as miniature films, taking inspiration from the work of Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles. In the 1990s, Bird also contributed to other episodic animated sitcoms like The Critic and King of the Hill, both of which took cues from this established template. Bird called his work at The Simpsons a "golden opportunity," recognizing that the material was more to his sensibility than the work he had done for Disney. On a personal level, the job was deeply fulfilling; he attended weekly read-throughs which he found delightful, and he considered the gig the only bright spot in the years following his sister's passing. His last credit on the show came with the episode "Lisa the Simpson", which aired in 1998. The show's crew hoped to get Bird to direct its later 2007 film adaptation, but he was too busy by that point. The Iron Giant (1997–2000) Animation had a commercial and creative renaissance in the U.S. during the 1990s, with Hollywood studios eager to capitalize on the success of Disney's The Lion King (1994). Bird continued to shop around film ideas to studios throughout the decade, but grew frustrated with his lack of progress in his dream of directing a feature. He was momentarily signed to direct a live-action comedy, Brothers in Crime, at New Line Cinema, but it did not pan out. In addition, his growing family gave rise to other concerns. "I had anxiety about devoting my energy to work that was meaningful and spending time with my family, which was also meaningful to me. If I did one, would I fail at the other?" he worried. He pored these themes into a screenplay for The Incredibles, which he pitched to studios beginning in 1992. He also developed an original sci-fi feature titled Ray Gunn, with a script co-written by Matthew Robbins. Its futuristic story centered on a private detective in an Art Deco world of humans and aliens. Bird signed a production deal with Turner Feature Animation in January 1995, but the studio felt Ray Gunn would be too intense for its target demographic of young children. The following year, Turner merged with Time Warner, which contained the last three months of Bird's contract. Warner executives set up a meeting, and made it clear they had no interest in Ray Gunn. Instead, they offered Bird several in-development projects, including a musical version of poet Ted Hughes' book The