“I did it because it would free me from the rest of the world”; Paul Fierlinger, 1936–2025

Paul Fierlinger was born Pavel Fierlinger, the son of a diplomat of a country that no longer exists, in a country in its last years of Imperial rule. He died in a country that may also be on the cusp of radical change. In between, he told stories.

In his adopted home, the United States, he’s probably best known for the more than two dozen animated segments he produced for Sesame Street, including the charming Teeny Little Super Guy, a gentle, low-key hero animated by wrapping translucent cels around cups and glasses. The mix of three-dimensional elements, Fierlinger’s charming animation, and Jim Thurman’s gravel-voiced performance made the Super Guy segment particularly memorable: I’d guess that most Gen Xers can at least hum the tune.

But by the time he started animating for Sesame Street, Fierlinger had already had a pretty impressive career.

When he was born in Japan in 1936, his father was a diplomat for what is now called the First Czechoslovak Republic. During World War II, he was sent to study in the United States for his safety, and after the war he attended boarding school with Miloš Forman and Václav Havel. His family had close ties with the Czechoslovakian Communist Party, which brought some stability to the family after the 1948 coup d’état that left the party (backed by the Soviet Union) in power. According to Fierlinger, in the 1950s Czechoslovakians couldn’t even own a typewriter without permission from the state, much less make films. But 16mm film was considered a hobbyist’s tool, and the first Czechoslovakian animators worked in 16mm. Fierlinger became skilled at getting around the rules, and was able to create and sustain his own home-based animation studio. In 1967, tired of paying bribes and the country’s politically repressive environment, he left for Europe. He lived in several European countries before settling in the United States, first working for Universal Studios and then briefly for a Burlington, Vermont based television station (my guess is WCAX) before settling in Philadelphia and establishing his own studio, AR&T, in 1971. (He would later move himself and AR&T to Penn Wynne.)

AR&T is where he began working for Sesame Workshop, Nickelodeon, and many others, creating an astonishing number of animated shorts and commercials: over 7,000 in all, including Oscar nominee It’s So Nice to Have a Wolf Around the House. He told stories about addiction, famous people, life with dogs. He did work with public television stations, but he never applied for a grant; most of his work was classic contract work, or for himself. Fierlinger also created two feature films with his second wife and collaborator Sandra, who was also an artist in her own right. “It took Sandra and me two-and-a-half years to draw and paint My Dog Tulip,” he said, “and we never experienced a stressful moment to retell, something I can’t say about many 10 second films I have made.” He said he took most of his inspiration from books rather than films or television, and he welcomed innovation, saying that TVPaint was one of his greatest influences and beta-testing for the company for more than a decade. “You put down a few pictures, and you can play them in real time to see how it’s working.”

Fierlinger lived long enough that he created a documentary about his early years and the evolution of his career thirty years before his death: the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences had a special presentation about Drawn from Memory and his work in 2022.

Fierlinger’s work has a whimsy to it, and its wobbly lines and slightly lumpy figures actively resist the over-smoothed aesthetics of much of today’s commercial animation. His figures aren’t idealized; they’re friends. I believe none of his segments are still in rotation on Sesame Street, and I don’t think it’s just my nostalgia that finds it something of a shame. Most of us could use a Teeny Little Super Guy around to remind us to share and be careful crossing the street.

Some of the information in this article was taken from this wonderful obituary in Animation Magazine, which is well worth checking out. Paul and Sandra also have a Vimeo page here, where you can see more of their collected work.