Now, 55 years later, I buy a CD to show my sons, and I watch it all the way to the end, and suddenly Chicken Little comes to an abrupt reminder that Joe Grant, to whom Chicken Little is dedicated, may have gone ahead, but his work, his spirit and his creative genius will be recognized and emulated for decades!

From a caricaturist, portraiture artist, animator and storyteller in my own right, I bow deeply to the memory of Joe Grant.

I think you may know me as Nancy’s husband. I don’t think you and I have ever really met. I see you occasionally, usually at animation related events. Every now and then I have to step back and analyze my thoughts about animation. I remember tripping when I realized I was spending so much time on a fraction of a second. I thought it was like slowing my heart rate down, and prolonging my life. Also, I loved how I could listen to talk radio all day, draw and get paid for it! For me the audio conjoured an image of the dialog-so I really felt like I was watching TV all day, drawing, and getting paid. (no-I wasn’t smoking anything). Maybe there’s something to these theories based on Joe Grant’s longevity. Sometimes I cringe when I read over outlined principles for animation. It’s often said that animation is only limited to your imagination, and that we haven’t really advanced the artform much since those UPA days. I guess that’s why I’m weary of rules. On the other hand, when you hit that creativity wall it’s always nice to have a map. To listen to Andreas, then Nick back to back was great. Their outlooks are polarized in some ways. Ultimately, I believe it’s about capturing an essence like Ollie relayed to Andreas, which both of those guys have attained. By the way, my nominee for an interview is Pomeroy. When I started at Disney I only really knew of the famous 9, and a handfull of our contemporaries. I was working on Milo and discovered his talent. I loved to study his roughs and try to figure out how he approached a scene. He was always nice, but was difficult to get to know. I’m sure he’d have plenty to share if you could coax it out of him. One last thing, I heard some of the audio commentaries and I don’t think you should tailor your content to the uninformed. Let them hunt down some information. I asked Glen Keane for a quote once at a book signing and he wrote: “if it comes too easily, you’re doing something wrong”.

Was when it was all done and the whole crew was seeing the completed film Lorenzo for the first time, Joe sat in the back row, and kept an empty seat next to him. He called Mike Gabriel over, shook his hand and indicated the empty seat. “This seat’s for Walt,” he said.

It was quite an experience, that to me epitomized Joe’s connection to our past here. Nobody else could say that. He was truely our one degree of seperation from Walt, and right from the beginning of the history of Feature Animation.