The late Bob Clampett directed great cartoons and was later a great repository of cartoon history. In the early seventies when most of his old co-workers couldn't be bothered to answer questions about "the old days," he was accessible and friendly to all. More to the point, he had a good memory and an amazing stash of stuff he'd saved — much of it reportedly fished out of wastebaskets and not necessarily his — to supplement his recollections. From time to time, he'd invite local animation buffs up to his dwelling in the Hollywood Hills just to watch his old cartoons and talk about them. One of the times I was so privileged, he ran his 1944 Merry Melody Russian Rhapsody and one of the young animators present asked Bob how a certain bit of animation — an unusual effect — had been done. Bob excused himself, disappeared into an off-limits room in his home, then returned with the actual cels and animation drawings for that sequence and proceeded to explain.
Animation historian Michael Barrier was one of the folks who tapped into Clampett's grand memory and archives. That Bob was often inflating his own role was inarguable to the point where he eventually joked about it. One time when we were lunching, he asked me, "Did I ever tell you how I invented the grilled cheese sandwich?" He was hardly the only one of his contemporaries to spin history in his own direction…as many did once Bob's interviews prompted them to agree to their own. At times, it almost seemed like if you worked in the Warner Brothers cartoon studio within a year either way of the birth of Bugs Bunny, you had to claim fathership. No one's tale of how they'd created the wabbit was uniquely believable and Bob eventually had to walk his (and a few other such assertions) back a few blocks. But if you could get around that with most of those guys and apply a little skepticism, there was much to be learned. You also had to deal with the fact that some of them hated each other and it was not always easy to remain friends with both sides.
At one point, Clampett marked up a map of Los Angeles for Barrier and on it, he tried to pinpoint where certain moments in cartoon lore had occurred. Being a sucker for the history of both animation and old L.A., I was naturally fascinated. That map has now been scanned for posterity and the Internet and Michael is sharing it over at his website.