Most animators begin as animation fans. Seated in front of our TVs with heavily sugared cereal dribbling down our chins, we marvel at the adventures of Bugs, Casper and Scooby Doo. Then one day we decide to apply our desire to draw into becoming an animator. Just like ballplayers dream of becoming a Ruth or Cobb, we dream of being the next Bob Clampett or Chuck Jones.

I was fortunate that during the time of my entering the field, one could still learn at the side of many of the great artists of the Golden Age of Hollywood animation. In 1975, it was still possible to assist John Hubley, Shamus Culhane or Ken Harris. Sadly, these and other legends are passing from the stage leaving us orphans with the films and, if we are lucky, some memories of what it was like.

I think a lot of us today have the impression that Golden Age Animation was done in a state of bliss. Modern Animators complain about ignorant and grasping corporations, tight deadlines and studio politics. Back then it was an Art, today it's just Business. In the good old days animators lived on their love of cartoons, ate ambrosia and had no deadlines or headaches. Obviously,that is why Pinocchio and Tom & Jerry cartoons were so good. Never mind Hitler, the Depression, or Jim Crow, it was all one long party. This naive view is encouraged by all these revisionist, Wasn't Hollywood Wacky?? books and documentaries corporations fund nowadays.

How It Really Was
Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but just take the time to chat with some of our great retired gods and goddesses and they'll tell you how it really was. Oh, I'm not denying that compared to any steelworker or being on a breadline their kind of job was a dream. Still, every animator then as now soon finds that, in the end, cartoons are a business just like anything else.

UPA studios, March 1957. Top row: Dick Shaw, Morey Fagan, Ed Friedman, Gil Turner, Barney Posner, Bob Dranko, E. Bennet. Bottom row: Bob McIntosh, Al Wade, Peter Burness (holding Oscar for When Magoo Flys), Rudy Larriva, Bob Brown

The first revelation that shocked me was how, before the animation unions started around 1937, animators had a six day work week. Nine to 6:00, Monday through Friday, and 9:00 to 1:00 on Saturday. If you had a problem with Saturdays, Max Fleischer or Walt Disney would let you work Thursdays until 11:00 p.m. to make up the time. Disney and most studios went to 40 hours in January 1941, in an attempt to stop their artists from unionizing; and the same thing has been happening right now at many nonunion computer houses, for the same reason.