Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio

The **Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio** (also known as **MGM Cartoons**) was the in-house division of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film studio in Hollywood during the Golden Age of American animation. The studio was responsible for producing animated shorts to accompany MGM feature films in Loew's Theaters. Active from 1937 until 1958, the cartoon studio created some popular cartoon characters, including *Tom and Jerry*, *Droopy* and *Barney Bear*.

## Hanna-Barbera: Tom and Jerry (1939-1958)

Friz Freleng, briefly assigned to work under Harman, returned to Schlesinger after his MGM contract expired in April 1939, and storyman Joseph Barbera was united with director William Hanna to co-direct cartoons for Rudolf Ising's unit. The partnership between Hanna and Barbera would last for more than six decades, until Hanna's death in 2001. The duo's first cartoon together was 1940's *Puss Gets the Boot*, featuring an unnamed mouse's attempts to outwit a housecat named Jasper. Though released without fanfare, the short was financially and critically successful, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) of 1940. On the strength of the Oscar nomination and public demand, Hanna and Barbera were assigned to direct more cat-and-mouse cartoons, soon christening the characters *Tom and Jerry*. *Puss Gets the Boot* did not win the 1940 Academy Award for Best Cartoon, but another MGM cartoon, Rudolf Ising's *The Milky Way* did, making MGM the first studio to wrestle the Cartoon Academy Award away from Walt Disney.

*Tom & Jerry* quickly became MGM's most valuable animated property. The shorts were successful at the box office, many licensed products (comic books, toys, etc.) were released to the market, and the series would earn twelve more Academy Award for Short Subjects (Cartoons) nominations, with seven of the *Tom & Jerry* shorts going on to win the Academy Award: *The Yankee Doodle Mouse* (1943), *Mouse Trouble* (1944), *Quiet Please!* (1945), *The Cat Concerto* (1946), *The Little Orphan* (1948), *The Two Mouseketeers* (1951), and *Johann Mouse* (1952). *Tom & Jerry* was eventually tied with Disney's *Silly Symphonies* as the most-awarded theatrical cartoon series. Originally barred by Quimby from making a second cat-and-mouse short until the overwhelming success of *Puss Gets the Boot* demanded it, Hanna and Barbera and their team of animators, who included George Gordon, Jack Zander, Kenneth Muse, Irven Spence, Ed Barge, Ray Patterson and Pete Burness, worked on nothing but *Tom & Jerry* cartoons from 1941 until 1955. Exceptions were half a dozen one-shot theatrical shorts, including *Gallopin' Gals* (1940), *Officer Pooch* (1941), *War Dogs* (1943), *We Wish You a Merry Christmas*, *Good Will to Men* (1955), and the last seven Tex Avery shorts featuring *Droopy*.

Key to the successes of *Tom and Jerry* and other MGM cartoons was the work of Scott Bradley, who scored virtually all of the cartoons for the studio from 1934 to 1957. Bradley's scores made use of both classical and jazz sensibilities. In addition, he often used songs from the scores of MGM's feature films, the most frequent of them being "The Trolley Song" from *Meet Me in St. Louis* and "Sing Before Breakfast" from *Broadway Melody of 1936*.

In addition, in the last years of the production of the Tom and Jerry cartoon, the spin-off of Tom and Jerry was released in this studio in 1957. This spin-off was Spike and Tyke. Spike and Tyke, like Tom and Jerry, was primarily published as a cartoon series. But the producers of Tom and Jerry, who could not achieve the success they wanted, stopped this animated series and ended the Tom and Jerry cartoon series adventure at MGM studio.