When I was a little kid, eight or nine years old back in the day, there were no cartoons on television on Saturdays. There was no television. The parents would drop us off at the theater, and we were out of their hair for four or five hours watching cowboy movies and cartoons. Tex Avery’s were my favorite. When I’d see Droopy Dog come up, I knew we were going to see a very, very funny cartoon. And I’d just think that’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Wow. A whole room of kids laughing like crazy—and to make fun of the adult world, which we were all kind of scared of at that time.
I had a lot of heroes, but Tex was one of the first. Born in Taylor, Texas, in 1908, Frederick Bean “Tex” Avery took a mail order drawing course after graduating high school, then moved to Los Angeles to learn the animation business. He worked at Universal Studios, Warner Bros., MGM, Walter Lantz, and Hanna-Barbera, and his wild visual gag style has been echoed in many modern cartoons including The Ren & Stimpy Show, Cow and Chicken, and The Fairly OddParents.
By the time I met Tex in the late 1960s, he was working on some of his last cartoons and TV commercials for Cascade Studios. The L. A. County Museum of Art was presenting a showing of a dozen or so of his best cartoons, and following the screening he spoke to the gathering. His speech wasn’t long-winded, and I heard his Texas accent, of course. “The thing about being a director,” he said, “is that you don’t have to have all the good ideas… you just have to recognize them when they show up.” I had my picture taken with Tex outside the auditorium, and I still have it framed in my work area.
A few years later I made a 6-minute cartoon with a grant I got from AFI. The story followed the lyrics of a sardonic song by Ray Stevens entitled “Mr. Businessman.” The cartoon had a lot of topical gags done in that wild Tex Avery style. I knew the studio he worked at, and I got the phone number and called down there. The receptionist put me right through. I mentioned that I’d seen him and taken a picture with him at the museum, and I had a cartoon that I’d stolen a lot of his gags for. I told him I’d like to show it to him. “Sure,” he said. “Can you come over tomorrow? I’ll set up a screening room.”
While we were watching it, at one point I said, “You recognize that gag?” He said, “It’s funny.” I said, “I stole it from you.” It was fun to show it to him, but I also wanted him to see it because I was looking for a little work. After watching the short, when we were back in his office, Tex said he enjoyed the film and he’d like to use me for animation when he had a chance. I took one of my business cards from my wallet and handed it to him. Tex said thanks and lifted the two-foot by three-foot blotter on his desk and threw the card onto the top of the hundred or so cards that were already there.
Tex passed a few years later. I never got a call, but I’m still very glad I got to spend a little time with him—like when Droopy Dog would look at the audience with a dour expression and say, “You know what? I’m happy.”
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