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 Logo used from 1944 to 1949 and then from 1950 to 1956 | |
| Formerly | Universal Cartoon Studios (1928–1935) Walter Lantz Studio (1935–1939) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Animation |
| Predecessor | Bray Productions |
| Founded | 1928; 97 years ago (1928) (original) 1950; 75 years ago (1950) (reopening) |
| Founder | Walter Lantz |
| Defunct | 1949; 76 years ago (1949) (first closure) March 10, 1972; 53 years ago (1972-03-10) (second closure) |
| Fate | Shut down byWalter Lantz at the recommendation of Joe Rosenberg (first closure) Closed byWalter Lantz (second closure) |
| Successor | Universal Animation Studios |
| Headquarters | 100 Universal City Plaza,Universal City, California, U.S. (1928–1947, 1950–1972) 861 Seward Street,Hollywood, California, U.S. (1947–1949) |
Key people | Walter Lantz[1] LaVerne Harding Shamus Culhane Dick Lundy Paul J. Smith |
| Products | Theatrical animatedshort films |
| Parent | Universal Pictures (MCA Inc.) |
Walter Lantz Productions (renamedUniversal Cartoon Studios in 1956) was an Americananimation studio. It was in operation from 1928 to 1949 and then from 1950 to 1972, and was the principal supplier of animation forUniversal Pictures.
The studio was originally formed asUniversal Cartoon Studios on the initiative of Universal movie mogulCarl Laemmle, who was tired of the continuous company politics he was dealing with concerning contracting cartoons outside animation studios.Walter Lantz, who was Laemmle's part-time chauffeur and a veteran of theJohn R. Bray Studios with considerable experience in all elements of animation production, was selected to run the department.
In 1935, the studio was severed from Universal and becameWalter Lantz Studio under Lantz's direct control, and, in 1939, renamed to Walter Lantz Productions. Lantz managed to gain the copyright for his characters. The cartoons continued to be distributed by Universal through 1947, changing toUnited Artists distribution from 1947 until its first closure in 1949, and by Universal again from 1950 until its second and official closure in 1972.
The most prominent characters for the studio wereWoody Woodpecker,Andy Panda,Chilly Willy, andOswald the Lucky Rabbit. Additionally, the music-orientedSwing Symphony cartoons were another successful staple, but ended afterswing music's popularity faded after the end ofWorld War II.
Lantz began his career at the art department ofWilliam Randolph Hearst'sNew York American during the 1910s, having his start in the cartoon industry at Hearst'sInternational Film Service, which in 1918 transferred its entire staff toBray Productions. By the mid-1920s, Lantz was directing (and acting in) the studio's top cartoon,Dinky Doodle, also becoming a producer as Bray attempted to compete withHal Roach andMack Sennett by making live-action comedies. Bray Productions closed shop in 1928, and Lantz moved to Hollywood, trying to start a studio while trying to make a living in a succession of odd jobs, including driving Universal ownerCarl Laemmle's limousine. The chauffeur job also landed Lantz at the Winkler Studio, which produced cartoons for Universal.
In early 1929, Universal was distributing theOswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons byCharles Mintz and George Winkler (but created byWalt Disney). However, the popularity of the series was beginning to decline because of the lower quality of the output. Laemmle then fired Mintz and Winkler and was now looking for someone to head an in-house animation studio. Lantz won the studio in a poker bet with Laemmle.[2] The first Lantz-produced "Oswald" cartoon wasRace Riot, released on September 2, 1929. The first animators for the studio included Winkler veterans Rollin Hamilton, Tom Palmer and "rubber-hose" pioneer Bill Nolan. Bert Fiske scored the first cartoons, having done this for the few Winkler sound "Oswalds". Additions to the staff includedPinto Colvig andTex Avery.
