He would briefly reunite with Screen Gems, now creatively supervised by Frank Tashlin, before moving to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio in 1943, with his first short for them being War Dogs, followed by Baby Puss, his debut on the Tom and Jerry series.
He (alongside former Tex Avery animator Grant Simmons) would direct two shorts, Broadways Bow Wows and Dig that Dog.
[4] Months afterwards, Patterson and Simmons left Walter Lantz Productions and co-founded their own studio, Grantray-Lawrence Animation, which he operated until 1967.
GrantRay-Lawrence's early work was providing animation for television commercials, including the original "Winston Tastes Good" campaign.
[3] After GrantRay-Lawrence folded in 1967, Patterson joined his former bosses at Hanna-Barbera, where he worked as a supervising director on several animated television series.