Drawing Money: The Five Richest Animators 2021 | TheRichest
Childhood memories and perhaps some adult memories as well are surely packed with your favorite cartoons. Mickey Mouse, Tom and Jerry, Family Guy and many more make the list of classic characters. Many of which, take us back to Saturday mornings, over a bowl of cereal and a unique commonality among friends and family.
Animators or cartoonists are often the unsung heroes of these cherished cartoons and their artistic prowess will be a need for decades to come. In addition to the cartoon themselves, it’s not uncommon to see these well-known images across t-shirts, lunch boxes, posters and entire theme parks.
Though we may not know or forget who is behind the iconic figures, they’re making serious bank behind the scenes.
Check out the top five richest animators of all time.
5 John Lasseter – $100 Million
The animator began his career at Disney, working behind classics like The Fox and the Hound and Mickey’s Christmas Carol, however, his obsession with computer animation technology, he walked away from Disney and applied his skills to the likes of George Lucas’ Lucasfilm Ltd.
A move to Pixar several years down the road, officially landed Lasseter his career-making work, including Toy Story, Cars, Finding Nemo and more. In the end, Lasseter was established and returned to the technology-friendly Disney in 2006. Named chief creative officer of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, several more classics hit the big screen and Lasseter served as executive producer of Brave, Monsters University and Frozen.
4 Hanna-Barbera – $300 Million
Next to Disney, Hanna-Barbera may be the most well-known animators of all time. The creators of favorite classic characters including Tom and Jerry, Scooby-Doo and The Flintstone’s met on the MGM lot and immediately began churning out Emmy Award-winning cartoons. Many characters went on to star in full-length feature films and straight-to-DVD series.
According to Illustration History, the pair produced more than 249 individual cartoon series for television over the course of 30 years and their influence have inspired many of the current cartoons of today.
Thanks to a sale to Warner Bros. Television Animation, the classics can still be found on television and merchandise.
3 Matt Groening – $500 Million
The Simpsons became a household name thanks to Matthew Abram Groening, the show’s creator and animator. Already, a serious animator, Groening created the family (loosely based on his own) on the fly. In 2009, the classic characters surpassed televisions longest-running primetime series “Gunsmoke”.
As a series of short animations on The Tracey Ullman Show in 1987, many assumed when Tracey’s show was cancelled, so would The Simpsons, however, Groening proved everyone wrong two years later, when the classic debuted on Fox.
The rest is history, named “Best Show of the 20th Century” by TIME magazine and “Greatest American Sitcom” by Entertainment Weekly, the show went on to collect more than 30 Emmy’s and an Emmy nomination for the 2012 full-length film.
2 Trey Parker and Matt Stone – $600 Million
The animators behind South Park, a creation for Brian Graden and Comedy Central brought to life the four main characters: Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman and Kenny McCormick. What began as an animated short film, became one of Internet’s first viral videos and led to one of the longest running animated series, beginning in 1997 and renewed through Viacom CBS till 2027.
The first few shorts used a technique called cutout animation and after its huge success, Parker and Stone continued the process, using computer animation but with a similar cutout look.
According to Looper, the two college friends created the characters out of sheer boredom, and a wicked sense of humor. Luckily, everyone else got it too.
1 Walt Disney – $5 Billion
Surprised? Probably not. Walter Elias Disney is the most famous animator in the world according to Animation Career Review. Disney’s list of skill and business savvy made history when the young dreamer created an iconic figure, Mickey Mouse. From there, dozens of animated films have earned rave reviews and billions of dollars, retail merchandise is an ongoing revenue goldmine and the numerous Disney theme parks spanning the globe have cemented the Disney company in history and success.
In fact, Disney’s dream of creating the first full-length animated film was laughed at, at first. Many deemed Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as the start of Disney’s failure but he had the last laugh when the film brought in a record breaking $1.5 million, despite release in the Depression era. Snow White earned eight Oscars and sparked a host of classics that followed such as Pinocchio, Bambi, Cinderella and many others.
Today, the Walt Disney Company is worth a staggering $74.9 billion and still going strong.
Sources: Illustration History, Looper, Animation Career Review
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