Rod Scribner

Did You Know?

• Scribner studied at Denison University for three years, taking drawing, English, and political science.
• He managed a "hunting marsh" before studying art in Toledo, Ohio, and at the Chouinard Art Institute.
• Scribner contracted tuberculosis during the production of One Meat Brawl in 1945 and did not return to Warners until March 1948.

Career

Scribner got his start as an assistant animator in Friz Freleng's unit in 1935, then moved on to animate for Ben Hardaway and Cal Dalton, with a short stint under Chuck Jones. His pen-and-brush animation style fit perfectly with Bob Clampett's wild, high-energy cartoons. Bill Melendez called Scribner's work "very bold and kind of dirty," which created headaches for the Ink and Paint Department. Clampett's films like A Tale of Two Kitties, Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, and The Great Piggy Bank Robbery show off Scribner's "Lichty style," which he had pitched to Clampett.

Outside of Warner Bros., he did some cartooning for Happy Comic's Rowdy Runner and a 1945 issue of the military magazine Service Ribbin. His family has claimed that Chuck Jones stole the Road Runner from him, but this is widely considered unlikely since Scribner was working in Robert McKimson's unit at the time. After spending three years in the hospital with tuberculosis, Scribner returned to McKimson's unit in 1950. His animation grew more restrained, thanks to McKimson's strict direction and Scribner's own failing health, though he still managed lively sequences in Hillbilly Hare, Hoppy Go Lucky, and Of Rice and Hen.

Death and legacy

Scribner was arrested and placed on suicide watch at Patton State Hospital, where he died on December 21, 1976, from tuberculosis contracted during World War II in 1945. His final project was Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown, released posthumously in Summer 1977. Bill Plympton called his work on Coal Black "a masterpiece of animation and distortion." Cartoon Brew ranked him number 18 on its list of "25 Great Cartoonists You Should Know," and animator John Kricfalusi described himself as a "fanatic" for Scribner.