Decline of theatrical shorts
Decline of theatrical shorts
DePatie–Freleng Enterprises
The 1960s saw some creative sparks in the theatrical film medium, in particular from DePatie–Freleng Enterprises. Their first and most successful project was animating the opening titles for the 1964 film, The Pink Panther, starring Peter Sellers. The film and its animated sequences were so successful that United Artists commissioned the studio to produce a Pink Panther cartoon series. The first short, The Pink Phink, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film of 1964. The studio also produced other successful cartoon series such as The Inspector and The Ant and the Aardvark.
MGM Animation/Visual Arts
Meanwhile, Chuck Jones, who had been fired from Warner Bros., moved to MGM to produce thirty-four theatrical Tom and Jerry cartoons in late 1963. These cartoons were animated in his distinctive style, but they never quite matched the popularity of the Hanna-Barbera originals[citation needed] of the 1940s and 1950s heyday. However, they were more successful than the Gene Deitch Tom and Jerry shorts, which were produced in Prague, Czechoslovakia,[160] during 1961 and 1962.
From 1964 to 1967, DePatie–Freleng produced Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts under contract with Warner Bros. These cartoons can be recognized easily because they use the modern abstract WB logos instead of the famous bullseye WB shield concentric circles. The studio also subcontracted eleven Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoons to Format Films. DePatie–Freleng ceased production of Looney Tunes (leaving Warner Bros. to produce its own cartoons, which it did from 1967 to 1969) and moved to the San Fernando Valley in 1967 to continue production of their Pink Panther cartoons, producing the final original theatrical cartoon in 1977. The subsequent Pink Panther shorts released between 1978 and 1981 were originally produced for television and then released into theaters. In 1981, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises was purchased by Marvel Comics and renamed Marvel Productions.
Hanna-Barbera
In 1946, the animation union of the time negotiated a pay increase of 25%, making cartoons more expensive to produce on a general basis. After the 1948 verdict following the Hollywood antitrust case, studios could not guarantee that their cartoons would be booked into theaters, making animation a more risky business. Because of this, less resources were invested in the theatrical shorts, causing a gradual decline. By the beginning of the 1950s, the medium of television was beginning to gain more momentum, and the animation industry began to change as a result. At the head of this change were the tandem of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the creators of Tom and Jerry. The new Hanna-Barbera utilized the limited animation style that UPA had pioneered. With this limited animation, Hanna and Barbera created several characters including Huckleberry Hound, The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Top Cat and The Jetsons. With television's growing popularity, which included the Saturday morning cartoons, a much more significant decline began in moviegoing in the 1960s. To face the competition from television, theaters did what they could to reduce their own costs. One way of doing so was booking features only and avoiding the expenses of shorts, which were considered unnecessary. Those few shorts that found their way to the theaters despite this are often viewed by critics as inferior to their predecessors.
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