Dave MacKenzie co-published the Town Crier from its start in 1947 until 1972, when he sold the paper to Mort Levine. The following is his look back on the early days.
A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Warren Goodrich worked as an artist for the San Francisco Chronicle before moving to Los Altos. At the Chronicle, he drew what that paper calls “Little Man,” which is still used to illustrate its ratings for motion pictures and plays in the “Pink Section.”
It was also at the Chronicle that Goodrich started a syndicated column called “Animal Crackers.” It featured animals that talked, and could be considered an early model for Garry Larson’s popular “Far Side.” Syndicated by the Chicago Sun Times, “Animal Crackers” was immensely successful and appeared in more than 80 papers nationwide.
Goodrich had his offices in Los Altos on Main Street in back of Fred Trumbull’s accounting offices and in front of a small print shop that produced the first Town Crier. Besides his syndicated cartoon strip, which ran single column, six days a week, he produced artwork for advertising agencies. Goodrich also made the first commercial to appear on San Francisco television stations.
David MacKenzie lived in Palo Alto and attended schools there before graduating from Stanford. Several years later, he moved to Los Altos where he rented a cottage on a chicken/apricot ranch at the end of O’Keefe Lane. He had an idea for a series of ads that required an artist and stopped into Goodrich’s office for assistance. He was generously offered a job as Goodrich’s “gofer.” His first job was to get a slab of frozen spumoni from the dessert factory to Goodrich, on a hot day, for an art rendition. From then on, the job became increasingly exciting.
Goodrich and MacKenzie remained partners for about four years when the bright lights of New York beckoned Goodrich. He had a successful, if varied, career there doing everything from designing jewelry for Cartier to overseeing publishing activities at the Girl Scouts of America headquarters.
Goodrich keeps active in Wellsboro, Pa., where he lives with his wife, Connie. He writes columns for the local paper, is a commentator for the radio station and has commissions to do art for silk screening. MacKenzie is still sighted around Los Altos Hills, where he is involved in good deeds like feeding quail. He occasionally writes an opinion piece for the Town Crier with views not generally shared by mainstream America. He has produced posters of birds that can be found in interpretive centers at state and national parks in California.
