Gene's work for The Record Changer attracted the attention — and admiration — of the folks at UPA.

My Humble Start Amid Giants
All UPA could promise me was temporary work as an apprentice. That was all the Cartoonists Union of that time would allow. It was June, 1946, and those were the rules. I could only be a part-time apprentice. But Steve Bosustow, the great spell-weaver, put his hand on my 22-year-old shoulder, and said, "Gene, we are going to mold you into the first pure UPA director!" They had gotten it into their heads that anyone who'd worked for Disney, Warners, MGM, Columbia or the rest, were "spoiled." They wanted young raw meat, which they could cook to their own recipe. They liked my work, and they seemed to think I was "The One." I was enough enthralled to give up my good steady CBS Radio job for the less-than-certain chance to become the first "pure UPA" man.

UPA was born at a time before cynicism set in to our culture. We all really believed. Of course, as the first outsider brought into the hallowed circle, I believed most of all. I was in the company of titans, and I knew it. Just 22 years old, and I was having my boyhood dream come true, to actually be working in a real movie cartoon studio -- no -- an animation film studio. UPA was not only creating a basically new approach to animation, but also upgrading the nomenclature. Bill Hurtz was not a mere "layout man," he was a production designer.

Here was a small group of men and women who were onto something brand new -- working on the idea that any form of graphic art could be animated. Out with the "house styles" of Disney, Warners, MGM or Paramount! Every film was to be approached as an entirely new adventure, its graphic style, mode of animation, music -- every element -- growing out of the particular story. This seems obvious enough today, but in the early and mid-forties -- in a commercial studio -- it was a cosmic idea.

The most common misconception about the UPA people was that they favored "limited animation." What they actually endeavored was to get the most that really mattered onto the screen, in spite of miserly budgets. So the emphasis was on ideas -- story -- rich design, drawn from the greatest painters, designers and illustrators of the world, present and past -- evocative music -- and good animation. Some of the greatest animators alive worked on UPA films: Chuck Jones, Art Babbitt, Bill Littlejohn, Bobe Cannon. They had to use fewer drawings ("limited animation"), but superb timing and acting. That was unlimited.