Charles Mintz

Charles B. Mintz (1889 – January 4, 1940) was an American film producer and distributor, who assumed control over Margaret J. Winkler's Winkler Pictures after marrying her in 1924; the couple would have two children, Katherine and William. Between 1925 and 1939, Mintz produced over 370 cartoon shorts.

Charles Mintz was unhappy with the production costs on Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks's Alice Comedies, and asked the two to develop a new character. The result was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the first animated character for Universal Pictures. In February 1928, when the character proved more successful than expected, Mintz hired away all of Disney's animators except Iwerks, who refused to leave Disney, and moved the production of the Oswald cartoons to his new Winkler Studio, along with Margaret Winkler's brother, George. After losing the Oswald contract to Walter Lantz, Mintz focused on the Krazy Kat series, which was the output of a Winkler-distributed property.

The Winkler Studio became known as the Mintz Studio after he took over in 1929. In 1939, a few months before his death, Screen Gems after Columbia Pictures took over from him. Walt Disney had mentioned in an interview that his distributor Charles Mintz cultivated his standards for high-quality cartoon movies, and he kept emphasizing them even after their contract ended.

Mintz was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Short Subject. His first nomination was in 1935 for Holiday Land, and he was nominated again in 1938 for The Little Match Girl.

Charles Mintz was portrayed in the feature film Walt Before Mickey by Conor Dubin.