Cartoon Couples

"All the world loves a lover" is a quotation attributed to many. There are lots of romantic pairs -- real and putative -- in cartoons. Think of Donald and Daisy Duck, Porky and Petunia Pig, even Lucy Van Pelt and Schroeder. OK, that relationship isn't mutual.

But there have been a sizable number of real cartoon folks who have been involved not only with cartoons, but with each other! Apparently, animation doesn't have the taboo against "fraternizing" that other professions have.

Here, in no particular order, are some loving couples whose halves had something in common: they were both members of the cartoon community!



John Halas and Joy Batchelor: In 1936, John Halas (born Janos Halasz in Hungary) came to England, hired by British Animated Films to animate and direct Music Man, the first British Technicolor cartoon. He and co-worker Joy Batchelor met on the job while this cartoon was in production. In 1940, they formed their own studio, Halas and Batchelor Cartoon Films; the following year, they married. The studio's output was tremendous, with Halas usually producing and Batchelor directing. The famous "H & B" partnership ended only with Batchelor's death in 1991.


Peter and Joan Foldes: In 1952, this British couple produced, directed, animated -- and wrote! -- Animated Genesis, an amateur production which became the first cartoon to win a British Film Academy Award. The two won notoriety in 1956 for A Short Vision... a vision of an apocalyptic nightmare. It was the first British cartoon to be X-rated (adults only) in Great Britain under the British Board of Film Censors classification system. (Like John Halas, Peter Foldes was born in Hungary.)


Walter Lantz and Grace Stafford: Their marriage was the second for both, and it was long and happy. The two were on their honeymoon in 1940 at Sherwood Lake, California. They kept hearing a knocking on the roof. Lantz went out to take a look, and spotted a woodpecker drilling holes in the asbestos shingles! Back at his cartoon studio, he tols his staff about his noisy honeymoon...and Woody Woodpecker was born.

Following an out-of-court settlement to end a legal dispute with Mel Blanc (the first "Woody"), Grace Stafford played the voice of Woody in 165 cartoons from 1951 until the end of the 1980s (she died in 1992; Lantz died in 1994). To avoid accusations of nepotism, she was billed as Grace Stafford, not Lantz. During her first two years of voicing Woody, she was uncredited at her request, as she felt children would be "disillusioned" if they knew that Woody was voiced by a woman.


Seymour Kneitel and Ruth Fleischer: Like Halas and Batchelor, this couple met on the job. Seymour, an animator and future director, attended the Art Students League in New York City. In about 1930, he started work for Fleischer Studios, owned by Ruth's father Max. (Ruth was working at the studios for a while.) Seymour and Ruth were married in 1931. Ruth Kneitel continued to supply story ideas for Fleischer Studios and its successor, Famous Studios; according to her son, Tom Kneitel, she supplied several uncredited scripts for Popeye and Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons. Seymour Kneitel died in 1964, Ruth Fleischer Kneitel in 2001. Ruth's sole screen credit was as a writer in Keep The Cool, Baby, a 1967 installment in the GoGo Toons series. (At age 13, she did appear as a chorus girl in the 1920 live-action short Another Bottle, Doctor, directed by Max's brother Dave!)


Jack Mercer and Margie Hines (Heinz): Yes, Mercer (the voice of Fleischer Studios' Popeye) was married to Hines (the voice of Olive Oyl)! Sadly for Popeye fans, the union didn't last. Tom Kneitel recalls: "While the studio was in Florida, they got married. Mercer went off to World War II military service soon after, and the marriage promptly disintegrated." Hines also helped provide the voice of Betty Boop. Mercer remarried; he died in 1984.


Paul and Linda McCartney: The story of the marriage of Paul (his first) and Linda (her second) is known to just about all of us. Not so well-known is their involvement in animation.

In 1978, their company MPL Communications (MPL stands for "McCartney Paul Linda") released Oriental Nightfish: "The Oriental Nightfish is everything that we know and all that we cannot comprehend." Paul and Linda were the producers, while Linda and Wings composed music; Linda also provided vocal talent.

Seaside Woman (Boreweald/Dragon Productions/MPL Communications/ITC, 1980): Paul was the executive producer, while he and Linda helped provide the music for this short film, which featured a little black girl and her parents. It won the Golden Palm for Best Short Film at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival, and second prize for Best Short Animated Film in Zagreb (1980). As well, it was nominated for the BAFTA Film Award for Best Animated Film in 1981.

This musical cartoon was produced to accompany the record "Seaside Woman" by "Suzy and the Red Stripes" -- a pseudonym for Wings, with Linda as the lead vocalist. "Seaside Woman" was the first song written by Linda, who was inspired by her delight in being exposed to the Caribbean lifestyle. Paul revealed that during the cartoon's screening at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1980, he and Linda sneaked in unnannounced to watch their film, and that the applause afterward was one of their fondest memories.

Paul and Linda were executive producers of Rupert and the Frog Song (MPL Communications, 1984). This cartoon was based on characters in the Rupert Bear comic strip. Originally intended to be a feature-length film, it was released as a short instead. It introduced an original song by Paul, "We'll All Stand Together." Paul voiced the roles of Rupert Bear, Edward, Bill and Boy Frog, while Linda was also a voice in the cartoon.

The two guest-starred in Lisa the Vegetarian, a 1995 episode of The Simpsons, in which a trip to a local petting zoo leads to confrontations at the dinner table when Lisa decides to become a vegetarian. In real life, Linda persuaded Paul to "go veggie."


Gene Deitch and Zdenka Deitchova: The two were married -- to other people when they met in Czechoslovakia! Deitch, a former TerryToons producer, moved to Prague in 1960 to work with William L. Snyder at Rembrandt Studios. He directed a dozen Tom and Jerry cartoons for MGM, as well as Krazy Kat and Popeye for cartoons for King Features. Gene and Zdenka still live in Prague. In 2000, Zdenka was named the chief of the Kratky Film animation studio in Prague, where she had worked as a producer for over 55 years!


John and Faith Hubley: John (formerly of Disney Studios and UPA) and Faith (nee Faith Elliott) were innovative producer-director-writers at Storyboard Films, as well as at their own outfit, Hubley Studios. At Storyboard, their often politically liberal releases included the Oscar-winning The Hole (1962), as well as Venice Film Festival winner The Hat (1963), which marked the film debut of British comedian Dudley Moore. After John's death in 1977, Faith continued to make animated films for Hubley Studios until her own death in 2001. Their son Mark has been an ink-and-paint artist, while daughters Georgia and Emily provided unwitting soundtracks for their parents' films when they were recorded at play; in recent years, Emily has animated a number of films on her own.


Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman: Personal as well as professional partners, this married couple directed and wrote the screenplay for last year's American Splendor, a critically acclaimed live-action film with animated sequences. (Berman received screen credit ahead of her husband on this, their first feature film.) Among their many honors for this comedic "biography" of comic-book artist Harvey Pekar is an Oscar nomination for "Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published." We'll see what happens!



"One nice thing eez, the game of love eez never called on account of darkness." -- Final line by Pepe Le Pew in Touché And Go (1957)