September 24, 2018 • 39 mins
Mindy Johnson has spent years tracking down the stories of the women who shaped Walt Disney's life, and the success of the Walt Disney Studios. She contextualizes the lives and contributions of these women in the larger historical picture.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frying and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and today
we have an interview. It is an interview that I
was actually trying to get for the Animation podcast Drawn
(00:22):
that I did earlier this year, but the timing just
did not work out. But thankfully, uh, this person that
we're talking to is also a perfect guest for this show.
So the person that Holly has interviewed is Mindy Johnson,
and she is a creator. She is an author, historian, filmmaker,
and musician. And she came out into my radar when
a friend of mine told me about a talk that
(00:44):
Mindy gave that she had attended about her recent book,
which is called inc and Paint The Women of Walt
Disney's Animation. The book covers ground that hasn't really been
examined before now, and that's what life was like for
women at the studio through the years, and how so
so many women were innovating the medium of animation in
the United States, but they didn't become household names the
(01:06):
way their male counterparts did. And this interview was so
difficult to prep for because this book is really substantial
and there are so many really fantastic bits of information,
and I wanted to ask Mindy about every single one
of them. But even with a rather brutally paired down list,
she and I still talked for over an hour and
a half. So we are actually going to run this
(01:27):
interview over two episodes. This is also territory I think
our listeners have asked about before. We've had requests for
some kind of episode about women in animation or or
women in the world of Disney, So this is a
great fit. Yeah, And just as it heads up, if
you think this is just a Disney episode, who are
you in for a surprise? Because really it has just
a lot to do about women in the labor market
and how their rights and global things going on at
(01:50):
the same time all interacted with one another. So we'll
hop right into it. So it is such a massive book.
It is so dense with information, and it really brings
to light a lot of subject matter that has never
really been explored before to the best of my knowledge,
in book form. So I'm wondering what that research process
(02:13):
was like for you. Well, it involved everything from a
long late nights and digging into people's closets and going
on digging under beds and digging through bankers boxes of
material and um, scrap books and love letters and uh,
(02:34):
just a whole raft of things. A lot of phone calling,
a lot of digging literally and figuratively into these women
and their families and UM. When I first went into
the main studio archives, it was a little difficult, and
that um they had select material on various films, and
(02:59):
we could go through Walt and Rois earliest ledgers because
initially focusing on the INCN paint teams, that it was
very materials based. But I when I asked for any
information they had on the women and the roles that
they performed, presumably and incompaint, I was handed a folder
(03:20):
that had five pieces of paper in it. It was
a real testament that history is preserved, written about, archived,
and documented from a male perspective, and we don't think
about women and their participation roles. And when you step
(03:40):
back from that and realized that literally two sides have
moved civilization forward, both men and women. And yet when
we look back at our collective past, we're only seeing
half the picture. We only know half of that story,
and that there were women from the very begin in
(04:00):
any historical context, but we just have never documented that.
So in this instance, that's one of the reasons why
this book was so large. And I got about eight
months into my research when I initially pitched the idea
to my editor. We thought it. We both thought it
(04:20):
would be a charming little volume because we the only
narrative we had been told with women and their roles
in animation was essentially the log line of pretty girls
who trace in color, and we thought it would be
this charming book about teacakes and you know, the dating
and social lives and activities that went on, and that
(04:43):
would be it. And I got about eight months into
it and said called her and said, I, this is massive.
It's epic. These women were at the forefront of so much.
And I don't it's bigger than what we thought. And
I don't know how it ends. And I had kind
of get my head. It just was a real weighted
(05:04):
feeling of oh my gosh, this is this is massive.
Um and I kept digging. She just said, Okay, deep breath,
keep going. We will enlarge the trim size and the
page counts keep going. So it was a very termed
and the fortuitous thing, and I was so grateful that
(05:27):
she saw what this was about. And it really has
been shifting people's mindset, shifting the paradigms that we've labored
under for centuries, and people are realizing for the century
of animation. But even beyond that that, you know, we've
we've overlooked, we've looked past, we've they've been unseen and
(05:50):
invisible for too long, and it's time for that to change.
And it is sort of fascinating to me that it is.
This quest essentially started with five pieces of paper and
ended up this really massive book. But this book covers
so much ground. If someone is going to it thinking
they are only getting the story of women in animation,
(06:10):
they will be surprised because it covers the history of
film and animation. It puts all of those works on
a much bigger timeline of things that were happening in
the world that had nothing to do with any sort
of entertainment. And I'm wondering why you wanted to put
everything in that sort of depth of context. Well, isn't
it nice to have your expectations succeeded? Yes? And it
(06:34):
was important, um for me to convey. It was important
to understand the context, the time periods. When you get
to something like a newspaper article that comes up in
the n thirties where Walt Disney is quoted saying, I
don't know why, but for some reason, women don't have
(06:55):
the power. Well, in the early animation was pratt palls
and physical comedy and flapstick and really stemming out of vaudeville,
and there was a lot of physical movement and motion
and the perceptions of what where women were and what
women could do. If they're at a not the best
(07:18):
point today, imagine how they were in the nineteen thirties.
So it was important for me to convey to the
reader to place them into a drive to experience of
history history rather than a rear view mirror. Look at
where we where women have been, um, simply because women
(07:41):
have always been there. So it was important to understand,
and for me, my question was, all, right, well, when
did women move into the workplace? I found that particularly
fascinating and it was important to sort of establish this
overarching through line of when we think about it at
the time. Again, to well Disney as an example, when
(08:03):
he was in Kansas City working on his earliest establishing
his lapograms and other things. Women had only had the
right to vote for maybe a year or so. In
women were granted full abilities with the nineteen Amendment to vote.
So when you placed it in that context, oh yeah,
(08:24):
it suddenly is a pretty remarkable arc to realize. And
when you realize that, as we get to the nineteen fifties,
you have one of the leading artists at Disney Studios
a single mother. She was widowed, she had two children,
she was the sole breadwinner. She had to get one
of her fellow animators to go with her to the
(08:47):
bank to co sign a loan so she could get
a car. That was the reality for women. Women were
not able to have their own bank accounts or own
credit cards, and so we're in the late seventies and
then women could get credit cards in their needs. So
when you understand the civil rights movement, the war, how
(09:07):
the war impacted things, the civil rights movements, the feminist
movements of the seventies, and where we're still working through that,
it then starts to make sense why we're at the
place we're at today for women because we've we've never
tracked that history, um, And for younger readers especially, it
(09:29):
seems silly, but it's important that they understand where we've
come from and where we still have to get to
shift the balance and even things out with that, women
are still at a very deplorable percentage within the entertainment
industry today, and yet when you go back to the
(09:50):
very beginning, they were at a sent with Alski Bouce,
Lois Whoeber, Dorothy Arsner, Mary Pickford, Mary Francis Anita Loose,
many of the early women of silent film, with women
who established the narrative storytelling tenants that we still use today,
with women who established visual referencing as filmmakers. Was a
(10:13):
very it was the wild West, but women were right there,
and yet for some reason, they're written out of the
history books. So this is a way to balance that.
