When the Disney Studio first started, Walt Disney had a group of nine core animators who have since become animation icons. This group consisted of Marc Davis, Ward Kimball, Milt Kahl, Eric Larson, Wolfgang “Woolie” Reitherman, Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas, Les Clark and John Lounsbery, and now through January 7, 2019, they are given the spotlight at the Walt Disney Family Museum’s “Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men: Masters of Animation” exhibition. In conjunction with this show, Clements and Musker – acclaimed directors of many Disney classics, the latest being “Moana” – presented a talk titled “Nine Old Mentors: Ron Clements and John Musker’s Reflections.” They shared the way that the Nine influenced them as children, who did not know the names or the faces of the animators of beloved characters like Dopey and Jiminy Cricket, which impacted their anecdotes with their interactions with the Nine through the span of their adult lives and their careers.
At the age of 9, Clements was obsessed with “Pinocchio,” which established a long-lasting passion to learn everything about animation. This hunger for knowledge led him to Bob Thomas’ book, Art of Animation, where he learned many of the names of iconic and legendary animators. Clements animated and voiced a Sherlock Holmes short while in high school, which caught the attention of the animation studio Hanna-Barbera, who immediately hired him. However, his dream job remained to work for Disney. He called the Disney Studio personnel department every day, but was told that “Robin Hood” had just wrapped up and animators were being let go. Luckily, he read an article about Disney’s training program for animators and got in touch with Don Duckwall and Eric Larson, the people spearheading the project. Clements recognized Larson’s name from his beloved Bob Thomas book he read as a child. Disney hired Ron for 4 weeks, during which he could animate anything he wanted; if the review board liked his screen test, he would have another 4 weeks to show what he could do. He passed his 8 weeks and was hired by Disney; the unparalleled work he did as a trainee is still talked about today, and Frank Thomas handpicked him to be his mentee.
John Musker loved to draw since he was 8. Since his Jesuit school did not have art classes, he was self-taught and leaned towards caricatures and jokey social commentary pieces. After reading Diane Disney Miller’s account of her dad as told to Pete Martin, John became interested in Disney. While he was an English major at Northwestern University, Musker read Christopher Finch’s The Art of Walt Disney, which referenced the Disney training program for young animators. This program piqued his interest and decided to apply. Animal drawings were required for the application, but it was winter and too cold to sketch at the zoo, so John went to a museum that had taxidermied animals. Disney rejected his entry saying his animal drawings were “stiff,” to which John now responds, “They weren’t stiff, they were stuffed!” However, shortly after his rejection he received another letter from Disney suggesting that he apply for the newly developed Animation program at CalArts, taught by Chouinard Art Institute alumni, including Bill Moore who taught Color and Design, and former Disney Studio artists, such as Elmer Plummer who did the mushroom sequence in “Fantasia” and taught Life Drawing. He submitted the same portfolio and was accepted into the program. When he arrived at the Animation program at CalArts, he said it was like a lost tribe had found each other. Some of his classmates at CalArts were Brad Bird, John Lasseter and Tim Burton. Musker’s character test of a film-noir Lauren Bacall-type walking into a bar was shown to the review board, which included Woolie Reitherman, and landed him a summer internship at Disney. Marc Davis taught a class at CalArts that Musker benefited from, but Marc was working for Walt Disney Imagineering at that point and no longer animating.
Musker said he owes Eric Larson everything. There was a point where Musker was on the verge of getting the boot from Disney because his work was not what they wanted, but Eric pleaded to give him another chance. Eric believed that observation was key in animation, and he observed Musker had an unbelievable amount of talent. Both Musker and Clements talked about Eric’s use of arcs, and how he used the smallest details – like a character’s nose – to point in the direction that he wanted the eye to go. He was able to infuse life and convey the essence of a character into simple drawings. He captured not just emotion, but also the inner workings of a character’s head; Figaro in “Pinocchio” is a perfect example of this. He taught Musker about weight and volume, and how shapes change; he used the example of a bow on top of a head, and how it should fall back and not show, or tip towards the front depending on the position of the head. Musker marveled at how, despite his quiet demeanor, Eric animated the sultry Peg singing “He’s a Tramp.”
The first Disney project Clements worked on was “Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too,” directed by John Lounsbery, the youngest of the Nine. Among his notable work, Lounsbery animated Tony and Joe from “Lady and the Tramp,” the “Fantasia” alligators and the wolf from “Peter and the Wolf.” Lounsbery co-directed “The Rescuers,” but died before the movie was completed. Musker never had the opportunity to meet him, but credits his style of cartoony characters with depth as the inspiration for Clements’s and Musker’s “The Princess and the Frog.” By the time Clements and Musker arrived at Disney, Les Clark had retired, so they unfortunately never had the chance to meet him.
