The holidays were a very special time at Fleischer Studios, so it is with great joy that we share this wonderful, whimsical card with all of you this holiday season. Thanks to Ryan and Stephanie Englade, who made this post possible by allowing us to share this remarkable card from their own personal collection with all of you!
This wonderful card, which looks like a typical Fleischer Studios Christmas card, features nine Fleischer staff members lounging atop and around the Studios’ Florida office building. This enormous building, which must have still been quite new at the time, became the Studio’s home in 1938 when the entire Studio moved its base of operations from New York City to Miami. The space, specifically designed and built to the Fleischers’ specifications, housed a state-of-the-art animation studio and plenty of working room for the more than 700 employees the Studio would eventually employ here.
The staff members on this card worked for the Fleischers on one, or both, of the Studios’ feature length films (Gulliver’s Travels and/or Mr. Bug Goes to Town) as well as other Fleischer films including Betty Boop, Popeye, and Superman. Typically, animators worked in groups that were referred to as ‘units,’ and it is likely that the staffers depicted here were all part of the same unit, though the unit itself was quite a bit larger and made up of people actively engaged in various aspects of the animation process. According to Max Fleischer:
This wonderful card, which looks like a typical Fleischer Studios Christmas card, features nine Fleischer staff members lounging atop and around the Studios’ Florida office building. This enormous building, which must have still been quite new at the time, became the Studio’s home in 1938 when the entire Studio moved its base of operations from New York City to Miami. The space, specifically designed and built to the Fleischers’ specifications, housed a state-of-the-art animation studio and plenty of working room for the more than 700 employees the Studio would eventually employ here.
The staff members on this card worked for the Fleischers on one, or both, of the Studios’ feature length films (Gulliver’s Travels and/or Mr. Bug Goes to Town) as well as other Fleischer films including Betty Boop, Popeye, and Superman. Typically, animators worked in groups that were referred to as ‘units,’ and it is likely that the staffers depicted here were all part of the same unit, though the unit itself was quite a bit larger and made up of people actively engaged in various aspects of the animation process. According to Max Fleischer:
“Each unit comprised, one first class animator-director, an assistant director, two inbetweeners, three follow-up men, two inkers, one timer (for screen action) four girls for art coloring, one exposure sheet planner, who also doubled for inbetweening requirements."
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So... who are these people?Irv Spector apparently first started working with Fleischer Studios in the late 1930s. He stayed on when, in 1942, the Studio became Famous Studios, and even continued on when it became Paramount Cartoon Studios in 1956. Later Spector worked at several animation studios including Schlesinger Productions/Warner Bros., Pantomime Pictures and Filmation. During WWII he worked in the animation unit of the Signal Corp.
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Dave Tendlar came to Fleischer Studios as an animator in 1931. Eventually he became a Head Animator and led a unit of several people (such as the group pictured in this card). As Head Animator, Tendlar would have also functioned as the director of whatever films the unit might be working on. Tendlar remained on after the change from Fleischer Studios to Famous Studios. He later worked with Terrytoons, Hal Seegar and Hanna-Barbera.
Edith Vernick was hired by Fleischer Studios in the early 1930s, at a time when women were generally not thought to be capable of working as animators. She worked as an in-betweener and eventually became Head of that department. Because Fleischer Studios was more open to women working as animators, Vernick did actually do some animation- though her work was generally uncredited. In spite of this, Edith made a major contribution to the advancement of women in the field, demonstrating that women were clearly capable of being animators. It is certainly notable that she is included in this drawing of a group of men that refers to itself as "The Personality 'Boys' Group").
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Reuben (Rube) Grossman, a New York artist, joined the Fleischer’s in the 1930s, and eventually became an animator. After leaving Fleischer Studios (during the 1940s and 50s) he went on to write and draw for a number of comic strips, and was known for his comic book artwork which included a number of beloved characters including Peter Panda, Nutsy Squirrel, and The Three Mouseketeers. By the late 1950s he was operating his own studio, along with former Fleischer artists Otto Feuer and Graham Place, which produced merchandise art. In the early 1960s he returned to animated film, working as a director for Felix the Cat and Mighty Hercules cartoons.
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Robert (Bob) Bentley Even before he joined Fleischer Studios, Bentley had worked as an animator at other studios. Unlike many of the others in this drawing, who followed the Studio south from their New York digs, Bentley joined Fleischer Studios in 1938, after the move to Florida and specifically to work on Gulliver Travels. By 1941 he had already moved on. In addition to his time at Fleischer Studios, Bentley's lengthy career included work with Walter Lantz, MGM Cartoon Studio, UPA, Hanna Barbera, Paramount Cartoon Studio, Filmation, and many more.
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John Walworth worked as an animator at Fleischer Studios beginning around 1938. He stayed on when the Studio changed over to Famous Studios where he was instrumental in the Famous Studios Casper the Friendly Ghost films. Later he would go on to work for a number of other animation studios including Screen Gems, Universal and MGM. Eventually he left animation to develop and design freebies that were packaged with a variety of products from toothpaste to fast food. His clients included Lionel, General Foods, Quaker, Kellogg, McDonald’s and Burger King.
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Nelson Demorest was working as an animator in Hollywood when the Fleischer’s hired him to work on Gulliver’s Travels in their new Miami studio. He stayed on long enough to work on Mr. Bug Goes to Town after which he moved on to work at other studios. Historian Mike Barrier says Demorest was the model for Rotoscoping the character of Gulliver in the film’s early scenes (Sam Parker was the model in later scenes).
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Nick Tafuri, a long time Fleischer animator, began working with the studio in the early 1930s in New York City and, like most (but not all) staff members, he moved with the Studio to Florida. In the 1940s, when the studio became Famous Studios, it returned to New York and Tafuri returned with it. He remained with Famous Studios until it closed its doors in 1957.
William Strum had worked at other studios (J.R. Bray, Pat Sullivan) before coming to work with the Fleischer’s in the 1930s. In addition to his work on numerous Fleischer films, Strum is specifically credited with creating the three spies ‘Sneek,’ Snoop’ and ‘Snitch,’ in Gulliver’s Travels. In the 1940s he went on to work at Disney and Fletcher Smith Studios (where he worked on commercials). He eventually opened his own animation studio in New York.
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You can see the personal, and often hand-made, Christmas cards created by some of the people shown here, as well as cards designed and created by many other Fleischer staff members at our Christmas exhibit, A Very Fleischer Christmas, which also includes very rare film footage from one of the Studio's infamous Holiday parties.