Michael Surrey - my 290th pick to be named a Disney Legend

Animator and storyboard artist Michal Surrey is my 290th choice to be named a Disney Legend.

From the blog 50 most influential Disney animators - Mike Surrey was born around 1964 in Canada and grew up in the Toronto area. Like most aspiring animators from Canada, after high school he set off to Oakville and enrolled in the famous animation program at the Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning. At the beginning of his career Surrey worked as an animation posing artist on low-budget TV shows animated in Canada. After the release of the Little Mermaid in 1989 he realized that there was something special going on at Disney and moved out to California with the ambitions of working there. Mike was hired as an assistant animator on Beauty and the Beast and would follow by working as one of the animators under Glen Keane on the title character in Aladdin. After Aladdin things lined up perfectly and he was assigned the character of Timon the meerkat in the Lion King. Both Nik Ranieri and James Baxter (I also believe I even heard Eric Goldberg) were considered for the role of Timon but Ranieri moved on to Pocahontas and they decided it would be better if Surrey did Timon and Baxter did Rafiki. Timon proved to be a great match for the young animator and the character turned out very well in the finished film. After Lion King Surrey went on to the Hunchback of Notre Dame and supervised the narrator of the film, Clopin the gypsy. This would be followed by supervising Terk in Tarzan, Rourke in Atlantis, and Buck in Home on the Range before leaving the studio for DreamWorks where he animated on Shark Tale. When production started up on the Princess and the Frog Surrey went back to Disney to supervise Ray the fire fly as well as animate Pascal the chameleon in Tangled. In 2010 the Hat Building began to have some down time on the animator end as projects struggled to get out of the development stage making Mike decide to join the crew at DreamWorks to help them on an upcoming animated film.

He is sited as the 32nd most influential animator by that blog.

He said during an interview for Atlantis: The Lost Empire that his Mom idioliazed his work as supervising animator for the villain Rourke because she was a huge fan of James Garner the actor who voices Rourke.

Disney Filmography Edit

Year     Film     Position

1990    The Prince and the Pauper     Animating Assistant

1991    Beauty and the Beast Animating Assistant

1992    Aladdin            Animator: Aladdin

1994    The Lion King   Supervising Animator: Timon

1996    The Hunchback of Notre Dame          Supervising Animator: Clopin

1999    Tarzan Supervising Animator: Terk

2001    Atlantis: The Lost Empire        Supervising Animator: Rourke

2004    Home on the Range    Supervising Animator: Buck

2009    The Princess and the Frog       Supervising Animator: Ray

2010    Tangled           Animator