Page 22 - Flathead Beacon // 8.12.15

Cover Story
Skip Morgan drew such iconic characters as Peter Pan, Pinochio and Winnie the Pooh. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
in Disney’s consumer products depart- ment. Ito first began working for the com- pany in 1954, when Walt Disney was still alive.
Giving the characters life also meant that their forms had to be drawn right, every single time, 24 times per second of television. Viewers would recognize any mistakes immediately. Rather than as a professional embarrassment, Skip viewed flaws in the art as a betrayal to the characters.
Skip’s artists were skilled. The diffi- culty was meeting the emotional expec- tations of a large audience that held Walt’s characters dear. “Mickey speaks to the world,” Skip said, “and he belongs to everyone.” The characters had wide- spread appeal, and Skip had to do their
personalities justice in each depiction. “Mickey is the perfect guy. Every guy would like to be looked upon with the admiration people have for Mickey,” Skip continued. “He tries to do the right thing all the time, even though he has all the failings and emotions that humans have ... and [though] they have their problems,
he and Minnie are a perfect couple.”
As Skip’s daughter said, “Who doesn’t
love Mickey Mouse?”
Nearly everyone has a special relation-
ship with Mickey and other Disney char- acters, and few people understand that better than Skip.
But that meant coworkers came to him with his or her own ideas of what Disney’s characters should look like. In the com- pany’s higher-ups, that translated into requests for images Skip believed were disloyal to Walt’s original work.
“The thing about Walt Disney was that he thought of things that had not been done. He created new ideas,” Skip said. Therefore, trying to improve upon or change Walt’s work was inconceivable. To Skip, the classic Disney brand is no longer classic Disney if it has been altered.
“One guy [in discussions about the logo] said, ‘Let’s cut that character crap and do a big D.’ Like a Gucci D!” Skip said. “No, that’s not what America wants. They want Mickey.”
Once created, Walt’s characters were alive. Skip got to know them so well that they existed, truly, in his mind and on the paper before him. And certain changes became incompatible with reality.
“I can’t believe people had the audac- ity,” Skip said. “There was nobody like him or ever will be again. It’s dangerous to try to improve on a classic... I was pro- tective [of Walt] to the point where I was called a hothead.”
Skip remembers a pitch to reinvent Noah’s Arc with Winnie the Pooh charac- ters. Pooh would play Noah, Piglet would be his wife, and they’d bring aboard the Arc two Eyores, two Tiggers, and so on.
“I stood up in the meeting and said, ‘Hold it, buddy!’” Skip said. “That enraged me.”
Skip explained that Walt wouldn’t make a religious epic, Piglet is male, and besides, how many times has Tigger said he’s the only one?
“He never let anyone forget that [Dis- ney] all started with one determined, tal- ented man,” Howell said. “When I was young and we would go to Disneyland, he would point out the light in the window above the fire station on Main Street and say, ‘That was Walt’s apartment.’”
Indeed, Disney Studios never pro- duced Pooh’s Arc, and the responsibility of safeguarding Walt’s legacy was a wel- come one.
“I couldn’t be luckier to have this tal- ent,” Skip said. “This had been my dream ever since I was a little kid. I did what I loved.”
He got paid to draw, paid to create. It was his job to nourish Disney’s charac- ters, all while working alongside other
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AUGUST 12, 2015 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM