William Sturm attended The Art Students League and worked for J.R. Bray as a teenager. He would work with Pat Sullivan, producer of Felix the Cat, in the 1920s; he is credited with the twisting of Felix's tail into the question mark. Sturm worked with Fleischer Studios, where he worked on Popeye before moving on to Disney. He opened his own studio, where he worked for the government and commercial accounts doing training films and animated commercials for Coca-Cola, Bosco, and Brylcreme, among others.