August 12 - Barry Cook

Image courtesy zimbio.com

On this day, in 1958, Barry Cook was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Like many filmmakers, Barry spent a good chunk of his childhood looking through the eyepiece of his family’s Super 8 movie camera. By the time he was ten, he’d completed his first film. When he was 12, he won two prizes in a local Young Filmmakers Contest. As a teen, he spent his summers developing his drawing talents (and, just as importantly, earning money) as a caricaturist at Opryland USA. As soon as he graduated from high school, Barry left the mountains of Middle America and moved to Southern California to pursue his dreams of a career in the film industry.

Barry started his studies at Columbia College in Hollywood, where, just as often as he worked on his own projects, he spent time helping his fellow students finish theirs. His time there led to an internship with Hanna-Barbera in 1978. He spent almost three years at that studio, doing assistant animator duties on shows like The New Fred and Barney Show, among others. He was even around long enough to get a hand in on the pilot episode of The Smurfs. But, in 1981, destiny called him to do other things in other places (and if you’ve read any of this blogs’ posts before, I bet you can guess where that might be).

Image copyright Disney

Barry became part of the Disney family as an effects animator. Those are the guys who might make leaves swirl around in a gust of wind or create tendrils of magic flowing from a wand to a pumpkin. Their work is painstaking, and often abstract, but is what can push a merely okay project into an absolute masterpiece. And they rarely get the public credit they deserve. Barry's first movie with Disney was the cutting edge, computer-graphic driven, cult classic Tron. He stayed with the company following that release, crafting effects for The Black Cauldron, Captain EO, Oliver and Company, The Little Mermaid and The Rescuers Down Under.

Image copyright Disney

When the Disney-MGM Studios theme park opened in Orlando in May 1989, a big part of it was a new satellite animation studio. Barry moved to Florida as part of the team that took over the new space. He’d been promoted to supervisor of the effects department at this point and was starting to stretch his wings as a director. He got the opportunity to develop an idea for a short he had about a rocking horse who tries to regain the attention of the video game loving boy who used to ride him. He wrote Off His Rockers and directed it, eventually enlisting the help of almost everyone who worked in Disney’s Florida Animation department, all while supervising effects work on Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. Rockers was theatrically released with Honey, I Blew Up the Kid in 1992.

Image copyright Disney

Barry was then put in charge of directing and developing the story for the third and final Roger Rabbit short Disney produced. Once Trail Mix-Up was released with A Far Off Place in March 1993, management decided that Barry was ready for the big time gave him the choice of helming a Scottish tale with dragons or a Chinese war legend. When Barry started talking about how dragons figure prominently in Chinese culture as well, he was assigned to the project surrounding the Legend of Fa Mu Lan (even though he would have chosen the Scottish story himself). Barry was partnered with another first time feature director, Tony Bancroft, and the pair wrestled with the saga, eventually turning it from a ho-hum romantic comedy into an epic tale that encompasses both love of family and love of country. And yes, even though there were no dragons in the original legend, Barry did slip one in.

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In June 1988, Mulan opened to critical and financial success, both important to the Florida animation division as it was the first feature that was primarily done by the new staff.  It would go on to win Barry and Tony the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature. Production was already underway at the satellite studio on two more features, Lilo and Stitch and Brother Bear, and life was looking good in Orlando. After the exhausting journey of directing his first feature, Barry took a five month sabbatical to regroup and recharge.

Image copyright Aardman Animation

When he returned to work, Barry pitched the idea for a feature based on Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost.  It was decided that the project had potential and he was given the go ahead to develop a script. After months of tinkering with story and adding several more folk elements into it, he brought the finished product to another pitch meeting and was green lighted to direct A Few Good Ghosts with a budget of $45 million. Production began, even going so far as to cast Dolly Parton, Lilly Tomlin, Hal Holbrook and Charles Durning in key roles, before the bottom fell out of everything related to the studio’s Florida location. In November 2003 production on Ghosts was halted and by January 2004, the Florida Animation Studio no longer existed. Barry himself became a casualty amidst the destruction when Disney declined to give him a contract to return to the fold in Burbank.

