Major Studios Part 2
Creation of new stars
Friz Freleng's 1935 cartoon I Haven't Got a Hat was the first screen appearance of Porky Pig. That same year, Schlesinger hired a new animation director who proceeded to revitalize the studio: Tex Avery. Schlesinger put Avery in charge of the low-budget Looney Tunes in a low run-down old building the animators named Termite Terrace. Under Avery, Porky Pig replaced the Buddy series and became the first Warner Bros. cartoon character to achieve star power. Also at Termite Terrace, animator Bob Clampett redesigned Porky from a fat, chubby pig to a more cute and childlike character.
Unlike the other cartoon producers at the time, Avery had no intention of competing with Walt Disney, but instead brought a new wacky, zany style of animation to the studio that increased the Warner Bros. cartoons' popularity in the crowded marketplace. This was firmly established in 1937 when Tex Avery directed Porky's Duck Hunt. During production of the short, lead animator Bob Clampett elaborated the exit of the duck character by having him jump up and down on his head, flip around and holler off into the sunset.[84] This created the character of Daffy Duck. After Daffy was created, he added even more success to Warner Bros. cartoons and replaced Porky Pig as the studio's most popular animated character.[85] The high demand for more cartoons resulted in Schlesinger subcontracting Ub Iwerks to make some shorts with his own animation unit, with Clampett and Chuck Jones being brought in to assist. Iwerks directed only two shorts before he was succeeded by Clampett.
Freleng left Warner Bros. for two years in 1938 when he was lured to a newly formed animation studio by MGM. In the meantime, his replacements, writer Ben Hardaway and animator Cal Dalton, created a rabbit character who first appeared in Porky's Hare Hunt (1938). The character, having a personality similar to Daffy's, became the basis of development for Warner Bros.' biggest star, Bugs Bunny. Bugs made his official debut in Avery's 1940 Academy Award-nominated cartoon A Wild Hare, paired with Elmer Fudd (who had also been created by Avery in preliminary form three years prior). Bugs quickly replaced Daffy as the studio's top star. By 1942, he had become the most popular cartoon character.[85] Because of the success of Bugs, Daffy and Porky, the Schlesinger studio now had risen to new heights, and Bugs quickly became the star of the color Merrie Melodies cartoons, which had previously been used for one-shot character appearances.[85] Avery left Warner Bros. in 1941 and moved to MGM after having feuds with Scheshinger over the ending of The Heckling Hare and the rejection for an idea of a short series of live action animals with animated mouths (which he later sold to Paramount Pictures to create the Speaking with Animals series of shorts). Clampett took over Avery's unit while Norman McCabe took over Clampett's black-and-white unit.[86] By 1942, Warners' shorts had surpassed Disney's in sales and popularity.[87]
Frank Tashlin also worked with Avery in the Merrie Melodies department. He began at Warner in 1933 as an animator but was fired and joined Iwerks in 1934. Tashlin returned to Warners in 1936, taking over direction of the Merrie Melodies department, but left again in 1938, with his position soon taken by Chuck Jones. He returned in 1943 after McCabe was drafted into the army, but left again for the final time in late 1944 to direct live-action films. Robert McKimson, who had an extensive career at the studio up to that point, was appointed to director to replace Tashlin.[88]
Warner Bros. Cartoons
Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. in August 1944, and Edward Selzer was in turn named the new producer. By this time, Warner cartoons' top directors were Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett and Robert McKimson. Their cartoons are now considered classics of the medium. They directed some of the most beloved animated shorts of all time, including Clampett's Porky in Wackyland, Wabbit Twouble, A Corny Concerto, The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, and The Big Snooze; Freleng's You Ought to Be in Pictures, Rhapsody in Rivets, Little Red Riding Rabbit, Birds Anonymous, and Knighty Knight Bugs; Jones's Rabbit Fire, Duck Amuck, Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, One Froggy Evening, and What's Opera, Doc?; and McKimson's Walky Talky Hawky, Hillbilly Hare, Devil May Hare, The Hole Idea and Stupor Duck.[citation needed]
Besides McKimson being promoted to director in the mid-1940s, Arthur Davis took over Clampett's unit in mid-1945 after Clampett abruptly left the studio. Clampett went to work on Beany and Cecil. Many of the studios most well-known recurring characters were created or reestablished following the Warner acquisition. These included Tweety (1942), Pepé Le Pew (1945), Sylvester the Cat (1945), Yosemite Sam (1945), Foghorn Leghorn (1946), the Goofy Gophers (1947), Marvin the Martian (1948), Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner (1949), Granny (1950), Speedy Gonzales (1953), and The Tasmanian Devil (1954), among others. Davis' unit was shut down in late 1947 by Warner's due to budget issues, causing him to move to Freleng's unit to become one of his key animators.[citation needed]
In 1948, Warners could no longer force theaters to buy their movies and shorts together as packages, due to the United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. anti-trust case that year. It resulted in the shorts having to be produced on increasingly tighter budgets as time went on. Warner Bros. also closed their entire animation department in 1953 due to the immense popularity of 3D films, but reopened the following year after the end of the 3-D craze. Selzer retired in 1958, with production manager John W. Burton taking his place. David DePatie assumed the role as producer in 1960 after Burton also left the studio.[citation needed]
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
After more than two decades at the top, Warner Bros. shut down the original Termite Terrace studio in 1963. That same year, Freleng and DePatie formed their own studio, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, which assumed production of Looney Tunes following an agreement with Warner Bros. Most of the Looney Tunes characters were retired from theatres during this time, including Warner's biggest star, Bugs Bunny. Daffy Duck, however, still appeared in theatrical cartoons, mostly paired with Speedy Gonzales.[citation needed]
