Milton Erwin "Milt" Kahl (March 22, 1909 – April 19, 1987) is best known as one of Disney's Nine Old Men of animators. He is often considered the most skilled draughtsman of the group and one of the most influential animators of all time.
Milt Kahl joined Disney in 1934. Among his first assignments were animating Mickey Mouse on shorts like Mickey's Circus and Lonesome Ghosts, as well as the forest animals in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. His breakthrough came when he would design the title character of Pinocchio, treating him not as a puppet, but as a cute little boy; he would animate when Pinocchio came to life, and later when Pinocchio found himself turning into a donkey.
After Pinocchio, he would be assigned to be a supervising animator on Bambi, where he animated, among other scenes, the scene where Thumper gets "twitterpated". Often assigned to realistic and solid characters, he was often mocked by his fellow artists for animating "cute", but it all changed when he animated most of the comical tiger from the Goofy short Tiger Trouble. Another famous scene of his was from Song of the South, where Br'er Rabbit tricks Br'er Fox into tossing him into the briar patch.
As the 1940s came to a close, he specialized on more restrained characters, such as Johnny Appleseed and Sluefoot Sue in Melody Time, Brom Bones in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, the title character of Peter Pan, and Prince Phillip in Sleeping Beauty.
Kahl's animation in the 1960s and 1970s is also notable for his characters' broad movements, including Roger in 101 Dalmatians, Merlin and Madam Mim in The Sword in the Stone (which he considered his favorite project, and also served as a character designer), Shere Kahn in The Jungle Book (1967) and Tigger in Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. One of his most recognizable trademarks was giving characters a cocky "head swagger" when they talked, which showed off his uncanny ability to lip sync while keeping his drawings rock-solid, a tricky thing to do in hand-drawn animation.
Kahl would retire in 1976 after animating all of Madame Medusa and Mr. Snoops in The Rescuers. He would continue to be a mentor and influence to later animators and directors such as Andreas Deja, Brad Bird, Richard Williams, James Baxter, and more.
Tropes Associated with Milt Kahl include:
- Art Evolution: Kahl's drawing style evolved over his years at Disney, going from the rounded Classic Disney-style designs to more angular designs reminiscent of modernism.
- Book Dumb: Despite his prodigious drawing and animating ability, Kahl had very little formal art training.
- Disney School of Acting and Mime: Used these techniques to great effect in his animation performances, making for expressive and highly charismatic characters. This also led to the accusation of Kahl as a hammy animator.
- Don't Think, Feel: Told Richard Williams to focus on the performance rather than getting bogged down by the technical details.
- Creator Thumbprint: Milt Kahl was very well-known for his "head swaggle", where characters would lightly shake or tilt their heads while talking. As lip syncing to this was extremely difficult to do and Kahl was one of the only people capable of it, he would insert it as often as he could.
- The Golden Age of Animation: Started working at Disney during this period, all the way into the 1970s.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With fellow Nine Old Man Marc Davis. The two were close friends and had strong mutual respect for each other due their abilities in draftsmanship and animation. Frequently, their characters would be paired with each other ranging from Milt's Fairy Godmother and Marc's Cinderella, Milt's Peter Pan and Marc's Tinker Bell, Milt's Roger and Anita to Marc's Cruella, and so on.
- Pigeonholed Animator: Due to his excellent draftsmanship skills, he was repeatedly saddled with animating the more realistic characters such as Wendy, Alice, Peter Pan, and Prince Phillip, which he hated. It wasn't until the 1960s where he had the creative freedom to animate more broad characters.
- Red Baron: "The Animation Michelangelo". As mentioned above, Milt was frequently considered the best draftsman of the Nine Old Men to the point where other animators including fellow Nine Old Men would go to him for drawing guidance. His animation versatility and precision has repeatedly put him in the running for "greatest animator of all time".
- Technician Versus Performer: With Frank Thomas, as they were often paired together to focus on specific characters. Milt would focus on the design, draftsmanship, and technical performance of the character, while Frank would focus on the emotions and the internal motivations of the character.
- Trope Codifier: For the Disney House style. While earlier animators like Fred Moore established the rounded aesthetic that would form the foundation of the Disney style, Milt had a longer tenure at Disney and would often be the one to refine the model sheets and character designs for their final look. He went as far as claiming that "I was the Disney style!".
