Universal City Studios LLC, doing business as Universal Pictures (also known as Universal Studios or simply Universal), is an American film production and distribution company headquartered at the Universal Studios complex in Universal City, California. It serves as the flagship studio of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, the film studio arm of NBCUniversal, which is a subsidiary of Comcast.
Founded on April 30, 1912 by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, Robert H. Cochrane, and Jules Brulatour, Universal is the oldest surviving film studio in the United States and the fifth oldest globally after Gaumont, Pathé, Titanus and Nordisk Film, and is one of the "Big Five" film studios. Woody Woodpecker, a character created by Walter Lantz, serves as the company's mascot.