Friz Freleng

Early career

Freleng was born to Louis Mendel Freleng, a Polish Jewish immigrant from Kutno, and Elka (née Ribakoff) Freleng, a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant from Odesa Oblast, in Kansas City, Missouri, where he attended Westport High School from 1919 to 1923 and where began his career in animation at the United Film Ad Service. There, he made the acquaintance of fellow animators Hugh Harman and Ub Iwerks. One of Freleng's brothers, Allen Freleng, followed him to Winkler and MGM until he died in 1943.

In 1923, Iwerks's friend at Laugh-O-Gram Studio, Walt Disney, moved to Hollywood and put out a call for his Kansas City colleagues to join him. Freleng, however, held out until January 1927, when he finally moved to California and joined them at Winkler Pictures. He worked alongside other former Kansas City animators, including Iwerks, Harman, Carman Maxwell, and Rudolf Ising. At Winkler, Freleng worked on the Alice Comedies and Universal Pictures' Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. Freleng said in an interview with Michael Barrier that Walt had shown patience and a willingness to teach in letters prior to joining him, but proved to be too heavy-handed with his fiery temper. Freleng co-directed The Banker's Daughter and Rickety Gin with Disney in 1927. In 1928, Freleng went to a cinema due to a painful boil preventing him from recovering at home, only to encounter Disney on the way; Disney fired Freleng the next day for his dishonesty and attempted to forfeit, but ultimately relented to pay him a promised bonus. Freleng moved back to Missouri to work at his old job at the United Film Ad Service. Disney regarded Freleng highly as an animator during his brief time in the studio, occasionally screening his future shorts at Walt Disney Productions, though he derisively referred to Freleng as "I. P. Freely".

Freleng returned to Winkler Pictures after producer Charles Mintz lured him with a higher wage than Walt Disney's payments, working until 1930, when Carl Laemmle terminated Winkler's contract in favor of an in-house studio headed by his colleagues Walter Lantz and Bill Nolan. Freleng soon teamed up with Harman and Ising to create their own studio. The trio produced a pilot film starring a new Mickey Mouse-like character named Bosko. Looking at unemployment if the cartoon failed to generate interest, Freleng returned to Winkler to work on Krazy Kat cartoons, all the while still trying to sell the Harman-Ising Bosko picture. Freleng was very unhappy living in New York City and made the best of it until another opportunity opened for him. Bosko was finally sold to Leon Schlesinger, who produced the series for Warner Bros. Pictures. At first, Freleng was reluctant to return to California when Harman and Ising asked him to work on the series. At the insistence of his sister Jean, Freleng soon moved back to California to work on the Bosko series, ultimately released under the title Looney Tunes. A prominent animator on the series, Freleng was eventually delegated co-directorial duties on shorts such as Bosko's Picture Show.