Iwao Takamoto is best known for his design of Scooby Doo and Penelope Pitstop for Hanna-Barbera in the ’60s, but from 1945 to 1961 he happened to be one of the key unsung talents of the Disney Studio.
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Takamoto started doing in-between work on shorts and on the “package features,” one of his first assignments being on the movie The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. One of the first scenes he assisted on was for the Pecos Bill section of Melody Time, where Iwao served as Milt Kahl’s assistant during the sequence of Slewfoot Sue riding on the back of a catfish. Takamoto remained assistant to Milt Kahl on Cinderella and Peter Pan and became head of cleanup for him on Lady and the Tramp. On Sleeping Beauty and One Hundred and One Dalmatians Iwao worked for not just one but two of the best draftsmen at the Studio: Milt Kahl and Marc Davis. […]
