The animator of much-loved cartoons Roobarb and Henry's Cat has died aged 91, his family has confirmed.

Bob Godfrey won an Oscar for his short film Great, a biography of the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, but remains best known for his TV work.

The British animator - whose career spanned 50 years - was also responsible for Noah and Nelly in... Skylark and the risque cartoon series Henry 9 to 5.

He was awarded three Baftas and received an MBE in June 1986.

Godfrey was born in Australia, on 27 May 1921, but was educated in east London.

He began his professional career as a graphic artist working in advertising, before joining the innovative Larkin Studio in the early 1950s where he made his earliest cartoons.

In the mid-1950s, Godfrey joined up with Jeff Hale and Keith Learner, and later Nancy Hanna and Vera Linnecar, to form Biographic Films, making some of the first commercials for ITV.

But he sought to work outside the American tradition, characterised by Disney - and typically took a more unorthodox view, producing work such as The Do It Yourself Cartoon Kit (1961).

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Just noticed this...

What is funny about Bob Godfrey's animation style was it was pretty lousy in all honesty but the effect it gives off is quite profound. I loved watching Henry's Cat. People believed Henry's Cat was about a cat who was owned by an anonymous person called Henry in the kids show. It was just an in-joke to that risque cartoon Henry 9 to 5.

He lived to a good old age.  8)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6231mqImdPE

It was watching (as a young boy) the “Do-It-Yourself Film Animation Show” on BBC TV, an episode that featured Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame, that inpsried to animated film.