Interviews with Disney Legends

Tomorrow with Tom Snyder was a late night/early morning talk show launched by NBC as a companion to The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and The Today Show. The reason for this was when tobacco ads were removed from TV, NBC wanted to try to make up for the lost revenue by extending their broadcast day. The Midnight Special and Saturday Night Live were other late night programs that resulted from this policy change. The Tomorrow Show ran from 1973-1981 when it was replaced with Late Night with David Letterman. In this episode, Tom Snyder interviews Disney legend Ward Kimball as they explore his home. Kimball was one of Walt's infamous Nine Old Men. Most of the Nine started with the studio in 1934/35 at the height of the Great Depression. These became the core group of animators Walt would rely on from the 1940's on. Each one specialized in a different type of animation performance. Ward was known for his zany comedy sequences and gags. One of his more well known gags is when the Dwarfs' noses pop over the bed in Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs. After his animation scene in Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs was cut, the infamous Soup Sequence, Walt made Ward the lead animator on a main character in the next film, Pinocchio. That character was Jiminy Cricket. Some of Ward's other famous performances include the crows in Dumbo, the title song in the Three Caballeros, Pecos Bill, the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum, the Indians in Peter Pan, the mice in Cinderella, and many others. Like all of the Nine Old Men, Ward did scenes in Song of the South as well and, like most of the Nine, he animated Professor Ludwig von Drake (one of the few characters most of the Nine had a hand in.) Interestingly, many of Ward's scenes are the ones the woke most frequently target today. In his day, Ward was regarded as being a radical liberal yet that term didn't mean then what it means today. Ward was also the leader of a jazz band comprised of Disney artists, the Fire House Five Plus Two. They frequently played at studio events and functions but were a legitimate popular mainstream band for over two decades. Often Ward would sleep in his office all week then quickly bang out his animation on Fridays, much to the resentment of his fellow artists. Ward was talented enough that his animation always came out great as he burned the candle at both ends. He was the only person Walt Disney ever called a genius but they could have a love/hate relationship at times. Ward was also an expert on transportation history. In this, he was a kindred spirit with Walt Disney in having a foot in the past and a foot in the future. Ward and his wife, Betty, were the first private citizen to own a real working locomotive engine and railroad in their backyard. They called it the Grizzly Flats Railroad. (In the 2000's, some of this railroad was bought and incorporated into the railroad on John Lasseter's property.) They also owned numerous other forms of antique transportation vehicles. Ward sometimes rented his machines out to the studio for the live action films, much to the disgust of Walt Disney. In the 1950's, Walt put Ward in charge of a series of films about Man in Space that aired on the Disneyland TV series. It was because of these films NASA was able to get the momentum to launch the space program and eventually go to the moon. Ward was set to direct Babes in Toyland when a studio conflict had him removed from the picture. After Walt passed away, Ward kicked around the studio for a few years before retiring in the early 1970's. It was no fun for him anymore and he'd made too many enemies. Always the practical joker, it was Ward who originated the urban legend that Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen. This persistent rumor has stuck to this day. Ward was asked to return to the studio to work with the imagineers on a History of Transportation attraction for the under construction EPCOT Center. Both his knowledge of the history and his skill as a gag man provided some humorous scenes in the ride. In 1989 Ward Kimball was named a Disney Legend along with the other Nine Old Men and Ub Iweks. They were the bedrock of the animation studio. Ward passed away in 2002. Original air date November 22, 1978 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

"Heeeeeeere's Johnny!!" Actually, here's Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. Collectively, they were known as Frank and Ollie to the point many people thought "Frankenollie" was one person. College friends in art school, the pair formed a lifelong friendship closer than brothers, (they even bought connecting lots where they built their family homes.) Starting at the Walt Disney Studios together in the mid 1930's, both were among Walt Disney's legendary Nine Old Men. They oversaw numerous animated characters over their over five decades with the studio. After their retirement, they continued to mentor the younger generation starting their own careers at the Walt Disney Studios. They also co-authored several books on animation together so all they'd discovered would be lost. These books are highly sought after animation textbooks today. Their first book, The Illusion of Life, is what brought them on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Johnny Carson hosted the Tonight Show for over 30 years along with his sidekick Ed Mcmahon. This became the definitive late night talk show to this day. In this short interview, Johnny interviews the pair about their career with Walt Disney, genuinely interested in their book. It's a shame this interview isn't longer. When the stagehand met Frank and Ollie on this appearance. he looked them over and said "So...YOU'RE the guys who shot Bambi's mother..." Original air date May 25, 1982 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

On January 13, 1988 Admiral Joe Fowler was filmed for an in house Walt Disney Company interview. This is an excerpt from that interview. Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

This is an interview tying in with the 1995 theatrical release of the documentary film Frank & Ollie about the animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. It was filmed at the Sundance Film Festival, where the film, made by Frank's son Theodore, debuted. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston were two of Walt Disney's Nine Old Men. These were the core group of animators he primarily relied on from the early 1940's through his death in 1966. Collectively, they were known as Frank and Ollie to the point many people thought "Frankenollie" was one person. College friends in art school, the pair formed a lifelong friendship closer than brothers, (they even bought connecting lots where they built their family homes.) Starting at the Walt Disney Studios together in the mid 1930's, they oversaw numerous animated characters over their over five decades with the studio. After their retirement, they continued to mentor the younger generation starting their own careers at the Walt Disney Studios. They also co-authored several books on animation together so all they'd discovered would be lost. These books are highly sought after animation textbooks today. In this short interview the pair talk about their career with Walt Disney. It's a shame this interview isn't longer. The documentary film Frank & Ollie is a historical record of the pair's friendship and how it shaped Walt Disney Feature Animation. It was put out in wide release in October of 1995 and was later released to VHS and DVD. Original air date January 1995 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

This segment of the ABC news magazine 20/20 focus on Oscar winning animator/director Brad Bird. In it, he shares a glimpse of his story on the eve of the premiere of the Incredibles. He completed his first film at age 14 and it earned him an internship at the Walt Disney Studios where he apprenticed under Milt Kahl. Bird was among the first class of students of Walt Disney's art school, Cal Arts, and was at Walt Disney Productions for a time in the late 1970's. He was the first of his class to put the Easter egg of A113 in his films (a reference to the classroom they all met in.) and this has since become a tradition. He quickly earned a reputation for being a rebel and worked on a number of projects away from Disney. These included developing an animated feature based on the Will Eisner comic book The Spirit. He wrote the screenplay Batteries Not Included, was a co-creator of the Amazing Stories episode Family Dog, and he was one of the original animation filmmakers on The Simpsons. He was particularly protective of the character of Krusty. He then made the film The Iron Giant when his sister was gunned down by her estranged husband in a murder/suicide. The premise was what if a gun had a soul. From there he was reunited with his classmate John Lasseter when he joined Pixar to make The Incredibles making him the first outsider brought into the studio. In that film he also voiced Edna Mode. He's also made such films as Ratatoullie, Tomorrowland, and The Incredibles 2. He's currently at Skydance Studio where he's working with John Lasseter again after Lasseter was forced out of Disney and Pixar. Original airdate October 2004 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.