Iwerks Studio

Animated Pictures Corp., Ltd.^[1] (informally coined as the Iwerks Studio) was an American animation studio based in Beverly Hills, California, headed by animator Ub Iwerks. The studio was best known for producing cartoon series such as Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper, as well as its ComiColor cartoon series, and was in operation between 1930 and 1937.

Ub Iwerks was the director and head animator of the increasingly successful Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony cartoons for Walt Disney, serving at Disney's right hand man with production. In early 1930, Iwerks accepted a contract with Disney's distributor, Pat Powers, to resign from the studio and produce cartoons under his own name. Iwerks brought along other Disney talent, like musical composer Carl Stalling and animators Merle Gilson and Ben Clopton.^[2]

Financial backers, led by Powers, suspected Iwerks was responsible for much of Disney's early success, and Powers' New York-based film company, Celebrity Productions, Inc.,^[3] cut ties with Disney to support Iwerks' production venture. The studio was formally incorporated as Animated Pictures Corp., Ltd, with its original location based in Los Angeles, California.^[4][5]

Iwerks' first cartoon character, Flip the Frog, was announced as early as February 1930. Flip's first few cartoons, starting with Fiddlesticks in May,^[6] were released both in black-and-white and in Harriscolor,^[7][8] making them arguably the first sound cartoons released in color. Animated Pictures made a sales record in May after their first press announcement, even before the cartoons' release, as the European rights to the films were sold out before ten days.^[9] By early July, the studio signed a contract from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to handle distribution of the series.^[10] As the Flip cartoons progressed, the studio saw moderate success and expanded operations, hiring new staff and moving their production facility to Beverly Hills.^[11][12]

Several key creative personnel and trainee artists employed by Iwerks were later prominent figures in animation history. Grim Natwick, already a seasoned animator and creative force at Max Fleischer's cartoon studio for designing Betty Boop, was hired in 1931 to lead Animated Pictures' creative output, a position he held until late 1934. Natwick also hired animators Shamus Culhane, Al Eugster, and Berny Wolf, as well as musical composer Art Turkisher, all formerly with the Fleischer studio. One of Iwerks' first hires, an animator named Fred Kopietz, recommended Iwerks employ a friend from the Chouinard Art Institute.^[13] This friend, Chuck Jones, was hired and put to work as a cel washer in one of his first jobs before becoming a prominent cartoon director at Warner Bros. Despite the influx of talent from both Disney and Fleischer, Iwerks failed to rival either studio in terms of commercial success.

Flip the Frog, much like his cartoon contemporaries, bore various resemblances to Mickey Mouse in both his visual design, personality, and mannerisms. As the series progressed and with the new hired animators, the appearance of Flip gradually became less frog-like. Flip evolved into more of a down-and-out, Chaplin-esque character who always found himself in everyday conflicts surrounding the poverty-stricken atmosphere of the Great Depression.

In 1933, Flip the Frog was phased out and replaced with two new cartoon series, one featuring Willie Whopper, and the other a series of color cartoons called ComiColors. The character Willie Whopper was a young boy who told of his many outlandish adventures. His fantastic accounts were as depicted on-screen as outright lies or "whoppers", and were usually preceded by his memorable catchphrase, "Say, did I ever tell ya this one?" The ComiColor cartoons mostly focused on fairy tales with one-off characters. Both series were started in 1933, with Willie featured in 14 cartoons through 1934, and the ComiColors produced until 1936.

The staff was doubled to meet the demand,^[14] and the studio was reorganized into different animation units so both series could be produced in tandem.^[15][16] The ComiColors were initially co-directed by Shamus Culhane and Al Eugster, and the Willie Whopper cartoons handled by two units: one with co-directors Grim Natwick and Berny Wolf, and another led by ex-Harman-Ising animators Robert Stokes and Norman Blackburn. Only the Willie Whopper cartoons were picked up by MGM for a distribution deal through 1933 and 1934, while each ComiColor cartoon was individually sold by Celebrity Productions to a wide variety of distributors who were interested.^[17][18][19] The ComiColor cartoons enjoyed some success overseas, with eleven countries closed for foreign distribution rights of cartoons in 1934^[20] and as many as 17 foreign versions of individual films completed for distribution.^[21]

Walt Disney had exclusive rights to use the full-color Technicolor process for his studio's cartoons, so Iwerks opted for the cheaper two-color Cinecolor process for all ComiColor cartoons and two Willie Whopper cartoons, Davy Jones' Locker and Hell's Fire. In some instances, Iwerks also opted to cut costs for music production by utilizing cheaper canned music from commercial records in place of more expensive custom orchestrated scores by Carl Stalling or Art Turkisher.^[22] Examples of such could be heard throughout the Willie Whopper and ComiColor series.

