The Story of Bosko, the First Looney Tune | THE MERRIE HISTORY OF LOONEY TUNES

Explore the origins of Looney Tunes and the pioneering animation work of Winsor McCay, Walt Disney, and early animators.

Key Takeaways

Winsor McCay's 'Gertie the Dinosaur' was a seminal work that inspired future animation pioneers.
Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks were key figures who transitioned from struggling artists to studio founders.
Early animation studios faced financial and creative challenges but laid the groundwork for iconic characters and series.
Looney Tunes originated from a studio rivaling Disney, beginning with the character Bosko.
Music and innovative animation techniques were crucial to the success of early animated shorts.

What the video covers

Winsor McCay's 1914 'Gertie the Dinosaur' was a groundbreaking animation that inspired future animators.
McCay's performance combined live interaction with animation, elevating his status as an artist.
Six young animators inspired by McCay, including Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, laid the foundation for modern animation.
Disney and Iwerks founded Walt Disney Studios, while others formed a rival studio.
Disney's early career involved struggles at Kansas City Film Ad Company and founding Laugh-O-Gram Studios.
Laugh-O-Gram Studios produced interstitials but failed financially, prompting Disney to move to Los Angeles.
The video covers the evolution of early animation studios and their competition with Disney.
It highlights the creation of Looney Tunes and the character Bosko as a precursor to famous Warner Bros. cartoons.
The influence of music and timing in early cartoons is discussed, as well as industry challenges like nepotism and studio conflicts.
The video traces the complex relationships and rivalries shaping the animation industry’s early years.

Chapters

Who was Winsor McCay and why is he important in animation history?

Winsor McCay was an early cartoonist and animator known for his 1914 film 'Gertie the Dinosaur,' which introduced innovative animation techniques and inspired a generation of animators.

What role did Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks play in early animation?

Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks were early commercial artists who founded Walt Disney Studios, pioneering new animation methods and creating iconic characters that shaped the industry.

How did the character Bosko contribute to the history of Looney Tunes?

Bosko was the first star of Looney Tunes, created by animators who rivaled Disney, marking the beginning of Warner Bros.' influential animation legacy.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

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On February 8th, 1914, in Chicago's Palace Theatre, cartoonist Winsor McCay was putting on a show. He stood before the crowd with a whip grasped in his hand. After giving a lecture on the making of animation, McCay stood to the right of a film screen and introduced the only dinosaur in captivity.

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film screen and introduced the only dinosaur in captivity the film began and the first thing the audience saw was a long-necked dinosaur poking her head out from a cave McKay called for the dinosaur named Gertie to come forward from there McKay

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The film began, and the first thing the audience saw was a long-necked dinosaur poking her head out from a cave. McCay called for the dinosaur, named Gertie, to come forward. From there, McCay commanded Gertie to do a series of tricks, from raising her foot, bowing on command, and even dancing on her two hind legs.

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distracting mammoths into a nearby lake but McKay was able to placate the Dino by giving her treats an illusion that he accomplished with a cardboard Apple for the film's finale McKay would walk off stage and reappear in the film

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Gertie wasn't always obedient, however, at times ignoring her master's orders and doing things such as hurling distracting mammoths into a nearby lake. But McCay was able to placate the dino by giving her treats, an illusion that he accomplished with a cardboard apple. For the film's finale, McCay would walk off stage and reappear in the film.

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status as an artist and while he couldn't take a show on the road thanks to restrictions placed on him by his employer newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst McKay was able to arrange for a film version of the performance to play in theaters allowing

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Gertie would then use her mouth to lift her master up, place him on her back, and walk away. Hasmik a bow to an applauding audience. Already a household name thanks to his Little Nemo comics, Gertie the Dinosaur considerably elevated Winsor McCay's status as an artist.

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inspire an entire generation of animators among those inspired by McKay's creation were six young men all Iwerks Hugh Harman Rudolph Ising Carmen Maxwell nicknamed max Isadora Freeling and Walter Elias Disney they didn't know it at the time but all six of these men

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And while he couldn't take a show on the road thanks to restrictions placed on him by his employer, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, McCay was able to arrange for a film version of the performance to play in theaters, allowing the feet of Gertie the Dinosaur to reach a larger audience than ever imagined.

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establish another studio it was very different from Disney's in many ways but it was and still is the animation studio that has ever truly rivaled Disney's and recognition and influence but their sword didn't begin with a mouse in order to begin with a

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While Gertie the Dinosaur was not the first animated feature film by any stretch of the imagination, its presentation and the revolutionary techniques that it introduced made the film inspire an entire generation of animators. Among those inspired by McCay's creation were six young men: Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman, Rudolph Ising, Carmen Maxwell, nicknamed Max, Isadora Freeling, and Walter Elias Disney.

