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The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio was an American animation studio operated by
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by amazon (company), Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded o ...
(MGM) during the Golden Age of American animation. Active from 1937 until 1957, the studio was responsible for producing animated shorts to accompany MGM feature films in Loew's Theaters, which included popular cartoon characters ''
Tom and Jerry ''Tom and Jerry'' is an American animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series centers on the ...
'', '' Droopy'', and '' Barney Bear''. Prior to forming its own cartoon studio, MGM released the work of independent animation producer Ub Iwerks, and later the '' Happy Harmonies'' series from Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. The MGM cartoon studio was founded to replace Harman and Ising, although both men eventually became employees of the studio. After a slow start, the studio began to take off in 1940 after its short '' The Milky Way'' became the first non- Disney cartoon to win the Academy Award for Best Short Subjects: Cartoons. The studio's roster of talent benefited from an exodus of animators from the
Warner Bros. Cartoons Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was an American animation studio, serving as the in-house animation division of Warner Bros. during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, it was ...
and Disney studios, who were facing issues with union workers. Originally established and run by executive Fred Quimby, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the creators of the ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoons, became the heads of the studio in 1955 following Quimby's retirement. The cartoon studio was closed on May 15, 1957, at which time Hanna and Barbera took much of the staff to form their own company, Hanna-Barbera Productions, then named H-B Enterprises. Turner Broadcasting System (via
Turner Entertainment Co. Turner Entertainment Company is an American multimedia company founded by Ted Turner in 1986. Purchased by Time Warner in 1996 as part of its acquisition of Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), the company was largely responsible for overseeing th ...
) took over the library in 1986 after Ted Turner's short-lived ownership of MGM/UA. When Turner sold back the MGM/UA production unit, he kept the pre-1986 MGM library, including the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoons, for his own company. In 1996, Turner Broadcasting System merged with Time Warner, the parent company of Warner Bros., which currently owns the rights to the pre-1986 MGM library.


Background

To promote their films and attract larger theater audiences, motion picture chains in the 1930s provided many features to supplement the main feature, including travelogues, serials, short comedy subjects, newsreels and cartoons. During the late 1920s, Walt Disney Productions had achieved huge popular and critical success with their '' Mickey Mouse'' cartoons for Pat Powers' Celebrity Pictures (distributing for
Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...
). Several other studios,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by amazon (company), Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded o ...
among them, took note of Disney's success and began to look for ways to get Disney or compete. MGM had tried to get distribution rights to Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony shorts from Pat Powers who was distributing them to Columbia Pictures. MGM's first foray into animation was the '' Flip the Frog'' cartoon series, starring an anthropomorphic talking and singing frog. The series was produced independently for Celebrity Pictures by Ub Iwerks, formerly the head animator at the Disney studio. Celebrity Pictures' Pat Powers had hired Iwerks away from Disney with the promise of giving Iwerks his own studio, and was able to secure a distribution deal with MGM for the ''Flip the Frog'' cartoons. The first ''Flip the Frog'' cartoon, ''Fiddlesticks'', was released in August 1930, and over two-dozen other ''Flip'' cartoons followed during the next three years. In 1933, the Flip character was dropped in favor of '' Willie Whopper'', a new series featuring a lie-telling little boy. ''Willie Whopper'' failed to catch on, and MGM terminated its distribution deal with Iwerks and Powers, who had already begun distributing their ''Comi-Color'' cartoons on their own. In February 1934, MGM signed a new deal with the Harman-Ising studio, which had just broken ties with producer Leon Schlesinger and the Warner Bros. studio over budget concerns, to work on a new series of high-budget color cartoons.Barrier, Michael. ''Hollywood Cartoons'', p. 188. The director team brought with them much of their staff from their time with Schlesinger, including animators and storymen such as Carmen "Max" Maxwell, William Hanna, and brothers Robert and Tom McKimson. (The McKimsons would later return to Schlesinger.) Also following Harman and Ising from Schlesinger was
Bosko Bosko is an animated cartoon character created by animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. Bosko was the first recurring character in Leon Schlesinger's cartoon series and was the star of 39 ''Looney Tunes'' shorts released by Warner Bros. He ...
, a successful character the duo had created for the Warner cartoons. After learning from Disney's experiences with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Harman and Ising retained the rights to Bosko. The first entry in MGM's new '' Happy Harmonies'' cartoon series, ''The Discontented Canary'', was completed in June 1934 and released in September. The series continued for three years, moving from two-strip to three-strip Technicolor in 1935. The ''Happy Harmonies'' canon included a handful of entries starring Bosko, who by 1935 had been redesigned from an ambiguous "inkspot" character into a discernible little
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
boy. The directors worked separately on their own films, although both strived to create intricate films that would compete with Disney's award-winning '' Silly Symphonies''. However, budget problems threatened to plague Harman and Ising a second time: ''Happy Harmonies'' cartoons regularly ran over budget, and Hugh Harman paid no heed to MGM's demands that he reduce the costs of the shorts. MGM retaliated in February 1937 by deciding to open their own cartoon studio, and hired away most of the Harman-Ising staff to do so.Barrier, Michael. ''Hollywood Cartoons'', p. 192.Maltin, Leonard. ''Of Mice and Magic'', p. 283 The final ''Happy Harmonies'' short, ''The Little Bantamweight'', was released in March 1938, and Harman and Ising went on to establish a new studio to do freelance animation work for
Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
, only to come back. For the 1934 MGM musical film '' Hollywood Party'', Walt Disney Productions created an animated sequence in Technicolor called ''The Hot Choc-Late Soldiers'', and is one of a few examples where Disney produced animation for other studios. The movie also contained a sequence with Jimmy Durante interacting with an animated Mickey Mouse. In 1936, Disney's animators were overworked with ''
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a 19th-century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection '' Grimms' Fairy Tales'' and numbered as ...
'' and the Harman-Ising studio provided artists to work on the feature and the '' Silly Symphonies'' short '' Merbabies'' in exchange to artist training.