In 1934, financiers and staff of Iwerks' cartoons were starting to see the lackluster output of Iwerks' Animated Pictures studio in comparison to Disney, and were dropping support. MGM did not renew their contract with Iwerks for 1934-35 season, instead favoring the production of Happy Harmonies cartoons for Harman-Ising Productions, thus leaving Iwerks with only the independently-distributed ComiColor shorts in the studio's roster. The same year, Grim Natwick resigned from his supervisory role to work for Walt Disney on his first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and many other key animators followed suit soon after.

Despite these dropouts, Animated Pictures, under Celebrity Productions, continued to find opportunities for additional work. They collaborated with English companies Revelation Films and Boots, Ltd. on a short educational film titled See How They Won, a film depicting the battle of a character named "John Careless" who falls victim to the "Bad Health Brigade."^[23] The concept and story were done in England, with Animated Pictures working on the film's production.^[24] After release, Revelation Films signed a deal with Celebrity Productions to produce a series of cartoons for a promotional campaign.^[25]

In addition, as early as June 19, 1935,^[26] Iwerks and Celebrity Productions discussed a deal of producing a cartoon series for the 1936-37 season based on the Reg'lar Fellers comic strip, by arrangement with comic creator Gene Byrnes.^[27] Meetings between Iwerks and Celebrity Productions took place to discuss the prospects of expanding or entirely moving Iwerks' animation studio to New York to start the series.^[28][29] These plans all ultimately fell through; the only cartoon to come out of the deal was Happy Days in 1936,^[30] which became the final cartoon to be produced by Iwerks for Pat Powers. Despite the deals with Byrnes and Revelation, and another season of ComiColors proposed by Pat Powers for the 1936-37 season,^[31] Powers and Celebrity Productions, Inc. withdrew all financial support from Iwerks' studio following the demise of the Reg'lar Fellas deal.^[30]

After losing the support and deals from Pat Powers, Iwerks managed to keep Animated Pictures afloat by finding freelance work, utilizing his own Beverly Hills^[1] studio and animation staff.^[32] Iwerks began producing and directing Technicolor Color Rhapsodies cartoons for Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems animation studio^[33][34] to help fill out their schedule on a subcontract basis.^[35] At the beginning of 1937, Iwerks signed a contract with Caravel Distributing Co. to produce animation for a promotional film sponsored by various advertisers, featuring cartoon characters like Otto Soglow's Little King.^[36]

Later in 1937, producer Leon Schlesigner enlisted Iwerks as a subcontractor to help increase his turnout of black-and-white Looney Tunes cartoons for release through Warner Bros. When production fell behind on the first of these shorts, Porky and Gabby, three animators from Leon Schlesinger Productions - Robert Cannon, Bob Clampett, and Chuck Jones - an Iwerks Studio alumnus - were sent to work at Animated Pictures and collaborate with the Iwerks staff.^[37]

Iwerks ultimately completed two Looney Tunes shorts: Porky and Gabby and Porky's Super Service. Both shorts featured Porky Pig, with the former also featuring Gabby Goat, a new character created by Schlesinger storyman (and Iwerks alumnus) Cal Howard, who sometimes also did the voice.^[38] While working on layout drawings for a third short, Porky's Badtime Story, a frustrated Iwerks - he reportedly hated the Porky Pig character^[37] - stopped reporting to work, and Clampett, a Harman-Ising alumnus who had long harbored directing aspirations,^[37] took over direction.^[32] After completing one more Looney Tunes short at the Iwerks studio, Get Rich Quick Porky, the Schlesinger staffers returned to their home studio on the Warner Bros. Sunset Boulevard lot and Clampett was given his own directorial unit.^[37][35][38]

