Ancient Web: A 1998 Interview Caught Maurice Noble Still Rebelling

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

Maurice Noble designed many of the striking backgrounds behind classic animated characters. At 87, he was still warning interviewers not to treat him as a museum specimen.

Read the 1998 Maurice Noble interview.

Karl Cohen visited Noble for the March 1998 issue of Animation World Magazine. The conversation takes the artist from Depression-era art school and Disney watercolor assignments through the Second World War, the 1941 Disney strike, work with Dr. Seuss, and the Chuck Jones unit at Warner Bros.

Some of the most memorable material concerns work that disappears behind finished animation. Noble describes painting watercolor backgrounds for Snow White, repeatedly matching walls and furniture as camera angles changed. He recalls using stretched paper and transparent washes, with no easy way to paint over a mistake. It was a skilled production job, not a decorative afterthought.

An artist remembered the labor and the arguments

Noble also recounts joining the Disney strike because he believed some artists were paid too little to live on. According to his recollection, returning workers faced hostility; Noble was left with little useful work and eventually laid off. That account is his testimony, preserved in a 1998 interview, rather than a complete institutional history of the strike.

During wartime service, he worked with Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, on educational materials and the Private Snafu cartoon program. Later, collaborating with Chuck Jones, he developed the stylized landscapes of Duck Amuck, Duck Dodgers, and the Road Runner shorts.

His memories of the desert scenery are especially revealing. Noble said he exaggerated formations remembered from childhood journeys through the American Southwest, putting impossible rocks atop impossibly narrow spires because he enjoyed the effect. He also describes learning Warner Bros.' layout conventions after joining the studio in the 1950s.

The article includes a contemporary photograph, editorial notes, and material about Noble's then-current project Noble Tales. These details place readers in a specific moment when he was still developing new work and meeting younger animators.

This is why a dated webzine archive matters. A polished later biography can summarize credits. An interview kept in its original issue preserves the artist's own voice, grievances, humor, and unfinished plans.

Explore Cohen's full interview.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.