Ted Key was a prolific drawing master of cartoons and an "inventor of anthropomorphic animal characters" including the pet duck that laid golden eggs and was 'star' of the Walt Disney movie, The Million Dollar Duck (1971); a field-goal kicking mule in the Disney movie, Gus (1976) and a dog, who was a traveling professor who starred in a cartoon show, Rocky and Friends (1959).

Likely the cartoon character for which he remains best known is Hazel, "a name synonymous with live-in housekeepers as American suburbs flowered after World War II." Key created the series in 1943 based on a dream his father had about a bossy maid. The next morning Key sent the drawing he made from the conversation with hi...