Chuck Menville

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Charles David "Chuck" Menville (born April 17, 1940 in Baton Rouge , Louisiana , † June 15, 1992 in Malibu , California ) was an American animator , screenwriter , writer and film producer , who in 1968 produced the short film Stop, Look and Listen was nominated for an Oscar .

biography

Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Menville moved to Los Angeles at the age of 19 to become an animator. He got a job at Walt Disney Productions and worked as an assistant on Disney's cartoon The Jungle Book in 1967 . Menville found the working atmosphere at Disney Productions difficult and began writing on her own. This resulted in a close and long collaboration with his friend Len Janson . Together they also produced the Oscar-nominated film Stop, Look and Listen in 1967 , in which they practically did everything themselves. So they directed, wrote the script and cast themselves in the roles of the two drivers. The film was realized as a pixilation (single frame switching), a form of stop motion . This makes it look like the men sitting on the asphalt are actually driving. Disney and other studios in Hollywood could not gain anything from this technology, which had largely been forgotten. Menville and Janson revived the then-dead art of stop-motion pixel animation to introduce it to another generation. Animating living things and objects wasn't new to the movie, but Menville and Janson took the process to a whole new level, technically and creatively. Another work by the two men in the same year was the short film Vicious Cycles , a comedy in which a gang of tough bikers try to intimidate members of a scooter club. Menville played the leader of the scooter club. Here, too, Menville and Janson used the pixilation technique again. In their next film, Blaze Glory (1969), the filmmakers used the pixilation technique again. This time heroes and villains rode in a western without actually riding horses. Menville also played the main character. The film was staged very elaborately.

In the mid-1970s, Menville and Janson worked for the animation studio Filmation for a while . During this time, three episodes of the Captain Marvel offshoot Shazam (1974) were created, in which a little boy who can turn into the superhero Captain Marvel is already helping the country and the people by fighting evil.

In the 1980s, Menville worked on a number of series that ran on Saturday mornings in the United States, including The Smurfs , Kissyfur and The Real Ghostbusters . One of his last works before his death in 1992 was the episode Opah from the television series Land of Lost , for which Menville was nominated for the Humanitas Prize as well as for the episode Eel-Ectric City from the series Arielle, the Mermaid . Before Menville could complete his final project to complete an episode for the Batman series , he died. Brynne Stephens completed the episode Birds of a Feather , based on Menville's story.

Menville was also the author of The Harlem Globetrotters : Fifty Years of Fun an Games , a story about the famous basketball team. The book was published in 1978.

Menville died in 1992 in Malibu, the last place he lived in, of non-Hodgkin lymphoma , a malignant disease of the lymphatic system . He was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles. Menville was the father of musician Scott Menville and writer Chad Menville.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1964: Assistant doctor Dr. Kildare (TV series, 3 episodes; writer, story editor)
  • 1967: Stop, Look and Listen (short film; writer, producer, director, actor)
  • 1967: Vicious Cycles (short film; writer, producer, director, actor)
  • 1969: Blaze Glory (short film; writer, producer, director, actor)
  • 1969–1972: Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, 59 episodes; Author)
  • 1970: Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies (TV series, 16 episodes; author)
  • 1972: Sgt.Swell of the Mounties (short film; writer, producer, director, actor)
  • 1972: Captain Mom (short film; writer, producer, director, actor)
  • 1972, 1973: Lassie's Rescue Rangers (TV series, 16 episodes; author)
  • 1973, 1974: The Enterprise ( The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek ;
    TV series, episodes Once Upon a Planet and The Practical Joker ; author)
  • 1974: Shazam (TV series, 3 episodes; writer, producer)
  • 1975: The New Adventures of Gilligan (TV series, 3 episodes; author)
  • 1976: Ark II (TV series, 3 episodes; author)
  • 1976/1978: Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle ( Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle ; TV series, 23 episodes; author, producer)
  • 1977: A Case for Batman ( The New Adventures of Batman (TV series, 6 episodes; author)
  • 1977: Space Sentinels (TV series, 13 episodes; story editor, producer)
  • 1979: The New Shmoo (TV series; writer, story editor)
  • 1981: Love Boat (TV series, episode in the Gopher's Bride segment ; author)
  • 1981: The Smurfs ( Les Schtroumpfs or Smurfs ; TV series, 27 episodes; author, story editor)
  • 1983: The Biskitts (TV series, 13 episodes; author)
  • 1985/1986: Kissyfur (TV series, 3 episodes in the Home Sweat Home segment; author, story editor)
  • 1987: The Little Wizards (TV series, 13 episodes; story editor, producer)
  • 1988/1989: The Real Ghostbusters 2 (TV series, 4 episodes; author, story editor, producer)
  • 1990/1991: Tiny Toon Adventures ( Tiny Toon Adventures ; TV series, 3 episodes; author, story editor)
  • 1991/1992: In the Land of the Saurians ( Land of the Lost ; TV series, 13 episodes; author, producer)
  • 1992: Arielle, the Mermaid ( The Little Mermaid ; TV series, episodes Thingamajigger and Eel-Ectric City ; author)
  • 1993: Batman (TV series, episode Birds of a Feather ; author)

Awards

Academy Awards 1968

Primetime Emmy Awards | 1983

  • Nominated for the Primetime Emmy together with Len Janson, Peyo , Yvan Delporte and Gerard Baldwin
    for the short animation My Smurfy Valentine

Daytime Emmy Awards 1991

  • Nominated for the Daytime Emmy together with Will Meugniot, Stan Phillips, Joe Medjuck , Michael C. Gross, Andy Heyward, Len Janson and Robby London for the animated series The Real Ghostbusters

Humanitas Prize 1993

  • Nominated for the Humanitas Prize for the episode Opah from the TV series Land of Lost
    and for the animation The Little Mermaid , episode Eel-Ectric City

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography Chuck Menville (1940–1992) see page in the IMDb (English).
  2. ^ A b Charles David "Chuck" Menville see page findagrave.com
  3. ↑ The 40th Academy Awards | 1968 see page oscars.org (English).
  4. ↑ Humanimation - Stop-Motion Pixilation - Thur. July 21st - 8PM see page oddballfilms.blogspot.com (English).
  5. ↑ The Harlem Globetrotters Fig. Title page of the book by Chuck Menville
personal data
SURNAME Menville, Chuck
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Menville, Chuck David; Menville, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American animator, screenwriter, writer, film producer, and story editor
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Baton Rouge , Louisiana , United States
DATE OF DEATH June 15, 1992
Place of death Malibu , California