Barry spent the next several years with a variety of more independent studios developing projects, none of which ever actually entered production. Finally, in 2009, he signed a contract with Aardman Animations, the studio that started with the Wallace and Gromit shorts, and became co-director on an animated feature once more. Alongside Sarah Smith, he delivered the studio a modest success with Arthur Christmas, a fresh take on the Santa Claus story. Barry was then contracted by 20^th Century Fox to co-direct Walking with Dinosaurs, a feature based on the BBC documentary series of the same name. The intent was a film that modeled the series, with a narrator explaining otherwise dialogue-less events. Fox executives freaked out at a rough screening, however, and insisted that some celebrity supplied dialogue would make the movie better than anyone’s wildest dreams. Audiences did not agree (especially since there wasn’t time or budget to worry about things like lip synching or making dinosaur mouths move at all).

Image copyright Jesus Film Project

Barry has also been involved lately with the Jesus Film Project, a movement dedicated to telling the story of Jesus to everyone on earth, mostly through the medium of film. He wrote the screenplay and helped produce a short in the anime style called My Last Day, done from the perspective of one of the thieves that was crucified with Jesus. He is currently working with Digital Dimension, directing a film based on the children’s book Mean Margaret, about a toddler human who gets raised by woodchucks. No word yet on a release date for the quirky comedy, but we’re glad that Barry is still out there creating. Happy birthday, Mr. Cook!

June 22 - Floyd Norman

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On this day, in 1935, Floyd Norman was born in Santa Barbara, California. While still in high school, Floyd began dabbling in the art of animation, creating short films on his own. One of his first jobs out of school was as an assistant to comic book artist Bill Woggon, the creator of the Katy Keene character featured in Archie Comics. During this same time he took classes at the Art Center School in Pasadena, focusing on illustration. After two years of instruction, Floyd was hired at the Walt Disney Studio as an inbetweener in 1956, the first black man to ever do so with Disney.

Image courtesy laughingplace.com

And now we have to take a small detour from our regularly scheduled post into the Land of Finer Points. When asked the question “Who was Disney’s first black animator?” a large number of people will give Floyd’s name as their answer. And yes, Floyd was the first black man to work in the animation department at the Walt Disney Studio. However, as another section of the populace will be quick to point out, while he did many marvelous things in other departments at the studio for years, he never actually ascended to the position of Animator. For decades at Disney, an artist had to produce over 100 feet of film in order to get screen credit as an Animator. As petty as it might sound to people outside the industry, only a select few ever earned the title of Animator. By those standards, Ron Husband, who joined the studio in the Seventies, is Disney’s first black Animator, having risen to the position for Cody in The Rescuers Down Under. Ron worked on most of the movies that came out during the Disney Renaissance only to find himself out of a job in 2004, when the company mostly stopped doing hand drawn animation. So there you have it: first black man doing animation at Disney, Floyd Norman, first black Disney Animator, Ron Husband. Now back to our post.

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Floyd’s first project with Disney was doing inbetween work on Sleeping Beauty. Shortly before that film’s production wrapped up, however, his career was interrupted with a draft summons from the United States Army. He fulfilled his patriotic duty, returning to the studio when his tour was over in 1960. He continued as an inbetweener on One Hundred and One Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone. At this point, Walt saw some of the sketches Floyd periodically made to entertain his co-workers, saw some potential in him and moved him into the Story Department. He spent the next couple of years with Walt and Larry Clemons, trying to turn the darkness of The Jungle Book into a light, breezy animated movie. When Walt died in December 1966, Floyd decided to strike out on his own and created Vignette Films, Inc. with Leo Sullivan, another black man working at the studio (I hesitate to say the other black man, but let’s just say the studio got a lot less colorful when these two talented guys left; it was not good for the studio’s diversity).

Image courtesy atlantablackstar.com

It didn’t take long for Floyd and Leo to become involved in several high profile projects. They began writing and animating segments for Sesame Street, which debuted in 1969. They were instrumental in developing the original Hey Hey Hey It’s Fat Albert television special that came out the same year. They also produced training films for the United States Navy and made some of the first movies to document black history. Floyd also began his long association with Hanna-Barbera during this period as a layout artist on the Josie and the Pussycats and Sealab 2020 television series.

