Many consider Jay Ward's Crusader Rabbit to be the first cartoon produced for television. It was originally presented to Paul Terry of Terrytoons (Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, Deputy Dawg). Terry rejected, and the cartoon was then produced by Jay Ward, who would later make a name for himself in animation history as the man behind such great cartoons as Rocky and Bullwinkle and George of the Jungle.

I mentioned these old commercials created by Jay Ward Productions (Rocky and Bullwinkle, George of the Jungle) over on our sexy sister site Ad Jab, but I thought you folks would enjoy them as well. It wasn't unusual for cartoon characters from television to appear in ads for cereal back in the day: General Mills used Rocky and Bullwinkle in their ads (I know for certain they were in ads for Cheerios, I'm sure there were others), and Kellogg's and Hanna-Barbera had a partnership as well (here's some examples, also from Ad Jab).

For over thirty years, Dina Babbitt, once a teenage girl imprisoned in Auschwitz, has been trying to reclaim paintings she made while in the concentration camp. Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor, took a liking to Babbitt's artwork and asked her to paint portraits of the gypsies on which he was performing his horrific experiments. It was, in fact, these paintings that kept Babbitt alive. After the war, Babbitt came to California and worked as an animator for both Warner Bros. and Jay Ward Productions. When it was revealed that seven of her Auschwitz paintings were on display at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland, she tried to get them back, but the museum has consistently refused, claiming the paintings are not personal works of art, but rather documentation of the events that occurred at Auschwitz created under the orders of Dr. Mengele. The artistic community, including former DC Comics artist Joe Kubert, have rallied around Babbitt's cause, as have congresswoman Shelley Berkley, and a former director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Efforts to help the 83 year old Babbitt reclaim her artwork were stepped up recently due to a heart condition that is threatening her health, though I would assume that if she were to pass away before the issue is resolved her family would continue the fight.

[via Toon Zone]

A new cartoon version of George of the Jungle based on the movie version starring Brendan Fraser and not on the original Jay Ward cartoon is currently in production with a launch date set for Fall of 2007. I hate to admit it, but George of the Jungle was before my time and I never saw a single episode of it, though I am a big fan of Ward so I'm sure I would have loved it. While the cartoon won't be based on the original, the look of the characters themselves will be based on Ward's designs. The Cartoon Network series, like a lot of cartoons these days, will be done in Flash.

[via Cartoon Brew]