Ub Iwerks

Ubbe Eert "Ub" Iwerks was a two-time Academy Award-winning American animator, cartoonist, director, producer, and special effects technician, who was famous for his work for Walt Disney. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri.
His name is explained by his Frisian roots; his father, Eert Ubbe Iwwerks, emigrated to the USA in 1869 from the village Uttum in East Frisia (northwest Germany, today part of the municipality of Krummhorn). Ub's birth name can be seen on early Alice Comedies that he signed. Several years later he simplified his name to "Ub Iwerks".
==Career==
Ub was considered by many to be Walt Disney's oldest friend, and spent most of his career with him. The two met in 1919 while working for the Pesman Art Studio in Kansas City, and would eventually start their own commercial art business together. Walt and Ub then found work as illustrators for the Kansas City Slide Newspaper Company (which would later be named The Kansas City Film Ad Company). While working for the Kansas City Film Ad Company, Walt decided to take up work in animation, and Ub soon joined him.
He was responsible for the distinctive style of the earliest Disney Animated cartoons. In 1922, when Walt began his Laugh-O-Gram cartoon series, Ub joined him as chief animator. The studio went bankrupt, however, and in 1923 Ub followed Walt's move to Los Angeles to work on a new series of cartoons known as "The Alice Comedies". After the end of this series, Walt asked Ub to come up with a new character. The first Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon was animated entirely by Ub Iwerks. Following the first cartoon, Oswald was redesigned on the insistence of Universal Studios, who agreed to distribute the new series of cartoons in 1927.
In the spring of 1928, Walt lost control of the Oswald character, and much of his staff was hired away; Walt soon left Universal afterwards. Walt asked Ub, who stayed on, to start drawing up new character ideas. Ub tried sketches of frogs, dogs, and cats, but none of these appealed to Walt. Walt eventually came up with the idea for a character that would later be called "Mickey Mouse" and sketched a design. Ub was given the sketch and was told of the concept, allowing him to create a more refined appearance for the new character.
The first few Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies cartoons were animated almost entirely by Ub. However, as Ub began to draw more and more cartoons on a daily basis, he soon found himself unable to cope under Walt's harsh command; Ub also felt he wasn't getting the credit he deserved for drawing all of Walt's successful cartoons. Eventually, Iwerks and Disney had a falling out; their friendship and working partnership were severed when Iwerks accepted a contract with a competitor to leave Disney and start an animation studio under his own name.
The Iwerks Studio opened in 1930. Financial backers led by Pat Powers suspected that Iwerks was responsible for much of Disney's early success. However, while animation for a time suffered at Disney from Iwerks' departure, it soon rebounded as Disney brought in talented new young animators.
Despite a contract with MGM to distribute his cartoons, and the introduction of a new character named "Flip the Frog", and later "Willie Whopper", the Iwerks Studio was never a major commercial success and failed to rival either Disney or Fleischer Studios. From 1933 to 1936 he produced a series of shorts in Cinecolor, named ComiColor Cartoons. Backers withdrew further financial support from Iwerks Studio in 1936, and it folded soon after.
In 1937, Leon Schlesinger Productions contracted Iwerks to produce four Looney Tunes shorts starring Porky Pig and Gabby Goat. Iwerks directed the first two shorts, while former Schlesinger animator Bob Clampett was promoted to director and helmed the other two shorts before he and his unit returned to the main Schlesinger lot. Iwerks then did contract work for Screen Gems (then Columbia Pictures' cartoon division) before returning to work for Disney in 1940. (The cartoons created by Iwerks' own studio remained largely unseen for many decades, but have been released to DVD by several companies.)
After the return to the Disney studio, Iwerks mainly worked on developing special visual effects. He is credited as developing the processes for combining live action and animation used in Song of the South (1946), as well as the xerographic process adapted for cel animation. He also worked at WED Enterprises, now Walt Disney Imagineering, helping to develop many Disney theme park attractions during the 1960s. Iwerks did special effects work outside the studio as well, including his Academy Award-nominated achievement for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963).
