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The biggest collection of material ever from the production of the seminal Disney film 'Pinocchio' is currently on display in San Francisco.

The post In Conversation: John Canemaker On The Disney Family Museum’s Massive ‘Pinocchio’ Exhibit appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

The new two-part Walt Disney documentary premieres tonight and tomorrow night. Share your thoughts on the film with the rest of the animation community.

What do long-lost sweatbox notes reveal about the creation of one of Disney's finest films?

Don Lusk turns 101 years old today and Willis Pyle turned 100 a few months ago. It's time to honor them with a Winsor McCay Award.

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the 99th birthday party of animator Willis Pyle. Pyle has had a cartoon career for the ages. On Pinocchio, he cleaned up Milt Kahl’s scene of Jiminy Cricket getting dressed while running to work. He was a key animator during the early days of UPA and animated on the studio’s first theatrical short for Columbia, Robin Hoodlum, as well as the first Mister Magoo short Ragtime Bear. In the classic UPA film Gerald McBoing Boing, Pyle animated the climactic scene of Gerald performing sound effects at the radio station.

I’m incredibly grateful that we still have living links to the Golden Age of animation like Willy, and attending his party made me wonder who else is still around. The list below is every animation industry veteran I can think of who is 85 years or older. I’m sure there are plenty of others too, and I invite you to help fill out the list. The growth and development of our art form owes much to these men and women.

• Bob Balser – 86 years old

Rudy Cataldi – 86 years old

Sam Clayberger – 87 years old

Stan Freberg – 87 years old

Ken Mundie – 87 years old (?)

Walt Peregoy – 88 years old (?)

Ray Favata – 89 years old

Gene Deitch – 89 years old

Charles Csuri – 91 years old

David Weidman – 92 years old (?)

X. Atencio (pictured right) – 94 years old

Martha Sigall – 95 years old (?)

June Foray – 95 years old

Bob Givens – 95 years old

Stan Spohn – 98 years old

Willis Pyle – 99 years old

Tyrus Wong – 102 years old

It’s always sad to say goodbye to our animation heroes and inspirations, so any opportunity to wish them well in their later years is worth the effort.

Veteran animator Don Lusk turned 97 on October 28th and we wish wish him a Happy Birthday and continued good health. Lusk worked for Disney for many years, starting as an inbetweener (in 1933), and became an animator in 1938 on Ferdinand The Bull. He is best known for his work on the “Fish Dance” in The Nutcracker Suite in Fantasia (above), and Cleo the goldfish in Pinocchio, the title character in Alice in Wonderland, Wendy in Peter Pan, and on Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmatians.

After his stint at Disney’s Lusk worked on UPA’s Gay Purr-ee (1962), A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969), freelance for Bill Melendez and Walter Lantz studios, then spending 23 years at Hanna Barbera, directing everything from Scooby Doo to Yo Yogi!, working well into the 1990s. Congratulations, Don and best wishes from all of us at Cartoon Brew.

(Thanks Steve Hartley and Dan Adler)