Hicks Lokey

Born: William Lokey
Birthday: April 5, 1904
Location: Birmingham, AL, U.S.
Alma mater: Vanderbilt University
Occupation: Animator, Director, Writer
Years active: 1920s-1986
Died: November 4, 1990

Hicks Lokey spent his early animation years in the 1920s at Van Beuren Studios, working on Aesop’s Film Fables. In 1934, he became as an animator for Fleischer Studios, and one of his first shorts there was Betty Boop’s There’s Something About a Soldier.

He was a senior animator trying to negotiate wages and better working hours when he participated in the 1937 Fleischer Studios strike. Dave and Max Fleischer threatened to reduce Lokey’s and others’ pay, and Lokey left the picket line to return to work. Hicks left the Fleischers the next year for the Walter Lantz Studio, where he stayed until 1939.

Walt Disney Productions hired Lokey the following year, where he served as a character animator for the “Pink Elephants on Parade” segment of Dumbo and “The Dance of the Hours” for Fantasia. Lokey left the studio in 1941 after joining animators there in the Disney animators’ strike.

After a period at Paul J. Fennell Co., Hicks found work at Hanna-Barbera in 1959. Lokey animated on a number of television shows like Goober and the Ghost Chasers, Space Ghost, The New Shmoo, Super Friends, as well as the feature film The Man Called Flintstone until he retired in 1986.

Lokey received the Winsor McCay Award for his lifetime of work in the field of animation in 1990.

The Author

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.