It was on this day in 1968 that It’s Tough to Be a Bird landed in theaters for the first time. With a story by the zany Disney animator Ward Kimball, who also directed the film, this mostly animated featurette takes a humorous-yet-educational look at the history of birds. One standout segment features narrated live-action footage of the celebrations surrounding the time when the buzzards return to Hinckley Ridge, Ohio, which peaks with a hilarious song by comedienne Ruth Buzzi. The film concludes with a wacky, off-the-wall animated montage, thanks largely to the involvement of wacky, off-the-wall Ward Kimball. A comical red bird serves as narrator of the film, and Ward once recalled how he discovered the voice for that character. “We used Richard Bakalyan, who had never done any voice recording before in his life. He was an actor. I happened to pass him on the Disney Studio Lot one noon and I heard him talking to a guy. He sounded like a New York taxicab driver. I said, ‘Hey! That’s our narrator!” So I ran back and grabbed him. I said, ‘How’d you like to do the recording for an animated film I’m working on?’ He said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah! Sure! Why not?’ So that’s how we got the voice. That really made the character. It gave him a distinction from anything we’d ever done before.” It’s Tough to Be a Bird made the Disney studios as proud as a peacock when it flew away with the Academy Award® for Best Short Subject Cartoon.