Artwork for the Winnipeg Falcons hockey club.
Charles Thorson was a Canadian political cartoonist, animator, children's book writer and illustrator. He designed the advertising character Punkinhead (of the Eaton retailer company) and the road safety adviser Elmer the Safety Elephant. From the mid-1930s until the mid-1940s, Thorson worked for several major Hollywood cartoon studios, including Disney, MGM, Warner Brothers, Fleischer's, Terrytoons, Screen Gems and George Pal. He developed a reputation for designing cute, appealing characters, like Little Hiawatha, Snow White (Disney), Sniffles (Looney Tunes) and Popeye's quadruplet nephews (Fleischers). He also redesigned characters later recognizable as Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. After retiring from the film industry, Thorson started a career as children's book writer and illustrator. He wrote and drew two books about little Native Americans, 'Hiawatha' (1937) and 'Keeko' (1947/1952). Despite his notable graphic work, Thorson was an unsung hero during his active career, and his notability only rose after his death. However, he laid the foundations for Disney's long-running comic series 'Hiawatha'.
Early life and career
Charles Thorson was born in 1890 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, as Karl Gústaf Stefánsson. His parents were of Icelandic descent and had moved to Winnipeg three years before his birth. His father was active in politics. In 1912, he moved with his family to the town of Gimili, where he became mayor. Thorson's brother, Joseph Thorson, later also gained fame as a politician. Charles Thorson's earliest cartoons ran in the Heimskringla and Logberg, two Icelandic-language newspapers circulating in Winnipeg. He also published political cartoons in The Winnipeg Free Press and the Grain Growers Guide. In between, Thorson designed merchandising promoting the hockey team the Winnipeg Falcons, who won a gold medal at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium.
An early editorial cartoon by Charles Thorson for the Grain Growers Guide.
Punkinhead
From 1914 on, Thorson was chief illustrator for the T. Eaton Company, a department store in Toronto, Ontario. Back then, photography was expensive, so retailers let professional illustrators like Thorson draw the products in their catalog. One day, Eaton asked its employees to invent an animal mascot to promote the upcoming Christmas season. Thorson created a little toy bear with blond hair, which he named Punkinhead. In a children's book, the character debuted in 'Punkinhead: The Sad Little Bear' (1948), drawn by Thorson. Much like Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer, Punkinhead is sad at Christmas, since he is "not like the others" and therefore bullied. But like Rudolph, he uses his unusual hair to his advantage, when Santa Claus needs a bear who can wear a clown hat during a parade at Eaton. Since Punkinhead's hair keeps the hat into place, he has a happy Christmas after all.
Punkinhead inspired children's song records, clothing, furniture, decorator plates, wrist watches, toys and cutlery. In 1947, he also appeared in Toronto's Santa Claus parade. Bill Isbister wrote a novelty song, 'The Punkinhead Song' (1952). Every holiday season, a new 'Punkinhead' book was released for the young visitors of Eaton's store, all illustrated by Thorson. Although the bear was reproduced on hundreds of best-selling products, as a staff artist Thorson hardly saw a dime of the profits. When the company organized a party at the Fort Garry Hotel, he got so drunk that he started a fight with an Eaton executive, and was promptly fired.
'Punkinhead, The Sad Little Bear' (1948).
Disney
In 1935, Thorson took a trip to Los Angeles, taking his portfolio with him. He applied with the Walt Disney Studios, where Walt Disney was so impressed that he hired him on the spot. As a character designer in the story department, Thorson was particularly skilled in portraying cute characters with baby proportions, like the mice in 'The Country Cousin' (1936), the quintuplets in the Pluto cartoon 'Pluto's Quin-puplets' (1937), the little Native American Hiawatha in 'Little Hiawatha' (1937) and the three toddlers in 'Wynken, Blynken and Nod' (1938). This was the appeal Disney strove for and so Thorson received the daunting task of designing Snow White for his upcoming animated feature 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' (1937). In the mid-1930s, most animators only had experience with anthropomorphic animals or goofy-looking cartoon characters. But Disney wanted a believable, realistically-drawn young woman for 'Snow White'. To reach that goal, his animators received academic training, while trying to improve their skills. Thorson based Snow White's physical appearance on his girlfriend Kristín Sölvadóttir, who worked as a waitress at the Weevil Café on Sargent Avenue. The end result was impressive and Snow White easily won viewers' appeal.
