Within two years, UPA had come back to me. Steve Bosustow had decided to open a branch in New York, 3,000 miles closer to Madison Avenue, to be able to latch on to the blooming market of television commercials. He flew to see me in Detroit, and made me the offer that indicated I was no longer an apprentice. I was so thrilled to be called back to the fold, and to be sent to New York, that I agreed to back off from my so recently acquired director status, and to start as production designer in the founding cadre of UPA-NY. Here was the opening team:

Abe Liss, director, Gene Deitch, production designer, Grim Natwick, animator, Don McCormick, assistant animator, Ted Bethune, background painter, Barbara Baldwin, ink & paint supervisor, Wardell Gaynor, camera, Stan Russell, production manager, Ed Cullen, business magager, Hedy Cramer, secretary. (Not all are in the above photo.)

We came in with a hail of publicity, and were expected to lure the Madison Avenue bucks on the basis of the UPA name, which by now had sparkles shooting off it in all directions. We opened with a very nice bang.

There may have been a reason why Steve sent Abe to New York that I didn't know about, my having been off in the Detroit outlands for two years. But from the very beginning, Steve began to undermine Abe's position. It was uncomfortable, to say the least. Steve began to criticize everything Abe did, and after only a few months he was out. Steve named me Creative Director, and of course, I didn't fight it. I enjoyed a real blossoming.

Ted Bethune, the background painter, was a Canadian, and wanted to go home. That presented us with our first crisis, and I got on the phone several times with Steve, imploring him to send me a replacement. Orders were coming in, and we didn't have a background artist. As my desperation mounted, Steve put his hand over the mouthpiece, but I could still hear him ask someone, "Can you paint backgrounds?"

"Uh-oh," I thought. "What are we going to get?" Shortly, a handsome 20-year-old with bright black eyes showed up. He painted the worst backgrounds I had seen up to that time. "What else can you do?" I asked plaintively. I could not throw back a fellow Steve sent me.