Edward
T. "Tad" Stones (born
May 28, 1952) is an American animator, screenwriter, producer and director, best known for
his work for The Walt Disney Company,
where he worked from 1974 to 2003. His most notable credits for Disney include
creating, writing and producing the animated series Darkwing Duck and producing Chip 'n Dale
Rescue Rangers, Disney's
Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Aladdin, Hercules, and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.
His latest project is as a storyboard artist on the animated series Bob's Burgers, which premiered in January 2011 on Fox. Born in Burbank, California,
Stones started with Disney training under animation veteran Eric Larson. He entered the Feature Animation training
program three days after his college graduation in 1974. After animating a scene in The Rescuers, Stones moved into the story department
on The Fox and the Hound. A brief stint at Walt Disney Imagineering followed,
where he worked on Epcot's Transportation pavilion and the
Imagination pavilion. Stones worked at Walt Disney Television
Animation since its formation in 1984. He was one of the
creative forces behind many of the Disney Afternoon shows of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
He was a writer for the cartoon Sport Goofy in Soccermania.
He was one of the writers and producers of Chip 'n Dale
Rescue Rangers and Disney's
Adventures of the Gummi Bears (third season only). In 1990,
Stones was asked to develop an original concept inspired by two episodes
of Ducktales; he illustrated what would eventually become
known as Darkwing Duck. Stones wrote and
produced the pilot film for the show, Darkly Dawns the Duck,
which premiered in April 1991. After the success of the pilot, Stones served as
writer and producer of the show until the end of its run in late 1992.
According to an interview, the character of Gosalyn Mallard was partly based on what he believed his
then two-year-old daughter would be like when she grew older. Following Darkwing
Duck, Stones served as executive producer, story editor, and director
in Aladdin, a
television series based on the original film. In 1994, he co-wrote, produced
and directed Aladdin 2: The Return of Jafar,
a direct-to-video sequel to the 1992
film Aladdin. He also
directed and produced a second sequel to Aladdin in
1996, Aladdin and the King of Thieves.
The film marked the end of the Aladdin films and the Aladdin animated
series. In 1998, Stones served as executive producer of Hercules: The Animated Series.
Two years later, he directed the direct-to-video film Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins. The
film served as pilot episode to the 2000 television series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command,
which Stones also produced. In 2003, he directed Atlantis: Milo's Return,
the direct-to-video sequel to the film Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
Stones worked at Disney for almost 30 years before leaving the company in 2003.
In 2004, he started working at Universal Cartoon Studios,
where he produced a direct-to-video feature about Brer Rabbit called The Adventures of Brer Rabbit.
Stones directed, produced and co-wrote with Mike Mignola, Hellboy: Sword of Storms the
first of two direct-to-video animated films based on Mignola's popular comic
book series Hellboy. Stones, a long time comic
book reader, had worked previously with Mignola on developing Atlantis:
The Lost Empire into an animated series Hellboy: Sword of Storms made
its television debut in the United States on October 28, 2006 on Cartoon Network. Hellboy: Blood and Iron,
the second film in the Hellboy animated series, was screened on television in 2007.
Stones completed the screenplay for a third film in the series, 'The Phantom Claw"
based on a story by Stones and Mignola but it remains unproduced at this time.
Stones was the Supervising Producer and Director on another DVD at Film Roman
Studios, Turok: Son of Stone based
on the classic Gold Key comic book series. He has also written "Pyramid of
Death", one of the two stories in the first volume of the Hellboy Animated comic
book adaptation. He wrote and illustrated another young Hellboy story in the
second volume which featured another creation of Mike Mignola's, Lobster Johnson, "The Menace of the Mechanical
Monster." He also illustrated a story written by Todd Dezago in the third
issue of "The Perhapanauts" published by Image Comics. He has also
written for The Super Hero Squad Show and Generator Rex. He worked as an artist on Neighbors from Hell and Bob's Burgers. He has also contributed a script for the
first annual of the comic book revival of Darkwing Duck. After
quitting the Universal studio presentations, Stones returned to the Disney corporations
to direct the first part of the 19th episode of Jake and the Never Land Pirates called
"The Pirate Princess" since June 17, 2011. Although Darkwing
Duck is a spin-off of DuckTales, Stones stated in a 2016
interview that in his opinion the two shows exist in alternate universes.