Michael Sporn

Born: Michael Victor Sporn
Birthday: April 23, 1946
Location: New York City, NY, U.S.
Alma mater: New York Institute of Technology
Occupation: Animator, Director, Producer
Years active: 1972-2011
Died: January 19, 2014

Michael Victor Sporn was born in New York City, and began drawing cartoons as a young child. He studied fine arts at the New York Institute of Technology and then studied animation and drawing through mail correspondence while serving in the United States Navy.

Sporn worked under animator John Hubley in 1972 before moving to London to work with Richard Williams. In 1980, Sporn returned to New York and founded his own studio, Michael Sporn Animation.

He independently produced and directed over 15 short films and 30 half-hour television specials like Lyle, Lyle Crocodile, The Story of the Dancing Frog, Ira Sleeps Over, The Marzipan Pig, and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. He created, public service announcements, music videos, commercial logos, film titles, and spots, shorts, and interstitials for Sesame Street.

His animated retelling of Doctor De Soto by William Steig was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1984. Sporn was also nominated for an Emmy Award In 1988 for his TV adaptation of Steig’s book, Abel’s Island.

In 2005 Michael produced an animated adaptation of Mordicai Gerstein’s The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, which won the 2006 Ottawa International Animation Festival’s award for Best Short Animation Made for Children.

Michael Sporn produced a show for HBO in 2011 called, I Can Be President.

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.