August 31 - Buddy Hackett

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On this day, in 1924, Leonard Hacker was born in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up the son of a garment district worker and a furniture upholsterer, Leonard would have fit right in to the story of High School Musical: he played football and was active in the drama club. He also suffered from Bell’s Palsey, which didn’t permanently affect his appearance but did give him his signature slurred speech. While still in school, Leonard began warming up audiences in various Catskill night clubs as what was known as a tummler, the Yiddish word for tumult maker. He eventually graduated to doing actual stand-up routines in those same clubs, although his debut probably left him questioning his life choices. He later recalled that he didn’t get a single laugh his first time behind the microphone. Luckily, his act quickly improved.

Once Leonard had graduated from New Utrecht High School in 1942, he immediately enlisted in the United States Army. He spent the entirety of World War II as part of an anti-aircraft battery. When the war ended and he returned to the States, Leonard changed his name to Buddy Hackett and jumped back into stand-up. After rewetting his feet at the Pink Elephant club in Brooklyn, he began to make appearances in Los Angeles and Las Vegas while also returning to the Catskill clubs of his youth (although his name was a little higher on the billing this time around). In 1950, Buddy made his big screen debut in a sports related short titled King of Pins. A how-to piece on the proper bowling techniques, he was featured as the sportsman you didn’t want to emulate. Three years later, Buddy was part of the original cast of Lunatics and Lovers, a play that ran for 336 performances on Broadway (Zero Mostel was his replacement when he went on vacation).

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Lunatics and Lovers gave Buddy enough exposure to land him a couple of television specials and expand his nightclub act. He didn’t return to the movies, though, until a bit from his stand-up act caught the attention of Universal Pictures. Unfortunately, it’s a bit that highlights changing social norms. Presently it would have gotten Buddy fired instead of hired, but the Fifties were clearly a different time. He took a rubber band, put it around his head in such a way that it gave a decided slant to his eyes, affected a thick accent and impersonated a frustrated waiter in a Chinese restaurant. Audiences ate it up. He made a recording of it and Universal put him in 1953’s Walking My Baby Back Home specifically so he could do the bit on film. He even got billing right under the picture’s main stars, Donald O’Connor and Janet Leigh.

I’d like to be able to say that his material got better after Walking, but Buddy became a darling of the talk show circuit pretty much because of his off-color jokes and ribald stories. He made frequent appearances with Jack Paar (including one on Jack’s final night as host of The Tonight Show), Arthur Godfrey, Perry Como and holds the record for the most guest shots on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. In 1958, he appeared on the Patrice Munsel Show with his then roommate Lenny Bruce. The significance of that performance is that the duo referred to themselves as the “Not Ready for Prime Time Players,” predating Saturday Night Live’s usage of the phrase by seventeen years (although why anyone thought putting those two on television together was a good idea is a question for another day).

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In spite of a somewhat profane stand-up persona, Buddy began building a more family friendly career starting in the mid Fifties. He had his own television show for a season, Stanley, which co-starred a young Carol Burnett as his girlfriend and featured a voice only character done by Paul Lynde. With that kind of a cast, you might think Stanley would be a big hit, but it struggled against more established shows in its time slot and failed to connect with audiences. In 1962, he played Marcellus Washburn to Robert Preston’s Harold Hill in the classic musical The Music Man. He teamed up with Mickey Rooney twice: 1961’s Everything’s Ducky and 1963’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. And he appeared with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon in the second of their beach movies, Muscle Beach Party, in 1964.

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Buddy first joined the Disney family in 1968. As the lovable artist and racer Tennessee Steinmetz in The Love Bug, he was introduced to a whole new generation of fans. Twenty-one years later, Buddy gave voice to the well-intentioned but totally off base seagull, Scuttle, in The Little Mermaid. He would reprise the role in 2000 for The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea and for various theme park attractions and shows. For his participation in multiple iconic films for the company, Buddy would be declared an official Disney Legend in 2003, shortly after his death.

