Ub Iwerks, every mention

The Walt Disney Company: The most successful enterprise for monetizing human nostalgia (Audio) · Acquired Jun 23, 2026 · 31 mentions

• ▶ 13:19 David Rosenthal Another young apprentice from the art shop named Ub
• ▶ 13:25 David Rosenthal I works.
• ▶ 13:26 Ben Gilbert I sort of think of Ub as the Steve Wozniak of Disney.
• ▶ 13:31 David Rosenthal Walt is like the original Steve Jobs, and I think you can definitely make the case that Ub is the Steve Wozniak.
• ▶ 13:42 Ben Gilbert Walt was also an animator, Ub was just a better animator, and Walt was a camera operator, and Walt was building stuff, doing things with his hand, and he was in the primary technology and
• ▶ 14:21 Ben Gilbert Iwerks and Disney partnership and Walt Disney's first business.
• ▶ 15:19 David Rosenthal So Walton Ubb's first entrepreneurial venture quickly comes to an end and they go join the slide company.
• ▶ 15:27 David Rosenthal Now, the reason that they specifically wanted Walt and Ubb is that they have a relatively new business line at the slide co, which is producing animated commercials.
• ▶ 15:43 David Rosenthal And this is what Walt and Ub end up getting put to work doing.
• ▶ 15:53 David Rosenthal It's like everything that Walt and Ub too loves about drawing, but it's more than just art.
• ▶ 17:45 David Rosenthal Yeah, he and Ub might have a shot here.
• ▶ 17:49 David Rosenthal So, Walt and Ub start experimenting on nights and weekends with their own work, just trying out, creating their own animations using the SlideCo equipment and cameras.
• ▶ 20:16 David Rosenthal And once again, he convinces Ub Iwerks to quit and come along too, along with a few other animators from the Slide Company.
• ▶ 26:02 David Rosenthal That he had created with Ub right before he left Kansas City called Alice's Wonderland about a real life little girl who interacts on screen with cartoons that they've drawn over the film.
• ▶ 29:23 David Rosenthal Writes of iWorks back in Kansas City and several of the other talented animators that they knew there and says, all right, guys, I got it this time.
• ▶ 31:27 David Rosenthal So Walt and Ub cast about, what can we come up with?
• ▶ 32:03 Ben Gilbert And it's not surprising because if you give the creative brief to Walt and Ub, take something that's kind of working, but apply your style.
• ▶ 32:46 David Rosenthal I think iWorks had, like, immense artistic talent as an animator and was able to do that, and Walt had taste.
• ▶ 37:33 Ben Gilbert He has, I think, signed contracts with nearly all the animators except Ub Iwerks.
• ▶ 37:46 David Rosenthal Yeah, only Ub and, and I think maybe two or three other animators refused to sign these secret deals with Mintz and stayed loyal to, to Walt and to Roy.
• ▶ 44:23 David Rosenthal So he and Roy and Ub and the couple other animators who stayed loyal to them hole up and they start brainstorming ideas for some kind of new idea or new character that they can create to replace Oswald and turn around the studio's fortunes.
• ▶ 45:18 David Rosenthal And at least according to the Neil Gabler book, most likely Ub is the one who first draws Mickey, not Walt on the train, but either way, Ub definitely was the primary animator of the first Mickeys for the whole first series of Mickeys,…
• ▶ 45:42 David Rosenthal The summer of 19 28, we finished out the Oswald contract, and Walt and Ub and the small little Mary crew have gotten two Mickey shorts ready for production, Plain Crazy and the Gallop and Gaucho, and Walt takes them around to distributors,…
• ▶ 48:56 David Rosenthal And so Walt and Ub and crew animate a test sequence of a Mickey with sound, and they screen it for all their wives and girlfriends.
• ▶ 49:06 David Rosenthal And Ub writes later of what happened next when they screen the synchronized sound Mickey for the first time.
• ▶ 55:22 David Rosenthal He convinces Ub Iwerks to quit and leave Disney.
• ▶ 55:28 David Rosenthal He says, Ub, we're gonna get you set up with your own studio.
• ▶ 56:02 David Rosenthal So even though power steals iWorks away, nobody cares.
• ▶ 1:04:15 David Rosenthal I mean, there, there is a real case to be made that besides Walt and Roy and, and, uh, I works too, but at least on the business side, besides Walt and Roy, Kay Kamen was the third most important person in the first, you know, half century…
• ▶ 1:36:42 Ben Gilbert Ub Iwerks actually built one of the first advanced multi-plane cameras back in 33,
• ▶ 1:36:53 David Rosenthal And then Walt rehired Iwerks later to come back and lead within Disney.