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Arthur Davis is one of the most overlooked and forgotten members of Warner Brothers' "Golden Age." He was overshadowed by other animation directors such as Tex Avery, Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, and Robert Clampett.
A competent animator, Davis joined Warner Brothers alongside fellow animator Frank Tashlin after working at Columbia Screen Gems. He remained part of Tashlin's animation unit until 1944, when Tashlin left to pursue a live-action career. Davis then worked as an animator in Bob Clampett's unit until 1945, when Clampett departed due to contract disputes with Edward Selzer.
Davis completed several cartoons that were already underway, including "The Goofy Gophers" (1947), for which the dialogue had been recorded prior to his involvement. His cartoons are recognizable for their relaxed tone and characters often sporting bow ties. Though not as groundbreaking as Jones, Davis directed one of the funniest Bugs Bunny shorts, "Bowery Bugs" (1949), a retelling of the Steve Brodie/Brooklyn Bridge legend.
Among his notable Daffy Duck cartoons featuring Elmer Fudd and an unnamed fox is "What Makes Daffy Duck" (1948). In the early 1950s, cost-cutting at Warner Brothers led to the dissolution of Davis's animation unit, and he was absorbed into Friz Freleng's team. After spending the remainder of the decade as an animator, Davis directed one final Warner cartoon, "Quackodile Tears," in 1962, working within Freleng's unit.
After leaving Warner Brothers, Davis worked as an animator for Walter Lantz and as a storyboard artist for Hanna-Barbera before joining Friz Freleng's production company, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, as a director in 1968. There, Davis created two of the last truly classic Pink Panther shorts, "Pinkcome Tax" and "In the Pink of the Night." However, by the early 1970s, DePatie-Freleng's productions declined in quality, and neither Davis nor the other directors could elevate the uninspired stories featuring the Pink Panther and the studio's lesser-known characters like Ant & Aardvark and Blue Racer.
By the late 1970s, DePatie-Freleng dissolved, and Freleng returned to Warner Brothers, bringing much of the staff with him. Davis briefly worked as a sequence director for TV specials featuring classic Warner characters before moving back to Hanna-Barbera. There, he served as a sequence director on Saturday morning and syndicated cartoon series until his retirement in the mid-to-late 1980s. Davis passed away in 2000 at the age of 94, just 36 days shy of his 95th birthday.
