A WILD AND CRAZY PLACE!

Craziness at an animation studio went beyond what the public would see!

Small drawing from border of 1930-31 FS staff photo
Collection: V. Mahoney

Of course there were gags galore on screen. It’s said that Dave Fleischer, who would oversee Fleischer Studios film production, wanted a gag in EVERY scene. According to animator Shamus Culhane: “Dave was a gagman with a flamboyant disregard for story structure and character motivation. His motto was a gag in every foot, and he would cram one into a scene regardless of the fact that it had very little or no connection with the story line…”


Off screen—nuttiness also invaded the work day!

New staff hires were ‘tested.’ A typical new staffer was given a bucket and directed to a room to fill the bucket with ‘film sprockets.’ Or they would be sent into a dark room with a female employee –who would close the door and a few minutes later run out screaming!

In 1938 Fleischer Studios re-located to Florida where flies would abound. When the windows were open staff would catch these flying invaders, one by one, and glue tiny paper airplane wings to their backs--- after which they’d be surrounded overhead by these tiny buzzing airplanes. 

Card by Fleischer animator Rudy Zamora
Collection: V. Mahoney

Whether in New York or Florida, Christmas was a big event—for all, no matter what religion you were! Staff made Christmas cards they exchanged with each other. These cards were usually handmade- they might feature someone’s family, or characters from the studio. They might be a bit nutty or even off-color. But the highlight of the year was the party Max and Dave would give for the whole staff, usually in a large restaurant. As the staff grew- the party got bigger since by 1939 there were over 700 employees. These parties were usually wild bashes that included Santa, gag gifts, vaudeville acts by staff, plus the usual eating and drinking (for a full description of one of these wild parties and some actual film footage go to Fleischer Studios Christmas!).

The 1933 Christmas card above is by animator Dick Huemer. Huemer, (www.huemer.com/animate4.htm) recalled one nutty string of events. It... "started when I drew big teeth on Koko… Dave started kidding me about it, baring his teeth at me every time I looked at him. Or he would draw an enormous tooth on my drawing paper when my back was turned. Then finally one night on my way home, I put my hand into my pocket and fished out a handful of teeth. Human ones. He’d gotten them from a dentist friend of his. I forgot what my next move was—probably slipping one or two into his dessert at lunch, or some other disgusting thing. And then came the morning when I raised my drawing board to switch on the light and my hand touched something slimy. There, draped over the light bulb, was the lower half of a cow’s jaw, replete with great big yellow teeth and shreds of unhealthy-looking flesh. Naturally I couldn’t let him quit while he was ahead. So I sneaked down to the street when he wasn’t looking and placed the cadaver on the motor of his Ford. I was only sorry I wasn’t there when he started to smell the roast beef on his way home. That kind of ended the whole rib."

The Christmas card above was to Seymour, from the studio group that hung out together and called themselves 'the gang.' 

Gambling was a big activity for all….my mother said that when she worked at the studio (1929-31) no one went out for lunch – they played poker instead! Going to the race-track together was common—especially after the studio moved to Florida where there were dog races as well as horse races. In the New York studio someone even had a direct wire to the race-track in his office where staffers would routinely gather to check winners and losers. 

They were such big betters that when the studio moved from New York to Florida their bookie moved with them! Max’s wife, Essie, was said to have had a direct wire to her bookie installed in a palm tree on their Florida property…. and Max, although greatly disturbed by the betting that went on during office hours, held a patent on a betting ‘wheel’ (above) he devised for the dog races. Below, Seymour in the middle, at the races.

Animator Shamus Culhane notes that (in the NY Fleischer days) a brownstone rooming house on 44th St. was completely taken over by Fleischer animators and became the site of the weekly gathering of card playing, drinking, and activity with ladies from the local bordello, who among other things, liked to play bridge. (Of course there were some staffers who led more conventional lives!)

Personal events—whether surgery or a wedding— usually warranted a hand made card… below, part of a get well card for Max drawn by 'Doc' Crandall.

And milestones in the business of the studio were fodder for cartoons in their in-house publications…. Their first feature film "Gulliver's Travels" was produced in an incredibly short time frame, and in the midst of the studio move from New York to Florida... their jokes below speak to the insanity of that time... (the top one by Willard Bowsky, the bottom one by Bob Little).

Here’s one more from the the April 1935 copy of their in-house Fleischer Animated News…. about Fleischer and ‘Bisney’ merging. This includes an interesting prediction, likely a far-fetched joke at the time, about their move to Florida... since it was May 1938 before Max and Paramount signed a contract to finance that new Florida building and move!

Seems like they knew how to have fun both on and off screen! If you know of any great stories that  have been passed down please post and share in comments below!

Misc. References

Talking Animals and Other People by Shamus Culhane

THE FIRST WOMAN ANIMATOR!

In 1933 Lillian Friedman, while working at Fleischer Studios, became the first woman EVER to work as an animator at any studio.


From the early days of animation—and up until 1933—women were generally hired only in the lowly role of inker or opaquer. If talented and lucky they might advance to the position of inbetweener. But they NEVER worked as animators.


