alexander hume anderson jr. (september 5, 1920 – october 22, 2010) was an american cartoonist. he began working summer vacations at the terrytoons studio in 1938, and later pitched a limited-animation cartoon series made for television, but terrytoons and its distributor 20th century fox declined, seeing television as a threat to theatrical cartoons.
he and jay ward, a childhood friend, formed television arts productions to pitch cartoon ideas to television, and their pilot package, the comic strips of television, was test-marketed in 1948.
crusader rabbit, with the rabbit and his sidekick rags the tiger, was the first animated series produced specifically for television. nbc declined to broadcast it, but allowed the supervising producer jerry fairbanks to sell it in national syndication, and affiliates including stations in new york and los angeles took it for local showings. the first serial, "crusader vs. the state of texas", aired on knbh in los angeles from august 1, 1950, and production of the 195 episodes ended in 1951. anderson was director, producer and story writer and one of the artists; local reruns continued into the 1960s.
after further cartoon ideas failed to sell, anderson became an art director at a san francisco advertising agency while ward moved to los angeles to sell a bullwinkle series. in the 1990s anderson received a settlement and a court order acknowledging him as "the creator of the first version of the characters of rocky, bullwinkle and dudley," which had been copyrighted in ward's name alone; he had no credit on the rocky and bullwinkle show ward produced.
related profiles; Paul Terry, Bill Melendez, John Kricfalusi
sources; wikipedia: alex anderson (cartoonist), wikipedia: crusader rabbit, wikipedia: jay ward, wikipedia: terrytoons
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