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[Didier Ghez] initially interviewed Tad Stones thinking [they] would talk mostly about concept artists Mel Shaw and Ken Anderson, with whom he had worked in the early 1970s. But [Didier] quickly realized that Tad’s career itself was truly fascinating.

Didier Ghez: The first time you worked with Mel Shaw was on The Fox and the Hound, right?

Tad Stones: Yes. I did not get a story credit on that movie. That was before everybody got credits, sadly for me. Plus, the work I did was when Woolie Reitherman was directing the movie. He then left and was replaced by Ted Berman, Art Stevens, and Rick Rich. When they took over, I was over at Imagineering at that time, so I think it was kind of an out-of-sight, out-ofmind thing. Mel generally worked in pastels and I storyboarded a sequence of the hunter and Copper setting traps. I was trying to work in pastels, too, and then Mel would come in and show me tricks and would actually draw on my drawings, which not only improved them, but to a person just kind of casually glancing at them, made them look more like his stuff. I think that was part of the thing about me not getting credit: I wasn’t there to say, “No, no, I did that!”

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