© 2007 Ben Truwe, truwe[at]mind.net. All rights reserved.
Last revised December 3, 2007
Pinto Colvig
Medford,
Oregon is much better known for pear orchards
than showbiz, but that doesn't mean that we in Southern Oregon haven't had our own brushes with the
big time. Vance DeBar
Colvig was just one local product to make an impact on the
entertainment industry. Born in nearby Jacksonville in 1892, his schoolboy
compatriots, inspired by young Vance’s abundant freckles, dubbed him “Pinto,
the human leopard.” The freckles eventually faded, but the name stuck and helped launch Colvig
on a trajectory that would leave an impact on several of the lively arts. After attending
Oregon Agricultural College in Corvallis, Pinto’s first of many careers was
with the circus, performing as a clown and “squeaky clarinet player.” Pinto then found work
as a newspaper cartoonist, first in Nevada, later with the San Francisco Bulletin
and Chronicle,
which led to a partnership producing animated cartoons.
In 1915 his Animated Films Corporation produced the world’s first
feature-length cartoon, “Creation.” AFC didn’t survive World War I, so
Pinto began
his own studio; Encyclopedia Brittanica credits this studio with the world's
first
color cartoon, 1919’s “Pinto's Prizma Comedy Review.” After moving to Southern
California, in 1928 Pinto produced with Walter Lantz one of the world’s
first
talking cartoons, “Blue Notes,” with Bolivar the Talking Ostrich. All
three cartoons are now apparently lost, though five frames of
“Creation”
survive among Pinto's papers at the Southern Oregon Historical Society. 1924 had brought
Pinto to Hollywood and live film. Pinto worked in the comedy factories
as a gag man, scenarist and
title writer for Mack Sennett, Jack White, Harold Lloyd and many
others; he
also often appeared before the silent camera in small comic roles.
Then, as Pinto
tells it, Mack
Sennett gave him the go-ahead to a suggestion for a cartoon gag in one
of his short subjects. This introduced animation into live-action
comedy and brought Pinto back to pen and ink, hand-drawing explosions
or swarms
of bees onto frames of celluloid to bedevil the live comedians. The advent
of sound drove Pinto from silent comedy to Walt Disney Studios, where
he
continued as a gag man, co-wrote “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,”
and found yet another new career in sound effects and character voices. He
barked for Pluto and
spoke for the Practical Pig, Grumpy and Sleepy, and was the voice of
Goofy for
the next thirty-five years. Pinto also voiced Popeye’s Bluto for
Fleischer
Studios and for decades produced a broad range of freelance voice work
for radio, cartoons
and film. Several Munchkins in “The Wizard of Oz” speak and sing in
Pinto
Colvig’s voice, including the one who sounds exactly like his Gabby
from Fleischer’s
“Gulliver’s Travels.” In 1946 Walter Livingston contracted Pinto to write and record the original Bozo
the Clown record albums; three years later he starred as the first TV Bozo, on
KTTV in Los Angeles. The distinctive voice and delivery used by every Bozo
since (including Pinto’s son, Vance Jr., who took up the role in 1959) has been
in imitation of Pinto Colvig. As a side
note, in 1906 Pinto’s father decided to move the five miles from Jacksonville
to the burgeoning boom town of Medford. Pinto was 14 and about to graduate from primary
school, so Judge Colvig bought a house across the street from the high school.
He hadn’t anticipated, though, that his son would fail the required high school entrance
exam--miserably. So at the age of 14 Pinto was a free man: His father was rich
and powerful, he had no responsibilities, and he was living in the largest and liveliest town
in the area. Young Pinto became well-known in Medford; among the many he
befriended was Frank Willeke, the Main Street railroad flagman. Willeke was
mildly retarded and universally described as the happiest man in town; Pinto
later remarked that he “admired his simplicity.” Decades later Pinto told Walt
Disney of his happy-go-lucky friend and imitated his distinctive laugh, and Medford’s Frank
Willeke became the inspiration and model for Goofy. Pinto left
his mark on Medford literally, as well: On a brick of the old 1910 railroad station
is Pinto’s name along with an arrow pointing toward his home town of Jacksonville, written in ink in
a strangely familiar style. The handwriting is that of the Walt Disney
logo—which itself is patterned after the hand lettering Pinto had used since his newspaper cartooning days. After
the adoption of that logo, Walt Disney had to train himself to imitate Pinto
Colvig’s penmanship to sign his own autographs.
Animated Film Corporation, San Francisco, circa 1916.
From left: Angel Espoy, Tack Knight, Pinto Colvig, Byington Ford.
Graffiti on the 1910 Medford, Oregon railroad depot