Image copyright Hanna-Barbera

In the early Seventies, Floyd returned to Disney briefly as an uncredited assistant animator (the level just under the coveted Animator) on Robin Hood. He spent the rest of the decade at Hanna-Barbera, working mostly as a layout artist on series ranging from Goober and the Ghost Chasers to Scooby’s Laff-A-Lympics to Godzilla. As the calendar rolled on into the Eighties, Floyd was promoted to the position of Story Director and contributed to The Smurfs, Pac-Man, Snorks, and Super Friends.

In the mid-Eighties, Floyd returned to Disney again, this time in the Comic Strip Department. He has the distinction of being the last writer and layout artist of the syndicated Mickey Mouse comic strip before the company discontinued it in 1995. At that point, Floyd was sucked back into the House of Mouse as a regular player, folding right back into the story department of the animation studios. The sad part of that statement is that he turned down the opportunity to help a little studio called Pixar develop a little movie called Toy Story in favor of (what he saw as) steadier work at Disney (they were two separate companies at that point). He contributed story to The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan, The Tigger Movie and Dinosaur. When Pixar asked for his help again (who says opportunity never strikes twice), Floyd made sure he said yes and earned additional story credits for Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc.

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When Floyd turned 65, he was given retirement from Disney, whether he wanted it or not. Turns out he didn’t. He combated his ousting by just constantly showing up at the studio, mostly driving his longtime companion, Adrienne, to her job every day. They’d met at the company and she still worked in the Publishing Department. Simply by his presence, Floyd would continue to contribute to all sorts of projects including story elements to Cinderella II and Kronk’s New Groove. His latest productions have been non-Disney related things like the movie Free Birds and Cartoon Network’s Robot Chicken.

Image courtesy netflix.com

It should come as no surprise that Floyd has racked up a number of awards and honors over the course of his career. In 1979, he was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. In 2002, he was the recipient of the prestigious Winsor McCay Award at the Annies. In 2007, he was declared an official Disney Legend. In 2008, he was awarded the Inkpot Award for his dozen years on the Mickey comic strip. He won a Sergio Award in 2013, a DFC Disney Legend Award from the Disneyana Fan Club in 2014, The Friz Freleng Award in 2015, a Special Achievement Award from the African-American Film Critics in 2016 and the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Cartoonists Society earlier this year. Whew.

Even at 84, Floyd still occasionally makes appearances at Comic Cons around the country but if you’d like to learn more about his life and career, check out the documentary that came out a few years ago, Floyd Norman: An Animated Life, currently available on Netflix and, for a fee, Amazon Prime Video.

May 24 - Ed Love

Image courtesy scoobydoo.fandom.com

On this day, in 1910, Edward H. Love was born in Tremont, Pennsylvania. Ed found himself in Los Angeles, California by 1930, desperately looking for work as the Great Depression began settling in for the long haul. As he dug through the newspaper looking for employment leads, he noticed an an ad for animators over at the Walt Disney Studio. Ed had enjoyed drawing as a child, but knew nothing about animation. He didn't have a job, but he did have a car and he was able to track down someone in the animation business who was willing to trade lessons for the use of that car. I haven't been able to find out who that teacher was, so that part of the story must be taken with a grain of salt, but what is verifiable is that in early 1931, Ed brought a piece he'd animated of Mickey Mouse playing the violin over to the Disney studio and was hired the same day. Starting as an inbetweener for $18 a week, he would be moved up to full animator within two months.

Image copyright Disney

Ed worked almost exclusively in the Shorts Department during his time with Disney. One of his first assignments was on the first cartoon in glorious three strip Technicolor (all previous color cartoons had only been lowly two strip wannabees), the Silly Symphony Flowers and Trees. His work can also be seen in the great Mickey shorts Lonesome Ghosts and Mickey's Trailer. Ed often (semi) joked that he was responsible for the position of assistant animator (otherwise known as clean up man) being created at Disney. Since he had no formal art training, he was terrible at cleaning up his own animation. Someone had to be assigned to him to help turn his rough drawings into finished product. Some of the older guys around the studio felt that if Ed could have an assistant, why not them. And the animation team went from an animator paired with an inbetweener to a three man process.

