Warner Bros. Animated Industrials

Back in September I wrote several posts about a stash of Warner Club News magazines I came into featuring rare photos and information about the Warner Bros. Cartoon Department. Here’s one more. The photo above comes from the February 1958 issue and it shows the Commercial and Industrial Film animation crew in conference – left to right: Chuck Jones, Leo Salkin, Lou Scheimer, Maurice Noble, Owen Crump (producer), Carol Chaka (secretary) and Richard Hobson (executive). Dave DePatie (not pictured, was a production coordinator and editor in this division at the time).

In 1956, Warner Bros. created the WBTV Commercial and Industrial Films Division which produced dozens of films – live action, animated and sometimes combining both. When animation was needed it was coordinated through the Cartoon Department, and utilized the skills of their veteran animators and directors. They created TV spots, many made exclusively for sponsors of Warner Bros, TV shows – for Eastman Kodak, Gillette, General Electric, Nabisco, Ford, Kelloggs, Crest, Camay, etc. Perhaps their biggest project was the Bell Systen Science series. My guess is that in the photo above was taken during the production of Gateways To the Mind (1958) which contained this scene below (which I found on You Tube, forgive the pitch to purchase the DVD, I’m not selling, but you can purchase it here):