Fourteen original Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons were also commissioned, 11 of which were outsourced to Format Films as DePatie-Freleng was swamped with work while also producing The Pink Panther cartoons for United Artists. The outsourced cartoons, directed by former Chuck Jones animator Rudy Larriva and nicknamed "The Larriva Eleven", were not well received and were criticized for their inability to recapture the spirit and charm of Jones' original cartoons.[citation needed]
After DePatie-Freleng ceased production of Looney Tunes in 1967, William L. Hendricks was put in charge of production of the newly renamed Warner Bros.-Seven Arts animation studio and hired veterans such as Alex Lovy and LaVerne Harding from the Walter Lantz studio; Volus Jones and Ed Solomon from Disney; Jaime Diaz, who later worked on The Fairly OddParents as director; and David Hanan, who previously worked on Roger Ramjet. Hendricks brought only three of the original Looney Tunes veterans to the studio: Ted Bonniscken, Norman McCabe, and Robert Givens. Under Hendricks and Lovy, the studios continued making Daffy-Speedy cartoons and created new characters such as Cool Cat and Merlin the Magic Mouse. Despite this, the cartoons of this era were critically panned and are widely considered to be the worst in the studio's history (despite Norman Normal gaining a cult following).[citation needed]
Lovy left the studio in 1968 and Robert McKimson was brought back to take over. McKimson used the pre-1967 characters only in bumpers[clarification needed] for The Bugs Bunny-Road Runner Show and in advertisements; otherwise, he mostly focused on the recurring characters Alex Lovy had created and two of his own creation, Bunny and Claude. The last of the original Looney Tunes shorts produced was Bugged by a Bee (1969) and the last Merrie Melodies short was Injun Trouble (1969), which shares its name with another Looney Tunes short from 1938. The Warner Bros.-Seven Arts studio finally shut down in 1969. A total of 1,039 Looney Tunes shorts had been created.
A decade later, after the success of the film, The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie, which consisted predominantly of footage from the classic shorts by Jones, a new in-house studio to produce original animation opened its doors in 1980 named Warner Bros. Animation, which exists to this day.[citation needed]
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Ub Iwerks' cartoons
At first, Mickey Mouse was drawn by Walt Disney's long-time partner and friend Ub Iwerks, who was also a technical innovator in cartoons, and drew an average of 600 drawings for Disney on a daily basis;[89] Disney was responsible for the ideas in the cartoons, and Iwerks was responsible for bringing them to life.[89] However, Iwerks left the Disney studio in 1930 to form his own company, which was financially backed by Celebrity Pictures owner Pat Powers.[90] After his departure, Disney eventually found a number of different animators to replace Iwerks.
Iwerks produced two cartoon series during the 1930s: Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper. However, none of these cartoons came close to matching the success of Disney or Fleischer cartoons and, in 1933, MGM, Iwerks' cartoon distributor since 1930, ended distribution of his cartoons, with Iwerks leaving after his contract expired in 1934.[91]
Harman-Ising and the establishment of MGM Cartoons
After MGM dropped Iwerks, they hired Harman and Ising following their split from Leon Schlesinger and Warner Bros. and appointed them heads of the studio. They began producing Bosko and Happy Harmonies cartoons which were emulative of Disney's Silly Symphonies.[92] Harman and Ising gained success with shorts such as The Calico Dragon (1935), The Old Mill Pond (1936, both nominated for Academy Awards) and To Spring (1936). But much like their time at Warner Bros., the duo experienced cost overruns on a regular basis. By 1937, MGM, in attempt to make cheaper cartoons, decided to fire the duo and establish a new in-house animation studio with Fred Quimby as producer.[93]
With a new studio formed, Quimby kept a number of Harman and Ising's staff and scouted other animation studios for talent (including Warner director Friz Freleng and a bulk of animators from the Terrytoons studio). The first series he produced was an animated adaptation of the comic strip series The Captain and the Kids (which itself was a version of The Katzenjammer Kids, produced by that strip's original creator Rudolph Dirks but for a different syndicate). The Captain and The Kids series was unsuccessful.[93] In 1939, however, Quimby gained success after rehiring Harman & Ising. After returning to MGM, Ising created MGM's first successful animated star named Barney Bear, who first appeared in The Bear That Couldn't Sleep (1939). Harman directed his masterpiece Peace on Earth (1939) in the meantime, and was also nominated for an Oscar.[93]
Hanna-Barbera's Tom and Jerry
In 1939, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera started a partnership that lasted for more than six decades until Hanna's death in 2001. The duo's first cartoon together was Puss Gets the Boot (1940), featuring an unnamed mouse's attempts to outwit a house cat named Jasper. Though released without fanfare, the short was financially and critically successful, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) of 1940. On the strength of the Oscar nomination and public demand, Hanna and Barbera set themselves to producing a long-running series of cat-and-mouse cartoons, soon naming the characters Tom & Jerry. Puss Gets the Boot did not win the 1940 Academy Award for Best Cartoon, but another MGM cartoon, Rudolf Ising's The Milky Way (1940) did, making MGM the first studio to wrestle the Cartoon Academy Award away from Walt Disney. After appearing in Puss Gets the Boot, Tom and Jerry quickly became the stars of MGM cartoons. With Hanna-Barbera working for them, MGM was finally able to compete with Walt Disney in the field of animated cartoons. The shorts were successful at the box office, many licensed products (comic books, toys, etc.) were released to the market, and the series earned twelve more Academy Award for Short Subjects (Cartoons) nominations, with seven of the Tom and Jerry shorts going on to win the Academy Award: The Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943), Mouse Trouble (1944), Quiet Please! (1945), The Cat Concerto (1946), The Little Orphan (1948), The Two Mouseketeers (1951), and Johann Mouse (1952). Tom and Jerry was eventually tied with Disney's Silly Symphonies as the most-awarded theatrical cartoon series. No other character-based theatrical animated series has won more awards.[citation needed] In addition to the classic Tom and Jerry shorts, Hanna and Barbera also produced/directed six one-shot theatrical shorts besides it, including Gallopin' Gals (1940), Officer Pooch (1941), War Dogs (1943) and Good Will to Men (a remake of Peace on Earth, 1955).[citation needed]
