Mintz, meanwhile, opened his own studio (later known as Screen Gems) consisting primarily of former Disney employees, where he continued to produce Oswald cartoons, among them the first Oswald with sound, "Hen Fruit" (1929). Coincidentally, Disney and Mintz each produced nine cartoons the first year and 17 the next, before Oswald was taken over by others. Animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, unhappy with Mintz, asked Universal head Carl Laemmle to remove Mintz, suggesting they would be the ones to continue the Oswald series. Laemmle did terminate Mintz's contract, but instead of hiring Harman and Ising, he opted to have the Oswald cartoons produced right on the Universal lot. Laemmle selected Walter Lantz to produce the new series of Oswald shorts (the first of which was 1929's "Race Riot").