George Pal
1908-1980

Birth-1949

George Pal Jr. was born on February 1, 1908 in Cegled, Hungary. His parents were Maria and George Pal. George attended Budapest Academy of Arts were he studied architecture. As part of the curriculum students had to spend one year either as a carpenter or a brick layer. George chose carpentry and stayed with it for an additional year in order to become a licensed carpenter.

"I think working with wood helped me an awful lot with the Puppetoons later on. I think without that experience I would probably never have invented the Puppetoon system."
— George Pal

He was hired by Hunnia Films where he added illustrations to dialog cards used in silent movies. He married Zsoka Grandjean. George and Zsoka moved to Berlin in 1930 to pursue a film career. It was here that George began the concept of the Puppetoons. He did a stop motion commercial with dancing cigarettes. In time the cigarettes acquired legs, arms, and eyes. In 1933 the Nazi party was coming into force and George and Zsoka moved to Prague, then to Paris. From Paris they moved to Endhover, Holland in order to do his first real Puppetoon. This was Ship of Ether. The ship was made of glass and was stop motion animated on waves also made of glass.

The Pals had applied several times for a visa to the U.S. and was finally granted. Arriving in New York, George met an executive from Paramount who had seen one of the Puppetoons and offered him a job producing Puppetoons for them. George opened a studio in Hollywood and began making Puppetoons. Here are a few of the people who would be employed by George over the years: Willis O'Brien, Ray Harryhausen, Wah Chang and Gene Warren.

George Pal and Zsoka Pal

Gae Griffith started as the secretary to Pal's business manager, then moved to become Pal's secretary and when George began making full length films became production secretary and finally assistant to the producer.

The last Puppetoon was Romeow and Julicat in 1949.