The golden age of American animation was a period in the history of U.S. animation that began with the popularization of sound synchronized cartoons in 1928 and gradually ended in the 1960s when theatrical animated shorts started to lose popularity to the newer medium of television.^[1] Animated media from after the golden age, especially on television, were produced on cheaper budgets and with more limited techniques between the 1960s and 1980s.^[2]

The golden age's theatrical run peaked in the 1930s and 1940s, while the period is often subdivided into an era known as the silver age for the remaining work produced in the 1950s and 1960s. These works include the later theatrical animations produced by Walt Disney and Walter Lantz, the later theatrical cartoons of established studios Warner Bros. Cartoons and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Hanna-Barbera's earliest animated television series, and DePatie–Freleng's earliest theatrical work.^[3][4] Furthermore, the history of animation became very important as an artistic industry in the United States.^[1][5]

Many popular and famous animated cartoon characters emerged from this period, including Disney's Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy and Pluto; Fleischer Studios' Popeye, Koko, Bimbo, Betty Boop and Superman; Warner Bros.' Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Wile E. Coyote, Yosemite Sam, Tweety and Sylvester; MGM's Tom and Jerry and Droopy; Van Beuren Studios' Felix the Cat; Walter Lantz's Woody Woodpecker; Terrytoons' Mighty Mouse & Heckle and Jeckle; UPA's Mr. Magoo; Jay Ward Productions' Rocky and Bullwinkle; and DePatie-Freleng's Pink Panther, among others.

Feature-length animation began during this period, most notably with Disney's "Walt-era" films,^[6][7] spanning from 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and 1940's Pinocchio to 1967's The Jungle Book and 1970's The Aristocats (last animated films produced before his death in 1966).^[8][3] During this period, several live-action films that included animation were made, such as Saludos Amigos (1942), Anchors Aweigh (1945), Song of the South (1946), Dangerous When Wet (1953), Mary Poppins (1964) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). These last two being the last theatrical films to receive Academy Awards for their animated special effects.^[9][10] In addition, stop motion animation and special effects were also developed, with films such as King Kong (1933), The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Hansel and Gretel: An Opera Fantasy (1954), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963).^[11]

Animation also began on television during this period with Crusader Rabbit, the first animated series broadcast in 1948.^[12] The rise of television animation is often considered to be a factor that hastened the golden age's end.^[2] However, various authors include Hanna-Barbera's earliest animated series through 1962 as part of the golden age, with shows like Ruff and Reddy (1957), Huckleberry Hound (1958), Quick Draw McGraw (1959), The Flintstones (1960), Yogi Bear (1961), Top Cat (1961), Wally Gator (1962) and The Jetsons (1962).^[13][14] Several of these animated series were the first to win Emmy Awards for their contribution to American television.^[15] Other Hanna-Barbera productions related to the golden age were Wacky Races (1968) and theatrical animations with Columbia Pictures, such as Loopy De Loop (1959) and the feature films released between 1964 and 1966.^[16]

Major Movie/Animation Studios

Walt Disney Productions

Beginnings

Walt Disney had decided to become a newspaper cartoonist drawing political caricatures and comic strips.^[17] 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.^[18] 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.^[19] 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.^[20]

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.^[21] 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.^[22] 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.^[23][24] 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.^[25]

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.^[26] 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.^[25][27]

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.^[28] 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.^[29] 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.^[30]

Once Walt Disney received the notice on October 15, he convinced Roy to leave the hospital and help him set up his business.^[31] 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.^[30] 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.^[30] 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.^[32][33] 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.^[34] In February 1926, Disney built a larger studio at 2719 Hyperion Avenue and changed the name of the company to Walt Disney Cartoons.^[35][36]

In November 1923, Winkler married Charles Mintz and handed over the business to him when she became pregnant a few months later.^[37][38] 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."^[39] While Winkler had offered gentle critiques and encouragement, Mintz communicated to Disney in a harsh and cruel tone.^[38][40] 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 after the release of the sound film Don Juan. 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 Willie's 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.^[41]

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.^[42][43] 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.^[44][45] 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.^[46] 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,^[47] and also featured the hit song that became the anthem in fighting the Great Depression: "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf".^[48] 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.^[49] 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.^[50] 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.^[51] 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.^[52]

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.^[53][54] In the Sorcerer's Apprentice, Mickey Mouse was redesigned by Fred Moore. This redesign of Mickey is still in use today.^[49] 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 an animated masterpiece.^[55]

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.^[56] As a result, Disney put the feature films Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), Wind 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.^[56] 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.^[57] 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.^[58] 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 (1950–70)

