Someone — it was probably me — once said that Burny Mattinson worked for Disney so long, he made Jiminy Cricket look like a recent hire. Actually, he started there right outta high school and worked on everything the animation department did after that — or at least everything good. They started him out in the Traffic Department — moving things around on the lot — and in six months, he was an assistant animator on Lady and the Tramp, making things move about on the screen.
He died last February at the age of 87 and if he'd lived until June, he would have received the first-ever Disney Service Award for 70 years with the company. That is not a typo. I meant to type "70 years." Here, I'll spell it out for you: Seventy years.
I didn't know Burny as well as most of the folks who attended the Celebration of his Life today at the Motion Picture Academy Theater…but I felt I knew him well enough to accept the invite. There, we all heard lots of stories about Burny the Animator, Burny the Producer, Burny the Storyboard Artist, Burny the Character Designer, Burny the Illustrator, Burny the Director and (mainly) Burny the Swell, Fun-to-be-around Guy. It made me wish I'd gotten to know him better but I sure did know his work. If you're a fan of classic Disney animation from Lady and the Tramp forward, so do you.