Image copyright Disney

One of Ed's last projects with Disney was The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Originally slated to be an extended Silly Symphony, Apprentice became the centerpiece of Walt's great experiment in animation, Fantasia. Only a few months after the release of Fantasia, the animators at the studio went on strike in early 1941. Ed, in a move he would later label as stupid, was one of the leaders of the fight. The strike would get resolved, but Ed (who was making $81 a week plus bonuses at that point, over $72,000 a year today) was one of its casualties. After a decade with the studio he was once again unemployed.

Image copyright MGM

Luckily for Ed, his jobless stretch didn't last very long. He was soon hired at MGM and became part of the great Tex Avery's studio. For the next five years, Ed worked on classics like Red Hot Riding Hood and What's Buzzin' Buzzard, sometimes animating as much as two thirds of a short by himself. In 1947, he switched studios again to work under Walter Lantz on the Woody Woodpecker series. Unfortunately the financial situation at Lantz's studio was rapidly deteriorating and that job barely lasted two years. So Ed did what many a talented guy before him had: he started his own studio. Not much is known about what Love, Hutten and Love produced (Ed's son Tony was the other Love) during this period. But all three of the firm's namesakes (Bill Hutten was their partner) ended up, where else, Hanna-Barbera.

Image copyright Hanna-Barbera

Ed got in on the ground floor of several iconic series at Hanna-Barbera. He was part of the original teams of The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo Where Are You? He also worked in the Commercials Department at the studio, inspiring a whole generation of animators with the highly stylized way his characters moved (although he apparently was still horrible at cleaning up his own work, even after decades in the business). His son Tony became a director with the studio and sometimes father and son would work together, mostly on Ed's later series like A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. Ed continued to work at Hanna-Barbera until finally retiring in 1994, at the age of 84. Less than two years later, he passed away at home in Valencia, California on May 8, 1996. He was just two weeks short of his 86th birthday.

April 16 - Victor Haboush

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On this day, in 1924, Victor Haboush was born in Cleveland, Ohio. When Victor was just one, his family moved to Indianapolis, Indiana where his father, a Lebanese immigrant, opened a grocery store. Like most teens whose parents own a business, Victor and his brothers got to spend many an hour working (or as he put it, slaving) away with dad. Joining the Coast Guard part way into World War II didn’t mean less work, but it did mean a change of location. Victor ended up being part of the forces that stormed the beaches of Normandy and, once he’d survived that ordeal, switched theaters and spent the remainder of his tour in the Pacific. One of his brothers wasn’t so lucky; he suffered a mortal wound at Leyte. During the war, Victor’s parents moved to Los Angeles, so after he was discharged, he moved into their new home and began attending the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena on the G.I. Bill.

While toiling away at his classes, Victor’s teacher and mentor, Lorser Feitelsen, introduced him to Eyvind Earle, a former Art Center student and current background artist at the Walt Disney Studios. Eyvind was impressed with Victor’s talent and submitted his name to the powers that be at work. The studio was desperately looking for new blood and hired him as an inbetweener at $35 a week. One week into his new job, when it became apparent just how well he could draw, Victor was transferred to the Layout Department and his salary jumped to $160 a week (a mind boggling sum to his dad, especially when all they were asking him to do was draw). He started in his new position in March 1952 on the very tail end of production on Peter Pan.

Image copyright Disney

Victor’s first real project, and his first screen credit, came on the next animated feature, Lady and the Tramp. He then teamed up with Ward Kimball on two shorts from the Adventures in Music series (okay, it was supposed to be a series but only two were ever produced): Melody and Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom. The latter film won the 1954 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoon) and is still frequently shown in classrooms today to teach kids about the different kinds of instruments. Victor rounded out the Fifties working under Wilfred Jackson on Sleeping Beauty. He estimates he spent over six months just drawing the thorn forest (and another several weeks trying to teach others the proper way to depict thorns growing).

