The Animated Man (73 page)

111
. Kimball, interview, June 6, 1969; Kimball, 1976 interview.

112
. Van Kaufman, interview, February 23, 1991; Hawley Pratt, interview with Gray, December 15, 1977.

113
. Barks to author, May 8, 1975.

114
. Jim Korkis, “Jack Hannah, Another Interview,”
Animania
23 (March 5, 1982): 19.

115
. Testimony of Walter Elias Disney, NLRB/Babbitt, 942.

116
. Robert Benchley to Gertrude Darling Benchley, November 3, 1940, Robert Benchley Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.

117
.
Pinocchio
story meeting notes, Boobyland and escape, December 8, 1938, WDA.

118
. “Theatre Taken Here for Disney ‘Fantasia,' ”
New York Times
, September 25, 1940, 35.

119
. Franz Hoellering, “Films,”
Nation
, November 23, 1940, 513.

120
. Hermine Rich Isaacs, “New Horizons:
Fantasia
and Fantasound,”
Theatre Arts
, January 1941, 58.

121
. Walt Disney Productions, 1941 annual report, 13, Baker.

122
. Walt Disney, “Growing Pains,” 39.

123
. Herb Lamb to Walt Disney, memorandum, February 8, 1941, WDA.

124
.
Fantasia
sequel story meeting notes, January 27, 1941, WDA.

125
.
Invitation to the Dance
story meeting notes, April 24, 1941, WDA.

126
. Walt Disney to George J. Schaefer, March 27, 1941, WDA.
The Hound of Florence
was the source of
The Shaggy Dog
, a Disney live-action comedy made almost twenty years later.

127
. 13 NLRB 873, 875.

128
. Johnston, interview with Bob Thomas, May 17, 1973, WDA; Hannah, 1976 interview.

129
. Legg, December 1976 interview.

130
. Legg, March 1976 interview.

131
. Hal Adelquist to Walt Disney, memorandum, December 23, 1940, WDA. The first members of the animation board were Eric Larson, Fred Moore, Ward Kimball, Dick Lundy, Charles Nichols, John Lounsbery, Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, and Norm Ferguson.

132
. Lundy, interview with Gray, December 5, 1977.

133
. Douglas W. Churchill, “Disney's ‘Philosophy,' ” 23.

134
. Kimball, 1976 interview.

135
. The union was variously known in its early days as the Screen Cartoonists Guild and the Screen Cartoon Guild.

136
. Testimony by Arthur Babbitt, 125, NLRB/Babbitt.

137
. Babbitt exhibit F, NLRB/Babbitt.

138
. Babbitt, 1973 interview.

139
. Babbitt exhibit F.

CHAPTER 6
“A Queer, Quick, Delightful Gink”

1
. Lessing exhibit 23A, 943–45, NLRB/Babbitt.

2
. Lessing exhibit 23, NLRB/Babbitt.

3
. Testimony by Hal Adelquist, 903, NLRB/Babbitt.

4
. “Who Started the Guild?” CSUN/SCG.

5
. Lessing exhibit 23.

6
. Bradbury interview.

7
.
The Exposure Sheet
(newsletter of the Disney unit of the Screen Cartoonists Guild), undated but published late in February 1941, reported that Babbitt was elected chairman at the February 18 meeting, AC. Babbitt's own testimony in his NLRB case placed his election in March, however.

8
. House Committee on Un-American Activities,
Hearings Regarding the Communist Infiltration of the Motion Picture Industry
, 80th Congress, 1st sess., 1947, 284. Disney testified on October 24, 1947.

9
. Walt Disney to Bosustow, memorandum, May 20, 1941, SB; Bosustow interview.

10
. Lessing exhibit 23A, NLRB/Babbitt; Hilberman, 1976 interview.

11
. Adelquist exhibit 12B, NLRB/Babbitt.

12
. Lessing exhibit 23.

13
. Hilberman, 1976 interview.

14
. Jack Boyd, interview with Gray, March 14, 1977.

15
. Thomas Brady, “Whimsy on Strike,”
New York Times
, June 29, 1941, sec. 9, 3; Babbitt, 1973 interview.

16
. Preston Blair to author, October 3, 1978.

17
. Schaefer to N. Peter Rathvon, June 27, 1941, RKO.

18
. Arthur W. Kelly to E. C. Raftery, June 24, 1941, Wisconsin/UA.