I love all of that context because it makes the
story seem a little less quaint and a little more weighty,
which I really like about it. Um. And one of
the other things that I really enjoyed is there is
(10:33):
a section at the beginning of your book where you
feature a bunch of different women that all influenced Walt
Disney's life in various ways, and there are some really
good stories there. Um, do you have a favorite among
those early influencers. Well, I was intrigued and I certainly
knew about his grandmother and how she am. Whose grandmother
(10:55):
hasn't had influence for those of us who have been
blessed with grandmothers. Um, she really instilled this love of
story and narrative and imagination. And for me, it certainly
has been early relatives and educators, And when I think
back on the influences that they've had on me as
(11:17):
a writer and filmmaker and storyteller and educator, they really
there have been people in the early stages of my
life and career, and I think as hopefully listeners are
thinking back to people who help that influence on them,
and it's an important part of what builds the tapestry
(11:38):
of who we are and what we bring forward in
our own experiences. So for me, it was really fascinating
to go back and get an understanding of where these
seeds were planted in people like Walt Disney and their
impact on how they shaped who they were as a
person and then ultimately their career and their impact on
(12:00):
our lives. And when you get to like Daisy Beck
his his teacher. I love the fact that she made
education to get to That's an important part of what
I utilize when i'm teaching, rather than I have to.
So when I think back to the influences that certain
educators and relatives and friends and colleagues have had on
(12:24):
my life and career, and I'm sure listeners can do
the same. There were certain people who stood out and
that we hold in a special place, and I found
it fascinating, like Elita Reynolds that when Walt was establishing
his very tiny laugh Agram studio, you know, it was
a strong statement that there was a woman in there
(12:45):
as well, and that it wasn't this all male world.
And when I in looking at this industry through a
woman's lens, looking for the women, they were there, rather
than this sort of unconscious bias where we just assume
women were not there, We just don't even look for that.
(13:08):
So if that's what's been challenging, is to get people
to start of wake up and realize that the very
fact that procreation commands that we have women on throughout
our society. Right, of course, women are there. The numbers
may not be as strong, but it's important that we
look for them. So I've been doing a lot of
(13:29):
speaking to UM researchers and students studying history and research
to actively search, actively look for the women in the
room because they were there in some capacity and contributing
in some manner. The other thing, too, is that we
(13:50):
don't They said, there's this sort of natural default where
we we just automatically a default to the mail. And
I think by shifting this, being more conscious about it
and actively speaking out um. It's a little more challenging
to find women because of name changes and are multiple marriages,
(14:14):
or oftentimes they may go by a nickname more so
than men. Um. It does make it a little more challenging,
but not impossible. I really like that Mindy mentioned that
women can be harder to track than men in the
historical record, even in the last century, just because of
things like marriages and name changes that maybe aren't always
(14:35):
super well documented, but then they are later a little
bit harder to find. Coming up, this interview turns to
talk of studio romances, and first we're going to have
a quick sponsor break. One of the things that you
talk about in your book, which seems like it would
(14:56):
naturally happen regardless, is that there was a rather common
event of studio romances cropping up. I imagine when you
have a huge department of women that is disproportionately huge
for probably compared to other industries or companies, um, working
alongside a large group of men, like, eventually there are
lots of romances that pop up. Will you talk about
(15:17):
that a little bit and sort of the social aspect
of it, but also the more famous romance that came
out of it. Sure, well, you know, again, these these
basically stories that had been told that head services, the
ongoing notion that the animation department was the monastery and
the incompanient building was the nunnery, or they had different
(15:41):
little pet names. But in the forties fifties, UM, you
would have essentially kind of dating pools that was sort
of the match dot com in a way because you
had this pool of women. But again placing them into context,
this is a pretty unique area because other areas of industry,
(16:05):
women were relegated to separate areas, separate pools. In some instances,
various office buildings had separate elevators women's elevators and men's elevators.
As women are moving into industry, and that's a whole
other subject and a whole lot podcast. But as women
are moving into industry, it presented new challenges for the
(16:29):
very male dominated, entrenched day to day factories and other
instances where where women were beginning to move into and
as the numbers grew, circumstances did change. But for the
most part, it was always challenging at Disney, in within
animation at Disney and at other studios. This isn't just
(16:53):
strictly for Disney, but the other studios as well. Here
you do have men and women in separate divisions and apartments.
Women were there in secretarial roles uh and making advancements
into editorial and and in other areas, but working side
by side. Being the paint teams always seem to be
(17:16):
sort of the dating pool, and you know, there were
always activities of oh hey, he's got a friend, and
people were much more social activities, dances, things like that.
We're a big part of the scene as well. So
there was lots of activities, baseball games at the lunch hower,
lots of really great opportunities to mix and meet. In fact,
(17:40):
there would be uh Ward Kimball and his Tigagitty eight
band would play at the lunch ower in one of
the sound stages or right outside the animation building, and
so couples would pair off and dance, and it's a
great way to kind of get social and and spend
your lunch hour, um gab ring and seeing people. Because
(18:01):
the work they were doing was very focused, very sedentary,
seated at those desks, so wal't realized it was important
to have kind of a good release and a good
outlets to keep his artists balanced. There were lots of
romances of a number of the ladies who said, oh
(18:21):
I met you know, all three of my husband's or
it was a great source to find, you know, good
dating materials. Um. There were a lot of characters and
you know a lot of unsuccessful relationships too. But and
there were always showers and baby showers and um. So
it was an interesting progression where the first generation as
(18:44):
young women coming in were career women, which was trailblazing
at the time. Then as they were dating and meeting
and getting married as was the standard in the forties,
fifties and beyond, one too got married, women left the
job and and then it was expected to be raising
(19:06):
families and being at home. For some women that was
too much. It was a challenge. Uh. I have a
couple of ladies who have said, you know, when that
occurred my first marriage, I had my son, my child,
and I died. I was expected to stay at home
and bake cookies all day. And here I had trained
(19:27):
and I wanted my career in animation, and yet society
didn't permit that in a lot of ways, uh. Socially, politically, economically,
even into the nineteen seventy s. One of the women
who was the head of a major apartment, when she
and her husband were applying for their first home loan,
(19:50):
the bank would not look at her income. They wouldn't
count it. And here she had ran a department at
a major studio, but they wouldn't factor it into what
they qualified for because she was a woman. So with
regard to dating, yeah, even Waltz was kind of the
workplace was an interesting forum for him to find social companionship.
(20:14):
In fact, the very first employee of the Walt Disney
Company was a woman. Her name was Kathleen Dollard. She
was a friend of actually a friend of Lullian Disney,
oddly enough, but was Kathleen went to work for the
young Brothers, and it's verified to the family she felt
sorry for the young bachelor boys. She would often make
dinners and cook for them or bake things for them.
