Eugene Merril Deitch (August 8, 1924 – April 16, 2020) was an American illustrator, animator, comics artist, and film director who was based in Prague from the 1960s until his death in 2020. Deitch was known for creating animated cartoons such as Munro, Tom Terrific, and Nudnik, as well as his work on the Popeye and Tom and Jerry series.
Early life
Deitch was born in Chicago on August 8, 1924, the son of salesman Joseph Deitch and Ruth Delson Deitch. In 1929, the family moved to California, and Deitch attended school in Hollywood. He graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1942.
Early career
After graduating, Deitch began working for North American Aviation, drawing aircraft blueprints. In 1943, he was drafted and underwent pilot training before catching pneumonia and was honorably discharged in May of the following year. From 1940 to 1951, Deitch contributed covers and interior art to the jazz magazine The Record Changer. In the 1950s, Deitch was an early supporter and audio engineer for Connie Converse, one of the first American singer-songwriters, recording sessions that made up her debut album How Sad, How Lovely. Converse appeared once on CBS television due in part to Deitch's connections with the network, but otherwise found little success and eventually abandoned music only to be rediscovered decades later, through recordings Deitch had made of her music in 1954.
Animation career
In 1955, Deitch took an apprenticeship at the animation studio United Productions of America (UPA), and later became the creative director of Terrytoons, creating such characters as Sidney the Elephant, Gaston Le Crayon, Tom Terrific, and Clint Clobber. Beginning in 1955, while working at UPA, Deitch wrote and drew the United Feature Syndicate comic strip The Real-Great Adventures of Terr’ble Thompson!, Hero of History, starring a courageous child in fantastical adventures. A skit about Terr'ble Thompson had been recorded by Little Golden Records, with actor Art Carney and bandleader Mitch Miller participating. That led to the daily strip, which ran from Sunday, October 16, 1955, to April 14, 1956. In early 1958, his theatrical cartoon Sidney's Family Tree was nominated for an Academy Award. In August 1958, he was fired from Terrytoons and set up his own studio in New York called Gene Deitch Associates, Inc., which primarily produced television commercials.
When the client Rembrandt Films promised to fund Munro, an animated theatrical short Deitch wanted to create, Deitch relocated to the company's base in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in October 1959. He originally planned to spend only ten days in Prague. Still, after meeting his future wife, Zdenka, he decided to settle permanently in the city. Munro premiered in Czechoslovakia in September 1960 and in the U.S. on October 5, 1961, as a short preceding Breakfast at Tiffany's. It won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1961, the first short created outside of the United States to be so honored. Munro was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.
From 1960 to 1963, Deitch was hired by Rembrandt to direct Popeye cartoons for television for King Features, and from 1961 to 1962 he directed 13 new Tom and Jerry shorts for MGM. Being a "UPA man", Deitch had misgivings about the latter property, thinking they were "needlessly violent". However, after being assigned to work on the series, he quickly realized that "nobody took [the violence] seriously", and it was merely "a parody of exaggerated human emotions". He also came to see what he perceived as the "biblical roots" in Tom and Jerry's conflict, similar to David and Goliath, stating "That's where we feel a connection to these cartoons: the little guy can win (or at least survive) to fight another day." Contemporary critics often regarded Deitch's shorts as the worst in the Tom and Jerry series; Deitch said some fans wrote positive letters to him, stating that his Tom and Jerry shorts were their personal favorites.