Schulz and Melendez

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With all the recent discussion about Charles Schulz, I thought it’d be fun to share this 1969 photo of Schulz pulling a ‘Lucy’ on Peanuts animation director Bill Melendez.

Charles Schulz and Bill Melendez

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  • Chris Sobieniak

    Ah, Bill’s nearly falling for it!

    Being reminded I just missed watching that PBS American Masters special now, and even the 3AM repeat, oh well, probably wasn’t all that particularly interesting, but it is to be expected nowadays given how much is starting to get revealed or mentioned of Schulz such as with the recent book.
    http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/schulz_c.html

  • Half

    It’s great to be reminded of one of the coolest animation studio buildings I’ve ever seen. Where else could you just go out back to pick your morning citrus fix.

  • Charlie

    I have that photo. It’s in the “A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition”. There is a photo before the one you have there of Charles holding the ball and Bill about ready to kick.

  • Brad Constantine

    Actually I found the American Masters special quite revealing and a well rounded portrait of Schulz from people who actually knew him.(go figure).
    After watching everyone from his wife to his kids as well as his business partners all tell their sides, it was most interesting to hear Charles Schulz himself speak of his own personality quirks and how he felt about things..All of this was backed up with samples of strips from those periods of his life which made them even more relevant today. In my 20 years experience of being an artist and being around artists all the time, I’ve found that there are basically two kinds of artists…The first is the total artist…everything is about the art first and little else. All energy, thought and time is spent on the art or applying ones self towards the art. These folks usually don’t get married and have kids because it conflicts directly with the artist ego.
    (think Michaelangelo, Degas)
    The 2nd group, which I belong, Is the regular artist. We go to work, do our art thing, get married, and raise kids, do occasional freelance or personal art, but have a much different balance of time and energy geared more towards the family. I did not know Mr. Schulz but he seems to have been a total artist living in a regular artist
    world. The art was his blanket.

  • http://www.chadtownsend.com Chad T

    I watched last night. I gotta say it was a pretty good documentary. But I almost feel it was slanted against him…like he wasn’t a good father I found that bothersome and I just can’t believe that. It also made it feel as if his kids weren’t in the picture after he remarried.

    I was also pretty choked up seeing that snippet of his last interview again. I about lost it.

  • Tom Minton

    That photo also ran in the February 1970 issue of the now-forgotten PACE magazine. It was part of a rare mainstream article on animators and I still own it.

  • amid

    Tom: That issue of Pace is where I ran across this photo. I don’t know if it was shot specifically for that issue or comes from an earlier photo shoot.

  • top cat james

    The photo is also in Lee Mendelson’s 1970 book, “Charlie Brown & Charlie Schulz”.

    I teared up watching that “60 Minutes” clip too, Chad.

  • Tom Minton

    It may well have been shot for the PACE article. In that piece, several producers and animators of the day are profiled, everyone from Fred Mogubub to Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott to Chuck Jones. Jones is quoted therein as saying that a theatrical Tom and Jerry cartoon “used to cost $25,000. now it costs $40,000.” In 1970 there was hardly a word in print in commercial periodicals about the contemporary animation industry. The cartoon information boom erupted shortly after that, and, thanks to blogging, is bigger than ever today.

  • Rich W

    Schulz: “That’ll teach you to call *me* a wimp!”

  • http://www.awprunes.blogspot.com Larry Levine

    The photo is also on Bill Melendez’s website (on the Odds & Ends page): http://www.billmelendez.tv/index2.html

  • Dock Miles

    >Brad Constantine says:

    >These folks usually don’t get married and have kids because it conflicts directly with the artist ego.

    >(think Michaelangelo

    Well, er, um, y’know, well … hmmm.