Bambi Sketch
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Charles Solomon spoke next �As you might have gathered, many Disney animators, like Andreas, were exceedingly fond of the ground Milt walked on. Milton Irwin Kahl was born March 22, 1909, in San Francisco to a family of German and English immigrants��He remembered his home life as being very poor, particularly after his father disappeared and his parents divorced. He started working in newspapers�but lost his job in the crash of 29 and began doing theatre ads�.When those jobs began to dry up, because of the depression and people switching to photographs�. Hamilton Luske, whom he known for a number of years, suggested he come and join him at the Disney Studios�. Milt came down, joined the Studio and quickly rose through the ranks but it was really his work on Pinocchio, that brought him to the forefront of the Studio. �Milt redesigned him in a way that made him endearing and the Pinocchio we now know and the results delighted Walt and that began Milt�s ascendancy as Disney�s top character designer� He was often assigned to do the straight characters, especially the Princes, who are difficult��.and he usually paired with his good friend, Marc Davis, who would do the Princess which led Marc to describe their draftsmanship as a blessing and a hellish curse. Apparently the only thing they ever argued about was who was better, each insisting that it was the other. Marc told that what they finally decided was that Milt was the better animator while Marc was the better designer.�

Andreas then showed film clips from some of Milt�s work, which included Ferdinand the Bull, with the little bull being voiced by Milt Kahl and his mother voiced by Walt Disney. This was followed by the first panel discussion, which included: Kathryn Beaumont, Alice Davis, Andreas, Sybil Byrnes (Milt's daughter) and Charles Solomon. Kathy Beaumont said �I was ten years old and very much in awe of all these grownups and the wonderful thing was everybody was just so accepting and so friendly and made me feel so very much at ease..... and Milt or Marc or someone would call up and say we�ve got something that we�ve finished and maybe Kathy would like to see, do you think maybe she could come up with a teacher at recess time�so we would run up there�and Milt sat with me and explained to my teacher and me about what happens with one action�..his part was the beginning, the middle and the end, and the in betweeners� did all the other parts of it. Well he had this whole set and he flipped it so I could see the motion�..As I became a teacher, I remembered all of this stuff and that became part of what I did in the classroom to sort of help children�and we actually did some animation in the classroom.�

Alice Davis commented �My first meeting with Milt was when Marc decided to take me up and introduce me to Milt. He told Milt that I was the chosen one. I didn�t know yet either. And he invited me to the house for dinner. All the people were there to size me up and I didn�t know it. I was having a good time and meeting all these good people. Milt�s language was very different from most people�s language. He had use of four letter words that were most unique�..It was a very lovely evening and I enjoyed it very much. And I could understand why Marc liked Milt so much because he could be very charming and he was the most truthful person I every met in my life. Little white lies didn�t exist in his vocabulary. It was just this straight stuff. �.. In my family we used to play around with having a very deep voice�and I called�and I thought I would have some fun and he answered the phone. And I said is Laura there, I�d like to speak to her (In a deep voice) and he said Who The Hell Are You. This is Alice and I was just having fun. And he answered Fun Hell!!!! Don�t you ever do that again. He used quite a few words and I never used my deep voice again�..You know that they say twins feel the same things with each other�When one hits his thumb with the hammer, the other one doesn�t hit his thumb with the hammer but he has the pain�Well this was kind of like Marc and Milt. They could answer the question before it was asked by the other. They were very close in regards to understanding each other. There was a friendship stronger than brothers.�

Sybil Byrnes shared with the audience �He was very much a perfectionist at home and often impatient with himself and we were just little kids and impatient with little kids�..I remember once I left the garage door open, we didn�t have electric garage doors in those days, of course so the garage door would either be up or down. And he came out one morning to go to work. I had left the garage door half way down�and put my bicycle in and come in the house. And the next morning he got up and it was dark and he went in to get in the car and smacked his head on the garage and went backwards. And of course I�m getting ready for school and I hear this four letter word�So he came in the house and said where is that little bastard. And my mother had hidden me under the kitchen sink, because my father would have killed me�..(Other times) My father could be as patient as he could be, (and) I had probably the best childhood as anybody could ever have.�

After the first panel discussion, Andreas showed us a number of drawings that Milt had done and also numerous drafts that Milt had been given, which he had refined to create the characters that we love today. Andreas said �Milt Kahl brought a sense of anatomy, realism that Walt really liked because Milt could handle realism so well. One thing he once said about realism is that realism isn�t the problem, it�s the way people do realism that�s the problem, meaning that he could handle it and most people couldn�t.