Making Those Warners Cartoons

When Tweety Pie won the Oscar in 1948 for the best cartoon, producer Eddie Selzer admitted “I’m afraid that my family was more excited about it than I was.”

Maybe that tells you all you need to know about the boss at Warner Bros. cartoons.

When Leon Schlesinger sold his cartoon studio to Warners in 1944, Selzer was installed to run it. Schlesinger wasn’t an artist, but at least he had a sense of showmanship as a former vaudeville theatre owner. Selzer didn’t even have that. He was a studio publicist who became head of the trailer department. It’s pretty easy to guess the studio gossip after the words “they brought in who??!”

Selzer didn’t have much to say to Miami News columnist Herb Kelly, who dropped into Warners new cartoon studio in Burbank in 1957. Instead, he let Friz Freleng and Warren Foster explain how cartoons were made. Foster, incidentally, would leave Warners for John Sutherland Productions that November. Selzer would retire the following January.

The storyboard is for Apes of Wrath, released in April 1959. This shows you how big the backlog was to release Warners cartoons. The story was published August 15, 1957.

Cartoons Big Business—Here's How
Burbank, Calif., Aug. 15 —This has been the craziest day. It was spent with Bugs Bunny.
We were on Warner Bros. lot here and got lost and walked into the cartoon division of the movie company and met Edward Selzer, its executive producer. "What's up, doc?" we asked, and the little man behind the desk tossed us a carrot.
We were in the madhouse of the movies where characters like Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Tweety, Sylvester, Pepe LePew (the skunk), Speedy Gonzalez, Foghorn Leghorn and Henery Hawk are created by a group of men and women who are like a large family. That's how they get along.
The cartoons in the movies have always intrigued us and we see several a week in our job of reviewing films. (Many times they are better than the feature.) You can have a big picture, with a fascinating title and an all-star cast but when the credits come on the screen there is a dead silence in the audience.
But when a movie title is flashed — usually with a horrible pun — a hum can be heard, not only from the kids but from grownups, too.
"WHY IS THAT?" WE asked Selzer, and he gave us the answer.
"When the feature picture starts, the audience doesn't know what they're in for. It may be interesting, maybe not. But when a cartoon is up there before them, they know they are going to be entertained and they know they are going to have at least a few laughs. It's as simple as that."
There's another mystery to the cartoon business, the men who think them up. Maybe you have asked yourself the same question, "How do they get those crazy ideas."
We asked Selzer if it was possible for the thinker-uppers to put down their opium pipes and for him to unlock their padded cells. If it was safe, we'd like to talk to these fellows. The producer hollered down the hallway, "Hey, Warren, hey Friz, got a minute?" No push buttons and fancy gadgets in this division.
Two average-looking men came into the office, the kind of guys you wouldn't look at twice if you saw them walking down Flagler St.
Warren Foster is the story man, Friz Freeling [sic], the director. There are two other teams. They are the combinations who work out a plot, think up the dialogue and mischevious situations and bring you those laughs. Talk to them about their work and they are as plain as the slacks and sports shirts they were wearing. Get them deep into an explanation of their cartoon characters and they become the rabbit or bird or fox they are talking about.
ANOTHER BUGS BUNNY production is in the works, and the early steps are about half finished. On a wall in story man Foster's office are 78 drawings, a little larger than a postal card. Beneath each one are a few words of dialogue.
The plot goes something like this: "The stork is on his way to a Mama Gorilla and becomes delayed when he gets a little drunk. Bugs comes along, the stork snatches him and delivers him to the gorilla's lair as their new baby. Mama Gorilla cuddles him. Papa Gorilla wants to punish him and Bugs starts a family brawl.
The story sounds simple and it is, but there are laughs already and it isn't even finished. As Foster and Director Freeling went over the rough draft of the picture, reading the lines and enlarging upon the situations, they began talking like Bugs Bunny, hopping and waving their arms.
When they finished, they became their normal selves again. The men are buried in their work and they love it.
The actual making of a cartoon is complicated and technical process to those unfamiliar with the industry and it is not our aim to enfuse [sic] you with a lot of stuff that was a mystery to us even after it was explained thoroughly.
In substance there's the way a cartoon is produced:
Each of the three story men must come up with five ideas a year. Besides Foster, the others are Mike Maltese and Tedd Pierce. They are married, they watch their children, they read, they keep their eyes open. A plot comes to than from these or any other of a thousand sources and they take it from there.
Then the directors are called in. The other two are Charles M. Jones and Bob McKimson. The story is kicked around in a conference with Selzer and there is no "yessing" in these sessions. Criticisms are blunt, arguments are hot, but when they leave Selzer's office they are teams again.
ROUGH DRAFTS OF THE cartoons are drawn and the conversation printed below each panel. Then they go to a room where about 40 girls are at work, tracing the drawings onto 8 x 10 sheets of celluloid. The girls wear a white gauze on their right hand, which soaks up perspiration and keeps the celluloid sheet clean. The next step is washing each sheet with a chemical to make it spotless. Each sheet is photographed under the camera and how would you like to have to keep track of about 150,000 drawings? That's how many there are in the average cartoon. Remember, there is action in these and each movement is a drawing of its own.
Dubbing in the dialogue is another art. There are about dozen men in the film colony who have a corner en the voice market. Mel Blanc it tops and he does Bugs Bunny and many others for Warners.
And that brings up an example of how a bluff can work in Hollywood.
Dave Barry, who just closed at the Statler here and who played the Eden Roc in Miami Beach a few months ago, is one of those often called in to do mimicry. He has a long routine, but this one called for the sound of a raven.
Now Dave wouldn't know a raven from a canary, but out here you can't admit that. If you act just a little uncertain you are lost and this was a $1,000 job. Dave went into a huddle with the producer, director and writers. "Do you want me to imitate a male raven or a female raven?" he stalled. "You mean there's a difference?" they chorused. Barry appeared stunned at their ignorance. "A difference?" he said. "Sure there's a difference. Where do you think little ravens come from?"
All agreed he had something there and he got the job.
AFTER THE VOICE HAS been dubbed comes another vital part of a cartoon and that is the music, and Warner doesn't spare the horses there either. Thirty-five pieces for Bugs Bunny and the others. The score is composed, lengthy rehearsals are held and finally the music is synchronized with the action on the screen.
There's no room for temperament or retakes in the cartoon market. It is an expensive operation and the pennies are watched. Bugs Bunny and the others are on the screen for about seven minutes, but it took a full year to make the finished product, and the total cost of putting them up there is $30,000.
And that's a lot of carrots.
The cartoon market is drawing the interest of the stars. Recently one was put out called "The Honeymousers" and was satire on the Jackie Gleason program, Gleason saw it and roared and overruled his legal eagles who wanted to sue Warners.
Now Jack Benny is interested and Warners planning one with him. It will be titled "Jack Benny Mouse" and will kid him about his violin playing, show his vault where he keeps his cheese and have him suspecting Don Wilson of stealing one ounce of the treasure. Benny, his wife, Mary Livingston, Rochester and Wilson will do their voices off-screen.
Benny looks upon the venture as the best free advertising he can get. And if it's for free, Benny wants it. So does Warners.
SYLVESTER IS ANOTHER fall guy in cartoons. The villain must never win. When you see him and the others on the screen for only seven minutes, try to remember it took a year to make the completed product.