Daniel Campbell Gordon (July 13, 1902 – August 13, 1970) was an American

storyboard artist A storyboard artist (sometimes called a story artist or visualizer) creates storyboards for advertising agencies and film productions. Work A storyboard artist visualizes stories and sketches frames of the story. Quick pencil drawings and mark ...

and film director, best known for his work at Famous Studios and

Hanna-Barbera Productions Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ) was an American animation studio and production company which was active from 1957 to 2001. It was founded on July 7, 1957, by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera following the decision of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to c ...

. Gordon was one of Famous' first directors. He wrote and directed several ''

Popeye the Sailor Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar.Superman''

cartoons A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...

. Later, at Hanna-Barbera, Gordon worked on several cartoons featuring

Yogi Bear Yogi Bear is an anthropomorphic animal character who has appeared in numerous comic books, animated television shows and films. He made his debut in 1958 as a supporting character in '' The Huckleberry Hound Show''. Yogi Bear was the first ...

Huckleberry Hound Huckleberry "Huck" Hound is a fictional cartoon character, a blue anthropomorphic coonhound that speaks with a North Carolina Southern drawl. He first appeared in the series ''The Huckleberry Hound Show''. The cartoon was one of six TV shows to ...

, and others. His younger brother, George Gordon, also worked for Hanna-Barbera. In the late 1940s,

talking animals Talking may refer to: * Speech, the product of the action of ''to talk'' * Communication by spoken words; conversation or discussion Other uses * "Talking" (The Rifles song), 2007 * "Talking" (A Flock of Seagulls song), 1983 * "Talking", a son ...

and teen humor were two of the most popular categories in the ever-growing world of comic books. In his comic books, he wrote under the pen name "Dang".Gifford, Denis. ''The International Book of Comics''. ( Crescent Books, 1984)
132
Retrieved from

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

on January 24, 2011. "As drawn by "Dang" (the comic-book pen name of animator Dan Gordon from the Fleischer Studio) ..

Career

Van Bourne Studios, Fleischer Studios and Famous Studios

Dan Gordon began his animation career as a story man at New York's

Van Beuren Studios The Van Beuren Corporation was a New York City-based animation studio that produced theatrical cartoons as well as live-action short-subjects from the 1920s to 1936. History In 1920, the Keith-Albee organization formed Fables Pictures for the ...

, and by 1936 he was receiving a director's credit there. After Van Bueren closed its animation department in 1936, Gordon and many of his colleagues went to work for Paul Terry’s

Terrytoons Terrytoons was an American animation studio in New Rochelle, New York, that produced animated cartoons for theatrical release from 1929 to 1973 (and briefly returned between 1987 and 1996 for television in name only). Terrytoons was founded by ...

. It was here that Gordon worked with

Joe Barbera Joseph Roland Barbera ( ; ; March 24, 1911 – December 18, 2006) was an American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist who co-founded the animation studio and production company Hanna-Barbera. Born to Italian i ...

(another Van Bueren alumni) on ''Pink Elephants'', a cartoon that Barbara described as one of "... the first cartoons I had a hand in actually creating from the beginning.” Gordon and Barbera headed out west to

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

in 1937, but Gordon returned back to the East shortly thereafter to help re-write the troubled ''Gulliver’s Travels'' animated feature film at Fleischer Studios. Gordon’s rewrites could not save much of ''Gulliver'', but Gordon was instrumental in the success of the Fleischer Studios’ next hit: the 1941 Superman theatrical animated shorts. When

Paramount Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to: Entertainment and music companies * Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...

seized control of the Fleischer studio in Miami, Gordon was one of four directors put in charge of production. Gordon only stayed for a couple of years at the newly dubbed Famous Studios, but the few ''Popeye'' shorts he directed are remarkable for their manic intensity. ''The Hungry Goat'', released in 1943, stands out as an attempt to bring a new, screwball character to the screen, heavily influenced by contemporary WB shorts. The fast-paced, hyper-kinetic, and over-caffeinated mayhem of those Popeye cartoons leads right into the comic book stories he crafted for The

American Comics Group American Comics Group (ACG) was an American comic book publisher started in 1939 and existing under the ACG name from 1943 to 1967. It published the medium's first ongoing horror-comics title, ''Adventures into the Unknown''. ACG's best-known cha ...

(ACG). Gordon was fired from Famous Studios in late 1943 or early 1944, presumably due to alcohol-related problems.

Comic books

Supercut and cartoon animals

Gordon was part of a group of animation pros led by Jim Davis (of '' Fox and the Crow'' fame) that supplied original talking-animal comic book stories to ACG and

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

. Gordon's work began appearing in ''

Giggle Comics ''Giggle Comics'' is an American comics anthology. It was originally published by Creston Publications, which became an imprint of American Comics Group (ACG) in 1943. ''Giggle Comics'' had many stories with funny animals, mirroring a wider trend. ...

