Golden age of American animation


The golden age of American animation was a period that began with the popularization of sound synchronized cartoons in 1928 starting with Steamboat Willie, and gradually ended throughout the 1960s when theatrical animated cartoon film shorts started to lose popularity to the newer medium of television. Animated media from after the golden age, especially on television, were produced on cheaper budgets and with more limited techniques starting in the late 1950s.
Multiple highly popular animated cartoon characters emerged from this period, including:
Over the course of these four decades, the quality of the media released throughout the golden age has often been debated. The peak of this era is usually cited as during the 1930s and 1940s, attributed to the theatrical run of studios including Walt Disney Animation Studios, Warner Bros. Cartoons, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Cartoons, Paramount Cartoon Studios, Walter Lantz Productions, Terrytoons, and Fleischer Studios. In later decades, namely between the 1950s and 1960s, the era is sometimes divided into a "silver age" due to the emergence of studios such as UPA, DePatie–Freleng Enterprises, Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, and Jay Ward Productions; these companies' presence in the industry grew significantly with the rise of television following the golden age's conclusion. Furthermore, the history of animation became very important artistically in the United States.
Feature-length animation began during this period, most notably with Disney's "Walt-era" films, spanning from 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and 1940's Pinocchio to 1967's The Jungle Book and 1970's The Aristocats. During this period, several live-action films incorporated animation, such as Saludos Amigos, Anchors Aweigh, Song of the South, Dangerous When Wet, Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. In addition, stop motion and special effects were also developed, with films such as King Kong, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The War of the Worlds, Hansel and Gretel: An Opera Fantasy, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Forbidden Planet, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Animation also began on television during this period with Crusader Rabbit and early versions of Rocky and Bullwinkle, both from Jay Ward Productions. The rise of television animation is often considered to be a factor that hastened the golden age's end. However, various authors include Hanna-Barbera's earliest animated series through 1962 as part of the golden age, with shows like Ruff and Reddy, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Top Cat, Wally Gator and The Jetsons, including the theatrical cartoons released by Columbia Pictures such as Loopy De Loop and the feature films released between 1964 and 1966. Huckleberry Hound became the first animated television series to win an Emmy Award.

Major studios

Walt Disney Productions

Beginnings

had originally planned to become a newspaper cartoonist drawing political caricatures and comic strips. However, nobody would hire him, so his older brother Roy, who was working as a banker at the time, got him a job at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio where he created advertisements for newspapers, magazines, and movie theaters. Here he met fellow cartoonist Ub Iwerks. The two quickly became friends, and in January 1920, when their time at the studio expired, they decided to open up their own advertising agency together called Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists. The business, however, got off to a rough start and Disney temporarily left for the Kansas City Film and Ad Co. to raise money for the fleeting company and Iwerks soon followed as he was unable to run the business alone.
While working there he made commercials for local theaters using crude cut-out animation. Disney became fascinated by the art and decided to become an animator. He then borrowed a camera from work and rented a book from the local library called Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, Their Origin and Development by Edwin G. Lutz, decided that cel animation would produce better quality, and decided to open up his own animation studio. Disney then teamed up with Fred Harman and made their first film, The Little Artist which was nothing more than an artist taking a cigarette break at his work desk. Harman soon dropped out of the venture, but Disney was able to strike a deal with local theater owner Frank L. Newman and animated a cartoon by himself entitled Newman Laugh-O-Grams screened in roughly February 1921. Disney then quit his job at the film and ad company and incorporated Laugh-O-Gram Films in May 1922, and hired former advertising colleagues as unpaid "students" of animation including Ub Iwerks and Fred Harman's brother, Hugh Harman.
Throughout 1922, the Disney company produced a series of "modernized" adaptations of fairy tales including Little Red Riding Hood, The Four Musicians of Bremen, Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack the Giant Killer, Goldielocks and the Three Bears, Puss in Boots, Cinderella and Tommy Tucker's Tooth, the latter being mostly a live-action film about dental hygiene. None of these films turned a profit. The last film made by the Disney company was a short called Alice's Wonderland. Loosely inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the short featured a live-action five-year-old girl named Alice who had adventures in a fully animated world. The film was never fully completed, however, as the studio went bankrupt in the summer of 1923.
Upon the closure of Laugh-O-Grams, Walt Disney worked as a freelance filmmaker before selling his camera for a one-way ticket to Los Angeles. Upon arrival, he moved in with his Uncle Robert and his brother Roy, who was recovering at a nearby government hospital from tuberculosis he had suffered during World War I. After failing to get a job as a director of live-action films he sent the unfinished Alice's Wonderland reel to short-subjects distributor Margaret J. Winkler of Winkler Pictures in New York. Winkler was distributing both the Felix the Cat and Out of the Inkwell cartoons at the time, but the Fleischer brothers were about to leave to set up their own distribution company, Red Seal Films, and Felix producer Pat Sullivan was constantly fighting with Winkler; therefore, Winkler agreed to distribute Disney's Alice Comedies as a kind of insurance policy.
Once Walt Disney received the notice on October 15, he convinced Roy to leave the hospital and help him set up his business. The next day, on October 16, 1923, Disney Bros. Cartoon Studio opened its doors at a small rented office two blocks away from his uncle's house with Roy managing business and Walt handling creative affairs. He persuaded Virginia Davis's parents to bring her to Los Angeles to star in the films. The first official Alice short, Alice's Day at Sea, was released on January 1, 1924, delayed by eleven days. Ub Iwerks was re-hired in February 1925 and the quality of animation on the Alice series improved; this prompted Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and Carman Maxwell to follow Disney west in June 1925. Around that time, Davis was replaced with Maggie Gay and the cartoons started to focus less on the live-action scenes and more the fully animated scenes, particularly those featuring Alice's pet sidekick Julius, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Felix the Cat. In February 1926, Disney built a larger studio at 2719 Hyperion Avenue and changed the name of the company to Walt Disney Cartoons.
In November 1923, Winkler married Charles Mintz and handed over the business to him when she became pregnant a few months later. Mintz was often described as a cold, stern and ruthless chain-smoking tyrant; one employee remembered him as "a grim-faced man, with a pair of cold eyes glittering behind the pince nez" who "never talked to the staff. He looked us over like an admiral surveying a row of stanchions." While Winkler had offered gentle critiques and encouragement, Mintz communicated to Disney in a harsh and cruel tone. In 1927, Mintz ordered Disney to stop producing Alice Comedies due to the costs of combining live-action and animation.
Mintz managed to gain a distribution deal with Universal Studios; however it was Mintz—not Disney—who signed the deal. Disney and lead animator Ub Iwerks created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who debuted in Trolley Troubles short in 1927. The Oswald series was a success and became the first hit for the Walt Disney studio.
In the spring of 1928, Disney travelled to New York to ask Mintz for a budget increase. His request was harshly denied by Mintz, who pointed out that in the contract Mintz had signed with Universal, it was Universal—not Disney—that owned the rights to the character. Mintz revealed to Disney that he had hired most of his staff away from the studio and threatened that unless he took a 20 percent budget decrease, he would drop Disney and continue the Oswald series by himself. Disney refused, and Winkler Pictures dropped its distribution.