Creator of TV cartoon Rocky and Bullwinkle dies

[October 27, 2010]  CARMEL, Calif. (AP) -- Pioneering TV cartoon artist Alexander Anderson Jr., who created Rocky the flying squirrel and Bullwinkle the moose, has died. He was 90.

Anderson's son Terry tells the Los Angeles Times his father died at a Carmel nursing home on Friday after battling Alzheimer's disease. The elder Anderson was a longtime resident of Pebble Beach.

Anderson teamed up with his childhood friend and former University of California, Berkeley, fraternity brother Jay Ward to make low-budget TV cartoons.

Their creations also included Crusader Rabbit and his pal Rags the Tiger and Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties.

The syndicated "Crusader Rabbit" became the first animated TV series in the 1950s. "Rocky and His Friends" debuted in 1959 on ABC.

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Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com/

[Associated Press]

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