However, Thorson received no credit and little payment. As a forty-year old man, he was considerably older than most of his colleagues, including Disney himself, so he had no qualms about speaking up. After a few arguments, he wrote a satirical poem about 'Uncle Walt' and left it behind, burning all bridges. Thorson held a lifelong grudge against Disney, especially since his name wasn't mentioned in the credits of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'.
Harman & Ising/MGM
In 1938, Thorson worked at the Harman-Ising Studio, before moving to MGM's animation studio within the same year. For MGM's adaptation of Rudolph Dirks' newspaper comic 'The Captain and the Kids', directed by Friz Freleng, he redesigned the characters. The animated series didn't catch on and Freleng soon returned to his previous studio, Warners, with Thorson following his example.
Warner Brothers
Between 1938 and 1939, Thorson worked at Warner Brothers' animation studio, first in Tex Avery's and later in Chuck Jones' unit. Around this time, the studio was using a trickster rabbit in some of their shorts, who still lacked an official name and well-defined personality. Since the animator Bugs Hardaway had drawn the first prototype, the crew referred to the animal as "Bugs' bunny". Hardaway and Cal Dalton used the rabbit in a few additional shorts, redesigned by Thorson into a more appealing character. Thorson also redesigned the buffoon Egghead into Bugs' nemesis Elmer Fudd. They were first paired together in Chuck Jones' 'Elmer's Candid Camera' (1940), but lacked chemistry. It wasn't until Avery placed Bugs and Elmer under his direction in 'A Wild Hare' (1940) that their personalities started to shine and became the basis for a long-running series. For Chuck Jones, Thorson also designed the pygmy boy Inki in his 'Inki and the Mynah Bird' shorts. He also recycled his mice from Disney's 'The Country Mouse' to create Jones' equally charming mouse Sniffles. Yet Thorson left Warners before his five-year contract even approached its first year.
Charles Thorson's design of Bugs Bunny.
Fleischers
In June 1939, Thorson joined The Fleischer Brothers. He worked on their 'Popeye' series, where his most significant contribution were the sailor's four little nephews, Pip-eye, Pup-eye, Poop-eye and Peep-eye. The quadruplets were obviously inspired by Donald Duck's nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, designed by Al Taliaferro. He also worked on the Fleischers' animated adaptation of Johnny Gruelle's children's book characters Raggedy Ann and Andy. Out of all animation studios Thorson ever worked for, he felt most at home at Fleischers. He singled out their 'Stone Age' series as his favorite project. This short-lived animated series featured anachronistic humor starring cavemen and dinosaurs. Although obscure today, it featured many elements that Hanna-Barbera would later use for their far more enduring animated sitcom 'The Flintstones' (1960-1967). Some sources have therefore mistakenly claimed that Thorson worked on 'The Flintstones', which isn't the case.
At the turn of the 1930s into the 1940s, the Fleischers tried to compete with Disney by making two animated features, 'Gulliver's Travels' (1939) and 'Mr. Bug Goes to Town' (1941). For the first movie, Thorson created the passenger pigeon Twinkletoes, whose nickname he borrowed from an American footballer from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers team. The pigeon was a late addition to the movie, which was rushed into theaters for the Christmas season. 'Gulliver's Travels' received mixed reviews from critics and audiences. Even Thorson disliked the final picture and asked to have his name removed from the credits. However, 'Mr. Bug Goes to Town' (1941) was such a flop that the Fleischer Studios went bankrupt and were sold off to Paramount. Thorson decided not to stay and once again sought another studio.
