Ub Iwerks was known at Disney for his animation genius, his technical wizardry and his unusual name. In February 1929, Walt Disney and his New York distributors were extremely pleased with Ub’s animation on the Mickey Mouse cartoons, about which Walt wrote a letter to his wife, Lilly: "Everyone praises Ubb’s (his name was later shortened to “Ub”) artwork and jokes at his funny name," wrote Walt. “The oddness of Ubb’s name is an asset — it makes people look twice when they see it. Tell Ubb that the New York animators take off their hats to his animation…”
As an animator, Ub worked at record-breaking speed. He animated the first Mickey Mouse silent cartoon, “Plane Crazy,” entirely by himself within a three-week period, completing as many as 700 drawings a day. (Today, the average animator produces 80 to 100 drawings a week.)
Later, as a technical magician, Ub invented technology that would revolutionize feature animation, including the multihead optical printer, used in… read more
Ub Iwerks was known at Disney for his animation genius, his technical wizardry and his unusual name. In February 1929, Walt Disney and his New York distributors were extremely pleased with Ub’s animation on the Mickey Mouse cartoons, about which Walt wrote a letter to his wife, Lilly: "Everyone praises Ubb’s (his name was later shortened to “Ub”) artwork and jokes at his funny name," wrote Walt. “The oddness of Ubb’s name is an asset — it makes people look twice when they see it. Tell Ubb that the New York animators take off their hats to his animation…”
As an animator, Ub worked at record-breaking speed. He animated the first Mickey Mouse silent cartoon, “Plane Crazy,” entirely by himself within a three-week period, completing as many as 700 drawings a day. (Today, the average animator produces 80 to 100 drawings a week.)
Later, as a technical magician, Ub invented technology that would revolutionize feature animation, including the multihead optical printer, used in the combination of live action and animation in “Melody Time” and “Song of the South.” He, later, won two Academy Awards for designing an improved optical printer and for collaborating on the perfection of color traveling matte photography. It was primarily due to Ub that the Disney Studio moved to the forefront in photographic effects.
Born to Dutch-American parents on March 24, 1901, in Kansas City, Missouri, Ub the way, he met Walt Disney at Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio, where they were employed. Both were 19, when they were laid off and decided to open their own business called Iwerks-Disney Studio Commercial Artists (renamed from Disney-Iwerks, which had sounded like an eyeglass manufacturer). The enterprise, however, only lasted a month before they were both offered jobs at the Kansas City Slide Company.
In 1922, when Walt formed Laugh-O-gram Films, Ub joined him as chief animator. The Studio went bankrupt, however, and two years later, Ub followed Walt to Hollywood, where he joined the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio to help produce the “Alice Comedies” series. Ub is also credited with sketching Mickey Mouse for the first time (while Walt shaped Mickey’s personality) and served as chief directing animator for the “Silly Symphony” series before branching out on his own in 1930.
After ten years, Ub returned to the Studio, where he focused on technical development. Later, during the 1960s, he contributed his genius to developing Disney theme park attractions, including It’s a Small World, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and the Hall of Presidents.
Ub Iwerks died in Los Angeles July 7, 1971. —Disney Legends