History


Early years (1937–1939)

In March 1937, MGM hired film sales executive Fred Quimby, a man with no experience in the animation industry, to set up and run the new MGM cartoon department. Among the holdovers from the Harman-Ising regime, William Hanna and Bob Allen were appointed as directors and Carmen Maxwell became production manager. Quimby raided every major American animation studio for talent, extracting artists, directors and writers from studios, such as Friz Freleng from Leon Schlesinger Productions, Emery Hawkins from Screen Gems and much of the top staff at Terrytoons ( Joseph Barbera, Jack Zander, Ray Kelly, Dan Gordon, George Gordon and others). After spending some time headquartered in a nearby house, the new MGM cartoon studio at Overland Ave. and Montana Ave. opened its doors on August 23, 1937. Although it boasted a brand-new facility and good directors, the MGM cartoon studio's first series was a failure. ''
The Captain and the Kids ''The Katzenjammer Kids'' is an American comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks in 1897 and later drawn by Harold Knerr for 35 years (1914 to 1949).Rudolph Dirks' '' Katzenjammer Kids'' characters, was licensed by MGM without input from its then-forming creative staff. Freleng, Hanna, and Allen, assigned to direct the ''Captain and the Kids'' cartoons, were unable to translate the ''Katzenjammer'' humor into animation, and the series folded after fifteen episodes. Only two of the ''Captain and the Kids'' shorts were produced in Technicolor; the other thirteen were produced in black-and-white and released in sepia-toned prints.


Harman and Ising return (1938–1943)

MGM brought in established newspaper cartoonists such as Milt Gross and
Harry Hershfield Harry Hershfield (October 13, 1885 – December 15, 1974) was an American cartoonist, humor writer and radio personality. He was known as "the Jewish Will Rogers". Hershfield also was a columnist for the ''New York Daily Mirror''. His books ...
in an attempt to both bolster the ''Captain and the Kids'' product and create original properties for MGM, but both cartoonists' tenures at the studio were short-lived. Gross managed to complete two cartoons, ''Jitterbug Follies'' and ''Wanted: No Master'', with his characters Count Screwloose of Tooloose and J.R. the Wonder Dog, while Hershfield completed no cartoons. In October 1938, Quimby, coming full-circle, hired Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising as the new creative heads of the studio, acting as both directors and producers, and in charge of many of the employees who had defected from the Harman-Ising studio a year before. Among Ising's first new cartoons for MGM was 1939's ''The Bear Who Couldn't Sleep'', the debut appearance of Barney Bear, a lumbering anthropomorphic bear based upon both Wallace Beery and Ising himself. Barney Bear would become MGM's first original cartoon star, regularly featured in cartoons until 1953, although his popularity never rose to the level of Mickey Mouse or Porky Pig. Ising focused on the ''Barney Bear'' cartoons, while Harman focused on making intricately animated one-shot cartoons, although Harman was able to establish a short-lived series of ''
Three Bears "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" (originally titled "The Story of the Three Bears") is a 19th-century English fairy tale of which three versions exist. The original version of the tale tells of an obscene old woman who enters the forest home ...
'' cartoons. At this time, Harman created his masterwork, '' Peace on Earth''. Released during the holiday season of 1939 (immediately after the outbreak of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
in
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
), ''Peace on Earth'' was a serious work which dealt with the idea of what a post-apocalyptic world would be like. ''Peace on Earth'' was nominated for the 1939 Academy Award for Short Subjects (Cartoons), as well as for the
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolo ...
.


