Another round of posts from the Warner Club News, the Warner Bros. in-house studio newsletter, written by and distributed essentially to Warner employees on the Burbank lot. Each week we post as many as we can find (courtesy of Ned Comstock at the USC Cinematic Library) of the column devoted to the Cartoon Division.
Here we are in the latter half of 1956, a period that saw the release of several strong cartoons – including Freleng’s A Star Is Bored, Jones’ Deduce You Say and Mckimson’s The Honey-Mousers.
JULY 1956
Cheryl Stoner, winner of newspaper syndicator NEA’s Bugs Bunny comic strip coloring contest, takes a tour of the Looney Tunes studio and gets her picture with Mr. Selzer; many pics of the ink & paint women…
AUGUST 1956
Cute pics Roberta and Judy Levitow – I’ve met them! Art Davis’ son catches a fish! And rare photo of animator Ray Young.
SEPTEMBER 1956
Ed Selzer notes that this was the completion of their first year in their new building; Milt Franklyn celebrates his 20th year with Warner Bros. cartoon – with a great photo of a celebratory garden party;
OCTOBER 1956
The annual round-up of where everyone went on vacation; and nice drawing of Daffy done for the company golf tournament.
NOVEMBER 1956
This column is great if only for the photo of the studio bowling team – and that pic of Harry Love!
DECEMBER 1956
Apparently Art Leonardi recorded all his conversations with his fellow work-mates… I’ll have to ask him if he still has all those recordings!
NEXT WEEK: 1957 – part 1
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 [
Interesting pose of Bugs in that lobby card for A STAR IS BORED. Looks more appropriate for PERSON TO BUNNY, though.
What relationships did Permellar Butler, Alice Butler, and Veotia RIchmond have with the studio? And was Permellar Butler related to Alice and Sherry Butler?
Veotis Richmond was a cell-washer at the studio at the time of his marriage in 1945.
Pernellar Horn married Solomon M. Butler in 1956. She died in 1982. I can’t find much else about her.
A 20th celebration for Milt – but nothing for Carl who arrived around the same time? Perhaps he was already on his way out for retirement at that time and sometimes showed up as guest of honor at the studios, I can only theorize it being a reason why he wrote scores less and less regularly up until his final one he wrote for To Itch his Own in 1958.
That is a great drawing of Daffy. Looks like it’s from someone from the Chuck Jones unit, maybe not Jones himself, but maybe Abe Levitow?
Again, I ask, how many other studios had bowling teams? I’ve never heard of Disney having one, but what about UPA or any of the smaller studios doing commercials or industrial films?
Interesting seeing Norman McGary’s name. He illustrated some of the Golden Books; he did a Huck Hound book with Hawley Pratt posted on the Yowp blog.
Chuck Whitton had been working in animation (on the West Coast) since about 1938. He was 50 when he died. I can’t find a cause of death in his L.A. Time obit.
“Frances Ross” mentioned a few times in the Warner Club News was Virgil Ross’ wife.
I was struck by the mention of Hawley and Lee Pratt’s move from their large Bel-Air home to an apartment in Hollywood as referred to in the September 1956 edition of Warner Club News. I wish I could be more precise about the story that I heard told about this. I believe it would have been either Robert Givens or Bill Melendez who related the story. Basically it went that Hawley was cheated out of his home by way of some fraud or another. As I recall it, a man approached Hawley about selling the home in a private sale and the man was a crook and it all went terribly wrong. The result was Hawley lost the house.