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Bob Peterson (filmmaker)

American animator, director and writer (born 1961)

Summary

American animator, director and writer (born 1961)

Field	Value
name	Bob Peterson
image	Bob Peterson.jpg
caption	Peterson in 2015
birth_name	Robert Peterson
birth_date
birth_place	Wooster, Ohio, U.S.
occupation
years_active	1979–present
employer	Pixar Animation Studios (1994–present)
education	Ohio Northern University, Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, 1983; Purdue University, Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, 1986

Robert Peterson (born January 18, 1961) is an American cartoonist, animator, director, screenwriter, storyboard supervisor, and voice actor at Pixar. He was hired at Pixar by Roger Gould in 1994 as an animator for commercials, before subsequently becoming an animator on Toy Story (1995). He was the co-director, co-star, co-head, and co-writer for Up (2009). He conceived the idea of The Good Dinosaur (2015), and was the film's original director before being dismissed from it. His work as a writer for the films Up and Finding Nemo (2003) earned him nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He was also a co-writer on Cars 3 (2017) and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Animated Program for his work on Forky Asks A Question (2020).

Career

Peterson's early career as an artist started when he was a mechanical engineering student at Ohio Northern University (1979-1983) and then as a graduate student at Purdue University (1983-1986). At Ohio Northern, Peterson drew a weekly cartoon "For Pete's Sake". At Purdue, Peterson drew the cartoon "Loco Motives" for the Purdue student newspaper, the Purdue Exponent. Prior to his graduation from Purdue in December 1986, the Exponent published "Loco Motives: Boilercoaster 84-86, The Best of the Purdue Exponent's Loco Motives Cartoon", a paper-back collection of Peterson's cartoons. In October 1986 Peterson autographed copies at a book-signing event in the Purdue Memorial Union. At least one copy of the book is known to have original, signed artwork inside the book cover which was drawn by Peterson during the book-signing.

Peterson has also voiced characters for various Pixar projects such as Geri in the short Geri's Game (1997), Roz in Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Monsters University (2013), Mr. Ray in Finding Nemo (2003) and Finding Dory (2016), and Dug and Alpha in Up (2009). His most recent vocal work was Dug and Alpha in the short Carl's Date (2023). Peterson also voiced Chick Hicks in Cars 3 since Chick's original voice actor Michael Keaton was unavailable to reprise the role.

Peterson conceived Pixar's The Good Dinosaur (2015) and served as the film's director until exiting the project in August 2013. He created, wrote, and directed two short-form series: Forky Asks a Question (2019–20) and Dug Days (2021–23).

In August 2015, Peterson voiced a dog named Derby for an E:60 profile on ESPN that chronicled the Trenton Thunder's minor league baseball team's tradition of using bat dogs.

Filmography

Feature films

Year	Title	Director	Writer
Creative Team	Other	Voice Role	Notes
1995	Toy Story				Additional Animation and Layout
1998	A Bug's Life				Story Artist
1999	Toy Story 2				Story Artist
2001	Monsters, Inc.			Roz	Story Supervisor, Additional Story Material
2003	Finding Nemo			Mr. Ray / Pelican / Dolphin
2004	The Incredibles			Oliver Sansweet's Lawyer
2006	Cars			Additional Voices
2007	Ratatouille				Additional Story Material
2008	WALL-E
2009	Up			Dug / Alpha
2010	Toy Story 3			Janitor
2011	Cars 2
2012	Brave
2013	Monsters University			Roz
2015	Inside Out				Additional Dialogue
The Good Dinosaur				Original Concept and Development, Additional Production Leadership
2016	Finding Dory			Mr. Ray / Additional Voices	Additional Screenplay Material
2017	Cars 3			Chick Hicks / Dr. Damage	Replacing Michael Keaton
Coco				Story Consultant
2018	Incredibles 2
2019	Toy Story 4			Additional Voices
2020	Onward				Special Thanks
Soul				Additional Story Contributions
2021	Luca
2022	Turning Red
Lightyear
2023	Elemental
2024	Inside Out 2
2025	Elio			Universal Users Manual

Short films

Year	Title	Other	Voice Role
1997	Geri's Game		Geri
2003	Exploring the Reef
2008	Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales		Additional Voices
2009	Dug's Special Mission		Alpha and Dug
George and A.J.		Dug
2016	Marine Life Interviews
2017	Miss Fritter's Racing Skoool		Dr. Damage
2019–20	Forky Asks a Question		Voice Over Announcer
2021–23	Dug Days		Dug (all episodes) and Alpha (Carl's Date)

Television

Year	Title	Voice Role	Notes
2021–24	Monsters at Work	Roz, Roze, Bob "Dentures" Peterson	Creative Consultant (season 1)
2025	Monsters Funday Football	Roz	alternate telecast of Monday Night Football
2027	Cars: Lightning Racers	Chick Hicks

Video games

Year	Title	Voice Role
2001	Monsters, Inc. Scream Team Training	Roz
Monsters, Inc. Scream Team
2002	Monsters, Inc.
2003	Finding Nemo	Mr. Ray/Krill
2009	Up	Dug/Alpha/Newsreel Announcer
2012	Kinect Rush: A Disney-Pixar Adventure	Dug

Other credits

Year	Title	Role
2000	For the Birds	Thanks
2008	Presto	Special Thanks
2009	Tracy	Terry Cane
George and A.J.	Special Thanks
2011	Toy Story Toons: Small Fry
2017	Lou
2019	Purl	Kristen Lester's Story Trust
2020	Lamp Life	Special Thanks
Burrow

References

Davison, Craig. (June 16, 2024). "Former Boilermaker writes Pixar movie, remembers school". The Exponent.
(August 20, 2011). "BREAKING NEWS: Pixar announces two new movies". The Pixar Blog.
Keegan, Rebecca. (August 30, 2013). "Pixar Animation yanks director Bob Peterson off 'The Good Dinosaur'". Los Angeles Times.
(October 20, 2019). "'Forky Asks A Question': Release date, plot, cast, trailer and everything you need to know about the Disney+ show from 'Toy Story'". Meaww.com.
(October 3, 2019). "Toy Story 4 Producer Reveals How Disney+ Will Continue The Franchise". CinemaBlend.
Bill Desowitz. (September 1, 2021). ""Dug Days": Pixar's Disney+ Shorts Reunite Carl with His Lovable Golden Retriever from "Up"".
(August 12, 2015). "On deck: E:60 profiles family circle of baseball team's 'bat dogs'". ESPN Front Row.
Bahr, Sarah. (July 28, 2021). "In 'Monsters at Work,' a Roz by Another Name Is Just as Sour". [[The New York Times]].
(9 April 2019). "'Monsters, Inc.' Voice Cast to Return for Disney+ Series (Exclusive)".
Sarto, Dan. (July 7, 2021). "Disney Television Turns Scares into Laughs in 'Monsters at Work'".
(2025-12-05). "How to watch Eagles-Chargers Monsters Funday Football on ESPN".
McPherson, Chris. (2025-08-08). "8 Years Later, Owen Wilson Sets Lightning McQueen Comeback With New Spin-Off Series".
(January 29, 2020). "Disney Plus' Lamp Life Sneak Peek: What Happened to Bo Peep Between Toy Story 2 and 4? - IGN". [[IGN]].

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1961-births living-people animators-from-ohio american-male-screenwriters american-male-voice-actors animation-screenwriters annie-award-winners filmmakers-from-ohio pixar-people primetime-emmy-award-winners

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