 | |
| Industry | Animation |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1929; 96 years ago (1929) |
| Founders | Hugh Harman Rudolf Ising |
| Defunct | 1938; 87 years ago (1938) |
| Fate | Folded intoMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer, majority of staff absorbed intoMGM Cartoons |
| Successors | Studio: MGM Cartoons Leon Schlesinger Productions/Warner Bros. Cartoons Library: Warner Bros. (throughTurner Entertainment Co.) (Happy Harmonies only) |
| Headquarters | , |
| Products | Animated theatricalshort films |
| Owner | Loew's, Inc. (1934–1938) |
| Parent | Warner Bros. Pictures (1929–1933) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1934–1938) |
Hugh Harman andRudolf Ising were an Americananimation team and company known for founding theWarner Bros. andMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation studios. In 1929, the studio was founded under the nameHarman-Ising Productions, producingLooney Tunes andMerrie Melodies forLeon Schlesinger from 1930 to 1933.[1] From 1934 to 1938, Harman-Ising produced theHappy Harmonies series, withWilliam Hanna as their employee.[2]
Harman and Ising first worked in animation in 1922 atLaugh-O-Gram Studio,Walt Disney's studio inKansas City.[3] When Disney moved operations toCalifornia, Harman was back at United Film Ad Service and Ising had a photofinishing business. Their plans went nowhere, however, and the men soon came back to Disney on June 22, 1925, to work on hisAlice Comedies andOswald the Lucky Rabbit films. Ising was fired from Disney in March 1927, when Disney signed the contract to distribute Oswald films toUniversal Pictures.[4] 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 producerCharles Mintz ended his association with Disney, the majority of Disney's animators, including Harman and Ising, went to work for Mintz, whose brother-in-law, George Winkler, set up a new animation studio to make theOswald 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 theLooney Tunes andMerrie Melodies cartoon series for Warner Bros.[5] Late in 1929,Universal Pictures who owned the rights to Oswald, started its own animation studio headed byWalter Lantz, replacing Mintz and forcing Harman and Ising out of work.[6]
Harman and Ising had long aspired to start their own studio, and had created and copyrighted the cartoon characterBosko in 1928. After losing their jobs at the Winkler studio, Harman and Ising founded Harman-Ising Productions, with most of the Disney and Winkler animators as staff. The studio produced a short Bosko demonstration film calledBosko, the Talk-Ink Kid. The cartoon featured Bosko at odds with his animator – portrayed in live-action by Ising. Impressed,Leon Schlesinger, who worked atWarner Bros., hired Harman and Ising. Schlesinger wanted the Bosko character to star in a new series of cartoons he dubbedLooney Tunes (the title being a parody of Walt Disney'sSilly Symphonies). In 1930, the pair's first theatrical Bosko short,Sinkin' in the Bathtub, was a success. In 1931, Harman took over direction of theLooney Tunes starring the character, while Ising took a sister series calledMerrie 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,[7] and went toVan Beuren Studios, which was making cartoons forRKO Radio Pictures. There, they were offered a contract to produce the Cubby Bear cartoon series.[8] 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.[9]
In 1934, Harman and Ising signed a deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to start a new series of shorts,Happy Harmonies. Harman and Ising, having maintained the rights to Bosko, occasionally featured the character in the new series. The two maintained the same division of work they had used at Warner Bros.: Harman worked on Bosko shorts, and Ising directed one-shots. In 1935, Harman redesigned Bosko into an identifiable African-American boy, ultimately leading to the character being discontinued. 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 newHappy Harmonies series ran significantly over-budget in 1937, MGM fired Harman and Ising and establishedits own in-house studio, which was founded and headed byFred 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 whileSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs was behind schedule. Disney afterward commissioned Harman and Ising to produce aSilly Symphony cartoon (Merbabies), in return. Disney later reneged on a deal he had made for two other Harman-Ising cartoons to be produced for the studio, asRKO Radio Pictures, Disney's distributor, did not want to release another studio's cartoons. Harman and Ising sold the cartoons to MGM, and Quimby later agreed to hire the animators back to the studio. Ising created the characterBarney Bear for MGM at this time, basing the sleepy-eyed character partially on himself.
In 1939, Harman createdPeace on Earth, a downbeatmorality tale about two squirrels discovering the evils of humanity, which was nominated for anOscar. The following year, Ising producedWilliam Hanna andJoseph Barbera's first cartoon,Puss Gets the Boot, a cartoon featuring characters later known asTom and Jerry, but according to Barbera, Ising never came into the room, but got credited.[10] Despite the popularity ofPuss Gets the Boot, Ising'sThe Milky Way was more successful and became the first non-Disney film to win the Academy Award. 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 veteranMel Shaw, while Ising was still at MGM.[11] In 1942, Ising also quit MGM, in his case to join theUnited States Army Air Forces animation unit.[12]
In 1946, the company went back in business by offering a deal at United Artists which had no animation presence whatsoever.[13] By 1951, Harman and Ising were back together and making industrial and commercial films such as the 1951 filmGood Wrinkles made forSunsweet prunes. Harman also freelanced to write the 1954Woody Woodpecker CartoonConvict Concerto for his former colleague Walter Lantz.[14][15]
In 1960, Harman-Ising produced a pilot episode for a made for TV cartoon series titledThe Adventures of Sir Gee Whiz on the Other Side of the Moon.[16] The unsold pilot for the never produced series was profiled on episode 6 ofCartoon Dump. Rudy Ising was the voice of Sir Gee Whiz.[17] After Gee-Whiz, both Harman and Ising retired from their careers in animation.
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.[18] 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 that would rival the popularity of characters likeMickey Mouse forDisney orBugs Bunny forWarner Brothers. Instead, they created studios that would later produce such characters.
Ising and Harman were portrayed in the feature filmWalt Before Mickey byDavid Henrie andHunter Gomez.
