This came in first place in the senior group documentary category for the 2018 Maine National History Day competition, and it won the Maine Innovation in History Award!
As the author of THE ART AND INVENTIONS OF MAX FLEISCHER: AMERICAN ANIMATION PIONEER, listed in the credits, I found your piece interesting. What is puzzling however is recent concepts of a conscious "rivalry" between Max Fleischer and Walt Disney. That really was not the case in the beginning. As you mention in the end, Walt was inspired by the Animation Pioneers , and Fleischer was among them. In fact Fleischer's OUT OF THE INKWELL series was clearly the source for Disney's first major distribution deal with his ALICE COMEDIES. The ALICE novelty reversed the animation/live action concept of the INKWELL series by placing a live action girl into an animated environment. This was a far more ambitious and extensive process. But it is a clear indication of Walt's awareness of Fleischer from the start. Your comments comparing the use and expense in using the "Setback Camera," otherwise credited as "The Stereoptical Process," to Disney's Multiplane as being more "expensive" is actually misunderstood. Since the Setback worked on a single turntable, it only took one Camera Operator to use it. Disney's Multiplane Camera stood seven to 10 feet in height and had an operator assigned to each level. Each level had to be calculated and calibrated for its own distance. Because there were more operators involved this was a more expensive and time-consuming process by comparison. Considering that the Setback was a model that used real space, everything fell into natural perspective and moved in unison, eliminating any need to move each level separately. Your passage on distribution and Disney's motivation for creating his own company is not quite accurate within the time period of your piece. After his United Artist deal ended, Disney was offered a 75% return from RKO, whom he remained with for 19 years. RKO was a failing company by the 1950s and his was the only product in its distribution that had value. Disney's dissatisfaction with his distribution came with his association with Columbia, which started in 1930. Also the ownership of his films was motivated by loosing OSWALD THE RABBIT to his distributor, Universal, who actually owned the character. That motivated Walt to own everything he created. And he retained the rights to his films with the copyrights registered in his company's name while the distribution was handled by the companies. While Disney was still growing during the Columbia period, he was economically unstable. That was one major advantage that Fleischer had with his association with Paramount--a guaranteed financial base. What was faulty in the arrangement was Paramount's joint financial-distribution deal that gave them final ownership. But during The Depression, the decision to stay with Paramount's arrangement seemed more secure when Disney's cash flow was interrupted resulting in layoffs. These periods of layoffs prompted Animators to go to other studios that needed their services, which explains the frequent moving around among studios. The perception of the "rivalry" was more of a frustration on the part of Max rather than an outright hatred. His angst was based on losing people after having invested in training them. This may have seemed like the basis of Max's sense of "desertion" on the part of those who left. Then there were others whom he greatly appreciated who came and left and returned for a while and left again. Dick Huemer was one of them, and of course after roughly a three year period with Charles Mintz, went to Disney where he remained for the rest of his career. But the Animators who left Max to work for Disney did so entirely of their doing-- not necessarily a deliberate plot to undermine Max Fleischer. Walt was first of all younger and more energetic with a lot of charisma. He offered a more exciting opportunity than what may have existed in New York. This was confirmed to me by Bernie Wolf, whom I work with at Film Roman in the 1990s. While he was happy at Fleischer Studios, the west coast offered a sense of "adventure" and excitement. Most of all, there was a greater creative energy coming from Disney in the form of originality that did not exist at Fleischer Studios. But most of all, Disney started on a path of major artistic growth once he changed his distribution to United Artists, who offered him more money to raise his production value. While Fleischer's location in New York exposed the studio to contemporary culture such as Jazz, Disney was not entirely removed from it, as displayed in the "Silly Symphony," THE WOODLAND CAFE. And the two studios made use of music in different ways. While Disney started using more original music, Fleischer was incorporating music from Paramount's music publishing arm, Famous Music until the mid 1930s when they assigned Sammy Timberg to compose specialty songs for the cartoons, in particular the BETTY BOOP cartoons. However, Disney had original songs that quickly became popular hits such as "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" where Fleischer did not in the same regard. The successes of such songs added greatly to the public consciousness of Walt Disney, while Max Fleischer was in the shadow of his works. People