Key to the successes of Tom and Jerry and other MGM cartoons was the work of Scott Bradley, who scored nearly all of the cartoons for the studio from 1934 to 1958. Bradley's scores made use of both classical and jazz sensibilities. In addition, he often used songs from the scores of MGM's feature films, the most frequent of them being "The Trolley Song" from Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) and "Sing Before Breakfast" from Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935).[citation needed]
Tex Avery's cartoons
Hugh Harman left for the final time in April 1941,[94] prompting Quimby to search for a replacement. He hired Tex Avery in September, who at that point had left Warner Bros. after internal feuds with Leon Schlesinger.[95] Avery revitalized their cartoon studio with the same spark that had infused the Warner animators. The wild surreal masterpieces of his MGM studio days set new standards for "adult" entertainment in Code-era cartoons, most famously exemplified in his series of shorts featuring Red Hot Riding Hood.[citation needed]
Tex Avery did not like to use recurring characters but did stay faithful to a character throughout his career at MGM with Droopy, who was created in Dumb-Hounded in 1943. Avery also created Screwy Squirrel the following year, a character known for his outrageously brash and erratic personality who torments his adversaries, but he grew less fond of him and discontinued the series after five cartoons. He also created the Of Mice and Men-inspired duo George and Junior in 1946, but only four cartoons were produced. Avery's other notaable films for MGM include Blitz Wolf (1942, also nominated), Northwest Hounded Police (1946), King-Size Canary (1947), The Cat That Hated People (1948), Bad Luck Blackie (1949), and Magical Maestro (1952).[citation needed]
Avery's influence was particularly felt within the studio, with Hanna and Barbera adapting his brand of humor and violence into their Tom & Jerry shorts. The only exception to this was Rudolf Ising, who was unable to adjust to Avery's style and instead continued to direct cartoons with more meticulous influences. He too left MGM in 1943 to work for the Army Air Force film unit as an animation supervisor.[96]
Other developments and later years
After Ising left MGM, Hanna/Barbera animator George Gordon was promoted to director to take his place. He directed several Barney Bear shorts as well as a few other cartoons such as The Storks Holiday, and two shorts starring an unnamed donkey. Gordon was uncredited for most of the cartoons he directed, and he left in 1943. In late 1946, animators Michael Lah and Preston Blair were paired together to direct three more Barney Bear cartoons.[97] Lah and Blair's three Barney cartoons were noted for having a direction more in tone to that of Hanna-Barbera and Tex Avery, but the series halted abruptly again when MGM closed Lah and Blair's unit.[citation needed]
Later in 1950, Tex Avery left MGM to take a year's sabbatical. Ex-Disney/Lantz animator Dick Lundy was brought in to take his position during this period. He directed one Droopy cartoon, Caballero Droopy, as well as ten additional Barney Bear cartoons, in which Barney was voiced by Paul Frees. Avery returned in October 1951, with Lundy leaving soon after.[citation needed]
In 1953, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer closed down Avery's unit. Avery and most of his unit moved to Walter Lantz Productions, while MGM later promoted Lah to director again to take Avery's place. Fred Quimby retired in 1955, with Hanna and Barbera replacing him as producers on the remaining MGM cartoons (including the last seven of Lah's Droopy cartoons) until 1957, when the studio closed entirely, ending all the animation productions. The duo founded their own studio, Hanna-Barbera, that year, bringing in most of the studio's staff in the process. The last cartoon from the MGM Cartoons unit, Tot Watchers, was released on August 1, 1958.[citation needed]
Rembrandt Films and MGM Animation/Visual Arts
By 1960, the high demand for more Tom and Jerry cartoons prompted MGM to search for another animation studio to produce the series, as Hanna and Barbera were now busy producing their own cartoons for television and Columbia Pictures. Through the help of MGM president Joe Vogel, the studio eventually signed a deal with the Czechoslovakia-based animation studio Rembrandt Films to produce 13 more Tom and Jerry shorts. Gene Deitch, an American animator who considered himself a "UPA man" and who generally disliked slapstick-based cartoons, directed the series, while William L. Snyder served as the producer.[98] Unlike the in-house cartoons, Deitch had to work with a much smaller budget of $10,000 and overall limited resources. This resulted in his films having an odd surrealist nature, which Deitch did not intend. His Tom and Jerry shorts were noted for their jerky, occasionally praiseworthy animation, simplistic yet stylish backgrounds, and heavy use of reverberation in the soundtrack.[99][100] Another aspect to this era was the addition of a new human owner for Tom who appeared in three of the 13 shorts; he is noted for being much more short-tempered and violent then any of Tom's previous owners.[citation needed]
Despite Deitch's shorts being commercially successful, many fans and critics considered them to be the worst of Tom and Jerry′s output up to that time. However, some fans appreciated Deitch's shorts for their quirkiness.[101] After Vogel was fired, MGM decided not to renew their contract with Rembrandt.[102] The last Rembrandt Tom and Jerry cartoon, Carmen Get It, was released on December 21, 1962.