The earliest Lantz cartoons from 1928 were built around set plots and stories, in the tradition of the earlierDisney andWinkler Productions shorts. The conversion ofOswald cartoons into musicals was a different matter, but by mid-1930, Lantz and his staff achieved this goal. In the process however, Oswald's personality became less consistent. It could and did change drastically to fit a particular gag. Lantz's musical directors changed as well. To replace David Broekman, Lantz brought in James Dietrich, a member of thePaul Whiteman Orchestra, making the jazz-era sound of the 1920s a quintessential element in the early Lantz cartoons. He remained as the permanent studio musical director until 1937. Lantz and Nolan worked in a character called "Fanny the Mule" for a 13-cartoon series announced by Laemmle in early 1930; these cartoons were never produced.
In 1931, Lantz faced economic difficulties and was forced to make cutbacks, shortening the lengths of his films and post-synchronizing a handful of the early Disney Oswald's cartoons. Another way out of the hole was to gain attention by creating a secondary series of shorts featuring a new star,Pooch the Pup. Lantz and Nolan divided the studio into two separate units. Lantz directed the Pooch cartoons, while Nolan worked on the Oswalds, with both series referencing the dire straits ofthe Depression. Pooch never became very popular and the series was dropped in 1933. The following year, Nolan left the studio, and theCartune Classics series of Technicolor shorts began, lasting for a year.
Control of Universal by founder Carl Laemmle and his family was slipping away because of financial difficulties and came to an end in 1936.John Cheever Cowdin became Universal's new president. With the change in management, Lantz seized the opportunity to ask Universal for permission to make his studio independent. Universal agreed, and on November 16, 1935, Lantz broke off and claimed the studio for his own, becoming the Walter Lantz Studio, even though it remained on the Universal lot.
During the mid- to late 1930s, Oswald's popularity declined, and Lantz experimented with other characters to replace him with characters such asMeany, Miny, and Moe,Baby-Face Mouse andLil' Eightball, however all of them proved unsuccessful. After a succession of failed attempts, Lantz created the characterAndy Panda, who debuted in the 1939 shortLife Begins for Andy Panda, directed byAlex Lovy. Andy was a hit with audiences, and eventually replaced Oswald (who was retired the year prior) as the studios leading star. Lantz also switched to all-color production in 1939, shortly before Andy's debut.
In 1940, Lantz's studio was in trouble. Universal once again was facing severe financial difficulties and possible bankruptcy and decided to cut their weekly advance to the now-independent Lantz studio. This left Lantz scrambling for alternative sources for funds, forcing him to shut down the studio temporarily. Lantz was able to gain the rights to the characters of his films (including Oswald the Lucky Rabbit) and an Andy Panda cartoon,Crazy House, was developed into Lantz's first independently financed film. Lantz used the film as a final appeal to the heads of Universal and, in the end, was able to reach a satisfactory settlement with them. By fall of 1940, Lantz's studio was back in business again.
1940 also marked the debut of Lantz's biggest star:Woody Woodpecker, who debuted in the Andy Panda cartoonKnock Knock. In the short, Woody pesters the Panda family by pecking holes through the roof, but is eventually stopped after Andysprinkles salt onto his tail. According toJoe Adamson, Woody was created by Lantz out of budgetary grounds. He saw the storyboards for the cartoon during production and he found that using a rainstorm to create its conflict was "too expensive".[3] He suggested to the writers to use something else that was easier to animate, such as a woodpecker.
Woody quickly became extremely popular, being given his own series in early 1941, and became one of the most famous examples of the "brash bird" cartoon characters of the late 1930s/early 1940s such asDonald Duck (also created by Disney). The success ofScrub Me Mama With A Boogie Beat andBoogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B (the former becoming subject to controversy and even protest soon after its release over racial stereotypes, and the latter nominated for anAcademy Award)[4] also led to the introduction of theSwing Symphony series that fall, often featuring popular musicians of the time. The series ended in 1945 at the twilight of the big band era.
After the studio's 1930s cartoons were scored by a succession of composers, including James Dietrich, Victor Records producerNat Shilkret, and Harman-Ising veteransFrank Marsales,Darrell Calker took over in late 1940. Calker's arrangements became noted for their distinctive swing flavor.
