Robert McKimson
Encyclopedia
Robert "Bob" Porter McKimson, Sr. (October 13, 1910 – September 29, 1977) was an American animator
, illustrator
, and director
best known for his work on the Looney Tunes
and Merrie Melodies
series of cartoon
s from Warner Bros.
, and later DePatie-Freleng Enterprises
. He was also well-known for defining Bugs Bunny
's look in 1943.
, McKimson spent ten years getting an art education. He then went to work for Walt Disney
. He stayed with Disney's studio for two years and then went to work for the Romer Grey Studio located in Altadena, California
, a would-be animation shop started by the son of Western author Zane Grey
, and financed by Zane Grey's wife. Several cartoons were animated at the Romer Grey Studio, but due to the ruin of Grey's fortunes after the Wall Street Crash of 1929
, none were ever released. Most never made it to camera.
After the Romer Grey Studio shut down, McKimson was hired by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, first doing the ink-and-paint duties for the very first Looney Tunes
, then becoming inbetweener before becoming an animator by 1931. At that time he had an accident that gave him a concussion. As a result, he was able to visualize better, thus increasing his production and animation. He was the head animator and go-to guy in the late 1930's at the studio, which overwhelmed him. Eventually he worked exclusively with Bob Clampett
.
He was offered a directorial position by Leon Schlesinger
in 1937, but declined until 1944, when Frank Tashlin
left Warner Bros. to direct live-action films. The position instead went to animator Chuck Jones
.
When he did become a director, McKimson became known for his cartoons being louder and more violent than those of fellow directors Friz Freleng
, Chuck Jones, or even Art Davis
(who took over Clampett's old unit). Despite creating popular characters like Foghorn Leghorn and the Tasmanian Devil
, as well as directing every Hippety Hopper
/Sylvester
pairing, McKimson's cartoons were largely inferior to those by Jones and Freleng. He also created Speedy Gonzales
for the 1953 short Cat-Tails for Two
and directed many others periodically (along with Freleng and other directors) for the remainder of his theatrical career.
McKimson's first directorial work, Daffy Doodles
(at least his first released directorial work; he cut his directorial teeth on a Seaman Hook wartime cartoon for military audiences in 1944), wherein Daffy draws moustache
s on all the pre-drawn (and even some natural) faces in his sight, was released in early April 1946.
In 1953, the Warner Bros. cartoon studio laid off most of its staff for a period of six months. After the studio reopened, Freleng and Jones quickly re-assembled their respective units, but McKimson lost every member of his previous team, apart from Pierce and background painter Dick Thomas. At the start of this period, McKimson animated several of his shorts himself. (One cartoon, The Hole Idea, being entirely drawn by himself.) Later, McKimson assembled a new team of artists, including layout man/background painter Robert Gribbroek
and animators Warren Batchelder
, Ted Bonnicksen, and George Grandpre. Tom Ray
, Russ Dyson, and Keith Darling helped at various points.
. After the studio closed, he joined DePatie-Freleng Enterprises
, co-owned by his old associate Friz Freleng and David H. DePatie, who had been a producer at the Warners studio. At DePatie-Freleng, McKimson directed several The Inspector
shorts and worked on some of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies contracted out to DePatie-Freleng by Warner Bros. In 1967, Warner opened its studio again; McKimson went back in 1968 and stayed until the studio shut down for absolute good in 1969. His last Warner Bros. cartoon was Injun Trouble
with Cool Cat. Injun Trouble was also the last of the original Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies cartoon to be produced before the Warner Bros. cartoon studio was closed. McKimson was the one person to be at the studio from the start of the Looney Tunes series through its finish in 1969, first as an animator and then as a director.
In 1972, he went back to DePatie-Freleng to direct The Pink Panther Show
shorts, among their other series.
while eating lunch with Friz Freleng
and David H. DePatie.
.
He had two brothers — Charles McKimson
(the younger) and Tom McKimson (the older) — who also worked as animators.
Animator
An animator is an artist who creates multiple images that give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence; the images are called frames and key frames. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, video games, and the internet. Usually, an...
, illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
, and director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
best known for his work on the Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
and Merrie Melodies
Merrie Melodies
Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures between 1931 and 1969.Originally produced by Harman-Ising Pictures, Merrie Melodies were produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1933 to 1944. Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. in 1944,...
series of cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
s from Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
, and later DePatie-Freleng Enterprises
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises was a Hollywood-based animation production company, active from 1963 to 1981. They produced theatrical cartoons, animated series, commercials, title sequences and television specials. Notable among these is The Pink Panther film titles and cartoon shorts and the Dr....
