Happy 100th Birthday, Ollie Johnston

When I think about Ollie, certain things come to mind:Many great conversations, stimulating inspiration and my sincere admiration for him and his art.Ollie's animation touched so many of us. Pinocchio, Bambi, Alice, Mr. Smee, the dogs from Lady & the Tramp, the Three Fairies in Sleeping Beauty, Pongo & Perdi, Archimedes, Baloo & Mowgli, Duchesse & the Kittens, Prince John & Sir Hiss, Penny & Rufus and many short films. For...

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More Robin Hood

Those two excited gentlemen in the photo are Phil Harris who voiced Little John in the movie and Andy Devine who did Friar Tuck.Only Robin Hood seems less interested in the storyboards, he is still hoping for story fixes.Milt Kahl revisited all the design work that had been done on the title character, and he started animating production scenes such as the one below, in which Robin is putting on his gipsy outfit.John Lounsbery, too, was busy with...

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Early Robin Hood

What a beautiful character line up for a Disney animated feature!This is how Ken Anderson envisioned the cast for Robin Hood. Nice contrasting shapes and silhouettes  make for a visually pleasing set up.Although the one character who doesn't seem to represent his animal type clearly would be the Sheriff of Nottingham as a wolf. More on him in a future post.Robin Hood himself is of course a caricatured fox, drawn here with a thin neck and with...

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Crocodile Announcer

I don't have any of Ken Anderson's sketches depicting this character from Robin Hood, but there is no doubt that Milt Kahl's final design is based on Ken's.The crocodile's role in the film is very limited, he announces the archery tournament and is a little involved in the fight that follows. Most scenes were animated by Art Stevens. The character's voice is provided by Candy Candido, a Disney veteran, who had lent his talents to the Indian...

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Ken Anderson's Robin Hood

When Walt Disney Productions decided to produce an animated film based on the classic tale of Robin Hood, it was Ken Anderson who who got to get to work before anyone else.During conversations with the animators Ken found out that some of the most fun they ever had was animating the anthropomorphic animals in Song of the South.So he suggested that the story of Robin Hood be told with animal characters. Everybody loved the idea and after completing...

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Mama Odie Maquette

As supervising animators at Disney we got to keep our character's maquettes.They were produced by very talented sculptors and were meant to help with drawing problems and to keep the character on model throughout the film. Sometimes though these mini sculptures arrived somewhat late in production, but even then It was always fun to see your character in three dimensions.Over the years I accumulated quite a few of these, the only one that's missing...

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