Meanwhile, Chuck Jones started his own studio Sib Tower 12 Productions after he, and his unit of animators, were fired by Warner Bros. for violating his exclusive contract by working on the UPA film Gay Purr-ee.[citation needed] Jones signed a contract with MGM in 1963 to produce an additional 34 Tom and Jerry shorts, all of which carried his distinct style and influence he strived for during his time at Warners. Jones's Tom and Jerry shorts were more reminiscent of his Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoons due to their use of blackout gags and specific jokes that can be found in the former shorts. MGM later purchased Jones's studio and renamed it MGM Animation/Visual Arts in 1964.[citation needed] Around this time Jones also directed a handful of one-shot cartoons for MGM such as 1965's The Dot and the Line and 1967's The Bear That Wasn't, the former of which won the 1965 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.[103] Jones's shorts were better received and saw varying degrees of success, but MGM eventually decided to cease production of new Tom and Jerry shorts in 1967.[citation needed]
Jones's studio's other works included the 1966 TV adaptation of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, 1970's Horton Hears a Who! and the feature-length film The Phantom Tollbooth that same year. The studio eventually closed in late 1970, with Jones establishing another studio, Chuck Jones Enterprises, soon afterwards.[citation needed]
Columbia Pictures
Charles Mintz and Screen Gems
Initial Years and Color Rhapsodies
While Charles Mintz was fired from Paramount and Universal, he was still in charge of his own cartoon operation producing Krazy Kat cartoons for Columbia Pictures. After creating Toby the Pup for RKO Pictures, who later discontinued it in favor of Van Beuren Studios, he soon moved to create more shorts for Columbia. His most notable series was one featuring a boy named Scrappy, created by Dick Huemer in 1931. Although Scrappy was a big break for Mintz and was also his most successful creation, Huemer was fired from the Mintz Studio in 1933.[104] In 1934, Mintz, like most other animation studios at the time, also responded to Disney's use of Technicolor and began making color cartoons through the Color Rhapsodies series;[105] the series was originally in either Cinecolor or two-strip Technicolor, but moved to three-strip Technicolor after Disney's contract with Technicolor expired in 1935.
With the exception of Holiday Land (1934) and The Little Match Girl (1937), both of which were nominated for an Academy Award), the series failed to garner attention, and by 1939, Mintz was largely indebted to Columbia Pictures. As a result, Mintz sold his studio to Columbia. Columbia renamed the studio to Screen Gems,[106] and Mintz died by the end of the year. Columbia also sub-contracted Ub Iwerks to produce cartoons from his own studio from 1937 until 1940.
Change of management and decline
Mintz's brother-in-law George Winkler briefly resumed the role of producer before he was succeeded by Frank Tashlin, who had initially worked as a storyman.[107] Tashlin had significant influence on the studio as he hired a surplus of ex-Disney animators from the 1941 Disney animators' strike, laid off most of their initial staff, and directed the short The Fox and the Grapes (1941), which unexpectedly created the studio's most popular characters, The Fox and the Crow.
Tashlin maintained his position until he was replaced by Ben Schwalb in 1942.[108] He continued to act as the studio supervisor until he left abruptly in June, citing a feud with Columbia higher-ups.[109][110] Tashlin and Schwalb were then replaced by Dave Fleischer, who was reportedly much more detached from his animators.[111] He was later fired and replaced by a revolving door of producers. Critics and animation historians noted the quality of the studio's output had either stagnated or declined as Screen Gems was unable to rebound from its loss of Tashlin. It was argued that Columbia's mismanagement and its inability to find skillful writers and directors were key factors of the decline. Michael Barrier described their work at the time as "imitation Warner Bros."[111]
The other recurring characters Columbia developed at this time included Willoughby Wren, Flippy and Flop, Igor Puzzlewitz, Professor Small and Mr. Tall, Tito and his Burrito, and an adaptation of Al Capp's Li'l Abner, with which Capp was not pleased due to its oversimplification of his characters.[112] Columbia remained dissatisfied with the studio's output and eventually closed it in 1946, with a back catalog that lasted until 1949. The Screen Gems name was reused for a television subsidiary the same year.[citation needed]
United Productions of America
Early productions
John Hubley was one of many ex-Disney staffers who were hired by Tashlin to work at the Screen Gems studio, initially working as a writer and later a director with Paul Sommer. While Hubley later admitted to disliking his work for Screen Gems, he had much creative freedom due to Dave Fleischer's detachment from the employees.[111] The cartoons Hubley and Sommer directed were noted for their greater use of human characters, minimalistic backgrounds and abstract character designs. Much of it was inspired by limited animation techniques Chuck Jones had established for his cartoon The Dover Boys, with Hubley and Sommer even going as far as directing a "clone" with the cartoon The Rocky Road to Ruin.[113]
Hubley left Screen Gems in 1943 after he was enlisted in the United States Armed Forces.[114] At the same time, he helped to establish a new studio with former Disney animators Stephen Bosustow, Zack Schwartz and David Hilberman, who—like Hubley—had left Disney's company during the animators' strike. It was a newer, smaller animation studio that focused on pursuing Hubley's own vision of trying out newer, more abstract and experimental styles of animation.[115] Bosustow, Hilberman, and Schwartz named the new studio Industrial Film and Poster Service (IFPS).[115] Artistically, the studio also used limited animation as its main art style. The first short from the newly formed studio was Sparks and Chips Get the Blitz (1943).[116] Their second short was Hell-Bent for Election (1944), a cartoon made for the re-election campaign of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although these new films were a success, it did not break the boundaries that Hubley and his staffers had hoped. It wasn't until the third short, Robert Cannon's Brotherhood of Man, that the studio began producing shorts aggressively stylized in contrast to the films of the other studios. Cannon's film even preached a message that was looked down upon—racial tolerance. By 1946, the studio was renamed United Productions of America (UPA), and Hilberman and Schwartz had sold their shares of the studio stock to Bosustow.[115]