'' in 1944, and by ''Giggle'' #9, he introduced the long-running character Superkatt who was a jab at the “long-underwear” genre of superhero comics. The title character does not have any super powers at all but is a normal (talking) house cat that dresses in a diaper, a baby's bonnet, and a big blue bow to fight minor neighborhood injustices. In 1949 came ''Funny Films'', a talking-animal anthology title that tried to convince the reader that its stories were the filmed exploits of famous Hollywood cartoon characters. Gordon's ''Puss and Boots'' was a dog-and-cat version of

Tom and Jerry ''Tom and Jerry'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series c ...

to the extreme, with unbridled cartoon violence its only theme. Gordon's other ''Funny Films'' character was the comical rabbit inventor Blunder bunny. In La Salle Comics' ''Hi-Jinx'', he experimented with the hybrid idea of “teenage animal funnies”.

Cookie O'Toole

Gordon's final major character from this era is Cookie O’Toole, the teenage star of ''Cookie'' comics. Cookie began his run in 1945 when he and his whole gang (best friend/hipster Jotterbook, heartthrob Angelus, sharp-dressed rival Zoot, and their egghead pal, “The Brain”) appeared fully formed in a one-shot issue of ''Topsy-Turvy Comics''. By the next year, Cookie had his own title, and began a run that lasted nine years and 55 issues. Gordon continued to make comics for ACG (and ACG imprints like La Salle) until he was called back into animation service by his old friend Joseph Barbera.

Hanna-Barbera

Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera had been creating the classic Tom and Jerry cartoons at MGM since 1940, but by 1957 the studio’s animation division was shut down. In a bid to stay alive in the new TV era, Hanna and Barbera struck out on a mission to make a weekly animated television series for a fraction of their old Tom and Jerry budgets. Gordon jumped on board to help out at Hanna-Barbera, and (with partner Charles Shows) was soon writing and drawing storyboards for most of the episodes of those earliest, foundational H-B cartoon classics:

, Pixie & Dixie,

Quick Draw McGraw Quick Draw McGraw is a fictional anthropomorphic horse and the protagonist and title character of '' The Quick Draw McGraw Show''. He is a white horse, wearing a red Stetson cowboy hat, a red holster belt, a light blue bandana, and occasion ...

, and

Augie Doggie Augie (sometimes spelled Auggie) is a nickname for variations of the name August, which derives from the Latin name Augustus. It may refer to: People *Augie Auer (1940–2007), meteorologist *Augie Galan (1912–1993), Major League Baseball play ...

. Emboldened by their early success in Saturday morning, Hanna and Barbera set their sights on producing a prime-time domestic comedy with a prehistoric twist. Gordon had some experience with cartoon cavemen, having worked on the “Stone Age” series of animated shorts for Fleischer Studios back in 1940. Although many talented people had a part in creating what would become ''

The Flintstones ''The Flintstones'' is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The series takes place in a romanticized Stone Age setting and follows the activities of the titular family, the Flintstones, and their next-door neighb ...

'', Bill Hanna points to Gordon. “Now you may not get the same response from anybody else, Bill Hanna recalls, ”but to me, Dan Gordon is responsible for ''The Flintstones''. He came up with the basic concept of doing it with cavemen in skins.” And Joe Barbara recounts in his autobiography that, ”the first two ''Flintstones'' were the work of Dan Gordon and myself; I controlled the content, and Dan did the storyboards.” Dan Gordon continued to work for Hanna-Barbera until his deathBill Hanna, as quoted in Adams, p. 37. in 1970.

Death

Gordon passed away on August 13, 1970, one month after his 68th birthday. Some sources state his last known location was in

Fulton County, Georgia Fulton County is located in the north-central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 1,066,710, making it the state's most-populous county and its only one with over o ...

, but the legitimacy of this information is unknown. Wife, Margaret Hannon, died at the age of 39 in 1946 from brain cancer. Dan and Margaret had three sons. Son, Kevin, died in a house fire in Malibu, in 1965. Son, Michael, died in 1965 in car accident in Los Angeles. Son, Donal, died in 1994 from cancer in Seattle. Dan Gordon died of liver disease while in a nursing home in

Atlanta, GA Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

in 1970. Dan had five grandchildren from son Donal and wife, Frances. This information is cited by his granddaughter.

Legacy

Gordon's cartoons live on through sales of DVD reissues featuring many of his ''Superman'' and ''Popeye'' cartoons, and deluxe DVD sets of ''Huckleberry Hound'' and ''The Flintstones''. Some of his work from the early Van Beuren Studios and Terrytoons days can be found on

video streaming Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...

sites on the Internet. With the advent of

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...

, online comic shops, and cartoon/comics blogs, today, well-worn back issues of Gordon's comics such as ''Giggle'', ''Ha-Ha'', and ''Cookie'' are easier to find and can be bought at reasonable costs. Many fans of Gordon's work have been scanning and sharing these public-domain stories online.

Notes and references

External links

*
Dan Gordon biographyDan Gordon's Comics

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Dan 1902 births 1970 deaths American male screenwriters American animators American film directors American animated film directors American storyboard artists American comics artists Place of birth missing Hanna-Barbera people Fleischer Studios people 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American screenwriters Terrytoons people Famous Studios people