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A much sought-after piece of animation history has surfaced on YouTube at last.

Long before "Tangled" and "Frozen," Disney artists complained about the silly title of another Disney film—"The Great Mouse Detective."

The first sign that you might get laid off at Disney: the bosses won't give you a new computer.

Steve Hulett recounts his experiences working on "Oliver & Company" and the unexpected tragedy that happened during its production.

Steve Hulett remembers the time when Disney artists were told they were being moved to a warehouse off the lot, and the animation division's first "gong show" pitch session.

Michael Eisner lounged his six-foot-four frame in a conference room chair. He was wearing jeans and sweatshirt, but why not? It was a Saturday morning.

Walt Disney Productions changed forever when two guys named Mike and Frank showed up.

When the Disney strike of 1982 ended and the story artists returned to their respective work spaces in the animation building, "Basil of Baker Street" was still running along two sets of tracks. There were storyboards filled with gags and character bits, and boards filled with plot points.

Steve Hulett on everything from "Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore" to "Katy Caterpillar."

"Basil of Baker Street" by novelist Eve Titus was an illustrated children's book centered on a mouse who fancied himself an ace detective. The mouse resided (naturally enough) inside the walls of 31 Baker Street in London, home of a human-sized ace detective, the name of whom escapes me.

Steve Hulett recounts his role in the the confusing and chaotic production of Disney's most un-Disney-like feature, "The Black Cauldron."

New chapters of Mouse in Transition will be published every Friday on Cartoon Brew. It is the story of Disney Feature Animation—from the Nine Old Men to the coming of Jeffrey Katzenberg. Ten lost years of Walt Disney Production’s animation studio, through the eyes of a green animation writer. Steve Hulett spent a decade in Disney Feature Animation’s story department writing animated features, first under the tutelage and supervision of Disney veterans Woolie Reitherman and Larry Clemmons, then under the watchful eye of young Jeffrey Katzenberg. Since 1989, Hulett has served as the business representative of the Animation Guild, Local 839 IATSE, a labor organization which represents Los Angeles-based animation artists, writers and technicians. Read Chapter 1: Disney’s Newest Hire Read Chapter 2: Larry Clemmons Read Chapter 3: The Disney Animation Story Crew Read Chapter 4: And Then There Was…Ken! Read Chapter 5: The Marathon Meetings of Woolie Reitherman Read Chapter 6: Detour into Disney History Read Chapter 7: When Everyone Left Disney Read Chapter 8: Mickey Rooney, Pearl Bailey and Kurt Russell “Chief has to DIE,” Ron Clements said. “The picture doesn’t work if he just breaks his LEG. Copper doesn’t have enough motivation to hate the fox.” Ron looked at me intently, shaking his head. He was a supervising animator on The Fox and the Hound, and was just then in the process of making a jump into the story department. He was something of a perfectionist and (for some reason) wanted the story to be better. Ron had worked for a season at Hanna-Barbera and then entered the Disney training program, apprenticing with veteran animator Frank Thomas. Within a decade he would be co-directing Disney’s breakout blockbuster The Little Mermaid, but at this moment he was unhappy with the story arc of The Fox and the Hound. “I agree with you, Ron,” I said. “Agree completely. But do you think Art Stevens will buy a change like that?” “I don’t know. But we have to try. The picture needs to be stronger.” The Fox and the Hound had a three-act structure. The second act had the fox, Tod, involved with a railroad accident. The old dog Chief gets knocked off a tall bridge by a thundering locomotive, and Tod gets unfairly blamed for the accident. Chief dies in the book on which the movie is based, but in the Disney version, the elderly dog only suffers a broken leg. Even so, Copper (the young bloodhound) angrily vows revenge against his friend Tod. Ron and most of the younger story crew thought Copper’s anger and lust for revenge was several clicks over the top, considering Tod’s minor sin. So Ron and the rest of us pleaded the case to the lead director: “Please let’s have Chief DIE.” Art was skittish about it, and said no. No surprise there. So the same argument was hauled upstairs to Disney’s management, with the same reaction: “You can’t kill off a lovable central character! Children will FREAK OUT! Parents will hate us! WE’LL GET LETTERS!!” Neither tearful pleas nor the example of Bambi’s mother catching a bullet could change the directors’ or the top brass’s minds. They wouldn’t kill Chief, and that was final. Ron Clements was not a guy who easily took “No” for an answer, but after a protracted campaign, he dropped the issue. Arguing was as pointless as jousting with windmills. (I had dropped the issue earlier. I am not a big believer in banging my head against hard, thick walls.) But it was one more point of dissatisfaction between the recently-arrived Young Turks and the Disney Animation establishment. The old timers from the 1930s were gone, but the generation that had rolled in during the 1940s and 1950s was finally holding the tiller, and they were bound and determined not to cede their newly acquired power and leverage to a bunch of goddamn kids in their goddamn twenties. Many of the “kids” were from California Institute of the Arts, the Disney-funded college in Valencia, California that served as a training ground for a lot of the animation industry. Walt Disney Productions had, in recent years, skimmed off the cream of the CalArts crop, and recent grads like John Musker, Henry Selick, Brian McEntee, Bruce Morris, Joe Ranft, Mikes Cedeno, Mike Giamo, Tim Burton, Jerry Rees, and an ebullient CalArts star named John Lasseter (among numerous others) populated the animation building. A 1980 volleyball game between the Disney producers and artists. The color commentary and play-by-play by John Musker reveals the underlying tensions between the two camps. Video by Randy Cartwright. Most of the CalArts group groused about the old-timers’ stodgy, moldy fig attitudes, and the stodgy, moldy fig product that resulted therefrom. They had been against the Bluth forces; now they chafed against the veterans’ tightly-held reins. Brad Bird had already gotten his ass fired for making his gripes too loud and too public, but the general mood of frustration and desire to try something fresh, new, and different continued. Even with the bad feelings, various CalArts graduates were being groomed for better things. Early on, John Musker jumped on a career track pointed toward director. John Lasseter was assigned to different projects in development. Bruce Morris and Joe Ranft quickly worked their way into story development. But the veterans remained territorial…and a touch paranoid. I remember Art Stevens saying, “Who do these pipsqueaks think they ARE?! They’re not geniuses. They can’t come in here and have their way after fifteen minutes!” (Another old-timer told me: “Art spent years in John Lounsbery’s unit as his key assistant. And Art would get furious if artists in their group tried to move up and out. He always wanted everybody to stay where they were, to not change anything. He’d get offended if anybody tried to jump ship.”) Tim Burton, bent over a light board down on the first floor, was becoming known for his very un-Disney character sketches. Joe Ranft, Darrell van Citters, Brian McEntee, Mike Giamo, Jim Mitchell, and …