19
. Testimony by Phyllis Lambertson, 364, NLRB/Babbitt.

20
. George Morris to Roy Disney, memorandum, October 16, 1941, WDA.

21
. “Disney Strike Washup Near,”
Daily Variety
, July 1, 1941, 1.

22
. “AF of L Quits Disney Strikers,”
Daily Variety
, July 9, 1941, 1.

23
. Roy Disney, June 1968 interview.

24
. Hilberman, interview, November 24, 1986.

25
. Stanley White to J. R. Steelman, telegram, July 4, 1941, Case File 196/2188, Subject and Dispute Files, records of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, Record Group 280, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Other documents related to the Disney strike—including the arbitrators' “final report”—are part of the same file.

26
. “Disney Strikers Return to Jobs,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 30, 1941.

27
. “Disney Closed Shop Okayed,”
Daily Variety
, July 31, 1941, 1.

28
. Harry Teitel to Walt Disney, memorandum, October 14, 1941, WDA. Teitel later changed the spelling of his name to Tytle.

29
. Hilberman, 1976 interview.

30
. Testimony by Adelquist, 893, NLRB/Babbitt.

31
. Walt Disney to Westbrook Pegler, August 11, 1941, WDA.

32
. Roy Disney to Walt Disney, memorandum, “Visit of Jock Whitney,” October 31, 1940, WDA.

33
. Roy Disney to Francis Alstock, June 9, 1941, RAC.

34
. Roy Disney, memorandum, “South American Short Subjects,” October 7, 1941, WDA.

35
. “Report on the Walt Disney South American Field Survey,” records of the Department of Information, Motion Picture Division, Office of Inter-American Affairs, Record Group 229, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as Department of Information records).

36
. Alstock to Nelson A. Rockefeller, memorandum, “Report of John Hay Whitney from Rio de Janeiro, August 29, 1941,” September 8, 1941, RAC.

37
. “Report on the Walt Disney South American Field Survey.”

38
. “Pollen Man,”
New Yorker
, November 1, 1941, 14–15.

39
. 1940 annual report, 4.

40
. As reflected in Disney's remarks in the
Bambi
story meeting notes from February 27, 1940, WDA.

41
. George Morris to Roy Disney, memorandum, “Resume of Events,” October 16, 1941, WDA.

42
. March 29, 1947, balance sheet. The Walt Disney Company's more recent negative-cost figure is more than $25,000 higher, perhaps reflecting costs related to early reissues.

43
. Huemer, 1973 interview.

44
. Thomas and Johnston,
The Illusion of Life
, 94–95.

45
. Larson interview.

46
. Thomas and Johnston,
Illusion of Life
, 475.

47
. “Mammal of the Year,”
Time
, December 29, 1941, 27.

48
. Adelquist exhibit 9, NLRB/Babbitt. Luske was briefly classified as an animator after the strike, although he had directed parts of
Pinocchio
and
The Reluctant Dragon
. Tytla quit the Disney staff in February, 1943.

49
. Frank Tashlin, in a December 4, 1939, letter to Fred Niemann, FN; Tashlin wrote that Disney had given him “a feature to do—with Mickey, Donald, and Goofy in it—I'm writing the screen adaptation now—am working for Walt directly with no in between bosses.” His involvement receded rapidly over the next six months, as other writers prepared storyboards for different sequences.

50
.
Bambi
story meeting notes, February 27, 1940, WDA.

51
.
Alice in Wonderland
meeting notes, April 2, 1940, WDA.

52
. “Jack and the Beanstalk” story meeting notes, May 14, 1940, WDA.

53
. March 29, 1947, balance sheet.

54
. March 29, 1947, balance sheet. The Walt Disney Company's more recent negative-cost figure for
Bambi
is about $40,000 higher, perhaps reflecting costs related to early reissues.

55
. Roy Disney to Walt Disney, memorandum, “Studio Situation,” October 18, 1941, WDA.

56
. Walt Disney to Jackson, memorandum, March 3, 1941, WDA.

