Tom Sito is a long time animator, filmmaker and teacher.
He was born in Brooklyn New York, and educated in the arts of cartooning & animation at the High School of Art & Design, the School of Visual Arts and the Art Student's League. Among his influences there were Harvey Kurtzman, Will Eisner and Robert Beverly Hale.
Tom Sito has been an prolific animator since 1975. He has worked in all facets of animation- feature films, television shows, and commercials. Among his screen credits are the Disney classic films The Little Mermaid (1989), Who Framed Roger Rabbit?(1988), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994) and Pocahontas (1995) He co-directed the animation for the Warner Bros film Osmosis Jones (2001), and contributed to Shrek (2001), The Prince of Egypt(2000) and Garfield the Movie (2004). During that time he befriended and worked with many of the great artists of Hollywood animation's golden age, including Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Hanna & Barbera, Shamus Culhane and Disney's Nine Old Men.
After serving three terms as president of the Hollywood animators union, Tom became interested in telling their story, long ignored by other historians. The result was his first book DRAWING THE LINE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE ANIMATION UNIONS FROM BOSKO TO BART SIMPSON (2006). He has also contributed the chapter on animation to Dr. Paul Buhle's anthology JEWS IN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE (2007). He has also updated and revised John Halas & Harold Whitaker's famous how-to book TIMING FOR ANIMATION. His 2013 book MOVING INNOVATION, A HISTORY OF COMPUTER ANIMATION (MIT Press) has been called the first complete history of computer animation ever in book form. It was nominated for a Kraszner-Kraus book award in 2014. In 2019 he published his first cookbook, EAT, DRINK, ANIMATE, AN ANIMATORS COOKBOOK (CRC Press) With real recipes you can make from legendary animation artists.
Tom Sito is Professor of Animation of the Animation Dept. at the University of Southern California. He is a member of the National Cartoonists Society, and on the Board of Governors of the Motion Picture Academy, Hollywood Heritage and the international animators society, ASIFA/Hollywood.
