Walter Lantz Productions was an American animation studio. It was in operation from 1928 to 1949 and then from 1950 to 1972, and was the principal supplier of animation for Universal Pictures.
The studio was originally formed as Universal Cartoon Studios on the initiative of Universal movie mogul Carl Laemmle, who was tired of the continuous company politics he was dealing with concerning contracting cartoons outside animation studios. Animator Bill Nolan and Walter Lantz, who was Laemmle's part-time chauffeur and a veteran of the John R. Bray Studios with considerable experience in all elements of animation production, were selected to run the department.
In 1935, Lantz managed to buy out his studio and gain the copyrights to his characters. The cartoons continued to be distributed by Universal through 1947, changing to United Artists distribution from 1947 until its first closure in 1949, and by Universal again from 1950 until its second and official closure in 1972.
The most prominent characters for the studio were Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda, Chilly Willy, and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Additionally, the music-oriented Swing Symphony cartoons were another successful staple, but ended after swing music's popularity faded after the end of World War II.
History 1928–1935: Early years as Universal Cartoon Studios Walter Lantz began his career at the art department of William Randolph Hearst's New York American during the 1910s, having his start in the cartoon industry at Hearst's International Film Service, which in 1918 transferred its entire staff to Bray Productions. By the mid-1920s, Lantz was directing (and acting in) the studio's top cartoon, Dinky Doodle, also becoming a producer as Bray attempted to compete with Hal Roach and Mack Sennett by making live-action comedies. Bray Productions closed shop in 1928, and Lantz moved to Hollywood, trying to start a studio while trying to make a living in a succession of odd jobs, including driving Universal Pictures owner Carl Laemmle's limousine. The chauffeur job also landed Lantz a job at Winkler Pictures, which, under producer Charles Mintz, produced the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons for Universal Pictures. Lantz became one of the Oswald series' directors alongside Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, after series creators Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks left the company.
The popularity of the Oswald series began to fall because of a decline in quality, alongside a series of heated confrontations between Mintz and Harman & Ising, and then between Laemmle and Harman & Ising, which led Laemmle to fire Mintz and terminate the Winkler contract in early 1929. Laemmle was now looking for someone to run a new in-house animation studio for Universal, and Walter Lantz won the job in a poker game with Laemmle. He reunited with his Bray colleague and former Winkler director Bill Nolan, who led the newly founded studio with him. The first "Oswald" cartoon produced by Lantz at the new Universal Cartoon Studios was Race Riot, released on September 2, 1929. The first animators for the studio included Winkler veterans Rollin Hamilton, Tom Palmer and "rubber-hose" pioneer Bill Nolan. Bert Fiske scored the first cartoons, having done this for the few Winkler sound "Oswalds". Additions to the staff included Pinto Colvig and Tex Avery.
The earliest Lantz cartoons from 1929 were built around set plots and stories, in the tradition of the earlier Disney and Winkler shorts. The conversion of Oswald cartoons into musicals was a different matter, but by mid-1930, Lantz and his staff achieved this goal. In the process however, Oswald's personality became less consistent. It could and did change drastically to fit a particular gag. Lantz's musical directors changed as well. To replace David Broekman, Lantz brought in James Dietrich, a member of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, making the jazz-era sound of the 1920s a quintessential element in the early Lantz cartoons. He remained as the permanent studio musical director until 1937. Lantz and Nolan worked in a character called "Fanny the Mule" for a 13-cartoon series announced by Laemmle in early 1930, but these cartoons were never produced.
In 1931, Lantz faced economic difficulties and was forced to make cutbacks, shortening the lengths of his films and post-synchronizing a handful of the early Disney-era Oswald cartoons. Another way out of the hole was to gain attention by creating a secondary series of shorts featuring a new star, Pooch the Pup. Lantz and Nolan divided the studio into two separate units. Lantz directed the Pooch cartoons, while Nolan worked on the Oswalds, with both series referencing the dire straits of the Depression. Pooch never became very popular and the series was dropped in 1933. The following year, Nolan left the studio, and the Cartune Classics series of Technicolor shorts began, lasting for a year.
1935–1940: The decline of Oswald and new stars Control of Universal by founder Carl Laemmle and his family was slipping away because of financial difficulties and came to an end in 1936. John Cheever Cowdin became Universal's new president. With the change in management, Lantz seized the opportunity to ask Universal for permission to make his studio independent. Universal agreed, and on November 16, 1935, Lantz broke off and claimed the studio for his own, becoming the Walter Lantz Studio, even though it remained on the Universal lot.
During the mid- to late 1930s, Oswald's popularity declined, and Lantz experimented with other characters to replace him with characters such as Meany, Miny, and Moe, Baby-Face Mouse and Lil' Eightball, but all of them proved unsuccessful. After a succession of failed attempts, Lantz created the character Andy Panda, who debuted in the 1939 short Life Begins for Andy Panda, directed by Alex Lovy. Andy was a hit with audiences, and eventually replaced Oswald (who was retired the year prior) as the studio's leading star. Lantz also switched to all-color production in 1939, shortly before Andy's debut.
