August 1, 1949…The First Made For TV Cartoon Debuts

August 1, 1949…The First Made For TV Cartoon Debuts

“Crusader Rabbit” was the first animated series produced specifically for television. The limited animation concept was test marketed in 1948, while the initial episode (below), aired on KNBH (now KNBC) in Los Angeles on August 1, 1949.

“Crusader Rabbit” was the brainchild of Alex Anderson, the nephew of animator Paul Terry. Terry, a former newspaper cartoonist, founded animation studio Terrytoons, where he created “Mighty Mouse” in 1942. More importantly, Terry pioneered the techniques of limited animation for television, allowing his studio to compete with better-funded rivals like Disney.

When Anderson saw a television for the first time, he realized his uncle’s cheap, fast techniques might make it feasible to move animation into the new medium. Terry was uninterested with Anderson’s pitch of an animated TV show…or, more accurately, worried that Terrytoons’ theatrical distribution partner Fox would drop them if they started doing business in the threatening new medium, so Anderson returned to Berkeley and set out on his own.

While working with his uncle at Terrytoons, Anderson had pitched a character called “Donkey Hote” that was passed on by animators who didn’t want to draw donkeys. Anderson changed the character to an easier-to-draw rabbit, but kept the idea of Quixote, and “Crusader Rabbit” was born.

Since the character was unnaturally bold for a rabbit, he paired him with an unnaturally cowardly tiger named Rags. His uncle let him keep the characters for his new venture.

To get Crusader and Rags on television, he teamed up with Jay Ward, a classmate and friend of his going back to grammar school. Ward had returned West from Harvard Business School with plans to get into real estate but was hit by a truck on his new venture’s first day. Anderson approached him while he was convalescing with the idea that they could form an animation studio together, Ward handling the business and Anderson handling the animation.

The studio they formed was Television Arts Producers. Producer Jerry Fairbanks originally landed the show at NBC, but the network eventually passed, which meant Fairbanks sold it piecemeal to affiliates. The first one to bite was KNBH in Los Angeles (now KNBC), and on Aug. 1, 1949, audiences were introduced to Crusader Rabbit and Rags the Tiger.

Of course, Anderson couldn’t afford the kind of animation that made the Disney shorts work. Each episode is no more than five minutes long, with 10 to 15 episodes making up a single crusade, and, frame to frame, looks more like a comic strip than motion animation.

In some markets, “Crusader Rabbit” was dropped into shows like Romper Room, so, because there was no guarantee that audiences would see the episodes in order, each episode begins with gradually longer and longer recaps, and by the end of a crusade, more than half of the show is recaps. Which, of course, means that half of the show was already animated.

After 195 episodes, the show collapsed in lawsuits: Jerry Fairbanks had borrowed production money from NBC and not repaid it; NBC foreclosed on the show without letting Anderson or Ward know. Another studio bought Television Arts and, with it, the rights to the character, producing more episodes (in color, this time) in 1956.
As Crusader Rabbit collapsed, Anderson and Ward created two new characters that would later meet with lasting success: “Rocky and Bullwinkle”.

Rocky and Bullwinkle’s future, like Crusader Rabbit’s, was litigious: Ward registered them for copyright in his name alone, and Anderson had to sue his heirs to be recognized as the co-creator.

“Rocky and Bullwinkle”, like many shows to follow, was hailed for being ahead of its time in its use of sophisticated jokes, but “Crusader Rabbit” got there first. Without it, animated shows aimed entirely at adults, might never have come about. -Bobby Ellerbee

Jay Ward’s Crusader Rabbit – Crusade 1 / Episode 1. Like to see more?

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