Dale Baer (1950-2021) Find a Grave
Dale Baer
Birth 15 Jun 1950
Denver, Denver County, Colorado, USA
Death 15 Jan 2021 (aged 70)
Irvine, Orange County, California, USA
Burial Details Unknown
Animator
Dale Baer (1950-2021)
He started by attending Chouinard Art Institute (which later became Calarts) and started working at Filmation in 1970. He joined Walt Disney in 1971, and was among the first handful of employees hired as part of the studio’s new training program.
As an inbetweener, he worked on “Robin Hood.” He eventually moved into animation, working on other Disney features including “The Rescuers” and “Pete’s Dragon” before leaving Disney in the late 1970s.
Over the next two decades, he would animate for a who’s who of the animation industry, including Peanuts specials at Bill Melendez Productions, commercials at Richard Williams Animation and Quartet, “The Smurfs” at Hanna-Barbera, and “The Lord of the Rings” at Bakshi Productions.
Throughout this time, Baer always freelanced for Disney, picking up work on projects like “Mickey’s Christmas Carol,” “The Black Cauldron,” and “The Great Mouse Detective.” In the 1980s, along with his wife at the time, Jane, he opened a studio and their breakout project was “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” for which the Baers ran a studio of 75 people and worked as the film’s Los Angeles animation unit.
Where Was Dale Baer born?
Where is Dale Baer buried?
A detailed history of Baer’s role on the film can be found in blog posts here and here. The Baer Animation Company would go on to provide animation for Disney’s “The Prince and the Pauper” and “Beauty and the Beast” as well as non-Disney films like “Tom and Jerry: The Movie,” “Last Action Hero,” and “Rover Dangerfield.” He returned to work at Disney full-time in 1998, contributing to both the studio’s hand-drawn and cg animated films. He was the supervising animator of Yzma on “The Emperor’s New Groove,” a role that he took after the original supervising animator Andreas Deja left the project.
Dale Baer birth 15 Jun 1950
He was also the supervising animator of the villain Alameda Slim in “Home on the Range,” Wilbur in “Meet the Robinsons,” and Owl in the studio’s last hand-drawn feature, “Winnie the Pooh” (2011).
The most recent project he contributed to as an animator was “Bob’s Burger: The Movie,” which will be released later in 2021. He was honored with the Winsor McCay Award in 2016.