Peanuts Animator Bill Melendez Has Died

Bill Melendez, who was the animator for the classic Peanuts television specials, including A Charlie Brown Christmas and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, has died at the age of 91. In his early career, he worked on numerous Walt Disney animated features from the 1940s.

His Archive interview will be online soon and can be seen at Academy headquarters.

Interview Description:

Bill Melendez spoke about his early years at Walt Disney Studios and later at Warner Bros., where he animated cartoons featuring popular characters including Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. He also discussed his work for United Productions of America and John Sutherland Productions. Next, Mr. Melendez described his early collaboration with comic strip artist Charles M. Schulz on commercials featuring the Peanuts characters, and explained how that became a career-long partnership on over fifty animated Peanuts television specials. He discussed in detail some of those projects, including A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. He also touched on the various Peanuts feature films and television series, including the animated miniseries This is America, Charlie Brown. Finally, Mr. Melendez spoke of other projects he has produced through his production company, including the animated The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, as well as animated specials featuring comic strip characters Garfield and Cathy.

MSN Entertainment Celebrates 60 Years Of Emmy

MSN and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences are presenting classic clips from 60 years of the Primetime Emmy Awards. Additionally, Emmy winners who have been interviewed by the Archive of American Television share their stories about their Emmy-winning work and their experiences on Emmy night.

Click here to access dozens of clips posted on MSN.

Below are three of the video pieces: Doris Roberts discusses her work on Everybody Loves Raymond and her Emmy acceptance speeches, Joseph Barbera talks about pitching Huckleberry Hound and what winning the Emmy meant to him, and Tim Conway & Harvey Korman talk about their work together and comedic Emmy appearances.


Emmy Archive: Doris Roberts


Emmy Archive: Joseph Barbera


Emmy Archive: 'The Carol Burnett Show'

"The Jetsons" Turns 45!

On September 23, 1962, following the success of The Flintstones, Hanna-Barbera's animated sitcom The Jetsons premiered as one of the first color television programs on ABC. Hard to believe, but only 24 "classic" episodes were made at that time -- another 50+ episodes were later created in the 1980s.

The Creation of "The Jetsons" - From Part 5 of Joseph Barbera's 7-part interview

When the network came in and said, “You want to do another show.” It's not particularly brainy to say, “Well, with stone age [The Flintstones] here, let’s go into the future there.” So we started on that basis. And what I did was I created a living quarters that were based actually on the remnants of the 1939 New York World's Fair. And there’s still a couple of those buildings left on the way in from the airport. Circular buildings up on a taff. So I converted those to apartments with hydraulic lifts in case the smog was up there, you would just lift the apartment above. What I was doing looking into the future. This is what we can do in the future. Now the same thing applied to parking. Parking that’s a problem of the future. A problem right now. So in that particular show, what we did in parking for The Jetsons, when he came into a stop, and pressed button, his vehicle became a briefcase that he carried. Later on I converted where it became a box like a shoe box that fitted into a slot like a lsafety deposit box. Here’s my parking space right here. So the idea was to make life easier and smoother and more interesting. His job was to simply go in in the morning and sit down and press one button. Anything easier than that? ... That’s future living -- parking, and buying clothes. Like the way I had it in The Jetsons is you stand behind the board, and you flash the clothes on the screen below you. Well you can see your dress before you buy it or your suit, or something like that. And you don’t have to try it on even or put it on. I had the sky crowded with vehicles just like it is today, except there was long lines. And they pick up on this because there’s a highway with no crowd on it, and you cut over there and in two seconds, they gridlock again. So that’s about the way I handled that stuff.

Full interview description:

Joseph Barbera discussed his start as a young animator at the Van Beuren Studios in New York, before his move to California and MGM's cartoon studio. He recalled working for executive Fred Quimby, and his eventual partnership with William Hanna at MGM. This collaboration with Hanna ultimately led to their own cartoon production company, and Barbera shared many stories about the creation of some of their more memorable characters and shows including: Tom and Jerry, Quick Draw McGraw, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, Top Cat, The Jetsons, and The Smurfs. The Archive of American Television interview was conducted in 1997 by Leonard Maltin and Sunny Parich.

Click here to access the entire 7-part interview.

"The Simpsons" Hits the Big Screen

After years and years of gossip and teasers about a Simpsons feature film, the time has come! This weekend marks the opening of The Simpsons Movie -- marking the iconic television series' transition to the big screen.


In 2003, the Archive of American Television interviewed James L. Brooks, the executive producer of The Simpsons. In the interview parts 9 and 10, he speaks in-depth about the creation of The Simpsons.

Click here to access James L. Brooks 11-part interview.

Interview description:
James L. Brooks was interviewed for five-and-a-half hours (in two sessions) in Bel-Air, CA. Mr. Brooks spoke of his early days as a page at CBS – working his way up to the newsroom. After working in documentaries, Brooks turned to comedy, where he wrote scripts for Hey Landlord, The Andy Griffith Show and My Three Sons before co-creating (with Gene Reynolds) Room 222. In 1970, MTM Productions teamed Brooks with Allen Burns, where they created and produced The Mary Tyler Moore Show. They were also producers on the spin-off series Rhoda, Phyllis and Lou Grant. After leaving MTM, Brooks produced Taxi, The Associates, and The Tracy Ullman Show. Mr. Brooks also talked about the craft of writing and producing for television and his continuing work as executive producer on The Simpsons. The two-part interview was conducted by Karen Herman on January 17 and February 12, 2003.

Also available, is a full interview with Phil Roman, the founder of Film Roman, which currently oversees the animation of The Simpsons.