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Eight things you didn't know about Leon Schlesinger
Let's learn about the founder of Looney Tunes!
May 20 is Leon Schlesinger's birthday, and while the cartoon studio he created is legendary, much remains unknown about the founder of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. He was a complicated character with a vibrant background in show business and was a pioneer in many ways, but he notably did not have the best relationship with his animators. And yet, without him, we wouldn't have so many incredible Golden Age cartoons.
Let's peel back the layers and learn about the man who made it possible for Termite Terrace to create Bugs, Elmer, Daffy, and all of our other favorite Looney Tunes characters.
Before he worked in cartoons, he produced Westerns starring John Wayne.
The westerns he produced were Ride Him, Cowboy (1932), Haunted Gold (1932), The Big Stampede (1932), The Telegraph Trail (1933), Somewhere in Sonora (1933), and The Man From Monterey (1933). John Wayne recalled later, "I later thought Leon's cartoons were better than the horse operas he put me in."
Schlesinger's lisp inspired Daffy and Sylvester's voices.
According to Chuck Jones, Schlesinger had a lisp, but was a good sport with his reaction to Daffy Duck's voice with "Jesus Christ, that's a funny voice! Where'd you get that voice?"
Porky Pig was his favorite Looney Tunes character
When pitching cartoons to Schlesinger, animators would include Porky in storyboards to get approved, even if Porky would not be appearing in the cartoon! According to Looney Tunes animator Bill Melendez, "Leon liked Porky Pig. We’d put up a storyboard, and Leon would come in and say, ‘I don’t see any Porky Pigs. Don’t we make Porky Pigs here anymore?’ So one of the story men came up with an idea: no matter what they were working on, there would be a drawing of Porky Pig. Leon would go: ‘Ah! Another Porky Pig!’ He thought we were making Porky Pigs now. I don’t know why he liked Porky Pig, because somebody once told me that Porky was really a caricature of Leon, who was kind of a portly guy."
Schlesinger appeared in four cartoons.
In addition to playing himself in You Ought to be in Pictures, Schlesinger was caricatured in Hollywood Steps Out, Russian Rhapsody, and Nutty News. He was also mentioned in The Penguin Parade and Porky Pig's Feat.
He got his start in silent films.
The first company Schlesinger founded was Pacific Title & Art Studio, which made title cards for silent films, and later "talkies".
He owned a boat and called it "The Merrie Melody"
The Termite Terrace employees were naturally quite bitter about the yacht because Schlesinger would not let them aboard.
He was credited as an animation innovator.
Schlesinger was credited with leading the charge in switching his studio's animation paint from watercolor to vibrant oil-based paints. He also produced the first cartoon with human characters, which might seem insignificant to us now, but most early cartoons featured only animal characters. He loved that while most cartoons were cute and silly, Looney Tunes was satirical and witty. Another thing Schlesinger prided himself on was that when he started his production studio, he had 36 employees, and when he retired, that number had grown to over 200.
He starred as himself in You Ought to be in Pictures.
You Ought to be in Pictures was considered a groundbreaking cartoon for featuring animation and live-action in the same short. The cartoon featured other employees from Termite Terrace (like Looney Tunes writer Michael Maltese as the mean security guard), but Leon was a main character. In the cartoon, Daffy tricks Porky into ending his Looney Tunes contract. Both characters meet with Leon, who knows Porky will be back again.
