"Mr. Big" from the DVD "Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends" ©2004 Ward Productions Inc.

Although it wasn’t exactly sudden (he was 90), TV cartoonist extraordinaire Alexander Anderson Jr. has died.

Creator of Rocky the flying squirrel, Bullwinkle the moose and several other famous celluloid creatures notable for appealing equally to adults and children.

Anderson (nephew of Terrytoon’s creator Paul Terry) teamed up with his childhood friend Jay Ward to create cheap cartoons for the newfangled TV audience.

Their first creation was the also the first ever animated TV series, Crusader Rabbit (with his pal Ragland T. “Rags” the Tiger) that turned out to be an unusually entertaining show.  The crusading hare and tiger protagonists became the pencil-test for their later squirrel and moose characters.

Popularity, critical acclaim and everlasting cult status arrived for Anderson and Ward with The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show in 1959.

Because he didn’t want to leave Frisco for L.A., Anderson left the details of the Rocky show to Ward. Later the two friends and frat brothers had a falling out when Anderson discovered that the copyright was only in Ward’s name.

We wouldn’t be surprised if Alex cast himself as a cartoon character on the web, as a last laugh on all of us (and cheating mortality) while waving goodbye.