Norm McCabe has passed away at the age of 94. McCabe was born in Great Britain but raised in America. In the mid-thirties, he became one of the most respected animators at the Warner Brothers cartoon studio. In 1941, when director Tex Avery left the studio and moved to M.G.M., that left an opening for a new director and McCabe — who had previously co-directed some cartoons with Bob Clampett — got the job.
The cartoons McCabe directed are all professional but not as funny as those made by his peers. Many of them were "wartime" films such as The Ducktator and Tokio Jokio that dated quickly and so were not re-released or (later) given much TV airplay. In any case, McCabe's time as a director was limited. In 1943, he went into the military and when he returned to civilian life, he moved into commercial work and the production of educational films. In the sixties, he drifted back to his old line of work to animate for Filmation, DePatie-Freleng, WB and other studios. He was one of the animators on the 1972 movie, Fritz the Cat.
In 2000, ASIFA presented him with the Winsor McCay Award. He also received the Golden Award from the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists in recognition of fifty years in the animation field.
Obviously, it is not a huge shock that a 94 year old man should leave us. But Norm McCabe was the last living director from the "golden age" of Warner Brothers animation and one of the few animators from that period who was still around. So along with condolences to his friends and families, we also have condolences to ourselves. We've just about the lost The Greatest Generation of cartoon creators.