Success under Columbia
In 1948, UPA also found a home for itself at Columbia Pictures and began producing theatrical cartoons for the general public, instead of just using propaganda and military training themes;[117] UPA also earned itself two Academy Award nominations for new cartoons starring The Fox and the Crow during its first two years in production. Unlike with Screen Gems, Columbia was much more hands-off in terms of management. From there, the UPA animators began producing a series of cartoons that immediately stood out among the crowded field of mirror-image, copycat cartoons of the other studios. The success of UPA's Mr. Magoo series made the other studios take notice, and when the UPA short Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950) won an Oscar, the effect on Hollywood was immediate and electrifying. The UPA style was markedly different from everything else on movie screens, and audiences responded to the change that UPA offered from the repetition of the usual cat and mouse battles. Mr. Magoo became the studio's most successful cartoon character.[118]
By 1953, UPA had gained great influence within the industry. The Hollywood cartoon studios gradually moved away from the lush, realistic detail of the 1940s to a more simplistic, less realistic style of animation. By this time, even Disney was attempting to mimic UPA. Disney's 1953 shorts Melody and Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom in particular were experiments in stylization that followed in the footsteps of the newly formed studio. However, UPA suffered a major blow after John Hubley was fired from the studio during the McCarthy Era in 1952, due to suspicions of him having ties to Communism;[118] Steve Bosustow took over, but was not as successful as Hubley, and the studio was eventually sold to Henry Saperstein in 1960.[118]
Feature-length films and decline
In 1959, UPA released 1001 Arabian Nights starring Mr. Magoo; however, this was a failure and cost UPA their distribution deal with Columbia Pictures. They tried once more in 1962, when UPA released Gay Purr-ee with the voice talent of Judy Garland, this time distributed by Warner Bros. While the film was well received, it too was a financial failure. In 1964, UPA decided to abandon animation and simply become a distribution company, going on to distribute some of the Godzilla movies in America.[citation needed]
Hanna-Barbera
Prior to UPA's termination, Columbia struck a ten-year distribution deal with Hanna-Barbera, which had just left the freshly shut down Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Cartoon Studio. This deal was mostly involved with Columbia's television division, Screen Gems, which ironically had borrowed the name from the animation studio. In 1959, Hanna-Barbera began producing its only theatrical series for Columbia, Loopy De Loop. This series was a success and ran until 1965. Hanna-Barbera also produced two feature-length movies for Columbia, Hey There, It's Yogi Bear! and The Man Called Flintstone. Columbia's ten-year contract with Hanna-Barbera expired in 1967 and was not renewed, thus ending Columbia's association with Hanna-Barbera.[citation needed]
Universal Pictures/Walter Lantz Productions
Early developments
In 1928, Walter Lantz replaced Charles Mintz as producer of Universal Studios cartoons. Walter Lantz's main character at this time was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, whose earlier cartoons had been produced by both Walt Disney and Charles Mintz. Lantz also started to experiment with color cartoons, and the first one, called Jolly Little Elves, was released in 1934. In 1935, Walter Lantz made his studio independent from Universal Studios, and the studio was now only the distributor of his cartoons, instead of the direct owner.[119] After seeing Disney's success with their first feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Lantz planned to produce a full-length animated film based on the Aladdin story, starring Abbott and Costello. However, the project was not developed after Mr. Bug Goes to Town failed at the box office.[120]
New stars and United Artists
By the late 30s, Oswald began to lose popularity. Lantz and his staff worked on several ideas for possible new cartoon characters (among them Meany, Miny, and Moe, Lil' Eightball, and Baby-Face Mouse). The studio eventually settled on Andy Panda, who gained popularity starting with his debut short, Life Begins for Andy Panda (1939).[121] However successful Andy was, the character's fifth cartoon, Knock Knock (1940), marked the debut of a real breakthrough character: Woody Woodpecker, who became Lantz's most successful creation.[122]
By the early 1940s, Lantz and animator Alex Lovy directed cartoons through the use of a singular unit until 1943, when James Culhane (an ex-Disney/Fleischer animator who recently had a brief stint at Warner Bros.) took their roles as director, starting with the cartoon Pass the Biscuits Mirandy! (1943). Culhane's tenure at Lantz was noted for introducing Russian avant-garde-influenced experimentation, minimalist backgrounds and fast cutting, which helped his shorts stand out from the studio's previous work.[123] Lantz also introduced a new film series under the name Swing Symphony, which consisted of musical shorts based on contemporary swing music. Culhane later left Lantz in late-1945 following a pay dispute. Ex-Disney animator Dick Lundy assumed the role as director after Culhane's departure.[124] Unlike Culhane, Lundy focused much more on sight gags and the animation. Critics noted the animation's jump in quality in the late 1940s, mainly due to Lundy's influence as well as the arrival of more ex-Disney animators, such as Ed Love, Fred Moore, and Ken O'Brien.
