Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was an American animation studio founded in 1930 by Leon Schlesinger. It produced the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated short films for Warner Bros. Pictures during the Golden Age of American animation, serving as the in-house animation division of Warner Bros. Pictures after Schlesinger sold the company to Warner Bros. in 1944. Its characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig, are among the most famous and recognizable characters in the world. Many of the creative staff members at the studio, including directors and animators such as Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Ben Hardaway, Robert McKimson, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Arthur Davis, and Frank Tashlin, are considered major figures in the art and history of traditional animation.
The studio closed in 1963, and Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were subsequently subcontracted to Freleng's DePatie–Freleng Enterprises studio from 1964 to 1967. Warner Bros. Cartoons re-opened that year, under Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, before closing again in 1969. It was succeeded by Warner Bros. Animation, which was established in 1980.
History 1930–1933: Harman-Ising Productions
Leon Schlesinger worked in theaters as an usher, songbook agent, actor, and manager, including at the Palace Theatre in Buffalo, New York.The_Buffalo_News, April 15, 1944 He founded Pacific Title & Art Studio in 1919, where most of his business was producing title cards for silent films. As talking pictures ("talkies") replaced silents in 1929 and 1930, Schlesinger looked for ways to capitalize on the new technology and stay in business. He discovered animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, who founded Harman-Ising Productions in Hollywood, California and pitched the Looney Tunes series starring Bosko to Schlesinger. Schlesinger was impressed by the test film and negotiated a distribution deal with Warner Bros. Pictures through his connections. Ising started the Merrie Melodies series in 1931, allowing the studio to be profitable by promoting records of songs owned by Warner Bros.' subsidiaries. Outside of cartoons, Schlesinger also produced six Western films starring John Wayne in 1932 and 1933, which were lambasted by Wayne for their extremely low budgets.
In 1933, Harman and Ising parted company with Schlesinger over financial disputes,Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood Cartoons. New York: Oxford University Press. Pg. 164. . taking all characters they established with them to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. To maintain his contract with Warner Bros., Schlesinger set up his own studio on the Warner Bros. lot on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.Barrier, Michael (1999). Pg. 323. The studio location was the former Vitaphone building at the corner of Van Ness and Fernwood.
1933–1944: Leon Schlesinger Productions
The Schlesinger studio got off to a slow start, hiring Harman-Ising staff such as Bob Clampett and Robert McKimson, as well as poaching staff from Walt Disney Productions; the studio continued their one-shot Merrie Melodies and introduced Buddy to serve as the new star of Looney Tunes. Harman-Ising alumnus Friz Freleng was poached to replace the studio's first director, Tom Palmer, after Palmer was fired for unsatisfactory work. The studio then formed the three-unit structure that it would retain throughout most of its history, with one unit headed by Freleng, one unit headed by Ben "Bugs" Hardaway, and one by Earl Duvall, who was replaced by Jack King a year later.
In 1935, after Buddy proved to be unsuccessful, Freleng directed the Merrie Melodies cartoon I Haven't Got a Hat, which introduced the characters Beans and Porky Pig. While Beans was intended to be the series' new protagonist, he was quickly overshadowed by Porky and retired, in part due to the popularity of solo Porky cartoons directed by Universal Pictures alumnus Fred Avery and newly rejoined director Frank Tashlin, which established Porky as one of the studio's leading stars for decades.Barrier, Michael (1999). Pg. 329–33. Schlesinger also gradually moved the Merrie Melodies cartoons from black and white, to two-strip Technicolor in 1934, and finally to full three-strip Technicolor in 1935. The Looney Tunes series would be produced in black-and-white for much longer, until 1943. Both series also evolved away from its roots in promoting music to focusing on humor.
Because of the limited spacing conditions in the Schlesinger building at 1351 N. Van Ness on the Warner Sunset lot, Avery and his unit – including animators Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones – were moved into a small building elsewhere on the Sunset lot, which Avery and his team affectionately dubbed "Termite Terrace".Maltin, Leonard (1980, rev. 1987). Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons. Penguin Books. Pg.s. 229–30 . Although the Avery unit moved out of the building after a year, moving into the Van Ness studio location, "Termite Terrace" later became a metonym for the classic Warner Bros. animation department in general, even for years after the building was abandoned, condemned, and torn down. During this period, four cartoons were outsourced to Animated Pictures; despite the quality being on par with the studio's output, Ub Iwerks disliked the experience and left midway, allowing Clampett to gain directorial experience while finishing two of the four cartoons. Schlesinger was so impressed by Clampett's work on these shorts that he opened a fourth unit for Clampett to lead. Its management was overseen by Ray Katz due to tax reasons; this unit was not allowed to produce Technicolor cartoons to save costs.
