Straight from the Moose's Mouth

Karl Cohen reviews Keith Scott's new book that not only discusses everyone's favorite flying squirrel and moose, but also provides an accurate historical look at the early days of television animation.

By Karl Cohen | Friday, September 1, 2000 at 12:00 am

Proof is in the Pudding
When I finished reading the book I wondered how accurate it was so I called two people who worked closely with Ward. Alex Anderson said, "It was pretty much the way I remembered it." Lucille Bliss, the voice of Crusader Rabbit, enjoyed the book and said Scott came close to guessing her age when he writes "circa 1927." Bliss said the date is wrong, "but I can live with it." (June Foray, the voice of Rocky, like Bliss never reveals her age. Scott made no attempt to guess it.) Bliss felt Scott simplified the complex history of Crusader and that he didn't fully capture the negative personality of the man who ended up with the rights to the show. She was also surprised at how much he knew about her, yet they had never met or talked on the phone.

My only negative criticism of the book is minor. It would have been better had there been a few well-placed footnotes. Scott was not present when most of the events in the book took place, so footnotes would have been useful. Scott identifies in the text the person he is quoting, but he does not say how he obtained information not in quotes. Had there been footnotes, Bliss would have known from where the information about her came.

We are fortunate that St. Martin's press was willing to publish Scott's account of the studio. It is an exceptional contribution to our knowledge of early TV animation, a subject ignored by most authors. Fortunately Scott got to interview almost everyone connected with the studio (several of the key figures are no longer alive) and is an excellent writer.

The Moose That Roared: The Story of Jay Ward, Bill Scott, A Flying Squirrel and a Talking Moose, by Keith Scott. New York, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. Approximately 460 pages with 35 or 40 black and white illustrations. ISBN: 0312199228 (hardbound $27.95).

Karl Cohen is President of ASIFA-San Francisco. His first book, Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators, is published by McFarland Publishers. He also teaches animation history at San Francisco State University.