United Productions of America
Encyclopedia
United Productions of America, better known as UPA, was an American
animation
studio of the 1940s through present day, beginning with industrial films and World War II training films. In the late 1940s, UPA produced theatrical shorts for Columbia Pictures
, most notably the Mr. Magoo
series. In the late 1950s UPA produced a television series for CBS hosted by Gerald McBoing-Boing
. In the 1960s UPA produced several Mr. Magoo and Dick Tracy
series and specials, the most popular of which was Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol
. UPA also produced two features, 1001 Arabian Nights and Gay Purr-ee
, and distributed Japanese films from Toho Studios in the 1970s and 1980s. The latest animated series is with Gerald McBoing Boing (2005-2007), licensed and co-produced by Cookie Jar Entertainment
and Classic Media
, for Cartoon Network
.
UPA Pictures' legacy in the history of animation has largely been overshadowed by the commercial success of the vast cartoon libraries of Warner Brothers and Disney
. Nonetheless, UPA had a significant impact on animation style, content, and technique, and its innovations were recognized and adopted by the other major animation studios and independent filmmakers all over the world. UPA pioneered the technique of limited animation
, and though this style of animation came to be widely abused during the 1960s and 1970s as a cost-cutting measure, it was originally intended as a stylistic alternative to the growing trend (particularly at Disney) of recreating cinematic realism in animated films.
of 1941, which resulted in the exodus of a number of long-time Walt Disney
staff members. Among them was John Hubley
, a layout artist who was unhappy with the ultra-realistic style of animation that Disney had been advocating. Along with a number of his colleagues, Hubley believed that animation did not have to be a painstakingly realistic imitation of real life; they felt that the medium of animation had been constrained by efforts to depict cinematic reality. Chuck Jones
' 1942 cartoon The Dover Boys
had demonstrated that animation could freely experiment with character design, depth, and perspective to create a stylized artistic vision appropriate to the subject matter. Hubley, Bobe Cannon, and others at UPA, sought to produce animated films with sufficient freedom to express design ideas considered radical by other established studios.
In 1943, Zack Schwartz, David Hilberman
, and Stephen Bosustow
formed a studio called first Industrial Film & Poster Service and later United Productions of America, where they were free to apply their concepts. Finding work (and income) in the then-booming field of wartime work for the government, the small studio produced a cartoon sponsored by the United Auto Workers
(UAW) in 1944. This Chuck Jones
directed cartoon was entitled Hell-Bent for Election
, and was produced for the (third) reelection campaign of FDR. The film was a theatrical success, leading to another cartoon entitled Brotherhood of Man (1945), also sponsored by the UAW. The film, directed by Bobe Cannon, advocated tolerance of all people. The short was groundbreaking not only in its message but in its very flat, stylized design, in complete defiance of the Disney approach. With its new-found fame, the studio renamed itself UPA Pictures (UPA).
Initially UPA contracted with the government to produce animation, but the government contracts began to evaporate as the FBI began investigating Communist activities in Hollywood in the late 1940s. No formal charges were filed against anyone at UPA in the beginnings of the so-called "Red Scare"
, but the government contracts were lost as Washington severed its ties with Hollywood.
. Columbia had historically been an also-ran in the field of animated shorts, and was not satisfied with the output of its Screen Gems
cartoon studio. The UPA animators applied their stylistic concepts and storytelling to Columbia's characters The Fox and the Crow
with the shorts Robin Hoodlum (1948) and The Magic Fluke (1949), both directed by Hubley. Both shorts were nominated for Academy Awards and Columbia gave the studio permission to create its own new characters. UPA responded, not with another "funny animal," but the star was a human character, a crotchety, nearsighted old man. The Ragtime Bear (1949), the first appearance of Mr. Magoo
, was a box-office hit, and UPA's star quickly rose as the 1950s dawned.
With a unique, sparse drawing style that contrasted greatly with other cartoons of the day, not to mention the novelty of a human character in a field crowded with talking mice, rabbits, and bears, the Mr. Magoo series won accolades for UPA. Two Magoo cartoons won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons)
: When Magoo Flew
in 1953 and Magoo's Puddle Jumper
in 1955.
In 1951, UPA scored another hit with Gerald McBoing-Boing
, based on a story by Dr. Seuss
. Gerald McBoing-Boing won UPA another Academy Award, and several UPA cartoons would receive Oscar nominations in the next few years, fifteen between 1949 and 1959. Also in 1951, UPA announced plans for a feature-length film based on the work of cartoonist and humorist James Thurber
, to be titled Men, Women and Dogs. (Just one of the Thurber pieces intended for this feature, The Unicorn in the Garden
, was eventually released as a short subject.)
