special post by B.B.Bunk
Harold Teen, Barney Google, and the Thimble Theatre cast were all created in 1919. Those comic strip characters were joined by a couple animated characters who made their debut that same year. One was Felix the Cat who, as “Master Tom,” appeared in the Pat Sullivan Studio short Feline Follies.
1919 also saw the animated Itchy, the Lucky Mouse first appear.
Chester J. Lampwick was the true creator of Itchy and owns the rights to the character. As he showed the Simpson siblings, Lampwick owned a reel of the first Itchy cartoon he ever animated, titled “Itchy the Lucky Mouse in Manhattan Madness”, where Itchy kills an Irish man and Theodore Roosevelt. With Bart and Lisa’s help, Lampwick went to court and successfully proved that Roger Myers Sr. stole Itchy from him, thanks to an animation cell of Itchy that Lampwick autographed to Myers on September 3, 1919 – the day Lampwick created Itchy. Myers Sr. went on to earn riches as the “creator” of Itchy & Scratchy while Lampwick ended up on skid row.
John Orquiola, for Screen Rant, reveals the dirty laundry behind the scandal.