. He was also well-known for defining Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny is a animated character created in 1938 at Leon Schlesinger Productions, later Warner Bros. Cartoons. Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray rabbit and is famous for his flippant, insouciant personality and his portrayal as a trickster. He has primarily appeared in animated cartoons, most...
's look in 1943.
Career
Born in Denver, ColoradoDenver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
, McKimson spent ten years getting an art education. He then went to work for Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
. He stayed with Disney's studio for two years and then went to work for the Romer Grey Studio located in Altadena, California
Altadena, California
Altadena is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States, approximately from the downtown Los Angeles Civic Center, and directly north of the city of Pasadena, California...
, a would-be animation shop started by the son of Western author Zane Grey
Zane Grey
Zane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the Old West. Riders of the Purple Sage was his bestselling book. In addition to the success of his printed works, they later had second lives and continuing influence...
, and financed by Zane Grey's wife. Several cartoons were animated at the Romer Grey Studio, but due to the ruin of Grey's fortunes after the Wall Street Crash of 1929
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
, none were ever released. Most never made it to camera.
After the Romer Grey Studio shut down, McKimson was hired by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, first doing the ink-and-paint duties for the very first Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
, then becoming inbetweener before becoming an animator by 1931. At that time he had an accident that gave him a concussion. As a result, he was able to visualize better, thus increasing his production and animation. He was the head animator and go-to guy in the late 1930's at the studio, which overwhelmed him. Eventually he worked exclusively with Bob Clampett
Bob Clampett
Robert Emerson "Bob" Clampett was an American animator, producer, director, and puppeteer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes animated series from Warner Bros., and the television shows Time for Beany and Beany and Cecil...
.
He was offered a directorial position by Leon Schlesinger
Leon Schlesinger
Leon Schlesinger was an American film producer, most noted for founding Leon Schlesinger Productions, which later became the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio, during the golden age of Hollywood animation.-Early life and career:...
in 1937, but declined until 1944, when Frank Tashlin
Frank Tashlin
Frank Tashlin, born Francis Fredrick von Taschlein, also known as Tish Tash or Frank Tash was an American animator, screenwriter, and film director.-Animator:...
left Warner Bros. to direct live-action films. The position instead went to animator Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...
.
When he did become a director, McKimson became known for his cartoons being louder and more violent than those of fellow directors Friz Freleng
Friz Freleng
Isadore "Friz" Freleng was an animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros....
, Chuck Jones, or even Art Davis
Art Davis
Art Davis was a double-bassist, known for his work with various seminal jazz musicians including Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and Max Roach.-Biography:...
(who took over Clampett's old unit). Despite creating popular characters like Foghorn Leghorn and the Tasmanian Devil
Tasmanian Devil (Looney Tunes)
The Tasmanian Devil, often referred to as Taz, is an animated cartoon character featured in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes series of cartoons. The character appeared in only five shorts before Warner Bros...
, as well as directing every Hippety Hopper
Hippety Hopper
Hippety Hopper is a young kangaroo cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes series of cartoons. Robert McKimson introduced Hippety Hopper in Hop, Look and Listen , which established the pattern for future Hippety Hopper cartoons....
/Sylvester
Sylvester (Looney Tunes)
Sylvester J. Pussycat, Sr., Sylvester the Cat or simply Sylvester, is a fictional character, a three-time Academy Award-winning anthropomorphic Tuxedo cat in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies repertory, often chasing Tweety Bird, Speedy Gonzales, or Hippety Hopper...
pairing, McKimson's cartoons were largely inferior to those by Jones and Freleng. He also created Speedy Gonzales
Speedy Gonzales
Speedy Gonzales is an animated caricature of a mouse in the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He is portrayed as "The Fastest Mouse in all Mexico" with his major traits being the ability to run extremely fast and speaking with an exaggerated Mexican accent...
for the 1953 short Cat-Tails for Two
Cat-Tails for Two
Cat-Tails for Two is a 1953 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon, directed by Robert McKimson and written by Tedd Pierce starring Bennie the fat cat and George. It was animated in 1952. Voices by Mel Blanc and music by Carl Stalling. It was the first appearance of Speedy Gonzales, in a prototype...
and directed many others periodically (along with Freleng and other directors) for the remainder of his theatrical career.
Daffy Doodles
Daffy Doodles is a Warner Brothers Merrie Melodies cartoon featuring Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. Daffy is the notorious "mustache fiend", bent on putting a mustache on every lip in sight, while Porky is a policeman intent on capturing Daffy....
