He went on to write for, amongst others- Amos 'n' Andy, Jack Paar, Don Ameche and most notably Bing Crosby's show, (where he was able to work with “practically anybody of any consequence in business.”) Fields and Jack Haley.Īfter a stint in the army during World War 2, Kanter returned to broadcasting, joining the staff of Danny Kaye's radio show. He encountered (and sometimes even wrote for) such luminaries as Jack Pearl, Olson and Johnson, Joe Penner, W.C. The 1930s were a hectic and exhilarating time for young Kanter, as he spent time on both coasts working on material for both radio and the stage. When Hal was a teenager living in Long Beach, New York, he “would sneak away from school and go into and try and sell cartoons, and succeeded sometimes.” Eventually, he started making his way into professional comedy. He also became hooked on writing and drawing.
He was interested primarily in comedy.” For his part, Hal “became really hooked on comedy” after seeing Eddie Cantor at a theatre in Miami, Florida. He was a marvelous storyteller and, I often felt, really a frustrated actor. Hal Kanter remembered his father as “an extremely witty man. (The first title was The Three Musketeers.) These early “graphic novels” formed an important part of many children's reading from the 1940s to the 1970s. The firm offered adaptations of great literature in comic book form. It was this love of reading in general and the classics in particular that led Albert Kanter to found Classic Comics- later known as Classics Illustrated- in 1941. He was one of the most omnivorous readers, as a young man, that I've ever heard of.” Hal remembered his father who worked for some years as a traveling salesman, as an autodidact: “In order to complete his own education, he spent many hours in public libraries. His father, Albert Lewis, came to the United States from Russia at the age of four. George Gobel's greatest writer, Hal Kanter, was born on Decemin Savannah, Georgia. I'm the internationally famous writer-director known to his barber as “Next!” – Hal Kanter
– George Schlatter (producer, ROWAN AND MARTIN'S LAUGH-IN)Ī prince among comedy writers. Hal Kanter was a lovely, lovely, brilliant man by the way was as funny as many of the comics he wrote for, you know.