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[Music] in 1920 in the heart of Kansas City Missouri two young artists with grand ambitions we're doing something that all young artists tend to do struggling Walt Disney and all by worse were two commercial artists who had just been

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They didn't know it at the time, but all six of these men would later end up laying the foundation for some of the greatest animation ever put to film. But they wouldn't be doing it together. Disney and Iwerks would go on to establish Walt Disney Studios, while the other four would go on to establish another studio.

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aspirations as a young age but struggled to figure out where he could use his artistic talents and while he was inspired by the worst of McKay it was at the Kansas City Film at company where his love for the medium truly ignited

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It was very different from Disney's in many ways, but it was and still is the animation studio that has ever truly rivaled Disney's in recognition and influence. But their sword didn't begin with a mouse, nor begin with a rabbit, nor duck, nor even a pig, but rather it all began with a jolly happy-go-lucky fellow by the name of Bosco.

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leave and start their own studio there they made interstitials for the local Newman theatre called numa's laughing rams thus giving the three men a new name for their studio peddle creatively laughs aghhhhh Ram studios by 1922 Fred Harmon decided that animation just

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The show once upon a time great opening up this Associated Press. The public has been demanding my life story.

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another struggling young artist in Kansas City who also happened to be friends with other struggling young artists in Kansas City on his first day of work he decided to bring along some of them Rudolph izing max Maxwell and

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In 1920, in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri, two young artists with grand ambitions were doing something that all young artists tend to do: struggling. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks were two commercial artists who had just been laid off from the Pesman Rubin commercial arts studio.

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or borrowing a camera from the film ad company every night and returning it early in the morning through the second-floor window when they weren't trying to meet deadlines the six men spent their free time learning how to animate better either by reading eg

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After failing to start their own business, the two friends decided to join the Kansas City Film Ad Company, a studio that produced animated commercials for theaters using cutout animation. Disney always had creative aspirations at a young age but struggled to figure out where he could use his artistic talents.

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treat those things rather freely and we would take scissors and clip out maybe 50 or 75 feet if they had a farmer owl swimming he would swim forever yeah I know stops he said turn around swim back the other way run them this way and then

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And while he was inspired by the works of McCay, it was at the Kansas City Film Ad Company where his love for the medium truly ignited. Experimenting in his downtime, Disney tried to persuade the company to switch from cutouts to the newer cel animation technology, which he saw as having a more promising future.

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financially Disney had a terrible habit of spending more on his films than the studio was making that combined with a limited distribution of the shorts put laugh-o-gram studios out of business within a year frustrated Disney left Kansas City for Los Angeles

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The company refused, which caused Disney, Iwerks, and a fellow coworker by the name of Fred Harmon to leave and start their own studio. There they made interstitials for the local Newman Theatre called Numa's Laughing Rams, thus giving the three men a new name for their studio: Laugh-O-Gram Studios.

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Winkler had played a crucial role in animation history up to that point having been the one to produce and distribute Pat Sullivan's Felix the cats and the Fleischer brothers out of the inkwell series by the time she met Walt

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By 1922, Fred Harmon decided that animation just wasn't for him and left to pursue a career in newspaper comics, where he would later create the famous Red Ryder series. Not wanting to leave Disney and Iwerks in a lurch, Harmon brought in his younger brother to replace him, Hugh Harman.

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Alice played by child actress Virginia Davis has adventures amongst an animated landscape alongside her animated cat sidekick Julius Walt wasted no time in luring his friends from Kansas City to Los Angeles Iwerks being a longtime friend immediately left in 1924 Harmon

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Hugh Harman was another struggling young artist in Kansas City who also happened to be friends with other struggling young artists in Kansas City. On his first day of work, he decided to bring along some of them: Rudolph Ising, Max Maxwell, and Isador Freeling, whom Harman had nicknamed Congressman Frisbee, or Friz for short.

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he did the majority of the work on Alice's Wonderland Harmon would become partners with Disney and share equal credits harmon for some reason believed him and in June of 1925 left Kansas City with Isaac not too far behind him in the meantime Walt also

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The work was hard, and the pay was often meager. The young animators would cut costs wherever they needed to, usually by living off canned beans for a few days or borrowing a camera from the Film Ad Company every night and returning it early in the morning through the second-floor window.

