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The Mirisch Company was an American film production company owned by Walter Mirisch and his brothers, Marvin and Harold Mirisch. The company also had sister firms known at various times as Mirisch Production Company, Mirisch Pictures Inc., Mirisch Films, and The Mirisch Corporation. [1]
Walter Mirisch began to work as a producer at Monogram Pictures beginning with Fall Guy (1947), the profitable Bomba the Jungle Boy series, Wichita (1955), and The First Texan (1956), by which time the company was known as Allied Artists. Walter Mirisch was in charge of production at the studio when it made Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Love in the Afternoon (1957).
The Mirisch Company was founded in 1957 [2] at which time it signed a 12-picture deal with United Artists (UA) that was extended to 20 films two years later. Its first production was Man of the West (1958) starring Gary Cooper. [3] UA acquired the company on March 1, 1963, but the Mirisch brothers continued to produce for their distribution, under other corporate names, in rented space at the Samuel Goldwyn Studio.
It produced many successful motion pictures for United Artists, beginning with the release of Fort Massacre (1958) but later including Some Like It Hot (1959), The Horse Soldiers (1959), The Apartment (1960), The Magnificent Seven (1960), West Side Story (1961), Follow That Dream (1962 with Elvis Presley), The Great Escape (1963), The Pink Panther (1963), Hawaii (1966), In the Heat of the Night (1967), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Fiddler on the Roof (1971), and many others.
In 1964 Mirisch Films Ltd, or Mirisch Films GB was formed in the United Kingdom for the production of 633 Squadron , A Shot in the Dark and several other films. The Pink Panther featured an animated Pink Panther, which soon became a star of a series of theatrical cartoons made by DePatie–Freleng Enterprises and released by Mirisch/UA. The cartoon series earned the partnership name of Mirisch-Geoffrey-DePatie-Freleng [4] for the copyright of The Pink Panther and is used to this day by special arrangement through MGM for new cartoon specials and series.
Mirisch first entered television in 1959 with the series, Wichita Town for NBC. It also co-produced live-action television shows such as The Rat Patrol , Hey Landlord and The Magnificent Seven television series, as well as a number of television movies and cartoon shows of The Super 6 and The Pink Panther Show . In 1965, the company, along with Lee Rich started Mirisch-Rich Television Productions, with the intent to produce shows for network television and it maintains headquarters in the Samuel Goldwyn Studios. [5] Rich left in 1967 and it was soon renamed Mirisch Television Productions. [6]
The company forged long-term associations with directors such as Billy Wilder, Blake Edwards, Robert Wise, George Roy Hill, William Wyler, J. Lee Thompson, John Sturges, and Norman Jewison, who directed three consecutive successes for it: The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), In the Heat of the Night (1967), and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).
The following were from Mirisch Companies:
Television Series:
Television Movies:
The Pink Panther is an American media franchise primarily focusing on a series of comedy-mystery films featuring an inept French police detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau. The franchise began with the release of the film The Pink Panther in 1963. The role of Clouseau was originated by and is most closely associated with Peter Sellers. Most of the films were written and directed by Blake Edwards, with theme music composed by Henry Mancini. Elements and characters inspired by the films were adapted into other media, including books, comic books, video games and animated series.
Isadore "Friz" Freleng, credited as I. Freleng early in his career, was an American animator, cartoonist, director, producer, and composer known for his work at Warner Bros. Cartoons on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from the 1930s to the early 1960s. In total he created more than 300 cartoons.
DePatie–Freleng Enterprises was an American animation studio founded by former Warner Bros. Cartoons employees in May 1963, before dissolving in 1981. Based in Burbank, California, DFE produced animation for film and television.
The Pink Phink is a 1964 American animated short comedy film directed by Friz Freleng. It is the first animated short starring the Pink Panther. The short won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short at the 37th Academy Awards.
The Inspector is an American series of 34 theatrical cartoon shorts produced between 1965 and 1969 by DePatie–Freleng Enterprises and released through United Artists. The cartoons are dedicated to an animated version of Inspector Clouseau comically battling against a rogues' gallery of internationally styled villains.
