Bill Melendez, an Emmy-winning animator world Health Organization brought Charlie Brown and the "Peanuts" gang to blithe, thickheaded life on television and in films � and who helped keep them alive after the death of their creator, Charles Schulz � died Tuesday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 91 and lived in Los Angeles.
Mr. Melendez's son Steven confirmed the demise, saying his father had been in declining health after a fall last year.
One of the few Hispanics in the job when he began his career in the thirties, Mr. Melendez was the only animator Schulz allowed to sheepherder his characters onto the screen. He did so in more than iV dozen TV specials, little Joe feature films, a curve of Saturday-morning cartoons and scores of commercials.
Mr. Melendez won sestet Emmy Awards, starting with "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965), the first "Peanuts" television special and still a holiday staple. From that program onward, Mr. Melendez also supplied the "voice," such as it was, of Snoopy.
His other "Peanuts" work, produced with his longtime collaborator Lee Mendelson, includes the specials "You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown" (1975) and "Life Is a Circus, Charlie Brown" (1980), both of which received Emmys, and the feature films "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" (1969) and "Snoopy, Come Home" (1972).
After Schulz's death in 2000, Mr. Melendez animated several more than "Peanuts" specials, among them "Lucy Must Be Traded, Charlie Brown," first broadcast in 2003.
Jose Cuauhtemoc Melendez was born Nov. 15, 1916, in Hermosillo, in the Mexican state of Sonora. His father, a Mexican army cavalry officeholder who later became a general, was a amorous who gave his children Aztec names, Steven Melendez said. (Cuauhtemoc was a 16th-century Aztec ruler.)
Growing up, Jose drew everything in sight: horses, cattle, cowboys. In 1928, his female parent moved with him and his siblings to Arizona so they could memorise English. Jose, then around 12, was placed in a kindergarten class, a humiliation, his son aforesaid, that forced him to learn his new linguistic process in a hurry. The family by and by moved to Los Angeles.
As a youth man, Mr. Melendez aforethought to be an engine driver, but the Depression intervened. He held a series of odd jobs, including working in a lumberyard, before a friend persuaded him to show his drawings to the Walt Disney Co.
Disney suggested formal training; after Mr. Melendez studied concisely at the Chouinard Art Institute, Disney hired him in 1938. There he helped invigorate "Fantasia" (1940), "Pinocchio" (1940) and myriad Mickey Mouse cartoons. He also acquired a new name. After asking Disney to bill him as Cuauhtemoc Melendez, he was informed that his name was excessively wide for the credits and that he would hereafter be known as Bill.
In 1941, Melendez leftfield Disney after an animators' strike he helped coordinate. He united Leon Schlesinger Productions (by and by acquired by Warner Bros.), where he worked on Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. He formed a studio, Bill Melendez Productions, in 1964.
Mr. Melendez and Schulz met in the late fifties over a Ford Falcon. Mr. Melendez had been engaged by the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency to bring forth an animated commercial for the railcar. Ford wanted to use "Peanuts" characters in the spot.
Schulz demurred until he saw Mr. Melendez's drawings. They were noteworthy for their fealty to Schulz's style; alternatively of embellishing the mirthful strip's flat figures and clean, uncomplicated lines, Mr. Melendez unbroken them much as they were.
Mr. Melendez's other work included the TV special "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" (1979); he as well animated the specials "Garfield on the Town" (1983) and "Cathy" (1987), both of which won Emmys.
Besides his logos Steven Cuitlahuac Melendez, president of Bill Melendez Productions, Mr. Melendez is survived by his wife, the former Helen Huhn, whom he married in 1940; another boy, Rodrigo Cuauhtemoc Melendez, a retired backside admiral of the Navy; six grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
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