Tashlin, Frank

Frank Tashlin, byname of Francis Fredrick von Taschlein, (born February 19, 1913, Weehawken, New Jersey, U.S.—died May 5, 1972, Los Angeles, California), American cartoonist, writer, animator, and film director who specialized in broad satirical comedies. Tashlin directed his animated cartoons like live-action films—employing a wide range of cinematic techniques—and transposed the elastic composition, loud colour, boisterous gags, and disjointed reality of cartoons to the live-action films he wrote and directed, including popular vehicles for Bob Hope, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and Jayne Mansfield. Central to many of his films was the spoofing of popular culture, from comic books and advertising to television and popular music.