From an interesting post by Friedrich Blowhard, titled Warner Brothers Cartoons and the Business of Art (via Stephen Norrie):

[W]hatever artistic quality was produced [in their cartoons of the 30s, 40s, and 50s] was not as the result of any conscious intent on the part of Warner Brothers. […] They needed a stream of product to fill [their 10,500,000 seats in 17,000 movie-houses]. This included a new cartoon every couple of weeks [so their] thinking regarding [them] was purely economic [–––]

A consequence of [the] unbelievably precise time limits [“six minutes plus or minus […] two-thirds of a second” according to the book the poster has read] coupled with the notorious cheapness of the Warner corporate machine was a higher degree of pre-planning than was practiced at any of the other cartoon shops in Hollywood. [They] regarded drawing, inking, and shooting frames as a waste of money, which meant everything had to be laid out, in advance, to an unbeliavably exacting tolerance. [–––]

The cartoons certainly did not achieve quality as a result of receiving the obsessive focus of a guiding “artiste” [the director, who had almost total control]. Since it took around a year to generate a cartoon […] each director was dividing his attention between 8 or 9 projects at once.

It also didn’t occur as the result of constantly checking how the audience was responding to the cartoons [as there] was no organized method of getting feedback […].

So what do we have here: (1) a lack of interference as long as production was met; (2) very strict formal boundaries […] (3) a system that allowed the prime “creator” vast amounts of control […] (4) a high rate of production that allowed the creators not to get too hung up on any individual product; and (5) isolation from the consumers […].

In the comments to the post, Michael Blowhard of the same blog mentions Hanna-Barbera, which allegedly also were “cheap and pennypinching, but in a way that drove down quality”. According to another commenter, Dwight Decker, this was because “MGM closed its operation, leaving Mr. Hanna and Mr. Barbera on the street,” forcing them to turn to TV with “vastly lower budgets”.

(As a funny aside, this morning I glanced in an old notebook of mine that my daughter has used to draw pictures in, I saw a note mentioning Chuck Jones. I couldn’t remember what it was about, but today I found this link in Stephen Norrie’s weblog. I remembered then that I saw a documentary about him on TV six months ago, or so. I’ve added Chuck Jones: A Flurry of Drawings by Hugh Kenner and Chuck Amuck, his autobiography, to my wishlist.)