Rolly Crump

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Rolly Crump, born Roland Fargo Crump on February 27, 1930, in Alhambra, California, was an American animator and designer best known for his work with Disney as an Imagineer. He joined Walt Disney Studios in 1952, starting as an inbetweener and later becoming an assistant animator on films like Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, and One Hundred and One Dalmatians. In 1959 he moved to WED Enterprises, where he helped design many Disneyland attractions, including The Haunted Mansion, Enchanted Tiki Room, and the Adventureland Bazaar.

Outside Disney, Crump created psychedelic posters in the 1960s for acts like the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and designed logos for Bob Markley. He also made guitar string packaging for Ernie Ball. For the 1964 World's Fair in New York, he helped design It’s a Small World and the Tower of the Four Winds marquee. When It’s a Small World opened at Disneyland in 1966, he designed the large animated clock at the entrance that features puppet children in a parade.

Crump contributed to early ideas for the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World and worked on NBC’s Disney on Parade in 1970. He left Disney to pursue other projects, including work for Busch Gardens, the ABC Wildlife Preserve in Maryland, and Ringling Brothers Circus World. In 1975 he designed Knott’s Bear-y Tales at Knott’s Berry Farm. He returned to Disney in 1976 to design the Land and Wonders of Life pavilions at EPCOT Center, but left again in 1981 to plan the Cousteau Ocean Center in Norfolk, Virginia and to start his own design business, the Mariposa Design Group, with projects in Oman, Las Vegas, Denver, and elsewhere.

Crump returned to Disney in 1992 as executive designer at Imagineering, working on EPCOT Center, and retired in 1996. He published his autobiography, It’s Kind of a Cute Story, in 2012. Rolly Crump died on March 12, 2023, in Carlsbad, California, aged 93.