Ward Kimball - Tomorrow with Tom Snyder (November 22, 1978)

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.