United Productions of America, better known as UPA, was an American animation studio and later distribution company founded in 1941 as Industrial Film and Poster Service by former Walt Disney Productions employees. Beginning with industrial and World War II training films, UPA eventually produced theatrical shorts for Columbia Pictures such as the Mr. Magoo series. In 1956, UPA produced a television series for CBS, The Boing-Boing Show, hosted by Gerald McBoing Boing. In the 1960s, UPA produced syndicated Mr. Magoo and Dick Tracy television series and other series and specials, including Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol. UPA also produced two animated features, 1001 Arabian Nights and Gay Purr-ee, and distributed Japanese films from Toho Studios in the 1970s and 1980s.
The golden age of American animation was a period in the history of U.S. animation that began with the popularization of sound synchronized cartoons in 1928 and gradually ended in the 1960s when theatrical animated shorts started to lose popularity to the newer medium of television. Animated media from after the golden age, especially on television, were produced on cheaper budgets and with more limited techniques between the late 1950s and 1980s.
Modern animation in the United States from the late 1980s to 2004 is frequently referred to as the renaissance age of American animation. During this period, many large American entertainment companies reformed and reinvigorated their animation departments, following the dark age, and the United States had an influence on global and worldwide animation.
Fleischer Studios was an American animation studio founded in 1929 by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer, who ran the pioneering company from its inception until its acquisition by Paramount Pictures, the parent company and the distributor of its films. In its prime, Fleischer Studios was a premier producer of animated cartoons for theaters, with Walt Disney Productions being its chief competitor in the 1930s.
Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were an American animation team and company known for founding the Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation studios. In 1929, the studio was founded under the name Harman-Ising Productions, producing Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies for Leon Schlesinger from 1930 to 1933. From 1934 to 1938, Harman-Ising produced the Happy Harmonies series, with William Hanna as their employee.
Merrie Melodies is an American animated comedy short film series distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was part of the Looney Tunes franchise and featured many of the same characters. It originally ran from August 2, 1931, to September 20, 1969, during the golden age of American animation, though it was revived in 1979, with new shorts sporadically released until June 13, 1997. Originally, Merrie Melodies placed emphasis on one-shot color films in comparison to the black-and-white Looney Tunes films. After Bugs Bunny became the breakout character of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes transitioned to color production in the early 1940s, the two series gradually lost their distinctions and shorts were assigned to each series randomly.
The history of animation, the method for creating moving pictures from still images, has an early history and a modern history that began with the advent of celluloid film in 1888. Between 1895 and 1920, during the rise of the cinematic industry, several different animation techniques were developed or re-invented, including stop-motion with objects, puppets, clay or cutouts, and drawn or painted animation. Hand-drawn animation, which mostly consisted of a succession of still images painted on cels, was the dominant technique of the 20th century and became known as traditional animation.
DePatie–Freleng Enterprises was an American animation studio founded by former Warner Bros. Cartoons employees in May 1963, before being acquired and renamed by Marvel to Marvel Productions in 1981. Based in Burbank, California, DFE produced animation for film and television.
A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film organizations may use different definitions, however; the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, for example, currently defines a short film as 45 minutes or less in the case of documentaries, and 59 minutes or less in the case of scripted narrative films.
Warner Bros. Animation Inc. is an American animation studio which is part of the Warner Bros. Television Group, a division of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery and serves as the animation division and label of Warner Bros.
Sony Pictures Animation Inc. is an American animation studio owned by Sony Entertainment's Sony Pictures Entertainment through their Motion Picture Group division and founded on May 9, 2002. The studio is based in Culver City, California. Most of the studio's films are distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures Releasing under their Columbia Pictures label, while direct-to-video releases are released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
The Milky Way is a one-reel animated cartoon short subject, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres with the film The Captain Is a Lady in 1940 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The short explores the adventures of the "three little kittens who lost their mittens", as they explore a dreamland where space is made up entirely of dairy products. The short won the 1940 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, and was the first non-Disney film to do so. Other shorts nominated in 1940 included A Wild Hare by Warner Bros., introducing Bugs Bunny, and another MGM cartoon Puss Gets the Boot, with Jasper & Jinx, the prototype for Tom and Jerry. This makes 1940 the first time a Disney film wasn’t even nominated for the award. It was added as a bonus feature in the Marx Bros. DVD release of Go West (1940) and Warner Archive Blu-ray release of Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940).
An animation studio is a company producing animated media. The broadest such companies conceive of products to produce, own the physical equipment for production, employ operators for that equipment, and hold a major stake in the sales or rentals of the media produced. They also own rights over merchandising and creative rights for characters created/held by the company, much like authors holding copyrights. In some early cases, they also held patent rights over methods of animation used in certain studios that were used for boosting productivity. Overall, they are business concerns and can function as such in legal terms.
MGM Animation/Visual Arts was an American animation studio established in 1962 by animation director/producer Chuck Jones, producer Les Goldman and executive Walter Bien as Sib Tower 12 Productions. Its productions include the last series of Tom and Jerry theatrical shorts, the TV specials Horton Hears a Who! and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, and the feature film The Phantom Tollbooth, all released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film is a Golden Globe Award that was awarded for the first time at the 64th Golden Globe Awards in 2007. It was the first time that the Golden Globe Awards had created a separate category for animated films since its establishment. The nominations are announced in January and an awards ceremony is held later in the month. Initially, only three films were nominated for best animated film, in contrast to five nominations for the majority of other awards. The Pixar film Cars was the first recipient of the award.
The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio was an American animation studio operated by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) during the Golden Age of American animation. Active from 1937 until 1957, the studio was responsible for producing animated shorts to accompany MGM feature films in Loew's Theaters, which included popular cartoon characters Tom, Jerry, Droopy, Butch, Spike, Tyke, and Barney Bear.
The ceremony for the 34th Annual Annie Awards, honoring the best in animation in 2006, was held on February 11, 2007, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California.
