Bill Justice, a former Walt Disney Studios animator who worked on such classics as “Fantasia,” “Bambi” and “Alice in Wonderland,” and later joined Walt Disney Imagineering, where he helped program Audio-Animatronics figures for attractions at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, died Thursday, a day after he turned 97.

Justice died of natural causes in a nursing home in Santa Monica, said Ted King, a family friend.

An Ohio native who began his career at Walt Disney Studios in 1937, Justice’s credits as a Disney animator include “Saludos Amigos,” “Victory Through Air Power,” “The Three Caballeros,” “Make Mine Music” and “Peter Pan.”

Among the characters Justice animated were Thumper in “Bambi” and the mischievous Chip ’n’ Dale.

Justice also directed the animated Mickey Mouse March opening for the popular 1950s TV series “The Mickey Mouse Club.”

“If he’d done nothing else but direct that unforgettable Mickey Mouse Club opening, he’d have a place in the hearts of baby boomer Disney fans everywhere,” said film critic and historian Leonard Maltin.

“He did so many different things over the course of his career and wound up as an Imagineer, bringing the same sense of inventiveness to that field as he did to animation,” Maltin said.

After joining Walt Disney Imagineering in 1965, Justice helped program Audio-Animatronics figures for Disneyland attractions such as Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, the Carousel of Progress, Mission to Mars, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, Country Bear Jamboree and America Sings.