Wolfgang Reitherman

Reitherman began working for Disney in 1934 along with future Disney legends Ward Kimball and Milt Kahl The three worked together on a number of classic Disney shorts including The Band Concert Music Land and Elmer Elephant and in all Reitherman worked on various Disney feature films produced from 1937 to 1981 including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Slave in the Magic Mirror to The Fox and the Hound coproducer He did the climatic dinosaur fight in Igor Stravinskys The Rite of Spring in Fantasia the Headless Horseman chase in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow section in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad the Crocodile in Peter Pan and Maleficent as a dragon in Sleeping Beauty the former three he animated and the latter he directed Beginning with 1961s One Hundred and One Dalmatians Woolie as he was called by friends served as Disneys chief animation director One of Reithermans productions the 1968 short Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film He also served as a producer and sequence director and starred as himself in the 1941 feature film The Reluctant Dragon All three of Reithermans sons  Bruce Richard and Robert provided voices for Disney characters including Mowgli in The Jungle Book Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree and Wart in The Sword in the Stone Reitherman directed several Disney animated feature films including One Hundred and One Dalmatians 1961 The Sword in the Stone 1963 The Jungle Book 1967 The Aristocats 1970Robin Hood 1973 and The Rescuers 1977 He is also known for reusing animation in movies directed by him According to Floyd Norman this was just one of his trademarks and had nothing to do with time or cost savings Woolie was our director on The Jungle Book Reuse was just Woolies thing He never did it to save money I really dont think the Old Guard ever had any interest in saving money I was never a big fan of reuse but it wasnt my place to tell these old guys what to do One final thought It never seemed to bother Walt and I never heard him complain about reuse