| Carl Fallberg | |
| Caption: | Carl Fallberg |
| Birth Name: | Carl Robert Fallberg |
| Birth Date: | 11 September 1915 |
| Birth Place: | Cleveland, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Glendale, California, U.S. |
| Occupation: | Writer, cartoonist |
| Years Active: | 1935–1990 |
| Employer: | Disney Studios, Hanna-Barbera |
| Spouse: | Bertha "Becky" Fallberg (née Dorner) (1923–2007)[1] |
| Children: | Carla Larissa Fallberg |
| Parents: | Carl Fallberg (Sr.) Gunhild Fallberg (née Sjöstedt) |
Carl Robert Fallberg (September 11, 1915 - May 9, 1996) was a writer/cartoonist for animated feature films and TV cartoons for Disney Studios, Hanna-Barbera, and Warner Brothers. He also wrote comic books for Dell Comics, Western Publishing, and Gold Key Comics.
Carl Robert Fallberg was born in Cleveland, Tennessee on 11 September 1915 to Carl Fallberg (Sr.), and Gunhild Fallberg (née Sjöstedt), who both taught music at the Centenary College Conservatory in Cleveland, Tennessee from 1910 to 1917.[2] Carl was the middle child of three, with an older sister Lisa Lina "Dixie" and younger sister Elinor Faith. The family moved to Chicago, and in 1930 his mother died, leaving Carl and his two sisters motherless for several years.
Carl attended Nicholas Senn High School in Chicago, Illinois. In 1934, Carl sent a letter with samples of his gag ideas and artwork to Walt Disney asking for employment. On the third try, he was offered a job and started to work for Walt Disney Studios in 1935 (then located at 2719 Hyperion Avenue in Hollywood, California.)
Carl and his sister Elinor (1923-2014) lived in rooming house at 3021 Angus Street, just a few blocks from the Hyperion Studios. It was there he meet his future wife, Becky Dorner, the daughter of the family who owned the rooming house. During World War II, his sister Elinor and his future wife Becky worked at Disney Studios while Carl was serving in the U.S. Marines at Quantico, Virginia as part of the Marine Corps film unit.[3] [4]
Becky and Carl were married at First Unitarian Church in Los Angeles, California on July 14, 1945 and had one child, Carla Larissa Fallberg, born in 1955. Becky continued to work for Disney Studios, eventually becoming the Manager of the Ink and Paint Department while Carl went on to work as a writer/cartoonist freelancing for Disney, Hanna Barbera, and several other cartoon studios and comic book publishers.
Carl had a lifelong passion for the "narrow gauge" railroad lines connecting the mountain mining towns of Colorado. This love of narrow gauge railroads in early mining communities was expressed through his cartoon drawings published in his Fiddletown & Copperopolis comic strip which appeared in Railroad Magazine.[5] Carl compiled all his Fiddletown and Copperopolis cartoons into a book "Fiddletown and Copperopolis - The life and times of an uncommon carrier" first published in 1960 by Hungerford Press. The softbound version had a brown and tan cover, and a hardbound version with a brown or red cover with gold lettering and a dust jacket with the same brown and tan art as the softbound version. Subsequent editions were all softbound with 4 color cover art and published by Heimburger House in 1985, 1998, and 2003.
From his early days at Disney, Carl shared his enthusiasm for Colorado's narrow gauge railroads with Ward Kimball and the Grizzly Flats Railroad, and brought the theme to numerous comic books he wrote, such as the Mickey Mouse story "The Vanishing Railroad".
Carl Fallberg was a member of the Animation Guild I.A.T.S.E. Local 839.
Carl started working at Disney Studios in 1935. During the beginning of his career at Disney he worked as an assistant director and storyman on the Disney animated features Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, and Bambi.[6]
Carl moved to working on Disney comic books for Dell Publishing, and was noteworthy for scripting most of the Mickey Mouse serials illustrated by Paul Murry that appeared in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories from the early 1950s to 1973. He also specialized in creating colorful characters inhabiting the various exotic locales that often reflected his love of railroads. This provided narrative interest that compensated for the generally bland personality Mickey Mouse had during this period. For almost a decade and up until 1962, it was Fallberg and Murry who produced almost all of those serials in Walt Disney Comics and Stories.
Besides working with Murry, Fallberg also freelanced to write and illustrate Disney comic books of Li'l Bad Wolf, Jiminy Cricket, Professor Ludwig Von Drake, Scrooge McDuck, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Gyro Gearloose, Goofy, Chip 'n' Dale, and many others. From 1963 to 1989, Carl also wrote scripts for the Disney Studio Program, and during 1974-1985 he wrote scripts for the comic strips Walt Disney's Treasury of Classic Tales (Sunday) and the Disney Christmas Story daily strips that appeared each December. The last comic book story Carl wrote for Disney was "Goofy the Kid" in 1990.
Carl's "special" Disney projects included writing the promotional comics Adventure in Disneyland (1955) for Richfield Oil and Mickey and Goofy Explore Energy (1976) for Exxon, which he later redesigned to promote the Epcot Universe of Energy attraction. He wrote the Sears Winnie the Pooh Coloring Book in 1975, contributed to The Wonderful World of Disney (1969–70) Gulf Oil giveaway magazine and provided the text for two of Whitman's Big Little Books: Donald Duck and the Luck of the Ducks and Donald Duck and the Fabulous Diamond Fountain.
From 1972 through 1981, Carl worked as a storyman and story director on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon television shows: Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, Scooby-Doo, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, The All-New Popeye Hour, Laugh-a-Lympics, The Three Robonic Stooges and The Kwicky Koala Show. Carl also wrote for the Hanna-Barbera comic books of: The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, and The Jetsons.
From 1953 through the early 1970s, Carl wrote for the Warner Bros. Animation characters of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Mary Jane & Sniffles, and Speedy Gonzales, and was story director for Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales. Also in this time period, Fallberg wandered back into animation working on the Warner Bros. Speedy and Daffy Show.
His work for MGM comic books included The Addams Family, Tom & Jerry, Droopy, and Screwy Squirrel, and Mr. Magoo for UPA, and The Pink Panther and The Inspector for DePatie-Freleng. For Walter Lantz, Carl wrote Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda, Chilly Willy, and Homer Pigeon comic books.
Feature films and television:[7] [8] [9]
Carl Robert Fallberg publications:[10]