Earlier this year, a small group of TAG animation artists and People of Color Committee members had the opportunity to visit Willie Ito at his home in California’s Monterey Park. Stepping inside Ito’s house, filled with animation treasures and memorabilia, it was immediately clear that he had a lot to share—beginning with the first animation object he ever acquired.
When Ito was a little boy, he watched Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. A particular happy-go-lucky dwarf resonated with him. One day, when he happened upon a little Dopey coin bank, he pleaded with his dad to buy it. That small, tangible character brought unlimited inspiration to Ito. Sadly, there came a day when he had to part with it.
In 1942 after Pearl Harbor, xenophobia took hold in the U.S., and the government began to imprison Japanese Americans in internment camps. Ito came home from school one afternoon to learn that FBI agents had come into the house to confiscate anything they deemed as weaponry or contraband. He immediately ran upstairs to check on his prized Dopey figurine. Thankfully, it was still there.
Soon after, though, 8-year-old Ito’s colorful San Francisco world turned bleak as his family was rounded up and sent to the middle of the Utah desert where they were housed in tar-paper barracks at the Topaz Internment Camp. Surrounded by armed guards in tall towers, Ito’s life changed, and he longed for his little Dopey bank.
Reflecting on this experience with his fellow TAG members, he shared that he felt a sense of pride at seeing how resilient and enterprising his Japanese culture is. He also recalled that he didn’t feel the full weight of what was happening because he was so young. He gained a kind of independence, since children ate separately from the adults. And he spent hours drawing flip-book animations in whatever Sears or Montgomery Ward catalogs he could get his hands on.
After the war, when Ito grew older, his peers went off to become lawyers and doctors. But he still had the animation bug, and he questioned his desire to be a cartoonist. He considered medical illustration as a more respectable alternative. Fortunately, his San Francisco City College professor shrewdly persuaded him that he belonged in Hollywood. He recommended Chouinard Art Institute.
At Chouinard, Ito studied under industry icons like Don Graham, T. Hee, and Marc Davis, and he became good friends with Jerry Eisenberg and Corny Cole. Then in 1954, a 19-year-old Ito stepped into an elevator at Walt Disney Productions for a job interview. As the doors began to close, two men entered. One of them was Walt Disney himself. The very next person Ito met that day was Iwao Takamoto, the assistant of famed animator Milt Kahl. Takamoto was nine years Ito’s senior and the first Japanese American artist hired at Disney. He reviewed Ito’s portfolio and gave him an impromptu character drawing test.
A day later, Ito received a Western Union telegram. To his delight, Disney wanted him to report to work the following Monday. Takamoto was assigned as his mentor, and Ito’s first task was working on the memorable spaghetti kiss scene in Lady and the Tramp.
Takamoto set high standards for Ito, challenging his mentee to grow as an artist. Ito likes to say that he became a disciple of Master Takamoto. Then, when Lady and the Tramp wrapped, the crew was laid off—and a new chapter began.
Ito received a call from an old friend who worked “in a dump.” That friend was Chuck Jones, calling from “Termite Terrace,” Warner Bros.’ smoky, derelict building that housed many of animation’s most famous artists (and termites, too). At Warner Bros., Ito worked on numerous shorts including Pepe Le Pew, Wile E. Coyote & Road Runner, and his favorite, One Froggy Evening. But he wasn’t just working at the studio. He was making memories and friends.
As his career proceeded, Ito gravitated toward character design, and he made his way to Hanna-Barbera with his great friend Jerry Eisenberg and mentor Takamoto. Now principal Hanna-Barbera artists, they welcomed him into the studio. Ito began on Season 1 of The Jetsons, and he recalls pulling inspiration from Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, while updating Flintstones’ gimmicks from pre-historic to futuristic.
Hanna-Barbera marked a prolific stretch in Ito’s career. He was busy for so long that eventually it became time to downshift. The moment coincided with an offer from Disney that he couldn’t refuse: Director of Character Art International for the burgeoning Disney Consumer Products division. Along with training artists and shaping products, Ito got to travel on Disney’s dime. He enjoyed his time there until retirement.
Today at age 92, Ito is still sharp as a tack—actively doing commissions, mentoring, illustrating books, and producing. As he shared his story with the group of TAG members, the perfect cap to their visit was learning of his happy reunion with his precious Dopey bank. The little figurine—a symbol of young Ito’s innocence—had its coins stolen during the internment, just as Ito’s freedom was taken for a time. Yet the character, and the inspiration it sparked, remained intact—like Ito’s own spirit.
More than eight decades later, Dopey still sits on Ito’s shelf, quietly bearing witness to a lifetime devoted to the artform he loves.
