Golden age of American animation

The golden age of American animation was a period in the history of U.S. animation that began with the popularization of sound cartoons in 1928 and gradually ended in the late 1960s, where theatrical animated shorts began losing popularity to the newer medium of television animation, produced on cheaper budgets and in a more limited animation style by companies such as Hanna-Barbera, UPA, Jay Ward Productions, and DePatie-Freleng.

Many popular characters emerged from this period, including Disney's' '' Mickey Mouse'', ''Minnie Mouse'', '' Donald Duck'', '' Daisy Duck'', '' Goofy'', and ''Pluto''; Warner Bros.' ''Bugs Bunny'', ''Daffy Duck'', '' Porky Pig'', ''Tweety'', and '' Sylvester''; MGM's ''Tom and Jerry'' and ''Droopy''; Fleischer Studios' '' Betty Boop''; ''Felix the Cat''; Walter Lantz's ''Woody Woodpecker''; Terrytoons' ''Mighty Mouse''; UPA's '' Mr. Magoo''; and Jay Ward Productions' ''Rocky and Bullwinkle''.

Feature-length animation began during this period, most notably with Disney's "Walt-era" films, spanning from ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' in 1937 to ''The Jungle Book'' in 1967. Animation also began on television during this period, with the first animated series airing on television in 1948 starting with ''Crusader Rabbit''.

Movie/animation studios

The Walt Disney Company

Beginnings

Walt Disney had decided to become a newspaper cartoonist drawing political caricatures and comic strips. However, nobody would hire Disney, so his older brother Roy, who was working as a banker at the time, got him a job at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio where he created advertisements for newspapers, magazines, and movie theaters. Here he met fellow cartoonist Ub Iwerks, the two quickly became friends and in January 1920, when their time at the studio expired they decided to open up their own advertising agency together called Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists. The business however got off to a rough start and Walt temporarily left for the Kansas City Film and Ad Co. to raise money for the fleeting company and Iwerks soon followed as he was unable to run the business alone.

While working there he made commercials for local theaters using crude cut-out animation. Disney became fascinated by the art and decided to become an animator. He then borrowed a camera from work and rented a book from the local library called ''Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, Their Origin and Development'' by Edwin G. Lutz and decided that cel animation would produce better quality and decided to open up his own animation studio. Disney then teamed up with Fred Harman and made their first film, ''The Little Artist'' which was nothing more than an artist (Disney) taking a cigarette break at his work desk. Harman soon dropped out of the venture, but Disney was able to strike a deal with local theater owner Frank L. Newman and animated a cartoon all by himself entitled ''Newman Laugh-O-Grams'' screened in roughly February 1921. Walt then quit his job at the film and ad company and incorporated Laugh-O-Gram Films in May 1922, and hired former advertising colleagues as unpaid "students" of animation including Ub Iwerks and Fred Harman's brother, Hugh Harman.Barrier, Michael, 1999, ''Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in its Golden Age'', p. 37, Oxford University Press, UK

Throughout 1922, the Disney company produced a series of "modernized" adaptations of fairy tales including ''Little Red Riding Hood'', ''The Four Musicians of Bremen'', ''Jack and the Beanstalk'', '' Jack the Giant Killer'', '' Goldielocks and the Three Bears'', ''Puss in Boots'', ''Cinderella'' and ''Tommy Tucker's Tooth'', the latter being mostly a live-action film about dental hygiene. None of these films turned a profit. The last film made by the Disney company was a short called ''Alice's Wonderland''. Loosely inspired by Lewis Carroll's ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''; the short featured a live-action five-year-old girl named Alice (Virginia Davis) who had adventures in a fully animated world. The film was never fully complete however as the studio went bankrupt in the summer of 1923.

Upon the closure of Laugh-O-Grams, Walt Disney worked as a freelance filmmaker before selling his camera for a one-way ticket to Los Angeles. Once arriving he moved in with his Uncle Robert and his brother Roy, who was recovering at a nearby government hospital from tuberculosis he had suffered during the war. After failing to get a job as a director of live-action films he sent the unfinished ''Alice's Wonderland'' reel to short-subjects distributor Margaret J. Winkler of ''Winkler Pictures'' in New York. Winkler was distributing both the ''Felix the Cat'' and ''Out of the Inkwell'' cartoons at the time, but the Fleischer brothers were about to leave to set up their own distribution company, ''Red Seal Films'', and Felix producer Pat Sullivan was constantly fighting with Winkler; therefore Winkler agreed to distribute Disney's ''Alice Comedies'' as sort of an insurance policy.

