Mickey Mouse Animation, Color Pencil on Paper. Titled "My 1st Mickey" and inscribed "-from 'Jeff' (animation)" on back. Dated 6/24/80 on back. Signed S. Fox on back.

Overall size: 10 1/2 X 13 1/2 in.

Sight size: 7 1/2 X 9 1/4 in.

#1575 .

Since the death of Walt Disney in 1966, Walt Disney Studios had been in turmoil, barely held together at first by the efforts of his brother Roy until his own death in 1971. During this time the animation staff had declined from 500 to 125 workers, as new CEO Donn Tatum and new President Card Walker began to shift the priorities of the company, focusing more on their theme parks and live television programs and less on films. In 1979 Walt Disney Studios released only two new films, both of which were live action. Dissatisfied with the direction that the studio was headed in, Don Bluth led 11 other animators to quit and start their own company, Don Bluth Productions, which became the prime competition for Disney in the next decade and forced them to reevaluate the choices they had made regarding animation, the company’s original bread and butter. By 1980 a fresh batch of animators had been acquired to fill the emptied positions, among them Tim Burton, Brad Bird, and John Lassiter, who would all go on to shape the direction of Disney animation (and the film industry itself) over the next twenty years. The date on this piece, almost nine months after the mass exodus of Bluth and co., indicates it came from one of those newly minted animators, although the quotations around the word “Jeff” suggests that they were wary of signing their real name, due to potential legal ramifications regarding the character of Mickey Mouse.