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"I never drew for the sake of drawing. I drew to make the paper go away."

Glen Keane (born April 13, 1954) is one of the most famous modern animators and arguably the most respected living artist in hand-drawn animation.

The son of The Family Circus creator Bil Keane (who actually used him as the model for Billy in the strip), Glen applied to the Illustration school at the California Institute of the Arts, but in a lucky twist of fate, his application was accidentally sent to the Film Graphics school, where he was mentored under UPA veteran Jules Engel.

Keane graduated from CalArts in 1974 and became an animator at Walt Disney Productions. The studio's animated feature The Rescuers would be his first assignment, working on the characters of Bernard and Penny alongside famed veteran Ollie Johnston. Afterward, he animated Elliot for the otherwise live-action film Pete's Dragon (1977) (under the supervision of Don Bluth) before being promoted to supervising animator on The Fox and the Hound, where he animated Tod's climactic showdown with a ferocious bear.

Throughout his career, Keane designed and animated many of the leading characters for Disney's films during the studio's "Renaissance" era, from slender, athletic and charming characters like Ariel, Pocahontas, Tarzan, and Aladdin to unkempt, bulky brutes like the Beast, Ratigan, and John Silver. Afterward, he was to be a director of the studio's CGI feature film Tangled, but due to "non-life threatening health issues", he stepped down and became an executive producer.

On March 23, 2012, Keane resigned from Walt Disney Animation Studios after 38 years of service. He has since started his own animation studio, Glen Keane Productions, to pursue more personal projects, and joined Motorola's "Advanced Technology and Projects Group" to create interactive hand-drawn animation. In 2014, Keane premiered a new short film Duet at that year's Google I/O conference as the latest in the company's "Spotlight Stories" of interactive shorts made exclusively for mobile devices.

In 2018, Keane directed an animated rendition of NBA superstar Kobe Bryant's poem Dear Basketball, which earned both many awards, including the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

In 2020, he directed the animated feature, Over the Moon.

Apropos of nothing, but he's also insanely good at doing impressions of his mentors, Disney's Nine Old Men.


    Filmography 
  • The Rescuers (1977): Animator (Penny, Bernard)
  • Pete's Dragon (1977): Animator (Elliot)
  • The Fox and the Hound (1981): Supervising animator for the climactic fight scene with the bear. Also did some animation of Vixey.
  • Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983): Animator (Scrooge McDuck, Willie the Giant, Goofy).
  • The Black Cauldron (1985): Animator (Eilonwy, Gurgi, Hen Wen)
  • The Great Mouse Detective (1986): Supervising animator for Ratigan. Also provided animation for Basil and Fidget.
  • The Chipmunk Adventure (1987): Worked on the film during his time as a freelance animator.
  • Oliver & Company (1988): Supervising animator for Georgette, Fagin and Sykes.
  • The Little Mermaid (1989): Co-supervising animator (with Mark Henn) and co-designer (with Dan Haskett) for Ariel.
  • The Rescuers Down Under (1990): Character designer, and supervising animator for Marahute.
  • Beauty and the Beast (1991): Supervising animator for the Beast.
  • Aladdin (1992): Supervising animator for Aladdin.
  • Pocahontas (1995): Story artist and supervising animator for Pocahontas.
  • Tarzan (1999): Story artist and supervising animator for Tarzan.
  • Treasure Planet (2002): Supervising animator for John Silver.
  • Tangled (2010): Originally to be the film's director, he became an executive producer, animation director and story artist, as well as supervising animator for Rapunzel.
  • Paperman (2012): Character designer. His last work for Disney.
  • Wreck-It Ralph: Did early visual development for Sgt. Calhoun.
  • Duet (2014): An animated entry in Google's Spotlight Series of interactive shorts for mobile devices. Directed and animated entirely by Keane himself.
  • Dear Basketball (2017): Animated Adaptation of Kobe Bryant's 2015 farewell poem to basketball.
  • Over the Moon (2020): Directorial debut.
  • Trash Truck (2020): Executive producer of this Netflix series created by his son, Max. The Keane family also voice several characters in the series.

  • What Could Have Been: He was originally slated to make his directorial debut with Tangled, but some minor health issues forced him to step down to executive producer and co-art director.

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