Rudolf Ising

Biography

While animation was still in its infancy during the early twenties, Walt Disney managed to recruit the brightest and best talent nationwide and imported it into Hollywood. Two of these pioneers artists were close friends Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising. They had first tasted success by helping to develop Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (a character, rather akin to Felix the Cat with extended ears). Eventually, in 1929, the duo parted company with Disney to create Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid (who was based on minstrel characters and looked like Felix in a derby hat), developed a pilot for the first-ever talkie cartoon and sold the idea to Leon Schlesinger. Schlesinger, in turn, got Warner Brothers to sign a contract to produce cartoons and Sinkin' in the Bathtub (1930) effectively inaugurated the first of the celebrated Looney Tunes. The Bosko animations invariably ended with "That's all, folks", which famously became Porky Pig's stuttered trademark sign-off in later years. At Warners, Harman concentrated on the Looney Tunes output, while Ising, who was more comfortable writing and producing (rather than drawing illustrations), worked on the Merry Melodies cartoons which featured a more prominent musical content. The first in this series was Lady, Play Your Mandolin! (1931). In 1933, Harman & Ising moved to MGM after financial disagreements with Schlesinger. They created the sleepy Barney Bear, a proto-Yogi (reputedly based on Ising himself). They also took the Bosko character with them to become part of MGM's Technicolor Happy Harmonies -- along with a new creation -- the mouse Little Cheeser. Once gain, disputes over money caused the duo to move on. By 1940, Harman and Ising went their separate ways, Ising soon winning an Oscar for The Milky Way (1940), a cartoon featuring three kittens in space. During World War II, Ising produced training films as head of the animation department of the Army Air Forces movie unit. Thereafter, he forsook animation to work in advertising, before calling it quits in the early 70's.