How Floyd Norman Changed Animation

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Outside of Disney, Floyd Norman created two distinct roles for himself. He started as a storyboard artist at Hanna-Barbera, working on several TV shows that included Jabberjaw, Scooby-Doo, Quickie Koala, Sealab 2020, The Laff-A-Lympics, The Smurfs, The Snorks, Josie and the Pussycats, and then he'd move on working on Alvin and the Chipmunks as well as Garfield and Friends in the 1980s. His second role is probably one that many people don't even know about, but is probably his most important. And that's being the creator and co-owner of Vignette Films Incorporated alongside black animation director Leo Sullivan, who Norman met working a gig for Paramount and Frank [music] Braxton, one of Warner Brothers' first black animators. Floyd Norman purchased an old camera from Roy Disney and Vignette Films created a mix of both live-action and animated segments for television. Floyd Norman actually used the camera that he purchased from Roy Disney to film the LA Watts riots.

[00:01:00]Stemming from a black man being pulled over and resisting arrest only to be beaten with a baton, the riot became a standing ground for the Watts neighborhood and it was a cry out for employment discrimination, segregation, and the poverty that kept residents of LA's black neighborhoods from having better lives. This was Norman's wake-up call to do something more important and to represent the African-American community in ways that he knew how, with a pencil in hand. Vignette Films was a place where animation could be used to talk about the issues of black American communities, not only to entertain people, but also to educate. So, they started creating animated shorts around black historical figures like George Washington Carver and Booker T.

[00:01:44]Washington.