Here's another in our series of reminiscent animation articles by former Disney artist, and New Yorker cartoonist, I. KLEIN.
At the time I joined the Walt Disney Studio’s animation staff 1 was completely unaware that a feature cartoon, “SNOW WHITE” was in the early stages of production at this studio. I had been in Hollywood for about fourteen months animating at Columbia Pictures’ “Screen Gems” before 1 was engaged by Walt Disney. My wife Ann and I saw a lot of two top Disney men, Ted Sears and Bill Tytla. They were frequent guests at our home. They never said a word to indicate that the studio was producing or working on any other films beyond “Mickey Mouse” and “Silly Symphonies”.
Even Walt Disney with whom I spent almost an hour at the time he engaged me to work on his staff, did not let-on that a major cartoon production was in progress. So it followed that 1 had many interesting surprises coming my way. This was in the Spring of 1936.
When 1 reported at the studio on that Spring morning, 1 filled out some forms of vital statistics. 1 was then moved on to the room of the director who would start me going. Wilfred Jackson was his name. My first assignment was some sequences of animation on “TOBEY TORTOISE RETURNS”, a Silly Symphony. But he did not just hand the material to me with a brief .. “Here it is, now you’re on your own.” No. First he chatted, asked friendly questions ... a sort of get-acquainted thing. Then he went into considerable details on the scenes and the timing of the “exposure sheets”. Never a mention of “Snow White” at this session.
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