ART BABBITT began his years at war in Quantico, Virginia, working at the Marine Corps motion picture unit. He spent nine weeks learning about landfall recognition, rubber terrain model production, and photo surface terrain technology. He illustrated cartoons for Marine safety guides like they were out of a humor magazine, one about foot care, the other about flame thrower safety.
After a few months, Babbitt was transferred to Terrain Intelligence in the Pacific, specializing as a landfall technician. His base was on the dusty, tropical island of Guam, and he helped map the Japanese base of Pagan Island from above. Although his bad eyes kept him out of combat, he found himself on the airfields where squadrons of B-29s took off on bombing runs. When the marines captured Iwo Jima, Babbitt saw the planes celebrate their triumph overhead by “buzzing the island like a swarm of mosquitoes.”1
Babbitt’s two lawsuits were settled while he was on active duty. On January 28, 1943, he lost his civil suit. The Disney company had presented the financial accounts of Pinocchio and Fantasia and publicly disclosed that the films each lost $1 million. The news surprised the press and did not bode well for stockholders. The judge ruled that it was not the studio’s policy to pay bonuses on productions that lost money. Babbitt was also required to repay a balance of $222.10 that he had borrowed in 1939.2
But that was small potatoes compared to the Labor Relations Board case, which was ruled in his favor in March 1943. In terminating Babbitt, Walt Disney Productions was officially held liable for breaking the National Labor Relations Act.
The company was granted an appeal, but on December 5, 1944, it was decreed in the Court of Appeals that the original order must be upheld.3 Disney had to:
Cease and desist from discouraging membership in the Screen Cartoonists Guild.
Rehire Babbitt at his former position.
Reimburse Babbitt for any loss of pay he may have suffered from Disney’s discrimination (about $9,000).
Hang bulletins throughout the studio for sixty days stating that the company would not discriminate against the Screen Cartoonists Guild or any of its members.4
Once again, the Disney company fought the verdict, this time petitioning for a Supreme Court review. On April 23, 1945, the chief justice of the US Supreme Court, Harlan Fiske Stone (one of Roosevelt’s Nine Old Men), penned a letter of denial.5
The Second World War ended in September 1945, and on October 29, Babbitt was honorably discharged as master technical sergeant first class. He was 38 years old.
He made his arrangements and arrived for work at Disney on Monday, December 3. The law guaranteed Babbitt’s employment without discrimination, but human opinion was something else entirely.6
Babbitt was warned to “sort of keep out of Walt’s way.”7 He was required to use a time clock—a requirement among junior animators who worked hourly. He wanted his seniority and full salary restored—not $170 per week, which was after the voluntary 15 percent cut, but his original $200-per-week salary. Most of all, he wanted a contract, like the senior animators always had.
By early April 1946, when the feature film department had begun production on Fun and Fancy Free, Babbitt was still relegated to short cartoons. He complained to his supervisor, and on mid-May he was assigned scenes on Fun and Fancy Free for Bongo the bear. All the while he was treated like a junior animator: given his scenes by a senior animator instead of the director and excluded from story conferences.
Additionally, most of the higher-level artists refused to have anything to do with Babbitt. They avoided him in the studio commissary. “Sit with Babbitt and get a black mark on your report card,” they said. They joked that the “kiss of death”8 would be for Walt to see you with Babbitt’s arm around you. Babbitt felt he was as being treated like a “leper.”
In November Babbitt was given a minute of animation to complete in the “Pecos Bill” segment of the feature Melody Time. That minute was cut. In December Babbitt was put on a sequence called the “Flower Festival,” and by January it too was cut. On Friday, January 10, the animation supervisor told Babbitt that since they had no work for him, the studio would be laying him off again, adding that Babbitt’s animation just hadn’t stood up since he returned from the Marines.
There was some truth to that. Babbitt’s work had suffered. It can be seen in the opening to Foul Hunting. Goofy wiggles his fanny and fumbles his gun in a stilted, erratic way. It does not look smooth or graceful. It is the work of an animator trying to put more in than what is needed to get the point across—an animator who is overcompensating.
The Guild’s grievance committee met on Tuesday, January 14, opposite Bonar Dyer and two other managers.9 The Disney company offered a large cash settlement if Babbitt was to resign. Babbitt accepted.
Almost immediately Babbitt received a notice on company stationery comprised of one sentence: “Dear Mr. Babbitt: We hereby accept your resignation from our employment, effective as of January 16, 1947, and our records have been adjusted accordingly.” It was signed by the vice president, Gunther Lessing.10
Babbitt packed his things and left the Disney studio again, this time for good. One wonders what Walt thought when Babbitt left that day. Maybe a sense of relief came over him as he stood in his corner office and looked out from his picture window. Maybe he recalled the first time Babbitt’s live-action reference was used to bring his characters to life, or when they realized that the key to personality was Babbitt’s character analysis. Maybe he recalled the first days of his studio’s art school that Babbitt had initiated. And maybe for a moment, Walt remembered that day in the sweatbox watching Babbitt’s skillful animation of the Mad Doctor, eager for Babbitt to raise the others up.