Charles B. Mintz served as the proverbial father of Columbia animation. When Mintz lost his studio to Columbia in November 1939 and died in January 1940, ownership of the studio changed hands several times over the next eight years. Under all of these management groups, the studio employed the name "Screen Gems".

Studio production manager Jimmy Bronis became Mintz's immediate successor. He was quickly followed by Mintz's brother-in-law, George Winkler. Winkler ushered in a brief period of intra-studio suspicion and competition, pitting the directors against one another in a heavy-handed effort to cut costs. Ben Harrison and Manny Gould finally decided to leave at this time, each going his separate way.

THE GREAT CHEESE ROBBERY (1941). Click to enlarge.

Scrappy and Krazy Kat, the studio's leading entities, were rapidly losing their grip on the public under Allen Rose during the late 1930s. Now the situation only became worse. One final attempt to revitalize Krazy's persona came in 1940, with "The Mouse Exterminator". In it, Krazy's voice and mannerisms resemble those of Jack Benny's radio show valet, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. This would be the final Krazy Kat cartoon. The Scrappy series at this point had very little to offer. "Practice Makes Perfect", "Man of Tin", and "Schoolboy Dreams" were only a few of the dry efforts to emerge in 1940. Scrappy's final appearance would be "The Little Theatre" (1941), a cartoon with practically nothing distinguishing about it.

Both Scrappy and Krazy were quickly replaced by two new black and white series, Phantasies and Fables. One-shot cartoons dominated the 1940-41 production season. In general, the Marcus-Davis collaborations of this period ("The Crystal Gazer", "The Cute Recruit") fared better than Rose's efforts ("It Happened to Crusoe"). With no star characters on the studio's roster, neither unit had a very good chance of making a lasting hit with audiences. Change was both necessary and inevitable.

Frank Tashlin began his animation career in the early 1930s: working for Amadee J. Van Beuren as an in-betweener, head animator, and eventually as a co-director. Tashlin left Van Beuren in 1933 to work briefly at Leon Schlesinger's Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies studio. When Schlesinger asked for a cut of the income from Tashlin's comic strip, "Van Boring" (a spoof of his former boss), Tashlin declined and left the studio for a short period. In 1936 he returned and was promoted to directorial status; but in 1938 he departed again, this time for a story crew position at the Walt Disney studio. When disputes erupted between Tashlin and Disney himself, Tashlin took to the picket line during the infamous 1941 studio strike. That same year, Tashlin was contacted by an as-yet-unidentified Columbia employee, offering him a job at the Screen Gems studio. Tashlin left Disney and accepted the new position in March 1941.

Tashlin started work at the studio as a story man, but circumstances changed quickly. "They didn't have a story department," Tashlin told Michael Barrier in a 1971 interview. "Then there was a reorganization over there, and Columbia sent a new man in. He fired everybody in the place except me, and he said, 'You're going to be in charge of the studio.'"

Tashlin was referring to the events of October 1941, when Columbia really did sweep away practically everyone remaining from the Mintz period. Winkler, Allen Rose and several others were all forced out. Only a few creative staffers, such as Sid Marcus, Art Davis, and Bob Wickersham, were wisely spared. The "new man" in charge of the reorganization was Ben Schwalb, who became general manager of the studio when Tashlin became production supervisor.

The few remaining Mintz staffers were not adequate to compensate for a full staff. So, Tashlin decided to take advantage of the Disney strike, luring several animators and story men off the picket line and into his new studio. Among the new staffers were John Hubley, Zack Schwartz, Howard Swift, Dave Hilberman, Alec Geiss, and Emery Hawkins (who previously worked for Mintz during the 1930s). The plan was to produce cartoons in an entirely new style; it would be a new decade for the studio.

The first short to be completed by the Tashlin staff was "The Great Cheese Robbery". Directed by Art Davis and written by Tashlin, the short tells of two mice attempting to snatch a slice of Swiss cheese from the fridge without awakening a sleeping cat. The greatest obstacle faced by the heroes is the shorter mouse's noisy cold. In order for the theft to succeed, he must be prevented from sneezing at all costs! Aside from a fine sense of humor, "Cheese Robbery" features slick character animation and strong backgrounds, all of which represented an advancement over the earlier Mintz product.

THE FOX AND THE GRAPES (1941). Click to enlarge.

The second cartoon from the new staff was also Tashlin's first film as writer and director: "The Fox and the Grapes". The short revolves around a determined Fox who tries relentlessly to purloin a bunch of grapes – and a determined Crow who has nailed them to a high tree branch in order to keep the Fox from reaching them. The Crow offers the grapes to the Fox in exchange for the Fox's picnic lunch. However, the Fox is convinced that he can keep his lunch and capture the grapes on his own, leading to one blackout gag after another. "This all came from Disney's—the whole idea of no story, of using a basic situation," Tashlin later stated in his interview with Michael Barrier. "I did it with the Fox and the Crow, because I cribbed what they had at Disney. You set up your problem: the cat is going to catch the mouse… and there's a series of jokes, one after another [as the cat] keeps failing and failing." "The Fox and the Grapes" was a success, and launched the Fox and Crow series.

