Arthur Davis (animator)

Arthur Davis (né Davidavitch)^[1] (June 14, 1905 – May 9, 2000) was an American animator and director known for his time at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio. He was sometimes billed as Art Davis.

Davis was born on June 14, 1905, in Yonkers, New York to Hungarian parents.^[1] He is the younger brother of animators Mannie and Phil Davis.^[3] Mannie would eventually become a key director for Terrytoons while Phil worked alongside Arthur at the Screen Gems studio before he left in 1933.^[3]

Davis got his start as a teenager at Raoul Barre's studio in 1918. He later moved to the Jefferson Film Corporation when the Mutt and Jeff cartoons began being made there in January 1921. In 1923 he joined the Out Of The Inkwell Films (Fleischer Studios) in New York after Dick Huemer proposed him as an assistant in 1922.

Davis is reputed to have been the first in-betweener in the animation industry. Another distinction was his part in filming the "bouncing ball" for the "follow the bouncing ball" sing-along cartoons of the 1920s. While one of the Fleischer brothers played the ukulele, Davis would keep time with a wooden stick with a white cut-out circle on the end, which was filmed and incorporated into the cartoon.

in 1930 Davis became an assistant animato for the Charles Mintz studio, later known as Screen Gems after Columbia Pictures acquired a stake in the studio in 1933. He was soon promoted to animator. While there, he helped create and develop Toby the Pup and Scrappy with fellow animators Dick Huemer and Sid Marcus. Davis would eventually be promoted to director alongside Marcus and remained at the studio even after Mintz died in 1939.^[4][5][6]

By 1941, Davis was fired from Screen Gems by Frank Tashlin and moved to Leon Schlesinger Productions, which would be renamed Warner Bros. Cartoons once Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros.. Initially animating for Norman McCabe's unit, Davis would soon work again with Tashlin – who had left Screen Gems after feuds with higher-ups at Columbia – when McCabe was drafted into the Army. He would animate under Tashlin's direction until late 1944, when the unit was assumed by Robert McKimson.

Later in 1945, when Bob Clampett left and went to Screen Gems, Davis took over Clampett's unit. Davis completed three cartoons left unfinished by Clampett: "The Big Snooze", "The Goofy Gophers" and "Bacall to Arms";^[7][6] cartoons still in the outline or storyboarding stages at the time of Clampett's departure were allocated to other directors, with Robert McKimson ultimately directing "Birth of a Notion" and Friz Freleng directing "Tweetie Pie".

Davis directed a number of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts, with a tone somewhere between those of Clampett and McKimson. He had a distinctive characteristic visual style, which can be seen as far back as Davis' Columbia shorts, in which the characters move from the foreground to the background, as well as from side to side, using all axes of the animation field. Davis was said to prioritize the animation of his shorts over the writing, as he felt insecure with the writers he was given.^[1]

Davis' unit at Warners was shut down only two years later in November 1947 when the studio was having a budget problem. Davis was then taken into Friz Freleng's unit, and served as one of Freleng's key animators for many years. In 1960, shortly prior to departing the studio, Davis directed a cartoon for Warners again using Freleng's unit;l. There were several WB shorts released around this time, from not only Freleng's unit but Chuck Jones' as well, where the direction was credited to varying subordinates. "Quackodile Tears", which would not see release until 1962 due to the studio's extensive release backlog, was also Davis's last Warner Bros. short.

Following his departure from Warners, Davis joined Hanna-Barbera, where he worked briefly as an animator and was a story director for The Flintstones and The Yogi Bear Show. He continued to work on and off with the studio as a consultant or a timing director until his retirement.^[1]

After leaving H-B in 1962, Davis went to Walter Lantz Productions as an animator. He left Lantz in 1965, later joining DePatie-Freleng Enterprises to direct Pink Panther shorts and other cartoon series.^[1][8]

Outliving most of his peers, Davis died peacefully on May 9, 2000, aged 94 in Sunnyvale, California after humming a tune. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.^[9][10]

• Arthur Davis at IMDb