For 70 years Bill Melendez brought a great amount of joy to young and old alike with his animated presentations, especially his most famous, bringing Charles Schultz’ Peanuts characters Snoopy and Charlie Brown to life. Bill died on Tuesday from natural causes at the age of 91.
Melendez began his animation career in 1938 working for the famed Walt Disney Studios and was hired by Walt himself. The artist worked on such film classic’s as “Pinocchio,” “Fantasia” and was one of the main animators responsible for making Mickey Mouse look good on film. From Disney he moved over to Warner Bros. for a stint and worked on developing many of the characters within the Looney Tunes catalog, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig.
Eventually he came to work on the legendary “Peanuts” franchise, and it was there that Bill came into his own. He also did all the sounds for Snoopy in the “Peanuts” films and TV shows.
Besides TV and film work, Melendez’ impressive seven-decade resume also included thousands of TV commercials and billboard ads, but it his his work with Charles Schultz and “Peanuts” that he will most be remembered for.
Melendez was awarded an Academy Award for his animation work on “Gerald McBoing-Boing” in 1951. However, the Emmy winning artist’s most famous and groundbreaking work of all was the 1965 presentation of “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” It is still seen every Christmas holiday on television sets throughout the globe and was the first TV show to ever use real children as voice actors. It also was the first program to use a laugh-track, a feat that has been copied for decades.
He also created Emmy-winning specials based on the cartoon characters Cathy and Garfield, and was involved in animated versions of the Babar the elephant books and the C.S. Lewis book, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”
Over the span of his entire career, Melendez has had two Oscar nominations with one win, a recipent of 6 Emmy wins.
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