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Credit: Walt Disney Animation StudiosA retired Walt Disney Animation Studios legend spoke openly about his time at the House of Mouse on a podcast this week, revealing that he no longer found his work “meaningful.”
Former animator Mark Henn spoke to fellow Walt Disney Studio Disney alumni Tom Bancroft and Tony Bancroft on their podcast, “The Bancroft Brothers Animation Podcast.” The episode uploaded on January 12 featured candid discussions amongst the animators.
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Henn retired in December 2023 after 40 years with Walt Disney Animation Studios. A quiet but key player in the Disney Renaissance period, Henn was pivotal in designing main characters for The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Mulan (1998), and Princess and the Frog (2009). He supervised the creation of more female leads than any other Walt Disney animator.
A pioneer of 2-D, hand-drawn animation, Henn said he retired last year because he didn’t feel as passionate about Disney’s recent work.
“If the work had been more meaningful, I think I would have stayed,” Henn said. “…It wasn’t what I signed up for. Some of it was interesting. Some of the stuff we were doing for the parks was kind of fun, but the other projects — I know the people that are running that department are doing everything they can to keep 2d alive as long as they possibly can… it just wasn’t as fulfilling.”
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Henn didn’t cite specific films, but The Walt Disney Company has taken hits at the box office in recent years. Recent computer-animated Walt Disney Animation Studios films Strange World (2022) and Wish (2023) were widely regarded as flops despite positive critical reception.
Additionally, Henn felt Disney repeatedly gave his ideas to other directors: “Like I’ve had a sign on my back that said, ‘Don’t let this guy direct.’”
“I had pitched an idea about a true story based on a carrier pigeon in World War II… there was some interest, and then they finally passed on it,” Henn recalled. “Several months later, the studio announced they’re doing Valiant, and I had a development person come racing down to my office to try to explain why these things happen.”
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Walt Disney Studios distributed Vanguard Film & Animation Studios’ Valiant in 2005. Later, Henn claims that DisneyToon Studios used his shot-down pitch for what became Planes (2013) and Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014).
“Then, in the early 2000s, I pitched the idea of having airplanes, and they got some interest, and then it was passed on saying it was too close to Cars,” he said.
Despite his retirement, Henn isn’t done at Walt Disney Animation Studios. The Disney Legend plans to return this spring to finish his final animated film with the approval of Walt Disney Animation Studios President Clark Spencer.
“The plan is I will be going back, as I left a project that I had started unfinished,” he said. “I had started a little short film. I had a conversation with Clark, and he assured me to not put the pressure on myself to try to finish it by the end of the year.”
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