Once Walt Disney received the notice on October 15, he convinced Roy to leave the hospital and help him set up his business. The next day, on October 16, 1923, Disney Bros. Cartoon Studio opened its doors at a small rented office two blocks away from his uncle's house with Roy managing business and Walt handling creative affairs.Barrier, Michael, 1999, ''Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in its Golden Age'', p. 39, Oxford University Press, UK He convinced Virginia Davis's parents which caused the first official ''Alice'' short, ''Alice's Day at Sea'', to be released on January 1, 1924; delayed by eleven days. Ub Iwerks was re-hired in February 1925 and the quality of animation on the ''Alice'' series improved; this prompted Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising and Carman Maxwell to follow Disney west in June 1925. Around that time, Davis was replaced with Maggie Gay and the cartoons started to focus less on the live-action scenes and more the fully animated scenes, particularly those featuring Alice's pet sidekick Julius, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Felix the Cat. In February 1926, Disney built a larger studio at 2719 Hyperion Avenue and changed the name of the company to Walt Disney Cartoons.

In November 1923, Winkler married Charles Mintz and handed over the business to him when she became pregnant a few months later.Barrier, Michael, 1999, ''Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in its Golden Age'', p. 42, Oxford University Press, UKn Mintz was often described as a cold, stern and ruthless chain-smoking tyrant; one employee remembered him as "a grim-faced man, with a pair of cold eyes glittering behind the pince nez" and "never talked to the staff. He looked us over like an admiral surveying a row of stanchions." While Winkler had offered gentle critiques and encouragement, Mintz communicated to Disney in a harsh and cruel tone. In 1927, Mintz ordered Disney to stop producing ''Alice Comedies'' due to the costs of combining live-action and animation.

Mintz managed to gain a distribution deal with Universal Studios; however it was Mintz—not Disney—that signed the deal. Disney and lead animator Ub Iwerks created ''Oswald the Lucky Rabbit'', who debuted in ''Trolley Troubles'' short in 1927. The Oswald series was a success and became the first hit for the Walt Disney studio.

In the spring of 1928, Disney travelled to New York to ask Mintz for a budget increase. His request was harshly denied by Mintz, who pointed out that in the contract Mintz had signed with Universal, it was Universal—not Disney—that owned the rights to the character. Mintz revealed to Disney that he had hired most of his staff away from the studio (except for Ub Iwerks, Les Clark and Wilfred Jackson who refused to leave) and threatened that unless he took a 20 per cent budget decrease, he would drop Disney and continue the Oswald series by himself. Walt refused, and Winkler Pictures dropped its distribution.

Mickey Mouse

While Disney was finishing the remaining cartoons for Mintz, Disney and his staff secretly came up with a new cartoon character to replace Oswald — '' Mickey Mouse''.

The inspiration for Mickey has never been clear. Walt Disney said that he came up with the idea on the train ride back to Los Angeles shortly after the confrontation with Mintz, but other records say that he came up with the idea after he returned to the studio. Walt Disney once said that he was inspired by a pet mouse he once had at the old Laugh-O-Grams studio, but more commonly said that he chose a mouse because a mouse had never been the central character of a cartoon series before.

In 1928, ''Plane Crazy'' became the first entry into the Mickey Mouse series; however, it was not released because of a poor reaction from test screenings and failed to gain a distributor. The second Mickey Mouse cartoon ''The Gallopin' Gaucho'' also failed to gain the attention of the audience and a distributor. Disney knew what was missing: sound. Sound film had been captivating audiences since 1927 with ''The Jazz Singer'' and Walt decided that the next cartoon ''Steamboat Willie'' would have sound. ''Steamboat Willie'' was not the first sound cartoon, Max and Dave Fleischer had produced ''Song Car-Tunes'' since 1926. However, they failed to keep the sound synchronized with the animation and the main focus of the cartoons were the bouncing ball sing-a-longs. The ''Song Car-Tunes'' were not a success and some staff members doubted whether a cartoon with sound would be successful. So Disney arranged a special preview screening with the music and sound effects being played live behind stage through a microphone. The ''Steamboat Willie'' test screening was a success and managed to gain a distributor, ''Celebrity Pictures'' chief Pat Powers. However, the first attempt to synchronize the sound with the animation was a disaster with the timing being all wrong. In order to finance the second recording, Walt sold his car. This time he used a click track to keep his musicians on the beat (Disney later learned that it was easier to record the dialogue, music and sound effects first and animate to the sound). Little more than a month before ''Steamboat Willies premiere, Paul Terry released his sound cartoon '' Dinner Time''; however it was not a financial success and Walt Disney described it as "a bunch of racket".

