Don Bluth, Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy felt they could build a better mouse. Se the three animators turned their backs on Disney studios and struck out on their own.
Goodbye Mickey. Hello Mrs. Brisby.
The latter character is the rodent heroine of Don Bluth Productions' The Secret of NIMH, an ambitious feature-length animation scheduled for international release July 2. While the film is currently in post production, Bluth and company aired screen footage from it to demonstrate what they call "the second age of animation," a return to the classical art of the vintage Disney era, the 1950s.
Bluth, a youthful 45, feels that animation is long due for a creative overhaul. A veteran of the Saturday morning cartoon factory (Filmation Studios), and a man with 11 years experience at Disney (Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood, Pete's Dragon, The Fox and the Hound), Bluth is alarmed at the deterioration of the art form.
"I found out," says Bluth, "that the art of animation is like the unicorn or the American buffalo or the button-down shirt. It's disappearing."
That deterioration, Bluth says, spread to Disney Studios as well.
"We [animators] found we were bumping our heads on the wall at Disney," Bluth says, adding that too many corporate rules led to a stifling of creativity.
Pomeroy, at 30 the youngest of the breakaway triad (Goldman is 36), feels the big studio was becoming too complacent.
"Disney executives were willing to settle for something mediocre, for pablum, rather than taking a chance," Pomeroy said. "The situation was kind of constricting. You couldn't move in a creative way because there was too much high-echelon flak.
"We left so we wouldn't be handcuffed on every decision we wanted to make."
Pomeroy says the complacency filtered into the ranks of the young animators.
"When we worked on The Small One [1978] there was this creative abyss between the young people and the old guard," he said.
"I think they [veteran animators] thought they would live forever and not have to pass down their message.
"As a result, there was a lack of enthusiasm among the people learning and those above them in administration."
In 1972, while still at Disney, Bluth and Goldman set up shop in Bluth's Culver City garage. Pomeroy joined a year later. Working evenings and weekends (and occasionally sleeping under desks when the evening stretched into morning), the animators put together Banjo the Woodpile Cat, a 30 minute featurette which they sold to ABC. They also animated a two minute dance number for the movie Xanadu.
By the time Banjo was near completion, they were ready to make the break. The day after the trio resigned in September 1979, thirteen of their Disney peers joined them.
(The irony here is that, about 60 years ago, the late Walt Disney began his operation out of a garage.)
The Secret of NIMH, based on a book by Robert C. O'Brien, marks a return to what Bluth terms "classical animation" whereas modern animators try to cut corners to save money -- producing fewer drawings and hence neo-static cartoons -- NIMH reverberates with color and action.
The film uses 1.5 million drawings, more than 600 colors and 1,000 backgrounds. There are dazzling special effects (a pen produces laser-like light, flames glow, a necklace glitters and shines), extensive use of light shadows, a full depth of field and an abundant background.
And while the animators are proud of their technical accomplishments, they stress the other factor which qualifies The Secret of NIMH as classical animation: it possesses a strong story line and draws in viewers regardless of their age.
"Without a good story, an animation is nothing," Bluth said. "Some people think that animation is for children, but we're all children. We're just at different stages."