Remembering Lyn Joy
Hello Everyone! It’s almost Christmas Eve, the wood is gathered in against the approaching storm and we have food to eat, how blessed we are! I send a lot of Christmas cards around this time each year, and I think about friends I still hear from, and friends who are gone. Lyn Joy Kroeger was a friend who I heard from every Christmas for the past 20 years. She was my assistant animator and inbetweener on a few free-lance commercials I did for Duck Soup and Bob Kurtz in the 1970s. She started doing inbetweens on Lady and the Tramp in 1954. She left Disney’s after Lady wrapped and worked at a lot of the small studios, Quartet Films (Mike Lah), The Haboush Company, Murakami-Wolf, Levitow-Hansen, Duck Soup and Hanna-Barbera. She stopped doing animation in 1984, and passed away in March of this year at the age of 77. I used to drop off and pick up work from her at her house over on Figueroa St., which she inherited from her mother. It was a large old house in a rather bad neighborhood, with bars on all the windows and doors. She lived alone with her huge great dane, Tarzan IV, who was almost as big as she was, and Lyn Joy was quite tall. Lyn had at least six dogs named “Tarzan”, all fierce looking, but gentle once you got in the house. She liked to go walking through the neighborhood, and nobody bothered her with Tarzan along. Lyn was a very talented artist, who made “assemblages” out of her huge collection of household brick-a-brack. She did three-dimensional canvases that resembled Magritte’s floating heads and bowler hats, and made a lot of fake bowls of soup with clear resin; many of the bowls had little toy ducks floating in them (duck soup). The house was very large, the upstairs was filled with “junk”, things that had belonged to her mother, and things Lyn Joy found around the neighborhood, materials she used in her art. All of her Christmas cards were made out of old cards that were re-assembled to make new ones. She was an unrepentant individual, she was unhappily married at least once, and was quite a striking beauty when she worked at Disney in the 1950s (she appeared in person on a You Bet Your Life episode, where she traded quips with Groucho). Even though she had been through a lot of bitter experiences at the hands of the men in her life, Lyn Joy’s attitude was self-satiric, she could stand outside of her life and make fun of it and herself without losing your respect in any way (with Tarzan around, you’d BETTER have respect). Her drawing was very good, she did a great job on the commercial jobs we shared. I last heard from her at Christmas, 2005. She always sent letters and cartoons she had drawn along with her card, usually reacting to the cards I sent to her. Here are a few excerpts from her 2005 card:
Good News             Bad News
I’m Still Here          It Ain’t What It Use to Be
I Followed My Dream          I’m seeking SSI
I’m Still Trucking        I have fallen behind and can’t catch up
I Have a 1,000 Boxes of Collectables   My House Is A Mess
I Do Mom Art       They’re Only Buying Pop Art
2 of my 3 Toilets Are Working      I Have an Active Bladder
Tarzan and I Go Walking      The Time Limit is 30″
The Roof Doesn’t Leak       There’s A Lien On the House
You see what I mean about her sense of humor? Even though she was in reduced circumstances, she could de-fuse bad situations with her existential jokes. I think if Lyn Joy had not been as shy and embattled as she was, she could have been a fine stand-up comedian. Here are a couple of her humorous and bitter paragraphs:
“From the Baby’s View”–A Womb of One’s Own
1-26-05: Most men most of the time have no real understanding about women. They all have this emotional, sometimes a barrier, reaction to the first experience of action in his beginning namely, “Mother”….and how she related to him. Was it a good, happy experience, or was it hell on Earth…& this “Chinese Water Torture” would go on intensely for the first 5 yrs.
Post Disney 9-14-05
A. It’s A Dog Eat Dog World–Competitive
It’s A Dog Chases Cat World–he wants HER
But For What? To Kill, or Serve and Protect?
It’s a Dog Chase Pussy World–To Possess, Abuse, Use, Control
Be A Dog in the Manger?
Her attitude toward the men in her life, certainly comes through here, but you can perceive the artist in her, and her appreciation of childhood imprinting as a prime directive of mature sexual attitudes. Lyn Joy had not only a stormy relationship with men, but she evidently had battles with her mother as well. I never met her mother, but her influence was all around Lyn, the house, and all of her mother’s old things were with her all her life, and she made art out of all of it. Here’s a little of her last letter to me:
“..Tarzan -Good Dog & I are still hanging out, hanging in there. I’m 75, man, one slows down, so make hay & ha while you’re still in the running. I wish I had more time to draw, but everyday chores is a time thief…You, Mark, working with, for you–one of the nicest experiences I have had in my life. You’re honest and you didn’t try to beat me out of anything. I’m sure you’re aware of how bad & cruel it is, but you shine like a rose, mixing metaphors—I like. …If the shoe fits, send it to the funny farm. Take Care…. Love, it’s a Lyn Joy & Tarzan VI”
I haven’t changed Lyn’s punctuation or spelling, I think it should be read just as she wrote it down. Lyn Joy Kroeger was one of the many artists who worked in the “rank and file” of the business, she never animated on professional jobs, but did finish one experimental film: “Mandela”, which may be on You Tube someplace. It was a film made of abstract designs, I can’t remember if the soundtrack was Ravi Shankar or not, but I’m sure you get the general idea of the film. It aired at least once on Los Angeles TV. Most of all, her odd and unique life was her art. I have no idea what happened to her in 2006 and 2007, I didn’t hear from her and should have suspected something. I hope she had someone to care for her, when I knew her she didn’t have any family except for Tarzan, and I believe no close friends. She was a “prickly” person, but a very dear one. I miss her very much, especially at Christmas.
