Duck fans Across the "Pond"

We just returned from an exciting adventure to Europe where we had the opportunity to meet the friendliest fans of the Disney Afternoon and Feature work that Patty and I were fortunate to be a part of over the years. Before we set foot into the plane though, we both were working hard months earlier to create something special for the collectors that were already contacting us about the events. In fact more than a year earlier I was commissioned to create an oil painting while Patty was likewise asked to create another of her stunning "cloth creations" which have become so well known and collected at the Disney Parks.

My better half and I began creating some new pieces in our little studios. Obviously a certain miserly mallard from Duckburg, Uncle Scrooge McDuck, is one of our favorite subjects! My painting, "Portrait of Success," is in oil and I actually let it dry for over 8 months before applying the Damar varnish. Patty created her piece, "Number One Dime",  entirely from thread, cloth, and a bit of stuffing hench the branding phrase she uses, "Cloth Creations". She was constantly cutting, re-cutting and trying new cloth and thread combinations over many weeks to get it exactly the way she wanted it.

Carefully adding the varnish

From the ODOR IN THE COURT Dept: After carefully and s-l-o-w-l-y drying the painting in a custome drying box (with side vents) over a period of just under a year it was ready for the final application. Applying a couple of coats of old school Winsor Newton Dammar varnish over my dried oil portrait painting of Scrooge McDuck was a bit daunting. I heated up a jar of Dammar within a bowl of boiling water and just a hint of turpentine in the traditional method to help thin it a wee bit so it would go on smoothly. The varnish really brought all the color back to life! Very happy how it all came together, except for that smell. A day later and the smell is almost gone!
As Scrooge might say, "It all makes SCENTS now."

This photo of Patty and I was taken moments before they open the doors of the event to the public. (They're expecting over 28,000!) The jet lag might be there but hopefully no one will notice. Patty said if I start to get sleepy she'll be happy to pour cold water over my head. (what a doll!)

It's times like this when we're signing with paint pens, that I'm glad my name doesn't have too many letters. And for those wondering, NO, I am not about to sign the tablecloth. They had just removed a stack of glicees I had signed before they took this pic. They did an amazing job reproducing my oil painting 1 to 1 size on heavy weight acid free paper.

But let me tell you about Patty's latest Cloth Creation. I really love what she has created and the photo here on the right really doesn't do it justice. Eveyone's eyes pop and jaws drop when they see it up close. I will say though that the glicee reproductions of her cloth are actually are so sharp you might think they are the original cloth instead of the stretched canvas surface! It is truly a magnificent piece fit for Scrooge's Money Bin Gallery!

An interesting bit of trivia, Patty went with the traditional red coat used in European comics and older Disney editions while I went with the blue coat we used on our original series of DuckTales. (I prefer the red one, but don't tell anyone.)

This event also gave me the opportunity to pay tribute to my old friend Carl Barks and his character creation and the inspiration for our DuckTales series in a sculpted form in addition to the oil painting. This is the first of a series of animated characters I am sculpting that will be released as a resin cast with a gold color finish (what else would Uncle Scrooge have preferred!) and the bronze version will be a later edition.

This wasn't a sketch sent overseas to have someone else sculpt which is unfortunately the norm for most Disney collectable pieces these days. instead, I drew it out in sketches and sculpted this piece myself. Scrooge McDuck and future Disney cartoon animation legends will also be posed atop the sculpted version of my trusty old animation disc. This was my original prototype and I was playing around with tints. The resin will be completely one color (Scrooge McDuck prefers the gold hue) but the later bronze may have value tints and even colors. The resin was reproduced beautifully and is in an even smoother finish than this.
I was surprised that no one I spoke with overseas was familiar with the base that I made which was "based" on an old animation disc.

These are a few of the lovely people we met over the three days we were there.

Patty and I have been blessed to meet so many incredible fans at the event. One person took a boat for 3 hours from the island they lived on to get there to see us and purchase a signed sculpture. Another got up at 5AM and drove over 4 hours for a print of the oil and an original pastel!
Thank you to everyone who has made our visit so memorable including Koushi, Kamilla, Brian, Paw, Tora, Anders, Glenn and especially Niels and to everyone who stopped by our table. We are truly humbled at all of these amazing fans and it is an honor and privilege to be able to spend time with them.

