'Mickey Mouse', 1930.
Jack King was a U.S. animated film director, best remembered as an animator for Disney. Between 1929-1933 and again from 1936-1948, he worked on various shorts for the studio, starring Mickey Mouse and later predominantly Donald Duck. He became one of their most productive animated short directors. King also contributed to the 'Silly Symphonies' series and Disney's animated features. Between 1933 and 1936, King briefly worked for Warner Brothers' animation department too. As a comic artist, his career was brief. For a few weeks in 1930, King did some filler work on the 'Mickey Mouse' newspaper comic.
Early life and career
James Patton King was born in 1895 in Birmingham, Alabama. He started his career at Raoul Barré's studio in 1917, after which he joined William Randolph Hearst's 'International Film Service (1916-1918), followed by the Bray Studios. At Bray, he worked on animated adaptations of the newspaper comic strips 'Judge Rummy' and 'Silk Hat Harry's Divorce Suit' by Tad Dorgan, as well as George Herriman's 'Krazy Kat'. Among his colleagues were Raoul Barré, Wallace Carlson, Shamus Culhane, Clyde Geronimi, Milt Gross, Burt Gillett, David Hand, Frank Moser, Grim Natwick and Pat Sullivan. In the mid-1920s, King also worked for Bill Nolan's animation studio, where he worked on cartoons based on George Herriman's 'Krazy Kat'.
Disney animation (1929-1933)
Between 1929 and 1933, King first worked for the Walt Disney Company. He was animator on various 'Mickey Mouse' cartoons, of which 'Mickey's Orphans' (1931), 'Mickey's Nightmare' (1932), 'The Mad Doctor' (1933) and 'Mickey's Gala Premier' (1933) remain the best-known. King was also closely involved with several 'Silly Symphonies' cartoons, such as 'Flowers and Trees' (1932) - one of the first color cartoons in history - and 'The Three Little Pigs' (1933). King would eventually leave the studio by 17 May 1933, after an argument with Disney.
'Mickey Mouse', 1930.
Mickey Mouse newspaper comic
While chiefly known as an animator, King was briefly employed by Disney's comic strip department too. In early 1930, Walt Disney had launched a 'Mickey Mouse' newspaper comic, which he scripted, while Ub Iwerks provided artwork. However the labor and pressure of a daily comic caused a lot of problems during the first six months. Iwerks left the series after only a month. His replacement, Win Smith continued the series for three months until getting into an argument with Disney and also leaving the studio. King was one of several Disney animators who temporarily drew or inked the 'Mickey Mouse' comic during this chaotic period, alongside Earl Duvall, Hardie Gramatky and Roy Nelson. King drew 'Mickey Mouse' between 9 and 21 June 1930, until Floyd Gottfredson became the definitive 'Mickey Mouse' scriptwriter and artist.
According to Devon Baxter on the website cartoonresearch.com, King drew his characters with vertical pie-cut eyes and hobnails on Mickey's shoes. Reportedly, Disney disliked this hobnails, but many other Disney artists started imitating it. At a certain point, the studio gave their staff a special briefing to avoid drawing or inking hobnails on Mickey's shoes.
Warner Brothers (1933-1936)
In 1933, King was hired by Warner Brothers' brand new animation studio, where he stayed for three years. Originally he was just an animator, but when one of the directors, Earl Duvall, got drunk and into an argument with Warners' producer Leon Schlesinger, Duvall was fired and King appointed as his successor. Most cartoons King directed revolved around the now-forgotten characters 'Buddy and Beans'. One memorable short is 'A Cartoonist's Nightmare' (1935), in which Beans is an overworked animator who has a bad dream where his cartoon creations terrify him. The cartoon is notable for its scary but imaginative imagery and metafictional, self-reflexive commentary on the animation profession.
He directed four 'Porky Pig' cartoons too, namely 'Fish Tales' (1936), 'Shanghaied Shipmates' (1936), 'Porky's Pet' (1936) and 'Porky's Moving Day' (1936). While King did oversee the rise of Warners' first enduring cartoon star, 'Porky Pig', the studio was still far behind Walt Disney in popularity. His successors, Friz Freleng, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones and Frank Tashlin, would eventually revolutionize Warners with more zany characters like 'Daffy Duck' (1937) and 'Bugs Bunny' (1940), but King had already left by that point. Still, King provided the studio with valuable technical skills and tips from his own personal experience at Disney. These modernized Warners' animation department enough to eventually become Disney's true competitor from the 1940s on.
'Mickey Mouse', 1930.
Disney animation (1936-1948)
In 1936, King returned to the Walt Disney animation studio. He moved up the ladder as a director, which attracted him not just for the larger creative control, but also since Disney was one of the few studios at the time who could afford producing cartoons in color. King's first short was 'Modern Inventions' (1937), a Donald Duck cartoon co-scripted by Carl Barks. King would direct 50 cartoons starring the short-tempered duck, with many narratives, gags and new side characters thought up by Barks. In 'Donald's Nephews' (1938), for instance, Huey, Dewey and Louie made their on screen debut, after being introduced in Al Taliaferro's 'Donald Duck' newspaper comic a few months earlier. The lazy and gluttonous goose Gus Goose was introduced in 'Donald's Cousin Gus' (1939), while Donald's girlfriend Daisy made her first appearance in 'Mr. Duck Steps Out' (1940). King directed one "celebrity caricature" cartoon, 'The Autograph Hound' (1939), in which Donald visits Hollywood where he tries to get autographs of famous movie stars like Greta Garbo, Mickey Rooney, Sonja Henie, The Ritz Brothers and Shirley Temple. After Barks left the animation studio in 1942, Roy Williams became the prime scriptwriter of the 'Donald' cartoons.
In 'Window Cleaners' (1940), starring Donald Duck and Pluto, an annoying bumblebee was introduced, who would later be named Spike. He reappeared in a few cartoons featuring Mickey Mouse or Pluto, but is best remembered as a recurring opponent of Donald in Jack Hannah's 'Inferior Decorator' (1948), 'Honey Harvester' (1949), 'Slide, Donald, Slide' (1949), 'Bee at the Beach' (1950), 'Bee on Guard' (1951) and 'Let's Stick Together' (1952).
During World War II, King directed the propaganda cartoons 'Donald Gets Drafted' (1942), 'The Vanishing Private' (1943), 'The Spirit of '43' (1943) and 'Commando Duck' (1944). 'The Spirit of '43' was a sequel to 'The New Spirit' (1942), directed by Wilfred Jackson and Ben Sharpsteen. In both cartoons, Donald learns the value of paying income tax to support the U.S. war effort. Yet 'The Spirit of '43' is the more memorable cartoon, since it features a more dramatic opening narrative, where Donald argues back and forth with a stereotypical Scottish duck who advices him to save his money, and a hustler duck in direct alliance with the Nazis who wants him to spend it. The Scottish duck is a prototype of the character Carl Barks would eventually develop into Uncle Scrooge. According to reports of the time, both 'Spirit' cartoons succeeded in convincing a large part of the U.S. population to indeed pay their income taxes "to save for victory". 'Commando Duck' is a more contested war-time propaganda cartoon by King, in which Donald combats stereotypically portrayed Japanese soldiers.
King's 'Donald Duck and the Gorilla' (1944), on which Barks collaborated, shares a similar plot element with Barks' short comic 'The Rabbit's Foot' (1943), in which Donald and the nephews are also confronted with a menacing gorilla. King's 'Sleepy Time Donald' (1946) was adapted into a comic strip version by Jack Hannah. 'Donald's Dilemma' (1947), also directed by King, marks the first use of Donald Duck's theme song ("Who's got the sweetest deposition? One guess, guess, who?") in the opening credits. The song was composed by Oliver Wallace. At the time, only a few cartoon stars had their own theme song, namely The Fleischer Brothers' Betty Boop and Popeye and Paul Terry's 'Mighty Mouse'. While the Disney studios produced many 'Donald Duck' cartoons, some of their animators developed a hatred for the tantrum-throwing duck, especially his quacking voice. This might explain why in some cartoons directed by King, like 'Donald's Dilemma' (1947) and 'Donald's Dream Voice' (1948), Donald temporarily speaks in a normal voice, while in 'Donald's Double Trouble' (1946), he meets a lookalike with a smooth voice who goes on a date with Daisy, while a jealous Donald looks on in horror, having fewer dialogue than usual.
King was also a character animator on the short 'The Wind in the Willows' (1949) and directed some animated sequences in 'Pinocchio' (1940), 'Dumbo' (1940), 'Saludos Amigos' (1942) and 'Make Mine Music' (1946). As was practice at the time - most of King's work remained uncredited at the time. Just like the cartoons of fellow director Jack Kinney, King's cartoons are notable for occasional darker comedy than typical Disney cartoons and often end with a chase scene.
Final years, death, legacy and influence
By the mid-1940s, King retired, with Jack Hannah succeeding him as the main 'Donald Duck' director. Jack King passed away 10 years later, in 1958, in Los Angeles. While some shorts he directed for Disney were nominated for an Academy Award, he never won.
Jack King's 'Donald's Dilemma' (1947) was an inspiration to the animated intermezzo 'Dental Hygiene Dilemma' in Frank Zappa's cult movie '200 Motels'. This animated short, based on designs by Cal Schenkel and directed by Charles Swenson, not only has a similar title and similar visual ideas, but also features a grotesque cameo of Donald Duck. Obviously without permission of the Walt Disney Company.
From left to right: Walt Disney, Carl Stalling, Ben Sharpsteen, Ub Iwerks, Les Clark, Burt Gillett, Johnny Cannon, Wilfred Jackson, and (standing) Jack King.