James Patton "Jack" King (November 4, 1895 – October 4, 1958)[1] was an American animator and short film director best known for his work at Walt Disney Productions.
The silent animated series was based on the comic strip Judge Rummy by Tad Dorgan.
[1] King successfully made the transition from silent to sound cartoons and relocated to the West Coast of the United States, where he joined the Disney studio on June 17, 1929, as an animator.
[3] By June 1933, Schlesinger had rounded out his staff and started work on producing animated short films.
Michael Barrier describes Beans under King's direction as resembling Mickey Mouse's incarnation of the early 1930s.
Their designs were certainly similar, with both characters having a white face and black body, but in characterization Beans was a pint-sized hero resembling the plucky, boyish, and heroic Mickey featured in The Klondike Kid (1932) and The Mail Pilot (1933).
In 1936, Beans and most of the characters introduced the previous year, with the exception of Porky Pig, ceased being used by the studio.
Barrier suggests that Leon Schlesinger may have been giving Avery a vote of confidence, when deciding to keep only Porky as a continuing character and to drop Beans.
[3] King directed two films featuring characters Ham and Ex: The Phantom Ship (1936) and The Fire Alarm (1936).
[3][1] Part of the reason he returned to Disney was the promise that he would be able to direct cartoons in color, which he had been unable to do previously.
Friz Freleng and Tex Avery were the only directors that Schlesinger allowed to direct color films for much of the 1930s.
At Disney, King emerged as the director of a new series of short films, featuring Donald Duck as the protagonist.