I love to see my name as director on the screen credits of my films, but I modestly refrained this time. I did not want my name on such a chopped down version of my script, even though, thanks to Born, the film looked amazingly good.

We actually managed to get it shot and out of the lab in time (without bribes, but with Zdenka's usual brand of irresistible-object techniques), and I arranged for my New York air ticket. I arrived with the rough answer print on June 29th. Snyder had already booked a small projection room in midtown Manhattan. After a quick test screening -- and Snyder was duly impressed -- I ran downstairs and stopped people on the sidewalk, asking them if they would like to see a preview of a new animated film, for only 10¢ admission. I handed each willing customer a dime, which they handed back. After the screening, the few, puzzled audience members were asked to sign a paper stating that on this day of June 31, 1966, they had paid admission to see the full-color animated film, The Hobbit.

Thus Snyder's film rights to the entire J.R.R. Tolkien library were legally extended, and he was immediately able to sell them back for nearly $100,000. (Remember, this was 1966.) My share of this weazled boodle was -- you guessed it -- zip.

The final blow came some years later, when an animated feature version of The Hobbit appeared, starring the timid voice of Orson Bean. That film to my mind in no way approached the magnificence I had originally envisioned. I had obtained the greatest Czech artist of the time, illustrator, painter, sculptor, and director of the most famous Czech puppet films of all time, Jirí Trnka, to be the designer of my projected version. Sadly, we never got beyond his model sketches. They have never before been published, and I present them to you here, brilliant souvenirs of one of my more magnificent failures!

Want to hear more about Gene's foray into the feature film world? In How To Succeed In Animation (Don't Let A Little Thing Like Failure Stop You!), he also discusses Charlotte's Web...another fabulous disaster. Exclusively on AWN.

Gene Deitch is one of the last surviving members of the original Hollywood UPA studio of 1946, the instigator of the CBS-Terrytoon "renaissance" of 1956-1958, Animation Department Chief of the Detroit Jam Handy Organization, 1949-1951, Creative Chief of UPA-New York, 1951-1954, Director at John Hubley's Storyboard, Inc. New York, 1955, Creative Director of CBS-Terrytoons, 1956-1958, President of Gene Deitch Associates, Inc. New York, 1958-1960, Creative Director for Rembrandt Films, 1960-1968, star director for Weston Woods Studios, Inc., Weston, Connecticut, 1968-1993, and has worked for over 40 years with the Prague animation studio, "Bratri v Triku."