Ken Peterson: I mention the strike because you know I was involved in that.
Bob Thomas: That is what I would like to talk to you about. I don’t have a great deal of research on the strike. I have heard conflicting things. That Gunther Lessing fouled it up.
KP: He didn’t help it much. The first seeds of the strike were sown by the Penthouse Club. That was the dividing line. In Hyperion they were all one happy family. Even though some of the guys were making $300 a week and deserved every dime of it, we were all there hoping to be animators. It was a wonderful time. People coming from all over. They were funny guys. They were offbeat. It was lots of fun. We would eat our lunch on the board practically, and then go out and play touch football in Griffith Park at noon hour. We were all young. It was great. There wasn’t anybody that you couldn’t go to and ask for help. It didn’t matter if it was a top animator or what. It was just one big happy family. Even though there were different salaries, nobody really worried about that. We all figured “we are learning something”, and it was true. Anyway, when Snow White came out in 1937 at Christmas it was reported to have made something like eight million. I don’t know how much, but it was a lot of money in those days.
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