Iwao Takamoto: My Life with a Thousand Characters was mentioned at the top of Billy Heller's Recommended Reading column in yesterday's New York Post :You don't know the name, but you probably know the work. Los Angeles-born artistTakamoto was a Disney and Hanna-Barbera animator who brought Johnny Quest, the Jetsons' dog Astro and, most famously, Scooby-Doo to Saturday mornings with his drawings. Takamoto, who died shortly after his manuscript was finished, revealsScooby got his name from a TV exec who heard Frank Sinatra singing "dooby-doobydoo" at the end of "Strangers in the Night" and denies the Scooby/Shaggy pothead rumors. But what sets this book apart from other pop-culture bios is his account of spending WWII in an internment camp with other Japanese-Americans.
Iwao Takamoto (1925-2007) was a celebrated animation artist and character designer for Walt Disney Company and Hanna-Barbera Productions. My Life with a Thousand Characters, co-authored with Michael Mallory, is now available from UPM.
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