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actresses that they had to direct but all of them were still trying to perfect their animation skills than the process as a result the animation in these shorts were basic often kept backgrounds to a minimum and cut corners whenever it

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When they weren't trying to meet deadlines, the six men spent their free time learning how to animate better, either by reading Egbert Lutz's American Cartoons, one of the first books on the making of cartoons, and studying the short films of Paul Terry, often using his Farmer Alfalfa shorts as reference for the types of cartoons they wanted to make.

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Mintz immediately took charge of Winkler's operations and soon found himself very unhappy with the production cost of the Alice comedies the fact he always made sure to let Disney and friends know at every turn while the animation and gags and the Alice

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And in that there was no sound, we can treat those things rather freely, and we would take scissors and clip out maybe 50 or 75 feet. If they had a Farmer Alfalfa swimming, he would swim forever. Yeah, I know, stops, he said, turn around, swim back the other way, run them this way, and then turn and run the other way, that kind of thing.

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Harman about how he wish he had $10,000 so he could quit animation get into real estate and buy up all the properties on Sunset Boulevard Harman wanting to cheer his friend up said that's all right for you Walt

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If they needed dancing, we'd prune them pretty freely and keep these strips of films as studies, and that's what we learned to animate, that we learned not preparing. But the studio struggled financially. Disney had a terrible habit of spending more on his films than the studio was making.

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that after he said all of that Disney quote looked at him as if he had a hole in his head in 1927 twenty-one-year-old Friz Freleng was working for the united film ad service all the way back in Kansas City when he

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That, combined with a limited distribution of the shorts, put Laugh-O-Gram Studios out of business within a year. Frustrated, Disney left Kansas City for Los Angeles in order to be closer to his older brother Roy. In his luggage, he took the last short he did for Laugh-O-Grams, Alice's Wonderland, to see if he could shop it around to distributors.

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renamed to the Walt Disney studio Freeling was hesitant he liked having stable employment at the ad service and was making good money at it as well but Disney is that he would help freely improve his craft and help catch him up to the kinds

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Luckily for him, he found one in Margaret Winkler. Winkler had played a crucial role in animation history up to that point, having been the one to produce and distribute Pat Sullivan's Felix the Cat and the Fleischer brothers' Out of the Inkwell series.

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cost and technical limitations to replace Alice Disney and I worse had created a new character a happy-go-lucky rabbit by the name of Oswald at the time Hospital was different from other cartoon stars he was created with the intent to explore what Disney called

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By the time she met Walt, she was in the process of losing the rights to both, as she needed a replacement fast. This led to Disney getting a deal to make the Alice Comedies, a series of animated cartoons where a live-action little girl named Alice, played by child actress Virginia Davis, has adventures amongst an animated landscape alongside her animated cat sidekick Julius.

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implement camera angles lighting and editing styles of live-action films into their shorts the first Oswald short poor papa was rejected by Universal to do sloppy animation and Oswald's design being considered too old and tired looking Disney Studios use this as a learning

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Walt wasted no time in luring his friends from Kansas City to Los Angeles. Iwerks, being a longtime friend, immediately left in 1924. Harman and Ising, on the other hand, were far more reluctant. They wanted to form their own cartoon studio where they would make animated shorts based on the Arabian Nights stories.

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unpolished in its animation thus making the gags not land all the way the animation and trolley troubles was way more flexible and fluid it showed off Oswald's personality a lot better and also made the gags way funnier the

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But Disney was able to convince Harman by saying that because he did the majority of the work on Alice's Wonderland, Harman would become partners with Disney and share equal credits. Harman, for some reason, believed him, and in June of 1925, left Kansas City with Ising not too far behind him.

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medium of choice to his full potential Hugh Harman himself had breathed a lot of the personality into the Oswald shores by using the cinematic traits that Disney had taught him not only was he masked for like creating some of the

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In the meantime, Walt also made his first hire, an animator named Roland Hamilton, nicknamed Ham, at the newly minted Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. Production on the Alice shorts was tough. Not only did they have to deal with a constantly rotating cast of child actresses that they had to direct, but all of them were still trying to perfect their animation skills and the process as a result.

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Oswald's chores were such a huge hit but Disney was not satisfied he felt like cartoons of this period had fallen into our ruts and that distributors were using them as filler Disney felt like he needed to make Oswald bigger and better

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The animation in these shorts was basic, often kept backgrounds to a minimum, and cut corners whenever it could. But the team shared a genuine camaraderie with each other and could really feel their work improving with each short. Around the time, however, changes were on the horizon, as Margaret Winkler had married another fellow pro.