Model sheets for 'Happy Circus', featuring the Barker Bill character.
Terrytoons
In 1942, Thorson found new employment at Paul Terry's studio Terrytoons, where he created a ringmaster, Barker Bill, for the Terrytoons short 'Happy Circus'. This minor character was later used for one of the earliest TV cartoon shows, 'Barker Bill's Cartoon Show' (1953-1955), broadcast on CBS. To promote the show, Terry launched a newspaper comic, 'Barker Bill' (1954-1955), which ran in The Winnipeg Free Press, The Boston Globe and the Greensburg Daily Tribune. However, Thorson had no involvement, as the comic was drawn by Bob Kuwahara.
Between 1942 and 1943, Thorson was also briefly active for Screen Gems, the animation department of Columbia Pictures, followed by employment at George Pal's animation studio (1943-1945), before finally leaving the animation industry and returning to Canada.
Post-war activities
In the mid-1940s, Thorson returned to Winnipeg, settling in Vancouver by 1956. Having left the animation industry, he became an advertising and children's book illustrator. He wrote and drew a children's book of his own, 'Keeko' (Wilcox & Follet Co, Chicago, 1947), about a little Native American boy. 'Keeko' was frequently reprinted and received a sequel, 'Chee-Che and Keeko' (1952), in which the boy teams up with a little woodpecker.
In 1952, Thorson designed Elmer the Safety Elephant, an anthropomorphic elephant who educated children on traffic safety. His design was based on a similar pachyderm, Elmer Elephant, created by Thorson for the Disney cartoon 'Elmer Elephant' (1936) two decades earlier.
'Chee-Chee and Keeko'.
Legacy: Hiawatha
During his time in animation, one of Thorson's most notable designs was the little Native American boy Hiawatha, who starred in Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies cartoon 'Little Hiawatha' (1937), directed by David Hand. The character is presented as the son of the tribe leader of the same name from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's classic epic poem 'The Song of Hiawatha' (1855). In the cartoon, Hiawatha goes out hunting, but fails to catch any prey. Instead, all the forest animals simply laugh at him. Even when he traps a baby rabbit, Hiawatha takes pity on the bunny and spares his life. Later, the boy is attacked by a huge bear, but in gratitude for sparing their lives, the forest animals help him escape. The same year, a children's book version was released, 'Little Hiawatha' (Wilcox & Follet Co., Chicago, 1937), illustrated by Thorson.
While Hiawatha was never featured in a Disney cartoon again, he went on to enjoy a remarkably long career as a comic character. Between 10 November 1940 and 12 July 1942, 'Hiawatha' was serialized in the 'Silly Symphonies' newspaper comic, syndicated by King Features. Each episode was a Sunday gag comic, printed in color. Not based on the original cartoon, all gags were original stories, presented in pantomime comedy. The scripts were written by Hubie Karp, with Bob Grant providing the drawings. Thorson's design for Hiawatha was reused, but a new side character was introduced based on sketches by Walt Kelly: Hiawatha's girlfriend Little Minnehaha. The 'Hiawatha' Sunday comics were reprinted in Dell Comics' Walt Disney's Comics & Stories (1943). In 1944, some spin-off stories starring Minnehaha were scripted and drawn by Roger Armstrong.
Illustration by Charles Thorson for 'Little Hiawatha' (Wilcox & Follet Co., Chicago, 1937).
