Hugh Harman

Hugh Harman was an American animator, best known for creating cartoons for Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Harman was also best known for his Nobel Peace Prize and Oscar nominee MGM cartoon "Peace on Earth" in 1939 and for his works with partner Rudolf Ising.
==History==
===Disney/Winkler===
Hugh Harman first worked in animation in the early 1920s at Walt Disney's studio in Kansas City. When Disney moved operations to California, Harman, Rudolf Ising, and fellow animator Carman Maxwell stayed behind to try to start their own studio. Their plans went nowhere, however, and the men soon rejoined Disney to work on his Alice Comedies and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit films. It was during this time, that Harman and Ising developed a style of cartoon drawing that would later be closely associated with, and credited to, Disney.
When producer Charles Mintz ended his association with Disney, Harman and Ising went to work at Winkler Pictures' new animation studio.
At some point during the production of Winkler's Oswald cartoons, Harman and Ising went to Universal to try and convince the studio to put them in charge instead of Mintz. Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal Pictures, got tired of the internal politics and terminated Winkler Pictures' contract. This resulted in the two establishing Harman-Ising Productions.
===Post-Disney===
Harman and Ising began pitching an animated/live-action short film titled "Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid" to various people. When producer Leon Schlesinger viewed the film, he gave Harman and Ising the greenlight for the Looney Tunes series. A sister series Merrie Melodies was created a year later (both titles being a parody of Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies).
Harman and Ising had a fallout with Schlesinger in 1933 and soon departed for MGM, taking the copyrights to Bosko with them. There, he and Ising created another series that parodied Silly Symphonies again, Happy Harmonies. At MGM, 37 shorts were produced until 1938 when the series ended. After the series ended, MGM terminated Harman and Ising, who were subcontracted to produced cartoons for MGM, though they were hired to MGM's cartoon studio the following year.
Harman still found some work as an animation freelancer, directing, for example, cartoons in the Silly Symphonies series for Disney in 1938. When Disney later reneged on a deal he had made for two other Harman-Ising pictures, the animators sold the cartoons to Fred Quimby at MGM. Quimby rehired Harman and Ising, but they no longer worked together.
The following year, Harman's "Peace on Earth" was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as well as an Oscar. Hugh Harman left MGM to start a new animation studio with Disney animator Mel Shaw.
===Death===
Harman died from a heart attack on November 25, 1982, while in Chatsworth, Los Angeles."Hugh Harman, 79, Creator Of 'Looney Tunes' Cartoons" - The New York Times Obituaries
==Gallery==
Alice Comedies crew Feb 1927 (1).jpg|Top row: Walker Harman, Ub Iwerks, Lois Hardwick, Walt Disney, Rudolf IsingBottom row: Friz Freleng, Roy O. Disney, Harman.
Alice Comedies crew Feb 1927 (2).jpg|Left to right: Freleng, Harman, Walt, Hardwick, Ising, Iwerks, Harman, Roy O. Disney.
Alice Comedies crew Feb 1927 (3).jpg|Left to right, Harman, Freleng, Ising, Roy O. Disney, Hardwick, Harman, Iwerks, Norman Blackburn, Paul Smith, Walt.
The Harman brothers in Walt Before Mickey.JPG|L-R: Hugh Harman (Hunter Gomez) and Fred Harman (Timothy Williams) in Walt Before Mickey.
==References==
Category:Males
Category:1900s births
Category:1980s deaths
Category:Deceased
Category:People from Colorado
Category:American people
Category:Producers
Category:Writers
Category:Animators
Category:Directors
Category:Alice Comedies
Category:Walt Disney Animation Studios