Don Bluth and his troops were gone, but the studio still had an animated movie to get out. Art Stevens, now lead director, was slowly pulling the picture together with the animators and layout artists who remained loyal to the Mouse. But the animation department was still in flux.

Don Bluth smiled at me. "I wouldn't worry about being laid off from Disney's, Steve. Nobody gets laid off around here. When somebody messes up, the studio just sends them to WED."

Before I got hired at Disney Features, I sold a few magazine articles and developed a love of writing for print, where there was nothing between writer and reader but words on a page. When I became a Disney employee, I realized I was surrounded by animation veterans with vivid memories of the rambunctious days at the old Hyperion studio, and the creative struggles that went into making "Snow White," "Pinocchio," and the other early features. Talking to older Mouse House staffers, it dawned on me they could provide great source material for articles.

My wrestling match with Ken Anderson now over, I returned once more to Wolfgang "Woolie" Reitherman and Larry Clemmons, working on the story end of "The Fox and the Hound."

I was back in Don Duckwall's office, exchanging insincere smiles with him. I had been on "The Fox and the Hound" with Larry, Woolie, and everybody else for half a year. But now Don wanted me to go on another assignment.

Larry had me writing sequence scripts for "The Fox and the Hound," which turned out to be my assignment for the next six months. Part of the package was attending Woolie Reitherman's marathon story sessions, which often left me drained and dazed. There were also Woolie's marathon take-selection meetings, which left me drained and bewildered.

Disney's head animation writer in 1977 was cartoon veteran Larry Clemmons, who had first been hired at the studio in 1930. At the time of his hiring, he was a Yale graduate with a degree in architecture, but an Ivy League education was of little value in 1930 when the economy was collapsing...and few buildings were being erected.

The first chapter of Steve Hulett's memoir about working as a writer at Disney in the late-Seventies and Eighties.