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 steamship 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 (Bob Clampett and Freddy Moore among them). 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 had withdrawn the business relationship with his distributor, 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 former 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 venerable 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.

Pegbar Profile: Emery Hawkins

Much of the information in this profile uses John Canemaker's interview with Emery Hawkins, intended to research his book The Animated Raggedy Ann & Andy, as a primary source, unless otherwise noted. This is part one in a series of three posts. 

Emery Otis Hawkins was born April 30, 1912, in Jerome, Arizona, to Charles Thomas Hawkins and Frances Elizabeth Bruce.1 Hawkins remembered that his hometown of Jerome “was on the side of a mountain, and it was honey-combed with mining shafts.” He and his family moved from Jerome to Cottonwood, then to Camp Verde, before settling in Stonewood Lake. For two years, Emery’s father, Charles, was “the all-around cowboy” of Arizona. “Roping, riding, throwing, everything, all of it,” Hawkins explained. “Trick roping, everything. He could play a fiddle and jig and call a dance all at once. He had been a dairyman and a cattleman, done all that.”2

1910s postcard of Jerome, Arizona. 

Hawkins began drawing at two years old, like many young children his age. His mother, Frances, shared his artistic nature, being a painter herself. The other side of his family— ”aunts and things”—also immersed themselves in music and painting. Frances separated from her husband, taking her young son out West to California. On October 11, 1919, Frances remarried to Fred E. Taylor in Los Angeles, relocating to San Diego by 1920.3  A cabinetmaker by trade, Fred “made everything of his own in the days when you couldn’t go out and buy all-electric tools...made all his own, put his motors up, made babbitt bearings for the shafts.”

Hawkins’s love for drawing continued, with his first published work appearing in the Los Angeles Times cartoon section at age 14.4  Hawkins received an education at Fremont “some of the time,” then transferred to North Hollywood High. Meanwhile, the monumental success of Walt Disney’s new sound picture Steamboat Willie inspired many budding artists nationwide to pursue a career working in animated cartoons. The young Hawkins had already dabbled in animation on notebooks and flipbooks. “I had a desk before I ever saw the inside of a studio,” he said. The sixteen-year-old had animated a scene of a clown walking and dancing to prove his capabilities to Disney. “I couldn’t get past the door. They said, ‘We don’t want copy work.’ They didn’t think I did it.”

After graduating high school, Hawkins took his first animation job, starting at Walter Lantz’s studio as an inker. This stint only lasted a couple of months. “I changed all the cels because I didn’t like the way it was animated, so they canned me.” Rearranging the animation during the ink-and-paint process launched a series of mildly subversive acts that would become characteristic of Hawkins throughout his career. Hawkins was aware of this side of his behavior, stating frankly, “Actually, I’ve always been kind of a renegade in the business.”

When Hawkins took his first job in the animation business in the early thirties, he would have worked on cartoons featuring Walter Lantz's flagship character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. 

Image courtesy: Heritage Auctions.

Charles Mintz’s studio produced cartoons featuring Krazy Kat and Scrappy, distributed by Columbia Pictures. Hawkins entered there as early as 1932, working alongside veteran animator Dick Huemer on the Scrappys.5 The timing was fortunate since Hawkins could bypass the position of in-betweener and assistant. “[Huemer] supposedly was going to have me work on stuff, but he wanted to leave. So, he’d come in the morning and make some drawings and give them to me and he’d put one drawing on the board, turn the light out and kill the day, and I’d animate. After a couple of months, I was a regular animator.”

Farewell drawing addressed to Philip Davis (older brother of Arthur Davis), dated March 15, 1933. Hawkins is caricatured and labeled among the group of artists on the far right. 

Image courtesy: Steven Marshall and Sharon Davis.

Shortly after, the studio went into a state of turmoil. The chief animator-directors Huemer, Sid Marcus, Ben Harrison, and Manny Gould participated in a walkout over a salary dispute between Mintz and Columbia.6  Mintz disregarded their demands and granted the remaining artists a promotion in their absence. “[He] turned to all the young guys that were there and said, ‘Look, you’re animators.’ So we all started animating.” After a failed negotiation with Columbia, Huemer left Mintz to work for Disney while Marcus, Harrison, and Gould returned back. Many newly promoted animators returned to assisting, but Hawkins’s status remained intact—he officially became a full-fledged animator.