From 1936 until 1944, animation directors and animators such as Freleng, Hardaway, Avery, Clampett, Jones, McKimson, Arthur Davis, and Frank Tashlin worked at the studio. During this period, these creators introduced several of the most popular cartoon characters to date, including Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny and Tweety. Freleng first left the studio in 1937 to work for MGM and Tashlin took over Freleng's former unit, while Tashlin's own position as the director of the Schlesinger studio was taken by Cal Howard and Cal Dalton; Howard's role, in turn, barely lasted a year, before Howard left for Fleischer Studios, and Ben Hardaway returned to the studio as director to replace him. Tashlin left the studio in 1938, and his second unit was taken over by Chuck Jones. Freleng returned to the studio in 1939 to take over the former Hardaway/Dalton unit.The Exposure Sheet studio newsletter, Vol. 1, No. 5 https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/the-exposure-sheet-volumes-5-and-6/#prettyphoto[43649]/0/ Avery left the studio in 1941 following a series of disputes with Schlesinger, bringing vital staff of his unit such as Rich Hogan to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Schlesinger shortly after closed the studio for two weeks due to a minor strike similar to the better known one that occurred at Disney. A few months earlier he banished all unionized employees in what became known in retrospect as the "Looney Tune Lockout"; this time Schlesinger lost nearly all of his employees of the Avery unit, excluding its key animators. Clampett and several of his own artists took over Avery's former unit, while Clampett's own position as director of the Schlesinger-Katz studio was taken by Norman McCabe, who lasted barely a year before being drafted. Frank Tashlin returned to the studio in late 1942 to replace McCabe in the Schlesinger-Katz unit until 1944.
By 1942, the Schlesinger studio had surpassed Walt Disney Productions as the most successful producer of animated shorts in the United States."Warner Bros. Studio biography ". AnimationUSA.com. Retrieved June 17, 2007. Between 1942 and 1945, the Schlesinger studio produced a number of films for the United States military in support of its efforts in World War II. Under the command of the US Air Force's First Motion Picture Unit, headed from 1942 to 1944 by Major Theodor Seuss Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss), the studio produced the Private Snafu and (with Walter Lantz Productions) Mr. Hook cartoons for the servicemen's entertainment.
1944–1963: Warner Bros. Cartoons
On July 1, 1944, Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. for $700,000; Warners renamed the company Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc., and Edward Selzer – who by Jones' and Freleng's accounts had no sense of humor or admiration of cartoons – was appointed by Warner Bros. as the new head of the cartoon studio after Schlesinger retired. Frank Tashlin left in September 1944, and Bob Clampett left in May 1945. Tashlin's Katz-managed unit was taken over by Robert McKimson.Barrier (1999); pg. 467 The remaining animators of Clampett's second unit were assigned to Arthur Davis. McKimson and Davis worked with lower budgets than Jones and Freleng.
In 1948, the studio moved to a larger building on the Sunset Boulevard lot. Davis' separate unit was dissolved in November 1947, and he became an animator for Freleng.
The directors became noted by their respective styles.: Jones' cartoons, with the largest budgets, featured a more visual and sophisticated art style, and focused more on unique story telling and characterization over traditional gags; Freleng's cartoons developed a conservative directorial style which uses sharp timing, jokes and use of music for comedic effect; Tashlin's cartoons were known for their cinematic influences and irreverent humor, traits that carried to his live-action films after he left the studio. Clampett's cartoons were known for a highly elastic and energetic animation style mixed with sexual innuendos, surreal humor and overt cartoon violence. McKimson's cartoons focused on fast-paced animation and straightforward humor, though with more innovation than Freleng's cartoons; Davis' cartoons are similar to his works Screen Gems.
Among the Warner Bros. cartoon stars who were created after Schlesinger's departure include Pepé Le Pew (1945, Odor-able Kitty by Jones), Sylvester (1945, Life with Feathers by Freleng), Yosemite Sam (1945, Hare Trigger by Freleng), Foghorn Leghorn (1946, Walky Talky Hawky by McKimson), Marvin the Martian (1948, Haredevil Hare by Jones), Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner (1949, Fast and Furry-ous by Jones), Granny (1950, Canary Row by Freleng), Speedy Gonzales (1953, Cat-Tails for Two by McKimson) and The Tasmanian Devil (1954, Devil May Hare by McKimson). In later years, even more minor Looney Tunes characters such as Freleng's Rocky and Mugsy, Jones's Gossamer and Michigan J. Frog, and McKimson's Pete Puma have become significantly popular.Sperling, Millner, and Warner (1998), p. 187–8.
After the verdict of the United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. anti-trust case in 1948 ended the practice of "block booking", Warner Bros. could no longer force theaters into buying their features and shorts together as packages; shorts had to be sold separately. Theater owners were only willing to pay so much for cartoon shorts, and as a result, by the late-1950s the budgets at Warner Bros. Cartoons became tighter. Selzer forced a stringent five-week production schedule on each cartoon. At least one director, Chuck Jones, cheated the system by spending more time on special cartoons such as What's Opera, Doc?, and less time on simpler productions such as Road Runner entries, and had his crew forge their time cards. With less money for full animation, the Warner Bros. writers — Michael Maltese, Tedd Pierce, and Warren Foster — began to focus more of their cartoons on dialogue. While story artists were assigned to directors at random during the 1930s and 1940s, by the 1950s each story man worked almost exclusively with one director: Maltese with Jones, Foster with Freleng, and Pierce with McKimson.