Scrappy Artifact of the Day

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 24, 2012

Scrappy pin

Isn’t it beautiful? This is one of the earlier pieces of Scrappy merchandise, I think — and one of the few which credit Charles Mintz so prominently.

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Introducing Scrappy

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 1, 2012

From the Film Daily for May 20, 1931, what must have been one of the first public mentions of Scrappy anywhere — click to read it:

The Film Daily for May 20, 1931

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From the Desk of Scrappy

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 28, 2012

For many of us cartoon fans, the late Jud Hurd was a revered elder statesman — the editor and publisher of the wonderful magazine Cartoonist PROfiles. As a young man, though, he was a Charles Mintz Studio artist, working for $16 a week — not a bad salary for an inexperienced artist during the Great Depression.

But he only did it for six months. Then he decided to leave, and secured this letter of recommendation.

Mintz letter

That’s the only piece of Mintz letterhead I’ve seen. (I do, however, have a form letter written on Columbia’s Scrappy Franchise Department stationery.)

Hurd’s book Cartoon Success Stories is available for reading over at Google Books; it includes the tale of his Mintz tenure, a photo of him outside the studio, and all sorts of other entertaining anecdotes. Revisiting it makes me wish that Jud, and Cartoonist PROfiles, were still with us.

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