Jack Kinney - Career

Career

Kinney began his long career in cartoons at the Walt Disney Studios in 1931 as an animator on several shorts, including Santa's Workshop (released on December 10, 1932), The Band Concert (released on February 23, 1935), and Moose Hunters (released on April 17, 1937). He then became a director of cartoons at Disney, including as a sequence director for both Pinocchio and Dumbo and especially as a director in the shorts department, where he directed many cartoon shorts, mostly those starring Goofy (his brother Dick created the stories for the shorts), although he also directed a few Donald Duck cartoons as well, including the Academy Award-winning wartime propaganda film, Der Fuehrer's Face. He also served as director of most of the "package films" during the 1940s, including The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. In the mid-1950s, he supervised new animation used to tie some of the old shorts together for Disney's television efforts.

In 1959, Jack left Disney to start (with his brother Dick) Jack Kinney Productions, an independent animation studio. Among other work they provided animation for King Features Syndicate's 1960 Popeye series.