NOT Available on DVD: ‘Dad, Can I Borrow the Car?’

Ward Kimball was among a core group of Disney studios animators that Walt Disney jokingly referred to as the “Nine Old Men� but Kimball’s characters stood out as some of the more inventive and ahead of their time. The crows from DUMBO (1941), the Mad Hatter from ALICE IN WONDERLAND and Jiminy Cricket from PINOCHIO were all designed by Kimball and he received an Oscar for the 1969 short IT’S TOUGH TO BE A BIRD. In 1970 he made the offbeat 22 minute featurette DAD, CAN I BORROW THE CAR?, a mini-masterpiece of satire that takes a comical look at the automobile and its effect on the American lifestyle. It briefly played theatrically as a lead-in to a Disney feature then was expanded to 47 minutes and presented as an episode of the TV show “The Wonderful World of Disney� which premiered April of 1972. I saw it then and recall how it struck me as delightfully different and a little weird for a Disney production. DAD, CAN I BORROW THE CAR? deserves to be rediscovered, but for now, it is NOT available on DVD.

DAD, CAN I BORROW THE CAR? combined innovative film techniques including live action, stop-motion animation, traditional cel animation, Monty Python-style cutout animation, collage, montage, and sound effects for a fast-paced and hilarious spoof of educational films. The film loosely traces the life of an average all-American car-obsessed boy (vocally performed in narration by Kurt Russell, though mostly played on-screen by Spencer Quinn). The young man is enraptured with automobiles from the moment he’s born—as a baby spanked by the doctor, his cry is a car horn honking. He graduates from toy cars to model kits, to soapbox derbies until he finally turns 16. In high school he tackles the driver training simulators which malfunction to comic effect. An adventure with a monstrously imposing drivers ed instructor is followed by a sequence about the frustrations of a trip to the DMV and its long lines and bureaucracy. After asking his father the title question, the film shifts to a look at late 60’s cars themselves. There is a trip to a custom car showcase convention and an eye-popping look at a Disney-sponsored car decorating contest All of the episodes in DAD, CAN I BORROW THE CAR? are presented as a series of absurd and inventive comic sketches punctuated by humor and bits of lively animation that work slyly within the context of the film. Highlights of DAD, CAN I BORROW THE CAR? include an animated race between two pinstripes over an actual car, a used car commercial spoof, and animated cars talking with their bumpers and grills with headlights for eyes that strongly resemble the characters in Pixar’s CARS 35 years later.

DAD, CAN I BORROW THE CAR? perfectly captures the nostalgia of the “Hot Rodâ€� counterculture that began in California in the 60’s and took off in popularity across the country. Car models, toy slot-car sets, go-carts, and magazines such as HOT RODDER and CAR-TOONS were all the rage. Cars, comic books, and classic movie monsters were all at the height of their popularity during this period and they all came together thanks to Ed “Big Daddyâ€� Roth. Roth was a custom car builder and cartoonist who created grotesque caricatures, the best know being Rat Fink, of out-sized monstrosities driving representations of the hot rods that he and his contemporaries built. Comic strips and model kits of freaks and monsters driving zany hot-rods were quite the fad in the late 60’s and DAD, CAN I BORROW THE CAR? is the only movie from this era I can think of that captures that subversive spirit. Disney released DAD, CAN I BORROW THE CAR? on VHS in the mid-1980’s as a “Wonderful World of Disneyâ€� double feature with THE HUNTER AND THE ROCK STAR but has yet to surface on DVD. Ward Kimball, who died in 2002, was a true original and, according to Neal Gabler’s biography of Disney, it was he who started the infamous rumor that Walt Disney’s head was frozen after his death. That rumor, and Ward Kimball’s work, live on.