Laugh-O-Gram Studio in August 2010 |
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| Industry | Film studio |
|---|---|
| Fate | Bankruptcy |
| Successor | Walt Disney Productions |
| Founded | 1921 |
| Defunct | 1923 |
| Headquarters | Kansas City, Missouri |
| Key people | Walt Disney |
Laugh-O-Gram Studio was a film studio located on the second floor of the McConahay Building at 1127 East 31st in Kansas City, Missouri.
The studio played a role in the early years of animation: it was home to many of the pioneers of animation, brought there by Walt Disney, and is said to be the place to have provided Disney with the inspiration to create Mickey Mouse.
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In May 1922, Disney founded Laugh-O-Gram Films with $15,000. The company got an $11,000 contract to produce six fairy tale cartoons for Pictorial Clubs, Inc., which went bankrupt; a seventh fairy tale was sold to them separately. Among Disney's employees on the series were several pioneers of animation: Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman, Rudolph Ising, Carmen Maxwell, and Friz Freleng.
The company had problems making ends meet: by the end of 1922, Disney was living in the office, taking baths once a week at Union Station.
Thomas McCrum, a Kansas City dentist saved him from total failure when he commissioned Disney for $500 for Tommy Tucker's Tooth,[1][2] a short subject showing the merits of brushing your teeth.[3]
After creating one last short, the live-action/animation Alice's Wonderland, the studio filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 1923. Disney then moved to Hollywood, California. Disney sold his movie camera, earning enough money for a one-way train ticket; he brought along an unfinished reel of Alice's Wonderland.
The studio building had fallen to ruin by 2004 at the time the photo was taken and efforts were being made to restore it. The Disney family had promised $450,000 in matching funds for the restoration. By 2009, the exterior of the building had been restored, with all the buttresses removed, etc., but it was left looking like an abandoned, boarded up warehouse. An almost illegible sign adorned the exterior wall saying, "Thank you, Walt Disney, Inc."
Disney told interviewers later that he was inspired to draw Mickey by a tame mouse at his desk at Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri.
In 1928 during a train trip to New York he showed the drawing to his wife Lillian Marie Bounds and said he was going to call it "Mortimer Mouse." She replied that the name sounded "too sissified" and suggested Mickey Mouse instead.[4]
Of the original seven Laugh-O-Grams fairy tales, four were long known to have survived, and have been restored for DVD: Little Red Riding Hood (1922), The Four Musicians of Bremen (1922), Puss in Boots (1922), and Cinderella (1922). These shorts later became available on Blu-Ray Disc as bonus features for Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Tommy Tucker's Tooth (1922), and Alice's Wonderland (1923) are also available on DVD, and Alice's Wonderland eventually became a bonus feature for the 60th Anniversary Blu-Ray Edition of Alice in Wonderland. The original piece of filming/animation known as Newman Laugh-O-Grams (originally released theatrically on March 20, 1921[5]) is available on some DVDs too. Due to their date of publication, all 10 shorts produced by the studio have fallen in the public domain.
The missing fairy tale cartoons were Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack the Giant Killer, and Goldie Locks and the Three Bears (all 1922). On October 14, 2010, animation historian David Gerstein announced that copies of all three had been found.[6][7] For many years the two Jack cartoons were believed to be one, until researcher John Kenworthy located old studio assets sheets confirming that they were separate shorts.[8]
| Year | Film | Surviving | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1921 | Newman Laugh-O-Grams | Yes | |
| 1922 | Little Red Riding Hood | Yes | |
| 1922 | The Four Musicians of Bremen | Yes | |
| 1922 | Jack and the Beanstalk | Yes | |
| 1922 | Jack the Giant Killer | Yes | |
| 1922 | Goldie Locks and the Three Bears | Yes | |
| 1922 | Puss in Boots | Yes | |
| 1922 | Cinderella | Yes | |
| 1922 | Tommy Tucker's Tooth | Yes | Mostly live-action |
| 1923 | Alice's Wonderland | Yes | Pilot film in Alice Comedies |
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