Like all good things, even this lively fan event came to an end but as they say when one door closes, another one opens. Well that doorway was to Tivoli Gardens! Walt Disney visited here many times and found inspiration for his park to be called Disneyland. Patty is waiting for me to take the dern photo so we can get into the park.

The park opened on August 15, 1843 and is the third-oldest operating amusement park in the world. Tivoli is always evolving without abandoning its original charm or traditions. George Carstensen said in 1844: "Tivoli will never, so to speak, be finished", a sentiment echoed just over a century later when Walt Disney said of his own Tivoli-inspired themed park- "Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world".

It's therefore no secret that Walt was extremely impressed with Tivoli Gardens and studied elements of it as a basis for his future park to be called Disneyland. Lillian and Walt enjoying one of their many visits to Tivoli while Walt trades his usual skimmer hat for a bearskin shako in the photo on the left.

When I was 3 1/2 years old in New Orleans, my dad gave me a bit of his steak at a steak house in the Big Easy. It was the best thing I have ever eaten and have searched with no luck across the globe for that same taste since. Well, we found it in Tivoli Gardens where Patty and I had the most scrumptious birthday dinner at Groften's Restaurant in Tivoli Gardens! The service and meal were the best! What a wonderfully romantic evening!!

As empty as the gardens were, this place was packed, and with good reason. The food was the best I've had in a long time,... outside of Patty's cooking (whew! close call). All those years later and I finally located that delicious steak flavor, in another country!

After celebrating our birthdays with that delicious dinner, we left the restaurant and got something to drink from the local cauldron to wash down a swirl of cotton candy. We got the inside dope where to stand for the animated water and light show and we were not disappointed.

If the place looks fairly empty, it's because being the last day of the season,... it was pretty much was. We weren't complaining as there were no lines for anything, and it was simply beautiful!

Tivoli Gardens is such a lovely park and made even more magical with the cool light mist that was wafting throughout the evening. We got the inside dope where to stand for the animated water and light show and we were not disappointed. If the place looks fairly empty, it's because being the last day of the season,... it was pretty much was. We weren't complaining as there were no lines for anything, and it was simply beautiful! Here is Tivoli's iconic whale's mouth snack stand with the old lighthouse next door still illuminating the area. You can probably tell that it was cold and a light drizzle of a fine mist permeated the park. Patty and I just loved it as it is certainly a change from perpetually warm and sunny Southern California.

It's easy for us folks with squeaky knees to walk around across Copenhagen as it's relatively flat, like a few of my jokes. Patty and walked across this bridge twice a day. The view of Nyhavn, Copenhagen along the canal is lovely, even when it's overcast.
Our lovely Copenhagen apartment is just around the corner but out of respect to the owner who graciously gave it to us during the stay I won't show any photos or give the address.
Every turn in this beautiful city presented us with yet another stunning view of magnificent architecture and friendly people. It's nice to see folks embrace and hold onto their architectural history and culture.

The sign by the way is from a little neighborhood cafe and is advertising their delicious homemade Lentil soup with bread.

We had to visit the Little Mermaid statue while we were here. There was a small group of kind people there that helped us get closer (to Ariel) on those slippery wet rocks without falling into the water, and took the photo for us.

Another checkoff from the bucket list. Well, we have to pack now and head home. SO relieved we don't have Covid!

Scrooge McDuck!

I was recently asked to do an oil painting of one of my favorite miserly fine feathered friends, Scrooge McDuck. He is of course officially licensed by Disney and will be unveiled in the fall. This is a photo Patty took of me up in the studio tickling old Scrooge with my paint brush.

Terrors That Flap in the Night...

This was a very quick little doodle I did for a neighbor's child that is having a rough time with the Coronavirus safety guidelines. His mom was lamenting she had to take him with her to the store to pick up groceries but he refused to wear a mask or use the hand gel. He is a new fan to the original Disney Afternoon. He is binge watching with mom during the quarantine and especially loves the old DuckTales and Darkwing Duck series. I sent this over via email, keeping that 6 foot distance they recommended, and he loved it!

