Gottfredson was born into a large Mormon family in Kaysville, Utah. The three brothers and four sisters traced their roots to their great-grandfather who had immigrated to the United States from Denmark in the 1840s. As a child, Floyd severely injured his arm in a hunting accident. Housebound during a long recovery, he became interested in cartooning and took several cartooning correspondence courses. By the late 1920s, he was drawing cartoons for trade magazines and the Salt Lake City Telegram newspaper.