Receiving the Oscar in March 1956, “Speedy Gonzales” won for best cartoon short of 1955
January 1956
More information on what went on in deciding which cartoon to submit to the Academy for an Oscar nomination – Speedy Gonzales got the nod. And some nice shots of the brand new Cartoon Department building on the lot.
February 1956
Selzer is taking bets on an Oscar nomination for Speedy Gonzales – and Corny Cole loses a tennis match!
March 1956
Tennis seems to have taken the place of square dancing as a recreation sport for the crew; a beautiful photo of Chuck’s 18-year old daughter, Linda, to announce her engagement to Robert Kausen; and newcomer Art Leonardi gets hired as an inbetweener!
April 1956
Tree-Cornered Tweety and Gee Whiz-z-z are screened for the staff – only a month before their official release.
May 1956
Corny Cole exhibits his fine art at Chouinard… and Speedy Gonzales wins the Oscar. Friz picked up the award (because Selzer had laryngitis).
June 1956
And finally, it seems bowling is quickly replacing tennis at the studio sport… and wearing old caps is becoming a fad – photo of Mike Maltese, Ken Harris, Willie Ito, Abe Levitow and others in the new “club”, below!
NEXT WEEK: 1956 (part 2)
Jerry Beck is a writer, animation producer, college professor and author of more than 15 books on animation history. He is a former studio exec with Nickelodeon Movies and Disney, and has written for The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He has curated cartoons for DVD and Blu-ray compilations and has lent his expertise to dozens of bonus documentaries and audio commentaries on such. Beck is currently on the faculty of CalArts in Valencia, UCLA in Westwood and Woodbury University in Burbank – teaching animation history. More about Jerry Beck [
What a Great collection of articles. Vintage!!!!
The most interesting squib in the lot may be the conversation involving Selzer, Jones and Maltese. It sounds like Selzer decided to play straight man to Maltese. The impression Chuck Jones left everyone is that Selzer was a humourless managerial mole.
It appears Keith Darling left the studio for maybe a year and later returned. I wonder if he worked at one of the commercial studios.
And where was Sandy Walker for 20 years after leaving Warners in the mid-30s?
Always great to read these behind-the-scenes glimpses.
I see Eddie Selzer put his daughter to work helping write the column. The tidbit about Phyllis’ mom designing her clothes brings up the question: was fashion designer and shade-thrower extraordinaire “Mr. Blackwell” – born Richard Selzer – related to Eddie? (According to Stuart Jerome in his hilarious book “Those Crazy, Wonderful Years When WE Ran Warner Bros.”, “DIckie” Selzer was, like Jerome, a uniformed studio go-fer on the WB lot in the ’40s.)
“Speedy Gonzales” winning isn’t surprising given that, among others, Sylvester, not Daffy as a decade later, under DePatie-Freleng, is the villain. Great article.
Ben Washam’s departure is noted early. His last pre-departure credit would be “Ali Baba Bunny” (9 February 1957). He would return in a year or so and reappear in opening credits starting with “To Itch His Own” (28 June 1958).
It appears he was only on a month-long leave or absence. We’ll never know the reason now.
VEOTIS RICHMOND, huh?
I’m a 50 yo Black Man and, to me, this man OBVIOUSLY had to be a BROVA.
Calls for an article tackling the history of Black employment in every aspect of Animation, does it not?
Here’s a bit on Vee. http://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2013/12/todays-merrie-melodies-hidden-staff.html
He was born Dec. 8, 1917 in Tarry, Arkansas and died Aug. 24, 2003 in Los Angeles.