Bill Melendez

Early life

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

Early animation work (1935–1961)

On completion of his studies, Melendez found his first job at a lumber mill. After watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, he gained employment at Disney in 1938, where he worked as an assistant animator to Hawley Pratt whom he befriended and worked together to developed a naval game with toy ships. He worked on what are now considered classics: Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi and he worked once as an animator for a Donald Duck short, The Flying Jalopy. Following the 1941 Disney strike, Melendez was hired by Leon Schlesinger Productions, later known as Warner Bros. Cartoons, where he served as animator on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series. He worked in Bob Clampett's unit, first as an assistant animator for Rod Scribner, and then as a full animator starting with Wagon Heels. After Clampett's departure in 1945, the unit was given to Arthur Davis. When the number of animation units at Warner Bros. was reduced from four to three in 1947, Melendez along with Emery Hawkins moved to Robert McKimson's unit for some time.

After animating several shorts for McKimson, Melendez was fired by producer Edward Selzer. Afterwards, he 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 John Sutherland Productions and Playhouse Pictures. 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. In addition to animation, Melendez was once a faculty member at the University of Southern California's Cinema Arts Department.

Melendez would also be referenced in the 1961 Looney Tunes short The Pied Piper of Guadalupe, where his name was used for a music instructor for Sylvester to learn how to play the flute. At that point, Melendez has been away from Warner Bros. for ten years.

''Peanuts'' franchise (1959–2006)

In 1959, Melendez was hired to do some animated television commercials featuring characters from the comic strip Peanuts for the Ford Motor Company. These animations were seen by documentary producer Lee Mendelson, and Mendelson hired Melendez to do some interstitial animations for a film he was producing about the comic strip entitled A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

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 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, although some later specials had Snoopy speaking in a clear voice, reflecting how he would be thinking to himself in the comics.

According to an article in The New York Times published 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).

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.

Death

Melendez died at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, on September 2, 2008, at the age of 91. No cause of his death was made public, but he had been in declining health after a fall a year earlier. 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. This makes him the only member of the film's cast to have been involved in a previous Peanuts project, same 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 also has archival recordings on the film's game, Snoopy's Grand Adventure.

Melendez Films

name = Bill Melendez Productions Melendez Films Melendez Features, Inc.| logo = | type = Privately held| foundation = 1962 (as Bill Melendez Productions)| founder = Steven C. Melendez Bill Melendez| location = London, England, United Kingdom Burbank, California, United States Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico| key_people = J.C. Melendez Steven C. Melendez Kaj Melendez Mirza-Javed Melendez| num_employees = 70 (at peak)| industry = Animation Film | revenue = | products = Animated feature films | operating profit = | homepage = Bill Melendez Inc Melendez Films (formerly Bill Melendez Productions and Melendez Features, Inc.) is a film animation studio. It was founded in 1962 by Steven C. Melendez, the son of Bill. The studio produced the ambitious animated feature film Dick Deadeye, based on the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. In 1979 the company produced a one-and-a-half-hour television special based on the C.S. Lewis classic book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the film subsequently won two Emmy Awards for "best animated film" and "script adaptation". Melendez Films has also produced many series for television including "Fred Basset" and "The Perishers", as well as educational mini films like Molly and the Skywalkerz for PBS, which were not rebroadcast for a couple of decades and did not surface on home media until after the 1998 VHS debut.

The company continues to create commercials in France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece and Sweden as well as the UK and the U.S. working for clients such as Scandinavian Airlines, Schick, British Rail, Colgate, Ferrero, and the British Government.

Mendelson/Melendez Productions

Bill Melendez Lee Mendelson Film Productions Bill Melendez Productions Garfield (until 1983) The Fantastic Funnies No Man's Valley Bill Melendez Productions **Mendelson/Melendez Productions **(sometimes credited as **Mendelson-Melendez Productions ** and formerly as Lee Mendelson/Bill Melendez Productions or Lee Mendelson Film Productions) was an American animation studio founded in 1965 and was active until 2006. It was mostly famous for its Peanuts animated specials.

Filmography

Films

Television

Video games

References

References

1. (September 4, 2008). "Peanuts' animator Melendez dies". [[British Broadcasting Corporation.
2. Beck, Jerry. (2008-09-03). "Bill Melendez 1916-2008".
3. "Bill Melendez, Comics Creator, Businessman and Peanuts Animator".
4. "Robert McKimson's "A Ham In A Role" {{!}}".
5. Solomon, Charles. (September 4, 2008). "Animator of 'Peanuts' TV specials and voice of Snoopy". The Los Angeles Times.
6. "Bill Melendez Prod. Inc.".
7. Fox, Margalit. (September 4, 2008). "Bill Melendez, 'Peanuts' Animator, Dies at 91". The New York Times.
8. [https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,326921/ "Bill Melendez at Moby Games"] {{Webarchive. link. (October 25, 2017 . Retrieved October 29, 2017.)
9. (June 10, 1994). "National Student Film Institute/L.A: The Sixteenth Annual Los Angeles Student Film Festival".
10. (June 7, 1991). "Los Angeles Student Film Institute: 13th Annual Student Film Festival".
11. (September 4, 2008). "'Peanuts' animator Bill Melendez dies at 91".
12. Russ Fischer. (March 17, 2014). "New 'Peanuts' Movie First Look: Charlie Brown and Snoopy Head Back to the Big Screen". Slashfilm.
13. "Molly and Skywalkerz In Happily Ever After".
14. (24 November 2024). "Molly and the Skywalkerz in Happily Ever After (película 1985)".
15. "Happily Ever After - Long-métrage d'animation (1985)".
16. "Molly and the Skywalkerz: Happily Ever After (1985)".
17. (2 December 1999). "Cinar nabs Wonderworks' family pix". Variety.
18. "Molly And The Skywalkerz: Two Daddies? (1989)".