''Tom and Jerry'' (1939–1958)

Friz Freleng, briefly assigned to work under Harman, returned to Schlesinger after his MGM contract expired in April 1939, and storyman Joseph Barbera was united with director William Hanna to co-direct cartoons for Rudolf Ising's unit. The partnership between Hanna and Barbera would last for more than six decades, until Hanna's death in 2001. The duo's first cartoon together was 1940's '' Puss Gets the Boot'', featuring an unnamed mouse's attempts to outwit a house cat named Jasper. Though released without fanfare, the short was financially and critically successful, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) of 1940. On the strength of the Oscar nomination and public demand, Hanna and Barbera were assigned to direct more cat-and-mouse cartoons, soon christening the characters ''
Tom and Jerry ''Tom and Jerry'' is an American animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series centers on the ...
''. ''Puss Gets the Boot'' did not win the 1940 Academy Award for Best Cartoon, but another MGM cartoon, Rudolf Ising's '' The Milky Way'' did, making MGM the first studio to wrestle the Cartoon Academy Award away from Walt Disney.Barrier, Michael. ''Hollywood Cartoons'', p. 300. ''Tom and Jerry'' quickly became MGM's most valuable animated property. The shorts were successful at the box office, many licensed products (comic books, toys, etc.) were released to the market, and the series would earn twelve more Academy Award for Short Subjects (Cartoons) nominations, with seven of the ''Tom & Jerry'' shorts going on to win the Academy Award: ''
The Yankee Doodle Mouse ''The Yankee Doodle Mouse'' is a 1943 American one-reel animated cartoon in Technicolor. It is the eleventh ''Tom and Jerry'' short produced by Fred Quimby, and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, with musical supervision by Scott B ...
'' (1943), '' Mouse Trouble'' (1944), ''
Quiet Please! This is a complete list of the 164 shorts in the ''Tom and Jerry'' series produced and released between 1940 and 2014. Of these, 162 are theatrical shorts, one is a made-for-TV short, and one is a 2-minute sketch shown as part of a telethon. ...
'' (1945), ''
The Cat Concerto ''The Cat Concerto'' is a 1947 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the 29th ''Tom and Jerry'' short, released to theatres on April 26, 1947. It was produced by Fred Quimby and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, with musical supe ...
'' (1947), ''
The Little Orphan ''The Little Orphan'' is a 1949 American one-reel animated cartoon and the 40th ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoon, released in theaters on April 30, 1949 by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. It was produced by Fred Quimby and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barb ...
'' (1949), ''
The Two Mouseketeers ''The Two Mouseketeers'' is a 1952 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the 65th ''Tom and Jerry'' short, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on March 15, 1952 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was produced by Fred Quimby and directed ...
'' (1952) and ''
Johann Mouse ''Johann Mouse'' is a 1953 American one-reel animated cartoon and the 75th ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoon, released in theaters on March 21, 1953 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The short is directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, composed by Scott Brad ...
'' (1953). ''
Tom & Jerry ''Tom and Jerry'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series c ...
'' was eventually tied with Disney's '' Silly Symphonies'' as the most-awarded theatrical cartoon series. Originally barred by Quimby from making a second cat-and-mouse short until the overwhelming success of ''Puss Gets the Boot'' demanded it, Hanna and Barbera and their team of animators, who included George Gordon, Jack Zander, Kenneth Muse, Irven Spence, Ed Barge, Ray Patterson and Pete Burness, worked on nothing but ''Tom & Jerry'' cartoons from 1941 until 1955. Exceptions were half a dozen one-shot theatrical shorts, including ''
Gallopin' Gals ''Gallopin' Gals'' is a 1940 American one-reel Technicolor animated film directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and produced by Fred Quimby. It belonged to the screwball comedy genre. It was released by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer in October 26, ...
'' (1940), '' Officer Pooch'' (1941), ''
War Dogs Dogs in warfare have a very long history starting in ancient times. From being trained in combat, to their use as scouts, sentries, messengers, mercy dogs, and trackers, their uses have been varied and some continue to exist in modern military ...
'' (1943), '' Good Will to Men'' (1955), and the last seven Tex Avery shorts featuring '' Droopy''. Key to the successes of ''Tom and Jerry'' and other MGM cartoons was the work of Scott Bradley, who scored virtually all of the cartoons for the studio from 1934 to 1957. Bradley's scores made use of both classical and jazz sensibilities. In addition, he often used songs from the scores of MGM's feature films, the most frequent of them being "The Trolley Song" from '' Meet Me in St. Louis'' and "Sing Before Breakfast" from '' Broadway Melody of 1936''.


