Pinto was accepted and attended, sporadically from 1910 to 1913,[3] Oregon State University, in Corvallis,[4] where he took art classes and played clarinet in the band.

[8]In 1913, Colvig worked the Pantages Theatre Circuit, briefly, before leaving for clarinetist in the Al G. Barnes Circus band for part of a season.

[5] In 1914 he was a newspaper cartoonist in Reno, Nevada and then in Carson City, then again clarinetist in the Al G. Barnes Circus band for part of the 1915 season.

[11] In 1922, Colvig created a newspaper cartoon panel titled "Life on the Radio Wave" for the San Francisco Chronicle.

[9] By the late 1920s, Colvig became associated with Walter Lantz, with whom he attempted to establish a cartoon studio, creating a character called "Bolivar, the Talking Ostrich", which would have appeared in sound shorts[citation needed].

[14] In 1930, Colvig signed an eight-year contract[5] with Walt Disney Productions as a writer, also providing sound effects, including the barks for Pluto the Pup.

He was offered a job with Fleischer Studios, then planning to produce a competing feature-length animated film in the wake of Disney's success with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, moving to Miami in early 1938.

He also voiced Bluto for the studio's Popeye the Sailor cartoons, replacing Gus Wickie, who elected to remain in New York rather than move to Miami.

[25] A lifelong smoker, Colvig was one of the pioneers in advocating warning labels about cancer risk on cigarette packages in the United States.

[26] Colvig died of lung cancer on October 3, 1967, at Motion Picture Country Hospital in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, at age 75.