In 1947, Lantz was negotiating with Universal about his seven-year contract when a merger caused the studio to be reorganized as Universal-International. Universal-International's new management insisted on keeping the merchandising and licensing rights of Lantz's characters. Lantz refused and instead withdrew his cartoons from Universal-International and arranged to have them distributed by United Artists between 1947 and 1949. This was also the era where Andy Panda cartoons were officially discontinued due to the character's waning popularity. In total, Lantz released 12 shorts through United Artists.[citation needed]
Restructuring and later years
Lantz's studio went through severe financial problems during its time with United Artists, which caused him to close the studio in 1949.[125] It opened again in 1950 with a smaller staff, mainly because Lantz was able to recover from his losses and signed a deal with Universal-International for more Woody Woodpecker cartoons, starting with Puny Express (1951). Woody continued to appear until the early 1970s. Lantz served as the sole director and writer for his own cartoons for two years before those jobs were assumed by animator Don Patterson and writer Homer Brightman. With MGM reducing its animation studio and Warner Bros. briefly closing its entire animation department in the 1950s, Lantz was able to acquire enough staff to establish a second unit. Paul J. Smith, a Warner Bros. veteran who worked for Lantz in the 1940s, was the director for this new unit.
In 1953, Smith created Chilly Willy, who became another prominent character for the Lantz studio. He was refined by Tex Avery (who had left MGM earlier that decade) in the following year. Avery directed four shorts during his time at Walter Lantz Productions, until he left in 1955 over pay disputes. Additional directorial contributions came from Jack Hannah, Sid Marcus, and Alex Lovy, who returned to the studio in the early 1940s. The Lantz studio also created several more recurring characters in this era, such as Maw and Paw, Maggie & Sam, Windy & Breezy, Inspector Willoughby, Hickory, Dickory, and Doc, and The Beary Family.[citation needed]
Lantz closed his studio's doors for the final time in 1972, saying that continuing to produce shorts would be impossible due to rising production costs. However, Woody Woodpecker remained in the public eye, as The Woody Woodpecker Show, featuring Lantz cartoons starring Woody and other characters, had debuted on television in the 1957-1958 season. Additional seasons were produced from 1963 to 1964, from 1970 to 1971, and from 1976 to 1977, with the show airing in syndication well into the 1990s. Lantz sold all of the Woody Woodpecker shorts to Universal, then part of MCA.[citation needed]
Terrytoons
Pre-Terrytoons era
Before Paul Terry created his own studio, he was employed by Bray Productions in 1916, where he created his recognizable character, Farmer Al Falfa. In 1921, he worked at Fables Pictures, Inc, founded by Keith-Albee-Orpheum and soon purchased by Amedee J. Van Beuren in 1928. There, he worked on the Aesop's Film Fables cartoon series. Van Beuren however became anxious due to the phenomenon of a new film format of pre-synchronized sound in film. Beuren urged Terry to produce films in this format, but he refused, forcing him to fire Terry in 1929.[citation needed]
Formation and financial backing
After losing his Aesop's Film Fables series to Van Beuren Studios in 1929, Terry established a new studio called Terrytoons. The studio produced 26 cartoons a year for E.W. Hammons' Educational Pictures, which in turn supplied short-subject products to the Fox Film Corporation. When Fox Film was later reformed into 20th Century Fox in 1935, the studio withdrew support from Educational Pictures and financially backed Terry's studio instead. Educational Pictures folded[clarification needed] in the late 1930s. Terry's cartoons of the thirties were mainly produced in black and white and had very few recurring characters, with the exception of Farmer Al Falfa, who had appeared in Terry's cartoons since the silent era.[citation needed]
The 1930s and 1940s brought Terry's most popular and successful characters, Gandy Goose beginning in 1938, Mighty Mouse beginning in 1942, and Heckle and Jeckle, a team developed by combining what was originally a husband-and-wife pair of mischievous magpies from the 1946 Farmer Al Falfa cartoon The Talking Magpies with Terry's notion that twin brothers or look-alikes had comedic possibilities. Other characters included Dinky Duck in 1939, Dimwit the Dog (originally paired with Heckle and Jeckle), and Sourpuss (usually paired with Gandy Goose). Under Terry's ownership, Terrytoons was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, for All Out for V (1942), My Boy, Johnny (1944), and Mighty Mouse in Gypsy Life (1945).[citation needed]
Despite its success, the Terrytoons cartoons were known for having the smallest budgets of any major animation studio at the time, as well as being the slowest to adapt to new animation standards. Paul Terry mainly produced cartoons from a business point of view rather than their artistic value; he said, "Let Walt Disney be the Tiffany's of the business. I want to be the Woolworth's!"[126] However, Terrytoons is considered to have been an early stepping stone for several prominent animators, such as Joseph Barbera and Art Babbitt.[citation needed]
The CBS era
Terry retired after selling his company and its backlog to CBS in 1956.[citation needed] CBS continued to operate the studio for the rest of its lifetime, with Gene Deitch now in charge as creative director. Terrytoons underwent significant changes under Deitch's leadership. Unlike Terry, Deitch wanted to divert the studio from its strict contemporary format and instead produce cartoons in a more minimalist style, similar to UPA.[citation needed] Terrytoons was also divided between producing theatrical shorts and cartoons for television, as well as having new characters such as Tom Terrific, Lariat Sam, Sidney the Elephant, Gaston Le Crayon, John Doormat, and Clint Clobber.[citation needed] Deitch discontinued the Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle cartoons so that focus could be put more on his new characters. The Sidney cartoon, Sidney's Family Tree (1958), earned Terrytoons another Academy Award nomination.[citation needed]
Deitch was fired in 1959 by executive producer William M. Weiss, who reverted a few of Deitch's decisions. Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle returned to production for some time, alongside the creation of new characters, such as Hector Heathcote, Luno the White Stallion, Hashimoto-san, Sad Cat and Deputy Dawg. Animator Ralph Bakshi also gained prominence, originally starting out as an opaquer (who paints opaque colors on areas drawn on animators' cels by inkers[127]) and later a director. Bakshi later moved to Famous Studios in 1967. Terrytoons continued operations until the studio declined and closed in 1972.[citation needed]
Other notable studios
Van Beuren Studios
In 1928, producer Amadee J. Van Beuren bought Keith-Albee-Orpheum's Fables Pictures Studio and formed a partnership with Paul Terry for the production of the Aesop's Film Fables cartoon series. In 1929, Terry left to start his own studio and was replaced by John Foster who took over the animation department, and renamed the studio Van Beuren Studios. Van Beuren continued the Aesop's Fables series, created new characters such as Cubby Bear, and unsuccessfully tried a cartoon adaptation of radio blackface comedians Amos 'n Andy. Other Van Beuren cartoons featured Tom and Jerry (not the cat and mouse, but a Mutt and Jeff-like human duo) and Otto Soglow's comic strip character The Little King. Frank Tashlin and Joseph Barbera were among animators who worked briefly for the studio during its short life. Van Beuren also sub-contracted Harman-Ising Productions to produce a handful of Cubby Bear cartoons before Harman-Ising contracted with MGM in 1934.[128][129]
