Table of Contents

Plates Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: "It's All Me" 1 "The Pet in the Family" On the Farm and in the City, 1901--1923 2 "A Cute Idea" The Self-Taught Filmmaker, 1923--1928 3 "You've Got to Really Be Minnie" Building a Better Mouse, 1928--193 4 "This Character Was a Live Person" The Leap to Feature Films, 1934--1938 5 "A Drawing Factory" Ambition's Price, 1938--1941 6 "A Queer, Quick, Delightful Gink" On a Treadmill, 1941--1947 7 "Caprices and Spurts of Childishness" Escaping from Animation, 1947--1953 8 "He Was Interested in Something Else" Escaping from Film, 1953--1959 9 "Where I Am Happy" Restless in the Magic Kingdom, 1959--1965 10 "He Drove Himself Right Up to the End" Dreaming of a Nightmare City, 1965--1966 Afterword: "Let's Never Not Be a Silly Company" Notes Index

About the Author

Michael Barrier founded and edited Funnyworld, the first serious magazine devoted to animation and the comics. He is the author of Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age (1999).