Theodore M. Petok (1917–2010) was an American cartoonist, illustrator, animator and film producer. He won Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1971 for The Crunch Bird.
After graduating from school in 1934, Petok attended an art school in Chicago, but stayed there only six months and then worked as a cartoonist for various New York newspapers. In 1935 he returned to Detroit, where he worked as an advertising artist for a local advertising company. After the end of the Second World War - from 1942 to 1946 he was in the US Army Signal Corps and most recently held the highest rank of captain - Petok opened a studio for advertising graphics in Detroit and specialized in animated advertising.
Petok soon turned completely to animation, initially working at Earl Klein's animation studio, Animation Inc., and eventually joining Ernest Pintoff's Pintoff Studios. In 1969, Petok founded his own animation film studio, Ted Petok Studios, which he renamed Crunch Bird Studios in 1971. He concentrated on traditional hand-drawn animation and, in addition to commercials, also made humorous short cartoons.[1] Together with Len Maxwell (dubbing) and Joe Petrovich (animation) they created the three-minute animated film The Crunch Bird, which Petok submitted to the Oscar competition as a producer on the advice of a cinema operator from Detroit. The film won the 1971 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.[2] In 1975, Crunch Bird II was made as a sequel; In 1981 numerous other short films about the Crunch Bird were released.
Petok produced and animated over two dozen cartoons, created animations for Sesame Street and The Electric Company, and numerous commercials. In 1989 he gave the Crunch Bird Studios to his eldest son.
Petok died of heart failure in 2010 and was buried in Beth El Memorial Park in Livonia, Michigan.