Jack Hannah

John Fredrick Hannah (January 5, 1913 – June 11, 1994) was an American animator, writer and director of animated shorts. He worked for Disney and Walter Lantz.

Biography Hannah was born on January 5, 1913, in Nogales, Arizona. After attending grammar school in Nogales, Arizona and high school in National City, California, he moved to Los Angeles in 1931 to study at the Art Guild Academy. One of his first jobs was designing movie posters for Hollywood theaters for the advertising firm Foster & Kleiser. In 1933, during the Great Depression, Hannah dropped off his portfolio at Walt Disney Studios, and soon afterward was hired as an in-between and clean-up artist, working on Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Silly Symphony cartoons.

Hannah's career as an animator commenced with the short Modern Inventions (released on May 29, 1937). After thirteen films in that capacity, he was assigned to the story department writing cartoon short continuities, beginning with Donald's Nephews (released on April 15, 1938). He received writing credit on 21 Disney cartoon shorts.

In 1942, he collaborated with Carl Barks on the first two comic books Barks worked on, Pluto Saves the Ship and Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. Hannah in subsequent years did a handful of other Donald Duck comic book stories but, unlike Barks, he stayed at the studio and eventually was given a chance to be a director. The short Donald's Off Day (released on December 8, 1944) was the first of 94 films he would direct. These include most of the shorts featuring Donald Duck in the post-war era along with all starring Chip 'n' Dale and Humphrey the Bear; he also directed some shorts starring Goofy, Mickey Mouse, Pluto and some minor Disney characters such as Lambert the Sheepish Lion.

After Disney stopped producing animated shorts, Hannah did 14 episodes of the Walt Disney anthology television series (composed of footage from the classic cartoons along with new linking material) and fulfilled his ambition to direct live-action by handling Walt Disney's introductions for the episodes. Hannah hoped to segue into a career in live-action but "Walt had me pegged as an animation director so he balked at the suggestion. We had a few heated discussions and I became aware that I had come to an impasse." Hannah eventually left for Walter Lantz Productions in 1960 and directed a number of films featuring Woody Woodpecker; most of the Woody Woodpecker, Chilly Willy, and Dynamo Doc shorts directed by Hannah had music by former Warner Bros. Cartoons composer and songwriter Eugene Poddany, who composed the shorts from 1960 to 1962, replaced by Darrell Calker, who composed from 1961 to 1964, and Clarence Wheeler who composed for Lantz from 1950 to 1967, and one short directed by Jack Hannah had Walter Greene as composer and Charles Mintz veteran Sid Marcus as director entitled Greedy Gabby Gator (released on January 1, 1963) and some minor characters. Besides directing shorts, Hannah also was assistant director for the television series The Woody Woodpecker Show, which began airing on October 3, 1957. "I did more or less the same thing that I did with Walt Disney in directing live-action except Lantz was better at taking direction." The Woody Woodpecker Show (1957–58) Matty's Funday Funnies (TV series) (1962; story)