Saturday, August 1, 2009

Life On the Radio Wave






Here's some single-panel comic strips by "Pinto" Colvig from 1922. This was when radio was really beginning to hit BIG: it was brand-new technology - exciting, unknown, and which happened to fall nicely under that huge umbrella of "things that men like to do" (building / tinkering / climbing / mechanical / electronic stuff)...

Amazing how much work people would do in order to get a little free entertainment!

This creator, Vance DeBar "Pinto" Colvig, was a newspaper cartoonist when he wasn't joined up with the circus, or playing off-key clarinet on the vaudeville circuit. He worked on creating some of the earliest animated cartoons, was the voice of Walt Disney characters Goofy and Pluto and the ("Snow White") dwarves Grumpy and Sleepy and ("Three Little Pigs") Practical Pig, some of the Munchkins in "The Wizard Of Oz", Gabby in "Gulliver's Travels", and Bluto in "Popeye The Sailor". The Disney artists even used his overly-expressive face as models for the animated characters!

He co-wrote the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf".

He was the original "voice" of Jack Benny's Maxwell automobile, the hiccuping horse on Dennis Day, and several voices on Amos 'n' Andy.

He was also the ORIGINAL Bozo The Clown.

A lifelong smoker (Shades of Bob Bell and Krusty the Clown), he was one of the pioneers in advocating warning labels about cancer risk on cigarette packages.

He died of lung cancer in 1967.

No comments: