Golden age of American animation
[8][9] In addition, stop motion and special effects were also developed, with films such as King Kong (1933), The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), The War of the Worlds (1953), Hansel and Gretel: An Opera Fantasy (1954), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), Forbidden Planet (1956), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
[1] 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).
[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.
[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.
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.
[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.
[70] 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.
Paramount also discontinued the expensive Superman cartoons in 1943, instead adapting Marge's Little Lulu comic strip to theaters,[75] as well as downsizing the studio and moving it back to New York City earlier that year.
However, Post's tenure was not successful, and even brought the ire of Paramount's board of directors with the cartoon Two By Two (1966), a lampoon of Noah's Ark that not only included a clone of Warner's Daffy Duck, but was also accused of having anti-religious overtones.
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.
[85] The high demand for more cartoons resulted in Schlesinger subcontracting Ub Iwerks to make some shorts with his own animation unit, with Clampett and Chuck Jones being brought in to assist.
This included Tweety (1942), Pepé Le Pew (1945), Sylvester the Cat (1945), Yosemite Sam (1945), Foghorn Leghorn (1946), The Goofy Gophers (1947), Marvin the Martian (1948), Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner (1949), Granny (1950), Speedy Gonzales (1953), The Tasmanian Devil (1954), among others.
After DePatie-Freleng ceased production of Looney Tunes in 1967, William L. 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.
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.
His wild surreal masterpieces of his MGM studio days set new standards for "adult" entertainment in Code-era cartoons, most famously exemplified in his series of shorts featuring Red Hot Riding Hood.
Avery also created Screwy Squirrel the following year, a character known for his outrageously brash and erratic personality who torments his adversaries, but he grew less fond of him and discontinued the series after five cartoons.
Avery's other recognizable films for MGM include Blitz Wolf (1942, also nominated), Northwest Hounded Police (1946), King-Size Canary (1947), The Cat That Hated People (1948) Bad Luck Blackie (1949), and Magical Maestro (1952).
Meanwhile, Chuck Jones started his own studio Sib Tower 12 Productions after he, and his unit of animators, were fired by Warner Bros. for violating his exclusive contract by working on the UPA film Gay Purr-ee.
Culhane's tenure at Lantz was noted for introducing Russian avant-garde influenced experimentation, minimalist backgrounds and fast cutting, which helped his shorts stand out from the studios previous work.
The Lantz studio would also make several more recurring characters in this era, such as Maw and Paw, Maggie & Sam, Windy & Breezy, Inspector Willoughby, Hickory, Dickory, and Doc, and The Beary Family.
Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle would continue production for some time, alongside the creation of new characters, such as Hector Heathcote, Luno the White Stallion, Hashimoto-san, Sad Cat and Deputy Dawg.
Van Beuren continued the Aesop's Fables series, created new characters such as Cubby Bear, and unsuccessfully tried a cartoon adaptation of radio blackface comedians Amos 'n Andy.
Other Van Beuren cartoons featured Tom and Jerry (not the cat and mouse, but a Mutt and Jeff-like human duo,) and Otto Soglow's comic strip character The Little King.
[155] Other early projects include a color series featuring a character named Peter Panda and a short made for Planters Nut & Chocolate Co. entitled Mr. Peanut and His Family Tree for there 1939 World's Fair exhibit.
Some of these (generally uncredited) actors included Cliff Edwards (also known as Ukulele Ike), Arthur Q. Bryan, Stan Freberg, Bea Benaderet, Bill Thompson, Grace Stafford, Jim Backus, June Foray, and Daws Butler.
Carl Stalling, Scott Bradley, Sammy Timberg, Winston Sharples, Darrell Calker, Clarence Wheeler, and Oliver Wallace composed numerous cartoon soundtracks, creating original material as well as incorporating familiar classical and popular melodies.
After the 1948 verdict following the Hollywood Antitrust case, there was no longer a booking guarantee on the theatres for cartoons from any of the studios, making it a more risky business and because of this less resources were invested in the theatrical shorts, causing a gradual decline.
[202][203] Chuck Jones and Tex Avery's cartoons served as inspiration for the development of the video game franchises: Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet & Clank and Ty the Tasmanian Tiger,[204][205][206][207][208] as well as heavily influencing the designs and slapstick humor of the original Ice Age, Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda trilogies.
[214] In addition, the 2017 video game Cuphead and the 2022 interactive film Cat Burglar feature a classic animation style inspired by the works of Disney, Tex Avery and Fleischer from this period.
