Bill Scott, creator and voice of Bullwinkle, head writer for the series, unregistered genius of American animation, was one of the early purges of Disney's studio during the Red Scare. Unlike a lot of people, he happily wore his left wing opinions on his sleeve, and was instrumental in formulating the UPA style. Jay Ward had no art skills whatsoever and was basically just an eccentric real estate agent that decided animation would be a good business, somewhat like Neil Breen only with the knack for picking good projects instead of insane personal projects. He was still a total nut, and started wearing a Gilbert and Sullivan outfit, and wearing a big Teddy Roosevelt mustache. He was laughed off the Johnny Carson show for beating Johnny with a giant salami on live television. Cap'n Crunch is designed to look like him. Eventually, Ward started firing his employees one by one and replacing them with Mexican immigrants that worked under the table. He had actually been on hand for the launch of Toei Animation in Japan, but they didn't have facilities when he needed them, and he actually never used them, despite dumping a ton of money into their organization.

The final laugh of Bill Scott's life was being cast as Gruffi Gummi in the early 80s, when he was remembered merely as a voice actor and not an animator. Everybody had forgotten about his politics and he happily took the paycheck from Eisner. Jay Ward became increasingly paranoid and psychotic, and he ended his days locked in an office and never seeing his own employees, shouting at them through an intercom system.

Holy shit, I didn't know anything about Jay Ward's life or personality. Thank you!

Cog, PBS Spacetime gets an immediate unsub from me the day you yourself start making informative videos.

I beg of thee.

Jay Ward is sort of an enigma. He treated writers with utmost dignity and respect. They could do no wrong. He treated animators like human dog shit. He was a notorious "fun boss" with all the annoying traits of a Ricky Gervaise character. He filled Ward Studios with ice cream freezers, espresso machines (Ward and Disney feuded over the Italian espresso press that's currently in Club 33. Ward was an early coffee snob who introduced pressed coffee to the producer set.) He threw lavish themed parties, such as a "Diamond Jim Brady Ball", with himself as Brady, throwing costume jewelry out with rented Gay 90s costumes at the door. Bill Scott frequently made light of his diet, which consisted solely of candy, ice cream, caffeine and the sugar cereals he marketed. But the animators got paid a pittance and he would cycle through Mexican animators at a breakneck speed to keep them from asking for more money. Ward refused to part with merchandising rights, and was the first to sell animation cells from a storefront in Hollywood.

At some point, Ward had a nervous breakdown after he was trapped in a car after a car crash and had to be cut out of the wreckage. He disappeared for several years and left Scott in charge, and Scott did amazing work with his freedom. Eventually Ward returned, and he became a Citizen Kane like presence until Scott left. Chris Hayward, chief writer, pitched a cartoon that featured a monster family, but Ward had him under contract that all scripts for animation went to Ward first. Hayward rewrote it as live action and it became the Munsters.

Forward thirty years. A young Cognitivedissonance is an art department intern on a failed indie film directed by the art director of "George of the Jungle", the Brendan Fraser version. This dude starts telling me about his hassles with the Ward estate, how they were deeply uncooperative due to envy over Disney merchandising. The Bullwinkke Emporium was going out of business, and they felt George of the Jungle merch would save the ship. They would hang out on the set, stealing props for resale.

Also there's the legend that Joe Barbera was an OCD germaphobe who had his own extravagant private shower in his office at Hanna-Barbera, and after mingling with animators he'd excuse himself to take a shower multiple times a day.