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.^[59] 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.^[60] 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

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,^[61] 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 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. First feature films that used Xerox cels were 101 Dalmatians (1961) and The Sword in the Stone (1963) which were box-office successes.^[62] 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.^[63] On December 15, 1966, Walt Disney died of lung cancer. The last films he was involved in were Mary Poppins (1964), The Jungle Book (1967), The Love Bug (1968), The Aristocats (1970), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977); since the short Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966) was released during his lifetime and he was also involved in the production of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968). 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.^[64] 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 series. Popeye's popularity during the 1930s rivaled Mickey Mouse at times, and Popeye fan clubs sprang up across the country in imitation of Mickey's fan clubs; in 1935, polls showed that Popeye was even more popular than Mickey Mouse.^[65] However, during the early 1930s, stricter censorship rules enforced by the new Production Code 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.^[66] 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.^[67]

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.^[68] 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 Fleischers

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.^[69] 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.^[69] In 1941, they released Mr. 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.^[69] 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.^[69]

Famous Studios

Acquisition by Paramount

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-late 40s after Gordon left the studio), while Sam Buchwald was promoted to executive producer. Paramount also discontinued the expensive Superman cartoons in 1943, instead adapting the Little Lulu comic strip to theaters.

Famous Studios continued to produce Popeye shorts, which shifted to color in 1943 as well as creating Noveltoons, an anthology short series similar to Fleischer's Color Classics. The Noveltoons shorts series introduced many of Famous' recurring characters such as Blackie the Lamb, Wolfie (Blackie's main rival), Casper the Friendly Ghost (created by Joe Oriolo and Seymour Reit from an unpublished children's book), Little Audrey (a character similar to and replaced Little Lulu), Herman and Katnip (A cat and mouse duel similar to Tom and Jerry), Baby Huey and several other lesser known characters. Famous also revived Screen Songs, another series inherited from Fleischer's. The series was renamed Kartunes in 1951 and would continue for two more years, where it would finally be discontinued. Sam Buchwald later died from a heart attack in 1951, 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 1956, Famous Studios went though many drastic changes. Paramount downsized its staff and renamed it 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 to be released theaters. Further perpetuated were the more strict budgets, forcing the studio use limited animation techniques comparable to television animation at the time.

In the 1960s, Paramount continue to release theatrical cartoons, as well as teaming up with King Features Syndicate TV to co-produce Popeye the Sailor and other comic characters for television. After Seymour Kneitel died in 1964 from a heart attack, other animation veterans like Howard Post, James Culhane and Ralph Bakshi were brought in to directed shorts late in the studio's lifespan. The cartoons produced during this period include Swifty and Shorty, Honey Halfwitch, Comic Kings, the Modern Madcaps series and Fractured Fables, all of which were unable to revitalize the studio following the continuous 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 guidance, Harman-Ising Productions 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 awayedit

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.^[70] Schlesinger began his own cartoon operation under the new name Leon Schlesinger Productions. 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.^[71] 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. The new studio had a slow start as the Buddy cartoons did not impress audiences as well as Palmer's inexperience as a director. Schlesinger would fire Palmer and hire Harman-Ising animator Friz Freleng and several others to run the studio instead. Buddy would later be phased out by 1935.

Creation of new starsedit

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.^[72] 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,^[73] 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 Bunny's 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.^[73] 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.^[73] Avery would leave Warner Bros. in 1941 and moved to MGM after having a feud with Scheshinger in regard to 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).

By 1942, Warners' shorts had now surpassed Disney's in sales and popularity.^[74] 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 the Merrie Melodies department. He returned in 1943 directing Porky and Daffy cartoons. He left in late 1944 to direct live-action films.

Warner Bros. Cartoonsedit

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 Clampett's unit in mid-1945 after abruptly leaving the studio. Clampett went to work on Beany and Cecil. Many of the studios most well known recurring characters would be created or restablished following the Warner acquisition. 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 (1954), among others.

Warner Bros. would briefly close their entire animation department in 1953 due to immense popularity of 3D film's at the time. It would reopen the following year after the end of the 3-D craze. Edward Selzer retired in 1958, with production manager John W. Burton to take his place. David DePatie assumed the role as producer in 1960 after Burton left the studio.

DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and Warner Bros.-Seven Artsedit

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, including Warner's biggest star, Bugs Bunny. Daffy Duck, however, would still appear in theatrical cartoons, mostly paired with Speedy Gonzales.

14 original 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 having the lack of spirit and charm to that of Jones' original shorts.

After DePatie-Freleng ceased production of Looney Tunes in 1967, William 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. Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Golden_age_of_American_animation
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