Who is ubbe iwerks

Iwerks quit working for Disney and started an animation studio under his own name, The Iwerks Studio. It opened for business in but did not have any major successes to its name, at least not enough to rival Disney. The company went bankrupt in Iwerks then animated a number of other series including some shorts for Looney Tunes, but returned to work for Disney in He also developed the process for combining live action with animation which was used in the film Mary Poppins and for which he won an Oscar in He revolutionized the animation industry with his characters, designs and technical advancements.

As before, Ub also trained young animators and would stop his own work to encourage others, did the lobby cards and posters and even illustrated the daily Mickey Mouse comic strip. In later years, Ub's key contribution in the creation and early development of Mickey Mouse was downplayed even though the title card of the original theatrical cartoons as well as the comic strip prominently featured Ub's name and it was often in larger typeface than Walt's name.

Ub's sons, David and Don who both ended up working at Disney, have insisted that their father never felt any resentment over this situation nor any proprietary interest in the character of Mickey.

Many times in a variety of situations, Ub told them, "It was what Walt did with Mickey that was important, not who created him. In early , while in New York, Walt wrote a letter back to his wife that stated, "everyone praised Ub' art work…Tell Ub that the New York animators take off their hats to his animation and all of them know who we are.

As a forum for experimentation, Walt took the suggestion of the studio's musical director, Carl Stalling, and produced a series of cartoons synchronized to musical themes and entitled the Silly Symphonies.

Ub once again almost single-handedly animated the first in the series, The Skeleton Dance , and soon was promoted to a director on the series.

Happily married with two sons, respect and admiration from his peers, and a huge salary, it seemed as if Ub's life was close to perfect which made it all the more surprising when in January , Ub went in to see Roy O. Disney and announced he was leaving the studio. Obviously this opportunity to oversee his own studio and to provide greater financial security for his family was a significant factor in Ub's desire to leave the Disney Studio.

However, most historians agree that it was personal differences with Walt which was the major deciding factor in Ub deciding to go out on his own. Being a boyhood friend of Walt and seeing his early struggles and realizing his weaknesses as an artist, Ub was less in awe of the head of the studio as were the new animators and the public.

As a result, Ub was more resentful when Walt intruded in the animation process by re-timing Ub's exposure sheets or by insisting that Ub change his method of animating to produce only key drawings and allowing assistants to do the in-between drawings.

Even more so, Walt had a reputation of having fun at others' expense and the shy Iwerks was an easy target for these remarks and pranks and Walt never realized that Ub's quietness in these situations hid embarrassment and anger that eventually bubbled up in this decision. Yet while the tension between the two men was apparent, not one person can ever recall Ub saying a negative word about Walt.

In the book Walt Disney: A Biography by Barbara Ford: "In spite of his skills, Ub remained the same shy, inarticulate, serious young man he had been when Walt first met him. He was extremely nervous around young women. Ub's personality made him a natural foil for confident Walt's practical jokes.

At Kansas City Film Ad Company, Walt would send Ub postcards signed with girls' names, lock him in the washroom so that he had to hammer on the door to get out, and smuggle animals into his desk and locker.

Ub never complained. Ub never complained not necessarily because he was a good sport but because he seemed to have difficult expressing his feelings and it would sometimes bubble up in a temper to rival Walt's. One time Walt secretly filmed Ub being awkward on a date from behind a potted palm and then showed the film to the animators at the studio with Walt making amusing remarks.

So when an opportunity came up in to run his own studio his own way, Ub decided it was time to move on and avoid his growing frustration with Walt. Walt, who was in New York at the time, was taken completely by surprise and felt betrayed by his longtime friend's decision to leave the Disney Studio.

Even worse, Ub was going to be a competitor. To be fair, Ub didn't feel his leaving would put the studio in jeopardy since a process had been established to produce the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony cartoons and the studio had expanded with more than enough other animators like Les Clark capable of doing the work.

Clark became the main animator on Mickey Mouse. Under the banner of Celebrity Productions, Iwerks produced three cartoon series from to approximately Flip the Frog, Willie Whopper and the ComiColor cartoon fables.

After the first two cartoons, Flip was modified to be less froglike and with new short pants, white shoes and gloves, he resembled nothing more than one of the several Mickey Mouse wannabes like Warners' Foxy which were prevalent at the time. The cartoons did resemble the early Mickey Mouse cartoons with several similar plots like a dark house mystery and building a robot but although they featured strong animation, the stories meandered at a slow pace and never took advantage of the opportunities for gags.

Flip did not have a sense of personality like Mickey. They were produced in Cinecolor, a two color process using a combination of red and blue hues. These technical improvements never compensated for the lack of a strong story and charismatic characters. The Willie the Whopper series recounted the adventures of a pudgy young boy voiced by a seven year old actress Jane Withers in one of her first professional jobs who told tall tales known as "whoppers" and who at the end of each cartoon encouraged audiences to tell one of their own.

The studio was staffed by soon to be legendary animators like Grim Natwick, Shamus Culhane, Virgil Ross and Rudy Zamora as well as a young man just starting his career, Chuck Jones, who was employed to wash the ink and paint off cels so they could be re-used.

Chuck also got a chance to get to know Ub's secretary, Dorothy, who would later become Chuck's first wife. However, while Iwerks was an inspiration as an animator, his laconic manner, often misunderstood by others as being sullen, was unable to provide the leadership needed to guide these talented individuals to creative heights.

It quickly became obvious that Iwerks was unable or unwilling to adapt his cartoons to changes happening in the cartoons of the s which ironically were sparked by the rapid advances in Disney animation.

Just as apparent was the fact that Ub was becoming less interested in animation and the day-to-day running of the studio and more interested in technology and was happiest when tinkering with mechanical problems. He was a prolific animator and a brilliant technical mind.

He left The Walt Disney Studios at a critical juncture to pursue his own career, but eventually found his way back to the company he had once animated into success to engineer it to new heights. In , while working at the Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio, he met a young, ambitious artist who had just returned from World War I service in France with a knack for showmanship and a bold, entrepreneurial spirit. Then I would turn it over and he would do the final inking and cleanup. When both Ubbe and Walt were laid off after the holiday rush and decided to go into a short-term venture of their own called Iwwerks-Disney Commercial Artists.

They disbanded their fledgling company after a few weeks to take jobs with the Kansas City Slide Company—later renamed Kansas City Film Ad Company—where Walt discovered celluloid animation and started making experimental films of his own.

Following another failed independent studio effort called Laugh-O-gram Films, Walt was encouraged by his older brother Roy and his Uncle Robert to leave Kansas City and get started elsewhere. The animation business was flourishing in both New York and Hollywood.