Earl Duvall (April 2, 1898 – January 7, 1969) was an artist best known for his work on Walt Disney comic strips in the early 1930s and for a handful of animated cartoon short subjects he directed at Leon Schlesinger Productions for Warner Bros.
Duvall career in the animation industry was short. He started as a layout artist and later as a member of the story department at Walt Disney Productions. During this time, he also worked as a cartoonist on Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies newspaper strips.[1] Duvall was periodically an inker for Floyd Gottfredson on the newspaper version of the Mickey Mouse daily edition comic strip in 1930-1932.[2][3] He also drew and wrote the Silly Symphonies comic strip Bucky Bug for Walt Disney.[4]
He was invited to Warner Bros. in 1933 along with fellow Disney animator Tom Palmer to head up the studio in the wake of Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising's departure. In the event, Duvall was delayed working on other projects at Disney, and by the time he got to Warner Bros. Palmer had already been fired and replaced by Friz Freleng. During his time there, Duvall directed a number of cartoons based around surprisingly adult themes, and was allowed to direct the studio's first color cartoon, Honeymoon Hotel in 1934.
However, his career came to an abrupt end later in 1934, when he had a drunken argument with studio boss Leon Schlesinger and demanded to be the best-paid animation director in the industry. Duvall returned later that day to apologize for his behavior, but found out that in the few short hours following the argument with Schlesinger (and despite an attempt by Freleng to salvage the situation), the boss had promoted Duvall's main animator, Jack King to director and banned Duvall from ever setting foot in the studio again. Virtually overnight, Duvall went from being one of the industry's top animators to being unemployable, and asides from a brief stint as a story artist at Fleischer Studios, much of his subsequent career saw him working in the comic industry again, quite often for Disney.
Duvall died in 1969, the same year as the last Looney Tunes cartoon was released.
As Director/Supervisor.[5]