three-year break, Bird chose CalArts and moved down south. Bird's classmates included prominent future animators such as John Lasseter, Tim Burton, and Henry Selick. Like many students, they were dazed by the special effects in Star Wars (1977); both Lasseter and Bird agreed these feats were possible in animation. First-year students met in the room labeled A113—a small, sterile classroom with no windows. Bird later used A113 as an Easter egg in his films; it has since become a fixture of media made by the school's alumni. The first use of A113 was in the pilot episode for the short-lived television series Family Dog (1993). The pilot episode was a part of the series Amazing Stories (1985-1987), which aired February 16, 1987, and was titled "Family Dog." He used it for the license plate number on a van. The first Disney movie he used it in was The Brave Little Toaster (1987), in which he was an animator. Career Initial years Disney and development deals (1978–1984) Within two years, Bird accepted a job as an animator at Walt Disney Productions. Bird arrived at the studio in the midst of a transition: much of the studio's original creative staff were retiring, leaving the studio to a new generation of artists. What was left of the original staff got along with the newcomers, but Bird clashed with the middlemen in charge. While animating at Disney, he became a part of a small group of animators who worked in a suite of offices inside the original studio called the "Rat's Nest". There, Bird openly criticized the state of the studio, and characterized senior leadership as unwilling to take risk. He felt as though he was standing behind the studio's original principles. This volatile attitude prompted his firing by animation administrator Edward Hansen. He left Disney after only two years; he received credits on The Small One (1978) and The Fox and the Hound (1981), and went uncredited on Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983) and The Black Cauldron (1985). Bird was dispirited with the state of the American animation industry, and he considered his departure from Disney as the end of his long-held love of the form. Still, he pulled together funds to make A Portfolio of Projects, a demo reel of potential animated projects, ones he felt the medium was capable of. Bird was hopeful of receiving financial backing from other studios, but ended