Fontaine Fox
He spent two years in higher education at Indiana University, Bloomington; nevertheless, he continued sketching one cartoon a day for the Louisville Herald.
From this panoramic perspective, readers could fully absorb the antics of town regulars, which included an entire farming community filled with colorful characters of varying ages.
Founded by Siegmund Lubin, the Betzwood Motion Picture Studio in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, operated between 1912 and 1923.
In 1936, Van Beuren Studios produced three animated cartoon shorts about the Toonerville folks as part of Burt Gillett's Rainbow Parade series; however, they never matched the success of the panel.
Produced by Larry Darmour during the same period, they have many of the same flaws, such as racist gags at the expense of an African American member of the gang; however, the McGuire shorts benefited from the strong presence and talent of the young Mickey Rooney.
Finally, the managing editor of the Louisville Herald asked the young Fox to draw some sketches caricaturing the antiquated vehicles, which is said to have cast the germ for the Toonerville Trolley.
During that ride, he observed the trolley car operator gossip with passengers and, once, stop the vehicle to pick apples in an adjacent orchard.
One piece of that evidence is an article that appeared in The New York Times on July 30, 1937, the day before the last journey of the Pelham trolley due to its replacement by a bus route.
During the 1940s, he lived at One West Elm Street in Greenwich, Connecticut, spending winters at 610 North Ocean Boulevard in Delray Beach, Florida.
The Filson Historic Society of Louisville, whose mission is to collect, preserve and tell the significant stories of Kentucky and the Ohio Valley history and culture, boasts a collection that includes photographs of Fox as a child, the family home at Hubers Station, Kentucky, Fox, his wife and their daughters.
It consists of papers from Fox, including correspondence, original drawings of the cartoons and scripts of books and series.
