Walter Lantz Studios
Walter Lantz Productions was an American animation studio. It was in operation from 1928 to 1972 and was the principal supplier of animation for Universal Studios. 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. 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, was selected to run the department. In 1935, the studio was severed from Universal and became Walter Lantz Studio under Lantz's direct control, and in 1939, renamed to Walter Lantz Productions. Lantz managed to gain the copyright for his characters. The cartoons continued to be distributed by Universal through 1947, changing to United Artists distribution in 1947–49, and by Universal again from 1950 to 1972. Th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Walter Lantz
Walter Lantz (April 27, 1899 – March 22, 1994) was an American cartoonist, animator, producer and director best known for founding Walter Lantz Productions and creating Woody Woodpecker. Biography Early years and start in animation Lantz was born in New Rochelle, New York, to Italian immigrant parents Francesco Paolo Lantz (formerly Lanza) and Maria Jarvis (changed to Jarvis to avoid prejudice) from Calitri. According to Joe Adamson's biography ''The Walter Lantz Story'', Lantz's father was given his new surname by an immigration official who anglicized it. Walter Lantz was always interested in art, completing a mail-order drawing class at age 12. He was inspired when he saw Winsor McCay's animated short "Gertie the Dinosaur". While working as an auto mechanic, Lantz got his first break. Wealthy customer Fred Kafka liked his drawings on the garage's bulletin board and financed Lantz's studies at the Art Students League of New York. Kafka also helped him land a job as a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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NBCUniversal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. NBCUniversal is primarily involved in the media and entertainment industry. The company is named for its two most significant divisions, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) – one of the United States' Big Three television networks – and the major Hollywood film studio Universal Pictures. It also has a significant presence in broadcasting through a portfolio of domestic and international properties, including USA, Syfy, Bravo, E!, Telemundo (Spanish), Universal Kids, and the streaming service Peacock. Via its Universal Parks & Resorts division, NBCUniversal is also the third-largest operator of amusement parks in the world. Since 2018, its sister company under Comcast's control, Sky Group Limited, holds its media and telecommunication assets. NBCUniv ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Charles Mintz
Charles Bear Mintz (November 5, 1889 – December 30, 1939)''Social Security Death Index, 1935–2014''. Social Security Administration. was an American film producer and distributor who assumed control over Margaret J. Winkler's Winkler Pictures after marrying her in 1924. The couple had two children, Katherine and William. Between 1925 and 1939, Mintz produced over 370 cartoon shorts. Career Charles Mintz was unhappy with the production costs on Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks's ''Alice Comedies'', and asked the two to develop a new character. The result was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the first animated character for Universal Pictures. In February 1928, when the character proved more successful than expected, Mintz hired away all of Disney's animators except Iwerks, who refused to leave Disney, and moved the production of the Oswald cartoons to his new Winkler Studio, along with Margaret Winkler's brother, George. After losing the Oswald contract to Walter Lantz, Mintz focused on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett (born Michael Sinnott; January 17, 1880 – November 5, 1960) was a Canadian-American film actor, director, and producer, and studio head, known as the 'King of Comedy'. Born in Danville, Quebec, in 1880, he started in films in the Biograph Company of New York City, and later opened Keystone Studios in Edendale, California in 1912. Keystone possessed the first fully enclosed film stage, and Sennett became famous as the originator of slapstick routines such as pie-throwing and car-chases, as seen in the Keystone Cops films. He also produced short features that displayed his Bathing Beauties, many of whom went on to develop successful acting careers. Sennett's work in sound movies was less successful, and he was bankrupted in 1933. In 1938 he was presented with an honorary Academy Award for his contribution to film comedy. Early life Born Michael Sinnott in Danville, Quebec, he was the son of Irish Catholic John Sinnott and Catherine Foy. His parents married in 187 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hal Roach
Harry Eugene "Hal" Roach Sr.Randy Skretvedt, Skretvedt, Randy (2016), ''Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies'', Bonaventure Press. p.608. (January 14, 1892 – November 2, 1992) was an American film and television producer, director, and screenwriter, who was the founder of the namesake Hal Roach Studios. Roach was active in the industry from the 1910s to the 1990s and is best remembered today for producing a number of successes including the Laurel and Hardy franchise, the films of entertainer Charley Chase, and the ''Our Gang'' short film comedy series. Early life and career Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York, to Charles Henry Roach, whose father was born in Wicklow, County Wicklow, Ireland, and Mabel Gertrude Bally, her father John Bally being from Switzerland. A presentation by the American humorist Mark Twain impressed Roach as a young Primary education, grade school student. After an adventurous youth that took him to Alaska, Hal Roach arrived in Hollywood, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dinky Doodle