Tex Avery (1941–1953)

Hugh Harman left the MGM studio in April 1942, and Rudolph Ising departed eighteen months later. George Gordon took over Ising's department, continuing work on the ''Barney Bear'' cartoons, but only completed three cartoons before he left the studio in 1943. In Harman's place, Quimby hired Tex Avery, an animation director known for his wild comedic style at the Schlesinger studio. Avery's first short for MGM was the World War II parody '' Blitz Wolf'', which was nominated for the 1942 Academy Award for Short Subjects (Cartoons). While Avery had revolutionized cartoon humor at Schlesinger's, he went several steps further in his MGM works. Avery exaggerated his characters and situations wildly, and was noted for the precise and hard-edged timing of his gags. Among Avery's most noted cartoons for MGM were slapstick comedies such as ''
Red Hot Riding Hood ''Red Hot Riding Hood'' is an animated cartoon short subject, directed by Tex Avery and released with the movie '' Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case'' on May 8, 1943, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1994, it was voted number 7 of The 50 Greatest Cartoons ...
'' (1943), ''
Jerky Turkey ''Jerky Turkey'' is a 1945 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon directed by Tex Avery. Plot In 1620, Pilgrims, riding a caricatured ''Mayflower'' with a number of World War II-era anachronisms (such as a navy gunnery deck, a Henry J. Kaiser nameplate ...
'' (1945), '' Northwest Hounded Police'' (1946), ''
King-Size Canary ''King-Size Canary'' is an animated cartoon short that debuted in movie theaters in 1947. It was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and directed by Tex Avery. The canary in this short was a primary inspiration for the design of Maurice, a character ...
'' (1947), '' Little Rural Riding Hood'' (1949), and ''
Bad Luck Blackie ''Bad Luck Blackie'' is a 1949 American animated comedy short film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The Tex Avery-directed short was voted the 15th-best cartoon of all-time in a 1994 poll of 1,000 animation industry professionals, as referenced ...
'' (1949). While Avery preferred to focus on gags instead of characterization, he established several popular MGM cartoon characters, including Screwball "Screwy" Squirrel, the '' Of Mice and Men'' derived pair of
George and Junior ''George and Junior'' are cartoon characters, two anthropomorphic bears created by Tex Avery for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. All of the George and Junior shorts were directed by Tex Avery in the 1940s. They appeared in four cartoons: '' Henpecked Hoboes' ...
, and his best-known character, Droopy. Droopy, voiced by Bill Thompson (a.k.a. "Wallace Wimple" on NBC Radio's '' Fibber McGee and Molly'' show) debuted in 1943 with '' Dumb-Hounded''. He appeared in several more Avery cartoons (including ''Northwest Hounded Police'') before being officially given his own series in 1948 with ''Señor Droopy''. The influence of Avery's cartoons was felt across the animation industry; even Hanna and Barbera adapted their ''Tom and Jerry'' shorts to match the levels of madcap humor and violence in Avery's films. Avery's team included storymen Rich Hogan and
Heck Allen Henry Wilson "Heck" Allen (September 12, 1912 – October 26, 1991) was an American author and screenwriter. He used several different pseudonyms for his works. His 50+ novels of the American West were published under the pen names Will Henry an ...
, and animators such as Michael Lah, Ed Love, and Preston Blair, most famous for animating the sexy female singer in ''Red Hot Riding Hood'' and its follow-ups. In 1946, Quimby assigned Blair and Lah to direct a new series of ''Barney Bear'' cartoons, reversing the decision after three cartoons.


