ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I remember sitting at Roy E. Disney's Memorial Service at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood when the woman sitting next to me leaned over told me she had an observation that the gathering was not as much a service for Roy E. Disney but that it was in fact, as she put it, "a requiem for everyone in the audience" and over time her words grew to have deeper meaning than I expected.

I think within a year or two after Roy died, everyone who was touched by him directly grew to feel his absence. Outside of that protective arm of Roy Disney, the world itself was changing, too. The world experienced a Great Recession and the Internet continued to devour jobs and entire industries like a Biblical plague no one could stop. During the past five years, I watched Social Media replace Newspapers and watched trained journalists and columnists get pushed into a new and rather unprofessional arena, a place which can be more like a global boxing match for the self-righteously uninformed, or at its worse a narcissistic playpen for the terminally victimized. For those of us with years of publishing experience, Social Media provided a poor second to working along side the learned shoulders of an Editor and Copy-Editor.

Also, since I updated this site last, I never stopped the full time repair and preservation of Walt Disney Animation Art. Conversely, I worked on the most expensive / complicated Disney repair job of my career and I added the Nickelodeon Studio to my list of art preservation clients. On top of that, in my evenings and weekends, I made Fine Art and had two art exhibitions in Los Angeles.

It's been interesting to note who could be supportive to me in what has been a time of expansion and redefinition, and in my way of thanks the first person who comes to mind for me to thank is someone I've never acknowledged before, and that person ends up being - me. Because at its core, Los Angeles is not a city I picked, nor is it a place I can say I find fits my moral compass, and yet I'm still here and still succeeding by way of being here, entirely by my own wits.

But in all seriousness, no man is an island, and while I meant every word and every thank you in my January 2010 DEDICATION for this site, for reasons I believe they are fully aware, I find my renewed gratitude goes out to Michele Derrick, Doug Nishimura, Barbara Brown, Steven Weintraub, Bob Aitchison and Mark Watters, Robert A. Harris, Jim Graham, Becky Cline and the Walt Disney Archive, Ruth Clampett, Jeff Stevens, Greg Dyro, Steve Bingen, Paula Allen, Ed Squair, Dave Kooi, Shawn Toshikian, Catherine Francis, Janis Scaramucci, Jane Curley, Frank Gladstone, Sandra Joy Aguilar, Jim Walker, Chris Davies, Mia, Kirin and Charlie Puzzo and an expanding number of twins I've met over the past several years (and I know those of you who are reading this know who you are.)

POSTSCRIPT

January 28, 2010

I wrote this on October 26, 2009. By that time I was aware that Roy E. Disney was ill and I had more than good reason to believe he was not going to make it. Concurrently that Fall, I hired someone to give this website a php conversion, and by way of anointing it, I wrote this DEDICATION and at the time when I wrote it, I meant every word of it too.

POSTSCRIPT

October 2004

Few things in life have left me speechless. I can count my mother's passing this October as one of them. Married for fifty three years, mother of three and employee of the Port Authority of NY/NJ, this link provides the life story of MARGARET BARBAGALLO and the charitable fund set up in her name.

March 5, 2003

There are some people I want to take the time to thank - those directly involved with this web page and others who have helped me along the path of my career.

First and foremost, I want to thank Roy E. Disney. Roy, I am grateful for your continued help and am proud to have been of service.

Additional thanks regarding this web page goes to Stephen Ison for suggesting the initial idea.

