Background
Ken Harris was born in Tulare Company California.
Ken Harris was born in Tulare Company California.
He is widely considered to be one of the most talented animators in the Golden age of American animation. His first job as an artist was for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, where he worked from 1927 to around 1930, when he joined the ill-fated Romer Grey studio. Harris finally ended up at Leon Schlesinger Productions under the Friz Freleng unit
This lasted for a short while as he was relocated into the Frank Tashlin unit
Eventually, Tashlin left and the unit was taken over by Chuck Jones. The association with Jones and Harris began in 1937 and lasted until 1962, the longest time an animator spent with a director at the studio.
Jones described him as ".. a virtuoso. Ken Harris did it all." After Jones left Warner"s, Harris worked with former animator Philosophy Monroe on two cartoons before Warner Brothers closed its cartoon department.
In 1963, Harris worked briefly for Friz Freleng on the titles of The Pink Panther (1963), then for Hanna-Barbera on their first feature film Hey There lieutenant"s Yogi Bear! (1964), then rejoined Jones at M-G-M for three years.
After work as an animator on How the Grinch Stole Christmas! There he served as William"s mentor as well as his employee. Harris"s credits with him included A Christmas Carol (1971) — as animator of Ebenezer Scrooge — the opening titles of The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), and the still-unfinished animated feature The Thief and the Cobbler (animating the Thief of the title, which is very reminiscent of Harris"s earlier work animating Wile East Coyote for Jones). Among the many scenes Harris has animated: Mama Bear doing an outrageous tap-dance (which Chuck Jones, who directed the cartoon, and who was Harris" longtime collaborator, has said was inspired by Mike Maltese, "who could really dance that way") in A Bear Foreign Punishment.
Wile East. Coyote consuming earthquake pills in Hopalong Casualty.
As well as the lengthy dance sequence in What"s Opera, Doc?. The animator died on March 24, 1982, from Parkinson"s disease in Los Angeles, He was 83 years old.
