Len Janson

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Len Janson (born around 1937) is an American author , screenwriter , animator , film producer , film director and story editor, who was nominated for an Oscar in 1968 for the producer of the short film Stop, Look and Listen .

biography

Janson began his film work as an all-rounder in Walt Disney's cartoon studio . In 1967 he worked as an assistant on Disney's cartoon The Jungle Book , where he met Chuck Menville . A lifelong friendship and close cooperation developed. The team shot both live-action films and animated or cartoons. 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, four episodes of the Captain Marvel offshoot Shazam (1974) were made, in which a little boy who can transform himself into the superhero Captain Marvel travels the country and helps people by fighting evil.

In the 1980s, Janson worked on a number of series that ran on Saturday mornings in the United States, including The Smurfs , Kissyfur and The Real Ghostbusters . Janson and Menville had become respected names in the animation industry, which also led the major animation studios to work with them. The friendship and creative collaboration between the two men ended with Menville's death in 1992. Janson was still active for a few years, primarily as a story editor for the animated series Sonic the Hedgehog , and wrote some episodes for the crime series Baywatch Nights .

Filmography (selection)

  • 1964: Assistant doctor Dr. Kildare (TV series, 3 episodes; author, story editor)
  • 1967: Stop, Look and Listen (short film; writer, producer, director, actor)
  • 1967: Vicious Cycles (short film; writer, producer, director, actor)
  • 1969: Cattanooga Cats (TV series; author)
  • 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)
  • 1972, 1973: Lassie's Rescue Rangers (TV series, 16 episodes; author)
  • 1973: Speed ​​Buggy (TV series; 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)
  • 1974/1976: Shazam (TV series, 4 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, 24 episodes; author, 16 of them as a producer)
  • 1977: A Case for Batman ( The New Adventures of Batman (TV series, 6 episodes; author)
  • 1977: Space Sentinels (TV series, episodes Morpheus: The Sinister Sentinel and Space Giants ; author, and 13 episodes as story editor and producer)
  • 1979: The New Shmoo (TV series; writer, 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, 26 episodes; author, story editor)
  • 1987: The Little Wizards (TV series, 13 episodes; writer, story editor, producer)
  • 1987–1991: The Real Ghostbusters (animation series, 45 episodes; story editor, producer)
  • 1988/1989: The Real Ghostbusters 2 (TV series, 4 episodes; author, story editor, producer)
  • 1990: The Wizard of Oz (TV series; story editor)
  • 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, story editor, 9 as producer and 1 as director (Go Ahead, Make My Day) )
  • 1993/1994: Sonic the Hedgehog (short TV series, 5 episodes; author and 26 episodes as story editor and producer)
  • 1995/1996: Baywatch Nights (TV series, 5 episodes; author)
  • 1997: High Tide - A Cool Duo (TV series, 3 episodes; producer)
  • 1999: Sonic Underground (TV series, 6 episodes; author)
  • 1999: The Woody Woodpecker Show (TV series, short form, 3 episodes; author)
  • 2003: Gadget and the Gadgetinis (TV series, episode Face to Face to Face ; author)
  • 2019: The Adventures of Red Flaming Spike Ball (TV series, episode Giddy up you Gosh darn Ball!; Author)

Awards

Academy Awards 1968

Primetime Emmy Awards | 1983

  • Nominated for the Primetime Emmy together with Chuck Menville, 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, Chuck Menville and Robby London for the animated series The Real Ghostbusters

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The 40th Academy Awards | 1968 see page oscars.org (English).
  2. ↑ Humanimation - Stop-Motion Pixilation - Thur. July 21st - 8PM see page oddballfilms.blogspot.com (English).
personal data
SURNAME Janson, Len
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer, screenwriter, animator, film producer, film director, and story editor
DATE OF BIRTH around 1937