Tom Sito (born May 19, 1956) is an American animator, animation historian and teacher. He is currently a Professor at USC's School of Cinematic Arts in the Animation Division. In 1998, Sito was included by Animation Magazine in their list of the One Hundred Most Important People in Animation. Early life Tom Sito was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a fireman. Sito first began studying animation while attending cartooning classes at the High School of Art and Design. He continued his animation studies at The School of Visual Arts (SVA) with Howard Beckerman, cartooning under Harvey Kurtzman, Gil Miret, Howard Beckerman and Robert Beverly Hale. Sito graduated from SVA in 1977 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Media Arts. He met his wife, Pat, at SVA and the two were married on January 4, 1980. Additionally, Sito studied life drawing at The Art Students League of New York under Robert Beverly Hale. Career Sito's cartooning career began with him working on cartoons for Dixie Cups, as well as gag writing for Playboy magazine's comic series, Little Annie Fanny, under his instructor, Harvey Kurtzman. Sito assisted retired Disney animator Shamus Culhane on one of his final projects, a 1977 education short entitled Protection in the Nuclear Age. Sito's first big break came in 1976 when he was hired by legendary animation director Richard Williams to work on his film Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure. There he met and worked with animation luminaries like Eric Goldberg, Art Babbitt and John Canemaker. After several years doing commercial animation work in New York and Toronto, Sito relocated to Los Angeles and worked on TV projects like Super Friends for Hanna-Barbera (1978), He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (1983–1985). Tom Sito was summoned by his old mentor Richard Williams once more in 1987 (the same year he made the independently animated short Propagadance) to animate on Disney/Amblin's Academy Award-winning hit film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Returning to Los Angeles in 1988, Sito became a mainstay of the Disney Feature Animation division, contributing to the classic films The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Fantasia 2000, and Dinosaur. Sito left the Disney studio in 1995 to help set up the animation unit of DreamWorks SKG, later DreamWorks Animation. He worked on the films Antz, The