The Tashlin-produced Screen Gems films are arguably some of the best ever to come out of the small studio. The third of them, "Red Riding Hood Rides Again", directed by Sid Marcus, is a wacky retelling of the classic fable. In the end, just as the Wolf is about to eat Red, he gets drafted and is immediately forced to march in the infantry. Leaving Grandma's house, the infantry is followed by tanks, jeeps, and even a B-19! The short highlights both solid, beautiful backgrounds and strong character poses (especially the Wolf). The fourth short, "The Tangled Angler", introduced another Tashlin creation: Pete Pelican, voiced by Pinto Colvig. "Angler" and Pete's second and final short, "Under the Shedding Chestnut Tree" (1942), both shared "The Fox and the Grapes" blackout gag formula.

WOLF CHASES PIGS (1942). Click to enlarge.

Tashlin also encouraged his staff to take new directions in animation. "Under Tashlin we tried some very experimental things; none of them quite got off the ground, but there was a lot of ground broken," John Hubley once said of his old boss. "We were doing crazy things that were anti the classic Disney approach." A perfect example of this would be Tashlin's spoof of Disney's "Three Little Pigs". In the 1942 short, "Wolf Chases Pigs", the Wolf (voiced, like Disney's Big Bad Wolf, by the wickedly funny Billy Bletcher) enlists in the army – and ends up answering to the pigs, who outrank him as sergeants.

Unfortunately, "Wolf Chases Pigs" was one of Tashlin's last efforts for Screen Gems. In April 1942, Schwalb began to assume greater control of animation production. Later that month, Columbia would instate Dave Fleischer, just departing from the Florida studio which bore his name, as the studio's new executive producer. Tashlin was given two months' notice of a pending demotion. Tashlin left in June 1942 when the demotion took effect, but he held the title of production supervisor until that time. Tashlin's creative input is present in many of the shorts made after his departure. The second Fox and Crow short, "Woodman Spare That Tree", directed by Bob Wickersham, bears a strong Tashlin influence with its use of blackout gags and precision timing.

Released three months after his departure, Tashlin's swan song at Screen Gems was a powerful wartime propaganda short entitled "Song of Victory". Although the film credits Bob Wickersham as its director, it also credits Tashlin for "supervision", which could also mean director or a shortened form of "producion supervisor". Regardless, after viewing this particular short, one can easily see a strong Tashlin influence.

SONG OF VICTORY (1942). Click to enlarge.

The film involves the evil Axis of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo portrayed as a vulture, gorilla, and hyena respectively. Together they oppress the forest animals, making them walk miles through blizzards in order to supply them with food. One night, while delivering food to them, one squirrel sneaks a nut. Immediately the Mussolini gorilla and Tojo vulture grab the squirrel and put him before the Hitler vulture. Not knowing what to do, the squirrel swallows the nut, and the vulture tries to force it out of him. When the squirrel tries to escape, they beat him up and toss him out in the snow for dead. The other forest creatures retaliate, bringing a successful attack upon the three dictators. They are chased out of their home by skunks, then pursued to the edge of a cliff. The squirrel steps out of the crowd and confronts them with a goofy face, scaring them over the edge.

PROFESSOR SMALL AND MR. TALL (1943). Click to enlarge.

Dave Fleischer seems to have made few distinguishing personal accomplishments while at Screen Gems. Instead of being consistently involved with production of the films as was Tashlin, Fleischer felt separated from the new group of young, intellectual, daring, and modern cartoonists. John Hubley expressed his view on Fleischer in a 1976 interview with Michael Barrier: "The only thing you could say about him was, he was so out of it, he was so completely detached, that he was never any problem." Fleischer's detachment gave the artists a license to push the envelope and do practically anything they wanted – arguably, they had even more freedom than they had under Tashlin. The atmosphere of the shorts became increasingly stylized, especially the shorts created by Hubley, Paul Sommers, and layout man Zack Schwartz. One particular Hubley-Sommer collaboration, "Professor Small and Mr. Tall", is a bizarre film that features incredibly modern graphics for its time. Another modernistic Hubley-Sommer effort is "The Vitamin G-Man", a highly stylized short about a detective graduating from Flatfoot College. "We did cartoons that were really ahead of their time," Hubley stated. "We did one that was a Horatio Alger spoof called 'The Rocky Road to Ruin.' Then Milt Gross came around with an idea for an anti-Hitler picture which showed him as a crazy paper-hanger, called 'He Can't Make It Stick'."

Other directors adopted the modern look that Hubley and Sommer were pioneering. Two examples were Howard Swift's "Case of the Screaming Bishop", a bizarre Sherlock Holmes parody, and Bob Wickersham's "Way Down Yonder in the Corn" with the Fox and Crow. "Imagination", another noteworthy Wickersham short from 1943, earned the studio an Academy Award nomination. Even though Tashlin himself was gone, it seemed as if his enthusiastic spirit was still alive and well at the studio.

