Giving Life to ‘Peanuts’

Tucked between the rack of drawing pens and papers on Bill Melendez’s desk is a small Snoopy figurine--but not just any Snoopy.

This canine’s snout is graced with a mustache similar to the one worn by the 84-year-old animator. And it’s no accident.

For the last five decades, Melendez and his business partner Lee Mendelson have brought the beloved beagle and the rest of the “Peanuts” gang to life in animated versions of Charles M. Schulz’s cartoons.

And Schulz, who enjoyed a close working relationship with Melendez, used Snoopy’s mustachioed likeness as a nod to his good friend.

“Animators always use inside jokes in their strips and this was just one of them,” Melendez said. “When I first saw it, I immediately knew it was me and laughed.”

Since the first big television project they did together--the 1965 animated special “A Charlie Brown Christmas”--Melendez and “Sparky,” as everyone called Schulz, had plenty to laugh about.

Along the way, they created a library of “Peanuts” programming, including 63 half-hour specials, five one-hour specials and four feature films. And that doesn’t even include 372 commercials.

“Schulz used to say to me, ‘Bill, I’m a cartoon-strip artist and you’re an animator. You do your thing and I’ll do mine,’ ” Melendez recalled.

In some ways, that’s as much a job description as it is a reflection of their distinct personalities: Schulz reserved and self-effacing, and Melendez an outgoing bon vivant, with a taste for fine cuisine and a good martini.

Since 1999, Melendez has worked at his Sopwith Productions offices on Riverside Drive in Sherman Oaks. A staff of 10 produces new commercials and works on unfinished Schulz projects, though it’s a far cry from the 40 animators he had with him at the firm’s former headquarters in Larchmont during the “Peanuts” heyday.

One of Melendez’s favorite stories from the 1960s is about the day Schulz, who was visiting Los Angeles from his Northern California home, saw Melendez’s new Jaguar.

“I told Sparky to get behind the wheel,” Melendez reminisced during an interview. “Boy, his eyes popped out. But he went out and bought one, immediately.”

Meredith Hodges, Schulz’s eldest daughter, said Melendez was one of her dad’s best friends--even performing as the “voice” of Snoopy (mostly canine snickering) for the animated cartoons.

“He used to make my father laugh out loud,” Hodges said. “And my father wasn’t one to laugh at much.

“The work that he does is just extraordinary,” she added.

Melendez speaks in reverential tones about Schulz, likening him to Linus, whom he calls the gentlest and smartest of the “Peanuts” kids.

And while he may fancy himself a carefree spirit and a trendsetter, Melendez has been married to the same woman for more than 60 years and is the proud father of two adult sons, including Navy Rear Adm. Rod Melendez.

Through Schulz, Melendez says, he came to see his subjects as having distinct personalities, “as if they are living things . . . like little humans.”

Melendez says the animator has to think like an actor, putting himself in the mind-set of his character.

“You know through experience what is acceptable and what isn’t for the characters. You find yourself thinking, ‘Snoopy would never do that to Linus.’ Or, ‘Linus would have never said that to Charlie Brown.’ ”

Today, snippets from his collective work with Schulz adorn the walls of Melendez’s office, including familiar settings from past programs such as the sickly Christmas tree, the pitcher’s mound, the tangled pumpkin patch.

With the death of Schulz early last year, Melendez said he believes that continuing his work will serve to carry on the legacy of his friend. In addition to commercials, Melendez is working on some of Schulz’s uncompleted “Peanuts” projects.

Melendez began his career as a Disney animator, a world away from the desert province of Sonora, Mexico, where he was born in 1916.

As early as he can remember, he began drawing the things around him, including horses, cattle and cowboys. His family moved to Arizona in 1928 and then to Los Angeles in the 1930s. He remembers a time when people drove their Model Ts to the San Fernando Valley “just to shoot jack rabbits.”

During the heart of the Great Depression, Melendez says, a friend told him that a guy named Walt Disney was hiring artists in Burbank. And thus, almost by accident, began a long and enriching career.

At Disney, Melendez says, he had raw talent but not the proper training. “I had to learn that animation wasn’t all about doing it in a cartoon fashion,” he said, “but as close to live action as possible.”

Among the projects he worked on for Disney were “Fantasia,” “Pinocchio” and “Bambi,” as well as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck cartoons.

Melendez went on to Warner Bros. to animate other famous cartoons such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. Over the next decade and a half came a series of jobs on short films and commercials with United Productions of America, John Sutherland Productions and a company he partnered with a friend.

It was at UPA that Melendez started doing work for the New York-based J. Walter Thompson ad agency, whose clients included Ford Motor Co.

The car maker was looking to use animated characters to sell its cars on television. Sometime in the mid-1950s, he said, Ford expressed interest in using “Peanuts” characters for one of its models.

Melendez prepared his work and showed it to Schulz at the cartoonist’s home in Sebastopol. “The minute that he saw it, he couldn’t believe it,” Melendez said.

After that came “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” “A Boy Named Charlie Brown” and all the rest.

Though his company is doing less work now, Melendez says he will continue animation until he can’t do it anymore.

“People keep asking me when I’ll retire. I say, ‘From what to what?’ ” Melendez said. “I don’t want to stop doing this. It’s what keeps me hopping and keeps me happy.”