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Walter Lantz Productions was an American animation studio. It was in operation from 1928 to 1949 and then from 1950 to 1972, and was the principal supplier of animation for Univer…
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Walter Lantz Productions People Dick Lundy
Walter Lantz Productions People Fred Moore
Walter Lantz Productions People Fred Moore
Walter Lantz Productions People Dick Lundy
Walter Lantz Productions People Clyde Geronimi
Walter Lantz Productions People Clyde Geronimi
Walter Lantz Productions was an American animation studio. It was in operation from 1928 to 1949 and then from 1950 to 1972, and was the principal supplier of animation for Universal Pictures.
Walter Lantz Productions was an American animation studio. It was in operation from 1928 to 1949 and then from 1950 to 1972, and was the principal supplier of animation for Universal Pictures.
The studio was originally formed as Universal Cartoon Studios on the initiative of Universal movie mogul Carl Laemmle, who was tired of the continuous company politics he was dealing with concerning contracting cartoons outside animation studios. Animator Bill Nolan and Walter Lantz, who was Laemmle's part-time chauffeur and a veteran of the John R. Bray Studios with considerable experience in all elements of animation production, were selected to run the department.
In 1935, Lantz managed to buy out his studio and gain the copyrights to his characters. The cartoons continued to be distributed by Universal through 1947, changing to United 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 were Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda, Chilly Willy, and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Additionally, the music-oriented Swing Symphony cartoons were another successful staple, but ended after swing music's popularity faded after the end of World War II.
Walter Lantz began his career at the art department of William Randolph Hearst's New York American during the 1910s, having his start in the cartoon industry at Hearst's International Film Service, which in 1918 transferred its entire staff to Bray 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 with Hal Roach and Mack 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 Pictures owner Carl Laemmle's limousine. The chauffeur job also landed Lantz a job at Winkler Pictures, which, under producer Charles Mintz, produced the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons for Universal Pictures. Lantz became one of the Oswald series' directors alongside Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, after series creators Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks left the company.
The popularity of the Oswald series began to fall because of a decline in quality, alongside a series of heated confrontations between Mintz and Harman & Ising, and then between Laemmle and Harman & Ising, which led Laemmle to fire Mintz and terminate the Winkler contract in early 1929. Laemmle was now looking for someone to run a new in-house animation studio for Universal, and Walter Lantz won the job in a poker game with Laemmle. He reunited with his Bray colleague and former Winkler director Bill Nolan, who led the newly founded studio with him. The first "Oswald" cartoon produced by Lantz at the new Universal Cartoon Studios was Race 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 included Pinto Colvig and Tex Avery.
The earliest Lantz cartoons from 1929 were built around set plots and stories, in the tradition of the earlier Disney and Winkler shorts. The conversion of Oswald 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 the Paul 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, but these cartoons were never produced.
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 as Meany, Miny, and Moe, Baby-Face Mouse and Lil' Eightball, but all of them proved unsuccessful. After a succession of failed attempts, Lantz created the character Andy Panda, who debuted in the 1939 short Life Begins for Andy Panda, directed by Alex Lovy. Andy was a hit with audiences, and eventually replaced Oswald (who was retired the year prior) as the studio's 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 fin
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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-era Oswald 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 of the Depression. Pooch never became very popular and the series was dropped in 1933. The following year, Nolan left the studio, and the Cartune Classics series of Technicolor shorts began, lasting for a year.