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After the release of the The Love Bug, Buddy continued to make frequent appearances just about everywhere. He was a semi-regular on the Sixties version of Hollywood Squares. He made late night audiences laugh on every talk show you can think of. He narrated the classic Rankin/Bass Christmas special Jack Frost in 1979 (he was the groundhog in that as well). He spent three years as the spokesman for Lay’s Potato Chips. He booked hundreds of stand-up gigs and eventually had his son, Sandy, as his opener on them. And he took on a handful of big screen roles including himself as Ebenezer Scrooge in Scrooged and a pawn shop owner in Paulie.

In the early Nineties, Buddy got bad news from his doctor in the form of a severe heart disease diagnosis. Not only did he refuse to even consider bypass surgery, he also developed diabetes during the same decade. Neither disease seemed to slow him down much for almost a decade. Then, in mid-June 2003, Buddy suffered a stroke that proved to be too much for his ailing body. A week later, on June 30, 2003, the brash comedian who recovered from a laughless debut to enjoy a six-decade long career passed away in his beach home in Malibu, California. He was 78.

July 23 - Edie McClurg

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On this day, in 1945, Edie McClurg was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Edie and her older brother, Bob (who also spent most of the Eighties doing improve and appearing in movies), spent all of their formative years in KC, the children of a mailman and a government secretary (and yet they still both acquired a healthy funny bone). In the mid Sixties, Edie attended classes at the University of Missouri (the Kansas City branch, naturally) while simultaneously becoming a newswoman and producer at the local National Public Radio affiliate, KCUR-FM. After graduating, she stayed on at UM for eight more years teaching courses in radio. One of the highlights of her career with NPR was getting to play John Ehrlichman during a national broadcast of a reading of the transcripts of the Nixon Tapes. Ironically, that performance was the beginning of the end for her teaching and news careers.

In 1976, Edie made her first appearance on the silver screen when she was cast as Helen Shyres in the classic horror film Carrie. She also joined a San Francisco based improv group, the Pitcshel Players, and began performing regularly on the Tony Orlando and Dawn variety show and The Richard Pryor Show. By the end of the decade, she had begun appearing on David Letterman’s short lived morning show and had moved south to become a member of the Los Angeles improve troupe The Groundlings. While there, she helped fellow Groundling Paul Reubens develop his first play, The Pee-Wee Herman Show, and appeared in it as Hermit Hattie.

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Throughout the Eighties, Edie had several small but memorable roles on television and in films. She played Herb Tarlek’s wife Lucille on WKRP in Cincinnati, Bonnie Brindle in the sitcom Small Wonder and Mrs. Patty Poole on Valerie. You might remember her as the checkout lady in Mr. Mom or Marge Sweetwater in Back to School or the car rental agent in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. If none of those roles ring a bell (then what have you been watching all your life?), there is one character that I’m pretty sure just about everyone has seen and at least secretly been in awe of: the pencil pulling school secretary, Grace, in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. That whole pencil thing began as way for Edie to keep from getting bored on the set one day, seeing how many pencils she could get into her teased up hairdo at one time. It evolved into a sort of game between her and the director, John Hughes, who kept egging her on to break her record. Eventually John decided it would be fun to actually depict it in the film and, voila, one of the great film gags was born. For those of you who were wondering, the most pencils she every got to stay in her hair at once was fifteen.

