Animated Pictures Corp., Ltd. (informally coined as the Iwerks Studio) was an animation studio based in Beverly Hills, California, headed by animator Ub Iwerks. The studio was best known for producing cartoon series with Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper, as well as its ComiColor cartoon series, and was in operation between 1930 and 1937.

Ub Iwerks was the director and head animator of the increasingly successful Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony cartoons for Walt Disney, serving at Disney's right hand man with production. In early 1930, Iwerks accepted a contract with Disney's distributor, Pat Powers, to resign from the studio and produce cartoons under his own name. Iwerks brought along other Disney talent, like musical composer Carl Stalling and animators Merle Gilson and Ben Clopton.

Financial backers, led by Powers, suspected Iwerks was responsible for much of Disney's early success, and Powers' New York-based film company, Celebrity Productions, Inc., cut ties with Disney to support Iwerks' production venture. The studio was formally incorporated as Animated Pictures Corp., Ltd, with its original location based in Los Angeles, California.

Iwerks' first cartoon character, Flip the Frog, was announced as early as February 1930. Flip's first few cartoons, starting with Fiddlesticks in May, were released both in black-and-white and in Harriscolor, making them arguably the first sound cartoons released in color. Animated Pictures made a sales record in May after their first press announcement, even before the cartoons' release, as the European rights to the films were sold out before ten days. By early July, the studio signed a contract from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to handle distribution of the series. As the Flip cartoons progressed, the studio saw moderate success and expanded operations, hiring new staff and moving their production facility to Beverly Hills.

Several key creative personnel and trainee artists employed by Iwerks were later prominent figures in animation history. Grim Natwick, already a seasoned animator and creative force at Max Fleischer's cartoon studio for designing Betty Boop, was hired in 1931 to lead Animated Pictures' creative output, a position he held until late 1934. Natwick also hired animators Shamus Culhane, Al Eugster, and Berny Wolf, as well as musical composer Art Turkisher, all formerly with the Fleischer studio. One of Iwerks' first hires, an animator named Fred Kopietz, recommended Iwerks employ a friend from the Chouinard Art Institute. This friend, Chuck Jones, was hired and put to work as a cel washer in one of his first jobs before becoming a prominent cartoon director at Warner Bros. Despite the influx of talent from both Disney and Fleischer, Iwerks failed to rival either studio in terms of commercial success.

Flip the Frog, much like his cartoon contemporaries, bore various resemblances to Mickey Mouse in both his visual design, personality, and mannerisms. As the series progressed and with the new hired animators, the appearance of Flip gradually became less frog-like. Flip evolved into more of a down-and-out, Chaplin-esque character who always found himself in everyday conflicts surrounding the poverty-stricken atmosphere of the Great Depression.

In 1933, Flip the Frog was phased out and replaced with two new cartoon series, one featuring Willie Whopper, and the other a series of color cartoons called ComiColors. The character Willie Whopper was a young boy who told of his many outlandish adventures. His fantastic accounts were as depicted on-screen as outright lies or "whoppers", and were usually preceded by his memorable catchphrase, "Say, did I ever tell ya this one?" The ComiColor cartoons mostly focused on fairy tales with one-off characters. Both series were started in 1933, with Willie featured in 14 cartoons through 1934, and the ComiColors produced until 1936.

The staff was doubled to meet the demand, and the studio was reorganized into different animation units so both series could be produced in tandem. The ComiColors were initially co-directed by Shamus Culhane and Al Eugster, and the Willie Whopper cartoons handled by two units: one with co-directors Grim Natwick and Berny Wolf, and another led by ex-Harman-Ising animators Robert Stokes and Norman Blackburn. Only the Willie Whopper cartoons were picked up by MGM for a distribution deal through 1933 and 1934, while each ComiColor cartoon was individually sold by Celebrity Productions to a wide variety of distributors who were interested. The ComiColor cartoons enjoyed some success overseas, with eleven countries closed for foreign distribution rights of cartoons in 1934 and as many as 17 foreign versions of individual films completed for distribution.