John Lounsbery

I would love to have met Lounsbery, but by the time I started at Disney, he had already passed away in early 1976. Co directing "The Rescuers" had been his last assignment at Disney.

Everybody who knew him has only the nicest things to say about him.

Animator Dale Baer learned under Lounsbery during the training program in the seventies, and he still raves about how kind,  patient and giving he was.

Dale recently had the chance to animate one of his tutor's classic characters in the upcoming (in the States) "Winnie the Pooh". 

His animation of Owl is very much inspired by Louns (as he is often referred to 

at the studio).

In the late eighties I got to meet his wife Florence, and one of the things I asked her was, if she kept any original artwork from her husband. The answer she gave me almost made me cry. She said: "Oh, we had a lot of his animation and sketches at the house, but we had that big fire, and it's all gone".

I don't even remember what she said as to when that happened,  it just stopped me in my tracks.

As you know John Lounsbery was a fantastic animator, and a great draftsman, too, as you can see in the attached drawings.

In "Pinocchio" he did some of the early scenes with Honest John and Gideon.

His animation of Dumbo is so darn cute, like the sequence where he gets drunk,

just preceding the Pink Elephants.

In "Fantasia" John did the main alligator for Dance of the Hours. That has to be 

some of the funniest stuff ever animated.

Below is a photo showing him at work on "Sword in the Stone", looks like he is looking for that one lost drawing.

I love the staging in these roughs of Willie the Giant.

He looks scary and funny at the same time.

The first drawing of Mr Darling from "Peter Pan" is from one of the all time great 

acting scenes in Disney animation. Here he is arguing with his wife, he also pretends to be scared at the very thought of Peter Pan.

Check this scene out frame by frame, you'll learn a lot.

The drawings of Bull, the English bulldog, from "Lady & Tramp" shows how comfortable Lounsbery is with animal anatomy.

Frank and Ollie said that John was able to follow Milt Kahl's drawings and designs

better than anybody.

Again, great staging in the next image of the policeman and the professor arguing.

Then comes what I consider probably his greatest work, the two Italian cooks,

Tony and Joe. These guys just about stele the film, he nailed them.

Over the top gestures, crisp timing and inventive drawing.

Look at that  profile of Joe with his chef's hat. When are you ever going to get funnier shapes and forms.

Beautiful, expressive mouth shapes as Joe sings and plays the accordion.

(Had to look up the spelling of that word, the writing is different in German)

Next is Samson from "Sleeping Beauty", some cool roughs showing him coming to a stop.

Same movie, an expressive drawing of one of the goons and a great image of the 

owl as a prince.

The drawings of the Colonel from "101 Dalmatians" show John's first animation pass for that scene.

The wolf in "Sword in the Stone" was designed by Milt Kahl, but beautifully animated by Louns.

At the end of this Lounsbery Gallery is a design/doodle sheet for "The Aristocats"

Ward Kimball II

Here is a little Kimball encore.

This is in reference to last post's photo with him signing the character board :

For the opening of this showcase of classic Disney drawing panels we had invited the remaining Nine Old Men. Frank and Ollie weren't able to make it, but Marc Davis and Ward came by.

At the end of our little wine & cheese reception my animator friend Doug Frankel,

who is a huge Kimball fan, had the courage to walk up to Ward and to introduce himself. Ward sat on a chair, facing one of these panels, stonefaced !

So Doug said excitedly :" Listen to this, Ward, I've heard this great joke !"

And he proceeded telling it, I forgot now what it was all about.

The punchline came, the joke was told....Kimball still stonefaced looking at the panel. He then slowly turned his head to face Doug and went :

"HAAAAR, haaar, haaar !!"

Ward's face then turned back to the panel.

I still remember poor Doug's awkward smile as he walked away to grab a beer.

Lesson #1 :  You don't tell Ward Kimball a joke, you let him tell you one !

The photos below show Ward at work on "Alice in Wonderland".

The live action pics with final film frame grabs might not match completely,

but it's close enough.

Following are a couple of key roughs of Old King Cole from "Mother Goose goes 

Hollywood".

These remind me of an Ollie Johnston statement to students:

"Your drawings can be rough, but they need to be clear !"