CinemaScope (1953–1957)

Tex Avery was a perfectionist: he worked extensively on his films' stories and gags, revised his animators' drawings and was even known to cut frames out of the final Technicolor answer print if he felt a gag had been animated too softly. The strain of overwork caused Avery to quit MGM in May 1950, after completing ''Rock-a-Bye Bear'' (not released until 1952 because of MGM's cartoon backlog). Former Walter Lantz and Disney director Dick Lundy was brought in to head Avery's unit. Lundy completed one ''Droopy'' cartoon and ten ''Barney Bear'' shorts before Avery returned in October 1951 and reassumed his role as director from Lundy, starting with ''Little Johnny Jet'' (released in 1953). Avery directed eleven more cartoons for MGM, many of them showing the heavy influence of the style of the newly popular UPA studio in their designs. In March 1953, MGM temporarily closed down the cartoon unit, thinking that the growing trend for 3D films would bring an end to the animated cartoon.Barrier, Michael. ''Hollywood Cartoons'', p. 545. Avery himself did not leave the studio until June, working with co-director Michael Lah on two more cartoons, ''Deputy Droopy'' and ''Cellbound'', which Lah completed with the Hanna and Barbera staff (working during the most part of 1953 for commercials, as a predecessor of H-B Enterprises) during the closure. Avery went on to join the Walter Lantz staff the following February, while Lah went on to do commercial animation work. Because of the backlog of completed MGM cartoons, the cartoons Avery completed during his second tenure at the studio were not released until after he left again; ''Cellbound'' was not released until 1955. Meanwhile, after the studio reopened in 1954, budget cuts required Hanna and Barbera to reduce the level of detail in their ''Tom and Jerry'' shorts (a precursor of what was to come), and to also begin doing one "cheater" short per year composed mostly of footage from previously released cartoons. That year, Hanna and Barbera directed ''Pet Peeve'', the first MGM cartoon in the new widescreen CinemaScope process, which had been was devised as a means to keep audiences attending movie theatres in the wake of the popularity of
television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
. ''Pet Peeve'', released in late 1954, was followed by a sporadic number of CinemaScope ''Tom and Jerrys'', with several other ''Tom and Jerrys'' being dual-released in standard format and in CinemaScope. After '' Pecos Pest'' (released in 1955), all MGM cartoons were released in CinemaScope. Six previous MGM cartoons, among them Hugh Harman's ''Peace on Earth'', were remade in CinemaScope. Like the original ''Peace on Earth'' in 1939, its 1955 remake, ''Good Will to Men'', was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons).


Later years (1955–1957)

Quimby retired in 1955, and Hanna and Barbera became the new heads of the studio. Michael Lah returned to the studio in 1955 to direct an animated sequence for the MGM feature '' Invitation to the Dance'', and stayed on to supervise a new series of CinemaScope ''Droopy'' cartoons to accompany the new CinemaScope ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoons. Lah's '' One Droopy Knight'' was nominated for the 1957 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons). However, for the most part, both the 1955–1957 CinemaScope ''Droopy'' and ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoons had lost their appeal in the eyes of critics due to weaker stories and simplistic animation, which were the result of the budget cuts. To keep the studio alive, MGM had begun reissuing previously released cartoons since the 1940s, but later decided in late 1956 that, due to the reissued shorts bringing in as much revenue as the new shorts, it could save $600,000 a year by shutting down production on new shorts. Most of the reissued cartoons were Tom and Jerry, Droopy and shorts featuring Tex Avery's showgirl, Red. None of Tex Avery's Screwy Squirrel and
George and Junior ''George and Junior'' are cartoon characters, two anthropomorphic bears created by Tex Avery for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. All of the George and Junior shorts were directed by Tex Avery in the 1940s. They appeared in four cartoons: '' Henpecked Hoboes' ...
cartoons were reissued."MGM to Drop Production of Cartoons" (April 1, 1959). ''Daily Variety'', Vol. 95, No. 19.Interviews with William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. (2004) ''How Bill and Joe Met Tom and Jerry''. Bonus feature from ''Tom and Jerry: Spotlight Collection, Vol. 1''. Los Angeles: Warner Bros. Entertainment. The studio was closed on May 15, 1957 (though the last cartoon made by the studio was released in 1958), and Hanna and Barbera took most of their unit and began producing television cartoons with their company Hanna-Barbera Productions. Hanna-Barbera first approached MGM to distribute their cartoons for television, but were turned down.Maltin, Leonard. ''Of Mice and Magic'', p. 306.
Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...
' Screen Gems picked up Hanna-Barbera's product, and the studio soon became the most successful producers of television animation in the world. MGM would later have Gene Deitch create a series of ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoons before contracting Chuck Jones and Les Goldman's Sib Tower 12 studio to create more ''Tom and Jerry'' shorts. Sib Tower 12 was absorbed by MGM in 1964, and was renamed MGM Animation/Visual Arts.