The Golden Age of Disney

Beginnings (1920s–30s)

''Steamboat Willie'' was released on November 18, 1928, and was a big success. Disney quickly gained huge dominance in the animation field using sound in his future cartoons by dubbing ''Plane Crazy'', ''The Gallopin' Gaucho'' and the nearly completed ''The Barn Dance''. Mickey Mouse's popularity put the animated character into the ranks of the most popular screen personalities in the world. Disney's biggest competitor, Pat Sullivan with his ''Felix the Cat'', was eclipsed by Mickey's popularity and the studio closed in 1932.
Merchandising based on Disney cartoons rescued a number of companies from bankruptcy during the depths of the Depression, and Disney took advantage of this popularity to move forward with further innovations in animation.
In 1929, he launched a new series entitled the ''Silly Symphonies'' which was based around music with no recurring characters. However, they did not become as popular as the Mickey Mouse cartoon series.
In 1930, after a falling-out with Powers, Disney switched distributors to Columbia Pictures. However, Ub Iwerks left Walt Disney after an offer from Powers to be in charge of his own studio.
In 1932, Mickey Mouse had become an international sensation, but the ''Silly Symphonies'' had not. Columbia Pictures had backed out of its distribution of the series and Disney was lured to move the ''Silly Symphonies'' into United Artists by a budget increase.
Walt Disney then worked with the Technicolor company to create the first full three-strip color cartoon, ''Flowers and Trees''. Another great success, it became the first cartoon to win the Academy Award for the Best Animated Short Film. Shortly afterward, Disney negotiated an exclusive, but temporary deal with Technicolor so only he could use the three-strip process in animated films—no other studio was permitted to use it. However, he withheld making Mickey Mouse in color because he thought that Technicolor might boost the ''Silly Symphonies popularity.
By 1932, Walt Disney had realized the success of animated films depended upon telling emotionally gripping stories that would grab the audience and not let go. This realization led to an important innovation around 1932–1933: a "story department", separate from the animators, with storyboard artists who would be dedicated to working on a "story development" phase of the production pipeline.
In turn, Disney's continued emphasis on story development and characterization resulted in another hit in 1933: ''Three Little Pigs'', which is seen as the first cartoon in which multiple characters displayed unique, individual personalities and is still considered to be the most successful animated short of all time, and also featured the hit song that became the anthem in fighting the Great Depression: "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf".
In the Mickey Mouse series, he continued to add personality to his characters; this resulted in the creation of new characters such as Pluto with '' The Chain Gang'' in 1930, Goofy with ''Mickey's Revue'' in 1932 and Donald Duck in 1934 with ''The Wise Little Hen'' (under the ''Silly Symphony'' series). When Disney's contract with Technicolor expired, the Mickey Mouse series was moved into Technicolor starting with ''The Band Concert'' in 1935. In addition, Mickey was partially redesigned for Technicolor later that year.
In 1937, Disney invented the multiplane camera, which gave an illusion of depth to the animated world. He first used this on the Academy Award-winning ''Silly Symphony'' cartoon ''The Old Mill''. Much of Disney's work was heavily influenced by European stories and myths, and the work of illustrators such as Doré and Busch.
Also in 1937, Disney changed distributors for the ''Silly Symphonies'' to RKO Radio Pictures, remaining with this distributor until the early 1950s, when they were re-issued and re-released by Disney's new distribution company, Buena Vista Distribution.

''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' (1937)

In 1937, Walt Disney produced ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'', the first American feature-length animated musical fantasy film. This was the culmination of four years of effort by Disney studios. Walt Disney was convinced that short cartoons would not keep his studio profitable in the long run, so he took what was seen as an enormous gamble. The critics predicted that ''Snow White'' would result in financial ruin for the studio. They said that the colors would be too bright for the audience and they would get sick of the gags and leave. However, the critics were proven wrong. ''Snow White'' was a worldwide box office success, and was universally acclaimed as a landmark in the development of animation as a serious art form.

