Bill Meléndez

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José Cuauhtemoc "Bill" Meléndez (November 15, 1916 – September 2, 2008)^[1][2] was a Mexican-born American character animator, film director, and film producer, known for his cartoons for Warner Brothers and the Peanuts series. Meléndez provided the voice of Snoopy and Woodstock in the latter as well.

A native of the Mexican city of Hermosillo, Sonora, Meléndez was educated in U.S. public schools in Douglas, Arizona, and later in Los Angeles at the Chouinard Art Institute (which would later become California Institute of the Arts).

In 1938, Meléndez was hired by Walt Disney to work on animated short films and feature-length films such as Bambi, Fantasia, and Dumbo. Three years later, he joined Leon Schlesinger's team at the Warner Brothers studios, where, as a member of the Bob Clampett, Art Davis and Robert McKimson units, he animated on a number of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck shorts (as "J.C. Melendez"). UPA put him on their payroll in 1948 to work on many television commercials, as well as the Gerald McBoing-Boing and Madeline shorts.

After a decade at two smaller production houses, Meléndez founded his own production company in 1964. Bill Melendez Productions helped produce the annually broadcast Christmas special A Charlie Brown Christmas, for which he won an Emmy Award and the George Foster Peabody Award despite having to work on short notice and with a tight budget. Meléndez performed the voice of Snoopy, who normally in the specials does not talk. Melendez was the only animator authorized to work on Charles Schultz's Peanuts characters.

Meléndez went on to do over 75 half-hour Peanuts specials, including the 1989 miniseries This is America, Charlie Brown, as well as four feature-length motion pictures – all with partner Lee Mendelson.

In 1979, he directed a made-for-TV animated version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with Warner Bros. for the Children's Television Workshop.^[3]

Amongst the other comic strip characters he animated were Cathy and Garfield, as well as the 1992 special Frosty Returns.

In addition to animation, Meléndez was once a faculty member at the University of Southern California's Cinema Arts Department.

He is parodied in the online cartoon Homestar Runner.

Related companies

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

References

External links

• Bill Melendez at the Internet Movie Database
• Bill Melendez Productions Inc.
• Bio of Bill Meléndez on Chuck Jones site
• Interview of Meléndez (August '06)