Jay Ward – September 20, 1920

“Please do! We need the publicity!” – Jay Ward to Durwood Kirby when Kirby threatened to sue over the “Kirwood Derby,” a hat which made everyone stupid, but made Bullwinkle a genius.

Joseph Ward Cohen Jr. (or Joseph Troplong Ward) was the son of Mercedes Juanita (Troplong) and Joseph Ward Cohen Sr.

Jay Ward’s first census should be 1930. This is 1940. I could not find any 1930 information. There are several family trees on ancestry for the Ward family who also do not have 1930, so 1940 it is. By 1940, Jay’s parents were divorced (can’t find a record of that either) and his mother married Elmer W. Clark in 1939. Ward lived with his mother and Clark at 2708 College Avenue in Berkeley. He was listed as J. Troplong Ward. Also in the household were lodgers Doris Shirazi and Alice Wood. Clark was a plasterer (who had only 3 hours of work the previous week) and Shirazi was a saleslady of women’s clothes.

The census page had several teachers, librarians, and writers as occupations. Maybe the name of the street is a clue to their jobs. There were no immigrants on the page and everyone on it had lived in California for at least the previous five years.

Later life

Ward earned a degree from The University of California at Berkeley and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He opened a real estate office and on the first day of this business was pinned beneath a runaway truck that crashed into the office. During his recuperation, he decided to animate cartoons.

His first success, with friend and animator Alex Anderson, was the animated series Crusader Rabbit which ran on NBC from 1948-1952. Ward lost the rights to Crusader Rabbit when the assets of the bankrupt original creator of the character were taken over.

Ward then developed an animated series based on characters created by Anderson. Rocky and his Friend premiered on ABC in 1959 and on prime time NBC as The Bullwinkle Show in 1961. The jokes were sophisticated. The jokes were low-brow. The main characters were Rocket “Rocky” J. Squirrel, a flying squirrel, and his best friend Bullwinkle J. Moose. The friends were pursued by bad guys Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale whose assignment was to “keel (kill) Moose and Squirrel.” Supporting characters and segments included Dudley Do-right, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Fractured Fairy Tales, and Aesop and Son.

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends on Wikipedia

Reed died of renal cancer in 1989. Jay Ward Productions continues his work. Following Ward’s death, Alex Anderson found that the characters had been copyrighted in Ward’s name alone. He sued the heirs and received a financial settlement and acknowledgment as “the creator of the first version of the characters of Rocky, Bullwinkle, and Dudley.”

Ward has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Other events of September 20, 1920:

• The Spanish Legion (La Legión Española), a military unit of foreign-born soldiers modeled after the French Foreign Legion, was established as El Tercio de Extranjeros, the Foreigners’ Regiment.
• The International Mathematical Union was founded at a meeting of the International Congress of Mathematicians in France at Strasbourg.
• What would become the first radio station in California as KNX (AM) began broadcasting in Los Angeles as electrical engineer Fred Christian began transmitting programming, with government licensing, over his 6ADZ amateur station to radio enthusiasts who had purchased equipment from his store.
• The American comic strip Winnie Winkle, which would run for almost 76 years, was introduced by the Chicago Tribune Syndicate. Written and drawn by M. M. Branner, the strip was originally titled Winnie Winkle the Breadwinner and was one of the first about a woman working for a paycheck, initially as a stenographer, later as a fashion designer. The feature would be retired on July 28, 1996; as her eulogy noted, “Winnie quickly became known for her wardrobe: She never wore the same outfit twice.”

Tomorrow – Born Patricia Neal, but that name was already taken.

Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive each day’s entry in your email box.

Sources

• Wikipedia.org
• Ancestry.com
• Onthisday.com
• Picryl.com
• Youtube.com