Rudolf Ising

Biography

Rudolf Carl Ising came into the world on August 7, 1903, in Kansas City, Missouri. As a teenager, he put in time at a photo studio before signing on with Walt Disney’s Laugh-O-Gram Studio, where he fell in with other young locals. There he grew tight with Hugh Harman, and when Laugh-O-Gram went under and Disney headed for Los Angeles in 1923, the two tried to launch their own animation outfit. Their bid to produce a string of Arabian Nights-themed cartoons under the Arabian Nights Studio fizzled, so in 1924 they followed Disney to Hollywood, where he had set up shop to make the Alice Comedies—a mix of live action and animation.

Other Laugh-O-Gram veterans, including Ub Iwerks, Carman Maxwell, and Isadore “Friz” Freleng, also left Missouri for California. By 1927, Disney’s crew was turning out Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons for producer Charles Mintz’s Winkler Pictures and distributor Universal Pictures. Ising, Harman, and many coworkers grew fed up with the unpredictable Disney. When George Winkler, Mintz’s brother-in-law, asked them to start a new studio under Mintz—who planned to can Disney and take over the Oswalds—they said yes.

Only Iwerks stuck with Disney after the latter split with Mintz in February 1928. Ising, Harman, Freleng, and New York veteran Walter Lantz became Oswald’s directors at the new Winkler Pictures studio, which opened in May 1928 with George Winkler as producer and general manager. Universal wasn’t happy with the results, and in April 1929 it ended the Mintz contract. The Winkler staff got laid off; Mintz moved his Krazy Kat unit from the East Coast into their building, and Lantz signed with Universal to co-produce and co-direct Oswald cartoons alongside Bill Nolan.