Disney animator putting final touches on his animated short film

Longtime Disney animator, Willie Ito, is putting the final touches on his short film, “Hello Maggie.” Based on his 2007 children’s book, “Hello Maggie” tells the story about his family’s experiences as Japanese American internees from 1942 to the end of World War II.

“I guess I was about five years old when I first saw ‘Snow White and The Seven Dwarves’ on the big screen. And when the seven dwarves marched across the screen, singing ‘Hi-ho, Hi-ho, it’s off to work we go,’ I said, that’s it. That’s what I wanna be,” said Ito when asked how he became interested in drawing. “Not one of the seven dwarves, but a cartoonist.”

When Ito was only eight years old, he and his family were sent to a Japanese-American internment camp in Utah. There, Ito said, is where he began to get into drawing.

“Being stuck in the middle of the desert, I would spend a lot of my time just drawing,” reminisced Ito.

Ito talked about the harsh winters his family were forced to endure in the camps, and how Ito’s father would keep old magazine catalogs as fire starters. Ito would take those catalogs and draw on the margins of each page creating flipbooks.

Since then, Ito has had a lucrative career of over 60 years working on beloved childhood animations such as “Scooby Doo,” “The Jetsons,” “The Flintstones,” and “Lady and the Tramp.”

When asked if he had any advice for people wanting to get into animation, Ito said, “I always give advice to young people that want to draw and want to make a career of it: It’s a good career. Go for it.”