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towards making better Oswald shorts to his shock not only did Mintz deny him the raise but if Disney didn't take a 20% pay cut he would not only lose the rights to Oswald but also his entire animation crew who had just signed their

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contracts with Mintz all I works and his new apprentice les Clark we're only some of the few who didn't sign this was surprising news to Disney but not surprising to his crew between 1925 and 28th a lot had changed the Disney

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Studios and that extended to the atmosphere surrounding it the chummy camaraderie that got them through the Alice days had given away to a more hostile environments despite having stopped animating sometime around 1925 Disney had a very specific idea of how

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animation should be done and pushed it on his staff relentlessly his many outbursts towards us that was also a point of contention max Maxwell were called an incident where Disney tore down doodles the others had done off the

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walls simply because he thought they were wasting their time drawing them instead of working other incidents include firing Rudi izing for falling asleep at an animation camera and getting into frequent outbursts with Isadora Freeling whom he often bullied

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because he thought his work wasn't up to par with the rest of the team Freeling had gone back to Kansas City after one argument too many ultimately it was this growing bitterness towards Disney that led to the splits Hugh Harman in

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particular carried a special grudge because he felt like Disney reneged on his promise that got him to Los Angeles in the first place he wanted to work with Disney not for Disney defeated Disney left New York and went back to

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Los Angeles to work with I works on a shorts involving a plane and a mouse the defecting animators continue to work with miss the finish of their contracted shorts under the supervision of Margaret Winkler's brother George Winkler but Harmon Maxwell izing Hamilton and

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recently rejoined Freeling soon realized that Winkler was even more of a controlling presence than Disney ever was izing described him as a grandmother that all of us resented very much the sour mood got even more exasperated when Rudy izing once again

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got fired this time for coming in a few minutes late the day after Christmas this environment would last for less than a year as Universal decided that instead of farming out cartoons to an outside studio they would establish

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their own animation departments minces contract was terminated and the rights to Oswald were then transferred to the new head of universals animation departments Walter Lantz though Harmon and the rest of the defectors were out of the job they saw this as a golden

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opportunity since all of them bristled at Authority Hugh Harman in particular they could now make their own studio free from controlling bosses like Disney and Winkler after securing a small studio space in the auto-pay olsen building in hollywood the team

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immediately got to work on their first project hugh Hartman had always wanted to make a sound cartoon since the technology was available he was seeing how his old friend was currently revolutionising cartoons by utilizing synchronized sounds and he decided he

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could one-up him with an idea of his own it would involve a character that he had been sketching out since his days at Disney his name was Bosco well here are you sure feel good on May 29th Hugh Harmon and his crew produced their

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first independent shorts Bosco the talking kid animated by the Disney defectors alongside other former Disney animators norm Blackburn and Paul Smith the short featured Rudy izing playing himself drawing the titular character who immediately comes to life he introduces himself Bosco voiced by max

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Maxwell upon being prompted to show izing what he can do proceeded to tap dance and sing at one point izing draws Bosco a piano which Bosco begins to play while singing [Music] this continues until Eisen gets annoyed with the character sucks him back into

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his fountain pen and bores him back into the ink bottle the short comes to an end with Bosco popping out of the bottle and saying these words to the audience the short being less than five minutes long was produced as a demo reel to show

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potential distributors what Harman and Ising x' crew could do with their own character was set this short apart from the sound cartoons Disney was putting out at the time was that while Disney shorts was focused primarily on sound

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effects and music Harman and Ising short had no musical soundtrack aside from Bosco playing the piano the short instead emphasized the exchange of dialogue between Isaac and Bosco as well delivered his lines in front of a second camera while Isaac was being filmed so

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that his mouth movements could serve as reference for Bosco's dialogue and while the audio synchronization was crude Bosco's dialogue is obviously mixed better than Isaac's it was still very impressive for such a small outfit of independent animators plus it also

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marked one of the first of many times a character would break the fourth wall [Music] why the audience bottle no make them while my opus of that year harmonizing began looking for distributors but it was a lot more difficult than they

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thought major studios such as Paramount and Universal already had contracts with the Fleischer brothers of Walter Lantz respectively and even though Disney Steamboat Willie was the shot in the arm that animated shorts needed a lot of studios still didn't see the value in

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what they considered a filler content many considered the shorts music free sound tried to have worked against it Harmon recalled hearing in the many interviews he had with Studios about how they were a little early in making dialogue the focal point by January 1930

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harmonizing still had no distributor and were seriously considering going back to Mintz enter Leon Schlesinger Leon Schlesinger was a Philadelphia native who had founded the Pacific title and art studio in 1919 most of the studio's business was making title cards for

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silent movies by 1930 the talkies were taking over and Leon was looking for a way to stay in business though he was a shrewd businessman Schlesinger has spent most of his life in the theater having done stints as an usher an actor

