#glenkeane

Glen Keane: The Man Who Drew My Childhood (and probably yours too)

So I'm supposed to be writing this research paper on animation influences but instead I'm having an existential crisis about how one man basically shaped my entire childhood aesthetic without me even knowing his name until college??? Like, we need to talk about GLEN KEANE RIGHT NOW.

The Legend Himself

Okay so Glen Keane is literally animation ROYALTY. Son of Bil Keane (the Family Circus cartoonist), he joined Disney in 1974 where he animated some of the most iconic characters that basically WERE my childhood:

Ariel from The Little Mermaid (her hair movements alone changed animation forever???)

Beast from Beauty and the Beast (the transformation scene still makes me SOB)

Aladdin (that "one jump ahead" sequence is literally burned into my brain)

Pocahontas (problematic narrative aside, her animation is BREATHTAKING)

Tarzan (the way he moves through the trees like LIQUID???)

Rapunzel from Tangled (her HAIR is practically its own CHARACTER)

After nearly 40 years at Disney, he left to pursue independent projects and founded Glen Keane Productions. His first major independent project was "Duet," this gorgeous hand-drawn interactive short film for Google. Then he directed "Dear Basketball" with KOBE BRYANT which won an ACADEMY AWARD. And recently he directed "Over the Moon" for Netflix which is just... chef's kiss.

What blows my mind is that this man has had a direct hand in creating the visual language of wonder and emotion that shaped not just MY childhood but GENERATIONS of us. Like, we all collectively gasped at the same Beast transformation scene and didn't even know who to thank???

His Soul-Stirring Style

What makes Glen Keane's work so unmistakable:

This incredible sense of WEIGHT and PHYSICS that makes his characters feel alive even though they're 2D

The way he captures EMOTION through movement (his characters don't just look sad, they FEEL heavy with sadness)

His obsession with creating the illusion of three-dimensional forms on flat paper (he literally draws THROUGH the paper, thinking of his drawings as sculptures)

Those signature "Keane eyes" that are so expressive they can convey an entire emotional journey in a single blink

The way he uses hair as this incredible expressive element (Ariel's underwater movements, Rapunzel's flowing locks)

His process is fascinating too - he immerses himself completely in whatever he's animating. For Tarzan, he studied gorillas and gymnasts. For Ariel, he watched his wife swim in their pool. For Beast, he combined animals at the London Zoo. The man literally BECOMES what he's drawing.

And can we talk about his line work??? His rough animation sketches are more alive than most finished animations. There's this beautiful urgency to his pencil lines, like he's desperately trying to capture something alive and moving before it escapes.

Why His Work Makes Me Feel Things

I've been thinking a lot about why Glen Keane's animation hits different, and I think it's because:

His characters move the way emotions FEEL. When Ariel stretches toward the surface, reaching for a world she can't have, it's exactly how yearning feels in your body. When Beast transforms, it's how it feels to be unmade and remade by love. Keane somehow translates inner emotional states into outer physical movement in a way that bypasses your brain and goes straight to your heart.

There's this incredible contradiction in his work - his animation is technically masterful, but it never FEELS technical. It feels organic, emotional, almost spiritual. In his own words, he's always trying to animate "the things that cannot be seen" - belief, longing, joy, heartbreak.

What kills me is how he treats animation not as a technical challenge but as this deeply human art form. He talks about animation as "bringing invisible feelings to life" and that's exactly what it feels like watching his work. He's not just moving drawings around - he's creating vessels for emotion that feel more honest than reality sometimes.

I think what I'm realizing is that Glen Keane taught me (and probably all of us) how to visualize feelings before we had words for them. His characters showed us what transformation looks like, what longing feels like, what it means to yearn for something beyond your world.

That scene in Little Mermaid where Ariel stretches up through the water toward the light? That's basically been my internal visual reference for hope my entire life and I JUST NOW realized it was drawn by this specific man's hand. Like, how do you even process that kind of influence?

My precious :')

THE WORK OF GLEN KEANE

Glen Keane is a very well-known animator. He worked alongside a lot of legendary animators like Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. He has worked on a lot of films. In particular, he worked at Walt Disney (1974-2012) as a character animator for feature films: The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Pocahontas (1995), Tarzan(1999) and Tangled (2010). 

Also, he worked on Where the wild Things Are (1963) by Maurice Sendak, The Rescuers (1977) , Basil the Great Mouse Detective (1986), Pete’s Dragon (1977), The Fox and the Hound (1981) and more recently Over The Moon(2020). Along with a lot more other amazing films. 

If you’ve been craving the kind of Golden-age era Disney animated musical films the studio has largely abandoned in favor of live-action/“live-action” regurgitations, take a look at Over the Moon. With gorgeous visuals that bring Chinese myth to life, catchy musical numbers, and a story that weaves its theme of loss and moving on well, there’s a lot to like.

Legends say the moon goddess Chang’e was an ordinary woman who lost her true love when she gained immortality and ascended to the moon without him. The story of everlasting love means a lot to Fei Fei (Cathy Ang), whose mother would regale her with stories of myth and fantasy until she passed away 4 years ago. As her father (voiced by John Cho) prepares to remarry, Fei Fei becomes obsessed with the moon. She’s convinced if she can land on its surface and prove to her father that Chang’e (voiced by Phillipa Soo) is real, he’ll respect his late wife by continuing to grieve. The trip to space is derailed when Fei Fei’s stepbrother, Chin (Robert G Chiu) tags along.

This is a gorgeous movie. Scenes on Earth are rich with detail and lively. The moon’s surface is filled with bright colours and strange-looking characters that pop because of their simple designs. Chang’e goes through multiple outfits and each is as luscious as anything you’d see in an epic period piece.  The character designs are distinct and wonderfully expressive. Mixed in are gorgeous sequences of traditional hand-drawn animation.

Though the legend of Chang’e might be confusing initially - partially because the story is interpreted and retold differently throughout - it’s made digestible to non-Chinese audiences by its thematic ties to Fei Fei’s story. The young girl wants to prevent her father from moving on from the love of his life. The tragedy of Chang’e is she still mourns Houyi thousands of years later. While the mother's death makes it seems as though Over the Moon is again relying on an old trope, it’s not quite the case. Grief means something different here than it does in The Good Dinosaur or Finding Nemo.

The catchy soundtrack and visual splendor are top-notch. Certain story elements could've used a bit more polishing. Fei Fei arrives on the moon with Chin and her pet bunny Bungee then are immediately separated. Considering this story is about Fei Fei accepting her step-brother as family, it’s counter-intuitive for them to spend so much time apart. This also means we are introduced to animal sidekicks (like Ken Jeong as a green pangolin) who serve little purpose. Then there’s this subplot about Bungee and Chang’e’s pet, a Jade rabbit. While it reinforces one of the key themes, the time would’ve been better used exploring Chang’e instead. She maintains the traditional look Fei Fei expects but also… moonlights as a pop star singer? Show us a bit more and you can say something about the “truth” vs. the “reality” of this deity with very human feelings. As is, you sense this subversion was just a way to insert more songs in the film.

While certain aspects of the plot and the number of characters could’ve been tightened up, these aren’t big flaws. From a technical, musical, visual, and emotional viewpoint, Over the Moon is an impressive directorial debut for Glen Keane. (November 5, 2020)