In 1940, Lantz's studio was in trouble. Universal once again was facing severe financial difficulties and possible bankruptcy and decided to cut their weekly advance to the now-independent Lantz studio. This left Lantz scrambling for alternative sources for funds, forcing him to shut down the studio temporarily. Lantz was able to gain the rights to the characters of his films (including Oswald the Lucky Rabbit) and an Andy Panda cartoon, Crazy House, was developed into Lantz's first independently financed film. Lantz used the film as a final appeal to the heads of Universal and, in the end, was able to reach a satisfactory settlement with them. By fall of 1940, Lantz's studio was back in business again.
1940 also marked the debut of Lantz's biggest star: Woody Woodpecker, who debuted in the Andy Panda cartoon Knock Knock. In the short, Woody pesters the Panda family by pecking holes through the roof, but is eventually stopped after Andy sprinkles salt onto his tail. According to Joe Adamson, Woody was created by Lantz out of budgetary grounds. He saw the storyboards for the cartoon during production and he found that using a rainstorm to create its conflict was "too expensive". He suggested to the writers to use something else that was easier to animate, such as a woodpecker.
1940–1947: Continued success and new talent
Woody quickly became extremely popular, being given his own series in early 1941, and became one of the most famous examples of the "brash bird" cartoon characters of the late 1930s/early 1940s such as Donald Duck (also created by Disney). The success of Scrub Me Mama With A Boogie Beat and Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B (the former becoming subject to controversy and even protest soon after its release over racial stereotypes, and the latter nominated for an Academy Award)Sampson, Henry T. (1998). That's Enough, Folks: Black Images in Animated Cartoons, 1900–1960. Scarecrow Press. p. 205. ISBN 978-0-8108-3250-3. also led to the introduction of the Swing Symphony series that fall, often featuring popular musicians of the time. The series ended in 1945 at the twilight of the big band era.
After the studio's 1930s cartoons were scored by a succession of composers, including James Dietrich, Victor Records producer Nat Shilkret, and Harman-Ising veteran Frank Marsales, Darrell Calker took over in late 1940. Calker's arrangements became noted for their distinctive swing flavor.
After Disney's success with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the Lantz studio planned to make a feature, Aladdin and His Lamp, featuring Universal's comedy team Abbott and Costello in live action, but after Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941) failed at the box office, Aladdin never made it to actual production. Late in the decade, Lantz considered making a feature-length cartoon again, but it never came to fruition.
The Lantz unit was perhaps considered the smallest major animation studio in the West Coast, with Lantz and animator Alex Lovy producing cartoons as a single unit by the turn of the decade. In 1943, Lovy was drafted into the U.S. Navy and was replaced by James "Shamus" Culhane in March of that year. Culhane quickly developed a distinct direction and art style characterized for its use of Russian avant-garde influences, minimalistic backgrounds and fast cutting. Culhane eventually left Lantz in late 1945 over pay disputes.
1947–1949: United Artists and first closure In 1947, Lantz renegotiated his seven-year Universal contract with Matty Fox, the new vice president of Universal. The deal was interrupted when new ownership transformed the company into Universal-International and did away with most of Universal's company policies. The new management insisted on getting licensing and merchandising rights to Lantz's characters. Lantz refused and withdrew from the parent company in 1947, vacated Universal City, moving into the former Screen Gems cartoon studio at 861 Seward Street in Hollywood, and releasing 12 cartoons independently through United Artists during 1947 and early 1949.
The cartoons from this period stand out for their slicker animation compared to the previous Universal releases, mostly because of the influence of the studio's latest director, ex-Disney animator Dick Lundy, as well as the hiring of other Disney veterans, such as Ed Love and Fred Moore. This era also marked the end of the Andy Panda series, whose popularity was waning.
Under the deal with United Artists, Lantz was supposed to receive percentages of box-office receipts to pay for the production costs of his cartoons. UA however attributed a tiny portion of the dollar amounts to Lantz's shorts from the features. This was because UA was, at the time, a struggling studio attempting to re-establish the position in the industry it had in the 1920s. The result was that Lantz exceeded his standing loan of $250,000 from Bank of America (he had left Irving Trust in 1942). At the recommendation of BAC president Joe Rosenberg, Lantz decided to shut down his studio temporarily at the end of 1949 until the loan was reduced. He asked Universal to reissue his older films during the hiatus, a request accepted by Universal-International president Nate Blumberg.
In the interim, Lantz made a series of film ads for Coca-Cola and introduced "The Woody Woodpecker Song" as the theme song for the character. He also went to Europe to look for studios that could animate his films there, approaching government incentives not found stateside, and lower labor costs. The postwar economic situation of these countries as well as the presence of stronger unions than in Hollywood, however, led him to back out and keep making films in America.
1950–1967: Reopening and venture to television