After Disney's success withSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the Lantz studio planned to make a feature,Aladdin and His Lamp, featuring Universal's comedy teamAbbott and Costello in live action, but afterMr. Bug Goes to Town (1941) failed at the box office,Aladdin never made it to actual production.[5] Late in the decade, Lantz considered making a feature-length cartoon again, but it never came to fruition.
The Lantz unit was perhaps considered the smallest major animation studio in the West Coast, with Lantz and animatorAlex Lovy producing cartoons as a single unit by the turn of the decade. In 1943, Lovy was drafted into theU.S. Navy and was replaced byJames "Shamus" Culhane in March of that year.[6][7] Culhane quickly developed a distinct direction and art style characterized for its use ofRussian avant-garde influences, minimalistic backgrounds and fast cutting.[8][9] Culhane eventually left Lantz in late 1945 over pay disputes.
In 1947, Lantz renegotiated his seven-year Universal contract withMatty Fox, the new vice president of Universal. The deal was interrupted when new ownership transformed the company into Universal-International and did away with most of Universal's company policies. The new management insisted on getting licensing and merchandising rights to Lantz's characters. Lantz refused and withdrew from the parent company in 1947, vacatedUniversal City, moving into the formerScreen Gems cartoon studio at 861 Seward Street in Hollywood[10] and releasing 12 cartoons independently through United Artists during 1947 and early 1949.
The cartoons from this period stand out for their slicker animation compared to the previous Universal releases, mostly because of the influence of the studio's latest director, Ex-Disney animatorDick Lundy, as well as the addition of Disney veterans, such asEd Love andFred Moore. This era also marked the end of the Andy Panda series, whose popularity was waning.
Under the deal with United Artists, Lantz was supposed to receive percentages of box-office receipts to pay for the production costs of his cartoons. UA however attributed a tiny portion of the dollar amounts to Lantz's shorts from the features. This was because UA was, at the time, a struggling studio attempting to re-establish the position in the industry it had in the 1920s. The result was that Lantz exceeded his standing loan of $250,000 fromBank of America (he had leftIrving Trust in 1942). At the recommendation of BAC president Joe Rosenberg, Lantz decided to shut down his studio temporarily at the end of 1949 until the loan was reduced. He asked Universal to reissue his older films during the hiatus, a request accepted by Universal-International presidentNate Blumberg.
In the interim, Lantz made a series of film ads for Coca-Cola and introduced "The Woody Woodpecker Song" as the theme song for the character. He also went to Europe to look for studios that could animate his films there, approaching government incentives not found stateside, and lower labor costs. However, the postwar economic situation of these countries as well as the presence of stronger unions than in Hollywood led him to back out and keep making films in America.
In 1950, Walter Lantz Productions opened its doors once again. The first effort the studio produced was a brief sequence featuring Woody Woodpecker for theGeorge Pal featureDestination Moon, released on June 27 the same year. Lantz then renegotiated with Universal-International for seven cartoons to be released the following year, provided that they all featured Woody Woodpecker. Lantz and his crew immediately set to work on the new batch of shorts. Two of these new films —Puny Express andSleep Happy — were previously story boarded byBen Hardaway andHeck Allen during the United Artists period. In 1951, the new cartoons were finally released and became instant hits with audiences. They were so successful that U-I commissioned six more shorts for the following year. Overall, 1951 marked the beginning of a new era for the Lantz studio. Lantz served as the director, writer and producer for these new shorts until the roles were given to animatorDon Patterson, and writerHomer Brightman. Patterson's shorts were often noted for showcasing levels of ambition despite the meager budgets.[11]
The 1950s brought changes to other studios that helped benefit Lantz' own output. In 1953,MGM closedTex Avery's animation unit whileWarner Bros. briefly closed there entireanimation facility due to the studio's focus on 3-D films. Lantz was able to expand his studio again by hiring some of the displaced staff to the point he was able to open a second unit, with animatorPaul J. Smith placed as director. Some of the men he was able to hire include writerMichael Maltese, animators Herman Cohen,Gil Turner,Robert Bentley, and Tex Avery himself, who replaced Patterson from his role of director. Smith created the studio's second most popular star,Chilly Willy, in 1953, and was refined by Avery the following year.[12][13] A third unit, managed by MGM animatorsRay Patterson and Grant Simmons, was also established before it was closed when the duo left to formGrantray-Lawrence Animation withRobert Lawrence in 1954.[14][15]
By the mid-50s, the film industry was suffering and losing money, meaning lower budgets for cartoons. Avery himself left Lantz in 1955 over pay disputes,[16] and was succeeded by a returning Alex Lovy. By 1956, there were only seven animation producers in the short-subjects business, and by the end of the decade that number dwindled to three. Walter Lantz and his distributor, Universal-International Pictures, knew that the only way to subsidize the rising costs of new shorts was to release their product to television. Norman Gluck, from U-I's short-subjects department, made a deal with theLeo Burnett Agency to release some older Lantz product on television. Burnett handled theKellogg's cereal account and Lantz soon met with the Kellogg's people to sign the contract. At first, Lantz was not very eager and admitted that he was only working in the medium because he was "forced into TV" and "cartoons for theaters would soon be extinct".