(at least his first released directorial work; he cut his directorial teeth on a Seaman Hook wartime cartoon for military audiences in 1944), wherein Daffy draws moustache
Moustache
A moustache is facial hair grown on the outer surface of the upper lip. It may or may not be accompanied by a type of beard, a facial hair style grown and cropped to cover most of the lower half of the face.-Etymology:...
s on all the pre-drawn (and even some natural) faces in his sight, was released in early April 1946.
In 1953, the Warner Bros. cartoon studio laid off most of its staff for a period of six months. After the studio reopened, Freleng and Jones quickly re-assembled their respective units, but McKimson lost every member of his previous team, apart from Pierce and background painter Dick Thomas. At the start of this period, McKimson animated several of his shorts himself. (One cartoon, The Hole Idea, being entirely drawn by himself.) Later, McKimson assembled a new team of artists, including layout man/background painter Robert Gribbroek
Robert Gribbroek
Robert Gribbroek was a layout artist and background painter at the Warner Brothers Cartoon studio from 1945 until 1964. He was first credited in Chuck Jones' Lost and Foundling , and he worked mainly for Jones until 1952 when he joined Robert McKimson's unit...
and animators Warren Batchelder
Warren Batchelder
Warren Batchelder was an animator on many Warner Bros. and DePatie-Freleng cartoons. He also worked as animation director on the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon show.-Career:Batchelder began his animation career in 1936...
, Ted Bonnicksen, and George Grandpre. Tom Ray
Tom Ray
Thomas Archer Ray was an American animator.-Career:Ray was born in Williams, Arizona. He began work at Warner Bros. Cartoons in 1937. Over the first two decades of his career, he was a junior animator who received no screen credit until Destination Earth in 1956. In 1958, he became a master...
, Russ Dyson, and Keith Darling helped at various points.
Later career
McKimson soldiered on at Warner's cartoon studio as it began to lose people (including Jones) in 1962. Over this time, he directed his share of shorts and worked on the feature The Incredible Mr. LimpetThe Incredible Mr. Limpet
The Incredible Mr. Limpet is a 1964 American live-action/animated film from Warner Bros. It is about a man named Henry Limpet who turns into a talking fish resembling a tilefish and helps the U.S. Navy locate and destroy Nazi submarines. Don Knotts plays the title character. The live action was...
. After the studio closed, he joined DePatie-Freleng Enterprises
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises was a Hollywood-based animation production company, active from 1963 to 1981. They produced theatrical cartoons, animated series, commercials, title sequences and television specials. Notable among these is The Pink Panther film titles and cartoon shorts and the Dr....
, co-owned by his old associate Friz Freleng and David H. DePatie, who had been a producer at the Warners studio. At DePatie-Freleng, McKimson directed several The Inspector
The Inspector
The Inspector is a series of 1960s theatrical cartoons produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and released through United Artists. The titular character is based on Jacques Clouseau, a comical French police officer who is the main character in the Pink Panther series of films.-Plot:Although the...
shorts and worked on some of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies contracted out to DePatie-Freleng by Warner Bros. In 1967, Warner opened its studio again; McKimson went back in 1968 and stayed until the studio shut down for absolute good in 1969. His last Warner Bros. cartoon was Injun Trouble
Injun Trouble (1969 film)
Injun Trouble is a 1969 animated cartoon short in the Merrie Melodies series, directed by Robert McKimson and featuring Cool Cat. It is noted for being the final cartoon in the original Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series, ending a run which had lasted since 1930.This cartoon was the last...
with Cool Cat. Injun Trouble was also the last of the original Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies cartoon to be produced before the Warner Bros. cartoon studio was closed. McKimson was the one person to be at the studio from the start of the Looney Tunes series through its finish in 1969, first as an animator and then as a director.
In 1972, he went back to DePatie-Freleng to direct The Pink Panther Show
The Pink Panther Show
The Pink Panther Show is a showcase of cartoon shorts produced by David H. DePatie and Friz Freleng between 1969 and 1979. The television series was produced by Mirisch Films and DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, and was broadcast on two American TV networks:...
shorts, among their other series.
Death
McKimson died in 1977 from a massive heart attackMyocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
while eating lunch with Friz Freleng
Friz Freleng
Isadore "Friz" Freleng was an animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros....
and David H. DePatie.
Personal
McKimson was a skilled horseman and polo player, a dedicated bowler, and a Master MasonMasonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...
.
He had two brothers — Charles McKimson
Charles McKimson
Charles Edson "Chuck" McKimson, Jr. was an American animator, best known for his work at Warner Bros. studio. He was the younger brother of animators Robert and Thomas McKimson. His father was a newspaperman who later become the editor of the Scandia Journal in Scandia, Kansas.McKimson was born...
(the younger) and Tom McKimson (the older) — who also worked as animators.