Read Part 1 of The Tad Stones Interview in which he talks about his thirtysome years in animation, from Eric Larson's training program at Disney, his work on EPCOT, the influence of Jeffrey Katzenberg, Disney TV Animation and now his new project, Brer Rabbit, at Universal Cartoon Studios. We pick up with Tad talking about a short subject Fun with Mr. Future he was making for EPCOT.

Tad Stones cut short his vacation to pitch Michael D. Eisner upon his arrival at Disney in 1984. Tad enjoyed working with Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Tad Stones: They used the inside of Mr. Lincoln's head for Mr. Future and put a bowtie on him. His voice was Phil Proctor and he basically introduced you to the world of the future. It was an excuse to put these little animation segments together that showed how the computer would be used in the future, how energy can be wasted, little bits and pieces from these shows. It was a lot of fun but I couldn't even tell you where you find it now. It's one of those gems even Disney doesn't know it has. I went to a comic convention and was surprised to see its cels for sale.

Now when Michael Eisner joined the company, the merchandising people thought Elijah had arrived, they were very much pushing for the company to go into TV animation. Michael of course had started in TV animation at ABC - Scooby-Doo and all that. The Jackson 5ive was one of the shows done under his regime.

The first week Michael was there, he wanted to hear about TV animation, so they got a group of people together including myself and Gary Krisel from merchandising, who eventually became president of Disney TV Animation. Ironically, I think I was the only person at the meeting who had any animation background at all. Because I had pitched these guys, they said, “We want Tad there.” I happened to be on vacation and they called me: “We know it's Sunday, we know you're on vacation, but would you mind coming to Eisner's house to talk about TV animation?” And I'm thinking, “Oh yeah, like I'm gonna say no, with this new guy coming in that nobody knows who I'm going to get to meet with in person?”

Joe Strike: Approximately when was this?

TS: This was in 1984. It was literally the first week Michael was on the lot, and it was that Sunday. I showed my old Mickey in Space thing. Michael was really intrigued with it, but he said, “Wait a minute, Mickey is just too special. We shouldn't put him on TV.”

JS: He changed his mind down the road a bit about that one. [House of Mouse]

TS: Oh, yeah, after they slowly built their confidence over time. The only other thing he said was “My kid loves gummi bears.” He knew that any project called Gummi Bears would be a success. I remember we walked out of his house and said “Boy he seems like a real sharp guy.” I said, “The only thing that was a little weird to me was the idea of doing a show based on candy — that's like, let's do Pepperoni People.” Flash forward a few years when I'm story editor/producer of The Gummi Bears, I thought better of it.

After this meeting I went back to features.

Later on I saw Michael Webster, who was then developing TV animation. He said, “Why don't you come over and visit?” So I went over to visit the budding TV animation unit, which was like one little hallway. He took me around and started saying things like “Tad's thinking of coming over here.” And I'm going like “Oh really, I am?” Basically Krisel popped up and made a pitch for me to go over there.

They made me an offer that was $40,000 more than I was making a year. I said “wow” and went back to Ed Hansen, the head of the animation department. I told him the kind of money they were talking about. He said, “We can't offer you anything like that. Why don't you meet with Jeffrey?”

Jeffrey said, “Look Tad, it's not a one-way street. They think you can really help them out. Give it a try and if it doesn't work out we can have you back.” So I went back to them and this time they made me an offer that was $20,000 less than their first one. I felt like, “I've been scammed...” I was so ignorant. They made me an offer; I didn't even get the concept of counter-offer, so who knows what I could've gotten. Then I went back and they said, “You've already talked to Jeffrey, you can't back out now.” I kind of went in with a chip on my shoulder, but at the end of the day I'm going `wait a minute, this is still like so much more money than I was making, so let's not complain too much.”

The TV animation division's goal was only to sell one show the first season, that's all they wanted to do. They wanted to get in very small and grow very slowly. But Michael and Jeffrey said, “You can't go in with one idea, what if they don't like it? What if they have something similar to it — what are you going to talk about, the weather?” So they did both The Wuzzles and The Adventures of the Gummi Bears, which was created by Art Vitello and Jymn Magon.