Harry Scarey and Ann Tenna (”Cyrano the Crow”)
In the years 1952-1956 Don worked on a story about a scarecrow named Harry Scarey who fell in love with Ann Tenna (standing above the roof of a nearby house, she looked like a scarecrow to Harry).
This illustrated idea for a book was submitted to Don’s editor May Massee at the Viking Press in New York in the 1950’s with the title “Some Pumpkins”. A clipping from the Santa Barbara Newspress (where the black and white image below left appeared reads: “Scandal in Scarecrow Row” … A hilarious and lively [puppet] drama about a scarecrow called Harry Scarey who falls in love with a lithesome TV accessory called Ann Tenna. The enormity of such a love affair rocks Scarecrow Row like a sudden wind and the plot against the lovers begins, aided and abetted by a gossipy crow named Pearl Nesta.” The clipping also states: “Not content with authoring “Scarecrow”, Don Freeman has designed and directed the production.” It would be interesting to know if a record of this script exists somewhere!
As several of Don’s books (for instance “Inspector Peckit”) the original idea transformed over the years into “Cyrano the Crow” published in 1960. Click on either of the images to the left to view what illustrations I have found. An illustration from Cyrano is also shown to illustrate what happened to “Harry”.
