According to this piece in today’s LA Times, Ward Kimball’s family is dismantling his backyard Grizzly Flats Railroad - one of the major inspirations for Disneyland. John Lasseter is personally taking some of the depot buildings… the rest of the material donated to museums, or destroyed.

Ward Kimball made this film independently from the Disney Studio in 1968. It is the only independent short ever made by one of Disney’s Nine Old Men. He screened it at film festivals, college campuses and personally gave 16mm copies to friends and liberal-minded fans. The film below may be considered NSFW depending on where you work.

(Thanks to Ted Thomas, Steve Segal, John Canemaker)

“Cartoonist, painter, antique auto collector, railroad-in-his-back-yard Kimball, trombonist, photographer, leader of the Firehouse Five: all these are one and the same guy,” a magazine once wrote about animation legend Ward Kimball (1914-2002). And now he’s got his own MySpace. Check out his profile and become his friend at:

http://myspace.com/wardkimball

‘SirPef’ just posted these videos on YouTube and I had to share. If this music doesn’t make you smile, then I’m flat out of ideas. It’s toe-tappin’, finger-snappin’ goodness performed by legendary animation artists like Ward Kimball on trombone, Frank Thomas on piano and Harper Goff on banjo. Enjoy!

Animation director Jim Clark is one lucky son of a !?*$!%. That’s because he just bought an incredible Ward Kimball painting from 1949 titled “The Committee.” He shares his thoughts about Kimball and the painting on his BLOG. Also, I’d previously blogged some other Kimball paintings HERE and HERE.

Here’s a fascinating piece on legendary Disney animator Ward Kimball’s toy train collection and the recent auctions of the trains which grossed around $5 million. For those prices, I’d want real trains…

I was re-reading the Ward Kimball section in John Canemaker’s masterful WALT DISNEY’S NINE OLD MEN AND THE ART OF ANIMATION and ran across these tips from Ward. They were taken from his notes for an Action Analysis class that he taught at Art Center during the 1960s. Man, it would have been something to live in LA back when master animators like Kimball and Benny Washam were teaching around town. Nothing revelatory in these notes, but I’d wager it’s still more insightful than anything they’re teaching in animation schools nowadays.

> Elimination makes your drawing better.

> A cartoon character who is funny to look at before he is animated is going to be made funnier by the movement.

> The young filmmaker should draw what he or she pleases, not what any adult tells him or her to do.

After the recent post about Ward Kimball paintings, somebody emailed to ask whether I had a color version of Kimball’s painting of Disney colleagues Tom Oreb and Jesse Marsh, which was printed in ANIMATION BLAST #6. Indeed I do. Click on it for the full image.