know BETTY BOOP and POPEYE, but not Fleischer as readily. Much of Disney's recognition can also be attributed to his generating publicity to promote his brand. Fleischer was too self-effacing and shied away from self-promotion. He may have been a bit myopic in his vision of animation, seeing it as an extension of the comic strip, where Disney saw animation as a part of the cinema. Fleischer also seemed more focused on devices for improving production, and less aware of advancing the animation in terms of acting analysis and awareness. This is another area where Disney was moving ahead, advancing Character Animation beyond movement for its own sake. And it wasn't until Fleischer was pressed into the production of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS that his studio caught up with the standards that were already in place in all of the west coast studios. It has been assumed that the motivation to produce GULLIVER'S TRAVELS was to "counter" Walt Disney. This is not entirely accurate for a number of reasons. Long before Disney announced his plans for an animated feature, Fleischer had presented such a plan to Paramount in 1934. But they vetoed it for a number of reasons, largely based on their fragile financial structure after having reorganized following three bankruptcies between 1930 and 1934. This also was the reason why Max was not able to gain the use of the three-color Technicolor Process. Assumptions have been made that Max was asleep to the technical advances being made in the industry. But this is not so since he was also part of those advances as well as a member of the SMPE (Society of Motion Picture Engineers). The assertion that "publicity" of alleged rivalry forced the polishing of the opposing studio's product is another inaccuracy. This is hardly so since Disney was on his own course. However, the standards that Disney was setting raised the bar for the competition, and it was only natural that everyone wanted to keep up. There has been an assumption that by 1935, a "Disneyfication" brought about the downward trend in Fleischer animation. That may be more of an over simplification than actuality. While there is no arguing that the audience that Disney created for his cartoons set a standard, there were other reasons for this change. One of the major influences was the Breen (not Hays) Production Code of 1934 that set specific content rules for films. Accordingly, Paramount changed its content after suffering an amount of loss due to the heavy censorship of its Mae West and W.C. Fields films, some not allowed for release in conservative areas of the country. To meet this, the new Chair, Barney Balaban looked to emulate the standard bearers of the industry, MGM for live action and Disney for animated cartoons. So with this it can be reasoned that policy changes for Paramount's programming was largely responsible. Had things been different, Fleischer would have continued in its own direction regardless of what Disney was doing. In fact they finally starting to get their footing in 1941 when they took on the production of the SUPERMAN series. The Science Fiction genre was not handled by any other studio, and this would have made Fleischer Studios unique in this regard, making them relevant for the 1940s. But it came too late. The date of the request of Max's resignation was not May 24, 1941. That was the date of the final contract with Fleischer Studios. Contained in that contract was an "option" to render resignation six months after the date of the contract due to the problems between the brothers. This was designed for the completion of their final feature. Max was asked for his resignation seven months later. Returning to the premise of the "rivalry" between Fleischer and Disney, one can imagine that it existed. In Max's mind, Disney was an annoyance that came along once in a while. His "resentment" seems more connected to his raising the bar and also the expense of production and the surface impression that his studio failed in its efforts to "emulate Disney." This was really not the case. Fleischer Studios simply had to offer comparable production value if they were to continue to do business with Paramount. Paramount did not quite offer them enough money to do it, and Fleischer did not demand that Paramount offer more money. In many ways, Max internalized his frustrations and failed to see the bigger picture. Had he followed Disney's example and cut his dependency upon his distributor for financing, he would have held onto his studio. So the real difference here is how both studios were guided business wise, And as I state in my book, all appearances are that Max was just too nice not being well served by his representative.
Hey, thank you for the fascinating insight into this entire scenario! I am one of the students who contributed to this documentary, and your comment has led me to understand, with much more clarity, the (limited) actually relationship between Disney and Fleischer. Based on your findings, I do believe that a conscious rivalry between the two has become a common misconception. I find it quite interesting how the personalities of each creator indirectly impacted the actions and overall success of their respective studios. Once again, I thank you for your expertise - and for writing such an informative book!
