"When I die, I don't want to go to heaven …
I want to go to UPA"
... Friz Freleng
1. UPA: A Brief History, by Adam Abraham
2. Excerpts from "Of Mice and Magic", by Leonard Maltin
UPA's "Brotherhood of Man"
1945
UPA: A BRIEF HISTORY
By Adam Abraham
In its day, UPA was the animation studio against which all others were
measured.
UPA (United Productions of America) was more than a cartoon studio -- it was an attitude, a point of view, a new way of thinking about what an animated film could -- and should -- be.
The artists of UPA consciously moved beyond the rounded realism of the Walt Disney Studio and the crash-bang anarchy of Warner Bros. and M-G-M to create films that were innovative and graphically bold -- the cartoon equivalent to modern art. During the 1950s, UPA's films were nominated for twelve Academy Awards (winning three), and their influence could be seen everywhere, from television advertising to the Zagreb Studio in Yugoslavia.
The origins of UPA can be found in two events in 1941:
the strike at the Walt Disney Studio and America's entry into World
War II. Among the artists who left Disney's because of the labor dispute
were three men
who later founded UPA: Stephen Bosustow, David Hilberman, and Zachary
Schwartz.
1943 - Schwartz, Hilberman & Bosustow discuss the storyboard for
their fist slide film
"Sparks & Chips Get the Blitz"
Many Disney-trained artists found work during this period
on war-related, animated propaganda and training films. Some of the
people who eventually defined the UPA style, including John Hubley,
worked on
such films, in which they experimented with contemporary graphics that
would have been unwelcome at Disney's. In 1943, Bosustow, Hilberman,
and Schwartz formed Industrial Film and Poster Service, the earliest
incarnation of what became UPA. One year later, the United Auto Workers
(UAW) hired them to make a film to endorse President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt's re-election. "Hell-Bent for Election" was designed
by Zachary Schwartz and directed by Charles M. Jones. Another film for
the UAW, "Brotherhood of Man," followed in 1945, directed
by Robert Cannon.
In 1946, Hilberman and Schwartz decided to leave the company,
now known as United Productions of America, and they sold their interest
to Stephen Bosustow. With the war over, demand for propaganda and training
films diminished; UPA's prospects were uncertain. At the same time,
Columbia Pictures was unhappy with the cartoon shorts produced by its
Screen Gems studio and was looking for a replacement. In 1948, Bosustow
made a deal with Columbia. UPA would now produce entertainment cartoons
for the general public.
Almost from the start, two prohibitions emerged that defined the UPA cartoon: no talking animals and no "cartoon violence." John Hubley directed the film that introduced UPA's first "human" cartoon star: a nearsighted, cantankerous old man named Mr. Magoo (voiced by Jim Backus). But from the earliest shorts, UPA was most remarkable for its layouts and backgrounds. The designer, more than the animator, became the key creative contributor. Bold graphics, flattened character designs, compressed space, and striking colors combined in the unmistakable UPA "style." These elements coalesced perfectly in "Gerald McBoing Boing," directed by Robert Cannon, from a story by Dr. Seuss. It won the Academy Award for animated short subject in 1951. By the early 50s, UPA was a sensation, embraced by the public and the highbrow critics. Gilbert Seldes, writing about UPA in the Saturday Review, described "the feeling that something new and wonderful has happened, something almost too good to be true."
In some ways, it is a mistake to talk about a UPA "style."
Rather, the artists had the flexibility to give each seven-minute film
its own look, appropriate to its subject - whether a gothic story by
Edgar Allan Poe ("The Tell-Tale Heart") or a whimsical fable
by James Thurber ("The Unicorn in the Garden"), whether a
view of childhood innocence ("Willie the Kid") or adult lust
and betrayal ("Rooty Toot Toot"). A UPA "style"
is identifiable in that it influenced other producers of animated cartoons.
M-G-M, Terrytoons, and the revered Disney studio itself fell under UPA's
stylized sway. The company went from upstart to industry standard in
less than a decade. By the mid-50's, UPA's output was diversified, including
a television series (The Gerald McBoing Boing Show), commercials, and
industrials. The company maintained offices in Burbank, New York, and
London. In 1956, all three films nominated for the Oscar for animated
short were produced by UPA - a feat even Walt Disney never accomplished.
Animation
historian, Jerry Beck, pours over UPA memorabilia in the extensive
Pete Burness collection.
