What we were in on, really, was the invention of animation.

I joined Walt Disney, went to work, December 2nd 1935, so obviously, I'm not too young!

Yes, the first job I had at the studio was Snow White. I don't like the term particularly, but I got stuck with the human characters. They just didn't have that many people who could draw humans.

Animation had been done before, but stories were never told.

Before I got through high school I had attended 22 different schools. In the time before I was well acquainted with the latest school, I would amuse myself by drawing and found that I was pretty good at it.

Throughout my career, when I was finished with the drawing for one film I would go up to the story department and help develop sequences. Sometimes these were for scenes that I would animate later on.

Some of these sketches were done at the very beginning of the Pirates project, when I was trying to find a direction for myself. That was the early sixties... maybe 61 or 62.

What we were in on, really, was the invention of animation.

Disney had made such a great deal of money on Snow White that the banks gave him the go-ahead on the next three films. But he was heavily dependent on the foreign market.

Drawing is giving a performance; an artist is an actor who is not limited by the body, only by his ability and, perhaps, experience.

My father was something of a rainbow-chaser.

It wasn't a problem for me drawing humans although I had originally come to the studio with the idea that what I had to offer them was my knowledge in the drawing of animals.

His feeling was the name Walt Disney represented all of us. Walt was hanging by his teeth financially and really I think he was for most of his career. Not at all like today.

There is something I feel when I animate something; you can never really understand the character you're animating unless you've had the opportunity to turn it around. Once you've done that, you know it is a three-dimensional object.

The first professional training I received of any kind was when I was 14 years old and we were in Kansas City, Missouri. I attended the Kansas City Art Institute for one summer.

Later, my father died up in Marysville. So, my mother and I got in the car and came down to Hollywood.

I had some connections from the newspapers that I did work with up there, so there was a newspaper publisher in Hollywood, and they promised me work and so on.

At that time, the people that were in the animated film business were mostly guys who were unsuccessful newspaper cartoonists. In other words, their ability to draw living things was practically nil.

Drawing is giving a performance an artist is an actor who is not limited by the body only by his ability and perhaps experience.

Disney had such a hold on the mind of America-they were Adolf Hitler. The whole country thought Disney was some sort of god and that animation was some sort of pure thing for children.

One of the best animated films I've seen come out of Disney was the Tarzan movie. I wasn't crazy about the story or the design on Tarzan's face, but the traditional animation was spectacular.

Animation is tremendously resilient. Animation will recover, as art always recovers. There's always cycles of good art.

When The Simpsons came around, there really was nothing else like it on TV. It's hard to imagine, but when Fox first took the plunge with it, it was considered controversial to put animation on prime time.

But probably for the last ten years or so, I've been fitting in animation work into my other projects.

So many plays with magic in them that would be a terrific invitation to an imaginative animation team.

Animation scripts tend to be much more descriptive and are lighter on dialogue.

I know pretty well in the broad sense what I'm going to do, because I have to know that when we shoot the live-action, so that it'll synchronize. Then I know pretty well when I get to the animation stage, what that scene requires.

The success of The Simpsons really opened doors. It showed that if you were working in animation you didn't necessarily have to be working in kids' television.

I love doing the voice of Batman because of the quality of the animation. The music is particularly incredible. Another bonus is getting the opportunity to work with some very respected actors who do not usually do voice work.

We go through, I think, six different drafts of each script. And then my shooting it is roughly, you know, fifteen percent of the total work that gets done on a show. Then it's all post-production animation after that.

Look what Disney's done to their animation department. There wasn't an animator in charge of their animation unit!

I miss animation very passionately. Not continuously, but every once in a while I would die to do another film.

The animation of the canvas is one of the hardest problems of painting.

Animation is about creating the illusion of life. And you can't create it if you don't have one.

In animation, there's this exhilarating moment of discovery when you see the film and you say, Oh THAT'S what I was doing.

Yes, actually. Animation's a very easy thing to watch on tour.

If you're sitting in your minivan, playing your computer animated films for your children in the back seat, is it the animation that's entertaining you as you drive and listen? No, it's the storytelling. That's why we put so much importance on story. No amount of great animation will save a bad story.

In the animation world, people who understand pencils and paper usually aren't computer people, and the computer people usually aren't the artistic people, so they always stand on opposite sides of the line.

Well, for one thing, the executives in charge at Cartoon Network are cartoon fans. I mean, these are people who grew up loving animation and loving cartoons, and the only difference between them and me is they don't know how to draw.

You don't have a face to work with, so your voice has to do all the work until you see the animation. So, a lot of it I had to pull back because it was too big.

We always thought the Tom Tom Club could change to anything, but it acquired this image, which was cartoon animation and this real light-hearted dance music.

Animation had been done before, but stories were never told.

Because good writing in a TV cartoon is so rare, I think the animation on The Simpsons is often overlooked.

I did what we call dry for wet effects, some of the miniatures work and two animation sequences.

Studios have been trying to get rid of the actor for a long time and now they can do it. They got animation. NO more actor, although for now they still have to borrow a voice or two. Anyway, I find it abhorrent.

Well, directing is doing the key drawings, not the key animation, mind you.

Animation did not become the dominant form of children's television until the '60s.

My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military.

I brought in the stories many times. I don't just do animation.