De Maris, Merrill: - Merrill De Maris (1898-1948) was born in New Jersey and started work with Disney in 1933. De Maris divided his time between scripting the Silly Symphonies and Mickey Mouse comic strips and working as an animation story man. In the late 1930s, De Maris began a five-year run as the main Mickey scripter for plotter/penciler Floyd Gottfredson, creating such classics as "The Bar-None Ranch" (1938) and "Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot" (1939). In later years, De Maris left Disney to become a professional gardener.