Although it boasted a brand-new facility and good directors, the MGM cartoon studio's first series failed. The Captain and The Kids, adapted from Rudolph Dirks' Katzenjammer Kids characters, was licensed by MGM without input from its then-forming creative staff.Maltin, Leonard. Of Mice and Magic, p. 283-284 Freleng, Hanna, and Allen, assigned to direct the Captain and the Kids cartoons, were unable to translate the Katzenjammer humor into animation, and the series folded after fifteen episodes. Only two of the Captain and the Kids shorts were produced in Technicolor; the other thirteen were produced in black-and-white and released in sepia-toned prints.
