Newsgroups: alt.obituaries
At the request of my good friend Victoria Biggers, I just composed the following and sent it to the Associated Press:
W. WATTS "BUCK" BIGGERS, 85, Co- Creator of "Underdog" William Watts "Buck" Biggers, novelist and network executive best known for= the creation of the cartoon super-hero "Underdog" has died, according to D= erek Tague, a family friend. Mr. Biggers, 85, died Sunday (February 10, 2013) at his home in the Cape Co= d area of Massachusetts. No cause of death was immediately available. Born on June 2, 1927, in Avondale Estates, Georgia and reputedly a distant = relation of "Charlie Chan" creator Earl Derr Biggers, Mr. Biggers attended = Avondale High School, North Georgia Military College, and Emory University = Law School. At age 20, Mr. Biggers relocated in New York City intent on pur= suing a musical career playing piano and composing original songs Starting= with a mailroom job and rising through the ranks to a vice-presidency at a= dvertising agency DFS -- Dancer Fitzgerald Sample -- Biggers accepted an as= signment from the agency's largest client, General Mills, to create a serie= s of television cartoons for the purpose of selling its cereal products. Along with artist Joseph Harris and DFS colleagues Treadwell Covington and = Chet Stover, Buck Biggers and company launched Total Television (TTV) and b= rought to the small screen "King Leonardo and His Short Subjects" for NBC i= n 1960, the quasi-educational "Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales" (ABC,1963), = and his greatest animation triumph "Underdog" (NBC, 1964) which chronicled= the adventures of a superhero dog, voiced by comic actor Wally Cox, who ga= ined his powers from energy pills as he fought off villains like mad scient= ist Simon Bar Sinister, a gangster wolf named Riff Raff, and alien menaces = such as Overcat. In recent years, Mr. Biggers delighted in the enduring appeal of his Underd= og franchise which included the character's appearances as the first horizo= ntal-styled balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, in commercials, = in a 2007 live-action film version, at a Halloween party being portrayed by= Vice-President Albert Gore, and as mascot for Boston's "Positive People Da= y, an annual event sponsored by Victory Over Violence, an organization co-f= ounded by Mr. Biggers and his longtime companion Nancy Purbeck and "dedicat= ed to creating a positive force in the media to offset the cynicism and neg= ativity, which create a climate of violence," After General Mills pulled out of the animation business in the late 1960s = following Biggers' last network effort "The Beagles" (ABC, 1967), he transi= tioned to a position as Vice-President of Promotion and Creative Services a= t the NBC, where he oversaw a department of over one-hundred employees. Dur= ing his NBC tenure, Mr. Biggers and his prot=E9g=E9 Paula Mermelstein, cur= rently an executive at Showtime, re-designed and revived NBC's long-dormant= peacock mascot. As a writer, Mr. Biggers wrote for publications such as TV Guide, Family Ci= rcle and Reader's Digest, and several novels like "The Man Inside" (1968) a= nd "Hold Back the Tide" (2001), as well as his 2005 memoir "How Underdog Wa= s Born," co-written with Mr. Stover for Bear Manor Media, and heavily promo= ted by Mr. Biggers at several nostalgia conventions like the Baltimore-area= Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention. Mr. Biggers was pre-deceased in 1989 by Grace, his wife of 39 years and a = one-time employee of record executive Mitch Miller. In addition Ms. Purbeck= , Mr. Biggers is survived by his daughter Victoria Biggers and his son W. = Watts Biggers, Jr., both of Massachusetts, a brother Bascom Biggers of Chag= rin Falls, Ohio, a cousin James Biggers of Columbus, South Carolina, and se= veral relatives in South Carolina and Georgia.. Funeral arrangements will b= e private with a memorial service to be announced for a later date. The fam= ily requests in lieu of flowers that donations be made in Buck Biggers' na= me to the Victory Over Violence, which can contacted via its website at htt= p://www.vov.com/. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "World News Now Discussion List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/wnndl?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