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Edie first joined the Disney family in two ways in 1989. She was the voice of Bertha in the English dubbed version of Hayao Miyazaki’s Japanese anime film Kiki’s Delivery Service, which was produced and distributed in the US by Disney. Then she played Carlotta, the house servant who becomes exasperated with Chef Louie’s lateness in providing dinner and catches him destroying the kitchen, in The Little Mermaid. Edie would reprise the role of Carlotta for the direct-to-video sequel, The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea. In 1998, she popped up in Pixar’s A Bug’s Life as Dr. Flora and appeared in My Neighbors the Yamadas, another Disney dubbed and distributed Japanese film, the next year. She followed those up with roles as Gram Gram in Air Bud: Spikes Back, Mollie the Pig in Home on the Range, Minny in the first two films of the Cars franchise, Mary in Wreck-It Ralph, Gerda in Frozen and several additional voices in Zootopia. And sharp eared viewers will recognize her as the voice making the announcements in Santa’s Workshop during the direct-to-video holiday extravaganza, Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas.

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All that is just the film work Edie's done for Disney. Where have we might have seen or heard her in a Disney television show, you might ask. She's been in episodes of The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, Goof Troop, Darkwing Duck, Dinosaurs, The Kids from Room 402, Higglytown Heroes, Hannah Montana, Desperate Housewives, Doc McStuffins and Fish Hooks. Whew.

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In the course of her 40+ year career, Edie has been in over 60 films and over 370 episodes of over 110 television shows. Her last appearances on both the big and small screens happened in 2016. Why did our favorite cheerful Midwesterner seem to suddenly disappear? Unfortunately, earlier this year we found out why. Edie is apparently in a battle with dementia, a battle that anyone who has watched a love one go through it knows is heart breaking and often times brutal. Our hearts go out to Edie's friends and family and we hope that they can find peace in the fact that Edie's legacy will be one of fun and laughter. She might have tarnished the reputation of pencils a bit, but I don't think even the pencils really mind. Happy 74th Edie. Thanks for all the giggles.

July 22 - Alan Menken

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On this day, in 1949, Alan Irwin Menken was born in New York, New York. The son of an actress and a piano playing dentist, Alan showed an aptitude for music at an early age. He learned to play the piano and the violin before moving right on into composing. By the age of nine, his original works were receiving Superior scores from the judges of the New York Federation of Music Clubs Junior Composers Contest. Alan graduated from New Rochelle High School in 1967 and moved on to New York University. He enrolled as a pre-med student, a nod to dear old dad, but graduated in 1971 with a degree in Musicology. From there, his plans went in one of two directions. He was either going to be a composer or a rock star. He got to have his cake and eat it too by becoming a rock star of composing.

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Shortly after his college graduation, Alan joined a musical theater workshop sponsored by Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI). He continued to participate in BMI workshops over the next several years, writing songs for potential musicals and then performing them around town in clubs like The Ballroom and Tramps. To make money during this period, he wrote jingles, accompanied ballet troupes, wrote songs for Sesame Street and was a vocal coach. In 1979, Alan would earn some modest success when he teamed up with an up an coming playwright, Howard Ashman, to create a musical adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. The show got great reviews but not so great box office receipts. It didn’t matter. The two men worked well together and were destined for bigger things.

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In 1982, Alan and Howard’s next collaboration opened just off-Broadway at the WPA Theater. Based on a 1960 dark comedy film by Roger Corman, Little Shop of Horrors got rave reviews and soon moved to the Orpheum Theater where it ran for five years, smashing the box office record for an off-Broadway production. In 1986, a hit movie version was released starring Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene, and earned Alan and Howard their first Oscar nomination. The success of Little Shop brought the duo the attention of producers at the Walt Disney Studios who were looking for the right people to turn their next animated film into a musical.

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The mission that Disney Alan and Howard in 1987 was a simple one: after years of the company’s animation product being subpar, they needed to help create a Disney musical that could stand up to comparison with Snow White or Cinderella. No pressure though. I’ve read stories about the song writing duo holing up with nothing more than a synthesizer, in one of those buildings in New York where every floor is just dozens of tiny recording studios lined up in a row. Every time the door to their studio opened, the music that spilled out into the hall caused other doors to other studios to open as everyone wanted to know what was going on in there. And that was before a full orchestra and talents of Jodi Benson, Pat Carroll and Samuel E. Wright were added. Needless to say, Alan and Howard did good. The Little Mermaid became the company’s first smash hit in years, due in no small part to its soundtrack. When awards time came around, the boys would earn an Oscar for Best Song (Under the Sea) while Alan picked up a second one for Best Score. The Disney Renaissance had begun and Alan was going to provide a pretty big chunk of the music for it.

