Famous Studios


Famous Studios was the first animation division of the film studio Paramount Pictures from 1942 to 1967. Famous was established as a successor company to Fleischer Studios, after Paramount seized control of the studio amid the departure of its founders, Max and Dave Fleischer, in 1942. The studio's productions included three series started by the Fleischers—Popeye the Sailor, Superman, and Screen Songs—as well as Little Audrey, Little Lulu, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Honey Halfwitch, Herman and Katnip, Baby Huey, and the Noveltoons and Modern Madcaps series.
The Famous name was previously used by Famous Players Film Company, one of several companies which in 1912 became Famous Players–Lasky Corporation, the company which founded Paramount Pictures. Paramount's music publishing branch, which held the rights to all of the original music in the Fleischer/Famous cartoons, was named Famous Music, and a movie theater chain in Canada owned by Paramount was called Famous Players.

Studios

The library of Famous Studios cartoons is currently divided between three separate film studios :

Fleischer Studios dissolution

was a successful animation studio responsible for producing cartoon shorts starring characters such as Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor. The studio moved its operations from New York City to Miami, Florida in 1938, following union problems and the start of production on its first feature film, Gulliver's Travels. While Gulliver was a success, the expense of the move and increased overhead costs created financial problems for the studio, which then depended on advances and loans from its distributor, Paramount Pictures, in order to continue production on its short subjects and to begin work on a second feature, Mr. Bug Goes to Town.
Compounding the problem was the animosity between studio's co-founders, brothers Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer, who were becoming increasingly estranged, and by this time were no longer speaking to each other due to personal and professional disputes. On May 25, 1941, Paramount assumed full ownership of Fleischer Studios, and required the Fleischer brothers to submit signed letters of resignation, to be used at Paramount's discretion. Following the unsuccessful release of Mr. Bug in December 1941, Max Fleischer sent Paramount a telegram expressing his inability to cooperate with Dave. Paramount responded by producing the letters of resignation, severing the Fleischer brothers from control of their studio.
Paramount renamed the studio Famous Studios. Paramount owned the company but Famous remained a separate entity. Three top Fleischer employees were promoted to run the animation studio: business manager Sam Buchwald, storyboard artist Isadore Sparber, and Max Fleischer's son-in-law, head animator Seymour Kneitel. Buchwald assumed Max Fleischer's place as executive producer, while Sparber and Kneitel shared Dave Fleischer's former responsibilities as supervising producers and credited directors. A third director, Dan Gordon, remained only briefly before being fired shortly after the move to New York. Although the Fleischers left the studio at the end of 1941, Famous Studios was not officially incorporated until May 25, 1942, after Paramount's contract with Fleischer Studios had formally run its course. The first Famous Studios cartoon was the Popeye short You're a Sap, Mr. Jap, released on August 7, 1942.

Early years

Shortly after the takeover, Paramount began plans to move a significantly downsized Famous Studios back to New York, a move completed early in 1943. Virtually all of the Famous staff, including voice artist/storyman Jack Mercer, storyman Carl Meyer, voice artist Mae Questel, and animators such as Myron Waldman, David Tendlar, Thomas Johnson, Nicholas Tafuri, and Al Eugster, were holdovers from the Fleischer era. These artists remained with Famous/Paramount for much of the studio's existence. As at Fleischer, the head animators carried out the tasks that were assigned to animation directors at other studios, while the credited directors—Kneitel, Sparber, Gordon, and Disney/Terrytoons veteran Bill Tytla—acted more as supervisors. Sammy Timberg served as musical director until he was succeeded in 1944 by Winston Sharples, who formerly worked with the Van Beuren Studios.
Continuing series from the Fleischer period included Popeye the Sailor and Superman, both licensed from popular comics characters. The expensive Superman cartoons, having lost their novelty value with exhibitors, ended production in 1943, a year after Famous' inception. They were replaced by a series starring the Saturday Evening Post comic-strip character Little Lulu. Also in 1943, Famous began producing the formerly black-and-white Popeye cartoons in Technicolor, and began a new series of one-shot cartoons under the umbrella title Noveltoons.
The Noveltoons series introduced several popular characters such as Herman and Katnip, Baby Huey, and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Casper was created by writer Seymour Reit and Famous animator Joe Oriolo in the late 1930s as a children's-book manuscript, and was sold to Famous during World War II. It became the studio's most successful wholly owned property.
In 1947, Paramount decided to stop paying Little Lulu creator Marge Buell licensing royalties, and created another "mischievous girl" character, Little Audrey, as a replacement. That same year Famous resurrected an old Fleischer series, Screen Songs, introducing a new series of musical cartoons featuring a "bouncing ball" sing-along. In 1951, the Screen Songs became "Kartune Musical Shorts," which ended in 1953 after Max Fleischer claimed ownership of the "bouncing ball" trademark. Only two more musical cartoons were released : 1954's Candy Cabaret and 1963's Hobo's Holiday.

