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Imagineer Kirk Hanson Interview: Disney Feature Animation · Project Horizons

• Mike: All right. So we're joined today by the very talented Kirk Hansen, who was a former Walt Disney Imagineer and animator for Disney features and also Hanna Barbera, serving as a storyboard artist, layout artist, character designer, just to name a few things. we're to have a great conversation today about Kirk's incredible career, bringing some of the most well-known films to life and his involvement in some classic attractions at the Disney parks. Kirk, pleasure talking to you. Good to know you. Good to meet you. Kirk Hanson: Meh. Mike: I know we're going to have a great conversation. How are you doing today, my friend? Kirk Hanson: Very good. Thanks, Mike. Mike: Kirk, so feel free to tell us about your career. ⁓ draw, so I can really appreciate animators. so tell me you did it, and your impressive career. So go for it. Kirk Hanson: As far as an impressive career, let me know when it starts. That would be fantastic. I was kind of a journeyman. I loved cartoons as a kid. I grew up with the HB stuff mostly in the 60s. And I still love that stuff. I still have a high regard for that stuff. And things like Johnny Quest being the be all end all, Mike: You Kirk Hanson: I became acquainted with the Disney It was nearly as prevalent because it wasn't on television all that except, you know, but we would go see, I think the first feature I saw in the theaters was, it might've been five and that would've been Sword and Stone. And then, ⁓ course, saw everything ⁓ after that. And then some of the, don't remember when the returnees would get to the theaters. I don't remember ever seeing Pinocchio or Snow White when I was little or Fantasia or any of those. and Mary Poppins Jungle Book and all those. so you'd see those and that was a big event when those would come around. ⁓ But then you'd hope for animation on the ⁓ show, you know, on the Wonderful World of Color. And you'd get it. Sometimes you'd get some animation, but there were other things too that were just really fun. And so anyway, that stimulated my interest, and so I began drawing what I was seeing ⁓ and my own versions of them and everything, and probably from five years old on. You know, I was really strong in art all the way through high school and then had a chance to go to CalArts, California Institute the Arts out here to the Character Animation Program, which was not an original course, not an original major that they had. had an animation department under the film video school. I lucky enough ⁓ that created the character animation program about five after the school opened. And ⁓ it was run by all Disney illuminaries, ⁓ Hanna, directed all the Donald Duck shorts and some other things. He mostly worked on the shorts. He was the director of the program and he was assisted by Bob McCray who was an animator at the studio. ⁓ faculty were all in their own right. had Elmer Plummer, who is really ⁓ unsung hero. Nobody knows who Elmer is. And Elmer designed, my goodness, he designed Casey Jr. And he designed most of Dumbo. ⁓ he did design work on our big ride through attractions, Pirates of Mansion. And also assisted with the castle in Florida. was part of the castle group. So working with Herbie then we had Ken O'Connor who was a brilliant layout guy for 20, probably for 30 years at Disney. And then T. He was a way, he taught caricature for us and T. was a director at at features directed, he directed the Dance of the Hours Fantasia, know, the ones with the dancing hippos and the ostriches. ⁓ he also did, he did a couple of ⁓ sequences Pinocchio with J. Worthington, Fowlfellow, you know, ⁓ the And gosh, forgetting somebody, ⁓ Bill Moore, of course, who was, ⁓ who was not a Disney. alumni, but he was he was faculty at Gennard going all the way back into the thirties and he was the color and design guy. ⁓ fact, Bill's ⁓ of color and design, I think was probably the biggest change in animation when, ⁓ finally began to exert itself. think, I think Bill, Bill's course influenced more of us than, than any, any other thing, you know, and they talk about the CalArts style. When people talk about the CalArts style, don't know what they're talking about. We all wanted to draw like Mark Davis and animate like Mill Call. That was the CalArts style. Now they think it's all that late Cartoon Network stuff, know, what we call the bean mouths. That's a design sensibility. so I graduated out of the, did the animation program, did the four years, got my