Making Tom, Jerry and Droopy

Who kept winning Oscars for short cartoons during the ‘40s? MGM. But the writers in the papers kept talking about Walt Disney.

Granted, they weren’t writing about short cartoons; they were commenting on or reviewing Disney’s features. But you’d think someone outside the trade papers would have noticed Fred Quimby dutifully picking up Oscars for the work of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera for 1940, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946 and 1948.

Well, a few people did. Here’s one example from the New York Herald Tribune, December 12, 1948. It’s a pretty blah example, an unbylined feature story mechanically outlining the step-by-step process in making a cartoon. You don’t get any sense of fun or comraderie at the studio. The thing I find interesting is the mention of sketch artists and a story group. Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna left the clear, unmistakeable impression years later that Barbera was the fountain of all Tom and Jerry stories, that he did the sketches. You’d swear he was the only one involved. But there were others. Cal Howard provided material for the first Oscar-winning Tom and Jerry short. Pinto Colvig was writing for MGM after returning West from the Fleischer studio in the early ‘40s. It’s a shame their efforts have been shoved to the background. (Conversely, Tex Avery’s cartoons gave screen credit to gagmen who, at least in Heck Allen’s case, claimed they didn’t do a lot).

Seven Months Work, Seven Minutes Play
HOLLYWOOD has long been considered a modern wonderland, where a fire, flood or earthquake can be dreamed up on five minutes notice by some of the most skilled technicians in the world. And nothing in all of Hollywood’s unique achievements ranks higher in technical skill or creative imagination than the production of today’s animated cartoon. Limited only by the fancy of its creators, the cartoon is an unhampered medium which allows the widest latitude in choice of subject matter and execution.
At the M-G-M cartoon studio, under the guiding hand of producer Fred Quimby, a staff of 150 devotes its full-time efforts to the creation and perfection of those miniature mixtures of mirth, music and mayhem—M-G-M technicolor cartoons. Although it takes only seven minutes for Jerry Mouse to outwit Tom Cat on the screen, it takes the complete staff seven months to produce one of these cartoons.
Since 1936, when M-G-M became the first and only major company to enter the field of cartoon production—which until then was left to a specialized few independent producers—producer Quimby and his staff have continued to experiment with new characters and new techniques.

What makes a cartoon character catch on with movie audiences? Successful ones don’t just happen. They are as much the result of careful planning as the making of any Hollywood star. When a movie studio wants a certain type for a picture, screen tests are made of several players. By the same token, when a new type of personality is needed for a cartoon role, several artists will be handed assignments to experiment until they develop a character whose personality fits the bill.
Likewise, when a new player shows screen promise, he or she is given a few bit parts in pictures before getting a chance for full stardom. And in the cartoon field, when the artists have evolved a new character and want to give him a “screen test” they’ll put him in a minor role in one of the cartoons—and then watch the audience reactions.
Tom and Jerry, the creations of two young artists, William Hanna and Joe Barbera, who head a unit at the Metro cartoon building, were first introduced in “Puss Gets the Boot,” as an experimental pair of feudists. The reaction was so good that they subsequently appeared in “Midnight Snack,” “Fraidy Cat,” “The Bowling Alley Cat,” “The Lonesome Heart,” “Puss ‘n’ Toots,” and others. In the past few years their popularity has grown to the extent where they achieved the status of cartoon stardom. Jerry Mouse climaxed his screen career by his sensational appearance in the combination live-action and animation sequence in the M-G-M musical hit, “Anchors Aweigh,” in which Jerry did those intricate dance steps with Gene Kelly.

The production of a cartoon is a highly integrated series of processes, most of them requiring a high degree of technical perfection. Once the story has been selected, gags and routines are discussed for weeks. Sketch artists make up thumbnail drawings of sections of the story, illustrating the gags. These are arranged in the form of a rough continuity for careful discussion by the entire story group.
Animators breathe life into the cartoon by preparing a succession of progressive drawings which suggest motion. Character and background are drawn separately. Individual drawings are made for every movement of action. Inkers and painters convert sketches into finished work. Workers known as in-betweeners fill in the actions indicated on the drawings by the animators.
While all this is going on, there are other phases of the production taking form. The musical director is working on the score, working closely with the director, so that the music will tally with the detail for time and effects.
When all the drawings have been completed in color, shooting begins. It takes more than 15,000 individual drawings, each separately photographed, to make a complete cartoon.