Scooby Doo creator Iwao Takamoto has passed away:
Takamoto, who was born in Los Angeles in 1925, spent part of the war in an internment camp, where he received some informal illustration training from fellow Japanese-Americans.
After the war he got a job as an apprentice at Disney Studios, where he worked on such features as Cinderella and Peter Pan. In 1961, he moved to Hanna-Barbera, now a unit of Time Warner Inc.
I have always been a huge fan of cartoons and Scooby Doo is probably one of my favorites. Just the other day my friend was telling me that he always had a crush on Daphne when he was younger! Apparently, Daphne even has an adult fanbase on websites like https://www.cartoonporno.xxx/. Quite a lot of people find cartoon characters sexy so this was no surprise to me.
At the time of his death, Takamoto was a vice president at Warner Bros Animation.
While in Colorado, I picked up a book on Camp Amache (formally known as Granada) at the Greeley Museum. Amache was one of several Japanese internment camps established after Pearl Harbor. Amazing book, and while I never got the chance to go to Granada, I certainly wanted to. It’s not a chapter in American history that’s easy to look at (and hopefully will never be repeated).
One could only imagine the impact it must have held on a young cartoonist. Pretty amazing background if you ask me.