BILL MELENDEZ
Born November 15, 1916, in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, Jose Cuauhtemoc (Bill) Melendez was educated in the public schools of Douglas, Arizona and Los Angeles, California. Melendez has worked continuously in film production since he was hired by Walt Disney in 1938 where he worked as an animator on "Fantasia," "Pinocchio," "Bambi," "The Wind in the Willows," "Dumbo," and many Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck cartoons.
In 1941 Melendez worked for Leon Schlesinger Cartoons, which later became Warner Brothers Cartoons, doing animation on Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig. In 1948 he went to work for United Productions of America (UPA) to work on such noted shorts as "Madeline," "Gerald McBoing-Boing," and numerous television commercials. The next ten years were spent directing industrial films for John Sutherland Productions and over 1000 television productions for Playhouse Pictures. During this time Melendez won international acclaim at the Cannes, Edinburgh, and Venice Film Festivals, plus over 150 commercial awards. Out of 20 winners in the 1960 American Television Commercials Festival in New York, 18 were directed by Bill Melendez.
In 1964 Bill Melendez founded his own production company, Bill Melendez Productions, Inc. Along with continued commercial work, Bill produced his first television special "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Despite being forced to bring it in on a short schedule and a tight budget, he managed to garner both an Emmy Award (the first of eight) and the prestigious George Peabody Award as Outstanding Children/Young People's program for 1965, and to create a classic which has aired on CBS-TV from 1965 through 2000. (ABC-TV bought the rights to air the special in 2001.)
In 1967 the Television Academy game three nominations to Bill Melendez; two for producing the outstanding children's program for "Charlie Brown's All-Stars" and for "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," and one for outstanding individual achievement for directing "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Since then he has produced over 50 half-hour Charlie Brown specials, as well as four feature length motion pictures. The first of those movies, "A Boy Named Charlie Brown," was nominated for an Oscar. As always, the Peanuts Gang are very visible in commercials and Bill Melendez remains their sole animator, both domestically and internationally. Notable commercial campaigns include MetLife, A & W sodas, Chex, Regina and Shell Oil, to name a few.
Notable recent productions include a special Melendez produced in 1990 with the American Cancer Society called "Why, Charlie Brown, Why?"--a sensitive study of what happens when a child gets cancer. In the late 1980's, Melendez produced a mini-series (the first animated mini-series ever) to teach children about American history, called "This is America, Charlie Brown." In 2000, Melendez produced and animated the direct to video Peanuts animated special, "It's the Pied Piper, Charlie Brown," which became the first Peanuts animated special to also be released on digital video disk (DVD).
(Written by Eric A. Wildgrube. From the "Knott's Camp Snoopy Peanuts Animation Art Training Guide." 1996. Copywrite Knott's Camp Snoopy/The Minntertainment Company. Used with permission.)
Please send questions and comments about this web site to EAW Peanuts
EAW Peanuts 2005© is an EAW Productions 2005©
venture and is written and produced by Eric A. Wildgrube.
EAW Peanuts 2005 is a personal home page and has no affiliation and/or
association implied or otherwise with United
Features Syndicate, Creative Associates, or United Media.
Snoopy, the Peanuts characters, and Camp Snoopy are registered trade marks of United
Features Syndicate, Inc.
All images of Snoopy and Peanuts characters on this web site are images of items
from the author's personal collection.
