Television Comedy Acting and Animation Voiceover Legend Pat Carroll has passed away!
The Animation Hall Of Fame family is sad to acknowledge the passing of one of the truly great television comedy acting and animation voiceover talents Pat Carroll. She died on July 30, 2022, of pneumonia; she was 95.
Carroll was born in Shreveport, Louisiana on May 5, 1927. At the early age of five her family moved to Los Angeles, California and soon after she began acting in local productions. She graduated from Immaculate Heart High School and then attended Catholic University of America after enlisting in the United States Army as a civilian actress technician.
Carroll began her professional acting career in 1947 and received her first on screen credit in the 1948 film, Hometown Girl. In 1952 she made her first television debut in The Red Buttons Showv. Then in 1955, she had her Broadway debut in Catch a Star!, which garnered her a Tony Nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. In 1956, Carroll won an Emmy Award for her work on Caesar's Hour. By this time she had developed her own signature trademark screwball style of comedy, which she continued to perfect and entertain with in television, film, and on stage productions.
Carroll began her professional acting career in 1947 and received her first on screen credit in the 1948 film, Hometown Girl. In 1952 she made her first television debut in The Red Buttons Show. Then in 1955, she had her Broadway debut in Catch a Star!, which garnered her a Tony Nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. In 1956, Carroll won an Emmy Award for her work on Caesars Hour. By this time she had developed her own signature trademark screwball style of comedy, which she continued to perfect and entertain with in television, film, and on stage productions.
Starting in the 1980's, Carrol became a much sought after voiceover performer. She worked on such productions as TV's Pound Puppies, A Garfield Christmas, and Garfield's Thanksgiving. She also voiced the character Granny in the 2005 re-release of Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro.
Carroll's most notable animation voice performance came in the 1989 when she voiced the sea witch Ursula and sang the song "Poor Unfortunate Souls" in Disney's animation classic The Little Mermaid. This was Carroll's first villain role ever and was one of her favorites of her career. She would go on to reprise the role over the next decades in various forms of media, including the Kingdom Hearts video games, a spinoff television series, the Disney+ series The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse, and various Disney theme park attractions and shows, and the direct to video Little Mermaid sequel The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea as the voice of Ursula's sister Morgana.
Thank you so much for giving us numerous hours of laughter and joy through your decades of work and for bringing to life with your amazing vocal talent one of the greatest animated characters and villains of all time.
July 24, 2022
Veteran Animation Designer and Cartoonist Legend Paul Coker Jr. has passed away!
The Animation Hall Of Fame family is sad to acknowledge the passing of the great animation designer and cartoonist Paul Coker Jr. He died on July 23, 2022 following a brief illness; he was 93.
Paul Allan Coker Jr. was born on March 5, 1929, in Lawrence, Kansas. He was first published around the young age of 12. It was a cartoon for The Open Road for Boys, a magazine about outdoor life. Throughout his teenage years he continued to study drawing and painting and after high school he studied art at University of Kansas. While there he contributed artwork to the student newspaper. He graduated in 1951 with a bachelor's degree.
After serving in the Navy, Mr. Coker went to work for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, Mo. For several years. In 1961 he moved to New York City, where he called on the offices of Mad. At the November 2011 Savannah College of Art and Design MAD symposium Animation Hall Of Fame CEO and Chairman Hal Miles recalls Mr. Coker telling how he got the job. "I just walked in off the streets of New York with my portfolio. I had a vague idea of what the magazine was doing, but I certainly had never bought a copy." He began working for the magazine as a freelancer almost immediately, with his first two pieces appearing in the January and March 1961 issues.
While still working for Mad and also accepting freelance work from Hallmark Mr. Coker struck up a relationship with Rankin/Bass Productions, which was famous for animated children's specials, like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (1964) and "The Little Drummer Boy" (1968). Shortly afterward, he was hired by Arthur Rankin Jr., co-founder and partner of Jules Bass of the company. Hi first assignment was to read the script for their next production "Frosty the Snowman" and asked to sketch Frosty's onscreen look.
In a 2001 interview with the North American Precis Syndicate, Mr. Coker told how he came up with the look of Frosty. "So I came up with the concept of a jolly snowman and put a top hat on him with a little flower in the hatband, a corncob pipe, and coal eyes." "Then I added a scarf and broom to give him humanlike characteristics."
