Frank Churchill in production meetings

After joining the Disney studios in 1930, Frank Churchill composed music for animated shorts and feature films. His output includes Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi, and The Three Little Pigs (featuing “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf).

Animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston recalled in Disney Animation:

Walt [Disney] used to claim that Frank Churchill always slept through the story meetings and never listened to his first instructions, but Frank hardly can be blamed. He knew that no matter what ideas were tossed out, and no matter how enthusiastically they might be received, that would have little bearing on the music he would eventually write. … He figured, correctly, that he would do better to wait until the decisions had been made and the footage set, and then he could write a score with integrity and flow, regardless of what had happened to the so-called structure. He would sit at his piano penciling his melodies and muttering, “This note is for the director, and this is for the producer, while this little note down here is for the animator, and this is for the director’s Aunt Tilda, and this is just for me!” (1)

(1) Tietyen, David (1990) The Musical World of Walt Disney. Wisconsin: Hal Leonard, p.37.


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