Monday, May 07, 2007
Answer:
I promised you the answer to the following question after my History of Animation class had a chance to take their final. Here it is along with a little history.
There are a number of reasons the Fleischer Studio closed. Dave Fleischer was having an affair with his secretary (he later abandon his wife and family for her) The affair divided Max and his family from Dave, Dave`s secretary, and Dave`s first wife. Dave was also a gambler. In fact the $20,000 dollars to start the studio came from a bet Dave placed on a horse. When times got tough Dave ran book out of the Miami studio. Neither of these events made Paramount very happy with Dave and the Studio.
Cash was tight for a number of reasons. Paramount had forced the Fleischers into animating licensed material like Popeye and Superman that left the Fleischer Studio out of the major cut of the marketing money that they use to get from Betty Boop. They also kind of forced feature animation on to the studio and Gulliver was a style and story mess with characters from 3 different worlds sharing the screen. There is no way that the King and Princess are related, much less from the same species. Hoppity is a little better but still has some real cringe worthy moments. A lot of them in song.
Paramount forced Fleischer to settle the strike. The strike pissed of Max Fleischer to the point that he moved the whole studio to Miami. (Florida was a right to work state, no unions) Paramount fronted the money for the move, the new studio, and the running expenses that were higher than paying union scale because they had to almost bribe animators to move South.
Paramount took controlling stock as collateral for all the money that they were fronting the Fleischer Studio and at some point they closed the studio, fired both Max and Dave and moved everybody back to New York as Famous (sic) Studios. Thus died one of the all time great studios.
Therefore the answer is d. All of the above.
Larry Loc (ASIFA Blog Guy) ¶ 5:37 PM
I promised you the answer to the following question after my History of Animation class had a chance to take their final. Here it is along with a little history.
17. Why did the Fleischer Studio close?
- a. Dave Fleischer`s gambling and womanizing outraged Paramount
- b. Gulliver`s Travels and Hoppity Goes to Town Tanked
- c. they ran up big debts moving the studio to Florida to get away from unions
- d. All of the above
There are a number of reasons the Fleischer Studio closed. Dave Fleischer was having an affair with his secretary (he later abandon his wife and family for her) The affair divided Max and his family from Dave, Dave`s secretary, and Dave`s first wife. Dave was also a gambler. In fact the $20,000 dollars to start the studio came from a bet Dave placed on a horse. When times got tough Dave ran book out of the Miami studio. Neither of these events made Paramount very happy with Dave and the Studio.
Cash was tight for a number of reasons. Paramount had forced the Fleischers into animating licensed material like Popeye and Superman that left the Fleischer Studio out of the major cut of the marketing money that they use to get from Betty Boop. They also kind of forced feature animation on to the studio and Gulliver was a style and story mess with characters from 3 different worlds sharing the screen. There is no way that the King and Princess are related, much less from the same species. Hoppity is a little better but still has some real cringe worthy moments. A lot of them in song.
Paramount forced Fleischer to settle the strike. The strike pissed of Max Fleischer to the point that he moved the whole studio to Miami. (Florida was a right to work state, no unions) Paramount fronted the money for the move, the new studio, and the running expenses that were higher than paying union scale because they had to almost bribe animators to move South.
Paramount took controlling stock as collateral for all the money that they were fronting the Fleischer Studio and at some point they closed the studio, fired both Max and Dave and moved everybody back to New York as Famous (sic) Studios. Thus died one of the all time great studios.
Therefore the answer is d. All of the above.
Larry Loc (ASIFA Blog Guy) ¶ 5:37 PM