Shorts such as The Tell-Tale Heart and Rooty Toot Toot
featured striking, sophisticated designs unlike anything offered by competing studios. The "UPA style" began to influence significant changes at the other major animation studios, including Warner Bros.
, MGM, and even Disney, ushering in a new era of experimentation in animation.
hearings took a toll on UPA. Columbia, fearful of the investigations, pressured UPA to dismiss anyone with even the slightest hint of communist association, including writers Phil Eastman and Bill Scott (who was not himself under suspicion but tainted by association as Eastman's writing partner). Hubley, a political activist with genuine communist ties, was dismissed in May, 1952. When he left, much of the innovation and creativity of UPA left with him. The studio continued under the management of Bosustow, but the energetic, innovative quality of UPA's cartoons was irreparably damaged. UPA stopped producing theatrical cartoon shorts in 1959.
. Saperstein turned UPA's focus to television
to sustain itself. UPA expanded the Mr. Magoo series and brought it to television, along with other animated series, including an adaptation of the comic strip
Dick Tracy
. The studio continued to operate, but the tight schedules and reduced budgets had devastating effects on the product. UPA was forced to churn out cartoons at a far greater quantity than the studio had done for theatrical releases or even the CBS television series; quality, particularly of the Mr. Magoo series, sank to an embarrassing level.
The UPA style of limited animation
was adopted by other animation studios, and especially by TV cartoon studios such as Hanna-Barbera Productions. However, it was implemented as a cost-cutting measure rather than an artistic choice. A plethora of low-budget, cheaply made cartoons over the next twenty years effectively reduced television animation to a commodity, despite UPA's original goal to expand the boundaries of animation and create a new form of art.
One bright moment in the UPA television era came with Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol
(1963), which became the first episode of an animated TV series entitled The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo
. Christmas Carol captured the spirit of Charles Dickens' tale in a manner that few of the many re-tellings of the story would, and it is considered to be a holiday classic of the 1960s, ranking alongside A Charlie Brown Christmas
and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
.
UPA produced two full-length feature films in its tenure: a 1959 feature starring Mr. Magoo entitled 1001 Arabian Nights, directed by Jack Kinney
; and Gay Purr-ee
in 1962, directed by Abe Levitow
.
studio to produce a new animated series called What's New Mr. Magoo? in September 1977.
Columbia Pictures
retained ownership of UPA's theatrical cartoons. The studio's TV cartoon library was licensed by Classic Media in New York (although 77 other cartoons were sold to Studio-100 Media), and then in 2007 merged into Entertainment Rights in London.
In 1970, Saperstein led UPA into a contract with Toho Studios of Japan to distribute its "giant monster" (see kaiju
and tokusatsu
) movies in America. Theatrical releases, and especially TV syndication, of the Toho monster movies created a new cult movie market for Japanese monster movies, and such long-running television movie syndication packages such as Creature Double Feature
exposed the Toho movie monsters to young American audiences, who embraced them and helped them maintain their popularity throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
When Toho began producing a new generation of monster movies in the late 1980s, beginning with Godzilla 1985, UPA capitalized on its Toho contract and helped introduce the new kaiju features to the Western world.
Because of its long association with Toho, UPA is better known to cult-movie fans today as Toho's American distributor rather than a pioneer of animated cartoons. But the legacy of UPA is an important chapter in the history of American animation.
UPA continues to license the American library of Godzilla
movies, even today. UPA's contract with Toho also resulted in Saperstein producing Woody Allen
's first feature film, What's Up Tiger Lily?. Although Classic Media
now owns the ancillary rights to most of the UPA library, UPA itself continues to hold the licensing rights to Mr. Magoo, and Saperstein was executive producer to Disney
's unsuccessful live-action feature Mr. Magoo in 1997 (Classic Media does own some rights, however).
Classic Media/Sony Wonder
began issuing the Mr. Magoo TV cartoon series on DVD
in 2001, beginning with Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.
There has been no word on the theatrical cartoons however.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
studio of the 1940s through present day, beginning with industrial films and World War II training films. In the late 1940s, UPA produced theatrical shorts for Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
, most notably the Mr. Magoo
Mr. Magoo
Quincy Magoo is a cartoon character created at the UPA animation studio in 1949. Voiced by Jim Backus, Quincy Magoo is a wealthy, short-statured retiree who gets into a series of sticky situations as a result of his nearsightedness, compounded by his stubborn refusal to admit the problem...
series. In the late 1950s UPA produced a television series for CBS hosted by Gerald McBoing-Boing
Gerald McBoing-Boing
Gerald McBoing-Boing is an animated short film produced by United Productions of America and given wide release by Columbia Pictures on November 2, 1950...
. In the 1960s UPA produced several Mr. Magoo and Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy is a comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a hard-hitting, fast-shooting and intelligent police detective. Created by Chester Gould, the strip made its debut on October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror. It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate...
series and specials, the most popular of which was Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol
Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol
Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol is a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' famous short story A Christmas Carol starring the character Mr. Magoo...
. UPA also produced two features, 1001 Arabian Nights and Gay Purr-ee
Gay Purr-ee
Gay Purr-ee is an animated film musical produced by United Productions of America and released by Warner Bros. in 1962. It features the voice talent of Judy Garland in her only animated-film role.- Plot:...
, and distributed Japanese films from Toho Studios in the 1970s and 1980s. The latest animated series is with Gerald McBoing Boing (2005-2007), licensed and co-produced by Cookie Jar Entertainment
Cookie Jar Entertainment
The Cookie Jar Group is an American and Canadian producer of children’s entertainment, consumer products and educational materials...
and Classic Media
Classic Media
Classic Media, LLC, is an American production company and distributor of family programming. It was founded in 2000 by former Marvel Entertainment CEO Eric Ellenbogen and former Broadway Video executive John Engelman in hopes of acquiring mismanaged classic properties and giving exposure to...
, for Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....
.
UPA Pictures' legacy in the history of animation has largely been overshadowed by the commercial success of the vast cartoon libraries of Warner Brothers and Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
. Nonetheless, UPA had a significant impact on animation style, content, and technique, and its innovations were recognized and adopted by the other major animation studios and independent filmmakers all over the world. UPA pioneered the technique of limited animation
Limited animation
Limited animation is a process of making animated cartoons that does not redraw entire frames but variably reuses common parts between frames. One of its major trademarks is the stylized design in all forms and shapes, which in the early days was referred to as modern design...
, and though this style of animation came to be widely abused during the 1960s and 1970s as a cost-cutting measure, it was originally intended as a stylistic alternative to the growing trend (particularly at Disney) of recreating cinematic realism in animated films.
Origins
UPA was founded in the wake of the Disney animators' strikeDisney animators' strike
The Disney animators' strike was a labor strike by the animators of Walt Disney Studios in 1941.-History:The 1930s led to a rise of labor unions in motion pictures as in other industries such as The Screen Actors Guild which was formed in 1933. Animators of Fleischer Studios went on strike in 1937...
of 1941, which resulted in the exodus of a number of long-time Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
staff members. Among them was John Hubley
John Hubley
John Hubley was an American animation director, art director, producer and writer of traditional animation films known for both his formal experimentation and for his emotional realism which stemmed from his tendency to cast his own children as voice actors in his films.- Biography :Hubley was...
, a layout artist who was unhappy with the ultra-realistic style of animation that Disney had been advocating. Along with a number of his colleagues, Hubley believed that animation did not have to be a painstakingly realistic imitation of real life; they felt that the medium of animation had been constrained by efforts to depict cinematic reality. Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...
' 1942 cartoon The Dover Boys
The Dover Boys
"The Dover Boys at Pimento University" or "The Rivals of Roquefort Hall" is a 1942 Merrie Melodies cartoon produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions and directed by Chuck Jones. It was released by Warner Bros. on September 19, 1942...
had demonstrated that animation could freely experiment with character design, depth, and perspective to create a stylized artistic vision appropriate to the subject matter. Hubley, Bobe Cannon, and others at UPA, sought to produce animated films with sufficient freedom to express design ideas considered radical by other established studios.
In 1943, Zack Schwartz, David Hilberman
David Hilberman
David Hilberman was an American cartoon animator and one of the founders of classic 1940s animation.Hilberman worked for Walt Disney Studios and helped animate Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bambi. His involvement in unionizing colleagues and organization of the 1941 Disney strike cost him...
, and Stephen Bosustow
Stephen Bosustow
Stephen Reginald Bosustow was a Canadian-born American film producer from 1943 until his retirement in 1979. He was one of the founders of United Productions of America and produced nearly 600 cartoon and live action shorts. He is chiefly remembered for producing a string of Mr...
formed a studio called first Industrial Film & Poster Service and later United Productions of America, where they were free to apply their concepts. Finding work (and income) in the then-booming field of wartime work for the government, the small studio produced a cartoon sponsored by the United Auto Workers
United Auto Workers
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers , is a labor union which represents workers in the United States and Puerto Rico, and formerly in Canada. Founded as part of the Congress of Industrial...
