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Working for peanuts

3/7/2017

2 Comments

 
Picture
During my first years in college I was fortunate enough to take an animation class at USC taught by Bernie Gruver, who had a long career as a draftsman and worked on the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas special that's aired on CBS and ABC since the mid-1960s. 

One evening Bernie took our class on a field trip to Bill Melendez Productions, the company responsible for producing many of the Peanuts animated specials and motion pictures. Bill was a character: with his enormous handlebar mustache he looked like a caricature come to life. We were surprised to learn that he provided the "voice" for Snoopy whenever he spoke (really just a bunch of gibberish played at high-speed).

That trip was my first exposure to the world of professional animation. Years later, I read that Bill Melendez was one of the most active participants in the Disney strike of 1941, which led to the formation of animation unions, and protections for artists who painstakingly created drawings of characters that live on to this day.

Bernie Gruver passed away a few years after I attended his class, but his work, and the work of Bill Melendez, director, producer, writer and tireless champion of the labor movement, have not been forgotten.
2 Comments
Dana Krempels link
11/17/2019 05:20:04 pm

JACKPOT. I can't tell you how many times I've fruitlessly searched for memories of Bernie Gruver. I thought I was the only person on the planet who still remembered him, but here you are!

Were we in animation class together? In the late 1970s? I so fondly remember that surreal trip to Bill Melendez Studios, housed in that little, dark Craftsman near Paramount Studios. It was magical. Animation sheets scattered on the desks, story boards tacked to the wall, talking to the legendary Bill Melendez...it's one of those things burned into my memory forever.

A few years ago I searched Bernie and learned that he had died only a few years after I (and you, as it turns out!) had graduated, which made me quite sad.

It's somehow warming to know that you're out there, still remembering that semester we shared with Bernie. Thanks for posting this. You make me glad.

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Robert Borowski
12/4/2019 12:05:51 pm

Hi Dana,

Thanks for the response! I attended USC as a freshman in 1980 - 1981. My major was undeclared, but I was hoping to get admitted to the film program so I took as many cinema courses as I could.

I loved taking Bernie's class. I think I even have part of the storyboards I put together for one of his assignments. I couldn't draw, so I wrote a story about gum balls awaiting "sentencing" inside a gum ball machine (as circles were the easiest shapes for me to make).

The field trip to Bill Melendez Studios was great. I remember it being at night, and Melendez spoke to us in a large room that housed, in part, editing equipment, either Moviolas or flatbed Steenbecks. That took me by surprise, as I'd never associated animation with editing. And, of course, it was a great thrill to me the voice to Snoopy!

Yes, Bernie passed away not long after I took his class. I remember him being skinny and a bit frail at the time, but he had an enormous enthusiasm for the art form, and I'm forever indebted to him for serving as a portal into the professional world of animation, and a time machine into an important part of my childhood, which still resurfaces on TV every Christmas. In fact, whenever the Peanuts special plays, I can't help but recount my experience to whomever is in the room with me, even if they've heard the story before. It was that cool.

I wonder how many other people are out there who, like you and me, have the same warm recollections of visiting Bill Melendez Studios?

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    Robert Borowski

    Mostly, he writes for a living.
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