It was accepted thinking in the industry that women were not capable of the creativity required to be an animator, plus there was resistance to women entering this male dominated field. The article below from a Paramount 1936 promotional booklet includes the statement “Nobody knows just why, but women generally are not successful as cartoon animators.”


There’s also a telling 1938 letter that can be found online, typed on beautiful Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs stationary. It’s a response to Miss Mary V. Ford who wrote Walt Disney Productions concerning a job… the reply states “Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed entirely by young men. For this reason girls are not considered for the training school....The only work open to women consists of tracing the characters on clear celluloid sheets with India ink and filling in the tracings on the reverse side with paint according to directions."

(click to enlarge for viewing)
Article from Paramount promotional booklet for "Popeye The Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor"  1936     Collection: Virginia Mahoney       
Popeye copyright 2011 King Features Syndicate, Inc. TM Hearst Holdings, Inc.

In 1933 Lillian Friedman, an employee of Fleischer Studios, became the very first female to be hired as a commercial animator at any animation studio. She had joined Fleischer Studios as an inbetweener in 1931 at the age of nineteen. Animator Shamus Culhane recognized that she was highly talented and advocated for her advancement to animator. It was no easy job to convince the other animators to accept a woman working in that position. In addition, Shamus points out in his book Talking Animals and Other People, he had to devise tricks to make her accepted in the all male environment… and even though Lillian achieved animator status she was paid considerably less then her male counterparts.  


The film below, Pudgy and the Lost Kitten, gives screen credit for animation to Myron Waldman and Lillian Friedman. This copy of the film has German sub-titles which I always thought reflected how popular these films were overseas- but 'The Crazy HR' has corrected me... "This was for many years a 'lost film,' meaning nobody knew about the existence of any copy of the cartoon. This has subtitles because it aired on the Channel ARTE during their show "Cartoon Factory." (ARTE is a German Channel)


                            Film: Pudgy and the Lost Kitten  

                                     Betty Boop and Pudgy copyright Fleischer Studios, Inc.


The Internet Movie Database (online) credits Lillian with animation work on 11 films made with Fleischer Studios between 1934 and 1938—and shows she received screen credit on seven of these films, and was uncredited for her work on the other four. However,  IMDb did not include her animation on Sindbad the Sailor which the above article attests to—or a reference elsewhere to her animation on Betty Boop’s A Language All Her Own.  So Lillian animated on a total of at least thirteen films, with six of them uncredited. The lack of screen credit is not unusual since generally, although several animators may work on a film, no more than two animators received  on-screen credit. Lillian remained at Fleischer’s until 1939 when she resigned to be with her family full time.

For work purposes animators at the time were assigned to ‘units,’ each unit run by a head animator. While working as an animator at Fleischer Studios Lillian worked in three different units, each headed by a different animator… Shamus Culhane, Myron Waldman, and my dad… Seymour Kneitel.

(When giving credit to trailblazing women  animators I should also mention Laverne Harding who in 1934 went to work for another famous studio, Walter Lantz, becoming only the second women animator in the industry.)

Sources:

Book: Talking Animals and Other People by Shamus Culhane
Popeye Paramount Promotional brochure for Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor 1936
Ray Pointer online comments
Disney rejection letter:
       http://www.flickr.com/photos/polaroid/632255233/
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) 
Book: Who’s Who in Animated Cartoons by Jeff Lenburg

A Love Story...

My parents were married on December 24, 1931. They met while both were working at Fleischer Studios. They remained completely devoted to each other through raising three children and dealing with the sometimes-challenging politics of the animation business.

My dad had married Ruth Fleischer, the boss’s only daughter. When they met, my father Seymour was a young animator at Fleischer Studios. Another Fleischer animator, Shamus Culhane, in his autobiography, Talking Animals and Other People, notes: “The marriage made no difference in Seymour’s status in the studio: he was never given, nor did he ever ask for, special handling from the management.”

In another post I’ll share more about my mother. She was in some of Max Fleischer’s very early films, including roles in his short-lived and little known completely live action series ‘Carrie of the Chorus.’ Before working at the studio she had been dancing ‘on the road’ in an all girl troupe. In the late 1920’s she joined the staff of Fleischer Studios as an inker, progressing to head of the Coloring Department- and then to head of the Inking Department.

In an interview with historian Mike Barrier my mother talked about working at the studio “When I met Seymour, everyone became involved in the romance…It was a family; everybody knew what everybody was doing. The great part of it was, after work, we didn’t just all go away and forget each other.” This was a close-knit staff that spent considerable time together outside the office .

As they started life together it was with the background of the Great Depression, which began with the stock market crash of October 1929. Although many bussinesses closed or struggled to survive, this was not true of the movie business. Films and animated cartoons were an inexpensive escape from the troubles of daily life. In fact, there was so much creativity and technical progress during this time (at a number of animation studios) that the 1930’s is often referred to as “The Golden Age of Animation.”

Seymour’s Letter of Contract from Fleischer Studios (below) shows the typical salary of an animator in the early1930’s….eighty dollars a week. The second letter reflects the huge success and popularity of Fleischer films that allowed a bonus to be distributed to employees Christmas 1931.