John Lamb

John Lamb is an American artist and entrepreneur.

Lamb created among the first American animated surfing and skateboarding cartoons, and perhaps the first American animated, rotoscoped music video. In 1979, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented Lamb with an Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement for co-invention of the Lyon Lamb Video Animation System (VAS).

In the early 1970s, Lamb's animation appeared in two seminal surf movies. The Forgotten Island of Santosha by Larry and Roger Yates featured Lamb's first animated film Secret Spot (1974), while Five Summer Stories by McGillivray-Freeman Films (1975) featured Lamb's animated short Rocket 88.

Secret Spot introduced Willy Makitt, Lamb's trademark surfer. Secret Spot features an "air" maneuver where the surfer rides up the face of the wave, into the air, and lands back on the wave to continue surfing. This maneuver was pure imagination at the time, and is now a standard trick in the world surf community. Rocket 88 also features Willie Makitt doing a "shuvit" maneuver, which would later become a standard trick among skateboarders. The "shuvit" maneuver shows Willy Makitt kick-flipping the surfboard, causing it to spin - he then lands it to continue the ride. In 1975, Willy Makitt was licensed by Hang Ten and featured on their fiberglass skateboards, which can be seen in an NBC newscast on the "new" skateboarding phenomenon.Most recently, Lamb and Secret Spot were honored by the California Surf Museum in Oceanside, CA with a permanent installation. Hand painted by Lamb, with a bigger-than-life wave scene and classic hot rods, tikis, palm trees and jungle scene, the iconic Willy Makitt is featured at the peak of the giant wave. The Secret Spot installation plays host to art openings, premieres and surf extravaganzas of all types at the groundbreaking museum. The installation also features the work of Brett Hazzard, who created the "footprints in the sand" and breathtaking beach effect, that completes the installation's unique experience. See the mural's start and sky-bending finish on YouTube.