An Animation Odyssey

A Bay Area Cultural Tour

The field of animation has defined human narrative in the most profound way since written history. Most would be quite shocked to learn the art of animation itself is less than two centuries old. This tour through Bay Area animation institutions highlights not only the significant histories of three integral animation artists (Walt Disney, Charles Schulz, and George Lucas) but also the development of animation itself for the future through the narrative of their work.

The Staple in Storytelling

Since its integration in the late 1800s, animated art has captured hearts and minds across the globe. What started as a series of hand-drawn dots and lines quickly evolved into the pinnacle of human culture, creating universally loved and acknowledged stories and characters.

While revolutionary even at its conception, the field of animation began to develop exponentially in the mid-20th century. From the 1930s through the 1970s, animated art grew from two-minute silent features to full-length films, Saturday specials, and special effects for favorite live-action heroes.

Modern computerized animation has progressed lightyears from its humble beginnings, and contemporary artists have many forebears to thank for the developments in cartoon film. To trace the history of the animation journey, one needs to look no further than our very own Bay Area, where three institutions exist to celebrate the legacies and contributions of the 20th century's most dynamic artistic innovators: Walt Disney, Charles Schulz, and George Lucas.

Origins of Animation (1834-1915)

The story of animation begins with the zoetrope: a little spinning wheel invented in 1834 that by 1876 could project a series of animated frames before a theatrical audience. By the time Emile Cohl's  Fantasmagorie  was released in 1908 "Lightening Sketchers"—artists standing in front of audiences and rapidly altering their drawings—had become more popular than the zoetrope and when animation became its own genre of entertainment in 1910, the "Slash-and-Tear" method (separation of foreground and background movement by ripping away sheets of paper) dominated the industry. However, even with 1915's popularization of cel animation (translucent foreground sheets overtop stationary background art), the field of animation was still clunky, problematic, and mostly unexplored.

Enter the three apostles of 20th-century animation.

The Walt Disney Family Museum

In the heart of San Francisco's Presidio, set along a beautiful public lawn with a perfect view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay, Diane Disney Miller (Walt's Daughter) established a museum to celebrate her father's legacy in 2009.

Originally the Army's Riley Building and Barracks 104 during the Presidio's time as a functional military base, the Walt Disney Family Museum site has a rich military history as a gymnasium, post exchange, and living quarters for nearly a century from 1897 to 1995. Now, the Riley Building and Barracks 104 have housed the Disney Museum's permanent and rotating exhibits for a quarter of a century, and its frontage lawn has become a popular public space for families and festivals alike.

Walter Elias Disney

Born December 5, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois, Walt Disney was one of five children raised by Elias Disney and Flora Call. Though his family moved around quite a bit throughout his youth, his neighboring aunt and uncle in Marceline, Missouri encouraged his love of art from a young age with gifts of Big Chief pads and pencils.

Walt spent his teenage years known as the "resident artist" in each school he attended before his work with the American Red Cross Ambulance Corps during WWI. Walt's love for comics and cartoons persisted during and after the war, and he pined for a career as a professional animator. Despite many setbacks and bankruptcies with his debut company, Laugh-O-Gram, Walt's dream persisted. His subsequent studio made cinematic history with the first-ever sound-synchronized cartoon,  Steamboat Willie , in 1928, and again in 1937 when it released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world's first full-length animated feature film. Disney's studio, committed to pioneering the field of animation, invented the multiplane camera—a twelve-foot contraption operated by a dozen technicians that allowed artists to traverse different animated layers within one frame—the same year.

The Museum - Galleries

Entering the Disney Museum's main doors will face visitors with two irresistible delights: a cafe and a gift shop (quite expectable, given Disney's enduring relationship with merchandise). The ground floor also features a small, free-to-the-public exhibit of Disney's animation awards, a few treasures from the Disney family home, and the entrance to the main galleries (see below) which extend to the level above.

The basement level consists of a small education area complete with free activities for children, patrons, and students, as well as a traveling public exhibit (on the process of animation as of my visit in November 2024).

The museum galleries feature relics from the life and home of Walt Disney, photographs and video interviews as primary source material documenting the growth of Disney as a corporation, and interactive displays/learning experiences (complete with headphones and buttons to press). Favorite features include Disney's backyard train (the Carolwood Pacific Railroad) and a full-scale model of Disneyland.

The Museum - Features

The Disney Museum primarily represents the perpetuation of imaginative creation and creative education for future generations within Walt's legacy. It is committed to community engagement, offering a series of  animation and storyboard classes  for children and adults,  field trip programs  (including education on color theory and character and theme park design), and  talks and lectures  as well as  movie and documentary screenings  and animation festivals.

The Disney Museum's programs and events draw guests from around the Bay Area and the country, creating a community for legacy and learning based on cultural understanding.

Walt Disney's quantum leaps in the field of animation not only created a global cultural empire bound together by narrative and art but also paved the way for further innovation within the epoch he created. Disney put animated cinema into the theaters, but who would bring it home to the public?

The Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center

Tucked away in a quiet residential area of scenic Santa Rosa next to a Snoopy-shaped labyrinth and a neighborhood Peanuts skating rink stands the Charles M. Schulz Museum—as simple and modest in architecture as its namesake in temperament.

When ground broke on the museum's property in June of 2000, Snoopy wielded the shovel himself. It would take two years for architect David Robinson and Oliver and Company Contractors to complete the two-story museum, education center, and archives.

Established in 2002 by Schulz's wife Jean, the Schulz Museum has become a cultural staple of Sonoma County, California, where Schulz had lived and worked for nearly fifty years.

Charles Monroe Schulz

Born November 26, 1922, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Charles Schulz was the only child born to Carl Schulz and Dena Halverson. Schulz grew up with a love for art and a fascination with animation. As a little boy, he dreamed of becoming a cartoon artist like Disney, and when a sketch he'd done of his family dog appeared in Ripley's magazine, there was no turning back.

Encouraged by his mother, Schulz took a cartooning course after high school and would have immediately pursued a career had he not been called to serve in the Second World War. Like Disney, Schulz's love for art remained a steadfast companion through his years of service. On returning from the war, Charles coined his own four-panel newspaper comic strip—Li'l Folks—and it ran for three years before Peanuts appeared in the papers for the first time in 1950.

As Peanuts grew into the dynamic cultural phenomenon it is today, Schulz was the first cartoon artist to bring his comics to life in a series of feature film specials available to families at home. Though regular animated series had existed since the invention and popularization of television itself, studios had yet to produce a prolific series of short feature film specials available to audiences outside theaters. When A Charlie Brown Christmas premiered in 1965, it became an instant cultural classic and fostered the production of 44 more Peanuts television specials through the year 2000.

The Museum - Galleries

On entering the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, visitors may view one of many regularly scheduled short films in the museum theater or explore the museum's traveling exhibits on the ground floor.

A series of photo opportunities await guests in the permanent comic strips exhibit, and stairs to the second floor will find visitors faced with the institution's research archives, an accessible education room (complete with arts, crafts, and books on animation), and a perfect reconstruction of Schulz's office as an entrance into the biographical exhibit on his life.

The mezzanine staircase down to the ground floor leads onto a public patio featuring the museum's education and outreach hall as well as Charlie Brown's kite-eating tree.

The Museum - Features

The Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center represents the perpetuation of creative education for future generations as well as the perpetuation of Schulz's legacy through his work. The museum exhibits the world's largest display of original comic strips at any given time while offering film screenings, field trips, classes for K-12 students, and children's camps for summer and winter break.

The museum research center represents the preservation of research and cartoon education for the future by opening its massive Schulz archives to students, researchers, and the interested public and welcoming new animation artists to feature at the museum every month.

The Schulz institution's centrality in the Santa Rosa community is propelled by its community engagement opportunities, such as volunteer work for guests of all ages and frequent community events hosted at the museum and ice rink.

Charles Schulz's lovable cast of characters and their avid cult following brought animation home to American families. But the journey of animation was far from over. Artists knew animation could be more than cartoon characters, and one man made that dream a reality.

The Letterman Digital Arts Center - Lucasfilm

Just a few blocks from the Disney Family Museum (with the same thrilling Presidio view) stands the Letterman Digital Arts Center, home to Industrial Lights & Magic and Lucasfilm Ltd.

Established in 2005, this 23-acre campus was also once home to the Letterman General Hospital. For nearly a century from 1899 to 1995, the Letterman Hospital was the workplace of the first employed legion of the Army Nurse Corps, famous for its work researching tropical diseases. During WWII, Letterman was an imperative institution for serving wounded servicemen of the Pacific Theater.

Now, the Letterman Center spans an entire street from the Eastern entrance of the Presidio, featuring 17 acres of public green space with a pathway connecting to the Presidio Promenade.

George Walton Lucas

Born May 14, 1944, in Modesto, California, George Lucas was the only son born to George Sr. and Dorothy Bomberger. Growing up, Lucas had a passion for cartoons and photography. He dreamed of going to art school, but, forbidden by his father, opted to attend film school at USC where he fell in love with animation, editing, and direction.

A long-time mentee of film tycoon Francis Ford Coppola, Lucas crafted many of his own hits and established Lucasfilm Ltd. before the birth of the franchise that changed the world in 1974.

The special effects Lucas required for his dynamically realistic action and space travel scenes in Star Wars had not yet been invented, and Lucas spent millions of dollars and hours developing methods with his team. Ultimately, when A New Hope premiered in 1977, it featured a series of incredible technological feats, including the world's first combination of genuine photographed backgrounds with miniatures and animated models and the first-ever use of the Dyxtraflex motion control camera. With this innovative new hybrid of animation and live-action cinema, Lucas became the first to seamlessly bring animated art to action cinema special effects.

The Museum - Gallery

Though most of the Letterman campus administrative buildings are off-limits to visitors (Lucasfilm is an office building, after all), visitors may visit the main lobby for a short amount of time during work hours Monday through Friday.

The reception room resembles more of a high-class living room space, complete with a television, couches, and squashy chairs. The shelves in the reception room are stacked with Lucas's favorite books as well as Lucasfilm/Industrial awards and recognition and Star Wars memorabilia. The life-sized R2-D2 and suit of Vader armor are fan favorites, even from the windows of the courtyard where a shiny Yoda fountain greets tourists from around the world.

The Museum - Features

The Letterman Center represents the perpetuation of Lucasfilm and Industrial innovation for the future. Lucasfilm offers internship and entry opportunities to students and graduates through the Jedi Academy and partners with other institutions such as the Disney Museum to bring film screenings and animation festivals to the community.

George Lucas brought animation in special effects to live-action movies on the big screen and paved the way for further developments being made by his company in film, television, and gaming to this day.

The Bottom Line

The world of animation, once a haphazard collection of heavy-handed chalkboard sketches, has expanded beyond recognition into feats of artistic and digital magic. Everywhere we look, animation has dominated society's cultural and innovational landscape. Without the work of Walt Disney, Charles Schulz, and George Lucas, this would never have been possible.

The artist's journey through Bay Area memory places honors the legacies of these remarkable artists and their contributions to the past as well as the future.

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