''Pinocchio'' and ''Fantasia'' (1940)

After the success of ''Snow White'', Disney went on to produce ''Pinocchio'', which was released in 1940. However, costing twice as much to make as ''Snow White'', ''Pinocchio'' was not a financial success, since World War II (which began in Europe in 1939) had cut off 40% of Disney's foreign release market . Although it was a moderate success in the United States, the domestic gross alone was not enough to make back its production budget. However, the film did receive very positive reviews and has made millions from subsequent re-releases.
Later that year, Disney produced ''Fantasia''. It originally started with the Mickey Mouse cartoon ''The Sorcerer's Apprentice'' in an attempt to recapture Mickey's popularity, which had sharply declined due to the popularity of Max Fleischer's ''Popeye'' and Disney's ''Donald Duck''. In the ''Sorcerer's Apprentice'', Mickey Mouse was redesigned by Fred Moore. This redesign of Mickey is still in use today. The short featured no dialogue, only music which was conducted by Leopold Stokowski. When the budget for the short grew very expensive, Stokowski suggested to Disney that it could be a feature film with other pieces of classical music matched to animation. Disney agreed and production started. ''Fantasia'' would also become the first commercial film to be released in stereophonic sound. However, like ''Pinocchio'', ''Fantasia'' was not a financial success. ''Fantasia'' was also the first Disney film not to be received well, receiving mixed reviews from the critics. It was looked down upon by music critics and audiences, who felt that Walt Disney was striving for something beyond his reach by trying to introduce mainstream animation to abstract art, classical music, and "elite" subjects. However, the film would be reevaluated in later years and considered a animated masterpiece.

''Dumbo'' and ''Bambi'' (1941–42)

In 1941, in order to compensate for the relative poor box office of ''Pinocchio'' and ''Fantasia'', Disney produced a low-budget feature film, ''Dumbo''. Just a few days after rough animation was complete on ''Dumbo'', the Disney animators' strike broke out. This was caused by the Screen Cartoonist's Guild (which had been formed in 1938), who severed many ties between Walt Disney and his staff, while encouraging many members of the Disney studio to leave and seek greener pastures. Later that year, ''Dumbo'' became a big success, the first for Disney since ''Snow White''. The critically acclaimed film brought in much-needed revenue and kept the studio afloat. A few months after ''Dumbo'' was released in 1941, the United States entered the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor. This led to the mobilization of all movie studios (including their cartoon divisions) to produce propaganda material to bolster public confidence and encourage support for the war effort.
The war (along with the strike) shook Walt Disney's empire, as the US Army had seized Disney's studio as soon as the US entered World War II in December 1941. As a result, Disney put the feature films '' Alice in Wonderland'' (1951), ''Peter Pan'' (1953), ''Qind in the Willows'' (1949), '' Song of the South'' (1946), ''Mickey and the Beanstalk'' (1947) and '' Bongo'' (1947) on hold until the war was over.
The only feature film that was allowed to continue production was ''Bambi'', which was released in 1942. ''Bambi'' was groundbreaking in terms of animating animals realistically. However, due to the war, ''Bambi'' failed at the box-office and received mixed reviews from the critics. This failure was to be short-lived as it grossed a considerable amount of money in the 1947 re-release.

Wartime Era of Disney

Disney was now fully committed to the war effort and contributed by producing propaganda shorts and a feature film entitled ''Victory Through Air Power''. ''Victory Through Air Power'' did poorly at the box office and the studio lost around $500,000 as a result. The required propaganda cartoon shorts were less popular than Disney's regular shorts, and by the time the Army ended its stay at Walt Disney Studios with the end of the war in 1945, Disney struggled to restart his studio, and had a low amount of cash on hand.
Further Disney feature films of the 1940s were modestly budgeted collections of animated short segments put together to make a feature film. These began with '' Saludos Amigos'' in 1942 and continued during the war with ''The Three Caballeros'' in 1944 and after the war with ''Make Mine Music'' in 1946, ''Fun and Fancy Free'' in 1947, ''Melody Time'' in 1948, and '' The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad'' in 1949. For the feature films ''Mickey and the Beanstalk'', ''Bongo'', and ''Wind in the Willows'', he condensed them into the package films ''Fun and Fancy Free'' and ''The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad'' since Walt feared that the low-budget animation would not become profitable.
The most ambitious Disney film of this period was the 1946 film '' Song of the South'', a musical film blending live-action and animation which drew criticism in later years for accusations of racial stereotyping.

The Silver Age of Disney (1950–67)

=Early 1950s

=
In 1950, Disney produced ''Cinderella''. ''Cinderella'' was an enormous success, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1950, and became Disney's most successful film since ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' and Disney's first single-narrative feature film to be entirely animated since ''Bambi'', as films in the interim involved some live-action.
Disney's company started to diversify, producing live-action feature films beginning with ''Treasure Island'' (1950) and nature documentaries, the first of which being '' Seal Island'' (1948). As a result, Walt Disney was needed on several different units at one time and was spending less time on animation. In 1951, he released '' Alice in Wonderland'', a project he had been working on since the late 1930s, though it was shelved during the war. ''Alice in Wonderland'' was initially moderately successful and received mixed reviews from the critics. A few decades later, the film would be hailed as one of Disney's greatest classics, making millions in subsequent theatrical and home video releases. In 1953, he released ''Peter Pan'', which, like ''Alice in Wonderland'', had been in production since the late 1930s/early 1940s and was shelved during the war. However unlike ''Alice'', ''Peter Pan'' was a big success both critically and financially on its first release.
When Disney's contract with RKO expired at the end of 1953, instead of renewing it as usual, Disney was concerned about the instability of RKO (due to owner Howard Hughes' increasingly erratic control of the studio) and started distributing films through the newly created Buena Vista Distribution subsidiary. This allowed a higher budget for shorts and features than the last few years of cartoons made for RKO dictated, which made it possible to make some of the cartoons in the new CinemaScope format. However, the budget per short was nowhere near as high as it had been in the 1940s as Disney had been focusing more on live action, television, and feature animation and less on short animation. In 1953, shortly after the switch from RKO to Buena Vista, Disney released its final Mickey Mouse short, ''The Simple Things''. From there, the studio produced fewer animated shorts by the year until the animated shorts division was eventually closed in 1956. After that, any future short cartoon work was done through the feature animation division until 1969. The last Disney animated short of the golden age of American animation, the Oscar-winning ''It's Tough to Be a Bird!'', was released in 1969.

=Late 1950s–60s

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In 1955, Disney created ''Lady and the Tramp'', the first animated film in CinemaScope.
Upon building Disneyland in 1955, Walt Disney regained a huge amount of popularity among the public, and turned his focus to producing his most ambitious movie: ''Sleeping Beauty''. ''Sleeping Beauty'' was filmed in Super Technirama 70 mm film and in stereophonic sound like ''Fantasia''. ''Sleeping Beauty'' also signaled a change in the style of drawing, with cartoony and angular characters; taking influence from United Productions of America (UPA). Although ''Sleeping Beauty'' was the second-highest-grossing film of 1959 (just behind '' Ben-Hur''), the film went over budget, costing $6 million, and the film failed to make back its expenditure. The studio was in serious debt and had to cut the cost of animation. In 1960, this resulted in Disney switching to xerography, that replaced the traditional hand-inking.
The first feature film that used Xerox cels was '' 101 Dalmatians'' in 1961 which was a box-office success. However, the Xerox resulted in films with a "sketchier" look and lacked the quality of the hand-inked films. According to Floyd Norman, who was working at Disney at the time, it felt like the end of an era.
On December 15, 1966, Walt Disney died of lung cancer. The last two films he was involved in were ''The Jungle Book'' (1967) and ''The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh'' (1977), since one of the shorts ''Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree'' was released during his lifetime, and he was involved in the production of ''Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day''. The animated musical comedy feature, ''The Jungle Book'', and the live-action big-screen musical, ''The Happiest Millionaire'', were released in 1967, a year after his death, and ''Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day'' was released two years later, while ''The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh'' was released in 1977. ''Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day'' also won the 1968 Academy Award for Animated Short Film. After Walt Disney's death, the animation department did not fully recover until the late 1980s and early 1990s with the Disney Renaissance.

Paramount Pictures

Fleischer Studios

Creation

One of Walt Disney's main competitors was Max Fleischer, the head of Fleischer Studios, which produced cartoons for Paramount Pictures. Fleischer Studios was a family-owned business, operated by Max Fleischer and his younger brother Dave Fleischer, who supervised the production of the cartoons. The Fleischers scored successful hits with the '' Betty Boop'' cartoons and the ''Popeye the Sailor in 1934 required animation producers to remove risqué humor. The Fleischers, in particular, had to tone down the content of their Betty Boop cartoons, which waned in popularity afterwards. The Fleischers also had produced a number of ''Color Classics'' cartoons during the 1930s which attempted to emulate Walt Disney's use of color, but the series was not a success.

Feature-length films

In 1934, Max Fleischer became interested in producing an animated feature film shortly after Walt Disney's announcement of ''Snow White'', however Paramount vetoed the idea. In 1936, Fleischer Studios produced the first of three two-reel ''Popeye'' Technicolor features: ''Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor'' in 1936, ''Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves'' in 1937, and '' Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp'' in 1939.
In 1938, after Disney's success with ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'', Paramount had given the Fleischers permission to produce an animated feature film and Fleischer studio relocated itself from New York to Miami, Florida in order to avoid organized unions, which became a threat to the studio after a five-month strike occurred among Fleischer Studio workers in late 1937. Here the Fleischers produced '' Gulliver's Travels'' which was released in 1939. It was a small success and encouraged the Fleischers to produce more.

Superman and the fall of the studio

In May 1941, the Fleischers gave Paramount full ownership of the studio as collateral to pay off their debts left from the loans they obtained from the studio to make unsuccessful cartoons like ''Stone Age'', ''Gabby'', and ''Color Classics''. However, they still maintained their positions as heads of their studio's production. Under Paramount rule, the Fleischers brought Popeye into the Navy and contributed to the war effort, and would gain more success by beginning a series of spectacular ''Superman'' cartoons (the first of which was nominated for an Oscar) that have become legendary in themselves.
Despite the success Superman gave the studio, a major blow to the studio would occur when the married Dave started having an adulterous affair with the Miami secretary. This led to many disputes between the Fleischer Brothers until Max and Dave were no longer speaking to each other. In 1941, they released ''Mister Bug Goes to Town'', unfortunately it was released a few days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, which caused ''Mister Bug'' to fail at the box-office. Shortly after the film's poor box office, Dave Fleischer, still maintaining his position as co-chief of his studio, had left Fleischer Studios to run Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems cartoons. Due to this, Paramount Pictures had expelled Dave and Max Fleischer from their positions as the head of the cartoon studio.

Famous Studios

Conversion

Paramount took over the Fleischer studio completely and brought it under the fold of their own studio, renaming it Famous Studios and continuing the work that the Fleischers began. Isadore Sparber, Seymour Kneitel and Dan Gordon were promoted to directors (Disney veteran Bill Tytla directed shorts in the mid- to late 1940s after Gordon left the studio), while Sam Buchwald was promoted to executive producer. Paramount also discontinued the expensive ''Superman'' cartoons in 1943, in favor of adapting ''Little Lulu'' to theaters.
Famous Studios continued to release Popeye shorts, which shifted to color in 1943 as well as creating '' Noveltoons'', an anthology short series similar to Fleischer's ''Color Classics''. Noveltoons introduced many notable characters such as ''Blackie the Lamb'', ''Wolfie'' (Blackie's main rival), ''Casper the Friendly Ghost'' (adapted from a children's story book), '' Little Audrey'' (a character similar to and replacing Little Lulu), '' Herman and Katnip'' (A cat and mouse duel similar to ''Tom and Jerry''), '' Baby Huey'' (a large though dim-witted baby duck) and many other lesser known characters.
Famous also revived ''Screen Songs'', another series inherited from Fleischer's. As early as 1945, Famous continued the series all the way up to 1951, when they lost the right of the name and the “bouncing ball” term. The series was renamed '' Kartunes'' and would continue for two extra years, where it would finally be discontinued.
In 1951, Sam Buchwald died from a heart attack, leaving Sparber and Kneitel as the lead producers and directors. Dave Tendlar was promoted to director in 1953.

Decline and closure

The departure of the Fleischers had an immediate effect on the studio: the Paramount cartoons of the war years continued to be entertaining and popular and still retained most of the Fleischer style and gloss, however animation fans and historians would note the studio's diverging tone after the end of the war, as the style was criticized for its highly formulaic story telling, lack of artistic ambition, violence, and its overall appeal towards children rather than both kids and adults.
By the mid-1950s, Famous Studios was still releasing shorts but with tighter budgets. This was a standard industry practice at the time, since other animation studios were also releasing short films with tighter budgets due to the popularity of television. At the same time, the studio had really drastic changes. Paramount renamed the studio to Paramount Cartoon Studios, as well as discontinuing the Popeye shorts by 1957. ''Spooky Swabs'' (directed by Sparber, who died the next year) was the last Popeye short in theaters. Budgets for the shorts were so tight by the late 1950s, that the studio has to use limited animation techniques comparable to television animation at the time.
In the 1960s, Paramount continue to release thatrical cartoons, as well as teaming up with King Features Syndicate TV to co-produce ''Popeye the Sailor, James Culhane and Ralph Bakshi were hired to directed shorts late in the studio's lifespan. Cartoons produced during this period were ''Swifty and Shorty'', ''Honey Halfwitch'', ''Comic Kings'', the ''Modern Madcaps'' series and ''Fractured Fables'', all of which failed to revitalize the studio following the continious budget restraints.
In the winter of 1968, Paramount's new owners at the time, Gulf+Western, began the process to shutdown the cartoon studio. The shutdown was completed by December.

Warner Bros.

Harman-Ising era

In 1929, former Disney animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising made a cartoon entitled '' Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid'', and tried to sell it to a distributor in 1930. Warner Bros. who had previously tried an unsuccessful attempt to set up a cartoon studio in New York in order to compete with Disney, agreed to distribute the series. Under producer Leon Schlesinger's guide Harman and Ising created '' Looney Tunes'' (the title being variation on Disney's award-winning ''Silly Symphonies'') starring their character '' Bosko''. A second Harman-Ising series, '' Merrie Melodies'', followed in 1931. Both series showed the strong influence of the early Disney movies.

Harman & Ising break away

After disputes over the money, Harman-Ising parted company with Schlesinger (who rejected their demands for raised budgets) in 1933, taking ''Bosko'' with them to work with Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Schlesinger began his own cartoon operation under the new name Leon Schlesinger Productions, hiring Harman-Ising animator Friz Freleng and several others to run the studio. Animator Tom Palmer created a Bosko clone known as ''Buddy'' and answered to Walt Disney's use of color in the ''Silly Symphonies'' cartoons in 1934, and began making all future ''Merrie Melodies'' cartoons in color. However, since Walt Disney had an exclusive deal with Technicolor, Schlesinger was forced to use Cinecolor and Two Strip Technicolor until 1935 when Disney's contract with Technicolor had expired. In 1935, Schlesinger fired Tom Palmer and Buddy was retired.

The creation of new stars

In a 1935 ''Merrie Melodie'' directed by Friz Freleng entitled ''I Haven't Got a Hat'' was the first screen appearance of '' Porky Pig''. Also in 1935, 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 would replace the Buddy series and become 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 would increase 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. This created the character of ''Daffy Duck''. After Daffy was created, he would add even more success to Warner Bros. cartoons and replaced Porky Pig as the studio's most popular animated character, and Bob Clampett took over ''Termite Terrace'', while Tex Avery took over the ''Merrie Melodies'' department.
The 1940 Academy Award-nominated cartoon ''A Wild Hare'' (directed by Avery) marked ''Bugs Bunnys official debut, as well as his first pairing with '' Elmer Fudd'' (Created by Chuck Jones that year). Bugs quickly replaced Daffy as the studio's top star. By 1942, Bugs had become the most popular cartoon character. 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. By 1942, Warners' shorts had now surpassed Disney's in sales and popularity.
Frank Tashlin also worked with Avery in the Merrie Melodies department. He began at Warners in 1933 as an animator but was fired and joined Iwerks in 1934. Tashlin returned to Warners in 1936, taking over direction of Merrie Melodies department. He returned in 1943 directing Porky and Daffy cartoons. He left in late 1944 to direct live-action films.