(20:37):
And it is verified through her family that a very
young Walt Disney proposed to her and she turned him
down because she didn't think he'd amount to anything. So
when things were getting busier and there was more work
to be done and a young Bullianum came into town,
(21:01):
Walt Disney knew Lilian's sister, Hazel. In fact, Hazel met
young Walt Disney when he was setting up his animation
stand in his uncle's garage. She was in the neighborhood there,
and so she was quite a vivacious force and apparently
the one person who could go toe to toe with
Walt Disney, and he paid attention. And she also made
(21:25):
a mean chicken dinner, so that made you know, his
young bachelor heart quite resounded with him. But Hazel was
quite a force, and she's the one who recommended her
friend Kathleen as their first employee. And when they were
expanding and Lilian made her way down from Idaho after
(21:46):
she graduated, who sort of lived with her sister and
have a begin life in the big city. See, Kathleen said, well,
you know, we're looking to hire someone, but don't vamp
the boss. But I don't know, we don't have to
verify that. It sort of makes sense that she was like,
you know, don't horn in on what I've thinking here.
(22:06):
But then she gave up on him and Waltz sort
of this cute little brunette who came in and started
as a jecretary and was doing the blackening nearly blackening
on the film. And he would take the girls home
after they were working long hours. He had a little
automobile and he would drive them home, and Lilian kind
(22:27):
of figured something was up when he would take Kathleen,
who lived further away home first, and then he'd circle
back so that Lilian would be dropped off. That very
and the rest of history on that one. Yeah, a
very different time. Oh, yes, you mentioned a few moments ago.
(22:48):
Altha Reynolds. Will you talk a little bit more about
maybe her and one or two of the other trailblazers
that you featured in your book. Oh, there are so
many great trailblazers. Alita was a unique She was an
artist in Kansas City and had helped out and worked
on Walt's early lapagrams. She also believe did a little
(23:11):
bit of work on The Alice's Wonderland, the very first
of the Alice comedy, but when the money was running
out on his little studio there that when bankrupt, she
had to go off and find other work. So Elita
is sort of a very early but unique person bit
of personnel in the earliest days of Walt's life and career,
(23:31):
and I felt it was important to include her because
it really does speak to the fact that he really
wasn't gender biased. It was about your talent and your ability,
and in fact, in many ways, very early on, he
was very progressive about getting women into places that you know,
many firsts, which the lifully there were many first within
(23:55):
the Disney studios. As we get into the late twenties,
Hazel School is brought in while the Oswaldy Lucky Rabbit
series is underway and things are expanding at the Little
Hyperion studio. Hazel was the first woman to head a
major department within animation overall in New York, where many
(24:16):
of the other studios had been running. Bray Studios and uh,
Pat Hollivan and Max Fleischer's studios, they had women working
there and i'm my research continues into finding possibly, but
the records are sadly incomplete because they were women. So
even then it's a testament to how invisible women really
(24:39):
were considered to be, even though they were doing the
bulk of the blackening or you know, celluloid aspects of
the animation production process. So women were there, but it
was always men overseeing. There are departments. We do have
a couple of other early exceptions, but with regard to Disney,
there were many, many first for women, again starting with
(25:03):
Hazel Sewell, who was the first woman to have a
major department within animation overall. She oversaw what was called
the blackeners at that time. She transitioned that role and
if you look to the earliest Alice comedies and Oswald's,
it's simple black literally outlining the pencil lines onto celluloid
(25:26):
with an ink pen and then blackening in so hence blackeners.
And that was actually the lowest end of the animation hierarchy,
and it was a training ground, so men were doing
this as well, but it was Hazel who said, you know,
women are better and it's a much more exacting thing
because you could see any little wobble or wiggly lines
(25:48):
showed up on the screen. So in an effort to
tighten the artistry and expand the artistry, Hazel Seel is
a real pioneer with that. She transitions that she's the
first to have an all female team of blackeners, and
she separates out the artists so we have tracers and
opaquers at that point. She then later advances that into
(26:14):
inking and painting, and that's when in the early mid thirties,
and that's when we really see the artistry of tapered
lines in and out in the full sweeping calligraphic strokes
of inking begin to to expand and enhance the animation process.
(26:36):
And we also have painting, and initially it's really sort
of making the uh celluloid opaque so that there's no
light leaks or anything in there. But it's women at
Disney Studios, starting with Mary Tebb, did some of the
earliest inking and painting on the Silly Symphonies, the skelet
(27:00):
and Dance, which is one of the best ever, isn't
that mind blank. There's a little fun fact of I
works of course, is known for doing the animation, but
he had a couple of other gentlemen helping him with that.
Mary tab one woman did all of the tracing and
opagueing at that point on that film. One woman did everything,
(27:23):
and certainly there are a lot of cycles on there,
but she oversaw and handled all of it. And you're
talking roughly anywhere from eight to thirteen thousand pieces of dialoid.
So that was a remarkable feat all in itself. Um,
as we move into color, the advent of color at
that point, with the advent of the Silly Symphony, the
(27:45):
women are working with black, white and about three or
four shades of gray paint. And this is paint that
you get from the local Hearts hardware store that you'd
paint your bedroom with, or a piece of furniture or something.
Um And so it was not really designed to add
here very effectively to celluloid and nitrates cellulated that. But
(28:06):
it was also if you wanted to achieve a certain colors.
So they purchased a couple of paint mills so they
could refine the paints to get them to blend and
work towards its hearing. But then as they began to
expand in Color two with flowers and trees. They were
working with eighty shades of paint, different colors literally pulled
(28:27):
off the shells of a hardware star and it was
incredibly problematic because some colors would not convey properly under
the light for the camera, so they really had to
feel their way on. You know, if we want to
achieve the look of fire, what shades are really going
to work for that? So they almost had to go
(28:48):
to mix a deep orange into a red in order
for that to not be washed out on the screen
on once the cells are under the camera lights. So
it's of very challenging and accomplished within an incredibly short
amount of time. And then went on to achieve the
first Academy Award garnered for animation, not so much for
(29:12):
the animation, but larger for the application of color, and
it was all women working in that area, catl Seol
and her team. By the way, if you have never
seen the Skeleton Dance, I highly recommend you google it.
It is an absolute delight and you will gain a
true appreciation for Mary TIB's work inking and painting. Throughout
that entire short We're going to pause for just a
(29:34):
minute to take a break for a word from one
of our sponsors that keeps the show going. I'm gonna
we will get back to this interview, and this one
we're actually going to pick right up with Mindy. It's
not me asking a question, it's just her talking in
this next segment as she continues to discuss the challenges
(29:56):
of working with paint that the women of the studio
had to overcome, and there is a great bit of
information coming up about how a woman chemist really figured
out how to move the entire industry forward. As they
continued and expanded with the silly symphonies and color again taints.
