April 25 - Ron Clements

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On this day, in 1953, Ronald Francis Clements was born in Sioux City, Iowa. After graduating from Bishop Heelan Catholic High School, Ron hightailed it to Southern California to become a student at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. His professional career actually began in 1974 at Hanna-Barbera, but he was only there a few months before getting word that he'd been accepted into Disney's Talent Development Program. At that point, it was goodbye Scooby Doo, hello Mickey Mouse (even though not much animation was being produced with Mickey at that point) and he's never looked back.

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Ron came to Disney at a perfect time. For his first two years, he apprenticed under none other than Frank Thomas, the last of Walt's Nine Old Men to still officially haunt the studios. His first work, totally uncredited of course, made it into Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too. By 1977, Ron was working on his own as a Character Animator, contributing to both Pete's Dragon and The Rescuers. For The Fox and the Hound, he'd been promoted to Supervising Animator and worked with John Musker, a Character Animator on the film, for the first time. Ron and John really hit it off, and became writing collaborators on Disney's next project, The Black Cauldron.

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The Black Cauldron's production process is notorious for its controversies within the company. A growing number of animators were horribly unhappy with the direction the project was taking, Ron and John among them. Only a few years before, Don Bluth had led a walkout of a whole group of employees over the same kind of complaints. Not wanting another mass exodus, Ron and John proposed to then head of the studio Ron Miller that an adaptation of the children's book series Basil of Baker Street be added to the production slate as an 'alternate' movie for staff to work on if they could no longer stomach Cauldron. Miller agreed, putting Jon and and famed storyboard artist Burny Mattinson in the director's chairs and giving Ron the task of adapting the story. When schedules shifted and became a whole lot tighter (mainly after Cauldron tanked), Burny was moved into more of a producer role and Ron became co-director for the first time.

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The Great Mouse Detective opened to positive reviews and financial success. Coming only one year after the disastrous Cauldron, Ron and John's little-movie-that-could literally saved the animation department by convincing the powers that be that they could still generate income (in spite of the fact that they let Vincent Price sing). As Detective was wrapping up production, the new bosses, Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, held a meeting with all the animators to generate new ideas for films. Ron brought a two page synopsis of an adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid and a quick concept piece about setting Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island in space. Eisner rejected both. Within days, however, Katzenberg quietly asked Ron to expand on his treatment of Mermaid, eventually giving Ron and John the green light to write and direct it.

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When The Little Mermaid opened on November 17, 1989, it was a smash hit, earning over $200 million in worldwide box office receipts and ushered in the era that became known as the Disney Renaissance. It also cemented the partnership between Ron and John as a co-directing powerhouse. For their follow-up film, they reworked and resubmitted their idea for a space themed Treasure Island. It was rejected again. Instead they were given the helm of an adaptation of a story from 1001 Arabian Nights called Aladdin.

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The duo struck gold again in November 1992, as Aladdin went on to become the first animated picture to gross over $500 million. For a third time they submitted what was now being called Treasure Planet as their next film and, for the third time, the studio said no, thanks, why don't you two direct this Greek mythology project we're developing. They said fine, but when the time came to sign new contracts during the production of Hercules, they made sure that one of the stipulations was that their science fiction adventure flick was guaranteed to be their next project. Despite mostly positive reviews (and near universal acclaim for James Woods' performance as Hades), Hercules failed to score at the box office like its predecessors, taking in a paltry $253 million. While still a moneymaker, the Disney Renaissance was starting to wind down.

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Following the wrap of production on Hercules, Ron and John finally got to go to work on Treasure Planet, more than a decade after first coming up with the idea. In retrospect, the fact that the movie had been rejected so many times (and that they had to kind of force the studio into making it at all), should have been an omen for everyone involved. Changing the genre of established classics is not only hard but doesn't make people already familiar with the story happy. Treasure Planet opened in November 2002 to tepid reviews and dismal sales. It became the first Disney animated movie since The Black Cauldron to fail to make back its budget. It's not a bad film, but you'd also be hard pressed to call it a good film. The Renaissance was over.

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Ron and John inherited a concept called Fraidy Cat as their next project but the production was fraught with problems. When David Stainton, then president of animation, refused to green light the movie in September 2005, both of the co-directors resigned from the company in protest. The successful duo's absence wouldn't even last a year, though. By the spring of 2006, John Lasseter installed as the new chief creative officer of animation and he asked Ron and John to return to Disney to helm an adaptation of The Frog Princess.

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As the entire industry was embracing fully computer generated animation, Lasseter was willing to give traditional animation another shot. Ron and John were a perfect duo to head 2D animation's last hurrah. Their direction, along with Randy Newman's blend of zydeco and jazz, pushed The Princess and the Frog to the highest box office receipts in years, over $270 million, but still far short of what had been realized during the Renaissance. It didn't help that Princess opened a week after Avatar (Princess is clearly the superior movie, but there really is no accounting for taste). The 2009 film managed to earn four Oscar nominations (getting edged out by Up in most of them) but is, as of right now, the last film put out by a major studio using traditional techniques. Hand drawn animation is over.

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Traditional storytelling, however is not. After The Princess and the Frog, Ron and John became quite secretive about what they were working on. All they would say is yes we're working. After a couple of years of development, they finally came clean about the fact that, yes, they were moving into the realm of computer animation and their next story was inspired by Pacific Island cultures. The movie that came out in November 2016, Moana, became their biggest hit yet. With songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda and overwhelmingly positive reviews, Moana brought over $643 million in box office receipts to the table. The directing team was back on top of the animation world.

Since the release of Moana, John Musker, who obviously felt like walking away a huge success was the way to go,  has retired from Disney and the animation business. Ron hasn't made that decision quite yet. Despite the fact that his long time partner in crime has folded up his directing chair, Ron may (or may not) have another epic story in him just crying out to be told. Whether he goes for it or just spends a few more years, like his old mentor Frank did, guiding the new guys at the start of their journeys, Ron has undeniably spent the last 45 years creating the highlights of two generations worth of childhoods.And for that alone, he deserves a tip of the mouse ears. Happy Birthday, Ron!