His humorous drawings have appeared for decades in Mad
magazine and on Hallmark Cards, but the name Paul Coker Jr.
doesn't tend to light up many eyes until you mention "Frosty the
Snowman."

"Once people understand that, in fact, I did draw the
original little character for TV, then their attitude changes
somewhat," Coker said from his home in Santa Fe, N.M.
"It's almost like they're meeting Walt Disney or something."

The 72-year-old Coker is a former Kansas City area resident
who was born and raised in Lawrence. He's getting the star
treatment these days because his character design for "Frosty,
" the animated Christmas special that recently aired on CBS for
the 33rd consecutive year, has come out of the marketing
freezer.

Coker's familiar image of Frosty is being used for the first
time to sell a line of consumer products, from bath mats to
plush toys. They're available exclusively through the Mervyn's
department store chain in 14 states (although Missouri and
Kansas are not among them).

"I suppose that Frosty is the most famous character that I've
ever done," Coker said.

Frosty first appeared in a popular children's book written by
Annie North Bedford in 1950, and he became even more famous
when the story was turned into a song by Steve Nelson and Jack
Rollins. In the late 1960s, producers Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass
asked Coker to draw Frosty for the animated TV version.

"If you sing the popular song, all of the elements are there:
the corncob pipe and a button nose and two eyes made
out of coal," Coker said. "And then you draw a few circles
and you've got it. It's really very simple."

However, Coker did leave his own mark on Frosty.

"I put a scarf on the character just to help the animators
with making him look more human," he said. "Of course,
the eyes are not really just pieces of coal. They have a white
of the eye -- if you can have a white of the eye on a
snowman. And the nose is not really a button, it's kind of a
round thing that's red. It makes it more lifelike, for sure.
Somewhat like W.C. Fields' nose, although I wasn't thinking
about W.C. Fields."

Coker has continued to do design work for numerous
Rankin-Bass animated projects, including the brand-new
"Santa Baby," airing Monday. It's the story of a young girl who
uses a Christmas wish to help her songwriter father. Will it
become a family favorite like "Frosty"? Who knows?

After all Coker never thought that his drawing of "Chesty
Lion," the Lawrence High School mascot, would still be
around after all these years, either.

"I probably drew it back in '46," he recalled. "I was a
junior in high school, and the business manager of the
yearbook thought it would be a good idea to put out a
decal for the school and give it away to those people
who bought the yearbook.

"Because of the way I drew it, it looks like a proud lion.
It's still used on everything, even band uniforms. The kids
don't have any idea. it's been around so long, they think it
just appeared magically."

What if they knew the real story?

"I have no idea," Coker said. "It takes an awful lot to
impress young people nowadays."

To reach Brian McTavish, Arts & Entertainment writer, call
(816) 234-4766
or send e-mail to bmctavish@kcstar.com.

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