didyaknowanimation:
Today’s black history month post is on Bruce W. Smith, animator extraordinaire. Bruce is one of the most prolific contemporary animators, particularly for his works revolving around black American culture. We’ve discussed his works many times this month due to his prevalence as an artist but this post is going to go cover the breadth of his career throughout the animation industry and beyond.
Bruce William Smith was born in 1961 in California. He’s a student of CalArts, one of the most famous animation schools in America. He got his start as an assistant animator for the Garfield television special Garfield in the Rough, which came out in 1984. After that, he worked on the animation/live action film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? with Baer Animation studio, doing additional animation work.
In 1992, his career really began to make great strides. He directed his debut film Bebe’s Kids, an animated adventure based on the standup work of comedian Robin Harris. Bebe’s Kids was the first animated feature to revolve around a black main cast, and while it did poorly with critics, it’s widely remembered among fans and had fantastic animation (you can read our full profile of this film here)
In the 90s, Bruce did a lot of major work. He was a supervising animator for the film The Pagemaster, and went on to direct the television series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child. Happily Ever After was a show about retelling classic animated tales with races and cultures not often seen in American animated fantasy stories (this included East Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, pre-colonial America, and Mexico). We also did a full profile on this series which can be found here. Bruce designed the characters for the film A Goofy Movie, and co-directed the animated sequences for the Warner Bros film Space Jam.
Other animated features that Bruce has had a hand in include the Don Bluth film Rock-a-Doodle (as a character animator) and Cats Don’t Dance (as a character designer).
In the late 90s, Bruce officially became a crew member for Disney Feature Animation Studios. He has since worked on several major Disney films, and was a supervising animator for Tarzan, Home on the Range, The Emperor’s New Groove, and The Princess and the Frog, where he did much of his work on the villain, Dr. Facilier. Other character’s he’s done supervising animation on include Kerchak in Tarzan and Pacha in the Emperor’s New Groove.
In 2000, Bruce pitched The Proud Family to Nickelodeon. They passed, but Disney picked up the series in 2001. The series ran on the Disney Channel as part of their main lineup and had its initial run until 2005, ending with The Proud Family Movie.This series was the first to be made by Bruce’s own animation company, Jambalaya Studios.
More recently, Bruce has done work on Disney films like Winnie the Pooh, Wreck-it Ralph and Frozen. He also co-created the series Da Boom Crew, and worked on the Kung-Fu Panda short Secrets of the Masters.
Bruce is a major figure in the animation world with an enormous resume, and his work speaks for itself. He has a distinct style and a knack for developing visually interesting work. His contributions to the animation world are huge, and he’s not slowed down yet.
Follow Bruce on Twitter here.
Watch Bruce draw Piglet
About Jambalaya Studios