1940
Let’s face it—if you want to see a top-notch Christmas card in action, it probably helps if you’re buddies with an old Disney hand or Chuck Jones or Tex Avery or somebody groovy like that. Ward Kimball was precisely that, one of Disney’s “Nine Old Men”, creator of Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio and the Mad Hatter and Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland as well as, surely, countless others.
Every year from the 1930s through 1966, Kimball would employ his unbeatable cartoonist’s arts to crank out a witty Christmas card. His cards were immensely popular, and his list of recipients ballooned to over 1,000 by the time he was done with it.
Ward Kimball
Imagine if you personally knew a top Disney animator, and imagine how awesome his Christmas cards would be—that’s exactly how great Kimball’s cards are. Frequent motifs include cute choo-choo trains, urchins, and trombones—in point of fact, Kimball himself played the trombone, as the Christmas video below vividly demonstrates. Most of the cards feature Kimball and his wife and children (where applicable—this changed throughout the years, of course) and starting in the 1950s the cards were more likely to include photographic montage instead of his ass-kicking draftsmanship skills. Either way his instincts for caricature and the sight gag were in fine form throughout the entire period under investigation.
Apparently (judging from the 1950 card), the Kimballs owned a cat named “Feets,” and we can only hope that they had a lion named Stanley, too, but I’m somehow less sure of that part.
1936
1943
1950
1965
1966
There are a bunch more of Kimball’s great Christmas cards at Cartoon Brew.
Here’s a marvelous Christmas video from the “Firehouse Five Plus Two,” as the Disney animators styled their awesome Dixieland band. Around the 1:35 mark Kimball on the trombone gets into a dueling solo type thing with clarinetist Clarke Mallery.
via Tombolare
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Disney’s Guide for Men on How to Get Girls
Walt Disney’s ‘Taxi Driver’