Posted By Dan Greenfield on Nov 17, 2025 | 2 comments

MORRISON MONDAYS!

By BILL MORRISON

A few weeks ago, I called attention to the anniversary of Disney’s feature animated film, The Jungle Book, with a look at the poster I created for the film’s 1990 re-release. This week, I’m celebrating the release dates of not one, but five animated feature films, all of which had posters that I painted or co-painted for their initial releases. Actually, one of those was a featurette, but I’m counting it anyway. The middle of November must have been the sweet spot when it came to releasing animated films in the ’80s and ’90s, because all five movies hit theaters between November 16-18 in various years.

The first of the five, Oliver & Company, was a modern-day, cat and dog retelling of the classic Dickens tale, Oliver Twist, featuring the vocal talents of Joey Lawrence, Billy Joel, Cheech Marin, and other well-known stars of the day. For the poster, I drew and painted the characters, the piano, and the foreground building. The street over which the piano dangles and the Times Square buildings were painted by my studio mate, Calvin Patton.

If you look closely you might see how I snuck my name into the piece. One of the buildings has a sign that reads “Hotel Morrison.” Originally, we had the names of Calvin, and our boss, Dave Willardson in the billboards, but one of the Disney art directors recognized the names and told us to remove them. Apparently, they didn’t know who I was yet, so my name remained. I was told later, however, that Disney lawyers in Burbank had to call their counterparts in New York and request that they go through the NYC phone book to make sure there wasn’t an actual Hotel Morrison in the city. These were pre-internet days, folks! (There was, of course, a famous Morrison Hotel in L.A.) Oliver & Company was released Nov. 18, 1988.

On that same day, Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures released The Land Before Time. For this poster, I had to perform a bit of surgery. The original painting by Dan Goozeé was sent over to our studio from Amblin. As you can see, the prehistoric background was gorgeous, but unfortunately the characters were off model and painted too realistically. Apparently, Steven Spielberg’s art directors were aware of the Disney paintings that were coming out of the Willardson studio, and wanted the same look for this film’s poster. So, I was tasked with repainting the characters, a job I really dreaded. Don’t get me wrong, I was excited to get to draw and paint cartoon dinosaurs, but I hated the idea of permanently painting over another artist’s work.

My solution to the dilemma was to paint the characters on 1-ply Strathmore paper, cut them out with an X-acto knife, carefully paint the edges of the paper the same color as the outline so the white edge wouldn’t show, and glue them over the existing art with removable rubber cement. Remember what I said about pre-internet days? Well, it was also pre-Photoshop. This would all be done digitally today with no harm done to the original painting, but back then it was a painstaking process.

The folks at Amblin liked my work, so I was also assigned to paint an advertising image of a shy Littlefoot, literally coming out of his shell. Unfortunately, I no longer recall who painted the side characters and the background.

I’ve already written a column about my Little Mermaid video-box art here at 13th Dimension, but now I have a chance to talk about the theatrical poster. On November 17, 1989, Disney’s The Little Mermaid opened in theaters, so today marks the 36th anniversary of the release of the film. Disney must have known they had a potential blockbuster on their hands, because we went through a months-long process of sketches and fully painted comps at the studio with all hands on deck before arriving at the final poster art. Many people confuse this iconic image with my notorious Little Mermaid video box art, which does look similar but is really a separate painting. And there was never any controversy over this one-sheet poster.

There was also a teaser poster, which often gets attributed to legendary movie poster artist, John Alvin, but was actually drawn by me and painted by Calvin Patton.

Fun fact! After years in the collection of Jeffrey Katzenberg, my Little Mermaid painting was returned to Disney, along with other art and artifacts that the former Disney chairman had kept. The original poster art eventually ended up in an exhibit titled “Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives.” This spectacular show premiered at the first D23 Expo in 2009, but made its way to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California, in 2012. At the time, I lived less than a quarter mile from the museum, and got to tour the exhibit and visit my painting, which I’d not seen in over 20 years.

On November 16, 1990, Disney released two films which appeared on the same bill, The Rescuers Down Under, and The Prince and the Pauper. The first was a sequel to Disney’s 1977 film, The Rescuers, and, as the title suggests, the characters from the first film travel to Australia for another adventure. Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor (in her final film role), were reunited as Bernard and Bianca, and John Candy, and George C. Scott joined the voice cast for the studio’s first-ever sequel to one of their animated features.

While working on the art for both posters, my time was spread pretty thin, so I drew and painted the characters for The Rescuers Down Under poster and Calvin Patton handled the rendering of the Australian outback with its beautiful sky and Ayers Rock in the background.

While Calvin took over on that piece, I drew and painted The Prince and the Pauper poster art. People often ask me “What was the most exciting thing you ever worked on?” and though I have a hard time narrowing it down to one thing, getting to paint Donald Duck, Goofy, and Mickey Mouse (twice!) for the first time is definitely in my top five! Like most people in the world, I grew up loving those characters, so getting to contribute to their legacy was a major thrill.

I have to confess, my initial drawings for the main characters on this poster didn’t quite pass muster with the Disney animation crew, and I received a draw-over to correct my errors. So, I must also credit an anonymous animator with co-pencilling on this one. This 25-minute featurette was based on Mark Twain’s 1881 novel of the same name, and marked the last time Disney used the traditional ink-and-paint and camera process for a theatrical film.

I consider myself very blessed to have been given the opportunity to contribute to the promotion of these beloved films, and I wish happy anniversaries to everyone who worked on them!

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