In 1952, Hiawatha returned, this time as a more traditional children's balloon feature, first printed in Walt Disney's Comic Stories issue #143 (August 1952). During this period, new stories were drawn by Fred Abranz, Ken Champin and Lee Hooper. He was featured in one-page gags, usually printed on the back page, while the cast was expanded with Hiawatha's father, Big Chief, and younger sister, Sunflower. Both share a vague resemblance to the Native American chief and his daughter Tigerlily from the Disney feature 'Peter Pan', which premiered a year later, in 1953. Hiawatha sometimes teamed up with a little white boy in a coonskin cap, 'Li'l Davy', who had previously appeared in Floyd Gottfredson's 'Mickey Mouse' newspaper comics. The character cashed in on the tremendous success of Disney's live-action TV series 'The Ballad of Davy Crockett' (1955). Two years later, when Walt Disney's Comics & Stories was reduced in page amount, and 'Hiawatha' disappeared from its pages. He briefly reappeared in Dell's Four Color Comics in 1959, before vanishing permanently. Changing cultural attitudes regarding stereotypical portrayals of Native Americans kept Hiawatha from making a comeback in American comics.
In European Disney comics, however, Hiawatha remained popular in the following decades. He was featured in hundreds of new gags and short stories, produced by the several Disney licensees. In the Netherlands, the scriptwriters Lo Hartog van Banda, Andries Brandt and Patty Klein expanded the character's cast and universe considerably. Hiawatha received a pet dog, called Humpie, while his tribe was finally given a name, De Rondbuiken ("The Roundbellies"). Hiawatha's father and sister remained side characters, but the medicine man was given a more prominent role too. Until 2020, a great many Dutch scriptwriters have continued to supply stories with Hiawatha, notably Frank Jonker, Dick Matena and Ruud Straatman. Over the years, many artists have drawn them, for instance Jan van Haasteren, Frits Godhelp, Dick Matena and Spanish agency artists like Valentin Doménech and José Ramón Bernadó. During the 1990s, Hiawatha has appeared in more junior comic stories in the pre-school Winnie title, mostly written by Michel Motti and drawn by Valentin Doménech. Between 1972 and 2006, the Danish licensee Egmont had its own story production with the character, initially drawn by Adrian Sørensen, but later with Jordi David Redó as main artist. By 2020, Disney also canceled all the overseas 'Hiawatha' productions over concert about cultural insensitivities.
Like with all his other character designs, Thorson was never credited for laying the foundations for the 'Hiawatha' series. But his design proved to be remarkably enduring. He recycled it for his own Native American boy character Keeko. One can even make a connection between Hiawatha and Inki in Chuck Jones' 'Inki and the Mynah Bird' series, also designed by Thorson. Both characters are indigenous boys who are bad at hunting, with the only difference being that Inki is a black African tribal boy. Disney's Hiawatha also was the template for Leo Baxendale's 'Little Plum' and Enrique Cerdan's 'Plumita'.
Recognition
In 1947, Thorson was made an honorary member of the International Mark Twain Society for "his contributions to literature".
Death and legacy
Charles Thorson was a proverbial example of a "rolling stone". He rarely stayed long in one place, often burning bridges due to alcoholism. Many of his personal problems were rooted in the death of his first wife, who passed away from tuberculosis. Their only son died three months after birth. Heartbroken by these events, Thorson led a wandering life from the late 1910s until 1922. While he remarried, again his first-born son died, now only three days after birth. The couple had another child, but eventually divorced. Throughout his life, Thorson tried in vain to gain recognition and a steady, well-paid job. During the early 1920s, he was even homeless for a while. He died in 1966 in Vancouver.
Since none of the Hollywood studios he worked for had kept any track record of his contributions, he sank away in oblivion. Luckily, Thorson did keep much of his sketches and model sheets, which are nowadays part of the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections, which help historians get an idea of some of the projects he worked on. Still, a majority remains lost forever, since the ever-wandering artist sold several of his drawings to pay off debts or simply lost them.
Thanks to the efforts of film archivist and animation historian Gene Waltz, Thorson's notability has nowadays increased. For those interested in his life and career, Gene Waltz' 'Cartoon Charlie: The Life and Art of Animation Pioneer Charles Thorson' (Great Plains Publications, 1998), is highly recommended.
Charles Thorson.