Willie Ito
Willie ItoWillie Ito worked everywhere EXCEPT Fleischers and UPA.
Willie began his career in animation while he was still a student at Chouinard Art Institute in 1954. As a student he did freelance comic book stories, coloring books and cover ideas for Dell Comics through Western Publishing in Los Angeles. In 1954 he was hired to work on Disney's Lady and the Tramp. He actually worked on the famous spaghetti-eating scene. He penciled the first two or three issues of Bob Clampett's Beany and Cecil comics. Later, he also did comic book art and spot cartoons for Motor Trend Magazine and CARtoons for Petersen Publishing. After Lady and the Tramp, he worked at Warner Bros' infamous "Termite Terrace" from 1954-1960. In 1960 he worked briefly at Quartet Films as an assistant animator to Art Babbit on the Maypo commercial. Later in 1960 and into 1961 he worked at Snowball with Bob Clampett as a layout artist on Time for Beany. After that he joined Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1961 to help develop The Jetsons, and to work on Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bearand The Flintstones. He stayed at Hanna-Barbera for the next fourteen years then left for a year to work at various animation studios doing TV shows, specials, commercials at studios like Jay Ward and ACP, and feature film like San Rio's Metamophosis. After the death of Pogo creator Walt Kelly in 1973, Willie produced the comic strips for a brief time. In 1974 he illustrated some humor pieces for Marvel's Crazy Magazine. In 1976 he left the animation field entirely and went to the comic strip department in Disney's Consumer Products Division, wandering away for a brief stint at Disney's new TV Animation division on Wuzzles and Gummi Bears. Willie stayed with Disney's Consumer Products until 1999 when he officially retired. But he still hasn't slowed down. We're lucky he found time to squeeze us into his schedule!