Image copyright Disney (not that they'll admit it)

Victor was also a part of Disney’s short lived Commercials Department in the mid Fifties. Working closely with Tom Oreb, he produced ads for Cheerios, Hudson cars and Peter Pan peanut butter, among other products. Walt never cared for the work the department did and shut the department down only months after starting it up (reportedly to give his niece something to do).

By the time he was neck deep in thorns, Victor had already begun doing some freelance work, mostly on television commercials. In 1960, after doing some very early concept drawings for 101 Dalmatians, he left Disney to join Hanna-Barbera as one of the first folks on team producing The Flintstones. Unfortunately, he didn’t get along with Bill Hanna and he took a lot longer to get things done than his new studio could afford (no spending six months on thorns here), so he got fired only a few weeks into the job. While he would occasionally return to do a bit of work on The Flintstones or The Jetsons, and was instrumental in developing the Mr. Magoo series for television over at United Productions of America, Victor mostly used his newfound unemployment as a catalyst to start his own company.

Image courtesy youtube.com

In the mid-Sixties, Victor Haboush and Associates burst onto the commercial scene. Over the next thirty years, Victor would create over 1,500 ads for a wide variety of clients, winning all kinds of Clios and Gold Lions at Cannes. Some of his more memorable campaigns include the "Crashing Bell" series for Taco Bell, "The Hook" series for Kibble N' Bits, the Jonathan Winters ads for Hefty Bag, a whole slew of McDonald's commercials (including "How the Hamburglar Got His Stripes" and "The Day Birdie the Early Bird Learned to Fly") and spots for Schlitz Malt Liquor featuring their Bull. Through it all, he credited his remaining brother as the foundation of the company as the COO with all the business sense.

After three decades of incredible work in advertising, Victor had had enough. He hung up his professional cap and retired to paint full time. He was coaxed back into the world of animation one more time. Brad Bird managed to convince him to do some concept art and character development for his 1999 film The Iron Giant. For the next decade, he quietly made his art, working and reworking each image until it met with his satisfaction. He passed away on May 24, 2009 at the age of 85.

April 14 - Harry Holt

Image courtesy allears.net

On this day, in 2004, Harry Holt passed away in Casselberry, Florida. Born on April 11, 1911, Harry never had any formal art training, he was just a kid who loved to draw and did it constantly. In 1936, he was visiting his mother in Southern California when a friend showed him a newspaper advertisement for artists needed at the Walt Disney Studio. It was the height of the Great Depression, Harry was unemployed and he figured he had nothing to lose by applying. His talent was enough (or as he might put it, the studio’s need was enough) to secure him a job as an apprentice in the animation department.

Image copyright Disney

Harry’s first assignment was as an inbetweener on the Silly Symphony Woodland Café. Once he’d satisfactorily cut his teeth, he was quickly moved onto the studio’s main project at the time, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, again as an inbetweener. One specific scene that Harry worked on is of the Evil Queen in her old hag disguise rowing down the river. By the studio’s next feature, Pinocchio, he’d become an assistant animator working directly under Eric Larson, one of Walt’s Nine Old Men.

As World War II ramped up, Harry was kept busy at the studio working on training films for the Navy. Not only did the work provide his living, it also granted him deferments from being sent to the battlefront. By the time all his deferments ran out, his 31^st birthday had passed and he could no longer be drafted under rules Congress had also just enacted. Content to remain in Southern California, safely churning out films for the military, Harry became a full-fledged animator in 1943. Over the next thirteen years, he worked mainly in the shorts department creating memorable moments for both Pluto and Donald Duck.

Image courtesy lambiek.net

During the latter half of the Forties, Harry brought in extra cash by moonlighting as a comic book artist. Working under Benjamin Sangor at the American Comics Group, he drew comedic animals for the Merry Go-Round Comics label and had his own feature under the Barnyard Comics brand, Blackeye and Blubber.