Mr. Rankin and his partner, Jules Bass, approved the drawing, had storyboards developed and sent them to Japan to be animated. The completed cartoon, first shown in 1969, became a holiday perennial.
For the next decade Mr. Coker acted as the production and character designer for many subsequent Rankin/Bass cartoons, nearly all of which used stop-motion animation. Some of his most memorable charters were Kris Kringle, the Winter Warlock and Burgermeister Meisterburger (from "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town"), as well as the Snow and Heat Misers (from "The Year Without a Santa Claus").
In 2015, Mr. Coker received the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Cartoonists Society.
In addition to his stepdaughter Lee, he is survived by his wife, Rosemary Smithson; another stepdaughter, Carol Smithson; and two step-grandchildren.
Yu-Gi-Oh creator and influential manga artist Kazuki Takahashi has died!
The Animation Hall Of Fame family is sad to acknowledge the sudden passing of the creator of Yu-Gi-Oh and great influential manga artist Kazuki Takahashi. He was found dead on July 6th off the coast of Nago in southern Japan by the Japanese coast guard. He was 60 years old.
Kazuo Takahashi was born in Tokyo on October 4, 1961 where he had great fondness of manga and anime. He started to draw when he was in high school and continued to master his own drawing style after graduating.
In 1981 he finally broke into the manga business with his one-shot manga Ing! Love Ball, submitted under the pen name Hajime Miyabi (雅はじめ, Miyabi Hajime). Ing! Love Ball won the Shogakukan New Comic Award and was published in Weekly Shōnen Sunday in the same year. His serial debut was in 1986 with Go-Q-Choji Ikkiman, an adaptation of the TV sports anime of the same name, published in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine. In 1990, his one-shot Tokio no Taka was published in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump. Another manga, Tennenshoku Danji Buray, was published in the magazine from 1991 to 1992. In a 2002 interview, Takahashi later recalled that he felt that much of his early manga work was a "total flop".
In 1996, Takahashi launched Yu-Gi-Oh! under the pen name "Kazuki Takahashi" in Japan's highly read boy's magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump, where it was serialized until 2004. The series became a huge success and has sold more than 40 million copies. The series has also received several media adaptations, notably an anime television series and a trading card game developed by Konami, which holds the Guinness World Record for the best-selling trading card game in history, with more than 25.1 billion cards sold as of 2011. Takahashi continued to supervise the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise following the end of the original manga's run.
Over the years following the end of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Takahashi would go on to create other manga projects including his 2013 one-shot manga Drump and also his 2018 limited series The Comiq, both of which were also published in the Weekly Shōnen Jump.
Most recently, Takahashi had been working on this year's Marvel's Secret Reverse, a manga graphic novel team-up featuring Spider-Man and Iron Man/Tony Stark, who travels to a Japanese gaming convention.
In 2015, Takahashi received the Inkpot Award from Comic-Con International for his outstanding contributions to comics.
This great artist and visionary leaves behind a legacy of art and work that we and future generations can cherish and love.
The Animation Hall of Fames 2022 Inductees!
The Animation Hall of Fame is proud to announce animations highest honor, the 2022 Animation Hall of Fames Inductees. They are:
Stop Motion Cutout Animation Pioneer & First Animated Feature Film Director
Computer Animation Pioneer, Director, Producer, & Studio Founder/Owner
Disney Animation Inker/Painter, Cell Checking Supervisor, Animation Camera Techniques Pioneer, & Supercentenarian
Master Stop Motion Animation Animator, Director, Producer, & Studio Founder/Owner
Master Character Animator, Director, & Pioneering Author of Animation Instructional Books
And The Winners Are!
The Animation Hall of Fame is proud to announce and congratulate this year's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Oscar winners for Best Animated Film and Best Animated Short Film. The winner for Best Animated Film was awarded to Encanto, which was directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard, and produced by Yvett Merino and Clark Spencer. The winner for Best Animated Short Film was awarded to The Windshield Wiper, which was directed by Alberto Mielgo, and produced by Leo Sanchez and Alberto Mielgo. Once again congratulations!
Disney's Encanto Wins Golden Globe for Best Animated Motion Picture!
The Animation Hall of Fame is extremely happy to announce that the 79th Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature has gone to directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard for Encanto.
