ABSTRACT
Like Max Fleischer, Walt Disney's animators traced also directly over previously recorded live-action footage of actors and actresses thanks to the camera magic of Leonard Pickley, although they came to the conclusion that direct tracing as done in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs looked stiff and unappealing, realizing that the action of the cartoon characters needed to be caricatured. Disney was the only cartoon producer who was not only in animation but also, as we know, in live action too. Disney's forays into live feature and TV films included Guy Williams as Zorro, Fred MacMurray as The Absent-Minded Professor, and Peter Ustinov, signed right before Walt's death, as Captain Blackbeard. Fess Parker aka Davy Crockett, who was the first actor signed to a long-term contract by Disney, however, was unhappy on the lot. He said that Disney treasured his great animators who were in effect the actors in his animated films.
