Peanuts Animator Passes Away

SANTA MONICA, September 4:
Bill Melendez, who served as the voice of Snoopy and animated the Peanuts characters in a host of TV specials, passed away
of natural causes earlier this week at the age of 91.

Melendez spent close to 70
years as a professional animator, beginning in 1938 when he worked on Mickey
Mouse cartoons and classic
features like Fantasia at
Disney. In the ’40s, Melendez moved on to Warner Bros. and then to UPA, where
his projects included Academy Award-winner Gerald McBoing-Boing.

Melendez met Charlie
Brown creator Charles Schulz in
1959 and, through his production company with Lee Mendelsohn, went on to
produce, direct or animate some 70 Peanuts TV specials, plus movies and commercials. The first was A Charlie
Brown Christmas for CBS in 1964.

—By Mansha Daswani