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Born November
15, 1916 in Hermosillo, Mexico, Jose Cuauhtemoc
(Bill) Melendez was educated in the public schools
of Douglas, Arizona and Los Angeles, California
(Chouinard Art Institute, now CalArts). Melendez
has worked continuously in film production since
he was hired by Walt Disney in 1938. During his
tour of duty he worked as an animator on Fantasia,
Pinocchio,
Bambi, The
Wind in the Willows, Dumbo,
and many Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck cartoon shorts.
Bill was a prime mover in the Disney strike of 1941.
In 1941 Melendez signed on with Leon Schlesinger
Cartoons,  which
later became Warner Bros. Cartoons, animating some
of the most memorable Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and
Porky Pig short subjects. 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 1,000 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. Between 1957 and 1961 he won
three Art Director's Medals. Out of 20 winners in
the 1960 American TV Commercials Festival in New
York, 18 were directed by Bill Melendez.
In other international competition he received an
honorable mention in the 1965 Cannes International
Advertising Film Festival. Thus began a chain of
two dozen major foreign honors from the Edinburgh,
London, Annecy, Tours and Venice Festivals, finally
bringing home the Venice Cup. This was the first
time the United States had ever won the Cup, symbolic
of overall excellence, in the festival's history.
Since founding his own production company, Bill
Melendez Productions, Inc., in 1964, Bill's work
has continued to win awards and applause. Alongside
his commercial work, in 1964, Bill produced his
first television special, A
Charlie Brown Christmas. Despite being forced
to bring it in on a short schedule and tight budget,
he managed to garner both an Emmy Award (the first
of eight) and the prestigious George Foster Peabody
Award for Outstanding Children/Young People's program.
The show is a classic, having aired on CBS-TV every
year since. The stentorian tenor behind Snoopy's
vocalizations, by the way, is the same Bill Melendez
drawing Snoopy's aquiline nose.
In 1967 the Television Academy gave 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. Since then
he has produced over 75 half-hour Charlie Brown
specials, as well as four feature-length motion
pictures: A Boy Named
Charlie Brown (nominated for an Oscar), Snoopy,
Come Home, Race
for Your Life, Charlie
Brown, and Bon
Voyage, Charlie Brown. Melendez also has
to his credit half-hour specials based on the famous
Babar the Elephant books.
In 1970 Melendez opened a studio in London which
produces commercials and other projects for international
television. The London studio produced the ambitious
animated feature film Dick
Deadeye, based on the work of Gilbert Sullivan.
In addition to an armload of awards and nominations
for his Peanuts work, Bill won an Emmy in 1975 for
Yes, Virginia, There
is a Santa Claus; and an Emmy (the first
awarded in the specific category of Animation) for
The Lion, The
Witch and The Wardrobe, as well as an individual
Emmy for authoring that show's script.
Bill Melendez Productions was the first to animate
Jim Davis' Garfield the Cat, and that first special
won an Emmy Award in '82. In '87, Bill took on the
character Cathy by Cathy Guisewite, and  won
a Best Animated Special Emmy for that show. Several
other Cathy specials have followed, as well as numerous
ad campaigns featuring the character. As always,
the Peanuts Gang are very visible in commercials
and Bill Melendez remains their sole animator, both
domestically and internationally. Current campaigns
include MetLife, A&W, Chex, Regina, Hallmark,
Shell Oil, and numerous European, Asian and Latin
American accounts. Notable productions include a
special Bill 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 80's, Melendez produced TV's first animated
mini-series. Designed to teach children about American
History, it was titled This
is America, Charlie Brown. Recently completed
is an updated rendering of Frosty the Snowman,
in association with Lorne Michaels and Broadway
Video, and starring the voices of Jonathan Winters
and John Goodman.
Bill Melendez died in September 2008. Today, his studio
is headed by his son, Steven Melendez. |
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