That same year, as other studios were making animated cartoons in Technicolor in response to Disney's Silly Symphonies cartoon series, Van Beuren Studio abandoned its remaining cartoons and created the Rainbow Parade series, which was all color. However, the series was not a success, and by 1936, RKO Pictures, the distributor of Van Beuren's cartoons, ended their contract with them to distribute Disney's cartoons instead.[130] Van Beuren closed the studio in 1938 and died soon afterwards. Most of its staff either moved to Terrytoons, Fleischer Studios, or other studios in the East or West Coast.[citation needed]
Van Beuren Studios and Fleischer Studios were cited as causing the formation of the Screen Cartoonist's Guild in 1938, with the former studio being noted for its poor treatment of union workers by either Van Beuren himself or director Burt Gillett.[131][132] Van Beuren has said to have closed his studio as he refused to accept unionization within his business.[133]
The Iwerks Studio/Cartoon Films Ltd
In 1930, distributor Pat Powers convinced Walt Disney animator Ub Iwerks to leave the Disney studio and create his own, believing that Iwerks was responsible for much of Disney's early success. Iwerks opened his studio that year with Powers as his financial backer. Iwerks' studio first made cartoons for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, creating characters such as Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper. MGM later ended distributing his cartoons in favor of releasing Harman and Ising's cartoons.[citation needed]
After his stay with MGM, Iwerks' cartoons were distributed by Celebrity Pictures, and Iwerks responded to Disney's use of Technicolor by creating the ComiColor Cartoon series, films made in two-strip Cinecolor.[134] However, by 1936, the Iwerks Studio began to experience financial setbacks after Powers withdrew financial aid.[135] After animating at Warner Bros. Pictures, creating Gabby Goat and subcontracting cartoons for Columbia Pictures for some time, Iwerks returned to Disney in 1940, where he worked as the head of the special effects development division until his death in 1971.[citation needed]
Iwerks left behind his animation studio following his return to Disney. It was soon reorganized as Cartoon Films Ltd, with British-based angel investor Lawson Harris becoming the studio producer and Paul Fennell the director.[136] The studio's main output was commercial animation,[137] but it was most known for its specialties for Columbia. One short-lived series, The Changing World, starring journalist Raymond Gram Swing, was planned to have six shorts produced documenting events before and during World War II, but was scrapped after two shorts.[138] Another short entitled The Carpenters (1941) was produced and featured the antics of Mr. Teewilliger and his bumbling employees Clancy and Herman. The studio continued to produce animated commercials following their work with Columbia.
Republic Pictures
Following his termination from Screen Gems, Dave Fleischer approached Republic Pictures with an elf-like character named Snippy, who first appeared in the 1944 film Trocadero. He also produced a lengthy animated sequence in That's My Baby! that same year.[139] Later in 1946, Republic incorporated a piece of animation by Walter Lantz Productions into its film Sioux City, a western starring Gene Autry. The next year, Republic signed a deal with ex-Warner director Bob Clampett to produce a series of shorts starring his latest creation, Charlie Horse. Clampett directed one cartoon entitled It's a Grand Old Nag (1947) before the company cancelled a potential animated series.[140]
Later in 1949, Republic started another cartoon series called Jerky Journeys, led by radio comedy writer Leonard L. Levinson. The cartoons were noted for using limited animation, and were described as satirical travelogue films with small budgets.[141] Art Heinemann was the lead layout designer, Miles Pike provided the special effects and Warner artists Robert Gribbroek, Peter Alvarado and Paul Julian provided the background paintings.[citation needed]
George Pal Productions
George Pal was a Hungarian filmmaker who originally produced traditionally animated and puppetry shorts in Europe during the 1930s. Unlike other films that feature puppetry, Pal's puppet shorts used a stop motion technique known as "replacement animation" (or the Pal-Doll technique), which uses a series of unique carved wooden puppets for each frame to emulate movement rather than using a single puppet. Some of Pal's earlier shorts were advertisements for specific products, such as the Philips Radio system in The Ship of the Ether (1934), Philips Cavalcade (1934) and The Sleeping Beauty (1939). Pal moved to the United States in 1939 and was contracted by Paramount to produce more stop-motion shorts under the name Madcap Models, later rebranded as Puppetoons.[citation needed]
Seven Puppetoon films from 1941 to 1947 were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, and the series created several recurring characters, such as Jasper, Mr. Strauss, and Punchy & Judy, as well as producing industrial animation for the Shell Oil Company. Due to his European origin, Pal refrained from using overtly negative depictions of African Americans in his films. He also produced shorts that commemorated African American culture, such as the shorts John Henry and the Inky-Poo (1946) and Dates with Duke (1947).[142]
By 1947, production costs had inflated to nearly $50,000 per short, a price to which Paramount objected. Paramount suggested that Pal should shift his focus from stop-motion to live action films, which he did, effectively ending the Puppetoons series.[143] He still incorporated stop-motion sequences in his films, such as in The Great Rupert (1949), Tom Thumb (1958), and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1963). Pal's 1950 film Destination Moon also notably incorporated a traditionally animated sequence by Walter Lantz Productions, featuring Woody Woodpecker. The sequence was produced immediately after Lantz, a close friend of Pal's, reopened his studio that same year.[citation needed]
John Sutherland Productions
John Sutherland founded his own studio John Sutherland Productions in 1945 after working in Walt Disney Productions and the US Army with a series of World War II training films.[144] The studio was mainly known for producing educational and instruction-based animation granted by the Harding College with the help of Alfred P. Sloan. One of their more notable films is Make Mine Freedom, a 1948 cartoon that was the first in a series of pro-free enterprise films produced by the studio. Sutherland was able to hire prominent artists in the industry such as Emery Hawkins, Phil Roman and a large bulk of ex-Harman-Ising animators to work on his cartoons. Sutherland's studio was able to develop a relationship with MGM, who distributed some of their shorts in the late 1940s and early 50s. Sutherland also dabbled in stop-motion animation, such as producing the Daffy Ditty shorts with Larry Morey for United Artists.[145] He produced 45 films from 1945 until his retirement in 1973.
