When word got out that Disney was making The Princess and the Frog, its first movie with an African American heroine (set in the American South, of all places) critics of the company began sharpening their knives. Disney, after all, does not have a sterling history when it comes to portraying ethnic characters. And given the way black characters were depicted in so many early Hollywood cartoons as cannibals, monkeys and jive-talking crows, some would argue that the company had a lot of making up to do.

Sure enough, scrutiny was intense. Disney was praised by some, but others began criticizing the movie sight unseen.

A rumor got out that the princess was to be a chambermaid to a white woman during the New Orleans Jazz Age. (She isn't. She's a waitress with ambitions of opening her own restaurant though her mother is a seamstress who works for a wealthy white family.) The princess (who is voiced by Tony-award winning singer Anika Noni Rose) originally was to be called Maddy (short for Madeleine), but Disney changed her name to Tiana, reportedly because some thought Maddy sounded too much like Mammy.

Others examined the characters physical features, with some critics saying the prince she falls in love with (a dark-skinned man from the fictional country of Maldonia who is given voice by a Brazilian actor) doesn't appear to be of black African descent.

Then when Disney released an early trailer that showed a snaggle-toothed, talking firefly with a heavy Cajun accent, some thought he was an ugly black stereotype of the sort Disney used to populate its movies with.

On top of this, there was criticism from women who felt the story reinforced the notion that a woman's worth is based on her attractiveness and attachment to a man.

Miraculously, however, if two of the film's lead animators are to be believed, none of this filtered back to them as they worked on the movie.

"No, not really," said Mark Henn, a 30-year veteran of Disney who created the main character of Tiana. "None at all."

"You focus on what your role is and really you sort of get absorbed into that," said Mike Surrey, whose job it was to create and animate Ray, that talking firefly. The movie's 42 animators toiled in their rooms, making thousands of drawings each, which they then animated over approximately 18 months.

Every day, the animators would get together to watch dailies, footage of the scenes selected to be approved that week. They'd all sit together in a screening room and pore over all aspects of the character, offering comments and suggesting changes. This process is the same for every film.

"So that, really, is what it becomes about," Surrey said, "just making the movie."

By the time a movie reaches animators, both men said, important character decisions have already been made by the director, the script (or at least the first draft) has been written, and often the story already has been mapped out visually with storyboards that are put on a reel with stand-in talent doing the voices.

"That's usually when we come into the picture," Surrey said. "So whatever's happened up to that point is mysterious to us. We're more focused on 'where's my character.'"

Surrey and Mark Henn came through Houston earlier this month on a multi-city tour to promote The Princess and the Frog, which opens today. (I'll post a review shortly.)

The rest of the interview and a review of the movie will be posted shortly.

The film is Disney's hand-drawn movie since Home On the Range five years ago. Computer-generated images — and now digital 3D — have taken over.  Since the story of The Princess and the Frog harkens back to classic tales like Cinderella (which Henn credits with making him want to become an animator), hand-drawn animation makes sense for this project. But, again, the animators say they weren't privy to the decision-making process.

Henn said, however, that the instigating factor was the return of John Lasseter to Disney three years ago as principle creative executive.

Lasseter, who had worked for Disney in the 1980s, was a pioneer of computer-generated animation, oversaw all of Pixar's animated works and personally directed such films as Toy Story and its sequel, A Bug's Life and Cars. But he felt it was time for Disney to return to its roots.

"John Lasseter basically came back to the studio three years ago as our new creative exec and said, 'This is Disney animation and, yes, we're making 3D films now and that's fine, but Disney animation is all about hand drawn," Henn said. "'That's your heritage. That's our legacy, and we should be doing that.'

"So the short answer (to why The Princess and the Frog is hand drawn) is that John Lasseter said we're going to do this and the studio said ok.

"i think there was still some skepticism about that," Surrey said, "but John was fully confidant."

The animators were all for it.

"The powers that be decided what 5, 6 years ago that cg is the way to go — it's the way we're going to make money, it's the way we're going to make our movies," Surrey said. "But we all knew as animators (and Mark has been doing it for 30 years and myself for 20), we knew that it's really the story that's going to dictate how good your film is."

So, in a sense, The Princess and the Frog is a landmark and a gamble on several fronts — Disney's first black American heroine, a stylistic throwback to classic Disney and the test of whether Lasseter was right that audiences in the digital age will still embrace hand-drawn animation.

Lots of people will be watching eagerly to see how well it does this weekend.