Disney: Allow the Ward Kimball Biography to be Published

  • by: Brian Todd
  • recipient: The Walt Disney Company

Ward Kimball, probably best known for being the person that animated Jiminy Cricket, was one of the greatest artistic and creative talents that ever worked for the Walt Disney studio. Walt Disney himself referred to Kimball as a "genius". He was inducted as a Disney Legend in 1989.

Besides working as an animator, he was also a director, directing the Man in Space series of episodes for the Wonderful World of Color, the short lived series The Mouse Factory and the Academy Award winning short It's Tough to be a Bird among others. He formed and played trombone in the Disney Dixieland combo The Firehouse Five Plus Two. A shared interest with Walt in vintage steam trains helped lead to the creation of Disneyland. Ward himself had a full size operating steam train in his backyard, the Grizzly Flats Railroad. One of the trains that circles Disneyland today is designated the Ward Kimball. He was the designer of the World of Motion pavilion at EPCOT in Florida. 

Amid Amidi of the website Cartoon Brew wrote a biography of Ward Kimball. He had a publisher, Chronicle Books, lined up. All that was left to do was to send it to the printer. At the last moment, the Walt Disney Company blocked publication of the book, not for any copyrighted material, not for any inaccuracies, but because it didn't "fit" their storybook version of life at the studio and the people that worked there. See: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/advance-praise-for-the-book-that-disney-doesnt-want-you-to-read-73722.html for more information. Even Kimball's children want this book to be published. 

The Walt Disney Company should not be allowed to whitewash the history of itself or of the people who worked there.

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