Set designer with UFA before moving in the 1930s to Western Europe, where he produced ingenious short advertising films featuring wire-jointed, stylized puppets. In 1940 Pal moved to Hollywood, where he produced the "Puppetoons" series for Paramount and began directing and/or producing special-effects oriented features including "War of the Worlds" (1953) and "The Time Machine" (1960). He received a special Academy Award in 1943 for developing a technique which combined animation with live action.