Ubbe Ert Iwwerks (March 24, 1901 – July 7, 1971) (pronounced "Aub", not "Oobe" or "U.B.") was a prolific American animator, director and technician of Dutch descent, and had a very important role in the History of Animation, and particularly in the history of Disney shorts and films. He is recognized as the co-creator of Mickey Mouse, as well as his precursor.
Iwerks and Disney first met in late 1919, both trying to make a living as artists. While they had a brief stint together for the Kansas City Film Ad Company, Walt decided to leave and start his own studio in 1922, with Ub being the first man he hired due to admiring his drawing skills, to work on his earliest cartoons, the "Newman Laugh-O-Grams". Unfortunately, Walt's fledgling studio quickly went bankrupt, with Ub going back to the Kansas City company while Walt left for Hollywood to start fresh. Circa 1924, when Walt began work on his Alice Comedies, he quickly contacted Iwerks for help, resulting in a six year partnership with him.
Ub quickly gained a reputation among the earliest Disney animators for his drawing and animating skill – as Friz Freleng recalled, "At the time, just making a character move was an accomplishment. He could make characters walk and move; he could move a house in perspective. I thought he was a genius when it came to the mechanics of animation."
When producer Charles Mintz swindled the bulk of Walt's animators out from under him, as well as Walt's character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Ub was one of the three animators that stayed loyal to Walt, and left with him to form his own studio. In two weeks, Iwerks managed to crank out the first short starring a character that he had created with Walt – an early Mickey Mouse. More impressively, Iwerks managed to singlehandedly animate the entire cartoon in two weeks, animating as many as 700 drawings a day, beating a record set by another animator of the day, Bill Nolan. Soon after, Ub helped out Walt by animating the bulk of a prototype sound cartoon that would change the face of animation forever – Steamboat Willie.
Over the next year or two, Iwerks continued animating for Disney, as well as training many of the new recruits coming in. But tension soon rose between Walt and Ub due to issues with control over his work, with Walt wanting to retime Ub's work, much to his anger, among other issues. Upon being asked by Mr. Pat Powers to lead his own studio, Ub left Disney, dealing a crippling blow to the studio which had relied on him so much.
In the meantime, Ub started work on a new series of short comedies called Flip the Frog, obviously intended as something of an anti-Mickey Mouse. Despite being backed by a fairly good budget and a league of excellent staff, including top animator Grim Natwick, the Flip series failed to catch on with audiences, who favored Disney's own shorts instead. Ub tried again with an even shorter-lived series called Willie Whopper, which was once again a failure. During this time, Ub managed to build a prototype for what would later become the Multi-Plane Camera. Ub also began work on a series of independently distributed Silly Symphonies clones called the Comi Color Cartoons, but poor distribution and audience reception quickly sank the series after three years. Ub tried to stay afloat by having two Looney Tunes shorts, "Porky & Gabby" and "Porky's Super Service", outsourced to his studio, but after a seven-year run and around 77 shorts made, Iwerks finally had to close up shop.
Ub returned to Disney in the 40's to work on improving/introducing new technology for them (including a new matte system to allow live action/animation blending in films like Song of the South and The Three Caballeros. He also created the infamous Xeroxing process used in Disney's Dark Age films, starting with 101 Dalmatians) and did the same later in his life on hit films such as Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, introducing a new matte system which allowed the titular birds of the film to appear on screen (since it was impossible to train all of those birds the way the film required them to do in live action).
He also contributed on various projects in the Disney Theme Parks including "It's a Small World", Great Moments with Mr Lincoln, and the Hall of Presidents.
If you're looking to find his work, check out the following:
- Cartoons That Time Forgot: The Ub Iwerks Collection Vol. 1 & 2
- Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Black & White Vol. 1 & 2
- Walt Disney Treasures: The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
- Walt Disney Treasures: Disney Rarities
- Walt Disney Treasures: Silly Symphonies and More Silly Symphonies
- Alice in Cartoonland DVDs from VCI and Inkwell Images
- Return of the 30's Characters: For a handful of shorts missing from the other collections, anyways.
You can find his life story, a documentary created by his own grand-daughter, Leslie Iwerks, on the "Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" DVD. It is also available in book form.
1928
- Plane Crazy: Animated the whole short on two weeks notice. First Mickey Mouse cartoon produced.
- The Gallopin' Gaucho: Same here.
- Steamboat Willie: Animated the bulk of the short. More on this one below.
1929
- Springtime: Director.
- The Skeleton Dance: Animated the bulk of the short, save for the skeleton xylophone gag, which was done by Les Clark. More information below.
- Hell's Bells
1930
- Summer: Last Disney short before leaving to form his own studio.
- Fiddlesticks: First Flip the Frog short.
