The Fox and the Crow starred in several funny animal comic books published by DC Comics, from the 1940s well into the 1960s. They starred with other characters in DC's Columbia-licensed funny animal anthology Real Screen Comics (first issue titled Real Screen Funnies) beginning in 1945, then did likewise when DC converted the superhero title Comic Cavalcade to a funny-animal series in 1948.
The duo received its own title, The Fox and the Crow, which ran 108 issues (Jan. 1952 - March 1968). Until the 1954 demise of Comic Cavalcade, Fox and Crow were cover-featured on three DC titles. They continued on the cover of Real Screen Comics through its title change to TV Screen Cartoons from #129-138 (Aug. 1959 - Feb. 1961), the final issue.
The Fox and the Crow itself was renamed Stanley and His Monster beginning with #109 (May 1968), after the back-up feature, begun in #95 (Jan. 1966), that had taken over in popularity. For the last ten years of its existence, The Fox and the Crow was written by Cecil Beard, assisted by his wife, Alpine Harper. The illustrator was Jim Davis (b. 1915), although it was generally unsigned.
Real Screen Comics was an anthology series published by DC from 1945 to 1959 over the course of 127 issues. Featured throughout the series run were the characters The Fox and The Crow and although they were the main feature, other stories were published in the series as well including "Flippity and Flop" and "Tito and His Burrito". The series title is a reference to "Screen Gems" the animation studio that existed from 1940-1946 wherein characters like those featured in the aforementioned comics originally came into being through the form of cartoons.
Tito and his Burrito started out in a cartoon short titled Tito's Guitar, which was released October 30, 1942, by Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems Studio. This was the outfit that had earlier done a long series of very unfaithful adaptations of George Herriman's Krazy Kat and shorter but somewhat less unfaithful adaptations of Billy DeBeck's Barney Google and Al Capp's Li'l Abner, and whose best known home-grown star to date had been the now-forgotten Scrappy. Tito's Guitar was directed by Bob Wickersham, who had worked at the studio for years, first as an animator and then as director, and who also did some artwork in comic books
The creator of the series was producer Dave Fleischer, who had recently joined Screen Gems after the acquisition of his brother Max's studio by Paramount Pictures. Unlike some of Fleischer's earlier work (he'd directed a great number of Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons during the '30s), this pair appeared in only three cartoons. The last of them came out in 1947.
But they were a going concern when the Screen Gems characters were licensed by DC Comics, and therefore became a back-up feature starting in the first issue of DC's Real Screen Comics (Spring, 1945). Other features in Real Screen were Flippity & Flop (similar to Tweety & Sylvester) and The Fox & the Crow, who had by then become the studio's biggest stars, and who naturally got the cover spot.
Tito & His Burrito would probably not make it in comics or cartoons nowadays, because young Tito and his family were common folks living in a rural part of Mexico, and they looked, talked and acted like exactly what they were. Tho stereotyped by today's standards, they weren't treated as objects of scorn, but just as ordinary people in a slightly exotic setting, about like Little Pancho Vanilla over at Dell. In fact, they were no more offensive than Gus Arriola's Gordo, which garnered great praise for exposing English-speaking Americans to Mexican culture. Readers who didn't have the benefit of living in a city where Gordo was available often learned about frijoles, tortillas and other elements of daily life in that area from the footnotes in DC's "Tito & His Burrito" series.
Burrito was Tito's pet. His name didn't refer to a savory delight made from beans, cheese, shredded beef, etc., but to the fact that he was a burro by species, and a small specimen of his kind — thus exposing readers to Spanish word construction.
Tito and friend ran the rest of the 1940s, all through the '50s and into the '60s. The title of Real Screen Comics changed to TV Screen Cartoons in 1959, while Tito & His Burrito continued in its back pages. The final issue was #138 (February, 1961), and there the series ended. It has never been revived or reprinted. - Toonopedia
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