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and a theater manager this gave him an amazing eye for talent and he had faith in showbiz ventures that others would consider risky he had gotten into the good graces with the big of certain movie studio Warner Brothers by helping

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them fund a risky project of theirs called the jazz singer Warner Brothers founder Sam Warner had been trying to pioneer sound and film in a time where such a thing was considered a cheap gimmick his ventures in retrofitting

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Warner theaters with the sound technology known as Vitaphone had nearly bankrupted the company and Warner Brothers needed a big hit to not only prove that sound film was viable but also to keep the studio from closing down with the help of Schlesinger the

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studio was able to make the jazz singer letting the studio three million in earnings around forty four million today and helping usher in the era of the talk sadly Sam Warner never got to enjoy the fruits of his labors as he unexpectedly

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died of pneumonia the night before the premiere through a mutual friend Leon met with the two animators and washed their shorts he immediately saw potential in the two animators and signed them instantly to a three-year contract with Warner Brothers

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On January 28th 1930 Warner Brothers had been trying to find a suitable animated short series that would use their Vitaphone technology to promote popular songs from their films and music publishing companies one of them being John McCrory short lived Buster bear

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series not much information can be found about the series or its studio except for the rumor that McCrory would regularly beat his staff if they were late turning in their work in the end Warner Brothers thought Schlesinger's production outfit was better in the long

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term and bought 13 cartoon shorts from him 5,000 for the first 7500 for the rest with the deal signed Harmon izing and the crew got to work on their new series the first thing they did was concoct a title taking inspiration from

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their old friend Disney Silly Symphonies shorts harmonizing christened their new series of shorts with the original title of Looney Tunes [Music] on April 19 1930 the first Looney tune short sinking in the bathtub premiered in theaters released alongside the lost

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Warner Brothers film the song of the flame the simplistic plot of the cartoon involves Bosco enjoying a bath before getting dressed up to go court his sweetheart honey throughout the cartoon not only does he whistle the titular song but he also plays other songs such

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as tiptoe through the tulips and I am forever blowing bubbles was the short lactam plot it more than made up for an animation Bosco and honey were both very elastic characters in the physical sense being able to squash and

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stretch in such incredible ways to the point their movements were almost hypnotic a quality shared by the objects in world surrounding them which appears to have a mind of its own with gags involving things such as a bathtub prancing around while throwing

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toilet paper like flowers and Bosco calling for his car which comes out of a nearby outhouse if anything Sinkin was a far more refined Oswald cartoon complete with Harmons favorite gag of a character lunging at the camera with their mouths

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wide open all in all an all-right star / harmonizing 'he's new series Leon Schlesinger hired as much help as he could get to make both his and harmonising jobs much easier for editing and sound effects he hired sound

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engineer and composer Bernard B brown brown already had a regular job at Warner Brothers studio recording film scores for feature films but still gladly took the job Schlesinger also hired Frank Marsalis a symphony musician to compose the music harmonizing

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meanwhile took to hiring more animators help lighten the workload among them was a 21 year old in-betweener named Robert McKimson the first lady of Bosco cartoons were rather simple Affairs usually involving bosco and sometimes honey and a location doing a job whether

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that job was exploring a jungle working on a farm or entering a horse races irrelevance all that matters is that things will involve an extended singing and dancing routine that's the focal point of the entire cartoon it also

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didn't help that both Bosco and honey were incredibly flat characters it's no secret that the two of them were rough fast similes of making a Minnie Mouse and Harmon Nuits he would often assign animators to go to the movies after work

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study is seen from a Mickey Mouse shorts and see if they can make Bosco do the same his desire to be Disney meant he was not above plagiarism there's also the elephant in the room regarding Bosco's design a lot of animation

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historians have made reference to the fact that Bosco has the unfortunate resemblance to a character in blackface and those claims are not without merits when Max Maxwell voiced the character he put on a distinct Southern African American dialect

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and in the copyright registration Bosko is identified as a little negro boy yeah but a lot of the minstrel ii elements of bosco got scrubbed surprisingly quickly the dialect was dropped after the first cartoon once Maxwell stopped voicing him

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and Harmon and the rest of the crew were very cagey when asked exactly what Bosco was supposed to be Rudy izing in particular preferred to call Bosco and Ink Spots in a letter to black animation historian Christopher P layman animator

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Jack Zander addressed this we had a cleaning man or handyman or whatever who used to hang around the studio and he asked me one day you got Mickey Mouse and Felix the cats but Bosco the what I couldn't answer no one admitted openly

