In 1927 a man named Les Clark began to work for Disney animating the in-between drawings for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons and then Mickey Mouse cartoons. As time would go on, he became the longest continuously employed member of Walt Disney Productions while animating classic characters like Pinocchio, Dumbo, and Roger from One Hundred and One Dalmatians. He eventually went on to direct the short Paul Bunyan  while also working as a directing animator on characters like Cinderella, Lady, and Peter Pan.

As time would go on, eight other animators joined the Disney company and helped lead the company to the high standard of excellence in full length Disney animated films that we all know and love to this very day. In the 1930s, Walt Disney was speaking about his group of core animators and referred to them as his Nine Old Men, which was a reference to Franklin D. Roosevelt's descrition of the nine justices of the US Supreme Court at the time. The name stuck

When Buena Vista Street opened in 2012, there were several references to the early days of the Walt Disney Company. On the right hand side of the street you can find the Atwater School of Art and Animation. If you look at the sign out front you will see that the instructors are Clark, Larson, Johnston, Thomas, Kimball, Davis, Kahl, Lounsbery, and Reitherman. Who are they? You guessed it! They are the last names of Walt Disney's very own Nine Old Men!