Ollie Johnston: 1912-2008

This morning I was thrown into a bit of reflection when Harry Knowles over at AICN ran a story about the passing of Ollie Johston. As of my last checking, IMDB has yet to pick up on this news. Harry says that he has known about Ollie Johnston almost his entire life. And it’s not hard to believe. Ollie Johnston was one of the Nine Old Men who, with Walt Disney, animated the classic Disney films and cartoons that we all grew up with.

We have ALL known Ollie Johnston our entire lives. We just didn’t know him by name. You’ve seen his animated characters countless times and you’ve even seen his face. Ollie Johnston, along with his best friend Frank Thomas, cameod in both of Brad Bird’s movies The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. Bird credits the pair as both his friends and his teachers. I was sitting in a press screening for The Forbidden Kingdom (expect a review tomorrow) and I overhead a conversation in the row behind me in which a woman was going on and on about how perfect the Pixar films are. They are perfect because John Lassetter and Brad Bird and all of the animation directors at Pixar worshipped in the church of the Nine Old Men!

My story about Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas is a bit different than Harry’s. During the summer of 2005 I was broke. Flat broke. In March, I had finished my work as a runner PA on the Kirstie Alley show Fat Actress and was looking for work. Up to this point, in two years in Hollywood, every job that I had was either as a runner or as a PA. Some of these stories are so rage-inducingly horrible that to share them with you now would be to invite the shattering of your own souls and your abandonment of cinema forever. Okay, it was bad and I was broke, but it wasn’t THAT bad. The consistency of my blood was mainly top ramen at that point.

Anyhow, in early May I received a phone call from an Austin friend who was leaving a job and wanted to know if I could take over. I didn’t care what it was. I had to take it. I asked what it entailed. “Being an office assistant.” For who? “A documentary filmmaker and his wife.” Oh man… I was getting further and further away from the box office Hollywood dreams with every word! What’s he done? “His name is Ted and he made a movie called Frank and Ollie. His dad animated the spaghetti scene in Lady and the Tramp.” Huh?!? What?!? My mind flashed back to being 8 and learning to read Spanish from a Donald Duck comic book on the steps of a pharmacy in Ajijic, Mexico while visiting my grandparents. My entire childhood was in worship of Mickey Mouse. Financial needs aside, I had to take this job!

Theodore and Kuniko lived 5 minutes away. Their office was local and they needed help with phones and transcriptions on some older projects plus a new documentary that they had in production. They were laid back and incredible to work with. I’ll tell you all about the new documentary as soon as Ted says it’s ready for festivals or exhibition but it is Disney history related. And for those few months that I worked for Theodore Thomas Productions, I felt as though I was showing up every morning to step into a time machine to my childhood.

For weeks I transcribed interviews that had been done with original Imagineers, animators, John Lassetter, Roy Disney, Brad Bird, you name it. This was footage that would end up mostly on the editing room floor in lieu of snippets and sound bites. But I got the lucky job of seeing and hearing how these people related to each other and worked with each other on a daily basis! After two years of seeing how I didn’t want Hollywood to work… I was finally seeing how Hollywood should! I was seeing how the magic that you and I joke about, actually was created by every day people doing their jobs!

Ted’s resemblance to his father Frank is incredible. Like Frank, Ted is a jazz musician. He sported a cool beatnick goatee and was excited about my beginning music video work. He and Kuniko acted like my biggest fans whenever I would show them my latest project or relay to them the latest news. Frank showed me photos of his dad and Ollie Johnston working alongside Walt Disney in the new Burbank offices after the company left the studio in Silver Lake. I watched interview footage of Ollie Johnston talking about how he got Walt into trains or the jokes they would tell or pranks they would pull.

In a few months, Hollywood suddenly became closer and working within it became more attainable. Watching films today or reading gossip rags or overhearing rumors you can quickly assume that the system does not work. You can become very cynical of anything and everything around you. Thousands and thousands of young filmmakers and aspiring creatives move out here every year but turn right back around when they are met with the intense negative climate associated with the industry. It’s a rat race with more rats than cheese.

But that summer with Ted and Kuniko taught me that you can’t focus on the rats. You have to focus on the mice. You have to celebrate the mice and you have to celebrate being a mouse. You have to do good and you have to do good work. You have to love to do it. Frank and Ollie loved what they did. I transcribed the love and saw photos of the love. We all sat in front of a television or in a theater as kids and RECEIVED that love through our eyes and ears. Frank and Ollie and the original Disney animators had talent in spades. But the inkwell that they dipped their talented pens into was the love for what they did. Magic was just the byproduct.

I love working. I loved working for Ted and Kuniko. I loved listening to the old stories and watching the footage of how the love of storytelling can overpower any myopic studio decision or cut-throat firing. Those months in the summer of 2005 recalibrated completely and refueled my creative engines. I haven’t looked back since. Hell! The main character in my project Singledom is a fledgling animator! I am SO thankful for this short period in my life!

The world of entertainment lost one of their biggest grandfathers in Ollie Johnston. But be thankful for all of the people that he has inspired in his time here. We will feel their magic but we may not yet know them all by name.

Frank and Ollie (Special Edition) and Walt – The Man Behind the Myth are both available for purchase or Netflixing. I highly recommend both of them for a better picture of Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas and this incredible period in storytelling.