He even washed his hands now!

DuckTales 30th Anniversary!

D23 is the biggest Disney fan event of the year and eagerly awaited by fans around the world. For this year’s 2017 event,  I did a tribute illustration to a series that I had a key role in bringing to the small (and big) screen, DuckTales. You can click on this link to read behind the scenes of the original series and see a little of the concept art I created for it along with stories of its creation and fabulous and very talented crew I was fortunate to work with.

This summer when D23 erupts, Disney Television Animation will be unveiling a new version of DuckTales while at the same time celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the beloved series that is credited with being the very cornerstone of the Disney Afternoon. Has it really been that long? Well, in one word, yes! WOO HOO!

All in a day's work for me back in the 80s

Marc Buhaj, Senior Vice President Programming at Disney XD had made the announcement a couple of years ago that a new series based on the late 1980s hit show would be coming to TV in 2017. Well here we are finally and the newest version is set to travel on more amazing adventures. It will include the same beloved characters from our old series including Scrooge McDuck, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Launchpad, Donald Duck, Gyro Gearloose, Magica DeSpell, Ma Beagle and her boys and all the rest of the Disney denizens of Duckburg.

Boy do I wish we had the digital tools back in the day when we cranked out the old series. In those days it was strictly the "3 P's ", paper, pencil and paint! Oh the things we could have done with a Cintiq during the limited time we were allowed for the shows! Oh well, those bells and whistles can now be appreciated with the latest incarnation that will be exploding across small screens this summer. I can only wish the new crew the best and hope they achieve as much success and appreciation among the fans with their reboot as we were able to enjoy with the original series. Both crews, old and new were and are incredibly talented!

One of my old concept pieces for the original series

For the original series, there were definite changes in the character design along with the look of the backgrounds. I didn’t use Carl Bark’s look of the McDuck Mansion which was simply laid out as more rectangular, and decided to design a sprawling country manor home with helio-port, swimming pool and so on. I naturally incorporated the dollar sign motif into everything I could think of while design those areas to celebrate McDuck's love of money. I was very apprehensive when I ran these designs by Carl to get his feedback. To my relief he laughed and though they were great. He said, “I wish I had thought of that!”  Of course he was being humble as he was the man who had created the entire realm of Duckburg, it’s citizens their exciting adventures and I was just giving my take on some revisions for some key locations.

The new crew of DuckTales

Nevertheless I know I actually blushed with that compliment as it was from the master himself. There would not have been a DuckTales series or a reboot if not for Carl and his comics creation.
For the record, (I know there is discussion among DuckTales fans about it) Carl actually really enjoyed the first season of the animated series. I can share that viewpoint because that is what he told me. All of our artistic endeavors went through the talented hands of Brad Landreth, great friend and head Art Director of the series.

Frank Angones and Matt Youngberg share the Co-Producers hats along with shepherding storylines to make sure the new DuckTales does its lineage proud. From what I’ve seen, it does exactly that!While the old characters from the original show were constructed in the traditional rounded shapes, the new versions are made up of more straights and sharper edges which is a very interesting departure and will definitely be a fresh take. Tim Moen is one of the key artists heading up character design on the show and is part of the extremely talented crew. When the studio invited me over to see the early design look for the new version, it was still being fleshed out within a fairly slightly grayed color scheme.

My 30th Anniversary piece sold out the 1st Day!

Since then, the palette was pushed slightly more into a realm of saturation by its brilliant art director Sean Jimenez and I think it really helped breathe more life into the cool settings. The backgrounds are simplified in their design compared to the original series and use a linear floating line over underlying swatches of subdued hues with crisp dynamic shapes. Together with the spunky character styling this is certainly a fresh new look for the old series and I applaud them for trying something so bold and dynamic.

For my tribute piece, I wanted the old original cast that I had worked on headed up by their fearless leader Uncle Scrooge to be rounding an old winding stairwell and coming face to face, er… make that beak to beak, with their mirror images of the new reboot of the series.You can see a small closeup snippet of my new painting on the left showcasing a few of the original members who have just come across something  that has taken their breath away and stopped them cold in their tracks. That something is of course their duck dopplegangers. The new painting was unveiled this summer at D23 to coincide with the new series. I had hoped the old fans as well as the new fans would enjoy my painting as the tribute it is meant to be to the old and the new and was happily surprised.The original painting, all of the giclee framed prints and the entire run of deluxe prints sold out the very first day they were offered at D23! WOO HOO!!

