Joe Oriolo

Joseph Dominic Oriolo (; February 21, 1913 – December 25, 1985) was an American cartoon animator, writer, director and producer, known as the co-creator of Casper the Friendly Ghost and the creator of the Felix the Cat TV series. He provided the voice of the Italian barber in Gulliver's Travels.

Early life Oriolo was born in Union City, New Jersey in 1913, the son of Italian immigrants. He graduated from Union Hill High School and moved to New York City, and enrolled in the Cooper Union.

Career In 1933, at age 20, he went to work for Fleischer Studios as an errand boy, where his talent as a draftsman and his ambitions advanced him to the position of an animator within one year. During the late 1930s, he worked on a number of studio shorts, and when the studio moved to Miami in 1938 he went with it. There, in addition to the shorts, he worked on both of the studio's feature-length films, Gulliver's Travels and Mr. Bug Goes to Town, as well as the two-reel Raggedy Ann & Raggedy Andy. Two subsequent books, There's Good Boos To-Night and A Haunting We Will Go followed before Oriolo sold the rights to Famous Studios for $200. Casper went on to become one of the studios' most popular animated series before being sold to Alfred Harvey (whose Harvey Comics began producing Casper comic books in 1952) on July 27, 1958.

Bernie the Fox in his appearance in Coo Coo Comics #3 (February 1943). After leaving Famous Studios, Oriolo began working as a freelance animator on films for the armed forces and industrial films, as well as some of the earliest TV commercials. He began drawing comic books (including Fawcett's George Pal Puppetoons), and began working with Otto Messmer on the Felix the Cat comic books until they ceased publication. In 1954, Oriolo assumed authorship of the separate Felix daily comic strips at the request of King Features Syndicate, which he continued to produce until 1969.

In 1958, Joe became a business partner with Sullivan, who was the nephew of William O Sullivan, the brother of Pat Sullivan, and the original copyright owner of Felix the Cat. Together, they formed Felix the Cat Productions, Inc (named after the famous character of the same name) and created the pilot show for the award-winning Felix the Cat television series. Making use of many former Fleischer/Famous animators and directors, 260 Felix shorts were made for television syndication in 1960. He is buried in George Washington Memorial Park in Paramus, New Jersey.

Felix the Cat: The Movie is dedicated to his memory.