Dinky Doodle was a cartoon character created by Walter Lantz for Bray Productions in 1924. Description Dinky was a standard boy character, sporting a flat cap, a striped shirt, and dark shorts. He and his dog Weakheart appeared alongside Lantz himself (as the cartoonist) in a series of cartoons that combined live-action and animation, similar in style to Max Fleischer's ''Out of the Inkwell'' series. "Weakheart" was based on the 1920s canine film star Strongheart. The character enjoyed a degree of popularity among audiences, but was retired from the screen in 1926. In popular culture The character was mentioned as someone supposedly kidnapped when Angelo mocks Eddie Valiant for working for a toon in the 1988 film ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit''. References External links Dinky Doodle and Weakheartat Don Markstein's Toonopedia Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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International Film Service
International Film Service (IFS) was an American animation studio created to exploit the popularity of the comic strips controlled by William Randolph Hearst. History In 1914, William Randolph Hearst expanded his International News Service wire syndicate into the International Picture Service, a syndicate formed to create newsreels, when newsreels were an entirely new idea. The success of the Hearst Newsreel led the media magnate to create International Film Service (IFS) in 1915. The purpose of this company was to translate Hearst's top comic strip properties into "living comic strips", to be added to the tail-end of the newsreels. For Hearst, the purpose of these cartoons was to be the same as the comics: to increase the circulation of his newspapers. The fact that former Hearst employees Winsor McCay, George McManus, and Bud Fisher were all doing very well with animated cartoons based on their Hearst comic strips ("Little Nemo", '' The Newlyweds'', and ''Mutt and Jeff'') may h ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New York American
:''Includes coverage of New York Journal-American and its predecessors New York Journal, The Journal, New York American and New York Evening Journal'' The ''New York Journal-American'' was a daily newspaper published in New York City from 1937 to 1966. The ''Journal-American'' was the product of a merger between two New York newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst: The ''New York American'' (originally the ''New York Journal'', renamed ''American'' in 1901), a morning paper, and the ''New York Evening Journal'', an afternoon paper. Both were published by Hearst from 1895 to 1937. The ''American'' and ''Evening Journal'' merged in 1937. History Beginnings ''New York Morning Journal'' Joseph Pulitzer's younger brother Albert founded the ''New York Morning Journal'' in 1882. After three years of its existence, John R. McLean briefly acquired the paper in 1895. It was renamed ''The Journal''. But a year later in 1896, he sold it to Hearst.(23 June 1937)Hearst to Merge New York ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being given control of ''The San Francisco Examiner'' by his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst. After moving to New York City, Hearst acquired the '' New York Journal'' and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's '' New York World''. Hearst sold papers by printing giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, sex, and innuendos. Hearst acquired more newspapers and created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest ne ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Universal Animation Studios
Universal Animation Studios (formerly known as Universal Cartoon Studios) is an American animation studio and a division of Universal Pictures, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast. It has produced direct-to-video sequels to Universal-released feature films, such as ''The Land Before Time'', ''An American Tail'', ''Balto'', as well as other films and television series. The actual animation production is done overseas, usually by either Wang Film Productions or Rough Draft Studios, while pre-production and post-production is United States-based. The television animation divisions of Universal and DreamWorks merged on August 23, 2016 after Universal completed its acquisition of DreamWorks Animation, who began producing a majority of Universal Pictures' family friendly TV shows. History Universal Animation Studios was established in 1990 as Universal Cartoon Studios, the animation division of MCA Inc. Its debut work was '' Back to the Future: The Animated Series ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Swing Music
Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of big bands and bandleaders such as Benny Goodman was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1946, known as the swing era. The verb "to swing" is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong groove or drive. Musicians of the swing era include Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Harry James, Lionel Hampton, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw and Django Reinhardt. Overview Swing has its roots in 1920s dance music ensembles, which began using new styles of written arrangements, incorporating rhythmic innovations pioneered by Louis Armstrong ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Swing Symphony
''Swing Symphony'' is an American animated musical short film series produced by Walter Lantz Productions from 1941 to 1945. The shorts were a more contemporary pastiche on Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies, and often featured top boogie-woogie musicians of the era. While the first cartoon include the characters Woody Woodpecker and Andy Panda, it mainly features a variety of different characters created exclusively for the series, with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit making an appearance in one cartoon. Background Walter Lantz Productions first developed the format with ''Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat'', released on March 28, 1941. The short is considered a precursor as it contains many elements seen in the series, such as utilizing a popular boogie-woogie song. Lantz also produced ''Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company 'B later in September which followed the same formula, and would be nominated for an Academy Award. The first cartoon that would go under ''Swing Symphony'' wouldn't be rel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |