Jimmy MacDonald

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Jimmy MacDonald
Background information
Born	John James MacDonald May 19, 1906 Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom
Died	February 1, 1991 (aged 84) Glendale, California, United States
Cause of death	Heart failure
Nationality	Scottish American
Occupation	Foley artist, animator, voice actor, musician, original head of the Disney sound effects department
Years active	1934-1977
Family information
Spouse	Roberta Cullen (?-1991; his death)

James "Jimmy" MacDonald was a Scottish-born American foley artist, animator, voice actor, musician, and the original head of Walt Disney Productions' sound effects department. He was also the voice of Mickey Mouse from 1947 to 1977.

In addition to directing sounds for animated shorts as aurally complicated as Mickey's Trailer, he developed many original inventions and contraptions to achieve expressive sounds for characters like Evinrude the dragonfly from The Rescuers, the bees in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, and Spike the bee who gets to the best of Donald Duck in the 1950s cartoon shorts.

MacDonald also added voice effects, like on-screen humming for Kirk Douglas in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and chipmunk chatter from various Chip and Dale cartoons starting with Private Pluto.

By 1947, Walt Disney was getting too busy and too hoarse from smoking to continue voicing Mickey Mouse, so he was replaced by MacDonald, after the film Fun and Fancy Free. (A common misconception is that MacDonald had voiced additional dialogue shared with Disney in that film.) MacDonald voiced the mouse on a regular basis until 1953 (Disney had briefly taken over for The Mickey Mouse Club) and a recurring one until his retirement in 1977, when he was replaced by young Disney sound effects man Wayne Allwine for The New Mickey Mouse Club; Allwine's first theatrical role for Mickey was in Mickey's Christmas Carol.

MacDonald was also the voice of Goofy at one time, where he provided his voice in the 1960s Disney record album Donald Duck and His Friends.

MacDonald also provided the voice for Jaq and Gus in Cinderella and Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse's Birthday Party, the Dormouse and Flamingos in Alice in Wonderland, Humphrey the Bear, and the Wolf in The Sword in the Stone. He also appeared in Toby Tyler as a circus band drummer but was uncredited.

MacDonald had also played drums for the Firehouse Five Plus Two jazz band on and off from its inception until it disbanded in the early 1970s.

His chimney lamp growls would later be reused for the 1987 Tri-Star live-action feature, The Monster Squad, as the stock growling for the Wolfman, and again in The Legend of Tarzan as the stock growling for Tublat.

Disney Roles

Mickey Mouse
(1947–1977)

Pluto
(briefly)

Goofy
(1960)

Dopey (some vocal effects)
(Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)

Sneezy (additional sounds)
(Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)

Big Bad Wolf
(1958)

Ajax the Gorilla
(Donald Duck and the Gorilla)

Wolf
(Make Mine Music and Lambert the Sheepish Lion)

Chip
(1947–1960)

Bongo the Bear
(Fun and Fancy Free)

Lumpjaw
(Fun and Fancy Free)

Dolores the Elephant
(1948-1953)

Humphrey the Bear
(1950-1956)

Jaq and Gus
(original film, Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse's Birthday Party, archival recordings)

Dormouse
(1951)

Flamingos
(1951)

Tick-Tock the Crocodile
(snapping)

Louie the Mountain Lion
(Lion Down and Father's Lion)

Wolf
(The Sword in the Stone)

The Bees
(1966)

Willie the Giant
(1963)

4822-35.jpg

Ned Land
(humming vocal only)

Bagheera
(original film; vocal effects)

Shere Khan
(original film; vocal effects)

Evinrude
(The Rescuers)

Herbie.png

Herbie
(The Love Bug)

The Bear (growls)
(The Fox and the Hound)

Gallery

MacDonald with Wayne Allwine.

Jimmy making sound effects for a Disney cartoon.

MacDonald performing his famous chimney lamp growls.