DuckTales Deja Vu

One of the underground lost temples of "DuckTales"

Sometimes one ponders whether he or she might, "...solve a mystery or rewrite history." (Hmmm... sombody outa put dat to music) Well I recently got the chance to do just that with a return to the world of DuckTales. No I'm not "quacking up", you see, DuckTales is once again heading to the small screen although this time I'm not talking about your television screen. 

Thanks to Capcom and Wayforward Studios, we will be able to join Uncle Scrooge during his worldwide adventures and even dive into a refreshing swim in his money bin without leaving the comfort of your home. Yes, coming to a PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, Wii and PC this summer will be the DuckTales family we've all enjoyed watching over the years as one of the top rated animated series ever to surf the television waves.

Various versions of snow covered Himalayas

I was contacted and asked if I had any old sketches I could loan the crew to help with visuals since I designed the look of the original DuckTales series. They also wondered if I could recommend anyone to design new locations in my style (whatever that is? ). Yes, I did know someone, me... Mike Peraza!  The director told me they had wanted me but didn't think I would be interested, are you kidding me? If you look past my baby fat in recent photos you'll see I'm a starving artist! And so I quickly re-enlisted for DuckTales  duty before they could change their minds and was soon busy sketching out locations from foreboding castles to Magical mountain fortresses to ancient jungle temples to spaceships, well you get the idea.

I'm completely surrounded by the
amazing WayForward animators!

It was a DuckTales Deja vu!  I was happily surprised how quickly I returned to the old series style after an absence of 25 years and the director and staff at Wayforward Studios were really a fun, professional and gifted bunch of "quackups" to work with. Austin Ivansmith was the Director along with Matt Bozon as Creative Director and between those two I was always given clear detailed descriptions of each setup they wanted me to draw and was even offered helpful suggestions on a couple of pieces I just wasn't sure about. I would do some quick rough thumbnails and send them via email to Austin who would then discuss them with Matt as to which version they wanted to see taken into final tight renders or sometime in full color. Oh the joys of working from home in my DuckTales Pajamas and slippers. Certainly couldn't do that back in the days of the original series, well maybe on "casual fridays.".


Tim Curry and other technical artists would slice my designs up into something resembling our old multiplane setups from Disney for a 3 dimensional look to the sideways scrolling action. Animators like Sasha Palacio would then work their magic using traditional and cutting edge CGI to bring the Duckburg cast back to life. The time flew by but I was just happy to have worked with this amazing amazing group called Wayforward and to have had a small part in resurrecting such a beloved property. Hey maybe with all this excitement we can bring back the series with fresh new episodes? There's lots more adventures we haven't even touched on and with the latest technology we could do this even better and without breaking the bank of Duckburg. There's obviously a big audience out there that would love it! Well who knows, maybe somebody from the studio will read this and give it a try.

A few more location roughs and concepts

Not long ago Patty and I had a grand tour of Wayforward Studios and they showed us various sections of the game in rough and semi-finished form and I have to tell you, it really looks like fun!  I just wish they'd hurry and finish so I can join Uncle Scrooge on some wild adventures.  Wayforward Studios and Capcom have created quite asome highly successful games that are enjoyed around the world but I can't help but think that this latest title will be the best yet.

Yes folks, "...life is a duck blur in Duckburg!"

Happy Birthday Donald!

Donald Duck made his first appearance today back in June 9, 1934 in Walt Disney's, "The Wise Little Hen." That role may have been his beginning however it was his second film, "Orphan's Benefit" that showed his temperamental foil for Walt's star Mickey Mouse. 

Clarence "Ducky" Nash

He would go on to appear in over 180 theatrical films, more than any other Disney character and is the fifth most published comic book character in the world. His distinctive voice was created by Clarence Nash who performed the role for 50 years and was a regular at the old Disney Studio when I started working there in the 1970s along with his custom made ventriloquist dummy of none other than Donald Duck. 

Tony Anselmo

When Clarence passed away he personally left the future of Donald's voice in the capable hands, or make that mouth, of Tony Anselmo who besides continuing Donald's squawks is also a fine animator.

Donald has been an important part of my life with the television series, "DuckTales"  for which I had an opportunity to reunite with comic book legend Carl Barks during the concept stage of the show. The man who headed up the original Disney program at Cal Arts in the 1970s was Jack Hannah, another incredible "Duckman" and a good friend to both Patty and I. I'm also proud to say that all four of my fellow "Duckmen" are also Disney Legends and deserved ones they all are!  Well toots, it seems that the irascible Donald has affected me in addition to many of us out there for which I am grateful.  Happy Birthday Donald!

Days of DuckTales, PART 4 (fin)

I opted to re-deisgn the small comic Mansion completely into a Tudor estate 

I had done work for TV years before like Hanna-Barbera  but had long since settled into working for Disney features. As such we had the budget and the time to put in extras and push the quality. Even the Disney TV division had devoted more resources into their product than most of the other studios and it had showed in "Gummi Bears". I had busted my hump like everyone else to make "Ducktales" special so when the day came to screen the first episode I had been busy finishing a couple of keys for a future show. Everyone started coming down to tell me how great the show looked and I finally caved in and went down to enjoy it. I wasn't quite prepared for what I was to see. I was less than enthused over the results on screen. I think everyone's accolades beforehand made it seem all the worse when I viewed it. When the lights went up I saw a lot of happy faces looking at me to get my opinion. What could I say? I just smiled and nodded, not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings. Over time I realized my reaction was one of outright ignorance. The show had a set and limited budget and schedule. Everyone involved did the best they could.

A scene based on but not found in Carl's comic

I confided my feeling with Alan that maybe the "DuckTales" show wasn't exactly up to par as a Disney production and he assured me that it was actually a good effort by the studio. He was right of course and when "Ducktales" aired, it was an immediate hit with fans of all ages. Soon after it premiered and over the years since that time I have been fortunate to meet many fans from all over the world who really love the series. I guess sometimes we just get too close to our own work and need to step back, take a deep breath and listen to other opinions a bit more. As I looked back through my notes and artwork while researching this blog, I realized I had worked on two out of four versions of "Scrooge McDuck" to reach the screen. The first was "Spirit of '43", followed by "Scrooge McDuck and his Money" in 1967 (Ward Kimball supervised and wanted to include the darker side of Money, something he said Walt would have done but was vetoed), "Mickey's Christmas Carol," and "DuckTales". I guess maybe we could include the 2 second clip of him during the opening of "Mickey Mouse Club",  ... nah.

Studio invite to Wrap Party

"DuckTales" went on to a second season in 1990 with 25 additional episodes and eventually reached a total of 100 for the entire series. It also became a theatrical feature with the release o f"DuckTales, Treasure of the Lost Lamp." There have been two spinoffs to date, "Darkwing Duck" (which I did the original concept art for over a long weekend when it was just known as "Double O'Duck") and another one entitled "Quack Pack" and tons of merchandise from clothing to action figures. Carl Barks was very impressed with the "DuckTales" series when it first aired on television but lost interest in the later episodes citing too many characters and the complicated plots. I received a mysterious yellow envelope addressed to Michael Peraza delivered by the traffic boy. I opened it to find a small yellow invitation to celebrate our hard work. So late on a Monday evening after work, the Disney Studio threw a nice little wrap party for us at Maison Gerard. Looking around the restaurant I realized how lucky I was to have worked alongside these people, from management, writing and the art department they were all amazing and I was kind of sad to see it end.  Still, it is truly fitting that the series originally inspired by Carl's' creation in a comic book was now not only a hit Disney series but would be re-introduced to a fresh generation within a new line of comics entitled what else? "DuckTales"! Disney Fine Art announces latest works from Disney Art Director Mike Peraza

