Takamoto and Disney and the War

On the art and life of Iwao Takamoto.

A still from Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Welcome! In this issue of the Animation Obsessive newsletter, we’re looking at the early life and career of Iwao Takamoto (1925–2007).

Today, Takamoto’s name is tied to Hanna-Barbera. He was a top artist there — the designer of Scooby-Doo’s cast, the refiner of The Jetsons’ look.¹ Before joining that studio, though, he played a key part on Walt Disney’s team.

Takamoto spent 15 years at the Disney studio, working under different titles: assistant animator, key cleanup artist. But, for the most part, his job was to make animation perfect before it went to the inking crew. The animators’ broad sketches of movement became tight, exact, technical drawings under his watch.

He worked closely with Milt Kahl — one of the Nine Old Men, and a perfectionist. They had an understanding. Disney artist Floyd Norman remembered that “Iwao was an awesome draftsman in his own right, and had the chops to follow up Kahl.” To quote one of Takamoto’s apprentices at the studio:

Every little line, everything, had to be perfect. So, I would stand in front of him as he would correct my drawings. And, sometimes, I would just think, “You know ... maybe I should have taken [my dad] up on … getting a license so I could become a barber. Because I don’t know if I’m going to be able to cut the mustard with him.”²

Takamoto started at Disney’s studio in 1945. You see his hand on films like Sleeping Beauty and Lady and the Tramp — he led “quality control” on Princess Aurora and Lady. Among other things, he guided and retouched the spaghetti kiss. “Iwao was the only one who could’ve been entrusted in doing that scene as perfectly as it was done,” said Willie Ito, an artist assigned to the same shot.

A Disney career was a big turn in Takamoto’s life. Shortly before he joined, he’d been in the camps.

Iwao Takamoto at Disney in 1945, courtesy of UC Berkeley

As a kid in California, Takamoto was a strong student, although not a rich one. He grew up during the Great Depression — in “what might be considered a tough section of downtown Los Angeles, without many prospects,” he later wrote. His parents, Japanese immigrants, got by as they could.³