For a couple of murderers, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston sure seemed like awfully nice guys.

"So you're the guys who killed Bambi's mother!" Thomas once said, relating a comment someone made years ago.
Yes, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston killed Bambi's mother, but they were the ones who brought her to life in the first place. They were partners and part of a group of Disney animators who worked at the studio for more than 40 years. Last month, Johnston died at the age of 95 (Thomas died in 2004), so it seems like a fine time to remember two men who few knew by name, but who had a big hand in illustrating most of our childhoods.

The best way to do that is to dig out the 1995 documentary, "Frank and Ollie," lovingly written and directed by Thomas' son, Theodore. Or watch any of the Disney films that celebrate friendship, particularly "Bambi," "The Jungle Book," "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" or "The Rescuers."

Or just watch "Lady and the Tramp" nibble that same piece of spaghetti and sigh all over again.

You really can't talk about one of the men without talking about the other. They were that connected: They met at college, began at Disney around the same time, became neighbors, commuted to the studio together, and their sons were even born in the same week.

And they were part of the great experiment that Walt Disney tried in 1937 -- making a full-length animated film. What was thought at first to be "Disney's Folly," "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" turned into a huge hit in no small part because of the joy and sadness Thomas and Johnston helped bring to the picture. The dwarfs were Thomas' creation, emotion was something Johnston brought into it.

"For the first time, moving drawings became 'moving' drawings,'" a film historian notes in "Frank and Ollie."
These are the guys behind the perfect duos in the classic Disney animated films. Bambi without Thumper? Unthinkable. Mowgli without Baloo? Unimaginable. The Lady without the Tramp or the Fox without the Hound? Impossible. Bambi without his mother ... well, you just had to deal with it because that's life.

"There's no fairy dust or lover's kiss to bring her back. She's dead," Johnston says in the documentary.

They only got better over the years and considered "The Jungle Book" a pinnacle. The 1967 film also was the last they worked on with Walt Disney before his death. In watching "Frank and Ollie," you can see how these two guys could come up with something so goofy and so tender.

It's ironic that Johnston's death occurred during the same week the studio announced its next 10 animated films. While Thomas and Johnston were masters of hand-drawn animation, six of these new releases will be produced by Pixar's computer animation.

Maybe it truly is the end of an era, but thanks to home video, Thomas and Johnston's work has lived on for generations beyond those who saw the films on the big screen in the first place.

After all, joy like Thomas and Johnston brought us is just one of life's bare necessities.

Source: http://www.madison.com/tct/entertainment/287322

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