Burny Mattinson, Legendary Disney Animator, Director and Story Artist, Dies at 87
thewrap.comon their official website.The story goes that Mattinson, who was born in San Francisco in 1935, was transformed when his mother took him to see Walt Disney’s “Pinocchio” at the age of 6.
He knew what he wanted to do.Mattinson’s first job at Disney was as an in-betweener on “Lady and the Tramp.” Following that, he became legendary animator and Imagineer Marc Davis’ assistant on “Sleeping Beauty,” working on the character of Maleficent.
He would go on to work on every major Disney movie of the 1960’s and early 1970’s – “101 Dalmatians,” “The Sword in the Stone,” even “Mary Poppins” (although his work was uncredited on this one) and “The Jungle Book.” By the late 1970’s, Mattinson was a story artist, working on projects like “The Rescuers” (the most successful animated movie since Walt’s passing a decade earlier), “Pete’s Dragon” and “The Small One,” an influential animated Christmas short that was the launchpad for a young talent named Don Bluth.In 1983 Mattinson wrote, directed and produced “Mickey’s Christmas Carol,” the first theatrical Mickey Mouse cartoon produced in 30 years (in the United States it was attached to a holiday re-release of “The Rescuers”).
The short was passion project for Mattinson, who pitched the short directly to Disney CEO Ron Miller. And while the Disney old guard wasn’t exactly getting along with the younger animators, Mattinson knew the talent that was now surrounding him and called upon future superstars including Glen Keane (who would go on to animate the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast” and Ariel in “The Little Mermaid”), Randy Cartwright, Dale Baer (who also recently passed away) and Mark Henn (who worked on Mickey Mouse).
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