For many years, what we think of as
The Warner Brothers Cartoons were only
distributed by
Warner Brothers -- the
cartoons were produced by an
independent outfit called
Schlesinger Productions (after
Leon Schlesinger, the studio's owner). Like many
small businesses,
money was tight, and also like many small businesses, the people most responsible for the studio's
success saw the least of the
cash. The
cartoonists,
animators,
directors,
writers,
in-betweeners,
colorists,
cameramen, etc. were nearly all headquartered in a
ramshackle building on
Van Ness Avenue in
Los Angeles which came to be
affectionately
nicknamed Termite Terrace by the people working there.
Luckily, the Schlesinger studio employed people who cared more about making
cartoons than they did about
material comforts. So you had a bit of a
madcap environment, where writer
Cal Howard ran a complete
hot dog stand -- including a small
oven, an
ice chest,
firecrackers, and
condoms -- out of his
desk and under the bosses' noses; where a
secret alarm system was
triggered whenever a member of
management came to visit, allowing dozing animators to be
awakened before they got fired -- and allowing the writers and directors -- whose jobs were the safest -- to adopt poses of
lethargy that would put the laziest
slacker to shame; where
Pepe LePew-style
French signs were placed on the
restrooms (
"Les peckerays de cavaliers relieves vous dans cette room"); where the boss'
pinhead tirades that
camels and
bullfights could
NEVER be funny were converted into
Oscar-winning cartoons; where
humor was
encouraged and
appreciated above all else and working a job for little
pay didn't have to mean you were a mere
wage slave.
The
building has been closed and
demolished for decades, but I hope it's enshrined somewhere as one of the
Great Places to Work...
Primary research from Chuck Jones' brilliant autobiography "Chuck Amuck". Pester your local bookstore or library for a copy today!