Jim Simon | |
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| Born | James A. Simon 1950 (age 73–74) |
| Nationality | American |
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James A. Simon, also known as Jim Simon, is an artist and animator. [1] With his animation company, Wantu Studios, he created animations for Sesame Street and other shows. [2]
Simon attended New York City's High School of Art and Design, graduating in 1963. [1] There he had won an award for excellence in animation, and earned two scholarships from the Junior Epstein Memorial Foundation as well as a scholarship to the School of Visual Arts. [2] At SVA, he initially pursued a career producing live action TV, but switched to animation.
After graduation, Simon began working as an animation background artist at Paramount Pictures' animation studio. It closed four months after he joined, but his time there had allowed him to join the animators' union. A Paramount colleague then brought Simon in as an assistant animator on the 1960s Spider-Man animated series. [2]
After a year-and-a-half, Simon left in order to freelance, recalling in 1975 that, "I was turning out so much work, they had to promote me, because I was earning more money than some of the full-fledged animators. But it got to the point that I was just too excited about the things going on inside my own head, which I could not release while working for someone else." [2]
Circa 1972, he formed Wantu Animation Inc., [3] initially based in New York City and then Los Angeles. [4] Simon's clients included the PBS children's educational series The Electric Company , for which his first short film, "Hey Diddle Diddle", won an award at the International Animated Film Association's 1975 Animation Awards Festival; WNET's children's educational series Vegetable Soup ; Sesame Street ; the Black Psychiatrists of America; and the New York Public Library. [3]
By 1977, Simon and his wife René Simon had four sons: Jimmy, Kelly, Sean, and Mark. Simon and his wife had known each other since high school, and married while he was attending college. [5]
In 2009, he said that some career setbacks "led me to a little depression, a little alcoholism and homelessness with me and my dog sleeping in the car." After not drawing for 10 years, he took up oil painting and had a show at the St. Clair gallery in El Cajon, California, near San Diego, where he was then living. [6] [7]
The Electric Company is an American educational children's television series produced by the Children's Television Workshop. It was co-created by Paul Dooley, Joan Ganz Cooney, and Lloyd Morrisett. The series aired on PBS for 780 episodes over the course of its six seasons from October 25, 1971, to April 15, 1977. The program continued in reruns until October 4, 1985. The Electric Company later reran on Noggin, a channel co-founded by the CTW, from 1999 to 2003. Noggin also produced a compilation special for the show.
Ralph Bakshi is an American retired animator and filmmaker, known for his fantastical animated films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1994, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, predominantly urban dramas and fantasy films, five of which he wrote. He has also been involved in numerous television projects as director, writer, producer and animator.
Vladimir Peter "Bill" Tytla was a Ukrainian-American animator known for his work in Walt Disney Animation Studios, Paramount's Famous Studios, and Terrytoons. In his Disney career, Tytla is particularly noted for the animation in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia and Dumbo. He was inducted as a Disney Legend in 1998.
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Mary Blair was an American artist, animator, and designer. She was prominent in producing art and animation for The Walt Disney Company, drawing concept art for such films as Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Song of the South and Cinderella. Blair also created character designs for enduring attractions such as Disneyland's It's a Small World, the fiesta scene in El Rio del Tiempo in the Mexico pavilion in Epcot's World Showcase, and an enormous mosaic inside Disney's Contemporary Resort. Several of her illustrated children's books from the 1950s remain in print, such as I Can Fly by Ruth Krauss. Blair was inducted into the group of Disney Legends in 1991.
John Christian Wedge is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. He is best known for directing the films Ice Age (2002), Robots (2005), Epic (2013), and Monster Trucks (2016), with the former being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. He won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for Bunny (1998).
Coonskin is a 1975 American live-action/animated satirical crime film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film references the Uncle Remus folk tales, and satirizes the blaxploitation film genre as well as Disney's film Song of the South, adapted from the Uncle Remus folk tales. The film's narrative concerns three anthropomorphic Uncle Remus characters, Br'er Rabbit, referred to as Brother Rabbit, Br'er Fox, referred to as Preacher Fox, and Br'er Bear, referred to as Brother Bear. They rise to the top of the organized crime racket in Harlem, encountering corrupt law enforcement, con artists, and the Mafia, in a satire of both racism within the Hollywood film system, and America itself. The film stars Philip Thomas, Charles Gordone, Barry White, and Scatman Crothers, all of whom appear in both live-action and animated sequences.
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Faith Hubley was an American animator, known for her experimental work both in collaboration with her husband John Hubley, and on her own following her husband's death.
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