In 1954, the black-and-white Walter Lantz-produced cartoons were licensed to television syndication by Motion Pictures for Television, and it was repackaged asOswald Rabbit Presents.[17]
The Woody Woodpecker Show debuted onABC on the afternoon of October 3, 1957, and lasted until September 1958. The series was seen once a week, on Thursday afternoons, replacing the first half hour of the shortenedThe Mickey Mouse Club. Lantz integrated his existing cartoons with new live-action footage, giving the show an updated look that satisfied both viewers and Lantz himself. The live-action and animation segments created for the show, called 'A Moment with Walter Lantz', featured an informative look at how the animation process for his "cartunes" worked and how the writers came up with stories and characters. The live-action segments were directed byJack Hannah, who was fresh from the Disney Studio, where he had done similar live-action/animation sequences for the Disney show.
Hannah eventually directed theatrical shorts in 1960 after Lovy left forHanna-Barbera. His shorts were regarded as having a level of sophistication comparable to Dick Lundy, and he would also created characters such asFatso the Bear (a clone of his characterHumphrey the Bear from Disney) andThe Beary Family before he left in 1962. His role was assumed by writer Sid Marcus. In 1964, with new Universal ownerMCA Inc. dropping the International name, the cartoons were introduced with the new Universal presents open. Lantz eventually reduced the number of units back to one, leaving Smith as the sole director of all theatrical shorts by 1966.
By 1969, other film studios had discontinued their animation departments, leaving Walter Lantz as one of the only two producers still making cartoons for theaters. The other one was the start-upDePatie–Freleng Enterprises, working for Lantz' former contractor, United Artists.[18]
From 1967 until the studio's second and official closure in 1972, Universal distributed the Lantz cartoons as packages, and theaters would play them in no particular order. Lantz finally closed up the studio in 1972; he later explained that by then, it was economically impossible to continue producing them and stay in business, as rising inflation had strained his profits, and Universal serviced the remaining demand with reissues of his older cartoons.Bye Bye Blackboard, a Woody Woodpecker cartoon, was part of the final slate of cartoons made at the Walter Lantz studio. Thirteen were completed for the 1972 season: one with Chilly Willy, four starring the Beary Family, and the rest with Lantz' star character, Woody Woodpecker. Upon discovering that it would take a decade for his shorts to show a profit, Lantz himself decided to shut down company operations, and threw a farewell luncheon with his staff at the announcement on March 10 the same year, with him handing Woody watches to them.[19]
In 1985,Lantz sold everything outright toMCA Inc. He painted landscapes in retirement and still lifes of his cartoon characters.[20] Since then,Universal has continued to use Woody Woodpecker intheme parks and merchandising.Universal has since produced new projects, including television series and movies.
Unlike other American major animation studios, the Lantz studio never continued full-time during the classic period of American animation, closing down in 1949 and reopening its doors the following year. It was finally shut down permanently in 1972, after the end of theGolden Age of American animation. Since then, the studio's characters have continued to be used insyndicated television series, and in licensed merchandise. Lantz reissued six of the 1931–32 DisneyOswald cartoons, includingTrolley Troubles,Great Guns! andThe Ocean Hop.
