At Walt Disney studios the cartoon director doles out work to his stable of animators by "casting" them in their roles: One artist will be a prince, someone else a violent tornado. Don Bluth once specialized in mice.
Bluth wasn't meek as a mouse last month when he led an exodus from the studio of 7 top animators, out of a total pool of 16, and 5 assistant animators. As a result, the Disney studio's big animated feature The Fox and the Hound, originally scheduled for Christmas 1980 release, will be delayed to summer, 1981.
For years Bluth had been the leader of Disney's "new breed" of animators, who were supposed to bring new vigor to the animation department. What happened to the vigor?
"We felt like we were animating the same picture over and over again with just the faces changed a little. In contrast, Walt always found something new to delight an audience," Bluth complains. "For example, they've gutted all of the meaning from Fox and the Hound. It's become a cute story instead of a meaningful one."
The defection then was purely artistic in motivation? Of course not. "Disney," Bluth mutters, "is well known for low salaries." But that is normal in animation -- what Bluth wanted was profit participation for animators. But there was no way; Disney only gives "points" to a few invited execs.
Bluth and his band didn't go far. They joined three earlier Disney defectors, who left two years ago to set up an independent production company. They offered a share of the profits, so the fugitive animators are now hard at work on Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. It is the tale of rats, trapped for research experimentation by the National Institute of Mental Health, who learn to read and then escape. Sounds somewhat autobiographical. Will the kids like rats as well as they do mice?