2005 Recipient: Mark Kausler "Scrappy," "Krazy Kat," "Flip the Frog," "Betty Boop," "Ko-Ko the Clown," "Felix the Cat," "Tom and Jerry," "Roger Rabbit," "Daffy Duck" and "Mickey Mouse" never had a better friend. Mark Kausler started animating his own characters from the age of 8, and made twelve different animated cartoons (in 8mm) by the time he got to his high school graduation. As a fine arts major at the Kansas City Art Institute, he almost lost sight of animation until the irresistible lure of California cartoon culture drew him to Los Angeles where his talents found him work on "Yellow Submarine," "Shinbone Alley" and "Heavy Traffic" (animating the incredible "Maybeline" sequence) as well as on numerous commercial spots. Mark received the Bobe Cannon scholarship to Chouinard Art Institute and graduated in 1970.

 

He has since contributed animation, story, or layout on many significant Hollywood features, shorts and independent films including, "Coonskin", "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," "The Duck Factory," "Family Dog," "Beauty and the Beast," "Sing Beast Sing," "Oliver and Company," "Prince and the Pauper," "The Lion King," "Fantasia 2000" and "Osmosis Jones." Equally important, Mark got to work with, interview and befriend several of his animation heroes, including Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising and Chuck Jones. In addition to his professional credits Mark is one of the world’s leading animation historians.

 

Though he has written few articles himself, Mark has selflessly allowed others to use his research, help locate rare cartoons or screen his personal collection of animated films. Mark has privately preserved hundreds of animated shorts and saved many cartoons long thought lost by the major studios. His efforts are acknowledged in virtually every important animation history book published in the last 30 years—Maltin, Barrier, Canemaker Solomon, Adamson and Beck owe a large debt to the cartoon research Kausler has preserved. His most recent animation, an independent film called "It’s ‘The Cat’" has been wowing audiences around the world at various animation festivals. Mark is currently working on a sequel, "There Must Be Somebody Else." He also loves to paint watercolors outdoors with his wife Cathy.

 

 Winsor McCay Award --- This year's award went to Cornelius Cole, Tyrus Wong, and Fred Crippen.  The award is in recognition of lifetime or career contributions to the art of animation. (More Information)

 

Cornelius "Corny" Cole III is a graphic artist, book illustrator, painter and sculptor who has worked in the field of animation for more than fifty years. Cole was born and raised in Southern California and was a fine art major at the renowned Chouinard Art School. He entered the animation industry in 1954 as an in-betweener on Disney’s “Lady & The Tramp.” He moved on to work for UPA in the latter ’50s , then for Warner Bros. Cartoons in the early ’60s. He became a production designer for Chuck Jones on “Gay Purr-ee” (1962) and “The Phantom Tollbooth” (1969) and designed “Super Six” (1966) and “Ant & The Aardvark” (1969) for DePatie-Freleng. Corny designed the Academy Award-winning animated short subject “Is It Right to be Right?” in 1970 and won a Cleo the same year for his commercial work. He was the production designer on Richard Williams feature, “Raggedy Ann & Andy” (1977). His other animation credits include stints at Murakami-Wolf, Hanna Barbera, on TMS’ “Little Nemo,” “The Pink Panther Show”, “Alvin & The Chipmunks”, “Heavy Metal” and was the title designer for the notorius feature film “Flesh Gordon.” In 1994, his work for the prime-time animated special "Roman City" earned an Emmy. For the last thirteen years he has served as a faculty member in the animation department at California Institute for the Arts and, since 1995, he has been teaching life drawing at the University of Southern California. For the last nineteen years, Corny has hosted a drawing workshop to bring both professional artists and amateurs together in an open, creative and non-competitive environment. Corny continues to pursue his fine art and is continually challenging himself as a person and an artist.

Fred Crippen is not only the creator of the beloved “Roger Ramjet” series, he brought to life hundreds of animated spots for “Sesame Street” and “The Electric Company,” created a political ad for the Kennedy campaign in 1960 and directed the award-winning short film “Oh Yeah!” [1968]. A graduate of Michigan State University, Crippen worked at Shamus Culhane’s commercial studio in New York but was soon hired by Gene Deitch to work at UPA’s commercial outfit in the city. He was soon invited to move to Los Angeles to work on the new “Boing Boing” TV series. After UPA, Fred continued animating and directing TV commercials and shorts (including the Oscar-nominated “Trees and Jamaica Daddy”), before deciding to set out on his own in 1959 by forming a commercial studio, Pantomime Pictures, with UPA alumni John Marshall and Jack Heiter. In the course of a few years, Fred became the owner of the studio and was well on his way to a long career as an independent commercial producer. In the mid-’60s, Ken Snyder, head of the Needham, Louis, Brorby agency and a supporter of Pantomime Pictures, sold an animated series to two sponsors: Tootsie Roll and AMF (an industrial manufacturer known best for their bowling alley equipment). Out of this evolved “Roger Ramjet,” which premiered in 1965. Throughout Fred Crippen’s remarkable animation career, whether teaching children the difference between a cat’s meow and a dog’s bark, selling banking services and tires, or putting across a political viewpoint, he has consistently achieved a harmonious unity between form and content—and all while drawing really big noses. ions at the Chinese American Museum and the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles.

Although he worked on only one animated feature, Tyrus Wong has exerted an influence on the art of animation for more than sixty years. In any major studio, the background artists and art directors will have copies of Wong's artwork for "Bambi" pinned to their walls to provide inspiration. Born in Canton, China, Wong came to America as a boy. After finishing school, he earned a living as an artist, then went to work at the Walt Disney Studio because, "I got married and needed a job." He hated in-betweening so he submitted sketches of deer in a forest and won a position as a designer on "Bambi." For the movie, Wong made hundreds of delicate water colors that suggested the forest at various times of day. Animator Andreas Deja comments, "Tyrus made a character out of the forest. It can be a scary character during the winter storm or a pleasant one in the spring. But if you look at the backgrounds, even without the characters in them, they convey so much feeling and emotion." After leaving Disney, Wong did preproduction/inspirational work for live-action films including "Rebel Without A Cause," "Around the World in Eighty Days" and "Harper." "I spent about twenty years at Warners, but sometimes when things were slow they’d loan me out to Republic. I did a lot of John Wayne pictures," he recalls. In recent years, his work has been the subject of exhibitions at the Chinese American Museum and the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles.