Gene Deitch: The Man Who Made our ‘Childhood awesome’

Gene Deitch, an American Oscar-winning illustrator, animator, film director and producer has died. He was 95.

Deitch led a long career as an Academy Award-winning illustrator, animator, director, and producer. He is best-known for Munro, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1960 and for directing episodes of the iconic Tom and Jerry cartoon series. Deitch passed away on Thursday, April 16th in his apartment in Prague, according to his publisher. No cause of death has been revealed at this time.

Alongwith his Munro AcademyAward, Gene Deitch was nominated twice in 1964 for Here'sNudnik and How toAvoid Friendship. Before those projects, Deitch created the earlyanimated Tom Terrific series,which was presented as part of the CaptainKangaroo children's television show. Tom Terrific was madeas twenty-six stories split into five parts, with one five-minute episodebroadcast per day. The first thirteen stories were finished in 1957, with thesecond set in 1958. CaptainKangaroo would go on to rerun the shorts for years to come.

Gene Deitch also co-produced Sidney's Family Tree and that was also nominated for an Academy Award in 1958. In 1961 and 1962, Deitch went on to work on Tom and Jerry, directing 13 episodes, which were not among the fan-favorites when they originally aired. He also worked on Popeye. A DVD collection of all Deitch's episodes was released in 2015, featuring documentaries and remastered content. The illustrator's unconventional cartoons are now looked at in a better light, especially when compared to Hanna and Barbera's slick Hollywood style that had come before. Tom and Jerry fans now look at Deitch's work to be among some of the very best episodes of the long-running series.

GeneDeitch was born in Chicago, Illinois, on August 8th, 1924. He was the son ofsalesman Joseph Deitch and Ruth Delson Deitch. When Deitch was 5-years old, thefamily moved to California, and he attended school in Hollywood. He graduatedfrom Los Angeles High School in 1942. After graduation, Deitch started off atNorth American Aviation where he was drawing aircraft blueprints. He was laterdrafted and underwent pilot training before catching pneumonia and beinghonorably discharged. From there, he started illustrating for jazz magazine TheRecord Changer before heading into an apprenticeship at the animation studioUnited Productions of America in 1955.