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Disney vs. Hanna-Barbera

It was a whole different experience. Number one, you were accustomed to answering to images that were screened onto fairly good sized areas, theater screens. And in those days you had to be very careful that everything was readable and silhouetted and graphically simply and directly stated and a lot of things like that. You were playing around with 9 inch, 10 inch, 11 inch screens. Those are some of the things you began to learn.

It was a certain degree of adjustment that I had to make and then the philosophy was somewhat different. Not somewhat, it was real different from the kind of illusion of life that they used to put out of Disney. There’s nothing to knock that, it was so well done. But they were after a different thing. They had a heck of a lot less money and minimal time to place something on the television screen that would entertain people—make them laugh make them cry.


Date: August 6, 1998

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Janice Tanaka

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio
Iwao Takamoto (April 29, 1925 – January 8, 2007) was a legendary animator for Walt Disney and Hanna Barbera, most famously designing Scooby Doo in the late sixties. Incarcerated at Manzanar after graduating high school, Iwao leveraged his art skills into a job at Disney upon returning to Los Angeles, working on classic animated films like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. He would go on to mentor other Japanese American animators such as Willie Ito, who worked with him on Lady and the Tramp. After leaving Disney for Hanna-Barbera in 1962, Iwao continued animating, as well as producing and directing films like Charlotte's Web (1973) until his retirement. (June 2021)
Ito,Willie

Disney Drawing Tests

(b. 1934) Award-winning Disney animation artist who was incarcerated at Topaz during WWII

Ito,Willie

His mentor, Iwao Takamoto

(b. 1934) Award-winning Disney animation artist who was incarcerated at Topaz during WWII