Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Moe Gollub Remembered (Part 1)

Moe Gollub was a mid-Westerner with a gift for drawing.

In 1937 he submitted artwork to Walt Disney Productions, was accepted for employment, and boarded a train for Los Angeles.

For the next four years he studied and designed for Walt Disney Productions, leaving the company and a promising Disney career when he became a leader of the 1941 strike...and therefore became somewhat disliked by Disney management.

Simpsons director Mark Kirkland reminisces about his mentor Moe Gollub in the first of a four-part interview.

Mark and Moe first met at Cal Arts in the middle seventies, where Mark was a student and Mr. Gollub was a new animation instructor brought in by Jules Engel.

A few years later, Mark found himself working as Moe's assistant at Hanna-Barbera (but Mark will get into all that a little later...)


Hit the Play button on the widget below to listen to part 1 of the interview, or click on this link to download it.

TOP: Moe Gollub, mid-1970s, by Dave Tendlar. Courtesy of the Tendlar family, from Drawing The Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson by Tom Sito. BELOW: Early model sheets for Bambi by Moe Gollub. (copyright Walt Disney Productions.) Bambi skunk models

Moe worked on "Bambi" from 1938 until the Disney strike in 1941. He told Mark Kirkland he was the first artist on the feature, and we've no reason to doubt it. His early design for "The Skunk" (above) was way before the fragrant little animal became "Flower."

5 comments:

Didier Ghez said...

Absolutely fascinating! Thanks for posting this Steve.

Anonymous said...

I would also like to thank Mark for his reminiscences. It's great to hear all the details. Those of us who were around at the time remember that one of the perqs of being in the business then was getting to meet and sometimes work with many of greats who's work inspired you to choose animation in the first place. They were also usually incredibly generous with their time and knowledge. Few, however, were as pro-active as Moe. In addition to his job, as president, he chaired the union meetings and taught the union life drawing class, all in his signature gruff, no-nonsense, sometimes intimdating style. When I worked on "Heidi's Song" at HB, I finally got to spend some informal personal time with him. I was pleasantly surprised to find his usual blunt manor scaled down to a thoughtful, insightful sincerity. We miss Moe, along with his contribution to our art and our business.
Steven Muller

Anonymous said...

Oops, it should be "manner" not "manor," of course.
SM

Anonymous said...

Hello,

I have a painting signed by M. Gollub on the back, in 2 different spots. The painting is roughly 2' x 3'.

It is a black and white painting of8 American Indians on horses, running around, with lots of motion and character. The painting has a 1.5" red stained simple square frame.

This painting was left to me by my father, who said that he found it in an abandoned theater in Missouri.

I am wondering if anyone knows anything about this painting or what it might be a painting of?

Thanks for your help, please contact me via my email address:

rich@dnoa.net

Thanks,
Richard Buchanan

Unknown said...

Can anyone find an actual photograph of Morris Gollub, I am putting together a book about some of his contributions to the Dell Tarzan series. rickr2889@yahoo.com

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