Days of DuckTales, PART 3

Scrooge on thrilling ride thru a dinosaur skeleton

In the mid 1980s, Disney Television Animation was comfortably ensconced in a dark walnut stained multistoried building that resembled an accordion from the side. I had a nice spacious office in one of the accordion "flaps" with windows sandwiched between the writers' rooms and the directors' rooms. Alan Zaslove was next door and Steve Clark one more beyond. Alan would come in and we'd kibbitz about the latest script and he would want to see what I was designing for it, especially if he was directing the same tale. He was also a veteran animator and contributed wonderful ideas for his episodes. I enjoyed his company immensely and loved to listen to his stories of life at UPA working on classics like "Gerald McBoing! Boing" and his experiences alongside animation greats like Bo Cannon and Shamus Culhane. He gave me a helping heaping of model sheets and art from those UPA days after seeing how enthused I was over that era of animation and the artists involved. The impact of the style and technique not to mention subject matter that the innovative artists at UPA employed cannot be understated. The UPA "look" has been retro-fitted by every studio to some degree since in one series or another from Nick to Cartoon Network and Disney to Warners. Alan was also an "old school" director and by that I mean he earned his way up through the ranks with talent. He was excellent at distilling the story given to him in a script and producing remarkable little thumbnails to hand out to his storymen to further illustrated his perception of the actions he wanted. He was also just plain fun to hang out with.

Olivia Miner caught working

Our staff at this point was still very small which was wonderful as far as we were concerned. When someone had a birthday party, our Production Manager Olivia would squeeze the entire crew into the kitchen to warble the song and blow out candles. I can assure you that that simply can't be accomplished anymore with the large Disney staff sizes of today. We all had out assignments and got things done on or ahead of schedule. Back then we were a "Lean, Mean Animating Machine". That didn't stop a few of our rowdier prisoners from scaling the walls with gags and jokes. We had many, MANY characters designed for the series, some memorable, some well.... We had one cartoon weasel drawn with a nose that resembled something that should not have sprouted out of that part of the anatomy. Actually being a Disney character, he really shouldn't have sprouted anything anywhere. Let me first say this, I knew the guy who drew it, and he didn't mean it to be mistaken for anything other than a nose. In face when someone mentioned it, he grew so red I thought his head would sizzle and pop. Now keep in mind all this work made us hungry and the studio would sometimes order  pizza for lunch from a place called Pizza Man to thank us for our efforts, or thinking back maybe it was to punish who knows?. Both of these events came together one one day when we had a frantic scramble to ready a pitch to extend the series into the second season. At the last minute it was discovered that we needed one more art piece so I was asked to rush out it less than an hour before the meeting. Brad explained it was OK if I didn't get it done which I of course took as a personal challenge.

DuckTales crew (Mike Peraza/Indiana Jones) Halloween 1986

I had previously blown up the offensive weasel character to five feet using a xerox cut out glued  to foam core and was waiting for the right time to unlease the varmint. I might add that the enlarged drawing not have a nose job done but was still "au naturel"  as his original design at this point. I attached a used Pizza Man box and articulated hands and along with my "DuckTales" drawing, some cord and tape, scurried up to the roof. The corner room meeting was in process although Brad told me later it had gotten tense. Suddenly mid sentence, eveyone looks to the window to see the 5 foot tall weasel being lowered and holding a pizza box. After a moment to swing in the breeze the "pizza weasle" opens the box and displayed my sketch. I then dropped the paper puppet and ran downstairs to my room. I barely got to my desk when I heard the uproar down the hall with Brad leaning into my doorway gasping between laughter, "Thanks Mike, I owe you one!" They were still cracking up as he went back to the meeting and closed the door. That gag was hardly the last prank played by me or others during "DuckTales" production. I don't have room to list more except for their secret code phrases: rubber band door, trashcan pyramid, smoke in the kitchen, stink bomb, elevator attendant among others. Oh by the way, we got a second season in spite of all the fun.

Days of DuckTales, PART 2

I designed Scrooge's estate to have a heliport, pool, etc.

