Walt Disney Animation Australia

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Walt Disney Animation Australia, also known as DisneyToon Studios Australia is an animation studio from Australia that has worked on both feature length Disney films and television series since its debut in 1988. One distinct trait about the studio is the attention to facial expressions, mouth movements, and excellent timing on sight gags, combined with much more in between animation than you would normally see on an animated TV show. As such, episodes of such series as Darkwing Duck or Bonkers done by Walt Disney Australia usually have a much higher quality than episodes from the Korean studios like Sunwoo Entertainment.

Walt Disney Australia has done animation/ink & paint for the following shows:

In addition, they have worked on most every theatrical film to date, including many made-for-video projects. An interesting bit of trivia is that Walt Disney Australia animated the first half hour of The Return of Jafar, while the second half was animated by Walt Disney Animation Japan. The differences in the two studios' styles are clearly evident when watching the film.

Though the studio did a large amount of work in television during the 1990s, they have begun to focus entirely on film, under the DisneyToons banner. For current Disney animated series, work is usually outsourced to Rough Draft Studios, Wang Film Productions, Toon City, and Sunwoo, among others. In other words, Disney TV animation is rarely animated by Disney itself anymore.

[edit] Disney Australia Peak and Fall

Disney Australia was becoming well known for 2-d animation, they were actually the last Disney owned 2-d animation studio. This according to Steve Trenbirth who left Disney to form his own company Mad Cow Pictures two-years before the closing of the Australian Animation Unit. A number of high quality direct to DVD sequels were produced. According to the DVD making of the film segment on Lady and the Tramp II Scamp's Adventure the unit was used for saving on production costs. Early production would start in the USA and animation done in Australia.