Legacy

Many MGM cartoons have become fan favorites throughout the years due to their animation style, plot, humor, cartoon violence (specifically the Tom and Jerry shorts), music and (at times) sexual innuendos (with regards to shorts starring Red). Individual shorts such as '' To Spring'' (1936) and '' The Dot and the Line'' (1965) have been acclaimed for their artistic designs while others such as '' Screwball Squirrel'' (1944) and ''
King-Size Canary ''King-Size Canary'' is an animated cartoon short that debuted in movie theaters in 1947. It was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and directed by Tex Avery. The canary in this short was a primary inspiration for the design of Maurice, a character ...
'' (1947) are celebrated for their sheer lunacy. Though not as popular with the general public as the Disney or Warner Bros. cartoons, MGM cartoons are heavily studied and praised by film historians and members of the animation industry. As of 2009, nearly all of the Hanna and Barbera-produced ''Tom and Jerry'' shorts are available on DVD under the ''
Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection The ''Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection'' is a series of two-disc DVD sets released by Warner Home Video. Originally planned as an uncensored, chronological set, the issued ''Spotlight Collection'' sets include selected ''Tom and Jerry'' shorts ...
'', a series of three DVD box sets that were released from October 2004 to September 2007 (however, two cartoons are missing due to politically incorrect scenes, and several of the released ones are edited). Warner Home Video would later release the ''Tom & Jerry'' shorts as part of the''
Tom and Jerry Golden Collection ''Tom and Jerry Golden Collection'' is a series of two-disc DVD and Blu-ray sets, produced by Warner Home Video. It was expected to be collecting the 161 theatrical ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoon shorts released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from the 1940s thr ...
'' series of DVD and
Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...
boxsets, which started with the first volume being released October 25, 2011, with the shorts being presented uncut, restored, remastered, in chronological order, and for the Blu-ray version, in
1080p 1080p (1920×1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the screen ve ...
high definition. Moreover, a two-disc collection of all of Droopy's cartoons was released in May 2007. Rumors have floated around for years of a box set consisting of Tex Avery's MGM work, but nothing has been released besides the ''Spotlight'' and ''Golden'' box sets for ''Tom and Jerry'' and the ''Droopy'' collection in the United States, although all of Tex Avery's cartoons were released on DVD in France through Warner Home Video. However, in 2020, Tex Avery cartoons finally started being released on Blu-ray, when
Warner Archive Collection The Warner Archive Collection is a home video division for releasing classic and cult films from Warner Bros.' library. It started as a manufactured-on-demand (MOD) DVD series by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on March 23, 2009, with the inten ...
made ''Tex Avery Screwball Classics Volume 1'' this February with 19 of the cartoons. A second volume was announced in March, and was released on December 15, 2020.


MGM Cartoon Studio Staff; 1937–1957


Producers

* Hugh Harman (1939–1943) * Rudolph Ising (1939–1943) * Tex Avery (1942–1956) * Fred Quimby (1937–1955) * William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (1937–1958) * Michael Lah (1955-1958)


Directors

* Tex Avery (1942–1957) * Preston Blair (1947–1950) * Friz Freleng (1937–1939) * George Gordon (1942–1945) * Milt Gross (1937–1939) * Michael Lah (1947–1950, 1954–1958) * Dick Lundy (1952–1954) * William Hanna (1938-1958) * Joseph Barbera (1940-1958) * Rudolf Ising (1939-1943) * Hugh Harman (1939-1942)


