John Lounsbery: Disney’s Funniest Animator
Some of my earlier blogs have explored Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men.” The “Nine Old Men,” were handpicked to do artwork at the Walt Disney Studios and their exceptional skills helped each of them rise to being the top nine animators at the studio, each of whom left their own legacy at the studio. They also maintained close friendships with Walt Disney throughout his life and several continued working for the studio after Walt’s unfortunate passing on December 15th, 1966. Throughout my blog, we’ve explored the stories and legacies of all but one of the “Nine Old Men,” and I thought we could explore his story today. His name is John Lounsbery.
John Lounsbery was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on March 9th, 1911, though he was raised in Denver, Colorado. He attended East Denver High School and the Art Institute of Denver. He later relocated again to Los Angeles where he attended the ArtCenter College of Design. While attending there, he had an instructor tell him that Walt Disney was looking for artists and sent him to a job interview. He officially became a Disney employee on July 2nd, 1935 and started his career at the studio as an assistant animator on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). He was mentored under Norm Ferguson who was known at Disney for his creative use of broad, physical movements to suggest acting and personality for characters instead of inner emotions.
John Lounsbery applied that technique to animating characters such as J. Worthington Foulfellow and his sidekick Gideon in Pinocchio (1940). This effort promoted him to film sequence director and next he directed the sequences between Dumbo and his friend Timothy Q. Mouse in Dumbo (1941). He also applied this technique to short films, such as Society Dog Show (1939), and Donald’s Dog Laundry (1940). One of John Lounsbery’s all time favorite Disney characters to animate was Pluto. He was inspired to like Pluto because his mentor, Norm Ferguson, also known at the studio as “Fergy,” also was a fan of Pluto. They liked Pluto because they both thought the character’s thinking process and personality was appealing and fascinating. Lounsbery disliked that Pluto was given more human traits in shorts later produced at the studio. “Pluto was pure dog,” he said. “That’s the way Fergy conceived him.”
John Lounsbery became popular at the studio for directing animated sequences that in a sense, featured slapstick comedy. He directed Donald Duck and his friends, Jose and Panchito, in The Three Caballeros (1944), the Wolf in the “Peter and the Wolf” sequence in Make Mine Music (1946) and Mickey Mouse, Jiminy Cricket, and Willie the Giant in Fun and Fancy Free (1947). In the 1950s, he directed the sequences with the Mice, Cat, Dog, and Horse in Cinderella (1950), the Flowers in Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Tony and Joe’s funny exchange pre-the “Bella Notte” sequence in Lady and the Tramp (1955) as well as King Stefan and King Hubert’s drinking argument in Sleeping Beauty (1959). He directed the barn scene in One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) in which the barn animals help the dalmatians evade Horace and Jasper and kick the two crooks off to the side.
Overall, Lounsbery said he preferred just regular character animation and didn’t enjoy directing. He continued character animation on the Goofy short Aquamania (1961) and the farm animals in Mary Poppins (1964). In the ‘70s he was promoted yet again to directing both short films and feature lengths. His short directorial debut was Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974), and he directed the features The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) and The Rescuers (1977), collaborating with Wolfgang “Woolie” Reitherman, who was another one of Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men.” Suddenly, John Lounsbery died tragically due to heart failure during surgery on February 13th, 1976 at the age of 64.
Edward Hansen, who was a production manager and administrator for Walt Disney Animation Studios from 1952-1984 said that “Even in the thick of production, John would always put down the pencil to talk to you. We saw Lounsbery as a god who occupied a place in animation as high as you could get.” It really is a shame that John Lounsbery didn’t live a very long life, but each of his contributions to Disney are humorous and endearing and it’s even more refreshing to know that he was also a kind, generous man.
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