As they were getting different taint types that they were using,
(30:18):
they wouldn't blend properly, they'd lose suspension, they wouldn't dry
properly or evenly, and you'd get it under a couple
pound platinum in the camera room and suddenly you get
paint bladder and it would stop production. You have to
clean off the lens and the and the platinum and
start all over again and redo the hell. So it
(30:38):
was very problematic, and even trying to achieve proper color
palettes was getting problematic because each film, each short had
its own palette. They moved into their brand new, state
of the art income paint building in at the Hyperion Studios.
Walt had brought out a young are just from Chicago.
(31:01):
Her name was Mary Wiser, and she saw the problems
happening and she said, you know, we can do better.
And so she went to Hazel Stool and Walton Roy
and she began to study chemistry, got her degree in chemistry,
and then Walt Roy sent her off to different paint
vendors in New York and she established the first and
only paint lab in the world creating paint exclusively for
(31:25):
celluloid animation. Yeah, nothing like it in the world. And
by a time again, this is in roughly ninety six,
with about a year a year and a half, she
moved from a couple of hundred colors that were pulled
off of the shelf that they were trying to work
with creating their own paint labs. And the first year
alone that they were underway, she saved that studio six
(31:48):
thousand dollars in white paint alone, but went on to
expand the palette, going from think about it, eighty colors
off the shelf for flowers and trees in nineteen thirty two,
two over fifteen hundred shades of color in seven for
snow light and the seven doors let that sink in
(32:11):
for her. And she had teams of women chemists. It
was all women, and she created her own manuals. There
was nothing like this in existence, nor has there ever been.
And she created her own teams and wrote typed out
the original manuals which still exists, and her experimentation log.
She also Mary Hops to patents. She created what was
(32:35):
called the blend technique, which harkens back to the early
dye techniques that were used in the silent days of
hand colorization on live action films and early photographs, hand
tinting photographs. Which is why, in telling this sweeping story,
I give you over a century or more of history
(32:56):
his story, because you have they kind of called back
to the earliest dye techniques in order to create this
blend to snow white cheeks. Now, there's a charming little
myth that the ladies use their own makeup to get
that look of rouge on her cheeks, But it's it's
a myth. It was actually Mary and her teams and
(33:18):
they developed this die technique. Mary and we have the
log reports, hundreds of experimentations, each one, each variant is
logged in. I mean, this was not Betty Crocker's kitchen,
this was Madam Carey's lab. And these women were redefining
how we see an experience animation and were a large
(33:42):
part of what brought and made Snow White and the
Seven Dwarves possible. You think about it, the story has
to change, and you have the first woman credited for
story in animation. Her name was Dorothy Anne Blank. She
came in a couple of years Proportional Light because Walt
was leading towards this. Dorothy did many of the basic
(34:05):
story breakdowns, early story development concepts, exploring different offshoots and
narrative ideas. She did full character breakdowns and descriptions and
established the basic templates of how we still approach feature
length animated storytelling today. She did this in the nineteen thirties,
(34:27):
and in fact, she was exploring story concepts for Peter
Pan and The Little Mermaid in the nineties films that
you know, we're box office champs in the fifties and
the eighties and nineties, So going back to the very beginning,
she was a real trailblazer with what we still do today,
(34:48):
and yet no, but he knows about I know. It's
astonishing to think about really the level of advancement these
various women achieved, and they're not common everyday name, and
they probably should be exactly, they should definitely be right
up there with the Winds or Macy's and the Walt
disneyse and and others. Certainly there's a hierarchy to the work,
(35:11):
but when you look at the nine Old Men, oftentimes
when I'm speaking, I speak to tech extraordinary women and
beyond there were just as many men as we're aware of.
There were many incredible women trailblazing in editorial, in writing,
in backgrounds, in songwriting, in voice work, and in live racstion,
(35:34):
reference modeling, and virtually every aspect of animation. We still
have big ceilings to crack in directing, but that's changing.
This is where we're going to leave things for today's episode,
but there is so much more to come with Mindy
on our next episode. She is just a font of information,
(35:55):
and in the meantime, if you just cannot wait for
more Mandy, you can find her online at Mindy Johnson
Creative dot com. That Mindy is m I N d Y.
We'll also have that link in our show notes for
the episode today. Do you also have some listener mail?
I do, And since we are talking to someone about animation,
we're going to have the continuing discussion of something that
(36:17):
came up in our winds Or McKay episode rare Bit,
the ongoing saga of rare Bit, which is the best
I mean a cheese saga. I'm totally in for uh.
This is from our listener Eric, and he wrote, rare
Bit is indeed a cheese sauce, but it can be
a lot more complex than what you put over macaroni.
One of our other listeners mentioned that that was how
it was explained to them when they were traveling. Shred
(36:39):
or Great cheddar into a pan with a bit of
butter to start melting. And then comes the tricky part,
the consistency. You're gonna add a liquid, often beer milk
if you avoid alcohol. Queen Victoria apparently used champagne and
also a bit of flour or a beaten egg to
bind the mixture and make it smooth. It can be
either a porable sauce or thick enough to be spooned
(36:59):
onto toast or crackers as a finger snack. I'm not
detailing the recipe because there are so many. The best
time to make rare bit as a standalone dish is
in the evening with friends. The best way to make
it is at the dining table in an old fashioned
chafing dish over a flame. The Stern now Chafing Dish Company,
which later became the Sterno Company, published this verse eating
(37:21):
at bedtime quote wise, old doctors used to say, do
you're eating in the day? Never eat a thing, they said,
just before you go to bed. Modern doctors differ quite
and say just the opposite. Food at bedtime, they explain,
soothe the nerves and calms the brain, so we cannot
go astray if we eat both night and day, and
(37:41):
a chafing dish at night brings to life a new delight.
I love that. I kind of want to get it
written out beautifully and maybe framed. Anything that encourages eating
cheese day and night I'm in for. And also an
opportunity to say opposite instead of opposite. I know, I
I skipped because it just sounded too weird in my head. Uh,
(38:03):
that is very cool. I did not know this detail
about Queen Victoria and Champagne in her rare bit. Yeah. Um.
It's also interesting because unlike a lot of cheese or
cream based sauces you would make today, it doesn't start
with a rue. It starts with the cheese yes, and
then the flower gets added later. I will also note
that there are a lot of different ways to make
(38:23):
mac and cheese uh that are all like. They vary
across cultures and very across regions. And there are some
mac and cheese is that start with a RU and
others that do not start with the RU. And if
you ask people in different communities about their mac and cheese,
you may get vastly different answers. Oh, if you ask
different people in the same family at a reunion, you
(38:44):
might end up with fisticuff. Will feel strongly about mac
and cheese, which is because it is delicious. If anybody
else wants to share more of their rare bit information,
feel free to do so, because I am loving the
ongoing discussion. Eric, Thank you so much. This is very
cool and I love that you included this verse, which
I had never seen before. If you would like to
write to us, you can do so at History Podcast
(39:06):
at how staff works dot com. We are also across
the spectrum of social media as Missed in History and
Missed in History dot com is also our website where
you will find every episode that has ever existed, as
well as show notes on any of the ones that
Tracy and I have worked on UH and occasional other goodies.
And we encourage you to visit us at missed in
History dot com and subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast,
(39:29):
Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how staff
works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frying and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and today
we have an interview. It is an interview that I
was actually trying to get for the Animation podcast Drawn
(00:22):
that I did earlier this year, but the timing just
did not work out. But thankfully, uh, this person that
we're talking to is also a perfect guest for this show.
So the person that Holly has interviewed is Mindy Johnson,
and she is a creator. She is an author, historian, filmmaker,
and musician. And she came out into my radar when
a friend of mine told me about a talk that
(00:44):
Mindy gave that she had attended about her recent book,
which is called inc and Paint The Women of Walt
Disney's Animation. The book covers ground that hasn't really been
examined before now, and that's what life was like for
women at the studio through the years, and how so
so many women were innovating the medium of animation in
the United States, but they didn't become household names the
(01:06):
way their male counterparts did. And this interview was so
difficult to prep for because this book is really substantial
and there are so many really fantastic bits of information,
and I wanted to ask Mindy about every single one
of them. But even with a rather brutally paired down list,
she and I still talked for over an hour and
a half. So we are actually going to run this
(01:27):
interview over two episodes. This is also territory I think
our listeners have asked about before. We've had requests for
some kind of episode about women in animation or or
women in the world of Disney, So this is a
great fit. Yeah, And just as it heads up, if
you think this is just a Disney episode, who are
you in for a surprise? Because really it has just
a lot to do about women in the labor market
and how their rights and global things going on at
(01:50):
the same time all interacted with one another. So we'll
hop right into it. So it is such a massive book.
It is so dense with information, and it really brings
to light a lot of subject matter that has never
really been explored before to the best of my knowledge,
in book form. So I'm wondering what that research process
(02:13):
was like for you. Well, it involved everything from a
long late nights and digging into people's closets and going
on digging under beds and digging through bankers boxes of
material and um, scrap books and love letters and uh,
(02:34):
just a whole raft of things. A lot of phone calling,
a lot of digging literally and figuratively into these women
and their families and UM. When I first went into
the main studio archives, it was a little difficult, and
that um they had select material on various films, and
(02:59):
we could go through Walt and Rois earliest ledgers because
initially focusing on the INCN paint teams, that it was
very materials based. But I when I asked for any
information they had on the women and the roles that
they performed, presumably and incompaint, I was handed a folder
(03:20):
that had five pieces of paper in it. It was
a real testament that history is preserved, written about, archived,
and documented from a male perspective, and we don't think
about women and their participation roles. And when you step
(03:40):
back from that and realized that literally two sides have
moved civilization forward, both men and women. And yet when
we look back at our collective past, we're only seeing
half the picture. We only know half of that story,
and that there were women from the very begin in
(04:00):
any historical context, but we just have never documented that.
So in this instance, that's one of the reasons why
this book was so large. And I got about eight
months into my research when I initially pitched the idea
to my editor. We thought it. We both thought it
(04:20):
would be a charming little volume because we the only
narrative we had been told with women and their roles
in animation was essentially the log line of pretty girls
who trace in color, and we thought it would be
this charming book about teacakes and you know, the dating
and social lives and activities that went on, and that
(04:43):
would be it. And I got about eight months into
it and said called her and said, I, this is massive.
It's epic. These women were at the forefront of so much.
And I don't it's bigger than what we thought. And
I don't know how it ends. And I had kind
of get my head. It just was a real weighted
(05:04):
feeling of oh my gosh, this is this is massive.
Um and I kept digging. She just said, Okay, deep breath,
keep going. We will enlarge the trim size and the
page counts keep going. So it was a very termed
and the fortuitous thing, and I was so grateful that
(05:27):
she saw what this was about. And it really has
been shifting people's mindset, shifting the paradigms that we've labored
under for centuries, and people are realizing for the century
of animation. But even beyond that that, you know, we've
we've overlooked, we've looked past, we've they've been unseen and
(05:50):
invisible for too long, and it's time for that to change.
And it is sort of fascinating to me that it is.
This quest essentially started with five pieces of paper and
ended up this really massive book. But this book covers
so much ground. If someone is going to it thinking
they are only getting the story of women in animation,
(06:10):
they will be surprised because it covers the history of
film and animation. It puts all of those works on
a much bigger timeline of things that were happening in
the world that had nothing to do with any sort
of entertainment. And I'm wondering why you wanted to put
everything in that sort of depth of context. Well, isn't
it nice to have your expectations succeeded? Yes? And it
(06:34):
was important, um for me to convey. It was important
to understand the context, the time periods. When you get
to something like a newspaper article that comes up in
the n thirties where Walt Disney is quoted saying, I
don't know why, but for some reason, women don't have
(06:55):
the power. Well, in the early animation was pratt palls
and physical comedy and flapstick and really stemming out of vaudeville,
and there was a lot of physical movement and motion
and the perceptions of what where women were and what
women could do. If they're at a not the best
(07:18):
point today, imagine how they were in the nineteen thirties.
So it was important for me to convey to the
reader to place them into a drive to experience of
history history rather than a rear view mirror. Look at
where we where women have been, um, simply because women
(07:41):
have always been there. So it was important to understand,
and for me, my question was, all, right, well, when
did women move into the workplace? I found that particularly
fascinating and it was important to sort of establish this
overarching through line of when we think about it at
the time. Again, to well Disney as an example, when
(08:03):
he was in Kansas City working on his earliest establishing
his lapograms and other things. Women had only had the
right to vote for maybe a year or so. In
women were granted full abilities with the nineteen Amendment to vote.
So when you placed it in that context, oh yeah,
(08:24):
it suddenly is a pretty remarkable arc to realize. And
when you realize that, as we get to the nineteen fifties,
you have one of the leading artists at Disney Studios
a single mother. She was widowed, she had two children,
she was the sole breadwinner. She had to get one
of her fellow animators to go with her to the
(08:47):
bank to co sign a loan so she could get
a car. That was the reality for women. Women were
not able to have their own bank accounts or own
credit cards, and so we're in the late seventies and
then women could get credit cards in their needs. So
when you understand the civil rights movement, the war, how
(09:07):
the war impacted things, the civil rights movements, the feminist
movements of the seventies, and where we're still working through that,
it then starts to make sense why we're at the
place we're at today for women because we've we've never
tracked that history, um, And for younger readers especially, it
(09:29):
seems silly, but it's important that they understand where we've
come from and where we still have to get to
shift the balance and even things out with that, women
are still at a very deplorable percentage within the entertainment
industry today, and yet when you go back to the
(09:50):
very beginning, they were at a sent with Alski Bouce,
Lois Whoeber, Dorothy Arsner, Mary Pickford, Mary Francis Anita Loose,
many of the early women of silent film, with women
who established the narrative storytelling tenants that we still use today,
with women who established visual referencing as filmmakers. Was a
(10:13):
very it was the wild West, but women were right there,
and yet for some reason, they're written out of the
history books. So this is a way to balance that.
