WHO IS SHMORKY?

My pen name Shmorky is based on a real-life animator from the 50s with a similar name. He is where I got my inspiration from. Looking at his old cartoons one can see how he rubbed off on me. unfortunately not many of his animations exist anymore since he destroyed them himself.
I was able to find a commercial he did for Lucky Strike though. There's an interesting story behind it. Schmorisson "Shmorky" Kay was commissioned by the cigarette company to make an animated advertisement that they could use on a prime time television series (it is still unknown what series it was to be used on.) He agreed for a very small amount of money, even less than what Jay Ward was asking for. That is because he did all the work himself. Somewhere along the lines there was a dispute over who owned the rights to animation. This was usually what made Shmorky go out of work- his insanity. He insisted that he owned the cartoon and that he'd only show it when he wanted to. Eventually he was thrown out of building and the ad was only shown twice before being shelved for many decades. It was 30 years later when Shmorky was digging through their garbage that he found the cartoon again. When I befriended this man and I told him I was a fan of his he let me have it. He then started to follow me around a lot, but that's another story.
You'll have to excuse the poor quality. This is a very old copy and not many people are interested in saving this extremely rare piece of animation... probably because no one knows or cares who Shmorky was.
Shmorky's Lucky Strike TV ad!