Pink Panther and Sons is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Mirisch-Geoffrey-DePatie-Freleng. The series was originally broadcast on NBC from 1984 to 1985 and moved to ABC in 1986. Friz Freleng served as creative producer for the series as his and David H. DePatie's production company, DePatie–Freleng Enterprises, existed as an in-name-only enterprise by this time, as its operations were absorbed by Marvel Productions in 1981. The show is based on the Pink Panther, a character created in 1963.
Walter Mortimer Mirisch was an American film producer. He was the president and executive head of production of The Mirisch Corporation, an independent film production company which he formed in 1957 with his brother, Marvin, and half-brother, Harold. He won the Academy Award for Best Picture as producer of In the Heat of the Night (1967).
Graham William Stark was an English comedian, actor, writer and director.
Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was an American animation studio, serving as the in-house animation division of Warner Bros. during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, it was primarily responsible for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated short films. The characters featured in these cartoons, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig, are among the most famous and recognizable characters in the world. Many of the creative staff members at the studio, including directors and animators such as Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson, Tex Avery, Robert Clampett, Arthur Davis, and Frank Tashlin, are considered major figures in the art and history of traditional animation.
Format Films was an animation studio which was founded by Herbert Klynn in 1959 with Jules Engel as vice president, Bob McIntosh and Joseph Mugnaini, all of whom were animators. It was most active during the 1960s, producing episodes of The Alvin Show and Popeye the Sailor. Klynn shut his studio in 1962 but reopened it by 1965 as Format Productions when Engels left for Europe. The studio made eleven sub-contracted shorts in Warner Bros.' theatrical Road Runner series as well as three Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales shorts, and produced The Lone Ranger animated series for CBS in 1966.
William "Bill" Benjamin Lava was a composer and arranger who composed and conducted music for feature films as well as that for the Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated cartoons from 1962 to 1969, replacing the deceased Milt Franklyn, making him the last composer and arranger in the classic era of Warner Bros. Cartoons.
Inspector Clouseau is a 1968 British comedy film, and the third installment in The Pink Panther film series. It was directed by Bud Yorkin, written by brothers Frank Waldman and Tom Waldman and stars Alan Arkin as the title character. It was filmed by Mirisch Films at the MGM-British Studios, Borehamwood and in Europe.
David Hudson DePatie was an American film and television producer who was the last and longest lived executive in charge of the original Warner Bros. Cartoons studio. He also formed DePatie–Freleng Enterprises, with Friz Freleng, Hanna-Barbera Productions and was an executive producer at Marvel Productions.
The Pink Panther is a fictional animated character who appears in the opening and/or closing credit sequences of every film in The Pink Panther series except for A Shot in the Dark and Inspector Clouseau. In the storyline of the original film, the "Pink Panther" is the name of a valuable pink diamond named for a flaw that shows a "figure of a springing panther" when held up to the light in a certain way; in the credits this was translated to an animated pink panther. Only the first Pink Panther film and the second sequel, The Return of the Pink Panther, featured the diamond.
Hawley B. Pratt was an American film director, animator, designer and illustrator. He is best known for his work for Warner Bros. Cartoons and as the right-hand man of director Friz Freleng as a layout artist and later as a director. Pratt also worked for Walt Disney Studios, Filmation, and DePatie-Freleng Enterprises where he co-created The Pink Panther.
Irven LeRoy Spence was an American animator. He is best known for his work on MGM's Tom and Jerry animated shorts. Spence has been credited variously as Irven Spence, Irvin Spence, and Irv Spence.
Pink Panther and Pals is an American animated television series and a modern adaptation of the classic DePatie-Freleng Pink Panther shorts from the 1960s. The series was produced by Desert Panther Production and Rubicon Studios in association with The Mirisch Company and MGM Television. It premiered on Cartoon Network on March 7, 2010. 26 episodes were produced.
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