Later period and sales of cartoon libraries

Sam Buchwald died of a heart attack in 1951. Seymour Kneitel and Isadore Sparber became the production heads of the studio shortly afterward, and Dave Tendlar was promoted to director in 1953.
The mid- and late-1950s brought a number of significant changes for Famous Studios. In 1955, Paramount sold most of its 1942–1950 shorts and cartoons to U.M. & M. TV Corporation for television distribution. The Popeye cartoons were acquired by Associated Artists Productions, and the Superman cartoons had already reverted to Superman's owners National Comics after the studio's film rights to the character had expired. On October 1, 1956, Famous Studios was downsized and reorganized. Paramount assumed full control of the studio, integrating it as a division named Paramount Cartoon Studios. Around the same time, Isadore Sparber was fired, leaving Seymour Kneitel in sole charge of the studio. In addition, because of studio budget cuts, the animation quality of the shorts began to drop sharply, eventually being reduced to limited animation by the end of the decade. Paramount also ceased using Technicolor by this time in favor of less expensive color processes. The last Famous Studios short to use Technicolor was Katnip's Big Day, the finale of the Herman and Katnip cartoon series. Despite the studio submitting some of their shorts for Academy Award consideration, none received a nomination.
Paramount sold its 1950–59 cartoon film library and the rights to its established characters to Harvey Comics in 1959. Paramount's attempts at creating replacement characters, among them Jeepers and Creepers and The Cat, proved unsuccessful. Nonetheless, television animation production outsourced from King Features and Harvey Films brought the company additional income. Ironically, these arrangements had Paramount working on new television cartoons starring Casper, whom they had originally created, and Popeye and Little Lulu, characters they had previously licensed for theatrical cartoons. In the case of King Features' Popeye and King Features Trilogy TV cartoons, Paramount was one of several animation studios, among them Jack Kinney Productions and Rembrandt Films, to which King Features subcontracted production. The first of only two all-new Little Lulu cartoons after the character's 13-year hiatus off-screen, Alvin's Solo Flight, was released as part of the Noveltoons series in 1961, while twelve of the King Features Trilogy cartoons, starring characters such as Krazy Kat, Little Lulu, Beetle Bailey, and Snuffy Smith, were released theatrically by Paramount in 1962 under the title Comic Kings. In 1963, Paramount sold its pre-March 1962 cartoons to Harvey for one U.S. dollar, as part of a larger agreement to produce 26 new Casper cartoons for Harvey's The New Casper Cartoon Show for $78,000.
Seymour Kneitel died of a heart attack in 1964, and Paramount brought in comic-book veteran Howard Post to run the cartoon studio. Under Post's supervision, Paramount began new cartoon series and characters such as Swifty and Shorty and Honey Halfwitch, and allowed comic strip artist Jack Mendelsohn to direct two well-received cartoons based upon children's imaginations and drawing styles: The Story of George Washington and A Leak in the Dike. Around the same time, Paramount would also distribute the Nudnik cartoons from Rembrandt Films.
Post left the studio due to internal conflicts with the Paramount staff. His replacement was Shamus Culhane, a veteran of the Fleischer Studios. Culhane completed a few films that Post started and then ignored the rule book and made films that were very different from the previous regime. In 1966, the studio subcontracted The Mighty Thor cartoons from Grantray-Lawrence Animation, producers of the animated television series The Marvel Super Heroes. In 1967, Culhane directed another short based on children's art, My Daddy, the Astronaut, which became Paramount's first film to be shown at an animation festival. However, when Paramount's board of directors rejected a proposal to produce episodes for a second Grantray-Lawrence series, Spider-Man, Culhane quit the studio, and was succeeded by former Terrytoons animator Ralph Bakshi in mid-1967.
In 1967, Paramount radically revamped its short-subject release schedule to reflect all-new attractions. Black-and-white subjects were discontinued, as were all cartoon reissues. The studio retired the Noveltoons and Modern Madcaps series, replacing them with Go Go Toons, Merry Makers, and Fractured Fables. Ralph Bakshi quickly put several shorts into production, experimenting with new characters and ideas, but by late 1967 Paramount's new owners, Gulf+Western, had decided to shut down the animation studio, a task completed in December. The last cartoon from Paramount Cartoon Studios, , the finale of the Fractured Fables series, premiered on December 31, 1967.