However, from the moment UPA started producing theatrical
cartoons, time was running out on the short-film programming (newsreels,
travelogues, serial cliffhangers) that preceded the feature in a film
bill. The end of block-booking practices and the rise of television
diminished the prospects of theatrical shorts. UPA, which always demanded
the
best of its films, often went over budget, which increased its financial
dependence on Columbia Pictures. In 1959, UPA released its first animated
feature, 1001 Arabian Nights, starring Mr. Magoo. By this point, many
of UPA's key creative personnel, including John Hubley and Pete Burness,
had left the studio, and theatrical shorts trickled to a halt.
In 1960, Stephen Bosustow sold controlling interest in UPA to Henry
G. Saperstein.
During the 1960s, Saperstein produced two television series
of Mr. Magoo shorts and one based on Dick Tracy. These employed the
cost-cutting practices of "limited" animation. In 1962, UPA
made its second animated feature, Gay Purr-ee, and a holiday special,
Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. Another Magoo series was produced in 1977
in association with De Patie-Freleng. Twenty years later, Mr. Magoo
appeared in a live-action feature, starring Leslie Nielsen. Ironically,
this film was released by the Walt Disney Company, which indirectly
started it all in 1941. Classic Media,
a New York-based entertainment company, bought UPA's television library
and characters in 2000 and plans to reintroduce Gerald
McBoing Boing in a new television series.
UPA's meteoric rise, happy reign, and regrettable decline
make a classic story of American business, enterprise, and creativity.
Leo Salkin, a former employee, commented, "If God were merciful,
UPA would have survived." Although UPA is in the past, the imaginative
vision of its films lives on. Now that computer-generated "three-dimensional"
animation
is in vogue, it is refreshing to return to the unabashedly two-dimensional
world of UPA. Today a new generation of animators, filmmakers, and fans
can rediscover UPA's legacy of laughter.
Excerpts from "Of Mice and Magic"
By Leonard Maltin
by permission of the author
As a break from the repetition and the formula procedures at other studios,
UPA was unique. "I was working at Warner Brothers before I went
to UPA, and boy, it was just like a breath of fresh air," says
animator Bill Melendez. "It was really a great adventure."
The magic of UPA was to be found in the variety of its films, each one based on a new idea, with a new concept in design and color. Some of the company's industrial and sponsored films were so enjoyable to watch that they received theatrical bookings.
Instead of having a musical director on staff, UPA hired
well-known writers like David Raksin and Ernest Gold, as well as journeymen
composers, to do their scores, feeling that it was just as important
to
have a fresh sound track as to have an individual graphic style for
every film. The results were consistently rewarding.
The triumph of UPA was not in its artwork, but in its marriage of form and content. When these elements were perfectly matched, the results were unbeatable.
If you'd like to find out more about Leonard Maltin and his book, "Of Mice and Magic, a History of American Animated Cartoons", go to the Links page and click on the Leonard Maltin URL.
UPA Gallery of Memories
Below are a few items from the collections of artists who worked at UPA, and at earlier animation studios, and also from collectors of animation memorabilia. Nothing shown on this page is for sale, but is merely here to share for the fun of it. However, for those interesting in buying, there are items for sale in the Funding button. All proceeds from the sale of those items will go to the production of "UPA: Mavericks, Magic & Magoo".
Does anyone know who signed this card?
All the 1941 Disney Strike organizers apparently got one of these pleasant notices.
This sketch was in a folder labeled "Associate Cine-Artists". Other drawings indicate that it was for a film to promote buying WWII war bonds. Our initial feeling is that this was an unfinished project for a brief company started by Steve Bosustow and Cal Howard, which briefly preceded UPA, or Industrial Film and Poster Service, as it was first called. Does anyone have an idea if this is a correct assumption, or not?
Here is UPA's first film, a slide film called "Sparks and Chips Get the Blitz" 1943. Next to it is another slide film made the next year called "Jimmy Rabbit"
Ragtime Bear chasing Dandelion
original Art Babbit rough extremes for "Grizzly
Golfer"
with Mr. Magoo, from the collection of Pete Burness
custom made cuff links for Steve Bosustow,
using frames from a 35mm print of a UPA film
One of the Ernie Pintoff Christmas glasses
This is a sample of UPA's only attempt to get into the recording business. There first, and we think, there only, record was recorded by one of Bing Crosby's sons, Phil Crosby. The flip side, "Thanks" didn't do any better.
This is one of the walls at our documentary production office, which includes, one of the license plates purchased by Upa's London studio, a poster for the first screening of a work-in-progress of the documentary, formerly, "UPA: Mavericks, Mutiny & Magoo, a 1954 award for Tell Tale Heart from the International Film Festival of Säo Paulo, Brazil, a certificate from Filmex for the UPA Tribute program, and a promotional cell of Mr. Magoo.
That's if for now. We will try to change this from time to time as we find new items. Hope you have enjoyed your trip down memory lane with us.
the UPA:MMM Team