@@LucasBent Thank you for considering my response, which was offered to help understand the relationship between the two producers. It was easily assumed that some sort of conscious competition existed since their product was the most popular with Fleischer coming in second. And of course with Popeye eclipsing Micky Mouse by 1937, this impression is easily made. But this was a matter of natural evolution rather than a deliberate action to "beat Disney." In fact each Producer was focused on what they were doing. They were not concerned about outdoing the other. And as I stated, Disney existed within his own sphere and was really not motivated by what Fleischer was doing by the 1930s. However, there was something of a resentment in the back of Max's mind since he was being eclipsed by Disney simply by acts of fate and far better business practices.
@@LucasBent Yes, you made it clear that you interviewed Mark. It would have been beneficial to have included other interviews as well. But what you did made effective use of the interview you had.
Ray Pointer Thank you for this insightful post! I think there is often this perception that Disney supposedly “ruined” animation and deliberately suppressed many of their competitors. But each era had their own way of carving out their niche and being different; Tex Avery and Warner Bros deviating from the sentimental stories, UPA deviating from the more naturalistic style of animation, etc.
This is a fascinating video, but it's based on a false premise. Throughout the 1930's and 1940's, Disney economically was in the same position Fleischer was: an independent producer releasing his films through major studios (at first Columbia, then United Artists, and from 1937 to 1952 RKO). It was not until 1952 that Disney, concerned about RKO's slow-motion collapse under owner Howard Hughes, formed Buena Vista as his own in-house distribution companies so he could get his films out to theaters directly and cut out the middleman. That was only possible because the 1948 Paramount case had broken the major studios' monopoly on theaters and theatre owners were now free to buy product from anyone they wished. The real mistake the Fleischers made that Disney avoided was taking money from Paramount to build their expanded studio in Florida instead of raising the money themselves (as Disney was able to do through his relationship with Bank of America CEO A. P. Gianinni). That gave Paramount the ability effectively to foreclose on the Fleischer studio and take it over. The Fleischers might have been able to fight back legally if Max and Dave Fleischer's personal relationship hadn't soured, resulting in a family feud that kept the brothers from speaking to each other for decades and erupted just at the time when they needed to work together to save their business.
One thing, the whole Paramount issue was that Max and Dave Fleischer were at each others necks due to something that happened in the later years of the studio (I don’t know) and it gotten so bad to a point where Max and Dave would not talk to each other (only would communicate through written) and Paramount saw that they could own everything if they ousted the brothers. That’s why Paramount demanded Max to sign a contract to give up all his properties
Thank goodness the two great animators who for so long had competed against one another for audiences, came together with Fleisher's grandson Richard, who was asked by Disney. to direct his animated film of 20,000 Leagues under the sea; and in 1956 the grandfather Fleischer and Disney came together. at a meeting, and shook hands for the first time! They are both recognised because of the rivalry to be first in the cinema arena, and their fierce competition over the year,s which made their techniques more rapidly, much better over time. Phew! Thank Goodness! Cynthia McLaglen
This was so interesting! I saw a *very* familiar looking Mouse in Fleischer's Snow White and thought "those guys must have hated each other" and stumbled upon this doing some googling to confirm my hunch. A much better story than I ever could have imagined. I'm surprised more Disney history buffs haven't done videos on this.
At the 5 minute mark, she says that Max Fleisher convinced Grim Natwick to leave Disney in the late 30's, what she fails to mention is that Grim Natwick worked first with Fleisher in the early 30's, his name is on a lot of Bettyand Bimbo cartoons from 1930 and 31
About time someone gave more credit to Fleischer! BTW, you young folk narrating this - what's the rush? I get that you got the award for the content and the project as a whole, but in my day you would have failed just for the poor narration. That is as IMPORTANT as the picture itself! You don't rush through it all nasally and fast like you're doing a time trial!. Speak like you are interested in each word - like your listener will be listening to each word. Didn't you hear yourselves speaking breathlessly and with apathy when you played this back and watched it? Just some advice that apparently no one else seems to have given you.
Attention spans are lower, and this is the norm in most places. Talking slow only works for some types of voices, if you don't have a nice deep voice then no one really wants to hear a drawl.
As I've read recently, Fleischer hated Disney. If that name was mentioned at the dinner table, the one saying it would have to leave the table. I can understand that, Disney took things into his credit that weren't even his, and I also would hate someone, who is taking away my workers
Just like with Kimba the white lion, Walt Disney stood on the backs of other great minds. Ironic he was an anti semite and claimed the jews were thieves when he himself was a liar and a thief.
