In the course of his artistic life, he directed and animated award-winning shorts. Hale's work ranged from Sesame Street to part of the 1981 feature Heavy Metal to his Emmy-winning directing on Jim Henson's Muppet Babies (1985-86), TV shows and commercials. He worked at the National Film Board of Canada, ran his own studios in London and San Francisco and freelanced. Among his better known works are The Great Toy Robbery (1963) and his controversial Lenny Bruce short project piece Thank You Mask Man.
Born in Margate, England on January 5, 1923, Hale began drawing as a teenager during a long hospital stay and graduated at the Royal College of Art in London at the end of WWII. His first animation job began at William M. Larkins and Comapny in England, where Hale trained under the guidance of German director-designer Peter Sachs. He formed his own commercial animation studio house Biographic Films with partners and Larkin co-workers Bob Godfrey and Keith Learner.
After moving to Winnipeg Canada from his native England in 1956, he joined Phillips-Gutkin and Associates (PGA), and three years later was invited into the National Film Board of Canada in Montreal, working on a number of projects including short segments compiled for non-commercial Canadian TV, first in Hors-D'Oeuvre (1959-60) and then in Pot-pourri (1962). Along with Norman McLaren, Grant Munro and Gerald Potterton, Hale contributed to animating segments for the 1963 NFB Christmas holiday short project, Christmas Cracker, that went on to receive an Academy Award nomination.
In 1964, Hale Hale and Derek Lamb collaborated on the The Great Toy Robbery (1963), which pitted Santa Claus against gun-slinging outlaws in the American west, before he once again relocated, this time to San Francisco to team up with fellow NFB co-worker Cameron Guess, soon to be joined by Lamb and animator Barrie Nelson. The studio produced the films The Well (1965) and The Shepherd (1967). According to Hale, Guess invited him and Lamb to a Christmas Eve drink, shortly before The Shepherd was finished, which he directed. After they all enjoyed a drink together, Guess promptly fired them both. Hale never received credit for his efforts, claiming Guess wanted full credit for the film, which eventually was nominated for an Oscar in 1970.
In 1968, Hale and his wife Margaret then partnered with John Magnuson and Walt Kramer, who ran Imagination Inc. In addition to television commercials, the San Francisco studio began supplying a great amount of animated shorts for the Children’s Television Workshop, creators and producers of Sesame Street, for over 30 years, which included a series of famed Pinball Number Count spots, some of which are still seen on the program. Hale also developed a number of beloved recurring characters for Sesame Street, including the Ringmaster, Typewriter and Detective Man.
Magnuson was close friends with comic Lenny Bruce, and using audio from a Bruce routine based on the Lone Ranger and Tonto and live Bruce recordings from Kramer’s extensive library, Hale designed and directed the animation of the highly controversial Thank You Mask Man. Magnuson would continually court trouble with the film. The short had a controversial and unprofitable run; it was scheduled to premiere at the opening night of the San Francisco International Film Festival. After submitting the film to the Motion Picture Academy, he later found out from Bill Meléndez, chairman of the animation nomination committee, that the film was mysteriously taken off the program and never screened for consideration. Magnuson said he believed that the film's submission for Academy Awards consideration was sabatoged by an Academy member who hated Bruce so much he hid the entry; Hale’s version suggested that “the projectionist took it upon himself to act as a censor.” The short found an audience and attained cult status nonetheless, with regular pre-feature screenings over many years at Landmark Theatres.
Over the following decades, along with Geraldine Clarke and Prescott Wright, Jeff and Margaret Hale would be crucial to the founding of The San Francisco Animation Association in 1973, which eventually became ASIFA-San Francisco branch once ASIFA's European board accepted their application for chapter status in 1975. When Imagination Inc. closed in 1979, Hale later helped setup and run the animation department of San Francisco studio Mill Valley Animation. From 1979-1980, he worked on a number of The Flintstones episodes.
Hale left Mill Valley and also animated the “B-17” segment of the animated feature Heavy Metal (1981), directed by Gerald Potterton, an old friend and co-director at the NFB. During the 1980s Hale moved to Los Angeles where he went back to work as a freelance animator and director for numerous episodic TV series and specials, including Here Comes Garfield and on “Stanley the Ugly Duckling,” an episode for the ABC Weekend Specials. He freelance animated on episodes of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show (1983) and worked as an animation director on the first season of The Transformers (1985) and a series of Jim Henson’s The Muppet Babies (Emmy winners for Best Animation Director in 1985 and 1986), as well as G.I. Joe and My Little Pony. Hale continued to work, with considerable artistic freedom, on Sesame Street until 1999. In 1986 he worked as the animation director on Solarman, a TV movie.
Hale eventually retired to Talent, Oregon in the late 80s, though he continued to illustrate, paint and draw into his later years until his death. He is survived by his daughter Margot and son Nick. His paintings and other work can be seen at his website.
Hale is featured in this 1982 PBS documentary called The Animators:
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