Iwerks' most famous work outside of Mickey Mouse was Flip the Frog for his own studio. Iwerks was known for his fast work at drawing and animation and his wacky sense of humor. Animator Chuck Jones, who worked for Iwerks' studio in his youth, said: "Iwerks is Screwy spelled backwards." Ub Iwerks died in 1971 of a heart attack in Burbank, California at the age of 70.
==Filmography==
Year 	Film 	Position
1923-1927	Alice Comedies 	Animator
1928 	Plane Crazy 	AnimatorDirector
1928 	Steamboat Willie 	DirectorAnimatorBackground artistLayout artist (uncredited)
1928 	The Gallopin' Gaucho 	AnimatorDirector
1928 	The Sky Scrapper 	animator (uncredited)
1929 	The Barn Dance 	AnimatorBackground artist (uncredited)
1929 	The Opry House 	DirectorAnimatorBackground artistLayout artist (uncredited)
1929 	When the Cat's Away 	AnimatorBackground artist (uncredited)
1929 	The Barnyard Battle 	DirectorAnimatorBackground artistLayout artist (uncredited)
1929 	The Karnival Kid 	DirectorAnimatorBackground artistLayout artist (uncredited)
1929 	Mickey's Choo-Choo 	Directoranimator (uncredited)
1929 	Mickey's Follies 	DirectorAnimator (uncredited)
1929 	The Plowboy 	Animator (uncredited)
1929 	The Jazz Fool 	DirectorAnimator (uncredited)
1929 	Wild Waves 	DirectorAnimator
1929 	The Skeleton Dance 	AnimatorBackground artistLayout artist (uncredited)
1929 	El Terrible Toreador 	AnimatorBackground artistLayout artist (uncredited)
1929 	Springtime 	AnimatorBackground artistLayout artist (uncredited)
1929 	Jungle Rhythm 	Animator
1929 	Hell's Bells 	DirectorAnimatorBackground artistLayout artist (uncredited)
1929 	The Haunted House 	Animator (uncredited)
1929 	The Merry Dwarfs 	AnimatorBackground artistLayout artist (uncredited)
1930 	Summer 	Background artistLayout artist (uncredited)
1930 	Autumn 	Director
1930 	Arctic Antics 	Director
1930 	Fiddling Around 	AnimatorBackground artistEffects animator (uncredited)
1930 	The Cactus Kid 	Animator (uncredited)
1930 	Minnie's Yoo Hoo 	Animator (uncredited)
1941 	The Reluctant Dragon 	Director (cartoon sequences, uncredited)
1942 	Stop That Tank 	Director
1944 	The Three Caballeros 	process effects: live action sequences
1946 	Make Mine Music 	process effects
1946 	Song of the South 	special processes
1947 	Fun and Fancy Free 	process effects
1948 	Melody Time 	special processes
1948 	So Dear to My Heart 	special process
1949 	The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad 	special processes
1950 	Cinderella 	special processes
1950 	Beaver Valley 	special processes
1950 	One Hour in Wonderland 	special processes
1951 	Alice in Wonderland 	special processes
1951 	Nature's Half Acre 	special process
1952 	The Olympic Elk 	special process
1952 	Water Birds 	special process
1953 	Bear Country 	special process
1953 	Peter Pan 	special processes
1953 	Prowlers of the Everglades 	special process
1953 	The Living Desert 	special process
1954-1958	The Magical World of Disney 	special processes
1954 	20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 	special processes
1954 	The Vanishing Prairie 	special process
1955 	Lady and the Tramp 	special processes
1955 	Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier	special processes
1955 	The African Lion 	special process
1955-1956	Mickey Mouse Club 	special processes
1955 	Men Against the Arctic 	special process
1956 	The Great Locomotive Chase 	special processes
1956 	The Blue Men of Morocco 	special process
1956 	Davy Crockett and the River Pirates 	special processes
1956 	Sardinia 	special process
1956 	Secrets of Life 	special process
1956 	Westward Ho, the Wagons! 	special processes
1956 	Disneyland, U.S.A. 	special processes
1957 	Johnny Tremain 	special processes
1958 	Wales 	special processes
1958 	White Wilderness 	special processes
1959 	Sleeping Beauty 	special processes
1959 	The Big Fisherman 	special processes
1960] 	Toby Tyler 	special effects
1960 	Jungle Cat 	special processes
1960 	Goliath II 	special processes (uncredited)
1961 	One Hundred and One Dalmatians 	special processes
1961 	The Parent Trap 	special photographic effects
1963 	The Sword in the Stone 	special processes (uncredited)
1964 	Mary Poppins 	special processes (uncredited)
1967 	The Jungle Book 	special processes (uncredited)
==Influence and Homages==
*A rare self-portrait of Iwerks was found in the trash at an animation studio in Burbank. The portrait was saved and is now part of the Animation Archives in Burbank, California.