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that he was a little black boy but it was true perhaps the beginning of a racist conscience but even with all the racial baggage one cannot deny that Bosco had a certain charm about him Harmon and crew had taken the lessons of

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Disney's personality animation to heart Bosco was animated in a way that caused him to approach every single task with this unrestrained almost infectious joy he could make something as simple as eating a sandwich looked like the greatest thing in the world this

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extended to honey who shared Bosco's happiness she and Bosco never just walked from one location to another they danced well not as immediately acclaimed as Disney or even the Fleischer brothers sinking in the bathtub was still critically lauded and showed Warner

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Brothers that the cartoon shorts were moneymakers Schlesinger in particular seemed to be taken in by the cartoons use of the Warner's licensed soundtrack and how it promoted not just one but three of the studio songs in entertaining and memorable ways this

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instantly gave him an idea for a sister series shortly after the anniversary of the contract signing that began Looney Tunes Schlesinger signed another contract to produce a second series of shorts On January 13 19 one wall Looney Toons was still doing

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well it had already moved away from his musical roots to a more gag focused series the sister series would be a lot more focused on music and would have character singing songs to promote Warner Brothers Recordings and sheet

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music Warner Brothers having recently acquired Brunswick records along with four music publishers had tried to do this concept a year prior with a live-action series called spoon II melodies but with the success of Looney Tunes they decided to make this series

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of musical shorts entirely animated the name of the series would be called Merrie Melodies after wrapping up production on the 12th store in the Looney Tunes series the trees knees harmonizing decided to split their workload after completing the first

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Merrie Melodies shorts Hugh Harman would head up direction on the Looney Toon series while izing would begin work on the new Merrie Melodies series Leyland Schlessinger also hired more staff to their studio one of them being an 18

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year old kid who was known in the area for selling sketches of Mickey Mouse outside the Disney studio with Walt's permission of course after viewing the kids 60 millimeter reel of animations he did Leon hired him on the spot the kids

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name was Robert clampets but he preferred to be called Bob on August 2nd 1931 the first of the Merrie Melodies short premiered titled lady player mandolin the last short harmonizing directed together I'll be it uncredited not only did it Martin the official

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debut of Warner Brothers new series but it also debuted eysies new original characters foxy and his near identical girlfriend unofficially named Roxy [Music] but it wouldn't be until a month later when the Merrie Melodies series truly began in earnest with smile darn ya

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smile centered around foxy and Roxie singing the titular song while riding a trolley the short was a stealth remake of the Oswald cartoon trolley troubles the short also featured the first instance of a gag that would later become a Warner Brothers cartoon staple

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of billboards and advertisements coming to life and interacting with one another [Music] these cartoons were well received but already a problem came up while Bosco could get away with acting like Mickey Mouse by virtue of being technically different foxy was literally just Mickey

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Mouse with a bushier tail and with the attention that the Warner cartoons were getting it didn't take long for Walt Disney to notice while he didn't threaten legal action against his former friend and employee he did call up izing

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and told him to cut it out and what is assumed to be the Politis terms possible so after one more Mary Melanie short featuring the two of them ironically named one more time foxy and Rossi were given the axe icing attempted to find a

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suitable replacement for foxy first with a pig character with the original name of piggy he only lasted two shorts you don't know what you're doing and hitting the trail - hallelujah lands the next year izing we tried with another

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reoccurring protagonist named goopy gear blinky Dog character with long ears goofy gear was like foxing and that he only lasted three shorts his titular debut moonlight 4 - and the Queen was in the parlor funnily enough a month after

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the release of goofy gear Disney would released the short Mickey's revue which featured a character similar to icings Isaac and the rest of Warner Brothers didn't care however because it was obviously a one-off character created for a gag I mean when were they gonna

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use him again [Music] ultimately it was decided that the Merrie Melodies series shouldn't have a reoccurring protagonist the success of one-off short such as redheaded baby pagan moon and Freddy the freshmen proved that they offered more flexible opportunities for stories and gags than

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if they were centered around a blank slate protagonist like foxy or Piggy [Music] Isaac was the man for the job when it came for these types of shorts though music was still central to the Looney tune shorts Harmon found not having a

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say in what music he could use for the shorts too confining Isaac meanwhile knew how to adapt any sort of music to his cartoons thanks to an almost magical sense of musical timing since the early cartoons were time to a musical beat I say worth with

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Marsalis to blend the music and the animation together so that they both complement each other and it often resulted in some of the most memorable animated musical moments of that era [Music] meanwhile Bosco's Looney tune series continued the initial 12th shorts had

