Prod. 2256 - A Gentleman's Gentleman

This draft of 12/12/1940 brings back memories - from back when I was in high school in 1976. I sent a bunch of awful drawings to the Disney studios, and got a nice letter back: "keep drawing and then you may get good enough to enter Cal Arts or our training program," written by Don Duckwall. And now here he is as assistant director.
He passed away March 1986, one month shy of his 70th birthday.

We also see layouts by Bruce Bushman (4/20/1911-2/15/1972), who also did layouts on Pinocchio and the Nutcracker Suite in Fantasia, but who is better known as designer for WED Enterprises - his Dumbo ride art is on note cards on eBay even this moment. As animators, we meet Ken Muse doing all the Mickey Mouse (with dimensional ears) business, as well as Plutos by Basil Davidovich, Volus Jones, Norm Tate, Nicholas S. "Nick" DeTolly, Eric Gurney, George "Nick" Nicholas, Emory Hawkins and Charles F. "Chick" Otterstrom.

The draft also names the effects animators. Again, drafts were working documents to trace the responsible artists, in case of questions and what have you. On a film like this with many effects, the info was obviously useful to record.

Picked up by director Gerry Geronimi on 6/24/1940, released 3/28/1941...So what happened after Don Duckwall's response? Well, I never got to apply again. Even before I finished high school, I hooked up with Børge Ring (who lived 10 minutes away from me) and after working with him for four years, most notably on the short Anna & Bella,
I moved to Denmark in 1984, and co-founded A. Film in 1988...

A BIG thank you to Bill and Sue Kroyer for a wonderful, if wet, party tonight! Don't know what was better: the company or the meat balls!