Fred Quimby - Page: 2

He was a twenty-four year old journalist when he assumed management of a film theatre in Montana. He rose through the ranks quickly to a coveted position at Fox, where he supervised the production of animated films. (Ah, so this is the beginning of the destruction of creativity--hiring a person who didn’t have many creative abilities.) Now it’s the 1930’s, and MGM is launching themselves full-force into the animation industry, and whom do they hire to supervise their roster of artists (a brief who’s who list: William Hanna, Max Maxwell, Emery Hawkins, Bob Allen, Jack Zander, Joe Barbera, Friz Freleng)? Fred Quimby, and it was said that he had no sense of humor. None whatsoever, posited some others who knew him.

He was born on November 14, 1883 (actual birth date may vary, but this is the birth date most often quoted). Which means that, assuming that he was born in 1883, he would have been 119 years old this year, but I know many animators who are secretly glad that he‘s six feet under. Anyway, he was most recognized for his “work” with the Tom & Jerry cartoons. The animated shorts won him seven Oscars (none to the animators) and nine more nominations. On every short animated film, he was listed as the producer of that short.

He also liked restaurants that promoted his animated films. Superstars of the day like Boris Karloff, Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, Jane Russell and John Wayne came to eat there, which gave his place much needed exposure. He was able to build these endeavors into extravagant palaces, furnished with rugs so deep and plush that you’d have to walk on stilts just to keep yourself from drowning in them. Seriously, there were no children or midgets allowed on the rugs, for obvious reasons.

While he supervised MGM’s animation department, he managed to royally piss off many animators. One such animator disliked his so much that he brushed up on his bowling skills by practicing in a room right above Quimby’s office. Frequent clashes occurred between Quimby and the Hanna-Barbara team, who left MGM in 1957 to start their own company.

Quimby himself retired a very happy and rich man in 1955. By then, his reputation (which is debatably ill-gotten) had grown to amazing heights. Kids cheered when his name appeared on theater and television screens, because his name was synonymous with the best animated features. When I was young (I was born many, many years after Fred Quimby passed), I saw his name, too, and thought that he was a man who had extraordinary talent and perception. Unbeknownst to me, his fame resulted in the hard, unrewarded works of the animators he hired. It was said that he couldn’t even draw a circle correctly--after all, he was a salesperson for twenty years before he got involved with “kids’ stuff”.

The astonishing thing about it is, Quimby knew the recipe for quality entertainment, but he did not put that recipe to use because at the end of the day, business logistics won out. It would become financially unfeasible to churn out one animated production after another. He was the polar opposite of another producer, Leon Schlesinger, who gave his crew unparalleled creative freedom to do whatever the hell they wanted to do. Usually the result was that HIS “Termite Terrace”, as the staff of artists came to be called, made some real masterpieces. MGM began to produce lackluster crap, and after this was proven to them in the form of poor box-office performances, they shut their animated division down. Luckily, Quimby bailed out of the kitchen (or, to put it less succinctly, “retired”) before the heat got too intense. And besides, he was old (72 at the time). He didn’t too many good years left. He died in 1965, leaving behind a fine legacy that actually belonged to the animators he hired.

(Thanks to http://205.180.85.40/w/pc.cgi?mid=13232&... http://205.180.85.40/w/pc.cgi?mid=13232&... http://www-viz.tamu.edu/courses/viza615/... for the invaluable info on Quimby.)