Writers

*
Heck Allen Henry Wilson "Heck" Allen (September 12, 1912 – October 26, 1991) was an American author and screenwriter. He used several different pseudonyms for his works. His 50+ novels of the American West were published under the pen names Will Henry an ...
*
Homer Brightman Homer Brightman (October 1, 1901 – January 30, 1988) was an American screenwriter who worked for Walt Disney Productions, Walter Lantz Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio, UPA, Larry Harmon Pictures, Cambria Productions and DeP ...
* Jack Cosgriff * Rich Hogan *
Cal Howard Calvin Henry Howard (March 24, 1911 – September 10, 1993) was an American cartoon story artist, animator and director mostly remembered for his work at Walter Lantz Productions and Warner Bros. Cartoons. He was also the voice actor of Gabby Goat i ...
*
Carman Maxwell Carman Griffin Maxwell (December 27, 1902 – September 22, 1987) was an American animator and voice actor. Maxwell was born in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and later moved to Kansas City, Missouri. He began his career at Walt Disney, where Maxwe ...
* William Hanna * Joseph Barbera


Animators

* Ray Abrams *
Ed Barge Edward John Barge (August 29, 1910 – September 29, 1991) was an American animator. Barge was born to Alfred Edward and Margaret G. Barge in San Jose, California. In 1916, the family moved to Bakersfield, where his father was employed by t ...
* Robert Bentley *
Richard Bickenbach Richard Frederick Bickenbach (August 9, 1907 – June 28, 1994) was an American animator who worked for Warner Bros. Cartoons and as a layout artist and character designer for MGM and Hanna-Barbera Productions. He worked on animation for many ca ...
* Preston Blair * Pete Burness * Jack Carr * George Gordon *
Emery Hawkins Emery Otis Hawkins (April 30, 1912 – June 1, 1989) was an American animator, best known for his work during the Golden age of American animation, working in various studios in the industry. Early life and career Emery Hawkins was born in Jerom ...
* Michael Lah * Bill Littlejohn *
Ed Love Edward H. Love (May 24, 1910 – May 6, 1996) was an American animator who worked at various studios during the Golden age of American animation. He is well known for animating Walt Disney Animations' shorts ''Mickey's Trailer'' and '' Fanta ...
* Kenneth Muse * Bill Nolan * Don Patterson * Ray Patterson * Ken Southworth * Irven Spence *
Gil Turner Gil Turner (born Gilbert Strunk; May 6, 1933 – September 23, 1974) was an American folk singer-songwriter, magazine editor, Shakespearean actor, political activist, and for a time, a lay Baptist preacher. Turner was a prominent figure in the ...
* Bill Tytla * Carl Urbano * Carlo Vinci *
Carman Maxwell Carman Griffin Maxwell (December 27, 1902 – September 22, 1987) was an American animator and voice actor. Maxwell was born in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and later moved to Kansas City, Missouri. He began his career at Walt Disney, where Maxwe ...
* Rudy Zamora * Jack Zander


Layout and background artists

* Ed Benedict *
Harvey Eisenberg Harvey Eisenberg (February 11, 1911 – April 22, 1965) was an American animator and comic book artist. Best known for his work with William Hanna and Joseph Barbera at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio and later at their own Hanna-Barbera ...
* Bob Kuwahara * Gene Hazelton


Voice actors

* William Hanna * Sara Berner * Mel Blanc *
Billy Bletcher William Bletcher (September 24, 1894 – January 5, 1979) was an American actor. He was known for voice roles for various classic animated characters, most notably Pete in Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse short films and the Big Bad Wolf in Disn ...
* Lucille Bliss * Daws Butler *
Red Coffey Merle Herman Coffman, better known by his stage name Red Coffey (April 24, 1923 – August 1, 1988), was an American voice actor and comedian known for playing Quacker in the ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoons at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio f ...
* Pinto Colvig * Hans Conried * June Foray * Paul Frees * Frank Graham * Harry Lang * Patrick McGeehan *
Cliff Nazarro Clifford Nazarro (January 31, 1904 – February 18, 1961) was an American double-talk comedian of the 1930s and 1940s who appeared in films such as ''You'll Never Get Rich'' (1941) as Swivel Tongue with Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth, In Old ...
* Lillian Randolph * Kent Rogers * Bill Thompson * Thea Vidale * Martha Wentworth *
Gayne Whitman Gayne Whitman (born Alfred D. Vosburgh; March 19, 1890 – August 31, 1958) was an American radio and film actor. He appeared in more than 200 films between 1904 and 1957. In some early films he was credited under his birth name. He was born ...


