Bernt's job as an office boy at the New York Journal , which he took on after dropping out of high school in Brooklyn,[2] put him in contact with leading cartoonists, as he recalled, When I was 16, I worked as office boy for Tad, Herriman, Hershfield, Tom McNamara, also Hoban, McCay, Gross, T. E. Powers, C. D. Batchelor, Sterrett and Segar.

[3]Ed Black wrote about the method E. C. Segar and Berndt used to generate cartoon ideas: Then the Fun Began was appearing as early as March 3, 1919.

He died on Monday, August 15, 1979, at Mather Memorial Hospital in Port Jefferson, Berndt won the Reuben Award for 1969 for Smitty.

[6] The Berndt Toast Gang, named in honor of Walter Berndt,[7] is a group of Long Island cartoonists who meet on the last Thursday of each month, as explained by cartoonist Lee Ames: When the Long Island group, Creig Flessel, Bill Lignante, Frank Springer, Al Micale and I got together to work for Hanna Barbera in the 1960s, we decided to have a Finnegan's Bar lunch every last Thursday of the month.

I wasn't trying to be cute at the time, but I'm not displeased that it stuck and we became the Berndt Toast Gang, one of the largest branches of the National Cartoonists Society.