Paramount Cartoons 1964-65
The 1964-65 season would be a period of transition. Seymour Kneitel’s passing brought some unanticipated changes, director Howard Post and plenty of new characters.
The 1964-65 season would be a period of transition. Seymour Kneitel’s passing brought some unanticipated changes, director Howard Post and plenty of new characters.
1963-64: Swifty and Shorty have been added to the theatrical release schedule. New Casper cartoons are on ABC. And Seymour Kneitel passes away.
For the period from September 1962 to August 1963, Seymour Kneitel and crew kept busy producing 13 theatrical originals for Paramount, were deep into the King Features Trilogy, and were preparing and producing some new Casper cartoons for ABC.
Paramount was able to release 21 new cartoons this season due to a clever arrangement with King Features – plus a new alliance with Gene Deitch which yielded two additional shorts.
This was a pretty good year for Paramount. They survived the sale of its library to Harvey Comics and had a robust order for 20 new theatricals. And then there was “The Cat”.
The 1959-60 season was a busy one for the Paramount Cartoon Studio – but not all of the work was for Paramount, nor was it for the big screen.
On July 27th 1958 it was made official – Harvey Comics bought the post-1950 Paramount Pictures cartoons. Paramount’s in-house animation department would now continue on – sans its popular creations.
Though Popeye was no longer being produced, the cartoons released in the 1957-58 season would be a last hurrah for the veteran crew before the budgets were completely slashed, staff was cut and the production order reduced.
On October 1st 1956, Paramount Pictures took full control of Famous Studios and major changes were taking place behind the scenes. On screen, the 1956-57 cartoons began to sport a new look inspired by UPA.
The 1955-56 season. This would be the final one for Famous Studios as we know it. The pre-1950 films were sold to UM&M; The Popeye cartoons were transferred to AAP. Change was in the wind.