A Closer Look at Art Scott

by Katie Mason

The artist at work. Courtesy of Art Scott.

It is hard to imagine someone who held more jobs in animation than Art Scott. While still in junior college, he was called by Warner Bros. to do impressions of Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee for a cartoon. After graduating from UCLA with a degree in art education, he began working as an in-betweener at the Mintz Studio. Following some shuffling and layoffs he was moved to the story department for a time. When he decided there was no way to move up in story, he went back to animation until he was laid off in 1939.

Art Scott hamming it up as W.C. Fields. Courtesy of Art Scott.

One of Scott's fondest moments at Disney was working on the Mickey Mouse Club. © Disney.

Next stop was the Disney studio, where he was an assistant animator on short films. He stayed at Disney through the strike of 1941, and afterward was assigned to produce navy training films. Scott worked on segments of Fantasia, Bambi and Melody Time, as well as short subjects including Mickey's Delayed Date. With a group of Disney artists, he also sang and performed in a magic act which traveled to military bases across California.

After Disney, he started his own company, Art Scott Productions, in 1947. The company produced cartoons based on music called MelloTunes. He also designed puppets and did voices for a puppet show called Cyclone Malone. He returned to Disney in 1955 as a storyman on The Mickey Mouse Club. A favorite memory of his Disney days was when he and Ray Patterson were playing badminton on the sound stage as Walt walked in. They challenged Walt and his partner and won!

From Disney Scott headed to Hanna-Barbera, doing storyboards for The Flintstones. During the off season he worked on industrial films for John Sutherland Productions. Later he became a director for the Beany and Cecil television series. He went on to work for Larry Harman Productions as a story man before returning to Hanna-Barbera as production manager. He worked for Hanna-Barbera for many years, moving up to associate producer. As recently as 1998, Scott directed an animated feature, The Mighty Kong, which had a limited run before going to video.