''The Adventures of Paddy the Pelican'' is an American

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

television series that debuted on local stations in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

during the 1950s. It is exceedingly rare, but has gained some fame for appearing on

Jerry Beck Jerry Beck (born February 9, 1955, in New York City) is an American animation historian, author, blogger, and video producer. Beck wrote or edited several books on classic American animation and classic characters, including ''The 50 Greatest C ...

's ''Worst Cartoons Ever''. On the

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

, Beck states that he has not found any evidence that this particular animated adaptation was aired on TV, although there is evidence that the Paddy the Pelican character began in 1950 as a local TV

puppet A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or Legendary creature, mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. The puppeteer uses movements of their hands, arms, or control devices such as rods ...

show on Chicago's

WENR-TV WLS-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on North State S ...

(now WLS-TV), with Helen York and Ray Suber as puppeteers.

Description

In the cartoon, Paddy's adventures were presented in

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

drawings done by

Sam Singer Samuel Singer (August 27, 1912 – January 25, 2001) was an American animator and animation producer. He is best known as executive producer of '' The Adventures of Pow Wow'', a cartoon which also later appeared as a segment of early episodes ...

. This show appeared on the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

network in the fall of 1950, but for only one month. The show aired on the ABC television network weekdays between 5:15 and 5:30pm from September 11, 1950 to October 13, 1950. Singer had also started producing a newspaper, ''Paddy Pelican Junior Journal''. The animated episodes currently in existence all have copyright dates of 1954, but the copyright was never renewed, so the series is in the public domain today. The show is noted for its pencil tests that were never finalized to the actual animation, reused animation, rambling and apparently improvised

voiceover Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique where a voice—that is not part of the narrative (non-diegetic)—is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations. ...

s by the creator himself, muffled and poorly synchronized soundtrack made by an organ, and general low-budget problems. The only music is a few chords played on an organ, although the title card is accompanied by a man making noises apparently intended to sound like a pelican squawking. Most of the characters were voiced by Singer, however one character was voiced by an uncredited actress. Singer, who worked for

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

and other Hollywood animation studios, also produced a local children's television show, based on the

Marshall Field's Marshall Field & Company (commonly known as Marshall Field's) was an upscale department store in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in the 19th century, it grew to become a large chain before Macy's, Inc acquired it in 2005. Its eponymous founder, Mar ...

character "Uncle Mistletoe", as well as other early animated shows. The theme music was composed by Charles A. Cavallo. In October 2016, all the shorts were uploaded to YouTube. They were taken from the original 16mm prints and were transferred, then uploaded online.

Episodes

Merchandise

Sam Singer had a

coloring book A coloring book (British English: colouring-in book, colouring book, or colouring page) is a type of book containing line art to which people are intended to add color using crayons, colored pencils, marker pens, paint or other artistic media ...

published called ''The Paddy Pelican Story and Coloring Mak-A-Book''. The

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

Library currently has a copy of this rare coloring book in their possession.https://www.worldcat.org/title/paddy-pelican-story-and-coloring-mak-a-book/oclc/54404839 It is also in the public domain.

Bibliography

* via

Project MUSE Project MUSE, a non-profit collaboration between libraries and publishers, is an online database of peer-reviewed academic journals and electronic books. Project MUSE contains digital humanities and social science content from over 250 university ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Adventures of Paddy the Pelican, The 1950s American animated television series 1950 American television series debuts 1950 American television series endings American children's animated adventure television series American children's animated comedy television series Adventures of Paddy the Pelican Fictional pelicans Animated television series about birds