Tom Palmer (animator)
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Tom Palmer was an Italian American animator who was active in the 1930s and worked at several animation studios. Born with the surname of "Pipolo", Palmer changed his name due to the anti-Italian sentiment that existed in America, during the 1920's and 30's. One of his brothers, Frank Pipolom, was a decorated New York City police officer.
Palmer's first animation credits occurred at the Winkler Studio in 1928 which made Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. Palmer moved over to Universal Pictures cartoon studio run by Walter Lantz which took over the Oswald series in 1929. By the early 1930s, he was working at Walt Disney Productions. He was lured by Leon Schlesinger to work as an animation director at his newly formed Leon Schlesinger Productions animation studio which made cartoons for Warner Bros. but Palmer was fired by Schlesinger after Warner Bros. rejected some of his cartoons.[1]
Legend has it that Tex Avery was hired by Schlesinger to replace Palmer, and did his initial work for Schlesinger off site, at the original Termite Terrace, so as not to tip Palmer off that he was about to be fired.[2] This is almost certainly untrue however, as Palmer was fired in 1933, and Avery did not arrive at the Schlesinger Studio until 1935. In fact, it was Friz Freleng that was called in to rework Palmer's cartoons and ultimately replaced him.
After leaving Warner Bros., Palmer then worked at the Van Beuren Studio until it folded in 1936. He briefly returned to Disney where he worked on the cartoon The Old Mill. His final credited work was as animator in the feature film Gulliver's Travels at Fleischer Studios.
There is no relation to Tom Palmer, a comic book artist who was active starting in the 1960s.