A short time later, Hawkins left Charles Mintz, regaining his chance to work for Walt Disney. Upon his entrance, he sat next to a young artist named Wolfgang “Woolie” Reitherman.7  However, Mintz contacted Disney and threatened to raid Disney’s animators if they kept Hawkins. Ben Sharpsteen, supervisor of a unit of trainee Disney animators during the early 1930s, informed Hawkins that Mintz was “raising hell.” Emery was forced to leave Disney after only a few days and returned to Mintz. In later years, Hawkins strikingly did not resent Mintz for the maneuver: “[Mintz was] actually a nice person. I mean they broke me in, gave me the opportunity and I owed them something.”

Hawkins continued to sharpen his skills at Mintz, animating on cartoons directed by Art Davis and others by Sid Marcus. Then, in 1934, Mintz decided to bring color into his cartoons, introducing a series of Color Rhapsodies. (Due to Disney’s exclusive rights to three-strip Technicolor, the early Rhapsodies were filmed in the two-color process; two-color used red and green color separations, not allowing a full spectrum of hues, compared to Disney’s Silly Symphonies. However, by 1936, Disney’s contract with Technicolor had expired, and the Rhapsodies were permitted to use the full three-strip color process.) 

Hawkins also animated on a series of Technicolor cartoons featuring Billy De Beck’s popular comic strip character Barney Google, each directed by Marcus, released in 1935 and 1936. Today, these cartoons only survive in black-and-white home movie extracts and redrawn colorizations, without sound, due to King Features’ decree for the film studios to destroy any adaptation of their properties after a ten-year period. One of the most notable Color Rhapsodies with Hawkins’s involvement was Art Davis’s The Little Match Girl (released November 1937); its daring retelling of the story earned the film an Academy Award nomination.

Model sheet of The Little Match Girl, attributed to Emery Hawkins. 

Image courtesy: Howard Lowery Auctions.

 

Compilation of scenes animated by Hawkins at Charles Mintz’s studio. Clips from: LET’S RING DOORBELLS (Art Davis/1935), SCRAPPY’S BOY SCOUTS (Art Davis/1936), A BOY AND HIS DOG (Sid Marcus/1936), MOTHER HEN’S HOLIDAY (Sid Marcus/1937), SCARY CROWS (Sid Marcus/1937), THE AIR HOSTESS (Sid Marcus/1937), THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL (Sid Marcus/1937), THE FOOLISH BUNNY (Sid Marcus/1938), WINDOW SHOPPING (Sid Marcus/1938). Also included are excerpts from three Barney Google cartoons, each directed by Sid Marcus: TETCHED IN THE HEAD (1935), PATCH MAH BRITCHES (1935), and SPARK PLUG (1936). Since these cartoons only survive in silent versions, an instrumental piano cover (by Marion Abbott) of the hit 1920s tune “Barney Google” plays as accompaniment. Thanks to Mark Kausler for his input.

In the summer of 1937, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) terminated its contract with producer-directors Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising, and constructed an animation department of their own. Metro arranged plans to produce a series of 13 cartoons based on Rudolf Dirks’ comic strip, The Captain and the Kids.8  By October 15, MGM had hired a large staff of directors, storymen, animators, layout, and background artists for their new animation division.9  A few days later, The Film Daily announced Hawkins’s arrival, along with two other animators, Ray Abrams and Leonard Sebring.10

Model sheet of Der Captain, drawn by Charlie Thorson. 

In the Captain and the Kids cartoons, MGM initiated three directorial units headed by Bill Hanna, Bob Allen, and Friz Freleng. Freleng’s first cartoon for MGM, Poultry Pirates (released April 1938), required Hawkins to animate a small six-foot scene of a baby chick carrying a large tomato. As Freleng recounted, “Well, by the time he got through, it was up to thirty feet of the most gorgeous animation. He had that little bird going up hills and losing his balance and trying to hold on to the tomato—everything—and no repeats. It was so beautiful I cut some other scenes to keep it in the picture!”11

While at MGM, Hawkins married Mary Angeline Felton on March 8, 1938. Lovell Norman, another MGM artist, is listed as a witness in their marriage certificate. The two had previously worked together at Mintz—Hawkins personally recommended Lovell Norman for a job in animation there earlier in 1934, giving him his start in the business.12  Norman later became the chief sound editor at MGM in the forties and fifties. (Three months later, Hawkins returned the favor, listed as a witness in his friend’s marriage certificate in June 1938.13)

Freleng’s sixth cartoon in production, Honduras' Hurricane (released October 1938), showcased frenetic energy that greatly surpassed Hawkins's previous work. Emery animated a sequence with a pugnacious baby eagle whirling around, throwing a flurry of punches at the titular prize rooster. He also handled the following scene of the rooster dragging his glove with a large anvil stuffed inside, conveying different expressions of sheer delight, ready to defeat his opponent before he is delivered another punch. Hawkins continued working with Freleng at MGM, but also animated for another supervisor during his brief tenure there: the notable comic strip artist Milt Gross. Gross took over as head of the MGM story department by April 1938, creating cartoons featuring his characters Count Screwloose and J. R. the Wonder Dog.14  However, Gross clashed with various staffers at MGM—especially producer Fred Quimby, which led to Gross’ departure.15  Only two Count Screwloose titles were completed—Jitterbug Follies and Wanted: No Master (both released 1939.)

