You're Going to Tokyo AGAIN Charlie Brown!

First the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and now THIS!  What news to wake up to!!   It's official, the Snoopy Museum Tokyo will open in Tokyo's Roppongi district in March of 2016!

More details to come!

 https://schulzmuseum.org/explore/exhibits/upcoming-exhibitions/snoopy-museum-tokyo/

Good 'Ol Charlie Brown Comes to Tokyo

Couldn't let the year go by without mentioning the great exhibition Ever and Never:  The Art of Peanuts at the Mori Arts Center Gallery organized by the Charles M. Schulz Museum.  If you're going to be in Tokyo anytime soon, hurry up and see it before January 5th.   

Charles M. Schulz and Peanuts was always my first inspiration to draw. I'll never forget seeing a documentary where "Sparky" drew Charlie Brown right on camera.  For a six year old it was nothing less than magic.

On exhibition are over a hundred drawings displayed.  Unlike many exhibitions in Tokyo,  you can examine the detail of as close as you like...without touching.    Also in the exhibition is Charles Schulz's studio and drawing table....as well as some of his drawing that were "rescued" from the trash bin.  Interesting as it was, for anyone who can relate, knows someone looking at your balled up, trashed drawings is potentially as embarrassing as someone putting your dirty underwear on display in a gallery.  

Plenty of other artifacts there: animation cells from Bill Melendez' Peanuts Animated specials, merchandizing going back generations.  Schulz's bittersweet melancholic touch can be felt throughout the entire exhibition from beginning to end, but there is plenty there to smile about.  A big and rare treat.

Snoopy Anime in Japan.

From the people who brought you Ninja Scroll, Japanese animation studio, Madhouse, Inc. has not only acquired animation rights to Charles Schulz's Peanuts, but has already completed one animated short.

Whether this means Madhouse will be animating only content for commercials or if they will be animating narrative content, is unclear at this time. Most likely it will be only for Japan since the American animation studio, Wild Brain has rights for the USA. Wild Brian animated the first Peanuts special with involvement of neither Schulz nor animation director/ producer Bill Melendez with "Happiness is a Warm Blanket Charlie Brown".

Peanuts, otherwise known simply as "Snoopy" (poor 'ol Charlie Brown, upstaged again) is immensely popular in Japan, only rivaled by Mickey Mouse.

Peanuts is now 63 years old. Charles Schulz at one time being the only person to draw the characters, as well as oversee all merchandising, there existed a certain purity in the integrity of the strip. Melendez was the only man Schulz trusted to animate the Charlie Brown and Snoopy universe. Peanuts' charm truly laid in the fact it truly was 2D, graphically. But the nuance and the timing of animated Peanuts is certainly from an American point of view, established originally by Schulz and Melendez.

If Japanese Snoopy stories will be produced, let's only pray it won't be a repeat of the horrid (and I mean horrid) miscarriage of animation like Japan's Lilo and Stitch.

Bill Melendez

Maybe not a household name, but his work has been a staple of household pastime for over 40 years.

Jose Cuauhtemoc Melendez, otherwise known as "Bill" Melendez (a name "given" to him by folks at the Disney studio) was the first animation director to put together the first prime-time animated special for American television. It all started with " A Charlie Brown Christmas" in 1965 for CBS. The only man Charles M. Schulz would ever personally trust to bring to life Charlie Brown, Snoopy and mini-universe of characters in his comic strip, "Peanuts".

Bill Melendez was the director and producer all the animated Peanuts animated specials, movies and commercial projects while Charles Schulz was alive.

The Archive of American Television on YouTube has an amazing 4-hour interview with Mr. Melendez online. In this interview he talks about his beginnings in animation with Walt Disney's studio, his time at the Warner Bros. Animation Studio, work at UPA and finally establishing his own animation studio.

Art Babbit, Norm Ferguson, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Frank Tashlin, are just some of the names that he goes into detail recalling his early experiences in animation. in this 8 part interview Bill Melendez explains his experience and participation in the Disney Animator's strike of 1941.

Bill Melendez played a part in developing my interest to draw and to communicate through art.

Bill Melendez passed away in 2008. Bill Melendez is responsible for creating the animated visualization of Peanuts. The image that people still have in their minds today. He deserves much more praise for the impact that he had on the television animation industry as well as the role he played in creating priceless childhood and family memories of watching the Peanuts animated specials.