Animator Frank Sasso, who is known for his drawings of Stimpy from the 90’s Nickelodeon TV series The Ren & Stimpy Show, gave a presentation via Zoom for Mercer’s Distinguished lecture series on October 27.
MCCC Advertising and Graphic Design Professor Tina Laplaca was the organizer for the event. When asked how she selected Sasso to speak to students she said “I had met Frank Sasso at an art opening at the Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie pre-covid, and I got to speaking with him and his wife, and I learned about his past experience of what he did as an animator. I just thought he would be a great person to bring in.”
During the lecture Sasso explained that his career in animation did not start right away. His first job was stocking vending machines at airports in New York. Later he worked for a company called Spumco that went on to become Nickelodeon. Sasso says he became the new animation director for Spumco even though he didn’t have any experience in animation.
After working with Nickelodeon, Sasso went on to work at Disney. He showed renderings and drawings that he did for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Towards the end of the presentation, students were given chances to win some of his signed story boards.
At the time that he was working at Nickelodeon Sasso says he was doing his animation completely with pencil and paper but that “It wasn’t a challenge for me because that’s how you did it. That was the way to do it.”
Sasso said he had a strange introduction to Disney, being flown in on an airplane full of people wearing all black, then escorted into a jeep where no one spoke at all on the way to the Disney studio.
When asked how he felt about this experience, he said, “I felt very unnerved and concerned and scared, but at the same time, I was like “This is kind of cool.”
During the presentation, he gave some advice to students. He told them, “Start your own business.”
