Hugh Harman

 

Hugh Harman might not have created many recognizable characters (his biggest character is probably Bosko, who isn't exactly a household name), but along with his partner Rudolf Ising, he had a major role with almost all of the major studios of the era, including being one of the first employees for Disney and co-founding with Ising what would become the animation department at both Warner Bros. and MGM.

Hugh Harman was not from Kansas or Missouri, instead hailing from Pagosa Springs, Colorado. He was born on August 31st, 1903. Harman and his brother Fred moved to Kansas City at an unknown time, with Fred working at the Kansas City Slide Company with Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. When Walt and Iwerks left to found Laugh-A-Gram in 1922, Fred went with the duo, and Hugh, who was also an artist, was hired. At Laugh-A-Gram presumably, Hugh met Rudolf Ising, who would work with Ising for most of the rest of his career. When Laugh-A-Gram went bankrupt, Disney, Iwerks, and most of the staff went to California, but Harman and Ising stayed behind to start their own studio. Evidently this did not last long, and they too went west to work for Disney. Evidently, Harman and Ising did not think very highly of Walt Disney, as they would later call him abrasive, and would lead the employees choosing to work for Mintz in 1928. In California, Harman worked on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons for Disney, which were fairly successful. In 1928, Charles Mintz, head of the company that distributed the Oswald cartoons, send his brother-in-law to set up deals with employees of Disney's studio that would allow Mintz to take over production of the Oswald cartoons if Walt did not take a pay cut. Evidently, Harman was one of the employees who signed on, and when Mintz took control of Oswald from Disney, him, Ising and most of the staff left Disney to work for Mintz on new Oswald cartoons. Harman and Ising would produce Oswald cartoons for another year, before they too were removed in 1929. From there, Harman, Ising decided to form their own studio.

Harman and Ising formed their own studio, Harman-Ising Productions, in 1929, and they already had a
character in mind: Bosko. Bosko was a caricature of a black boy, which while would be highly offensive today, was considered appropriate at the time. In fact, Bosko was given the unfortunate subtitle of  "the Talk-Ink Kid". Some publications would refer to Bosko as being a dog, especially when he appears in the modern era, but the original copyright listing for Bosko would refer to him as a "comic character of a negro boy in various poses". Racism aside, the test film, also called "Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid" was shown to Leon Schlesinger, who had a deal with Warner Bros. Schlesinger liked the cartoon, and signed Harman-Ising to make Bosko cartoons for Warner Bros in January of 1930. The new series would be called Looney Tunes, and besides being fun cartoons to show before movies, they would also contractually have to feature a Warner Bros. song in every cartoon, giving exposure to Warner's music library. The first Bosko cartoon, and in turn the first Looney Tune, Sinking in the Bathtub, would be released in April 1930. The cartoon was wildly successful the world over, and a sister series, Merrie Melodies, would start in 1931. With two series, Harman would be assigned to direct the Looney Tunes, and Ising would be assigned to work on the Merrie Melodies. Things would go well until 1933, when after a dispute with Schlesinger over financial disputes, Schlesinger cut ties with Harman-Ising in May and formed his own studio, while Harman and Ising kept the rights to Bosko. After a very short stint with Van Buren, Harman-Ising would sign a deal with MGM to distribute their cartoons there.

Starting in 1934, Harman and Ising made cartoons for MGM. What's more, these were color-cartoons, a new thing at the time. The new cartoons, titled Happy Harmonies (a name very similar to Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, which Harman and Ising worked on prior) were fairly successful, with one cartoon, 1935's The Calico Dragon being nominated for an Oscar. They even brought back Bosko, later redesigning him to be a more obvious racist caricature. The Happy Harmonies cartoons however would regularly run over budget however, and following a dispute about a distribution contract, MGM would fire them in 1937, replacing them with their own animation division. However, the directors they chose to replace Harman & Ising (with the exception of Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbera) didn't work out, and ironically, Harman & Ising were hired back in 1938. Apparently, following them being rehired, Harman-Ising went bankrupt. Harman and Ising seemingly didn't work together as much in this period, but both created some fairly popular cartoons. Harman created what is probably his most well-known cartoon (besides Bosko), the anti-war cartoon Peace on Earth. Peace on Earth, released in 1939, would not only be nominated for an Oscar, but even a Nobel Peace Prize, somehow. In 1941, Harman would leave MGM the same year to form his own studio, this time without Ising, who stayed at MGM.

Hugh Harman Productions did not accomplish much, mostly making shorts for the U.S. military, (a bit ironic after just making Peace on Earth), but Harman had big plans for the studio that never materialized. For nearly two decades, Harman was planning on making an adaptation of the stories of King Arthur using stop-motion. In fact, Harman was working on it for so long, he was still working on it when he and Ising rejoined in 1946 to form Harman-Ising Pictures (not to be confused with Harman-Ising Productions.) Harman talked about the project in various trade magazines from 1941 to 1959, going as far as to announce more adaptations such as an adaptation of The Little Prince, Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves and Joy to the World, sign a deal with Toei in Japan (best known now for their animation division and for the Super Sentai series) to assist with production, and sign distribution deals with both United Artists and then Warner Bros, but none of the films ended up ever coming out, and little information about it appears to exist. Harman-Ising also planned to make cartoons for television before Hanna-Barbera, but this took never happened. Hugh Harman would retire sometime in the 50's, and would do interviews and talk about his cartoons for the rest of his life before dying on November 25th, 1982 at the age of 79.

Sources

“Hugh Harman.” Rarebit Early Animation Wiki, http://rarebit.org/?people=harman-and-ising.

“Hugh Harman.” Kansas City Comics, http://www.kansascitycomics.com/?page_id=1569.

Barrier, Michael. “Interviews: Hugh Harman.” MichaelBarrier.com, 10 Jan. 2006, http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Interviews/Harman/interview_hugh_harman.htm.

“Hugh Harman, 79, Dies, Pioneer of Animated Film.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 27 Nov. 1982. 

Yowp, Don. “Half Man, Half Dog?” Tralfaz, 17 Sept. 2016, https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2016/09/half-man-half-dog.html. 

Yowp, Don. “Farewell, Hugh and Rudy.” Tralfaz, 2 Mar. 2013, https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2013/03/farewell-hugh-and-rudy.html.

Library of Congress. Catalogue of Copyright Entries - Part 4. Vol. 23, 1928. 

Yowp, Don. “MGM Odds and Ends, Part 1.” Tralfaz, 9 Oct. 2021, https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2021/10/mgm-odds-and-ends-part-1.html.

Yowp, Don. “A Model King.” Tralfaz, 4 Mar. 2017, https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2017/03/a-model-king.html.