He worked on “Sleeping Beauty,” “Mary Poppins” and “The Jungle Book.” But while those Disney films are ageless, their animators are not — which is why Floyd Norman found himself canned because of his age. Twice.
But Norman kept showing up to the Disney offices. Sixteen years later, he’s still there — minus a title, a paycheck or even a badge: His 20-years-younger wife, Adrienne, a Disney storybook artist, gets him into the Burbank building each day.
Floyd Norman - An Animated Life - Teaser 1 from Michael Fiore Films on Vimeo.
“People got used to seeing me so often, they assumed I [still] worked there,” Norman, 81, tells The Post. “I don’t want to sit on the front porch. I want to work!”
“Floyd Norman: An Animated Life,” a documentary about the man who never stopped drawing, hits the big screen Friday.
The Santa Barbara, Calif., native found his calling early, crayoning even as he crawled. At 5, he saw “Dumbo,” and knew what he wanted to do. In 1956, fresh from art school, he found a job at Disney. He was their first African-American animator, but insists he was no Jackie Robinson: “I didn’t break barriers — I was just an artist. Being a woman was a lot tougher. There wasn’t a single female animator there!”
One of his first big jobs was fine-tuning the puppies of “One Hundred and One Dalmatians,” released in 1961.
“Walt loved the idea of doing a story about dogs in London,” he says. After “Sleeping Beauty” and other fairy tales, “Dalmatians” seemed fresh and exciting. But films take two or three years to finish, and Norman wanted a change. When Disney began work on “The Jungle Book” (released in 1967), he lay low.
“There’s no better job than creating something that entertains people.”
- Floyd Norman
Walt found him anyway.
“My boss called me in one Friday and told me to pack up my office because they were moving me to the story department,” Norman says. Disney had seen some of his sketches and realized he knew how to tell a story.
Soon Norman found himself alongside Sterling Holloway as he voiced Kaa the snake in a sequence Norman had drawn. Working with the actor he first heard play Mr. Stork in “Dumbo” was “magical,” Norman says. And he’ll never forget the magician behind it.
“He was like Walter Cronkite,” Norman says of Disney, who died in 1966. “Very avuncular, very demanding, yet never unkind. Your work either met his specifications or it did not, but you always knew where you stood.”
Bill Cosby was a different story. Norman and a friend had an educational-TV production company they hoped could work on the comedian and “Fat Albert” creator’s specials. (Cosby never actually hired Norman.)
“He was arrogant,” Norman says. “He wasn’t warm and fuzzy the way he was onstage. I didn’t find him likable at all.”
More disappointment came at Disney in 1972. Walt was six years gone, and the accountants ruled the studio. “They wanted to replace older workers with younger workers who made half as much,” says Norman, all of 37 at the time. “It was a business decision. A bad one.”
Off he went to Hanna-Barbera, home to “The Flintstones” and “Josie and the Pussycats.” Though he’s met many a “Scooby-Doo” fan, Norman wasn’t one himself. “I hate that dog,” he says in “An Animated Life.” Working there felt like a cartoon factory, “grinding out content to sell toys and cereal.”
Eventually, Disney’s accountants stepped back, and in 1983, Norman came home again. Once Pixar joined the party, he worked on “Monsters, Inc.” and “Toy Story 2.”
Before he knew it, he was 65. Human Resources told him it was time to retire.
“I was so shocked,” Norman says. “It never occurred to me to push back.”
Instead, he came back — as a contractor. When his contract ended, he pulled a George Costanza and went rogue, hijacking an empty desk. These days, Norman and his Disney-employed wife arrive daily at 7 a.m., but only she collects a paycheck. (Disney did not respond to requests for comment.)
“There’s no better job than creating something that entertains people,” says Norman, now working on a book about Walt Disney. “It’s putting a little light into a dark world.”