degree, moved out into the work world. that was the year of one of the strikes. We had a writer's strike. So there was not a lot of work out there. ⁓ people had left after their second year and went to Disney Features. And a lot of them, they were there for a time. Mark Dundall and Mark Hinn and Joe Rampt was there. ⁓ what it really was was a farm They wanted to create talent and then bring it ⁓ to the studio. That's essentially what was going on. Earlier people like John Musker who directed with Ron Climacid, they created and directed Little Mermaid and Aladdin just feel ⁓ fortunate that I had to those ⁓ guys who worked with and were able to bring to And so I felt like, yeah, that really made a good foundation. I was able to parlay it into 38 years, 38, 40 years worth, mostly at Disney. ⁓ after... graduating that like I said, it wasn't a lot going on and I had a feeling, well, I thought, well, I would like to go to the studio, but I also wanted to go to wed work at wed in some capacity. And I thought maybe, maybe the model shop might be the best way to go. And I found out about an architectural modeling course major up at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. So I moved up there for eight months. ⁓ nine, 10 months, something like that. There were a couple classes. I ended up working for the guy who was teaching the class. So I learned kind of my way around a model making shop and then came back to Southern California and I ended up going to work for Gary Goddard Productions, And Gary Goddard was Disney alum. And he with his partner, Tony Christopher, their big ⁓ claim to fame was mounting the Hooptie Doo review. That was them. I was in San Francisco for about eight or nine months. I worked for Goddard for a little bit and then I had an opportunity. only right that I go to Hanna Barbera first, because I started out loving HB. Bill and Joe were still alive and they were coming into the every day. was like, I got work, you know, it'd be getting to work for Walt Disney, you know. And the more I learned about them, the more impressed I became. And it's like, and they did all those Tom and Jerry's with MGM and having to go out on their own once MGM closed their cartoon department. And so they had to start from scratch and they decided to try television. Even though Jay Ward had done something before he did Crusader Rabbit, which was 54, I think. and Jay wasn't in Hollywood, he was up in Berkeley, creating Crusader Rabbit. it's essentially the template for Bullwinkle. So, it just doesn't have as many drawings. But the, you know, the pluck Crusaders, the plucky little leader, and then Rags the Tiger was the dumb sidekick, and he's Bullwinkle, he's exactly Bullwinkle. So I got a chance to, I was contacted by Don Hahn, who was like an associate producer on Basil on Great Mouse Detective. And they needed a model for Rattigan's Blimp. fidget, the little bat is like, peddling a bicycle in the back. was a nod to the Hyperion, ⁓ because it had the hook nose the front. ⁓ It had that shape. So I asked ⁓ if I could make a model it for the animators to trace, ⁓ like they did with Cruella's car. built a little cardboard car with lines on them to give to distinguish where the changes are on the shapes, like the top of the hood and then the sides. And then you'd ⁓ a little black stripe. And I think those had to be hand painted. But ⁓ wasn't cursed with having to do that. was able to use that Zip-a-Tone tape that architects would use So I did that. I built this little model. And then in April of 88, May of 88, I got to go work at the model shop at Wed, except now it was WDI. ⁓ I wanted to work at Wed. I get a little miffed when I see that somebody in 1934 came to the Walt Disney Company. It was Walt Disney Studios, guys. It's the same thing. It's the same thing with the resorts that they had to hang resort on everything. You know, it's like that's that's as unnecessary as ⁓ screen doors on the submarine. mean, you just you just don't need it. And so if I if I get my way when I become king, I'm going to take everything back to It's not the Disneyland Resort anymore. ⁓ Disneyland in fact and then the and then then our other part California Adventure it becomes Disneyland to California Adventure and then what the Walt Disney Resort become fact it becomes Walt Disney World again ⁓ becomes the Magic Kingdom again this this whole this whole Magic Kingdom Park thing is ⁓ Stupid Mike: Kirk is he will let you know how he feels And that's why we have you here that's why we have you here ⁓ so Kirk Hanson: ⁓ I... Yeah. Yeah. I could go in, could