Before we get into today’s post, here’s some good news!
Recently, I mentioned a piece of film in the Library of Congress’s archives, which I described as a small, vital chapter in a famous animation director’s filmography.
Shortly after I had published the article on Cartoon Research in May 2023, I contacted the Library of Congress to find out if they had 35mm materials from 1937’s When’s Your Birthday?, which features Bob Clampett’s directorial debut: an animated Technicolor segment in a B&W film that poked fun at the Zodiac signs (the film involves Joe E. Brown as a prizefighter who is a staunch believer in astrology).
It turned out that the LoC has the complete feature in a 35mm nitrate composite master positive, but the Technicolor insert was still in B&W. The interesting thing about the film’s opening scenes: reel 1 is divided into two parts: the animation is reel 1A, and the beginning live-action is in reel 1B. Because the film wasn’t copyrighted or renewed, despite the opening titles containing an on-screen copyright statement, I was able to request a 2K scan of reel 1A. Unless a film collector owns an original release print with its color intact, no other archive or institution has other 35mm elements.
In a few months, this piece of Clampett’s oeuvre will be posted on my Patreon in a newly remastered version. Besides the helpful members of the LoC, the Patronage helped make this possible, so give them a round of applause! These screen captures are directly from the raw scan (click to enlarge):
In early 1933, producer-directors Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising split their business relationship with Leon Schlesinger. Leon decided to open a new studio that summer, which left Harman, Ising, and many of their fellow staffers out of work.
Hugh and Rudy subcontracted work from the Van Beuren Corporation on a trio of cartoons with Cubby Bear: Cubby’s World Flight, The Gay Gaucho, and Mischievous Mice.
Harman-Ising then commissioned an animated sequence of the Walrus and the Carpenter in Paramount’s all-star adaptation of Alice in Wonderland (1933, dir. Norman Z. McLeod).
For this post, Mark Kausler provided an essential document from Harman’s papers: a typewritten list of Harman-Ising employees on the studio payroll during the hiatus between the end of Hugh and Rudy’s contract with Schlesinger and the start of their MGM release in early 1934. Bob Clampett, the first recruit in Leon’s new studio, is absent from the personnel sheet.
Also, note that Hugh, Rudy, and animators Rollin “Ham” Hamilton and Carmen “Max” Maxwell had relatives on staff at H-I.
Notably, the payroll records specify that Hugh and Rudy highly valued Isadore “Friz” Freleng and Ham Hamilton—Freleng at $225 a week and Hamilton at $200 a week. [In 2026 US currency, Friz: $5,655.89; Ham: $5,027.46.]
This annotated guide lists when various H-I staffers left the payroll:
September 14
Paul Conlon
September 19
Herman F. Ising
September 24
Frank Marsales [received a check for Cubby Bear #3 (Mischievous Mice) on November 6, 1933]
September 27
Jonathan “Mo” Caldwell
Otto Englander
Friz Freleng
Rita Gulick
Walker Harman
September 28
Don Smith
September 29
Rollin Hamilton
Larry Martin
Bob McKimson
Larry Silverman
September 30
Sandy Walker
October 2
Tom McKimson
Bob Stokes
October 3
Norm Blackburn
October 4
Bob Allen
Tom Byrne
Hugh Harman
Murray Hudson
Rudolf Ising
Charles McKimson
Mel Shaw
Francis Smith
Paul Smith
Gladys Stout
Elmer Wait
James Williams
October 5
Idelle G. Berkson
Lillian Freleng
Dale Lemon
Carman Maxwell
Jack Maxwell
Irene Urban (née Hamilton, Rollin Hamilton’s sister)
October 7
Marie Coffey
Lawrence “Art” Goble
Howard Hanson
James Hazell
Anna McCaskill
Melvin Millar
Irene “Pee-Wee” Wyman
October 9
Bill Hanna
October 11
Max Ising
Special thanks to Mark Kausler for providing the rare production materials for this post.
DEVON BAXTER is a film restoration artist, video editor, and animation researcher/writer currently residing in Pennsylvania. He also hosts a 
Great work Devon. This should debunk the old claim that Friz Freleng had to rework Buddy’s Day Out and I’ve Got to Sing a Torch Song from Tom Palmer once and for all (it was actually Earl Duvall for the former, not so sure about the latter but it might be Bernard Brown according to Keith Scott’s ending filmography). How could he have reworked those shorts? He was at Harman and Ising at the time! (According to Keith Scott’s book again though, it appears he DID rework some of the Buddy’s after that including Buddy’s Beer Garden).
Also fascinating that Frank Marsales seemingly wrote the score or scored Mischievous Mice. Wonder if his musical composition for that toon still exists?
Friz Freleng affirmé dans une interview de Friz Freleng stated in an interview with John Kricfalusi recorded in the 1990s that he himself was responsible for the reworking of “Buddy’s Day Out.” Furthermore, Bob Clampett claimed that this same cartoon had to be reworked three times before it was accepted by Warner Bros.
Is it possible that the release of this cartoon was delayed by several months?