(UAW) in 1944. This Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...
directed cartoon was entitled Hell-Bent for Election
Hell-Bent for Election
Hell-Bent For Election was a 1944 two-reel animated cartoon short subject. The short was one of the first major films from United Productions of America , which would go on to become the most influential animation studio of the 1950s...
, and was produced for the (third) reelection campaign of FDR. The film was a theatrical success, leading to another cartoon entitled Brotherhood of Man (1945), also sponsored by the UAW. The film, directed by Bobe Cannon, advocated tolerance of all people. The short was groundbreaking not only in its message but in its very flat, stylized design, in complete defiance of the Disney approach. With its new-found fame, the studio renamed itself UPA Pictures (UPA).
Initially UPA contracted with the government to produce animation, but the government contracts began to evaporate as the FBI began investigating Communist activities in Hollywood in the late 1940s. No formal charges were filed against anyone at UPA in the beginnings of the so-called "Red Scare"
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
, but the government contracts were lost as Washington severed its ties with Hollywood.
Columbia Pictures and success
UPA moved to the crowded field of theatrical cartoons to sustain itself, and won a contract with Columbia PicturesColumbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
. Columbia had historically been an also-ran in the field of animated shorts, and was not satisfied with the output of its Screen Gems
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....
cartoon studio. The UPA animators applied their stylistic concepts and storytelling to Columbia's characters The Fox and the Crow
The Fox and the Crow
The Fox and the Crow are a pair of anthropomorphic cartoon characters created by Frank Tashlin for the Screen Gems studio. The characters, the refined but gullible Fauntleroy Fox and the streetwise Crawford Crow, appeared in a series of animated short subjects released by Screen Gems through its...
with the shorts Robin Hoodlum (1948) and The Magic Fluke (1949), both directed by Hubley. Both shorts were nominated for Academy Awards and Columbia gave the studio permission to create its own new characters. UPA responded, not with another "funny animal," but the star was a human character, a crotchety, nearsighted old man. The Ragtime Bear (1949), the first appearance of Mr. Magoo
Mr. Magoo
Quincy Magoo is a cartoon character created at the UPA animation studio in 1949. Voiced by Jim Backus, Quincy Magoo is a wealthy, short-statured retiree who gets into a series of sticky situations as a result of his nearsightedness, compounded by his stubborn refusal to admit the problem...
, was a box-office hit, and UPA's star quickly rose as the 1950s dawned.
With a unique, sparse drawing style that contrasted greatly with other cartoons of the day, not to mention the novelty of a human character in a field crowded with talking mice, rabbits, and bears, the Mr. Magoo series won accolades for UPA. Two Magoo cartoons won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons)
Academy Award for Animated Short Film
The Academy Award for Animated Short Film is an award which has been given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Academy Awards every year since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931-32, to the present....
: When Magoo Flew
When Magoo Flew
When Magoo Flew is a 1954 short animation by Stephen Bosustow that won an Academy Award for Short Subjects in 1954. In addition, it was the first UPA short to be made for the Cinemascope widescreen format.-Plot Summary:...
in 1953 and Magoo's Puddle Jumper
Magoo's Puddle Jumper
Magoo's Puddle Jumper is a 1956 short animation by Pete Burness that won an Academy Award for Short Subjects . The cartoon follows the misadventures of the myopic Mr. Magoo as he drives a new electric car into the ocean....
in 1955.
In 1951, UPA scored another hit with Gerald McBoing-Boing
Gerald McBoing-Boing
Gerald McBoing-Boing is an animated short film produced by United Productions of America and given wide release by Columbia Pictures on November 2, 1950...
, based on a story by Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss
Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone....
. Gerald McBoing-Boing won UPA another Academy Award, and several UPA cartoons would receive Oscar nominations in the next few years, fifteen between 1949 and 1959. Also in 1951, UPA announced plans for a feature-length film based on the work of cartoonist and humorist James Thurber
James Thurber
James Grover Thurber was an American author, cartoonist and celebrated wit. Thurber was best known for his cartoons and short stories published in The New Yorker magazine.-Life:...
