The past two decades have not been good ones for theatrical animation. By the 1960s the production of new animated short subjects had been abandoned by the major studios and the shorts were being dropped by theatre exhibitors. Rising costs also forced a drastic lowering of the quality of animation, especially that traditionally seen in television's Saturday morning slot.
Eventually animation fostered the stigma of being only for small children. Adults were no longer going to pay and sit through "just a cartoon."
But Walt Disney Studios continued to produce full length, commercially successful animated features and to train young animators to carry on studio traditions for the day when the veterans would retire.
DON BLUTH HAD BEEN considered a leading member of this young team, but late in 1979 he broke away to form his own production company. Along with John Pomeroy, Gary Goldman, and other Disney alumni, he completed an animated featurette, "Banjo the Woodpile Cat," that had started five years before as an off-hours training exercise. His compapny, Don Bluth Productions, also began an exclusive association with Aurora Productions.
"Basically 'Banjo' was an exercise for us," says Bluth. "But we began to turn over ground that was new to us, and the more we got into it, the more serious we got."
When they started work on "Banjo," Bluth and his partners were too junior to be director-animators at Disney. Gradually they began to feel that unless they began learning more, they wouldn't be ready for promotion to directing slots.
"That's what ignited the idea of building a film," says Bluth, "because we thought if we could build one ourselves, we would figure out where the things were that we didn't know, and what questions to ask the old guys out there.
IN BUILDING "BANJO" in the evenings on homemade equipment in Bluth's house in Culver City, questions would come to the surface. These in turn were taken to the more experienced Disney animators for answers. What Bluth and his colleagues learned in these sessions would then help them with their work at the studio.
But for Bluth there were too many philosopical problems with working at Disney. "They were interested in formula pictures, and we wanted to go beyond that." he says.
The opportunity to go independent came with further funding from investors who saw the completed "Banjo" and asked if a feature could be produced. The feature, "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH," is scheduled for release in mid 1982 through Aurora/Sunrise Entertainment Inc.
Based upon the Newberry Award-winning children's novel, "Mrs. Frisby" tells the story of a group of rats who are taught to read at the National Institute of Mental Health (the "NIMH" of the title) through chemical injections that give them a superior intelligence. When the rats realize that as rats they are hated and considered disease carrying scavengers, they escape the lab and set out to start their own society.
DURING THEIR JOURNEY they meet Mrs. Frisby, a mother mouse whose home and family are endangered by a farmer's spring plowing. The rats and Mrs. Frisby combine their talents and solve their problems.
John Lang, vice president of distribution for Aurora and president of its subsidiary, Sunrise Entertainment, says that while he is looking for a major distributor to use "Banjo!" as a companion release for one if its own shorter family pictures, "Mrs. Frisby" will be handled the same as any theatrical release. They hope to release it through a major distributor.
And althought a family audience is being aimed for, a G rating is not absolutely necessary. "If it's rated PG," says Lang, "it's rated PG. If it's rated G, that's fine too. 'Star Trek' and 'The Black Stallion' (both successful G rated films) can't be all wrong."
Part of the storyboard for "Mrs. Frisby" has been worked out, and a good part of the script has been written. The selection of voice talent has also started.
"BANJO" WAS NOT so well planned out in advance. "It looks like an exercise if you know that's what you're looking for," says Bluth, "because we tried to do things that involved a chase sequence, a pathetic sequence and a lullaby. We tried a production number to see what we could do with music.
"So it was an exercise for us to see what we could do to stretch our wings."
But aside from occasional rough edges due to handicaps faced in its homemade production, it's a very enjoyable little movie. There is also the interest of watching the style of the film change as the animators experimented and their skills improved.
Set in 1944, it follows the adventures of a high spirited kitten named "Banjo" who runs away from his farm home and meets up with a city alley cat named "Crazy Legs" (whose voice was provided by Scatman Crothers). But eventually he realized that though the city is fun at first, he still misses his home and family. Crazy Legs and his friends help Banjo find transportation back home in time for Christmas.
Not surprisingly, the characters, backgrounds, music and even the lettering on the opening credits are reminiscent of the Disney shorts of the 1940s. Bluth acknowledges a desire to "recapture the warmth, spirit and moral vision of the early Disney animated features."
It's the loss of this spirit that Bluth thinks has partly caused the near demise of animation as adult entertainment.
"The stories they're telling," he says, "are not very deep. They're not getting into any of the things that we as human beings want to know about. When you go to a film, any kind of film, you hope they're going to give you something."
Staging, character designs and character voices are also important to Bluth. "You have to have a personality you can identify with," he says. "The film won't work if it's just graphics up there moving around. And basically animation has been pigeonholed into something like pratfalls and bumping into trees and walls, and how funny is that?
"It's like Saturday morning (television)." says Bluth. "To me, that's just an inane thing. I don't think that's animation. Animation neans bringing something to life. That's not alive. That's just moving around.
"THE NETWORKS SAY, 'Well, children will watch it whether it costs us $90,000 or $30,000, so why spend money?' If there was money for animation, you'd see the quality go up. But right now everyone is trying to do it on a shoestring, and it keeps getting worse and worse."
Animation's current decrease in adult appeal has made producers hesitant to invest in such features.
"There's a ream of statistics," says Bluth, "that say if you plan on going into animation, plan on losing money. 'Watership Down,' 'Lord of the Rings,' 'The Mouse and His Child' -- any one of them that has come out recently has not been a moneymaker."
On the other hand, Bluth says Disney will put $8 million to $9 million into an animated product and then gross $40 million. But the attitude of other potential investors remains one of "Well, Disney can do it, but no one else can."
According to Bluth, it's not merely the Disney organization's marketing strategies that accounts for its success with animation.
"The marketing is connected very closely with the quality of the product," he says. "If you make a good product, you don't have to sell it. It will sell itself."
DON BLUTH WORKED as an animator for Disney twice in the past 25 years. The first stint began in 1955 as an assistant animator on "Sleeping Beauty" and ended in 1957 with Bluth's departure on a 2 1/2 year mission to Argentina for the Mormon Church. When he returned to the United States, he operated a legitimate theatre while completing his education and then, in 1967, joined Filmation Studios as a layout man.
When he finally returned to Disney in 1971, it was under the training program. After working as an animator on "Robin Hood," released in 1973, and "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too," released in 1974, he became a directing animator on "The Rescuers" and director of animation on "Pete's Dragon."
After working on Disney's "The Small One" and "The Fox and the Hound," Bluth, Pomeroy and Goldman left the studio to form Don Bluth Productions.
Because money was tight, Bluth wrote the music and lyrics for "Banjo" himself. The voice of "Crazy Legs," Scatman Crothers, was much easier to come by.
"We went to his agent and asked him," recalls Bluth, "and (Scatman said) 'I'd love to do it.' which kind of thrilled us."
ACCORDING TO BLUTH, voice talents often share the responsibility of creating the personality of an animated character.
"In animation," he says, "we never think of those characters as animals. We always think of them as people, and we clothe them in an animal suit. At the same time we want to maintain a lot of the personality of the animal."