Misplaced Pages

#256743

54-535: Harman and Ising first worked in animation in 1922 at Laugh-O-Gram Studio , Walt Disney 's studio in Kansas City . When Disney moved operations to California , Harman was back at United Film Ad Service and Ising had a photofinishing business. Their plans went nowhere, however, and the men soon came back to Disney on June 22, 1925, to work on his Alice Comedies and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit films. Ising

108-531: A Silly Symphony newspaper comic strip distributed by King Features Syndicate , as well as a Dell comic book series and several children's books. The Silly Symphonies returned to theaters with its re-issues and re-releases, and eventually tied with Joseph Barbera and William Hanna 's Tom and Jerry ' s record for most Oscar wins for a cartoon series in the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film category. While Walt Disney and Carl Stalling ,

162-399: A black Dodge Charger struck the building and caused significant damage to the exterior. The incident occurred early in the morning, the driver fleeing the scene, though authorities subsequently found a woman's driving license and a margarita within the vehicle. Butch Rigby, who launched the campaign to save and restore the building, described the incident optimistically: "The bottom line, it's

216-415: A bump in the road, but it could have been worse". Disney told interviewers that the inspiration to draw Mickey came from a tame mouse at his desk at Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri . They used to fight for little pieces of cheese in my waste-basket when I worked alone late at night. I lifted them out and kept them in wire cages on my desk. I grew particularly fond of one brown house mouse. He

270-421: A fifth Mickey Mouse cartoon, The Opry House , they also recorded the soundtrack for The Skeleton Dance , the type of short that Stalling had suggested and the first Silly Symphony cartoon. Within the animation industry, the series is known for its use by Walt Disney as a platform for experimenting with processes, techniques, characters, and stories in order to further the art of animation. It also provided

324-672: A new animation studio to make the Oswald cartoons. The Oswald cartoons which Harman and Ising produced in 1928 and 1929 already show their distinctive style, which would later characterize their work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon series for Warner Bros. Late in 1929, Universal Pictures who owned the rights to Oswald, started its own animation studio headed by Walter Lantz , replacing Mintz and forcing Harman and Ising out of work. Harman and Ising had long aspired to start their own studio, and had created and copyrighted

378-435: A one-way train ticket, moving to Hollywood, California ; he brought along an unfinished reel of Alice's Wonderland . The bankruptcy trustee was able to force LOGF's erstwhile distributor and debtor, Pictorial Films, Inc., to pay LOGF's agents the sum owed while agreeing that Pictorial could exercise its contractual distribution rights for LOGF works and to purchase several of LOGF's films: The Four Musicians of Bremen , Jack

432-577: A theatre organist from Kansas City, were in New York to add sound to the Mickey Mouse shorts The Gallopin' Gaucho , The Barn Dance and Plane Crazy , Stalling suggested the idea of making a series of musical animated shorts that combined the latest sound technology with storytelling. At first Walt did not seem interested, but when they returned to New York in February to record the sound for

486-453: A venue to try out techniques and technologies, such as Technicolor, special effects animation , and dramatic storytelling in animation, that would be crucial to Disney's plans to eventually begin making feature-length animated films. Shortly after the switch to United Artists, the series became even more popular. Walt Disney had seen some of Dr. Herbert Kalmus' tests for a new three-strip , full-color Technicolor process, which would replace

540-462: A year, the now-in-Technicolor Silly Symphonies series had popularity and success that matched (and later surpassed) that of the Mickey Mouse cartoons. The contract Disney had with Technicolor would also later be extended another five years as well. The success of Silly Symphonies would be tremendously boosted after Three Little Pigs was released in 1933 and became a box office sensation;

594-574: Is an American animated series of 75 musical short films produced by Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1939. As the series name implies, the Silly Symphonies were originally intended as whimsical accompaniments to pieces of music. As such, the films usually did not feature continuing characters, unlike the Mickey Mouse shorts produced by Disney at the same time (exceptions to this include Three Little Pigs , The Tortoise and

SECTION 10

#1732782931257

648-421: Is the subject of two feature films: As Dreamers Do and Walt Before Mickey . In 1921, Walt Disney was contracted by Milton Feld to animate twelve cartoons, which he called Newman's Laugh-O-Grams. On May 23, 1922, when Disney was 20 years old, Laugh-O-Gram Films (LOGF) was incorporated by him using the remaining assets of the defunct Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists from local investors. LOGF produced nine of