Musker and Clements recalled that Woolie Reitherman, who did the T-Rex scene in “Fantasia,” and the Headless Horseman, wanted everything to be right. His drawings would be wrinkled from erasing and being over-worked. If he liked someone, he wanted them to be in every movie; for instance, he loved Phil Harris, the voice of Baloo, so used him in “The Aristocats” and “Robin Hood.” Woolie said “The Fox and the Hound” needed more pep, so he came up with an idea to have Phil and Charo be flamingos doing a disco dance. Charo did a live action test of the scene decked in pink feathers, but the scene did not make the cut. Milt Kahl, who was cantankerous and always upset about something, expressed his displeasure over too much Phil Harris. Milt would pop into Frank Thomas’ office some 20 years after the fact, lamenting how he had to draw Peter Pan and Wendy, but what he would have given to draw Hook! Milt never mentored (but did respond to a 13 year old Brad Bird who sent him his animated film), but the passion he instilled through the staging, timing, shapes and sensitivity found in his draftsmanship was legendary. People would dig through his trash to fish out his drawing drafts and thumbnails because they were effectively considered art.
Having come from Hanna-Barbera, Clements felt that Disney’s culture of a low-key, easy going vibe set them apart. One day he was at the soda machine having a conversation with a laid-back guy he thought was there to service the machine. As it turns out, it was Ollie Johnston! Ollie was the fastest of the Nine – he made animation seem easy, and got so much done that his work usually got the most amount of screen time in the finished product. During “The Rescuers,” one woman took home part of the finale to finish, but left it on top of her car by mistake. She had to tell Ollie that all of their work had been lost, expecting the absolute worst, but he handled it with surprisingly well, and simply redid the scene. At one point, Brad Bird and Musker came across Ollie giving Eva Gabor (the voice of Miss Bianca) a tour of the Animation building; Eva said to them she would “give anything to be in your shoes,” so Brad took off his shoes and handed them to her. His gesture was met with dead silence, and Ollie whisked Eva away to continue their tour before Brad said anything else. During the talk, Musker showed an interesting slide of storyboards that he and Brad Bird did of “The Spirit,” based on Will Eisner’s comic, that Brad Bird dreamed of making into an animated film; they used Eric Larson’s likeness as the owner of the jewelry store.
Chuck Jones called Frank Thomas “the Laurence Olivier of animators.” He was able to capture a character’s action and get a complete performance. Some of his most well known works are Mickey in “The Brave Little Tailor,” Baloo and Mowgli, Captain Hook and Ichabod Crane. He taught his trainees how to prevent static characters by using their whole body to convey attitude. Where Ollie Johnston made animation look easy, Frank made it look hard because he tried to capture emotion and also make the characters believable, and would do everything he could to accomplish that. When Walt looked at the “Lady and the Tramp” storyboards and said the spaghetti scene was not going to work, Frank worked on it until he convinced Walt that it would. After Frank and Ollie retired, Musker and Clements continued to show them their work and ask for feedback. On “The Little Mermaid,” Frank and Ollie suggested utilizing more of Prince Eric’s dog, Max, to help keep the story in motion.
Musker and Clements talked about the genius – Walt Disney’s – words of Ward Kimball, who delighted in creating mischief via Lucifer, Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and the Three Caballeros. When referencing a scene from “Cinderella,” Ward noted, “This is the point the stooge walks in” – Musker believes the stooge he was talking about was Cinderella, whom Ward saw as a necessary evil in order to get to the fun characters. Besides his glorious madcap characters, he also captured everyone’s hearts with Jiminy Cricket, which was a huge feat since Ward wasn’t known for being warm and fuzzy; in fact, he once told trainees, “Walt’s dead and you missed it!” When the production of “The Black Cauldron” was causing everyone a big headache, Musker confided in Ward that he had no conviction in the project. Ward reminded Musker of the importance of putting your heart into whatever you are doing.
Clements joked about how when he started working for Disney at the age of 20, he thought that his mentor, who was 62, was old. Clements, going on 45 years with Disney, is now 65 with still more stories to tell. Musker retired after 41 years with Disney, but is working on a hand-drawn short, doing the storyboards and animation himself.
The Nine Old Men exhibition features a quote from Eric Larson showing that he felt similarly about his time at the Studio: “Everybody worked over everybody else’s shoulder and in everybody’s lap. Everybody was willing to share the knowledge they had, given without any petty feelings of superiority.” Lucky for us, the collaborative spirit of Disney animators continues, and the works of the masters remain for future generations to be inspired by their talents.
The Nine Old Men exhibit will remain open to guests at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco through January 7th, 2019.