Ardel Wray inspired by the life of the notorious English pirate Edward Teach and set to star Boris Karloff. Remarried and living in Hollywood, Wray left RKO shortly before she gave birth to her daughter in May 1945. Her last produced screenplay for Lewton, "Isle of the Dead", was released in September of that year, a few days after Japan surrendered, ending WWII. Lewton's films had played a major role in returning RKO to profitability during WWII but, when the war ended, audiences lost interest in horror movies. When Bedlam lost money, RKO did not renew Lewton's contract and his group disbanded.
What a Cartoon! company to pay for the whole program. In addition to the eventual spin-offs, the "What a Cartoon!" short "Larry and Steve" by Seth MacFarlane featured prototypes of characters that would later go on to become MacFarlane's massively successful "Family Guy". The "What a Cartoon!" project and its assorted spin-offs brought Cartoon Network more commercial and critical success, and the network became an animation industry leader as the 1990s drew to a close. In 2001, coinciding with the death of William Hanna, Hanna-Barbera Productions merged with Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network opened its own production arm, Cartoon Network Studios, in