702-535: The Alice's Wonderland film's receipts. Looking for a distributor for Alice's Wonderland on May 14, Disney wrote to Margaret Winkler , a New York film distributor. After finishing the raw edits of Alice's Wonderland , the studio filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 1923. Disney finally made some money by shooting a film of a 6-month-old girl named Kathalee Viley and selling his movie camera , earning enough for

756-537: The Silly Symphonies ended, Disney occasionally produced a handful of one-shot cartoons, playing the same style as the Silly Symphony series. Unlike the Silly Symphonies canon, most of these "Specials" have a narration, usually by Disney legend Sterling Holloway . In the 1934 MGM film Hollywood Party , Mickey Mouse appears with Jimmy Durante , where they introduce The Hot Choc-late Soldiers . The 1999–2000 television series Mickey Mouse Works used

810-727: The Silly Symphonies title for some of its new cartoons, but unlike the original cartoons, these did feature continuing characters. As of 2021, three of the Silly Symphony shorts ( Three Little Pigs , The Old Mill , and Flowers and Trees ), have been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". A Sunday Silly Symphony comic strip ran in newspapers from January 10, 1932, to July 12, 1942. The strip featured adaptations of some of

864-629: The Silly Symphony cartoons, including Birds of a Feather , The Robber Kitten , Elmer Elephant , Farmyard Symphony and Little Hiawatha . This strip began with a two-year sequence about Bucky Bug , a character based on the bugs in Bugs in Love . There was also an occasional Silly Symphonies comic book, with nine issues published by Dell Comics from September 1952 to February 1959. The first issue of this anthology comic featured adaptations of some Silly Symphony cartoons, including The Grasshopper and

918-535: The Talkartoon series was renamed as Betty Boop cartoons. In 1932, after falling out with Columbia Pictures, Disney began distributing his products through United Artists . UA refused to distribute the Silly Symphonies unless Disney associated Mickey Mouse with them somehow, resulting in the "Mickey Mouse presents a Silly Symphony " title cards and posters that introduced and promoted the series during its five-year run for UA. United Artists also agreed to double

972-570: The 1951 film "Good Wrinkles" made for the California prune industry. Harman also freelanced to write the 1954 Woody Woodpecker Cartune " Convict Concerto " for his former colleague Walter Lantz. In 1960, Harman-Ising produced a pilot episode for a made for TV cartoon series titled The Adventures of Sir Gee Whiz on the Other Side of the Moon . The unsold pilot for the never produced series

1026-581: The Beast . Tommy Tucker's Tooth (1922) and Alice's Wonderland (1923) are also available on DVD, and Alice's Wonderland eventually became a bonus feature for the 60th Anniversary Blu-ray Edition of Alice in Wonderland . The original piece of filming and animation known as Newman Laugh-O-Grams (originally released theatrically on March 20, 1921) is available on some DVDs too. In accordance with United States copyright law, all 11 shorts produced by

1080-687: The Bosko character to star in a new series of cartoons he dubbed Looney Tunes (the title being a parody of Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies ). In 1930, the pair's first theatrical Bosko short, Sinkin' in the Bathtub , was a success. In 1931, Harman took over direction of the Looney Tunes starring the character, while Ising took a sister series called Merrie Melodies that consisted of one-shot stories and characters. The two animators broke off ties with Schlesinger later in 1933 over budget disputes with

1134-661: The Giant Killer , the Lafflets series, and Alice's Wonderland . The studio building fell to ruin and efforts were made to restore it by a non-profit group called "Thank You, Walt Disney". The Disney family promised $ 450,000 in matching funds for the rights to other Disney memorabilia and to tell the history of Walt Disney's life in Kansas City, a movie house to exhibit original and restored Laugh-O-Grams, and an education center for animation workshops. On July 30, 2021,

SECTION 20

#1732782931257

1188-469: The Hare , and Three Orphan Kittens , which all had sequels). The series is notable for its innovation with Technicolor and the multiplane motion picture camera , as well as its introduction of the character Donald Duck , who made his first appearance in the Silly Symphony cartoon The Wise Little Hen in 1934. Seven shorts won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film . The series also spawned

