Norman's love for animated pictures started in his childhood when he watched the Disney feature films
Dumbo and
Bambi. Norman grew up in
Santa Barbara, California and attended
Santa Barbara High School before attending
Art Center College of Design in
Pasadena, California, where he majored in illustration. He had his start as an assistant to
Katy Keene comic book artist
Bill Woggon, who lived in the Santa Barbara, California. In 1957, Norman was employed as an
inbetweener on
Sleeping Beauty (released in 1959) at
The Walt Disney Company, becoming the first
African-American artist to remain at the studio on a long-term basis. Following his work on
Sleeping Beauty, Norman was drafted, and returned to the studio after his service in 1960 to work on
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) and
The Sword in the Stone (1963). After Walt Disney died in 1966, Floyd Norman left the Disney studio to co-found Vignette Films, Inc., with business partner animator/director
Leo Sullivan. Vignette Films, Inc. produced six animated films and was one of the first companies to produce films on the subject of black history. Norman and Sullivan worked together on various projects, including segments for
Sesame Street and the original ''
Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert television special conceived by Bill Cosby, which aired in 1969 on NBC. In 1972, a different Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids''
Saturday morning cartoon series was produced for
CBS by
Filmation Associates. Norman returned to Disney at one point in the early 1970s to work on the Disney animated feature
Robin Hood, and worked on several animated television programs at
Hanna-Barbera and
Ruby-Spears. In the 1980s he worked as a writer in the
comic strip department at Disney and was the last scripter for the
Mickey Mouse comic strip before it was discontinued. He has worked on motion pictures for
Walt Disney Animation Studios and
Pixar, having contributed creatively as a
story artist on films such as
The Hunchback of Notre Dame,
Mulan and Dinosaur for Walt Disney Animation Studios and
Toy Story 2 and
Monsters, Inc. for Pixar among others, including
Reel FX's
Free Birds. Norman has also published several books of cartoons inspired by his lifetime of experiences in the animation industry,
Faster! Cheaper!: The Flip Side to the Art of Animation ;
Son of Faster, Cheaper!: A Sharp Look Inside the Animation Business ;
How the Grinch Stole Disney ;
Disk Drive: Animated Humor in the Digital Age; and
Suspended Animation: The Art Form That Refuses To Die. Norman has also authored a semi-biographical animation primer, titled:
Animated Life: A Lifetime of Tips, tricks, techniques and Stories from an Animation Legend (Animation Masters) , that was published by
Focal Press in 2013. He is the subject of the 2016 documentary
Floyd Norman: An Animated Life. He is a columnist for the websites JimHillMedia.com and AfroKids.com. In 2016 Norman was appointed to the education and outreach committee of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Debuting at the 2017
D23 Expo,
Disney Editions published the picture book
A Kiss Goodnight written by
Richard M. Sherman and illustrated by Norman. Norman was also part of a Members Only Preview for the behind-the-scenes exhibition titled
Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book: Making a Masterpiece during a special talk alongside
Andreas Deja,
Darleen Carr and
Bruce Reitherman which took place on June 22, 2022. The exhibition took place at
The Walt Disney Family Museum from June 23, 2022, to January 8, 2023. == Awards and honors ==