Ben Hardaway

Animator, gag writer, storyboard artist and director Ben Hardaway is fondly remembered for his important contributions to Warner Brothers cartoons and as co-creator (with Walter Lantz) and voice (1944-1949) of Woody Woodpecker. Hardaway started out as a cartoonist for the Kansas City Star in 1910. He saw military service as an artillery sergeant under the command of Captain Harry S. Truman during World War I. During this time he acquired the nickname 'Bugs'. After demobilization, he resumed working for various mid-West newspapers. In 1922, Hardaway was hired by the Kansas City Film Ad Company and became closely acquainted with the famous pioneer animator Ub Iwerks. Iwerks eventually moved to Hollywood, and, in 1931, employed Hardaway as a story writer. He stayed on for two years, then had a brief spell with Disney. Eventually, he settled at Leon Schlesinger's animation factory at Warner Brothers, a studio which permitted artists substantially greater artistic freedom. The superb humor and satirical quality of his writing (for example, Confederate Honey (1940), a hilarious send-up of Gone with the Wind (1939), featuring Elmer Fudd as 'Nett Cutler' romancing 'Crimson O'Hairoil') ensured Hardaway's rapid advancement to head of the story department. He also filled in as co-director of several Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies episodes during Friz Freleng's three-year long stint at MGM. Many of these featured Porky Pig. One of them, Porky's Hare Hunt (1938), had as chief protagonist an unnamed white rabbit created by Robert Clampett. It looked nothing like Bugs Bunny and sounded and acted rather like Daffy Duck. Before long, the rabbit reappeared in Hare-um Scare-um (1939) -- now in familiar colors, but with relatively short ears, wide buck teeth (and still sounding suspiciously like Daffy). On a corner of the model sheet with the original drawing by Charles Thorson, Hardaway wrote the name 'Bugs'. It stuck ,and thus the famous rabbit got its name -- albeit officially only after the release of A Wild Hare (1940). Hardaway found himself demoted after Freleng's return from MGM and departed Warner Brothers to head up the story department for Walter Lantz working on Andy Panda and Woody Woodpecker cartoons.