Mike Giaimo came into animation via the route a number of neophyte artists traveled in the 1970s: Promising student at Cal Arts makes an animated film; Walt Disney Productions takes a shine to same; the Mouse House then snaps up the neophyte to work in Burbank.

Sounds simple, but it wasn’t always. Michael started his Disney career in the same way that many others did. He in-betweened on production while making a personal animation reel. But he soon found himself tagged by superiors as having a spark for story development. And within a short period of time Mr. Giaimo found himself being mentored by the young story artist Pete Young.

Mr. Giaimo left Disney in the late 1980s after work on Fun With Mr. Future and two years of intensive development work on a feature film entitled Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Mike returned to the Disney fold several years later, and served as art director on Pocahontas. Mike remained at Disney afterwards, but ultimately departed to design and art direct the television series Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi. Today he is again at the House of Mouse, again designing for animated features.