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Bill Melendez: a brief biography

by Nat Gertler

Bill Melendez was one of two Guests Of Honor at the 1998 Comics Arts Professional Society Banquet, held August 1st at the Friar's Club in Beverly Hills. The following text was included in the program booklet, and was read to the event's audience by former Laugh-In announcer Gary Owens.

When Bill Melendez was born in 1916, he was a younger man. Specifically, he was Jose Cuauhtemoc Melendez of Hermosillo, Mexico. Educated in Arizona and then later at the school now known as CalArts, Bill soon achieved what so many young animators dream of before they know any better: working for Disney. Starting work at the Walt Disney Studios, Bill contributed his considerable talents on such projects as Fantasia, Dumbo, Pinnocchio, and Bambi, among other cartoons whose titles end with pronounced vowels. Bill was one of the prime movers of the Disney strike of 1941.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Bill primely moved himself right over to Leon Schlesinger Cartoons (AKA Warner Brothers Cartoons) in 1942, where he worked with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and other low-paid film stars. He moved on from there to other studios, and on to industrial films and television productions. During this period, he won over 150 awards. In 1960, works he directed won 18 awards at the American TV Commercial Festival, which only gave out 20 awards that year. That just shows how much people hate Bill: they were trying to drive him to bankruptcy by forcing him to spend all his money on trophy shelves.

It was his work in advertising which first brought Bill into contact with the characters he's most closely associated with. He worked on a series of commercials in which Charlie Brown shilled for Ford, presumably under the theory that under-aged losers are experts in recommending cars. (This was in the early sixties, long before it was realized delusional dogs were the key to insurance sales.) This led to animating short segments for a documentary about Schulz and Peanuts, and then to the first animated Peanuts special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. This unlikely piece, which the network brass feared too slow-moving, too religious, too innocent, and sounding too much of jazz and amateur kid voices, pulled in an unbelievable 45 share and won an Emmy and a Peabody. Suddenly, (in much the same way that Charlie Brown's scrawny little tree suddenly seemed gorgeous to everyone when bedecked with tinsel, lights, and colored balls) CBS decided that Peanuts specials were a good thing after all.

This lead to an on-going stream of animated Peanuts projects, all of which Bill has been involved in. There have been specials, a series, the first American animated miniseries, ads for everything from greeting cards to vacuum cleaners, four feature films, and a direct-to-video release.

Bill has also peeled Garfield and Cathy off of the comics page and onto the small screen. Other animated projects include adaptations of Gilbert & Sullivan, C. S. Lewis, and Babar the Elephant (you didn't know that Babar wrote, did you?)

Bill has been more than just an animator and producer. He is the head of Bill Melendez Productions, Inc (which makes his name a very happy coincidence.) He is a former faculty member of the Cinema Arts Department of USC. He is a voice actor, providing the voices of Snoopy and Woodstock (which, it must be confessed, is casting of questionable merit; have you ever understood a word that either character has said?) He is the father of two boys and the husband of his wife, which is better than the other way around.

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Notations used in this guide:

* = There's a copy of this book in the AAUGH.com reference library.

(HB) = The copy in the reference library is a hardcover (may not be noted on books available solely in hardcover.)

CB = Charlie Brown

Copyright 1992-2009 Nat Gertler
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