Animation Mavericks: The Forgotten Story of UPA

When I was a wee little man, I fell head over heels for a cartoon called Gerald McBoing-Boing. At the time, I had no clue who made it or why it felt so wildly different from everything else on television. I only knew that when it appeared, it felt like a small miracle. UPA cartoons were rare sightings, like catching a shooting star. You might stumble across one by pure luck, and then it would vanish, sometimes forever. There were no reruns to rely on, no streaming platforms to save you. If you missed it, that moment was gone. That sense of scarcity made the experience even more magical and unforgettable.

That is why the news of a new documentary, Animation Mavericks: The Forgotten Story of UPA, feels so satisfying. It feels like overdue recognition. For decades, the studio’s legacy lived mostly in the memories of artists, historians, and kids like me who sensed something special was happening without fully understanding why.

Directed and produced by Kevin Schreck, with animation direction and production by Rachel Gitlevich, the documentary dives deep into the turbulent decades that shaped UPA animation history. It transports viewers to the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, when studios and studio heads clashed over art, labor, and ideology. Labor organizing, the Red Scare, and the rise of the modernist art movement all take center stage, revealing how deeply politics and culture shaped the studio’s work.

Animation Mavericks: The Forgotten Story of UPA is nearing completion and is expected to premiere later this year. For me, this documentary is more than just another film release. It feels like a long-delayed thank you to a group of artists who trusted modern art, trusted audiences, and believed that animation could be something more.

UPA was doing something radical. While Disney animation was perfecting lush realism and fluid motion, UPA went in the opposite direction. The studio embraced modern art, flat planes of color, abstract shapes, and minimalist design. Their cartoons felt graphic and intelligent, less interested in imitating reality and more focused on expressing ideas. Animation suddenly felt grown-up. It felt like art.

Founded by former Disney artists eager to break free from the constraints of naturalistic animation, UPA rejected endless motion in favor of stillness with purpose. Instead of highly detailed backgrounds, they used stark compositions that allowed characters and concepts to breathe. This approach, later known as limited animation, was not a shortcut; it was a deliberate choice. It was a philosophy. Design came first. Concept mattered more than polish.

The animation industry took notice. UPA won multiple Academy Awards, including Oscars for Gerald McBoing-Boing and several Mr. Magoo shorts. More importantly, the studio changed the conversation around animation itself. UPA helped establish animation as a legitimate art form, a space for graphic and pictorial exploration rather than just children’s comedy.

One of the most delightful twists about UPA’s adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ Gerald McBoing-Boing is that it did not begin as a book at all. It started life as a phonograph record, a story designed to be heard before it was ever meant to be read or seen. From that playful audio experiment came a cartoon that helped flip the animation world upside down. It proved that animation did not need cuddly realism or nonstop motion to work its magic. With its bold, abstract style and graphic confidence, Gerald McBoing-Boing delighted kids while quietly impressing adults. It was smart, strange, and unapologetically different. The impact was enormous. The short won an Academy Award, helped spark a modern animation revolution, and earned a permanent place in the Library of Congress for its cultural significance. Not bad for a sound effect speaking kid who started out spinning on a turntable.

UPA’s storytelling reflected that creative shift. Their animated shorts often focused on human characters dealing with modern life, domestic frustrations, social absurdities, and quiet anxieties. These were cartoons that critics could admire and adults could recognize themselves in. Characters like Mr. Magoo, the famously nearsighted gentleman, and Gerald McBoing-Boing, the boy who spoke only in sound effects, became icons not just because they were funny, but because they were strange, smart, and emotionally resonant.

That influence never truly disappeared. It simply went underground and resurfaced years later in television animation. You can clearly see UPA’s DNA in shows like The Powerpuff Girls and Dexter’s Laboratory, where bold shapes, graphic layouts, and witty storytelling matter more than realism. Much of modern TV animation owes a quiet but significant debt to UPA’s creative rebellion.

Animation Mavericks: The Forgotten Story of UPA carries a lineage that is both intimate and resonant, woven directly into the legacy it seeks to reclaim. Producer Sylvie BosRau is the granddaughter of UPA co-founder Steve Bosustow and the daughter of Tee Bosustow, who set out more than two decades ago to document UPA’s story but was unable to bring the project to completion. Produced in close cooperation with the Bosustow Estate, the film unfolds as more than a documentary. It plays like an act of recovery, a careful unearthing of history paired with a family promise finally honored. Executive producer Tim Finn completes the core creative team, helping shape a project that feels as purposeful as it is passionate.

This is exactly the kind of documentary that demands to be told at this level. UPA was not a footnote in animation history. It was a creative force that challenged convention, broke visual rules, and redefined what animated storytelling could look and feel like. To revisit its rise, influence, and eventual fading is to restore a missing chapter that deserves celebration, not obscurity.

Even as a child, I sensed that UPA cartoons carried a different energy, something intangible that went beyond punchlines or sight gags. There was a confidence, a visual intelligence, a rhythm that felt modern and daring, even then. Decades later, it is deeply satisfying to see that instinct affirmed. UPA did not merely produce cartoons. It altered the language of animation itself. Now, at last, its story is stepping back into the light, reclaiming the place it has always deserved in the cultural conversation.