- Autumn: Last Disney short he worked on that was released.
- Puddle Pranks
- The Cuckoo Murder Case
- The Village Barber
1931
- The Village Smitty
- Laughing Gas
- Africa Squeaks
- Ragtime Romeo
- Spooks
- The Village Specialist
- Movie Mad
- The Soup Song
- The New Car
1932
- The Office Boy
- Room Runners
- Phoney Express
- Funny Face
- The Goal Rush
- The Music Lesson
- The Milkman
- School Days
- Stormy Seas
- Nurse Maid
- What a Life
- The Bully
1933
- Techno-Cracked
- Jack and the Beanstalk
- Chinaman's Chance
- Soda Squirt
- Flip's Lunch Room
- The Air Race
- Stratos Fear
- Cuckoo the Magician
1934
- The Headless Horseman
- Viva Willie
- Jack Frost
- Insultin' the Sultan
- The Good Scout
- The Brave Tin Soldier
- Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
- Rasslin' Round
- The Little Red Hen
- Don Quixote
- The Valiant Tailor
- Puss in Boots
- The Queen of Hearts
1935
- Old Mother Hubbard
- Humpty Dumpty
- Mary's Little Lamb
- Simple Simon
- Sinbad the Sailor
- Summertime
- The Brementown Musicians
- Hell's Fire
- The Three Bears
- Balloon Land
1936
- The Big Bad Wolf
- Dick Whittington's Cat
- Tom Thumb
- Little Boy Blue
- Ali Baba
- Happy Days
1937
- Porky and Gabby: First of four Warner Bros. shorts outsourced to his studio. He is attributed as being the cartoons director in the credits, but in truth it was ghost-directed by Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones.
- Porky's Super Service: Second of four cartoons outsourced to his studio. Similar to the above, he is credited as director, but it was ghost-directed by Clampett and Jones.
- Porky's Badtime Story: Third of them. Directed by Bob Clampett.
- Get Rich Quick Porky: Fourth of them. Also directed by Bob Clampett.
1941
- The Reluctant Dragon: Special effects worker on the film.
1946
- Song of the South: Special effects worker.
1947
- Fun and Fancy Free: Special effects technician.
1950
- Beaver Valley: Part of Disney's True Life Adventures series. Special effects worker.
1952
- The Olympic Elk: Fourth of The True Life Adventures series. Special effects worker.
1959
- Toby Tyler: Special effects worker.
1960
- Pollyanna: Special effects worker.
1961
- Ten Who Dared
- The Parent Trap
1963
- The Three Lives of Thomasina
- The Birds
Noteworthy shorts done by him:
- Trolley Troubles: The debut of Disney's first real star, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
- Plane Crazy: The debut of Mickey Mouse, though Disney itself has always considered the first "true" Mickey toon to be...
- Steamboat Willie: The first commercially-viable sound cartoon, and the "official" first Mickey cartoon.
- The Skeleton Dance: The first of the Silly Symphonies line of cartoons.
Real life people whom are influenced by him:
- Chuck Jones worked for Ub – twice, in fact – but was fired both times. He still spoke highly of him in "Chuck Reducks".
- John Kricfalusi repeatedly praises his work, despite his otherwise-longstanding dislike of the Disney style.
- Osamu Tezuka, the God of Manga himself, was heavily inspired by Iwerks' art style.
Tropes related to his career:
- Christmas Special: 1934's Jack Frost often shows up on collections of public-domain Christmas-themed cartoons, even though Christmas is never mentioned in the short. On the other hand, it premiered in theaters on Christmas Eve.
- Homage: The train sequence of The Three Caballeros was Les Clark's tribute to Ub's early, simplistic art style.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: The bulk of his independent studio cartoons (Flip the Frog, Willie Whopper and the Comicolor cartoons) are on DVD, 67 of the 77 cartoons total with the releases of both volumes of Cartoons That Time Forgot, and both Thunderbeans Attack of the 30s Characters DVD and their Willie Whopper Blu-Ray and DVD set. Only a few of the Flip and Comicolor shorts haven't made it to home video yet, but Thunderbean is currently working on a future DVD and blu-ray release of both Flip and the Comicolor cartoons that will make Ub's entire body of work available to watch.
- Punny Name: Ub and Walt named their first partnership "Iwerks-Disney Studio Commercial Artists," after Walt quipped that "Disney-Iwerks" sounded too much like an eyeglass manufacturer.
- Rubber-Hose Limbs: Ub was a prolific user of these.
- The Runaway: The bear cub in the 1934 Comicolor short "Jack Frost" decides to run away after he's spanked by his mother for sneaking out of bed. He soon discovers the hard way that the warnings about Old Man Winter were true, but gets home safely thanks to Jack Frost himself.
