Ed Graham Jr. (1928-2018)

Ed Graham Jr. (1928-2018)

October 25th, 2018

Jerry Beck

Via an obituary in today’s Chicago Tribune, animation producer Ed Graham Jr. passed away last month – on September 20th. He is best remembered as the producer of the Linus the Lionhearted cartoon show aired by CBS and ABC between 1964 – 1969

After graduating from Dartmouth College, Ed worked as a newspaper copywriter and went on to write for Time Magazine and Sports Illustrated. He then became an advertising creative writer in New York City.

According to animator Mark Kausler, Graham worked at the Young & Rubicam agency in New York in 1957. He was the account man on the Piels Bros. Beer commercials, working with Bob Elliot and Ray Goulding as Bert and Harry Piel. Ed made two short live action films with Bob Elliot called “Test Dive Buddies” and “Kid Gloves” in 1959 and 1960. Working with the team of Bob and Ray probably inspired his love of “improv” comedians doing voice tracks for animated cartoons. When Graham began working with the Post Cereals account, he produced spots featuring Sheldon Leonard as a prototype Linus and Gerry Matthews and Ruth Buzzi as Sugar Bear and Granny Goodwitch in Sugar Crisp commercials.

Graham brought about a small miracle by getting General Foods (makers of Post Cereals), to fund a TV series featuring characters promoting cereal products and featured in entertaining stories for a family audience. The good side of this idea was that the cartoons could be made with a higher production budget, the bad side was that by 1969, the FCC decided that they would no longer allow a show that featured the same characters in the advertising and entertainment portions.

Ed Graham made two cartoons independently (both released by Universal): in 1965 he made The Shooting of Dan McGrew, with Walter Brennan reading Robert W. Service’s poem.

In 1966, Ed Graham did another indie cartoon called Funny Is Funny. It featured two cartoon dogs named Brutus and Brownie, voiced by Carl Reiner and Ed Graham. Funny Is Funny is a humorous commentary on the “heckler” comedy that Graham employed so abundantly in the Linus the Lionhearted show, with the two dogs poking fun at the whole idea of animated slapstick.

After his two shorts, Ed Graham stepped away from animation for 14 years until he became the voice casting director for the I Go Pogo stop-motion feature, produced in 1980 and directed by Marc Paul Chnoy.

His studio – and his improvisational voice recording techniques – were a refreshing change of pace for animation in the 1960s. Ed Graham is survived by his wife Claire, his children, grandchildren, and a cat, Willow. He will be missed by many in the animation community.

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Jerry Beck

Writer, cartoon producer and author of more than 15 books on animation history. A former studio exec with Nickelodeon and Disney; currently on the faculty at both CalArts in Valencia and Woodbury University in Burbank, California.