More Studio, Less Money

Walter Lantz always complained about money. But he had enough to expand his studio and continue upgrading where he and wife Gracie lived (he bought Kay Kyser’s house in one of his transactions).

Lantz had shut down production in 1949 for what appears to have been over a year. His deal with United Artists for two seasons of cartoons was chopped down to one. He decided to go back to Universal-International. He inked a contract with U-I for six cartoons, which was boosted to 13 for the 1952-53 movie season (Lantz had also taken on a project involving Woody and the Red Cross). That meant expansion.

Here’s a story from the Los Angeles Evening News Citizen of June 19, 1952 about the enlarged digs.

LANTZ IN NEW QUARTERS
Luxury Studio Pleases Woody
By DOROTHY WATSON
"Wotta birdcage!" commented Woody Woodpecker today as he eyed the handsome wood panelling in his newly-completed quarters at 861 N. Seward St.
Woody, of course, is that animated cartoon character created by Walter Lantz, who has been in the business since 1916.
Five years ago Lantz moved his studio from the Universal-International lot in Universal City, where he had been since 1926, to the Seward St. location.
For three years he rented the old Spanish-type stucco building. Then two years ago he bought it and started making plans for its reconstruction into an up-to-date studio.
Actual work began in January 1951 under supervision of sound engineer William Garity, vice president and production manager of Lantz Productions.
Now the building is completed and the rascally Woody, is making himself at home in the midst of luxury.
The studio' occupies about 12,000 feet of space on the ground floor of the two-story building. The exterior is stucco covered fireproof brick, and all windows are equipped with heat-resisting copper screens. To keep down noises there are cork floors end acoustic lined ceilings. The building is air-conditioned throughout.
Although the exterior is strikingly attractive, the interior is luxurious. The walnut-panelled reception room with its glass-enclosed switchboard is highlighted with colored “cells” of Woody, Andy Panda, Buzz Buzzard, Wally Walrus, Miranda Panda and other creatures of Lantz's imagination.
The offices of Lantz and his secretary, Gladys Matthes, are walled in burlap paper in soft beige tones with Japanese ash panelling and Heinley shutters. Those shutters are worrying Lantz. He says he never knows when Woody may go on a tear and tear into them.
Other rooms house the cameras, one for black and white and one for Technicolor, story conferences, music and consultations.
But the “piece de resistance” is the animation room, 50x40 feet and completely insulated against outside sounds. In fact, it is so completely soundproof that conversation from desks 10 feet away cannot be heard. There La Verne Herding, animator with Lantz since 1939 and reportedly the only women animator in town, holds forth. She’s the boss of that room and everybody knows it.
Also enjoying the new building are about 35 other employes who help turn out six Woody Woodpecker films yearly, commercial films, a monthly comic magazine and several licensed products such as children’s records, costumes, toys, balloons and puzzles.

Lantz collected cast-off animation people—Bill Garity, Tex Avery, Fred Moore and Ed Love among them—and collected a cast-off animation building. The Seward street location had once been home to Harman-Ising, then Walt Disney, then Columbia/Screen Gems. When Lantz signed with United Artists, he was pretty much forced to leave the Universal lot, so he ended up at the spot at Seward and Willoughby (as in Inspector Willoughby, his human take on Droopy in the early ‘60s.

Lantz’ concerns about theatres paying for short subjects were valid. I doubt the money he got increased at the same rate as the expense of making a cartoon. Here’s one of his many entreaties for more money. It’s from the Valley Times of North Hollywood of Sept. 11, 1962.

No More Cartoons? I Blame The Exhibitor
“Do you want to know WHY the theatrical cartoon business is dying?” animator Walter Lantz asked.
“It’s really quite simple: It’s a cost problem, the old money factor.
“Over the past ten years,” the Woody Woodpecker creator said, “production costs have gone up 180 per cent but the revenue has remained the same.
“AND I’LL be quite honest with you,” he added. “If something isn’t done, Woody and I may not last more than another year or two.”
Lantz, the only remaining independent animator of theatrical cartoons releasing through a major (Universal), said that while the majors don’t make them anymore, he still produces some 19 brand new Woody Woodpeckers a year for the theaters.
“But we can't keep it up under the present circumstances,” he said.
“HOWEVER, there IS something that can be done and it might not only keep me in business but enable the majors to go back to their ink pots, too.
“As I said, production costs have zoomed skyward but I’m not criticizing the unions. People—good, talented people—deserve whatever they can get.
“But it’s the lack of the dollar at the box office that’s killing us. I lay the whole problem right in the lap of the exhibitors, the guys who book what shows YOU see in YOUR theater.
“THEY STILL pay the same price for cartoons they did 10 years ago because they don’t consider the cartoons that important to their program. Despite the fact that you hear oohs and ahhs in ANY theater whenever ANY cartoon comes on, the exhibitors still consider them fillers like a newsreel or a travelogue.
“If we say ‘You have to pay us more or you won’t get a cartoon,’ they say ‘Fine. Who needs it?’
“But if the exhibitors don’t start paying more on their rentals,” Lantz said, “the cartoon business for movie houses will truly be a thing of the past.”
“OUR RETURNS are not comparable to our investment,” he said. “You see, each cartoon costs a minimum of $35,000 to do or rather, to do CORRECTLY. And, it takes you four years to get any part of your investment back.
“That’s why no new outfit can get in. Even at only 10 cartoons a year, a firm would have to invest $1,400,000 before it got anything back. That’s a lot of capital, brother.
“But,” he reiterated, “if the exhibitors would just realize how much people like the cartoons and would pay just a little more, it would do the trick.
“In three or four years, a cartoon has approximately 17,000 domestic play dates, so by just paying $6 rental instead of $5 for the cartoon, the exhibitors could save the day.”

I can’t help but feel Lantz is being a little disingenuous here, as he avoids any mention of the money he raked in selling his cartoons for television distribution. His deals, one for his old black-and-white shorts, and then another with Kellogg’s in 1957 to create a half hour show out of mainly old cartoons combined with ancient silent stock footage, must have brought in a pretty penny or two. In 1955, KNXT paid a quarter million dollars for 149 of his aging cartoons (such as Oswalds and other titles of the late ‘30s).

There were also commercial contracts with Coca-Cola and A.C. Delco. His trips overseas for weeks at a time with Gracie had to be write-offs, as he visited Universal film exchanges. There were comic books and other commercial tie-ins. Lantz was no dummy. He owned his studio’s characters meaning he kept the cash. Lantz wasn’t standing at Seward and Willoughby with his hand out.

The increasing costs of theatrical animation killed the MGM cartoon studio in 1957, the Warners studio in 1963 and turned UPA into a TV factory in 1960. Even the two East Coast studios, Paramount and Terrytoons, faded away. Lantz stayed open. And even when he finally ceased operation in 1972, he never retired. He promoted his characters and helped children’s charities until the day he died.