Cubby Bear

So how did film producer Amadee J. Van Beuren of New York make a living in the 1930s? By signing animators to his studio to create now-forgotten characters, that's how.

The Van Beuren Studio was a New York animation studio that existed in the 20s and 30s. Many famous animators, like Bill Littlejohn, got their start there. It was founded in 1928 by Amadee J. Van Beuren, the namesake of the studio. The name was initially the Aesop's Fables Studio, because their first animated series was Aesop's Film Fables.

 In 1933, the studio was producing a cartoon series for RKO Radio Pictures, named Tom and Jerry (no relation to the famous cat-and-mouse duo). These shorts were not a success, and a longtime employee of Van Beuren, Mannie Davis, was hired to create a new character to replace the Tom and Jerry series' main characters. Davis's response was a Mickey Mouse-like bear named Cubby Bear.

Cubby's first appearance was in Opening Night (1933). The short was not a success, and despite the attempts Davis made, Cubby had very little popularity. The following shorts fared even worse, and this resulted in Davis being fired and replaced by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising from Warner Bros., and Davis joined Terrytoons (which was established by Paul Terry, who is also notable for helping to build the Van Beuren Studio).

Harman and ising worked on a couple Cubby shorts. One of Cubby's movements in World Flight (1933) was a slide-step, similar to the slide-step of the Harman-Ising character named Bosko, who was the first star of Looney Tunes. When Harman and Ising departed for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation studio, Vernon Stallings took their place.

After the signings of Tom Palmer and Burt Gillett from Warner Bros. and Disney, respectively, Cubby was retired to make way for a new character named Molly Moo-Cow. Cubby's career ended in 1938 when Van Beuren was sold by RKO to home video companies.

That's all, folks!