User blog:ARTaylor/Burny Mattinson Claims Rare Disney Title

When Burny Mattinson started working for The Walt Disney Company in 1953, no one knew he would reach a rare and enormous milestone. Mattinson is the longest-serving employee of Disney, serving for a record sixty-five years. He broke the record on March 5th of this year.



When he first started working for the company, there was a mere seven-hundred people working for the animation studio, just fourteen films had been released, and the idea of a Disney-based theme park was still just a dream. He began his career as a traffic runner on the studio lot before becoming an animator, writer, director, and producer. In his long career, he has worked on Lady and the Tramp, The Jungle Book, Robin Hood, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, The Rescuers, The Fox and the Hound, Mickey's Christmas Carol, The Black Cauldron, The Great Mouse Detective, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan, Tarzan, The Rugrats Movie, Winnie the Pooh, and Big Hero 6.

At a ceremony in his honor, Walt Disney Animation Studios President Andrew Millstein said of Mattinson, "All of us who work at Walt Disney Animation Studios are better because of your participation and your presence at the Company."

Big Hero 6 director Don Hall worked closely with Mattinson during Winnie the Pooh and gave him high praise. "If Burny thinks it’s a good idea, it gives you the confidence to go forward with it." He added, "Burny wanted to work here since he was six years old—and that is the same story that pretty much everybody here has. They were touched or influenced by a Disney film at a very early age, so everybody calibrated their sights to this place as the place to be. Once you’re here, you’re living your dream, just like Burny lived his dream. I think that’s why he’s lasted sixty-five years and he's not stopping."

Mattinson said of the honor, "It's been an absolute joy. I think one of the things that I found when I first started here, and it has never changed, is that sense of anticipation of what’s going to happen here at the studios this next day, and I could hardly wait to get here—and something always did [happen]. There was always something that was remarkable that happened and you felt a part of, so it’s just been an exciting period, the whole sixty-five years."