John Ryan "Jack" Kinney (March 29, 1909 – February 9, 1992) was an American animator, director and producer of animated shorts. Kinney is the older brother of fellow Disney animator Dick Kinney.
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Early life
Jack Kinney was born on March 29, 1909, in Utah. He attended John Muir Junior High School in Los Angeles, California (1925), and John C. Fremont High School (1926 - 1928), at the latter with Roy Williams. Both Fremont football players, they would later be hired by Walt Disney in 1930 to work at the Walt Disney Studio on Hyperion Avenue. Often referring to himself as Kinney's best friend, Williams would go on to star as the "Big Mooseketeer" with head Mouseketeer Jimmie Dodd on the classic 1950s television program, The Mickey Mouse Club (1955–1958). No relation to Jeff Kinney, author of the popular book series Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
Career
According to Jeff Lenburg's assessment of him, Kinney was a veteran animator, who spent most of his career working at Walt Disney Productions (later known as the Walt Disney Animation Studios). He directed the first film in the Donald Duck series to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Two other films directed by Kinney were nominated for the same award.
Kinney joined the Walt Disney studio on February 9, 1931. He was hired as an animator. He initially inked films for both the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony series of the studio. His film credits as an animator include The Band Concert (1935) and The Cookie Carnival (1935). Kinney also served as a story director in films featuring Mickey Mouse and Pluto. His film credits in that role include Brave Little Tailor (1938), Mickey's Trailer (1938) and Society Dog Show (1939).
Kinney served as a sequence director on 10 of the Disney theatrical feature films. His credits in that role included Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941), Saludos Amigos (1942), Victory Through Air Power (1943), The Three Caballeros (1944), Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), Melody Time (1948), and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949).
Beginning in 1940, Kinney was promoted to the position of director for animated short films. Kinney was the primary director of the Goofy series, with his debut being the second entry in the series, Goofy's Glider (1940), all the way up to the final regular entry in the series, How to Sleep (1953), directing a total of 39 entries in the series. His most notable creations for this series were the Goofy How to..., where the character demonstrated how to play various popular sports. Goofy's efforts in these films had "predictably disastrous" results. One of his Goofy cartoons, How to Play Football (1944), was nominated the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, one of two entries in the Goofy series to be nominated for the Award. Kinney also directed two entries in the Pluto series, as well as directing four entries in the Donald Duck series, including Der Fuehrer's Face (1943), a wartime satire of Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Nazi Germany, which became the only Donald Duck short to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, as well being listed as Number 22 in the 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons.
Kinney's other director credits included a number of Walt Disney Specials. Among them were Pigs Is Pigs (1954), Casey Bats Again (1954), and Social Lion (1954). Pigs Is Pigs was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. It was the third and last film directed by Kinney to be nominated for the Award. Another film credit for Kinney as a director was The Lone Chipmunks (1954). It was the last animated short film of the Chip 'n' Dale series.
Death and legacy
In 1988, Kinney published a short memoir, Walt Disney and Assorted Other Characters: An Unauthorized Account of the Early Years at Disney's. The book served as his autobiography. Kinney died on February 9, 1992, in Glendale, California at the age of 82. His death was reported as a death by natural causes.
Filmography
Short films
Santa's Workshop (animator - uncredited) (1932)
Birds in the Spring (animator - uncredited) (1933)
Ye Olden Days (animator - uncredited) (1933)
The Mail Pilot (animator - uncredited) (1933)
Mickey's Mechanical Man (animator - uncredited) (1933)
The Hot Choc-late Soldiers (animator - uncredited) (1934)
Two-Gun Mickey (animator - uncredited) (1934)
The Band Concert (director and animator) (1935)
Mickey's Service Station (animator) (1935)
The Cookie Carnival (director and animator) (1935)
Mickey's Fire Brigade (animator) (1935)
Cock o' the Walk (animator) (1935)
Donald and Pluto (writer) (1936)
Moose Hunters (animator) (1937)
Mickey's Trailer (writer and director) (1938)
Mickey's Parrot (writer) (1938)
Brave Little Tailor (writer and director) (1938)
Society Dog Show (writer and director) (1939)
Goofy's Glider (writer and director) (1940)
Feature films
Hollywood Party (animator - uncredited) (1934)
Servants' Entrance (animator - uncredited) (1934)
Pinocchio (director) (1940)
The Reluctant Dragon (director) (1941)
Dumbo (director) (1941)
Bambi (animator: opening sequence) (1942)
Saludos Amigos (director: El gaucho Goofy segment; 1942)
Victory Through Air Power (director) (1943)
The Three Caballeros (director) (1944)
Make Mine Music (director: Five of the film's ten segments: The Martins and the Coys, All the Cats Join In, Casey at the Bat, Two Silhouettes, and Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet segments; 1946)
Fun and Fancy Free (director: Bongo segment; 1947)
Melody Time (director: Bumble Boogie segment; 1948)
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (director: both The Wind in the Willows and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow segments; 1949)
Peter Pan (director) (uncredited; 1953)
1001 Arabian Nights (director) (1959)
How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (animator) (1965)
Song of Norway (animator) (1970)
Television
Disneyland (1955-1979)
The Goofy Success Story (writer and director; 1955)
The Wind in the Willows (director; 1955)
The Goofy Sports Story (writer and director; 1956)
Pluto's Day (writer; 1956)
How to Relax (segment director; 1957)
Four Fabulous Characters (segment director; 1957)
Adventures in Fantasy (segment director; 1957)
Magic and Music (segment director; 1958)
Donald's Weekend (story; 1958)
This Is Your Life Donald Duck (segment director; 1960)
This Is Your Life Donald Duck (sequence director; 1961)
Holiday for Henpecked Husbands (sequence director; 1961)
Inside Donald Duck (sequence director; 1961)
Man Is His Own Worst Enemy (director; 1962)
A Square Peg in a Round Hole (sequence director; 1963)
Three Tall Tales (sequence director; 1963)
In Shape with Von Drake (sequence director; 1964)
How the West Was Lost (sequence director; 1967)