Throughout the studio's history, it maintained a reputation as an animation house of medium quality. Lantz's animated shorts (dubbed "Cartunes") were considered superior toTerrytoons,Screen Gems, andFamous Studios, but they never gained the artistic acclaim ofWalt Disney Productions,Warner Bros. Cartoons,MGM Cartoons,Fleischer Studios orUPA. However, the studio benefited from gaining talent from the other studios who were tired of the management there and usually found the Lantz studio a more enjoyable working environment.Tex Avery was just one of the many talents Walter Lantz Productions benefited from on the rebound.
In February 2006,NBCUniversal (which still owns the Lantz library) sold the trademark rights toOswald the Lucky Rabbit along with the copyright to the original 26 cartoons produced byWalt Disney toThe Walt Disney Company.[21] The sale was part of a deal that centered around both the rights to Oswald andNBC's acquisition of the rights tothe NFL's weekly Sunday night game; in exchange for NBCUniversal selling the rights to Oswald to Disney,Al Michaels was freed from his contractual obligations withESPN and ABC so he could join NBC and become theSunday Night Football play-by-play man.[22][23]
In July 2007,Universal Pictures releasedThe Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection, a three-discDVD box-set compilation of Lantz Cartunes. Asecond volume was released in April 2008, followed by aplain vanilla release in 2009,Woody Woodpecker Favorites, which contained no new-to-DVD material. Animation historianJerry Beck, partly involved in the production of the DVD releases, has stated that plans for further volumes are currently on hold.
In 2008,Illumination, an animation production company founded byChris Meledandri, made a deal with Universal Pictures which positioned Illumination as NBCUniversal's family entertainment arm that would produce one to two films per year starting in 2010. Like Walter Lantz Productions, Illumination retains creative control, and Universal exclusively distributes the films.
Free-to-air linear channelMeTV officially brought back the Walter Lantz cartoons output on American television on September 2, 2023, airing every Saturday as part of theSaturday Morning Cartoons 3-hour block (one hour of which, dedicated to Lantz, beingThe Woody Woodpecker Show) plus on weekdays as part ofToon In with Me.[24] The Lantz cartoons are also shown daily on theMeTV Toons channel.[25]
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Theatrical short film series[27]
| Title | Years | Cartoons | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oswald the Lucky Rabbit | 1929–1938 | 138 | First series Walter Lantz made; continued fromWinkler Productions. |
| Pooch the Pup | 1932–1933 | 13 | |
| Cartune Classics | 1934–1935 | 6 | |
| Meany, Miny, and Moe | 1936–1937 | 13 | |
| New Universal Cartoons | 1938 | 15 | |
| Cartune Comedies | 6 | ||
| Cartune | 1938–1942; 1953–1957 | 33 | Miscellaneous characters. |
| Mello-Drama | 1939 | 2 | |
| Nertsery Rhyme | |||
| Lil' Eightball | |||
| Andy Panda | 1939–1949 | 26 | |
| Peterkin | 1939 | 1 | |
| Woody Woodpecker | 1941–1972 | 196 | |
| Swing Symphony | 1941–1945 | 14 | Musical cartoons, often featuring topboogie-woogie musicians. |
| Musical Miniatures | 1946–1948 | 6 | Offshoot of theSwing Symphony series, featuring classical melodies. |
| Coca-Cola commercials | 1948–1953 | 20 | |
| Foolish Fables | 1953 | 2 | |
| Maw and Paw | 1953–1955 | 4 | |
| Chilly Willy | 1953–1972 | 50 | |
| Sugarfoot | 1954 | 2 | |
| Maggie and Sam | 1956–1957 | 3 | |
| Hercules | 1957 | 2 | |
| Windy & Breezy | 1957–1959 | 5 | |
| Inspector Willoughby | 1958–1965 | 12 | |
| Hickory, Dickory, and Doc | 1959–1962 | 9 | |
| The Beary Family | 1962–1972 | 28 |
| International | |
|---|---|
| Other | |
