John Hench Quotations

I have wanted to be a fine artist painter, and I reached the point in art schools were I'd like to understand more about images and how images communicate information to people. And I was not getting very far in that from my professors.

Even in China. Children there, next to the Great Wall, who had never seen Mickey Mouse responded. So the studio did have that skill to communicate with images.

In live action movies, you just hope that everything works. Because the actor may had a bad morning and doesn't play good, or accidents happen continuously. Many things contradict what you are trying to say. But in cartoons, nothing contradict what you want to say.

The boundaries of design are the same as the problem of perception.

For instance, some early ideas for Florida were done only recently. The idea of a little village was there from the beginning and now we have this "Celebration" village. Same thing for the Disney Institute. Walt talked about this idea in the very first.

I did what we call dry for wet effects, some of the miniatures work and two animation sequences.

I always admired Walt's optimism. He seemed to know the direction he was going to. When I was at the studio, I remember he kept driving all of us back down to a more fundamental level all the time.

The show is being changed right now, by the way. Jeff Burke is doing it for the Magic Kingdom. And I think it will be better, with new birds, master of ceremonies, etc.

We don't have too much ritual in our life anymore. And these life symbols which people rely on to keep their feeling of well being, that life is not too bad after all are required more and more.

Walt's idea was that - as soon as the people who were dining got through their main course. They were supposed to all be seated, served at the same time, when they got into the dessert.