Melvin "Tubby" Millar

 

Melvin Millar was an animator and gag writer (someone who writes the jokes for cartoons, mostly used during the Golden Age) for Warner Bros. He is best known for his work on Porky Pig cartoons.

Melvin Miller (spelled with an e) was born in Portis, Kansas on May 6th, 1900. He attended Portis High School, where he liked to draw on his textbooks. After graduating in 1918, he joined the Navy. Following his service, he most likely attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. It has also been said he attended the Kansas City Art School, but this does not seem possible. If he did, it had to have been extremely briefly, as he graduated from the Chicago Academy in 1920. From there, he came back to Kansas City and began working at the United Film Ad Service in 1927. He worked there until 1931, where he left for California.

When he began working in California, he changed his name to Melvin Millar (spelled with an a) for "professional reasons". He joined Leon Schlesinger Productions

(which later became Warner Bros.' animation department) in 1931. Like most gag writers at the studio, he went uncredited on much of his early cartoons: many cartoons dating back to 1934 are listed on his IMDB, but the first cartoons that can be verified that he worked on are from 1935 & 1936, such as "Bingo Crosbyana", where a matchbox is from the "Portis Match Company". His first credited cartoon was on 1937's "The Case of the Stuttering Pig", one of the many Porky Pig cartoons he worked on. Millar wrote a number of well-known and important cartoons from this period, such as "The Ducktators", "Hollywood Steps Out"and "Hare-um Scare-um". Millar would leave Warner Bros. in 1945.

After leaving Warner Bros., Millar became a free-lancer, writing comics for the Belda Record Company called Talking Komics (The comics would come with a record, which when played alongside the comic would make it "talk"), as well as making cartoons for various magazines. He also taught cartooning and animation at the Hollywood Art Center into at least the 50s. He continued free-
lancing presumably until his death on December 30th, 1980 at the age of 80. In 1992, Portis erected a memorial to Millar, featuring a picture of Porky Pig.

Portis Pig in "The Case of the Stuttering Pig" (third from left)

Millar was evidently very proud of his hometown, as he snuck mentions of Portis (and his own name) into a number of his cartoons. Most of the time, these were simple background gags, such as in the aforementioned "Bingo Crosbyana", but sometimes these references were more major, such as in "The Case of the Stuttering Pig", where Porky has a relative named Portis Pig.

Sources

Brian, Greg. “Melvin ‘Tubby’ Millar.” Looney Tunes Hidden Gags, https://gregbrian.tripod.com/hidden/melvinmillar.html.

“Melvin ‘Tubby’ Miller – 1996 Inductee.” The Osborne County Hall of Fame, 17 Aug. 2012, https://ochf.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/melvin-tubby-miller-1996-inductee/.