If I listed every single member of our remarkable "DuckTales"crew, this chapter would be 3 pages longer so please forgive me if I only mention a few. Fred Wolf wore the bill as "Top Duck" Producer with Tom Ruzicka watching his back, direction by Alan Zaslove and Steve Clark, with Tedd Anasti and Patsy Cameron story editing the "tales" supported by  seasoned writers such as Mark Zaslove. The Ducktales Art staff included our fearless leader, Brad Landreth as Art Director, Skip Morgan was his trusty associate,  Mike Peraza on Key Layout Styling and concepts with Ed Wexler providing additional layouts. Storyboards were expertly sketched by Thom Enriquez, Rick Chidlaw, Marty Murphy, Steve Gordon and Hank Tucker ( They even allowed me to storyboard a couple of shows). Background Painting wizard Paro Hozumi brought breathtaking color into the settings assited by Gary Eggleston and topped off with Jill Stirdivant adding perfectly matching color models. 

Our character designs were greatly enhanced by a couple of friends of mine also from Disney features, Ed Gombert and Toby Shelton. I had contacted Ed and Toby, telling how much greener the grass was growing over at TV. To my happy surprise they liked my spiel and joined up.  Toby went on to become a producer in later years at TV while Ed and I were to escape back to features for "Little Mermaid". For some reason a schism developed that wedged between the two animation divisions as far as what was perceived as "raiding" the feature talent pool. It sounds preposterous but it was very real. Staff was called in and asked not to contact feature folks about joining our ranks. I'm just glad we smuggled Ed and Toby out before the barb wire wall went up. Of course they never did discover the third escape tunnel...

My first assignment was to create concept art that would be used to pitch the series to management. Having a great idea for a series and getting a greenlight to produce it doesn't always go hand in hand in Hollywood. We formed ranks and went to work. Brad was in charge of assembling the pieces and I was joined by Skip and Paro to round out the team. We created about a dozen pieces that looked like mini posters of what we perceived as the "DuckTales" world. Some were inspired by Carl Barks comics while most were completely original creations. It was real teamwork as we all shared working a bit on this one, then add something at that one, redo this other one, etc.. The pitch was presented and we held our collective breath. Would the suits like the series proposal or was it "duck season" with us as targets? Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg and the rest of management loved it! Bob Jacquemin who was in charge of the new syndication unit really flipped and convinced Eisner to let him ramp up the series 13 episodes to a full slate of 65 for sydication. Michael Webster got us together and relayed the good news and we were ready to fly! Donald Duck would in essence drop off his nephews Huey, Duey and Louie with his Uncle Scrooge while he joined the Navy. Together with their housekeeper Mrs. Beakly and Scrooge's disaster prone pilot Launchpad they would travel the world over during their colorful feather-brained adventures. Now I was sweating. I had to design the mansion Scrooge lived in not just interior and exterior but cut-a-way sections of the various rooms and scaling charts for character placement. I also had to crank out settings from the City of Duckburg to Wild West towns. In short, I had to have settings ready to supply to the storyboard department and to give the background artists something to paint. The hectic hurried "we need it yesterday" pace in television production is a bit different from the ho-hum leisurely shall I say ... relaxing pace one works under when vacationing at the resort villa we call feature animation.

I start with a tiny thumbnail 2" wide

An average week for me on "DuckTales" went as follows: Monday morning arrive as usual at 7:30, either first one in or second following Michael Webster. Tedd and Patsy also got in early and would give me a heads up on the latest story. Plenty of doughnuts and bagels in the kitchen, hey maybe THAT"S where I started my "animator's gut! Damn those rainbow sprinkles! Anyway, I would have a script  soon after and would zip through the story in a few minutes. I love to read which helped me digest the nonstop scripts quickly. By the time the rest of the crew arrived I could give any who asked what the breakdown of the storyline was so they could just sit and draw. I also made a list of locations as Skip did with characters. I then would thumbnail about 15 very tight drawings of those locations, handing out a few to the layout staff to blow up and finish after running them by Brad who almost always OK'd my doodles. Working off little thumbnails was something I had learned from veteran Disney Legend Ken O'Connor. Using his methods I could generate from 10 to 12 layouts a day and these were keys, meaning each was very different. 