1242-430: The Hare and the remake of The Ugly Duckling . On December 4, 2001, Disney released " Silly Symphonies " as part of its DVD series " Walt Disney Treasures ". On December 19, 2006, " More Silly Symphonies " was released, completing the collection and allowing the cartoons to be completely available to the public. Some Disney Blu-ray discs include Silly Symphonies as high definition special features. Snow White and

1296-556: The Seven Dwarfs includes six, Beauty and the Beast and Dumbo both contain two and Pixar 's A Bug's Life contains one. The Silly Symphony shorts originally aired on Turner Classic Movies ' period program block "Treasures from the Disney Vault". Some Silly Symphony shorts are viewable on Disney+ . The Silly Symphonies are listed here in production order: Disney's experiments were widely praised within

1350-494: The budget for each cartoon from $ 7,500 to $ 15,000. In 1937, Disney signed a distribution deal with RKO Radio Pictures to distribute the Silly Symphony cartoons, along with the Mickey Mouse series. RKO would continue to distribute until the end of the series in 1939. Several Symphonies have been released in home media, most of the time as bonus shorts that relate to something within various Disney films. For instance,

1404-650: The cartoon character Bosko in 1928. After losing their jobs at the Winkler studio, Harman and Ising founded Harman-Ising Productions, with most of the Disney and Winkler animators as staff. The studio produced a short Bosko demonstration film called Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid . The cartoon featured Bosko at odds with his animator – portrayed in live-action by Ising. Impressed, Leon Schlesinger , who worked at Warner Bros. , hired Harman and Ising. Schlesinger wanted

1458-417: The cartoons, which were supposed to be shown at schools and other non-theatrical places, but only paid $ 100 in advance. The rest of the payment would have to wait until January 1, 1924, when all the shorts had been delivered. When Pictorial went bankrupt only a few months later, the studio never received the rest of the payment, its financial problems became even more serious, and the staff ended up leaving. When

1512-426: The character being discontinued. They also tried unsuccessfully to create new cartoon stars for their new distributors. Their cartoons, though technically superior to those they had made for Schlesinger at Warner's, were still music-driven shorts with little to no plot. When the new Happy Harmonies series ran significantly over-budget in 1937, MGM fired Harman and Ising and established its own in-house studio , which

1566-527: The completed cartoon and finally released it in the 1940s. In 1934, Harman and Ising signed a deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to start a new series of shorts, Happy Harmonies . Harman and Ising, having maintained the rights to Bosko, occasionally featured the character in the new series. The two maintained the same division of work they had used at Warner Bros.: Harman worked on Bosko shorts, and Ising directed one-shots. In 1935, Harman redesigned Bosko into an identifiable African-American boy, ultimately leading to

1620-616: The drawing to his wife Lillian Marie Bounds and said he was going to call it "Mortimer Mouse". She replied that the name sounded "too pompous" and suggested Mickey Mouse instead. Of the original seven Laugh-O-Grams fairy tales, four were long known to have survived, and have been restored for DVD: Newman Laugh-O-Grams (1921), Little Red Riding Hood (1922), The Four Musicians of Bremen (1922), Puss in Boots (1922), and Cinderella (1922). These shorts later became available on Blu-ray Disc as bonus features for Disney's Beauty and

1674-407: The end of 1922, Disney was living in the office and taking baths once a week at Union Station . During the studio's sales manager Leslie Mace's stay in New York, where he was looking for distributors, he ended up signing a contract for six animated shorts with Pictorial Clubs, Inc. of Tennessee on Sunday, September 16, 1922. Pictorial agreed to pay US$ 11,000 (equivalent to $ 200,231 in 2023) for

Harman and Ising - Misplaced Pages Continue

1728-466: The evils of humanity, which was nominated for an Oscar . The following year, Ising produced William Hanna and Joseph Barbera 's first cartoon, Puss Gets the Boot , a cartoon featuring characters later known as Tom and Jerry , but according to Barbera, Ising never came into the room, but got credited. Despite the popularity of Puss Gets the Boot , Ising's The Milky Way was more successful and became

1782-436: The film industry, and the Silly Symphonies won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film seven times, maintaining a six-year-hold on the category after it was first introduced. This record was matched only by MGM 's Tom and Jerry series during the 1940s and 1950s. The Symphonies changed the course of Disney Studio history when Walt's plans to direct his first feature cartoon became problematic after his warm-up to

