Burton graduated from the same CalArts animation programme that spawned John Lasseter and Brad Bird, and promptly headed for the animator's promised land of Disney. There, however, he found immense frustration. None of his concepts for The Black Cauldron ended up in the finished film, and Disney executives didn't seem to know what to do with him, even after he completely well-regarded short Vincent, a stint on the Disney Channel with Hansel and Gretel and a longer short film in Frankenweenie. No one doubted Burton's talent, but at the artistically moribund Mouse House of the early 1980s, no one would risk unleashing his twisted, morbid sensibilities under the Disney banner. An amicable separation followed, but Burton has worked for the studio many times since, notably on The Nightmare Before Christmas and, most recently, Alice in Wonderland.