Arthur Davis, a notable yet often overlooked figure in Warner Brother's "Golden Age," has been overshadowed by other prominent animation directors, including Tex Avery, Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, and Robert Clampett.
Davis began his career at Warner Brothers alongside fellow animator Frank Tashlin, having previously worked at Columbia Screen Gems. He continued to work under Tashlin's animation unit until 1944, when Tashlin left to pursue a career in live-action. Davis then joined Bob Clampett's animation unit until 1945, when Clampett departed due to contract disputes with Edward Selzer.
During his tenure, Davis worked on several cartoons, including "The Goofy Gophers" in 1947, which had already been in production, with dialogue recorded. His cartoons are characterized by their relaxed atmosphere and characters' fondness for bow ties. Although not a groundbreaking director like Jones, Davis did helm one of the funniest Bugs Bunny cartoon shorts, "Bowery Bugs" in 1949, a retelling of the Steve Brodie/Brooklyn Bridge legend, reminiscent of an ode.
Among his most popular Daffy Duck cartoons is "What Makes Daffy Duck" in 1948, featuring Elmer Fudd and an unnamed fox. In the early 1950s, cost-cutting measures at Warner Brothers led to the disbandment of Davis's animation unit, and he was absorbed into Friz Freleng's unit. After spending the remainder of the decade as an animator, Davis directed one final Warner's cartoon, "Quackodile Tears," using Freleng's unit in 1962.
Following this, Davis left Warner Brothers and went on to work as an animator for Walter Lantz and a storyboarder for Hanna-Barbera. He later joined Freleng's production company, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, as a director in 1968, where he created two of the last truly classic Pink Panther cartoon shorts, "Pinkcome Tax" and "In the Pink of the Night." However, by the start of the 1970s, DePatie-Freleng's cartoons suffered a decline in quality, and neither Davis nor any other director was able to bring anything special to the uninspired stories featuring the Pink Panther and DePatie-Freleng's lower-tier characters.
At the end of the 1970s, DePatie-Freleng dissolved, and Freleng returned to Warner's, bringing much of the staff with him. Davis worked briefly as a sequence director for TV specials featuring classic Warner's characters before moving to Hanna-Barbera, where he worked as a sequence director on their 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.
