Early Schlesinger cartoons Harman and Ising (alongside their crew of animators) terminated their contract with Schlesinger over a budget dispute in 1933. Schlesinger was left with no experienced directors, so lured Freleng away from Harman-Ising, after
Tom Palmer's work proved to be substandard. The young animator rapidly became Schlesinger's top director, helming the majority of the higher-budgeted
Merrie Melodies shorts during the mid-1930s, and he introduced the studio's first true post-Bosko star,
Porky Pig, in the film, ''
I Haven't Got a Hat'' (1935). Porky was a distinctive character, unlike Bosko's replacement,
Buddy.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer In September 1937, Freleng left Schlesinger after accepting an increase in salary to direct for the new
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio (MGM) headed by
Fred Quimby. As a consequence of that,
Frank Tashlin took over Freleng's unit, while
Cal Howard (later
Ben Hardaway) and
Cal Dalton took over Tashlin's old unit. Freleng served as a director on
The Captain and the Kids, an animated series adapted from the
comic strip of the same name (an alternate version of
The Katzenjammer Kids). In November 1938, Freleng became a "junior director" under Hugh Harman, but quit after 6 months in April 1939.
Back with Schlesinger and Warner Bros. Freleng happily returned to Warner Bros. in mid-April 1939 when his MGM contract ended and as a result, Ben Hardaway and Cal Dalton was demoted. One of the first
Looney Tunes cartoon shorts directed by Freleng during his second tenure at the studio was
You Ought to Be in Pictures, a cartoon short that blended animation with live-action footage of the WB studio (and included staff such as story man
Michael Maltese and Schlesinger himself). The plot, which centers around Porky Pig being tricked by
Daffy Duck into terminating his contract with Schlesinger to attempt a career in features, echoes Freleng's experience in moving to MGM.
Directorial achievements cartoon directed by Freleng in 1944 Schlesinger's hands-off attitude toward his animators allowed Freleng and his fellow directors almost complete creative control and room to experiment with cartoon comedy styles, which allowed the studio to keep pace with the Disney studio's technical superiority. Freleng's style quickly matured, and he became a master of
comic timing. During
World War II, he directed several propaganda cartoons, contributing to the
Private Snafu series and directing shorts such as
Daffy – The Commando (1943),
Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips (1944), and
Herr Meets Hare (1945). Often working alongside layout artist
Hawley Pratt and writer
Warren Foster, he also introduced or redesigned a number of WB characters, including
Yosemite Sam in 1945, the cat-and-bird duo
Sylvester and
Tweety in 1947, and
Speedy Gonzales in 1955. Freleng and
Chuck Jones dominated the WB studio in the years after World War II, with Freleng largely concentrating on the above-mentioned characters, as well as Bugs Bunny. Freleng continued to produce modernized versions of the musical comedies he animated in his early career, such as
Three Little Bops (1957) and
Pizzicato Pussycat (1955). He won four
Oscars during his time at WB, for the films
Tweetie Pie (1947),
Speedy Gonzales (1955),
Birds Anonymous (1957), and
Knighty Knight Bugs (1958). Other Freleng cartoons, such as
Sandy Claws (1955),
Mexicali Shmoes (1959),
Mouse and Garden (1960), and
The Pied Piper of Guadalupe (1961) were Oscar nominees. Freleng's cartoon,
Show Biz Bugs (1957), with Daffy Duck vying with Bugs Bunny for theatre audience appreciation, was arguably a template for the successful format of
The Bugs Bunny Show that premiered on television in the autumn of 1960. Further, Freleng directed the cartoons with the erudite and ever-so-polite
Goofy Gophers encountering the relentless wheels of human industry, those being
I Gopher You (1954) and
Lumber Jerks (1955), and he also directed three cartoons (sponsored by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation) extolling the virtues of free-market capitalism:
By Word of Mouse (1954),
Heir-Conditioned (1955), and
Yankee Dood It (1956), all of which involved Sylvester. Freleng directed all three of the vintage WB cartoons in which a drinking of Dr. Jekyll's potion (of
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) induced a series of monstrous transformations: ''
Dr. Jerkyl's Hide (1954), Hyde and Hare (1955), and Hyde and Go Tweet (1960). Other Freleng fancies were man at war with the insect world (as in Of Thee I Sting (1946) and Ant Pasted
(1953)), an inebriated stork delivering the wrong baby (in A Mouse Divided (1952), Stork Naked
(1955), and Apes of Wrath (1959)), and characters marrying for money and finding themselves with a shrewish wife and a troublesome stepson (His Bitter Half (1949) and Honey's Money'' (1962)). Freleng was occasionally the subject of
in-jokes in WB cartoons. In
Canary Row (1950), billboards in the background of scenes advertised various products called "Friz". The "Hotel Friz" was featured in
Racketeer Rabbit (1946) and "Frizby the Magician" was one of the acts Bugs Bunny pitched in
High Diving Hare (1949).
Musical knowledge and technique Freleng was somewhat of a musical
composer and a classically trained violinist, who timed his cartoons on musical bar sheets. Freleng would time gags that best used
Carl Stalling,
Milt Franklyn, or
William Lava's music. He was one of a very few directors at WB to have musical knowledge for making cartoons. Every cartoon Freleng directed from the late 1930s to 1963 was made with his creative musical technique. By 1967, DePatie and Freleng had moved their operations to the
San Fernando Valley. Their studio was located on Hayvenhurst Avenue in
Van Nuys. One of their projects, titled
Goldilocks, featured
Bing Crosby and his family and had songs by the
Sherman Brothers. At their new facilities, they continued to produce new cartoons until 1980, when they sold DePatie–Freleng to
Marvel Comics, which renamed it
Marvel Productions. == Later career and death ==