Nick Nichols

Birthday: September 15, 1910
Location: Milford, UT, U.S.
Alma mater: Brigham Young University
Occupation: Director, Animator
Years active: 1959–1992
Died: August 23, 1992

Charles August “Nick” Nichols’ first credit for Disney was as the lead animator of Pinocchio’s sinister Coachman. He animated numerous cartoon shorts, often with the character Pluto. Nichols directorial efforts included Mickey and the Seal and Morris the Midget Moose before he returned to animating duties on the 1951 Alice in Wonderland feature film.

Nichols co-directed two films with Ward Kimball in 1953: Melody and Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, earning an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the latter. He also served as director for the live action series The Mickey Mouse Club.

Nick left Disney in the early ‘60s to join the Hanna-Barbera studio as a director. He was responsible for a large volume of their output from the 1960s to the 1980s, directing many of the animated shorts and TV episodes. Along with Iwao Takamoto, Nichols also co-directed the feature-length animated film Charlotte’s Web in 1973.

Nichols worked at Ruby-Spears during the 1980s, providing animation direction for the Dragon’s Lair television series amongst other shows.

In the end, Nichols returned to Disney to work on The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Darkwing Duck, and Goof Troop.

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Lavalle Lee

Lavalle Lee

Lavalle Lee has been creating animated cartoons online since 1999/2000 for his website flashcartoons.org. Many cartoons on the site have gained viral video status reaching millions of viewers online. In 2009, Lavalle started learning hand drawn animation from Don Bluth in his animation classes, as well as attending his Masterclasses in Arizona. He has also personally studied animation and visual effects from Veteran Disney animators in Orlando, FL.

Lavalle is widely known in the animation industry as the creator of the TraditionalAnimation.com website. After seeing that most animation sites were about all types of animation, not any specific to classical hand drawn animation, Lavalle knew Traditional Animation needed to be represented online. TraditionalAnimation.com has become the leading website and social media account for all things 2D. The website served as inspiration for “The Traditional Animation Show” in which Lavalle was both producer and host.

His partnership with Don Bluth began when he championed the Dragon's Lair Indiegogo campaign as lead project manager, editor, voice actor and in-betweener. The campaign reached $730,000 dollars to produce a 7-minute pitch video. In 2017, Lavalle brought the idea of creating a school to Don Bluth, and Don Bluth University was born. After a decade of learning from Don Bluth and working together on multiple pitches and business ventures, Lavalle accepted the position as Vice President of Don Bluth's new company Don Bluth Studios.

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