Alexander Hume Anderson Jr.[1] (September 5, 1920 – October 22, 2010)[1] was an American cartoonist who created the characters of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Bullwinkle, and Dudley Do-Right, as well as Crusader Rabbit.
Anderson was a nephew[6] of Mighty Mouse producer Paul Terry, and began his career in 1938, working summer vacations, during college,[7] at his Terrytoons animation studio.
[8] After the war, Anderson and Jay Ward, a former real-estate salesman[9] and childhood friend, formed a business in the late 1940s to pitch cartoon ideas to television, including Crusader Rabbit, Rocky, Bullwinkle, and Dudley Do-Right.
In 1948, Anderson and Ward created a television pilot, "The Comic Strips of Television"[10][11][12] Only Crusader Rabbit was accepted, and after Anderson's other cartoon ideas failed to sell, he joined a San Francisco advertising agency, becoming an art director,[5] while Ward moved to Los Angeles to try to sell TV studios on a Bullwinkle series.
[1] In 1993[1] or 1996,[13] (sources differ), Anderson received a settlement and a court order acknowledging him as "the creator of the first version of the characters of Rocky, Bullwinkle and Dudley.