This week’s comics are the last two pages of Jim Tyer’s Hennery Hound from Barnyard Comics #7, on page 6, Hennery runs out of the graveyard so fast that he leaves his clothes behind. This story is signed “J.T.” Marvelous Mike this week is only four episodes. The strips from 12-25 and 12-28-1956 are missing, because the Post-Dispatch didn’t publish on Christmas, and the episode for the 28th was not in the microfilm. The homeless boy, Billy and his mom, Ellie, are re-united with Don, their long-lost papa. Cliff Crump lands the International Department Stores account, because amnesia victim Don was the President of the IDS. Mike solved the whole case through Billy’s locket, what a genius! Krazy Kat is from 5-15 to 5-20-1939, this week’s storylines are “Firecracker Crack-Ups” and “Top Hat and Bricks”. Enjoy the strips, may Santa bring us World Peace. Love and Joy to all.
steven says:
Hey,Mark,you should start posting animator breakdowns on cartoons on your blog.I think it would be an interesting change of pace.
Mark Kausler says:
Hi Steven,
I have a few such breakdowns, mostly on MGM cartoons, which haven’t been posted as far as I know. I’ll get around to them soon. I hope someone who knew Lyn Kroeger will write about her!
Thanks for writing, Mark
Bronnie says:
Mark-
I was delighted to come across your wonderfully written remembrance of Lyn. I knew and worked with her too, at HB almost 30 years ago.
My relationship with her at that time was humorously/sarcastically adversarial, at best. I was pretty young and not really sure how to deal with her as she was one of relatively few people who really intimidated me.. At any given opportunity she would stick me with personal, albeit painfully witty verbal barbs..On the rare occasion I mustered the courage to sling back a few, I sensed a kind of backhanded respect that earned me a funny note left on my desk or a comically captioned copy of a snapshot she’d taken of me at some point.(She took lots of pictures.. always snapping away.)
Many years later, as recently as about 2001 / 2002 I had the opportunity to visit her at her home. My pal Linda Moore, whom you may know from the stock library at HB, is the daughter-in- law of a high school classmate of Lyn’s.(All three of us went over there, taking along some refreshments.) I think Joan and Lyn were class of 48 or 49..She was very happy for the visit–yet the little’ pricklies’ were still there–
It was quite a shock to see her after all that time.. Osteoporosis had bent her into a figure aged past well her years; yet I had known her as being a very strong, energetic 50 year old– younger than I am now!
She led us up a tricky ladder into her attic where we wended our way,literally, through stacked mazes of collected paper, periodicals, odd and ends,boxes of this and that– you name it… Amazing,yet downright frightening if you even began to think of the fire hazard. That lovely old house had definitely seen better days– you might remember how certain parts of it were literally falling apart. Thankfully,she indeed had faithful Tarzan 6 or 7 by her side, so one did feel a bit better for her safety–
We will be remembering Lyn at the Afternoon of Remembrance on Feb 7th– I had assigned Linda Moore the memoriam before you posted your tribute– but I’d love to include at least segments of your tribute if we have time..Would that be okay?
Thanks Mark–Oh and as usual, this year’s Xmas card is another winner!!
I several years’ worth magneted to the fridge year-round!
Happy New Year to you and to Cathy!
B.
Mark says:
Hi Bronnie,
Thanks for writing your memories of Lyn. It’s not a surprise to me to hear that she had osteoporosis; I knew there was a reason she didn’t seem too social as she aged. Maybe there was some embarrassment at her appearance, when I first met her she had slightly grey hair, but was the picture of health, tall and straight. Did I mention that her voice sounded a bit like Tallulah Bankhead’s? Her house was falling apart when I used to visit her, and I remember the attic with all the collectibles, she didn’t throw anything away! I don’t know what isolated her so much from people, maybe living in that dangerous neighborhood, her formidable looking dogs. Perhaps it was her difficult marriage to her first (and only?) husband, Otho, that soured her attitude. Lyn was quite critical of Otho, yet they remained in contact until he died and her last letter to me in 2005 mentioned him. She knew Gary Mooney as well. You can imagine what a shock it was to me, that because I didn’t get the Pegboard in March, I didn’t learn of her death until this fall! I would be glad to speak about her at the Afternoon, but Linda Moore sounds better qualified. Of course you may quote from the blog if you’d like to, it’s the least I owe Lyn. It’s good to know that she had some friends! Do you know if she was alone when she died, or did she have someone to care for her? If you would rather PM me about this, use my regular email or the blog email: blogmolasses@att.net. Glad you liked our card, Happy New Year to you too!