Oliver Martin Johnston, Jr. (October 31, 1912 – April 14, 2008) was an American motion picture animator. He was one of Disney's Nine Old Men, and the last surviving at the time of his death from natural causes. He was recognized by The Walt Disney Company with its Disney Legend Award in 1989. His work was recognized with the National Medal of Arts in 2005. He was an animator at Walt Disney Studios from 1935 to 1978, and became a directing animator beginning with Pinocchio , released in 1940. He contributed to most Disney animated features, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , Fantasia and Bambi . His last full work for Disney came with The Rescuers , in which he was caricatured as one of the film's characters, the cat Rufus.

Franklin M. "Frank" Thomas was an American animator. Frank Thomas attended Stanford University, where he worked on the campus humor magazine The Stanford Chaparral with Ollie Johnston. After graduating from Stanford, he attended Chouinard Art Institute. Frank Thomas joined The Walt Disney Company on September 24, 1934 as employee number 224. There he animated dozens of feature films and shorts. Along with Ollie Johnston from his college days, the two would eventually become known as members of Walt Disney's team of animators known as the Nine Old Men .