Ken Southworth RIP

Yesterday Cartoon Brew announced the death of animator Ken Southworth. I first met Ken at an ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Expo back in the 90s. Everybody was going high tech with early ink and paint programs and other animation labor saving devises.

Ken had set up his drawing table and was animating a panning run cycle. (not an easy thing to do in 1 step I always have students do it in 2 steps) Ken was selling his animation training videos and workbooks. A very good system.

Ken was there with Roy Pointer who had filmed and edited the animation training for him. I was running the Central Country ROP animation department at the time and was teaching a lot of beginning 2-D animation.

Ken lived in Anaheim at the time. I talked my school into buying his trainer program. I spent some time over at his house/studio. I talked to him every time I ran onto him at events. Called him on the phone a number of times. Even suggested him for a teaching job once.

He loved animation. He would talk to you for hours about the subject. One time I was over at his house just after Tarzan came out. He had problems with some of the movement on the apes. Man is the creature that can throw overhanded. The sholder anatomy is not right for an ape to throw overhand. But the animators had them doing it anyway. He had problems with the storytelling too.

Ken started at Disneys on The Three Caballeros, worked on Song of the South, was the assistant to Milt Kahl on Alice in Wonderland, assisted Frank Thomas on the Stepmother from Cinderella. Also worked on Legend of Sleepy Hollow and a lot of shorts. None of this work got him a screen credit.

After 6 years he realized that there was no upward movement at Disneys at that time. He didn`t want to be an assistant for his whole career, so he went to Walt Lantz on the promise that he would get the chance to be an animator.

Over the years he worked almost everywhere, a lot of the time with Tex Avery. I just found out a month or 2 ago from reading credits that he worked stop motion on Davey & Goliath. Somehow we never got around to talking about stop motion. I have seen his credits turning up in a lot of 60s and 70s animation at Filmation and elsewhere. I don`t think that he remembered all the animation he worked on.

In later years he taught at Van Arts summers. He taught at Cal State Fullerton. He taught effects animation at Laguna College of Art & Design in 2000 back before they changed their name. He taught all over the place. And he never stopped loving animation.

Ken had a brother who was in the grocery business. Ken told me that his brother could not wait to retire. Ken never wanted to get out of the game even thou his hands seems to be crippled up with arthritis. That never seemed to stop him from drawing.



In the history of 2-D effects animation, Ken may have invented the splat in prospective when he was over at Disneys. He came up with it on his own because it seemed more logical but never knew if he was the first to do it. His supervisor questioned him on why he did it that way but liked it better whan the normal flat way of doing a splat. So it is hard to say now if this is Ken`s sole invention because it has spread out into the field to such an extent that it is now universal.

I haven`t seen much of Ken in resent years because he has moved from Anaheim. But I am still going to miss him. And I am still going to look for his name in all those old credits.