Musical directors

* Scott Bradley (1937–1958) * Bert Lewis (1937–1939) * Edward Plumb (1953)


Sound department

* Fred McAlpin (1937-1948) * Jim Faris (1948-1952) * Lovell Norman (1952-1957)


Productions

; Series * ''
The Captain and the Kids ''The Katzenjammer Kids'' is an American comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks in 1897 and later drawn by Harold Knerr for 35 years (1914 to 1949).Count Screwloose'' (1939; directed by Milt Gross) * '' Barney Bear'' (1939–1944, 1947–1949, 1952–1954; directed by Rudolf Ising, George Gordon, Preston Blair, Michael Lah and Dick Lundy) * ''Three Bears'' (also known as ''The Bear Family'', 1939–1940; produced and directed by Hugh Harman) * ''
Tom and Jerry ''Tom and Jerry'' is an American animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series centers on the ...
'' (1940–1958; produced and directed by Hanna and Barbera, 1961-1962; produced and directed by Gene Deitch and William L. Synder, 1963-1967; produced and directed by Chuck Jones) * ''Homer Flea'' (1940, 1948; directed by Rudolf Ising and Tex Avery) * '' Droopy'' (1943–1958; directed by Tex Avery, Dick Lundy and Michael Lah) * ''
Red Hot Riding Hood ''Red Hot Riding Hood'' is an animated cartoon short subject, directed by Tex Avery and released with the movie '' Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case'' on May 8, 1943, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1994, it was voted number 7 of The 50 Greatest Cartoons ...
& The Wolf'' (1943–1949; directed by Tex Avery) * ''Ol' Doc Donkey'' (1944-45; directed by George Gordon) * '' Screwy Squirrel'' (1944–1946; directed by Tex Avery) * ''
George and Junior ''George and Junior'' are cartoon characters, two anthropomorphic bears created by Tex Avery for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. All of the George and Junior shorts were directed by Tex Avery in the 1940s. They appeared in four cartoons: '' Henpecked Hoboes' ...
'' (1946–1948; directed by Tex Avery) * '' Spike'' (1949–1952, 1955, 1957; directed by Tex Avery) * '' Spike and Tyke'' (1957; produced and directed by Hanna and Barbera) ; Live-action films with animated sequences * '' Anchors Aweigh'' (1945; "The Worry Song" sequence with Gene Kelly and Jerry Mouse with a cameo by Tom Cat) * ''
Holiday in Mexico ''Holiday in Mexico'' is a 1946 Technicolor musical directed by George Sidney and starring Walter Pidgeon, Jane Powell, and Ilona Massey. Plot The film starts with a brief cartoon of telephone wires from Washington, DC trying to call Mexico. Jef ...
'' (1946; Animated title sequence) * '' Dangerous When Wet'' (1953; Animated swimming sequence with Esther Williams and
Tom & Jerry ''Tom and Jerry'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series c ...
) * '' Invitation to the Dance'' (1956; "Sinbad the Sailor" sequence)


See also

*
The Golden Age of American animation The golden age of American animation was a period in the history of U.S. animation that began with the popularization of sound cartoons in 1928 and gradually ended in the late 1960s, where theatrical animated shorts began losing popularity to the ...
*
Turner Entertainment Co. Turner Entertainment Company is an American multimedia company founded by Ted Turner in 1986. Purchased by Time Warner in 1996 as part of its acquisition of Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), the company was largely responsible for overseeing th ...
* Warner Bros. Animation ** Hanna-Barbera * MGM Animation/Visual Arts *
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Animation Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Animation (or MGM Animation for short) was the animation division of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer motion picture studio in Hollywood, California, that specializes in animated productions for theatrical features and television. It ...


Notes


References

* Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . * Maltin, Leonard (1980, rev. 1987) ''Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons'', New York: Plume Books. * Adams, T.R. (1991), Tom and Jerry: Fifty Years of Cat and Mouse, {{DEFAULTSORT:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Cartoon Studio American companies established in 1937 American companies disestablished in 1957 Entertainment companies established in 1937 Mass media companies established in 1937 Mass media companies disestablished in 1957 American animation studios Film studios in Southern California Companies based in Culver City, California Entertainment companies based in California 1937 establishments in California 1957 disestablishments in California Cartoon Studio Defunct American film studios Defunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles Articles containing video clips