Episode 244: Floyd Norman. Join host Cody with Justin, Jenn, Joe, and friend of the show, Animator, Screenwriter, Artist, & Disney Legend Floyd Norman. Settle in and enjoy the master storyteller.
Norman had his start as an assistant to comic book artist Bill Woggon, who lived in the Santa Barbara, California, area that Norman grew up in.
Norman first joined the Disney studio in 1956. As an in-betweener on Sleeping Beauty, he assisted Frank Thomas working on the fairies Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. As an assistant animator on Mary Poppins, he worked on The Pearly Band. As a story artist on The Jungle Book, he was responsible for much of the gags in the "Trust In Me" sequence with Mowgli and Kaa, and for the Vultures.
After Walt Disney's death in 1966, Floyd Norman left Disney Studios to co-found the AfroKids animation studio, with business partner animator/director Leo Sullivan. Norman and Sullivan worked together on various projects such as the original Hey! Hey! Hey! It's Fat Albert television special which aired in 1969 on NBC (not to be confused with the later Fat Albert series made by Filmation Associates).
Norman returned to Disney at one point in the early 1970s to work on the Disney animated feature Robin Hood and worked on several animated television programs at Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears. In the 1980s he worked as a writer in the comic strip department at Disney and was the last scripter for the Mickey Mouse comic strip before it was discontinued.
More recently he has worked on motion pictures for Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios, having contributed creatively as a story artist on films, such as Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc. for Pixar and Mulan, Dinosaur, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame for Walt Disney Animation, among others. He continues to work for the Walt Disney Co. as a freelance consultant on various projects.
Norman has also published several books of cartoons inspired by his lifetime of experiences in the animation industry, Faster! Cheaper!, Son of Faster, Cheaper!, How the Grinch Stole Disney, Disk Drive: Animated Humor In The Digital Age, and Suspended Animation: The Art Form That Refuses To Die. Norman's latest book, titled: Animated Life: A Lifetime of tips, tricks, techniques, and stories from an animation Legend (Animation Masters) was published by Focal Press in 2013 Debuting at the 2017 D23 Expo, Disney Editions published the picture book: A Kiss Goodnight written by Richard Sherman and illustrated by Norman.
Floyd Norman: An Animated Life, a feature-length documentary on his life and career was released in 2016.
Twitter Info: @Elizabeth_DTE (Elizabeth), @JennLovesDisney (Jenn), @InsideDisney407 (Cody), @HatboxMouse (Jared), @justinkoehn (Justin), @tmkbradio (Joe), @doubleoh_kevin (Kevin), @rahrah6263 (Robyn)
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