Jump to content

Arthur Davis (animator)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arthur Davis
Arthur Davis circa 1931
Born
Arthur Davidavitch

(1905-06-14)June 14, 1905
DiedMay 9, 2000(2000-05-09) (aged 94)
Other namesArt Davis
Artie Davis
Occupation(s)Animator, director
Years active1918–1988 [1]
Employer(s)Raoul Barre's studio (1918-1921)
Jefferson Film Corporation (1921-1923)
Out of the Inkwell Studios (1923–1927)
Winkler Pictures/The Charles Mintz Studio/Screen Gems (1927-1941)
Leon Schlesinger Productions/Warner Bros. Cartoons (1941–1962)
United Productions of America (1962)
Walter Lantz Productions (1962–1965)
DePatie–Freleng Enterprises (1963–1981)
Hanna-Barbera
(1960–1972; 1985–1988)
Spouse
Rae Kessler
(m. 1928; died 1978)

Arthur Davis ( Davidavitch)[1] (June 14, 1905 – May 9, 2000) was an American animator and director known for his time at Warner Brothers' Termite Terrace cartoon studio.

Early life

[edit]

Davis was born on June 14, 1905, in Yonkers, New York to Hungarian parents.[1] He is the younger brother of animators Mannie and Phil Davis.[2] Mannie would eventually become a key director for Terrytoons while Phil worked alongside Arthur at the Screen Gems studio before he left in 1933.[2]

Career

[edit]

Davis got his start as a teenager at Raoul Barre's Studio in 1918 and later moved to Jefferson Film Corporation when the Mutt and Jeff cartoons began being made there in January 1921. It was claimed that he won a cartoon competition. In 1923 he joined Out Of The Inkwell Films in New York, working as an assistant in 1922 since Dick Huemer proposed him to be an assistant. He is reputed to have been the first in-betweener in the animation industry. Another of his distinctions was that he tapped out the famous "bouncing ball" of the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" cartoons of the 1920s. While one of the Fleischer brothers played the ukulele, Davis would keep time with a wooden stick with a white cut-out circle on the end, which was photographed and incorporated into the films as the actual moving ball. Later he was an assistant animator (soon promoted to an actual animator) for the Charles Mintz studio beginning in 1930. While there, he helped create and develop Toby the Pup and Scrappy with fellow animators Dick Huemer and Sid Marcus. Davis would eventually be promoted to director and remained at the studio even when Mintz died in 1939.[3][4][5]

In 1941, Davis was fired from Screen Gems by Frank Tashlin and moved to Leon Schlesinger Productions (which would be renamed Warner Bros. Cartoons once Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros.). Davis worked as an animator for Tashlin's department until late 1944 when it was assumed by Robert McKimson. Later in 1945, when Bob Clampett left and went to Screen Gems, Davis took over Clampett's unit. Davis completed two cartoons left unfinished by Clampett, "The Goofy Gophers" and "Bacall to Arms";[6][5] cartoons still in the outline or storyboarding stages at the time of Clampett's departure were allocated to other directors, with Robert McKimson ultimately directing "Birth of a Notion" and Friz Freleng directing "Tweetie Pie".

Davis directed a number of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts, with a tone somewhere between those of Clampett and McKimson. He had a distinctive characteristic visual style, which can be seen as far back as Davis' Columbia shorts, in which the characters move from the foreground to the background, as well as from side to side, using all axes of the animation field. His department was shut down only two years later in November 1947 when Warners was having a budget problem. Davis was then taken into Friz Freleng's unit, and served as one of Freleng's key animators for many years. In 1960, shortly prior to departing the studio, Davis directed a cartoon for Warners again using Freleng's unit (there were several shorts released around this time, from not only Freleng's unit but Chuck Jones' as well, where the direction was credited to varying subordinates). "Quackodile Tears", which would not see release until 1962 due to the studio's elongated release backlog, was also Davis's last Warner Brothers short.

Following his departure from Warners, Davis joined Hanna-Barbera, where he worked briefly as an animator and was a story director for The Flintstones and The Yogi Bear Show. He continued to work on and off with the studio as a consultant or a timing director until his retirement.[1]

After leaving the studio in 1962, Davis went to Walter Lantz Productions as an animator. He left Lantz in 1965 he then later joining DePatie-Freleng Enterprises to direct Pink Panther shorts and other cartoon series.[1][7]

Outliving most of his peers, Davis died peacefully on May 9, 2000, aged 94 in Sunnyvale, California after humming a tune. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.[8][9]

Filmography

[edit]
Title Release date Notes
1930 The Museum
1935 Neighbors
1936 The Nut Farm
1937 The Little Match Girl
1938 The Foolish Bunny
1938 Hollywood Graduation
1940 Mr. Elephant Goes to Town
1941 The Way of All Pests
1941 The Cute Recruit
1941 The Great Cheese Mystery
1944 Carmen's Veranda
1946 Mouse Menace
1947 The Goofy Gophers
1947 The Foxy Duckling
1947 Doggone Cats
1947 Mexican Joyride
1947 Catch as Cats Can
1948 What Makes Daffy Duck
1948 Nothing But the Tooth
1948 Bone Sweet Bone
1948 The Rattled Rooster
1948 Dough Ray Me-ow
1948 The Pest That Came to Dinner
1948 Odor of the Day
1948 The Stupor Salesman
1948 Riff Raffy Daffy
1948 Two Gophers from Texas
1948 A Hick a Slick and a Chick
1949 Holiday for Drumsticks
1949 Porky Chops
1949 Bowery Bugs
1949 Bye, Bye Bluebeard
1962 Quackodile Tears
1968 The Pink Package Plot
1968 Pinkcome Tax
1969 In the Pink of the Night
1969 Sweet and Sourdough
1969 The Pink Panther Show TV
1969 Here Comes the Grump TV
1969 A Pair of Sneakers
1969 Dune Bug
1969 A Pair of Greenbacks
1970 Say Cheese, Please
1970 A Taste of Money
1970 Bridgework
1970 Doctor Dolittle (TV)
1970 War and Pieces
1970 Mumbo Jumbo
1970 Don't Hustle an Ant with Muscle
1971 Rough Brunch
1971 Trick or Retreat
1971 The Mod Squad
1971 The Ant and the Aardvark
1971 The Great Continental Overland Cross-Country Race
1971 A Fink in the Rink
1971 Pink Tuba-Dore
1971 Cattle Battle
1971 Psst Pink
1971 Pink-In
1971 Croakus Pocus
1972 Flight to the Finish
1972 Support Your Local Serpent
1972 Punch and Judo
1972 Camera Bug
1972 Blue Racer Blues
1973 Wham and Eggs
1978 The Thief of Baghdad
1978 The All New Pink Panther Show TV
1978 Pink Trumpet
1978 Pink Press
1978 The Pink of Bagdad
1978 Pinktails for Two
1978 Pink Bananas
1978 Star Pink
1979 Pink Suds
1980 The Yolk's on You TV
1980 Daffy Flies North TV
1984 Challenge of the GoBots ("GoBots for short") TV
1985 The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo TV
1986 Pepe Le Pew's Skunk Tales video
1986 The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show TV
1988 A Pup Named Scooby-Doo TV

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e "Animator Profiles: ARTHUR DAVIS |". cartoonresearch.com. Retrieved January 27, 2020.
  2. ^ a b "Farewell to Phil Davis: A Scrapbook from the Artists at Charles Mintz |". cartoonresearch.com. Retrieved May 31, 2023.
  3. ^ Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood cartoons : American animation in its golden age. Oxford University Press. pp. 24, 28, 56. ISBN 978-0-19-503759-3.
  4. ^ Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood cartoons : American animation in its golden age. Oxford University Press. pp. 171, 379. ISBN 978-0-19-503759-3.
  5. ^ a b Mallory, Michael (July 7, 2011). "Disney Wins By a Head". Animation Magazine.
  6. ^ Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood cartoons : American animation in its golden age. Oxford University Press. p. 469. ISBN 978-0-19-503759-3.
  7. ^ Baxter, Devon (June 21, 2021). "An Art Davis Scrapbook". Cartoon Research. Retrieved November 27, 2021.
  8. ^ Lenburg, Jeff (2006). Who's who in Animated Cartoons: An International Guide to Film & Television's Award-winning and Legendary Animators. Hal Leonard Corporation. pp. 60. ISBN 1-55783-671-X.
  9. ^ DeMott, Rick. "Warner Bros. Director Arthur Davis Passes". Retrieved December 5, 2018.
[edit]