Allan Burns and the Complete(?) Younger Set
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Cartoonist and television writer Allan Burns has passed away.
Allan Pennington Burns
May 18, 1935 – January 30, 2021
Allan blossomed at Punahou School in Honolulu and discovered a talent for animation and writing, eventually having cartoons published in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
Allan began creating humorous greeting cards and eventually did enough work to make his way into the cartoon world of Jay Ward Studios, helping create The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Dudley Do-Right, George of the Jungle, Tom Slick and the character Cap’n Crunch for General Mills (only to see zero residuals). This eventually segued into television, co-creating The Munsters, Get Smart, and his most misunderstood masterpiece – My Mother the Car. Later, he worked on He and She and the groundbreaking Room 222. Then came his most well-known work, when he co-created The Mary Tyler Moore Show with James L. Brooks, which won multiple Emmy Awards.
[I]t was the animation industry that first captured Burns’s imagination, and indeed it was there that his career began. Hired by producer Jay Ward in the early 1960s, he was closely involved with series including The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Dudley Do-Right, and George of the Jungle. He also created Cap’n Crunch, the cereal mascot and star of countless animated commercials.
The obituaries that do mention his high school days note his cartooning:
He attended the private Punahou School (Barack Obama would go there later) and designed a cartoon that ran a couple times a week in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper.
That sounds a lot more regular than it was, I only find three samples.
June 29, 1953
July 17, 1953
and July 22, 1953
There may be more, but someone else will have to find them.
Allan’s obituaries do note that he went on to some fame after his comics and cartooning career:
Allan Burns, the six-time Emmy winner who partnered to create one of the best sitcoms of all time, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and one of the worst, My Mother the Car, has died.
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