West Coast Wonders: José "Bill" Melendez
The animator Charles Schulz entrusted with adapting "Peanuts" to the screen
Originally intending to become an engineer, Melendez was hired by Disney in 1938.
Melendez reportedly worked on “Pinocchio”, “Fantasia”, “Bambi”, and a Donald Duck cartoon called “The Flying Jalopy” (dir. Dick Lundy.)
The 1941 Disney strike catapulted Melendez to Warner Bros., where he initially animated for Bob Clampett.
After Clampett departed in 1945, Melendez moved to Arthur Davis’ unit, then Robert McKimson’s.
He joined UPA in 1949 and stayed until 1953.
Melendez worked for the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency throughout the 1950s, where he would be tasked with animating an advert for the 1960 Ford Falcon.
The agency contacted comic strip legend Charles Schulz and asked to use his characters; Schulz showed hesitancy.
Melendez wowed Schulz with a demo of the “Peanuts” gang; consequently, Schulz permitted the advert.
Not long after Melendez would direct “A Charlie Brown Christmas” with a script from Schulz.
What followed was roughly four decades of collaboration between Melendez and Schulz.
Schulz died in 2000, and Melendez passed eight years later.
(Wagon Heels, dir. Bob Clampett)
(The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, dir. Bob Clampett)
It took Melendez time to adapt his Disney schooling to more outrageous films, but he certainly got there.
Melendez’s work possesses fluid, stretchy, and wild qualities, influenced by Warner colleague Rod Scribner.
Characters don’t shuffle around when Melendez is in control; they leap, parade, and dash.
Key aspects of Melendez’s animation include jauntiness, speedy, almost break-neck timing, flurries of dry brush, far-reaching limbs, gum-toothed mouths, and a strange elegance in motion.
Even in more controlled environments, Melendez finds a way to blend appeal with tension.
What’s more, he is THE VOICE of Snoopy!
(The Stupor Salesman, dir. Arthur Davis)
(Porky Chops, dir. Arthur Davis)
(Gerald McBoing-Boing, dir. Robert Cannon)
(Drawing with Snoopy, character created by Charles Schulz)
Up next: William Henning (the less-than-appealing Popeye animator)