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.