Biography: Art Babbitt

The Pencil Test Of Art's Best Scene

Today, ASIFA-Hollywood Board member, Tom Sito contributed a Biopedia entry on legendary animator and Union organizer, Art Babbitt.

I was lucky enough to work with Art when he was sharing office space with FilmFair studios while he was animating on Richard Williams' Theif and the Cobbler. Babbitt was a unique individual, and he was misunderstood by many at the studio. Some saw him as bitter and angry, but as I spent time with him on lunch hours, pumping him for stories of the "old days", I came to realize that he wasn't bitter and angry, but passionate and principled.

Babbitt led the Disney strike in 1941. He wasn't striking because of his own job conditions, but because of the poor pay and long hours of unpaid overtime that his assistant was subject to. The strike was a bitter one... Babbitt was fired for his Union activities, and strikebreaking goons were hired to rough him up. But Art didn't back down. He took his case to the Supreme Court and Disney was ordered to reinstate him to his job. He was fired again, and was reinstated by the court... and again... and again.

Babbitt was a tenacious individual with a strong sense of right and wrong. At the Evening of Remembrance after he passed away, one of his friends described him as the sort of a guy who would go to the mat for a 25 cent mistake on his electric bill- even if the error was in his favor. Art was a remarkable man.

He was also a remarkable animator. His technique was studied and throrough. Babbitt scenes were always meticulously drawn. A good example is the scene of Mickey Mouse jumping out from behind a rock with six guns firing in "Two Gun Mickey". The guns are rendered in perfect perspective and the recoil and blast on the gunshots are animated with precision.

I once asked Art what he thought his best piece of animation was, expecting him to cite Goofy in "Moving Day", The Chinese Mushrooms in Fantasia or Gepetto in Pinocchio. But Art surprised me. He stated without equivocation that his animation of the bear chasing the dandilion in UPA's "Grizzly Golfer" was his best. I had recently seen the cartoon on home video. (The moment I heard that Art was going to be working at the studio, I went out and rented everything I could find by him!) I had to agree. It's a tour-de-force on several levels.



The premise of the scene is that Mr Magoo is playing golf, and has mistaken a grizzly bear for his caddy, nephew Waldo. The bear has discovered that Mr Magoo's golf balls are very tasty. Magoo wanders off into an open field swinging wildly at dandilions, which look to him like golf balls. In this scene, the bear is chasing after Magoo to get more balls to eat. He arrives just as Magoo hollers, "FORE!". The bear ducks expecting a golf ball, but a dandilion drifts into the scene.



Babbitt's animation skillfully contrasts weight and weightlessness as the bear gracefully falls under the spell of the wayward dandilion. Art told me that he choreographed the scene as a ballet, planning each movement out in detail. He saw the character as a performer. If you notice, multiple scene cuts are animated straight through, with instructions for the camera man to refield for the cut ins. Art kept the character in the center of the sheet, even though it was a pan scene. He had the camera man repeg the animation and move it across the field to accomplish the pan movement. This allowed Art to focus on the bear and perform the dance through him.



I have many fond memories of chatting with Art, but eventually he retired and I moved on to other jobs. Months later, I met the family of Pete Burness and helped them evaluate some artwork from UPA that Pete had saved. In among it was Art's scene from "Grizzly Golfer". I told the Burnesses about what Art had told me about that scene, and they kindly allowed me to copy it. I made a set for myself, and a set for Art.



I met up with Art at the 100th Birthday Party that ASIFA-Hollywood organized for Grim Natwick. Art was happy to see me and introduced me to his wife as "the kid with a million questions about ancient history". I told Art that I had a present for him. I handed him a stack of registered xeroxes of his scene from "Grizzly Golfer". I watched as he squinted through his coke bottle glasses and flipped the drawings he hadn't seen in forty years.

I could tell Art was very touched, but he put on a tough face and joked, "Whaddaya gonna do with all this stuff? Open a goddamn MUSEUM?!"

Yes, Art. That's exactly what I'm going to do... Your work deserves it.

Today Marc Deckter and I digitized Art's scene and made a pencil test of it. I hope you find it to be inspiring to your own work.

Art Babbitt's Animation From "Grizzly Golfer"
Quicktime / 3.5 MB

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Stumble It!