Meanwhile, Hawkins dealt with confrontations of his own at MGM. While he enjoyed working with Freleng, he “got into a fight over his way of doing things.” Rather than supervising animators’ scenes by having them flip through their drawings—the traditional method for many—Freleng often insisted on shooting rough pencil tests and asking for revisions after viewing them.16  This working method aggravated many animators at MGM since it interfered with their deadlines and footage quotas. Displeased with Freleng’s approach to directing, Hawkins quit MGM, leaving to work for Walt Disney once again.

Scenes animated by Hawkins at MGM, in production order. Clips excerpted from POULTRY PIRATES (Freleng/1938 – prod. 5), A DAY AT THE BEACH (Freleng/1938 – prod. 10), HONDURAS’ HURRICANE (Freleng/1938 – prod. 14), PETUNIA NATIONAL PARK (Freleng/1939 – prod. 15), JITTERBUG FOLLIES (Gross/1939 – prod. 18).

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1 Arizona, U.S., Birth Certificates, 1880-1935. Courtesy: Ancestry. Charles and Frances’s marriage certificate, dated November 10, 1910, lists his mother as “Frances E. Bruce.”. Arizona, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1865-1972. Courtesy: Ancestry. She is otherwise listed as “Elizabeth Bruce” in Emery’s marriage certificate, dated March 6, 1938. California, County Marriages, 1850-1952. Courtesy: FamilySearch.

2  Emery's birth certificate lists Charles's occupation as a cowboy. Arizona, U.S., Birth Certificates, 1880-1935. Courtesy: Ancestry. His draft registration card, dated September 12, 1918, mentions his residence at Camp Verde in Yavapai County, Arizona, working as a “cattle manger [sic].” U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Courtesy: Ancestry.

3  California, U.S., County Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1849-1980; 1920 US Federal Census, San Diego, District 0251, lines 14-16. Emery and Frances’s surnames are listed as “Taylor” in the census.

4 “Taos Cartoonist Animates Life.” The Taos News, January 7, 1982. Hawkins possibly submitted his first cartoon to “The Junior Times,” a Sunday supplement in The Los Angeles Times that encouraged young children to submit fiction, poetry, and artwork. Future animators like Bob Clampett and Fred Moore regularly drew illustrations for "The Junior Times." However, in researching the “Junior Times” pages issued in 1926 (and early 1927), when Emery was fourteen years old, there is no evidence of any artwork with his signature, regardless if Emery used both Hawkins or Taylor as surnames. The 1930 census lists Hawkins’s family in Los Angeles, with a Herman C. Platt as an occupant living in their residence. Again, Emery’s last name is noted as “Taylor.” 1930 US Federal Census, Los Angeles, San Antonio, District 1372, lines 26-29.

5 The 1932 Graham city directory lists his occupation as a cartoonist, though it does not list his place of employment. It is plausible that Hawkins started at Mintz that year.

6 Joe Adamson, interview with Dick Huemer, July 28, 1968, transcription in Recollections of Richard Huemer Oral History Transcript, p. 45.

7 John Canemaker, Walt Disney's Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation, p. 33. In his interview, Hawkins did not clarify his status as an artist working for Disney. Reitherman was hired at the studio on May 21, 1933, so this event might have occurred after.

8 The Film Daily, June 24, 1937, pp. 1 and 3.

9 The Film Daily, October 15, 1937, p. 12.

10 The Film Daily, October 22, 1937, p. 7.

11 John Canemaker, The Animated Raggedy Ann and Andy, p. 85.

12 Kingman Daily Miner, September 2, 1992, pp. 1 and 3.

13 Marriage license of Lovell Burch Norman and Marguerite Estelle Reese, dated June 26, 1938. California, County Marriages, 1850-1952. Courtesy: FamilySearch.

14 The Film Daily, April 30, 1938, p. 2.

15 Milton Gray, interview with George Gordon, January 4, 1977; quoted in Michael Barrier, Hollywood Cartoons, p. 290.

16 Michael Barrier, Hollywood Cartoons, pg. 472.