, to be titled Men, Women and Dogs. (Just one of the Thurber pieces intended for this feature, The Unicorn in the Garden
The Unicorn in the Garden
"The Unicorn in the Garden" is a short story written by James Thurber. The most famous of Thurber's humorous modern fables, it first appeared in The New Yorker on October 31, 1939; and was first collected in his book Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated...
, was eventually released as a short subject.)
Shorts such as The Tell-Tale Heart and Rooty Toot Toot
Rooty Toot Toot
Rooty Toot Toot is a 1951 United Productions of America animated short film, directed by John Hubley. In 1994 it was voted #41 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field...
featured striking, sophisticated designs unlike anything offered by competing studios. The "UPA style" began to influence significant changes at the other major animation studios, including Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
, MGM, and even Disney, ushering in a new era of experimentation in animation.
Decline
The House Un-American Activities CommitteeHouse Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
hearings took a toll on UPA. Columbia, fearful of the investigations, pressured UPA to dismiss anyone with even the slightest hint of communist association, including writers Phil Eastman and Bill Scott (who was not himself under suspicion but tainted by association as Eastman's writing partner). Hubley, a political activist with genuine communist ties, was dismissed in May, 1952. When he left, much of the innovation and creativity of UPA left with him. The studio continued under the management of Bosustow, but the energetic, innovative quality of UPA's cartoons was irreparably damaged. UPA stopped producing theatrical cartoon shorts in 1959.
Turning to television
In 1956, Steve Bosustow secured a CBS contract for UPA to produce a television series that brought new talent to the studio, and a brand new energy emerged under the supervision of Bobe Cannon. Talents such as Ernie Pintoff, Fred Crippen, Jimi Muricami, George Dunning, Mel Leven, Auri Batalia, Ozzie Evans, and many more, gave this short lived show a wide variety of new looks in animation. But, as the major Hollywood studios began cutting back and shutting down their animation studios in the early 1960s, UPA was in financial straits, and Steve Bosustow sold the studio to a new producer, Henry G. SapersteinHenry G. Saperstein
Henry G. Saperstein was a U.S. film producer and distributor. Through his UPA studio, he produced the television special Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol , and The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo television series which it spawned, as well as the animated features 1001 Arabian Nights starring Magoo, and...
. Saperstein turned UPA's focus to television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
to sustain itself. UPA expanded the Mr. Magoo series and brought it to television, along with other animated series, including an adaptation of the comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy is a comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a hard-hitting, fast-shooting and intelligent police detective. Created by Chester Gould, the strip made its debut on October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror. It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate...
. The studio continued to operate, but the tight schedules and reduced budgets had devastating effects on the product. UPA was forced to churn out cartoons at a far greater quantity than the studio had done for theatrical releases or even the CBS television series; quality, particularly of the Mr. Magoo series, sank to an embarrassing level.
The UPA style of limited animation
Limited animation
Limited animation is a process of making animated cartoons that does not redraw entire frames but variably reuses common parts between frames. One of its major trademarks is the stylized design in all forms and shapes, which in the early days was referred to as modern design...
was adopted by other animation studios, and especially by TV cartoon studios such as Hanna-Barbera Productions. However, it was implemented as a cost-cutting measure rather than an artistic choice. A plethora of low-budget, cheaply made cartoons over the next twenty years effectively reduced television animation to a commodity, despite UPA's original goal to expand the boundaries of animation and create a new form of art.
One bright moment in the UPA television era came with Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol
Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol
Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol is a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' famous short story A Christmas Carol starring the character Mr. Magoo...
(1963), which became the first episode of an animated TV series entitled The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo
The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo
The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo is an animated television series, produced by United Productions of America, which aired for one season...
. Christmas Carol captured the spirit of Charles Dickens' tale in a manner that few of the many re-tellings of the story would, and it is considered to be a holiday classic of the 1960s, ranking alongside A Charlie Brown Christmas
A Charlie Brown Christmas
A Charlie Brown Christmas is the first prime-time animated TV special based upon the comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. It was produced and directed by former Warner Bros. and UPA animator Bill Melendez, who also supplied the voice for the character of Snoopy...
and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is a children's story by Dr. Seuss written in rhymed verse with illustrations by the author. It was published as a book by Random House in 1957, and at approximately the same time in an issue of Redbook...
.
UPA produced two full-length feature films in its tenure: a 1959 feature starring Mr. Magoo entitled 1001 Arabian Nights, directed by Jack Kinney
Jack Kinney
Jack Ryan Kinney was an American animator, director and producer of animated shorts.Jack Kinney attended John Muir Junior High School in Los Angeles, California , and attended John C. Fremont High School there with Roy Williams...
