Fantasia

Director, writer, producer and narrator James “Jim” Algar loved the action and adventure associated with creating Disney’s nature and animal pictures. While directing the True-Life Adventure “The African Lion” in 1955, he lived among the lions of Kenya and while producing the feature “Ten Who Dared” in 1960, he challenged the raging white water rapids of the Colorado River.

Among the many hats he wore, however, the most important was that of storyteller. Jim penned five Academy Award-winning motion pictures for Disney, including “Nature’s Half Acre,” “The Living Desert” and “The Vanishing Prairie.”

As vice chairman of The Walt Disney Company Roy E. Disney once recalled, “Jim was a great storyteller, who made invaluable contributions to our animated classics, theme parks and especially, our nature films. He added tremendously to the Studio’s reputation for superior storytelling.”

Born June 11, 1912, in Modesto, California, Jim attended Stanford University, where he served as editor of the campus humor magazine, “The Chaparral.” He frequently drew cartoons for the magazine and soon developed an interest in animation and in 1934, after receiving his master’s degree in journalism, joined The Walt Disney Studios as an animator on “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

Walt Disney noted Jim’s talents and tapped the artist to direct the Mickey Mouse short, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” which became the foundation of the 1940 animated classic “Fantasia.” Jim then went on to direct sequences in “Bambi,” as well as several wartime films produced by the Studio for the U.S. Armed Forces, including “Victory Through Air Power.” In 1949, he directed “The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.”

After the war, when Walt decided to produce live-action films about animals and nature, he asked Jim to direct the first True-Life Adventure, “Seal Island,” which won an Academy Award for 1948. Other Oscar-winning films he contributed to include “Beaver Valley,” “Bear Country,” “White Wilderness,” “The Alaskan Eskimo” and “Grand Canyon.”

Jim also worked on 26 one-hour episodes for “The Wonderful World of Disney” television series, producing 14 episodes and narrating several, including “Wild Geese Calling.” He also contributed to such memorable feature films as “The Legend of Lobo,” “The Incredible Journey” and “Rascal.”

Among his many theme park contributions, Jim wrote and produced “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” for the 1964 World’s Fair and later, Disneyland. He also wrote and produced several of the Circle Vision 360 productions, including “America the Beautiful,” as well as “The Hall of Presidents” attraction at Walt Disney World.

After 43 years with The Walt Disney Studios, Jim retired on October 31, 1977.

James Algar died February 26, 1998, in Carmel, California. —Disney Legends

Animator Norm Ferguson, affectionately called “Fergy” by his friends at The Walt Disney Studios, was never inhibited by anatomy and drawing rules. An instinctive artist, he drew what felt right, often surprising his peers with the unlikely results.

As animator Fred Moore once said, “Fergy doesn’t know that you can’t raise the eyebrows above the head circle, so he goes ahead and does it and it gives a great effect.”

Fellow Disney Legend Marc Davis summed up Fergy’s contributions when he said, “Norm Ferguson was a sharp performer and a showman.”

Fergy’s sense of showmanship stemmed from the old vaudeville comedians, who he loved to watch perform during his formative years in New York City. Their influence on him surfaced in the famous flypaper sequence, which Fergy animated in the 1934 Disney short “Playful Pluto.” The memorable 65-second sequence, which begins with Pluto sitting on a sheet of flypaper and leads to a string of hilarious gags as he attempts to free himself from the sticky predicament, marked the first time an animated character appeared to be thinking onscreen.

Born September 2, 1902, to a Scottish father and Irish mother, Fergy attended Brooklyn’s Heffley Institute, a stenography and typing school, followed by the Pratt Institute, where he studied commercial art. In 1920, after working various stenographic jobs, he decided to pursue a career in the up-and-coming animation medium and quickly won a job at Paul Terry’s Fables Pictures Inc.

Nine years later, he left Fables to join The Walt Disney Studios, where he served as animator on more than 75 shorts, including “The Chain Gang,” “Mickey’s Orphans,” and the Academy Award®-winning “Three Little Pigs.” Fergy was fast with his pencil, cranking out up to 40 feet worth of animation a day, when the average was 10 to 15 feet, according to Disney historian Bob Thomas.

In 1935, he was tapped by Walt Disney to serve as supervising animator on the Studio’s most prestigious film, notably his first full-length animated feature “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” In that film, Fergy supervised animation of the first of the great Disney villains – the evil witch in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” followed by the unsavory J. Worthington Foulfellow in “Pinocchio.”

Fergy then went on to serve as sequence director on such classics as “Fantasia” and “Dumbo;” production supervisor on “Saludos Amigos;” production supervisor and director on “The Three Caballeros;” and directing animator on “Cinderella,” “Alice in Wonderland,” and “Peter Pan.” In 1941, Fergy made a cameo appearance in Disney’s “The Reluctant Dragon,” starring Robert Benchley.

On November 2, 1957, Norm Ferguson died in Los Angeles. —Disney Legends

“T.” (Thornton) Hee (March 1911 – 30 October 1988) was an American animator, director, and teacher. He taught character design and caricature. He is always credited as T. Hee.

Hee worked at Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1935-36 as a character designer. He designed many of the celebrity caricatures used in The Coo Coo Nut Grove (1936) and The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos (1937). A 1936 Christmas card that he drew, featuring caricatures of the Schlesinger animators, was used to design the gremlins in the 1944 animated short Russian Rhapsody.

