How long were cartoons backlogged?

[Do-Do]

I've always wondered that. I know that by the early-50's, MGM was really backlogging their stuff by a couple years (at least according to "Of Mice and Magic"...). But what about all the other studios stuff?

[Matt Yorston]

Well, WB composer Milt Franklyn died in April of 1962 but the final cartoon with his name on it ("Mother was a Rooster") was released in October, 1962. Furthermore, the last cartoon he actually scored (well, part of it, anyway), "The Jet Cage", was released a month earlier. So that's at least five or six months (did scoring come last in the cartoons' production process)?

[J Lee]

Warner's backlog in the period between about 1942 and 1961 was greater than that. Several books on the history of the studio mention the film shortage that Technicolor ran into at the end of World War II which led cartoons to be delayed about 18 months between their completion and release. It's also why the Cinecolor WB rings and the Technicolor rings of the 1947-49 cartoons don't match up -- there was no film shortage at Cinecolor, so cartoons made using that process were released far sooner than cartoons in Technicolor (apparently about a 9-12 month difference).

In the mid-1950s the backlog at Warner's was about the same as at MGM, two years. You can judge that by looking at when Jack Warner shut down production due to the 3-D craze -- mid 1953 -- and when the last cartoons made before the closing first cartoons made after the reopening hit the screens, which wasn't until mid-1955. (You can tell where the break between the 'old' and 'new' studio occurred either by the revised opening music and/or by the major changes in the animation credits. "Pests for Guests" and "Past Perfumance" were among the last, if not the final cartoons made before the studio closed, while "Sahara Hare" and "Tweety's Circus" were the first ones done after the studio reopened at the end of 1953).