So today would have been the 100th birthday for Joe Grant, who passed away a few years ago.

Joe is a Disney legend - on a couple of levels. And I am proud to have worked with him for a few of his years with the company.

See, Joe joined Disney animation in 1933 as a caricature artist for a cartoon called Mickey's Gala Premiere.Though, after a fight with Walt - as in Walt Disney - he left the company in 1949. We should note that 1955's Lady and the Tramp was his idea.

In the 1990s, well after Walt's death, Joe returned to Disney animation to work on Beauty and the Beast and most of the movies up until his passing.

In my several short years at Disney I wouldn't say that I knew Joe well. I helped him pin storyboards and make photocopies, you know, general Production Assistant work. I copied more lightbulbs and candles for his "Candle Power" idea that never made it anywhere. I'm sure by now is part of the Animation Research Library. It's sad that those sketches will never see the light of day. (Excuse the bad pun).

But in my time there I was always very much in awe of him. Why, I don't know, he was just a friendly old man. Maybe because he knew Walt, but more than that he was one of the few people to defy Walt and not give in. Animator Ub Iwerks left Disney in 1929 but returned in 1940. Roy O. Disney (Walt's brother) reportedly spent almost a year not speaking with his brother, all the while co-running the company with him. Story artist Bill Peet left Disney in 1964, but he was a bit of a rabble-rouser, and he didn't really have time to go back to Walt before Disney passed away in December of 1966.

But Joe - Joe left. He started illustrating books and cards and made a whole new career.

The thing is, Joe always struck me as such a nice guy. So probably Walt was a real jerk - even though the books all make him seem all happy and joyous.

Joe was always grandfatherly to the artists, too, a kind of resident guru. They all looked up to him like the living legend that he was. Sadly, most of the "creative executives" treated him quite poorly. I'm sure part of that was because they were idiots, but also I would assume part of their motive was to not validate this animation God that every single one of the artists so revered.

Luckily now with the Pixar merger all of them were canned.

The Pixar guys loved Joe, too, they always sent him tons of toys and books and swag from their movies. One day, in January or February of 2004 a few months before I left, I was in his office dropping off some copies or a book or something. Among the goodies in his office was a wooden apple from Disneyland. Disneyland was opening a new stage show based on Snow White and that was the invitation to a pre-opening party. I said, trying to hold back my awe as he showed me this wooden apple, "Joe, didn't you work on that movie?"

He laughed, "Yes. And there aren't too many of us left who did."

Because Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released in 1937.

I always wanted, somehow, to figure out just how many people who worked on the movie really were still alive. But then, I don't know, the color copier broke, or one of the creative executives needed some crappy script copied, and I never got around to it.

I bet he was one of the last ones though.

So Happy Birthday, Joe.