Lou Scheimer deserves a longer & better obituary than I can provide at this time; I suggest those interested read this one or this one or wait for Mark Evanier's post on Lou.
Lou, at the urging of the late Arthur Nadel Jr, was the first producer to hire me, the first one to put me on staff as a writer, and the first one to regret that decision, I'm sure. At one time Lou had me, Sam Simon, and John Dorman working for him simultaneously.
A lesser man would have snapped.
But Lou was made of sterner stuff as a brief look at the history of Filmation Studios will tell you. Filmation was my introduction to animation, my boot camp, my finishing school, my crucible. Thanx to him & the wonderful, wonderful staff he recruited I learned more in 8 months about writing & creativity & film making than I could have learned in 48 months in a class room.
I've described Lou as a gent and a class act and he was. He was also a mensch and when others were shipping jobs overseas to line their pockets, he was squeezing each nickel so hard the friggin' buffalo would fart...but he kept those jobs in the US of A.
I'm glad I was able to tell him how much he meant to me and so many others, both employees and fans.