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been a success and Harmon was commissioned to do more it seemed like with every new Bosco short produced the staff at harmonizing studio were slowly but surely polishing their craft there were so rough patches namely the voice acting by Johnny Marie and Rochelle

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Hudson but that like everything else would eventually be ironed out historians have said that the turning point for Bosco's cartoons came at Bosco's Holliday it was the first Bhaskar short that didn't have singing and dancing be the centerpiece of the

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plots instead it was focused on having a plot that could be used as a springboard for gags but the pacing of that short was still relatively slow it wasn't until Bosco the dough boy that the jokes really began to get a lot snappier a

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cartoon that uses Bosco fighting in the Great War as that set up the short is just wall-to-wall gags that given the situation are just delightfully McCobb there was no official gag man at harmonizing studios and said harmonizing would preside over staff meetings in

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which they would sketch out a rough idea of what the new Bosco or Merrie Melodies cartoons was gonna be considering that the studio was staffed entirely by single men in their 20s and 30s who all lived a few blocks away from the main

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building meetings of these sort would often go late into the night members of the staff would throw around ideas for jokes while the two directors took notes and would then refine them into a script it wouldn't be until much later that they

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would start sketching out ideas in sequence with Hartman's starting to pinup full-sized background layouts in the studio around the end of 1931 the stories in the Bosco cartoons began to get slightly more complex with the addition of new characters such as

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Bosco's pet dog Bruno and Wilbur a bratty kitten that causes the normally a beat Bosco an untold amount of grief [Music] 1932 and thirty-three solved marked improvements in both cartoon series in aizen's Merrie Melodies the switch to being completely a series of one shots

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was paying off dividends because of the loose joint in nature of the script making process thus a fat harmonizing studio is enjoyed seeing how many gags they can fit into a single cartoon not only that but the one-shot nature of

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Merrie Melodies allow the animators to experiment with new ideas for settings and stories whether those new ideas aged well or not is a whole nother story entirely one marry melody short three's a crowd became the first of an entire sub-genre

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of cartoon shorts taking inspiration from the billboard gags of smiles on your smile the short focuses on literary characters come to life and escaping their books to engage in song and dance another short shuffle off to Buffalo took place entirely within the setting

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of a baby factory belonging to storks this would not be the last we would see of such a concept by 1932 the Merrie Melodies shorts even reached an important milestone being one of the first Academy Award nominations for best

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animated short film with the short it's got me again the first Warner Brothers short to do so as for the Bosco shorts they to show that they were becoming sharper in the way they delivered their gags short such

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as battling Bosco and soare provided excellent examples of physical humor completely unbridled by the medium of animation but the short that can be seen as the true turning point for not just Bosco but all future Looney Tunes characters would be rydym

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Bosco the shortest self as a standard riff on the western genre with Bosco as the heroic cowboy hanging around the local saloon but then action begins when his girl honey ends up trapped on a runaway stagecoach Bosco begins his

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heroic chase and then there's little doubt that this type of abrupt fourth wall annihilating ending would end up influencing the type of humor we would see in future Looney Tunes outings by 1933 it was clear how much Bosco is

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Looney tune shorts had improved all the rough edges had been smoothed out the gags hit their mark and were better paced there's also moments that you can feel where Harmon and the rest of the group were taking inspiration from live

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action comedies utilizing techniques and camera angles and lighting to make the layouts look nicer as well as making gags that didn't rely just on animation and writing but editing [Music] even when they went back to their song-and-dance roots and shorts such as

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Bosco in person you could kind of tell that the Bosco and honey of 1933 were very different from the Bosco and honey of 1930 while they still retain some of their Mickey and Minnie nough still got the feeling that they were slowly

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morphing into their own characters less folksy and way goofier characters that definitely had a far more eyeballed edge than Mickey or Minnie did everything seemed to be going well for Warner Brothers but under the surface things were a lot more turbulent for one thing

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harmonizing were not immune to nepotism a lot of the staff to their studio were close friends or relatives of harmonizing Maxwell and Hamilton this ended up creating a work culture where the animators and staff hired by Schlesinger found it difficult to let

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themselves be heard things that kind of settled into a pattern where Hugh and Rudy had their close friends maybe some of the animators wives became social with Hugh's wife and you'd say by God no matter what I do here I'm not gonna get

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a chance to get around these guys but nepotism would be the least of the problems for harmonizing studio for one thing Hugh Harmons grudge against Disney never really went away he always wanted to surpass Disney but it was less about

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a disagreement of philosophy on animation and more about satisfying a personal rivalry working for Warner Brothers did point him at a significant advantage over Disney one thing Warner Brothers owned a a lot more theaters than the studio Disney was working with

