The Very First “Made For Television” Cartoon…’Crusader Rabbit’

The concept of an animated series made for television came from animator Alex Anderson, who worked for Terrytoons Studios. Terrytoons turned down Anderson’s proposed series, preferring to remain in theatrical film animation, which opened the door for him to team up with Jay Ward.

The main difference between producing cartoons for movie audiences vs television audiences is money, effort and volume. Since television eats creative effort a lot faster, more episodes have to be done but for financial and production reasons, shortcuts have to be taken for television animation.

In a 20 second clip, a theatrical cartoon could require anywhere from 700 to 1000 drawings. These first cartoons made for television used only about 250 to 300 drawings per 20 seconds. To help with the lack of movement, a narrator was used.

In early 1947, Anderson approached Jay Ward to create a partnership—Anderson being in charge of production and Ward arranging financing. Ward became business manager and producer, joining with Anderson to form “Television Arts Productions” in 1947.

They tried to sell the series to the NBC television network, but the network did not go with it. Although NBC did not telecast ‘Crusader Rabbit’ on their network, it did buy the show for it’s owned and operated stations and allowed the series to be nationally syndicated.

Below is the first episode of ‘Crusader Rabbit’ which made it’s television debut on September 1, 1949 on KNBH in Hollywood. WNBC-TV in New York continued to show the original Crusader Rabbit episodes from 1949 through 1967, and some stations used the program as late as the 1970. Enjoy and share!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3hHQvkUhJo

Jay Ward’s Crusader Rabbit – Crusade 1 / Episode 1. Like to see more?

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