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Britain’s first Oscar-winning animator Bob Godfrey, whose work ranged from the children’s TV cartoon Roobarb and the BAFTA-winning Henry’s Cat to mock-erotic films like Kama Sutra Rides Again, died Thursday at the age of 91. Born in Australia (née Roland Frederick Godfrey), he was educated in England where he began his career as a graphic artist in the 1930s. During World War II he served in the Royal Marines and afterward seized an opportunity to work in animation that eventually lead to a collaborative animated film produced in 1952 at a cost of £10 and entitled The Big Parade. Godfrey’s crew — Jeff Hale, Keith Learner, and later Nancy Hanna and Vera Linnecar — decided to set up their own studio, making some of the first commercials for ITV. The Guardian described him as the godfather of British animation. In addition to winning the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film for his 1975 musical comedy Great,...

I met Bob Godfrey in 1952 when I joined the William Larkin studio in Mayfair. To relieve the boredom of the industrial instructional films we were making, Bob and I started working on cartoon films in his basement in Tufnell Park, north London. In 1955 we left Larkin's and started Biographic Films, specifically to make commercials for ITV. We had the first cartoon commercial on the first night of ITV in September 1955.

For Courage Ales we made a series of live-action ads parodying silent cinema. The commercials, complete with title cards, followed the adventures of a villain, a lady and a dashing hero – the last played by Bob himself. They typically ended with the rescued damsel telling the hero to claim his reward: he always chose the ale. We filmed one behind King's Cross station and another in Bognor Regis; I was left with the equipment when the tide came in.

We...