Dick Lundy

One of the animators mentioned in my previous posting was Dick Lundy. Richard James Lundy was born in Michigan on 8/14/07 and died 4/7/90 in San Diego County. Starting as cel painter and inbetweener in 1929, he worked at Disney until 1943 (though his IMDb credits also include Mickey Mouse Disco in 1980, but this "clip show" used his early work). After Disney he worked on lots and lots of Hanna-Barbera series, as well as features like Charlotte's Web, and even Bakshi's Fritz the Cat. We have, of course, encountered Lundy many times on this blog.

We didn't see Lundy at bat in the winter 1930/31 Disney studio Softball game. But above image links to a caricature of Lundy at bat, so we know how that looked. I do not know who drew the caricature - but it is obviously contemporary and came from Jack Cutting's files.

My old mentor Børge Ring once asked Bob Maxfield, animation director on the first Dutch animated feature "Dexter the Dragon & Bumble the Bear" (a weird title, but the Dutch "Als Je Begrijpt Wat Ik Bedoel" isn't much clearer) released in 1983 (with some minor animation by me), how it was to work on a feature film with old stalwarts like Dick Lundy (and with Volus Jones on Heavy Traffic). Maxfield, who himself started at Disney in the mid 40s, answered "They couldn't do it anymore. Too many years of just doing head-turns."