The Making of Mickey's Christmas Carol 1983

excerpts from stevehatguy tumblr's The Making of Mickey Chrsitmas Carol  and Jim Korkis'  MousePlanet Article of Mickey's Christmas Carol

stevehatguy:  Burny transitioned onto the small team of artists doing early story development for The Black Cauldron. 

A few personal clashes with the directors were discouraging for Burny but he vowed that he was going to stick with the project and make the best out of the situation. 
However, things boiled to a head when the directors began to criticize a storyboard sequence of Burny’s - the introduction of Dallben and Taran - saying that it wasn’t ready to go forward into the production pipeline

Feeling that his instincts and abilities were being unfairly challenged,
Burny exploded and told off the directors and the producer.  It was a move that was very out of character for the typically jolly and optimistic Mattinson.
 And a move that made him feel like he’d just jeopardized his career at Disney. 

At home that night, Burny told his wife Sylvia - also an artist at Disney - what had happened that day.  He was certain that he’d ruined his future with the studio.
 But Sylvia reminded him of a project that Mattinson had been excited about, several years back.  Maybe this would be a good time to pitch that.

Jim Korkis:  Mattinson had always wanted to do a film with the Fab Five (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto) and was familiar with the Christmas Carol record album.
He sent it to CEO Ron Miller, along with his suggestions.
Two days later, he was surprised when he was called into a meeting with Miller who started the encounter by grumbling about why Mattinson had sent him this material.

Mattinson felt he had overstepped his bounds and might lose his job. Miller was just joking.
 He thought it was a great idea and gave Mattinson the approval to produce and direct the project.

It was Mattinson’s first directorial assignment,

Stevthehatguy:  By May of 1981, Burny had a complete story reel of the film ready to screen.  The Black Cauldron was also showing their story reels on the same day.
 Christmas Carol screened first and after it was finished,

Cauldron producer Joe Hale, still sore at Burny for telling them off and jumping ship,
turned to Burny and said “To think that this will become the definitive version of ‘Christmas Carol.’”  Hale’s words stung but Burny didn’t let them get him down.

 Ron Miller had asked him to start handing out animation this month and that’s exactly what he was going to do.

more here in these links:

https://stevehatguy.tumblr.com/tagged/Mickey%27s-Christmas-Carol

https://www.mouseplanet.com/11965/Mickeys_Christmas_Carol

https://michaelperaza.blogspot.com/search?q=mickey%27s+christmas+carol

Mel Shaw and Burny Mattinson

Short Excepts From Varous Sources

Jim Korkis:  After graduating high school, Burny Mattinson took a job in “Traffic” (generally delivering mail and doing errands) at Disney Studios in 1953 hoping to someday pursue a career as an animator.
He became an inbetweener for the animated feature Lady and the Tramp (1955). He worked his way up to assistant animator working under Disney Legend Eric Larson. He became a character animator on Robin Hood (1973)
.However, Mattinson’s real passion and expertise was storyboarding.
 Disney Legend Frank Thomas saw Mattinson’s thumbnail sketches for Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Too (1974) and asked him to help on the storyboarding for the animated feature The Rescuers (1977).
That opportunity led to him storyboarding The Fox and the Hound (1981) and The Black Cauldron (1985).

https://www.mouseplanet.com/11965/Mickeys_Christmas_Carol

Jim Korkis’ Animation Anecdotes #265:
When it came to doing The Black Cauldron (1985),
part of the five volumes of Lloyd Alexander’s The Prydain Chronicles, storyman Mel Shaw was given the task to read all the books and condense all the heroes,
villains and storylines into a workable cinematic story.
He made close to 250 colored pastel sketches of key dramatic moments and put them onto 35mm slides and then synchronized the slides to a recording of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana (and some other music).
This resulted in a twenty-minute presentation for Shaw to pitch the story of a young boy’s quest for a sinister cauldron that must be destroyed.

http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/animation-anecdotes-265/



                                   here is a collection of artwork By Mel Shaw.                                                                                  and far below is Burny Mattinson's Storyboard art for the film.
   (If you know those storyboard drawings below aren't Burny's, please correct me if I;m wrong.)