More Disney Circa 1977

Still more photographs from thirty years ago, out of the Disney recruiting booklet. It's hard to believe three decades have passed. Time flies when you're breathing in and out...

Above, left to right: Tad Stones; Don Bluth and Lorna Cook; Ed Gombert and John Pomeroy.

Most of the folks up above are still in the animation business.

Tad, who's now at Starz Media, I've mentioned previously. And Don Bluth -- then an animation director -- had a long run as the operator of several companies bearing his name. (In '77, he was Woolie Reitherman's heir apparent to head up the animation department, but he left a couple of years later to make his own projects.)

Lorna Cook, a budding animator in '77, is now a feature director at DreamWorks.

Ed Gombert, then in the early years of his Disney tenure (first as an animator, then as a story artist), has had a long and successful career as a board artist and story supervisor. He now works at Sony Pictures Animation.

John Pomeroy was then an up-and-coming animator in the department. He has since been a lead animator on many animated features, most recently The Simpsons Movie.

Above, left to right: Emily Jiuliano; Dave Spafford; Dave Thompson; Dan Hansen; Don Griffith.

Emily Jiuliano was a cleanup artist in the late seventies; she today works at DisneyToon Studios. Dave Spafford was a freshly-minted animator and free spirit in 1977; he's worked in the animation biz for three-plus decades and now runs his own company.

Dave Thompson (the guy with the glasses), worked in the scene-planning department. But Dan Hansen and Don Griffth were layout artists. Dan was a relative newcomer in 1977, and Don (on the right) was the grizzled veteran, having been at the studio since the 1940s.