Animation producer and storyboard artist Kenneth Douglas Mundie died on April 3 from pure causes. He was 97. The prolific artist was greatest recognized for steering the modern opening titles to The Wild Wild West TV collection and The Nice Race (1965) and the Warner Bros. animated brief The Door (1968).
Born in L.A. and raised in Detroit and Virginia, Mundie enlisted within the USMC and studied animation in California utilizing the G.I. Invoice. He then educated as an animator at Disney, and labored on a number of the studio’s classics together with Peter Pan, Woman and the Tramp and 101 Dalmatians. Within the early Fifties, he left the studio and joined The Washington Publish as an illustrator. He later started working for Friz Freleng and animated the opening title to TV collection The Wild Wild West in addition to the opening titles to the film The Nice Race.
He then independently animated his brief movie The Door in a small house in Germany. That undertaking caught the eye of Invoice Cosby and was bought to Warner Bros. Cosby then employed Mundie to direct the Fats Albert pilot and would make use of the artist just a few a long time later to animate for the Two Buddies particular. Afterward, Chuck Jones employed Mundie to work with Richard Williams on a manufacturing of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in London. He then moved to Chicago to work for Leo Burnett Promoting, the place he animated numerous advert campaigns, similar to Kellogg’s “Sure We Can” Bicentennial marketing campaign.
He continued to contribute storyboards to Saturday morning cartoons similar to The New Adventures of Johnny Quest, Pinky and the Mind, Life with Louie, Fox’s Peter Pan and the Pirates and Casper the Pleasant Ghost. In 2013, filmmaker Jeff Peters launched a Kickstarter marketing campaign to fund Mundie’s ardour undertaking of over 4 a long time, an imagined prehistory of tennis dubbed The Match, which was deliberate as an 18-minute brief in three acts.
“Ken liked artwork, and to him, artwork was a form of magic, and it pissed off him when individuals didn’t admire that,” reads his official obituary. “He liked speaking to and serving to different artists. From portray courses to introductory animation programs, he believed his information and expertise had been meant to be shared.”
Mundie died peacefully in his house together with his son and spouse at his aspect. A celebration of life is deliberate for April 24 at 3 p.m. at Wooden River Chapel, 403 N. Principal St., Hailey, Idaho.
