CARTOONS ARE NO LAUGHING MATTER

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The simple appeal of cartoons to studio bosses is that talent on both sides of the camera comes cheap. The "stars" work for free; they have no agents; they can't extort you for a sequel. And as The Simpsons' Matt Groening has said, "Animated characters don't get busted, and they don't get old." As for the animators, salaries are a little higher than when Jones joined Warner in 1933 for $18.50 a six-day week. But until DreamWorks entered the picture, creators of even the most boffo animated films got no royalties. George Lucas made zillions from the Star Wars rerelease; the three directors of the 1961 One Hundred and One Dalmatians got none of the hundreds of millions it made in reissues and on video.

Cartoon directors are kids at heart, and the Warner aces (Jones, Avery, Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett) were brilliant kids, all in their 20s or early 30s, when they created Porky, Daffy and Bugs. Freleng was the anchor, making crisp vaudeville comedies. Clampett bent his stories and pummeled his characters into manic, surreal, endless inventive farce; his great period (1942-46) deserves a book of its own. Jones' films were about people--all right, barnyard critters, but human withal--who endured life's vithithitudes (as Daffy would say) with amazing grace and Charlie Chaplin's physical wit.

Avery's mad movies were about movement--motion exploded into violent emotion. In Magical Maestro an illusionist transforms an opera singer into a ballerina, an Indian, a widdle boy, a Hawaiian war chanter. As a wolf spies Red Hot Riding Hood, his tongue springs out zigzaggy and his eyes pop out in sections like a dozen contact lenses. No director, of cartoons or live action, vacuum-packed his gags as tightly as Avery did.

The bosses of these geniuses were, for the most part, miserly dolts who never tested positive for a sense of humor. Fred Quimby, boss of the mgm staff, disliked Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera's first Tom 'n' Jerry cartoon so much he forbade them to make any other cat-and-mouse films--until exhibitors demanded more Tom 'n' Jerrys.

It was even weirder at Warner. Harry Warner, the studio's money czar, said he knew nothing about his cartoon unit except that "we make Mickey Mouse." Leon Schlesinger, the stingy despot who ran the unit until 1944, would begin his viewing of dailies with a curt "Roll the garbage." Schlesinger did inspire his troops once: his lisp was the basis for Daffy Duck's voice. Schlesinger's successor, Eddie Selzer, hated the notion that his slaves might enjoy their work. He once sputtered, "What the hell has all this laughter to do with the making of animated cartoons?"

The men in charge rarely knew the worth of these cartoons, artistically or financially. Even Walt, in his later years, was blinkered. The genius-boss, who in 1934 had dazzled his staff for four hours laying out his vision for Snow White, turned bitter and vindictive after a 1940 strike at the studio. Disney now coveted real estate; bored with putting fantasy kingdoms into films, he wanted to put one in Anaheim, Calif. And he thought so little of the cels (the precious units of any animated film) that he gave them away to visitors when Disneyland opened.