April 16 - Victor Haboush

Image courtesy cartoonbrew.com

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.