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Alan and Howard rolled right on into their next project, another classic fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast. You might have thought it would be hard for them to top their work in Mermaid, but they did. Their deft blending of romance and humor, spectacle and intimacy pushed Disney’s 30^th animated feature to a place cartoons had never been before: a nomination for the Best Picture Oscar. The boys also picked up not one but three nominations (and the win) for Best Song (Beauty and the Beast edged out Belle and Be Our Guest) while Alan again received the statue for Best Score. The ceremony would have been a magical evening of true celebration centering on Alan and Howard’s talents except for one thing. Howard wasn’t there to share in it.

During production on Mermaid, Howard had revealed to Alan that he’d been diagnosed as HIV+. As work progressed on Beast, so did Howard’s illness. Part way through production, meetings began to be held at Howard’s home and animators would be shocked as to how quickly AIDS was ravaging his body between sessions. Howard continued to work though, writing and rewriting songs and coaxing better performances out of Paige O’Hara and Robbie Benson, right up to the end of his life. Beast had its first screening for the press on March 10, 1991. Producer Don Hahn visited a barely alive Howard in the hospital to tell him about the incredibly enthusiastic reception. Four days later, he died.

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Work had already begun on the duo’s follow-up to Beast, Aladdin, when Howard passed away. Alan needed a new lyricist to work with (notes were his thing, not words) and he brought in the award winning Tim Rice to finish the songs for the film. Alan again picked up two Oscars that year, Best Song with Tim for A Whole New World and Best Score on his own. It should be noted that A Whole New World also won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year, the only time a Disney song has managed to do that.

Following Aladdin, Alan has collaborated with a number of lyricists, none of whom can hold a candle to Howard in my opinion but all successful none the less. He teamed with Jack Feldman for Newsies, Stephen Schwartz for Pocahontas (picking up two more Oscars), Stephen again for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, David Zippel for Hercules, which was a bit of a throwback to his Little Shop days (not only musically but because he and David had worked together back then, too), Glen Slater for Home on the Range and Tangled and Stephen once again for Enchanted. Alan has also scored some non musical films for Disney as well including Touchstone Pictures' Life With Mikey and the 2006 remake of The Shaggy Dog.

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In recent years, Alan has been quite busy revisiting old projects and adding new material to them. For the Broadway stage he's helped bolster Beauty and the Beast, Newsies, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid. A stage version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame became the longest running show ever in Berlin, Germany. Alan has also been (for better or worse; don't get me started) part of the teams that have been turning classic Disney animated films into live action movies. He revised old songs and wrote new ones for the live versions of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin.

Outside of Disney (does that even exist anymore?), Alan has written music for a number of shows, several of which have had Broadway runs. His version of A Christmas Carol premiered in 1994 and became an annual event at Madison Square Garden for a decade. He's also written adaptations of Sister Act, A Bronx Tale and Leap of Faith. He is reportedly working on a stage version of Corrina, Corrina and had a reading of a new piece in collaboration with Jack Feldman and Harvey Fierstein called Greetings from Niagra Falls, but that production seems to have stalled.

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For basically writing everything everyone wants to put on their modern Disney playlist, Alan was declared an official Disney Legend in 2001. Not that he's done composing for the company by a long shot. He's currently working with Lin-Manuel Miranda on new music for the live action version of The Little Mermaid. And there's persistent rumors about a sequel to Enchanted (but don't hold your breath on that one). Alan is already at the top of the list of Living People with the Most Oscars with eight, but he's tied for third on the list of all time winners. I wouldn't be surprised if he pulls a couple more out of his little hat as time goes on here. Until then, we send good vibes Alan's way and wish him a happy 70th Birthday!