either go into Disneyland or we could go into the Magic Kingdom and I can give you the... ⁓ Mike: ⁓ we're going to, I want to hear your thoughts. ⁓ Kirk Hanson: worked in the model shop on Euro Disneyland, worked on the big model, and I worked on the, what's it called now, the Astro Orbiter, is the rocket jets, ⁓ which we eventually got at Disneyland. We an exact duplicate of ⁓ the rocket jets, except it wasn't up. it wasn't on the platform like the way they left. They were smart enough to leave it at Walt Disney World up on the platform, but we got it down on the ground, making it a Dumbo. I was working at Deek when I did my last interview and I got the job at Wed. And it was on a Friday. I took a long lunch to take the interview. Okay, now I got to go in and give them my two weeks at the animation school, D-I-C, Deke. ⁓ And I came back to studio and ⁓ nobody was there. And were tumbleweeds blowing in the hallways. And I was like, what happened? ⁓ And I found out later everybody just gotten fired on the show. That's when I started at Wed And then, and I worked on, so I worked on the big model and the Alice in Wonderland walkthrough, I worked on that and I was learning all this stuff and I was there long enough to realize that I didn't want to work in a model shop because you work in that green foam, it's yellow, but they call it green foam. And you sand it, you cut it on, you know, you turn it on lathes and that stuff, make all the parts, things, know, this yellow foam. And you have to wear the masks, ⁓ and gets under, gets every pore and in ears, up your nose. this is terrible. But I met my, I met my, one of my bestie, bestie, bestiest friends. actually met him at Gary Goddard, but then he had moved on, he moved on to over to Imagineering. That's Bob Berenick. And Bob was, he, he very much took a, took a leadership role in dimensional design. and, and was, ⁓ was always you know, people would want them on his project. And he built models and things for the thing and he mostly worked for Tony Baxter. And so I was essentially working for Tony on this thing. This was the first thing I'd ever, I knew who Tony was. I had met him before in the 70s when I was working at the park. And I met him then. so that gig came to an end. And then I got a call to, they wanted somebody to do some visual development at Feature Animation for a film that development was doing, know, development would bring people in to do visual stuff for unrealized projects. And so I worked on this project for, I think it was Charlie Fink, he was running development then. and then there was an opportunity to go on to Aladdin, was just getting on its feet. they brought me in and they tried me out and I was doing visual development on that. And as much as I liked it, it was like, you know what? much rather be doing continuity and doing gags and that kind of thing. So they tried me out doing that. storyboards ⁓ features we just call story, doing story and was working for John and Ron Clements and they liked what I was doing and so I stuck and so I was there and I was on every one of their ⁓ 90s ⁓ projects Aladdin Hercules to Treasure Planet which was the end of the decade and then I did stuff in between, worked on Hunchback and Notre Dame. Fantasia 2000, a few other things I was. features probably for 12 years, 12, 13 years. then kind of ran out of things to do or I couldn't get on a project. But they took me over to TV animation. I worked on a thing. was Mickey and the Three Musketeers. Three Musketeers, which actually did really well. It was a home video thing. we were working for the Disney TV. And so that was a lot of fun and I got to work with a bunch of nuts on that one. Donovan Cook directed it and I worked with Don Doherty and Ken Neutroni Bob, the great Bob Taylor who started ⁓ Terry Tunes ⁓ 40 years earlier and And Bob McKnight, He channels those 30s style character designs Mike: sitting to watch Aladdin or of Notre Dame, you don't realize all the people involved in making that movie get the screen. ⁓ And you know, Kirk Hanson: ⁓ yeah. Thousands. Mike: Looking at those credits and if you count the names it's pretty impressive who is involved and that goes to show how much it cost to make those movies Because it's like ⁓ it cost X millions of dollars to do well That's why it's everyone's involved all this stuff all the things needed. it's impressive Kirk Hanson: Yeah. ⁓ yeah, yeah. Four figures. Yeah. And I'll be honest, I don't know which is more expensive, the old hand-drawn way or the CG stuff. I don't think we'll ever see hand drawn animation. Mike: was