Lady & the Tramp, Siamese cats and the lost animation of the genius Ward Kimball

Lady & the Tramp: Of course, the memorable scene of this one animation classic from Disney studios it remains there romantic spaghetti dinner by Lilli and Biagiobut we would be lying if we didn’t admit that we were somewhat… disturbed by theappearance of Si & Ami Siamese cats of aunt Sara. Evil, treacherous, persuasive with a hypnotic song. If you think about it they appear to you over the topknow that we were also lucky: the first animation of that sequence was different, but it was Walt Disney in person to reluctantly trash the work of one of his pencil geniuses, Ward Kimball.

The Siamese cats in Lady & the Tramp are less crazy than expected

Lady & the Tramp (1955), directed by six hands Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske e Clyde Geronimiis one of masterpieces of world animationas well as one of the indisputable classics of Disney study: visually sumptuous (first animated feature in Cinemascope), relatively realistic (no magic or traditional villains), full of sfide creative for the staff, at the peak of its maturity. For example, one challenge that was won was that of the animator Frank Thomaswhich he took care of Lilli and Biagio in front of the plate of spaghettito convince Walt Disney that a romantic scene between dogs, set up in that way, could be convincing. But there was another challenge that none of us have ever seen and may never see. As reported several times on his blog by the animator Andreas Deja (one of the masters of the Disney Renaissance, but also an animation historian), the musical sequence with Siamese cats had originally been assigned to Ward Kimball.
Kimball is considered one of the legendary”Nine Old Men” of Walt Disney Animation Studios, among the small group of Walt’s favorite artists, those he considered the poetic columns of the study, the points of reference (en passant, if you are interested, the others were Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, The Clarks e Marc Davis). Ward, however, was also one anarchist hotheada lover of surrealism and of grotesquevisionary and always on the border of what could be defined as “Disney”: in the Disney classics, in addition to Grillo Of Pinocchio (1940), his most extensive contribution was in Alice in Wonderland (1951), where he animated the most extravagant characters such as Pinco Panco & Panco Pincodirecting the sequence uncredited non-birthday. So what happened?

There is one promotional photo in which Kimball jokes with a Siamese cats drawing of Lady, yet their sequences in the finished film were animated by Bob Carlson, John Sibley e Bill Justice. It seems that Walt Disneywith all possible affection for Ward, judged his version of B & Am indeed too over the top and disturbing for the film’s register, so much so that he reassigned the characters to the other three aforementioned artists. Knowing how much the two Siamese cats remained anyway disturbing in the classic that we all know, true Disney nerds have been wondering for years what an acid trip Kimball had ever preparedto see his work deleted. Perhaps we will never know, but we do know that Walt was sorry enough, so much so that he still rewarded his precious collaborator with the management of the caricatural (and non-caricature) animations of his educational television programsrecently departed.
After Walt’s death, Ward remained in the studio and had his chance to explode in the delirious short What a torment to be born birds! (It’s Tough to Be a Bird1969), his only prize Oscar. He had touched on it in 1957 for the documentary short Man in Space (1955), one of the segments of the TV program “Disneyland”. In the early 1980s he showed the intellectual freedom to indicate to his students, as an example of animation to study, the segment of Bolero Of Not too cheerful (1977) by Bruno Bozzetto.