Biography

The son of Italian immigrants, Maltese graduated from the National Academy of Design.[3] He
married Florence Sass on May 30, 1936;[4][5] writer Warren Foster served as Best Man.[6] The
couple moved to Los Angeles, where their first and only child, Brenda, was born on February 20,
1938.[7]

Career

Michael Maltese began his career in animation as a cel painter at Fleischer Studios in 1935. A year
later, he was fired for quickly moving himself up position after being promoted to an assistant
animator.[8]

After a brief stint at the Jam Handy Organization, Maltese was hired by Leon Schlesinger Productions
in April 1937 as an in-betweener, and later a storyman.[6][8] Maltese would first appear on camera
in the 1940 Porky Pig cartoon You Ought to Be in Pictures as a live-action guard at the Warner Bros.
entrance gate, who winds up chasing the animated Porky around the Warners lot. The first cartoon
he was credited for Warner's was The Haunted Mouse (1941) by Tex Avery, although he wrote
rejected gags for The Timid Toreador.[9] He would also work between Friz Freleng and Chuck Jones
until 1948, where he mainly worked with the latter. He and Jones collaborated on cartoons like the
Academy Award-winning For Scent-imental Reasons (1949), featuring the character Pepé Le Pew,
and the animated public health documentary, So Much for So Little (1949) which won that same
year for "Best Documentary Short Subject." Maltese was also the voice of the Lou Costello-esque
character in Wackiki Wabbit (1943) and the Benito Mussolini duck in The Ducktators (1942).

Some of his earlier works include The Wabbit Who Came to Supper and Fresh Hare, Hare Trigger
(which introduced Yosemite Sam), Baseball Bugs for Freleng;[9]Bear Feat, Rabbit of Seville, A Pest in
the House, and Rabbit Fire for Jones. Some of his best-known cartoons are Feed the Kitty, Beep,
Beep, Rabbit Seasoning, Don't Give Up the Sheep, Duck Amuck, Bully for Bugs, Bewitched Bunny,
From A to Z-Z-Z-Z, and Beanstalk Bunny. These were all directed by Jones. He also wrote One Froggy
Evening, the first appearance of future Warner Brothers mascot Michigan J. Frog.[10][11][12]

Some of his later Warner cartoons included Ali Baba Bunny, Robin Hood Daffy, the seminal What's
Opera, Doc? and Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century for Jones,[13][14] Rabbit Romeo and Fox-
Terror for Robert McKimson and Person to Bunny (the final occasion Arthur Q. Bryan voiced Elmer
Fudd) and Here Today, Gone Tamale (the only Speedy Gonzales cartoon he ever wrote) for Freleng.
Maltese also collaborated with Jones on the 1960s Tom and Jerry theatrical shorts released by
MGM. During the years of 1954 and 1955, Maltese also worked at Walter Lantz Productions as
writer of some Woody Woodpecker cartoons: Helter Shelter, Witch Crafty (co-written with Homer
Brightman), Real Gone Woody, Square Shootin' Square and Bedtime Bedlam. He also is the writer of
Chilly Willy's Academy Award-nominated theatrical short The Legend of Rockabye Point, directed by
Tex Avery.[15]
From 1958[16] until 1972, he worked at Hanna-Barbera Productions on television cartoons such as
The Yogi Bear Show, The Quick Draw McGraw Show, The Flintstones, and Wacky Races. He briefly
worked with Jones at Sib-Tower 12 Productions on writing Tom and Jerry shorts from 1963 to 1965.
[6]

Maltese also wrote comic books published by Western Publishing, including for many of the Warner
Brothers and Hanna-Barbera characters whose animated exploits he scripted.

His last work was in Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24½th Century, released in 1980.

arly life

He was born in Brooklyn, New York to Marion B. Foster and Charles C. Foster. Foster was educated
at Brooklyn Technical High School and later at the Pratt Institute, joining ASCAP in 1956.

Career

Foster's long career with Warner Brothers began in 1938 as a writer on the Porky Pig short, Porky in
Wackyland and ended nearly 171 cartoons later in 1958, after finishing his work on the Tweety Pie
short, Tweet Dreams. He was the composer of Tweety's theme song, I Taut I Taw a Puddy Tat.

He worked, sometimes uncredited, on cartoons considered among the greatest ever, including Porky
in Wackyland, Book Revue, Show Biz Bugs, The Great Piggy Bank Robbery and Daffy Doodles, the
latter four featuring Daffy Duck in 1946, Catty Cornered featuring Sylvester the Cat in 1953 and Bugs
and Thugs featuring Bugs Bunny in 1954.

His career took an upward turn in 1959 at Hanna-Barbera, where he spent the next seven years as a
writer on a number of notable animated programs, beginning with The Huckleberry Hound Show. He
contributed to the comedy, plot and character development of shows such as The Yogi Bear Show,
Loopy De Loop and The Flintstones, including his final work on the feature-length The Man Called
Flintstone in 1966.

Iwao Takamoto said of Foster's work on The Flintstones: "I believe his influence was one of the key
factors for its success".[1]

Foster is credited with the controversial banned cartoon Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs.[2]
Biography

Pierce was the son of a stockbroker, Samuel Cuppels Pierce, who in turn was the son of Edward S.
Pierce, a long-serving treasurer of the St. Louis-based Samuel Cuppels Woodenware Company.
Pierce completed his education through the fourth year of high school, according to the 1940 census
records.[1]

Pierce spent the majority of his career as a writer for the Warner Bros. "Termite Terrace" animation
studio, whose other notable alumni include Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese. Pierce also worked as
a writer at Fleischer Studios from 1939 to 1941. Jones credited Pierce in his autobiography Chuck
Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist (1989) as being the inspiration for the
character Pepé Le Pew, the haplessly romantic French skunk due to Pierce's self-proclamation that
he was a ladies' man.[2]

In early credits, his name was spelled "T-E-D". He was said to have added an extra "D" to his name as
a way of lampooning puppeteer Bil Baird when he dropped one of the "L"s from his first name.

He contributed (with Bill Danch) the story of the Tom and Jerry short Tall in the Trap (1962), directed
by Gene Deitch. Originally the short would have starred Sylvester the cat and Speedy Gonzales and
would have been directed by Robert McKimson. However, McKimson disapproved of the storyline,
and decided not to use it. Instead, Pierce sold it to Danch and Deitch, who were desperately looking
for suitable storylines for Tom and Jerry.

In his Warners career, Pierce worked with three of the three best-known Warner animation
directors (Jones, McKimson and Friz Freleng). He contributed many storylines for them, including
Freleng's Hare Do (1949), Bad Ol' Putty Tat (1949), Bunker Hill Bunny (1950) and Big House Bunny
(1950); Jones' Hare Tonic (1945, an early success for both of them) and Broom-Stick Bunny (1956);
and McKimson's Hillbilly Hare (1950), Lovelorn Leghorn (1951) and Cat-Tails for Two (1953), the last
of which was Speedy Gonzales' first appearance. Because much of Pierce's Termite Terrace career
was spent with McKimson's unit, however, it would follow that Pierce was generally overshadowed
by his contemporaries as story writers at Warners, Warren Foster and Michael Maltese.

Pierce also got occasional voice work in the shorts: he gave voice to the tough guy in Into Your Dance
(1935), Jack Bunny in I Love to Singa (1936), King Bombo in Gulliver's Travels (1939), and the
villainous C. Bagley Beetle in Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941), in addition to writing on those films.[3]

He imitated Bud Abbott in one Warner short casting Abbott and Costello as alley cats Babbit and
Catstello (A Tale of Two Kitties) and two Warner shorts casting them as mice (Tale of Two Mice and
The Mouse-Merized Cat). Pierce also voiced Tom Dover in The Dover Boys, the "tall, thin" character
in Wackiki Wabbit, and the French chef Louis in French Rarebit. In addition, in a few shorts
containing Jones' Hubie and Bertie characters, Pierce voiced Hubie, and Maltese played Bertie.
Thereafter they were voiced by the principal voice actor, Mel Blanc, and Stan Freberg, who had also
voiced secondary Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies duos such as the Goofy Gophers and Spike the
Bulldog and Chester the Terrier.

While it has been speculated that Pierce did voice-work for coming-attractions trailers for Universal
Studios, experts in the voice acting field such as Keith Scott have disputed this point.

Career

Manny Gould began his career as a teenager working for several New York-based animation studios.
He would later partner with Ben Harrison to form the short lived Harrison-Gould studios. Both later
moved to Winkler Pictures to work on the Krazy Kat cartoon series as animators, writers and
directors. After Charles Mintz took over Winkler Pictures, the studio was moved to Los Angeles in
1931 to develop The Charles Mintz Studio (later renamed Screen Gems) after establishing a
partnership with Columbia Pictures.[2] Also going with him were his sister Martha Barbara Gould
and brothers Louis R., Allen, and Will Gould, a sports cartoonist for the Bronx Home News who drew
the syndicated strip Red Barry in the 1930s and became a television and movie screenwriter.[3][4]
Gould would continue to work for the studio until 1942, presumable due to him being laid off.