Around December 1937, Iwerks struck a deal with UK-owned British Independent Exhibitors Association, a merger between distributors British Independent Exhibitors Co, Ltd. and Sound City,^[39] to produce a series of color cartoons. These cartoons featured a character of British cartoonist Lawson Wood's, a monkey named Gran'pop.^[40] To accommodate work on these cartoons, Iwerks' Animated Pictures was reorganized into a new venture under the same studio address, named Cartoon Films, Ltd., with producer Lawson Harris serving as president of the new establishment.^[41] In a deal with another representative of Iwerks' studio, David Biedermann, Educational Pictures signed distribution rights for the series to replace their contract with Paul Terry's Terrytoons.^[42] A deal for 24 Gran'pop cartoons was initially projected for the series,^[43] reportedly moved up to 50 cartoons a couple days later,^[44] and distribution deals with Grand National were discussed, but only three cartoons were completed in 1938 under Iwerks' supervision.^[35] All three shorts would eventually be released by Monogram Pictures in the 1940-1941 season.^[45] In the interim, the studio produced advertising shorts for businesses like Shell Oil Company, W. K. Kellogg Co., Lever Brothers, and Kraft Cheese, which were released around 1940 and sometimes promoted as "Minitoons".^[46][47]

As early as July 1939,^[48] Cartoon Films made a deal with a color film company, Dunningcolor, to introduce their newest three-strip color process of the same name in a series of animated shorts to be released by Columbia Pictures.^[49] However, on September 9, 1940, Ub Iwerks resigned from his studio to rejoin Walt Disney Productions as a technical developer,^[35] so the studio was turned over to Lawson Harris and animator Paul Fennell, including production of the Dunningcolor shorts. Two historical cartoons came out of the Dunningcolor contract, titled How War Came and Broken Treaties, which were completed and released in 1941. They were both narrated by Raymond Gram Swing, and the former of them was nominated an Academy Award for Best Cartoon Subject.^[50]

The same year, Cartoon Films completed Ub Iwerks' initial contract with Columbia's Screen Gems, with a final cartoon titled The Carpenters. In 1942, the studio opened up facilities in Chicago, IL and New York, NY.^[51] The studio moved to animating for war propaganda films for a time, as they contributed animation to a 1943 short for the United States Department of Agriculture, titled Six Legged Saboteurs.^[52] Information on Cartoon Films, Ltd. after this point is not conclusive, but in 1944, the studio's Beverly Hills address was occupied by animation studio Hugh Harman Productions.^[53]

Throughout most of the studio's existence, Iwerks' cartoons produced under Celebrity Productions' auspices utilized Pat Powers' own Cinephone system for sound recording, which was formerly used for Walt Disney's early sound cartoons, and the animation studio was supplied with its own sound equipment to utilize the technology.^[14]

Iwerks also experimented with stop-motion animation in combination with the multiplane camera. Although first developed in the 1920's by Lotte Reiniger, Iwerks made many substantial improvements in multiplane animation.^[54] This technology allowed for a three-dimensional look, separating layers of the background, resulting in a greater feeling of depth.^[54] He made a short called "The Toy Parade", which was never released in public. The 1934 animated short "The Headless Horseman" was the first time Iwerks used the multiplane effect,^[54] and it was utilized in both the ComiColor and Willie Whopper cartoons.

According to the recollections of various former Iwerks employees, management at Animated Pictures under Powers was harsh. Particularly, Iwerks' general manager and one of Pat Powers' right-hand men, Emil Offeman, demanded harsh work environments and footage quotas for the employed artists. Offeman's often misinformed work expectations caused Jim Pabian, a neophyte animator at the studio, to quit the studio and cancel his contract with Iwerks.^[11]

According to animator Shamus Culhane's autobiography, the last straw was when Offeman constantly harassed an ailing animator, Godfrey Bjork, about work quotas to the point of his hospitalization and death in 1933. Afterwards, meetings calling for unionization of animation studios were allegedly held by Grim Natwick, with dozens of animation workers in attendance and considered some of the first union meetings in the business.^[55]

• "Jack Frost" (1934)
• "Little Black Sambo" (1935)
• "Balloon Land" (1935)