Fred Ladd

Writer · Director

Birth name

Fred Laderman

Fred Ladd, a native of Toledo, Ohio, studied radio & TV at Ohio State University, and was based in New York for the first 30 years of his career. While there, he worked at an advertising agency named Cayton Inc., owned by the late William D. Cayton (aka Bill Cayton). In 1957, Ladd used the 1939 Nazi propaganda film "Weltraumschiff 1 Startet" (Spaceship 1 Launches) to cut-in special effect shots of the ship flying through space. The hour-long animated feature film was later repackaged into 6-minute feature episodes released under the names of: The Space Explorers and The New Adventures of the Space Explorers. Companies: Radio & Television Packagers (1950-60), Delphi Associates (1964-67), Color Systems Inc. (1968-74), Plaid Productions (1974-84), Greatest Tales Inc. (1975-76), Entercolor Technologies (1984-87)