; and Gay Purr-ee
Gay Purr-ee
Gay Purr-ee is an animated film musical produced by United Productions of America and released by Warner Bros. in 1962. It features the voice talent of Judy Garland in her only animated-film role.- Plot:...
in 1962, directed by Abe Levitow
Abe Levitow
Abraham "Abe" Levitow was an American animator who worked at Warner Bros. Cartoons, UPA and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ....
.
Abandoning Animation and Toho Studios
Saperstein kept UPA afloat in the 1960s and beyond by abandoning animation production completely after the animation studio closed permanently in 1964 and sold off UPA's library of cartoons, although the studio retained the licenses and copyrights on Mr. Magoo, Gerald McBoing-Boing and the other UPA characters. This led to UPA contracting with DePatie-Freleng EnterprisesDePatie-Freleng Enterprises
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises was a Hollywood-based animation production company, active from 1963 to 1981. They produced theatrical cartoons, animated series, commercials, title sequences and television specials. Notable among these is The Pink Panther film titles and cartoon shorts and the Dr....
studio to produce a new animated series called What's New Mr. Magoo? in September 1977.
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
retained ownership of UPA's theatrical cartoons. The studio's TV cartoon library was licensed by Classic Media in New York (although 77 other cartoons were sold to Studio-100 Media), and then in 2007 merged into Entertainment Rights in London.
In 1970, Saperstein led UPA into a contract with Toho Studios of Japan to distribute its "giant monster" (see kaiju
Kaiju
is a Japanese word that means "strange beast," but often translated in English as "monster". Specifically, it is used to refer to a genre of tokusatsu entertainment....
and tokusatsu
Tokusatsu
is a Japanese term that applies to any live-action film or television drama that usually features superheroes and makes considerable use of special effects ....
) movies in America. Theatrical releases, and especially TV syndication, of the Toho monster movies created a new cult movie market for Japanese monster movies, and such long-running television movie syndication packages such as Creature Double Feature
Creature Double Feature
Creature Double Feature was a syndicated horror show, broadcast in the Boston and Philadelphia area during the 1970s and 1980s. It sometimes also aired under names like Sci-Fi Flix and Creature Feature...
exposed the Toho movie monsters to young American audiences, who embraced them and helped them maintain their popularity throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
When Toho began producing a new generation of monster movies in the late 1980s, beginning with Godzilla 1985, UPA capitalized on its Toho contract and helped introduce the new kaiju features to the Western world.
Because of its long association with Toho, UPA is better known to cult-movie fans today as Toho's American distributor rather than a pioneer of animated cartoons. But the legacy of UPA is an important chapter in the history of American animation.
UPA continues to license the American library of Godzilla
Godzilla
is a daikaijū, a Japanese movie monster, first appearing in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla. Since then, Godzilla has gone on to become a worldwide pop culture icon starring in 28 films produced by Toho Co., Ltd. The monster has appeared in numerous other media incarnations including video games,...
movies, even today. UPA's contract with Toho also resulted in Saperstein producing Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
's first feature film, What's Up Tiger Lily?. Although Classic Media
Classic Media
Classic Media, LLC, is an American production company and distributor of family programming. It was founded in 2000 by former Marvel Entertainment CEO Eric Ellenbogen and former Broadway Video executive John Engelman in hopes of acquiring mismanaged classic properties and giving exposure to...
now owns the ancillary rights to most of the UPA library, UPA itself continues to hold the licensing rights to Mr. Magoo, and Saperstein was executive producer to Disney
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
's unsuccessful live-action feature Mr. Magoo in 1997 (Classic Media does own some rights, however).
Classic Media/Sony Wonder
Sony Wonder
Sony Wonder is a children and family's music and home video arm of Sony Music Entertainment, founded in 1991. The division once distributed material from Sesame Workshop and Classic Media...
began issuing the Mr. Magoo TV cartoon series on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in 2001, beginning with Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.
There has been no word on the theatrical cartoons however.
External links
- UPA Cartoons at BCDB.com
- UPA: Mavericks, Magic, and Magoo
- The Columbia Crow's Nest
- Bill Paolucci's Gerald McBoing Boing Page
- Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Mr. Magoo
- Interview with Henry G. Saperstein
- A series of posts criticising UPA's artistic style by John KricfalusiJohn KricfalusiMichael John Kricfalusi , better known as John K., is a Canadian animator. He is creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show, its adults-only spin-off Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon", The Ripping Friends animated series, and Weekend Pussy Hunt, which was billed as "the world's first interactive web-based...