Deceased 3/26/2017

During the 1950s, Mr. Harris was employed at the advertising firm Dancer Fitzgerald Sample. His role involved creating cartoon mascots and storyboards for advertising campaigns, promoting products such as General Mills cereals and Bounty paper towels.

In the late 1950s, Mr. Harris developed a floppy-eared white cartoon rabbit as a marketing tool for Trix, a fruit-flavored, multicolored variation of the more popular Kix cereal produced by General Mills. He also contributed by crafting a storyboard and writing the famous ad copy, 'Silly rabbit! Trix are for kids,' which later became closely associated with the cereal. Upon reviewing Mr. Harris's concepts in 1959, Chet Stover, the creative director responsible for the Trix account, composed a memo emphasizing the importance of acknowledging the rightful credit for ideas. He specifically credited Joe Harris for the creation of the Trix rabbit, stating, 'Joe gets all the credit for this one.'

Subsequently, Mr. Harris collaborated with Mr. Stover, W. Watts Biggers, an account manager at Dancer, and Treadwell Covington, an employee of a direct-mail agency, to establish Total TeleVision. This company aimed to produce Saturday morning cartoons in order to compete with the animated content created by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, who were known for their show featuring the characters Rocky & Bullwinkle. Within Total TeleVision, Mr. Stover and Mr. Biggers took on the primary writing responsibilities, while Mr. Covington managed the audio recording, and Mr. Harris focused on drawing storyboards and designing characters such as King Leonardo, Klondike Kat, and Tennessee Tuxedo.

One of the most recognized characters created by Mr. Harris was Underdog, who underwent a transformation from a canine resembling a shoeshiner into a superhero. This change typically occurred when the reporter Sweet Polly Purebred was in danger, often threatened by villains like the evil scientist Simon Bar Sinister and the stylish wolf gangster Riff Raff. Mr. Harris depicted Underdog as an unconventional hero, a slender dog adorned in a loose-fitting red suit and a blue cape.
“Underdog was a bumbler,” Mr. Harris told The Fresno Bee in 2007. “He would catch the crook whether he knew how he did it or not.”

The animated show 'The Underdog Show' featured the titular character voiced by actor Wally Cox and secured a prime Saturday morning slot on NBC in 1964. Underdog quickly became popular with young audiences, leading to the creation of a balloon for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in the following year, with the assistance of Mr. Harris. Even after Total TeleVision ceased production of new episodes in the late 1960s, the show's longevity was sustained by the presence of the Underdog balloon, reruns, and a memorable theme song.

In 2007, a live-action film adaptation of 'Underdog,' featuring Jason Lee as the voice of the heroic canine, was released, further extending the character's legacy. Joseph Benjamin Harris III, the creator of Underdog, was born on January 5, 1928, in Jersey City to Charlie Harris and Gladys Golden. After serving in both the Navy and the Marines, he graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn before commencing his career at Dancer and later delving into the world of advertising. Joseph Benjamin Harris III was married twice, first to Janet Opel in 1957, and then to Vanessa Campbell in 1983, both of whom passed away in 1981 and 2002, respectively.
He is survived by his daughters, Joelle Malec and Sophie Harris, a stepbrother named David, and three grandchildren. Following the conclusion of 'The Underdog Show,' Mr. Harris shifted back to advertising and eventually ventured into the realm of writing and illustrating children’s books, including 'The Belly Book.' Despite the passage of time, interest in 'Underdog' remained strong, as Mr. Harris noted in a 2007 interview with The Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina, where he shared that people continued to request drawings of Underdog whenever he was in public.
On March 26, 2017 Joe Harris passed away at the age of 89 at his home in Stamford, Connecticut.