Disney Legend Floyd Norman Looks Back at Working with Walt Disney on “The Jungle Book”

A beloved Disney Legend took part in a Q&A this weekend at Los Angeles’ Vidiots, as Floyd Norman spoke at a screening of a film he played a big role in crafting, 1967's The Jungle Book.

Asked what drew him to animation, Norman – who just turned 90 in June – drew laughs and cheers when he enthusiastically replied, “Because It's the coolest job in the world! You get a chance to draw cartoons, to make people laugh, and they pay you money to do that!" He then added, “And because I wanted to work for Walt Disney!"

FLOYD AND WALT

As Norman explained to moderator Amanda Salazar (Vidiots’ Director of Programming), growing up, “I loved Disney music, I loved Disney books, I loved Disney films… I was just a kid obsessed with Walt Disney. And I told my grandmother when I was a little kid, around five or six years old, ‘Grandma, one day, I'm going to go to Hollywood and work for Walt Disney.’ And that's what I did."

Though Norman’s amazing career included working on several other Disney classics, including Sleeping Beauty, Mary Poppins, and One Hundred and One Dalmatians, he said The Jungle Book was a particular highlight because it was the one project where he got to personally collaborate with Walt Disney. As Norman explained, “I never expected to ever work with Walt Disney, because very few people actually worked with Walt. I mean, you might work at the studio and the chances are you might see Walt Disney in the hallway. You might say hello to him as he walks past. But you never expect to be in a meeting with Walt Disney, because only the big shots met with Walt Disney on a regular basis."

As Norman said, with a grin, “I was definitely not a big shot! I was just kid, still in my 20s, when all of a sudden I got the opportunity to work with Walt and that was totally unexpected, because I was training to be an animator, but Walt Disney decided that I was not an animator - I was a story guy because he liked the gags I drew."

FUNNY GUY, GOOD TIMING

Norman recalled how The Jungle Book had already been in development for about a year when he joined the project, having first been guided by Bill Peet. As Norman recalled, “Unfortunately, Walt did not like his adaptation of the [Rudyard] Kipling novel, and he and Walt Disney got into a big argument about it, and Walt wanted the movie rewritten."

(When Norman noted, “Walt wanted to re-do the story, so we did a top down rewrite," I couldn’t help think about about how much online discourse and reaction there is about a modern animated movie like Elio changing course behind the scenes mid-production, and how if social media existed in 1967, they’d have had a field day about The Jungle Book.)

Norman said that his joining the film happened due to good timing, “because at the time, The Jungle Book was not making Walt Disney laugh. It was not making him smile, and he saw my [drawn] gags, which were all over the Disney studio. I had gags about my friends, my colleagues, and about Walt Disney in particular. Walt saw those gags, and he said, “Who's doing these funny gags all over the studio?" Norman explained when he was identified as the one drawing them, he was told Disney said “‘I want that kid up here in my story department to make Jungle Book funnier.’"

Norman said he never got into trouble or conflict with anyone at Disney over the jokes he drew about them and that they were taken as being in good fun. In fact, he recalled, years later, “I did a whole joke book about our big boss, Michael Eisner. Michael Eisner was the Chief Executive Officer at the Walt Disney Company for a number of years, and I did a whole book, like 120 gags, where I just mocked Michael Eisner mercilessly and Michael loved every minute of it. He wasn't offended by it, he wasn't insulted by it. He knew a joke when he saw one, and he didn't mind being the butt of a joke. So, you know, if you do humor and you do it properly, you're not going to offend anybody. And I think that's what Walt saw when he saw my gags, way back in 1966. He saw that my gags were not vengeful or mean spirited. He said, ‘This kid is funny.’ And that's how I ended up working on The Jungle Book, because Walt Disney thought I was funny."

FAVORITE SEQUENCES

When it came to his personal favorite moments, Norman said “One of my favorite scenes in The Jungle Book is where Shere Khan, the tiger, questions Kaa, the python. That was one of the first sequences that was handed to me back when I first started doing story work on the film. You know, these films are not necessarily made in sequence. You don't start getting to work your way through it. You jump around and you are all over the place. So this particular sequence was the second encounter with Kaa and was part of the scene where Shere Khan questions Kaa."

Norman had a lot of praise for George Sanders, the voice of Shere Khan, remarking, “There was no other actor in Hollywood who would be as effective as George Sanders… That marvelous quality he had. He was a sophisticated gentleman. Very accomplished and very scary. So there was no question. I don't think there were any other contenders. Shere Khan was George Sanders, and we knew that from the start."

Norman added, “That same [Kaa] sequence later went into a song sequence, ‘Trust in Me.’ This snake sings one of the songs written for us by the Sherman brothers. Robert and Richard Sherman wrote that song for us in less than a week. When we pitched the storyboards to Walt early in the week, Walt liked the boards, but he said ‘There's something missing. This sequence needs a song.’ And I said, ‘Well, Walt, we don't have a song,’ and Walt said, ‘Don't worry, I'll have the Sherman brothers write one for you.’ And in less than one week, we had ‘Trust in Me.’ and I was able to go to the recording stage with Sterling Holloway, who was the voice of Kaa. I was there with Sterling when he recorded ‘Trust in Me’ and it's one of my favorite parts of the film."

COLLABORATION IS KEY (INCLUDING THE OCCASIONAL FIGHT)

Discussing the process of working on a film like The Jungle Book, Norman said, “At the Walt Disney Studios, story is always very collaborative. It's usually about a half dozen, maybe a dozen or more, story artists who work on a film and they all contribute. They get together, maybe in a story room, where they go back and forth over the storyline, character development, and the gags and the film. And that's how the film comes together. It's unlike a live action film where you have maybe one or a couple of screenwriters, and they write the movie. Story on an animated film is more like organized chaos, because you put a bunch of talented people in a room and just let them go at each other, and they toss ideas back and forth. They laugh together. Sometimes they even fight together!"

Norman stressed that he wasn’t talking about arguments when he mentioned fights, noting “I can honestly say I've actually seen fist fights break out in a story room at the Walt Disney Studio. It’s not a bad thing, necessarily. It just shows how passionate the artists are about the work they're doing. They are so passionate, they're willing to fight for their ideas! And I mean fight literally. So  it's a pretty amazing process."

He added, “Then, when you add the old Maestro to the mix, when Walt Disney becomes part of that process, then it's another thing altogether, because now it becomes kind of scary, because you're in the room with the boss, the big boss himself. You're in the room with Walt Disney, and dare you open your mouth? Dare you make a suggestion? Well, if you have enough courage, you might be willing to speak up, but most of us lack courage and we would rather hide behind our seats than speak up to Walt Disney face to face."

Norman was gracious and friendly throughout the event, watching the classic film he’d helped make 60 years ago with the audience and then speaking to the appreciative fans who approached him afterwards. During the Q&A, circling back to how special the experience of making The Jungle Book was for him, he remarked, “Honestly, it was a great honor, something I never expected in my career, to be able to literally work with Walt Disney on one of his films. The Jungle Book was the only time, the only motion picture where I actually worked with Walt Disney, and I look back on that time and it was a real honor. All of 1966, I had the pleasure of regular meetings with Walt Disney, and we completed the film probably around late October. Sadly, Walt Disney passed away in December of 1966 so Walt never saw the finished film. He never saw The Jungle Book but I'm happy to say I think he made the movie he wanted to see."

More on Disney Movies: