Larz Bourne, Izzy Klein & Dan Danglo at the Famous Studio

I received an email to me from my friend Dan Danglo. I want to share it with you, and Dan said it was OK.

Some background: Dan Danglo was in the service in WWII, where he was the cartoonist for the 4th Air Force HQ newspaper. After the war, Brooklyn-born Dan was back on East Coast, penciling comics and doing the Wednesday afternoon gag magazine rounds in NYC. He sold his first cartoon to cartoon editor Lawrence Lariar at Liberty Magazine.

Soon, Dan's career became one of animated pictures, specifically: Felix the Cat and Terrytoons. Dan's ease and flow in his characterizations led to storyboarding and design work for the prolific studio for many years.

Dan is still working. He's now back to his old gig: selling gag cartoons! Cartoonists never retire -- not so long as there's a pencil and a piece of paper.

But, I digress. Let's go back to the 1950s and Famous Studios.

Sometimes, you hear names -- but so rarely do you get a chance to attach a face to them. Above is a rare photograph from Dan's collection. I added the hyperlinks to his description. Here's Dan:

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Mike:

This photo was taken in the 1950s, in the Famous studio story dept. I shared an office with Larz Bourne, (the tall gentleman in the sweater... who had started in the business in the early Fleischer days..went on to create Deputy Dawg..and later story editor at Hanna Barbera...The Gentleman in the middle, in the vest, was I. (Izzy) Klein...One of the earliest cartoonist on the New Yorker...Disney animator..and story man in the next office..and the youth with them used to be me....

Pretty illustrious company. Didn’t realize at the time how lucky I was...Still am, being a member of the Berndt Toast Gang.....

Dan Danglo

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OK, some further reading if you're interested:

Gene Deitch calls Larz Bourne "Terrytoons' best traditional gagman and storyboard artist" in his HOW TO SUCCEED IN ANIMATION essays at Blogspot.


An essay on Paramount/Famous Studios titles from the Cartoon Research team here.

Above: One of Dan's storyboards from his site.

Thanks, Dan, for sharing this with all of us!