Movie Musings: Disney and More

The Keane Family Circus

While it wasn’t a featured presentation at the recent Academy Awards, the film winning “Best Animated Short” made a bit of news because Kobe Bryant was a producer. It was his “Dear Basketball” poem that was the subject, but the animator who gave the film life was Glen Keane. As he accepted the award, few in the audience realized they were hearing from “animation royalty.”

Glen Keane was an animator at Walt Disney Studios for nearly 40 years. He animated many of the studios most beloved characters, human and non-human, male and female. He was inspired to go into animation by his father, Bil Keane, whom you may remember as the creator of the comic strip “The Family Circus.” (In fact, his father patterned the character of “Billy” Keane after Glen.) Glen Keane has an incredible background in animation that goes even beyond Disney.

Glen Keane was born on April 13th, 1954 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After graduating High School at Brophy College Preparatory, he applied to the California Institute of the Arts-otherwise known as “CalArts,” which was established in 1961 by a group of professionals including Walt Disney himself. While there, Keane was fortunate enough to meet and view the works of some of Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men” (Eric Larson, Frank Thomas, and Ollie Johnston and others.) Inspired by their work, he left CalArts in 1974, and joined the Walt Disney Studios. It was a logical bump, since during school, he worked as a layout artist on the cartoon series, My Favorite Martians (1973), Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974), Lassie’s Rescue Rangers (1973-1975), and Mission: Magic! (1973).    

His very first assignment at Disney was as a Character Animator for Bernard, Miss Bianca, and Penny in The Rescuers (1977). He also worked as a Character Animator for Elliot the Dragon in Pete’s Dragon (1977). Four years later, Glen Keane was promoted to Supervising Animator for the Bear in The Fox and the Hound (1981). He also worked as a Supervising Animator for Ratigan and Fidget in The Great Mouse Detective (1986) and Sykes, Georgette, Fagin, Jenny in Oliver & Company (1988). Among his most famous creations were Ariel in The Little Mermaid (1989), Marahute the Eagle and Cody in The Rescuers Down Under (1990), the Beast in Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin in Aladdin (1992), Pocahontas in Pocahontas (1995), Tarzan in Tarzan (1999), and John Silver, Captain Amelia, and Scroop in Treasure Planet (2002). 

The same year as “Pocahontas,” he also provided commentary on the Disney documentary Frank and Ollie (1995), based on the partnership/friendship of Disney Animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. The documentary was directed by Thomas’s son, Theodore. Keane was also an Animator of Willie the Giant, Scrooge McDuck, and Goofy in the short Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983), a Character Animator for Gurgi and Eilonwy in The Black Cauldron (1985), and a Directing Animator for Rapunzel in Tangled (2010).

Soon he took on other leadership roles and was Executive Producer/Animation Supervisor/Character Designer in “Tangled,” and a Character Designer for the Disney short, Paperman (2012) which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. And his final work for Disney was the animation for Ariel for “The Little Mermaid,” sequence in the Walt Disney World attraction Mickey’s Philhar Magic and visual development on Wreck-It-Ralph (2012). He officially resigned from Disney on March 23, 2012.

In December of 2013, Glen Keane joined Motorola’s Advanced Technology and Projects Group to work with its engineers to create interactive, hand-drawn animation. They released their first animated short, Duet at the Google I/O Conference in San Francisco on June 25, 2014. 

He also has written and illustrated a series of Children’s books on Bible parables with characters that he created himself, known as Adam Racoon and King Aren the Lion.

Glen Keane was named a Disney Legend in 2013. Just like his father before him, Glen Keane’s children have followed in his footsteps into animation. His daughter, Claire Keane-Rogozyk is a Visual Development Artist at Walt Disney Animation Studios and his son Max Keane is Computer Graphics Artist. So, Glen Keane’s great legacy of Disney Animation will continue to live on through his children!