The mid-1940s saw the Screen Gems staff introduce a variety of short-lived continuing characters. Flippy, a canary, would always outsmart Flop the cat. Their debut cartoon, "Dog, Cat, and Canary", appeared in theaters five years before the pairing of Tweety and Sylvester. Willoughby Wren was a meek little man who possessed a magic cap that gave him extraordinary strength. Both series' plots usually left something to be desired; but the Willoughby shorts possessed Hubley-Sommer-influenced stylized backgrounds, while the Flippy cartoons held some wonderful action animation. Another series that featured a young Hispanic boy named Tito, his burro Burrito, and his girlfriend Rosita, proved a success not only in theaters, but in comics as well.

Dave Fleischer departed Columbia in late 1943. His successor was Paul Worth, a musician who worked on cartoon scores. Worth's stay was short and indifferent. Like Fleischer, he had little impact on the staff and was quickly replaced by Hugh McCollum, an experienced short-subject producer. Like his predecessors, McCollum kept his distance from the hands-on animation staff. For their part, Bob Wickersham, Howard Swift, Alec Geiss, and other directors simply tried to survive the changes on top and maintain some spirit onscreen, with varying results.

UNSURE RUNTS (1946). Click to enlarge.

Seen today, the post-Fleischer Screen Gems one-shot cartoons look mediocre at best. Shorts like "Mass Mouse Meeting", "Goofy News Views", and the dreadful "Giddy Yapping" rank among the worst shorts the studio had produced since Alan Rose's departure. Making matters worse, Screen Gems continued to release large numbers of these one-shots in black and white through 1946. However, color cartoons and series cartoons also had their flaws. Perhaps the greatest mistake made by the studio was an attempt to bring Al Capp's Li'l Abner comic strip to the screen. Nobody was impressed or pleased by the results, least of all Capp himself, so the series was finally dropped.

Probably the best shorts to emerge from this time were those featuring the Fox and Crow. These post-Fleischer cartoons are actually among the best in the series. "Mr. Moocher", for instance has the Crow taking advantage of the Fox, all in the name of being a "good neighbor". In "Unsure Runts", the Crow tries to sucker the Fox into buying insurance. "We'll even throw in a beautiful set of dishes" the Crow proudly offers. "Be Patient, Patient" is another classic short from this particular period. The Fox, on a strict liquid diet, decides to disobey his doctor's orders and eat an entire feast of food. Trying to secure a good portion of the meal for himself, Crow poses as the Fox's doctor. However, these standout shorts could not disguise the fact that Screen Gems seemed to be dying on the vine.

In 1946, one last effort was made to keep the studio alive. Cartoon producer Leon Schlesinger recently left Warner Brothers along with management assistant Henry Binder and Schlesinger's brother-in-law, business manager Ray Katz. Now, with Schlesinger's backing, Katz and Binder took over the Columbia cartoon studio. The pair brought several ex-Warner staffers aboard with them, including Cal Howard, Dave Monahan, Michael Maltese, and Tedd Pierce, who had already been moonlighting for Bob Wickersham under Dave Fleischer. Another addition to the staff was Alex Lovy, a former Walter Lantz animator, director, and story man who had just returned from serving in World War II. Darrell Calker, Walter Lantz's musical director, replaced Eddie Kilfeather and moonlighted as Screen Gems' music head. Stan Freberg provided voices for many characters. Finally, Bob Clampett became the studio's creative director.

FLORA (1948). Click to enlarge.

"They came to me and said, 'We want you to be the creative head of Screen Gems, at double what Warner Bros. is paying you,'" Clampett remembered in a 1970 interview with Michael Barrier. "So, during this transitional period, at the same time that I was making my Warner cartoons, I was running my own studio, and shaping up the Columbia cartoon stories for them." Eventually, Clampett left Warners to pursue full-time work as the head of his own cartoon operation.

The Warner influence was strong in these later Columbia cartoons, even extending to the films' end title cards, which often featured a familiar concentric-circle design. Still, many of the new shorts proved to be quite unique. "Mother Hubba-Hubba Hubbard" is a screwball whodunit take on the classic Old Mother Hubbard nursery rhyme. Another cartoon, "Boston Beanie", written by Bob Clampett, involves a Sylvester-like cat being driven to insanity by beans. "Leave Us Chase It" features Superkatt, a character created by animator Dan Gordon for Giggle Comics. Perhaps one of the finest cartoons to emerge from this period was "Flora", a film-noir parody in which a dog reminisces about his obsession with Flora, a Siamese cat. Featuring superb art direction, narration by Gerald Mohr, direction by Alex Lovy, and story work by Cal Howard and Dave Monahan, "Flora" became a success and a house classic.

Despite these final triumphs, Screen Gems shut its doors at the end of 1946. However, releases continued to appear through 1949. In 1948, the Screen Gems name assumed a new meaning when Columbia decided to utilize it for television production. Today, the brand marks Sony's low-budget theatrical features. The Screen Gems studio traversed a series of highs and lows during its existence in the 1940s, though it was not Columbia's final animation endeavor. A revolution in animation – far more fruitful than even the Tashlin era – was about to unfold, arising from the dying studio's ashes. Its symbol was a three-letter abbreviation – UPA.