I have an odd fascination with the Lantz studio. By all accounts, Lantz himself was a nice man who was pleasant to work for. I've never heard or read a bad thing about him, though Tex Avery and Jack Hannah both complained about the economics of the studio. While Lantz was a good boss, he didn't influence his cartoons the way other studio heads did. Because the Lantz studio only had one unit in the 1940s, the studio's output changed radically whenever there was a change of director. From Burt Gillett to Alex Lovy to Shamus Culhane to Dick Lundy, there's a wide variety of styles and approaches. Our impression of the Warner Bros. cartoons is based on the range of directors' styles, but imagine how we'd think of that studio if all the cartoons were directed by Bob Clampett and then later by Friz Freleng. That's a pretty big change, but at Lantz, it was the standard. Dick Lundy was a talented Disney animator who helped shape Donald Duck and later directed Du...