Schlesinger sells the studio

Avery left Warner Bros. in 1941 and went to work at MGM. Avery created ''Droopy'' in 1943 and many other characters during his 12-year career at MGM.
Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. in August 1944. Edward Selzer was in turn named the new producer. By this time, Warner cartoons' top directors of the 1940s were Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett and recently Robert McKimson, who took over Frank Tashlin’s unit after he left the studio. Their cartoons are now considered classics of the medium. They directed some of the most beloved animated shorts of all time, including (for Clampett) ''Porky in Wackyland'', ''Wabbit Twouble'', ''A Corny Concerto'', ''The Great Piggy Bank Robbery'', ''The Big Snooze'', (for Freleng) ''You Ought to Be in Pictures'', ''Rhapsody in Rivets'', ''Little Red Riding Rabbit'', ''Birds Anonymous'', ''Knighty Knight Bugs'', (for Jones) ''Rabbit Fire'', ''Duck Amuck'', ''Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century'', ''One Froggy Evening'', ''What's Opera, Doc?'', (for McKimson) ''Walky Talky Hawky'', ''Hillbilly Hare'', ''Devil May Hare'', '' The Hole Idea'' and '' Stupor Duck''.
Besides McKimson being promoted to director in the mid-1940s, Arthur Davis took over after Clampett in mid-1945, after being was fired by Selzer. Clampett went to work on ''Beany and Cecil''.
Many well known recurring characters were created by Jones, Freleng, McKimson and Clampett, and most instantly became popular at this time. This included ''Tweety'' (1942), '' Pepé Le Pew'' (1945), '' Sylvester the Cat'' (1945), ''Yosemite Sam'' (1945), ''Foghorn Leghorn'' (1946), ''Marvin the Martian'' (1948), ''Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner'' (1949), '' Granny'' (1950), ''Speedy Gonzales'' (1953), '' The Tasmanian Devil (Taz)'' (1954), and among others.
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 to shorts of the early 1960s to have tighter budgets. Davis' unit was shut down in 1949 by Warners due to budget issues, causing him to move to Freleng's unit to become one of his key animators. Edward Selzer in 1958, retired, leading to production manager John W. Burton to take his place. David DePatie assumed producer in 1960 after Burton left the studio.

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 and DePatie-Freleng Enterprises assumed production of the shorts, licensed by Warner Bros. Most of the series’ main cast of characters were retired from theaters at this time, including Warners most popular star, Bugs Bunny. Daffy Duck, however, would still appear in theatrical cartoons, mostly paired with Speedy Gonzales. Beside them, Porky Pig, Granny, Sylvester and the Goofy Gophers appeared in this era, but most appeared in just one or more shorts.
14 ''Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner'' cartoons were also commissioned, with the last 11 being outsourced to Format Films, under direction of former Chuck Jones animator Rudy Larriva. These cartoons were not well received, and were criticized for its lack of spirit and charm to that of Jones’ shorts.
After DePatie-Freleng ceased production of ''Looney Tunes'' in 1967, Bill 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 Bob Givens. The studio's one-shot cartoons from this era were critically panned and are widely considered to be the worst in the studio's history: '' Cool Cat'', ''Merlin the Magic Mouse'', '' Chimp and Zee'' and '' Norman Normal'', despite the later gaining a large cult following, were said to be witless, crudely animated as well as having poor writing and design because of the extremely low budgets the crew had to work with by this time. Alex Lovy left the studio in 1968 and Robert McKimson took over. McKimson 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'' and the last ''Merrie Melodies'' short was ''Injun Trouble'', 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.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Ub Iwerks

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; Disney was responsible for the ideas in the cartoons, and Iwerks was responsible for bringing them to life. However, Iwerks left the Disney studio in 1930 to form his own company, which was financially backed by Celebrity Pictures owner Pat Powers. After his departure, Disney eventually found a number of different animators to replace Iwerks. Iwerks would produce three cartoon series during the 1930s: ''Flip the Frog'' and ''Willie Whopper'' for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and the ''ComiColor Cartoons'' for Pat Powers' Celebrity Productions. However, none of these cartoons could come close to matching the success of Disney or Fleischer cartoons, and in 1933, MGM, Iwerks' cartoon distributor since 1930, ended distribution of his cartoons in favor of distributing Harman and Ising cartoons, and Iwerks left after his contract expired in 1934. After his stay with MGM, Iwerks' cartoons were distributed by Celebrity Pictures, and Iwerks would answer to Disney's use of Technicolor and create the Comicolor series, which aired cartoons in two-strip Cinecolor. However, by 1936, the Iwerks Studio began to experience financial setbacks and closed after Pat Powers withdrew financial aid to the studio. After animating at Warner Brothers creating Gabby Goat and going to Screen Gems which was making cartoons for Columbia Pictures at the time, Iwerks returned to Disney in 1940, where he worked as the head of the "special effects development" division until his death in 1971.

Harman and Ising

After MGM dropped Iwerks, they hired Harman and Ising away 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''. However they failed to make a success in the theaters, and in 1937 the ''Bosko'' and ''Happy Harmonies'' series were discontinued and MGM replaced Harman and Ising with Fred Quimby. After Quimby took over, he kept a number of Harman and Ising's staff and scouted other animation studios for talent (including Warner director Friz Freleng for a short period of time). He created an animated adaptation of the comic book series ''The Katzenjammer Kids