JCHS Journal — Summer 2014 15 The Roots of Animation in Kansas City By Ron Green t the turning point of the A recent Disney movie “Saving Mr. Banks,” Tom Hanks (who plays Walt Disney) recalls Kansas City boyhood memories. Ever been to Kansas City, Mrs. Travers? Do you know Missouri at all? It’s mighty cold there in the winters. Bitter. My dad, Elias Disney, he owned a newspaper delivery route in Kansas City. Thousand papers. Twice daily. Morning and evening edition. Walt Disney drawing at his Laugh-O-Gram animation studio. Elias, he was a tough Star, Walt would hang around the Gray) decided to form their own businessman. A save-a-penny staff cartoonists. They would give commercial art shop The Iwerks- anywhere you can type of fella so him old drawings, which he would Disney studio. he wouldn’t employ any delivery take home for study and practice. boys, he just used me and my big This first studio was located in brother Roy. Disney’s fascination with “…an unused bathroom in the animation intensified. In 1919, at headquarters of the National Harsh as this experience was for age 17, he took an art apprentice Restaurant Association” located at the young boy, the work ethic it job at the Pesmen-Rubin the southeast corner of 13th and established would serve Walt Commercial Art Studio, a studio Oak Streets. They later moved Disney well when he set out to within the Gray Advertising their studio to the Railway make his mark in the animation Company at 14th and Oak in Exchange Building located at the world. Kansas City. southeast corner of 7th and Walnut Disney’s illustrious animation Although this job only lasted for Avenues. career was significantly shaped by about six weeks, this was Disney’s The Iwerks-Disney studio was off his Kansas City experiences and first pay for cartooning work in a to a good start when Disney and connections he made as he real job. He was thrilled to be Iwerks noticed a help wanted ad in launched his career in animation. offered $50 a month, twice what the Kansas City Star. This resulted From his early boyhood days in he hoped to earn in the job. in Disney taking an animation Marceline, Mo., Walt was There he met Ubbe Iwerks, a year- position at the Kansas City Slide fascinated with drawing and older than Disney, who would Company in February 1920. cartoons. Any print material with become a lifelong partner in Iwerks joined him there a month cartoons that passed through the Disney’s animation career. Iwerks later. Disney home became training was a very talented artist and had his was a key career move for templates for young Walt. a knack for solving technology T Disney as the connections he His father, Elias, subscribed to the challenges. made there would provide the Appeal to Reason, a socialist Although Walt’s work at Gray animation leadership needed for newspaper published in Kansas. Advertising was short-lived, his many of his future ventures. In Walt would copy Ryan Walker’s relationship with Iwerks paid off fact, Kansas City Film Ad Service, cartoons from the newspaper for in February of 1920 when Disney as it was renamed shortly practice. When he delivered and Iwerks (also laid off from afterwards, became the training newspapers for the Kansas City ground for many of the founders

16 JCHS Journal — Summer 2014 of today’s leading animation studios. Here Disney met Fred Harman, Hugh Harman (his young brother), William McAtee (Red) Lyon, Friz Freleng, Carmen Griffin (Max) Maxwell, and George E. “Jimmy” Lowerre. All of these would be influential in Disney’s later success. Disney’s time at Kansas City Film Ad was also important because it helped him shift his skills from commercial art and still cartoons to animation. Walt was hired by the Show Card and Title Men group where he learned rudimentary animation skills. Walt Disney’s young staff working away in the Laugh-O-Gram studio. Disney was trained in stop-motion filming there by George E. Cartoons: How They Are Made, animation projects in the family "Jimmy" Lowerre, who later Their Origin and Development as garage. It was here that Walt worked at the Walt Disney Studios well as Eadweard Muybridge’s developed some local notoriety by for 28 years as a film editor. book Animals in Motion and pored creating his Newman Laugh-O- Disney worked with jointed paper over the pages to absorb as much Grams. These were filmed figures that were photographed learning as possible about editorial cartoons that poked fun at with successive changes in achieving natural looking police practices, bumpy roads and position to create animations. movement. other local issues. The latter The Kansas City Public Library versions of these were Walt’s first isney described this process efforts in true animation, and they in Timothy S. Susanin’s still has the Muybridge book in its D special collection that was most include some of the few examples book, Walt Before Mickey: of animation completed Disney’s Early Years, 1919-1928. likely checked out by Walt Disney. Iwerks applied his exclusively by Disney. “Of course,” said Walt, “they were technical prowess to make Disney’s local success with the very crude things then and I used immediate improvements to Newman Laugh-O-Grams …oh sort of little puppet things Kansas City Film Ad’s encouraged him to establish his …. I used to make little cut-away photographic process. own studio. In the fall of 1921, he things and joints were pinned and partnered with his Kansas City we’d put them under the camera Disney literally worked day and night to learn his new craft. He Film Ad co-worker Fred Harman and we’d maneuver them and to start the KayCee Studio. we’d make him do things.” impressed Arthur Vern Cauger, the company’s owner, with his oth retained their jobs at Film Walt and Iwerks set out to learn clever innovations and convinced B Ad and worked on KayCee all they could about animation. Cauger to let him borrow a film and animation projects nights Disney wanted to learn more company camera to experiment and weekends. As he had done in about animating drawn with illustrated animations in the the family garage, Disney illustrations to create a more garage at the Disney home at 3028 recruited teens to work with them natural looking movement. Bellefontaine Ave. at no pay in return for learning the They checked out E.G. Lutz’s After work, Disney would spend cartooning trade. The KayCee recently published book Animated hours late into the evening on Studio moved at least a few times

JCHS Journal — Summer 2014 17 in its year of existence, from a room above the Kansas City streetcar barn at 30th & Holmes to a second-floor location above the Standard Phonograph Company at 3239 Troost Ave. Job ad that ran in March 1922 in the Kansas City Star. Walt’s KayCee Studio experience was noteworthy in that he O-Grams and the new Laugh-O- already developed himself, Iwerks, advanced his animation abilities in Gram fairy tales convinced him it Harmon and Ising. his work on the first of his Laugh- was time to leave Kansas City To fill those openings, he selected O-Grams: Little Red Riding Hood. Film Ad and work full time an odd lot of young men whose Walt’s Laugh-O-Grams were establishing a new studio. On May experience included a trolley modern versions of fairy tales 18, 1922, Disney incorporated motorman, a baker, and a Laugh-O-Gram Films, Inc. He loaded with gags and fashioned draftsman. Three of the five along the lines of the popular raised $15,000 from local animators he hired had drawn Aesop’s Fables animated by Paul investors and purchased cartoons for their high school equipment and furnishings for Terry, a popular cartoonist in the yearbooks. their new studio on the second 1920s. floor of the new McConahy These five new animators, most The KayCee Studio is also where Building at 1127 East 31st Street. under 25 years old, were: Disney hired Rudy Ising and Hugh Harmon – (19) apprenticed Hugh Harman, Fred Meanwhile, Disney worked on Harman’s younger brother. These building up his own staff for his Hugh was Fred Harman’s younger two would later join forces to new Laugh-O-Gram Studio. With brother. He developed an interest establish new animation studios the prospect of getting distribution in animation due to his brother’s that remain major production on his new Laugh-O-Gram series, work at the Kansas City Film Ad he needed animators. This posed a studios today. Service. He had done cartooning significant challenge because at for his high school yearbook, and t the KayCee Studio, Walt this time there was very little he worked after school and A continued to borrow A.V. going on in animation outside of weekends with Disney, Ising and Cauger’s camera, although by New York. Lyon at the KayCee Studios. now, Cauger sensed Walt was becoming something of a Disney quickly pulled in his Lorey L. Tague – (25) competitor during his off-the- KayCee Studio colleagues, Rudy Ising and Red Lyon. For additional Tague had been a trolley clock times. Ising recalled that motorman before being hired as an using Cauger’s camera wasn’t staff, he ran a want ad for animators in the Kansas City Star animator at Laugh-O-Gram. always on the “up and up.” newspaper that read: Carman “Max” Maxwell – (19) Ising recalled: “Disney used to sneak the camera out at night and CARTOONISTS—Animators wanted Maxwell had done cartooning for we’d shoot at night and then take for moving picture cartooning; expe- his high school yearbook and had rienced or inexperienced. Apply in it back the next morning. The completed some correspondence person. Laugh-o-Gram Films, Inc., courses with the W.L. Evans camera was down in the basement; 1127 E. 31st St. there was a camera room at Film School of Cartooning. Ad. He (Red Lyon) would hand it Alexander Wilson Kurfiss – (21) out to him (Walt), and he’d put it By today’s standards it would in the bushes somewhere and then seem preposterous to claim that no Kurfiss graduated from Northeast they’d take it, and they’d get it experience was necessary to fill High School and attended the such a specialized craft. Disney back the next morning.” Kansas City Art Institute, He had trusted his ability, however, to worked as a draftsman. Previously By early 1922, Disney’s local develop animators as he had he had worked as a meter reader success with the Newman Laugh-

18 JCHS Journal — Summer 2014 for Kansas City Power & Light.

Otto Louis Walliman – (46) Walliman was a Swiss citizen and a baker who specialized in drawing backgrounds at Laugh-O- Gram. In addition to these animators, Disney also hired: Walt Pfeiffer – (19) Pfeiffer was Disney’s long-time boyhood friend. He had done cartooning for Westport High School’s yearbook. He read print materials looking for joke ideas. Adolph “Jack” Kloepper – (25)

