REGINALD MASSIE

Screenwriter Jeff Massie, an executive board member of The Animation Guild, has started blogging about his life and stuff he likes, mostly about culture and politics. However, earlier this month Massie started posting about his artist dad, Reginald Massie:

Not long after Paramount signed (George) Pal to a contract in 1939, Reg Massie came to work for him briefly between gigs at Disney. Along with much of the Disney studio’s best and brightest, Dad walked out of Disney in the 1941 strike, where he met my mother on the picket line.During WWII he was in charge of effects animation at the Army Signal Corps Photographic Center in Astoria, Long Island, working with Frank Capra and John Huston on animated maps and special effects. After the war, he returned to Pal in time for the Puppetoon’s brief golden era.Although he was only credited for “backgrounds”, Dad was essentially the art director, responsible for the overall look of the shorts.

More on Reginald Massie and downloads of his his Puppetoon films are posted here on Jeff’s This Is Not My Blog.(Image above is a gag drawing by Virgil “Vip” Partch of fellow Disney inbetweeners, left to right: Sam Cobean, Tony Rivera, Bill McIntyre, Partch, Reginald Massie (foreground), and Dick Shaw. More info on this drawing see Massie’s post here)