Ted Key

American cartoonist

Ted Key (born Theodore Keyser, August 25, 1912 – May 3, 2008) was an American cartoonist and writer. He is best known for the single-panel comic strip Hazel. This comic strip was about a bossy live-in maid. It ran in The Saturday Evening Post from 1943 until 1969 when the Post went out of business. It was then picked up by other publications. Key adapted the strip to the sitcom television series Hazel. Shirley Booth starred as Hazel. Key also drew Diz and Liz, a two-page feature that ran in the Jack and Jill children's magazine from 1961 to 1972. He also created "Peabody's Improbable History" for the animated television series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. In 1977, Key received the National Cartoonists Society Newspaper Panel Award for his work on Hazel.