Gould, along with Arthur Davis, Lou Lilly and Frank Tashlin, arrived at the Warner Brothers cartoon
studio in 1942 where he worked as an animator for Bob Clampett. He would animate Clampett's
most renowned shorts such as Buckaroo Bugs (1944), Baby Bottleneck (1946), The Great Piggy Bank
Robbery (1946) and The Big Snooze (1946). Clampett however, left Warner Bros. in May 1945, and
his unit was given to Arthur Davis. Gould would animate Davis' first three shorts until he moved to
Robert McKimson's unit in 1947. He would also briefly freelance to Screen Gems for the cartoon
Mother Hubba-Hubba-Hubbard.

Gould was hired in 1947 by Jerry Fairbanks Productions as a director for its animation department,
[5] where Lilly had gone to head the story department. His last credited cartoon at Warner Bros. was
released in 1949, with The Windblown Hare, with his final contribution being Hippety Hopper the
same year, where he was left uncredited. Lilly formed his own commercial animation company in
1952 and by the late 1950s hired Gould to be his animation director.

Later career and death

In 1964, Gould returned to his career in animation, beginning with the Warner Bros. commercial
department. He would also animate the Linus The Lionhearted television cartoons for Ed Graham
Productions. Gould's biggest contribution during this time period was his role as an animator for
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, where he would work on The Pink Panther, The Ant and the Aardvark,
Tijuana Toads and the Dr. Seuss animated adaptions. He also worked on the cartoon features Heavy
Traffic for Ralph Bakshi and The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat for Steve Krantz.

Gould died of cancer on July 19, 1975, the same week where he was supposed to be interviewed by
Milton Gray.

Charles Edson McKimson, Jr. (December 20, 1914 – April 16, 1999) was an American animator, best
known for his work at Warner Bros. studio. He was the younger brother of animators Robert and
Thomas McKimson. His father was a newspaperman who later become the editor of the Scandia
Journal in Scandia, Kansas.[1]

McKimson was born in Denver, Colorado. The family located to Los Angeles with his family in the
1920s. He began his career in animation in 1937, when he joined Leon Schlesinger Productions as a
member of Tex Avery's unit. McKimson left the studio during World War II to serve in the US Army
Signal Corps, returning in 1946.[2] Upon his return he was assigned to his brother Robert's unit,
where he worked as a lead animator. Charles received co-story credit on one short, 1955's All
Fowled Up (the other writer being Sid Marcus), starring Foghorn Leghorn — a character utilized
exclusively by Robert. While at Warner Bros. McKimson drew the syndicated Roy Rogers comic strip
from 1949 to 1953, in collaboration with his other brother Thomas and artist Pete Alvarado. The
strip was published under the pseudonym "Al McKimson."

McKimson left Warner Bros. Animation in 1954, after Jack L. Warner briefly shut down the animation
division. He subsequently joined Dell Publishing, where he served as Art Director for their comic and
coloring books division.[3] In 1961 McKimson worked as animation director on the short-lived
animated television series Calvin and the Colonel.

McKimson died in 1999 at the age of 84.

Thomas Jacob McKimson (March 5, 1907 – February 14, 1998) was an American animator, best
known for his work at the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio. He was the older brother of animators
Robert and Charles McKimson.

Tom McKimson was born in Denver, Colorado, but relocated to Los Angeles with his family in the
1920s. He attended Otis Art Institute (now called Otis College of Art and Design) in the 1920s. He
began his career in animation in 1929, when he joined the Walt Disney Studio, becoming an assistant
to animator Norm Ferguson. He left Disney in the early 1930s to work briefly for Romer Grey Studios,
then joined Harman-Ising Studios around 1932. After Harman and Ising left Warner Bros. Animation
for MGM, McKimson became a member of Bob Clampett's animation unit, where he is credited as a
layout artist and the original design for Tweety Bird. McKimson also provided layout designs for
Arthur Davis's unit after he took over Clampett's unit by 1945.

During his time at Warner Bros., McKimson also worked for Dell Comics, providing illustrations for
the Bugs Bunny and Road Runner comic books. McKimson also illustrated the Roy Rogers daily comic
strip from 1949 to 1953 in collaboration with his brother Charles and artist Pete Alvarado, using the
collective pseudonym "Al McKimson."[1][2] He left Warners in 1947 when Don Smith replaced him
as layout artist for Davis' unit. He would become an art director for Dell's parent company Western
Publishing, where he remained until his retirement in 1972.

McKimson was active in the Masonic fraternity. He was the Master of Melrose Lodge No. 355 in
Hollywood in 1954[3] and a founding member of Riviera Lodge No. 780 in Pacific Palisades,
California[4] in 1956, and later an Inspector and the Grand Tyler of the Grand Lodge of California. He
was also a polo enthusiast, playing on the same team as Walter Lantz animator Ray Abrams.[5]

McKimson died on Valentine's Day, 1998 in West Los Angeles at the age of 90.

Notes

Career

According to Jeff Lenburg's assessment of him, King was an early pioneer of animation. His films
were nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. He started his
career in the silent film era. He spent most of his career working at Walt Disney Productions (later
known as the Walt Disney Animation Studios). He directed many well-regarded films.[1]

King was born in 1895 in Birmingham, Alabama.[2] He started his animation career in 1920,[1]
working at Bray Productions animation studio. He directed the Judge Rummy series (1920-1921) for
the International Film Service. The silent animated series was based on the comic strip Judge Rummy
by Tad Dorgan.[1] His early films also included Kiss Me (1920), Why Change Your Husband (1920),
and The Chicken Thief (1921). The series reportedly ended in 1921.[1]

King successfully made the transition from silent to sound cartoons and relocated to the West Coast
of the United States, where he joined the Disney studio on June 17, 1929 as an animator. His
animation film credits include several Silly Symphony animated shorts, which Lenburg describes as
"cartoon fables". Among King's Disney film credits was the short film The Three Little Pigs (1933),
which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.[1] King remained with Disney until
May 17, 1933.[1]
In 1933, animation producer Leon Schlesinger was setting up a new animation studio, Leon
Schlesinger Productions, which would continue producing the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies
series for Warner Bros. The studio was set on the Warner lot on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles,
California. Schlesinger was in need of a new staff for his studio and started hiring people who used
to work for other animation studios. Among them was King, who "was probably the first Disney
animator Schlesinger hired".[3]

By June 1933, Schlesinger had rounded out his staff and started work on producing animated short
films. Tom Palmer had been appointed production manager and director, with King as the head
animator. Among the staff were two of King's former associates from Disney, animators Paul Fennell
and Bill Mason.[3] According to animation historian Michael Barrier, Schlesinger placed former
Disney animators in charge of the studio in hopes of effectively competing with the Disney studio.[3]

Tom Palmer left the studio after completing only two short films. He was replaced as director by Earl
Duvall, a former story man for both Disney and Harman and Ising. Duvall himself left the studio after
completing five short films. Schlesinger was in need of new directors, and even composer Bernard B.
Brown received credits for directing two Merrie Melodies shorts. By early 1934, Schlesinger
appointed Friz Freleng as the main director of the Merrie Melodies series and King as the main
director of the Looney Tunes series.[3] King handled many of the studio's animated short films
starring Buddy, and was responsible for the final year of Buddy films.[1]

By 1935, Buddy was being phased out in favor of new characters; among them was Beans, an
anthropomorphic cat. King directed A Cartoonist's Nightmare, Beans' first starring role.[3] King
directed a total of eight animated shorts featuring Beans. Michael Barrier describes Beans under
King's direction as resembling Mickey Mouse's incarnation of the early 1930s. Their designs were
certainly similar, with both characters having a white face and black body, but in characterization
Beans was a pint-sized hero resembling the plucky, boyish, and heroic Mickey featured in The
Klondike Kid (1932) and The Mail Pilot (1933).[3]

Also in 1935, the studio gained a third full-time director working in addition to Freleng and King: Tex
Avery, a former inker for the short-lived Winkler Studio and Universal Studio Cartoons. Avery
directed a single film starring Beans, Gold Diggers of '49 (1935); he would use Porky Pig as the main
star of his following films. Meanwhile, King continued using Beans as the main star of his own films.
In 1936, Beans and most of the characters introduced the previous year, with the exception of Porky
Pig, ceased being used by the studio. Barrier suggests that Leon Schlesinger may have been giving
Avery a vote of confidence, when deciding to keep only Porky as a continuing character and to drop
Beans. This decision came at the expense of King and his work.[3]

King directed two films featuring characters Ham and Ex: The Phantom Ship (1936) and The Fire
Alarm (1936). The characters were a pair of troublesome puppies and were intended to serve as
series stars.[1] In 1936, King started directing films in the new Porky Pig series. Other films in the
series were directed by Tex Avery and Frank Tashlin.[1] King directed only three animated shorts
starring Porky Pig.

By April 1936, King was hired by the Disney studio again, this time as a director.[3][1] Part of the
reason he returned to Disney was the promise that he would be able to direct cartoons in color,
which he had been unable to do previously. Friz Freleng and Tex Avery were the only directors that
Schlesinger allowed to direct color films for much of the 1930s.

At Disney, King emerged as the director of a new series of short films, featuring Donald Duck as the
protagonist.[3] Lenburg notes that King was one of the principal directors of the Donald Duck series,
but not the only one (other directors of this series included Ben Sharpsteen, Dick Lundy, Jack
Hannah, and Jack Kinney).[1] King made his directorial debut at Disney with the film Modern
Inventions (1937). It was also his first time directing a Donald Duck animated film.[1]

King directed more than forty films featuring Donald Duck, among them were the Academy Award-
nominated Good Scouts (1938), Truant Officer Donald (1941), and Donald's Crime (1945).[1] One of
his films was a propaganda film, The Spirit of '43 (1943), created in association with the United
States Department of the Treasury.[1] King's last film was The Trial of Donald Duck (1948). King
retired from Disney in 1948 and spent ten years in retirement. He died on October 4, 1958 in Los
Angeles.[1]

Career at Warner Bros.

In 1930, Lewis Warner persuaded Selzer to join Warner Bros. to work on Robert Ripley's "Believe it
or Not" series and to start an animation unit. Due to The Great Depression, he had no other choice
but to take the job. He was also on an around-the-world tour with Ripley on Believe it or Not. In late
1933 he was named Director of Publicity at Warners and from 1937 to 1944, he served as the head
of the trailer and title departments. [1][2]

After the studio was purchased from Leon Schlesinger by Warner Bros. in July 1944, Selzer was
assigned studio head by Jack L. Warner. His first cartoon was Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears.[1]

Unlike his predecessor, Selzer did not want any on-screen credit as producer for Warner Bros. Much
of what is publicly known about Selzer's personality and business acumen is from Chuck Jones'
autobiography, Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist. In it, Jones paints
Selzer as an interfering bore with no appreciation of animated cartoons. They later developed a
mutual respect and understanding of one another, remaining friendly until Selzer's passing.
Friz Freleng nearly resigned after butting heads with Selzer, who did not think that pairing Sylvester
the cat and Tweety was a viable decision.[3] The argument reached its crux when Freleng reportedly
placed his drawing pencil on Selzer's desk, furiously telling Selzer that if he knew so much about
animation, he should do the work instead.[3] Selzer backed off the issue and apologized to Freleng
that evening. Tweetie Pie, the very cartoon that first paired Sylvester and Tweety together, went on
to win Warner Brothers' first Academy Award for Animated Short Film, in 1947, with Tweety and
Sylvester proving to be among the most endearing duos in Warner Bros. cartoons. Accepting the
Short Subject (Cartoon) award for Tweetie Pie from Shirley Temple at the 20th Academy Awards
ceremony on March 20, 1948, Selzer said:

In accepting this award, I'm naturally thrilled, but I accept it for the entire Warner Bros. Cartoon
Studio. It might interest you to know that in production of this "Tweetie Pie," 85 percent of our
personnel were directly connected with its construction. However, the one man who really should
be up here getting this award and not me, is the director of the picture, Friz Freleng, who is in the
audience. I can't pay him too great a tribute. Thank you.[4]

Selzer also forbade Robert McKimson from producing any future cartoons with the Tasmanian Devil
in them after seeing the Devil's premiere short and deeming the creature far too grotesque to be a
recurring character.[5] Selzer changed his mind and allowed further Tasmanian Devil cartoons only
upon discovering from Jack Warner that Taz was in fact a massive hit with audiences.[5]

Selzer's edict that "camels aren't funny" inspired Friz Freleng to disprove him by making Sahara Hare,
a cartoon in which much of the comedy arises from Yosemite Sam's attempts to control his dim-
witted camel. Chuck Jones and Mike Maltese created Bully for Bugs in direct response to Selzer's
declaration that there was nothing funny about bullfighting.[6]

Eddie Selzer was proud of his position as producer of the Looney Tunes series because of the joy the
team's creations brought to so many. Although he loudly (and indelicately) declared that there was
nothing funny about a skunk who spoke French, he proudly accepted the Academy Award for
Animated Short Film in 1949 – for For Scent-imental Reasons, a Pepé Le Pew cartoon.

One day seeing a group of animators laughing over a storyboard he stormed into the room and
demanded: "What in the Hell does all of this laughter have to do with the making of animated
cartoons?"[7]

Selzer retired in 1958, and John Burton became the head of Warner Bros. Cartoons.

Death
Eddie Selzer died on February 22, 1970. Upon his death, some of his five Academy Award Oscar
statues for the winning cartoons he produced were distributed to the crews behind the cartoons;
the one for 1957's Birds Anonymous was given to voice artist Mel Blanc while the one for Tweetie
Pie was given to Freleng; the remaining awards are with his family.[citation needed]

Life and career

Ken Harris was born in Tulare County, California. He finished his education at an unknown college in
Stockton, New Jersey. Harris started as a race car builder and driver with his brother, who had a
garage. Harris and his brother had to spend $4,000 dollars on a race track. He raced at Ascot three
times in 1926. One time he went 113 miles. Around the time he was a racer, he started being an
assistant service vice manager and selling cars at a Pontiac agency before the agency eventually
closed down. His first job as an artist was for Sid Ziff, where he sold some cartoons to him here and
there. Then he worked for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, from 1927 to around 1930, when he
joined the ill-fated Romer Grey studio. Harris finally ended up at Leon Schlesinger Productions under
the Friz Freleng unit. This lasted for a short while until he was relocated into the Frank Tashlin unit.
Eventually, Tashlin left and the unit was taken over by Chuck Jones. The association with Jones and
Harris began in 1937 and lasted until 1962, the longest time an animator spent with a director at the
studio. Harris briefly animated for the UPA short The Brotherhood of Man. Harris would sometimes
go play tennis and buy a new car, according to Jerry Beck and assistant for Jones named Corny Cole.
Jones described him as "a virtuoso. Ken Harris did it all." Dan Backslide, one of the characters from
the Jones short The Dover Boys, was a caricature of Harris.[1][2][3][4][5]

After Jones left Warner's, Harris worked with former animator Phil Monroe on two cartoons before
Warner Bros. closed its cartoon department. In 1963, Harris worked briefly for Friz Freleng on the
titles of The Pink Panther (1963), then for Hanna-Barbera on their first feature film Hey There It's
Yogi Bear! (1964), then rejoined Jones at MGM for three years. After work as an animator on How
the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) — directed by Jones, a longtime friend of Dr. Seuss — Harris
came to the studio of independent animator Richard Williams in London in 1967. There he served as
William's mentor as well as his employee. Harris's credits with him included A Christmas Carol (1971)
— as animator of Ebenezer Scrooge — the opening titles of The Return of the Pink Panther (1975),
and the still-unfinished animated feature The Thief and the Cobbler (animating the Thief of the title,
which is very reminiscent of Harris's earlier work animating Wile E. Coyote for Jones).[1][6]

Among the many scenes Harris has animated: Mama Bear doing an outrageous tap-dance (which
Chuck Jones, who directed the cartoon, and who was Harris' longtime collaborator, has said was
inspired by Michael Maltese, "who could really dance that way") in A Bear For Punishment; Wile E.
Coyote consuming earthquake pills in Hopalong Casualty; as well as the lengthy dance sequence in
What's Opera, Doc?.
Harris died on March 24, 1982, from Parkinson's disease in Woodland, California, at 83 years of age.
[1]

Army service

Hardaway was enlisted in World War I on June 4, 1917 and was discharged on April 9, 1919. He was
led in the 129th Field Artillery Regiment by future president Harry S. Truman, in which he attended
his inauguration with his army colleagues.[4][3]

Career

Hardaway started his animation career working for the Kansas City Film Ad Service. He later worked
for the Walt Disney Animation Studios and the Ub Iwerks Studio, after which Hardaway was hired by
the Leon Schlesinger studio as a gagman for the Friz Freleng unit. He was promoted to director for
seven Buddy animated shorts. Afterwards he resumed working as a gagman and storyman.[5] He
started receiving film credits in 1937. His writing credits include Daffy Duck & Egghead and The
Penguin Parade.[5]

While at the Schlesinger/Warner Bros. studio during the late 1930s, Hardaway served as a storyman,
and co-directed several Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts with Cal Dalton during Friz
Freleng's two-year exodus to MGM. Leon Schlesinger needed a replacement for Freleng, and
Hardaway's previous experience in the job resulted in his promotion.[5] In 1938, Hardaway co-
directed Porky's Hare Hunt, the first film to feature a rabbit. When this unnamed, embryonic rabbit
was given a new model sheet for a later short, designer Charlie Thorson inadvertently offered a
permanent name by titling the model sheet "Bugs' Bunny" since it was meant for Hardaway's unit.
By the time the rabbit was redesigned and refined for the film A Wild Hare, the name was already
being used in relation to the character in studio publicity materials.[2][6][7]

When Freleng returned to Warner Bros. in 1939, Hardaway was demoted back to storyman.[8] In
1940, Hardaway joined the staff of Walter Lantz Productions, where he helped Walter Lantz in
creating the studio's most famous character, Woody Woodpecker. Hardaway wrote or co-wrote
most of the stories for the 1940-1951 Woody Woodpecker shorts, as well as supplying Woody's
voice between 1944 and 1949. Shamus Culhane, the director of the Woody cartoons in the 40's,
thought Hardaway's humor was crude and formulaic. Never the less, the collaboration worked, and
many consider this the golden era of Woody cartoons.[3] During his second year at Lantz, he wrote
the story for Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat, whose reissue got withdrawn by Universal in
February 1949 due to multiple complaints from the NAACP for its racist stereotypes of African-
Americans.[9]

Hardaway died in 1957 from cancer, supposedly a long-term effect of exposure to chemical weapons
during World War I.[3] The last thing he worked on was Adventures of Pow Wow, although he only
wrote two episodes, which have lost audio.[10][11]
Hugh Harman (August 31, 1903 – November 25, 1982) was an American animator known for creating
the Warner Bros. Cartoons and MGM Cartoons[1] and his collaboration with Rudolf Ising during the
golden age of American animation. He began his work with Walt Disney in 1922, working on Disney's
early Laugh-o-Gram toons. When that company went bankrupt, Harman and partner Rudolf Ising
tried to start a new series based on the Arabian Nights, but were unable to obtain funding. Disney
called them back when he began work for Charles Mintz, producing the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
cartoons. After a dispute over pricing, Mintz forced out Disney and kept Harman and Ising on for
another year, when they in turn were forced out (and replaced by a young Walter Lantz). Harman,
Ising, and a few other ex-Disney animators put together a pilot short, "Bosko the Talkink Kid", which
was used by producer Leon Schlesinger to obtain a contract with Warner Brothers' studios to
produce animated cartoons. Harman and Ising started the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies
cartoons, and produced them for several years. After another argument over money (this time with
Schlesinger), Harman and Ising left Warner Brothers for MGM in 1933. They produced quite a few
"Happy Harmonies" for MGM until yet again they left over another financial arrangement. After
MGM, Harman & Ising formed their own studio, but was not successful. MGM hired them back, but
by this time their faux-Disney style of animation was out of fashion, and they found themselves
eclipsed by the works of William Hanna & Joseph Barbera (whom they had hired) & Tex Avery. In the
40s and 50s, both men did some work for Walter Lantz Studios.

Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising signed a contract on October 3, 1939, to provide the major portion of
MGM's cartoon product for the 1939-1940 production season. The contract spanned seven years
and under it, Harman and Ising each would head a unit producing nine pictures (cartoons) annually.
Fred Quimby would continue as head of the Metro (cartoon) department, and Milt Gross would
continue his work on the current (1938-1939) product.

He was the brother of animators Fred Harman and Walker Harman.

MGM Cartoons

In 1939, Harman created Peace on Earth, a downbeat morality tale about two squirrels discovering
the evils of war, which was nominated for an Oscar.

In 1941, Harman left MGM and formed a new studio with Disney veteran Mel Shaw. The two took
over Ub Iwerks' old studio in Beverly Hills, California, where they created training films for the
United States Army.

Rudolf Ising

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Bosko-the-talk-ink-kid.jpg

Rudolf Ising with Bosko in Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid (1929)

Born Rudolf Carl Ising

August 7, 1903

Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.

Died July 18, 1992 (aged 88)[1][2]

Newport Beach, California, U.S.

Nationality American

Years active 1920s–1992

Spouse(s)

Maxine Jennings (m. 1936)

Cynthia Westlake

Children 1[3]

Rudolf Carl Ising (August 7, 1903 – July 18, 1992) was an American animator and voice actor who
created the Warner Bros. Cartoons and MGM Cartoons[4] and his collaboration with Hugh Harman
during the golden age of American animation. In 1940, Ising produced William Hanna and Joseph
Barbera's first cartoon, Puss Gets the Boot, a cartoon featuring characters later known as Tom and
Jerry.

He was born in Kansas City, Missouri on August 7, 1903.

He was employed alongside Hugh Harman by Walt Disney in his initial cartoon productions.

He died in Newport Beach on 18 July 1992 and is buried at Pacific View Memorial Park in California.

Early history

Harman and Ising first worked in animation in the early 1920s at Laugh-O-Gram Studio, Walt Disney's
studio in Kansas City. When Disney moved operations to California, Harman, Ising, and fellow
animator Carman Maxwell stayed behind to try to start their own studio. Their plans went nowhere,
however, and the men soon rejoined Disney to work on his Alice Comedies and Oswald the Lucky
Rabbit films. It was during this time that Harman and Ising developed a style of cartoon drawing that
would later be closely associated with, and credited to, Disney.
When producer Charles Mintz ended his association with Disney, Harman and Ising went to work for
Mintz, whose brother-in-law, George Winkler, set up a new animation studio to make the Oswald
cartoons. The Oswald cartoons which Harman and Ising produced in 1928 and 1929 already show
their distinctive style, which would later characterize their work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie
Melodies cartoon series for Warner Bros.[1] Late in 1929, Universal Pictures who owned the rights to
Oswald, started its own animation studio headed by Walter Lantz, replacing Mintz and forcing
Harman and Ising out of work.[2]

