UPA: Better Than a Cartoon

Is it possible to say when the UPA cartoon studio peaked?

There were plaudits through the early 1950s, with a handful of films being praised. In 1955, When Magoo Flew won an Oscar and the company signed with CBS to produce a cartoon series for television. Within a few years, there wasn’t much left. The McBoing Boing show didn’t attract young viewers, who seem to have preferred Bugs Bunny and Popeye, Columbia dropped its cartoons from theatrical release, and a number of key employees walked out to set up Format Films.

The story below from the Los Angeles Daily News, Feb. 2, 1953, is atypical. The praise was always the same: a) The cartoons are arty, b) they don’t have talking funny animals. While both are true, the studio’s product is, on the whole, not entertaining to me. Does anyone really want to see The Popcorn Story? Or Georgie and the Dragon? Or Picnics Are Fun?

The Tell-Tale Heart can hardly be called animation. It consists mainly of camera pans over Paul Julian’s backgrounds, augmented with moody music and narration. And Mr. Magoo went from delightfully cantankerous, to an old fuddy-duddy who can’t read signs, to a pitch-man for light bulbs and beer.

ANIMATED CARTOONS FIND HIGHER PURPOSE
Film cartoonists try to be more than just quaint
By DAVID BONGARD
"Why, that's better than a cartoon."
These were the words of a spectator after her first encounter with United Productions of America's cartoon, "Family Circus," an old effort in that company's increasing by popular derby of short subjects for movie houses.
Such household friends as Walt Disney's Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Pluto are now up against a still new type of competition. This new adversary in the cartoon field depends upon the latest and most inventive expression in modern art to win public affection and cut production costs. Where the venerable Disney plant employs a horde of artists to supply the wealth of minute detail for Disney's animated subjects, UPA's Steve Bosustow relies on simplified, fixed backgrounds and concentrates on the dramatic movement of his central figure. This character may be an abstraction, a semi-recognizable young man such as Gerald McBoing-Boing, a caricature of such universality as Mr. Magoo, or an impressionistically costumed little sweetheart such as Bemelman's Madeline.
Adult
This form of expression lends itself well to telling sophisticated yarns identifiable with the trials of our own era. Its appeal to the adult is discernable in the reaction of the spectator quoted above.
Its possibilities for communication seem limitless. Adults aren't the only ones impressed. Children also are vastly amused by the antics of "Gerald McBoing-Boing," the youngster who never learned to talk, but expresses himself by making sound effects. Besides a host of international awards, Gerald won for Bosestow [sic] an Academy Award for the best cartoon in 1951.
Contending also for public affection is the irresponsible Mr. Magoo who perpetrates colossal blunders due to a combination of myopia and an amusingly cantankerous view of life in general. In charge of Magoo's onslaughts is Pete Burness, an affable cartoon director who admits Magoo resembles his dad in some respects.
Variety
Variety in repertory is the life blood of UPA. Bosustow, once he approves a story for production, leaves the execution up to his staff of young, imaginative directors who include Burness, Robert (McBoing-Boing) Cannon, Ted ("Tell-Tale Heart") Parmelee and Bill Hurtz. Hurtz directed the fabulously effective CBS radio commercial feature which uses a compelling array of abstract art to prove that radio is far from dead. Hurtz also is working on Thurber's "Unicorn in the Garden," which again should show what can be done with a cartoon.
UPA is hoping to do a full-length feature based on more Thurber humor which they will retail with the title, "Battle of the Sexes." Financing for such a project has yet to be worked out. UPA as yet operates only on its periodic earnings from film distributors. The enterprise, nevertheless, has come a long way from the day a few years ago when the first cartoon was laid out on a dining room table. It now has its own cheerful studios across from the Warner lot in Burbank.
The studio hires nearly 100 people. A UPA cartoon costs from $30,000 to $50,000, which is about $20,000 less than it costs most other cartoon companies to make one. Musical scores are an integral part of each cartoon, and a composer is specifically commissioned for a subject. Musicians are hired for each production as they are needed, and well-known actors are hired to speak the dialog. Jim Backus talks for Magoo.
The company produces training films for the armed services which dip heavily into psychology to make their point. UPA also makes commercial films ballyhooing products.
For entertainment, a new project is Edgar Allan Poe's thriller, "The Tell-Tale Heart," which will be ready in April. The adjoining reproductions of the background are those conceived by artist Paul Julian. It should mark another step in inventive story-telling as inaugurated by UPA's successful version of Frankie and Johnnie, "Rooty Toot-Toot."
The second McBoing-Boing cartoon, which soon will be released, concerns young Gerald's ability to save the day for a radio station when a symphony orchestra fails to show up for a broadcast. He impersonates the sounds of the full orchestra.
With its fresh approach, its unfettered individuality combined with a style designed to limit production costs, UPA is well on the road to revolutionizing the cartoon world.

Whether you want to attribute it to UPA, animated TV commercials through the 1950s featured inventive, simpler designs, both in characters and backgrounds (when there were any). Limited animation was the norm when made-for-TV cartoons began appearing in the ‘50s, but Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera never (as far as I know) mentioned UPA, instead talking about its pose reels at MGM being an inspiration.

Still, UPA created something different from other studios, and deserves credit for trying and, for a while, succeeding.