I love all of that context because it makes the
story seem a little less quaint and a little more weighty,
which I really like about it. Um. And one of
the other things that I really enjoyed is there is
(10:33):
a section at the beginning of your book where you
feature a bunch of different women that all influenced Walt
Disney's life in various ways, and there are some really
good stories there. Um, do you have a favorite among
those early influencers. Well, I was intrigued and I certainly
knew about his grandmother and how she am. Whose grandmother
(10:55):
hasn't had influence for those of us who have been
blessed with grandmothers. Um, she really instilled this love of
story and narrative and imagination. And for me, it certainly
has been early relatives and educators, And when I think
back on the influences that they've had on me as
(11:17):
a writer and filmmaker and storyteller and educator, they really
there have been people in the early stages of my
life and career, and I think as hopefully listeners are
thinking back to people who help that influence on them,
and it's an important part of what builds the tapestry
(11:38):
of who we are and what we bring forward in
our own experiences. So for me, it was really fascinating
to go back and get an understanding of where these
seeds were planted in people like Walt Disney and their
impact on how they shaped who they were as a
person and then ultimately their career and their impact on
(12:00):
our lives. And when you get to like Daisy Beck
his his teacher. I love the fact that she made
education to get to That's an important part of what
I utilize when i'm teaching, rather than I have to.
So when I think back to the influences that certain
educators and relatives and friends and colleagues have had on
(12:24):
my life and career, and I'm sure listeners can do
the same. There were certain people who stood out and
that we hold in a special place, and I found
it fascinating, like Elita Reynolds that when Walt was establishing
his very tiny laugh Agram studio, you know, it was
a strong statement that there was a woman in there
(12:45):
as well, and that it wasn't this all male world.
And when I in looking at this industry through a
woman's lens, looking for the women, they were there, rather
than this sort of unconscious bias where we just assume
women were not there, We just don't even look for that.
(13:08):
So if that's what's been challenging, is to get people
to start of wake up and realize that the very
fact that procreation commands that we have women on throughout
our society. Right, of course, women are there. The numbers
may not be as strong, but it's important that we
look for them. So I've been doing a lot of
(13:29):
speaking to UM researchers and students studying history and research
to actively search, actively look for the women in the
room because they were there in some capacity and contributing
in some manner. The other thing, too, is that we
(13:50):
don't They said, there's this sort of natural default where
we we just automatically a default to the mail. And
I think by shifting this, being more conscious about it
and actively speaking out um. It's a little more challenging
to find women because of name changes and are multiple marriages,
(14:14):
or oftentimes they may go by a nickname more so
than men. Um. It does make it a little more challenging,
but not impossible. I really like that Mindy mentioned that
women can be harder to track than men in the
historical record, even in the last century, just because of
things like marriages and name changes that maybe aren't always
(14:35):
super well documented, but then they are later a little
bit harder to find. Coming up, this interview turns to
talk of studio romances, and first we're going to have
a quick sponsor break. One of the things that you
talk about in your book, which seems like it would
(14:56):
naturally happen regardless, is that there was a rather common
event of studio romances cropping up. I imagine when you
have a huge department of women that is disproportionately huge
for probably compared to other industries or companies, um, working
alongside a large group of men, like, eventually there are
lots of romances that pop up. Will you talk about
(15:17):
that a little bit and sort of the social aspect
of it, but also the more famous romance that came
out of it. Sure, well, you know, again, these these
basically stories that had been told that head services, the
ongoing notion that the animation department was the monastery and
the incompanient building was the nunnery, or they had different
(15:41):
little pet names. But in the forties fifties, UM, you
would have essentially kind of dating pools that was sort
of the match dot com in a way because you
had this pool of women. But again placing them into context,
this is a pretty unique area because other areas of industry,
(16:05):
women were relegated to separate areas, separate pools. In some instances,
various office buildings had separate elevators women's elevators and men's elevators.
As women are moving into industry, and that's a whole
other subject and a whole lot podcast. But as women
are moving into industry, it presented new challenges for the
(16:29):
very male dominated, entrenched day to day factories and other
instances where where women were beginning to move into and
as the numbers grew, circumstances did change. But for the
most part, it was always challenging at Disney, in within
animation at Disney and at other studios. This isn't just
(16:53):
strictly for Disney, but the other studios as well. Here
you do have men and women in separate divisions and apartments.
Women were there in secretarial roles uh and making advancements
into editorial and and in other areas, but working side
by side. Being the paint teams always seem to be
(17:16):
sort of the dating pool, and you know, there were
always activities of oh hey, he's got a friend, and
people were much more social activities, dances, things like that.
We're a big part of the scene as well. So
there was lots of activities, baseball games at the lunch hower,
lots of really great opportunities to mix and meet. In fact,
(17:40):
there would be uh Ward Kimball and his Tigagitty eight
band would play at the lunch ower in one of
the sound stages or right outside the animation building, and
so couples would pair off and dance, and it's a
great way to kind of get social and and spend
your lunch hour, um gab ring and seeing people. Because
(18:01):
the work they were doing was very focused, very sedentary,
seated at those desks, so wal't realized it was important
to have kind of a good release and a good
outlets to keep his artists balanced. There were lots of
romances of a number of the ladies who said, oh
(18:21):
I met you know, all three of my husband's or
it was a great source to find, you know, good
dating materials. Um. There were a lot of characters and
you know a lot of unsuccessful relationships too. But and
there were always showers and baby showers and um. So
it was an interesting progression where the first generation as
(18:44):
young women coming in were career women, which was trailblazing
at the time. Then as they were dating and meeting
and getting married as was the standard in the forties,
fifties and beyond, one too got married, women left the
job and and then it was expected to be raising
(19:06):
families and being at home. For some women that was
too much. It was a challenge. Uh. I have a
couple of ladies who have said, you know, when that
occurred my first marriage, I had my son, my child,
and I died. I was expected to stay at home
and bake cookies all day. And here I had trained
(19:27):
and I wanted my career in animation, and yet society
didn't permit that in a lot of ways, uh. Socially, politically, economically,
even into the nineteen seventy s. One of the women
who was the head of a major apartment, when she
and her husband were applying for their first home loan,
(19:50):
the bank would not look at her income. They wouldn't
count it. And here she had ran a department at
a major studio, but they wouldn't factor it into what
they qualified for because she was a woman. So with
regard to dating, yeah, even Waltz was kind of the
workplace was an interesting forum for him to find social companionship.
(20:14):
In fact, the very first employee of the Walt Disney
Company was a woman. Her name was Kathleen Dollard. She
was a friend of actually a friend of Lullian Disney,
oddly enough, but was Kathleen went to work for the
young Brothers, and it's verified to the family she felt
sorry for the young bachelor boys. She would often make
dinners and cook for them or bake things for them.
