by Celia Bullwinkel
Bill Peet is among the most important, (perhaps least appreciated) storymen of the Walt Disney Studios. His drawing talent, character and story development brought shape to Disney feature though the golden age, and into the late 60’s. Starting as an inbetweener in 1937, Bill drew at the Disney Annex at 22. He then rose to contribute to the Olympian segment of “Fantasia” to drawing characters for “Dumbo”.

Bill found his niche in storytelling, planning out memorable scenes in “Song of the South” and “Cinderella” (two mice Jaq and Gus are purely Peet’s design). Peet also went on to write the screenplay for “101 Dalmatians”. Peet carefully designed and developed the famous villain, Cruella De Ville. Before leaving the studio, he proposed to Disney two more stories, “The Sword in the Stone” and “The Jungle Book.” After Disney approved of “Sword in the Stone”, Peet modeled the wizard Merlin with attitude and features strikingly similar to Walt’s!

Peet’s career with Walt Disney was often turbulent. He was dumbfounded to find his name missing from the credits of “Pinocchio”, after working on the film for nearly two years. His story/character ideas were often stolen from him, by Disney’s staff of “favorites”. Bill disliked how Disney became well known of all the things he couldn’t do: like drawing and writing. “Even his humor was suspect”, says Peet in an interview on Hogan’s Alley, an online magazine about cartooning. “I would call it sarcasm at best.”

Bill Peet left Walt Disney studios shortly before Walt’s death in 1967. He continued writing storybooks, such as “Hubert’s Hair-raising Adventure” “The Whingdingdilly,” and “Chester the Worldly Pig”. In 1990, Peet published an illustrated story of his own life, entitled “Bill Peet, an Autobiography”. Here, he writes openly of the Disney studio experience, and of his triumphs and struggles. Bill Peet passed away Saturday, May 18th, at the age of 87.

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by Robert Kohr
If you know nothing of the new SPIDERMAN movie, you must have been on vacation for that past six months. SPIDERMAN is probably the most anticipated movie since the STAR WARS re-release and the release of HARRY POTTER. This weekend took the highest grossing first weekend from HARRY POTTER by earning a record $114 million.

Why is this relevant? If you have seen it you must have realized that most of the stunts were not performed by stunt men, but by your friendly neighborhood animator. It seems that more and more the roll of the animator is being blurred with the live action, allowing what was in the past, impossible to be possible. FINAL FANTASY seems to be the antithesis of this new cinematic trend with its strongly realistic animation and character design. SPIDERMAN has taken this type of CG and combined it with live action to produce a film, that up until now was impossible to do or done correctly.

Toby McGuire has reportedly received $5 million for this roll, looks like he should have thrown in a percentage in there, and will receive $26 million for the sequel.

SPIDERMAN is not a fine film in any shape or form. However, if you enjoy a roller coaster ride, go see it! SPIDERMAN stays true to the comic book and loyal Spiderman fans will get a hoot out of all the parallels.

SPIDERMAN was also in the news following September 11th, when the trailer and movie posters were removed from the theaters and the web because of a short segment, made only for the trailer, which included Spiderman catching a helicopter between the twin towers. Since then all reference to the towers were removed and the poster was changed. You can still purchase the original poster on Ebay, for a markup, and find the original QuickTime trailer on Limewire or Morphious.

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