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J Troplong "Jay" Ward (September 20, 1920 – October 12, 1989) was an American creator and producer of animated television cartoons. He is known for producing animated series based on characters such as Crusader Rabbit, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, Peabody and Sherman, Hoppity Hooper, George of the Jungle, Tom Slick and Super Chicken. His company, Jay Ward Productions, also designed the trademark characters for Cap'n Crunch, Quisp and Quake breakfast cereals and made commercials for those products, among others.
Click to view Quisp TV CommercialClick to view Captain Crunch TV Commercial
Early life and career
Jay Ward was born in Berkeley, California, and earned an undergraduate degree at the University there. He also received an MBA from Harvard University. His first chosen career was real estate. Even when his animation company was at the height of its success, he continued to own his own real estate firm as a "fallback" business.
Animation career
Ward moved into the infant medium of television with the help of his childhood friend, animator Alex Anderson. Anderson was the nephew of Terrytoons founder Paul Terry, and had unsuccessfully tried to sell Terry a concept for a cartoon series made specifically for the new medium. Together, Ward and Anderson took the character, Crusader Rabbit, to NBC and pioneering TV-program distributor Jerry Fairbanks. They put together a pilot film, The Comic Strips of Television, featuring Crusader; a parody of Sherlock Holmes named "Hamhock Bones"; and a bumbling Mountie named Dudley Do-Right.
NBC and Fairbanks were unimpressed with all but Crusader Rabbit (though Dudley would make his appearance, finally, 10 years later). Crusader Rabbit premiered in 1949 and ended its initial run in 1952. Adopting a serialized, mock-melodrama format, the series followed the adventures of Crusader and his dim-witted sidekick Rags the tiger. It was, in form and content, much like the series that would later gain Ward fame, Rocky and His Friends.
Ward and Anderson, through a series of legal maneuvers, lost the rights to the character, and a new color Crusader series under a different producer premiered in 1956. An unsold series idea from his Crusader Rabbit days would eventually earn Ward a permanent place in animation history. Taking place in a TV studio in the North Woods, the series featured a cast of eccentrics such as newsman Oski Bear and two minor characters named Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Bullwinkle, described in the script treatment as a "French-Canadian moose." This was the genesis of what would become The Bullwinkle Show and later, Rocky and His Friends, when NBC gave Rocky's sidekick top billing. Premiering on ABC in 1959 (and moving to NBC two years later) the series reached a level of sophistication in its humor rarely seen in cartoons before. Puns reached new heights (or depths) of shamelessness: in a "Fractured Fairy Tales" featuring Little Jack Horner, upon pulling out the plum, Jack announced, "Lord, what foods these morsels be!" Self referential humor was another trademark: in one episode, the breathless announcer (played by William Conrad) gave away the villain's plans, prompting the villain to grab the announcer from off screen, bind and gag him, and deposit him visibly within the scene. It skewered popular culture mercilessly, taking on such subjects as advertising, college sports, the Cold War, and television itself. The hapless duo from Frostbite Falls, Minnesota blundered into unlikely adventures much as Crusader and Rags had before them, pursued by "no-goodnik" spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale, perennially under orders to "keel moose and squirrel."
Publicity hound
Ward fought many heated battles over content with the network and sponsor, but had little fear of censorship or lawsuits. In fact, he begged organizations to sue him, quipping, "We need the publicity."
An eccentric and proud of it, Ward was known for pulling an unusual publicity stunt that happened to coincide with a major national crisis. Jay Ward bought an island in the area near his home and dubbed it "Moosylvania," based upon the home of his most famous TV character Bullwinkle. He and publicist Howard Brandy crossed the country in a circus wagon, gathering signatures on a petition for statehood for Moosylvania. They then visited Washington, D.C. and attempted to gain an audience with President John F. Kennedy. Unfortunately, they arrived at the White House just at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and were escorted off the grounds at gunpoint.
Early in his career, Ward was involved in two nearly-fatal incidents. He was run over by a car just outside his office, and later received incorrect medical treatment while hyperventilating on an airplane. He subsequently developed agoraphobia. Ironically, friends and family believe his elaborate pranks and costumes were his way of dealing with his fears.
Trivia
In a running joke tribute to Jay Ward, many of his cartoon characters had the middle initial "J.", presumably standing for "Jay" (although this was never stated explicitly). The creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening, gave the three male members of the Simpson Family (Homer, Bart, and Grandpa) the middle initial "J." as a tribute to Jay Ward cartoons (Homer Jay, Bart Jo-Jo, and Abraham Jasper (Grandpa) Simpson). When Homer's mother Mona, absent for most of the long-running series, was introduced, she also had the middle initial J., though what it stands for is unrevealed.
Matt Groening would repeat this homage with his second series, Futurama, where the main character's name is Phillip J. Fry.
Bullwinkle was named for the owner of a car dealership in Oakland, California which stood on the corner of Claremont and College Aves. There is a Safeway supermarket at this location now.
After his death
Jay Ward died of kidney cancer in Hollywood, California in 1989. He was then interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Jay Ward Productions (now managed by members of his family) is still located across the street from the Chateau Marmont on the Sunset Strip. Until it closed in 2005, the Dudley Do-Right Emporium, which sold souvenirs based on his many characters and was largely staffed by Ward and his family, was on Sunset Boulevard also.
In 2000, he was recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, paid for as part of the publicity for the live-action and animation film The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.
In 2002, Jay Ward Productions established a partnership with Classic Media called Bullwinkle Studios; the partnership produced DVDs of the first two seasons of Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends in 2003 and 2004, and DVD collections of "Best of" segments from the series starting in 2005.
External links
- Jay Ward at the Internet Movie Database
- Shows produced by Jay Ward Productions, also from IMDb
- Bullwinkle Studios
- Rocky & Bullwinkle DVDs Pulled Out of a Hat, a June 2003 article from Video Business
- Frostbite Falls Page extensive fan site, not updated since 2003
- Toonzone
- Jay's album: The Moosylvania Jazz Festival
- Jay Ward's Gravesite
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