Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Bill Melendez Peanuts animator & the voice of Snoopy has passed away

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Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 09-03-2008, 08:19 PM:

Bill Melendez passed away Tuesday at age 91 in Santa Monica, California. Melendez was the only animator permitted by Charles M. Schutz to work with the Peanuts characters. He was the voice of Snoopy and Woodstock. He started at Disney and also work at Warner. He spent 70 years in the business.

RIP

Just a few of his credits as a Director and Producer.

"A Charlie Brown Christmas"
"It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"
"A Boy Named Charlie Brown"
"Snoopy Come Home"
"A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving"
"Race for Your Life Charlie Brown"

And during his Warner Bros. animation days he was credited as J. Melendez or J.C. Melendez. He worked on many of those classic Warner Bros. cartoons.

[ 09-04-2008, 04:22 PM: Message edited by: Bill Gabel ]

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 09-04-2008, 03:53 PM:

I saw this news yesterday and thought he must have been one of the last "classic" animators around. He did a lot of great early work with UPA - some of my favorites!

And, of course, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" will endure.

Sorry to hear of his passing.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-04-2008, 09:40 PM:

It's really sad to hear of animators like Bill Melendez passing. To me it seems like the traditional art of hand-drawn animation is dying with guys like Melendez.

Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, two titans of animation at Disney, passed away this decade (Johnston died in April at the age of 95).

As an artist, I have a lot of admiration for these guys. Their level of drawing skill and work ethic is really pretty staggering.

It's certainly not completely easy to produce professional quality animation using digital tools like Maya. But there's a certain kind of organic magic that naturally comes with well executed hand-drawn animation that you don't normally see with a lot of CGI-based stuff.

Melendez' voice characterization of Snoopy was one of a kind. I can't imagine Snoopy sounding any other way.

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 09-04-2008, 11:32 PM:

It's because Melendez was the "voice" of Snoopy, he had to join the Screen Actors Guild. I believe this was brought to his attention that he had to be a member after he had already "voiced" Snoopy in several tv specials.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 09-04-2008, 11:43 PM:

Rats!