(20:37):
And it is verified through her family that a very
young Walt Disney proposed to her and she turned him
down because she didn't think he'd amount to anything. So
when things were getting busier and there was more work
to be done and a young Bullianum came into town,
(21:01):
Walt Disney knew Lilian's sister, Hazel. In fact, Hazel met
young Walt Disney when he was setting up his animation
stand in his uncle's garage. She was in the neighborhood there,
and so she was quite a vivacious force and apparently
the one person who could go toe to toe with
Walt Disney, and he paid attention. And she also made
(21:25):
a mean chicken dinner, so that made you know, his
young bachelor heart quite resounded with him. But Hazel was
quite a force, and she's the one who recommended her
friend Kathleen as their first employee. And when they were
expanding and Lilian made her way down from Idaho after
(21:46):
she graduated, who sort of lived with her sister and
have a begin life in the big city. See, Kathleen said, well,
you know, we're looking to hire someone, but don't vamp
the boss. But I don't know, we don't have to
verify that. It sort of makes sense that she was like,
you know, don't horn in on what I've thinking here.
(22:06):
But then she gave up on him and Waltz sort
of this cute little brunette who came in and started
as a jecretary and was doing the blackening nearly blackening
on the film. And he would take the girls home
after they were working long hours. He had a little
automobile and he would drive them home, and Lilian kind
(22:27):
of figured something was up when he would take Kathleen,
who lived further away home first, and then he'd circle
back so that Lilian would be dropped off. That very
and the rest of history on that one. Yeah, a
very different time. Oh, yes, you mentioned a few moments ago.
(22:48):
Altha Reynolds. Will you talk a little bit more about
maybe her and one or two of the other trailblazers
that you featured in your book. Oh, there are so
many great trailblazers. Alita was a unique She was an
artist in Kansas City and had helped out and worked
on Walt's early lapagrams. She also believe did a little
(23:11):
bit of work on The Alice's Wonderland, the very first
of the Alice comedy, but when the money was running
out on his little studio there that when bankrupt, she
had to go off and find other work. So Elita
is sort of a very early but unique person bit
of personnel in the earliest days of Walt's life and career,
(23:31):
and I felt it was important to include her because
it really does speak to the fact that he really
wasn't gender biased. It was about your talent and your ability,
and in fact, in many ways, very early on, he
was very progressive about getting women into places that you know,
many firsts, which the lifully there were many first within
(23:55):
the Disney studios. As we get into the late twenties,
Hazel School is brought in while the Oswaldy Lucky Rabbit
series is underway and things are expanding at the Little
Hyperion studio. Hazel was the first woman to head a
major department within animation overall in New York, where many
(24:16):
of the other studios had been running. Bray Studios and uh,
Pat Hollivan and Max Fleischer's studios, they had women working
there and i'm my research continues into finding possibly, but
the records are sadly incomplete because they were women. So
even then it's a testament to how invisible women really
(24:39):
were considered to be, even though they were doing the
bulk of the blackening or you know, celluloid aspects of
the animation production process. So women were there, but it
was always men overseeing. There are departments. We do have
a couple of other early exceptions, but with regard to Disney,
there were many, many first for women, again starting with
(25:03):
Hazel Sewell, who was the first woman to have a
major department within animation overall. She oversaw what was called
the blackeners at that time. She transitioned that role and
if you look to the earliest Alice comedies and Oswald's,
it's simple black literally outlining the pencil lines onto celluloid
(25:26):
with an ink pen and then blackening in so hence blackeners.
And that was actually the lowest end of the animation hierarchy,
and it was a training ground, so men were doing
this as well, but it was Hazel who said, you know,
women are better and it's a much more exacting thing
because you could see any little wobble or wiggly lines
(25:48):
showed up on the screen. So in an effort to
tighten the artistry and expand the artistry, Hazel Seel is
a real pioneer with that. She transitions that she's the
first to have an all female team of blackeners, and
she separates out the artists so we have tracers and
opaquers at that point. She then later advances that into
(26:14):
inking and painting, and that's when in the early mid thirties,
and that's when we really see the artistry of tapered
lines in and out in the full sweeping calligraphic strokes
of inking begin to to expand and enhance the animation process.
(26:36):
And we also have painting, and initially it's really sort
of making the uh celluloid opaque so that there's no
light leaks or anything in there. But it's women at
Disney Studios, starting with Mary Tebb, did some of the
earliest inking and painting on the Silly Symphonies, the skelet
(27:00):
and Dance, which is one of the best ever, isn't
that mind blank. There's a little fun fact of I
works of course, is known for doing the animation, but
he had a couple of other gentlemen helping him with that.
Mary tab one woman did all of the tracing and
opagueing at that point on that film. One woman did everything,
(27:23):
and certainly there are a lot of cycles on there,
but she oversaw and handled all of it. And you're
talking roughly anywhere from eight to thirteen thousand pieces of dialoid.
So that was a remarkable feat all in itself. Um,
as we move into color, the advent of color at
that point, with the advent of the Silly Symphony, the
(27:45):
women are working with black, white and about three or
four shades of gray paint. And this is paint that
you get from the local Hearts hardware store that you'd
paint your bedroom with, or a piece of furniture or something.
Um And so it was not really designed to add
here very effectively to celluloid and nitrates cellulated that. But
(28:06):
it was also if you wanted to achieve a certain colors.
So they purchased a couple of paint mills so they
could refine the paints to get them to blend and
work towards its hearing. But then as they began to
expand in Color two with flowers and trees. They were
working with eighty shades of paint, different colors literally pulled
(28:27):
off the shells of a hardware star and it was
incredibly problematic because some colors would not convey properly under
the light for the camera, so they really had to
feel their way on. You know, if we want to
achieve the look of fire, what shades are really going
to work for that? So they almost had to go
(28:48):
to mix a deep orange into a red in order
for that to not be washed out on the screen
on once the cells are under the camera lights. So
it's of very challenging and accomplished within an incredibly short
amount of time. And then went on to achieve the
first Academy Award garnered for animation, not so much for
(29:12):
the animation, but larger for the application of color, and
it was all women working in that area, catl Seol
and her team. By the way, if you have never
seen the Skeleton Dance, I highly recommend you google it.
It is an absolute delight and you will gain a
true appreciation for Mary TIB's work inking and painting. Throughout
that entire short We're going to pause for just a
(29:34):
minute to take a break for a word from one
of our sponsors that keeps the show going. I'm gonna
we will get back to this interview, and this one
we're actually going to pick right up with Mindy. It's
not me asking a question, it's just her talking in
this next segment as she continues to discuss the challenges
(29:56):
of working with paint that the women of the studio
had to overcome, and there is a great bit of
information coming up about how a woman chemist really figured
out how to move the entire industry forward. As they
continued and expanded with the silly symphonies and color again taints.
As they were getting different taint types that they were using,
(30:18):
they wouldn't blend properly, they'd lose suspension, they wouldn't dry
properly or evenly, and you'd get it under a couple
pound platinum in the camera room and suddenly you get
paint bladder and it would stop production. You have to
clean off the lens and the and the platinum and
start all over again and redo the hell. So it
(30:38):
was very problematic, and even trying to achieve proper color
palettes was getting problematic because each film, each short had
its own palette. They moved into their brand new, state
of the art income paint building in at the Hyperion Studios.
