Joey Drew Studios (former studio)

Joey Drew Studios was an American animation studio founded in New York in 1929. It is best known for the Bendy cartoons.
Founded by Joey Drew and Henry Stein in 1929, Joey Drew Studios was located at Broadway, Brooklyn, New York City, New York. Joey’s reasons for founding his own studio was due to disagreements with his previous job with Columbia Pictures, and also to compete with Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse. Joey Drew Studios cartoons would be distributed through United Artists.
The first Bendy cartoon was released just before the Wall Street Crash of 1929. It was an instant success, and this drove the studio to new heights. Unfortunately, this meant success would starve the company, particularly Joey Drew.
In 1930, Henry Stein intended to leave the company due to Joey’s questionable work ethics. However, Joey insisted Henry stay by promoting him to animation supervisor, and to keep the company active, Joey and Henry hired several workers and voice talent.
Henry left the studio in early 1939, for real this time, because he was getting burned out on Bendy, and moved to Pasadena, California, to spend more time with his wife, Linda.
In 1939, Joey received word that the Bendy cartoons were declining in popularity. He was told that the character Bendy had become too hasty for audiences; Alice Angel, on the other hand, was more popular and more famous, surpassing the success of Fleischer Studios’ Betty Boop. In response, the Bendy cartoons were immediately axed. The last few Bendy cartoons remaining in production were finished and released by 1940. 
A spinoff cartoon series, the Alice Angel series, began production afterwards. The premise of the new series reimagined Alice in an alternate universe where she never met Bendy. Because Alice Angel was associated with Bendy, Joey did not think audiences would notice the transition. While the series was initially successful, unfortunately for Joey, fans did eventually notice, and many of them became outraged, causing things for Joey Drew Studios to become worse. By 1946, they stopped making the series and started making other cartoons.
In 1942, during World War II, the studio re-released many of its early cartoons for two reasons: to sell war bonds, and in response to the angry reaction to the new Alice Angel cartoons. When many of Joey’s workers were drafted into the United States Armed Forces to fight in the war itself, Joey became more open to hiring women to work for him in addition to men, since he was desperate for new hires.
In 1946, Joey Drew Studios was put under investigation after reports of hazardous work environments, missing employees, harassment, and excessive backpay, as well as the company’s danger of being bankrupt, all of which are a result of Joey’s mismanagement of the studio. Anonymous employees threatened to make labor unions over the poor conditions, which included unpermitted buildings, hazardous electrical wiring, and a plumbing system prone to bursting. In addition, there were excessive work hours, most of which were unpaid and several animators were unable to see their families in weeks, after being threatened with disciplinary action and termination if they were unable to finish animations on tight schedules. There were reports of barricaded offices, employees locked up in workspaces, and complaints of crazy malfunctioning machinery. Despite the evidence against the company, Joey Drew remained firm that the studio has done nothing wrong, dismissing the accusations as either complaint from menial employees, or feeble attempts by competing studios to discredit Joey. Joey was eventually ousted from the company in 1948.
On September 25, 1947, it was posted in the New York World-Telegram that Joey Drew Studios stated to be in “Dire Straights” and struggling financially. On July 29, 1948, Joey Drew Studios filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, it was stated to be because of Joey’s mismanagement and the studio’s financial issues. On August 28, 1959, the studio closed due to a massive debt, as evident by the bankruptcy report.
Joey died in 1971, at the age of 70. Henry died in 1982; he was 81.
On February 10, 1972, the Joey Drew Studios library was purchased by Archgate Films, lead by Nathan Arch, who wanted to continue Joey Drew’s legacy. Arch died at the age of 100 in 1992, and Archgate was bought by MGM in 2005.
In 2017, Canadian game developers Paul “theMeatly” Crawford and Mike Mood released Bendy and the Ink Machine, a horror survival loosely based on the history of the studio and its flagship cartoon. The plot changed the history as if Henry actually left earlier as he intended, and Joey developed a machine that used a special ink. The game was an immediate success, and Archgate Films attempted to sue the developers for copyright infringement. However, Archgate lost the case because it was discovered they never bothered to renew Bendy’s copyright status.
Category:Bendy and the Ink Machine
Category:Bendy
Category:Animation studios
Category:Former animation studios
Category:Defunct Animation Studios
Category:Defunct
Category:American animation studios
Category:1929
Category:New York City
Category:Brooklyn
Category:New York
Category:Broadway