Friz was most likely mistaken. Bob Clampett stated that it was reworked by Earl Duvall.
That payroll roster is very interesting. I see that all three McKimson brothers were employed by Harman-Ising at this time; however, youngest brother Charles was making only $3 a day, the same as the ladies in Ink & Paint, while Tom and Bob were each earning $25! Melvin Schwartzman, later known as Mel Shaw, was only getting $3.75 a day at H-I. In March 0f 1938 he joined the staff of the Walt Disney studio, where, according to his colleague Larry Lansbergh, he “made a top salary.”
“Paul Smith” — is that Paul J. Smith the animator, or Paul J. Smith the musician?
Paul – that would be Paul J. Smith, the animator. To make it more coincidental, they both had the same middle name and were both born in 1906! (Paul Smith, the animator, was born in March, whereas Paul Smith, the composer, was born in October.)
Both Paul Smiths were born in the state of Michigan too!
Not only were they Michiganders, they were both YOOPERS (i.e., born in the state’s Upper Peninsula)!
Pretty sure that’s the animator Paul J. Smith. The musician was likely employed at Disney at the time.
The animator most likely – he did work on a few of the Harman-Ising Merrie Melodies (I Wish I Had Wings)
Larry Silverman (listed as “Lawrence Silverman” on this payroll record) was working on the west coast in the 1930s? This was apparently before his longtime Terrytoons tenure. He returned to work in L.A. toward the end of his career, until his retirement.
Thanks, everyone, for your input on the Paul Smith vs. Paul Smith question. I’m not going to buck the consensus, but I do have a couple of lingering questions:
1) The Paul Smith employed at Harman-Ising in 1933 was one of the studio’s most highly-paid employees, outearning everyone save Freleng, Hamilton, the two elder McKimsons, music director Frank Marsales, and Harman and Ising themselves. Granted, the reputation of Smith (the animator) suffers today because of the poor quality of the cartoons he directed for Lantz late in his career; but in 1933, was he really so highly regarded as an animator as to justify such a princely salary? (On the other hand, that rate of pay is in line with what I’d expect for an assistant music director.)
2) Paul Smith (the musician) was hired by Disney in 1934, according to his Wikipedia entry. Yes, of course I know better than to accept information from Wikipedia without corroboration from more reliable sources, but a cursory search was unable to confirm or refute that datum. Is the 1934 hire date correct? If not, when did Smith start working at Disney? And if so, then where was Smith working in 1933?
In my opinion, Paul Smith was an excellent animator, but many talented animators can also be mediocre directors, as was the case with Tom Palmer when he was appointed head of Schlesinger’s new animation studio.
You can view clips of Paul Smith’s animation work here (including some of his work for Harman-Ising):
https://youtu.be/O5bZRpKv3hg?si=zNnVJb6LiJXlf_td
Many names are familiar for me, though a few are kind of surprising. Is this Elmer Wait the same one that worked under Tex Avery’s unit in the 30s until his sudden death in 1937?
Who is Earl Duvall, and why was he promoted to head of Leon Schlesinger’s animation department?
Earl Duvall was an artist at the Disney studio who primarily worked on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies newspaper comics. He, along with Tom Palmer and Jack King, were brought in by Leon Schlesinger to work at his cartoon studio in 1933 following Harman and Ising’s departure.
My guess is that he got promoted basically by default following Palmer’s dismissal, and while he proved to be a better director (“Honeymoon Hotel” and “Sittin’ On a Backyard Fence” are surprisingly good shorts), his tenure didn’t last that much longer.
Earl Duvall got into an argument with Leon Schlesinger after he got drunk, after this he was fired, and Jack King was promoted to be the new director to take his place.
It is quite surprising to note that, although Earl Duvall worked at Disney Studios, the cartoons he created for Schlesinger have a style very similar to that of Fleischer Studios, particularly in the way everyday objects come to life and develop a mind of their own (something Disney Studios rarely used in their cartoons).
It is truly a shame that Earl Duvall never had the opportunity to direct any more cartoons after being fired from the studio.
Does anyone know how Harman-Ising ended up directing Van Beuren’s Cubby Bear cartoons on the East Coast? I heard there was a strike at the Van Beuren studio at that time, so I assume the studio executives entrusted the production of the cartoons to other animators. This would likely explain why directors John Foster, Mannie Davis, and Eddie Donnelly left the studio at that time to return to work for Paul Terry.
Apparently, there was no strike at the studios, but animation historian Harvey Deneroff revealed that the leading directors had attempted to unionize the studio, but that one of them, George Stallings, betrayed them by reporting them to Van Beuren; as a result, a large portion of the studio’s staff was fired at that time.
It is interesting to note that at the time the contract with MGM was signed, Harman-Ising was working on a very ambitious project: a two-reel animated short film inspired by the famous ballet *The Nutcracker* by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Had they succeeded in completing this project, the Harman-Ising studios would have gained a significant lead over their competitors and might even have managed to outpace Walt Disney! Unfortunately, the project had to be abandoned due to a contractual dispute with MGM.