Warner Bros. and Van Beuren

Harman and Ising had long aspired to start their own studio, and had created and copyrighted the
cartoon character Bosko in 1928. After losing their jobs at the Winkler studio, Harman and Ising
financed a short Bosko demonstration film called Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid. The cartoon featured
Bosko at odds with his animator – portrayed in live-action by Rudy Ising. Impressed, Leon
Schlesinger, who worked at Warner Bros., hired Harman and Ising. Schlesinger wanted the Bosko
character to star in a new series of cartoons he dubbed Looney Tunes (the title being a parody of
Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies). The pair made Sinkin' in the Bathtub in 1930, and the cartoon did
well. Harman took over direction of the Looney Tunes starring the character, while Ising took a sister
series called Merrie Melodies that consisted of one-shot stories and characters.

The two animators broke off ties with Schlesinger later in 1933 over budget disputes with the
producer who had vetoed their demands for bigger budgets,[3] and went to Van Beuren Studios,
which was making cartoons for RKO Radio Pictures. There, they were offered a contract to produce
the Cubby Bear cartoon series.[4] Harman and Ising produced two released cartoons for this series,
but were in the midst of making a third cartoon when a contractual dispute arose. The pair left Van
Beuren, but kept the completed cartoon and finally released it in the 1940s.[5]

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

File:Seaman Tarfu in the Navy.ogv

Private Snafu film 'Seaman Tarfu in the Navy' made by Harman-Ising Studio in 1946

Harman and Ising had maintained the rights to the Bosko character, and they signed a deal with
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to start a new series of Bosko shorts in 1934. The two maintained the same
division of work they had used at Warner Bros.: Harman worked on Bosko shorts, and Ising directed
one-shots. They also tried unsuccessfully to create new cartoon stars for their new distributors. Their
cartoons, though technically superior to those they had made for Schlesinger at Warner's, were still
music-driven shorts with little to no plot. When the new Happy Harmonies series ran significantly
over-budget in 1937, MGM fired Harman and Ising and established its own in-house studio, the
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio, which was headed by Fred Quimby.

Harman and Ising still found work at the time as animation freelancers. Harman and Ising lent their
former ink-and-painters to Walt Disney while Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was behind
schedule. Disney afterward commissioned Harman and Ising to produce a Silly Symphony cartoon,
Merbabies, in return. Disney reneged on a deal he had made for two other Harman-Ising cartoons to
be produced for the studio. Harman and Ising sold the cartoons to MGM, and Quimby later agreed
to hire the animators back to the studio. Ising created the character Barney Bear for MGM at this
time, basing the sleepy-eyed character partially on himself.

In 1939, Harman created Peace on Earth, a downbeat morality tale about two squirrels discovering
the evils of humanity, which was nominated for an Oscar. The following year, Ising produced William
Hanna and Joseph Barbera's first cartoon, Puss Gets the Boot, a cartoon featuring characters later
known as Tom and Jerry. Despite the popularity of Puss Gets the Boot, Ising's The Milky Way was
more successful and became the first non-Disney film to win the Academy Award trophy. Despite
the success of these and other cartoons, MGM's production under Harman and Ising remained low.

In 1941, Harman left MGM and formed a new studio with Disney veteran Mel Shaw. The two took
over Ub Iwerks' old studio in Beverly Hills, California, where they created training films for the Army.
In 1942, Ising also quit MGM, in his case to join the military.

Later career and legacy

By 1951, Harman and Ising were back together and making industrial and commercial films such as
the 1951 film "Good Wrinkles" made for the California prune industry.[6]

In 1960, Harman-Ising produced a pilot episode for a made for TV cartoon series titled The
Adventures of Sir Gee Whiz on the Other Side of the Moon.[7] The unsold pilot for the never
produced series was profiled on episode 6 of Cartoon Dump. Rudy Ising was the voice of Sir Gee
Whiz.[8]

Although Harman and Ising contributed to much of what would later be known as the Disney style,
they have been dismissed as mere copycats. In reality, Harman and Ising never attempted to imitate
Disney; they were attempting to make refined polished cartoons whose quality would shine in
comparison to the work of others.[9] Their repeated attempts to make quality cartoons and their
refusal to be bound by budgets led to numerous disputes with their producers. Because of this, they
were unable to create any enduring characters. Instead, they created studios that would later
produce such characters.

Ising and Harman were portrayed in the feature film Walt Before Mickey by David Henrie and Hunter
Gomez.