We don’t often associate Disney with video games – not outside of its current push as a publisher, anyway – but in the late 1970′s, turmoil at the famous animation studio inadvertently led to the creation of two arcade classics.
Don Bluth was an animator at Disney in the 60′s and 70′s, who worked on movies like 101 Dalmations, Sleeping Beauty and Robin Hood. In 1979, however, having been worked to the bone on Pete’s Dragon with no bonuses or thanks, Bluth quit, amidst reports (like this Variety article) that all was not well in the relationship between Disney’s executives and its animators.
He quickly formed his own company, Don Bluth Productions. Which, for the record, did not build houses.
