvement in the subcontracted Color Rhapsodies or the animated commercials by Cartoon Films Ltd. with factual accuracy.)

Meanwhile, in December 1939, Max and Dave Fleischer released their first animated feature, Gulliver's Travels, from their new state-of-the-art facilities in Miami, Florida. With Gulliver completed and plans for Max and Dave’s second feature in early developmental stages, production shifted back to shorts. The Fleischer brothers offered higher salaries than the West Coast studios and all-inclusive transportation, which attracted an influx of Hollywood cartoon writers and animators. On January 21, 1940, Bob arrived in Miami and took up residency in Coral Gables.30 As he stepped inside Fleischer’s large Miami operation, Bob was selected to animate in a unit led by two Disney cohorts, head animator/director James (Shamus) Culhane, and top animator Al Eugster. (Sketches at left courtesy of Tim Walker.)    

Their valuable Disney credentials spurred a drive for quality, since many of the New York animators had no prior experience outside Max and Dave Fleischer’s Manhattan studio. Culhane’s West Coast contingent gave lectures on the crucial principles of drawing and animation to the other units. In one instance, on February 27, 1940, Bob and Al Eugster were guest speakers at an in-betweening class taught by veteran animator Grim Natwick, another Disney transfer.31

Throughout 1940, the Fleischer crew plunged into story work on their second feature and a year’s slate of short subjects. Max and Dave needed more outside animators to alleviate the intensive workload. During the studio’s vacation period, Bob traveled back to California to enlist more artists, one of whom was Jack Bradbury. “[Bob] called me one day, inviting me to have lunch with him,” said Jack in his autobiography. “ ‘Wick’ [Jack’s nickname for Bob] was offering me more money and a chance to animate down there, but the idea of packing up and moving clear to Florida didn't appeal to me at all.”32

Wickersham pulled double duty during his stretch at Fleischer’s: he fluctuated between his animation duties for Culhane and a capacity in the story department. Bob wrote three cartoons for a new series that headlined Gabby, the excitable town crier from Gulliver and a receptacle for frustration comedy: Swing Cleaning, All’s Well, and It’s a Hap-Hap-Happy Day (all released in 1941, the last two titles derived from songs featured in the movie). Wickersham wrote other shorts, such as the “Animated Antic” Copy Cat (1941) and Vitamin Hay (1941), the final entry in Fleischer’s Color Classics—its stars, Hunky and Spunky, a mother burro and her son, earned Max and Dave an Oscar nomination three years earlier.

Bob returned to animated features as a character animator and one of several writers (credited for “screen adaptation”) on the studio’s next full-length production, Mr. Bug Goes to Town. Shamus Culhane’s unit assumed responsibility for Mr. Bug’s opening sequence, which introduced the viewer to the low-lying environs of the insect community and their perpetual danger from the towering “human ones.” The Culhane group also established the character relationships and emotional depth from its main cast: Hoppity the grasshopper, his sweetheart Honey Bee, her father Mr. Bumble, the repulsive C. Bagley Beetle, and his two lackeys, Swat the Fly and Smack the Mosquito. 

Rare pencil tests from Culhane’s sequence survive in fragmentary form, which verifies the work of Bob Wickersham and the other animators, whereas Bob’s story contributions in Mr. Bug remain unknown. Bob’s animation appears in a few personality scenes with secondary characters, like the grouchy, fatalistic snail Mr. Creeper, who watches the home of Mrs. Ladybug set ablaze—by a human’s discarded lit match—with the others (he spouts, ”We’re doomed t’ go, and don’t ferget I told ya so!”) Wickersham also animated Hoppity’s exchange moments later with Buzz, a little bee Scout, inside Mr. Bumble’s Honey Shop.33

Bob Wickersham's animation in Mr. Bug Goes to Town. 

As work continued to ramp up on Mr. Bug, Frank Tashlin—a former Disney writer—recommended Bob for an available slot at Screen Gems, Columbia Pictures’ continuation of the old Mintz studio. On April 4, 1941, Bob attended a farewell luncheon, where he enjoyed the company of Culhane, Eugster, and other Fleischer members before his trip back to the West Coast animation landscape.34

This ends the first chapter of Bob Wickersham's career - more to come in a future printed edition (release date to be determined).

Special acknowledgments to Michael Barrier, J. B. Kaufman, David Gerstein, Hans Perk, Mark Mayerson, Frank M. Young, and Strummer Cash Petersen for their contributions to this post.

 ________

[1] Civil registration birth records in Colima, Mexico list Robert as Gordón Roberto Lysle Weckershan”; the 1920 Los Angeles Census lists him as “Robert G. Wickersham”; his 1932 marriage certificate as “Robert Thomas Wickersham” (his birth year is listed 1910); otherwise, Robert is listed as “Robert L.” in the 1937 Van Nuys city directory; listed as “Robert L. Wickersham” in the 1940 Coral Gables and Los Angeles censuses; and as “Robert Lysle Wickersham” on his 1940 draft registration card. Courtesy: Ancestry.

[2] California, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1959. Courtesy: Ancestry.

[3] 1920 United States Federal Census, Los Angeles. Courtesy: Ancestry.

[4] The Los Angeles Times, Apr. 29, 1923. "The Junior Times," p. 6.

[5] Oxnard Press-Courier, July 29, 1925, p. 3. Bob’s cash prize amounts to $187 in 2026 US currency. 

[6] The Los Angeles Times, Apr. 3, 1927. "The Junior Times," p. 3.

[7] The Los Angeles Times, Mar. 4, 1928. "The Junior Times," p. 1.

[8] Variety, Aug. 27, 1930. p. 247. Bob’s weekly pay amounts to $489 in 2026 US dollars. 

[9] Milt Schaffer, interview with Milt Gray, Mar. 21, 1977. Unpublished. Carl Urbano, interview with Milt Gray, Dec. 19, 1977. Unpublished.

[10] Carl Urbano, interview with Michael Barrier, February 8, 1997. Extracted from Michael Barrier, Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in its Golden Age (2003, paperback edition), p. 172.

[11] Urbano interview, 1977. 

[12] While the exact date Wickersham left Mintz is unclear, it might have occurred sometime between April and May 1933. Huemer went on the Disney payroll on April 16, and Al Eugster claimed that he left Mintz in May 1933 to work for Ub. Both Eugster and Irv Spence corroborated Wickersham’s presence at Iwerks’ studio (they each were staffers during the same period). Al Eugster, interview with Michael Barrier, Mar. 17, 1978. Unpublished. Irv Spence, interview with Milt Gray, Nov. 29, 1976. Unpublished.

[13] Disney studio records hold no information regarding Wickersham’s exact start of employment. Bob’s earliest known assignment was for the Silly Symphony, The Night Before Christmas; production papers credit him on the toy band. The pencil animation for Christmas ensued between October 6 and November 16, 1933, providing an estimated timeline for Wickersham’s official hiring. JB Kaufman and Russell Merritt, Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series (2016, hardback edition), p. 138.

[14] Kaufman/Merritt, Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series (2016, hardback edition), pp. 147, 158, and 168.

[15] Michael Barrier, The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney (University of California Press, 2007), pp. 112-113.

[16] Kaufman/Merritt, Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series (2016, hardback edition), pp. 175 and 180.

[17] “Excerpts from Jack Bradbury’s Autobiography.” https://jbrad.org/autobiog.html

[18] Hans Perk, A Film L.A. “Prod. UM-41 - Through the Looking Glass,” final production draft, dated March 6, 1936. Published May 24, 2006. https://afilmla.blogspot.com/2006/05/prod-um41-through-looking-glass.html

[19] Mark Mayerson, “Thru the Mirror, Part 4.” Mayerson on Animation, published Feb. 10, 2008. https://mayersononanimation.blogspot.com/2008/02/thru-mirror-part-4.html

[20] Kaufman/Merritt, Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series (2016, hardback edition), p. 190.

[21] Ibid, p. 193. Jack Bradbury, interview with Milt Gray, March 23, 1977. Unpublished.

[22] Ibid, p. 196.

[23] Hans Perk, A Film L.A. “Prod. 2001 - Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs (VII).” Published Oct 26, 2009. https://afilmla.blogspot.com/2009/10/prod2001-snow-white-seven-dwarfs-vii.html  “Prod. 2001 - Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs (XIX).” Published Nov. 9, 2009. https://afilmla.blogspot.com/2009/11/prod2001-snow-white-seven-dwarfsxix.html

[24] JB Kaufman, Worlds to Conquer: The Art and Making of Walt Disney’s Fantasia (Insight Editions, 2025), pp. 85, 87, and 285.

[25] Milt Schaffer, interview with Milt Gray, Mar. 21, 1977. Unpublished.

[26] Mark Mayerson. “Al Eugster’s Journal, The Disney Years: 1935-1939.” Reprinted in Walt’s People: Talking Disney with the Artists Who Knew Him, vol. 28 (Skyway Press, 2023), p. 29.

[27] The Film Daily, Dec. 19, 1938, p. 7, mentions that three “Gran’pop” cartoons were completed. The three titles were A Busy Day, Beauty Shoppe, and Baby Checkers. Period-era trade magazines allude to a fourth Gran’pop cartoon, Monkey’s Business, without a determined release date. (The Exhibitor, Feb. 15, 1939, survisection 6. Showmen’s Trade Review, Apr. 8, 1939, p. 31.) The first three Gran’pop cartoons were released theatrically in 1940 through Monogram Pictures. Meanwhile, Ideal Pictures Corporation sold non-theatrical Cinecolor prints concurrently with their theatrical exhibition. 

[28] Paul Fennell, interview with Milt Gray, December 7, 1977. Unpublished.

[29] Van Nuys, California, City Directory, 1939, p. 145. Courtesy: Ancestry. 

[30] Mark Mayerson. “Al Eugster’s Journal, The Second Fleischer Period: 1939-1942.” Unpublished. 

[31] Ibid. 

[32] Bradbury autobiography. https://jbrad.org/autobiog.html

[33] The extant test reel sampled Bob’s scenes of Mr. Creeper (sc. 19, dated April 28, 1941), and Buzz, the bee scout (scs. 55 and 57, dated January 6 and 7, 1941). As it’s presented, Wickersham’s pencil animation went into “clean-up” before the drawings were transferred to ink and paint. Courtesy: Jane Fleischer Reid. 

[34] Mark Mayerson, “Al Eugster’s Journal, The Second Fleischer Period: 1939-1942.” Unpublished.