I want to also thank some colleagues for their comradeship and/or guidance, including: Bob Aitchison and Mark Watters, Michele Derrick, Doug Nishimura, Steve Weintraub, Barbara Brown, Peter Mustardo, Nora Kennedy (who first thought enough of my abilities to guide me along in so many ways), Ana Hofmann, Jane and Jan at the Ota House, Lydia Schmalz, Ray Morton, Eleanor Cole, Charlie, Julie, Mia and Kirin Puzzo, Lisa and Dave Koch, Charles and Liz Imbro, Rich Imbro, Shawn Toshikian (who handled the Dreamweaver and Flash portions of this site), Charles Garcia, Dave Steen, Philip Vaughn, Glenn Anton, Abbe in Hoboken, Andrea La Mountain, Chris Huguenot, the Emery Family, the Scofield and Makela Families, Guy Portelli, Ellen Shanks, Linda Huntington, Lois Sucharzski, J.S.B., the late Pete Comandini (who persuaded me to move to Los Angeles), the late Henry Saperstein, the late Emilio Bianchi, Helen Nerbovig McIntosh and Bob McIntosh and their daughter Jorjana, Buf E. Nerbovig, Jules Engel, Antran Manoogian, Larry Whitacker, Howard Lowery, Burt and Edith Rudman, John Cairns and Wanda Lunn, Jackie and Michael Halbreich, Merrie Lasky, Elyse Luray, Eric Homan, Ruth Clampett, Jim and Linda Jones Clough, Craig Kausen, the estate of Maurice Noble, Nancy Avery Arkley, Dave Wasson, Bill Desowitz, Sarah Baisley, the old staff at Animation Magazine, Joe Adamson, Greg Ford, Margaret Selby, Leonard and Alice Maltin, Daryl Maxwell, Ellen Hynes, Doug Engalla, Tim O’Day, Gary Miereanu, Howard E. Green, Todd Kaplan, Beth DuMont, Monica Elsbury and, finally, the Ludwig family - Arlene and Jackie but most especially my youthful minded, 95 year old, friend Irving Ludwig.

I also want to extend thanks to the Walt Disney Archive, Dave Smith in particular who has always treated me in a professional way, as does everyone on Dave’s staff which includes Robert Tieman, Edward Ovalle, Becky Cline, and Collette Espino. How do you all answer the most obscure of my research questions so quickly?

I would also like to thank Larry Ishino, whose knowledge of fine art in general and Disney art specifically rivals that of any published author of animation art. Ishino is also the person with the longest consistent experience in storing and researching animation artwork at Walt Disney Feature Animation.

My biggest thanks go to my colleagues at Warner Bros. for their honesty, their professionalism and their belief in the services I provide. In particular I want to thank WB Publicity, Catherine Lucas, Risa Chapnick, Jeff Hare, Rita Cooper, Cathy Dore, Barbara Brogliatti, all the guards and docents at the Museum, Martha and Sol Sigall, Paula Allen, Charles Carney, Lisa Janney, Pat Kowalski and especially Leith Adams. A special note of thanks to John Schulman for choosing me to preserve Chuck Jones’ and Bob Kane’s mural drawings.

No list of my gratitude could be complete without a note of thanks to Chuck Jones. I always felt that my encounters with Chuck were an anachronism of sorts. I mean, how lucky was I? I got to talk one on one with one of the industry's real innovators, someone whose epiphanies within animation direction set industry standards. And, talk to him without a conflict of egos or stature, and, over the course of an interview or two, even make him laugh. Over the last six years of his life, from one interview to another, Chuck proved he was an intellectual and a man whose smart observations, insight and humor often surprised even himself. I want to thank Mr. Jones for our conversations and for fine-tuning my perceptions on the craft of animation. Thanks to his indirect direction, I now look at cartoons through Jonesian eyes. I also want to extend additional thanks to some of those in the Jones employ: Dina Andre, Dean Diaz, Amy Genovese, Robert Patrick, Robert Prochnow, Robin Uyzsaka and Mary Thomas.

I also want to acknowledge the impact growing up in the New York City area had on me, and my family back home. The work ethic and value system my parents instilled in me helped me get to where I am today. Thanks to Mom, who is still here, and to those who have passed on: my mother's fallen colleagues who worked on the 72nd floor of WTC Tower One (many of whom were kind enough to attend my father's funeral just a few months earlier), my Aunt Cathy, my maternal Grandmother Anna and my twin sister Lori. Special thanks to my recently departed father, who, in his diverse career, posed for Salvador Dalí, designed spaceships which put men on the moon and invented eyes so Howdy Doody could blink.