Horace Horsecollar star of the cartoon. In his earliest incarnation, Horace was presented as Mickey Mouse's four-legged plow horse. He could walk upright on his hind legs, at which time his forelegs became gloved hands; at other times, he got back down on all fours and reverted to form. Horace mostly played bit-parts in the 30+ films in which he appeared. Like Goofy in his early "Dippy Dawg" appearances, Horace's body seemed to be formed of rubber tubing. He and Clarabelle Cow had an uncanny ability to change from somewhat normal farmyard animals into anthropomorphized beings as necessary. After departing the Disney
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio although both men eventually became employees of the studio. After a slow start, the studio began to take off in 1940 after its short "The Milky Way" became the first non-Disney cartoon to win the Academy Award for Best Short Subjects: Cartoons. The studio's roster of talent benefited from an exodus of animators from the Schlesinger and Disney studios, which were facing issues with union workers. Originally established and run by executive Fred Quimby, in 1955 William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the writer-directors of the "Tom and Jerry" cartoons, became the heads of the studio. The cartoon studio was closed