MGM Cartoons

The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio (also commonly referred to as MGM Cartoons) was an American animation studio operated by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 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'', '' Jerry'', ''Droopy'', '' Butch'', '' Spike'', '' Tyke'', 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. 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.) 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-May 1986 MGM library, including the MGM 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-May 1986 MGM library via Turner Entertainment Co. and also owns the rights to much of Hanna-Barbera's library after Hanna-Barbera was absorbed into Warner Bros. Animation and replaced by Cartoon Network Studios in 2001 following the death of William Hanna.

Background

In the 1930s, to promote their films and attract larger theater audiences, the studios produced many short subjects to supplement the main feature, including travelogues, serials, comedies, newsreels, and cartoons. During the late 1920s, Walt Disney Productions had achieved enormous popular and critical success with its ''Mickey Mouse'' cartoons for Pat Powers' Celebrity Pictures (distributing for Columbia Pictures). Several other studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer among them, noted Disney's success and began looking for ways to equal or surpass Disney. MGM had tried but failed to acquire distribution rights to ''Mickey Mouse'' and '' Silly Symphonies'' 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 January 1931, and over two-dozen other ''Flip'' cartoons followed during the next three years. In 1934, 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 independently distributing the Iwerks ''ComiColor'' cartoons.

For the 1934 MGM musical comedy '' Hollywood Party'', a cartoon sequence was added -- but MGM no longer had anyone to produce it. Walt Disney Productions created a sequence in Technicolor called ''The Hot Choc-Late Soldiers'', and a sequence with Jimmy Durante interacting with an animated Mickey Mouse. It is one of only a few examples where Disney produced animation for other studios.

In August 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, a successful character the duo had created for the Warner cartoons. After learning from Disney's experiences with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, where Disney created the character but didn't own it, Harman and Ising retained the rights to Bosko.

The first entry in MGM's new '' Happy Harmonies'' series, '' The Discontented Canary'', was completed in September 1934 and released in October. 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 1936, was redesigned from an ambiguous "inkblot" character to a discernible little African-American boy. The directors worked separately on their own films, although both strived to create elaborate 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 its 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.

In 1937, Disney's animators were overworked with ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' and the Harman-Ising studio provided artists to work on the feature and the ''Silly Symphonies'' short '' Merbabies'' in exchange for 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 directors, and Carmen Maxwell became production manager. Quimby raided every major American animation studio for talent, extracting artists, directors, and writers 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 failed. '' The Captain and The Kids'', adapted from Rudolph Dirks' ''Katzenjammer Kids

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