*After World War Two, much of Iwerks' early animation style would be imitated by legendary Anime artists Osamu Tezuka and Shotaro Ishinomori.
*Iwerks Entertainment, a filmographic company, was founded in 1985 in his honor.
*The 1986 D.C. Comics character Dr. Ub'x was named in his honor.
*In the Ren and Stimpy Show episode "Superstitious Stimpy", Stimpy is chanting in garbled talk and mentions Ub Iwerks.
*In the 2005 Fairly OddParents episode "The Good Ol' Days", Timmy and his Grandpa Pappy, are transported to an early Disney-style cartoon. In it, two street signs that intersect are the streets of Ub and Iwerks.
*The creators of the 2017 video game Cuphead, brothers Chad and Jared Moldenhauer, stated that the art style was heavily influenced by the works of Iwerks, as well as other animators, such as Max Fleischer, Willard Bowsky, and Grim Natwick.
**It should be noted that Grim Natwick worked on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Fantasia, being the lead animator and being responsible for animating Mickey Mouse respectively.
==Gallery==
The disney bowling team.jpg|The Disney Bowling Team: Standing, from left: Les Clark, Ben SharpsteenKneeling, from left: Merle Gilson, Iwerks, Johnny Cannon
Silly Symphony unit 1929.jpg
Ub iwerks and walt disney (1).png
Ub iwerks and walt disney (2).png|Iwerks and Disney in the early 1920s
Ub iwerks with his wife.png|Iwerks and his wife Mildred.
Walt disney and ub iwerks in 1928 (1).jpg
Walt disney and ub iwerks in 1928 (2).jpg
Burt gillett and Disney staff.jpg|Seated, Carl Stalling and Iwerks; from left, Wilfred Jackson, Sharpsteen, Burt Gillett, Clark, Walt Disney, Cannon, and Jack King.
Disney staff 1930 (1).jpg|L-R, Standing: King, Iwerks, W. Disney, Carl Stalling, GillettKneeling:, Sharpsteen, Dick Lundy, Gilson, and Norman Ferguson
Disney staff 1930 (2).jpg|L-R, Standing: Cannon, Wilfred Jackson, Clark, Jack Cutting. Kneeling: Iwerks, W. Disney, Stalling
Disney staff in January 1930 (2).jpg|Standing, from left: Clark, King, Sharpsteen, Cutting, Gillett, Iwerks, Win Smith, Jackson, William Cottrell, Floyd GottfredsonKneeling, from left, Lundy, Charles Byrne, Carlos Manriquez, Ferguson, Gilson, Chuck Couch, Stalling, Cannon, W. Disney
Disney staff in January 1930.jpg|Left to Right: W. Disney, Stalling, Sharpsteen, Iwerks, Clark, Gillett, Cannon, Wilfred Jackson, and (standing) Jack King
Ub iwerks and walt disney (3).png
Ub iwerks 04-04-1960.jpg
Ub iwerks at the Oscars.jpg|Iwerks accepting a special Oscar alongside Petro Vlahos in 1964.
Armando gutierrez as ub iwerks in walt before mickey.jpg|Armando Gutierrez as Ub Iwerks in Walt Before Mickey.
==External links==
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