The Disney revolt : the great labor war of animation's golden age

An essential piece of Disney history has been largely unreported for eighty years. Soon after the birth of Mickey Mouse, one animator raised the Disney Studio far beyond Walts expectations. That animator also led a union war that almost destroyed it. Art Babbitt animated for the Disney studio throughout the 1930s and through 1941, years in which he and Walt were jointly driven to elevate animation as an art form, up through Snow White , Pinocchio , and Fantasia . But as America prepared for World War II, labor unions spread across Hollywood. Disney fought the unions while Babbitt embraced them. Soon, angry Disney cartoon characters graced picket signs as hundreds of animation artists went out on strike. Adding fuel to the fire was Willie Bioff, one of Al Capones wiseguys who was seizing control of Hollywood workers and vied for the animators union. Using never-before-seen research from previously lost records, including conversation transcriptions from within the studio walls, author and historian Jake S. Friedman reveals the details behind the labor dispute that changed animation and Hollywood forever. The Disney Revolt is an American story of industry and of the underdog, the golden age of animated cartoons at the worlds most famous studio. Dedication Epigraph Contents Author’s Note Prologue Map Part I: Innovation 1 My Father Was a Socialist 2 Poor and Starving 3 The Value of Loyalty 4 Arthur Babbitt: Hell-Raiser 5 Fighting for His Salary 6 You Can’t Draw Your Ass 7 The Disney Art School 8 Three Little Pigs 9 Enter Bioffsky 10 The Cult of Personality 11 A Feature-Length Cartoon 12 Bioff Stakes His Claim 13 A Drunken Mouse 14 Disney’s Folly 15 Defense Against the Enemy Part II: Turmoil 16 A Growing Divide 17 The Norconian 18 A Wooden Boy and a World War 19 Dreams Shattered 20 Hilberman, Sorrell, and Bioff 21 The Federation Versus the Guild 22 The Guild and Babbitt 23 Disney Versus the Labor Board 24 The Final Strike Vote 25 Strike! 26 The Big Stick 27 The 21 Club 28 Willie Bioff and Walt Disney 29 The Guild and the CIO 30 Not the Drawing 31 The Final Goodbye 32 And They Lived Epilogue Acknowledgments Image Credits Appendix: The Strikers Notes Index