That's what these are.

The rest are more drawings of Panchito and Donald for "The Three Caballeros".

Strong poses and tons of appeal...except for that one Donald sketch on the last sheet. Typical ! :)

Ward Kimball

Ward Kimball was hilarious.

For the most part his animation differed from the work of his colleagues, it almost seems like once he mastered a certain approach,  he had to change to prevent 

from being bored.  Frank Thomas felt that Kimball's only  sincere character animation was Jiminy Cricket.

 From then on he needed to experiment and explore in order to keep himself entertained. And he always entertained us.

I didn't know Ward as well as the other then living Nine Old Men, but I had been invited to his house on a few occasions, and I even starred in a Disney TV show with him in the mid nineties. 

We had just finished the Mickey Mouse short "Runaway Brain", and the Disney channel wanted to help promote it with a half hour special called  "Mickey reelin' through the Years". It also starred the kid actors from "Home Improvement", who asked us a few scripted questions, and we gave scripted answers.

Except....when it came to introducing me to the kids, Ward had a hard time pronouncing my last name. So it went like, take 11  :  Hia kids, this is animator Andreas Deeeegg.....ohh, sh#@ !!

Somebody finally held up a card board sign with my name spelled phonetically.

That did the trick, and Ward got close enough.

The shooting took all afternoon and into the evening. The kids had finished their parts and gone home, but Ward and I still needed to draw for the camera and comment at the same time. Since it was a getting late, Ward got a little bored with the whole thing.

They wanted him to draw a vintage version of Mickey, so he started and said:

"After I finish a circle for his head, I add two more smaller ones for his ears, Then I draw a line from his neck all the way down to his penis....."

All you heard then was the director yelling :" CUT, CUT, CUT!"

Wards facial expression was priceless, like: what's the matter, anything wrong ?

At the end of the day he gave me his "revised" drawing and signed it.

I have to laugh every time I look at it. 

There are more funny Ward stories for later posts.

Also I need to put together a rough pencil test with one of his scenes from Fantasia.

Below is a beautiful story sketch of Ward, done for the feature "The Reluctant Dragon".

The first photo shows us getting our make up for the TV show.

In the the next one Kimball signs a big board with rough animation images.

I had a bunch of those boards made up to decorate the hallways at Disney.

Then there is the infamous Mickey drawing...which I think is just beautiful.

Following are animation drawings from the deleted Soup eating Sequence,

Jiminy Cricket, Panchito, Donald, Germania from "Education for Death",

the Reluctant Dragon (hysterical animation), Sascha from "Peter & the Wolf",

Tweedledee & Dum, and a cel from "Mars and Beyond".

What a range, what an animator!

Milt Kahl II

A little more on Milt Kahl for now, (there will be much more later).

The two lovely ladies in the photo knew him well, particularly Sybil Byrnes 

on the right.

She is Milt's daughter and says that her dad was not only driven by perfection in his work, but in his hobbies as well. Crossword puzzles, playing chess or fly fishing, he was great at all those things. 

As a child Sybil was popular in school, because she could invite her classmates to

work in progress screenings of films like "Peter Pan".

The other lady is Kathryn Beaumont Levine, who as you might already know, is the voice as well as the live action model for Alice and Wendy. She remembers Milt well, and that he frequently updated Kathryn on how her character and certain sequences were coming along during the production.

The photo was taken at the Academy's tribute to Milt Kahl in April of 2009.

I had the honor of hosting this event. (And boy, was it fun!).

Following are pictures of some Milt's wire sculptures. They are a bit difficult to photograph, because they become two dimensional. Full of grace and beauty

they show again his sense for design and motion.

These pictures were taken by animation historian Robin Allen.

Then we have a bunch of hilarious Marc Davis gag drawings.

Marc and Milt were best friends, but I guess occasional arguments would come up

over issues like the length of Alice's arms. Too funny!

Today I finish with a few design drawings for the short "Lambert, the sheepish Lion". 

Milt didn't animate on it at all, but for the final look of the main character they needed Milt's touch.

I see a foreshadowing of Tigger in the first sheet. Beautiful squash and stretch in his face. Wonderful gutsy drawings.

And again everybody, I do enjoy your comments.