May 5 - Pat Carroll

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On this day, in 1927, Patricia Ann Carroll was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. When she was five, Pat’s family moved to Los Angeles, California and it wasn’t long before she was appearing in local stage productions. She graduated from Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles, spent some time in the United States Army Special Services as a civilian actress technician entertaining the troops just after World War II, returned to the United States and began classes at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. All that and she wasn’t even twenty yet.

Pat’s first professional gig was playing opposite Gloria Swanson in a stock theater production of A Goose for the Gander in 1947. Over the next eight years, she would play dozens of roles in various productions on her journey to a Broadway debut. Her first time treading the boards of the Great White Way came as part of the cast of the 1955 musical revue Catch a Star. Pat was so captivating  in the show, she earned herself a Tony nomination.

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Around the same time, Pat began her decades long television career, making her small screen debut on The Red Buttons Show. In 1956, she won an Emmy award for her appearance on Caesar’s Hour, with national treasures Sid Caesar and Carl Reiner. After that you couldn’t keep her out of your living room. She became a regular on comedy/variety shows like The Danny Thomas Show. She became a staple on games shows throughout the Sixties and Seventies (I can’t remember which one I’ve seen her on, To Tell the Truth maybe, but it was one of those black and white panel shows where the big prize was $20 and a carton of cigarettes). Pat was a triumphant guest star on everything from The Carol Burnett Show to Laverne and Shirley (as Shirley Feeney’s mom) to three seasons on She’s the Sheriff (as Suzanne Somer’s mom).

In 1979, Pat made a stunning return to the stage in a one-woman show, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein. She earned rave reviews during the show’s run in and around New York and took it on the road for four years afterwards. In 1980, she won a Grammy award for Best Spoken Word, Documentary or Drama for her recording of the piece and the Drama Desk Award for Best Actress in a Play.

In the mid Eighties, Pat began a new phase of her career as a voice actress. She was Katrina Stoneheart on Pound Puppies and Ms. Biddy McBrain on Galaxy High School. In 1987, she brought to life one of my favorite cartoon characters of all time: Grandma in A Garfield Christmas Special. If you haven’t ever had the pleasure to see it, hop on over to iTunes and check it out. A Garfield Christmas runs neck and neck with A Charlie Brown Christmas in my own personal race for best Christmas special ever. And that’s in large part due to Grandma and her dueling shenanigans and sentimentality. Lorenzo Music (who was profiled just the other day) is pretty good as Garfield, too.

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Pat joined the Disney family by helping to launch the Disney Renaissance in 1989 as one of the greatest Disney villains of all time: Ursula the Sea Witch (that's spelled with a B). Believe it or not, Pat was not the first choice of the directors, Ron Clements and John Musker, for the deliciously evil octopus, Bea Arthur was. Bea turned it down and they went through a whole list of other people, eventually casting Elaine Stritch, who clashed with Howard Ashman and Alan Menken over the musical style and was finally replaced with Pat (who in retrospect should have had the role all along). The greatest part of Ursula over the years is that no matter where you hear her, be it on film, in a video game or as part of the puppet extravaganza currently playing at the Hollywood Studios, you are hearing Pat. She is (so far), the one and only voice of behind Ursula. Someday that won't be the case, but we aren't going to think about that right now.

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Pat made a few other contributions to Disneyana over the years, too. She was the voice of Morgana, Ursula's vengeful younger sister, in The Little Mermaid II, Koo-Koo in Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers and, just last year, Old Lady Crowley on Tangled: The Series. 

In between all her animated work, Pat returned to the stage several times. She lent her talents and charm to productions of Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Nunsense and Mother Courage and Her Children. She also turned to directing, helming runs of Alice in Wonderland, Noel Coward's Private Lives and George Furth's The Supporting Cast. Nowadays, she does what so many popular voice actors do, she makes the rounds of comic cons, greeting hordes of adoring fans. I've never been to one myself (shocking, I know) but the next time she's in town, I just may have to make the trip to see the woman who brought me not one, but two of my favorite characters. In the meantime, happy 92nd birthday Pat!