1836-698: The film was featured in movie theaters for several months and also featured the hit song that became the anthem of the Great Depression, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf". Several Silly Symphonies entries, including Three Little Pigs (1933), The Grasshopper and the Ants (1934), The Tortoise and the Hare (1935), The Country Cousin (1936), The Old Mill (1937), Wynken, Blynken, and Nod (1938), and The Ugly Duckling (1939, with an earlier black-and-white version from 1931), are among

1890-613: The first non-Disney film to win the Academy Award. Despite the success of these and other cartoons, MGM's production under Harman and Ising remained low. In 1941, Harman left MGM and formed a new studio with Disney veteran Mel Shaw , while Ising was still at MGM. In 1942, Ising also quit MGM, in his case to join the United States Army Air Forces animation unit. By 1951, Harman and Ising were back together and making industrial and commercial films such as

1944-594: The local Kansas City dentist Thomas B. McCrum, from the Deener Dental Institute, contacted Disney and offered him the job of producing a short subject about dental hygiene intended for the Missouri school system, he brought together some of his staff again and made Tommy Tucker's Tooth , which earned the studio $ 500. Instead of paying off his creditors, the money was invested in the live-action/animation demonstration film Alice's Wonderland , starring

1998-518: The most notable films produced by Walt Disney. Due to problems related to Disney's scheduled productions of cartoons, a deal was made with Harman and Ising to produce three Silly Symphonies: Merbabies , Pipe Dreams , and The Little Bantamweight . Only one of these cartoons, Merbabies , ended up being bought by Disney, the remaining two Harman-Ising Silly Symphonies were then sold to MGM who released them as Happy Harmonies cartoons. Disney ceased production of Silly Symphonies in 1939. The series

2052-449: The original Dumbo VHS included Father Noah's Ark , The Practical Pig and Three Orphan Kittens as bonus shorts to make up for the film's short length. In the UK, several Silly Symphonies were released in compilations under Disney Videos' "Storybook Favourites" brand. The three "Storybook Favourites Shorts" volumes released included among others, The Three Little Pigs , The Tortoise and

2106-447: The perfect opportunity to acquire Silly Symphonies after Disney broke with Celebrity Productions head Pat Powers after Powers signed Disney's colleague Ub Iwerks to a studio contract. Columbia Pictures (1930–1932) agreed to pick up the direct distribution of the Mickey Mouse series on the condition that they would have exclusive rights to distribute the Silly Symphonies series; at first, Silly Symphonies could not even come close to

2160-517: The popularity Mickey Mouse had. The original title cards to the shorts released by Celebrity Productions and Columbia Pictures were all redrawn after Walt Disney stopped distributing his cartoons through them. Meanwhile, more competition spread for Disney after Max Fleischer 's flapper cartoon character Betty Boop began to gain more and more popularity after starring in the cartoon Minnie the Moocher . By August 1932, Betty Boop became so popular that

2214-412: The previous two-tone Technicolor process. Disney signed a contract with Technicolor which gave the Disney studio exclusive rights to the new three-strip process through the end of 1935, and had a 60% complete Symphony , Flowers and Trees , scrapped and redone in full color. Flowers and Trees was the first animated film to use the three-strip Technicolor process, and was a phenomenal success. Within

Harman and Ising - Misplaced Pages Continue

2268-466: The producer who had vetoed their demands for bigger budgets, and went to Van Beuren Studios , which was making cartoons for RKO Radio Pictures . There, they were offered a contract to produce the Cubby Bear cartoon series. Harman and Ising produced two released cartoons for this series, but were in the midst of making a third cartoon when a contractual dispute arose. The pair left Van Beuren, but kept

2322-450: The requested 12 films with little income. Encouraged and inspired by his shorts' popularity at the theatre, Disney decided he wanted to make his own animated versions of fairy tales too, and invested six months on his first attempt at Little Red Riding Hood . Among Disney's employees on the series were several pioneers of animation: Ub Iwerks , Hugh Harman , Friz Freleng , and Carman Maxwell . The company had financial problems and by