gonna ask you about hand drawn animation versus generated we're seeing more with obviously Pixar and ⁓ Disney animation. ⁓ Yeah. Kirk Hanson: and now we got AI on the horizon and Yeah. Mike: so what are your thoughts ⁓ computer versus hand drawn? Is there a different perception as a viewer, as someone who watches the shows and the movies? Kirk Hanson: what they did, Walt did and for the way they made the movies for as long as they did. mean, they're they're works of art. mean, I can't even conceive of how many ⁓ hand how many drawn animation drawings are that have to be roughed out, cleaned up ⁓ in between and then back back the in the 50s. right up till before the Xerox, ⁓ like Sleeping Beauty and Peter Pan and and the Tramp, and they're all hand inked, beautifully inked ⁓ the cells, and then they're painted. could conceive doing that. I really couldn't. It's beyond me, even though I knew that was the process. I'm a you know Disneyland first, course is my is my home park. It's my favorite But I appreciate the Magic Kingdom mostly because I think that was Disney's most creative period in theme parks, I think You know, to go from Disneyland to go and then to do Walt Disney World and to create a brand new park that's in with Disneyland and does mimic it ⁓ in lot of ways. But if you'll notice, there's hardly anything duplicated other than things like the interior of the Haunted Mansion and that kind of stuff. But the house is different, you know, because it's in Liberty Square. All of Main Street is essentially different in terms of the architectural style. In fact, if you look at the Herber Eiman drawing of Disneyland, you will see the Main Street train station from Walt Disney World, because it was based on a railroad station that was in Saratoga Springs I remember seeing ⁓ a woodcut ⁓ of the Street train station, except at Saratoga Springs. It's like, ⁓ my God, that's where they got it from. And then like Claude got, and then Claude found a wonderful drawing that ⁓ he found in some of book. In fact, I think the two mansions were in the same book. It was about Victorian architecture or architecture of the 19th century. And it's almost a church-like looking thing, but it's got the tower in the center and the two wings going off the side. That's obviously where Claude got it. So Claude did the exterior Florida, and it was Ken Anderson and Sam McKim here, not the architects. The architects, I think, was Marvin Davis, who was ⁓ of the architects here. But our mansion was based on a house called the Shipley-Lydekker House, which was in Baltimore. And I think it was built in 1853 or something. And it works because Baltimore was considered the South. It was south of Mason-Dixon line. if you look at the early drawings, know, first Ken's drawing and then Sam's painting over it, it's got the square cupula, you know, the square cupula, which was found on the Shipley-Lydekker house. Mike: Magic Kingdom in Walt World Haunted I've heard it was Harry Packer Mansion in Pennsylvania, but I'm sure. ⁓ I don't see it either. ⁓ Kirk Hanson: There we go again. There we go again. I don't see it. I don't see it. I've looked at the Henry. I think it's a wives tale. the Liberty Square Haunted Mansion is such a unique gothic looking thing. The Packard Mansion is not And purportedly, it's supposed to be like the Upper Hudson, know, like probably where Terrytown is or something. So ⁓ I ⁓ reject. Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's well they they the people at the Harry Packer Mansion, advertise it as, you know, it inspired the Hornet Mansion. I'm sure that there may have been one person who looked at it and said, Let's take this corner from here and bring it. But I just don't see the big picture of Kirk Hanson: Yeah, no, Walt said everybody to go see The Haunting when it opened in 63. I mean, because because Rowley and Yale, Gracie and Ken. Anderson, Ken was doing an early cartoony spook house environment, you know, and it looks like where and the Ghostly Tree have lived. It's got all those kind of cliched things like the plaster has fallen down, you get the wood slats and everything like that, which are great. I love that. In fact, just ⁓ last weekend, I was up and I finally visited the Winchester Mystery House. claim that they inspired the Haunted Mansion as well It's like okay, yeah, yeah, so let them let them I I don't particularly believe it I don't particularly believe it I think ⁓ the that movie the the haunting does it mostly in fact they even have the the Caretaker character in in the mansion, you know I call him Dudley because