Timothy Walter “Tim” Burton was born in Burbank, California on August 25, 1958.¹⁾

He is the son of Jean Burton, a cat-themed gift store owner, and Bill Burton, a former minor league baseball player who eventually worked for the Burbank Park and Recreation Department.²⁾

Burton used to produce short films in his backyard on Evergreen Street as a teen, utilizing basic stop motion animation techniques or shooting them on 8 mm film without sound. One of his oldest known juvenile films is The Island of Doctor Agor.³⁾

Burton attended Burbank High School, although he was not a particularly bright student.⁴⁾

He was a highly contemplative guy who enjoyed painting, sketching, and watching movies.⁵⁾

His subsequent work would be significantly influenced by Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl, two of his boyhood heroes.⁶⁾

Burton attended the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, after graduating from Burbank High School alongside Jeff Riekenberg.⁷⁾

Burton created the short films Stalk of the Celery Monster and King and Octopus while studying at CalArts. The animation section of Walt Disney Productions took notice of Stalk of the Celery Monster and offered Burton an animator's apprenticeship at the company.⁸⁾

He worked on films such as The Fox and the Hound (1981), The Black Cauldron, and Tron as an animator, storyboard artist, and concept artist. His concept work was never used in the completed films.⁹⁾

In 1982, while working at Disney, Burton created his debut short film, Vincent, a six-minute black-and-white stop motion picture based on a poem written by the filmmaker and featuring a young kid who fantasizes about being his hero Vincent Price, with Price himself narrating.¹⁰⁾

This was followed by Burton's first live-action film, Hansel and Gretel, a Japanese-themed rendition of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale that culminates in a kung fu battle between Hansel and Gretel and the witch.¹¹⁾