Rudolf Ising

Rudolf Carl Ising (/ˈaɪzɪŋ/ EYE-zing; August 7, 1903 – July 18, 1992) was an American animator, film producer, film director, voice actor, and United States Army major. A veteran of the early Walt Disney studio and a key figure in the Golden Age of American animation, Ising and his longtime collaborator Hugh Harman founded Harman-Ising Pictures in 1929. Harman-Ising created the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon series for Warner Bros., and Warners' first cartoon star, Bosko, setting the foundation for what would later become the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio.

Moving the distribution of their cartoons to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1934, Harman and Ising started the Happy Harmonies series. This led, after the 1938 termination their contract, to the creation of the MGM cartoon studio, where Harman and Ising would both work as producer/directors. At MGM, Ising created and initially voiced Barney Bear, and in 1940 produced William Hanna and Joseph Barbera's first cartoon, Puss Gets the Boot, which introduced the cat and mouse characters later known as Tom and Jerry.

Ising left MGM in 1942 to join the United States Army Air Forces, where he ran the animation unit of the Army's First Motion Picture Unit – producers of animated training films for use by the military during World War II.