Blew it up on xerox then cleanup 12"wide

Cranking out the large number of exotic locations so quickly was possible for me due to a huge clip file I had assembled in my room with reference on subjects from ancient Egypt to rocket travel, basically anything that might be a location for an episode. This was a tip I was handed by Disney storyman Vance Gerry who maintained a marvelous clip file in his room at the studio. My mini library was open to anyone who needed it. The next step would be for me to caricature the location to fit the story and business while adding a few "duck" features wherever possible. Sometimes if I had a few moments I would do rough color treatments to pass along to Paro, not that he needed any help, just that sometimes when you're drawing in black & white, you're thinking in color. He appreciated my suggestions and always used them. Paro was a fine example of the traditional step used by Disney production in theory, that every step gets improved as it goes through the creative process. That certainly was the case on "Ducktales" due to the dedication of the staff and management.  As the day wore on we would get our assortment of corrections to the script. I say assortment because they arrived in a multitude of colors, blue pages, pink pages, yellow and so on. A troubled script could look like some kind of freaked-out technicolor phonebook within the span of just a couple days.

Days of DuckTales PART 1

A color rough I did as a suggestion during the series Mike Peraza

Michael Webster, was an animation veteran from Quartet Films, Hanna Barbera, Murakami Wolf Films, Leo Burnett Advertising and Rankin Bass but when he answered the call to join Disney Studios, animation history was in the making. In 1984, CEO Michael Eisner created the Walt Disney Television Animation division and placed Michael Webster in charge to oversee the production of its programing with help from Production Manager Olivia Miner. Apparently Michael Eisner's son had one heck of a sweet tooth for a specific candy and so "Gummi Bears" was quickly put into development before he got a tummy ache. The small but extremely talented staff included Producer Art Vitello, Layout Ed Wexler and BG Painter Gary Eggleston and Thom Enriquez doing storyboards. This crew was really sharp. The studio asked me to help out with the launch so I did some promotional art under Art's able supervision to be used in spots like TV Guide and Disney veteran Ken Anderson whom the studio also roped in contributed his usual great design eye for Gummi Glen. Of the two early series that the fledgling department produced, "Adventures of the Gummi Bears" and "Wuzzles", only Gummi Bears became a success and subsequently aired on NBC for four seasons. Disney Fine Art. Disney Afternoon.

1 of over 600 key DuckTales layouts I designed

Two years sped by and I was working for Ross and Jan Bagdasarian on their first full length animated feature, "The Chipmunk Adventure" when I got a call from a friend at Disney TV Animation. They were doing a pitch for a new show called, "Fluppy Dogs". I worked on it because the person who was in charge was Brad Landreth, one of the nicest people in animation. I also did it for the money which was very good. Unfortunately the plot was a little insipid, they were "not actual dogs, they just looked like dogs" and because of that, they were escorted  to a dog pound. These "dog-like" creatures used a "fluppy crystal key" to open inter-dimensional doorways to their lame adventures. Umm... yeah, that was the setup. It wasn't Brad's fault, not mind either, just another less than terrific idea for an animated series donated by the suit factory. Oh yeah, almost forgot, they were each a different color, like Teletubbies or any other the other endless parade of rainbow hued character gangs substituted for children's programming.

"Back to the Klondike" key setup

I did some concept art and storyboarded the opening sequence that was used as presentation art to help greenlight the Fluppy Dogs project.  Fortunately for the children of the world this stinker bombed and was never heard of again, at least not in our inter-dimensional portal. 

First concept sketch of mansion by Mike Peraza

I kept working on the chipmunk feature doing boards and concepts alongside my good friend and amazing artist Dan Haskett when I was once again contacted by Disney TV. They were going to do a new series based on Carl Barks' famous creation Uncle Scrooge. They were still "negotiating" with the main studio whether Donald could be a part of it but the nephews were on board already. Yes, Disney was and is very protective of its stars. Maybe they had seen Fluppy Dogs? Nevertheless, being a comic book collector and fan, I had also met Carl a few years earlier (Great guy!) and I was ecstatic at the possibilities of putting his genius on the screen.

My "Fluppy" friend Brad was heading it up as Art Director and when they asked if I was interested, I couldn't quack YES fast enough. The artwork posted here I didn't know I even had as I thought I had thrown out most of that stuff many years ago. My wife Patty  found the ones that are shown here in some boxes filled with animation memories in our garage and looking back, I'm glad I didn't toss them.