he looks just like Dudley, guy with dog. He's got the cap and he's got the scarf around his neck ⁓ ⁓ it also has the door, it has the bending door, the door that's out. the thing I like about Florida and and those dark rides in particular, they're pure and they they ⁓ don't have as ⁓ many people poking at them. For some reason, Disneyland in the last 25 became the the sounding board for ⁓ everything new, every kind of like I know they They just put the Hatbox Ghost ⁓ Florida's mansion in the wrong place, by the way. Should be in the attic. Is attic, was it Constance, ⁓ what's her Hatchaway? Was that in the attic? Yeah. ⁓ Mike: Mm-hmm. Yep. ⁓ with the hatchet. Yeah, yeah, she's there. Hatbox Ghost is in ⁓ the hallway now and they were towards the beginning. Yeah. Kirk Hanson: He's right, yeah, he's right by the hallway. it's like, folks, you can't have a big, can't have, you can't have a fully realized apparition before Leota. Leota releases them, right? She's doing the incantation to release them. And then right after that, what do you get? You get the grand hall. You get the big party. See, that's what, that's what, that's what story does, see? Mike: Right, right. Right, right. No, and if you follow... Right, right. story from the Mansion. Madame Leota releases spirits, but for some reason, there's a ghost in the beginning there. yeah, a disconnect, but at the same time, our guests, guests come to the park today. Are a lot of them thinking that, realizing that? What do you think? Kirk Hanson: depends on how much they're into it. There's a whole online community. In fact, Haunted Mansion's bigger now online than Pirates is. Mike: Yeah, yeah. the Haunted Mansion is an amazing story. and people are learning about that now. Kirk Hanson: Well, yeah, but think ⁓ put too much into it in terms of it's really just a tour of a haunted house. That's all it is. It's tour, you're touring a haunted house and there are interesting characters in each room and you need a connecting, first of all, theme park attractions not the way to tell intricate stories and had. We've had generations of people come into work at Disney who don't believe that. They try to tell these intricate backstories of things. It's ⁓ it's not needed. And so I'm more of the opinion that I like that they're just both pirates and mansion or just tours of places. And you don't need the connecting tissue of a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Mike: back in the day Walt Disney was ⁓ working on these attractions and making Disneyland, the rides back then have backstories Kirk Hanson: the way, even ⁓ to Walt ⁓ World and beyond. didn't have backstories. The first one that really had a backstory was Big Thunder. Because a backstory about the guy, ⁓ Jason who discovered the vein of gold in Big Thunder. He was eventually going to build a thing called Discovery Bay, which was going to be located, ironically enough, where Star Wars is now. architecture of Main in Florida much grander, it's fancier. the city hall. where City Hall come from. Philadelphia City Hall. And it just is the shape of the cupula and then down and then there's the clock and all that. It's Philadelphia. Mike: You know, some things you just never think about and they think, this looks familiar, but I'm not putting it together. And now, well, thank you for that piece of information. Kirk Hanson: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm yeah. I really, yeah, I remember things visually and and there are a few other there are a few other things. There's a there's a wonderful building in Frontierland that is the old grass valley or no, is it Nevada City? of those two cities towns are old gold rush towns in here in California. in Liberty Square, one of the things I'm really disappointed with is that they flattened out the Concord Bridge. remember how Liberty Square had the Concord Bridge? It was a hump, but forever the parade went over it. I don't know what the big problem was. And then all of sudden they had to make it flat. is Liberty Square gonna survive? I don't know. Mike: Liberty Square is there currently and then have This new land you have this well no longer rivers of America is now gone Tom Sur's Island Kirk Hanson: The riverfront. Yeah. But they'll take the... they'll take... oh, oh, oh, but there are gonna be water features, there? Oh, you're right, it won't be a riverfront anymore, will it? Mike: As far well in the concept art does have a water feature, but that's not guaranteed ⁓ It's gonna be opening in five years. So anything can happen ⁓ do you think that will impact