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Bill Melendez

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Bill Melendez
Born
José Cuauhtémoc Meléndez

(1916-11-15)November 15, 1916
Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico
DiedSeptember 2, 2008(2008-09-02) (aged 91)
Santa Monica, California, United States
Occupation(s)Animator, film director, voice artist, producer
Years active1938–2006
Spouse(s)
Helen Melendez
​
​
(m. 1940; "his death" is deprecated; use "died" instead. 2008)​
Children2; including Steven C. Melendez

José Cuauhtémoc Meléndez (November 15, 1916 – September 2, 2008),[1] known as Bill Melendez, was a Mexican American character animator, film director, voice artist and producer, known for his cartoons for Walt Disney Productions (working on four Disney films Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi), Warner Bros. Cartoons, UPA and the Peanuts series. Melendez provided the voices of Snoopy and Woodstock in the latter as well.

Early life

A native of Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, Melendez was educated in U.S. public schools in Douglas, Arizona.[citation needed] He later attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles (which would later become California Institute of the Arts).[citation needed]

Warner Bros., UPA and commercial animation work

Following the 1941 Disney strike, Bill was hired by Leon Schlesinger to animate in Bob Clampett's unit. After Clampett's departure, Bill moved to the Arthur Davis unit. When the number of animation units at Warner Bros. was reduced from four to three in 1948, Melendez, after being moved to Robert McKimson's unit for a time, moved over to United Productions of America (UPA) where he animated on cartoons such as Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950). Melendez also produced and directed thousands of television commercials, first at UPA, then Playhouse Pictures and John Sutherland Productions.[2] In 1963, Melendez founded his own studio in the basement of his Hollywood home. Bill Melendez Productions is still active and is currently run by his son Steven C. Melendez.[3] In addition to animation, Melendez was once a faculty member at the University of Southern California's Cinema Arts Department.

Peanuts TV specials, movies and TV shows

Melendez was the only person Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz trusted to turn his popular comic creations into television specials. He and his studio worked on every single television special and direct-to-video film for the Peanuts gang and Melendez directed the majority of them. He even provided the vocal effects for Snoopy and Woodstock in every single production, voice acting the characters in the studio by uttering gibberish, and the voices were mechanically sped up at different speeds to represent the two different characters.

According to a New York Times article shortly after his death, Melendez did not intend to do voice acting for the two characters. "Schulz would not countenance the idea of a beagle uttering English dialogue, Mr. Melendez recited gibberish into a tape recorder, sped it up and put the result on the soundtrack.“ He also directed, did the animation for, and provided voice acting in the first four Peanuts theatrical films, A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969), Snoopy, Come Home (1972), Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown (1977), and Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (1980), as well as the video games Get Ready for School, Charlie Brown! (1995) and Snoopy's Campfire Stories (1996).[4] The last Peanuts-related production he worked on was He's a Bully, Charlie Brown (2006).

Melendez and Lee Mendelson, who also worked on the Peanuts specials, films, and TV shows, formed their own production team and did other animated specials. They were responsible for the first two Garfield animated specials, Here Comes Garfield (1982) and Garfield on the Town (1983), as well as Frosty Returns (1992), the pseudo-sequel to Rankin/Bass' Frosty the Snowman (1969).

National Student Film Institute

During the 1980s and 1990s Melendez served on the advisory board of the National Student Film Institute.[5][6]

Death

On September 2, 2008, Melendez died at his home in Santa Monica at the age of 91. He had been in declining health after a fall a year earlier. No cause of death was made public.[7] Melendez was cremated and his ashes were given to his family.

Posthumous return to Peanuts

Archive recordings of his work as Snoopy and Woodstock were used for the film The Peanuts Movie.[8] This makes him the only member of the film's cast to have been involved in a previous Peanuts project, save for Kristin Chenoweth, who won a Tony Award for her performance as Sally Brown in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown on Broadway.

  • Melendez Films – Animation division : United Kingdom, video and interactive entertainment

References

  1. ^ "Peanuts' animator Melendez dies". BBC. September 4, 2008. Archived from the original on September 6, 2008. Retrieved September 4, 2008. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ Solomon, Charles (September 4, 2008). "Animator of 'Peanuts' TV specials and voice of Snoopy". The Los Angeles Times.
  3. ^ "Bill Melendez Prod. Inc". billmelendez.tv.
  4. ^ "Bill Melendez at Moby Games". Retrieved 2017-10-29.
  5. ^ Editor (June 10, 1994). National Student Film Institute/L.A: The Sixteenth Annual Los Angeles Student Film Festival. The Directors Guild Theatre. pp. 10–11. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); |author1= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ Editor (June 7, 1991). Los Angeles Student Film Institute: 13th Annual Student Film Festival. The Directors Guild Theatre. p. 3. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); |author1= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. ^ Fox, Margalit (September 4, 2008). "Bill Melendez, 91, 'Peanuts' Animator, Dies". The New York Times.
  8. ^ Russ Fischer. "New 'Peanuts' Movie First Look: Charlie Brown and Snoopy Head Back to the Big Screen". Slashfilm.
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