Jack Hannah, T. Hee, Ken O’Connor, Bill Moore, and Elmer Plummer taught at the California Institute of the Arts’ Character Animation Program so that their knowledge of animation, learned from the ground up during its Golden Age, would not die with them. My notes from their classes, written between 1975 and 1979, are the backbone of this book. It was a real privilege to learn from these talented artists.
A new generation of students from the Rochester Institute of Technology generously permitted me to print some of their class exercises and senior project materials. I thank Brittney Lee, Nathaniel Hubbell, William Robinson, Jim Downer, Sarah Kropiewnicki, Kimberly Miner, Jeremy Galante, Rui Jin, David Suroviec, Joseph Daniels, and Jedidiah Mitchell, my students in the School of Film and Animation, and Alycia Yee from the School of Photography, for their outstanding work.
I thank Margaret Adamic of Walt Disney Publishing Worldwide for permission to reprint artwork from Disney Enterprises, Inc., and Howard Green, Vice President, Studio Communications, Buena Vista Pictures Marketing, for his valuable assistance.
Thanks to David Fulp for his photo of T. Hee posing in front of Ralph Eggleston’s caricature portrait, to John Van Vliet for the T. Hee ‘ranch’ portrait, and to Cyndy Bohanovsky for the Ken Anderson photo. I also thank Patricia Bernard for permission to use my illustrations from her books Basil Bigboots the Pirate and Duffy and the Invisible Crocodile, and Daniel Schechter and Globalvision Inc. for two illustrations I drew for the documentary film IN DEBT WE TRUST.
I owe special thanks to Floyd Norman, Nina Paley, John Van Vliet, David Celsi, Dean Yeagle, Nina L. Haley, J. Adam Fox, Nelson Rhodes, Doug Crane, John McCartney, Brian P. McEntee, and Mark Newgarden for permission to use some of their illustration work so that this did not become a one-woman show.
This book and its author are indebted to many key people. Art director/author Brian P. McEntee provided terms for the Glossary and, along with Sheridan College instructor Mark Mayerson, proofread the entire manuscript and suggested improvements to the text and illustrations. Greg Ford and Ronnie Scheib read early drafts of the book and fact-checked my Looney Tunes history. My parents, Melvyn and Frances Beiman, provided ‘lay perspective’ on the book’s readability. Yvette Kaplan, Tom Sito, and Tony White offered excellent suggestions for the book’s format and contents at the beginning of the project. Jud Hurd published my interviews with animators in CARTOONIST PROfiles magazine for 13 years and encouraged me to write interviews and articles on animation. Editors Paul Temme, Amy Jollymore, and Georgia Kennedy at Elsevier/Focal Press were a pleasure to work with. I also thank my friends and mentors Shamus Culhane, Selby Daley Kelly, T. Hee, Mary Alice O’Connor, Ken O’Connor, Alice Davis, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, and Joe Grant for their friendship and advice over the years. Last, but not least, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Roy Disney for his continuing support for the art and artists of animation.
This book is dedicated to A. Kendall (Ken) O’Connor—a brilliant layout man, designer, draftsman, story man, art director, and teacher who was able to explain everything from how a caterpillar’s muscles move to why a 1926 trash can silhouette differs from that of a modern one. In story, these things matter! So this is for you, Ken.
Circumstances alter cases!
Nancy Beiman