Jerry Fairbanks Productions
While not mainly involved in animation, Jerry Fairbanks did work on several projects in the medium. In 1941, Fairbanks produced the successful Speaking of Animals short films, based on an idea conceptualized by Tex Avery at Warner Bros., and was nominated twice for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.[citation needed] In the late 1940s and early 50s, Fairbanks also produced industrial films with occasional animated sequences by Manny Gould, Lou Lilly and Anna Osborn. Fairbanks also worked on Crusader Rabbit as a supervising producer.[citation needed]
Jay Ward Productions
Founded in 1948 by animator Jay Ward, Jay Ward Productions aired the first cartoon made for television, Crusader Rabbit, and is also remembered for The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (1959–1964), as well as several iconic advertisements, such as those for breakfast cereals. Employing a limited animation style, the success of Jay Ward cartoons laid in their densely packed visual gags and wordplay.[citation needed]
The Jam Handy Organization
Jam Handy, an Olympic swimmer and water polo player, was known for founding his own Chicago-based studio, The Jam Handy Organization, after working as an industrial representative for Bray Productions. Though he is best known for producing films for the auto industry, Handy also dabbled in animation. He made numerous animated shorts featuring Nicky Nome, a character made to advertise the Chevrolet for General Motors.[146]
Perhaps Handy's best known animated short was the 1948 adaptation of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, sponsored by Montgomery Ward. It was the first known animated adaptation of Rudolph and was produced and directed by Max Fleischer.[147]
McCrory Studios Inc.
In 1926, John Robert McCrory, an author and World War I soldier turned animator, formed his own animation studio based in New York after gaining experience from Bray Productions and Walt Disney's Laugh-O-Gram Studio. He reached a deal with Life magazine to produce a series of shorts featuring his character Mike the Monk, a humanoid monkey character accompanied by his girlfriend. Mike spun off into another series entitled Krazy Kids, which lasted about a year.[citation needed]
Later in 1930, Leon Schlesinger was offering a contract for an animation studio to produce the Looney Tunes series. While animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising pitched a series based on their character Bosko, McCrory attempted to win the offer by hastily producing a cartoon featuring his newest character Buster Bear,[148] which was originally produced as two or four separate cartoons. In the end, Schlesinger signed Harman and Ising to produce the series, as McCrory's cartoon was not up to standard, as well as the rumor of McCrory brutalizing his staff if deadlines weren't met.[149][150][151] McCrory did not quit the industry, as he later created a short-lived series based on Little Orphan Annie, Buck Rogers and Dick Tracy,[150] as well as gaining success by redistributing his Buster Bear and Annie cartoons through toy projectors and home media. In 1938, the studio was rebranded as Knowledge Builders and continued operations into the 1960s.[citation needed]
Ted Eshbaugh Studios
Ted Eshbaugh, an American animator/filmmaker, initially created a Los Angeles-based animation studio in the early 1930s after experimenting with early forms of color processing for cartoons in the late 20s. His studio was an early producer of color animation, with shorts such as Goofy Goat (1931, which used Multicolor) and The Snowman (1933, which used Technicolor). Eshbaugh also produced an adaptation of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was also planned to be a full series.[152][153] The film was not released due to Technicolor signing an exclusivity deal with Disney around the same time, and Baum's son, Frank Joslyn Baum, rejecting its release due to missed deadlines.[154]
Eshbaugh later worked at the Van Beuren Studio until 1935, when he founded another studio based in New York. One of the first productions was a satirical cartoon based on Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal entitled A Fable of the New Deal, which was made as part of a political campaign to satirize Roosevelt's 1936 presidential campaign.[155] It was reportedly censored after initial screenings when its sponsor, Sentinels of the Republic, found the caricatures representing Roosevelt to be too grotesque.[156] Other early projects included a color series featuring a character named Peter Panda and a short made for Planters Nut & Chocolate Co. entitled Mr. Peanut and His Family Tree for their 1939 World's Fair exhibit.[157] Eshbaugh also made a few shorts promoting the war effort during World War II, such as Sammy Salvage (1943) and Cap'n Cub (1945).[158][159] Eshbaugh's studio continued operations into the late 1950s.
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