[3] Dan Gordon started his animation career as a story man at New York's Van Beuren Studios,[4] and by 1936, he received a director's credit there.
[9] While he only stayed at the newly dubbed Famous Studios for a couple of years, the Popeye shorts he directed are notable for their intense comic energy and extended fourth-wall-breaking gags.
The title's character does not have any superpowers at all but is a normal (talking) house cat that dresses in a diaper, a baby's bonnet, and a big blue bow to fight minor neighborhood injustices.
[citation needed] Gordon's Puss and Boots was a dog-and-cat version of Tom and Jerry to the extreme, with its only theme being unbridled cartoon violence.
Cookie's first appearance was in 1945, debuting alongside other major characters, such as Jotterbook, Angelus, Zoot, and “The Brain” in a one-shot issue of Topsy-Turvy Comics.
[citation needed] Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbera had been creating the classic Tom and Jerry cartoons at MGM since 1940, but by 1957 the studio's animation division was shut down.
[11] In a bid to stay alive in the new TV era, Hanna and Barbera struck out on a mission to make a weekly animated television series for a fraction of their old Tom and Jerry budgets.
Emboldened by their early success on a Saturday morning, Hanna and Barbera set their sights on producing a prime-time domestic comedy with a prehistoric twist.
Gordon had some experience with cartoon cavemen, having worked on the “Stone Age” series of animated shorts for Fleischer Studios back in 1940.