Ollie Johnston, the last living member of a gang of nine Disney animators whose work set the bar for 2D animation for, well, the seeming entirety of 2D animation history, died this week at the age of 95. Check out the first half of one of Johnston’s lesser-seen works above. Ben and Me, the story of a mouse who sneaks into Benjamin Franklin’s house an helps him invent bifocals and the modern printing press, “entirely robs one of the most revered founding fathers of his agency,” as the YouTube synopsis puts it. Stay tuned for the even more bizarre second chapter. Even as a child, I think I knew there was something really bizarre about the idea of an eccentric inventor who walked around talking to the rodent hidden in his hat, but I totally forgot about the part where the mouse walks off like a jilted lover after Ben electrocutes him––twice.










