Warner Bros. (abbreviated version of Warner Brothers) is one of the world's largest producers of film, television and recorded music entertainment. It is presently a subsidiary of the AOL Time Warner conglomerate. Warner Brothers includes several subsidiary companies, among them "Warner Brothers Studios, ""Warner Brothers Pictures", "Warner Brothers Television", "Warner Brothers Records", and Warner Music Australasia.
The first Warner Bros. enterprise "Warner Brothers Studios" was founded in Hollywood, California in 1923 by four brothers, Jack, Sam, Harold and Albert Warner.
In 1927, the Warner Brothers took a big financial risk that paid off handsomely: they invested in the new technology of "sound film," and they produced the movie The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson. The movie was a sensational box-office hit, and it sparked the wave of "talking pictures" that ended the era of silent film and made the Warner Bros. studio a force to contend with.
During the 1930s, the Warner Bros. studio became known for producing gritty, dark crime films that were accused of glorifying the gangster lifestyle. Stars such as James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart rose to the heights of Hollywood at Warner Bros. with their "tough guy" images. Warner Bros. also produced a number of action-adventure movies, practically monopolozing the genre of the swashbuckler and forever identifying the name of Errol Flynn with Robin Hood.
The Warner Bros. cartoon studio began modestly in 1930, as former Disney animators Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, Jack King, and Friz Freleng produced a series of mediocre cartoons starring "Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid" and "Buddy." But with the arrival of Tex Avery at the studio and the birth of Termite Terrace, the Warner Bros. cartoon studio gave birth to a new wave of insane cartoons that captured the hearts and funny bones of fans around the world.
Warner Bros. is currently headquartered in Burbank, California.
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