This Laugh-O-Gram cartoon was drawn by Alexander Kurfiss and used to promote the Mr. Mace is arranging for the new cartoon series and often used as the opening. distribution of a series of twelve Laugh-O-Grams to be released City, but Mace instead struck a The studio made great progress on every other week. Laugh-O- deal with Pictorial Clubs, Inc. of the six new Laugh-O-Grams. Grams are single reel subjects, Tennessee. During a six-month period in consisting of stories of modern- 1922, they completed The Four ized fairy tales in Animated Car- The new distribution deal doomed Laugh-O-Gram Film Studio from Musicians of Bremen, Jack and toons by Walt Disney. Some of the the Beanstalk, Jack the Giant first releases are “Little Red Rid- the very start. The deal would pay, upon completion, $11,000 for six Killer, Goldie Locks and the ing Hood,” “Jack and the Bean- Three Bears, Puss in Boots and Laugh-O-Gram fairy tales. stalk,” “Four Musicians,” Cinderella, in just six months. “Goldie Locks,” “Cinderella,” Pictorial paid $100 at the signing However, by the end of 1922 the “Jack, the Giant Killer,” etc. of the contract, which guaranteed their rights to the six cartoons. studio was struggling to meet They were not required to pay the expenses. Disney began taking on Kloepper served as Laugh-O- additional film projects such as Gram’s business manager. remaining balance until Jan. 1, 1924 — roughly 15 months later. the educational film, Tommy Disney’s plan was to develop a This created significant cash flow Tucker’s Tooth, local newsreel projects and photographing the series of Laugh-O-Gram cartoons problems. and win a contract with a New babies and youngsters of York film distributor. Though Pictorial was not a prominent Kansas City citizens. mainstream cartoon distributor, To help keep the studio afloat, in He took on Leslie Mace as a the distribution deal created November 1922, Disney secured a salesman responsible for winning renewed energy and enthusiasm $2,500 loan from Dr. J.V. Cowles, that distribution contract—a for the new animation studio. By a local physician and the treasurer development he announced in a November 1922, Walt added to of Laugh-O-Gram Studios. trade publication the summer of his staff hiring Iwerks to do 1922. lettering titles, Aletha Reynolds to n his effort to find something new to bring in much needed Mace struggled to win a deal in do artwork and Nadine Simpson I revenue, Disney came up with a New York and spent a lot of to serve as a stenographer-keeper. unique idea. He created Alice’s money in the process. Disney Wonderland, a film in which the ordered him to return to Kansas

JCHS Journal — Summer 2014 19 main character, a young girl he had worked named Alice, is filmed in live- in his KayCee action, but is inserted into a Studio. cartoon world. It was very By June, innovative to mix live-action film Margaret with cartoon animation. Winkler was Disney knew that he could ready to meet convince New York investors to with Disney to distribute a series of these Alice see Alice’s Comedies if he could just show Wonderland, but them an example of this new the film wasn’t technique. By April 1923, work ready. Disney was underway on the project. sent her letters With a diminishing staff and promising she mounting debt, Walt pushed to get would soon be Walt Disney created this advertising logo while still experiment- the film produced. A New York able to see the ing with animation working out of the garage behind the family distributor, Margaret J. Winkler, film, but with a home at 3028 Bellefontaine Ave. The image is drawn on the cor- was very interested. depleted staff the ner of an envelope. project remained By early 1923, Laugh-O-Gram’s revenue until he could find that uncompleted. financial situation was animation “hit” that would assure deteriorating. On Jan. 4, 1923, the By now, Pictorial Clubs was in sustainable success. landlord who owned the bankruptcy leaving Disney unpaid McConahy building sued for for the earlier work. In July, Fortunes changed once he got to unpaid rent. Employees began Disney decided to move to California. The Alice’s quitting due to unpaid salaries. California where his brother Roy Wonderland reel that Disney Disney could no longer afford to lived while being treated for worked so hard to finish in Kansas City was picked up for pay boarding house rent, so he tuberculosis. Walt moved in with started sleeping in his studio. He his Uncle Robert who lived in distribution by Margaret Winkler would run up a food tab at the Hollywood and decided he would soon after Disney arrived in Los Forest Inn Café on the first floor try to break into movies as a Angeles. This assured the success of the new Disney Brother’s of the McConahy building. When director. his credit turned sour there, he Studio he formed with his brother n October, Laugh-O-Gram filed Roy in October 1923. would eat beans from a can and for bankruptcy. Disney had leftover bread. Once a week he I Soon Disney would contact most done everything he could think of would pay a dime to take a bath at to make his Kansas City of his Kansas City animator Union Station. By May, he moved animation studio succeed. friends to join him in his new the studio back to 3241 Troost Ultimately, he was not able to California studio. above Peiser’s Restaurant where generate a steady stream of Disney spent four years in Kansas City. A 1920s view of Laugh-O-Gram would always be the Conahy Build- remembered as “the cradle of ing at 31st and animation” because of the Forest, Kansas City, pioneering work that Disney and Mo. The Laugh-O- his staff performed in Kansas Gram offices and City. studios were locat- It provided the foundation to ed on the second create the new animation studios floor. that remain the world’s leaders, still today.