Ward Kimball - The Innovative Animator - Mad Hatter 

Ward Kimball looked like the coolest person in the world! A fantastic and innovative animator, and someone who loved trains so much!

Wow, he had one of the greatest train collections of all time. 🤩 It’s no secret that trains and animation are both such engrossing amusements.

this channel is amazing . Thank you

Now I understand why he quit animating after a while, because Milt Kahl didn’t want wacky animation, to make up for Kimball’s absence you had John Sibley working on some of them, he was a sort of protege of Kimball, he also did wacky animation but apparently Milt approved of his stuff, you should do one on Sibley someday he’s a very underrated animator who did a lot of key scenes.

I'm well acquainted with a friend of Ward's. Larry Jensen, author of "The Movie Railroads," as his primary field of study was trains in the movies. He told me a story in regards to a small beef Ward had with Walt over the Disneyland railroad. This is the story he emailed me: "Ward did personally tell me the story of Walt wanting the Emma Nevada for Disneyland, circa 1957. The trains were running at full capacity and he needed to add another one. Ward said it was presented by Walt as a done deal; 'we're going take Emma to Disneyland and use it there.' Ward pointed out it was too big for the tunnel and other clearances, as well as being a coal burner that was borderline inoperable. Walt's answer was 'we can fix those things.' Ward did give him a firm no, which is something few people ever did to Disney, and never without consequences. Ward was not afraid of losing his job, but he did know there would be consequences. He just didn't know what price he would have to pay. Ward said one day a workman came to his office and said that Walt wanted him to fix Ward's air conditioner. Each office had its own window air conditioner back then. It was summer. Summers in Burbank are about like summers in Carson City. Ward told him the air conditioner worked fine. The guy insisted he had to fix it, removed it from the window and took it away. Ward sweated for a few weeks before the guy brought it back and told him it was fixed. Ward knew he had paid the price in full for saying no to Walt. He seemed to think he got off fairly easy. It was never mentioned again."

Eric Larson, Les Clark, Frank and Ollie. We need all of the Nine!

Pogo creator Walt Kelly affectionally called Kimball "the ogre of the animation department."

@Dizographies I would love to see a Dizography on Bill Tytla , if you haven't done one already you should

Ward Walrath Kimball (March 4, 1914 - July 8, 2002)