Hee joined The Walt Disney Company around 1937. He is most recognized for directing the Dance of the Hours segment of Fantasia. He left after the strike, but returned to work there twice, from 1940 to 1946, and again from 1958 to 1961. Hee also worked for United Productions of America (1951 to 1958) and Terrytoons (1961 to 1963).

Hee was one of the co-founders, along with Jack Hannah, of the Character Animation program at the California Institute of the Arts. He later served as chairman of the Film Arts Department.

Hee provided the illustrations used during the opening credits of The Life Of Riley television show of the 1950s. —Wikipedia

Walt Disney first came to rely upon Wilfred Jackson’s genius and sense of perfection, the year Mickey Mouse was born, 1928. At that time, Walt had conceived the notion of marrying music and animation during what was the age of silent movies. Then a new kid in the Studio’s animation department, Wilfred devised a method of synchronizing animation with music, by using a metronome to mark time that could then be converted to a music track. The innovation, which was featured in Mickey Mouse’s debut film “Steamboat Willie,” revolutionized the entertainment medium and competing studios spent more than a year trying to figure out Disney’s production “secret.”

Walt quickly promoted “Jaxon,” as he was called, from animator to director. And as Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston wrote in their book, “Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life,” — "Jaxon was easily the most creative of the directors, but he was also the most “picky” and took a lot of kidding about his thoroughness."

Born in Chicago, January 24, 1906, Jaxon attended Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, beginning in 1925. Three years later, just before Charlie Mintz had stolen Disney’s Oswald the Lucky Rabbit character, he began hanging around The Walt Disney Studios. It was a poor time to ask for a job, but he volunteered to wash cels and assist animators until one day, he found himself holding a paycheck. He later said, “I’m the only guy [at Disney] who was never hired.”

He quickly moved up the ranks to animator, contributing to the “Silly Symphony” shorts. After “Steamboat Willie,” Jaxon went on to direct 35 shorts, three of which won Academy Awards®: “The Tortoise and The Hare,” “The Country Cousin,” and “The Old Mill.” Probably the greatest example of his skill in developing action to music, however, was “The Band Concert” starring Mickey Mouse.

Jaxon also applied his talent to 11 animated features including, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Pinocchio,” “Dumbo,” “Saludos Amigos,” “Melody Time,” “Cinderella,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Peter Pan,” and “Lady and the Tramp.” He directed such memorable sequences as “The Night on Bald Mountain” in “Fantasia,” and all cartoon and combination live-action footage in “Song of the South.” During the war years, he also produced and directed government films for the U.S. Navy.

In 1954, as Walt entered the new television medium, he asked Jaxon to produce and direct animated shows on the “Disneyland” series. During the next four years, he directed 13 shows, including “The Story of the Animated Drawing.” After nearly 35 years with The Walt Disney Studios, Jaxon retired in 1961.

Wilfred Jackson died August 7, 1988 in Newport Beach, California. —Disney Legends

Ham Luske, a business major, with no formal art education, was the first animator cast by Walt Disney on his daring new project, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” the Studio’s first full-length animated feature film. In a memo dated late 1935, Walt wrote, “From now on Ham Luske is definitely assigned to Snow White.”

As the film’s supervising animator, Ham was responsible for the most difficult character of all – Snow White. The audience had to believe in her for the picture to be a success, which led to the use of such groundbreaking techniques as live-action reference films. Ham adeptly directed live-action model (actress Margie Bell) on film, which artists then referred to as they brought the character to life.

Animator and fellow Disney Legend Ollie Johnston recalled, “Ham’s careful planning and shooting of the live-action footage, always with the idea in mind of how it would be used in animation, resulted in a very convincing character.” So much so that Snow White was a box-office smash that forever changed the face of animation.

Born Hamilton S. Luske, in Chicago on October 16, 1903, he earned his degree from the University of California at Berkeley. An innately gifted artist, Ham’s first professional job was as a cartoonist for the Oakland Post-Inquirer.

In 1931, he joined The Walt Disney Studios, animating animals for the early Mickey Mouse short “The Barnyard Broadcast.” Three years later, he significantly advanced the art of personality animation with his portrayal of Max Hare in the 1935 Academy Award®-winning “Silly Symphony,” “The Tortoise and the Hare,” and Jenny Wren in “Who Killed Cock Robin?” Film star Mae West, who served as inspiration for Wren, was so impressed with the caricature’s performance that she wrote a letter to Walt complimenting him on the animation.

Ham’s ability to develop an easy-to-follow step-by-step system for planning a scene, made him a natural teacher of younger animators and under his guidance, many new artists were developed.

Then, after the success of “Snow White,” Ham’s career turned toward directing and during World War II, he directed government training films, such as “Weather At War,” and later, educational films, such as “Donald in Mathmagic Land.” He also served as supervising co-director on “Pinocchio” and sequence director on “Fantasia,” “Cinderella,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Peter Pan,” “Lady and the Tramp,” “101 Dalmatians” and the cartoon sequences featured in “Mary Poppins.”

Ham later moved into television, serving as associate producer and director on such series as “Disneyland,” “Walt Disney Presents” and “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.”

On February 18, 1968, Ham Luske died in Los Angeles, California. —Disney Legends