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at the time at Columbia plus even though Hugh didn't know it at the time Columbia was also cheating Disney studio out of pay that was owed to them leading to a falling out in mid 1932 but what Harmon

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desired was the critical accolades Disney was getting and all the financial security and distribution opportunities meant Jack if your rival beat you out for the first Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film even though Bosco's cartoons had improves over the years one

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could not help but feel the huge desire to beat Disney at his own game held back a lot of Bosco's potential it also didn't help that three years of Seti work for Warner Brothers calls Hugh Harman to develop something of an ego he

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never really saw himself as simple cartoonists but rather a poet laureate who just happened to have cartoons be his medium of choice this arrogance would often manifest in a disdain for the people in power who provided the money specifically people

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named Leon Schlesinger well Rudy izing had a very cordial relationship with Leon Hugh Harman was quite the opposite he had always been the most anti-authoritarian of the Disney defectors and to him he just saw Leon Schlesinger as just another greedy boss

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who only cared about money while not entirely inaccurate it was appointed contingent that caused many disputes between Harmon and Schlesinger by 1933 harmonising Studios contract was up for renegotiations and the two of them wanted more money they had been making

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successful cartoons for three years up to that point and they wanted bigger budgets so they could keep up with Disney was now working with Technicolor a new technology that made the black-and-white short start to feel obsolete Schlesinger refused by that

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point in time the shockwaves of the Great Depression were sending Warner Brothers along with nearly every other big Hollywood studio into a financial downturn by order of the studio Schlessinger had to amend his contract for the 1932-33 slate of Warner cartoons

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leaving him with 73 hundred per cartoon instead of the initial ten thousands by March 1st 1933 one Schlessinger resigned his contract that pay got reduced to six thousand four perspective Disney was spending around $20,000 per cartoons short at the time the budget for the

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average Warner cartoon of that time had to be no less than thirteen thousand per cartoon if Leon Schlessinger conceded to the demands of harmonizing he would have lost money for every cartoon made under his watch regardless of their success so

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with that Harmon and izing decided to walk they would not renew their contracts and once they were finished with their current slate of cartoons harmonizing studios would no longer work either under Schlesinger or Warner Brothers and says Harmon owned the

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rights that would be taking warner brothers first cartoon star Bosko with him on august 2nd 1933 are minimizing delivered their last cartoons to Leon Schlesinger and subsequently earned their last paycheck so 3072 and 57 cents on August 26 the last bosco

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cartoon premiered titled Bosco's picture show the short follows Bosco entertaining a crowd at a movie theater the short is noteworthy for being the first Warner brother cartoon to be banned in the newly formed Nazi Germany for a to precise portrayal of their

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leader as well as the scene where Bosco says this line [Music] Isaac's final Merrie Melodies short wherein the money also premiered that day centered around toys coming to life in a department store it was also the last short frank Marsalis composed for

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he would leave for Walter Lantz a studio at Universal shortly thereafter times were tough for harmonizing studio for a while while they did retain a lot of loyal staff members at least initially finding a new distributor right out of

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the gate was problematic well they were able to keep their studio flow by doing freelance work for Van Buren films and had plans to do a to reel film version of the Nutcracker around a thousand feet was animated they were barely scraping

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by head to the studio zinc and paint department william hanna remembered how he had to endure six months of not getting paid for that period it wouldn't be until 1934 were harmonizing which strike a deal with MGM Pictures and make

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a series of Technicolor shorts to compete with their old boss Disney called happy harmonies but that's a story for another day as for Leon Schlesinger he wasn't too worried he knew in his heart that he was bound to lose harmonising sooner or

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later and thus had a contingency plan ready he decided he would set up his own cartoon studio right on the Warner Brothers Studio lot and in 1933 right after he resigned his contract he immediately got to work on assembling a

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new staff and finding a new location for the studio the new studio Leon Schlesinger productions would be a small building on 1331 North Van Ness Avenue it was a dumpy little clapboard building it had thin walls little ventilation and

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was full of bugs rodents and various other vermin it was perfect this video was made possible by the good people at patreon if you want to support this miniseries Kyoto video or all other future video projects then click on the

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link below and join today you'll get news feeds early access to videos maybe even your name in the credits each dollar will be going towards making this channel even better you can also support this channel by liking this video

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commenting on it hitting the subscribe button hitting that Bell button for notifications and sharing it with all your friends that's all for now folks thank you for watching [Music]

Topics:Winsor McCayGertie the DinosaurLooney TunesBoskoWalt DisneyUb IwerksLaugh-O-Gram Studiosearly animation historyanimation pioneersWarner Bros cartoons

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