Just finished listening to this and I thought it was great that they brought up his freshman “CG” film Everything That Comes Around (I think that’s the name).

If there was thing I remember about Doug from CalArts it was that film.  It’s pretty much the only story I have to tell when someone brings up his name.

I was an upperclassman who, because of my devotion to traditional hand-drawn animation, rarely stepped inside the computer lab.  Well, one day I had to go in there to do some editing and I was stopped dead in my tracks by that film.  It was just looping incessantly over and over on one of the Amiga computers.  I was with there with some of my friends and we couldn’t believe what we were seeing.  The timing was impeccable, the spacing elegant.  As I recall it was just some guy flipping a yo-yo but it was miles beyond what anyone else was doing with the computer at that time.  Super-appealing.  We couldn’t figure out if it was drawn, if it was scanned it, whatever.

When we asked around who did that, someone simply answered, “Oh, that’s Doug Sweetland.  He’s really good.”

And they were right.  Woody coming out of the box in Toy Story 2, Buzz on the bed meeting Woody for the first time in Toy Story, and now Presto.

Hopefully someone has a copy of this short film and can post it.

I also liked his explanation of CalArts as a school filled with “drawing” kids.  Having been one of those kids singled out in high school because I drew all the time (mainly Disney characters on my grocery-bag book covers), I could totally relate.

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