Isadore "Friz" Freleng (21 August 1905 - 26 May 1995; Kansas City, Missouri, USA)
Freleng was an American animator, cartoonist, director, and producer, best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros.

While briefly at Disney (1927-28), Freleng worked on the Alice Comedies and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons for producers Margaret Winkler and Charles Mintz. Friz said in an interview with Michael Barrier that Walt had shown patience and remorse in letters prior to joining him, but did not show that attitude after he joined Disney and instead Disney became abusive and harassed him. In 1928, Freleng left the studio, due to Disney saying he "forfeited his bonus" along with comments on his animation mistakes. Freleng moved back to Missouri to work at his old job at the United Film Ad Service.

Freleng teamed up with his friends Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising (who had also left Disney's employ) to create their own studio. The trio produced a pilot film starring a new Mickey Mouse-like character named Bosko. Looking at unemployment if the cartoon failed to generate interest, Freleng moved to New York City to work on Mintz's Krazy Kat cartoons, all the while still trying to sell the Harman-Ising Bosko picture. Freleng was very unhappy living in New York and made the best of it until another opportunity opened for him. Bosko was finally sold to Leon Schlesinger, who would produce the series for Warner Bros. At first, Freleng was reluctant to return to California when Harman-Ising asked him to work on the series. At the insistence of his sister Jean, Freleng soon moved back to California to work on the Bosko series, ultimately released under the title Looney Tunes. A prominent animator on the series, Freleng was eventually delegated co-directorial duties on shorts such as Bosko's Picture Show.

In September 1937, Freleng left Schlesinger after accepting an increase in salary to direct for the new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio headed by Fred Quimby. 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.

Freleng happily returned to Warner Bros. in mid-April 1939 when his MGM contract ended. 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 which blended animation with live-action footage of the Warner Bros. 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.

He introduced and/or developed several of the studio's biggest stars, including Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the cat, Yosemite Sam (to whom he was said to bear more than a passing resemblance) and Speedy Gonzales.

The nickname "Friz" came from his friend, Hugh Harman, who initially nicknamed him "Congressman Frizby" after a fictional senator who appeared in satirical pieces in the Los Angeles Examiner, due to the character's strong resemblance to him. Over time, this shortened to "Friz".

William Schallert claimed that Freleng was the model for Mr. Magoo due to his physical appearance.

The senior director at Warners' Termite Terrace studio, Freleng directed more cartoons than any other director in the studio (a total of 266), and is also the most honored of the Warner directors, having won four Academy Awards.

After Warners shut down the animation studio in 1963, Freleng and business partner David DePatie founded DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, which produced cartoons (notably The Pink Panther Show), feature film title sequences, and Saturday morning cartoons through the early 1980s.
Source: Wikipedia; Illustration Art Gallery