2376-694: The studio have entered into the public domain as of 2019. The missing fairy tale cartoons were Jack and the Beanstalk , Jack the Giant Killer , and Goldie Locks and the Three Bears (all 1922). In October 2010, copies of all three cartoons had been found according to animation historian David Gerstein . For many years the two Jack cartoons were believed to be one, until researcher John Kenworthy located old studio assets sheets confirming that they were separate shorts. Silly Symphonies Silly Symphony (also known as Silly Symphonies )

2430-443: The studio, as RKO Radio Pictures , Disney's distributor, did not want to release another studio's cartoons. Harman and Ising sold the cartoons to MGM, and Quimby later agreed to hire the animators back to the studio. Ising created the character Barney Bear for MGM at this time, basing the sleepy-eyed character partially on himself. In 1939, Harman created Peace on Earth , a downbeat morality tale about two squirrels discovering

2484-517: The task The Golden Touch was widely seen (even by Disney himself) as stiff and slowly paced. This motivated him to embrace his role as being the producer and providing creative oversight (especially of the story) for Snow White while tasking David Hand to handle the actual directing. Silly Symphonies brought along many imitators, including Warner Bros. cartoon series Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies , MGM's Happy Harmonies , and later, Universal's Swing Symphony . Years later after

2538-508: The work of others. Their repeated attempts to make quality cartoons and their refusal to be bound by budgets led to numerous disputes with their producers. Because of this, they were unable to create any enduring characters. Instead, they created studios that would later produce such characters. Ising and Harman were portrayed in the feature film Walt Before Mickey by David Henrie and Hunter Gomez . Laugh-O-Gram Studio The Laugh-O-Gram Studio (also called Laugh-O-Gram Studios )

2592-585: The youthful Virginia Davis . Disney had noted how popular the Out of the Inkwell series from the Fleischer Studios was, which had animated characters interacting with the real world. By reversing this gimmick and using a real-life character in a cartoon universe instead, he hoped for a hit. Virginia Davis's contract with Laugh-O-Gram was signed by her parents on April 23, 1923, with terms giving her 5% of

2646-403: Was a timid little guy. By tapping him on the nose with my pencil, I trained him to run inside a black circle I drew on my drawing board. When I left Kansas City to try my luck at Hollywood, I hated to leave him behind. So I carefully carried him to a backyard, making sure it was a nice neighborhood, and the tame little fellow scampered to freedom. In 1928 during a train trip to New York, he showed

2700-474: Was an animation studio located on the second floor of the McConahay Building at 1127 East 31st in Kansas City, Missouri , that operated from June 28, 1921, to October 16, 1923. In the early years of animation , the studio was home to many of the pioneers of animation, brought there by Walt Disney . It was the site of inspiration for Disney and Ub Iwerks to create Mickey Mouse . Laugh-O-Gram

2754-525: Was fired from Disney in March 1927, when Disney signed the contract to distribute Oswald films to Universal Pictures . It was during this time that Harman and Ising developed a style of cartoon drawing that would later be closely associated with, and credited to, Disney. When producer Charles Mintz ended his association with Disney, the majority of Disney's animators, including Harman and Ising, went to work for Mintz, whose brother-in-law, George Winkler, set up

SECTION 50

#1732782931257

2808-417: Was first distributed by Pat Powers from 1929 to 1930 and released by Celebrity Productions (1929–1930) indirectly through Columbia Pictures . The original basis of the cartoons was musical novelty, and the musical scores of the first cartoons were composed by Carl Stalling . After viewing "The Skeleton Dance", the manager at Columbia Pictures quickly became interested in distributing the series, and gained

2862-455: Was founded and headed by Fred Quimby . Harman and Ising still found work at the time as animation freelancers. Harman and Ising lent their former ink-and-painters to Walt Disney while Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was behind schedule. Disney afterward commissioned Harman and Ising to produce a Silly Symphony cartoon ( Merbabies ), in return. Disney later reneged on a deal he had made for two other Harman-Ising cartoons to be produced for

2916-471: Was profiled on episode 6 of Cartoon Dump . Rudy Ising was the voice of Sir Gee Whiz. After Gee-Whiz, both Harman and Ising retired from their careers in animation. Although Harman and Ising contributed to much of what would later be known as the Disney style, they have been dismissed as mere copycats. In reality, Harman and Ising never attempted to imitate Disney; they were attempting to make refined polished cartoons whose quality would shine in comparison to

#256743