Liberty Square Frontierland? They have a cars Land you're gonna have villains land which is be a very impressive. I have no doubt about that ⁓ as far as the integrity the integrity of Kirk Hanson: Yeah, OK. I Villains Land is a mistake to build a land based on villains. ⁓ of all, it's the number one ⁓ idea, ⁓ number one fan fiction idea. ⁓ I'm always like, we'll go the other way then. ⁓ ⁓ being advocated out in public like that, go the other way. It can't be any good. Number one, number two, Mike: So ⁓ you think ⁓ It was. Kirk Hanson: You can take all the villains out of all the other stories. can the villains all have a land all to themselves? So that means the good guys have to have a land all themselves. And now you're ⁓ gonna get the two opposing dynamics. Mike: Well, do you know, let me just, so yeah, so the reason that's an interesting point, but the reason why that could happen is because in MGM Studios, they have Star Tours outside of Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. How does that happen? Kirk Hanson: Well, listen, we got star tours here at Disneyland and then we have Galaxy's Edge apart from it. Yeah, think it's got to be, I think it's got, well, because it's like one thing opened and then they don't care about that because they want their intent on the new thing that they're creating. And see, the thing I don't like, the thing I really like about Star Wars, there's many, but every major that's presented in Disneyland and to a degree the Magic Kingdom are on the hub. You enter them from the hub. There's a little, there's a bridge that takes you over, takes you to Adventureland or it takes you to Liberty Square. And Liberty Square is just a detail of Frontierland. Mike: Mickey's birthday land, which was kind of like a piece of fantasy land in a way, but it was kind of on the outskirts. Kirk Hanson: just facets. They're facets of the bigger idea. Right. Mike: So with villains, I see your points, you have the Magic Kingdom, you have the themed lands, is gonna be called Villains Land, it gonna be part of Fantasyland? Kirk Hanson: It's going to be its own thing. It's going its own thing. ⁓ don't think going to be part of, I don't think so. I don't think when Walt was conceiving Disneyland, ⁓ you know, he had these points on the compass, you these cardinal points. And then he would choose a name that would cover a vast of ideas all centered to what a fantasy land is or a tomorrow land. It's not specific to any one thing. And so it's a great umbrella, so losing That's disappointing, too. Mike: It's good to hear an Imagineers, former Imagineers insights Kirk Hanson: I know I'm kind of a blowhard, I know, but it's my reputation. Mike: That's what we need. honesty and transparency. like I said, people that the new stuff, people that are not a fan of the new stuff. And I think it's good to have that balance of perspective Kirk Hanson: they knew what they were doing in terms of setting up the anticipation, the way you drive in and drive all the way up to that big parking lot, you know, and then you cross the parking lot to go to the TTC. And then there across that lagoon is that park and that castle. And if you're lucky enough to go at twilight or dusk, and the lights come on and on the steamboat going across or if you're on the monorail. ⁓ is ingenious. ⁓ And the fact there's nothing like it. and I don't care how many epic universes they put in ⁓ or, know, none of that would exist without Walt Disney World being there. Walt Disney World that they, in fact, I am convinced, I am convinced that Walt Disney coined term theme park. Because ⁓ can't find it prior to the new ⁓ park in Florida. had come up with a term to describe that they were going to do another Disneyland-style park, but they got out of saying Disneyland-style park, know, ⁓ in the movie and in the written material as well. And so theme park... I was looking at about amusement parks ⁓ before Walt Disney World, know, ⁓ they're written in the 40s 50s and ⁓ 60s. And I can't, I find Dean Park in any of them, and it was only because of Disneyland and then Walt Disney World. Disney used the term, said amusement theme park or theme park. And then it ⁓ got truncated more and became theme park and it became the descriptor. So another Disney thing. Mike: I think overall there are these attractions that are special to you, they're special to me and special to many others. Kirk, this is a great conversation. stories and your experiences and to have you back again for another conversation thanks again, Kirk. have a great rest of the day and we'll talk soon.