Upon graduating from the California Institute of the Arts, Bird began working for Disney. He worked as an animator on "The Small One" (1978), "The Fox and the Hound" (1981), "The Black Cauldron" (1985) albeit uncredited. While animating at Disney, he became a part of a small group of animators who worked in a suite of offices inside the original animation studio called the "Rat's Nest", which was pejoratively dubbed by animator Don Bluth during production of "The Small One". There, he would vocally criticize the upper management for not taking risks on animation and playing it safe. During the middle of production of "The Fox and the Hound", Bird was fired by animation administrator Ed Hansen.