Animator, teacher and foster parent to many
A beloved art teacher, award-winning animator and skilled miniaturist, it was actually Jim Allan’s role as a foster parent that trumped all others, at least for him.
Since 1972, he took on about 50 wayward boys who got into trouble with the law — car thieves, truants, runaways and incorrigibles alike — who nobody else wanted to deal with, giving “selfless service, attention and love to children who are so desperately in need of a friend,” a juvenile probation officer said of Mr. Allan in 1980.
Largely a thankless job, the gratitude came later.
“They grew up, had kids of their own and always kept in touch with Jim — that’s how much they respected him,” said his longtime friend Phil Wilson, an illustrator and animator who partnered with Mr. Allan in Allan & Wilson Animation Studio.
Judging by the accolades and adoration expressed for him on social media in recent days, Mr. Allan was also among the best, most gifted and gracious educators as well.
“He was the best of us,” one former student posted on Facebook.
Mr. Allan, whose home in Pleasant Hills was the first in the nation to be built with an integrated bomb shelter, died March 11 of cardiovascular disease. He was 84.
After growing up in Uniontown, Mr. Allan graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in 1964 and went to work as the manager of the Allegheny County graphics and print shop.
“I was working i n Cleveland at the time and I hated it,” Mr. Wilson recalled of meeting Mr. Allan in the late ’ 60s. “I wanted to get back to Pittsburgh and Jim interviewed me for a job with the county graphics department. We were the only two people in the department for a while.”
In their spare time, the two played around with their main hobby: cartoon animation.
“Jim had an animation studio in his basement and I worked out of my apartment in Castle Shannon,” he said.
Their first project in the 1970s was designing “Dirty Gertie — the poor, polluted birdie,” as part of a television campaign for GASP, the Group Against Smog and Pollution.
“That was the first thing we did together,” Mr. Wilson said.
In 1979, they formed Allan & Wilson Animation Studio and went to work designing children’s programming, including 30-second public service spots and an animated show they sold to HBO.
The pair were contracted to design a Christmas story for the Showtime network, and did the animation for ‘80s horror flicks “Creepshow” and “Creepshow 2.”
“Jim did the technical end of it and I did all the animation and backgrounds,” Mr. Wilson said. “We were a great team because we didn’t step on each other’s toes.”
As their profile grew, so too did their opportunities to branch out.
“We did an animated video for ‘Runnin’ Down a Dream’ for Tom Petty and it got a lot of play on MTV. Rolling Stone magazine put it at the top 5 best videos for 1989,” Mr. Wilson said. “We had some pretty good luck. We did about a dozen TV commercials sprinkled in among the bigger jobs, like the national spot that introduced Heinz barbecue sauce. We had a pretty good run and we remained friends all these years. We got along great.”
In 1972, Mr. Allan got involved with helping young people when a friend asked him to drive a group of kids to an outing. He previously served as a Boy Scout leader, took kids fishing and volunteered at a local camp called Sleepy Hollow.
That year, he also bought the country’s first bombproof home, built by a contractor as the Cold War intensified in 1959.
The specially built home, with hatch doors, metal bunks and an 18-foot-long escape tunnel that opens to a wishing well in the side yard, even included gas masks and a Geiger counter.
With extras like a pool table, juke box and strobe lights, it was an ideal mancave that the teenage boys loved to explore.
Over the years, Mr. Allan taught 15 kids to drive and often paid for everything from stereos to clothes and concert tickets out of his own pocket.
As county child welfare agencies sent dozens of boys to live with him, Mr. Allan’s main goal was to reunite them with their families if possible and to keep them from being placed in juvenile detention centers or other institutions. But it wasn’t always easy, Mr. Allan said at the time, especially for a bachelor with no kids.
“I’m in a difficult role,” he said in a January 1980 Post-Gazette story. “I’m trying to be a parent and hand out advice and I’m trying to be a friend, too. It’s a lot of work taking in someone else’s teenager. The rewards must come later.”
Mr. Allan provided a safe haven to kids who learned to expect the worst, like those who sometimes “tried to sell themselves to you,” he said, to get a chance at living in a normal home.
It could be quite sad at times.
“It’s a day by day thing, keeping the kids in school, trying to communicate with parents to get some of the kids back into their families.”
Mr. Allan, who was recognized with several awards, also taught the kids to pay it forward.
He learned early on not to expect gratitude, Mr. Allan said in a November 1979 story in The Pittsburgh Press.
“These are kids who’ve never had anything to appreciate. So, if you’re looking for them to say thank you, you can forget it.”
What he gave the kids, besides a stable environment, home-cooked meals and guidance, was time.
“You take some of these kids on a fishing trip to Canada and they think they’re on a different planet,” he said.
By 1990, he began teaching animation and airbrushing at the now-closed Art Institute and serving as a consultant with the Douglas Education Center.
Mr. Allan, who in recent years also began designing and selling miniatures, won teaching awards and was often lauded by students and colleagues as among the best educators at the Art Institute.
“He was always good with kids,” Mr. Wilson remembered. “He just had a patient nature about him, that’s why he enjoyed teaching, too. He helped kids who needed it the most to get a step up in life.”
There are no immediate funeral or memorial plans.