John Culhane, The brainwave behind 1977 immoral characters like Mr. Snoops of The Rescuers and Flying John of Rhapsody in Blue of Fantasia 2000 passed away on 30 July at his home in Dobbs Ferry, New York after losing the battle with Alzheimer’s disease followed by a heart attack.
The 81 year old Disney’s Animation Historian was also a journalist and an author. The Multi-talented human had written Disney animated book like “Walt Disney’s Fantasia” (1983), “Aladdin: The Making of an Animated Film” (1992) “and Fantasia/2000: Visions of Hope” (1999). Culhane also wrote books about the circus (“The American Circus: An Illustrated History”), and special effects (“Special Effects in the Movies: How They Do It: Dazzling Movie Magic and the Artists Who Create It”). He also worked as an uncredited writer on the 1983 Disney live-action feature “Something Wicked This Way comes,” and with Oscar-winning animation director Richard Williams on the feature “The Thief and the Cobbler.”
While expressing their grievances on the unfortunate happening, Oscar-winning filmmaker and animation historian John Canemaker called John Culhane an extraordinarily communicative teacher. John Culhan had met Walt Disney while he was just 17 in 1951, during a trip to California from his Rockford, Illinois home. It was Walt Disney’s daughter, Diane who introduced Culhane to Disney.
Culhane served as a writer for the Chicago Daily News and media editor at Newsweek. He later was a freelance writer for publications including the New York Times Magazine and American Film. He had also penned more than 20 articles for the New York Times Magazine, including pieces about Disney animation that gave original recognition to Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men,” as well as to the Studio’s next generation of artists and animators in the 1990s.