By 1956, Harry could see the writing on the wall for the Shorts Department and he decided to leave Disney under his own power. He took a job offer with Fred Niles Communication Center in Chicago, Illinois. Now working for the largest producer of television commercials in the eastern half of the United States, Harry was made art director of both the company’s live action and animated efforts. He enjoyed his work for four years, but couldn’t stand the icy winters and moved back to Southern California in 1960.

Image copyright Hanna-Barbera

Disney had just released Sleeping Beauty, but had also laid off three fourths of its animation staff and was seriously considering not making anything other than live action films. With no chance of returning to his old job, Harry took a position with Hanna-Barbera. For the next few years he lent his talents to such classic cartoons as The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Top Cat. During this time he also worked over at MGM on the Tom and Jerry series.

In 1966, Harry returned to Disney to start the second phase of his career with the Mouse. This time he was hired over at WED Enterprises (the department that eventually became Imagineering) and he spent his time turning artist’s sketches into three dimensional models, known as maquettes, which would in turn be developed into full sized Audio-Animatronic figures. Harry helped develop the look of characters in the Country Bear Jamboree, the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan’s Flight, Snow White’s Scary Adventures, and the Mickey Mouse Revue.

By 1976, Harry was made Art Director in charge of Quality Control and Product Design, which basically meant he was in charge of the look of the merchandise sold at Walt Disney World. One of the highlights of this phase of his career was the creation of the Amerikids figurines in 1979, his American answer to the European styled Hummel figures.

Image copyright Disney

In 1980, Harry was assigned to the team working on all the plans for Epcot Center. Again he spent most of his time creating maquettes for the attractions, although some of the Aztec style art that made it onto the front of the pyramid in the Mexico pavilion of World Showcase was done by his hand. The following year, Harry moved to Japan for several months, working his usual magic for the installation of several attractions and shows for the company’s first international theme park, Tokyo Disneyland. Many of the molds that had been used for figures and props in Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom had fallen into disrepair and needed Harry’s expertise in making them functional again.
Then in 1982, shortly after his return from Japan, Harry officially retired from the Walt Disney Company. Spoiler alert: like so many of the guys who’d been around since the Thirties, his retirement didn’t stick. In 1987, Harry was asked to take up residence in a little nook of the Disneyana Collectibles Store on Main Street USA in the Magic Kingdom. His job was to sit at an animator’s desk, interact with guests and complete sketches of some of his most famous characters to give away. It started out as a promotional stunt for the upcoming Disney-MGM Studios, which was going to feature its own animation department. Harry proved so popular with guests (most of whom had no idea who he actually was) that he enjoyed his part time gig for seven years, only stopping when the work became too much for his then 83 year old body. For the next decade, he lived quietly at home in Central Florida with his wife of 27 years, still drawing nearly every day, until passing away a few days after turning 93.

October 8 - Art Babbitt

On this day, in 1907, animator Arthur Harold Babitsky was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Known in life as Art Babbitt, his family moved to Sioux City, Iowa when he was in kindergarten. His father had injured his back, causing the family to struggle financially. Art decided he would become a psychiatrist to help alleviate that struggle, so after high school, he moved to New York to be a pre-med student at Columbia University. He didn't realize how much money that would take. To earn some, Art transformed into a freelance commercial artist, drawing advertising cartoons for companies like Sylvania. Inspired by the Silly Symphony The Skeleton Dance, he got a job with the Terrytoons studio in New Rochelle doing animation. He never did become a psychiatrist.

In the early 1930s, Art moved west to try to get a job with the Disney Studio. He managed to snag one along with a fellow Terrytoon animator, Bill Tytla. Starting as an assistant animator, Art's talent was immediately noticed and he was promoted to animator. His first major work was bringing to life the drunken bumpkin mouse in the 1936 short The Country Cousin. Cousin would go on to win the Academy Award for best animated short.