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!

January 11 - Pres Romanillos

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On this day, in 1963, Priscillano Antonio Romanillos was born in Zamboanga City, Philippines. When he was 6, Pres and his family moved to Queens, New York. At some point, his older brother, Bob, started to take a correspondence course in art. Bob quickly lost interest but the lessons, already paid for, kept coming. Pres began looking at his brother’s lessons, loved them and finished the course for him. When he grew older, Pres attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, eventually earning himself an MFA.

In 1989, as the Disney Renaissance was starting and the company was actively recruiting animators for the first time in years, Pres was hired on as an animation trainee. He cut his teeth on The Little Mermaid, impressing one of the supervising animators, Ruben Aquino, with his draftsmanship and passion. He continued to hone his skills on The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. By Pocahontas, Pres had been promoted to animator and worked under supervising animator Glen Keane on the title character. Pocahontas co-director Eric Goldberg said he was in awe of the sheer beauty that was Pres’ work.

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Pres made minor contributions to The Hunchback of Notre Dame but came into his own on Disney’s 36^th animated feature, Mulan. As supervising animator for the films villain, Shan-Yu, as well as the villainous sidekick, Hayabusa the falcon, Pres really threw himself into his work, albeit mostly subconsciously. He said in an interview once that he left work feeling sexy during production on Pocahontas, but when he shifted to Mulan, his wife kept asking why he was so angry all the time. Feelings below the surface or not, Pres managed to create a menacing figure in Shan-Yu that no one felt too bad about when he met his explosive demise at film’s end.

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Once Mulan was finished, Pres became another Disney casualty in the animation war of the time, when he followed Jeffrey Katzenberg to his newish studio, DreamWorks SKG. He came in during production on The Road to El Dorado as an animator. By Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, he was once again a supervising animator as he also helped design the Native American character Little Creek. Pres continued as a supervisor for Dunbar’s Crew on DreamWork’s 2003 film, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. Unfortunately for Pres (and Jeffrey and DreamWorks) none of those movies were a financial success. Following Sinbad, DreamWorks would abandon traditional animation altogether in favor of CGI. Fortunately for Pres, he was able to make the transition to computer animation and contributed to films like Shrek 2 and Madagascar.

Image courtesy lifeisapickle.blogspot.com

In 2007, Pres travelled to Spain, where he established the Enne Animation Studio with his artist friend, Scott Johnston. While there he completed a short film, The Old Chair, using characters from a blog he’d started in 2006, Life as a Pickle. Tragically, while in Spain, Pres would be diagnosed with leukemia. He returned to the States, underwent a bone marrow transplant and seemed to be on the road to recovery. He actually returned to work at Disney in July of 2009 as an animator on Prince Naveen for The Princess and the Frog.

Pres might have angered the voodoo gods through his work on Princess, though. In March of 2010, he not only suffered a relapse of his cancer, but the leukemia was much more aggressive this time around. Pres passed away on July 17, 2010. Following his death, Steve Hulett, a representative of the Animation Guild, declared that of all the animators who deserved a few more decades of artistic success, Pres was at the top of that list. He was only 47 years old.

December 29 - Duncan Marjoribanks

Image courtesy animationguild.org

On this day, in 1953, Duncan Marjoribanks was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Duncan grew up in a liberal family and was considered a far-out hippy type in high school. Painfully introverted, he was also incredibly smart and extremely talented at drawing. His talents would take him to the Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Canada’s premiere school for animation located in Oakville, Ontario. Following his graduation from Sheridan in 1978, Duncan became part of a group that was hired by Hanna-Barbera prompting a move to Los Angeles, California. Duncan quickly became one of the studio’s top animators, working on shows like Scooby and Scrappy Doo and Godzilla. Then the great Animator’s Strike of 1982 happened. 

Image copyright CBS

The strike began as the union protested how much work was being sent overseas (where it was much cheaper to produce) and lasted for several months. The end result, ironically predictable, was that most US animation production disappeared. Duncan changed his career focus to designing characters and began freelancing for several studios. One of the projects he would work on, and his first as animator in a decade, was a short lived television series called Family Dog. It was created and directed by a guy named Brad Bird who was thoroughly taken with Duncan’s style and talent. Brad recommended Duncan to a friend of his, John Musker. John was starting a little project over at Disney about a mermaid and hired Duncan as the first animator on the team.

Image copyright Disney

Duncan became supervising animator for Sebastian the Crab on Disney’s 28^th animated feature, The Little Mermaid. He took Samuel E. Wright’s marvelous vocal performance and the basic character designs that had already been done and created one of the most endearing and enduring characters that had been seen in decades. Don’t believe me? Just watch the scene when Sebastian finally decides to help rather than hinder Ariel and get back to me.

The success of The Little Mermaid led to Duncan staying on with Disney and supervising again for the next feature film, The Rescuers Down Under, this time for the villain, McLeach. While this film did end up being less successful, it was the grueling schedule that really took its toll on Duncan. By the time the last frame had been drawn, he needed more than a vacation and actually took a year off to live in England. Which doesn’t mean he didn’t work. He provided some character design for a short-lived Hanna-Barbera show called The Pirates of Dark Water.

Image copyright Disney

In 1991, Duncan returned to the states, and Disney, to begin supervising work on another great sidekick, Abu in Aladdin. As if his previous work wasn’t impressive enough, now he would create a memorable character without using words at all. His work in the film can also be seen in the opening sequence with the shady salesman. Duncan went right from Aladdin onto the team for Pocahontas and once again supervised a villain, Governor Ratcliffe. His portrayal of Ratcliffe was more cartoonish than the other characters, which give him more of a presence, but still this side of overly flamboyant, so he remains believable. Duncan was then slated to supervise Megera for Hercules but that never happened.

Image copyright Dreamworks SKG

Around this time, Jeffrey Katzenberg was making his spectacularly messy exit from Disney and starting his own studio, Dreamworks SKG, with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. With big plans to stick it to his former employer, especially in the animation department, one of the first big talents Katzenberg poached was Duncan. The relationship didn't blossom the way anyone hoped. Duncan started out as supervising animator on Moses for Prince of Egypt but struggled with the job so much his only credit on the picture is plain old animator. He did some work on The Road to El Dorado, animating a few scenes with Tzekel-Kan and contributed some story ideas to Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron before leaving Dreamworks for good. He spent a year over at Warner Brothers, working on the animated parts of the box office bomb Osmosis Jones (he did pretty good work on the movie but left before it was finished, unhappy with the direction it was taking), before returning to the fold at Disney in 2000.

Image copyright Disney

Unfortunately, Duncan's return to Burbank came at a time when the studio was producing its worst picture since The Black Cauldron. As supervising animator for Mrs. Calloway on Home on the Range, Duncan managed some moments of greatness but the movie was a critical and financial failure. Following that disaster, he was trained in computer animation and contributed to the Bowler Hat Guy for Meet the Robinsons. Duncan then got the privilege of working on Disney's last hand drawn feature, The Princess and the Frog, as head animator for Big Daddy La Buff. 

In 2009, Duncan and Disney parted ways once again. The company had decided to stop using traditional animation techniques and Duncan didn't feel comfortable working with CGI. The only thing he's really done since then was a hand drawn short utilizing the characters from Kung Fu Panda. Which is really a shame. Hopefully some day the talent behind Sebastian and Abu, who has inspired so many animators still working today, will himself find inspiration in some new project and give us all a reason to smile again.