Key, Ted
Entry updated 15 April 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1912-2008) US cartoonist and author born Theodore Keyser, active as a cartoonist from the early 1930s, his most famous cartoon creation being the Hazel strip for the Saturday Evening Post, which was adapted as a 1961-1965 television series. In the 1950s he adopted the surname Key that had been taken by his father during World War One. His children's story The Biggest Dog in the World (1960 chap), about a Dog which grows enormous (see Great and Small), was filmed as the sf Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World (1973) directed by Joseph McGrath. Key also scripted the Disney films Million Dollar Duck (1971) and Gus (1976). Of particular sf interest is his comical screenplay for Disney's The Cat from Outer Space (1978) directed by Norman Tokar – about a Cat-like Alien who has crash-landed on Earth – which he followed up with a Tie novel, The Cat from Outer Space (1978). [JC/DRL]
Theodore Key
born Fresno, California: 26 August 1912
died Tredyffrin, Pennsylvania: 3 May 2008
works (selected)
- The Biggest Dog in the World (New York: Dutton, 1960) [chap: illus/hb/Ted Key]
- The Cat from Outer Space (New York: Pocket Books/Kangaroo, 1978) [tie to the author's screenplay for The Cat from Outer Space (1978): pb/]
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