The War Years
Noble's war years were spent in the Army Photographic Signal Corp. He joined at the request of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Part of the time he traveled to different bases and helped present showings of films produced for soldiers by Colonel Frank Capra. Eventually he was transferred to Capra's command at Fort Fox in Los Angeles. He was assigned to the film unit headed by Major Theodore Geisel, a man known to his readers as Dr. Seuss. There were about 12 men in the unit. "We turned out propaganda booklets, health things, VD posters, `don't trust the enemy' type posters, maps for Capra's films, and the Snafu cartoons."

When Noble was asked to describe Geisel he replied, "He was very neat, slender, beady-eyed and wore his hair quite closely cropped." I then asked if he was a funny person and the response was, "Oh no! Ted was never a funny person. There were no yuck yuck yucks to this guy. He was all business. He had a sense of humor and a keen sense of story as demonstrated in his children's books, but he struck me as a rather serious person. I knew him for many years and worked with him on a good number of his pictures."

He continues, "In later years when I worked with him he was always well-dressed, polished shoes, cashmere sweaters, and stuff like that. I would say that he was a very reserved person, not much laughter. As a matter of fact I can't ever remember hearing Ted laugh. Of course, we were dealing with the serious business of story and picture development. He was a perfectionist. Every drawing, every bit of dialog had to be just right. I appreciated that because I'm a little bit that way myself." Noble is glad to have had the privilege of working with Ted over the years.

At Ted Geisel's memorial service his doctor told Noble that Ted really loved How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1966), especially his work on it. Noble said, "he never mentioned it while he was alive."The compliment meant a lot to him as he considers the television special one of his best works. He was glad finally to learn the author shared this opinion.

When Noble got out of the Army, he didn't have a job. He lived at home with his mother and took whatever freelance work was available. Eventually, he took a full-time job in St. Louis working for a company doing film strips for the Lutheran Church and other clients. When Warner Bros. contacted him in 1952 and asked if he wanted to do layouts for Chuck Jones, he happily returned to Hollywood.

Maurice barely knew Chuck Jones during WWII. They had met briefly when he visited Warner Bros. on official business. The Snafu cartoons were written and storyboarded at Fort Fox and then the materials were sent to Warner Bros. to be produced. Jones was one of the directors working on the Snafu cartoon series that was being made for the guys in the Army.

In the 1960s, Noble worked at MGM with Chuck Jones on How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Photo courtesy of and © MGM Home Entertainment.

The Chuck Jones Era Begins
When Noble joined Chuck Jones' unit, "it was a very hectic period. I had never laid out a picture in my life. When you go into a new place you don't want to display your ignorance so I just had to figure things out. I looked around and saw what everybody was doing." He had to learn how they used exposure sheets at Warners, all of their technical vocabulary, etc. "Little by little I taught myself how to do layouts." He adds that he was very fortunate to work at Warners with a lot of people who helped him develop his skills, including background artist Phil DeGuard, and animators Benny Washam and Ken Harris.