The next project Art did at the studio, required all hands on deck. For Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, he was part of the team that worked on the Evil Queen, a role that fellow animators acknowledged was probably the trickiest one in the film. Incidentally, the movie also brought Art his first wife, Marjorie Belcher. She was a dance model for the animators to reference. Following Snow White, Art became a directing animator. For Pinocchio, he led a team of 22 in the creation of Gepetto. Art reportedly felt that some of the best work he ever did, and the studio ever did for that matter, was on Pinocchio. His work in Fantasia can be seen in the characters of Zeus, Vulcan and the dancing mushrooms. When Dumbo came along, Art was again a directing animator on the character of Mr. Stork, who looks a bit like his voice actor, Sterling Holloway, thanks to him.

During this period of work on features, Art didn't forget about the shorts. His biggest contribution of all to the Disney family can be summed up in one word: Goofy. Art saw something in the decidedly minor character of Dippy Dawg that no one else did. He gave him a distinctive walk and developed his personality. Art once described Goofy this way: "He was someone who never really knew how stupid he was. He thought long and carefully before he did anything. And then he did it wrong." Art's work on Goofy's character paid off. Goofy had a long string of immensely popular shorts where he taught viewers how to do everything from skiing to driving a car. And his popularity continues to this day. He's had his own movie, his own television series and endures as one of the most beloved characters in Disney history. Love Goofy? Thank Art.

Unfortunately, in 1941, Art's relationship with the Disney Studio didn't just sour, it went full-on rotten. By that time, every animation studio in Hollywood had been unionized, except one. Even though he was one of Disney's highest paid animators, Art sympathized with the lower earning employees. Not only was he one of the few lead people to support unionization, he went a step further and became a leader in the fight. Walt fired Art and 15 other union leaders in May of that year basically for what he viewed as personal betrayal. The next day, 200 employees began a strike that would last for five weeks. Art spent that time rallying the troops and leading the picketing, at one point almost coming to blows with Walt. The studio finally gave in to union demands but the damage was done. Walt never forgave the strikers (in fact he named a bunch of them as communists when he testified before the McCarthy Hearings) and the familial attitude around the place was gone.

Walt was forced to rehire Art following the settlement but immediately looked for grounds to fire him again. The two men would go back and forth several times, Walt firing Art, Art suing the studio, if Art won, Walt would be forced to rehire him and on to the next round. Eventually Art left Disney for good and, along with other strike victims, joined a newly formed studio, United Productions of America. UPA was kind of the anti-Disney studio. While Disney was going for ultra-realism in animation, UPA was all about stylized minimalism. Art was involved in a mess of UPA's award winning shorts. One of the highlights of his time there was an Academy Award nominated short titled Rooty Toot-Toot. Art was also involved in creating the early Mr. Magoo shorts.

Later in the fifties, Art co-owned a firm named Quartet Films, which mainly created television commercials. He would win a Cleo Award for a spot he did for Parkay Margarine. Later he became part of Hanna-Barbera. In the early seventies, Art began teamed up with Richard Williams, a Canadian animator, to give a series of lectures to young (and sometimes old) animators about the craft. It's said that the notes from those lectures constitute the most circulated, most copied, most revered unpublished bible on animation out there.

Art would continue working pretty much right up to his death. His final project was a film with his lecture partner called The Thief and the Cobbler. The movie was independently financed at first and was in production for nearly three decades. Warner Brothers finally agreed to finish and distribute it, but that fell apart when the production went over budget. Cobbler was finished by a bond company and released in Australia. Ironically, two years later, after Art had passed away, Miramax, a subsidiary of Disney, would acquire it, edit the daylights out of it and release it in the US. Art's work had come full circle.

The story goes that in 1991, when Fantasia was released on video, Roy E Disney sent Art a note thanking him for all his contributions to the Disney Company. Supposedly Art was touched by Roy's kindness and released 50 years of animosity toward Roy's father and uncle. People close to Art say that since he was dying at that point, it's possible but considering how vehement his anger towards the Disney brothers stayed well in the late seventies, it's not all that probable. On March 4, 1992, Art passed away from kidney failure, most likely still harboring some justifiable resentment towards the Walt Disney Company. Nevertheless, his former co-workers Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas spoke at his funeral and he was made an official Disney Legend in 2007.

Also on this day, in American history: Great Chicago Fire