Walt had brought out a young are just from Chicago.
(31:01):
Her name was Mary Wiser, and she saw the problems
happening and she said, you know, we can do better.
And so she went to Hazel Stool and Walton Roy
and she began to study chemistry, got her degree in chemistry,
and then Walt Roy sent her off to different paint
vendors in New York and she established the first and
only paint lab in the world creating paint exclusively for
(31:25):
celluloid animation. Yeah, nothing like it in the world. And
by a time again, this is in roughly ninety six,
with about a year a year and a half, she
moved from a couple of hundred colors that were pulled
off of the shelf that they were trying to work
with creating their own paint labs. And the first year
alone that they were underway, she saved that studio six
(31:48):
thousand dollars in white paint alone, but went on to
expand the palette, going from think about it, eighty colors
off the shelf for flowers and trees in nineteen thirty two,
two over fifteen hundred shades of color in seven for
snow light and the seven doors let that sink in
(32:11):
for her. And she had teams of women chemists. It
was all women, and she created her own manuals. There
was nothing like this in existence, nor has there ever been.
And she created her own teams and wrote typed out
the original manuals which still exists, and her experimentation log.
She also Mary Hops to patents. She created what was
(32:35):
called the blend technique, which harkens back to the early
dye techniques that were used in the silent days of
hand colorization on live action films and early photographs, hand
tinting photographs. Which is why, in telling this sweeping story,
I give you over a century or more of history
(32:56):
his story, because you have they kind of called back
to the earliest dye techniques in order to create this
blend to snow white cheeks. Now, there's a charming little
myth that the ladies use their own makeup to get
that look of rouge on her cheeks, But it's it's
a myth. It was actually Mary and her teams and
(33:18):
they developed this die technique. Mary and we have the
log reports, hundreds of experimentations, each one, each variant is
logged in. I mean, this was not Betty Crocker's kitchen,
this was Madam Carey's lab. And these women were redefining
how we see an experience animation and were a large
(33:42):
part of what brought and made Snow White and the
Seven Dwarves possible. You think about it, the story has
to change, and you have the first woman credited for
story in animation. Her name was Dorothy Anne Blank. She
came in a couple of years Proportional Light because Walt
was leading towards this. Dorothy did many of the basic
(34:05):
story breakdowns, early story development concepts, exploring different offshoots and
narrative ideas. She did full character breakdowns and descriptions and
established the basic templates of how we still approach feature
length animated storytelling today. She did this in the nineteen thirties,
(34:27):
and in fact, she was exploring story concepts for Peter
Pan and The Little Mermaid in the nineties films that
you know, we're box office champs in the fifties and
the eighties and nineties, So going back to the very beginning,
she was a real trailblazer with what we still do today,
(34:48):
and yet no, but he knows about I know. It's
astonishing to think about really the level of advancement these
various women achieved, and they're not common everyday name, and
they probably should be exactly, they should definitely be right
up there with the Winds or Macy's and the Walt
disneyse and and others. Certainly there's a hierarchy to the work,
(35:11):
but when you look at the nine Old Men, oftentimes
when I'm speaking, I speak to tech extraordinary women and
beyond there were just as many men as we're aware of.
There were many incredible women trailblazing in editorial, in writing,
in backgrounds, in songwriting, in voice work, and in live racstion,
(35:34):
reference modeling, and virtually every aspect of animation. We still
have big ceilings to crack in directing, but that's changing.
This is where we're going to leave things for today's episode,
but there is so much more to come with Mindy
on our next episode. She is just a font of information,
(35:55):
and in the meantime, if you just cannot wait for
more Mandy, you can find her online at Mindy Johnson
Creative dot com. That Mindy is m I N d Y.
We'll also have that link in our show notes for
the episode today. Do you also have some listener mail?
I do, And since we are talking to someone about animation,
we're going to have the continuing discussion of something that
(36:17):
came up in our winds Or McKay episode rare Bit,
the ongoing saga of rare Bit, which is the best
I mean a cheese saga. I'm totally in for uh.
This is from our listener Eric, and he wrote, rare
Bit is indeed a cheese sauce, but it can be
a lot more complex than what you put over macaroni.
One of our other listeners mentioned that that was how
it was explained to them when they were traveling. Shred
(36:39):
or Great cheddar into a pan with a bit of
butter to start melting. And then comes the tricky part,
the consistency. You're gonna add a liquid, often beer milk
if you avoid alcohol. Queen Victoria apparently used champagne and
also a bit of flour or a beaten egg to
bind the mixture and make it smooth. It can be
either a porable sauce or thick enough to be spooned
(36:59):
onto toast or crackers as a finger snack. I'm not
detailing the recipe because there are so many. The best
time to make rare bit as a standalone dish is
in the evening with friends. The best way to make
it is at the dining table in an old fashioned
chafing dish over a flame. The Stern now Chafing Dish Company,
which later became the Sterno Company, published this verse eating
(37:21):
at bedtime quote wise, old doctors used to say, do
you're eating in the day? Never eat a thing, they said,
just before you go to bed. Modern doctors differ quite
and say just the opposite. Food at bedtime, they explain,
soothe the nerves and calms the brain, so we cannot
go astray if we eat both night and day, and
(37:41):
a chafing dish at night brings to life a new delight.
I love that. I kind of want to get it
written out beautifully and maybe framed. Anything that encourages eating
cheese day and night I'm in for. And also an
opportunity to say opposite instead of opposite. I know, I
I skipped because it just sounded too weird in my head. Uh,
(38:03):
that is very cool. I did not know this detail
about Queen Victoria and Champagne in her rare bit. Yeah. Um.
It's also interesting because unlike a lot of cheese or
cream based sauces you would make today, it doesn't start
with a rue. It starts with the cheese yes, and
then the flower gets added later. I will also note
that there are a lot of different ways to make
(38:23):
mac and cheese uh that are all like. They vary
across cultures and very across regions. And there are some
mac and cheese is that start with a RU and
others that do not start with the RU. And if
you ask people in different communities about their mac and cheese,
you may get vastly different answers. Oh, if you ask
different people in the same family at a reunion, you
(38:44):
might end up with fisticuff. Will feel strongly about mac
and cheese, which is because it is delicious. If anybody
else wants to share more of their rare bit information,
feel free to do so, because I am loving the
ongoing discussion. Eric, Thank you so much. This is very
cool and I love that you included this verse, which
I had never seen before. If you would like to
write to us, you can do so at History Podcast
(39:06):
at how staff works dot com. We are also across
the spectrum of social media as Missed in History and
Missed in History dot com is also our website where
you will find every episode that has ever existed, as
well as show notes on any of the ones that
Tracy and I have worked on UH and occasional other goodies.
And we encourage you to visit us at missed in
History dot com and subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast,
(39:29):
Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how staff
works dot com.
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Tracy Wilson
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