57
. Testimony by Arthur Babbitt, 153–55, NLRB/Babbitt. This episode, which Babbitt placed around April 15, 1941, is curiously similar to a presumably different incident that he described in a personal letter written more than six months earlier; internal references suggest that it was written in late September 1940. “A month ago,” Babbitt wrote, “I tried to get a raise for a chap doing inbetweens for me. He was as capable and as speedy as any of the other boys—but still was receiving $18.00 a week—same as he had been paid in the traffic dept. Knowing full well that the ‘proper officials' wouldn't do a damn thing—I wrote a note to Walt asking him to consider this particular case and if necessary set aside his rules about raises. He called me on the phone and for ten minutes blistered my ears. It seems that I don't mind my own business, that I'm a ‘Bolshevik in a corner uninformed about the rest of the studio'—a ‘sourpuss with a chip on my shoulder' and ‘someday someone would knock the chip off and me out from under it' and on and on. I won't go into details but I had the doubtful pleasure of telling Mr. Disney what I've wanted to say for years—fully expecting to get fired for it. But instead of getting angrier—he started to laugh and assured me many times that there were no hard feelings and that he was glad I had brought the matter to his attention. Still reeling from all the unexpected turns my little note had brought about I sat down for a breather—when his secretary came down to tell me—that ‘I don't know what you said to Walt—but when he finished talking with you—he called Herb Lamb and Hal Adelquist [two Disney executives concerned with personnel and financial matters] and gave them hell about something.' It seems that not only my inbetweener but 12 more got $4.00 raises. You try to figure it out. Walt has smiled charmingly at me ever since but nary a word has been mentioned—maybe
I'm
crazy.” Babbitt to Robert Durant Feild, Feild Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

58
. Testimony by Babbitt, 159, NLRB/Babbitt.

59
. Testimony by Babbitt, 201, NLRB/Babbitt.

60
. Babbitt to Feild, undated letter written in late fall of 1942, Feild Papers.

61
. Roy Disney, 1967 interview.

62
. “Production Shift at Disney Plant Lays Off 200,”
Daily Variety
, November 25, 1941, 6.

63
. “Disney Turns Over Studio Bldg. to Army Detachment,”
Variety
, December 17, 1941, 145.

64
. Dick Pfahler to “Those Listed,” memorandum, July 29, 1941; Carl Nater to “Those Concerned,” memorandum, January 22, 1942, WDA.

65
. Robert Perine,
Chouinard: An Art Vision Betrayed
(Encinitas, 1985), 99.

66
. “Walt Disney Weeps as He Gets Oscar,”
Daily Variety
, February 27, 1942, AMPAS.

67
. J. R. Josephs, Motion Picture Sub-Committee, to Coordination Committee for Mr. Francis Alstock, memorandum, “Argentine Opening of Walt Disney's
Saludo,”
Department of Information records.

68
. March 29, 1947, balance sheet.

69
. “Walt Disney: Great Teacher,”
Fortune
, August 1942, 156; “Walt Disney Goes to War,”
Life
, August 31, 1942, 61.

70
. As reported in
Dispatch from Disney's
, a booklet intended for former Disney staff members in the armed services and published in June 1943.

71
. Herbert Ryman, as interviewed by Robin Allan on July 7, 1985, in Didier Ghez, ed.,
Walt's People: Talking Disney with the Artists Who Knew Him
(2006), 2:199.

72
. March 29, 1947, balance sheet.

73
. Joe Grant, interview, December 6, 1986. Grant's comparison actually fits George Pullman better than Henry Ford.

74
. David Culbert, “ ‘A Quick, Delightful Gink': Eric Knight at the Walt Disney Studio,”
Funnyworld
19 (Fall 1978): 13.

75
. Johnston to author, August 8, 1977.

76
. “Corn & Corn Products” and “The Soy Bean,” story meeting notes, April 15, 1942, WDA.

77
. Production Management to “Those Concerned,” memorandum, Prod. 2016, June 9, 1942, AC. This memorandum reported that story work had been authorized on June 5, 1942, for the interstitial material in the second Latin American compilation feature.

78
. Alstock to Roy O. Disney, December 8, 1942, Department of Information records.

79
. From a translation of an article in
Poblicaciòn
, February 1943, Department of Information records.

80
. Edwin Schallert, “Busy Future Outlined by Disney as Mickey Mouse Turns 25 Years,”
Los Angeles Times
, February 22, 1953, AMPAS.

81
. Roy Disney, June 1968 interview. For a brief summary of how Eyssel made his way from Kansas City to New York, see David Loth,
The City Within a City: The Romance of Rockefeller Center
(New York, 1966), 84.